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Comment by bzzzt | Hacker News Reader

One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time. Windows interrupts you regularly for stuff that's not important to whatever you're doing. Combined with third-party applications that are noisy as heck to make sure you don't forget you bought/installed them (especially AV scanners, but it seems like every app wants a place in your system tray and has it's own updater and wants your attention when it updates). But if Windows does what you need and doesn't cause you friction just use it instead of crapping on macOS.

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> Windows interrupts you regularly for stuff that's not important to whatever you're doing.

It has literally never happened to me. However it happens weekly on Mac, where I will lose the focus of my window and be prompted for an update.

> where I will lose the focus of my window and be prompted for an update.

That you can disable in System Preferences. On Windows Home, for example, updates cannot be disabled, and the OS will install them even if this means ruining everything you're doing.

macOS updates are notified using the native notification subsystem. It's inobtrusive and definitely does not take the focus away from app windows.

I discovered recently you can set notifications on macOS to 'do not disturb'

System Preferences -> Notifications -> Do Not Disturb

I set Turn On Do Not Disturb 'from 12:01AM to 11:59PM'

> One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time.

That is really just not true. I don't even think one could consider it an opinion. Irregardless of what Windows does, macOS constantly gets in your way. Try to rename iTunes, because that's the only way to keep it from opening every time you connect your non-Apple Bluetooth headphones (there's a convoluted procedure to do so). Try to control the brightness or volume of an external monitor. You cannot. Even the monitor itself isn't as good as it is on Windows due to poor resolution and text handling on macOS, and a Macbook Pro with a discrete video card struggles to drive the monitor. External mice and keyboards are touch and go with macOS and reset settings nearly on a daily basis for me. Developer tools, such as asdf or others installed from Homebrew are incredibly finicky and often require workarounds depending on whatever macOS version you're on and whatever thing it decided to break. (For example, it's actually easier to get Erlang's observer running on WSL on Windows with the GUI interface than it is on macOS, which requires all sorts of hacks in Homebrew.) I don't know why Apple doesn't get the same hate as Windows, because my Macbook Pro constantly installs stuff all on its own. I get pinged by several apps to update through their own update mechanism on macOS.

The auto-launching of itunes when I get off a call using my Bluetooth headset is super annoying! If it weren't for the CLI Mac would be worthless for development. The only reason I have one is for work, and only because I'm not allowed to use my own hardware (which would be a laptop with debian).

You can get rid of iTunes launching by renaming it. If I recall correctly, there are a bunch of possible workarounds but that's the one that definitely works if you don't care about iTunes. But it required getting IT approval for upgraded permissions and then a whole reboot into safe mode and change the name procedure using some setting or shell command (something like that). I think it was like two or three reboots to change the name of the iTunes application, but I don't recall the exact procedure.

My CLI do you mean the Unix-like underlying system (like through Terminal, zsh, bash, etc.)? I enjoy WSL on Windows more because it's actually Linux and usually just works. The only trouble I have there sometimes is network related activities, as is usual for VM-like setups.

I found software called notunes that will disable iTunes, but now my Amazon music player fires up whenever I stop a Bluetooth call instead.

And yes, I mean the unix like environment. WSL isn't an option for me on my work computer since our giant corporate IT department has the windows machines on an older build (and locked down to the point of productivity sacrifice) that has poor WSL support. I've used it on my home PC and it works surprisingly well and gets better with each update.

iTunes doesn't even exist anymore on macOS.

> Try to rename iTunes, because that's the only way to keep it from opening every time you connect your non-Apple Bluetooth headphones (there's a convoluted procedure to do so)

Never happened once with any of my non-Apple Bluetooth headphones. What the ** are you talking about? Do you constantly hit the play button on the headphones when you connect them? That's the only time Apple Music or iTunes would launch without the user starting the app explicitly.

> due to poor resolution and text handling on macOS

Yeah. Apple has basically told everyone without a Retina display to go ** themselves. While Windows does handle those in-between resolutions much better.

>I don't know why Apple doesn't get the same hate as Windows, because my Macbook Pro constantly installs stuff all on its own

You can turn off auto-updates on the Mac. You do know that right?

> Macbook Pro with a discrete video card struggles to drive the monitor.

My guess is that you're using a 2016-2019 MBP. If so, try plugging in the dock/monitor to the right side Thunderbolt ports. For some ungodly reason MBPs tend to throttle if a dock is plugged in on the left side.

