The thing with Macs is you don’t have to spend 80% of your time troubleshooting them. I love my Mac and OS X. I boot it up, log in, and don’t have to think about it. The UI is very intuitive and easy to use as well.
Used to work in mobile phone sales at a 100% telco owned store, so when things went tits up for customers the licensed stores in our area would tell customers to come to our store as we had employee access that exceeded partner access. I had SO many variations of the apologetic conversation with an elderly person whose family assured them that the iPhone is the easiest thing ever to use. They were happy with a feature phone but had an iDevice shoved down their throat by family members because “they are so easy”. Oh and arranging a change of mind return on an iPhone is a fucking nightmare in Australian Telco land.
They are not the easiest most straightforward choice, unless you use your devices in the constrained manner Apple has decided you will use them. The multiple times I have been forced to use a Mac or an iPhone or IPad, I have found them slow, obtuse and they have an annoying habit of hiding information I want to see. Windows is not really any better, just different.
I kind of see it like any other preference, people assume that because they find something the best then everyone must agree with that take.
The automation features in macOS are fantastic. Search, filter, run scripts when a new file arrives in a folder, great GUIs for automation, services. It’s sooooo powerful and accessible. Search for menu items in every application from the keyboard. Change keyboard shortcuts for all menus in all applications. Python, ruby, zsh, bash, are all installed by default. The default image and PDF viewer Preview.app has great editing for PDF included.
If you want to get shit done, macOS is just excellent in so many ways.
I started with a windows computer and learned lots about troubleshooting windows. However once I started using a Mac, I actually made cool stuff with my computer like music, nice documents, fun automation, video, programming, and so on.
The indie software scene on macOS is also unmatched, I think. The apps made by Omni and Panic have no equivalent on Linux or Windows. Kaleidoscope.app is the best diff app on any platform.
Listen I love the battery life on my m1 but it’s the first mac I’ve owned and “intuitive” is not the description I’d use for the ui. Is terminal and homebrew familiar sure, and for most things it does work. But then there are the real oddities in the ui. Like why does finder not show me my full file system by default? Why do I drag and drop when installing a new app, thats fucking stupid. Why are files in folders just placed where ever with no order? There should be a grid pattern that works by default so it doesn’t become so disorganized. Why does clicking into folders just add a divider in finder instead of actually opening the folder so that after a couple nested folders you can barely make out file names. If you have lived with that madness for all your life maybe it’s “intuitive” because you have gotten used to it but linux and windows are just miles ahead in ui intuitiveness when it comes to basic functionality like this.
Why do I drag and drop when installing a new app, thats fucking stupid.
That’s how all file copy operations are done. Apps are just a virtual file that you drag into the Applications folder. To uninstall it you simply delete the file. Done.
As far as folder organization goes, I like that MacOS leaves my files where I left them. There are options to sort files if you need to as well.
I’ve used both since 2001. Windows default search is worse, dragging and dropping to your chosen install location seems to make just as much sense as choosing it in a pop up window, grid and sort by are both right click dialog options. I thought the argument against Mac software was a lack of options so now I’m going to ask why Windows doesn’t let you organize folders by vibes
I’ve used mac for 2 years now for work (despite my repeated requests for a linux laptop). I have all kinds of weird issues including screensaver taking up gigs of memory, login not working unless I click off my portrait and click back on it (with no other changes), and a bunch of other just weirdness. I can’t stand the thing.
Every year I believe this more and more. I’ve always been lumped in with the tech crowd by anyone not tech-savvy, but in reality all my knowledge is from personal troubleshooting and very limited (I’m thinking of trying Linux and that’s gonna be like a whole ass event for me). I used to think that was dumb, but then I started working with more Gen Z…
They have zero idea how to troubleshoot anything. If the computer doesn’t do what they expect, it’s a full stop for some of them. I have “solved” so many IT problems by replugging a cable or just knowing the settings option exists. These aren’t stupid kids either, they’re in a tough industry and very capable otherwise. I think my generation was right place, right time to learn this stuff organically because shit just never worked quite right – apple was largely the outlier back then.
I have an external Samsung SSD that my mac mini just refuses to keep indexed.
The solution to this is when I log in every day I have to go into the Mac system settings and tell finder to ignore my external drive, close system setting, then reopen systen setting and tell finder to no longer ignore the external drive. This is the only way to get it to reindex everything.
I need to do this everytime the mac mini wakes from sleep.
The first mainframe account I ever had was an nCube2 supercomputer. No timesharing or anything, the full power of a Unix system just waiting under your terminal session. Today I have the same CLI under the hood of my MBP because it runs on a Unix kernel. In terms of power tho, this laptop makes the supercomputer look like a toy. I wouldn’t call either one’s use case “very basic things.”
The thing with Macs is you don’t have to spend 80% of your time troubleshooting them. I love my Mac and OS X. I boot it up, log in, and don’t have to think about it. The UI is very intuitive and easy to use as well.
