Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

I've had the opposite experience. OSX is just weird bsd with a great window manager and ui framework. You can easily sidestep gatekeeper, if that is your complaint.

The hardware fit and finish is also second to none, and runs windows just fine if that's your thing.

The alternative on windows is a machine that spies on me, has horrible ui bugs and inconsistencies I run into constantly, and decides to auto update and reset all my privacy settings in the middle of the night while I am using the machine.

Not to mention it is often used with some awful trackpad. I haven't tried them all but I have never seen a non-mac trackpad I could go back to.

View on HN

> The alternative on windows is a machine that spies on me, has horrible ui bugs and inconsistencies I run into constantly, and decides to auto update and reset all my privacy settings in the middle of the night while I am using the machine.

This exactly. I'm still baffled by claims that Windows 10 has a good desktop UI when I see its iconography [1], huge click (touch) targets [2], and wildly inconsistent use of whitespace [3]. That's not even mentioning the forced updates and always-on telemetry. I'm not sure how one can say macOS is more of a walled garden than Windows at this point, at least macOS's security features will get out of your way if you ask nicely.

[1] http://www.intowindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Change...

[2] https://cdn2.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3632303/how_to...

[3] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/...

> I'm still baffled by claims that Windows 10 has a good desktop UI when I see its iconography [1], huge click (touch) targets [2], and wildly inconsistent use of whitespace [3].

This almost reads as sarcasm. Some people really don't care about those things, and using them as examples of why you're baffled just highlights that disconnect between you and them. I don't use any bundled windows apps, and I'm rarely in the settings (and I just search for what setting I want), so iconography and whitespace design decisions in windows apps don't even factor into it for me.

Neither OS X nor Windows feel as comfortable as my customized FVWM config did, but windows gets a lot closer nowadays. I had to use OS X at work for a few years and it always grated.

> That's not even mentioning the forced updates

It's possible to disable them, you just have to put some effort into it (it requires regedit). I think this is the right decision. If you want to disable updates and you don't know how to change a registry setting, then for the good of us all, the answer is no.

The tracking is a valid concern though.

I want automatic updates. I think this is a good thing. Chrome automatically updates whenever I restart it. This is great.

I don't want updates when I am in the middle of something full screen like a game, forcing a restart of the machine on me. This is madness.

I don't want ads for office 365, Cortana or edge on my desktop. I don't want to learn how to block them. I don't want to use an OS that feels like it is being milked for all it's worth in its dying breaths.

It always asks me, and I can delay it. You've actually had it force an update right then while playing a game, and without having told it "no, delay it" multiple consecutive times (I believe it will only let you delay it 2-3 times)?

Edit: Also, have you set your active hours? Windows allows you to define the times you use your system so it won't attempt to update during those times. Additionally, you can set a specific custom restart time for when it will restart.

> Edit: Also, have you set your active hours?

I tried to. I play games for a few hours either at night or early am -- say 6pm-1am or 5am-9am are my possible slots. Unfortunately, windows update will not accommodate this -- you are only allowed to set one window with an 8 (maybe 12) hour max, and it must be consecutive. I had to dig around to find this, and it still is not sufficient. I ultimately solved my problem by using the regex editor to convince windows I was on a metered internet connection. Unfortunately, this broke update all together. I turned it back and now its still broken -- apparently the magic auto-updater is the only way get updates -- there's no button I can click to just download the latest update and install it? (at this point I gave up)

I mean... that's just insane.

What about setting the specific update time to something like 3 AM?

I was just in the windows update settings and there was a way at the top to check for updates right then. I didn't use it so I'm not sure if there's some other gotchas involved with that.

I'll have to check that out, thank you for the tip. What I would really like is a a shutdown button that actually "Check for updates, install if found, then turn off". I'd click that every time I was done using it.

The window inconsistently interrupts my game. Some games it is able to rip me out of it mid session to tell me to restart, other times it silently times out in the background despite my computer running at full blast.

