It's impossible to leave OS X - there is no competition!

[vaugha]

Stability, stability and stability. It's the biggest reason why I prefer macos to windows. macos is such a restricted and closed system and certainly not as customizable as w10 but is definitely more stable than w10. I still see bsods on w10 machines and it baffles me that I still have to put up w/ this whereas I couldn't remember the last time I had a kernel panic on my mac.

 

[Honumaui]

Stability, stability and stability. It's the biggest reason why I prefer macos to windows. macos is such a restricted and closed system and certainly not as customizable as w10 but is definitely more stable than w10. I still see bsods on w10 machines and it baffles me that I still have to put up w/ this whereas I couldn't remember the last time I had a kernel panics on my mac.

for fun about that not as easy as win 10 customizing

try to customize the file explorer in win get rid of ALL that side crap not needed yeah ya really cant that much

try to customize the start menu and you realize it is all over the place ? and really tough and then other things mess it up

customize your color for tagging files ? OH wait win does not have that never mind

anything that takes one or two clicks in OS X seems to take 5-20 in win ?

 

[rafark]

I like OS X a lot, much more than windows. There are some things that bug me from time to time, specially when using the finder app. But there is one reason I absolutely LOVE OS X: STABILITY.

The Mac and its OS have been extremly stable for me. No crashes, no unexpected shutdowns, no need to be forced to "restart to apply the 8000th goddam update" no one asked for just when you are in the middle of doing some important work. OS X gives me confidence nothing will get on my way the moment I start using it. It can get slow, but it will never stop working. Extremely reliable.

Windows on the other hand... Last week yet anoooother one of my windows laptops refused to turn on, unsurprisingly. Another dead windows machine, this is exactly why I loathe windows so much. Not reliable at all.

 

[AppleTrap]

I know Windows has its share of problems but looking at the posts here, I wonder how many of the Fortune 100 banks I worked for are even able to survive. Everything we did was on Windows. iOS devs got a MAC and servers were Linux but all development and management work was done on Windows.

 

[YaBe]

anything that takes one or two clicks in OS X seems to take 5-20 in win ?

May be u are using Windows wrong.... I mean shortcut are available on Win too

 

[mdnz]

I know Windows has its share of problems but looking at the posts here, I wonder how many of the Fortune 100 banks I worked for are even able to survive. Everything we did was on Windows. iOS devs got a MAC and servers were Linux but all development and management work was done on Windows.

It's either user error, expecting things to work exactly the same as in macOS, or they bought a 400$ Windows laptop and comparing it to their $3000 machines. Blaming hardware errors on Windows is also extremely common here.

 

[richinaus]

Stability, stability and stability. It's the biggest reason why I prefer macos to windows. macos is such a restricted and closed system and certainly not as customizable as w10 but is definitely more stable than w10. I still see bsods on w10 machines and it baffles me that I still have to put up w/ this whereas I couldn't remember the last time I had a kernel panics on my mac.

I work on pc’s a lot. HP Z workstations are good and reasonably solid but at present I am consulting at an office that has own built hardware. Suffice to say they think they are saving money but I see weekly issues that add up to a whole lot of pain.
I guess my point is with windows if you buy solid hardware you tend to get a solid system but if you don’t, stability just disappears.
In business what can be more important than stability in your tools?

 

[leman]

I don’t think that macOS is considerably more stable than Windows 10 (MS came a long way from XP). From my observations in a professional environment:

- Windows machines are much more difficult to set up and maintain, unless your environment is rigid enough so that you can push same configuration to all machines. Same goes for Linux by the way. We are 95% Mac 5% windows, but almost half the maintenance effort is spent on windows machines.

- Windows UI is all over the place and their use of space is beyond terrible. Look how much useful space is just wasted on toolbars in the windows explorer...

