I’ve had crippling hardware issues with a Toshiba (TooBrite screen, loud noise, traded in for the Sony), and an Efika (painful ergonomics), and driver issues with an Ubuntu-certified Sony (Alps touchpad was certified because of a hack treating it as a PS/2 mouse, and treating a hand passing overhead when typing as a series of clocks, moves, and double-clicks).
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Well, I don’t know about in the past, but Sony isn’t even mentioned now.
https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop/
I would respectfully point out you’re not exactly the average user, either.
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Does anyone know what’s with blurry text on many webpages?
(using css text-shadow)
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Whoever uses text-shadow for text bodies needs a good slapping with a large fish.
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I had that at work for a while. Turned out my monitor needed a reset.
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I really want a degauss button on my LCD. Even if it is purely a digital recreation.
< Click > Buuuuuhwooooong < click >
Screen goes all wonky for amoment and then back to work.
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It’s a good point. The monitor I had the trouble with was in fact an LCD one. And yeah, it wasn’t a degauss as such, but sort of the equivalent of it.
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It only occurs with certain text on certain websites, when that text uses css text-shadow. So I don’t think it’s the monitor. I am pretty sure it’s misguided css.
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I get the Mac OS UI hate, I really do. It’s that sense of “this is how you have to do it on a mac and it’s different from what you expect, and there are fewer or no options”. It always annoyed me, including when I got my first mac in 2009, purchased because I had zero time to spend dealing with computer stuff in grad school. I came to it after years of Linux, which worked fine for the most part before but started majorly getting in the way because with linux, I was always dealing with computer stuff (…which was part of the appeal).
(That 2009 13" macbook pro lasted me until last year, by the way, when I started dealing with 4K video which it can’t really handle although it still works fine for most anything else).
A big part of that is collaboration, and de-facto standards. This isn’t an argument for the actual merits of the Mac OS, but, in academia and in most design fields, the idea that you have to get a mac isn’t because they’re inherently better (though nothing realistically comes close to the hardware design), it’s because despite what the Microsoft Surface TV ads will have you believe, everyone uses macs and using the same thing means fewer headaches and time wasted.
(Of course it depends on your individual situation and who you have to collaborate with.)
A good example is the “Airdrop” feature, which works really well and is really widely used in design collaboration and other things. But it’s an example of how the mac redefines how you have to use your computer and is in fact dumbing things down - it’s the dumbest possible version of file sharing - but it’s dumbed down in the name of having things “just work”, which it does, which to many people is more valuable than something more powerful. (And all the less-dumb functionality is actually there if you need it.)
It sounds like drinking the kool-aid but if you go with the flow of how they want you to use it, the mac UI works and it works well (it’s a stretch to say it actually “just works”, though it’s gotten closer to that point). I was as hard-headed as they come about wanting to customize everything to be “just so” for my way of thinking, which you can’t do on a mac, but once I let that go and just used it how they want you to and focused on doing actual work, the UI basically went away. It doesn’t always necessarily help, but it also doesn’t get in the way (with some exceptions), and you don’t have to think about it at all if you don’t want to.
Using a Windows machine now feels really clunky to me, though it works fine and I don’t really have any complaints about using Windows at my part-time job, where I spend almost all of my time in Photoshop and in the file manager dealing with hundreds of files at a time. Clunky but it works, which has always been the case for Windows.
Curious about your thoughts on scrolling and text editing. Managing windows… yeah I can see that, though that’s a case where you have to go with the flow (and use Mission Control) and forget about your desire to manage windows at all. And though I hated how it worked at first, I really like how virtual desktops work on the mac, though again you have to use it how they want you to.
Scrolling is one of my favorite things on a mac, because the touchpad is so good, and you can scroll in windows that are in the background (something seemingly-small that I miss all the time when using Windows).
tl;dr - yes there are frustrating quirks, but IMO the mac UI is the closest to the OS UI just completely disappearing that we have right now, which, after some refreshing kool-aid, works really well. (It’s the same for iOS, though they’re not as close there as they are in OS X because of limited I/O as you say)
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Setting aside my disability requirements I can think of 5 other ways the ui gets in the way:
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If I use column view in Finder, and search, the width of the columns gets screwed up. It’s possible newer versions correct this.
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If I have to open a series of documents, I keep having to fight my way back to Calibre or to the Finder to select and open the next few documents. I think Linux has the same issue? I asked for help on Apple’s support site and someone explained that switching focus to newly-opened apps was “the fundamental idea of computing” or some-such, so it’s likely it’s a widespread bug.
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I have to use different syntax to run commands in Terminal and to run commands in Run Shell Script in Automator.
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I can’t use the output of one shell script in Automator as the input of another in the same app.
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I don’t get useful feedback on why an Automator app failed.