Sounds like both of my laptops running KDE
Used to work in mobile phone sales at a 100% telco owned store, so when things went tits up for customers the licensed stores in our area would tell customers to come to our store as we had employee access that exceeded partner access. I had SO many variations of the apologetic conversation with an elderly person whose family assured them that the iPhone is the easiest thing ever to use. They were happy with a feature phone but had an iDevice shoved down their throat by family members because “they are so easy”. Oh and arranging a change of mind return on an iPhone is a fucking nightmare in Australian Telco land.
They are not the easiest most straightforward choice, unless you use your devices in the constrained manner Apple has decided you will use them. The multiple times I have been forced to use a Mac or an iPhone or IPad, I have found them slow, obtuse and they have an annoying habit of hiding information I want to see. Windows is not really any better, just different.
I kind of see it like any other preference, people assume that because they find something the best then everyone must agree with that take.
I don’t have to troubleshoot my kid’s Speak and Spell either.
But you can circuit-bend that shit 🤘🤘
That’s a good thing. The device does one thing and does it well.
The automation features in macOS are fantastic. Search, filter, run scripts when a new file arrives in a folder, great GUIs for automation, services. It’s sooooo powerful and accessible. Search for menu items in every application from the keyboard. Change keyboard shortcuts for all menus in all applications. Python, ruby, zsh, bash, are all installed by default. The default image and PDF viewer Preview.app has great editing for PDF included.
If you want to get shit done, macOS is just excellent in so many ways.
I started with a windows computer and learned lots about troubleshooting windows. However once I started using a Mac, I actually made cool stuff with my computer like music, nice documents, fun automation, video, programming, and so on.
The indie software scene on macOS is also unmatched, I think. The apps made by Omni and Panic have no equivalent on Linux or Windows. Kaleidoscope.app is the best diff app on any platform.
Listen I love the battery life on my m1 but it’s the first mac I’ve owned and “intuitive” is not the description I’d use for the ui. Is terminal and homebrew familiar sure, and for most things it does work. But then there are the real oddities in the ui. Like why does finder not show me my full file system by default? Why do I drag and drop when installing a new app, thats fucking stupid. Why are files in folders just placed where ever with no order? There should be a grid pattern that works by default so it doesn’t become so disorganized. Why does clicking into folders just add a divider in finder instead of actually opening the folder so that after a couple nested folders you can barely make out file names. If you have lived with that madness for all your life maybe it’s “intuitive” because you have gotten used to it but linux and windows are just miles ahead in ui intuitiveness when it comes to basic functionality like this.
That’s how all file copy operations are done. Apps are just a virtual file that you drag into the Applications folder. To uninstall it you simply delete the file. Done.
As far as folder organization goes, I like that MacOS leaves my files where I left them. There are options to sort files if you need to as well.
So like appimages…
I’ve used both since 2001. Windows default search is worse, dragging and dropping to your chosen install location seems to make just as much sense as choosing it in a pop up window, grid and sort by are both right click dialog options. I thought the argument against Mac software was a lack of options so now I’m going to ask why Windows doesn’t let you organize folders by vibes
I’ve used mac for 2 years now for work (despite my repeated requests for a linux laptop). I have all kinds of weird issues including screensaver taking up gigs of memory, login not working unless I click off my portrait and click back on it (with no other changes), and a bunch of other just weirdness. I can’t stand the thing.
Every year I believe this more and more. I’ve always been lumped in with the tech crowd by anyone not tech-savvy, but in reality all my knowledge is from personal troubleshooting and very limited (I’m thinking of trying Linux and that’s gonna be like a whole ass event for me). I used to think that was dumb, but then I started working with more Gen Z…
They have zero idea how to troubleshoot anything. If the computer doesn’t do what they expect, it’s a full stop for some of them. I have “solved” so many IT problems by replugging a cable or just knowing the settings option exists. These aren’t stupid kids either, they’re in a tough industry and very capable otherwise. I think my generation was right place, right time to learn this stuff organically because shit just never worked quite right – apple was largely the outlier back then.
If you even know what an OS is you’re ahead of 70% of the population. Probably more.
I have an external Samsung SSD that my mac mini just refuses to keep indexed.
The solution to this is when I log in every day I have to go into the Mac system settings and tell finder to ignore my external drive, close system setting, then reopen systen setting and tell finder to no longer ignore the external drive. This is the only way to get it to reindex everything.
I need to do this everytime the mac mini wakes from sleep.
Yeah no fucking shot I would do this for more than a day before getting a new pc
OK, that is one thing I haven’t figured out yet. How to make persistent SMB mounts.
I haven’t used macs extensively in a few years but when I did it was fstab, just like linux
Intuitive for very basic things, but if you want to do anything outside the norm or some ease of use things from other desktops, goodluck.
The first mainframe account I ever had was an nCube2 supercomputer. No timesharing or anything, the full power of a Unix system just waiting under your terminal session. Today I have the same CLI under the hood of my MBP because it runs on a Unix kernel. In terms of power tho, this laptop makes the supercomputer look like a toy. I wouldn’t call either one’s use case “very basic things.”
Them’s fightin’ words 'round these parts, buster.
(… i agree)