Context: this is a legit screenshot I took on my workplace around 1.5 years ago. Hopefully it’s been patched by now? Completely ridiculous behavior
Apple users have to jump through so many hoops just to look down on everyone else
I know nobody asked, but the reputation Macs have amongst IT industry professionals is insanely annoying to me. I guess it’s a difference between what I like in a laptop versus what other people like in them.
I’ve seen developers working for FAANGs unironically praise the M1 Macbooks as work machines. And I’m just sitting here, like…why? You are locked into an inferior operating system that becomes progressively more janky the deeper you get into its configuration. I have one and the damn thing has an option to change the “modifier key” for the fucking mouse, so you can change your mouse’s modifier key to its ctrl or shift key, apparently. Y’know, in case your standard 20 dollar Logitech wired mouse, like the one I’m using, has shift and modifier keys. Just super useful /s. It randomly had slack muted after installing it, so I could never get message notifications until I figured out what to alter after digging through the guts of its terrible system configuration UI. It can’t remember the order of attached displays and half the time I have to rearrange them after resuming it from hibernation. If you want to do basic window manager things, like press the meta key (also referred to as the windows key on non-macbooks) + direction arrow to have a window snap to a quadrant of your screen, you have to install a 3rd party application with Homebrew. Its keyboard is that weird, unresponsive, flat form factor that makes it a nightmare to actually use as a portable device. With any luck you don’t have to compile anything for it, because…you probably won’t be able to. Perhaps most annoying is the fact that, even if you want to use it as a full desktop replacement and plug in 3 monitors with the same resolution into it at a desk (most Macs have at least passable 3rd party dock support), the Mac just won’t let you. It only lets you plug in 2 and it duplicates one of those two onto the 3rd one. If you want to plug in 3, you technically can: you just have to download 3rd party displaylink drivers, which, knowing Apple, probably won’t fucking work and might permanently fuck up your display.
I get that it’s a relatively powerful computer for the ludicrous amount of battery life it gives you, but that’s purely because it’s an extremely optimized ARM based processor that’s only designed to work with this specific operating system. I also get that machines running Linux also have their own problems, but you aren’t paying for whatever Linux distro you’re running (probably) and you also have the power to change things with a little bit of effort. If I’m buying a machine like an M1, where the OS is presumably part of the whole “package,” it should just work well out of the box.
Beyond those complaints, it’s got good speakers and never produces any heat. Honestly, the only good things about the machines are those hardware elements: the speakers, battery life, and lack of heat. If they could run linux and had decent keyboards, I might like them. But Apple is practically an antonym for FOSS at this point. I also have a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, which is physically a worse machine: it gets hot, has a fraction of the battery life, etc. But you can install any Linux distro (that isn’t Nix based, sadly) to it without issue and its keyboard makes it actually tolerable to code on for extended periods. I wonder if the people that really like the M1s like them because it’s the laptop equivalent of an iPhone.
I believe many of the display issues were fixed with the M2. And you don’t need brew to install a window manager, although the fact that brew lets you treat it like a linux box is great.
The system configuration is more about what you’re used to than anything else. I haven’t used Windows in a couple of decades, and I absolutely hate it. Can’t even think of going back. The modern version looks like a tablet OS trying to pass as a desktop OS. Give me a Windows machine and the first thing I’ll do is wipe it clean and install Ubuntu. But I’m also sure Windows is great for you. So it’s what we’re used to. Nothing wrong with it.
I believe many of the display issues were fixed with the M2
I have an M2 and it has literally every display issue I’ve talked about here.
But I’m also sure Windows is great for you
I hate Windows. I have a single Windows machine that I use for a few specific things and then like…5 linux machines. And then the M2.
Ok, you know better. I had heard that the M2 was able to handle more external displays than the M1, but haven’t tried it myself as in my current setup I can’t even use one external display. Last time I was able to use external displays I had two, but I was using an Intel version.
I loved win XP, but it’s been steeply down hill since then, to this unbearable toddler ui. So I’m with you on that one. I’ve been on *nix for 20+ years now.
If you want to do basic window manager things, like press the meta key (also referred to as the winows key on non-macbooks) + direction arrow to have a window snap to a quadrant of your screen, you have to install a 3rd party application with Homebrew.
you don’t need brew to install a window manager, although the fact that brew lets you treat it like a linux box is great.
Please tell me more.
My new job gave me a Mac. First one I’ve used … that has a colour screen, and boy have things (and myself) changed in the interim. I spent the entire first day figuring out what the buttons even do. Am I really expected to use the mouse (well, trackpad) this much? The first port replicator I bought only did one screen, I’m hoping the one now in the mail does better…
I use rectangle for window snapping. It supports basic side snapping, more advanced layouts, and configurable keyboard bindings. It’s open source and you can install it from their website, it’s just a .app. I think I installed it via brew cask but that was just because it’s convenient.
It’s rectangle, not in the app store but you can download it like bamboo said.
