I moved from Windows to macOS for work — and I never want to go back
I moved from Windows to macOS for work — and I never want to go back
macOS for work, Windows for play
There’s no one standalone reason why I think macOS is better than Windows for productivity. Instead of a single killer blow, it’s death by a series of smaller wounds.
The only real way of describing it. So many little niceties from decades of attentiveness, even if things have been backsliding in recent years.
Fantastic description! This is an issue that made it difficult to justify to my management to allow them to allow Macs, but thankfully Apple Silicon was big enough of a game changer to sway the decision
This was the reason I switched to Mac for work related stuff, the performance is insane for most of the stuff I need it to do.
Same here. I’m an Apple user since 2008 but had a bad period in my life where I needed to squeeze every € and couldn’t afford a new Mac so I had to build myself a Hackintosh, which was ok at the beginning but missing a lot of things (the special connectivity between devices like airdrop or continuity) but now I’m recovered and bought a Mac Mini M2 and it’s like coming fully home again. No more random panics or wasting time diagnosing errors, and it’s incredibly fast. The jump in performance jumping from a Haswell CPU to a M2 in mind blowing and a joy to appreciate every time I use it
It just works. Something that can’t be said of how windows feels
this is one of those subjective things that highly depend on what your job actually entails
Anyone trying to batch rename files on Windows should check out PowerToys. It's a first-party app that adds a lot of useful utilities. One of them is PowerRename, which lets you batch rename files using regex for precise search and replace. It also has the option to preview changes before applying them.
PowerToys is crucial for making Windows feel productive. Definitely get that installed.
This article is ridiculous.
I moved from a desktop PC to a 2015 MBP and I've been extremely satisfied with it. It's nothing short of a miracle how little issues I've had with it. It's fast and everything just work. Was expensive as hell but worth every penny.
That being said my next laptop is probably not going to me a MacBook but the Framework laptop. Not only do I not like Apple as a company but I also want to support what Framework is doing and the only way to do that is by putting money where my mouth is.
I'm a pretty die-hard Mac guy but must admit I love what Framework is doing. That concept plus macOS and Apple Silicon would be the ultimate machine imo
Yes I'll keep dreaming lol
I use both MacOS and Windows.
I think both have their uses and strengths. I don't really like putting one down over the other.
Same. I usually say “they both suck.” Neither one really meets my expectations for what a desktop operating system should be able to do these days. Every now and then I find myself wishing for some little feature enhancement in Finder and shucks… that’s just never going to happen, is it?
What's an example of an enhancement that you're looking for that's not possible? For that matter, what expectations do you have for a desktop OS that they don't satisfy? Does any OS satisfy those expectations? It seems a bit contrarian to just say they're all terrible and I feel like the answer is going to be some very weird, esoteric thing that you can only do on a customized Linux install.
I use my Mac as my daily driver but also have a gaming PC, a Linux machine for testing, and a Steam Deck. I wouldn't say at all that macOS sucks. Linux is 2nd for me. Windows just gets worse with every release.
I love building PCs, I like windows for gaming. Mac is pretty much useless there and the PS5 doesn't have a keyboard or mouse which makes it a different experience. . A pc can be anything.
But I'd never use windows for work over MacOS. The seamless integration with an iPad for sketching and overall experience is amazing.
Gaming on Linux has progressed at light speed in the past several years. I'm in awe at the number of titles that run exceptionally well.
macOS is a great OS, and I've used it pretty extensively now. Every time I try to make it my primary OS I end up wanting to go back to Windows soon after. And this is from a die hard Linux advocate. Part of the issue is the cost and lack of easy upgrades for the hardware, the other is I just find macOS to be frustrating for anything but normal "user" stuff. So for me: Linux for servers and hobbyist stuff, macOS if no other option, Windows for just about everything else.
It's basically good there's choice. I run Linux exclusively on my gaming laptop, with the improvements in Proton I can now game on it as well as everything else such as desktop productivity/photo editing/Rust programming. I also enjoy MacOS (and love what they have done with the Mx series) but can't afford a Mac and well, I game a lot.
I can use Windows (My career started with TWM, so I can use anything) but it annoys me so I tend to avoid it.
This article is ridiculous because it doesn't mention why these differences exist at all. Like for example Macs don't have window snapping because Microsoft patented that feature back in the Windows Vista days. & Batch file renaming is a Unix thing. I have always liked Exposé and hot corners and also mission control, but many windows users hate it. It's entirely subjective and not at all rational. I guess that's the point of an opinion piece but it really lacks the context that would have made this article informative, just a little research would have been cool.