If by Retina display you mean an Apple display and not resolution, then yes. Because my monitor is 5k and should be able to be handled. And I already use the Thunderbolt port on the right side, having researched this a bit. Auto-updates can be turned off on Windows as well. I still get updates I didn't expect on macOS, often when I've told it explicitly not to do so (like when you get the notification requesting it). And sometimes, like for work computers, auto-update is not able to be disabled (I no longer use Macs for my personal use), and so macOS doing the update whenever it wants is problematic.

Regarding the headphones, it's a common issue. In our case, it was done when the Bluetooth headphones (a model sold in Apple stores!) simply connected, as another commenter mentioned. There's all sorts of forum posts about this with a litany of solutions. The only solution that worked for us was to rename iTunes (the name at the time).

> If by Retina display you mean an Apple display and not resolution, then yes. Because my monitor is 5k and should be able to be handled.

Really? You have a 5120x2880 monitor that macOS is messing up? I've never heard that before. Talk to LG, there's got to be something wrong with it.

>Auto-updates can be turned off on Windows as well. I still get updates I didn't expect on macOS, often when I've told it explicitly not to do so (like when you get the notification requesting it).

Not Apple's fault that you don't know what you're doing. I've turned off auto-updates and nothing updates unless I tell it to. There are some apps that auto-update on their own, like Chrome and Firefox. But they do that on Windows too.

> Regarding the headphones, it's a common issue. In our case, it was done when the Bluetooth headphones (a model sold in Apple stores!) simply connected, as another commenter mentioned.

Basically the headphones that do that send a play command when they connect. Apple will auto-start iTunes/Apple Music when nothing is loaded and play is hit. Yeah, that's annoying. I wish Apple didn't program iTunes that way, but that is entirely the fault of the headphones. That's why bluetooth headphones today don't do that.

> > If by Retina display you mean an Apple display and not resolution, then yes. Because my monitor is 5k and should be able to be handled. Really? You have a 5120x2880 monitor that macOS is messing up? I've never heard that before. Talk to LG, there's got to be something wrong with it.

I can also confirm that OSX doesn’t have a good case with external monitors, but I am no longer sure that it is possible at all. Frankly, all OSes suck at it so hard that one should just try to avoid the situation. Strangely enough the new Wayland on Linux may be the most adequate at it, though it is still far from perfect.

Wow, you basically defeated your own argument (the first sentence) with the rest of your post.

You've merely succeeded in demonstrating many examples of "one mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface". All of your examples are things that many people won't run into. External monitor? Non-Apple bluetooth? I don't use either of those so, yes indeed, I find it to be a streamlined interface.

not like my opinion matters much, but I feel that Apple's stuff was great in year 2010. not so much nowadays. I don't know what would be a reason to favor macOS over Linux

When it it runs, Linux is great, but when something breaks fixing it can be labor intensive. When something on Mac stops working a call to Mac support will usually fix it in a couple of hours.

That said, I agree with your 2010 estimate of Mac software peaking in 2010. Mac laptop hardware is still better than Linux laptop hardware. As someone who's considering my first Linux laptop, I need to balance the inconveniences of Linux hardware now with the likely fact I can probably use that laptop significantly longer than current Mac. Somebody has to pay for all those convenient Mac support folks.

>Mac laptop hardware is still better than Linux laptop hardware. As someone who's considering my first Linux laptop, I need to balance the inconveniences of Linux hardware now with the likely fact I can probably use that laptop significantly longer than current Mac. Somebody has to pay for all those convenient Mac support folks.

The funny thing about that is that it's only with the Apple Silicon Macs that's true. The 2016-2020 Intel MacBooks were a garbage fire.

The goddamn last intel MacBook Pro manages to legit burn my hand if I don’t use a program that forces the vents on.. Like sure, I do hate the sound of a vent but when I am actively using a laptop for writing or something and it is scorching hot then please choose the annoying noise over boiling my skin. Though I feel these things are more like Apple assuming that an intel proc is the same as an M1 that hardly heats up.

>Windows interrupts you regularly for stuff that's not important to whatever you're doing.

Really not my current experience and I use W10 daily at work and W11 at home. Not saying it's a good OS, just saying that your statement is plain wrong.

If certain (third party) apps are annoying then you can control notifications through the focus assist setting just like with any mobile OS.

Exactly. The only "interruptions" I get on my Windows machine are from my AV, and the lower-right-corner popup alerts don't steal focus from my current window.

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