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Comment by andrei_says_ | Hacker News Reader

Could you elaborate on the difference between Windows and MacOS in the context of multitasking?

MacOS uses a considerably different window metaphor than Windows does. This isn't bad, but I think it's fair to call it inherently more complicated than the stacking-windows model that Windows uses or the dead-simple "one app fills your screen" model of iOS/iPadOS. At least, that's the immediate problem I've seen family members point out with MacOS.

It may depend on what you're used to. Whenever I use Windows 10 I feel like I'm fighting a window manager which is constantly trying to eat up the whole screen, even for simple things like settings. I don't get that feeling on macOS or any of the Linux desktop environments that I use.

I think that's part of the appeal :)

Windows has always had inelegant desktop metaphors, but it's straightforwardness makes it very easy to understand. It's slow, but it's also easier to understand than typing random things into Spotlight and hoping you get what you want. I don't like Windows by any stretch of the imagination, but it really does "just work" moreso than MacOS or Linux these days.

I do get that the fact you can't Cmd-Tab between windows of an app as well as apps is annoying.

There's always Cmd-` (backtick) to cycle through an app's windows. Easy with the key being just above the tab key.

Yes, but on Windows the same shortcut (Alt-Tab I think?) does both and I'm pretty convinced that is better - especially with full screen apps (windows) on the Mac.

One thing that has stood out to me is that when I have two Edge windows open, for example and I switch to the last used window from Safari, both windows overlap instead of just the one window I was working with.

If you want to just have the one window come forward use Expose to do it, rather than Cmd-Tab or the Dock.

Using mouse is both slower, and needs more mental process to do the same task. Especially if you need to switch repeatedly while doing something, you come up with a short-term muscle memory: use vscode, alt-tab to the other vscode, alt-tab-tab to chrome. Now you know the first alt-tab takes you to the most recent vscode, but two alt-tabs take you to the first one. I develop a vscode extension and do this routinely. On mac I need to either use the mouse, or switch to vscode, then use CMD+backtick to switch to the other. Both are much slower and a disruption to the flow state.

Apple for some reason avoids giving people too many options. Just one option: "threat windows of the same application independently" with a default of no would make everyone happy.

I should say a lot of that is because of the fundamental assumption that multiple instances of an app are related to each other in multitasking.

If I have vscode in my external monitor, plus two Firefox instances one in internal and one in the external, than in many ways of switching to the browser, both windows come up. That covers my IDE, and I need an extra click/keystroke to bring it back. One example of many.

I've observed many mac users. Most of them are much slower than a windows/Linux user with same level of geekiness. In windows/KDE linux, the window switching is conceptually simple and everyone can learn it fast.

Use Expose or Cmd-` rather than Cmd-Tab or the Dock if you want the Windows behavior.

If you are on chrome, and you have two vscode windows, you need to use CMD-tab to switch to VsCode, then see which one you got, if it's not the one you wanted, use CMD+backtick to switch to the other.

Using the mouse is much much slower than the keyboard, especially if on both windows you have been using the keyboard.

I'm not sure what kind of users you observed, but I have switched fully to Mac (as a developer from linux+windows) after seeing how quick devs can be on a Macbook. Dev conferences are full of macs and most of my dev friends made a transition to Mac and I have not heard one complaining about any workflow speed. Actually the opposite and so is my experience.

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