Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?(eclecticlight.co)
eclecticlight.co
Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/08/30/last-week-on-my-mac-is-macos-becoming-unmaintainable/
198 comments
> Apple's inability to admit fault
I noticed people stopped using "reality distortion field" since Steve Jobs died, but the idea is still alive to some extent.
I noticed people stopped using "reality distortion field" since Steve Jobs died, but the idea is still alive to some extent.
I'm not sure software stability is decreasing, these sort of problems have existed for as long as I can remember.
It definitely is. I just got a new 16" MacBook Pro and have had several ridiculous bugs. I frequently have to delete the keyboard layout preferences file in order to set it to ISO.
The most annoying one is that the whole thing crashes if you unplug it from a dock while it is asleep. You can get around it by setting it to never sleep while plugged in, but guess what? That setting magically resets itself if it crashes.
The most annoying one is that the whole thing crashes if you unplug it from a dock while it is asleep. You can get around it by setting it to never sleep while plugged in, but guess what? That setting magically resets itself if it crashes.
Indeed, MacOS 9 was buggy as hell and worse than Windows 98 in terms of stability. OS X apparently fixed some of that for a couple of years, so it looks like Apple is now reverting to its old ways.
OSX was developed by NeXT
Yeah, people forget how buggy macOS has been. Both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion were public admissions that they needed to focus on quality. They haven’t had a proper one of those in a while.
That said, I can’t remember a time when bugs have been as long-standing as they are now. SMB file shares have been completely broken for nearly 3 years now (the solution is to buy the program AutoMounter), and USB-C docks have been broken since day 1 and still are on Big Sur.
That said, I can’t remember a time when bugs have been as long-standing as they are now. SMB file shares have been completely broken for nearly 3 years now (the solution is to buy the program AutoMounter), and USB-C docks have been broken since day 1 and still are on Big Sur.
I use a usb-c dock with some version of OS X on my work laptop and it totally works 28/30 days. The other two days I usually notice it’s not working when the CPU throttles because the battery is now at 4% and is “not charging” (I still haven’t figured out the difference between the “charging” and “plugged in but not charging” icons.)
Personally I think that the quality started increasing between the first few releases (i.e. tiger better than panther, or at least definitely better than jaguar), but it then started decreasing at some point. I would not be able to say which release was at the "peak".
Its also really hard to report bugs. So things don't get fixed.
Company policy is more like "it just works, our software has no bugs" (goes ahead and pushes one bug fix update per week).
The irony.
Company policy is more like "it just works, our software has no bugs" (goes ahead and pushes one bug fix update per week).
The irony.
>Apple's inability to admit fault
Like? Because Apple admits fault all the time.
E.g.:
1) with the updated Mac Pro design and extended apologies for the old Pro format.
2) with the revised keyboard in the new Macbook Pros.
3) Changing from "skeuomorphic" (bad term, but I'll use it) UI to a flater look
and tons of other instances...
Like? Because Apple admits fault all the time.
E.g.:
1) with the updated Mac Pro design and extended apologies for the old Pro format.
2) with the revised keyboard in the new Macbook Pros.
3) Changing from "skeuomorphic" (bad term, but I'll use it) UI to a flater look
and tons of other instances...
I clearly remember the upgrade to Yosemite, and how it crippled Spotlight for anyone who (1) didn't have a SSD (2) did an OS upgrade, not a clean reinstall. Ask around the Apple forums, you'll only get a lot of Apple apologists and fanboys telling you to turn it off and on again, not a peep (and certainly no fix) from Apple.
Or a better example of the general sentiment that I think OP is going for, Apple stopped updating it's OpenGL implementation, and invented their own API. Definitely a user-hostile choice, but they defend it by saying that Metal is better than OpenGL. But now Vulkan exists, but Apple will never defend it's use of Metal over Vulkan, because reasons.
Or a better example of the general sentiment that I think OP is going for, Apple stopped updating it's OpenGL implementation, and invented their own API. Definitely a user-hostile choice, but they defend it by saying that Metal is better than OpenGL. But now Vulkan exists, but Apple will never defend it's use of Metal over Vulkan, because reasons.
>I clearly remember the upgrade to Yosemite, and how it crippled Spotlight for anyone who (1) didn't have a SSD (2) did an OS upgrade, not a clean reinstall.
I clearly don't remember that case. How was it anything that couldn't be solved by, e.g., at worse removing the spotlight index folder (.v100 or something similar)?
>* Or a better example of the general sentiment that I think OP is going for, Apple stopped updating it's OpenGL implementation, and invented their own API. Definitely a user-hostile choice, but they defend it by saying that Metal is better than OpenGL.*
How is it "user hostile"? As a user I could not care less if Apple uses OpenGL or Metal, but I do care that they get better performance (which Metal gives). I'm also in favor in Apple having easier control of the graphics stack to tailor it better to OS X -- that's the whole point of MacOS in the first place - that it can do its own thing and have a differentiated offering.
>But now Vulkan exists
So? Let any interested party build a Vulcan facade for Metal (if the goal is easy porting).
If the goal is features unique to the plarform, then Metal is the way to go.
I clearly don't remember that case. How was it anything that couldn't be solved by, e.g., at worse removing the spotlight index folder (.v100 or something similar)?
>* Or a better example of the general sentiment that I think OP is going for, Apple stopped updating it's OpenGL implementation, and invented their own API. Definitely a user-hostile choice, but they defend it by saying that Metal is better than OpenGL.*
How is it "user hostile"? As a user I could not care less if Apple uses OpenGL or Metal, but I do care that they get better performance (which Metal gives). I'm also in favor in Apple having easier control of the graphics stack to tailor it better to OS X -- that's the whole point of MacOS in the first place - that it can do its own thing and have a differentiated offering.
>But now Vulkan exists
So? Let any interested party build a Vulcan facade for Metal (if the goal is easy porting).
If the goal is features unique to the plarform, then Metal is the way to go.
It's the 'know-better-than-thou' arrogance that's user hostile here...
You say you don't care but there are lots of users that get left out in the cold by such 'upgrades', yourself included. "We don't give an f about you or your workflow or your programs, git gud" is an incredibly hostile attitude, and why there is a fair amount of Apple hatred right now.
Not to mention the clearly lackluster if not abysmal recent record of Apple designing systems that work should make you tremble to be their guinea pigs...
Apple has come a loong way from its reputation of producing dream machines with the durability of titanium cockroaches...and not in a good way.
You say you don't care but there are lots of users that get left out in the cold by such 'upgrades', yourself included. "We don't give an f about you or your workflow or your programs, git gud" is an incredibly hostile attitude, and why there is a fair amount of Apple hatred right now.
Not to mention the clearly lackluster if not abysmal recent record of Apple designing systems that work should make you tremble to be their guinea pigs...
Apple has come a loong way from its reputation of producing dream machines with the durability of titanium cockroaches...and not in a good way.
A few examples of Apple begrudgingly admitting fault after five years of miserable failure in something that would bankrupt a smaller company can very reasonably be described as "Apple's inability to admit fault."
If they had been fixed in 30 days then maybe you could argue they were good examples.
If they had been fixed in 30 days then maybe you could argue they were good examples.
WSL2 on windows is really nice.
I do all my dev on a surface book laptop running windows. WSL2 has me covered for anything that needs posix, but that's increasingly rare.
Edit: my deploy target is Ubuntu.
I do all my dev on a surface book laptop running windows. WSL2 has me covered for anything that needs posix, but that's increasingly rare.
Edit: my deploy target is Ubuntu.
Is systemd/systemctl still broken on WSL2? How do you deploy on Ubuntu, when the service control layer is incompatible between Ubuntu and WSL2?
WSL2 is just a Hyper-V VM with some UI integrations. It uses an actual Linux kernel rather than a NT kernel personality, so systemd should work like in any other VM.
It is not just Hyper-V VM with some UI integrations. While it uses actual Linux kernel, it does not use actual init system as a just a VM would. It runs Microsoft's /init, which does not handle service management. Not even SysV ones via /etc/init.d.
So if you need service managment, you won't find it under WSL2.
So if you need service managment, you won't find it under WSL2.
Why would you assume he is deploying to a prod environment that lives in WSL2? That's a ridiculous assumption.
This individual clearly develops and builds with WSL2 and ships to to Ubuntu VMs or as Ubuntu based containers to some orchestration engine.
This individual clearly develops and builds with WSL2 and ships to to Ubuntu VMs or as Ubuntu based containers to some orchestration engine.
The point was not that the prod lives in WSL2.
The point was that the development and deployment environment are vastly different.
Developing with different environment than prod is difficult; missing service management layer is a huge difference. WSL2 is optimized to show the shell quickly, but in the background, quite a lot is missing.
The point was that the development and deployment environment are vastly different.
Developing with different environment than prod is difficult; missing service management layer is a huge difference. WSL2 is optimized to show the shell quickly, but in the background, quite a lot is missing.
And this is part of why I refuse to be forced to upgrade to Catalina.
So, when I buy “new” hardware, I will make sure that it is compatible with Mojave.
Which means it won’t actually be new....
Something’s wrong when the best hardware you can buy from a manufacturer is from the versions they’re not making any more.
So, when I buy “new” hardware, I will make sure that it is compatible with Mojave.
Which means it won’t actually be new....
Something’s wrong when the best hardware you can buy from a manufacturer is from the versions they’re not making any more.
This is exactly where I am right now and I’m starting to explore my options for jumping to Linux for desktop and laptop. There are some great distros out there that I’m looking forward to trying.
I'm more or less in the same situation. I own a 2013 15" MBP that still works perfectly but I'm afraid of what will happen if / when it stops working. I actually use it often, so it could get stolen / I could drop it / etc.
My client uses Windows and HP computers. I've been able to save an "old" Elitedesk 800 G2 SFF (6th gen i5) from the dumpster and upgraded it with an old ssd I had lying around and 16 GB of ram (instead of 8). I've set up ArchLinux on it with I3 and boy do I love that machine. It's plenty powerful, quiet, and everything just works. It actually replaced my MBP as my "dev" machine during the WFH phase.
I've also had close to no issues running Arch on a Probook 430 G5. Everything except for the fingerprint reader works. But while the desktop is great, I'm less happy with the laptop. It's not so much related to Linux but to the physical machine itself (the touchpad isn't great, the keyboard's texture feels weird, it has coil whine, assembly is half-assed and rubs the wrists while working on it, etc).
