The Mac Is a Power Tool
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
Idk why I'm reflexively cranky towards him, I used to worship the guy. Somewhere around 2016/2017 it started reading like nails on chalkboard.
I think it was the attempts to prove the Google restaurant reservation service thing was fake, including the demo, escalating it into encouraging people to call the restaurant to ask, then when the restaurant said it was true, please stop calling, suggesting the restaurant was in on it.
Also, when I grew up on tech in the Apple fandom community pre-iPhone/early iPhone, there was a ton of principled worries about the App Store that was treated respectfully, at least, until the leaders willing to say that moved onto other tech. At some point those same concerns became reflexively dismissed as trolling / wanting to hurt users / EU pandering
> I want applications to be cryptographically signed by known developers and notarized by Apple by default
Not me, this describes a Walled Garden to a tee.
Power Tools mean flexibility, not locked down. The only real "power tools" out there are *BSD and Linux. With those systems I can do whatever I want without begging for permission from a commercial vendor or anyone else for that matter.
But what is the point of have all those checks when you will bypass them anyway.
It is like spending thousands for a house alarm but never turning the alarm on. It just adds needless complexity that will never get used.
Gruber has been in this longer than I have, and clearly he can see the same stuff you and I can. If he was okay with Apple going guns-akimbo 10 years ago I don't see why he'd grow a conscience all of the sudden. Seems to me that the frogs notice the water boiling, now.
I think this is spot on. When even Gruber complains openly you know it's bad. See also DHH lately.
Warren Buffet recently sold half his AAPL holdings. When he got them he mentioned the brand strength as the main reason. Maybe he too noticed the heat of the water?
What about the Linux desktops do you find incompetent?
If you spend most of your time in a terminal or IDE you don't see the pain.
I want it to work. I want to use it. But it's just bad quality.
In context, by the time I've worked around the issues, I earn enough to just buy a Mac and use that. And everything works fine there!
Nowadays desktop Linux is pretty good, to the point that Valve uses it as the backbone for their gaming handheld. Fractional scaling is upstreamed in Qt and GTK, Pipewire is the default for Bluetooth now alongside 320kbps codecs (including AAC), and GNOME and KDE are both now stable enough on Wayland to daily-drive. I think your complaints would have been valid 10 years ago, but the hodge-podge x11 desktops are in the rearview mirror for most users.
Oh Apple software and hardware is so secure... Bruh, your entire dev env unless you're developing in xcode is literally a supply chain attack waiting to happen. And at the same time it is hard to make work and breaks randomly with OS updates or bottle updates or just after a restart with no apparent reason.
Please... Fractional scaling is (allegedly) not working... Big deal, even if it was true (it's not https://i.imgur.com/wm84JxU.png)...
Apple music loads when you plug in headphones? Is that the same as your laptop doesn't suspend and resume at all?
The taskbar has things you don't like in it? Is that the same as "the UI for most apps are show stopper broken"?
If I fix the icons in my dock, they stay fixed. If I fix something in Linux, someone is going to come along and break it next time I patch something.
See the difference? I like the mac as an access device for power tools BECAUSE the kind of folks who like messing with computers aren't messing with mine.
And most of what you mention in the last paragraph needs to be prefaced with "if you don't mind burning 4x more battery on doing it without acceleration", and "if you don't mind it looking like a small child chose your fonts".
It's not enough for it to be kinda usable if you squint, it needs to use the hardware I paid for, it needs to suspend and resume and boot securely, it needs to look good, display in the colors I want on the display hardware I choose, and let me remap the keyboard without using 10 apps to cover all the weird edge cases.
That's table stakes.
My monitor has audio out, which I plug into speakers... both have their own volume, but I'd rather use keyboard controls, but I can't, OSX disables volume control completely.
Also, you can't have a window span monitors. It only appears on the monitor that has >50%.
Links opened from non browsers open in the window physically closest to the opening app (ish). If you run chrome with multiple profiles, you can't just expect the most recently used window to open the link, you must position the window with the profile you want to use overlapping the other browser, often requiring me to drag a window fully to the other monitor (because windows can't span monitors).
OSX is the worst window manager ever created. There are states you can get into with your mouse that you can't reverse without a obscure key combo. Window snapping took how long, and it's still the worst. you can't make a window be as big as it can be without making it full screen.
It's just the worst.
I've been told I can fix all of these things... if I buy 10 different $10 apps.
I moved on from MacOS 5 years ago (after the Catalina announcement) and don't miss a thing. I also pay substantially less money for the same software with no built-in advertising at all. My news app doesn't link out to Taboola, my music app doesn't ask me to subscribe or buy albums, my Docker doesn't rely on a VM. You have to drag me back kicking and screaming to Windows or MacOS, because they're both bad operating systems nowadays. Neither one of them is a better choice than the other, you're either stuck with Pinky or dealing with The Brain. I choose neither.
