iPad Pro LOL, unlearned my iPad Pro in 1 hour today...

[Digitalguy]

I disagree that Windows 10 is a good alternative. I have a good number of issues with Windows in the past, although I work with multiple operating systems since I work in IT. A lot of stuff annoys me with Windows 10 besides the privacy issues is the forced updates, installation of unnecessary apps such as Candy Crush (not an issue with Enterprise version) along with other issues. I worked on my parents computers and they have issues ranging from Windows deactivating itself despite having a legitimate license from the free Windows 10 upgrade, Firefox corrupting profiles, operating system freezing, etc. Keep in mind that I lock these systems down and use Deep Freeze to prevent system changes from saving from reboot if there is user error or malware infection. Windows still have glaring issues, which is why I stopped using it as my main operating system since December 2006. In the end, my mother got my father an iPad Air 3, which doesn’t require as much maintenance compared to his Windows laptop since he only uses the laptop for web browsing and email.

As for me, I never have face as many issues with macOS compared to Windows. Maybe besides the lemon MacBook Pro 2008, which Apple replaced completely with an updated model, most if not all my Apple products still work reliably. While my MacBook Pro 2012 Non Retina still works, my sister’s Dell Precision M4800 dedicated GPU stopped working after 5 years, thus it can only use integrated graphics and it would freeze if you put the laptop to sleep. Sure, people complain about the T2 and keyboard issues, but I have a 2018 MacBook Pro and have yet to experience these issues. I feel that these issues maybe besides the keyboard issues are a bit too overblown from a vocal minority.

Aside from that, I do own a Surface Pro 2 without the touch cover since I wanted a tablet that can run desktop apps and use the pen. Back then, Apple didn’t have the Apple Pencil support out. Sure, the Surface Pro 2 is good on paper, but in practice, not so good. Touch support for desktop apps was a bad experience since these apps are made for a keyboard and mouse in mind. Not only that, Windows 8/10 has a non-existent ecosystem of touch oriented apps you would find on a tablet. Eventually, I stopped using the Surface Pro 2 when i switched to a used iPad Pro 9.7 and eventually got an iPad Pro 11. With iPadOS, I can copy footage from a GoPro to an Hard Drive directly, which I was using the Surface Pro 2 last year for. For me, I think the iPad Pros have gotten better enough to do light productivity on the go. Of course, I still use my MacBook Pro a lot. Also, I find the iPad Pro 11 a joy to use after getting over the bend issue (I use a keyboard case that prevents this from happening), something that I never got when using the Surface Pro 2. Of course, the Surface Pro 2 is now having yellow screen issues.

As for Linux, I don’t consider it as an alternative since it lacks Office and Adobe apps, but it’s still good for server use. Also, I find the open source alternatives vastly inferior to the closed source counterparts. Maybe someday a better alternative will come around if Apple messes something else really badly, but of course, I am deep into the ecosystem and have no intention of switching away because of how well it works. I have tried alternatives like the Surface Pro 2, but it’s still not as good nor it meets my needs today. As they say, use the tools that fit your needs and that grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

The only real problem with Windows 10 was forced updated, and it was solved recently. Candy crush is a non issue IMO. And the rest are just specific issues to your hardware that cannot be generalized. Surface pro 2 is an outdated device.
Touch on windows works pretty well if your screen is large enough. Since I bought a 15.6 inch touch screen I really rediscovering touch on windows. Still I have no problem using keyboard and mouse for desktop software. I like using both where each makes sense, and complaining because I cannot do everything with touch would be like complaining because it's hard to use ipad with a mouse only.
In general what I notice in people saying windows is trash is that they have had issues in the past, hardly use it anymore and are happily living in their ecosystem, hence lack of objectivity.
I am a multidevice person, with a lot of devices, around 10 windows machines (4 used daily), 7 ipad (all used regularly), a mac (used every day), an iphone (rarely used), several android phones (one is my main phone) and 2 (older) android tablets (used rarely).
I am free from any ecosystem, and use actively windows, mac os, ios and android which allows me to know how they are now (and not in the past) daily and hopefully objectively.

 

[sparksd]

same boat. Windows strickly for gaming and even at that, its absolute dog **** with the last few updates (home folder corruption, windows sonic turning on, instability, mouse driver ****up, etc). OS X for real work / productivity and Linux for linux dev work, secure stuff and servers.

We've certainly had different experiences and we each have our preferences. I'll take Windows any day and really don't have issues with it, certainly not the ones you've described.

 

[casperes1996]

same boat. Windows strickly for gaming and even at that, its absolute dog **** with the last few updates (home folder corruption, windows sonic turning on, instability, mouse driver ****up, etc). OS X for real work / productivity and Linux for linux dev work, secure stuff and servers.

I mean, my original comment there was actually just meant as a half-joking rant. Only half of course. Whilst I do have a lot of flash drives with Linux distros and such lying around, the macOS command line and Unix environment is such that I basically never boot one of those flash drives really. Most things are in home-brew, what little isn't can usually easily be manually compiled for Darwin.
So I'd say macOS also carries most my dev and security work. Used to even run an nginx server on my iMac.
Having a few Linux flash drives around is good for when you need to deal with another computer for whatever reason, and you can't rely on the computer having your tools ready. You've got a portable OS with everything you need to get work done.

But just to add to the horrors of dealing with Windows; I had to get a Windows user in on a Git repository of mine... First off I did what any Mac user would do, not having used Windows in ages... I opened PowerShell (then CMD) and tried to use Git... Turns out Windows doesn't come with git or any easy way to get Git from the command line. Now that I think about it though, it may also only be on Macs after I run the Xcode install package, but that can easily be done from the command line, so no biggie. Anyways. - Then I downloaded this git for Windows thing that even had a really nice bash-like shell, so that's cool... Got the repo set up on his PC..... And Windows immediately complained about the file path. Because apparently starting a folder name with a space; I mean, I know it's unconventional but still, was not at all something Windows liked. Worked perfectly fine on GitHub, worked perfectly fine on my Mac, my colleagues Mac, and any Linux machine connected to the repo; Windows complained and just wouldn't open any of it. It'd copy everything else over from Git but not that folder.... OK; Fine, whatever. I'll rename the folder and push it to Git. Start it with a dash instead. Alright, yay, success, Windows accepted it... What's that? The file system is now complaining because it actually did something to try and create the folder from before, even though it wouldn't accept it. So now explorer is showing a folder with no name (just blank), it can't be deleted or really interacted with aside from selection. Trying to open it causes about a minute of waiting before a pop-up saying "An error occurred please try again later" or something like that.And Git is confused about what is going on, wanting to commit the addition of a new folder but any attempts at checkout, commit, anything just fails. Started over in a new working directory and got it to work, but that guy still has a ghost folder and probably needs to reformat to remove it... That's Windows 10 btw; Not XP or Vista or anything. 10 definitely still has a fair share of issues; Like any OS. Only Windows issues are more annoying to deal with IMO.