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Comment by AceJohnny2 | Hacker News Reader

> The Mac operating system still Just. Fucking. Sucks. at remembering where windows were, when relaunching apps.

I agree and it's confounding. For me it's even worse: when plugging back into my home office after some work on the road, it doesn't remember the window positions associated with that setup, and I have to reorganize my dozens of windows away from the laptop screen again.

I've solved this through a 3rd-party tool, DisplayMaid https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html (which I found from a prior HN discussion)

It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no.

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Three times I tried switching from Windows to Mac and each time I bounced because of how janky basic window ergonomics were. I shouldn't have to buy single-dollar-programs to fix core OS functionality.

I wrote a hammerspoon script that moves my windows and the dock when I plug in to monitors. That's free, I agree we shouldn't have to have such a complex solution though. But I would bet that if Apple did provide a built in solution it would break the more complex solutions.

You make it sound like they give a damn about breaking 3rd party solutions at the moment.

Huh. After years of mar I tried to go back to windows. I did it for 2 years but I'm so much happier on Mac again.

I did kind of like the windows thg of dragging a window to the top to maximise, but that stuff is easy to replace with an app or two. General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much.

> General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much.

I can't tell whether you're talking about Windows or Mac here

Windows are not bad if you have control over them. But in corp env, you don't and the force updates, AV, FW, extra AV scans and other monitoring shit so even with 32 GB of RAM, fast SSD and latest i7 PC would start to act like it's Win98. That's why I switch to Mac M2, zero corporate shit and total control so it works great.

About FW and AV scans, doesn't macOS phone home when you execute programs?

I remember some problem with programs hanging and/or slow to start because the phoning home functionality was having issues.

edit: yep, it does https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/391379/does-macos-...

It does phone home yes, but people pretend it doesn't and only Windows is evil when it does so. At least it doesn't have ads.

Not yet. But rest assured, they are just getting started. I know of one theory that suggests ATT was really just Apple preparing to launch its own Ads network.

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

> That's why I switch to Mac M2, zero corporate shit and total control so it works great.

Unless you work at an org that has all this stuff, like pretty much any org at scale that has compliance or security requirements. My work-issued MacBook has an AV that slows opening everything, forces updates and restarts and all that jazz.

Same. Our corporate-issue MBPs come with managed policies, AV software, and remote control services (remote wipe, lockout). It's why I'm never tempted to use work equipment for personal use.

I guess our org has chosen better management software, though, because it never results in restarts. The one exception is the requirement to keep the OS patched in order to log in to corporate systems.

The window position thing is really annoying though.

To be fair, that's only in part because Apple doesn't seem to have the level of device management Windows offers.

Many of the solutions I've seen in the corp environment try to make up for this with some frankly janky solutions. Apple seems to be slowly improving that, but give it time.

But at the end of the day, the crappy performance hits I've seen on both kinds kf devices are generally shitty monitoring solutions and restrictions that neither support natively.

This is where 'not corporate endorsed but tolerated' wsl2 is awesome, everything inside the vm is not scanned or slowed down by all the security crap.

My WindowServer is sitting at 30% CPU and 15% GPU on an M1 MacBook Pro and I have no idea why. I reboot the Mac more often than I rebooted my dogshit HP enterprise laptop.

MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.

Did you ever consider there might be something wrong with your machine or some piece of software you’ve installed?

Or do you think the rest of the world that has heaped praise on the Apple Silicon Macs has missed something you’ve seen?

I blame this on trying to use non-Apple hardware with the MacBook. I'm sure if I had an Apple Display instead of a g-sync 165Hz-capable monitor and closed the lid when hooked up everything would be... perhaps not fine, but good enough.

The macbook is amazing when considered in isolation. Trying to use it in a workstation setting is definitely 'holding it wrong', which drives me nuts. Wasted potential and definitely undeserving of the 'Pro' moniker.

I use it in a workstation setting. Two workstation settings in fact.

I dock at home into a dual monitor setup.