- Windows severely lacks customization compared to macOS (I am talking about behavioral customization, not visual makeovers)

- There are a lot of cheaper (=lower quality) windows laptops which IMO leads to the perception of lower stability

 

[mrex]

My 2014 15" MacBook Pro served me well, but it had the CPU voltage issue which caused it to crash all the time, I finally rectified it with a $10 app. Now I somehow cracked my screen. I decided to save some money and decided to try a Windows laptop - a surface Pro 6. The hardware wasn't that bad, Microsoft is getting closer and closer to the level set by Apple - but they are not there yet. Windows is still clunky and buggy. So I returned it and bought a base 2018 15" MacBook Pro. OS X is fluid and responsive. You don't have to pay for Office. And yes, everything just works. The keyboard is fine - I don't mind it (I did get a 4 year warranty - just in case). I still question the decision to remove the USB A port and the SD port - still, there are dongles OS X is the perfect OS with no competition. My old MacBook Pro did not need one system reinstall nor did it slow down with time. Once you go OS X you never...

When im working, i take my win laptop instead of my mbp. That tells alot.

 

[maflynn]

I don’t think that macOS is considerably more stable than Windows 10 (MS came a long way from XP). From my observations in a professional environment:

I agree, its very stable, I hardly need to reboot my machine, though with patch tuesday, it may get reboot on monthly basis, yet with that said my work computer had not incurred a BSOD in many years.

- Windows machines are much more difficult to set up and maintain, unless your environment is rigid enough so that you can push same configuration to all machines. Same goes for Linux by the way. We are 95% Mac 5% windows, but almost half the maintenance effort is spent on windows machines.

Agreed, there's more complexity, and more options, but with group policies its fairly easy tom manage/

- Windows UI is all over the place and their use of space is beyond terrible. Look how much useful space is just wasted on toolbars in the windows explorer...

This is one of my pain points with windows. We have the settings UWP app for various settings, but we also have the control panel, that manages windows and it looks behaves very different. MS needs to step back, take a deep breath and re-do its UI to be consistent. Apple isn't perfect, and they have some inconsistencies in their UI but its no where near the level we see with Windows.

- Windows severely lacks customization compared to macOS (I am talking about behavioral customization, not visual makeovers)

Please explain, because I feel its the opposite, you can do more with windows then you can with macOS. perhaps I'm misunderstanding you or I'm unaware of something.

There are a lot of cheaper (=lower quality) windows laptops which IMO leads to the perception of lower stability

There are also many less expensive laptops that are as good if not better then the MBP and that's the issue. Yes, you can get a 600 dollar laptop and wonder why it won't last more then a year, or you can spend 1,800 and save yourself almost a 1,000 over the MBP, get a faster machine with a better GPU, and the consumer can upgrade/replace the battery, ram and SSD.

 

[MBAir2010]

maflynn: "can spend 1,800 and save yourself almost a 1,000 over the MBP, get a faster machine with a better GPU, and the consumer can upgrade/replace the battery, ram and SSD"

what is the most important component on a laptop, the cpu?

 

[leman]

Please explain, because I feel its the opposite, you can do more with windows then you can with macOS. perhaps I'm misunderstanding you or I'm unaware of something.

I am primarily talking about automation and system-wide extensions. I can install and develop extensions that directly enhance default functionality of standard and other third-party apps. I can quickly write automation scripts that can do all kinds of stuff, including controlling apps, and I can have these scripts executed automatically based on certain conditions. I can use FUSE. I can use open-source repositories for the tools I need. I can use tags and smart folders to organise my data in a way that is best for my workflow. I can easily hook a service to a port on my machine using launchd — a do not know how to do this in Windows save for installing and configuring an entire server subsystem.

To be honest, I am not aware of a single thing that I could do with Windows that would not be possible with macOS, but there are a lot of things that I can't do with Windows that I can easily do with macOS. And since macOs is native UNIX, reusing established workflows is very straightforward.

 

[YaBe]

maflynn: "can spend 1,800 and save yourself almost a 1,000 over the MBP, get a faster machine with a better GPU, and the consumer can upgrade/replace the battery, ram and SSD"

what is the most important component on a laptop, the cpu?

There is no 1 single important component, they need to work together well, a fast cpu with slo hd and ram is wasted, a fast hd and ram with a slow cpu are wasted...