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It never produces heat. Until it does and my word does it. I’ve been getting the slack issues and display issues as well. Also found out today the provided calendar hasn’t actually been sending off my invite responses to anyone and got called in for not letting people know which meetings I was attending.
I wonder if the reason mine never produces any heat is because I use it as a 2500 dollar Slack and Outlook machine. Any true dev work takes place on my Thinkpad running Endeavor. Also Slack is like the poster child for Javascript tech debt because it was written in Electron. It’ll run literally anywhere, but make you wish it didn’t because it’ll hoard your system’s resources like a fucking dragon. Damn thing is bloated as hell and it won’t even let you schedule statuses in case you’re out of office for specific hours on set days. We should all go back to IRC. It’s not pretty, but at least you can automate shit on IRC without having to beg a third party company like Slack for an API token and without taking up 14 gigs of RAM in order to render a clown emoji.
Fuck Slack
I use Mac for work (post audio) and Gentoo for fun on an Intel machine.
MacOS does not do well if you dig in to it like it’s a Linux box.
I’m forced to use a Mac for work as well and have the damn Slack bug. What’s the solution!?
For me, it was the “Allow Notifications” setting for the “Slack” app in the “Notifications & Focus” dialog of “System Preferences.” And apparently like most terrible Mac related things, if it isn’t working as you would expect by default, then that just means its “working as designed.”
Thanks so much!
Get slack to fix their bug?
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The absolutely number one thing that allowed me to actually use the thing though was Yabai+SKHD. Tiled windows and the full customization of hotkeys make this thing so much more usable and, frankly - surprisingly - it’s grown on me.
For your next laptop you should try the framework and laptop, theyre very cool
The vast majority of comments here complaining about Mac and macOS specifically seem to stem from really, really not understanding much about them. This comment is unfortunately not any different.
I’ve seen developers working for FAANGs unironically praise the M1 Macbooks as work machines.
The FAANG companies that fight tooth and nail to hire the best people who can basically work wherever they want because of their skill like Macs? Surely, they’re the dumb ones.
I have one and the damn thing has an option to change the “modifier key” for the fucking mouse
Originally, and for quite a while (probably early 2000’s) Macs shipped with a one button mouse, and there was no concept of a “right-click.” Originally, they were pretty dogmatic that the OS should be simple enough that one button was enough. You shouldn’t need to hide functionality in a context menu, it should be available through the standard UI. Eventually, that lost out, but they decided they wanted to make context menus* (or other “right-click” actions) a power user feature, rather than a default. So the decided to make it make sense for all of the machines that had always shipped with one button mice, you could hold ctrl and then click an item and you’d get the context menu. For decades now, they support right click, but if you built up years of muscle memory around ctrl+clicking instead, you still can.
like press the meta key
You like the meta key? Probably better thank Apple. Apple has had a “meta” key basically forever, only it’s been called “command.” I’m old enough to remember when more manufacturers started to add their own meta keys. If you go grab an older keyboard, you’ll probably find they also have a “context menu” button, which is basically a “right-click” and you almost def won’t find one now.
you want to do basic window manager things
Lots of people in this thread seem to really, really like being able to window snap, which I kind of get but also generally disagree with. macOS (again, going back a thousand years) has a different philosophy when it comes to managing windows. On [MS] Windows, pretty much all software aims for full screen, and users def do the same. Window snapping now means you have a convenient way to see 2 whole things. If you really, really want window snapping similar to how MS does it, there are a hojillion ways to accomplish this with very simple app installs. macOS has instead tried to make it so that you can manage multiple apps/windows easily without full screen, going back to tiny, tiny screens.
But let’s talk about “basic window manager things” for a sec. Windows has easily, and I mean easily had the worst window management generally for like 2 decades. Windows 10 and Windows 11 help catch up to things I switched off of Windows and to Linux for in like, 2004. Expose, or “Task View” as it’s now called in Windows started in macOS, and was adopted in Linux in the mid 2000’s. Not until Windows 10, and not even the first version, do we get that. Ditto for virtual desktops. In Windows, I can press alt-tab and switch between any open app. In macOS, I can press cmd+tab and switch between any open app, but I can also press cmd-` and switch between an app’s windows. In Windows, I can minimize windows to the task bar just as I can in macOS. However, I can also just choose to hide all app windows, or hide all windows except the app I’m looking at. And on macOS, I can use hot corners (which Windows barely touches with its “show desktop” hotcorner, sort of) which I can configure however I want. I can throw my mouse in any corner of the screen and get more “basic window manager things” than exist on Windows.
Its keyboard is that weird, unresponsive, flat form factor that makes it a nightmare to actually use as a portable device
If you have one the bad butterfly keyboards, yes. If not, this is nonsense. All laptop keyboards are bad, mac versions (with the very large caveat that the butterfly keyboards were insanely stupid/bad) are generally better.
