Goodbye

[bradl]

We are not talking about x64 vs M1 transition though. There is issues every year where developers take time to catch up.

Does the OS need to be so different that functionality of such simple devices changes to the point they don’t function?

They can, yes. I'm going through a problem on a Linux box for my job where Oracle's ACFS and ASMLib drivers won't work unless you are running a particular compiled version of the Linux kernel. In short, even kernel versioning could break a driver.

Wash/rinse/repeat for even the slightest modification to the OS that functionality of a driver could break. To go further, Snow Leopard dropped PPC support. Lion dropped x86 processor support. Mountain Lion dropped all 32bit libraries and the 32bit bootloader.

For those, the underlying OS remained the same for x86_64, so to those CPUs, that functionality was minimal, but caused devices to break to the point where they don't function.

Both me and the OH have to go through our applications and peripherals every year and make sure they all work before updating. On balance it’s worth the hassle for now. But it’s unfair to blame users who don’t want to, and I also believe they shouldn’t have to every year.

Those that don't go through that hassle also assume the risk and responsibility of those applications and peripherals breaking. They can not fault the OS for that happening, especially if they have the ability to do the work to prevent that. No-one is blaming users for not wanting to do that work; they are being called out on the irresponsibility to protect themselves, their data, and all that is needed to keep their systems working by verifying from those vendors that their applications and devices work.

If they aren't willing to do that work, they do not have the right to blame others for their own lack of work. They can't blame a gas/petrol station for not filling up their car's gas/petrol tank, when they were the ones that passed by that gas/petrol station 5-10 miles ago while their gas/petrol tank was on empty.

For a company that so heavily pushes user experience, how is the current update process a good experience? For all the issues with windows update, it’s process these days is much smoother in regards to making a restore point automatically etc. have an issue? Go to updates and hit roll back. The user doesn’t need to do any management.

Apple need to focus on adapting to lazy users as they’re starting to fall behind other systems. Though at the moment the balance of the whole package tips in their favour with laptops.

Apple has. They have placed many a warning about needing to back up their systems prior to updating, in case of any catastrophic failure. However, we're back to the proverb of You can lead a horse to water, but you can not force it to drink.

That is the problem here. No amount of Apple's focus can force a user to do what they don't want to do; therefore, the user assumes the risk and responsibility for their actions, as well as their inactions.

BL.

 

[throAU]

But it’s unfair to blame users who don’t want to, and I also believe they shouldn’t have to every year.

If you don't want to, you don't have to.

We still have users here running Snow Leopard and prior.


And really, upgrading to a new OS on month 1 with no backup is asking for trouble.

 

[mxrider88]

Not until someone at Apple senior management gets grip.

You are so right. I feel the same way. A senior manager needs to get a grip, exactly, couldn't have said it any better. Until they have Federighi I don't see it happening, they need Forstall and Serlet back.

 

[Lihp8270]

If you don't want to, you don't have to.

We still have users here running Snow Leopard and prior.


And really, upgrading to a new OS on month 1 with no backup is asking for trouble.

The issue we ran into a couple of times is the university buying new licenses for a new version of software which requires a newer OS. While also needing to use other software which doesn’t support that newer OS. Admittedly that’s not a common scenario. But it was a bizarre situation where the easiest option was to run windows until it was resolved.

It is my opinion that apple is in a strange place. With an OS that’s more intuitive than Windows to use, more accessible for new users. Yet in terms of updates is like a return to the old windows days.

 

[throAU]

The issue we ran into a couple of times is the university buying new licenses for a new version of software which requires a newer OS.

So that's your university forcing you to upgrade, not apple.

 

[Lihp8270]

So that's your university forcing you to upgrade, not apple.

I never said apple was forcing upgrades.

Merely that Apples aims to drive forwards with updates does cause situations for users that *I believe* shouldn’t happen with a modern OS.

I’m not even saying I entirely disagree with it, As legacy support has held windows back for decades, and allowed Apple to innovate. But I am also of the opinion that Apples drive forward can be too aggressive at times.