Perhaps I added fixes or did configuration tweaks when I originally set up the system and I just forgot and those are keeping those items you mentioned from bothering me. I think on this current box that was 6 years ago and has required nothing since and just reliably runs.
Or: what do you use?
I use NixOS, these days. It shares a lot of similarities with Silverblue, except it relies on the Nix package manager instead of the RPM one. It's not "the least trouble" by a long-shot, but it has a lot of great built-in tooling that makes developing multiple projects with different packages a breeze. Where other people might use a VM or Docker to isolate build dependencies, us Nix users write specifications for an environment and get a special shell with all our dependencies pre-linked. I digress, but it's a neat project in it's own right that even supports MacOS if it sounds like something you'd want. I've used it in-prod and have nothing but good things to say about it.
Agreed, but there is a decent enough workaround.
Sure it does. Some apps require a workaround (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI) but most of the time you can set it in the DE and forget about it.
If you're in Wayland you get the same output rescaling option as MacOS. (Which still requires some workarounds for apps - you'll see a few problems on a 1080p screen regardless of the system)
> suspend/resume on the whole platform is Russian roulette
It's better than windows these days and you can actually disable periodic auto resume unlike on MacOS.
> sound over BT is terrible
This has been solved since pipewire. Linux effectively has the best, most customisable and lowest latency audio system today. It's definitely better than MacOS which will force you into mono low quality if any app queries the microphone.
> And everything works fine there!
It's ok if you prefer it, but the list of issues on a MacOS is long and often ignored upstream. It's not even close to "everything". (I've got a trivially reproducible system crash bug report open for over a year now)
[0] https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/
[1] https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=A...
I tried it on a stock Lenovo T14 gen 3 and a new Intel 14500 crate with both integrated graphics and a 4060 and a Lenovo T495s. The issues were persistent across all three machines.
Can you imagine a typical dumb end user hitting one of these problems and you telling them: "buy a new computer". Hell no. The damn software should work properly.
Then a couple of months down the road I do it again, because it randomly breaks after an update, while on top of that fonts look worse and somehow the UI is even less consistent than Gnome's. How the hell does one even achieve that after so many breaking changes to GTK...
I’m really not a fan of the “usual subjects” in the Linux desktop world (e.g. Gnome, KDE Plasma, etc…XFCE is decent), but step beyond that into the tiling Window Manager world and the user/developer experience is IMO leaps and bounds beyond any other desktop.
Most people who like desktop Linux seem to only want to do some narrow thing with their computer, like use Emacs for everything.
My desktop is EXWM (Emacs) witch offer at login an org-mode live dashboards of anything I frequently need, a "desktop" in my own hand able to collect any kind of information I want. Keybindings are my control and quick launchers of various functionalities not apps, meaning a quick key to open a new mail compose buffer, no need to fire up some app up-front, another to search&narrow between my notes, the most flexible taxonomy who contain anything, files and executable links (elisp: sexps). Long story short a free tiling desktop I can bend to my needs.
Modern desktops are the aftermath of widget-based GUIs, limited and limiting tools who can't be flexible so try to be generic and users have to adapt to them instead of the contrary. No matter how well you do the modern design, it's still users who adapt to it instead of the desktop designed by any users according do his/her own needs and desire. The overall OS it's the same, in a classic desktop, let's say a LispM, anything is a function you can combine and use everywhere, if you have maxima (CAS) installed you can solve an ode inside a mail compose buffer, simply because your fully-integrated environment have that functionality, you can type and preview LaTeX etc. Modern GUIs have tried to mimic that and blatantly fail. Microsoft OLE are probably the biggest integration effort, still a fail due to the lack of substantial integration and widgets based design. Apple have tried the absurd of "integrating GUIs in the desktop" with top menu and Finder, another fail. Now most tend to WebUIs, witch are DocUIs but still not in user hands to be simply integrated and bent. So again another failure with "composed" WebApps that keep failing and still not enough flexibility.
That's why after 50+ years we "tech savvy users" keep learning the Unix CLI, Emacs, LaTeX and so on, because essentially no modern tool could work better or with less effort.
YMMV but these are also poor solutions to the problem that no one has the time, money, motivation or competence to do better.
LaTeX is a daily one for me. It would be beneficial for society that someone writes a word processor from scratch that does better. I used TechWriter back in the 90s it it was better than both LaTeX and word.
One part well taken in older desktops are the idea of DocUIs, editable and end-user programmable, of course I'll not use today a LispM or a Xerox Alto, my EXWM still boot on modern GNU/Linux (NixOS) because I need to interact with today world, I can't live like RMS with an obsolete laptop (much a craptop even if open) etc, but still with these old tools because they outshine modern ones.
I casually use R and I like some of it's aspects, since it's a casual usage while inside EXWM and living in org-mode I've chosen R-Studio for that, it's not "anything ready and perfect" but the point remain. Why the hell wasting gazillion of time to create slides if I can simply present from a zoomed org-mode buffer? Why wasting my life with a spreadsheet if I can do the same with few SLoC in an org-babel block or in R Studio UI? Why became sick formatting docs with an office automation package when I can export/write directly LaTeX and change pretty anything without re-touching my text?
