3,184 karma · joined June 13, 2011
Whether it disabling SIP, enabling root (see the bit about Linux and Posix in my previous comment), enabling case sensitivity in APFS (done for backwards compatibility), or any of the other stuff, the OS shipped remains the same as the tested one, and pay attention because this is the bit you seem to be incapable of grasping, with the extra bits turned on! Some are dumb, some for backwards compatibility and some are genuinely useful.
A Kia Ceed is still the same Kia Seed if the showroom add their stickers, changed the tyres and put some registration plates on it.
SIP/SSV don’t create a different macOS, they restrict mutation and introspection. They don’t change the POSIX surface, the SUS semantics, or the kernel interfaces being certified. They just stop test harnesses from instrumenting the system without elevated privilege.
By your logic, no modern OS is anything it claims to be unless you run it in an insecure debug configuration. Linux isn’t POSIX because you need root. Windows isn’t Windows because kernel debugging exists. That’s obviously nonsense.
The Open Group certifies macOS 26 as shipped. Temporarily relaxing protections to run a conformance suite does not produce a “different OS”, it produces a different trust configuration of the same one.
Saying “it’s not really UNIX because SIP is on” is like saying a container isn’t Linux because it doesn’t let you mount /proc without extra privileges.
What you’re reacting to is aesthetic drift, not functional decay. Liquid Glass is a visual language experiment, not a UX rupture. You may dislike it, that’s fine, but equating it to Windows 8 is category error. One is a design iteration layered on top of a relatively stable interaction model, the other was a structural interface failure.
Also, invoking Media Player vs Groove Music as if those are meaningful historical markers of “user-hostile downgrade” is... generous to the point of fiction. Windows 8’s problem was input metaphors, not media apps.
This isn’t Apple becoming Microsoft. It’s Apple doing what Apple always does: overreaching aesthetically, then sanding it down in point releases until everyone forgets they were angry in the first place. Which, incidentally, is exactly what happened with Aqua, iOS 7, Big Sur, and every other supposed apocalypse.
[1] https://youtu.be/BtZ-ien0WOk
[2] https://youtu.be/DJu7C6tVM8o
[3] https://youtu.be/UiIJytlTFPc
[5] https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-and-vfx-reference-plat...
[7] https://devtalk.blender.org/t/vfx-reference-platform-stateme...
Tha's been going on for as long as the Mac has been a thing.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Apple_US...
The same was said about a smaller iPhone. They made it and sales were lacklustre. I know a few people that lament it, but sale's don't lie...
But I get your point...
Shame that it is dogmatically followed by a very loud but vocal minority.
Coming from someone who would "prefer to be in Gnome or KDE", this is a hard criticism to take seriously. KDE is obviously designed by committee and is therefore UI elements are all over the place, and Gnome is just horrible.
> Finder is annoying as hell. The icons / layouts do not snap to resizing, proper navigation requires arcane keyboard shortcuts, it's difficult to open new instances in the expected way, tabs suck, navigation sucks. Finder is made for non-power users.
Those "arcane keyboard shortcuts" have been around for 40 years. Or is it the Emacs keybinding that you don't like? Opening a new instance of a Finder window is a Cmd N away. New tab? Cmd T - I do not understand what is hard about that. Oh, and tabs are a feature of the system, and native apps (some non-native too) automatically implement them. It seems to me that someone hasn't RTFM'ed. Some "power user" you seem to be...
The rest is rant that macOS isn't $MyFavouriteDistro and that is the only way computers should work.
> I do not want to "define" terms with the shitty built in dictionary tool, yet that option eats up context window space in every tool.
Oh no! A whole line in a context menu! The horror.
It is intuitive, but by the sounds of things you have several years, or decades of Windows muscle memory and experience. If you fight against the way the OS works by expecting to match your experience with a different one, you're in for a bad time.
Apple introduced window snapping in macOS 15. It works, but there are better apps that perform the task. I don't use any myself; I've been a Mac user for over 35 years and have never felt the need to have my document windows tiled.
The menu is a discoverability gift! Pro tip - type a command in the search box under the 'Help" menu in any native app, and it will show you where to find it and show the shortcut if one is assigned.
macOS user gestures extensively for navigation around the OS, so look in the 'Trackpad' settings, where it shows the gestures and allows a degree of customisation.
Edit: Regarding external monitors, Apple haven't sold a non-Retina display for quite a while now. Apple being Apple expect you to buy one of their monitors, or at least one that they've blessed, so 4K really is a minimum.