I am a lifetime Windows user. I started on 3.1 (yes...) and have been through every disaster of an OS that Microsoft released in the 00's.
I have also been using Linux, on and off, for over a decade. Used a Mint desktop for three years, alongside with my Windows laptops. Also have been maintaining my mom's ChromeOS for years.
So I am not a newbie, I know that every OS had its issues, and I've had exposure to different OS's to compare.
So, last November I got my first MacOS laptop - M2 MBA, 16/512. Running the latest Ventura on it.
I swear I had more issues with it than I had with either Windows or Linux in the last five years at least.
Now, I am not saying that it's a problematic OS, necessarily. Most of the time it works well. But it not working well happens a lot more often than I came to expect with my other systems. I.e. not on the Windows ME's "a disaster in progress" level, but also not as stable as W10/11.
Some examples:
- Trying to quit an app. It can't quit because Finder is using some files. OK, whatever. An hour later open Mail, it won't show me the bodies of the messages. After trying to rebuilt the mailboxes, quitting and restarting Mail, I remember about that other app that won't quit because of Finder and kill the process. Boom, my mail works. That other app had absolutely nothing to do with emails. I am just not used anymore to apps making other apps unworkable, that's very Windows ME territory.
- Pull out an external drive without ejecting it first, and the OS will attempt to scan it the next time it's connected without providing an option to skip the scan, essentially rendering the drive useless on this machine until it scans every bit of that 3TB. Need to go into a terminal and run a Linux-style command to make this drive open again. Except Linux doesn't have this issue.
- Every now and then, some app just gets stuck / nonresponsive, can't kill it either, and I have to restart the laptop to make it work again. Usually it's Preview.
I can honestly say that in my experience, MacOS has been the least reliable (while still reasonably reliable), which is upsetting given the cost of getting into Apple ecosystem.
I have also been using Linux, on and off, for over a decade. Used a Mint desktop for three years, alongside with my Windows laptops. Also have been maintaining my mom's ChromeOS for years.
So I am not a newbie, I know that every OS had its issues, and I've had exposure to different OS's to compare.
So, last November I got my first MacOS laptop - M2 MBA, 16/512. Running the latest Ventura on it.
I swear I had more issues with it than I had with either Windows or Linux in the last five years at least.
Now, I am not saying that it's a problematic OS, necessarily. Most of the time it works well. But it not working well happens a lot more often than I came to expect with my other systems. I.e. not on the Windows ME's "a disaster in progress" level, but also not as stable as W10/11.
Some examples:
- Trying to quit an app. It can't quit because Finder is using some files. OK, whatever. An hour later open Mail, it won't show me the bodies of the messages. After trying to rebuilt the mailboxes, quitting and restarting Mail, I remember about that other app that won't quit because of Finder and kill the process. Boom, my mail works. That other app had absolutely nothing to do with emails. I am just not used anymore to apps making other apps unworkable, that's very Windows ME territory.
- Pull out an external drive without ejecting it first, and the OS will attempt to scan it the next time it's connected without providing an option to skip the scan, essentially rendering the drive useless on this machine until it scans every bit of that 3TB. Need to go into a terminal and run a Linux-style command to make this drive open again. Except Linux doesn't have this issue.
- Every now and then, some app just gets stuck / nonresponsive, can't kill it either, and I have to restart the laptop to make it work again. Usually it's Preview.
I can honestly say that in my experience, MacOS has been the least reliable (while still reasonably reliable), which is upsetting given the cost of getting into Apple ecosystem.