As they say, YMMV, but my experience is that depending on what you do day to day with your computer, a Linux PC may actually work surprisingly well compared to a mac, especially on the desktop where the superior materials and assembly of the mac are less of an issue.
My client uses Windows and HP computers. I've been able to save an "old" Elitedesk 800 G2 SFF (6th gen i5) from the dumpster and upgraded it with an old ssd I had lying around and 16 GB of ram (instead of 8). I've set up ArchLinux on it with I3 and boy do I love that machine. It's plenty powerful, quiet, and everything just works. It actually replaced my MBP as my "dev" machine during the WFH phase.
I've also had close to no issues running Arch on a Probook 430 G5. Everything except for the fingerprint reader works. But while the desktop is great, I'm less happy with the laptop. It's not so much related to Linux but to the physical machine itself (the touchpad isn't great, the keyboard's texture feels weird, it has coil whine, assembly is half-assed and rubs the wrists while working on it, etc).
As they say, YMMV, but my experience is that depending on what you do day to day with your computer, a Linux PC may actually work surprisingly well compared to a mac, especially on the desktop where the superior materials and assembly of the mac are less of an issue.
I find desktop Linux much better as a developer OS than my MacBook. Now if only there was a good ryzen laptop with amd gfx I'd be up offa the Mac entirely.
1) Don't worry too much about distro. Get Debian or something Debian-based.
2) ThinkPads were and are excellent portable Linux machines.
2) ThinkPads were and are excellent portable Linux machines.
The trouble is it's difficult to get any objective data on this. Catalina has been rock solid for me. So is this a problem for a handful of noisy individuals or is it more widespread? I really don't know.
I have been upgrading (and porting to new machines) a Mac account starting in 2008 on a white macbook (2006?), transferred to a 2009 iMac, and then transferred to a 2017 iMac. Never had issues until Catalina.
Catalina finally made me do a completely fresh install with transferring data files as the only touch from the old system. Since the fresh install, it has worked perfectly, but before that the system would randomly keep repeating the last typed character. I could not live with that behavior.
Also got a new MBAir 2020 (Catalina) and that has been perfectly fine and solid as well.
Catalina finally made me do a completely fresh install with transferring data files as the only touch from the old system. Since the fresh install, it has worked perfectly, but before that the system would randomly keep repeating the last typed character. I could not live with that behavior.
Also got a new MBAir 2020 (Catalina) and that has been perfectly fine and solid as well.
It seems all of the engineering resources are going towards iOS and macOS is only an afterthought, a device necessary for making iOS apps... I'll be moving on when I get a new laptop.
the "rejigging" of mac ui to look like ios in big sur sure makes me feel like that is so...
i have a lot of apps in my applications folder crossed out with a / mark because they are 32-bit... its kind of strange to me that if i "downgraded" to mojave they all start working again... isnt that weird? seems almost the opposite of "customer centric"...
i have a lot of apps in my applications folder crossed out with a / mark because they are 32-bit... its kind of strange to me that if i "downgraded" to mojave they all start working again... isnt that weird? seems almost the opposite of "customer centric"...
FWIW, when I upgraded my parents operating system for their iPhone, it bricked the phone and I had to take it to the Apple store to get them to get it to stop freezing after attempting to boot the system following the upgrade.
The Apple tech told me that next time I want to upgrade multiple versions, that I should install fresh instead of upgrading.
The Apple tech told me that next time I want to upgrade multiple versions, that I should install fresh instead of upgrading.
They’re doing lots and lots of engineering on macOS - APFS, read only system partition, app sandboxing with user file protection, app notarization, catalyst, SwiftUI, Big Sur native iOS app support, the whole Big Sur redesign, custom T2 controller, ARM Macs.
The problem seems rather like they are making too many deep system changes without any bug fix time to let them settle.
The problem seems rather like they are making too many deep system changes without any bug fix time to let them settle.
Exactly this. There's no breathing time or a tick-tock cycle for large changes to settle down. The last proper one being High Sierra. Three years of consecutive large scale underlying changes are taking a toll on the overall polish and stability of macOS
I don’t know, at scale in a company, my mood has always been (with Windows, mostly, but sometimes older versions of macOS) that if the issue doesn’t exist on a clean test box, we’re reimaging your machine. Since home folders are often somewhere else (folder redirection or OneDrive in Windows, in this case on a separate volume from /System), a OS reinstall isn’t very time consuming. Once the OS comes back up, MDM grabs it and sets up policy and applications.
For personal use, most people don’t install stuff that’s that complicated to redo (maybe at most, Adobe and Office which are download pkg and sign in), so if the OS was so fundamentally borked that the sealed system volume stood in your way, you’d waste more time trying to fix it by hand rather than just reinstalling the OS from Internet Recovery and signing back in. Especially since Time Machine does a good job at backing up home folders.
For personal use, most people don’t install stuff that’s that complicated to redo (maybe at most, Adobe and Office which are download pkg and sign in), so if the OS was so fundamentally borked that the sealed system volume stood in your way, you’d waste more time trying to fix it by hand rather than just reinstalling the OS from Internet Recovery and signing back in. Especially since Time Machine does a good job at backing up home folders.
At one of the large companies I worked for, IT took that "just pave it" approach for _everything_. Maybe because of the contrast between that and my day job of spending weeks to months root-causing really weird distributed systems issues, it stuck me as penny-wise-pound-foolish. At least in this example, that attitude was used as an excuse to never actually investigate anything, even issues that recurred within days of a re-image. Outlook won't connect? Here, go watch the installer for a couple of hours, use your device for a day or two then back to square one. Eventually, it's easy to get so sick of IT's obvious unwillingness to actually fix shit that IT is avoided unless absolutely necessary, and everyone's productivity suffers as a result. At that company, IT was at the top of the negatives column on every internal survey.
It is definitely an effective attitude to take at scale, but it has to be paired with at least some troubleshooting of the class of issue. Otherwise, severe bugs get swept under the rug by user exhaustion and IT inaction.
It is definitely an effective attitude to take at scale, but it has to be paired with at least some troubleshooting of the class of issue. Otherwise, severe bugs get swept under the rug by user exhaustion and IT inaction.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I worked somewhere that avoided reimaging PCs at all costs. Every system had tens of random workarounds applied to 'fix' issues as quickly as possible. Nothing was consistent, and IT also had a very poor reputation.
The effective way is to go "pave it/replace the machine" for the first time you hear an issue, but as soon as the second or third report comes in, it gets investigated.
I'd personally go with re-imaging the first X times, then do a root cause analysis.
> We are heading rapidly towards the corollary to “it just works” being “and if it doesn’t, just wipe everything and re-install”.
Is this really all that bad? In the era of everything living in the cloud, it generally takes me only a couple hours to setup a system again from scratch. Not that I've ever had to do this on macOS personally (though I did once on iOS), but if I had, I wouldn't be terribly upset about it.
> If every time your car had a problem you had to replace its engine, wouldn’t you consider that abysmal engineering?
This is a ridiculous analogy. Re-installing an OS is free (both the materials and, for Apple customers who don't know how to do it themselves, the service).
macOS today doesn't always just work. I run into bugs sometimes and get frustrated. But whenever I boot up Windows and have to fight to get the most basic dev tools working, or boot up Linux and have to fight to get a core function like system updates or audio working, I'm reminded how much closer macOS still is to "just working" than anything else out there.
Is this really all that bad? In the era of everything living in the cloud, it generally takes me only a couple hours to setup a system again from scratch. Not that I've ever had to do this on macOS personally (though I did once on iOS), but if I had, I wouldn't be terribly upset about it.
> If every time your car had a problem you had to replace its engine, wouldn’t you consider that abysmal engineering?
This is a ridiculous analogy. Re-installing an OS is free (both the materials and, for Apple customers who don't know how to do it themselves, the service).
macOS today doesn't always just work. I run into bugs sometimes and get frustrated. But whenever I boot up Windows and have to fight to get the most basic dev tools working, or boot up Linux and have to fight to get a core function like system updates or audio working, I'm reminded how much closer macOS still is to "just working" than anything else out there.
Maybe a better analogy is: You have a problem with your living room light dimmer not working. The solution is to move all of your furniture out of your house, or being generous, just the living room, and then moving it back. Would you consider that reasonable?
Assuming you have a backup, then lets say some movers come out (for free) and do the moving. That's not inconvenient, right? After all, you don't have to do any of the moving. Just wait an hour or so and the movers will move everything back and quietly disappear.
Assuming you have a backup, then lets say some movers come out (for free) and do the moving. That's not inconvenient, right? After all, you don't have to do any of the moving. Just wait an hour or so and the movers will move everything back and quietly disappear.
It is ridiculous, but I can't help but think of cars.
I had a car a couple years back, where I had to get behind the side panel of the trunk to get to something (tail light?). The (ford) trunk panel was not held on by a screw, but y a weird fastener that had to be pried out (and I felt like I was breaking it). When it was out, the fastener looked like a christmas tree, and went into a hole easily in one direction and the design really didn't support coming out very well.
Turns out all cars are designed this way. They are "designed for assembly". Pretty much everything in the world is that way or moving that direction.
I think the computer equivalent is package managers and app upgrades and os upgrades and modular data.
But it's different. "designed for assembly" for cars becomes "designed for re-install" and the more troubling "designed for one-way upgrade"
I had a car a couple years back, where I had to get behind the side panel of the trunk to get to something (tail light?). The (ford) trunk panel was not held on by a screw, but y a weird fastener that had to be pried out (and I felt like I was breaking it). When it was out, the fastener looked like a christmas tree, and went into a hole easily in one direction and the design really didn't support coming out very well.
Turns out all cars are designed this way. They are "designed for assembly". Pretty much everything in the world is that way or moving that direction.
I think the computer equivalent is package managers and app upgrades and os upgrades and modular data.
But it's different. "designed for assembly" for cars becomes "designed for re-install" and the more troubling "designed for one-way upgrade"
The push fasteners are usually removable if you're able to squeeze on the underside of them. Otherwise best way to pry out is with a Y-shaped tool that digs under three sides.
I treat them as disposable, like tape or glue, but easier to replace without making a mess of it. They're dirt cheap, so I just rip them out and replace as necessary.
I treat them as disposable, like tape or glue, but easier to replace without making a mess of it. They're dirt cheap, so I just rip them out and replace as necessary.