I get that it’s a relatively powerful computer for the ludicrous amount of battery life it gives you, but that’s purely because it’s an extremely optimized ARM based processor that’s only designed to work with this specific operating system.
How is this supposed to be a negative? If we zoom out a little, this comment might as well be “oh sure, you can get your fancy graphic effects when you use a, what did you call it? graphics processing unit?” And even then, this is still not really accurately understanding why Apple has absolutely dominated CPU in mobile, and then is crushing in the class of laptop/desktop processors it competes in.**
But Apple is practically an antonym for FOSS at this point.
Aside from darwin, the kernel macOS runs on, Webkit, the browser engine that Chrome forked from, or passkeys, the thing that might replace passwords, you’re still really wrong.
Beyond those complaints, it’s got good speakers and never produces any heat. Honestly, the only good things about the machines are those hardware elements: the speakers, battery life, and lack of heat.
How about screens? Trackpad? Physical material, etc?
I also have a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, which is physically a worse machine: it gets hot, has a fraction of the battery life, etc.
“I can get vastly less done, and it’s going to be more uncomfortable the entire time.”
I wonder if the people that really like the M1s like them because it’s the laptop equivalent of an iPhone.
Lots of misunderstanding here, but I’m already a phone book in.
* really, they probably never would have added right clicks, but as more software adopted right click actions, especially cross platform stuff like Adobe software, they pretty much had to.
** they’ve basically ceded the extreme high end. If you really want the most performant CPU and power\heat aren’t a concern, it’s not Apple.This is a perfect example of corporate apologia combined with not really understanding the sentiment to which you are replying. Hell, I even started my rant by saying “I guess it’s a difference between what I like in a laptop versus what other people like in them.” Also there is something really pathetic about being defensive of a corporate product about which another person has elements that they find annoying or unintuitive. Nothing you have said counters any factual observation about the behavior of the system and can be effectively dismissed on the basis that the foundational premise of every statement is “well no system is perfect.” Yeah, there are flaws with everything. I happen to dislike the specific flaws with Mac more than I dislike the specific flaws of most Linux distros or Windows. Windows largely gets a pass on the basis that I’m not forced to use it for work or any kind of power user shit. I’m expected to do that with a Mac, which amplifies the amount of negative feelings I have towards it. Familiarity breeds contempt. This is not a new facet of reality only I’ve discovered, hopefully. If I had to work on a Windows machine fulltime I’d probably hate it about as much as I do the Mac. But then again, it would be kind of weird to come into a thread specifically about Macs and start ranting about Windows sucking. Which is what you’re doing in a lot of this reply. So…yeah, maybe go outside and touch some grass because somebody doesn’t like your favorite OS and elected to comment in a thread where that was the topic of discussion.
That said, a few specific points:
Lots of people in this thread seem to really, really like being able to window snap, which I kind of get but also generally disagree with
You can’t disagree with people liking something. You can dislike something yourself, but someone else enjoying a particular feature is super weird and comes across as bizarrely authoritative.
All laptop keyboards are bad
There’s not even an argument to make here. You’re just wrong. Comparative to the Macs, there are other manufacturers that produce far better quality keyboards than those found on pretty much any Macbook.
How is this supposed to be a negative?
It’s because the battery quality is an extension of having a very specific operating system running on a very specific processor. It’s an incredibly tight coupling of software and hardware. Yes, it’s highly optimized, but the optimization comes at the cost of having to use their shitty operating system. Linux will run on almost anything. You don’t get the level of efficiency, maybe, but you do have control. I value control over the things I own and use over virtually everything else.
Aside from darwin, the kernel macOS runs on, Webkit, the browser engine that Chrome forked from, or passkeys, the thing that might replace passwords, you’re still really wrong.
Well, first of all, darwin is based on FreeBSD, which was already open source, so, not like they blazed new trails there. That said, let’s ignore Apple’s walled garden ecosystem and their longstanding opposition to right to repair, which they only caved on recently because of pending legislation. Or the fact that Apple hardware is effectively non-modifiable after purchase by design. You mentioned something about graphics cards. You know what’s neat about graphics cards? The ones that aren’t integrated can be replaced or changed. Good luck changing something yourself in a fucking Mac. There’s also a lot of open source projects that have been restricted from the App store because open source licenses are generally incompatible with App Store TOS. And, while Darwin might be open source, a ton of components for iOS and their iPadOS are not. And before you say, “well, what about Microsoft, huuuuuuuh?” Yeah, they suck too. Multiple, different things can be bad for the same reason.
How about screens? Trackpad? Physical material, etc?
Screens are overly glossy for my taste. Trackpad quality is average, although the physical buttons for the trackpad have this weird “thocky” response that makes them feel as cheap and shitty as their awful keyboard. Physical material is also average. These are things I left out because I personally don’t care about them very much.
“I can get vastly less done, and it’s going to be more uncomfortable the entire time.”
