Thoughts on MacOS?

Beta_Alpha · February 11, 2022 at 1:35 AM

Title says it all. I've been using it for an year Along side Windows, so I'll leave my own experiences too.

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! I've been using the 2020 M1 Macbook pro with 16GB RAM and 500GB Storage. MacOS turned out to be a lot more faster and productive as a work-based OS, just like rumours may say. Keep in mind up until I got this, I used windows my whole life and every phone I've ever owned was a from Samsung (currently on the Note 9 since it's launch).
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! MacOS feels more portable and fast because it's designed more like a Mobile OS (Literally using way too many assets from iOS), and that combines surprisingly well with the overall feel of having a laptop. However, MacOS is indeed limited to lightweight work. Don't expect record breaking performance with anything like Blender, hell, forget 3D rendering in general. It's not bad, but there are much better alternatives at the same, if not better price. It's why I prefer it for Laptops and why I'd personally never buy an iMac. Windows is definitely better for a PC and actually has a more harder, boxy design that feels more technical, good for a 3D modelling mindset or gaming, since both are, to me at least, more hardened tasks that need more focus and freedom in the OS.
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! I can't however stress enough how fast and good it is at data and code. Unity loads assets and changes much faster (Testing my project isn't as fast, mainly because it'll switch to rending the assets in realtime with physics which, as said before, isn't a Mac's strong suit. Although I only use it to edit models and add extra effects with shaders and addons), files save and move nearly instantly regardless of size, unzipping and compressing waits are nearly non-existent, hell even programs that normally lag due to hardware reasons still compile and save assets or export files faster than on windows (e.g switching viewports or editor tabs). My PC at 32GB and core i9 at times struggles to compete with these speeds. At half the RAM and with a CPU designed from mobile phone architecture, it's actually more than impressive. And the overall feel of MacOS is nice, as stated earlier. It just feels more fluid to use, and i find myself using a trackpad more than a mouse than I ever did with any Windows laptop I own, most likely because it gives me a more mobile phone like vibe hence enticing me to use touch-and-drag based controls more.I personally would love to make Macs my main device, but due to how limited specs are, the fact Macs aren't good at rendering 3D and many apps don't have as good support on a Mac as they do on Windows (some not even having ports), I just can't. But for what I need this for, it does deliver. I never bought it for gaming or rendering heavy assets, so I'm disappointed at all.
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! P.S. Yes, the new Macbook with the notch and no touch-bar sucks ass. At least I got a good one.

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I'm genuinely curious about other people's opinions. If anyone is also formally Windows-only and now uses both OSs, I’m interested to know if their thoughts differ in any way and what they use each OS for.

NotPetya · February 13, 2022 at 12:10 AM

it looks nice but I hate apple

resident_user · February 13, 2022 at 4:24 PM

macOS will always be more secure than Windows. On another point the source code for Windows leading up to XP SP2 (I think?) was leaked by some Windows insider and is easy to compile.

It’s a well known gimmick that Microsoft just changes the user interface of Windows, adds a new specification to lock down the system and slaps on a new brand name every four years.

Edit: Before someone quotes this post about the popularity of Windows over Mac, I guess I should reiterate that I am looking through the scope of security which Apple as a company seems to value more than Microsoft. Privacy rant:

IE6/Edge/“the monstrosity” I also think does not value privacy as much as Safari which can now tell you how many trackers are embedded in a website. If Safari built a capable framework for extensions then it would be a capable browser.

iOS/Apple TV (and probably the rest of their ecosystem) gives users the option to “ask apps not to track” which companies like Facebook that rely on tailored advertisements have had issues with. Anything that gives users control over what’s using their information is a step in the right direction.

Microsoft’s settings that control analytics are presented in an evasive manner when you install Windows, they do not turn off the full scope of information that other clients are collecting from your usage of the OS and it’s something that seems like an exploitation of Windows users having constant Internet access.

Telesphoreo · February 13, 2022 at 5:18 PM

I disagree that macOS is limited to lightweight work. macOS is capable of doing many powerful things and is the backbone for powerful video and musical production in a lot of studios. The difference is that they are not buying laptops. They are buying Mac Pros with tons of processing power. I definitely think macOS is better for laptops, but I would still probably buy a desktop PC for games. I can get most of the same things done on macOS as I can on Windows. The two downfalls for me are no ShareX and the poor window management. Alt + Tab switches applications and Alt + ` switches between windows of the same apps. Windows uses Alt + Tab for windows entirely which is a lot easier for me.

I use my M1 MacBook Air for coding and running VMs. I can have a Windows + Linux VM running at the same time and an IDE on my Mac. I personally like the new MacBook Pros because they brought back all the ports. I've used it in real life and the notch is really not noticeable. Not having a touch bar either is really nice (and the reason I got the Air instead of the Pro). The new ProMotion display is really nice on it as well.

I also don't think macOS risks being locked down like iOS. If Apple wanted to, they would have already with the M1. It's actually possible to load other OSes on the M1, which is something they could have prevented. The problem is Apple doesn't provide any drivers so it's up to the open source community to reverse engineer everything. Look up Asahi Linux, it wouldn't exist if Apple didn't let you boot a different OS. It's not ready yet though and you're forced to use Parallels if you want to run a different OS. I don't have a choice, so I pay for it.

The interface on macOS is a lot nicer compared to Windows, hands down. Also the apps feel like they run smoother on macOS. Even Microsoft Office is better on Mac than Windows in terms of UI. It matches the macOS look, whereas Office on Windows doesn't.

The battery life on my M1 Air has been beyond exceptional. I've taken it on a week long vacation and forgotten the charger and it still made it through.

volleo6144 · February 14, 2022 at 12:37 AM

With Apple having developed a reputation for not including bloatware on iOS (for the last few years you've even been able to delete most stock apps!) like so many other companies do (looking at Facebook in particular), and because I've always had the money for it, I've always had an iPhone instead of a Samsung/Xiaomi/Huawei/etc. phone.

Since the iPhone also has more integration with macOS than with Windows, and because Windows has as many third-party apps on the Start menu by default as it does (while macOS barely has any and Apple in general has a huge focus on privacy), I don't really care about Windows either as of 2019: I quit Windows and never looked back. Not even to get the last 72.6 hours on Portal 2, which will probably only happen when Portal: Companion Collection comes out.

The M1 can run Minecraft with all the highest graphics settings while only dipping below 60fps when there's more stuff than normal on the screen and only below 20fps when someone's deliberately trying to lag everyone. Computing power isn't a singleton suit for newer MacBooks.

TL;DR iPhone + MacBook + Watch. Haven't cared about Windows for 2 years, even sacrificing one of my top 3 games of all time for it.

Beta_Alpha · February 15, 2022 at 12:01 AM

↩ Telesphoreo I've heard great things about its video editing and music production capabilities and was actually always curious about diving into music myself. Right now i haven't used MacOS to it's full extent so I'm still seeing what else I can do.

Also yeah, battery is powerful as fuck. I took my charger too for a 5 day vacaton but didn't use it even once and came back with just a little below half of the battery life still left.

wild1145 July 16, 2022 at 11:38 PM