I eventually bought a bunch of them, but the thing is, the car was gone before I pulled any of that apart again. So now I have a bag of fasteners that match no car I own. :)
Depends how often it happens. If I had to move all the furniture out of my house to fix the dimmer every five years then it still wouldn't be a huge deal. Anecdotally, I've been using MacBooks for six years and never had to reinstall the OS.
Not everyone wishes to submit all of their data to the warrantless government surveillance that cloud storage necessarily entails in the Five Eyes countries.
Much of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason.
Additionally, media production, especially 4K video, is not “in the era of everything living in the cloud”.
Also, many people may compete with cloud vendor service offerings. If I were trying to obsolete a GCP service offering, I wouldn’t store my product development notes in Google Drive.
Much of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason.
Additionally, media production, especially 4K video, is not “in the era of everything living in the cloud”.
Also, many people may compete with cloud vendor service offerings. If I were trying to obsolete a GCP service offering, I wouldn’t store my product development notes in Google Drive.
"... of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason..."
Is all of this true? Apple claim it is not accessible.
Is all of this true? Apple claim it is not accessible.
No, they do not. They claim it is encrypted, but nowhere do they claim those types of files are end-to-end encrypted.
Some iCloud data is e2e (keychain, health) but not most of it. Critically, device backups, containing all of your chat history for all time, are not e2e. Cryptographically, you would not be incorrect in describing this as a backdoor in iMessage’s end to end encryption.
It’s encrypted in transit with Apple keys and it’s encrypted at rest with Apple keys. Apple can always decrypt it without you, and you would have no way of knowing if they had done so.
They are vulnerable to subpoena or search warrant, but due to Apple’s participation in PRISM, they often turn over the data to military intelligence without a warrant at all.
https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/
Apparently they were going to fix it, but decided to leave it the way it is because the FBI was complaining.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
Some iCloud data is e2e (keychain, health) but not most of it. Critically, device backups, containing all of your chat history for all time, are not e2e. Cryptographically, you would not be incorrect in describing this as a backdoor in iMessage’s end to end encryption.
It’s encrypted in transit with Apple keys and it’s encrypted at rest with Apple keys. Apple can always decrypt it without you, and you would have no way of knowing if they had done so.
They are vulnerable to subpoena or search warrant, but due to Apple’s participation in PRISM, they often turn over the data to military intelligence without a warrant at all.
https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/
Apparently they were going to fix it, but decided to leave it the way it is because the FBI was complaining.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
So when there are public spats between law and Apple about unlocking Apple devices, and talk of universal rule changes on how big tech must add backdoors in the U.S. political arena, and Apple vocally saying 'Never', it's all (bare faced lies) theatre - because there already is virtually, or as I'm reading here, easy, access to any Apple service when requested by U.S. law?
>Apple claim it is not accessible.
It doesn't matter what Apple claim. All their software and hardware is proprietary, including of course their "cloud" computers. You have no way of verifying anything they say.
It doesn't matter what Apple claim. All their software and hardware is proprietary, including of course their "cloud" computers. You have no way of verifying anything they say.
We can take them at their word: they tell us what is end-to-end encrypted, plainly.
Everything not on that list is not, and thus readable by Apple. The critical items not end-to-end encrypted being device backups, photos, notes, email.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
Everything not on that list is not, and thus readable by Apple. The critical items not end-to-end encrypted being device backups, photos, notes, email.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
In practice the end-to-end encryption of Apple products isn't better than regular encryption (in transit and at rest) with Apple holding the key. In what I assume is an effort to make the services more user friendly they have done away with key verification (something you see in Signal and Matrix-based chat services) that means the user has no way of verifying the parties of the chat and users have no say in how session keys are shared to parties. This makes it trivial for Apple to participate in all E2E sessions. It's no more work that just decrypting your non-E2E data.
>"But whenever I boot up Windows and have to fight to get the most basic dev tools working"
Not sure what tools in particular are you talking about. My main: Visual Studio for C/C++, VS Code for various scripting languages, Delphi, Lazarus install and work flawlessly from the first try. So do whole bunch of other software products I use.
Not sure what tools in particular are you talking about. My main: Visual Studio for C/C++, VS Code for various scripting languages, Delphi, Lazarus install and work flawlessly from the first try. So do whole bunch of other software products I use.
> whenever I boot up Windows and have to fight to get the most basic dev tools working
What are the most basic dev tools are you struggling with on windows?
VS Code + git (perhaps the most basic requirements for me) docker, node/deno etc "just works" on windows. WSL handles anything I need that doesn't have native windows builds which is ultra-rare for me these days. Windows is IME now a very viable option particularly if you are doing web and/or container-based development. I don't see any advantage for OS X any more ... apart from appealing hardware/industrial design if your work is paying for it! :)
Linux though I agree is a cluster-fuck. I frequently suffer daily issues with graphics drivers causing visual artifacts and outright crashes on my work Dell laptop which is my current work daily-driver (although my work Linux desktop is rock solid)
What are the most basic dev tools are you struggling with on windows?
VS Code + git (perhaps the most basic requirements for me) docker, node/deno etc "just works" on windows. WSL handles anything I need that doesn't have native windows builds which is ultra-rare for me these days. Windows is IME now a very viable option particularly if you are doing web and/or container-based development. I don't see any advantage for OS X any more ... apart from appealing hardware/industrial design if your work is paying for it! :)
Linux though I agree is a cluster-fuck. I frequently suffer daily issues with graphics drivers causing visual artifacts and outright crashes on my work Dell laptop which is my current work daily-driver (although my work Linux desktop is rock solid)
> Re-installing an OS is free (both the materials and, for Apple customers who don't know how to do it themselves, the service).
To make a semi-unrelated quote from Jamie Zawinski, "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
To make a semi-unrelated quote from Jamie Zawinski, "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
> "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
I've always wondered if Ubuntu was introduced to a child would they learn to use it just as fast as a child that uses Windows? All the times I've used Ubuntu it's exactly the same as windows without all the distraction.
I've always wondered if Ubuntu was introduced to a child would they learn to use it just as fast as a child that uses Windows? All the times I've used Ubuntu it's exactly the same as windows without all the distraction.
Even less distractions, as watching YouTube is painfully slow with software decoding by default.
Basically, yes - it can work like that depending on circumstances. My son started with Ubuntu and doesn't like windows (new school requirements forced it). But he's not into gaming.
I've known a couple of other fathers that had the same experience. But it isn't common.
I've known a couple of other fathers that had the same experience. But it isn't common.
That's true, but it leaves out the other half of the equation: you'll still likely spend less of your valuable time on your making your Ubuntu installation work, than on anything else (speaking as someone with commercial dev experience on MacOS, Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD).
I spent hours trying to stabilise my wife's XPS13 after a recent Windows Update sent it into paroxysms of BSODs. Reset, reimaged, the whole nine yards: nothing. Ended up installing Ubuntu on it and it's been rock-solid stable since.
I spent hours trying to stabilise my wife's XPS13 after a recent Windows Update sent it into paroxysms of BSODs. Reset, reimaged, the whole nine yards: nothing. Ended up installing Ubuntu on it and it's been rock-solid stable since.
FWIW the amount of time I've spent fiddling with my OS in the last year approaches zero, and I don't remember it being this unintrusive when I was using Windows or macOS at work.
Nothing just works quite like something that simply hasn't changed.
In the amount of time I used to spend in a month making sure macOS wasn't on the brink; a couple weeks ago I investigated and implemented a feature in a system component, one that is not present on any commercially available desktop operating system.
Now my input method client displays language-appropriate glyph variants based on the input method's locale, and you just managed to get the App Store to shut up, or fix some of your homebrew after a system upgrade.
Nothing just works quite like something that simply hasn't changed.
In the amount of time I used to spend in a month making sure macOS wasn't on the brink; a couple weeks ago I investigated and implemented a feature in a system component, one that is not present on any commercially available desktop operating system.
Now my input method client displays language-appropriate glyph variants based on the input method's locale, and you just managed to get the App Store to shut up, or fix some of your homebrew after a system upgrade.
> In the amount of time I used to spend in a month making sure macOS wasn't on the brink
What was it you were having to do to maintain macOS?
What was it you were having to do to maintain macOS?
Reinstalling MacOS is easy but setting up tools in Windows is too hard? This just doesn't reflect my own experience. Windows is pretty workable these days.
> or boot up Linux and have to fight to get a core function like system updates or audio working
How are these issues? Ubuntu has had these sorts of problems sorted for a while now?
How are these issues? Ubuntu has had these sorts of problems sorted for a while now?
Just the other day I was trying to install a package through apt and kept hitting some error about a lock file. After some googling it appeared to be because the OS was doing an auto-update process in the background. Which in itself is something I'd want, but it's insane as a user experience that it would block you from installing anything else and show nothing but a cryptic console error. So then I had to dig in and figure out how to kill the other process so I could install what I needed, which ended up putting my apt in a corrupt state so I had to run a repair process. By the time I got everything sorted out, an hour was gone.
This was the simplest possible task, and it was on Ubuntu LTS. Seemingly every time I have to switch over to Linux for something I end up dealing with an issue like this. Yak shaving was fun when I was in college, these days I just want to get on with my life.
This was the simplest possible task, and it was on Ubuntu LTS. Seemingly every time I have to switch over to Linux for something I end up dealing with an issue like this. Yak shaving was fun when I was in college, these days I just want to get on with my life.
Perhaps the error message should be improved, but your response shouldn't be to kill an update process mid-update and assume everything will be ok. The OS didn't cause that issue.
As far as I could tell it was only downloading the update, not actively installing it, which just makes the error even more frustrating. I assume the OS would at least show me a real dialog when it was in the process of applying the update. Then again, who knows.
I was very pleasantly surprised when I switched from macOS -> PopOS -> Arch how easy everything was. Have zero problems with drivers, updates, etc.. I'd even say I have fewer mysterious issues than I had on macOS because at least I can see how everything works.
>> We are heading rapidly towards the corollary to “it just works” being “and if it doesn’t, just wipe everything and re-install”.
>Is this really all that bad?
I had to reinstall Catalina a few times in the past month. I usually lose half a day waiting for the restore to complete.
>Is this really all that bad?
I had to reinstall Catalina a few times in the past month. I usually lose half a day waiting for the restore to complete.
