It can’t do the literal entire thing an operating system is supposed to do: manage applications and their resulting windows, in a sensible way.
I want to know what application is running.
Sure it’s in the dock!
I want to find a specific application window.
Go fuck yourself right to hell.
Wait, the taskbar doesn’t show the running windows, like it does on every other OS? It’s at least discrete right?
It discretely takes up 1.5cm of the bottom of the screen at all times. It’s so discrete it doesn’t even need to use the corners.
Uh, alright, well that’s all the system space you need right?
Yeah of course just that bottom inch or so … And a top of screen system level menu bar to display what windows does in the bottom corners.
/sigh/ ok, fine, I just want to be able to full screen a window and still see what else is open.
Burn in hell and die.
I want to be able to easily switch left and right between open windows.
Go full screen or I will shoot you.
I want to move an open window into the other monitor.
You can’t because you’re full screen dumbass.
I want to let a window present a popup like they normally do.
You can’t because youre full screen dumbass. Why would you be full screen?
I want an application like Slack to be able to popup and remove notifications when is appropriate.
Choose to have every single notification persists on screen until you manually remove it, or miss all your notifications.
Can’t we trouble you for something in between, where we trust an application and let it manage them in a way that makes sense based on their context?
You can trouble me for something in between these cheeks, shit stain.
Like honestly, I fucking hate what an advertising and AI filled mess Windows is, but it can actually manage your windows and virtual desktops in a way that makes a modicum of sense.
It feels like a single Apple product manager decided that the way that they use their computer (a single application at a time, no windows to manage) is the only way anyone does, so who cares if we implement a nonsensical full screen paradigm, it makes one tiny niche edge case slightly simpler.
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Not only does it have terrible UX designed by the marketing department of Fischer Price, it treats you like a toddler as well.
This is the thing that the Gnome devs are desperately trying to replicate.
Agreed. I am not a big fan of Gnome either.
Dude, everything in this you claim you can’t do on MacOS I already do on macOS just fine. You are saying it can’t be done because you don’t know how to do it.
Attack them for the enormous corner radius, Liquid Glass, spotlight changing the top result right before you click on it, etc. don’t bitch about problems that literally do not exist.
How many windows do you have open during your typical work day? And how many of each application?
Dude, learn the GUI. It borrows heavily from Linux virtual desktops. Swipe up on the touchpad with 4 fingers. There’s other customizable window sorting stuff too.
Read the comments, I do. Windows’ GUI is better.
How many windows do you need open day to day to do your job?
First, windows 11 has objectively the worst desktop GUI. It’s a downgrade from its predecessor and so bad literally everyone beats it now. It’s not better, it’s familiar.
Second, asking how many windows I have open is dumb since you are asking for a static number for something that changes day to day. If I say 6, you say 7. If I say 11, you say a billion. You aren’t looking for a real answer to consider, you are looking from something to lie about. I will say I have 3 browsers with multiple windows and tabs open across 3 screens, vscode, terminal, 2 virtual machines in full screen a simple swipe reveals, pages and numbers, TextEdit as a scratchpad for notes, a few finder windows, messages, discord, mail, and probably a few other things.
That was just this afternoon. And when I unplug from the dock and move to the couch, they all are organized sensibly on virtual desktops I can swipe between easily. I haven’t rebooted in over a month and only did so this afternoon for an OS update.
Don’t like MacOS? Fine, there’s KDE that does windows better than actual windows does.
Second, asking how many windows I have open is dumb since you are asking for a static number for something that changes day to day. If I say 6, you say 7. If I say 11, you say a billion. You aren’t looking for a real answer to consider, you are looking from something to lie about.
It’s not a dick measuring contest, I’m just genuinely curious how someone who actually uses a lot of windows manages, or whether I’m talking to a university student writing an essay.
I will say I have 3 browsers with multiple windows and tabs open across 3 screens, vscode, terminal, 2 virtual machines in full screen a simple swipe reveals, pages and numbers, TextEdit as a scratchpad for notes, a few finder windows, messages, discord, mail, and probably a few other things.
