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Comment by racl101 | Hacker News Reader

As a consumer I hate the Mac App Store so much if only for the reason that every time I want to do something I have login again and again. The Mac App store is quite buggy. Sometimes I have to log in two times in a row. I hate it so fucking much that I almost consider not buying a good product just to avoid the Mac App Store's shitty app.

I also hate that the purchase is tied to my Apple ID, especially for a utility that I'd like to use in another computer. Say a workstation where I might have a different Apple ID.

If an app, for example, can be installed in two work machines, I don't want my Apple ID to dictate which machines.

Anyways rant over.

I get that for the seller's point of view the Mac App Store's updated policy is a boon.

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I get it worse. Sometimes it goes in a permanent loop asking for my password infinitely many times and doing nothing, until I Force Quit, which does not usually help the problem.

It truly sucks and I regret the few purchases I made with it. But, the light is at the end of the tunnel: Windows 10 and WSL.

I think the light you're referring to is Linux, and the tunnel is Windows :D

On a more serious note, you shouldn't be so dismissive of open source desktop environments, KDE 5 is quite usable today, and GNOME 40 looks to be pretty good too. Give it a whirl, you might just like it.

I’m using Pop OS now on a Dell XPS. It’s quite good. But Macs and Mac OS are by far the best machines you can buy. People complaining about the store is kinda funny. I can’t even get sound to work out of the box and I have to reboot every few days. Once in a while my machine will shit itself when I open the lid.

But the Apple Store, that’s the nail in the coffin? You’re going to go back to googling to find which specific drivers you need because of the Apple Store?

Yeah what gives - the software "stores" for most distributions are great. Elementary is particularly interesting in helping developers to make a living doing FOSS.

I just did a double take on GNOME 40. They really did just go from 3.38 to 40! I'm confused about what'll happen when GTK 4.0 comes around.

Grass is not greener on the windows and WSL side. It’s yellowed and littered with turds to stand in. I run both platforms side by side and the Mac is by far the least painful. Windows 10 on an average day is like gargling sand. I mean for two months now alt-tab is broken on 20H2 release. No fix incoming yet. Zero days unpatched for 90 days etc. On WSL it’s a networking and HyperV encrusted nightmare. Have fun trying to get anything vaguely complicated to do anything even remotely sane. Total shit show.

A fine comparison is the windows App Store which is genuinely like playing Russian roulette with a gun made of butter. The Mac App Store is much much much less crazy.

The Mac has its fair share of suck but my word at least they actually tried to put something cohesive together.

Going to put it honestly but I don’t think Microsoft are earning my respect or attention, just shouting about how wonderful their product is while it’s falling to pieces in my hands.

There are two versions of WSL, one is Hyper-V based, the other isn't. If you have trouble with Hyper-V, simply switch to WSL1.

That’s even worse. File system performance is so terrible that it’s unusable for anything past trivial operations. AFAIK it maps the Linux ABI/syscalls to NT and that’s it. So you get the dire small file performance of NTFS to contend with (MFT locking).

Wherever you go there are puddles of this ick to stand in.

I’ve been at this long enough to know when to give up and walk away.

Slightly tangential at best, but there was software I used to use in a former life that was developed and designed for Linux systems first. They were then able to cross compile it for Mac and Windows. When first using the software, it was only ever used on Windows. Once I started using it in more advanced ways, I wanted to try out the Mac and/or Linux versions since they had a CLI client. Both of these systems ran circles around the Windows version in how much faster they were to do the exact same processing. Turns out, they were using the same C-style calls to access files. That C-style code is very slow on windows, yet using a Windows native call brought their software to the same speed.

TL;DR Windows definitely has its own way of doing file system access

Microsoft isn't really pushing their store though. Is there even any exclusives on it? It certainly isn't even close to my first stop look for software.

Also, WSL1/2 has been great - docker on WSL2 is fantastic, close to zero configuration required.

WSL distributions and Windows Terminal are both exclusive to the store.

Wait until you try mixed mode windows and Linux containers. That’s the definition of a shitshow.

> I mean for two months now alt-tab is broken

Not on my 20H2 release, wdym?