As a consumer I am entitled to the opinion and will use the information to weigh up what the best OS is for my use case.

One of the downsides to Apples success is that the greater the market penetration for MacOS the more and more they need to cater for the average user, and the average user isn’t on a Mac forum. The average user is the college student in Starbucks writing an essay, it’s a grandparent wanting a reliable laptop to do their expenses on that’s easy to use, it’s so much more varied than the experience and knowledge than is on here. Those users need more assistance from the operating system than Apple provides.

 

[throAU]

I’m not even saying I entirely disagree with it, As legacy support has held windows back for decades, and allowed Apple to innovate. But I am also of the opinion that Apples drive forward can be too aggressive at times.

They are aggressive and personally I'm glad for it.

They are in a position to drive progress, despite it incurring pain. No other PC manufacturer has the balls to do it because they're all in a race to the bottom and can't afford to be slightly inconvenient in the short term.

Without a company like Apple pushing progress the whole industry is going to stagnate.

Even Microsoft chickened out and included USB-A on the Surface line for ages (probably still).

 

[Lihp8270]

They can, yes. I'm going through a problem on a Linux box for my job where Oracle's ACFS and ASMLib drivers won't work unless you are running a particular compiled version of the Linux kernel. In short, even kernel versioning could break a driver.

Wash/rinse/repeat for even the slightest modification to the OS that functionality of a driver could break. To go further, Snow Leopard dropped PPC support. Lion dropped x86 processor support. Mountain Lion dropped all 32bit libraries and the 32bit bootloader.

For those, the underlying OS remained the same for x86_64, so to those CPUs, that functionality was minimal, but caused devices to break to the point where they don't function.



Those that don't go through that hassle also assume the risk and responsibility of those applications and peripherals breaking. They can not fault the OS for that happening, especially if they have the ability to do the work to prevent that. No-one is blaming users for not wanting to do that work; they are being called out on the irresponsibility to protect themselves, their data, and all that is needed to keep their systems working by verifying from those vendors that their applications and devices work.

If they aren't willing to do that work, they do not have the right to blame others for their own lack of work. They can't blame a gas/petrol station for not filling up their car's gas/petrol tank, when they were the ones that passed by that gas/petrol station 5-10 miles ago while their gas/petrol tank was on empty.




Apple has. They have placed many a warning about needing to back up their systems prior to updating, in case of any catastrophic failure. However, we're back to the proverb of You can lead a horse to water, but you can not force it to drink.

That is the problem here. No amount of Apple's focus can force a user to do what they don't want to do; therefore, the user assumes the risk and responsibility for their actions, as well as their inactions.

BL.

I don’t really have anything to comment on with this post. But I didn’t want to ghost it’s you’ve clearly put effort in to respond to me.

So I really just wanted to acknowledge that I have read it and I am in agreement with almost all of it.

My stance remains that apple can do better. Back when I was in University studying engineering we covered various engineering design modules. There was something a lecturer said that had remained with me through my career and general life.

I paraphrase as it was many years ago now. “There are no stupid users, just poor design”. If a user, does not use it correctly they are not “stupid” or wrong, it is poor design. If somebody pulls a door that is a push door, that’s a design issue for looking like you can pull it, etc.

Now it’s very black and white, and an extreme viewpoint for this topic. But I believe the principle can still be applied. MacOS is gaining more and more traction in the market in all generations of users. If users fail to backup prior to updating then, yes it’s easy to blame them. But equally apple can solve this issue too.

I can see the complaints from experienced users already of the OS doing more and more to manage basic tasks etc, but the more popular it gets the more the most computer illiterate user needs to be catered for.

 

[Lihp8270]

They are aggressive and personally I'm glad for it.

They are in a position to drive progress, despite it incurring pain. No other PC manufacturer has the balls to do it because they're all in a race to the bottom and can't afford to be slightly inconvenient in the short term.

Without a company like Apple pushing progress the whole industry is going to stagnate.

Even Microsoft chickened out and included USB-A on the Surface line for ages (probably still).

I totally agree. I’d say on balance apple has done more for driving computing technology forwards than any other individual company.