I go to work and dock into a dual monitor setup.

I keep my MacBook open, not closed.

Pretty much all my coworkers do the same. All with Apple silicon MacBook pros. No idea what you’re talking about.

I believe you — I just think you need to do a deeper dive into your kit instead of assuming the rest of the world must be wrong about these machines.

Huge plus one. I too bounce between environments with my MacBook. Never experienced any of the issues the gp describes, which to me sounds like something wrong with that device. Is it a Corp managed device?

I have zero Apple displays out of the three or four I have in the office. They all work amazingly well -- often better than on Windows or Linux.

I have a LG 38WN95C (3480x1600, 144hz, thunderbolt 3) monitor that's plugged into my Macbook Pro (M1 Pro _I think_, I'm not home to doulble check). The laptop is in clamshell and plugged in via Thunderbolt 3. IIRC, I had to turn the refresh rate down to 120hz, but otherwise it works well. The only hiccup is that if I unplug it, use it for a bit, and plug it back in I have to open the lid one time after plugging it in so it can realize it's plugged in to a display.

I have a M3 Pro MacBook Pro for work that I also swap between on the display using the single cable that I remove from one to plug into the other. The laptop travels with me to work where it plugs into a 16:9 4k 60hz monitor while it's open. I have the same clamshell issue as my personal laptop where I have to open it once after plugging it in, but otherwise it works pretty well.

I do however have to do some workspace rearranging when I go from clamshell->ultrawide to my work setup of open lid->16:9 monitor. But that's no a huge deal since I'm going from 1 screen to 2 screens.

I'm using one in a workstation setting with 1 big curved widescreen monitor and a multitude of keyboards and pointer devices, and it's great. It's fine in the workstation setting, you're holding it particularly wrong somewayhow

It's a Mac. Of course there's something wrong with it. It's riddled with bugs Apple can't be bothered to fix.

If it isn't WindowServer losing its mind, it's some other buggy system daemon. Apple simply does not do stable versions of macOS any more.

Most of the Apple Silicon praise is coming from delusional fanboys. It's only good for one thing and it is power efficiency.

For the majority of people that are really into computers, that means jack shit and it is basically just some nice thing you may want to have if you really have to use a laptop from time to time.

Most Apple laptops (especially the expensive ones) are used by executives and somewhat rich people who want to show off. I was an Apple technician in the past so I know very well how marketing really doesn't match the typical user, then you get irrelevant "praise".

As someone who actually cared about Apple products, I wish they didn't switch their whole computer lineup to Apple Silicon. They could have kept making standard computers at the same time, but it would have been hard justifying such outrageous markup on ram and storage.

Are you running an external display and is it DisplayLink?

Yes, HDMI-USB-C dedicated cable directly into the laptop.

Are you using an actual USB-C to DisplayPort adapter or a software-enabled adapter? If you're driving more than one monitor, it might be the software-enabled type, which is NOT actually multiple monitors over DisplayPort but some other weirdness.

If you miss some specific Windows behaviour, I might have listed an app that implements it: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers

(I switch between Windows and Mac throughout the day, so window tiling and Fancy Zones were things I missed)

Resizing a window in macOS feels so janky. The fancy gestures are all very smooth, but the basic stuff seems like it's forgotten.

I've been running a Mac three display system for 5+ years now, maybe even longer. A 27" iMac with two 27" Thunderbolt displays on each side. It mostly works well... I haven't really seen (or been bothered by) most of the problems that OP complains about. The only thing is these thunderbolt displays are getting pretty old, and Apple isn't making any more similar displays in this category. I've already replaced the guts of both of them as parts have failed, and one of them has a persistent problem with the thunderbolt cable, to the point where I had to use a separate cable rather than the built-in one.

I admit I do get annoyed that even in a mostly unchanging environment (same monitors plugged into the same ports forever), macOS forgets where windows are supposed to go.