Seriously, though: Audio or updates not working on Linux is a thing from >10 years ago.
I guess it depends on your distro of choice, but I haven't seen an Ubuntu machine with these problems in a long long time. You install it and everything just works.
I guess it depends on your distro of choice, but I haven't seen an Ubuntu machine with these problems in a long long time. You install it and everything just works.
> Is this really all that bad? In the era of everything living in the cloud, it generally takes me only a couple hours to setup a system again from scratch.
In the 90s I used to laugh at my Windows friends who had to "reformat the C drive and re-install Windows" every month or so when it became unusable. Their excuses sounded much like yours: a lot of hand waving about how it's "not so bad" and not a big deal.
In the 90s I used to laugh at my Windows friends who had to "reformat the C drive and re-install Windows" every month or so when it became unusable. Their excuses sounded much like yours: a lot of hand waving about how it's "not so bad" and not a big deal.
If you are on an island that has no wired comms and you are restricted to a 4g connection that thousands seem to share the thought of re downloading 100s of gb at 9kb/sec isn’t something to look forward to.
Steve Jobs once said that an operating system was obsolete after 7 years. MacOS is now 36. MacOS X is now 19.
Yeah, but he said that as a sales pitch. Remember he was not an engineer.
The “Mac OS X” was more of a brand name than a singular OS. Each major release (the ones with new code names) was essentially a whole new OS. iOS just turned 13, but each year, it’s full of big changes.
I think Jobs might’ve been referring to the actual OS internals, not the brand name. As in, support period. After all, Linux (while not technically an OS) is older than Mac OS X / macOS, but it’s not obsolete. Just don’t expect to get security patches on kernels in the 2.x or 3.x range.
I think Jobs might’ve been referring to the actual OS internals, not the brand name. As in, support period. After all, Linux (while not technically an OS) is older than Mac OS X / macOS, but it’s not obsolete. Just don’t expect to get security patches on kernels in the 2.x or 3.x range.
I’ve had the new MacBook since December, but still using the old one because there’s no smooth upgrade path for me.
It's the bloat that is terrible. Chrome pages are 5x the size of the same page on Linux or Windows. You need 8GB minimum nowadays to run Catalina where Tiger it was 256MB.
> Chrome pages are 5x the size of the same page on Linux or Windows.
Source?
Source?
Did ya try it yourself? I did.
Even if they are larger:
1. How is this Apple’s fault? You’re complaining about a third-party application that Apple has no control over.
2. How can you be sure that Mac and Windows manage memory in the same way?
The nerds who sit around and stare at their computer metrics and gauges on their menu bar or desktop overlay are completely missing the point: is the computer usable and responsive?
I use both Mac and Windows daily and they’re basically the same thing and do all the same things, including running Chrome.
1. How is this Apple’s fault? You’re complaining about a third-party application that Apple has no control over.
2. How can you be sure that Mac and Windows manage memory in the same way?
The nerds who sit around and stare at their computer metrics and gauges on their menu bar or desktop overlay are completely missing the point: is the computer usable and responsive?
I use both Mac and Windows daily and they’re basically the same thing and do all the same things, including running Chrome.
It used to be a long running joke as well as practical wisdom on the Windows side to always wait for SP1 (Service Pack 1) for better stability and never to install the X.0 version.
For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available, even though the user experience isn’t as great with older hardware and support for external peripherals like the Trackpad. For machines that can run the latest macOS, I upgrade every two whole releases on macOS (and that after it’s way beyond a X.0 release) since security updates are made available to past releases for a few years.
Right now I’m on the latest Mojave release, and skipped Catalina completely. I’ll consider Big Sur a few minor releases after 11.0 is released. This also makes some practical sense because Apple works on features with a multi-year plan but releases them partially done in a “brand new version” (you’ll notice this pattern if you look at it).
I’m thankful to all the brave souls who venture sooner (intentionally or because they bought new hardware that will refuse to run an older OS) and pave the way for me to avoid potholes and land mines.
My days of tinkering with the computer and “yak shaving” are long over. Even though my comment may sound hostile to macOS, there’s no other OS I’d rather start using my personal computer with unless I really, really have to.
For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available, even though the user experience isn’t as great with older hardware and support for external peripherals like the Trackpad. For machines that can run the latest macOS, I upgrade every two whole releases on macOS (and that after it’s way beyond a X.0 release) since security updates are made available to past releases for a few years.
Right now I’m on the latest Mojave release, and skipped Catalina completely. I’ll consider Big Sur a few minor releases after 11.0 is released. This also makes some practical sense because Apple works on features with a multi-year plan but releases them partially done in a “brand new version” (you’ll notice this pattern if you look at it).
I’m thankful to all the brave souls who venture sooner (intentionally or because they bought new hardware that will refuse to run an older OS) and pave the way for me to avoid potholes and land mines.
My days of tinkering with the computer and “yak shaving” are long over. Even though my comment may sound hostile to macOS, there’s no other OS I’d rather start using my personal computer with unless I really, really have to.
> For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available
What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.
What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.
I’m not a fan of VMs for older machines since they tend to perform poorly. And 4GB RAM wouldn’t be adequate for that. I’d suggest dual booting with a separate partition for Linux. You can also choose distros that have a lower hardware requirement and perform better on older machines (my first choice is Xubuntu, but there are others too).
Make sure you still retain the macOS partition and installation (after resizing it down). There are tools like reFind [1] that can help you manage dual booting better (do read the extensive documentation and refer to it when needed).
It goes without saying that you should have a full disk backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! before you venture into these.
The experience on Linux may not be great out of the box (depending on your exact hardware). So I’d also suggest budgeting some time to iron out kinks and make it better.
[1]: https://rodsbooks.com/refind/
Make sure you still retain the macOS partition and installation (after resizing it down). There are tools like reFind [1] that can help you manage dual booting better (do read the extensive documentation and refer to it when needed).
It goes without saying that you should have a full disk backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! before you venture into these.
The experience on Linux may not be great out of the box (depending on your exact hardware). So I’d also suggest budgeting some time to iron out kinks and make it better.
[1]: https://rodsbooks.com/refind/
This is the way to go. But if you like a polished OS i would recommend Mint Cinnamon edition. Installed the Xfce version on my mothers ancient (T61 i think) Thinkpad, and the idiosyncracies were quiet annoying. Replaced it with the Cinnamon version which ran just fine.
On my Macbook Pro, I found Linux used more energy running directly, than running inside a VM (tested with VMware Fusion).
So I'm happy running Linux in a VM.
This might be due to the dual GPUs (on higher end MBPs), I didn't check further after the initial battery test.
It's nicer anyway, because of the ability to run MacOS and Linux at the same time, and four-finger swipe between their desktops. That way I get the nicer GUI of MacOS, consistently good touchpad (including in Linux), and Linux for my command line dev needs, and can use utilities for either that aren't available on the other.
On an old Macbook Air, Linux might us less energy running directly rather than VM. To be sure you'd have to try both.
4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You might need to stick with older versions of whatever you decide to use. I would pick one of the Linux distros that is explicitly for old machines and small memory usage.
So I'm happy running Linux in a VM.
This might be due to the dual GPUs (on higher end MBPs), I didn't check further after the initial battery test.
It's nicer anyway, because of the ability to run MacOS and Linux at the same time, and four-finger swipe between their desktops. That way I get the nicer GUI of MacOS, consistently good touchpad (including in Linux), and Linux for my command line dev needs, and can use utilities for either that aren't available on the other.
On an old Macbook Air, Linux might us less energy running directly rather than VM. To be sure you'd have to try both.
4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You might need to stick with older versions of whatever you decide to use. I would pick one of the Linux distros that is explicitly for old machines and small memory usage.
MacBookPro have a driver bug that makes the dGPU run at max power (20W) whenever it is on (which is always forced whenever an external monitor is connected). So that's not why Linux uses more energy. More likely Mac is better at turning down idle services like in Safari
Look into tuning TLP with a GUI if you plan on running Linux on your laptop and power usage is an issue.
> 4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You can use cgroups to limit the amount of memory an application can use. I use it to limit Firefox's memory usage on a machine with much more memory than that.
> 4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You can use cgroups to limit the amount of memory an application can use. I use it to limit Firefox's memory usage on a machine with much more memory than that.
For good, stable GUI install ChromeOS and then for CLI crostini or crosh/crouton do decent job as they are really just debian.. Neverware builds should work out of the box for MacAir.
I am using this for more then 3 years on Macs now and never considered going back to MacOS disaster.
I am using this for more then 3 years on Macs now and never considered going back to MacOS disaster.
Will you consider going back after Google makes it so that you cannot use Ublock Origin or similar level of adblocking in Chrome or is there some way to install a different browser on ChromeOS I don't know about?
Not going back to MacOS. I really lost heart for Apple software.
Perhaps BSD or some Linux? I can also drop Macbooks as their build quality tanked after 2015 and sooner or later I should get a new hardware.
Personaly I am not a Google hater. They do a lot wrong and stupid things but I am still seeing Google as net positive. Perhaps thats naive.
Perhaps BSD or some Linux? I can also drop Macbooks as their build quality tanked after 2015 and sooner or later I should get a new hardware.
Personaly I am not a Google hater. They do a lot wrong and stupid things but I am still seeing Google as net positive. Perhaps thats naive.
My office gives (almost) everyone a 2017 Macbook Air with dual core i5-5350U with 8Gb Ram and 128Gb ssd's. I installed Fedora last year October and been using it ever since.
Volume keys, brightness keys, touchpad & keyboard backlit all works perfect. Only problem is the kernel doesn't support the specific wifi module (broadcom) out of the box, so I installed Fedora via usb-lan dongle (netinstall), which the company also provides anyway. After installation you can install the broadcom modules yourself and it just work. Strange enough the bluetooth works out of the box.
I didn't dualboot or mess with any of that, just wiped the ssd clean and made partitions with the lvm automatic option in the Fedora installer.
Next time I will definitely install Fedora + Xfce instead of Gnome, since I'm using this combination on a another low spec machine and it's great. So maybe give the xfce spin a try.
Volume keys, brightness keys, touchpad & keyboard backlit all works perfect. Only problem is the kernel doesn't support the specific wifi module (broadcom) out of the box, so I installed Fedora via usb-lan dongle (netinstall), which the company also provides anyway. After installation you can install the broadcom modules yourself and it just work. Strange enough the bluetooth works out of the box.
