Goodbye Apple. It's been a fun ride.

[motrek]

I thought you would like the pic.

Well, Beachball can occur in different situations. In most cases you don't see anything special in Activity Monitor.
I usually see the Beachball when my net connection is acting up for some seconds.

Yes, good picture, thank you.

Yes, if you lose network connection and you're using an app that's poorly programmed and does synchronous network access, then you will see a beachball. That's just lazy programming and it I hope it's not indicative of the quality of the rest of the app. Hopefully it's not an Apple app, and if it isn't, you can't legitimately blame the beachball on Apple.

Last year my ISP pushed down some router settings that caused my router to disconnect every few hours and I had to manually reboot it to get it going again. As you might imagine, the user experience with all of my Apple products was pretty horrible, even though the problem had nothing to do with Apple. So that's one case where it's best to debug the problem first before going on a message board and complaining that the quality of Apple stuff is declining.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

It happens in both cases, i.e. Apple apps and third-party software (from AppStore).
To be honest with you it does not bother me at all. On the contrary, if I see the Beachball I know that there is something with my net connection. Fortunately it happens once in a blue moon.

 

[wallaby]

Well, after several years of Apple laptop ownership, we are going back to Windows on our next laptop. We converted during the "Hi I'm a PC" ads, and loved how the Mac truly just worked. But now, after it seems Apple has overextended OS X with features and neglected the everyday cleanup up of code, we can no longer justify the premium price. Our laptops hang, apps stop running, the iMac, Air, and Mini frequently bomb overnight, iTunes sync is a mess, the gray screen of death is becoming more common, and the spinning beachball is a common occurrence. Even my friends are saying that they "aren't as happy with Apple as we used to be." So, do I spend $1,800 on the next MBA, or do I spend $850 on a souped-up Windows PC? I can buy two of those in four years and still come out ahead. I hope that Apple is again worth the price someday.

To each their own. I'll admit, I wasn't happy with the direction Apple has been taking with their OS, but after upgrading my work iMac to Yosemite, it's been pretty stable... and seems to have alleviated most of the ills I was having with Snow Leopard (including a lot of the grievances you've listed).

At the same time, I am constantly annoyed by the small things in Windows 7 that are so much easier to do on the Mac. Simple things like tabbing between input fields in the Image Resize window in Photoshop, or having to open character map just to input an accented character (instead of just having a keyboard command).

In an ideal world, we'd all have the money to buy both, but sadly (for me) that isn't the case.

 

[Thunderboltedge]

Here I am as new Mac user since November.
Beachballs are quite annoying, they do not last so long but they occur.
Screensharing not working since yosemite.
Screen amazing, but I am still figuring out if it's worthing the price difference from a Windows' one.

I can understand what you're saying and the Dell XPS 13 would be a very good option in my opinion.

----------

To each their own. I'll admit, I wasn't happy with the direction Apple has been taking with their OS, but after upgrading my work iMac to Yosemite, it's been pretty stable... and seems to have alleviated most of the ills I was having with Snow Leopard (including a lot of the grievances you've listed).

At the same time, I am constantly annoyed by the small things in Windows 7 that are so much easier to do on the Mac. Simple things like tabbing between input fields in the Image Resize window in Photoshop, or having to open character map just to input an accented character (instead of just having a keyboard command).

In an ideal world, we'd all have the money to buy both, but sadly (for me) that isn't the case.

Can I ask you how did you solve this problem about accents? You mean creating the shortcut or what? As I am writing from a US keyboard using european languages very often i am still struggling a bit with OSX (holding the letter on the keyboard does not seem very comfortable for me)

 

[superdx]

I have a 2012 MBA, a 2010 MBP, and a 2009 Mac Pro.

I get the beachball issue all the time on the 2010 MBP, but that's because I replaced the hard drive with an SSD that I'm fairly sure is crapping out.

Otherwise, every Apple computer I've owned has been flawless, much more so than any Windows PC I built since the 90s. Think the OP is trolling.

 

[940272]

Welcome to Windows, dude! The grass is greener over here

 

[sbailey4]

Windows 8 has way more reliability problems and crashes far more in my experience than all versions of OS X put together. My Surface Pro 3 tablet which I use for work has a lot more problems (some random freezes, sometimes not connecting to Wifi after coming out of connected standby, not coming out of connected standby and needed to hard reset) than my primary system 2011 MBA 13 which has never once crashed or kernel panic on me.

It's up to you but if I' spending more than 11 Benjamins, I would always go Apple since they're better than any other PureCrap (PC) at those price range anyways.

