I still have to install third party apps like Rectangle, LinearMouse and Middle to get a fraction of the ease of navigation I get on my Linux machines.
I still have to install a third party terminal like Kitty or Ghostty for basic, modern rendering.
Rectangle is great, Ghostty is great, I too install something to tweak the mouse speed/acceleration curve (don't remember which one).
Do we need all these bundled in? Generally a dedicated developer can make those much better than whatever they'd do in-house.
I'd say where it would be an issue is if you cannot make an app that gives you the behavior you want because the OS is missing the necessary APIs and configuration toggles needed too.
What’s wrong with the built in terminal app? I tried Ghostty but I found it less usable overall (e.g. you can’t easily set different themes for different windows). Terminal rendering performance has never been something I’ve noticed as being a real issue.
Never had any issues with scrolling or non-ASCII characters, personally. I’d use tmux for split panes if I wanted them, but I rarely do in practice. Also, the built in terminal does have functionality for placing terminal windows in different parts of the screen, so it’s quite easy to put two windows side by side.
Obviously, it’s fine to prefer another terminal app. I’ve personally been quite disappointed by the much-hyped alternatives to the default.
That particular issue is just a conceptual mismatch. Exactly 0% of the time do I want to segregate my activities as "chrome" things vs "terminal" things vs whatever. When I want a feature like that, multiple desktops (mission control or whatever) is the tool of choice.
The backtick thing is just a constant annoyance. My workflow is to open windows doing the things I want some, and I want to quickly switch to the window with my next work item. Instead, I need to keep track of extra mental state and figure out if backtick is the right keystroke or if tab and then backtick is the right thing to do.
It's...fine. I'm thankful I have better options at home, but it's tolerable at work with a few third-party apps.
That was the killer feature that convinced me to switch from Windows + Linux to Mac a long time ago. I often have too many windows open, and the conceptual separation between apps and windows helps me find the right task faster. Especially because I can also switch to an app that doesn't have any windows open at the moment.
Yep, my description was mostly negative (I personally hate it because I don't think that way), but I was serious about it just being a mismatch of expectations. There's nothing written in stone about the MacOS method being wrong, and it's nice that it works better for some people. UI is partly objective and partly subjective, and this particular point definitely falls on the subjective end of the spectrum.
As someone who was new to Mac and eager to use AppleScript for automation, I was disappointed to find that a number of things just don't work under AppleScript in Apple Silicon. It's pretty deprecated; Shortcuts seems supported though.
While it’s certainly true that AppleScript has taken a bit of a back seat to Shortcuts, as far as I know everything AppleScript that works on Intel should work on Apple Silicon.
It's been a long while, but I remember running into issues running scripts using osascript to click through an application to work properly on a cadence. I remember my debugging ending when it seemed the consensus was that some things just wouldn't work any more on Apple Silicon.
Apologies that my memory fails me here! This was a few years ago, I only have my zsh history (and the name of a now-deleted script) to go by.
> How much innovation is there to do in the OS at this point?
Infinite, just like in any complex UI. All the basic interaction primitives built into the OS are somewhat broken, from app/window management and text editing to keybindings and mouse gestures
> How much innovation is there to do in the OS at this point?
1) Sign Nvidia's drivers again, at least for compute (there's no excuse)
2) Implement Vulkan 1.2 compliance (even Asahi did it, c'mon)
3) Stop using notifications to send me advertisements
3.1) Stop using native apps to display advertisement modals
4) Do not install subscription services on my machine by-default
5) Give macOS a "developer mode" that's at-least as good as WSL2 (if they won't ship GNU utils)
6) Document the APFS filesystem so the primary volume isn't inscrutable, akin to what M$ did for NTFS
If they're trying to get me to switch off Linux, those would be a nice start. I don't think any of that is too much to ask from a premium platform, but maybe my expectations are maligned.
> 5) Give macOS a "developer mode" that's at-least as good as WSL2 (if they won't ship GNU utils)
The de facto answer is Homebrew — even internally at Apple. They just can’t publicly say it without liability issues.
> If they're trying to get me to switch off Linux
It’s important to know that Apple is not trying to get you to switch from Linux. Converting “UNIX workstation” people was an effort of theirs circa 2001 but that marketing campaign is long over with.
Their targets are consumer, prosumers, and media/influencer people. They give app developers just enough attention to keep their App Store revenue healthy.
Plan your long-term computing needs accordingly. You’ll see what I mean in the next 12-24 months.
Maybe you need AI, but maybe you just need some AI agent app that uses AppleScript under the hood.
I'd rather buttery smooth, secure, fast, no bugs, let me do my work.