I guess you ignored the part where I said good things that I like about that specific device which allows me to be more productive on it than on my Mac. Or is your entire post purely an exercise in misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty? Which would be appropriate for something written in praise of Apple products.
Does it bother you that you can’t grasp a simple feature like Mouse Keys?
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mh27469/14.0/mac/14.0
Your rant is completely misguided but I thought I would at least point out something useful.
Oh wow, a Mac enthusiast with abysmal reading comprehension skills. How rare /s.
No I read and understood. Saying an accessibility feature, which needs to enabled, is hidden in the “abysmal” UI means that I’m not one lacking understanding. I even cited the evidence by linking the User Guide page for Mouse Keys.
No, you were discussing a feature I wasn’t even talking about. I have two working hands and no need for any accessibility features. I explicitly referred to a pointless mouse setting - as in a setting that is completely useless for an attached peripheral mouse device. As in, it lets you select a mouse, once again - like an attached, peripheral Logitech mouse, from a dropdown and apply specific, useless settings to that device which only make sense for a keyboard. Because it either can’t distinguish between a pointer device and a keyboard for that setting, or, more likely, the UI developers didn’t even bother to try and apply any kind of device filtering for it. So, I will reiterate: a Mac enthusiast with abysmal reading comprehension skills; how rare!
If the mouse has hot keys it likely presents to the system as a keyboard as well.
That’s fair, but it’s a $20 Logitech mouse, so…not really. And I’d give that a pass on Linux. But on a Mac? Yeah…nah. That shit’s made by a massive corporation that utilizes slave labor. They don’t get a pass.
Oh look a mouthy idiot on a tech forum who doesn’t understand that third parties supply drivers for third party - how incredibly boring, just like the mouthy idiot. https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/
Okay, but you were still wrong though and have bad reading comprehension skills.
You can install Linux on Apple Silicon Macs. Check out Asahi Linux.
Not trying to be rude, but this is terrible advice. Asahi Linux is nowhere near ready for use on a work computer.
Telling someone to check something out isn’t the same as saying they should use it. You were stating falsehoods that paint Apple products in a bad light.
It’s also quite usable. The reason it’s in beta is because certain features don’t work.
quite usable
certain features don’t work
Dog, I’m not even gonna bother. The jokes write themselves.
Depends on what your use case is. If you don’t need the features that are still being worked on then it’s fairly stable and usable.
Lots of x86 systems also have driver issues with Linux.
Asahi actually came up with a conformant OpenGL ES driver for the M1+2s before Apple has.
Nice
Last I heard it’s still in beta, which isn’t advisable if it’s your main work machine
Yes I am aware. It’s made a lot of progress though. I wanted to point out that it’s an option.
you kinda answered your own question in this rant. once theres a comparable alternative a lot of people will naturally move to that. though a lot of people still will want a half bitten fruit on their device
Seriously. I have a co-worker that tries to convert everyone to use apple products. The iPad I have from work needs to have a battery charged to x% before you can turn it on, no matter if a charger is plugged in.
Oh, you want to change the default search engine in Safari? Here, pick one out of this list or gtfo. You want to use add-ons in Firefox? Ha! They’re not certified, so there’s no native expansion shop on iOS.
Thanks, I like to customize my own OS and not be bullied into what I’m allowed to do with it.
That isn’t an iDevice specific issue. It’s how a ton of mobile devices handle charging of the battery for various reasons, including the obvious one of you being mid boot and losing power to the device.
Maybe you were holding it wrong
Maybe the cable was not of the 60 usd official licensed by apple type.
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The only cables I buy are Ugreen. They do no break after a week, come in multiple lengths, and they don’t lie about specs.
A 100W 1m charging cable, for example, retails here for 13$, or 10$ when you buy from Aliexpress/Evay/Amazon via their official store.
I feel you. The cable, adapter and usb hub market is fucking atrocious. Specifications are often inaccurate or insufficient. I’ve had so many headaches because of this, but at least we have a 14-day obligatory return policy in the EU.
Oh, I forgot about that one! Apple are full of shit. Also “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” is a classic.
Whoops, it seems the last one isn’t from Apple, I guess I’ve just seen it used about their products so many times I assumed it originated from them…sorry about that. I shouldn’t go around the internet assuming things.
The Internet has decided you are wrong and have charged you with the punishment of death. Have a nice day!
Rude.
/s
Imagine buying a computer with only two ports.
Woman came to give a presentation at work without an hdmi port in her laptop.
Was dumbfounded at lack of ports. Thought only apple was this closed but it was a cheapo windows
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Was first time it happened to us.
Will definitely be ordering adapters, can’t believe didn’t know about the usefulness of usbc.
I have several laptops that use USB-C to HDMI cables to connect. They work fine and the port on the PC is much smaller.
I’m amazed at how many professionals use Macs because Apple seems to hate power users. I had to use a Mac briefly recently and was amazed to find they still don’t have window snapping.
