Funny to read such an opposite opinion.
I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.
My first PC (~year 2000) came with Windows but I wanted to use some software that only existed for Unix at the time and I was used to work in Unix anyway, so I heard about Linux and installed it. Great, I got an OS I was used to and the software I needed for my project.
When finally I had to use Windows for work a couple of years later it took time to adapt and, even to this day, I just find it easier to use Linux. It's just a metter of what you are used to.
Last year I bought a MacBook, because of the M1, and I can't get used to the "weirdness" of MacOS, specially the keyboard and the window management. Every other machine I use (Linux, Windows or ChromeOS) uses the same keybindings but in MacOS the same software I use everywhere else (e.g. Chrome) has been forced to change the standard keybindings to something else and and it's even not configurable. Programs just don't implement stuff as C-c to copy and C-v to paste. Programs link that functionality to S-c and S-v, instead. WTF? This means there is no remapping of the keyboard that can fix this, since the software itself is broken.
For me, this makes the machine pretty unusable. I'm a keyboard guy and quite fast at it. But when I'm in MacOS I waste a lot of time finding the right keybindings even for switching Windows. Example: S-w to close a tab but C-TAB to switch tabs %~(
For what it's worth, long time Mac users feel that *nix desktops and Windows have the same kind of "weirdness" you describe here. The majority of modern macOS conventions can be traced back to the original 1985 Mac or the 5-10 years following its introduction.
I started on macOS but can switch between control schemes pretty fluidly these days, thanks to having regularly used all three major OSes for several years. That said I wish there were at least one Linux DE that cloned macOS conventions as faithfully as the rest have cloned Windows conventions (with the exception of GNOME, which is more like what you'd get if you turned iPadOS into a desktop OS with Windows keyboard shortcuts).
It used to be just a Mac thing, but when the OS became Unix, you suddenly had a GUI key (command) and a command line key (control). Which is great for mental split and flexibility.
You can have Ctrl-C to cancel and Cmd-C to copy on the same Terminal app.
And you get to use both command/option/shift + arrow keys along with readline/Emacs shortcuts on any native text input. So sweet.
Personally I think CMD is more ergonomic but muscle memory trumps all I suppose
The issue is not which labels keys have printed on them. I don't look at my keyboards and I always remap keys for them to be in the positions I like. That's fine and works in MacOS.
The issue is that the same application (Chrome, for example, but happens with most of them) uses the same key combinations in Windows, Linux, Chrome OS and Android (I use DeX from time to time on my S7 Tab) to do something but then decides to do something different in MacOS _without giving the user the possibility to fix it_.
Chrome example: C-w closes a tab and C-TAB changes tab in the first four OSs. In MacOS, though, it's S-w and C-TAB, respectively. There is no remapping which can fix this because the correspondence between keymappings on a given modifier key is not a bijection. The only possibility would be that each program gave the user the option to "use standard keymappings". But very few do, AFAIK. Emacs is the only one that works the same on all systems. But I also need a browser ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I'm not saying that MacOS convention is worse or better than the standard. In fact, I personally like the idea of having the CTRL-like functionality on my thumbs, rather than my pinkies, and I could migrate to this layout on all computers I use (via key remaping, in the same way that I already have remapped on all computers I use the ESC key on the place that normally CAPS is). I'm just saying that using MacOS makes me slower, both when using MacOS itself _and_ when using the other OSs, since suddenly I have to conciously decide which key combo to use. Normally this was something that just happened subconciously and didn't interrupt my flow.
What I'm seeing is: close a tab -> cmd+w; copy something -> cmd+c; switch tab -> cmd+option+left/right arrow, switch window -> cmd + `
Incredible that these myths are being perpetuated by a Mac user. The fact is that at release, new Macs (including 68k and PPC) were always the most performant machines available in their class. Always. You could buy a cheaper x86, but it wasn't as powerful on that date. And the fact is, Mac prices were and are always within $100 of a feature-matched PC. The problem was consistently that PC consumers didn't want the included hardware features, wanted other features that weren't included, and translated that they could buy a much shittier PC for less as Macs being outrageously expensive. It was always bullshit. Ornery PC consumers were never Apple's market. Macs were and are the computer "for the rest of us." And, ironically, everything Apple designs gets copied poorly by Microsoft and PC manufacturers. Asahi is the inverse of Hackintosh. Both ideas are somewhat ridiculous. I want a Ford engine in my Chevy powered by tomato soup!