This is going to sound like a huge 180, but what the hell. I’m already several posts in to a discussion 😂

I’m not even saying I dislike Apples methods *personally*. Merely empathising with users that get caught out.

It’s the one area that I think apple can do more. Now, if I knew how to get the balance between innovation and legacy support right. I would be driving around in a Bentley working for Apple. But I’m not, so you can probably guess I don’t know how to get it right.

I just have the opinion that there has to be a better way than both Apple and Microsoft’s management of OS updates.

 

[maflynn]

if I knew how to get the balance between innovation and legacy support right.

In all honesty, I'm of the opinion that Apple is not terribly interested in legacy support - especially when it comes to them innovating. If they have a design change in macOS that will greatly improve its usability or add a brand new feature but at the expense that old apps won't work - well they'll go with the innovation.

Look at games, they felt it was more important to drop 32bit support and in a single blow decimated the already anemic mac gaming industry.

I'm not knocking, or criticizing apple on this - just pointing out my opinion is that they're more focused looking forward and don't mind sacrificing legacy support at times.

 

[throAU]

Look at games, they felt it was more important to drop 32bit support and in a single blow decimated the already anemic mac gaming industry.

People seem to forget that any M1-based Mac can run most(?) games on the App Store (so can intel, but they run like arse ), and has access to Apple Arcade.

Sure, it's not traditional AAA PC games, but to claim there's no games is a bit much. They're just different games.


I wouldn't say they don't care about games. They're just more interested in games native to their platform(s).

 

[maflynn]

Sure, it's not traditional AAA PC games, but to claim there's no games is a bit much

Mac as a gaming platform is in a very sad state - isn't apple arcade games just ios games running macOS?

 

[cardfan]

In all honesty, I'm of the opinion that Apple is not terribly interested in legacy support - especially when it comes to them innovating. If they have a design change in macOS that will greatly improve its usability or add a brand new feature but at the expense that old apps won't work - well they'll go with the innovation.

Look at games, they felt it was more important to drop 32bit support and in a single blow decimated the already anemic mac gaming industry.

I'm not knocking, or criticizing apple on this - just pointing out my opinion is that they're more focused looking forward and don't mind sacrificing legacy support at times.

And next ball to drop is no more rosetta later which will effectively decimate all the legacy intel mac software. This probably needs to happen sooner than later as there’s little incentive to do native m1 apps right now.

I give it 3 more years tops.

 

[TiggrToo]

The grass is always greener until you get issues with things like Windows 10 1809 causing so many issues that MS pulled it.

All OS'S can have issues - Windows is no more immune to catastrophic failures than the Mac is.

 

[AZhappyjack]

If you don't want to, you don't have to.

We still have users here running Snow Leopard and prior.


And really, upgrading to a new OS on month 1 with no backup is asking for trouble.

Sums up this entire thread quite well. As some one said earlier in this thread, PEBCAK (carbon-based error, IT10T error, loose nut on the keyboard ... take your pick, they all apply).

 

[AZhappyjack]

My stance remains that apple can do better. Back when I was in University studying engineering we covered various engineering design modules. There was something a lecturer said that had remained with me through my career and general life.

I paraphrase as it was many years ago now. “There are no stupid users, just poor design”. If a user, does not use it correctly they are not “stupid” or wrong, it is poor design. If somebody pulls a door that is a push door, that’s a design issue for looking like you can pull it, etc.

And as a now-retired, life-long systems programmer, we lived by this adage:

Idiot-proof code is nearly impossible, as idiots are so d@mned ingenious.

 

[Marshall73]

The difference is that MacOS is yearly that these issues occur.

There’s Something to be said about the insane backwards compatibility with windows and how it holds the OS back.

But there has to be a middle ground, ever year apple update the OS and every year it breaks support for basic peripherals, and software.

People complain about apple not supporting developers or taking cuts from App Store sales etc. But the biggest “anti developer” practice apple do is forcing developers to revisit their software library every single year to make sure it’s going to stay working.