It also had no idea what to do with my monitor, couldn’t even detect the correct resolution. I’m guessing if I had bought a $3000 Apple monitor it would have worked immediately. But had to dive into “advanced settings” just to set the correct resolution.
check out Rectangles my dude (obviously doesn’t come with it but in case you’re looking)
This is the way.
So how are you supposed to use multiple windows on it? Are there any alternativees for that?
As wraithcoop suggested, you can install additional software like rectangle to do the job. But why is that necessary in 2023? Window snapping has existed forever on Linux DEs and Windows since Vista.
Windows snapping. I use Spectable. It’s a free open sourced software.
The point isnt about having a Foss solution, but that this is an absolute basic thing that the OS lacks.
True that. Coming from Windows, I really don’t understand why this feature isn’t built into Mac. Most Linux distros have this feature.
Apple power users are people who actually want to use Linux but think it’s bad (except for audio professionals because Macs actually have a monopoly on audio latency/pipelining)
they hate power users less than Microsoft
Yeah, no, as a power user mac is actively fucking painful to work around. Anything beyond skin deep configurations require going through seven layers of shitty menus, and even then a lot of shit you have to with command line, and don’t even get me fuckin started on that trash.
How can a premium product have the worst goddamn command line in the industry? Jfc MSDOS is more goddamn useful.
My point is, if you want brain dead simple, works ever time, but only if you do it the exact specific way intended, go for Mac… but keep that bullshit off of an enterprise network.
If you want to do literally anything that’s technically involved and need your system to more or less work out of the box? Windows reigns supreme.
You want to make something work exactly the way you want, using whatever hardware you want, and have complete and total control over your functionality and information? Linux all the way.
The brain dead windows hate is stupid. It’s an adequate OS for what it was originally made to do- run information infrastructure for businesses. Don’t be retarded.
Ehh, Linux has better hardware flexibility than it used to, but there are still devices that don’t have equivalent functionality with the drivers and software available for Linux. It might be a situation where you can code something yourself, but you may also need information from the manufacturer that they won’t necessarily be forthcoming with. I’ve run into this with a Logitech mouse, but I’m betting there are other peripherals that will face the same issue.
Windows doesn’t use system resources as efficiently, but there’s a huge amount of software for it and it definitely lands on top of the pile for compatibility.
I love Linux from a hobbies perspective. There’s lots of good software designed to run in purpose built Linux environments, particularly for servers.
But as far as something I can just take out of the box, plug in, and give to an end user and it will just fucking work? Windows.
Also almost every tool/software has a windows version of it because it’s just so widely used.
And yes, driver support for Linux is really unreliable.
I have the complete opposite feeling. The more I have to use windows the more irritated I am at it. It’s bloody irritating.
It has window snapping; sure that’s nice, but the default window snapping isn’t that useful for a power user and gets in the way of better window snapping from power toys. On the Mac I also have a third party (better touch tools) app to get custom snap zones that is better than even power toys fancy zones.
But the basic window snapping ends up irritating me more often than it’s useful. I’ll have a window that is on the left side and not half screen. I use window left, and instead of snapping to half it “helpfully” switches monitors.
Also I use multiple desktops. Windows couples all monitor desktops together. I can’t switch just one desktop. On a Mac I can swipe between individual desktops on each screen. This is way more useful to me.
Windows also has a better clipboard manager. But it’s to basic to be useful for me. Only saves 10 things. I install a manager that saves 1000s.
Windows power shell is awful. And worse is googling for how to do anything with a “command line” on Windows because you have to not only figure out what command line they mean but also what damn version.
I’ve had very little trouble switching between Linux and Mac with home brew installed.
Also Windows has a wierd file system. If I use the keyboard command to make a link to a folder it makes a bloody shortcut which a lot of programs ignore.
So instead I get to google what the windows equivalent is of a hard link and how to make one. It’s a junction link and you use the command line. Yay. The command line isnt nearly as helpful. It’s very different from Linux. So very little transfers.
And it doesn’t have history between sessions. “Power” doesn’t have history between sessions.
Mac at least has the decency to use a decent shell in zsh. Zsh is fantastic.
Also on the file system. When you get a select file for upload dialog, if you drag a file you already found in a file window to the dialog, it MOVES the file! Why! No instead you should apparently find the file again in the dialog or copy and paste the path which is way more steps.
On Mac I just drag a file to the select dialog and it auto switches to the location and selects the file. The thing I wanted to do.
Have you seen the whole situation with settings vs control panel? That’s damn infuriating especially for power users.
Also you think macOS consoles are bad compared to Windows? Windows can’t even decide on one command line or shell language.
Honestly it feels like neither macOS or Windows was designed properly for power users. At least Microsoft tries I guess.
Listen to my brother… your settings menus are an illusion. All can and will be accomplished through power shell and planning. Some things are easier done with old school command line, but powershell is an amazingly powerful tool designed for a different audience. There are entire businesses built around automation tools that literally just write powershell scripts.
