Personally, I prefer the new System Settings UI. There were too many times to count how often I was looking for something in the grid layout with the old macOS versions, until I gave up and typed what I was looking for. I overlooked the setting so many times I literally had to stop and look ONE BY ONE, "is this the Users and Groups section?" "No, okay next icon". The quick glances to find it did not work for me some of the time.
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An Open Letter to the Mac Community: The Decline of macOS
- Thread starter silverdollar
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The high end desktops at the time of the Catalina release all suffered a pretty big issue. There is a mega thread on this where you would experience a kernel panic pretty frequently. Apple acknowledged it was an issue with macOS directly as I was in talks with senior engineers at the time, and one of the latest major patches to it included the fix. When Big Sur first came out, it brought the issue back (like they did not merge the fix to the Big Sur code branch type of issue). But that got resolves with the first or second patch immediately after release.
After those two releases, I have not experienced major issues with macOS. Combat this with the constant issues I am facing with Windows 10 and 11 lately macOS is very refreshing.
After those two releases, I have not experienced major issues with macOS. Combat this with the constant issues I am facing with Windows 10 and 11 lately macOS is very refreshing.
That is a very good point. This is why there are some IT departments in big companies that wait months or YEARS before upgrading to a major update or a new OS. EVERY....SINGLE.....THING must be vetted. Even with something like Windows which is the king of backwards compatibility.
Perhaps upgrading to the latest and greatest is not in the cards for the OP. Give it a very long time before you update. Heck even delay updating regular updates for a bit if some plug-in/add-in is causing an issue. IT departments do this as well as some Windows updates can massively tank an entire department at a company because it broke some plug-in.
Oh which macOS brought the launchpad? I was here at the time and OH BOY the amount of outrage and fear mongering that macOS will use this as the only way to launch apps in the future.
Adobe -> Affinity
Microsoft -> OpenOffice, LibreOffice, iWork apps, etc.
You are right about this though:
But that would also impact Windows. I would jump to Linux in a heartbeat if I had native support for all my needs. That is not possible, and I despise Windows so macOS is my only answer.
My biggest problem with the new settings is performance, it stutters even on machines like my M1P MBP and is vastly worse on Intel machines (and I’m specifically talking about supported machines here, like my 2020 MBA, not a machine with OCLP).
The core system settings app on a machine should not lag like it’s trying to render an 8k movie on a se/30
I do not experience ANY of those two things. Again, take a look at your set up if you face those. And my main business relies on the audio/video conversion. I run 4 Mac Studio Ultras to pump out content.
I mean we are just one step away (granted a MAJOR step as it is my biggest complaint) towards cloud gaming across the board. So it won't matter WHAT device you use, you can play the latest games. The biggest step is addressing our internet infrastructure in this country. It is still absurdly broken.
I agree that the quality of macOS is decreasing with each new update. Sequoia should have never been released with this bugged firewall.
In my opinion, Apple is trying to make macOS more like iOS. Simple software for simple users.
In my opinion, Apple is trying to make macOS more like iOS. Simple software for simple users.
Nope. They actually finally made system preferences look like Preferences in any normal app on the Mac. Before Ventura, the System Preferences app was a weird Frankenstein concoction where we had to constantly switch between individual panels and the all-panels view. Plus the window was non-resizable.
That's the price of early adoption. Investing billions early on, 20-30 years later you get old technology and major infrastructure that is aging and still carries a lot of sunk costs.
But that's also why US was the first country to make e-Commerce a real thing, and benefitted greatly from it.
Now the government has to step in and force competition. Otherwise we'll wait another 30 years to get decent speeds everywhere, and will fall behind the countries that are actively investing in their infrastructure.
As to the cloud gaming... I am not an avid gamer, and I prefer single player games with good story lines. But a lot of my friends are into gaming, and all of them are building high end custom PC rigs. So I don't know whether cloud gaming would alleviate the hardware and OS requirements.