There’s a lot of talk around gaming on mac too and this going to be a huge hurdle. Developers aren’t going to revisit games checking for support every year for several years.

Apple need to do more to ensure software and hardware compatibility over different OS versions

If you think about it, they ARE taking steps towards hardware compatibility by moving to ARM. Also, Apple aren't responsible for third party printer drivers, if your printer manufacturer decides to not support future operating systems so you buy a new printer then that's on them, not Apple. Also, windows 11 says hello! drops support for all CPUs older than gen 8 Intels. Even Monterey supports Skylake.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If they have a design change in macOS that will greatly improve its usability

lmfao

Apple couldn't find "usability" right now if it walked up and hit them in the face

Everything they do of late seems to be a new mash up of undiscoverable swipes, taps, holds, gestures, hovers and other intimidating, difficult to execute (for mortals) and otherwise unapproachable UX conventions.

 

[Bandaman]

lmfao

Apple couldn't find "usability" right now if it walked up and hit them in the face

Everything they do of late seems to be a new mash up of undiscoverable swipes, taps, holds, gestures, hovers and other intimidating, difficult to execute (for mortals) and otherwise unapproachable UX conventions.

You must be talking about a different OS.

 

[iPersuade]

I have admitted defeat and realised that the reasons that I moved to Apple from Microsoft all those years ago, are no longer true. One of my main reasons was, the almost constant upgrades that Microsoft kept forcing on me, but now I find that Apple are doing the same. The other reason was the buggy nature of the upgrades that microsoft introduced causing frequent and often not easily solved issues. Now I find Apple all too frequently doing the same. The latest lovely little glitch to hit me is after ”upgrading” to Monterey, none of my three printers will work, and none of them have “monterey” drivers available.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this since you posted it. Your experience is doubtless frustrating; I understand that. I would not presume to advocate for you staying on Apple, but I have an observation that I thought you might find helpful as you make your decision whether or not to rage-quit your Mac.

Like many of the people posting here, I have tons of experience on Unix, PC — from DOS through Win 10—Linux, and Mac. I left the Windows world because it’s so clunky and often difficult to use to accomplish a variety of ‘ordinary’ things. I used to pull my hair out just trying to print something to a PDF. I switched to Mac and I have found none of the Mac headaches that I’ve experienced have ever been worse than the day-to-day struggles I experienced on Windows.

Both my boys decided they wanted Windows 10 PCs last year. So we got them both good Win 10 laptops. While I’ve felt some nostalgia over Windows over the past few years, all that nostalgia comes crashing to the ground every time I have to interact with those machines. Things that take me 6 minutes on my Mac can take an eternity plus three shut-down-reboot cycles to accomplish on the PCs.

I know that I’m being vague here. This is not a reasoned critique of my experience on Windows PCs. The only point is to say, from someone who lives in both worlds, that the grass is not greener in Windows land. In fact, it may not even be green at all.

Good Luck!

 

[mi7chy]

I used to pull my hair out just trying to print something to a PDF.

Things that take me 6 minutes on my Mac can take an eternity plus three shut-down-reboot cycles to accomplish on the PCs.

No one that has actually used recent Windows will believe that because 'Microsoft Print to PDF' is built into Windows 10 and browsers also have 'Save to PDF'.

MacOS is unix and any unix for that fact is inherently more difficult than Windows. Being familiar with Linux I'd say MacOS is even worse.

Examples, software I install on MacOS pops up a window requiring dragging an icon from one point to another. It's not intuitive nor clear what the point of that is but I assume it's equivalent to Windows prompting to create an entry on the Start menu but on MacOS there's no text explanation. After performing the drag the pop-up window doesn't go away so I have to manually close it. Clunky compared to Windows or even Linux.

Even more clunky is uninstalling software where I have drag the app icon into trash then use terminal to go through a bunch of directories to manually delete folders/files. Windows for the most part does everything for you.

https://kb.adguard.com/en/macos/installation

Want to use a USB-to-serial dongle on MacOS? Good luck with command line. On Windows it's just a few easy menu driven clicks.