I didn't dualboot or mess with any of that, just wiped the ssd clean and made partitions with the lvm automatic option in the Fedora installer.
Next time I will definitely install Fedora + Xfce instead of Gnome, since I'm using this combination on a another low spec machine and it's great. So maybe give the xfce spin a try.
Linux runs alright on old (pre-2016) MacBooks (Air/Pro). This is in contrast to the MacBooks in the era when they started introducing the touch bar, secure enclave, and APFS. A word of caution: don't multi-boot together with macOS with Linux on your internal drive (Linux on an external drive is fine if double booting).
Linux will run really well on a machine with 4GB of memory. Check out Plasma Desktop, you can mimic macOS with it pretty well[1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607850
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607850
You can try OpenBSD or NetBSD, but the biggest problem on all platforms is probably the browser with 4GB.
Just install it and use it.
Yes, QC of macOS releases is inadequate. I can’t say it’s really new though, even Tiger and Leopard had their issues on day 0 (it was also way worse in the 7.5.x era).
On the other hand, it is entirely possible to stay on a given version for the entire life of its successor. It is also possible to wait for the next x.5 version to upgrade, notwithstanding the incredibly annoying notification about a new major version being available (I don’t know how they can get away with that).
On the other hand, it is entirely possible to stay on a given version for the entire life of its successor. It is also possible to wait for the next x.5 version to upgrade, notwithstanding the incredibly annoying notification about a new major version being available (I don’t know how they can get away with that).
> On the other hand, it is entirely possible to stay on a given version for the entire life of its successor.
Or the successor of its successor:
Apple doesn't make any guarantees about it, but typically the _three_ most recent macOS versions receive security updates. Right now: 10.13, 10.14, and 10.15 (plus of course the 10.16 betas).
The real problem for many developers is that Xcode typically requires a fairly recent macOS version. Compiling for iOS is the one thing that developers absolutely _need_ a Mac for, so it's unfortunate that Xcode also forces you to be an early adopter on top of that.
Or the successor of its successor:
Apple doesn't make any guarantees about it, but typically the _three_ most recent macOS versions receive security updates. Right now: 10.13, 10.14, and 10.15 (plus of course the 10.16 betas).
The real problem for many developers is that Xcode typically requires a fairly recent macOS version. Compiling for iOS is the one thing that developers absolutely _need_ a Mac for, so it's unfortunate that Xcode also forces you to be an early adopter on top of that.
OSes (MacOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS) and Xcode get released in lockstep. The SDKs for each year’s OS releases will work only on that year’s Xcode, which runs on no earlier than the previous year’s MacOS. I’ve been able to transplant the SDK for iOS 13 (which requires MacOS 10.14) so that I can develop on MacOS 10.13 (the latest my MacBook Pro will run), but that’s about to run out. I may end up with a cheap dev-only Mac Mini.
Yes, I’ve had some issues with n-2th version support for some software. Although these days, support for older OSes from third-party developers is better than it used to be, I think.
macOS 10.15.6, which is a minor .6 version, should not cause a lot of concern, had a nasty bug with virtualization, breaking virtualbox/docker/..., it was well known within a week or two after the release. So it's not always good to wait for a .x version, it's sometimes more to wait for a few weeks after the release of any version.
Just in case you ever consider it for some reason, under no circumstances should you upgrade to Catalina. Worst OS I’ve used since I left windows nearly 20 years ago.
Could you elaborate on the issues you’ve been having? Been using Catalina since the beta and haven’t really had any major problems..
I'm not the original commenter but I've had this issue where the laptop reboots instead of sleeping properly. Keeps happening, not sure why, and many others have had it too on forums.
Had the same issue. Fixed once I uninstalled VirtualBox and the KEXT extention. Vbox was no longer needed because I switched to Docker.
Oh wow, this has been happening to my Mac as well. I am thinking of going back to a previous version.
I found that, paradoxically, putting a laptop explicitly to sleep (apple menu/sleep) before leaving the office helps ~80% of the time (i.e. in the morning it will not reset with kernel panic).
Early (cca 10.15.0 - 15.10.2) there was a problem mounting SMB share once it has been unmounted. Having to reboot just to get it mounted is not a fun.
Scanning with Samsung MFPs in color into PDFs is still broken, but this one is since 10.14 actually. 10.15 just made it worse, because the Samsung scanning app that could be used instead of Image Capture is 32-bit, so the workaround doesn't work anymore.
Scanning with Samsung MFPs in color into PDFs is still broken, but this one is since 10.14 actually. 10.15 just made it worse, because the Samsung scanning app that could be used instead of Image Capture is 32-bit, so the workaround doesn't work anymore.
The main issues seem to be around performance (random pauses), audio problems, suspend/resume. It's not just anecdotal (as someone else suggested), but also from observing the large number of people reporting the same problems on various support forums.
Most of my problems have been on older machines, so perhaps their QA has tanked.
Most of my problems have been on older machines, so perhaps their QA has tanked.
No, I mean, those are very reasonable things to be upset about, I definitely get it, and it shouldn’t be like that no matter the machine. If it’s ok’ed to run the version, it should run without a hitch.
It was pure curiosity on my part, because I haven’t really experienced any major bugs or problems.
It was pure curiosity on my part, because I haven’t really experienced any major bugs or problems.
I installed Catalina on one machine, kept the other on Mojave. I can't tell the difference between the two unless I'm looking hard, and both are equally reliable for me.
I had a lot of problems with Mojave and Catalina solved some of them. Catalina has been fine for me since the teething problems (and also it takes a week after install to make your way through all the permissions dialogs)
I'm on the Big Sur beta and even this late in the game it's really rough. You're better off upgrading to Catalina and sticking to that than making the jump to Big Sur after it comes out.
I'm on the Big Sur beta and even this late in the game it's really rough. You're better off upgrading to Catalina and sticking to that than making the jump to Big Sur after it comes out.
I'm really surprised at that - I've been running Big Sur as my main OS on my personal laptop since dev beta 2 and it's been pretty solid. A few small rough edges but it largely just works for me.
In the current beta I still have issues like the `bird` process being perpetually stuck at burning half a core, Spotlight no longer finding anything local (only web results) after a few days (until a reboot), my USB randomly stopping working (until I reboot), nearly daily timeout kernel panics undocking from my USB-C dock, and more stuff that doesn't come to mind right now
What are some major Big Sur pitfalls at the moment? Once it's officially released I planned on upgrading my dev machine.
But if feedback is not that great I will wait until the second point release at least...
But if feedback is not that great I will wait until the second point release at least...
Every OS has bugs, I can't see more show-stopper bugs in Catalina than any of the previous ones. Especially none that would stop me from working or being productive.
I run a Windows 10 machine (latest public release) and a macOS machine (latest Catalina release) and Windows 10 pisses me off infinitely more... it already starts with BS like 2 or 3 Setting menus. Why are they not consolidated after like 7 years...
Using Catalina without any issues at all. That said, the upgrade from Mojave was nothing significant on first sight.
I am likely missing some things that did improve - I don't have the change log on my mind right now - but nothing that jumps in your face right away.
I am likely missing some things that did improve - I don't have the change log on my mind right now - but nothing that jumps in your face right away.
Reasons being? Because I didn't have a single issue with Catalina.
People consider their anecdotal experiences as universal (I offer mine as a single counter example to the parent's experience), when it could be all kinds of weird factors in their case (a faulty hardware run, some incompatible peripherals, user errors attributed to the OS, application errors attributed to the OS and so on).
People consider their anecdotal experiences as universal (I offer mine as a single counter example to the parent's experience), when it could be all kinds of weird factors in their case (a faulty hardware run, some incompatible peripherals, user errors attributed to the OS, application errors attributed to the OS and so on).
Way slower (2-3x in compile tasks), always doing some crap. Every time I open any app, sometimes a 5 - 10 second pause while It does some internet shchenanigans, more frequent crashes, many more minor gripes.
Yeah i also do love all the recent updates, i am very happy with macOS.
To not make it sound like it's all roses, some issues I had (mostly with hardware though):
1) I hated the butterfly keyboard (but fortunately they have changed that now, even if it took them 3 years, unfortunately I'm stuck with a buttefly model myself)
2) I hate the touch strip - at least the restored the Escape button, but I have no use for it and it just sits there (had higher hopes when it was introduced).
3) I'd like more than 1 port in the MacBook (not that I have one, but I read rumours that they plan to release a new MacBook with AS that I'm interested in)
4) What is the genious that designed the mouse that doesn't work while it charges?
5) I know about "price differentiation" but having the black mouse/keyboards more expensive is a dick move.
That said, 2 things I do:
1) At least every 2 OS releases I do a clean new macOS install. No particular concrete reason, but it might help my case having a "cleaner" system.
2) I've never cared/used Time Machine. I use CCC on my own. So I never have the TM related issues some people seem to have.
1) I hated the butterfly keyboard (but fortunately they have changed that now, even if it took them 3 years, unfortunately I'm stuck with a buttefly model myself)
2) I hate the touch strip - at least the restored the Escape button, but I have no use for it and it just sits there (had higher hopes when it was introduced).
3) I'd like more than 1 port in the MacBook (not that I have one, but I read rumours that they plan to release a new MacBook with AS that I'm interested in)
4) What is the genious that designed the mouse that doesn't work while it charges?
5) I know about "price differentiation" but having the black mouse/keyboards more expensive is a dick move.
That said, 2 things I do:
1) At least every 2 OS releases I do a clean new macOS install. No particular concrete reason, but it might help my case having a "cleaner" system.
2) I've never cared/used Time Machine. I use CCC on my own. So I never have the TM related issues some people seem to have.
I have a 2013 trash can, Catalina kernel panics non stop every 2 hours. Googling around and I found so many others with issues. I got the fan app and cranked the fans full blast thinking it was over heating, I even tore the system down and replaced the thermal paste and cleaned it down, and all I did was drop the idle temp by 1 degree, but still constant kernel panics.
I downgraded to Mojave as I wanted 32bit back, and as a last try before I just gut it for CPU and RAM, and it’ll run for weeks at a time, with me moving, and updates the only thing that had me reboot or shut down.
There is no QA at Apple, they clearly never tested Catalina on a 2013 Mac Pro.