Wow, I have never had a crash on Windows 8 ever. Even installed it on an old Dell D620 (5 or so yrs old then) when it first came out to test and no issues there either. I have PC on and being used for 15 hrs a day 7 days a week most of the time. Windows 8 is NOT Vista and the reality is it actually works well despite the bitc**** about the UI. Which goes away by simply staying in the desktop.

Have to say that Apple of recent does not appear to be the premium provider of years past especially with a price point 2-3x higher.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

My Wife and Daughter, just moved to new 13" MBA's, virtually zero problems with their new Airs, Wife's BMB went to my Grand Daughter, my Daughter's 2008 15"MBP went to me to "fix" (track pad was wonky), turns out it was a bulging battery pressing on the track pad from underneath, new battery,maxed out the RAM, added a 512 OWC SSD and Yosemite,no problems, no slowdowns, no beachballs.
So two new Airs, and a 2008 MBP all running smooth, all with OSX Yosemite, 4 2007/2008 BMB all running OSX LION, all without any problems, all very fast.
point is I am either very lucky, or "problems exist,outside" the OSX software via crappy software downloads etc.
Rockin very happily with Apple

 

[Fuchal]

OS X definitely has some issues these days (though to be fair it's always had issues and definitely was never as flawless as you describe, especially regarding networking which has been terrible forever), but if your Macs are beachballing and crashing nightly, there's something more specific to your home, network, systems or apps that's causing it. It's definitely not normal or to be expected. I'm running 10.10.2 on a 2013 Macbook Air, a 2011 Mac Mini, a 2006 Mac Pro, and a 2012 iMac across home and work, and they're as stable and fast as they've always been.

 

[jimboutilier]

I've kind of kept a foot in both the MAC and PC worlds since their inception. I preferred MACs for personal use but they simply weren't up to most general work environments until they went OSX/Intel.

I remember the days when MAC's "just worked", but sadly these are no longer those days. Nor do I like the direction of OSX or iOS has been taking (Jony Ive should stick to hardware design). So this year I converted my phones back to Android (years ago iOS had a clear reliability advantage but no longer). And I'm almost tempted to revert back to PC's.

From a family tech support perspective I still spend less time than I did when the family used PC's, but its less difference than it was. Apple seems to be dedicating the next OS releases to bug fixes and performance so maybe they'll get back on track this year - or at least start moving in that direction again.

I'll go with whichever platform I feel is the most productive for me. Sometimes thats been Windows, sometimes OSX, sometimes iOS, sometimes Android. At the moment thats Android and OSX but if OSX continues in the direction it has been, I'll take another look at Windows next year.

 

[sracer]

I've kind of kept a foot in both the MAC and PC worlds since their inception. I preferred MACs for personal use but they simply weren't up to most general work environments until they went OSX/Intel.

I remember the days when MAC's "just worked", but sadly these are no longer those days. Nor do I like the direction of OSX or iOS has been taking (Jony Ive should stick to hardware design). So this year I converted my phones back to Android (years ago iOS had a clear reliability advantage but no longer). And I'm almost tempted to revert back to PC's.

I've done virtually the identical thing. I've recently gone back to Android. Depending upon what Apple does in the next 6-9 months, I may go back to Windows-based devices.

From a family tech support perspective I still spend less time than I did when the family used PC's, but its less difference than it was. Apple seems to be dedicating the next OS releases to bug fixes and performance so maybe they'll get back on track this year - or at least start moving in that direction again.

None of our OSX-based devices are running Yosemite. Mavericks seems to be extremely stable. "family tech support" is virtually nil at the moment and one of the reasons why it would be difficult to go back to Windows.

I'll go with whichever platform I feel is the most productive for me. Sometimes thats been Windows, sometimes OSX, sometimes iOS, sometimes Android. At the moment thats Android and OSX but if OSX continues in the direction it has been, I'll take another look at Windows next year.

For me it depends upon the personal return on investment. I don't mind paying a premium for higher quality. In my first hand experiences, that quality (manufacturing quality and value) has dropped over the past 5 years.

 

[cbautis2]

Wow, I have never had a crash on Windows 8 ever. Even installed it on an old Dell D620 (5 or so yrs old then) when it first came out to test and no issues there either. I have PC on and being used for 15 hrs a day 7 days a week most of the time. Windows 8 is NOT Vista and the reality is it actually works well despite the bitc**** about the UI. Which goes away by simply staying in the desktop.

Have to say that Apple of recent does not appear to be the premium provider of years past especially with a price point 2-3x higher.

Show me a Windows PC that survives a year long of uptime. My MBA never needed to fully shutdown until the next os x update while windoze just slows to a crawl or keeps crashing and all of that horror. I highly doubt windoze can get more than 150 days of uptime. My MBA never crashes, beachballs ever and the pure bliss experience is insurmountable by any price!

