When they moved to HiDPI screens, everything worked. In contrast, when I moved my Windows 10 box to a 4K monitor, everything was unbelievably tiny until I set the system scaling to 300%. Which then broke some apps (far too large text, etc.) that I had to go through the "run in this scaling compatibility mode" debacle. Except some other apps still had small text and icons (looking at you, Chitubox!) which required the "run in this other scaling compatibility mode" finagling. Imagine having a "mature" OS where people are still dealing with this after years.
(and this is just one of the pain points I get from Windows 10 every day that I don't get from macOS.)
Generally good design and user-centered design (but that's being eroded with every new release) along with attention to detail.
Small examples: you can scroll a window without having to click on it to make it active, applications don't refer to files using paths but file ids instead so you can generally move files around a disk while they are open without things breaking.
> you can scroll a window without having to click on it to make it active
This works on Windows, and most sane Linux DEs are either default to that or can be configured to do that.
> applications don't refer to files using paths but file ids instead so you can generally move files around a disk while they are open without things breaking.
Do you mean they hold an opening fd of the file, which is also not special at all? Otherwise it is pretty interesting, please elaborate.
I only really use macOS these days, so they've clearly improved or borrowed features since I last looked, but I guess the point is that those features were implemented long ago.
The ability to implement file access the way is obviously possible on any OS, but on the Mac it's consistently implemented that way in applications, except for a couple of bad actors. On other OSes it's much more mixed. The same can be said for many other small features. There's a just a lot better consistency overall on macOS.
> Do you mean they hold an opening fd of the file, which is also not special at all? Otherwise it is pretty interesting, please elaborate.
Exactly. Special notwithstanding, it’s still a nice feature and not something Windows has to my knowledge, at least not common (i.e. “File is in use” errors). On macOS you can e.g. move a file to trash while it’s being used still by some running program.
The scrolling behaviour also exists in Windows and in Linux.
I believe (if I understand what you mean correctly) that the file system behaviour is also a Linux thing. Deleting a file that is open is completely fine in Linux.
I think UX between the three OSs is almost completely a matter of habit and familiarity these days. I for one can't see how anyone can be productive with the (what I believe is abysmal) window management on a Mac but millions of people like it so I'd probably get used to it if I wanted to.
It's required by POSIX, so all modern UNIX-like systems have this behavior:
When the file's link count becomes 0 and no process has the file open, the space occupied by the file shall be freed and the file shall no longer be accessible. If one or more processes have the file open when the last link is removed, the link shall be removed before unlink() returns, but the removal of the file contents shall be postponed until all references to the file are closed.
I think the interesting part is being missed here, the behavior is that the file is being identified to apps by a uniquie identifier which is not the path, so referrering apps still find it after it's been moved, even when they didn't have it open already. More like using the inode as the identifier maybe? This is a behavior that goes all the way back through the pre-OSX macs. It was part of some sort of philosophy for Macs though I forget its name.
- Normally is attached to very good-looking and sturdy machines
- You can have (..)nix like terminal in half of the screen and Office, Photoshop, and most of the shiny SW ("except games") running flawlessly in the other half without some kind of VM
- The battery of this very nice machines that it comes attached to may last a day
- Customization is a bit more restricted than its (..)nix cousins so most of the time it runs flawlessly even if you don't know
what you're doing
- It connects very well with the other device that a lot of people carry in their pockets
- There are not a lot of combinations of HW + MacOs that you can run so online support tends to be very good
Try as I might, I have never found any laptop that is even half as sturdily built as a macbook. Yes apple plays dirty tricks that prevent inexpensive repair, but TBH, no one else produces a product that physically lasts long enough to be worth repairing by the time the board level components gives out.
Oh gotcha, I certainly agree that the keyboards were a problem, and it was not cool how Apple pretended it was a non-issue for so long. It definitely prevented me from purchasing one during the time they using those keyboards.
That said, I am using one of those Macbook Pros for work, and the overall build is still very impressive. I would expect this machine to last longer physically than any of the non-mac laptops I have ever used.
Does it make up for running on well designed hardware? Well, yes it does. That’s also irrelevant to your question I was answering (well, I know you were trolling, but anyway).
As an example: I find Amazon to be one of the most blatantly evil large consumer facing tech companies; I hate giving them money and avoid it as much as I can often at my own expense; their consumer facing products are wildly good for most common usage scenarios and I understand why they’re successful even though I wish they weren’t.
Unix based OS where sleep and hibernate work flawlessly, decent UI, with good commercial and open source software support? Also all the hardware works?
I like Linux, but it’s no where near as polished as Mac OS. Wasn’t 20 years ago. Isn’t now.
Hell, I’m thinking I should just reinstall windows and use WSL2.
Or perhaps they just value different things than you? Assuming that the only reason someone might enjoy a product is because of marketing trickery is pretty elitist.
(and this is just one of the pain points I get from Windows 10 every day that I don't get from macOS.)