If you're coming from Windows or another OS it definitely takes time to get used to the "Apple way" of doing things. Also you need to expect that a lot of the applications you're used to being free in other OS cost $10-35+ each on Apple. Apps like SetApp are great for this and trying new applications out but that's a $10 monthly fee. It'd still take me awhile (a year+) to buy the apps I use at $10/mo so I just pay the monthly.
I still have to look at my (unlabeled) keyboard to figure out what the Apple Cmd Shift Up etc heiroglyphs are and it'll always be weird closing windows on the left instead of right side but beyond that after about 3 months of forcing myself to use OSX 5 years ago OSX is now by far my favorite OS. The continuity and interoperability between my other Apple devices is amazing. Yesterday I was working on my jeep and I just dragged a PDF of instructions over to my Ipad from my Macbook and immediately had it to look at downstairs. You can do that in other systems with pushbullet, dropbox, etc but it's just fluid and built in here.
I've always only owned a MBP through work, the M1 max w/64gb 14" is the first MBP I've ever bought for myself and it just hums. I hope it'll be "fast" for 5+ years for the price I paid.
I come from linux and I feel like I've been given a machine for computer illiterate people who are going to do some office work at Starbucks. Stereotypical, yes, but that's how I feel.
I need this basic software feature. Yeah? Too bad, the OS won't allow you to do that. Maybe you'll find a paid app that does it. I do pay for software but when you have to pay for basic stuff that should come out of the box, it's a no for me. To cover the basics you need to pay a lot of money.
Then there's the weird behaviour. Example. You have 2 Chrome windows on two different monitors. You're focusing one of them and on that same monitor witch to a fullscreen app and then go back. Now it'll raise and focus the Chrome window on the other monitor. In the worst case I just have to manually change the window, on the worst case, I'll use some shortcut on a windows that I'm not supposed to and break something. I wouldn't be the only one breaking/changing something in Jira because of this.
The file manager is a joke. Again, something fancy but useless if you need a bit of functionality. At least the OS has a good shell that you can use instead.
When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work".
If I leave my current job it'll be because of the Macbook.
> When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work".
Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions.
They do have incredible support for accessibility, so they do accommodate people who genuinely need things to work differently, not just a preference.
What they're not keen on is adding knobs and bells and whistles for the sake of it, as it's clutter.
People talk about macOS as being a toy and say it's not a real UNIX like Linux - but it's actually one of very few real UNIX implementations, which only includes a couple of Linux distributions.
> Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things.
Not being able to do something is very different from what you're saying. Not being able to do something, in fact, makes it more complicated because you need workarounds.
> Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly
Nobody is talking about customization. Missing features does not equal a simple way to do things.
> Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly.
How? How does that allow them to innovate more quickly? There has been no innovation in their UI for ages.
> Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions.
Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power. The certification is just a badge you pay money for. Nothing else. It can't even run Docker properly.
I've not really encountered not being able to do something I needed to do with my Mac before that I can recall.
You don't give many concrete examples of things you're unable to do, so I can't help you figure them out. The file manager is a joke? Well it lets you manage files not sure what else you need.
I'd done my whole career doing PhD-level systems research on my Macs - hasn't held me back from doing anything.
> Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power.
Don't confuse POSIX for UNIX!
> It can't even run Docker properly.
What are you missing with Docker? I use Docker all the time. It's fine what's wrong?
Yeah I've literally got Docker desktop running in the background with multiple containers running seamlessly on my M1 max. I think he's just looking for a place to vent.
You're saying it like you're the only one running docker.
I use it daily too and it sucks. Containers needs rebooting a few times a day or the changes I make in the code won't work. Then there's the massive ram consumption. Emulated crap.
No you've got it the wrong way around - virtualisation is lightweight - it's got very good hardware support - emulation is CPU and memory hungry - it's done in software.
What kind of functionality do you want from your file manager?
I use Linux most of the time, but the file manager on Linux is so bad that I sometimes manage my files from a Mac using SMB or NFS. I've tried a couple different file managers on Linux, and have settled with the default GNOME file manager (formerly Nautilus), but it lags far behind the file managers on both Mac and Windows in terms of both features and basic usability.
At least Mac and Windows file managers are reasonably easy to navigate by keyboard. If you have a directory open and want to select a file, you can just start typing the name. Easy, intuitive, and fast. This feature used to work in GNOME, but not any more. It's been abandoned. The Mac also has the column view, and I don't understand why other operating systems haven't adopted it.
The GNOME file manager also maintains its own "shadow" set of mount points through GNOME's ill-conceived VFS mechanism. So if you want to mount a file share, you can see it in the browser, but you can't look at the files in a terminal window. It's weird and surprising.
Meh I don't think I've ever really needed to rely on finder, when I do most of my file manipulation I just drop down to a bash shell.
"To cover the basic" --> I think this is a situation where our personal preferences are being conflated with the basics because I've certainly never really had to pay out any significant amount of money to be able to do all the basic things I need from an OS.
I'm a full-time software engineer and the quality control that Apple puts into their new MacBook M1 has easily made it my best and most productive system (before being on Debian, and before that on a windows 10 machine).
Unlike a lot of people, I don't really give a crap about spending tons of time "accessorizing" my OS. To me it's merely a means to launch the applications and tools in which I can get work done (photoshop, blender, Clion, bitwig, vs code, etc).
What are your issues with Finder specifically? I use Windows and Linux on a regular basis in addition to macOS and after a few basics (like enabling the path bar and setting the search field to search the current directory), I don’t find it any worse than Windows Explorer, and in fact preferable to something like Nautilus.
There’s a toggle to enable a path bar in the View menu, along with an option to enable a status bar and a bunch of other things.
It pays to explore the menus of apps under macOS — it’s not like under GNOME or Windows where menubars are vestigial and paltry if they exist at all, Mac apps actually put a lot of useful things in them.
I hate Finder and use Forklift, but if you alt-click (or command/ctrl, I can't tell on my keyboard) the top where it says the file name you'll be shown a tree of the path you're in. It's not the full file path in a text window unfortunately.
I still have to look at my (unlabeled) keyboard to figure out what the Apple Cmd Shift Up etc heiroglyphs are and it'll always be weird closing windows on the left instead of right side but beyond that after about 3 months of forcing myself to use OSX 5 years ago OSX is now by far my favorite OS. The continuity and interoperability between my other Apple devices is amazing. Yesterday I was working on my jeep and I just dragged a PDF of instructions over to my Ipad from my Macbook and immediately had it to look at downstairs. You can do that in other systems with pushbullet, dropbox, etc but it's just fluid and built in here.
I've always only owned a MBP through work, the M1 max w/64gb 14" is the first MBP I've ever bought for myself and it just hums. I hope it'll be "fast" for 5+ years for the price I paid.