I don't mind using macOS, it's a pretty nice experience, definitely nicer than windows but when I buy an Apple machine the thing I'm buying is definitely the hardware and I'm not convinced the clones do a good enough job of matching that, can I get 14 hours of battery life from the leading air-clone?
The event that changed everything was getting a 34" Ultrawide monitor and the Mac experience was just so much more solid and respective of the screen space. I can't quite put my finger on it but I felt more in control.
I have a Surface Book on my desk, but my Macbook Air is what I use daily. For me, Mac wins with:
- Predicable window management - everything stays where you put it
- Tidier fonts and app bevels so it doesn't waste screen space
- Access to apps like Sketch
- No UI delays when using Adobe Premiere, despite the less capable hardware - definitely an issue on Windows
- Much better command line support (not used the Windows Linux subsystem)
- Apps are easier to handle and less bloatware
- Notes app that is actually helpful
- Fast with an SSD - absolutely rubbish without (my mac mini is unusable)
- I have gotten used to clicking the window first, before it doing something in that app - so fewer accidental actions
But, I do still love Windows, it wins on the following:
- Better graphical support (ok, hardware specific)
- Windows Explorer is much better than Finder for me
- Window snapping is easier (but might be also frustrating, can't put my finger on it)
- I can open multiple calculator instances
- Wider app support, but less of an issue these days for what I use
Windows does have a lot more bugs, such as incorrectly scaled cursors in Premiere, or apps that a impossibly small or stupidly large when using a non-retina second monitor.
/Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator&
A developer friend I know used to always prefer the even older unix command line tool, dc. It operates with reverse Polish notation.
Now, I often just start the python repl (type 'python' at the command line) for quick calculations that might require slightly more power than bc.
To bring this back to the original topic, it is this easy access to the underlying unix tools that made me switch to Macs in the first place. Windows, IMHO, lost some points with the emphasis on touchscreen based UI and gained some points with the new Linux shell support.
In regard to both, I suppose that there is an opening to something more complex.
open -na CalculatorAfter having given Powershell a chance I don't want to go back to bash.
Pretty much anyone I know on a Mac uses iTerm, which is definitely more capable than the Windows 10 command prompt.
> And posix doesn't seem to hold a candle to Powershell.
In what specific ways? It seems way more intuitive to me and powerful enough for any task that it's not worth bringing a language like Python/Ruby/Go etc. for.
I love the iOS platform, it just works and has never failed me (I am leaving iTunes out of this). However, even with the scaling/DPI issues I find Windows 10 fast and easy to use. It must be biased as I've used Windows more, but I thought I'd love macOS more than I do, having loved my iPhone & iPad experience. I do always have to put the taskbar at the top of the screen, but that I think goes back to my Amiga Workbench days!
Jeez is that an actual thing on OSX? That would just make it feel unresponsive to me.
If you don't want to focus the background window -- or you want to use an element that can't be used if the window is backgrounded -- then holding 'cmd' will pass the click through.
Whoa. I had no idea!
Damn, is there any equivalent functionality (be it integrated or third party) for windows? I'd love to be able to run games in fullscreen exclusive mode without having them lose focus every time I want to look at a different chrome tab on my secondary display.
Kinda. Just for scrolling apparently.
Window management is vastly superior in my opinion, I frequently just full screen everything and swipe between the full screens, this is particularly notable in my case since I almost exclusively use the keyboard (get bad RSI from mice)
Updates feel like they have much less friction.
But basically it comes down the underlying unix-y system. I'm never going to do serious development on a laptop but if I pick up a macOS machine it has the unix core tools that I need to get stuff done, vim, ssh etc. (Though there are some pain points mostly they're fixed by brew for machines I'll use for any length of time).
Also, I helped someone set up Parallels the other day on their MBP and tried out air drop for the first time, show me friction-less 4GB ISO copying OTA between Windows laptops that aren't on the same network!