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Given that I cannot deal with microshit any more, the open source ecosystem is collapsing, and the software I use is native on mac, I’m going to try it. Even though it means I’ll have to spend 10% more on the next thing. Plus some software costs.
Guess I’m getting old.
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Windows does that too. It’s always accidental when I do it (except just now when I tested) but it does scroll a background window if the pointer is over it and you hit the scrollwheel.
I could rant for awhile, but I won’t. 
I’ll just say that having the UI completely disappear when I need it is one of my pet peeves about the Mac. It makes it feel really clunky.
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Apple’s calculator is broken in iOS 12, as an accessibility user encountered earlier. Pressing Multiply breaks it.
-= aaaarrrgh =-
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That sounds rather basic!
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They had one job. Just the one!
Loki_one_job.gif
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Two things: one, that was a well-reasoned assessment of OSx. Even though I don’t use a Mac, it’s good to read your and @DaakSyde 's comments. It’s a more realistic take if what I’m in for if I use them in the future.
Two, this fascinated me:
From my brief forays into Macland, I think you’re exactly right.
And that’s messed up.
UIs are not supposed to be different from what the user expects. Or, if they are, they’re supposed to be quick and easy for the user to adjust to.
Last time I tried to use a Mac, I spent over five minutes trying and failing to launch Safari. I never did figure it out (the owner of the MacBook helped me). I’m considered to be in the regular user to power user range in Windows and Ubuntu, most of which I’ve achieved by figuring things out myself.
OS UIs are also supposed to be flexible, and as you pointed out, the Mac doesn’t seem to be.
Macs are supposed to be “for the rest of us”, but mostly they seem to be for people already using Macs.
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Safari should start in the Dock, and you should be able to use System Preferences to (a) un-hide the Dock, because hiding it and then accidentally opening it as you try to use an edge of the screen is a pain in the ass, and (b) move the dock to one side of the screen.
I also installed Custom Menu.
Because Apple doesn’t like users reorganizing the Apps folders, I created an extra “My Apps” folder with aliases of all the apps in the 2 regular apps folders, grouped into subfolders. I linked that from Custom Menu.
Because some apps use the Documents folder for their libraries, I created an extra “My Docs” folder with my docs.
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This was interesting news because the beginning of your reply showed up in the preview of the notification email on my phone, while I was at work on a Windows computer that clearly was not scrolling in the background (something that would be useful to me for the work I do on that computer).
Looks like that was introduced with Windows 10 (which we didn’t have until last year IIRC) - it appears as if it was enabled by default for most, but it’s disabled by default on the work computers for whatever reason (which is the only place I use Windows for any extended period) so I didn’t know. Good tip, thanks 
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These are different versions of the same idea - it just doesn’t work how you want it to. I was just like all of you - I had specific complaints like this (actually, some of the same specific complaints). You have to let it all go - ask yourself, why am I trying to do this thing that it won’t let me do how i want? In many cases (not all, to be sure) the answer is that you’re trying to do something because in other OSes that was what you needed to do. Here, they’ve approached the problem from a completely different angle. There are specific answers to each of your complaints.
I’d like to emphasize that there are aspects that I still don’t like, or that would be much better if I could customize it just a little bit. But, once I got used to it, even the aspects I don’t like are still done better than in any of the alternatives. There’s certainly a valid question about how quick and easy it is for the user to adjust - though of course it’s going to be hardest for people like us with decades of ingrained experience in traditional OS UIs, it really didn’t take long to adjust. One isn’t going to adjust just using it occasionally, though.
This is a valid take and I’d just like to say that I’m not sure why I ended up being the Apple evangelizer in this thread. Take me as just one anecdotal example - a die-hard linux user and customizer who, over time (and partly out of necessity), saw the light (I’m switching from the kool-aid metaphor ). I adjusted pretty easily and now I like it so much I’m evangelizing.
I do get mild annoyance once in a while but I no longer feel the need to customize anything before I do the actual work I have or want to do. I don’t get eXaspsrated (sic).
I liked this because I have had the same experience in various UIs, including OS X when I first used it but it’s a fairly common experience - I had trouble helping relatives with recent Windows versions after not having used Windows since I think Vista.
The UI concept for opening apps in recent Windows versions and OS X is really not very different though - you can dock your frequently-used stuff (and why that person didn’t have Safari or another browser docked is odd) but even stuff that’s docked, it’s often easier to open things by using Spotlight (and the search equivalent that Windows gives you when you click the start menu). Type the first couple letters of the app (or document for that matter) that you want and the search results are instantaneous and you can press enter to open it. It also learns what you use most so when you get used to it, you know to type just “d” to open Drop Sync, and “di” to open disk utility (that’s my personal example). For whatever reason I typically click on the spotlight icon (magnifying glass on upper right) to do it but you can also press command-space to bring up the spotlight search.
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It’s definitely a cult, and there are definitely specific use-cases where it “just doesn’t work”.
(I do like the keyboards though)
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