Another thing is the OS's handling of plug in events. When you have just one monitor on and plug in another one, the main monitor blanks briefly, then both monitors turn on and you're good to go. Not too bad. But when you have two monitors on, and you plug in a third, it first blanks the secondary monitor, that comes back on, then it blanks both the secondary and main monitor, then they both come back on, and then the new monitor turns on. Super irritating.

My company has enforced frequent updates of browsers and other software set up, so we are relaunching apps very often, and this drives me crazy.

It feels like someone is walking over to your desk and moving everything around, just to annoy you.

Is it a Mac thing to keep applications open? I usually close mine as soon as I'm not actively using them

Not really, I would guess more of a personal workflow. I just have the same set of apps open the whole time, regardless of OS. Browser, test browser, code editor, terminal, chat, music player. That's enough windows to cause placement issues.

Yes I think it is, In Mac OS it has always been explicit that an application ≠ window (with only a few exceptions such as the calculator app). Closing an app window must not quit the application.

This is reinforced by the menu bar which is always at the top of the screen rather than attached to an application window.

Why is that? I'm a gnome/Linux user who had to switch to Mac M3 for work.

Macos feels.... Half baked. I don't understand why apps should run after I close the window.

I'm also annoyed that I can't type the window I want when viewing all windows. If I open mission control, it takes 3 clicks on the dock to run the app. (Un-do mission control, focus the dock, run the app.)

That being said, I do like stage manager, I try to size my windows 90% so I can see the background windows.

>Macos feels.... Half baked. I don't understand why apps should run after I close the window.

Because that's what Steve Jobs decided and he was never wrong. /s

The Apple philosophy always was "we know what's best for our users, it's our way or the highway, deal with it".

It’s an optimization from the early days where launching application was slow but task switching to an application in virtual memory was quick.

The benefits seem less obvious with modern hardware like SSD’s, but it is still a net benefit once you’re used to it.

The Mac could originally only run one major application at a time - although you did have 'desk accessories'. Andy Hertzfeld relatively soon wrote 'Switcher', a hack to allow multiple applications, which was released some time in early 1985. That wasn't virtual memory, it was real physical memory. The Mac wouldn't officially get virtual memory until System 7.

A more official solution wouldn't come until MultiFinder in 1987, and that was originally limited to one foreground and one background application. Wikipedia says:

"When an application is activated, all of its windows are brought forward as a single layer. This approach is necessary for backward compatibility with many of the windowing data structures that were already documented."

"With the release of System 7 [in 1991], the MultiFinder extension was integrated with the operating system, and it remains so in Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. However, the integration into the OS does nothing to fix MultiFinder's inherent idiosyncrasies and disadvantages."

By the time that OS X came out in 2001, the menu bar being at the top of the screen, and switching with the current app, was fully entrenched. After all, OS X initially had no native apps, still emulating the old OS 9 environment, and Carbon (essentially recompiling a "classic" Mac OS 9 app with relatively minor changes) would be the dominant API for some time too. Indeed Carbon wasn't removed until macOS 10.15 Catalina in late 2019.

An app is not a document in Mac OS (and other operating systems). Therefore it is logical that closing the document will not quit the application. Treating all applications as document is a flawed model which often breaks down as is made obvious when opening multiple documents in a MDI system.

It's even traceable all the way back to the user interface research at Xerox which Apple took and went with because it worked so well. Researchers such as Donald Norman also concluded that MDI interface were much worse at common actions such as drag-and-drop and standardised interface controls.

The macOS ideal (and arguably it’s somewhat correct) is that you shouldn’t have to think about it at all. You should be thinking about the documents/content of what you’re doing, not the internals of the OS.

The closest they’ve gotten is iOS itself where apps sleep forever without your interaction.

In the very early days of macOS before becoming a Unix it was actually noticeable because for ordinary people they apps they would use would always be around, and it was still faster to swap in running apps than load a closed app from disk.

If you want to type the window, something like alfred / raycast / spotlight search invoked by keyboard can help.

My gnome workflow was: * I have many windows open * I press a key (super) to get the misson-control like overview. I type in "Firefox" * It will run the app if it's not already running, or switch to it.