 

[Zeos]

Think the OP is trolling.

Nope.

----------

Welcome to Windows, dude! The grass is greener over here

Actually just a different shade of brown.

 

[Irishman]

Yep, I used to be this enthusiastic about Apple too. Those were the good ol' days. I wish I could find a compelling reason to feel that enthusiasm again. I have the iPad Air 2 and the 6 Plus and will be sticking with those despite the glitches (I have invested a lot in the ecosystem). And with Windows, yes, you get what you pay for. With Apple these days, you DON'T get what you pay for. That's the problem.

Everyone's experience is different, I guess. I'm just sorry to see you leave over THIS, which seems avoidable.

I've had a very different experience. My first Mac was bought back in 1994 when Sears sold Performa-series Macs. This was back in the Jobs interregnum (ya know, the "dark days"?) when just about every other article about Apple referred to them as "beleaguered" or "doomed". There was a certain cultural aspect to being a Mac user then (System 7 was my first, and I was connected at the hip to the David Pogue Missing Manual series for years). My Mac experience was limited (I couldn't play the games my friends on Windows did) and I had problems they couldn't relate to (extension conflicts, anyone?)

All in all, when Steve came back to the company and released the Unix-based OS X, I was cautiously optimistic at first. The first 6-8 months of reviews decided it for me. I would be giving OS X a try. Problem was, I had last bought a Power Mac 8600/250 tower designed for video editing, which wasn't officially supported by Apple for OS X. I found a hack online that made OS X work like a dream for me. So, from late 2001, with 10.1.5, I had a much more enjoyable Mac experience. No extensions to manage? Sign me up! True preemptive multitasking? Yes, please. Better OpenGL and OpenAL support? Why not?

I was, however, frozen in that config until 2011, when my 14-year old Mac finally gave up the ghost. (Good run, right?) Hell, yeah, especially when I was still using it as my daily driver, email, browsing, working with Adobe Illustrator. So, my beautiful wife got me the late 2012 21.5" iMac I'm typing on now. It was running Mountain Lion. I went from that, to Mavericks in 2013, and to Yosemite this past year.

Maybe it's a combination of my system configuration and my programs. They are very sensitive to drops in performance (mostly 3D games, which I run almost daily now). I had one problem while running Mavericks that detracted from my fun (if you look back in my MR post history, it's all described here). I isolated it to something installed by a couple of non-stock non-Apple apps (no, there weren't Microsoft either). I installed Mavericks onto a thumb drive and did a clean install. It solve my performance problem.

Yosemite has improved OpenGL 4.x performance, which is a must for me. I've not had the wi-fi problems others have had. I don't hate flat icons.

So, maybe the missing component for me is that I have no Leopard and Snow Leopard experience to relate it to. I just don't know how GOOD it was then?

I don't know. Thoughts?

 

[sbailey4]

Show me a Windows PC that survives a year long of uptime. My MBA never needed to fully shutdown until the next os x update while windoze just slows to a crawl or keeps crashing and all of that horror. I highly doubt windoze can get more than 150 days of uptime. My MBA never crashes, beachballs ever and the pure bliss experience is insurmountable by any price!

lol well cant really show you that since MS has monthly Patch Tuesdays, it will definitely have to at least reboot then. But as far as lockups etc (which is what I was referring to) I simply don't have those since Windows 8 (hell even Win7 was incredibly stable) Windows 95? 98? XP? sure these were common to require a reboot now and then to get back in the grove. But I even had an XP desktop that stayed on 24x7, granted with min use, that was used for an AV server mostly and was only rebooted to apply monthly updates. That guy has run for months at a time since no more XP updates until I expired it. But Win7/8 have definitely come a long way in terms of stability.

 

[Tinmania]

lol well cant really show you that since MS has monthly Patch Tuesdays, it will definitely have to at least reboot then. But as far as lockups etc (which is what I was referring to) I simply don't have those since Windows 8 (hell even Win7 was incredibly stable) Windows 95? 98? XP? sure these were common to require a reboot now and then to get back in the grove. But I even had an XP desktop that stayed on 24x7, granted with min use, that was used for an AV server mostly and was only rebooted to apply monthly updates. That guy has run for months at a time since no more XP updates until I expired it. But Win7/8 have definitely come a long way in terms of stability.

Thankfully OS X updates never require a reboot.

For what it is worth I don't believe for a second that MBA was on for a year without a reboot.



Michael

 

[jimmirehman]

See ya in 6 Months when your souped up PC runs likes a pentium II 233Mhz.