So how do you quickly switch to a different instance of the same browser, on the same monitor?
First, windows 11 has objectively the worst desktop GUI. It’s a downgrade from its predecessor and so bad literally everyone beats it now. It’s not better, it’s familiar.
Oh its just “bad”? I listed numerous basic failings of MacOS, including specific window management failings and their patronizingly useless notification system. How about you do better than “bad”?
“It’s not a dick measuring contest,” but also: How many windows you have open? Bro, how many?!
Really my biggest gripe with iOS/MacOS is that a lot of functionality is designed for an apparent fluidity rather than intuition — I find you often have to be taught how to do the things you are complaining about.
Until recently I felt Apple UI were pretty intuitive actually.
IpadOS is an abomination unto the lord though.
Really my biggest gripe with iOS/MacOS is that a lot of functionality is designed for an apparent fluidity rather than intuition — I find you often have to be taught how to do the things you are complaining about.
Stop. Just stop.
Look through the comments. Literally everyone rushing in here to defend Apple says something along the lines of “skill issue” or you just need to be taught how to do it. But when I prompt them to explain how they switch to a different window, of the same application, on one monitor, they list a convulsed series of steps that are decidedly not:
“Alt + Tab”
or
“Three finger swipe left and right”
like they are on windows / decent Linux desktop environments.
Apple’s full screen paradigm has always been nonsense. They pushed it super hard for every application because they have a shitty dock that takes up too much screen real estate, and it’s always caused problems with the entire rest of their windowing system as a result.
You know what is fluid? A three finger swipe left and right with handy window previews. MacOS’s window management is just UX band aid on top of UX band aid, but they market it as innovation.
Four finger swipe up, cmd tab, right click the dock icon and all the windows for that app show in the list, enable app expose and swipe down with however many figure you set that to…
There’s lots of ways to do this.
Eh, I don’t know. Kinda feels like it’s more of a reflection on your ability to learn.
Does macOS need some windowing improvements? Undoubtedly. But my 12 year old kid and my senior citizen mom can use it just fine, I’m sure you can too.
macOS has the unique ability to be good for newbies and power users (thanks to its unix underpinnings,) but falls short for people who have just enough computer knowledge to be dangerous (such as yourself.)
Unix underpinnings make it comfortable for developer work, but that does not necessarily make it good for power users.
MacOs is pretty locked down and basic which makes it a reasonable choice for someone that just needs a computer, but if you’re the kinda person who wants to tinker with and change a bunch of stuff to make your computer work for you (i.e. a power user) you’re gonna meet resistance.
macOS has tons of power user features built in. Automator, Service Menu, Shortcuts, Folder Actions, intelligent folders, and much more! Adding commands to the contextmenu, that then work across apps is super cool and easy to do for example.
In any app, I can select text and then use the service menu or context menu to run my own text transformation scripts (title case, replace, etc.). Only using built-in tools!
Also you can add or change keyboard shortcuts for every app, even if it doesn’t have them for some menu items. Do you want to not accidentally quit Firefox with cmd + q ? Change it to cmd + alt + q in System Settings.
The UX is only serviceable to power users if you own the computer. If it’s corporate you’re stuck with the defaults, which are years behind Linux and windows.
Not to mention Cmd is in a terrible spot compared to Ctrl on windows. Needing to use your thumb for Cmd + C vs using you’re pinky to do Ctrl + C is also terrible in my opinion.
being usable != being good
macos doesnt care about unix, it is literally the most incompatible unix like os that there is
It’s BSD, it’s not Linux.
It is very much Unix and POSIX
It’s certified Unix by The Open Group: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
It’s literally the most Unix-like (modern) OS there is.
macOS has the unique ability to be good for newbies and power users (thanks to its unix underpinnings,) but falls short for people who have just enough computer knowledge to be dangerous (such as yourself.
Bruh, I’m a professional software developer.
I’m not complaining because I can’t figure out how to use it, I’m complaining because I use it as fast as anyone can and it irritates me that it slows me down compared to using Windows or most Linux distros.