If there's something that can emulate that, and... Not be a hacky work around.. then I'm all ears

Cmd + spacebar opens the Spotlight Search

That’s how it works on macOS. Command-space (or whatever way you want to trigger Spotlight) then type Firefox and it will bring it to the front, or launch it if it’s not running. No workarounds or third-party software needed.

The menu bar is at the top because it’s always been there, but moreover it makes it easier to click menus as you only have to flick your cursor to Y=0 and then move it in the X dimension laterally instead of having to find a small target on a window in the middle of the screen. On other OSs it’s more common to maximize windows.

Distinguishing between processes (applications) and windows just makes sense.

For example say you download something in your browser, then you open a new window, then you close the original window. If windows = processes then closing the original window should cancel the download (because you killed that process), but we all know that would be nonsensical. So user intuition is that there is one main process and multiple windows.

Apple does allow for closing the window to kill the process. However only if there is one main window, such as the calculator app. If there’s multiple windows possible (such as in a text editor or web browser), then closing all windows does not quit the application because the user may want to close a window and then open a new window (e.g. open document or new document).

I think the rule was (and probably still is) that closing a window in a document-based application keeps the app open but closing a window in a utility application (where you usually would have only one window anyway) closes the application.

Why would it be "a Mac thing"? I only ever close FireFox when updating the system and I'm on Linux.

I think it's less of a Mac thing, and more of a RAM thing.

More ram than you anticipate is like extra lung capacity and working memory. Also an extra year or two out of the laptop. Combined with horsepower it can be an advantage.

Instant switching of apps or screens can have it's benefits, but needs to be managed.

Similar to having more tabs open than normal. Tools like Firefox Spaces are invaluable for switching between multiple client projects.

Waiting for apps to open/load/close can add up significantly throughout a day depending on the variety.

Back in the day, there was this idea of some applications being "document" centered while others revolved around an "activity". On average you only want one instance of your calculator application open as it's what you use to do math and having two or three might be confusing. On the other hand, when you use Microsoft Word there's really one window per a document and having five Word documents open at once make sense.

This is another idea that has been somewhat lost over time. I believe the way it works now is that you can choose to have your application close when it's last window is closed, or not. That seems a reasonable compromise, it's never been clear to me why you'd want an application like Word with no window to continue running.

yabai is the closest you can get to i3/sway like tiling window management on macOS, and its config allows fixing an app always to open in a certain workspace.

Tools like Yabai are interesting. I found I've wanted to learn more about people's setups in how they keep one screen config whether there's only the laptop display or 1, 2, or 3 external displays and it looks like Yabai and another one listed here is a step forward.

I use Linux and I ended up moving to i3 almost entirely because of the window and workspace management with multiple displays.

I used yabai for a while, but its general bugginess (losing windows, mishandling native tabs, SIP disable required for some functionality) eventually convinced me to try Aerospace. I have been very happy with how stable it is in comparison, though it's still not quite as nice as actual sway/i3.

Oh god, and needing to make sure that I disable workspace reordering based upon how it feels I should work is right up as a priority when I deal with a new Mac.

The most frustrating part for me is that the spatial metaphor [1] was at the core of the Mac’s identity from the beginning. I think this is a classic example of how a company’s philosophy — its very identity — can be lost if it’s not carefully preserved through turnover of team members.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/

> It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no.

I hear what you’re saying, but the vast majority of MacBook pros are probably never plugged into an external display. I know on Hacker News it’s a very different story, but for the general population, they don’t use external displays.

In my case, I almost never use the MBP as a standalone.

My replacement for it will be a Studio, whenever the M4 version comes out. I'll keep my current laptop as an "on the road" computer.

Same here. I’d say my laptop is docked 99.99% of the time. I was just pointing out a possible reason as to why multi-monitor support is not a higher priority for Apple. It’s a subset (multi-monitor) of a subset (Mac) of their business.

I do wish it was better, but I’ve also found tools to work around all of my issues .