Not really. In 1999, the US government classified them as supercomputers and banned their export to over 50 countries. Apple tried to make hay of it, but almost immediately started lobbying to get the ban lifted. The last G4 tower was released in June 2003 and discontinued a year later and just got old by 2006 because Motorola already left AIM, and IBM wasn't delivering. Not Apple's fault, and the reason for the platform jump to Intel. But, again, at release, any of the high end G4 machines were faster than any consumer Intel tower, though 2003-2006 gave them plenty of time to catch up and pass the G4. The Mirrored Drive Doors 2003 dual 1.25GHz G4 was... is still a pretty sweet machine. It is still in use in Pro Tools studios because Digi equipment and plugins were expensive, and none of the PPC Digi components work on Intel. Try sourcing one. You'll be shocked what MDD 2003 DP sell for in 2022 at 18-19yo.
I am still often frustrated with keyboard shortcuts, despite having installed a dedicated software to not feel in such an alien place. Sure there is a lot of muscle memory you can blame here. But how does it happens that the default OS doesn't provide the software option? Brew is nice, but here too it's community work filling the hole of the default.
I miss the home, end and del key on the integrated keyboard.
The only way to shutdown the integrated screen and still have the camera usable is to duplicate the screen and diminish brightness to zero. Or use a magnet. Seriously?
No key to show the contextual keyboard.
Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)?
Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? It's possibly the file manager that made me feel the most clueless in my life.
It is not like everything is utterly horrible, but I was very surprised at how frustrating it could be as a daily driver. I didn't discovered anything that I would miss from it when I go back on something as basic as a vanilla Gnome.
Can you describe what your use case for this is, because this complaint sounds truly bizarre to me. You want to use the webcam at the top of the laptop display, while not using the laptop display itself, but using a separate display (and thus presumably not looking anywhere near the webcam)? Are you pointing the webcam at something other than yourself?
> No key to show the contextual keyboard.
What do you mean by contextual keyboard?
> Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)?
The first-party Terminal provides that feature, too. But the rest of the OS doesn't natively.
I meant contextual menu. The only way to open in it in a Mac arms seems to be to use the secondary mouse button.
My bad for the paste in the terminal. I moved to an other terminal for an other reason I can't remember right now. But yeah it is the middle click in general that I miss. To be fair, Windows doesn't provide it either.
In Finder, selecting View > Show Path Bar will place a persistent path bar on each window. Additionally command clicking the proxy icon that appears when hovering over finder titlebars will open a path menu (and also works in any application with a proxy icon in its titlebar).
To go to a path, select Go > Go to Folder… or tap Command-Shift-G. This can be rebound to a more convenient shortcut in System (Preferences|Settings) > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Command-Option-C will copy the path of the currently selected item to the clipboard.
I always find it interesting when people complain about keyboard shortcuts on macOS - but I feel exactly the same when I use anything else.
macOS keyboard shortcuts are amazing and os-wide. But they're not made obvious. Its really kinda snobbish that apple just assume you know them they treat it like 'because obviously youve used a mac forever'.
And don’t get me started on the way that OS inserts special keys. How do you insert ® on Windows? Alt-01whoCanRemember? On the Mac it’s usually something that makes sense like Option + R. Ç? Option-C. ƒ? You guessed it.
In the meanwhile, I wanted something that would let me focus on my work, not being distracted by basic key combination struggle every few inputs. Karabiner, which is community driven, led me to such a mostly OK situation here.
To me what is baffling is that Apple, with its ridiculously high revenue stream and all its marketing on great UX, is unable to provide that out of the box.
What do you mean? They’re all there on apple extended keyboards and are accessible via fn key on laptops. I mostly use command/option arrow keys, which, along with shift are also an amazing Mac feature.
>The only way to shutdown the integrated screen and still have the camera usable is to duplicate the screen and diminish brightness to zero. Or use a magnet. Seriously?
I don’t know if I understand you but you can turn the screen off without sleeping in multiple ways, like keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Shift-Eject) or assign a screen hot corner for the mouse.
> No key to show the contextual keyboard.
What?
>Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)?
It’s not a thing. I use it for exposé. Sounds barbaric to select with the middle button pressed though. Your dexterity goes out the window.
>Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it?
There are a couple. Straightforward might mean accustomed to, tough in this context.
>It's possibly the file manager that made me feel the most clueless in my life. It is not like everything is utterly horrible, but I was very surprised at how frustrating it could be as a daily driver.
The Finder leads a double life. It inherited traits from both the classic Mac OS (spatial Finder) and the NeXT (column browser). And it shows. Both can be very powerful but their coexistence is confusing at first.
The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately.
The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.
Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs)
They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.
The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac.
It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.
Horrible peripherals, too. I guess you love them for the same reasons I hate them.