I don't think it will truly replace the needs for "pro gamers". Those people still use PS/2 connections instead of USB keyboard/mouse as they can detect the latency of a USB even!
But yeah games like city building, and turned based RPGs are pretty much there. Some more action heavy game needs the internet infrastructure to improve so the latency is better. But it is close, just not enough yet.
Personally, I am happy for this future. It doesn't matter if I am on mac, Linux, Windows, cell phone etc being able to play anything anywhere will be a major change! I hope Nintendo embraces it as well as I am not a big fan of the Switch hardware. But we all know Nintendo, that won't ever come until they get dragged kicking and screaming.
I have not really seen any speed drops in either, and I'm only running with 16gb of memory.
Hell, the only memory leaks I find are ClipStudio Paint and Potatoshop, and seriously, Photoshop hasn't not had memory leaks on Windows or Mac since like version 5.
Download/uploads speeds are constant, I have large files that I have to move to and from Dropbox for clients and I'm constant. The only machine in my house that seems to be suffering from gradually reduced download speeds is my wife's Xbox Series X.
I'd say that MacOS memory management is pretty good. My 16 GB M2 MBA is not any slower than my 32 GB Surface Pro doing the same tasks.
YOU would. Most people wouldn't.
First, why would major players like Adobe support Linux ? Out of the goodness of their hearts ? There's no real money in this.
Second, from the POV of an average customer, why Linux ? So that they could avoid spending $50 or so MS license price that is the part of their $800 laptop purchase ? The amount of headache far outweighs that.
Using Linux is fun, but it's also a huge can of stinky worms. It's not just Office.
What about email clients ? Thunderbird or Evolution look outdated, and are neither very stable nor look attractive out of the box. Some tinkering is required to make them work really well.
How about global search (an alternative to Windows Indexing or Spotlight ?) I personally liked Recoll, but it looks like a mad scientist's nightmare, and takes a while to learn and set up. So do other alternatives.
How about syncing with Onedrive or Google Drive or iCloud ? Yes there are 3rd party solutions for that, but they are either CLI that requires lots and lots of tinkering, or paid apps like Insync.
And so on... making a Linux setup to even approach the level of user friendliness of Windows is a lot of upfront work, and worse, it's a lot of user maintenance. You can set it up once - but it will get borked the next time some random developer decides to change things. Linux and customer-centric don't belong in the same sentence. It's too dependent on 3rd party tools written by volunteers.
As to Mac - people pay "Mac premium" because (a) it's trendy or (b) they expect a certain degree of polish, seamless integration between different devices, and ease of daily use. Again... this is not achievable on Linux, not without major investment.
I don't knock Linux - I love a lot about it. But it's not for an average customer who just wants a workable laptop, not without some major upfront investment and lots and lots of work. And there's simply no business case in this, at least at the present time.
If anything, the biggest threat to MS (but not to Mac) is Chromebooks. A high end Chromebook combined with a good Android phone comes surprisingly close to the user experience you'd get with Mac and an iPhone. It works, it rarely if ever has issues, it's fast and deeply integrated.
On the mention of Chromebooks being a threat to MS, the only point I would discount that is overall hardware build quality. It's just not there like a Surface or MacBook is. (And yes, I have tried all three extensively)
I loved ChromeOS for basic tasks, but the hardware would not last me the same amount of time as a MacBook at all. It's essentially e-waste.
That's simply not the case. You were probably exposed to the throw away Chromebooks they use in schools. Higher end ones are very solid, and will outlast Google's arbitrary support policy (which is currently 10 years, I believe).
I bought my mom a higher end Asus cromebook back in 2015. I just replaced it earlier this year because Google stopped supporting it, and I was concerned with security without updates. That's over 8 years and it still looked almost brand new. No slowdowns either. And she's using it every day.
The one I replaced it with (HP) is supported for 10 years, and is every bit as well built as any Windows laptop I ever had.