That settings menu? It’s a shi(tty)ny coat of paint, but I’m not using the settings menus for what I need to do. I’ll open the menu with the run console, you can access most admin tools by right clicking the start menu.
I’m probably biased because of my career but I have a burning hatred for macs, they do not belong in a business environment, get that shit away from me.
I wasn’t trying to defend macOS. I am pointing out that Windows (which you adore) is also bad from a “power user” perspective.
macOS uses the standard command line shared by Linux and other Unix-like systems. Windows doesn’t. The fact that it has two of these non standard systems is even worse. Are you saying it’s actually better than using bash or zsh? If so then why hasn’t anything else adopted something similar?
There are entire businesses built around automation tools that literally just write powershell scripts.
That’s true for Linux too. It’s true for any good programmable CLI as that’s the point of having a programmable CLI in the first place.
You’re incredibly biased towards Microsoft in a way I just don’t understand.
Also your talking as if I am a current macOS user. I am not. I use mainly Windows but I have experience with all three systems. All are bad in their own ways and all are good in their own areas.
They downvote you, but after spending time writing powershell scripts, I can confirm that I absolutely fucking loathe microsoft products now.
Well they have a (open source to point out) app called powertoys made directly for power users, I must say it’s pretty great, and just the ability to have a launcher is making this a 8/10 app for me
Not to talk shit about Mac users, but in this day and age with how advanced technology is, you have to be insane to buy a Mac. What kills it for me is that nothing is upgradeable on the damn thing, like zero. If your internal drive dies, you’re SOL. And if I got this correctly, they now have the bios OS on the same drive, the Internal. So, you won’t even be able to get to your bios. You won’t be able to install the OS on external hard drive in case you needed to. This is insane and I can never understand why anyone would buy into this shit.
M1 and M2 Macs have some of the worst pre-boot and recovery options I have ever seen.
If a BIOS update fails on them, they don’t have any redundancy to fail back to a working BIOS. This has been standard on every business machine for at least 5 years. On any Dell or Lenovo machine, if your BIOS becomes borked, it either auto-recovers from a previous BIOS that is stored on your HDD/SSD, or it allows you to insert a USB drive with the BIOS on it and recovers from there.
The Mac BIOS can update during a standard OS update without indicating that you’ll brick the machine if it powers off for any reason.
I had someone with a failed update on an M2 Mac that left the machine without a BIOS entirely. To recover, you need another Mac machine with USBC so you can plug them into each other and run Apple Configurator 2 to start a complete redownload of the OS to recover from.
It’s at least an hour long process for something that should take 5 minutes to fix. Also, it requires another Mac, you can’t run the recovery from any other OS.
Absolute baloney from Apple.
The Mac BIOS can update during a standard OS update without indicating that you’ll brick the machine if it powers off for any reason
I hate Apple, but my Lenovo does exactly the same. It fucking installs BIOS updates automatically without any warning. Once, after a reboot it was hanging too much on a black screen and I thought it just froze, so I forced a shutdown by long pressing the power button. Luckily the BIOS restored via the fallback, but that wiped the TPM for some reason and because windows 11 on laptops automatically encrypts the drive with bitlocker I might have lost everything (luck again, I’m part of the 1% of the bitlocker users that actually keep an offline backup of the encryption key)
At least (I’m guessing, never bought any M1 Mac and will never do it) apple should be smart enough to disable the power button during BIOS updates, and maybe postpone the update on a low battery, leaving the danger only to desktop users
That’s not necessarily a lenovo specific thing, windows can update bios if enabled (has been enabled by default of every modern windows device I own). When vendors push a new bios to the update catalog it’s going to get automatically installed by default. Look for a setting in the security panel of the bios to turn this off, can’t remember exactly what it’s called.
Damn, that’s sounds so painful. One more reason why I’ll never buy one I guess. lol
The arm macs are really fast and the battery life is great. With that said I’m not shelling out for one. I’ll gladly take one if my job pays for it.
I get the fast and the battery life and all that, but by principle, I just can never own one. I also never buy any windows laptop that is not upgradeable. I keep them for a while and want to be able to upgrade them. That’s why I’ve been thinking of getting a framework laptop.
I couldn’t imagine buying any laptop other than a Mac because the performance to battery life ratio on everything else is awful. Plus if you want a UNIX system, it’s an easy buy.
After owning an Apple ARM laptop I’d never go back to anything else.
But is that an Apple thing or an ARM thing?
ARM, but Apple has the most advanced ARM chips and macOS /The AS Platform has the best amd64 to arm64 translation layer.
I have an M1 Macbook Air (under half price secondhand thanks to a superficial dent on a corner) and while I agree I love having such powerful hardware that sips battery so sparingly, MacOS can go eat a whole bag of stale dicks. Homebrew makes it… tolerable, but I’m holding out hope for that new Qualcomm ARM laptop - the recent benchmarks beat Apple’s chips handily.
