[davedx]

I agree, especially for development.

If you want to do non-Microsoft development, your main choices are buy a Macbook or buy another laptop and put Linux on it.

Personally I still prefer macOS to any other desktop OS out there by a very long way. It makes my life so much easier and more productive.

[rusk]

It's in this light that WSL is particularly interesting ... it's like Microsoft asked a few people why they liked MacOS and they answered "Unix" ... so they've come up with an answer to that. It may be limited at the moment but it's not hard to see where it's going. Add to that it's an up-to-date version of Linux, vs Apple's ageing BSD fork ...

[on_and_off]

It is not just Unix.

Although I really love that part of OsX, this is not the only reason why I prefer it to windows.

Last time I tried windows 10, it took me 2 minutes before stumbling on an icon right out of Windows Vista (or at least it really looked disjointed with the rest of the OS).

Install/Uninstall an app on Osx ? Use the same metaphor than for a file and put it in Applications or Trash. Contrast this with the clutter in windows menu ..

OsX is really far from perfect and in fact I feel it regress each year but it is still better than the competition.

[rusk]

Yes it certainly is. But it used to be so much better. Snow Leopard was a high point. I can't really say I like much of what they've done in the last few releases.

Does it strike anybody as strange that an operating system is getting worse over time rather than better?

[epoch1970]

> Does it strike anybody as strange that an operating system is getting worse over time rather than better?

I somewhat expect it, as we've seen desktop OSes come to be influenced by mobile OSes, or worse, as we've seen desktop OSes modified to also act as mobile OSes.

Trying to combine these two very different types of usage into one product, like we've seen with recent versions of Windows and open source desktop environments (like GNOME 3), results in the worst of both worlds.

Even in the case of macOS, where there's at least some separation, the influence from the mobile side can still harm the desktop experience.

[astrodust]

"Worse" is highly subjective. It's gotten cheaper, which I don't mind, it's maintained a reasonable degree of hardware support, like my 2010 iMac still runs current releases just fine, and I've never had any major issues with software after the 32-bit to 64-bit transition where a lot of compiled Ruby extensions were busted.

What do you think they should be doing to make it "better"? Steering an operating system is not easy.

They're rolling out their new filesystem. They're adjusting the way it can schedule things to improve battery life. Things like that may not sound profound but they're important.

[rusk]

Yeah fair enough maybe there are a few interesting things going on in the background ... I am speaking more from a user experience point of view - I got used to things "just working" and I suppose I've been spoiled. Back to reality!

[marssaxman]

I'm with you there - 10.6.8 was the best Mac OS ever released. I've grown steadily more irritated with it since then, to the point that I'm mostly using Linux these days, for both work and play.

[emptythought]

I hear this point all the time, but it's starting to feel like it's just the cool thing to say. Can you quantify this? What do you feel has gotten worse besides "grr some stuff looks iOS-y!"

[rusk]

I never said "grr some stuff looks iOS-y!"

That doesn't even bother me as long as things work properly.

You can accept my unqualified opinion or not as is your wont. The failings of recent releases of MacOS are well documented online if you do a search for them.

[astrodust]

Pizza Comet being used as some kind of underground sex ring is "well documented online if you do a search". That phrase is devoid of meaning in this day and age.

[lordhess]

Your reason for giving up on windows is that they used a 5 year old icon?

I'm not a windows fan, but you are hardly being fair.

[on_and_off]

That's not the only reason I give.

Again, unix based system, good ux, better consistency.

Windows has also crashed a lot under me when I tried it. It was on a bootcamp partition of a mbp, I expect that a surface laptop might have better QA but I am not going to buy out to make sure.

The system also has the despicable habbit of starting updating itself while you are busy doing something else. Several of the people I know (inluding myself) had a gaming session interrupted by a windows update.