> Windows 10 on an average day is like gargling sand. I mean for two months now alt-tab is broken on 20H2 release. No fix incoming yet. Zero days unpatched for 90 days etc. On WSL it’s a networking and HyperV encrusted nightmare. Have fun trying to get anything vaguely complicated to do anything even remotely sane. Total shit show.

This is a rather bizarre list since I never had these issues on my Windows 10 installation.

Neither did I, until I did.

It's a bug with Microsoft Edge's integration with Windows Explorer: https://github.com/microsoft/WinDev/issues/40

For what it's worth, the "log in repeatedly" bug has hit me too, but I discovered that if I sign out and then sign in again, it remains fixed for weeks if not months. Worth a try.

Sign out of the first ID, sign into the second ID, install the program you want, sign out.

I (and many people) used to buy all apps under one ID and would have to do this. Apple and the software publishers have moved to "Family Sharing" for most apps which means I can buy an app and they can install it without having to deal with multiple App Store IDs. That's true for MacOS and iOS.

The App Store is great for products from unknown developers and in other cases where I'm not to sure if I fully trust the software/developer. In other cases I prefer to buy direct.

Steam is a desktop App Store done right. If only they would move more into the app space rather than game space.

It took Steam years to get to that point though. It was a piece of #$#$ when it first launched.

App stores are monumentally complex works of infrastructure. It's inevitable that they'll take years to get right, and Steam still isn't quite there yet.

I agree it could take years to get right, which is why app developers should not pigeonhole themselves into immature stores.

Meh, steam sucks IMO. What is so great about it?

Please don't use it. Just boycott it. If an app is not available outside the app store, email them and ask them to make it available. Remind them that they are being fools to add value to the app store as it reduces their options and makes them more dependent on Apple. This will allow Apple to gauge even more money from them in the future.

App stores also kill otherwise free open-source projects as it adds an unnecessary financial burden on them.

Remind them we have been doing fine without it on the desktop for decades now. Ask them why PAYING Apple for the privilege of adding VALUE to the macOS platform - by developing and distributing their wares on that platform - doesn't make them feel like a jackass!? Apple should be the one paying them for creating value for the macOS platform!

What the fuck, no.

The App Store protects users from shitty developers and scummy companies. Users appreciate that. People like having a single point for discovery, reviews, updates, and refunds.

Every time an third-party app turned out to be different than advertised Apple refunded me within a day. Meanwhile an app which uses their own payments system screwed me over a month ago and I'm still waiting for a response from them.

Doesn't campaigning for depriving users of the choice to use the App Store make you "feel like a jackass!?"

> Doesn't campaigning for depriving users of the choice to use the App Store make you "feel like a jackass!?"

What "CHOICE" are you blabbering about? Can you install an app on the ios independently without resorting to risky jailbreaking on your iDevice?

With similar closed Apple ARM processors (like in the iDevices) now on the Mac platform too, Apple is moving towards denying us CHOICE on the macOS platform too. (And for all those who want to reply that this is not going to happen, Apple is boiling the frog slowly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog ... Apart from the closed Apple ARM processors, the latest version of the macOS already CRIPPLES firewalls to allow any Apple authorised application to bypass the firewalls to spy better on its users, and to exert more control over the device (worst case e.g. killswitch).

> Apple is moving towards denying us CHOICE on the macOS platform too. (And for all those who want to reply that this is not going to happen, Apple is boiling the frog slowly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

You can be an Apple fanboi, but you have to be real naive one to believe that Apple doesn't want to increase their billion dollar+ profit margins through the app store by making the macOS a closed platform like the ios too. (And yes, the app store can be successful only in a closed platform where Apple dictates how - and what - software you can install on it.)

> Please don't use it. Just boycott it.

I definitely try my best. Even for downloading Xcode and/or MacOS system updates I will try to scour the Apple dev sites for proper installers.

Not to mention how slow the store is and music app too. Loading one single artist or app it takes time. I guess both the app is slow rendering the items and architecture delivering the data.

To get around the purchase tied to the single Apple ID, you can share most apps through family sharing.

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