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0 pointsno_wizard5y ago0 comments

I think WSL2 is wonderful, I use it on my primary development machine. Docker doesn't have as many pain points as it used to, and I generally find that I can get around the OS without too much issue, and the new Windows Terminal App helps a ton (its no iTerm2, but its better than anything else I can find)

I still miss macOS, so much, because

- Mac Software I was accustomed to using (and it was lot) is no longer available to me (don't discount this problem when suggesting switching)

- I had to customize Windows 10 a lot, (many hours of work) to emulate native features of macOS I personally can't live without (including remapping keys, which turns out not to be trivial on Windows)

- I miss the general UI polish of macOS. Windows is...ugly in a lot of places.

- I miss Finder, and I've tried so many file explorer alternatives and nothing comes close

- Windows 10 can't seem to ever remember my screen layout for my applications. I had to resort to an application to do this for me. Drives me nuts

- macOS has way better HiDPI support (I have 3 4K monitors)

It ain't trivial, is what I'm saying.

Don't get me started on Linux, I loved Pop OS conceptually, but the support for basic things, like natural scrolling, was completely lacking, and I had to resort to all kinds of hacks to get a desktop semi functional. Not to mention, a lot of Linux 'add on' packages are abandonware and would break constantly when updating to new versions, and for basic things, like dealing with scroll direction, I had to edit files in a terminal, which I just found annoying. It just wasn't a polished out of the box experience. Don't get me started with it not recognizing adapters properly and issues with GPUs. macOS is alot of things, but they take 'just works' more seriously than any other operating system I've ever used.

Honestly, I find it incredibly odd that companies that have more manpower than Apple (you'd be shocked how little manpower they devote to some things) can't manage to pull off the polish of macOS UI

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KayL5y ago

WSL2 has no built-in background services. That's a huge issue for me. And I don't have 100% confidence in it. It has many little bugs on each builds.

Why do you miss Finder? Search feature? Preview.app? Opposite to you, I never like it.

no_wizardOP5y ago

If you didn't buy into Finder and other built-in apps on macOS, it can be easier to see less value, that is true, but effectually I feel like that dismisses perfectly reasonable expectations a macOS user has about using a platform. Frankly, Apple hasn't given as much love to macOS over the last 5-6 years in particular as they do their other platforms (in some ways, justifiable, otherwise, its frustrating) however, even with their basically trickle of updates to the desktop platform in that time, no other desktop platform could even match them on baseline functionality and user experience. Even though I'm certain Microsoft has more people working on Windows 10 than Apple has working on macOS. Even Ubuntu with its open source contributors likely dwarfs Apple's resources on this, yet nobody comes close to matching the user experience to me.

As for software, I miss Finder because I felt the interface was intuitive and I really liked the features Finder like tags, smart folders, and the way you could custom it with extensions and settings. I like the built in software, like Preview in particular.

I have yet to have anyone show me an OS that comes close to matching macOS out of the box. Even conceding customizations, they're just so lacking in comparison, to someone who 'clicked' with macOS.

Granted, not everyone likes macOS, and thats fine, but to come at it from a place that its so easy to migrate to another platform, ignores so many things about macOS that make it great to a macOS user.

My job requires Windows 10, thats how I ended up on the platform. I learned to get around and replicate as much of the features as I could, but so many are just fundamentally missing and even if I wanted to pay for the functionality (and for so much of it I would), the software doesn't even exist.

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