Don't look at the fastest single component, but the more balanced mix cpu / gpu /ram /ssd combo, avoiding bottleneck.
Man I just wish a good automator alternative was avaiable on Win

 

[Honumaui]

I work on pc’s a lot. HP Z workstations are good and reasonably solid but at present I am consulting at an office that has own built hardware. Suffice to say they think they are saving money but I see weekly issues that add up to a whole lot of pain.
I guess my point is with windows if you buy solid hardware you tend to get a solid system but if you don’t, stability just disappears.
In business what can be more important than stability in your tools?

so true !!!!!

I think many "home" builders cheap out on things like the power supply and so on

for years I used to hear PC folks say they can build it cheaper (mac pro silver tower days) and I would say go spec a workstation with Dell or whoever heck even parts and you will see apple is very good with pricing
when you start to spec the quality power supplies and so on they all end up about the same for the high end workstations

 

[Thysanoptera]

To be honest, I am not aware of a single thing that I could do with Windows that would not be possible with macOS

There are few that I can't do on MacOS:
- autoarchive emails to a local file (as in having a task that's going to do it without manually invoking rules every time), preferably in Outlook
- freely select resolution of a remote connection (3440x1440 desktop looks pretty bad on 2017 MBA, unusable)
- or use anything other than jumpy/laggy built-in VNC
- freely disable attached monitors (switchresX doesn't cut it) without physically removing cables

I'm genuinely curious what kind of automation or app extensions you use that would be helpful for somebody who is not a system admin or software developer.

 

[Honumaui]

To be honest, I am not aware of a single thing that I could do with Windows that would not be possible with macOS, but there are a lot of things that I can't do with Windows that I can easily do with macOS. And since macOs is native UNIX, reusing established workflows is very straightforward.

the ones I know that I use and rely on so their might be more

quickly preview any file ? can't be done on windows 3rd party apps are slow and cant do quite a few file types ?

select and one click quickly tag files not only visually but with information you can then use as search priorities that you can customize etc.. in the modern day of meta info a HUGE HUGE HUGE issue with windows missing this IMHO

truly organize the file explorer (for mac the finder) you can not take away all the useless garbage in windows or put exactly what you want in the side bar and the lack of column view once you use it you realize how awesome column view is ! and of course that with tagging and being able to truly customize the finder unlike file explorer is again HUGE for managing files etc.. which is what many of us do and need with so many files is easy visual management and really strong search speed and functions and again search on windows sucks to find what you need quickly etc..

proper color management on a OS level since win is app based its all over the place

these are more little things but for sure differences
true plug and play still does not work on windows and not perfect on macs but way better

doing basic tasks always takes way more clicks and buried so deep in windows

simple things customize the start menu on win used to be easy now its in so many places and not easy to do etc.
removing apps same way windows has so much garbage left behind and OS has some but many are one container

again some might be OK and not care or not manage enough files and so on ? and I am sure windows is superior with MS office working on spread sheets etc.. and of course we know quicken was always better on windows etc..

but windows really needs a massive overhaul of file management/search/tagging and I wish they would steal a bunch from apple so we the end user have more choices

 

[dogslobber]

Now I somehow cracked my screen. I decided to save some money and decided to try a Windows laptop - a surface Pro 6. The hardware wasn't that bad, Microsoft is getting closer and closer to the level set by Apple - but they are not there yet. Windows is still clunky and buggy. So I returned it and bought a base 2018 15" MacBook Pro. OS X is fluid and responsive.

The problem with macOS is that it's getting more resource intensive in memory terms with every release. You need about 16GB nowadays to stop it swapping. Also, you can compare Win10 running an app like a browser to macOS and you'll quickly see that each browser tab is 4-5x the memory footprint. It's nuts as it suggests macOS is bloated but Win10 is lean and efficient.

There are a few things macOS does that are kinder like individual screens can be swiped independently but those are corrections for the future. All told, Win 10 is pretty much righted and improved on the competition with macOS as Microsoft has been entirely focused to make Windows 10 the best desktop OS experience.

Nowadays, Apple is an iOS company with no real interest in stretching the macOS experience. Sad days.
[doublepost=1555179679][/doublepost]

Do you mean there are free alternatives? or are you saying Office is free?

Google Docs or iCloud apps are equally as good for most, IMO.