I downgraded to Mojave as I wanted 32bit back, and as a last try before I just gut it for CPU and RAM, and it’ll run for weeks at a time, with me moving, and updates the only thing that had me reboot or shut down.
There is no QA at Apple, they clearly never tested Catalina on a 2013 Mac Pro.
MacOS has so many features I'll never use. It is starting to feel bloated. I wonder if modern OSs did less would be smaller and feel snappier?
Apple can't win here can they, one person complains they remove too much functionality, the next complains the operating system is bloated.
Well you do reap what you sow, don't you?
I feel for developers on macOS bugs, bloat and unreliability, but for many users, it still works every day for 5 to 7 years without issue, and updates just mean some new emoji are available.
Unless you're on a device that can only be upgraded to 10.13, after which it won't get security updates anymore after 11 is released. Meanwhile, I can still put W10 on 10-12 year old PCs and it'll run fine (if the hardware wasn't particularly terrible even for back then). It might not support some of the latest features, but it works and you're not subject to some arbitrary decision by Microsoft as to whether you're allowed to use W10 or not.
W10 is terrible on traditional hard drives which most PC's were using 10-12 years ago. We are also at the tail end of the core 2 duo era, those devices aren't really up to the job.
well, a cheap SSD costs 20€. And you know, with 95% of Windows-based PCs you can just replace the harddisk. whoaaaa
I use Windows at work occasionally and I can't get over how much clicking I have to do. Also some basic stuff is missing without convoluted work arounds (such as resetting the default app to open a file type to none). W10 is not in the same league as MacOS despite MacOs getting worse.
Windows 10 on a core 2 duo and an SSD is still pretty quick, it just doesn't run well on HDDs.
My early-2013 (7.5 years old now) will be getting Big Sur and 3-4 years support after that.
And it still works like new - something that I’ve never heard about a similarly aged Win19 device unless it was very recently reinstalled.
You’re likely to have problems finding drivers for your other hardware, though - especially 10-year old printers or scanners (even though they are likely to work out of the box on Modern Mac and Linux)
And it still works like new - something that I’ve never heard about a similarly aged Win19 device unless it was very recently reinstalled.
You’re likely to have problems finding drivers for your other hardware, though - especially 10-year old printers or scanners (even though they are likely to work out of the box on Modern Mac and Linux)
Currently working part-time as a PC technician. Recently had a 10 year old PC here that had to be upgraded to W10. Did Microsoft complain? Nope. I replaced the HDD with an SSD and it ran fine. I've done this with 10 year old laptops too. I simply prefer a platform that doesn't decide for me whether I'm allowed to install it or not. And any device that runs fine on W10 now will most likely run it fine in the future too. Microsoft isn't going to "drop support" for old devices just because they're tired of supporting it. It's like you Apple guys literally have Stockholm syndrome, rationalizing this crap to yourselves.
And you'd be surprised what kind of old hardware still works on W10.
And you'd be surprised what kind of old hardware still works on W10.
I’m not an Apple person, I’m a Linux person although I do have one old Mac as well (that will be retired when it stops being useful - likely in 3-4 years).
I’ve tried to help family who were tricked into a win10 upgrade by the dark patterns of the “free upgrade to win 10” window. Some had to buy new printers/scanners because win 10 didn’t support their perfectly-working in XP and win7 ones. (My modern Linux Laptop had no such problems). Also a WinModem of some sort used as a built in fax machine.
As a Linux person, I find it funny that you refer to Windows as “platform that allows me to install or not”. It allows you to install but as of Win10, unless you are on Enterprise or LTSB, it doesn’t let you not install. It’s no longer your machine - you paid for it, but it’s Microsoft’s to manage/brick as they see fit.
I’ve tried to help family who were tricked into a win10 upgrade by the dark patterns of the “free upgrade to win 10” window. Some had to buy new printers/scanners because win 10 didn’t support their perfectly-working in XP and win7 ones. (My modern Linux Laptop had no such problems). Also a WinModem of some sort used as a built in fax machine.
As a Linux person, I find it funny that you refer to Windows as “platform that allows me to install or not”. It allows you to install but as of Win10, unless you are on Enterprise or LTSB, it doesn’t let you not install. It’s no longer your machine - you paid for it, but it’s Microsoft’s to manage/brick as they see fit.
Add some SSD for the OS, and a budget GPU, you don’t have to go crazy and 10 will be very usable.
Even a 2006 Mac Pro, with 3ghz processors, SSD and a GTX 1030 is still great for day to day.
Even a 2006 Mac Pro, with 3ghz processors, SSD and a GTX 1030 is still great for day to day.
It's been fun, MacOS, but it looks like our time is drawing to a close.
With competitive, affordable AMD hardware and better GPU support, both WSL and Linux (KDE Plasma) offer compelling competition.
The only rebuttal from Apple being extra padding on the UI, so it seems like I am no longer your target audience.
Fair well, it was a beautiful, cohesive experience while it lasted.
With competitive, affordable AMD hardware and better GPU support, both WSL and Linux (KDE Plasma) offer compelling competition.
The only rebuttal from Apple being extra padding on the UI, so it seems like I am no longer your target audience.
Fair well, it was a beautiful, cohesive experience while it lasted.
Bigger padding around UI elements is literally my biggest annoyance with Big Sur. (and still, missing subpixel rendering, hence staying on 10.11 here)
Was thinking about jumping ship but:
- MacBook Air is still lovely (once ahem I had keyboard fixed)
- Basic productivity tools on Linux - eg email or word processing - still suck and I want native apps for such things.
Any solution?
- MacBook Air is still lovely (once ahem I had keyboard fixed)
- Basic productivity tools on Linux - eg email or word processing - still suck and I want native apps for such things.
Any solution?
For email and word processing, it depends on what you've previously used. I would say that LibreOffice is quite all right for word processing. Also have a look at FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) which aims for great compatibility with MS Office.
For an email client, I personally use the GMail web client nowadays, but I've used Thunderbird for a long time and it's fine (not as polished and good looking as Mail.app on MacOS though).
For an email client, I personally use the GMail web client nowadays, but I've used Thunderbird for a long time and it's fine (not as polished and good looking as Mail.app on MacOS though).
Why is it free? What's the catch?
Ads, premium features?
Ads, premium features?
Geary and google docs
I recently switched to macOS after using Linux pretty much exclusively for personal use over the last 5 years. (2020 MacBook Air)
For me the most infuriating thing is that Apple completely hides what is actually going on from the user.
Want to manually scale your display to an exact resolution? Go to Displays, Hold down the option key and then click on the text next to a radio button. WTF!!! Who designed this, this is completely non nondiscoverable.
An exFAT external hard drive wasn't "shut down correctly" ... no problem Mac OS will just run fsck in the background and refuse mount the drive or let you examine the disk in Disk Utility until it is complete. If you kill -9 the fsck, you get stuck in some limbo state where you can't mount the disk or run diagnostics on it.
The worst thing I have discovered is Pages... The stylesheets and layout logic make absolutely no sense, it is way worse than Word or Libreoffice.
However the OS does run smoother on a day to day basis than my work provided MacBook Pro 2019 running Mojave, and there is absolutely no screen tearing.
For me the most infuriating thing is that Apple completely hides what is actually going on from the user.
Want to manually scale your display to an exact resolution? Go to Displays, Hold down the option key and then click on the text next to a radio button. WTF!!! Who designed this, this is completely non nondiscoverable.
An exFAT external hard drive wasn't "shut down correctly" ... no problem Mac OS will just run fsck in the background and refuse mount the drive or let you examine the disk in Disk Utility until it is complete. If you kill -9 the fsck, you get stuck in some limbo state where you can't mount the disk or run diagnostics on it.
The worst thing I have discovered is Pages... The stylesheets and layout logic make absolutely no sense, it is way worse than Word or Libreoffice.
However the OS does run smoother on a day to day basis than my work provided MacBook Pro 2019 running Mojave, and there is absolutely no screen tearing.
> Hold down the option key and then click on the text next to a radio button. WTF!!! Who designed this, this is completely non nondiscoverable.
This could be a clever designer, if for example the team decided that Mac users don't need manual resolution settings, and this designer lost the argument. So they stick it behind a keypress and make sure word gets out.
The team only cares about what they can see, a common issue with teams. So they don't notice and the designer at least knows they've saved some major pain, at the cost of some annoyance.
If you've worked with people who design for social bell-curve psychology, you have probably been confronted with this problem before. And this is just one possible explanation...
This could be a clever designer, if for example the team decided that Mac users don't need manual resolution settings, and this designer lost the argument. So they stick it behind a keypress and make sure word gets out.
The team only cares about what they can see, a common issue with teams. So they don't notice and the designer at least knows they've saved some major pain, at the cost of some annoyance.
If you've worked with people who design for social bell-curve psychology, you have probably been confronted with this problem before. And this is just one possible explanation...
A lot of macOS seems designed this way, it took me months of using macOS daily before I learnt these little tricks, e.g. pressing option before many operations generally shows an advanced menu (advanced network connection stats, finder merge folder option etc). I'd like for there to be an option for power users where this is the default behaviour if enabled.
I've been using MacOS for nearly 15 years now, and I've only just discovered that the Finder toolbar can be customised.
In fact you can park your own shell scripts on it, although setting that up is a bit of a performance.
In fact you can park your own shell scripts on it, although setting that up is a bit of a performance.
MacOS just hides a ton of advanced things like that behind the "option-click on things", so it's not like it's an uncommon occurence.
It’s a way to make it possible for customer support to tell people what to do, while not overcomplicating the operating system for the 99.9% of users who do not care about things like manually setting resolutions if they even know what it is.
It’s like the habit of using key combinations to interrupt the boot up sequence, it introduces necessary facilities that aren’t in the way of you don’t need them or don’t even know about them.
It’s like the habit of using key combinations to interrupt the boot up sequence, it introduces necessary facilities that aren’t in the way of you don’t need them or don’t even know about them.
This is why community maintained software tends to have better UIs; you just have users and developers (who are often the same) and none of this “bell-curve psychology.” WPA-GUI is awesome for example, but you can’t sell it because it doesn’t look awesome.
> this is completely non nondiscoverable
I also don’t find this discoverable, but option clicking was best analogy to right clicking on Apple since the mouse used to have one button.
Your complaint is like saying that having to copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v is non discoverable in Windows with a two button mouse because in Linux it’s just select text and middle click somewhere else.
