this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Mac is awesome!:-) Sorta. Apple has become "The Man" that it used to despise but... the product, I mean the desktop product, is still good. For now.
The GNU utilities are some of the most highly optimized on planet Earth. Actually they probably are the most highly optimized!:-D
Also, Mac OSX is POSIX compliant, making it more fully "Unix" than even Linux itself is - or at least, some flavors of Linux are allowed to not be POSIX compliant. templeOS is not POSIX compliant, and some parts of Arch (e.g. fish shell) are not either, reportedly.
Whenever I say that I enjoy using Mac OSX, the only pushback I tend to receive is that it typically runs on expensive hardware. However, it is unix with a pretty candy shell - e.g. that Preview program if f-ing amazing! and the Anti-aliasing everywhere, and the Spotlight search, and... it has much wow factor overall!:-P - and I think a good fraction of people who like Linux would enjoy using it, if it were free (which technically it is, the OS I mean, and that doesn't even get into Darwin...). The major caveat being Arch users, who want to customize every tiny thing to their heart's content. Which is fine - we don't all have to enjoy the same things:-).
I really like your take! I agree Apple has amazing products, but I do fear that will degrade as they become more of a monopoly. I never thought of it as pretty Unix, but that makes a lot of sense. Admittedly, I don’t know the history that well, but I’m assuming Steve Wozniak was a big Unix guy, and Steve Jobs is responsible for it being pretty. So it makes sense.
I spend most of my time in Vim and the browser, and those are both extremely customizable. So Mac has never felt too limiting for me.
Though Apple is expensive, I bet you could pick up even an old M1 Mac and still have fantastic performance. I know people argue Apple sabotages their old phones, but I think their hardware actually holds up really well, except for a few exceptions over the years.
I use Vim everywhere I go - Linux, Mac, even Windows:-). It's just beautiful. And also a command-line window, and like you said, a browser.
Also MS Office bc unlike their OS, that one is fairly solid, and works well especially when collaborating with others, unlike open source offerings for so many years (I dunno the history either but apparently it's sordid, with "drama" and various forks being developed and abandoned, so sad).
PCs get expensive as well - especially if you use them for gaming. I don't, but if you do, then a $1-2k (USD) Mac is nothing in comparison to a $3-5k gaming machine, and the former offers a fantastic experience in return for that value, whereas before Linux improved (and probably more relevantly Steam did - again I am not fully aware of the history but I think that's what I've heard), a Windows machine was something that you mostly had to spend hours and hours trying to disable as much of the built-in OS as you could manage. No wonder people prefer Linux these days - if you are going to have to delve into such details regardless! But with Macs, all of that is entirely optional bc it's a great experience right out of the box.
I've given up on their phones though, bc iOS is really difficult. Then again these days so too are Android phones, and I don't know what to do about it all. An iPhone on a network with something like a Pie hole (I've never set one up before) could be a nice experience, maybe? But I just enjoy the experience of Android too much - except I won't pay the price for an expensive Pixel (I barely even use my camera!). I was thinking for my next phone to just buy any cheapie, or perhaps a Fairphone. I'm done chasing "good" phones though.
Tmux is also super cool. I just dipped into tmux plugins for the first time the other day. Resurrect is sick.
iOS is where I disagree. Overall, I think Apple has done a fantastic job. The hardware and software both feel top-notch as a consumer. But I honestly don’t know why developers keep coming back to Apple. Apple’s relationship with developers is hostile. I hope the antitrust lawsuits shake things up for them.
I kinda hate Google and, by extension, Android. Maybe my hate of Android is irrational, but I really think Google is doing a wonderful job enshitifying search right now. And I just assume anything Google touches is spyware. I know it’s kinda impossible to stop, but if I can at least opt out of the entire OS spying on me.
Google and Microsoft are not the only evil software corporations - Apple has become that as well. Fortunately desktops seem to have been made immune, while the iOS app continuous to lock everything down inside of its walled-garden philosophy. Apple makes it super difficult to send files to the device - e.g. if you wanted to transfer a file (like a PDF) from one machine to another using your device as a USB drive - and other things so that while yes, if every single thing that you want to do lies within this walled garden then you are fine, however if you want to set even one foot outside of it, you will quickly find the limitations unbearable. e.g. the experience using an Apple email account is amazing - you can start typing a message on your phone, then continue on your desktop, then continue again on your phone, back and forth as much as you like. But even just sending and receiving emails at all, or like working with calendar invitations, using a non-Apple email account provider, such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Outlook, it's absolutely abysmal. Every professional workplace I've ever been has given me a Microsoft email that is mandatory for me to check, so I don't have the option of simply not using Microsoft, and instead I find myself not using iPhones, as they do not meet my needs.
Android is not Google. Android is open source, and there are many implementations of it - Samsung is very popular, OnePlus used to be, and yes Google Pixels are just one example of Android but they are by far not the only ones. They are the most "pure Android" versions of the software though, without added vendor-specific stuff like both Samsung and OnePlus have entirely separate stores to purchase apps from in addition to the Play Store. It gets a bit more complicated when Google has used the "embrace and extend" philosophy to somewhat destroy Android from within by poisoning its development from the inside to make it work the way that they want to - but importantly, anyone at any time could create a fork and continue its development along different lines (which routinely happens! these are the "custom ROMs", like Lineage OS), so it still lies within the realm of open source software, as opposed to Apple's walled garden that is entirely closed, both in source and in terms of you not being allowed to do with your Apple hardware what you wish.
You might also like a Fairphone then. Or we may both end up hating it - I don't know enough about it to be able to guess, it's just that other than iPhone or a major Android provider like Samsung or Google or OnePlus, what else even is there, especially an option that is more purely open source?
Those are good points! The EU did force Apple to switch to USB-C, and the US government is coming after tech monopolies. I’m optimistic they will nudge Apple in the right direction. We did just get the most repairable iPhone ever, according to iFixit.
As far as Android, it may be open source, but hasn’t Google used their influence and money in a lot of shady deals to ensure they remain at the top? That’s what the recent case against them was about, both in the context of Android and Google search. Again, I think the government will nudge Google in the right direction.
I’m a bit of an Apple fanboy. I love their hardware and I love that macOS is Unix-based. I work in the terminal a lot for my job, and it gives me everything I would want from Linux but in premium hardware and tight integration with my iPhone. I also like that they are more privacy-focused than Google, though I also don’t trust that they really care about my privacy. At the end of the day, big tech sucks, but they have built some cool things. I’m hoping the government stops them before they get more greedy.