What do you hate about macOS? From my perspective, it beats out Windows in ease of use, performance, likelihood not to break, and being *NIX; and it beats out Linux by having things working out of the box without needing to spend a decade tinkering just to get things almost working right.
I use Windows for gaming (and work, unfortunately), Mac for general computing and programming, and Linux for servers and vms.
You can install Linux on it, the only major things not working yet are speakers and deep sleep
Those are both serious blockers for me tbh, I like to take it out away from home and watch YT / Nebula vids. I’m keeping am eye on Asahi’s progress though.
Yeah, the speakers don’t bother me too much since headphones still work. Deep sleep not working really sucks though since on macOS I’ve had it last for weeks without opening it and still having battery left.
the performance to battery life ratio on everything else is awful
You clearly haven’t used Debian.
I’ve used a number of different Linux distros (including Debian) on laptops over the years. Although most recently my XPS 15 was running Arch.
hear hear, if it has problem then I take it to apple store for service. I don’t wanna waste time fucking about on my laptop. I’ll do trouble shooting on desktop but I just want long battery life and apple silicone beat the fuck out of anything else.
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I’ll tell you why: the best hardware and software that just works with it. No need to deal with drivers or any of that shit.
I still use my MacBook Pro 2011 and I can’t find a reason to change it. It just keeps working. And I say that with a 2023 MacBook Pro M2 sitting right next to it (work laptop). Sure, it’s faster, but that’s it.
I guess that’s reasonable. I personally can’t see myself ever getting one for the reasons I’ve mentioned. But hey, everyone does what makes them happy.
Exactly.
Random computer quirks always fascinate me. The strangest one I had involved a computer that shouldn’t have existed.
One time in the early aughts I had a patchwork computer that I put together from the junk pile of a local computer store that a buddy of mine ran.
It was barely holding together in a rusty frame, with zip ties and wood glue.
Its modem was temperamental as hell. It would only stay online so long as it was pinging a website via command prompt. It was only some websites, too. Like I could ping Geocities, but not livejournel.
I remember many weekends doing Mephisto runs in Diablo II, praying that my command prompt doesn’t bug out anytime I’d get anything worthwhile.
I have a personal server, mostly acting as a NAS but with some web hosting as well. For whatever reason, it randomly freezes until you manually power cycle it, it happens really often, like every 20 minutes.
Turns out it’s due to some weird interaction between debian and older ryzen CPUs, if the CPU isn’t busy it just dies. Solution? A Minecraft server, with no one on it, it keeps the CPU just busy enough to keep it alive. I’ve had it running for months at a time with no issues.
Go into grub and set intel_idle.max_cstate=1 if you want it to be elegant. Had the same problem. AMD didn’t implement proper sleep states. There’s an open PR ranting about interconnect issues somewhere if I can find it.
Cheers, I’ll give it a go, though I suspect I’ve already done it. I believe I’ve read the rant you’re talking about too
You might’ve just opened my eyes about an issue I’ve been having with my ryzen server! I’ve been using it to host a discord bot, and every now and then it has to be manually restarted (which is a hassle for me since it’s over 40 miles away from my house) so I’ll definitely be trying this, or the Minecraft server solution lol
Just post the external IP of your Minecraft server. We’ll help keep your system awake
That’s amazing.
You’re too late. My brothers have escaped you.
I could ping Geocities, but not livejournel
I have a theory about how that may have happened…
I’d be very interested in your theory.
I thought it had something to do with the distance to the server or ping timeout, but that is more of a guess.
I’ve not experienced that problem again despite working as a network engineer for 20 years
Based on the highlighting they did, I believe their theory is that “livejournel” didn’t work because it should have been “livejournal” with an “a” and you presumably made the same typo all the time.
Got it in one!
So that’s why Apple removed all USBC ports on the right side of Macs… (M series air and 13” pro have this issue)
Didn’t they also crash or overheat sometimes when charged from the left side? Apple hardware really is unrivaled.
No
So one 2017 and at least two other 2019 model MacBook Pros running Mojave were reported to have this issue when sharing the same USB controller as a (presumably active) USB-C to HDMI adapter or multiport USB splitter dongle, according to that article and the source SO post. I’ve not heard of anything like this since Apple ditched Intel chips, so… success?
Also lol at Forbes calling a StackOverflow post “A new piece of research” 🤦♂️
This is Intel. Not M1.
So, no.
They didn’t remove anything. They just uses the same chassis from the “2 port” macbook pro/Air for the M1 Pro and Air.
No pro and air models use the same chassis.
The M1 pro reused the Intel Pro’s chassis and the Air reused the Intel Air’s chassis.
Oh I see, I misunderstood your comment.
My PC went through a phase of switching off when you accessed the network share with my pictures on it.
I could access it locally. I could use other network shares.
It stopped doing that when I swapped the PSU.
Fuck computers, I want to live in a cave.