I also don’t find this discoverable, but option clicking was best analogy to right clicking on Apple since the mouse used to have one button.
Your complaint is like saying that having to copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v is non discoverable in Windows with a two button mouse because in Linux it’s just select text and middle click somewhere else.
How is that non-discoverable? Most software literally tells you beside the copy/paste entry that it is ctrl+c/v.
"Your complaint is like saying that having to copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v is non discoverable in Windows with a two button mouse because in Linux it’s just select text and middle click somewhere else."
No it isn't, because those functions have equivalent menu items.
Easter-egg controls in a GUI are a different (and inexcusable) story.
No it isn't, because those functions have equivalent menu items.
Easter-egg controls in a GUI are a different (and inexcusable) story.
Selecting text and it going to a clipboard is just as Easter eggy in my opinion. How is a user supposed to discover that?
> option clicking was best analogy to right clicking on Apple since the mouse used to have one button.
Not high praise for Apple, wasn't the 1 button mouse the laughing stock of mouse users everywhere? :-)
Not high praise for Apple, wasn't the 1 button mouse the laughing stock of mouse users everywhere? :-)
Only the ones who’d learned about two-button mice.
When the one-button mouse arrived, the majority of the population had never touched a mouse.
When the one-button mouse arrived, the majority of the population had never touched a mouse.
> If you kill -9 the fsck
“For science,” right? I mean why would you do that? If you did that on Linux, would things really be better?
“For science,” right? I mean why would you do that? If you did that on Linux, would things really be better?
it can get stuck and not do anything no matter how long you leave it.
I'm not sure, but can you actually access a drive on Linux while it's being fsck'd? It sounds quite logical not to mount the drive, although perhaps one could get some mileage from mounting it RO.
> Apple completely hides what is actually going on from the user
That's intentional. I know people, ranging from barely computer-aware to MSc., who don't/can't understand what you would mean by resolution. Or exFAT. Or kill -9. However, they do know how to mess up with the slightest amount of power given to them. Hiding the system is a boon.
I'm a computer enginer, and for me, macOS is a great blend of power and simplicity/usability. I won't be happy if they mess up the OS or the hardware.
> Apple completely hides what is actually going on from the user
That's intentional. I know people, ranging from barely computer-aware to MSc., who don't/can't understand what you would mean by resolution. Or exFAT. Or kill -9. However, they do know how to mess up with the slightest amount of power given to them. Hiding the system is a boon.
I'm a computer enginer, and for me, macOS is a great blend of power and simplicity/usability. I won't be happy if they mess up the OS or the hardware.
> I recently switched to macOS from Linux
Why would you do that?
Why would you do that?
It's not really as easy as: macOS is better or Linux is better. Both suck in their own little ways, not as much at Windows, which still manage to cramp up my hand for some reason.
Linux has an amazing level of freedom and flexibility, macOS still have the faster and more responsive GUI. The main reason for me to buy into the Apple ecosystem is still Apple trackpads, both those on the laptops and the external Magic Trackpad. Those are my input device of choice. I really do not want to go back to using a mouse or trackball again.
Linux has an amazing level of freedom and flexibility, macOS still have the faster and more responsive GUI. The main reason for me to buy into the Apple ecosystem is still Apple trackpads, both those on the laptops and the external Magic Trackpad. Those are my input device of choice. I really do not want to go back to using a mouse or trackball again.
I really have been appreciating this Logitech MX vertical mouse. Find it more comfortable than using a trackpad all day - https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/mx-vertical-ergonomic...
Sadly most ergonomic devices is for right handed users only. The vertical mouse is useless if you're left handed, like me.
>Want to manually scale your display to an exact resolution? Go to Displays, Hold down the option key and then click on the text next to a radio button. WTF!!! Who designed this, this is completely non nondiscoverable.
I agree with the UI discoverability point, but it is called out in the documentation.
I agree with the UI discoverability point, but it is called out in the documentation.
Do you have a link to the documentation? Genuinely curious to learn how to use my Mac better but a search for "Mac OS Manual" in google turned up no useful results for Catalina.
I think in general macOS is an amazing operating system, recent Catalina bugs aside.
Something related: what I've been really living with is the T2 chip kernel panic hardware bug. Over 3 different models (the 2017, 2018, then the 2019 16-inch MBP which is my current), I've seen Apple go from:
- The initial full-scale buggy behaviour of 1-2 complete system crash & forced reboots per week;
- to Apple suddenly deleting all my previous system kernel crash logs (and no longer recording new ones in Console.app) without my consent or knowledge even though it's my own machine that I paid over $5000 for (must be silent updates of some kind because it happened in between macOS updates);
- to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
So they've improved it but it's still disruptive and noticeable, and plain unacceptable on hardware this expensive.
Yes, I'm slowly planning a move to Linux, but it's not easy, it will take time and it's a major adjustment depending on what your computer needs are. Linux Mint Cinnamon seems the safest bet to me.
I say all this knowing how catastrophically worse Windows 10 is in terms of bugs like Windows updates suddenly hard deleting your entire Documents folder.
Something related: what I've been really living with is the T2 chip kernel panic hardware bug. Over 3 different models (the 2017, 2018, then the 2019 16-inch MBP which is my current), I've seen Apple go from:
- The initial full-scale buggy behaviour of 1-2 complete system crash & forced reboots per week;
- to Apple suddenly deleting all my previous system kernel crash logs (and no longer recording new ones in Console.app) without my consent or knowledge even though it's my own machine that I paid over $5000 for (must be silent updates of some kind because it happened in between macOS updates);
- to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
So they've improved it but it's still disruptive and noticeable, and plain unacceptable on hardware this expensive.
Yes, I'm slowly planning a move to Linux, but it's not easy, it will take time and it's a major adjustment depending on what your computer needs are. Linux Mint Cinnamon seems the safest bet to me.
I say all this knowing how catastrophically worse Windows 10 is in terms of bugs like Windows updates suddenly hard deleting your entire Documents folder.
Recently made that move having spent most of my life on MacOS. For me it was the feeling of losing control of my system (plus the recent quality issues -- feels like they're busy pushing new features out instead of fixing the bugs with the existing ones).
I thought it would be a lot harder than it was for me, but in the end I'm now much happier on Linux than I was on OSX. There's no specialist software I need that doesn't work on Linux, so it was probably easier for me than if you, say, work in FinalCut all the time.
I thought it would be a lot harder than it was for me, but in the end I'm now much happier on Linux than I was on OSX. There's no specialist software I need that doesn't work on Linux, so it was probably easier for me than if you, say, work in FinalCut all the time.
> to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
That's not a kernel panic then, by definition a kernel panic is an unrecoverable event. What you're seeing is likely an issue somewhere in the GUI/GPU driver stack. Windows used to crash upon such issues too, they mitigated it by moving lots of stuff to userspace.
For me, what is a regular event is freezing for a dozen seconds whenever I alt-tab to Cisco VPN, but ah well that may also be a result of shoddy antivirus software.
That's not a kernel panic then, by definition a kernel panic is an unrecoverable event. What you're seeing is likely an issue somewhere in the GUI/GPU driver stack. Windows used to crash upon such issues too, they mitigated it by moving lots of stuff to userspace.
For me, what is a regular event is freezing for a dozen seconds whenever I alt-tab to Cisco VPN, but ah well that may also be a result of shoddy antivirus software.
I have these regularly when I wake my 16inch macbook from sleep. Keyboard+Trackpad+(Touchbar) Freeze for 30s or up to 1min.. and then it continues like nothing happened. Haven't found much info about that, but reading this, it seems to fit. I'm really digging my machine, but those "silent" errors and apple not admitting anything takes a lot of fun out of it.
OK, I might now agree with that. Perhaps it's a second issue (which only makes the criticism stronger). I still do occasionally get the T2 'crash', i.e. entire system reboot, but not very often. What's most frustrating is how Apple's taken away control of troubleshooting and knowledge about one's own device and what's going on with it, for their own business reasons. Extremely hostile to the consumer.
I would really go with regular Ubuntu for the best support. It really just works and you don't need to put any effort in getting things running smoothly.
I went from Ubuntu to macOS as my daily driver because the company switched to Macbooks. I really like the integration of everything. Especially for developers, though, Ubuntu is the perfect OS.
I went from Ubuntu to macOS as my daily driver because the company switched to Macbooks. I really like the integration of everything. Especially for developers, though, Ubuntu is the perfect OS.
I would have said Ubuntu a year ago, but I've been watching the Desktop Linux space closely for a year now, and it appears Mint is actually more user friendly than Ubuntu, which is quite surprising and nice to know (I'm not a fan of Snap centralisation either). E.g. the GUI app store is superior, it's been demonstrated...along with other things that actually matter under the 'just works' category.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Yep. Mint doesn't have snaps and they've switched their base from Ubuntu to Debian. They haven't caught up to Ubuntu yet but I expect them to eventually. I don't care for Cinnamon myself but they still have an XFCE edition and you can install KDE or another desktop without issues.
As a long-term mac user, I hope that the transition to ARM and what goes along with it, is largely responsible for what went wrong in recent years. Not only did this transition for sure mean a lot of team reshuffling, additional tasks to do etc. To my understanding, there was a big reorg in the code base itself. iOS began as a fork of macOS (or rather OS X as it was called back then), and over the years, those two codes bases drifted apart.
To my understanding, with the move to Apple Silicon, not only macOS was ported to the new architecture, but the code bases got merged again. So the aim is to have one universal core onto which the separate teams can build iOS/iPadOS/watchOS/tvOS and of course macOS.
Such a big code refactoring is of course a very big undertaking, causing a lot of disruption. But once it is finished, not only the disruption goes away, but hopefully maintenance is easier and more systematic. If that holds true, then macOS should be improving again moving forward. That all platforms use identical or at least very similar hardware should also help stability.
Such a big code refactoring is of course a very big undertaking, causing a lot of disruption. But once it is finished, not only the disruption goes away, but hopefully maintenance is easier and more systematic. If that holds true, then macOS should be improving again moving forward. That all platforms use identical or at least very similar hardware should also help stability.
“ The most intransigent problem with failed EFI firmware updates has been with the iMac Retina 5K 27-inch Late 2015, or iMac17,1. Some have sailed through updates bringing them to version 428.0.0.0.0, others remain firmly stuck at 170.0.0.0.0, which was current for macOS Mojave 10.14.6 in July 2019.”