I have set active hours but for some reason my windows partition - and not my ubunutu partition, so it isn't a hardware issue - does not reliably remember my time zone. It is often reset without rhyme or reason to this random default (I think NYC). I don't always notice and change the time one when it boots up because I have steam launch in big picture mode.

Also, why does it even need to ask for active hours by default? I am using the machine at full-throttle. That is a really easy metric for "maybe wait until later". It's already logging everything I do and sending it to Microsoft, it would be nice to see some usuabiltiy features come out of all that data

Inconsistently working is a commmon theme of my experiences with windows. I am routinely baffled that I paid $100 for this experience and wish that there was better Linux game support for AAA titles. I know I throw my money that way whenever possible.

> why does it even need to ask for active hours by default? I am using the machine at full-throttle.

Some people run things all day long. My brother sometimes keeps the video game 7 days to die running all day at home while he's at work. Not updating when activity is detected is a good way to have it never update, and a good way to allow a virus to trigger a condition that may prevent automatic patches to holes it likes to use.

> I have set active hours but for some reason my windows partition - and not my ubunutu partition, so it isn't a hardware issue - does not reliably remember my time zone.

That's odd. Is it actually changing your time zone, or is it just off by a few hours? If it's just off by a few hours, my bet would be that it's a difference in how linux and windows set the system clock (one may prefer to keep the clock in UTC time, the other in the set time zone). If it's the actual time zone that's changing... I dunno, maybe some location service helper and a poorly mapped IP address? I haven't heard of that, but it does sound annoying.

I'm not arguing that there aren't cases where postponing restarting until there is lower load doesn't miss out on some people, I'm arguing that this shows a less respect for the user and is a poor experience. It does not feel like my machine, contrary to great-great grandparent. No other system I own forces restarts, and they all seem much more secure.

Its definitely the time zone not persisting. I've navigated through seas of menus to change it to no avail.

Plenty of ways to disable the automatic restarts. Easiest is setting the Group Policy in a few clicks.

http://tunecomp.net/disable-automatic-reboot-after-updates-i...

I agree its a good feature to ship enabled by default. Grandma who leaves her computer on for years at a time needs to have her security updates up to date.

I wouldn't call myself an unexperienced user at all but even after months of trying to disable the auto updates in W10 through all sort of settings and tweaks I gave up on it. Whatever I did it never lasted for long. When I'm not in control of my own machine what's the point? I have switched to a Linux distro and haven't regretted it.

"...runs windows just fine if that's your thing."

I have a 2015 MPB and used it for 1 year before switching it to Windows because I got fed up of the apple dev environment.

It doesn't just run windows fine, it runs Windows with amazing speed compared to macOS. Everything feels (and is) snappier. I'm still left with a very expensive and under-powered machine.

PS. Installing Little Snitch, one becomes immediately aware that macOS does talk to base....a lot!

Sorry but that's just blatant lying. Apple takes great care of optimizing its OS and apps for its hardware, to the point where it's possible to use Final Cut Pro on the anemic MacBook 12 somewhat comfortably(!)

Microsoft takes great care for optimizing its OS and apps for any hardware, to the point where it's possible to run Windows 10 on 10 year old hardware somewhat comfortably. To the point where the Windows 10 Kernel and a lot of the Windows 10 Core (OneCore) runs on mobile and IoT hardware...

Yes, apple does optimize. I'm not disputing that; neither starting a silly "apple vs" debate. I am no fan boy of either mac or PC - I just use whatever is best.

The point is, that "equivalent software" runs faster. I would wager that if Final Cut Pro was for Windows, and you run it on the very same MacBook12, it would run faster on Windows. Despite this, using Final Cut Pro an example is a bad one, because it was developed by Apple itself (and therefore assumed to be highly optimized to the OS) and it is not available for windows.

It is more useful to compare an equivalent 3rd party (neither made by apple or microsoft) application. I'm a developer, so I use a lot more software than just "apps" so maybe if you try to use a wider set of software, the difference in platforms will become apparent.

Admittingly, I don't have numbers. But I don't need numbers, because you can feel the difference as a user. Install it and see for yourself!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com