Want to use fingerprint login or tap-to-click after rebooting MacOS? Nope.

Want to easily factory reset Big Sur. Nope.

Could write a book.

 

[Ploki]

15 years ago was powerPC/Intel transition and it was painful. a few years later it was snow leopard dropping everything power-pc related and shedding a lot of old dependencies (similar as what Catalina did).

Major OS upgrades on day1 were always pretty much public beta... since forever.

Windows 10 has had about 10 releases since 2015, but nothing as major as dropping 64bit. Windows 11 drops a lot tho.
So if you're running pretty much 5y old OS, idk what's the issues of staying on Big Sur on macOS...

Now update to windows 11 and do the same rant pls.

 

[throAU]

Everything they do of late seems to be a new mash up of undiscoverable swipes, taps, holds, gestures, hovers and other intimidating, difficult to execute (for mortals) and otherwise unapproachable UX conventions.

On macOS all of these have alternative more easily discovered methods.

on iOS most of these things have alternative, more easily discovered methods and the ones that don't are advanced features you can live without (side by side apps is of limited value on an iPad imho).

 

[throAU]

Examples, software I install on MacOS pops up a window requiring dragging an icon from one point to another.

Really?

You're literally dragging the application into the Applications folder. You want to uninstall it? You drag it into the bin.

It's only unintuitive if your brain has been previously broken by Windows, where its impossible to do this because applications aren't bundled into a single object that can be moved around like this.

 

[bradl]

No one that has actually used recent Windows will believe that because 'Microsoft Print to PDF' is built into Windows 10 and browsers also have 'Save to PDF'.

MacOS is unix and any unix for that fact is inherently more difficult than Windows. Being familiar with Linux I'd say MacOS is even worse.

Not necessarily.

If anything, especially compared to Linux.. actually you should be going all the way with a direct comparison to X, not just Unix. All that either MacOS, Linux, and Windows is, is just a GUI running on top of the underlying OS. How integrated they are to the underlying OS is a different thing, but they are still running in top of the CLI-based OS.

When starting X, Linux = GUI (X + window manager of choice) + CLI. MacOS = GUI + CLI. Windows = GUI + CLI. They are all modeled after what Unix has, which was the GUI on top of the CLI OS. How each one is implemented is where that diversion begins.

Examples, software I install on MacOS pops up a window requiring dragging an icon from one point to another. It's not intuitive nor clear what the point of that is but I assume it's equivalent to Windows prompting to create an entry on the Start menu but on MacOS there's no text explanation. After performing the drag the pop-up window doesn't go away so I have to manually close it. Clunky compared to Windows or even Linux.

Yet one does the same exact thing in Windows with the at least 4-5 different dialog boxes for installing software.. And to make it worse, for a lot of Windows software, Windows requires a reboot after installing that software to make it work. Not so for MacOS, Linux, or others. In fact, the only thing that would really require a reboot to make work is either a kernel upgrade or an upgrade to libc. Everything else doesn't.

Even more clunky is uninstalling software where I have drag the app icon into trash then use terminal to go through a bunch of directories to manually delete folders/files. Windows for the most part does everything for you.

https://kb.adguard.com/en/macos/installation

Want to use a USB-to-serial dongle on MacOS? Good luck with command line. On Windows it's just a few easy menu driven clicks.

This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. You're wanting to connect and activate a USB-to-serial dongle in MacOS over the CLI, but want to use a set of menu-driven clicks in Windows? You're not comparing the two fairly here; you should either be using the GUI for both, or using the CLI for both.

Want to use fingerprint login or tap-to-click after rebooting MacOS? Nope.

This is a feature of MacOS, not a bug or impediment. For example, if someone were to make a photocopy of your fingerprint, they could easily use that fingerprint to log in to your Mac. Yes, there is probably something in the scanner to gauge the thermals of the scan (read: that it is an actual finger of someone alive versus a picture), but I'd rather be prompted for the password for the first time than not. Security over convenience.

Want to easily factory reset Big Sur. Nope.

Could write a book.

USB stick, Format the root drive, install the OS, and you're back to factory.

BL.