I don’t even know how to limit my Mac to get most of those complaints. What did you do to it? In particular the only reason the taskbar doesn’t show all my running windows is because there are so many. There’s got to be the first 30 or so though.
Nor do I know how to avoid some of them on my Windows box.
The MacOS dock literally just shows running applications, not windows.
Huh. Meanwhile I’m complaining that my MacOSX dock only shows my first 24 IDE windows. - needs some additional grouping or organizing that I haven’t looked into
And on your external monitor you access that how? Do you have your dock persist and chew up space on every monitor, or do you have it hide and pop-up and then not go away and cut off the bottoms of your windows?
Every monitor so it’s always reachable
It is. Period.
For real. There’s a huge fucking reason most computers in the world run windows and not macos (about 70% and 15% respectively). It’s literally not an unpopular opinion, it’s practically a hard fact.
There’s a huge fucking reason most computers in the world run windows and not macos
The fact that the cheapest Windows devices are like 100 euros and the cheapest MacOS devices like 1000 euros?
- Exit button minimizes application.
- Minimize button right next to exit button also minimizes application.
- Clear all button for notifications doesn’t actually clear all notifications.
- Keyboard shortcuts for window snapping don’t snap windows.
- Necessary to install supplementary tools to accommodate basic functionality that other OSes have out of the box.
- X code
- No software support for DP MST so fuck you if want to run your own computer off a single wire dock.
At least the virtual desktops work pretty good.
A Mac application can keep running without having an open window. That’s also why the menu bar is not attached to the window.
Minimize button, minimizes the window into the dock.
You can also hide an application, or hide all others, which is a very useful feature.
Concerning your window management troubles, have you tried Exposé/Mission Control at all? “Ctrl + Arrow Key Up/Down” will show all open windows, and all open windows from the currently used application respectively. On trackpads this is bound to a four finger swipe up/down.
To cycle between the active application’s windows use “cmd + >” (add shift to cycle backwards), or alternatively you could right click an application’s dock icon to view a list of all its open windows.
If you combine these with “cmd + tab” to cycle between active applications you can bring any window you are looking for to the front quick and efficiently, using only the keyboard or trackpad.
Yes, I use this all the time out of necessity but it’s still hogwash.
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Mission Control is ok for selecting windows on a a single desktop as long as you have less then 6 open, it starts falling apart after that, and for some reason, no matter what, it makes the icons for full screen apps so small it’s impossible to tell which particular mostly white web page is which.
-
Ctrl + Arrow Key - switches between only true Full Screen applications, forcing you to use Full Screen, instead of just maximizing. Want to know which windows are coming up next in the list? Too bad, use mission control.
-
CMD + tab - switches between your last used applications, it does not switch between windows.
On Windows:
-
you have a taskbar at the bottom where all running windows are neatly tucked away under each application, each with a preview.
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With Alt + Tab you go through a list of last used windows, not applications. With a three finger swipe left or right, you can switch between them with a single gesture. You can configure this list to be all windows, or just the ones on that monitor. Their previews are always a predictable and visible size.
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you have virtual desktops where you can put your entire window arrangement across multiple monitors away, and start a completely fresh workspace for a different task.
I don’t use full screen windows much because I do agree that they become kinda annoying to find if you have more than 1-2 open at a time, mainly because I do most navigation with Exposé and they don’t nicely integrate there.
You pointed out that “cmd+tab” doesn’t cycle between windows, but that’s why I recommended “cmd + >” in my first comment, since that’s exactly what that does.
“Ctrl + Arrow Down” will only show your currently focused application’s windows, it’s different from “Ctrl + Arrow Up” which shows every application’s windows. So if you just use “cmd+tab” to focus on whichever application you’re currently looking for, and then hit “cmd + >” a few times (or “ctrl + arrow down”) you should find your window pretty quickly. Just a different process than cycling through every window on Windows, but I wouldn’t call it worse.