Now if you spend $300... you will get an $300 Chromebook. Hardware costs aren't that different. You need to spend a bit more to get better hardware. But as an OS, for basic tasks, ChromeOS is exceptionally good - very stable, updates don't break things, it doesn't get slow, and it still has enough of a filesystem to be more than a glorified tablet. (Well, perhaps a glorified Android tablet).
It was my case. Bought the Pixelbook Go brand new and noticed severe hinge issues with it. Called Google's customer support and they could not be bothered to help or fix the issue at all. Their own Chromebooks cannot last 10-12 years like a MacBook or Surface can.
I gave up and went back to Surface, and then went back to a Mac laptop after a few more years.
Yes, Google hardware is crap, I don't dispute that at all.
The best hardware running Google OS's is not made by Google. That's true for phones, watches, tablets and Chromebooks.
My mom's original Chromebook was by Asus, and it was just excellent. Her new one is by HP. I would not consider anything made by Google, Amazon or even Microsoft.
Which is why I personally left that ecosystem. I prefer to have the OS and hardware come from the same manufacturer personally. Outside of Windows, which I will gladly build my own desktop PC with no problems.
Also, for what they charged for their Pixel devices, you would think the build quality would at least reflect that in the price.
Well then you're pretty much married to Apple.
In my experience, in any open ecosystem, the companies that specialize in hardware usually make better stuff than the companies than the OS / service OEMs. They have the right experience and talent, and aren't spreading themselves thin trying to cover all angles.
Apple is unique in that it has talent in both areas, paid for with their monopoly on all things Apple.
I mean, I didn't really have any glaring issues with my Surface devices either, it was more so that for a mobile device I valued battery life the most when considering a laptop. The latest MacBooks just happened to be the most efficient there.
The Surface Book 2 and Surface Pro 8 weren't bad in my experience. It was more so, the form factors just didn't fit my needs.
I've grown up just preferring companies that have a good foothold on both software and hardware. It's what I've had a better experience with. While Apple is a strong player there, I personally don't think they're the only one right now that offers that experience.
I don't like the Surface Pro 8 that I use for work. The battery life is nowhere near stated - I am lucky to get over 2 hrs of Teams meetings on battery. The tablet mode is laggy and it tends to switch screen orientation unexpectedly in the middle of taking notes. Marking up photos and PDFs on the go is a whole lot faster and easier on my iPad. iPad is a better tablet, and I am sure there are better laptops. Our company is phasing Surfaces out.
Some people really have no idea how good they've got it.
A couple of weeks on Windows usually fixes that.
A colleague of mine, a Mac user for the best part of 15 years, used this justification to buy himself a Framework laptop recently. To pay the credit card off, the first thing he did was get rid of his MBP on eBay. It was an M1 Pro one. I am currently watching his universe slowly collapsing and the realisation that what he did really doesn't work for him and the long game was probably not changing things. While proudly telling me that he can use native x86-64 docker on it, something he never did before because he didn't need to (we have fat remote machines for that sort of stuff), he can't put it on his lap lest it burn. That is among numerous other problems.
While Apple is not perfect, it is certainly less crap than other things. It's worth trying them occasionally to compare.
A couple of weeks on Windows usually fixes that.
A colleague of mine, a Mac user for the best part of 15 years, used this justification to buy himself a Framework laptop recently. To pay the credit card off, the first thing he did was get rid of his MBP on eBay. It was an M1 Pro one. I am currently watching his universe slowly collapsing and the realisation that what he did really doesn't work for him and the long game was probably not changing things. While proudly telling me that he can use native x86-64 docker on it, something he never did before because he didn't need to (we have fat remote machines for that sort of stuff), he can't put it on his lap lest it burn. That is among numerous other problems.
While Apple is not perfect, it is certainly less crap than other things. It's worth trying them occasionally to compare.
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Yeahhhh, the Surface devices still have not gotten to that point where the battery life comes close to the M chip MacBooks. But I never had an issue with taking notes on it, but then again I never used tablet mode like that. I agree that the iPad is my preferred choice for PDF markups, reading notes, and books.