Replace 'Unix' with 'Linux' and the comparison still holds:
Unix is the Hole Hawg of operating systems, and Unix hackers, like Doug Barnes and the guy in the Dilbert cartoon and many of the other people who populate Silicon Valley, are like contractor's sons who grew up using only Hole Hawgs. They might use Apple/Microsoft OSes to write letters, play video games, or balance their checkbooks, but they cannot really bring themselves to take these operating systems seriously.
Linux is a Hole Hawg, it might be rough on the edges but it can do the work where its more polished brethern-in-Posix give up.
Oh yup it does. If Linux powers 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputer and if it powers billions of small devices, it certainly can be used as powertool on my main desktop PC.
Funnily enough it kinda would work, again, today as most people now only ever need one app: a browser. I still need to install apps, but most people don't. So as far as the browser itself is the sandbox, the OS is fine: it runs nothing but the browser.
It's the reason I could switch my mother-in-law's laptop to a Chromebook: she's fine as long as she's got a browser.
But correct me if I am wrong, the weekly alerts is only for screen recording right? Realistically how many apps do you have with that permission? Given that it a highly sensitive permission since it can basically expose nearly anything else that isn’t in a password box… it seems fine?
Maybe make it 2 weeks or “smart” and taking into account how often the app is really using that permission.
But similar on my iPhone if I were to grant an app permission to read my contacts(I don’t, but still), I would want to know if it’s constantly doing that in the background.
Even if Mac has a notice at the top saying your screen is being monitored, I still think having this periodically confirm access again is a good thing.
As mentioned Apple does have to walk that line between power users and most users. Even as a power user why is a one week alert really going to interfere with my ability to use it as I wish?
To me the reality is there isn’t a solution here that appeases everyone. An app that wants unrestricted access will try to trick the user to follow a few steps to disable a safeguard. We see this all over iOS with so many apps trying to justify their tracking.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/macos-15-sequoia-mak...
However, it is worth mentioning that in 3 of the "span of links" seem to be referencing the screen recording change I mentioned. (1 for sure, the third one ... kinda vague?).
But also:
> But I also want to be able to grant trusted applications non-sandboxed access to my entire file system, access to cameras and microphones, and the ability to capture my screen.
So that may have causing it, but clearly both of these issues the author is upset about and implying it causes issues for power users.
If it were smart, it would have a "Never Again" option.
Nick Heer argues that these dialogs are not even effective for unsophisticated users, especially when they occur repeatedly: https://pxlnv.com/blog/permissions-pollution/
> I do not think this new prompt succeeds in helping users make an informed decision. There is no information in the dialog’s text informing you who the developer is, and if it has changed. It does not appear the text of the dialog can be customized for the developer to provide a reason. If this is thrown by an always-running app like Bartender, a user will either become panicked or begin passively accepting this annoyance.
> The latter is now the default response state to a wide variety of alerts and cautions. Car alarms are ineffective. Hospitals and other medical facilities are filled with so many beeps staff become “desensitized”. People agree to cookie banners without a second of thought. Alert fatigue is a well-known phenomenon
This person yearns for Linux but hasn’t admitted such thing to themselves yet.
Anecdotally, I find the exact opposite to be true.
Certainly it's because I've been using Linux (along with Windows and MacOS) for a decade or more. Linux is the only consistently power-user friendly experience.
Software that all people using Linux have out of the box signed and in many cases QAd by their distro.
What kind of sensible default is to have to install a packaging system on your OS?
I don't see how what de are other people using would affect your specific productivity.
Defaults being felt as "sensible" is largely an effect of having been using a configuration for too long.
> I want applications to require explicit permission to access the camera and microphone, or to capture the content of my display.
> I want applications to be cryptographically signed by known developers and notarized by Apple by default.
Doesn’t sound much like yearning for Linux
I don't even know where to start. Flatpack does pretty much all of that, plus there are some more-or-less optional tools to harden your system even further (eg: SELinux or AppArmor).
I want a VM for laissez-faire workspaces, and in those cases it makes sense for my workflows to use Linux (granted it might not for others).
This works out pretty well for me. I have my run-whatever-I-need environment isolated from my host, which means that environment doesn’t have access to emails and browser logins that I don’t really need on the VM.
Sure, the host should protect my data if the permissions are configured correctly etc., but I’m not about to give anything root access if I can help it there, whereas in a dedicated environment there’s less to worry about.
The Mac is an expensive tool. On average, Mac costs more than iPad or iPhone. I dislike the idea that computing freedom belongs only to those who can afford it. That seems classist to me.
Gruber says, “Computers are such an essential part of the modern world — and almost everyone’s daily lives — that computers-that-work-like-computers aren’t for everyone.” I agree they’re essential, which is exactly why computers-that-work-like-computers ARE for everyone. Otherwise, it’s haves and have-nots.
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