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Comment by ppetty | Hacker News Reader

"I strongly dislike MacOS because they force the "apple way" of doing things."

What does that mean exactly? I'm genuinely curious about what Apple forces a user to do. I would think cost is a concrete example ... But does Apple restrict you from using some software? or executing some work related function? some other functionality? or is that "Apple way" with regard to Apple's user experiences?

I wish there was a "Vent HN:" for posts like this. I'm not saying there isn't a legitimate argument in the original post; but there's a lot of hyperbole & vague statements too. And venting can be healthy.

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Macbooks are abysmal for window management, for example. There are some lightweight tools that can manage some placement but they are neutered in one way or another. Deeper integration requires disabling BIOS-related security which I am personally uncomfortable doing, and still doesn't offer full control like you'd get on other Unix systems. Most of the OS is similarly untouchable.

Another example is Safari and its extensions ecosystem: an Apple license is required for publishing and as such even basic tools (stylus etc.) can require the user to purchase with no guarantee of developer support in the medium to long term.

OOTB the biggest example is the Mac-style hotkeys, its a persistent and extremely annoying problem for new Mac users and is, from the outset, unfixable via any sort of configuration, BIOS or not. Concretely: CTRL + T for new tab is now command + T, however switching tabs is still CTRL + Tab (Mac control is more like alt, in this case).

It's an eternal reminder that you are now stuck doing things the Apple way even if it's just relearning all of your hotkeys.

There are a handful of windows management apps that don't require changing or disabling BIOS security features. Moom & Divvy are both really good.

Safari's extensions shouldn't hold you back too much; if you're willing to use Chrome or Brave or Firefox.

Hotkeys seem like something that would change from platform to platform, but learning how they work does take time.

Certain things like Gatekeeper are a non-starter for some people. I certainly won't buy a macOS-based machine in the future because of it. Back in November 2020 there was an outage in Apple's cloud that handles Gatekeeper verification. Users were not able to launch any non-Apple-Inc. signed binary for an hour or two. I imagine because OP says they main Linux issues like that are completely unacceptable. Imagine not being able to open Chrome on Windows because Microsoft's servers can't respond to verify the integrity of the binary. Absolutely insane.

Vent? I recently had an issue where my Internet connection went down, I was left with my phone and a tiny data cap.

The work I was doing required an Internet connection, but when I tethered my mac, it kept trying to download gigabytes of updates.

It ended in a stalemate with seeming no way to pause, cancel or cap the download.

Both windows and Linux will set you set download cap, flag connections as metered, pause downloads or kill update processes.

I find that a lot of other Apple stuff grating too, not limited to:

- iOS development hoops with certs, provisioning profiles, beta reviews. It doesn't help that AppStoreConnect is bad.

- Apple Developer account 2FA - which is either "trusted device" or SMS. SMS is unreliable and insecure, trusted device ties me to a laptop I don't want to always have with me.

- I had to sign into the AppStore on my mac to get XCode, and now it insists on me using iCloud and iMessage.

You can cancel a download, but if you've enabled automatic updates macOS might not be aware that you have data limits. And that's terrible. Maybe file a bug or support ticket with Apple.

But the rest of your post is puzzling. The original post was about buying a MacBook & how awful that might be. You're describing developing Apple apps for Apple's platform (and 2FA for a dev account). How would you do those things without an Apple device? And why? If you don't like the forced Apple way, why develop for their platform? But also how does that relate to the choice between the 3 devices in the original post?

Okay, that little rant about iOS may have been a little off target, but the picture I was trying to paint about the "Apple way" is that is desires absolute commitment to their ecosystem, anything less and you find yourself with shoddy compromise.

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