 

[mrex]

- There are a lot of cheaper (=lower quality) windows laptops which IMO leads to the perception of lower stability

the worst thing here is that there are pretty high price macbooks that are low quality built. my 2016 mbp/16gb needs a keyboard replacement and probably the screen will die soon too (flexgate). i also have issue with smb shares, finder is too slow for creating thumbnails when browsing and practically unusable.

im still using my Zenbook from 2012 (quadcore and dgpu, instead of dual core mbp from 2016 with igpu+another 700 for egpu) and Zenbook is working like a charm and no issue at all.

but for sure... there are always low quality cheap laptops on the market, but that is not unusual at all. if you pay couple hundreds for a comp, you dont expect it to work like a mbp with a price tag 2500?? but when you buy a comp with a price tag 2500, you expect it to work perfect - right?

 

[petvas]

The problem with macOS is that it's getting more resource intensive in memory terms with every release. You need about 16GB nowadays to stop it swapping. Also, you can compare Win10 running an app like a browser to macOS and you'll quickly see that each browser tab is 4-5x the memory footprint. It's nuts as it suggests macOS is bloated but Win10 is lean and efficient.

There are a few things macOS does that are kinder like individual screens can be swiped independently but those are corrections for the future. All told, Win 10 is pretty much righted and improved on the competition with macOS as Microsoft has been entirely focused to make Windows 10 the best desktop OS experience.

Nowadays, Apple is an iOS company with no real interest in stretching the macOS experience. Sad days.
[doublepost=1555179679][/doublepost]
Google Docs or iCloud apps are equally as good for most, IMO.

How did you conclude that Windows is more optimized than macOS? Microsoft has certainly made a lot of mistakes with Windows q0 and that shows that they don’t really know what they want from the OS. At first it was all about UWP apps, but they failed. The OS is still a weird mix of modern UI and Win32. All operating systems have issues, and of course each of us makes his/her own experience, but my experience with Windows 10 is that it is still not as smooth as macOS. I have been using Surface devices for the last three years (and I still do), and while 90% of the time everything works ok, there are moments where the OS will show some lag, or that Windows Explorer will hang, or where the system will become slow until you set the power settings to better performance. I certainly do not have such issues with my MBP. On top of that add the better text rendering and support of HiDPI displays on macOS.
I still use Windows in my work, but for my private life there is not a chance that I would start using Windows.

 

[dogslobber]

what is the most important component on a laptop, the cpu?

If you're talking recent Mac laptops then it's definitely a working keyboard.

 

[dogslobber]

How did you conclude that Windows is more optimized than macOS?

For me I focus on memory resource usage which I have observed in a like-for-like browser to be 4-5x more memory in macOS Mojave than Win 10.

 

[petvas]

For me I focus on memory resource usage which I have observed in a like-for-like browser to be 4-5x more memory in macOS Mojave than Win 10.

What browsers did you compare?
I use Edge with Chromium on Windows and Safari on my Apple devices. I am also using Chrome, but mostly on Windows. While I have to say that I haven't performed any memory usage test, my computers have 8 to 16GB RAM and I never had an issue on both OSes. I prefer to concentrate on the overall user experience and smoothness of the OS.

 

[dogslobber]

What browsers did you compare?
I use Edge with Chromium on Windows and Safari on my Apple devices. I am also using Chrome, but mostly on Windows. While I have to say that I haven't performed any memory usage test, my computers have 8 to 16GB RAM and I never had an issue on both OSes. I prefer to concentrate on the overall user experience and smoothness of the OS.

I uses Vivaldi. When you have 100+ tabs open then you notice the difference, believe me!

 

[Juicy Box]

Google Docs or iCloud apps are equally as good for most, IMO.

I'm not disagreeing, but the OP's stating that on a Mac you don't have to pay for MS Office kind of sounds like Office is free if you have a Mac, which AFAIK, it is not true.

While the OP may have meant that an advantage of using Macs is that there are free Office alternatives, there are also free alternatives to Office on Windows too, so this wouldn't make sense.

That is why I asked the OP to clarify that statement.

 

[Honumaui]

chrome no matter what is a memory hog but love the extensions for sure

as far as privacy etc nothing beats safari NOTHING !!!

as far as browsing without caring OS X no worries windows ? well not so much a lot more vulnerable

me Chrome all the time for general OR Tor for when I want security