Well, after several years of Apple laptop ownership, we are going back to Windows on our next laptop. We converted during the "Hi I'm a PC" ads, and loved how the Mac truly just worked. But now, after it seems Apple has overextended OS X with features and neglected the everyday cleanup up of code, we can no longer justify the premium price. Our laptops hang, apps stop running, the iMac, Air, and Mini frequently bomb overnight, iTunes sync is a mess, the gray screen of death is becoming more common, and the spinning beachball is a common occurrence. Even my friends are saying that they "aren't as happy with Apple as we used to be." So, do I spend $1,800 on the next MBA, or do I spend $850 on a souped-up Windows PC? I can buy two of those in four years and still come out ahead. I hope that Apple is again worth the price someday.

 

[RUGERMAN]

With all due respect, at least if you're being honest in your post history, you've only been a mac owner for a mere 6 months so you're not exactly an authority on the quality of the operating system going 'downhill'. It's great you've had no problems and hopefully that continues - but a large number of people have noticed the decline in quality control with Apple, specifically the OS. To take personal offense to this observation is rather vexing.

I've been a Mac owner for 30 years and I rarely have any kind of problem. I have a 5 year old IMac and 5 yr old MBP running ML and Yosemite both stable as can be.

 

[soulreaver99]

See ya in 6 Months when your souped up PC runs likes a pentium II 233Mhz.

Statement inaccurate and way off, however made me laugh my ass off nonetheless.

 

[joshlalonde]

Statement inaccurate and way off, however made me laugh my ass off nonetheless.

Not so inaccurate unless you re-install Windows, defragment your hard-drive and remove all the crapware and malware you've collected on a monthly basis.

I kid, but I did find that re-installing Windows once a year did the trick. There are definitely better ways to do that (especially Windows Refresh), but just one day a year did the trick for me.

I suspect I shall not have those troubles with this computer.

 

[cbautis2]

lol well cant really show you that since MS has monthly Patch Tuesdays, it will definitely have to at least reboot then. But as far as lockups etc (which is what I was referring to) I simply don't have those since Windows 8 (hell even Win7 was incredibly stable) Windows 95? 98? XP? sure these were common to require a reboot now and then to get back in the grove. But I even had an XP desktop that stayed on 24x7, granted with min use, that was used for an AV server mostly and was only rebooted to apply monthly updates. That guy has run for months at a time since no more XP updates until I expired it. But Win7/8 have definitely come a long way in terms of stability.

Only if you love tinkering and making sure no crap drivers and software gets added to registry, startup, services, scheduled tasks etc. If you love doing those, your Windows will surely be fast and stable since quality drivers and well written software won't cause any RAM leak, continuous HDD access or excessive CPU usage that slows the PC down.

But the thing on my Mac is I DON"T need to do any of those time consuming maintenance for my machine to operate as fast as it can which is why I detest Windows a lot due to my horrible experience with it.

 

[kelon111]

Only if you love tinkering and making sure no crap drivers and software gets added to registry, startup, services, scheduled tasks etc. If you love doing those, your Windows will surely be fast and stable since quality drivers and well written software won't cause any RAM leak, continuous HDD access or excessive CPU usage that slows the PC down.

But the thing on my Mac is I DON"T need to do any of those time consuming maintenance for my machine to operate as fast as it can which is why I detest Windows a lot due to my horrible experience with it.

Your Mac doesn't support DirectX unless you use Windows.
Don't forgot that professional Windows based machines are also better for CAD work.

Most Macs are not meant to be repaired or upgraded by the user.
Being stuck with a single 512 GB SSD for years is kind of sad , isn't it?

Quite a few Windows based laptops support 32 GB of RAM (user replaceable , non soldered) while Mac laptops max out at 16 GB currently.

 

[8281]

Autocad, Photoshop, Parallels, and Final Cut Pro are the bigger resource hogs that seem to benefit from the faster processor/more RAM.

Well no wonder you are having issues. Look at the software you are trying to run on a Macbook Air.

 

[kelon111]

Well no wonder you are having issues. Look at the software you are trying to run on a Macbook Air.

Agreed. I would say get a 15" model of the Retina with a dGPU or just get a Windows based PC made for work.

I personally use a W530 for CAD right now.

Some specs of my outdated W530:
Core i7 3610QM
16 GB of DDR3 ( 2 out of 4 slots used)
Two SSDs
Quadro K1000m

 

[paulsdenton]

I am always surprised to hear about folks having issues with OS X, even the latest versions.

I have never had the slightest problem with any combination of Apple hardware and software since I switched from Windows in 2009.

I kind of like the way the newest version of Windows looks and the Surface appears to be a nice piece of equipment; but if there is even the slightest chance of getting "NTLDR is missing" with a blue screen I think I will stick with the Mac. Getting that error continuously on several PCs is what made me try Apple in the first place.