[tyleregeto]

Opinions vary, but I've never found Apple software to be particularly good. Their hardware is almost always exceptional.

I'd go further and say I am constantly frustrated by how difficult their software can make basic tasks. I often find many of their UX patterns unintuitive, or even feel user hostile at times. Small example, I really want to view passwords as I type them in. I constantly miss type passwords on touch screens. User error maybe, but frustrating experience.

XCode is my least favourite IDE that I use regularily.

[pcurve]

100% agree. As someone who used both Mac and PC for 30+ years, and still use both, Mac OS (and iOS) aren't very intuitive. Lots of hidden functions. The way they organize settings is tough to find. It's always a struggle.

[Hammershaft]

Apple hardware is incredible but the OS software & increasingly the design is mid at best.

[pkaodev]

My experience is similar. Great hardware. Software is good until there is something I want to do that isn't very obvious, then it's either a hassle or not possible.

My favourite example being looking for the volume mixer, and after looking online the top advice seemed to be to pay for a 3rd party application for that... Wtf?

[Hammershaft]

There are so many basic gaps in functionality and so many underbaked & poorly designed Mac OS features that I end up papering over with paid 3rd party applications.

[Schiendelman]

That is how Apple makes money. By design.

[wtallis]

In order for that to actually be a money-making strategy for Apple, those third-party apps that address weaknesses in the OS would have to be sold through the Mac App Store so that Apple gets a cut. I've been a Mac user since before there was a Mac App Store, and I've never bought such a utility through the App Store. I have paid for several such apps over the years in ways that did not generate any direct revenue for Apple, and most of those apps likely could not be distributed through the App Store because of how they muck around with private APIs and other OS internals.

Those third-party apps do increase the overall appeal of Apple's platform, but suggesting that Apple might want to encourage that situation rather than improve their OS themselves sounds like a broken windows fallacy.

[pennomi]

XCode is one of the worst pieces of software in history. Imagine writing a code editor that couldn’t keep its syntax highlighting from crashing for multiple years.

[hei-lima]

It's not great, ofc. But I find myself less disgusted by it.

[fchicken]

You must be a fetus. Apple was leagues ahead of everyone else with the inception of the Mac all the way through Windows 7...

Microsoft finally caught up around that time, but has since added a whole new dimension of enshittification that the only conclusion that can be reached about tech as a whole is that it all sucks and will always suck.

[richardatlarge]

Here here