What are you all wishing Apple would update on the Macs to, in your eyes, bring them "back to greatness"? I use windows and macOS daily and I will tell you macOS is still miles ahead of windows when it comes to user experience, smoothness, functionality, and ease of use. When I am using macOS I never find myself thinking, "wow this is ****, I can't do X. I wish they'd fix that!". It's more like, "thank god I am on my Mac and not my windows machine and I can easily and effortlessly do this task". I really don't see any huge innovations that need to happen on macOS. The only valid criticism I see raised often is how there is no native way to snap windows, and this can easily be remedied by downloading one of many third party tools that give you a massive amount of customization when it comes to window management. You know how many third party apps you'll be downloading on windows or linux just to get the same functionality you get in stock macOS? A **** ton, and they'll be junk more than likely. Try to go to windows and do things like quick preview a file, rename a file while its open, easily edit and sign pdfs without installing some spyware riddled jank third party app, use a clean stock mail app (or for that matter use any set of applications that are clean and coherent in design), quickly send files/images/videos from your phone to your computer, message your friends and family from the same threads of conversations as on your phone (including sms/mms threads), handoff a email you were writing on your phone to your computer, open a website you had open on your phone on your computer, have all the unix underpinnings you would need to create a great development environment, use fluid and simple gestures to easily navigate around, a competent dark mode, and the list goes on and on and on. Some of these quality of life features are obviously only relevant if you use an iPhone or iPad but if you are not I am not sure why you are hooked on Mac. Those extra ecosystem features make it all worth it and increase productivity and enjoyment. If someone is just doing basic computing tasks they can easily use whatever OS. But it won't be as enjoyable, that's for sure.
Granted, I can understand the frustration if you need to use certain software that is not available on macOS, but that has been that way for years so I don't know why you'd be using a Mac in the first place. The same goes for gaming. Mac has always been a joke when it comes to gaming. That's why I have always had a custom built pc for gaming. Ever since I got into Apple tho and got a Mac I want to off myself when I try to use my PC for daily computing tasks, and that is the essential point. Apple products are pleasing to use. They make you WANT to use them and get stuff done. They get out of the way (for the most part) a hell of a lot more than the competition. At the end of the day that is what is important. I think deep down Apple has always had that spirit in their design. They want people to enjoy using their products but not spend every waking hour on them tinkering things that make no difference. They should be good enough for the majority of people to just pick up, use, get work done, enjoy themselves, and get on with their lives. This is also how I feel about iOS vs Android. While I can't do really nerdy stuff like torrent or play emulated games natively on my iPhone, the things I do actually do every day I can do a whole hell of a lot faster and easier on my iPhone. That is because Apple actually thinks about how people use their devices every day and how they can streamline things or make the user experience better. It is not a hobbled together disjointed mess.
So far this is all talking about software. If we are going to talk about hardware, that is a different story. Apple IS definitely charging too much these days for what they are putting out. There has always been an Apple Tax so to speak but lately it's seemed to get a little out of hand considering the hardware upgrades. I feel Apple could definitely be more competitive when it comes to what they put in base models of their computers and what they charge for things such as ram upgrades, ssd upgrades, etc. Also, they have definitely made some missteps with hardware decisions as of late. The new keyboards are without a doubt a step down from the old keyboards. The design needs to be put out to pasture and redesigned so that it isn't riddled with issues, doesn't break easily, and actually feels great to type on again. It has had it's time to prove itself and it has failed miserably. The Touch Bar may be on its way to reaching the same fate but that remains to be seen. Some people enjoy the Touch Bar and get some kind of use out of it. All of that being said, I still feel like pretty much all Macs nowadays are powerful enough for the vast majority of people. The masses don't really require insane power from their computers. They are doing simple **** that they can do on their phone or tablets. I think most people greatly over exaggerate their power needs. Like when the iMac Pro or Mac Pro came out, or hell even this new 6-core MBP...what the **** are you people doing that requires that much power? I would wager that the people that need that kind of power are like 2% of the user base.