The first time I tried to update my late 2015 27” iMac, it bricked the system, and I had to reinstall from Time Machine backup. I gave up on updating for quite some time, every day having to dismiss the reminder to update. Recently, I was able to update to Catalina. It was painful and took multiple tries, but eventually it got there.
The first time I tried to update my late 2015 27” iMac, it bricked the system, and I had to reinstall from Time Machine backup. I gave up on updating for quite some time, every day having to dismiss the reminder to update. Recently, I was able to update to Catalina. It was painful and took multiple tries, but eventually it got there.
I used Linux as my main operating system on the desktop for 16-17 years before switching to OSX. The reason was that I was tired of having laptops that didn't work properly and the endless weeks of tweaking whenever I got a new laptop. It also helped that Macbooks were pretty decent laptops.
I needed a portable UNIX machine. First and foremost. The software available for it was a bonus.
In the latter half of the 2010s the quality of the Macbooks has had a sharp downturn. The majority of the Macbook Pros my team has bought has had problems. Keyboard, screen connectors, batteries, etc. Fully one third of them have had more than one problem (including recurrence of the same problem after repair).
Experiences colleagues have had with the new Macbook Pro 16" are also quite depressing. Reports of the thing thermal-throttling and spinning up its fans like crazy doesn't make me want to upgrade from my 2015 Macbook Pro 15". I'll hang on to that machine until there's nothing left of it.
The hardware quality argument for Apple is gone. They are odd, fragile, finnicky devices that you can't really repair (it is too expensive, and the approved repair shops generally do not have the qualifications to do board repairs - they can only reliably, and expensively, replace stuff).
And while people have their own anecdata, I've had to approve computer purchases for my department for the last 6-7 years. We do NOT have anywhere near these kinds of problems with Thinkpads.
I, rather foolishly, installed Catalina, and what is immediately obvious is where Apple is heading: they want to lock down Macs more. Getting software from parties that have not paid Apple for access (come on, let's be honest, this is about money) to run is getting more and more painful. And a few things simply do not run anymore.
The trajectory Apple is on means that I might go back to using Macs as my secondary platform - or even start to look to Windows as my secondary platform. With Linux as my primary platform.
I think that right now is perhaps the time in the last 20 years where having more desktop software for Linux would be a very good thing. I really, really want Fusion 360, Affinity suite, Ableton Live etc on Linux now.
Because I really, really do not want Apple to be part of my future if they are going to become a fully walled garden running on marginal hardware.
I needed a portable UNIX machine. First and foremost. The software available for it was a bonus.
In the latter half of the 2010s the quality of the Macbooks has had a sharp downturn. The majority of the Macbook Pros my team has bought has had problems. Keyboard, screen connectors, batteries, etc. Fully one third of them have had more than one problem (including recurrence of the same problem after repair).
Experiences colleagues have had with the new Macbook Pro 16" are also quite depressing. Reports of the thing thermal-throttling and spinning up its fans like crazy doesn't make me want to upgrade from my 2015 Macbook Pro 15". I'll hang on to that machine until there's nothing left of it.
The hardware quality argument for Apple is gone. They are odd, fragile, finnicky devices that you can't really repair (it is too expensive, and the approved repair shops generally do not have the qualifications to do board repairs - they can only reliably, and expensively, replace stuff).
And while people have their own anecdata, I've had to approve computer purchases for my department for the last 6-7 years. We do NOT have anywhere near these kinds of problems with Thinkpads.
I, rather foolishly, installed Catalina, and what is immediately obvious is where Apple is heading: they want to lock down Macs more. Getting software from parties that have not paid Apple for access (come on, let's be honest, this is about money) to run is getting more and more painful. And a few things simply do not run anymore.
The trajectory Apple is on means that I might go back to using Macs as my secondary platform - or even start to look to Windows as my secondary platform. With Linux as my primary platform.
I think that right now is perhaps the time in the last 20 years where having more desktop software for Linux would be a very good thing. I really, really want Fusion 360, Affinity suite, Ableton Live etc on Linux now.
Because I really, really do not want Apple to be part of my future if they are going to become a fully walled garden running on marginal hardware.
I honestly miss the classic Macs of the 80s and 90s. Sure they had their bad points. The operating system let badly-behaved applications stomp all over the address space and crash the machine, and preference files (as well as the desktop database) got corrupted frequently.
But they were so easy to use! The operating system was so simple you as one person could understand the whole thing. There weren’t countless background processes running all the time. You knew exactly which applications were running (only one, in the case of system 6.0 and earlier).
And Apple was a different company back then. They were artists and underdogs. Now they’ve become this ruthless capitalist machine of staggering scale. I guess nothing good lasts forever.
But they were so easy to use! The operating system was so simple you as one person could understand the whole thing. There weren’t countless background processes running all the time. You knew exactly which applications were running (only one, in the case of system 6.0 and earlier).
And Apple was a different company back then. They were artists and underdogs. Now they’ve become this ruthless capitalist machine of staggering scale. I guess nothing good lasts forever.
Nice try. Tell you what: what if you come work for me and deal with developers whose machines break and deciding how to spend a limited hardware budget so as to maximise productivity and minimize downtime.
I am, of course, assuming you will be doing this for free. Certainly the opportunity to troll people will be its own reward.
I am, of course, assuming you will be doing this for free. Certainly the opportunity to troll people will be its own reward.
I have recently switched to Linux (ArchLinux)[1] after a not so happy ending with macOS. The new features that Apple keeps adding to macOS helps no developer and are consumer-oriented. I feel this is the new direction they are taking. As Apple gained momentum in the smartphone space, they want to capitalize that on the laptop market. And what's better than giving your users something they are already familiar with: iOS.
So macOS is slowly drifting to become iOS. While this might be good for your average consumer as she'll be comfortable manipulating the same patterns of the interface, for the developer it means less performance, less customization, more gatekeeping, etc...
In the future, I think there will be two types of OSes: A developer OS (probably a custom built Linux for the developer or the company) and a consumer OS. The divergence will be big enough that consumer OSes can no longer be used to do any useful programming (aside from programming for the said platform).
1: https://omarabid.com/apple-walled-garden
So macOS is slowly drifting to become iOS. While this might be good for your average consumer as she'll be comfortable manipulating the same patterns of the interface, for the developer it means less performance, less customization, more gatekeeping, etc...
In the future, I think there will be two types of OSes: A developer OS (probably a custom built Linux for the developer or the company) and a consumer OS. The divergence will be big enough that consumer OSes can no longer be used to do any useful programming (aside from programming for the said platform).
1: https://omarabid.com/apple-walled-garden
At work we were asked to upgrade to Catalina for security/maintainability reasons. There was a list of "Known Issues" with Catalina linked in the email asking us to upgrade.
The list was comical. Had at least 5 things on it that, if they happened to me, would completely ruin my productivity.
I've spent most of my life on macOS but it does seem to be unraveling, while Windows and Linux are only getting better these days.
The list was comical. Had at least 5 things on it that, if they happened to me, would completely ruin my productivity.
I've spent most of my life on macOS but it does seem to be unraveling, while Windows and Linux are only getting better these days.
No, it's just a bizarro question. I've been using it since 2003, and it's stabler than ever, while doing more for the user than ever (new fs, virtualization support, Handover, Continuity, and tons of other stuff besides).
> Handover, Continuity
I never got any of that stuff to work reliably before I moved off the Mac completely. It would sometimes work and often not work. Often enough that I wrote both of those features off as simple keynote gimmicks.
I never got any of that stuff to work reliably before I moved off the Mac completely. It would sometimes work and often not work. Often enough that I wrote both of those features off as simple keynote gimmicks.
MacOS is amazing. It's a 20-year-old fork of BSD, maintained by a company that differentiates itself via hardware rather than software, and yet it's still "competitive" (more or less) with Windows and Linux today.
Law of headlines: the answer is no.
Yes, it’s bad that a few people are having issues updating firmware. We don’t know how many are versus aren’t. But the article goes down a technical rabbit hole that regular users don’t care about, and I suspect the number of affected users is minuscule.
Plenty of Windows users including myself never bother updating audio/chipset/WiFi drivers unless there’s an actual problem.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Apple’s choice to use the OS updates to also update firmware. It’s typically a benefit to the customer: Mac users never had to worry about updating drivers. I’ve owned plenty of Lenovo and Dell systems with infuriating automatic update software and I much prefer Apple’s approach.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Apple retail employees not knowing how to update firmware. It’s a retail store. There isn’t anything special about it just because it has an Apple logo on the side, and yet every technically inclined Apple customer expects the $18/hour store associates to immediately know how to do complicated things like this.
In reality, I suspect the reason why Apple employees are clueless on what to do is that the problem is so rare.
Yes, it’s bad that a few people are having issues updating firmware. We don’t know how many are versus aren’t. But the article goes down a technical rabbit hole that regular users don’t care about, and I suspect the number of affected users is minuscule.
Plenty of Windows users including myself never bother updating audio/chipset/WiFi drivers unless there’s an actual problem.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Apple’s choice to use the OS updates to also update firmware. It’s typically a benefit to the customer: Mac users never had to worry about updating drivers. I’ve owned plenty of Lenovo and Dell systems with infuriating automatic update software and I much prefer Apple’s approach.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Apple retail employees not knowing how to update firmware. It’s a retail store. There isn’t anything special about it just because it has an Apple logo on the side, and yet every technically inclined Apple customer expects the $18/hour store associates to immediately know how to do complicated things like this.
In reality, I suspect the reason why Apple employees are clueless on what to do is that the problem is so rare.
> We are heading rapidly towards the corollary to “it just works” being “and if it doesn’t, just wipe everything and re-install”.
This was my experience with an issue where my Mac just hangs for 30 s randomly.
This was my experience with an issue where my Mac just hangs for 30 s randomly.
I experience this also, turns out the bluetooth was trying to detect keyboards and mouse even after I turned it off and explicitly turn off all bluetooth on startup options.
This. Apple's inability to admit fault coupled with decreasing software stability makes life difficult in many ways. For instance, aside from the obvious detrimental effects of OS bugs, it's often quite difficult to find specific solutions without a specific error message. "$APP silently fails" or "Why is my framerate so low?" don't always lead to answers, even though there are probably many others running into the same issues.