I just swipe with three fingers. I find that less annoying than dragging my mouse across displays and moving my head.

Another option that works for me: https://cordlessdog.com/stay/

I would disagree about Apple having a "rich docking ecosystem".

Apple might be the only major manufacturer to not provide their own docking solution that work extremely well, beyond trying to do it with a display.

As soon as the "pro" moniker is used, 2, if not 3 monitors are completely normal. Extra wide monitors do not cut it. 3 24" 2k monitors at 2560x1440 can be far preferable to a single ultrawie that barely provides 2 monitors worth of pixels in the same space.

Lenovo, HP, Dell, Microsoft, all have it nailed. Used almost all of them before Apple.

It's also pretty bad if you have a personal computer and a work computer. It's mystifying that they sell $1000+ monitors with a single input. Like a terrible no name $100 POS these days will typically have two, if not 3 inputs.

Once upon a time you could daisy chain Displayport monitors.

The Matrox TripleHead2Go seems to remain relevant so many years after it's introduction, I used to run 3 monitors on my HP dock with one. Dynamite.

Nowadays, Pro at Apple mainly means "extra expensive", often doesn't have much to do with professional use even though sometimes it is actually at the intersection.

they used to have a bug a few years ago and some windows got to be placed outside the visible area when switching displays. there was no direct way to drag them back and restarting the app most of the time did nothing, as it reopened in the same place.

there was a button somewhere on the display settings that had the purpose of moving every app to the current active screen, that one saved the day.

I haven't had any issues in Ventura with window positions when plugging and unplugging the external monitor with my MBP M2.

While MacOS does seem to rearrange windows occasionally for no clear reason, and there have been serious bugs in past releases, it does correctly restore my window positions across two 4k external displays when I connect them through a Thunderbolt 4 docking station.

Maybe some applications have custom window position management and fail at multiple displays? I haven't noticed any.

The only third party tool that I use to help with window management is BetterSnapTool. It restores some basic missing functionality that comes built in in Windows, most importantly the ability to maximize windows and snap them to the left and right half of the screen, plus a few other things.

FWIW I am by far at my most productive with a 43" 4K display in front of me with a sidecar 23" arranged vertically for long vertical documents. I do wish that 43" was an 8K to double the DPI though.

Wow DisplayMaid looks useful.

I managed to get my system "working" without knowing about it.

I have a macbook and an external display, and I utilize "desktops" heavily.

Basically desktop: 1 = gmail/calendar | 2 = slack, messenger, imessage, etc. | 3 = chrome | 4 = terminal | 5 = vscode

In the dock you can right click an app, and Options, Assign to Desktop N.

Luckily, when I plug my macbook into the dock with monitor, I actually want it to be a static desktop, showing just the website I'm working on. And I want the monitor to switch through desktops that have my applications.

This basically just works with one caveat. When switching from plugged in to unplugged, the macbook screen becomes desktop 1, and all the desktops shift over by one. So I just rearranged everything to be +1 (i.e. gmail/calendar are actually always desktop 2), and everything works seamlessly.

Yip. It always bugs me that so many fundamental things aren't implemented; no native calendar in the taskbar (well top/status bar) so I gotta use an app.

Finder fucking sucks, it doesn't remember which sort order I've set for which folder and I constantly have to change it between alphabetical and created date, mostly for the file open dialog (alphabet for vscode folder open, created date for slack or browser file upload).

For all of Apple's bluster they're really only as good as any other company when it comes to the "it just works" experience, often worse.

I've had the same problem on two MacBooks (one Intel, one M1), it restored the windows just fine when the (two) monitors were plugged black in until one day ... it stopped.

yes, yes, yes. Losing window positions is my MAIN gripe! Thanks for the link you might have saved my sanity!

Works fine for me. I sit down, plug my MBP 14" into the studio display, close the lid and carry on where I was. It does a reasonable job of window placement.

probably works when using a single screen. But on a multi screen setup, so having the macbook as 2nd screen, it's not working

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