Unless you have like 20 windows open for a single application, I guess I could see how things could get convoluted in that case.
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I have an almost 10-year-old MacBook Pro, and I gotta say - of all the tech I’ve ever owned, it’s hands down the most hassle-free experience I’ve ever had. It might not be for power users, but for shitposting and watching YouTube videos it’s been absolutely fantastic. It just works, and there’s virtually never any issues with anything.
The only negative things I have to say about it have more to do with its age than it being a Mac.
I’m very intrigued by the Framework laptop, but I dunno - I might just get another Mac instead. Especially now that they’ve brought back the card reader, HDMI, and a proper keyboard.
Been a Mac user since early 90’s and I went with a Framework on my last computer and it has been great.
Thanks to its Unix-underpinnings, I think a lot of power users find macOS a pretty solid tool. Of course, not for gaming.
I’m with you on looking at Framework, but I too ultimately went with a new MacBook. Whatever shortcomings the OS may have, the hardware is just too damn good. If you’re happy with your Intel MacBook, just wait until you are on Apple Silicon.
it so solid that you need to fix macOS’ bundled outofdate unix utilities to have resemble of a function unix like system simply because Apple is allergic to the GPLv3 for no good reason
I feel like you can say the same about virtually any Windows laptop that cost the same as a MacBook Pro in the past 10 years.
I will give credit to their hardware, the M chips are very solid and they were smart to go in-house / ARM, they always use good mics and webcams, and their current microled screens are pretty great.
I just hate their software so fucking much. If I could get a good deal on a modern second hand MacBook I’d jump and put a better OS on it, but I can’t bring myself to buy their hardware full cost given all of their business practices at the moment.
I switched from a gaming PC, so it’s not about performance. The PC was objectively more powerful, but the user experience on Mac was simply better thanks to the OS.
Basically, the difference felt the same as me comparing my well-kept custom-built PC to a €300 supermarket PC full of junk and bloatware that I’d have to clean up at a relative’s place.
but the user experience on Mac was simply better thanks to the OS
🤣 I’m dead bro.
The OS is what holds macs back. Their hardware is good, their OS sucks donkey balls.
I guess your universal truths override my lived subjective experience then.
I was wrong. I just thought I liked MacOS better but actually it sucks donkey balls.
Yep.
Turns out you were wrong. Or your lived experience was 20 years ago.
I‘m a long time Mac user and have hated the full screen function since they introduced it. The + button used to zoom/maximize the window according to the size of its content, and it still remained resizable. You can alt + click the + to get the old behavior. There’s also a setting, where you get the old behavior by double clicking the window title bar.
The whole window management has become messy. It was pretty simple and powerful, but then they added more and more features every year, making it harder to use and less useful.
The full screen mode is just bad.
Yeah, for real. I miss the old full screen behavior because it’d just grow to the size of the content. But alt+click isn’t so bad. OP is just ignorant of that and wanted to rant.
I fully agree. I feel like an old man yelling at clouds when I try to use an Apple anything. It might be a me problem, I’ll admit, but I am so lost when trying to use someone else’s iPhone. Not at all intuitive.
I have to use Mac for work and hate the window management. So much of it feels counterintuitive, especially anything with two instances running and switching.
macOS is an okay-ish OS as long as you don’t step out of line. Do not want freedoms. Be a good child and obey.
It sucks, but at least it works.
Microsoft Windows can’t even say that.
Fuck both osses, they both suck donkey balls, long love Linux!
osses
OSes
I don’t know if things have changed, since I haven’t used windows since Windows 7 and I’ve only sporadically touched macs, but the other day I dragged my clock from one side of my desktop to the other on Manjaro and a staff member looking over my shoulder freaked out like I was a warlock.
I have to use one for work. I hate it and its been 3 years now. I’d rather use it than windows though.
No offense to anyone, but to me MacOS feels like an operating system designed specifically for mentally deficient, disabled toddlers. So much ‘time saving’ in the background it’s actively wasting my time.
macOS=bad
Mac OS X snow leopard= peak