Did you try swapping the cables first?
Windows 7 forgets your wifi password if you plug the dongle into a different port.
I still randomly see myssid 4 (or some other random number) on Windows 11 with no explanation.
There was an old bug up through at least XP (maybe gone by SP3, but I don’t remember) where there would be certain SSIDs or network names that incremented because of how networking was implemented. I’m doubtful it’s the same thing, but you could try searching there for a start.
FBI birds.
what
Did I stutter?
Laughs in framework with four identical USB-C ports that can do anything
My Mac book pro from 2019 charges properly on 3 of the 4 USB c ports it has. I have tried everything to get the 4th to work. All other peripherals work on that port. When I first got it, all ports worked. I feel this persona pain.
I’m having the same issue at work at the moment. When I connect to my dual monitor setup at work, all my usb devices stop working. Mouse, keyboard, the internal camera, monitors… All dead till you reboot, then they work for 10 Minutes again.
Now i have the same Monitor setup at home, no issues here. Mind you, it’s a Lenovo ThinkPad with Lenovo monitors and it worked for years without issues.
The Lenovo technician told our IT guy that’s because my monitor setup at home is another generation with a different chipset in the usb hub/switch. After giving us a few tips that didn’t work, like disconnecting the Monitors from power for a minute or using a different port on the notebook they defaulted to “You’re shit out of luck because the support ends after 4 years” - The monitors are 4 years old.
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Thanks for your input. I think there’s some software bug causing this, the same hardware worked without issues for years and now, not all of us are affected (all devs are using the same laptop) Anyways, I won’t waste too much time analyzing this, I’m doing mostly home office as a workaround and the ops guys are going to take a look next week.
I can’t remember which model it was, but wasn’t there a MacBook Pro that had 4 USB-C ports, only two of which supported Thunderbolt? Want to connect your monitor to the right side of the machine? Well… tough shit, I guess.
That’s especially weird considering “pure” USB-C can support 4K/144Hz/HDR with DSC. I guess they just aren’t connected to the M1/M2 GPU.
As far as I’m aware, all the MacBook Pros with 4 USB C ports, both the 13 and 15/16inch from 2016 until the Apple Silicon ones arrived, were all Thunderbolt certified. I also remember in a few of the teardowns from iFixit that those devices also has one Thunderbolt controller per side.
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MacBook USB-C can be goofy. I know for restoring firmware (which Apple refers to as “reviving”), on some models, you have to use a very specific port
Somewhat tangential, but USB-C docking stations, as useful as it is to have everything in one cable, it can also be annoying.
At the office, I often just want to charge my laptop with them, but they also give me a wired internet connection, which, thanks to corporate networking shitfuckery, doesn’t work. So, every time I plug in, I have to disable that wired connection.
Also, recently a colleague had problems getting her headset working when she was plugged into certain docks, ultimately due to a bug in the OS.
Like, alright, that should be fixed in the OS, but that USB-C dock doesn’t even have a speaker attached to it. It’s completely useless that it shows up as an audio device.
And even after we found a workaround to fix her headset, she will now have to switch over her audio device every time she plugs into a dock.So, basically it’s now one step to plug in the cable, but potentially multiple steps to undo half of what you unwillingly plugged in…
I have to disable that wired connection.
Sounds like it never works… Why not just unplug the ethernet…
It’s completely useless that it shows up as an audio device.
Does it have HDMI? It might be a digital out over hdmi.
It’s a shared workplace, so I can’t just leave the ethernet unplugged.
And yes, it has DisplayPort and potentially HDMI, too. I do have an idea why it might work that way, but from a user perspective, it’s still useless and annoying…
shared workplace
the next guy won’t be able to use the ethernet either
Maybe they meant that doesn’t work for their use cases? Might still work for the next guy
Yeah, I don’t want to go too much into detail, but there’s basically two different paths you can take. Either you get a preconfigured setup, but then have to rely on the attrocious support from our IT supplier, or you choose a DIY setup.
I could DIY it, so the ethernet works as intended, but it’s just not worth the effort…
Can’t you just unplug the dock from the wired connection instead?
I can, but it’s a shared workplace, so I can’t just leave it unplugged.
For some laptop models you can disable switching to ethernet in the BIOS.
Get a condom
I just love how the other person immediately knew there could be a difference between the left and the right USB port.
Well, that’s because they probably know one of the ports is Thunderbolt one plain USB.
USB-C only appears to make things easier, actually it’s all fucked up, sure the ports are the same, but you have no chance of determining what’s behind it by just looking at it.
But surely there’s the advantage of only needing one type of cable? Well, only if you’re willing to spend extraordinary amounts on your cables, there’s a reason for the extreme price differences. You don’t know if all the pins are connected, the shielding may be different and if you choose wrong power rating, your cable may overheat. So to sum up: you still need different cables, but now they’re undistinguishable.
Welcome to the world of tomorrow!