It seems wild that something like dragging a window to the corner to snap it into place is patented. The one feature I long for on Mac.
Install Rectangle.
I use Magnet, it's available in the app store.
One of the things I still love about my 11" MacBook Air is the ease of using multiple desktops (spaces). Even with the tiny screen, I can quickly switch between apps and keep things organised with the trackpad gestures. Drag and drop is also more seamless in macOS compared to Windows.
Windows also has multiple desktop “spaces”, but the touch side is way smoother on the mac.
I really want a modern 11" (small bezel) MacBook.
Of course I also want the 15" air so maybe I just like cool stuff. But I think there's a place for a real ultraportable that's not trying to kludge any of the awful keyboard cases on an iPad.
The last version of Windows I used on a computer I owned is 3.1
Every time I need to use Windows I’m so insanely lost and have next to no idea what I’m doing, like it’s seriously like I’m 80 yrs old and using a computer for the first time lol.
It doesn’t help that it feels like it’s vastly different in how the start menu works depending on which version I’m using.
I have a gaming PC aside from MacBook so keep my Windows muscle memory mostly up-to-date but what I find is I'm constantly in the back of my head going "Why it this like this? Why are you asking me this? Why do I have to do this?" while using it. It just throws up so many stupid barriers and forces you to do things you shouldn't have to do.
That was what drew me to macOS around 15 years ago, that it got out of the way and just let me do whatever I sat down to do. It's still true today.
Part of my lost feeling in windows is also definitely not knowing any keyboard short cuts ( if it even uses them ? ). I can use my Mac and barely touch the mouse.
I much prefer MacOS over windows due to the spotlight search. The only thing I wish was added is a detailed audio interface. It’s frustrating having to go to a app to turn it up or down.
Yeah a volume mixer that isn’t natively built in is a very missed opportunity. I don’t want to have to pay extra money for software that most other OSes ship with lol
I use Mac for productivity but windows for gaming. I love spotlight on macOS. I recently discovered PowerToys for Windows (made by Microsoft), which includes a little add on that provides spotlight-like function on windows. You can even assign your own keyboard command to it, so I have main assigned to WIN+Space, just like Mac.
Kde plasma is working great for me! Just upgraded to bookworm. I'm definitely not going back to a proprietary system.
2009, 2015, M1 MacBook Pros. All solid laptops that gave me years of productivity. Touchpad, screen, and form factor are all extremely important for me; I work 75% of the time on the couch with the laptop on my lap (on a laptop pillow of sorts), and having a quiet and cool M1 has been great.
I don't need my esoteric linux setup on my laptop. I've had to use a Windows laptop for work for two years, and I did not enjoy the random lockups, file explorer crashing, driver notifications and malfunctions, windows filesystem, managed spyware by both microsoft and my company slowing things down considerably... and this was a more expensive engineering grade workstation laptop. If I could trim the fat and make it as stable and bloatfree as my gaming PC, it probably would have been a better experience.
I'm glad they mentioned rectangle, I found that app amazing. I have however upgraded to Amethyst for my app tiling though.
I'm a dev, so if I'm not doing .NET development. I found windows quite limiting. The new terminal stuff is nice but it's native on a mac. I'm not sure about Docker because that really spins the fans on my 16 Intel Pro.
Also, things like Spaces and virtual desktops have been pretty sweet for a long time now. Windows, I can't recall but it's been a horribly broken PowerToy for so long. I can't believe people were to recommending it. I think some people were telling me it's native now, but like, it's crazy how it wasn't done properly years ago.
I’ve found Magnet to be great for snapping windows about the screen.
Magnet is good but Rectangle is free
edit: oh rectangle was already mentioned, whoops
Docker uses a feature of the Linux kernel called kernel namespacing, so on macOS (and windows too iirc) it spins up a Linux VM which runs your Docker containers.
Docker is not great on MacOS on Apple Silicon. Docker engine uses A TON of memory, around 8 gigs even with no containers running, and you can run into compatibility issues. My office, where we use Docker extensively, upgraded everyone's workstations to Apple silicon Macbook pros recently. We've been less than thrilled so far because turns out one of the images that we use as the base for many of our projects has trouble running on ARM chips. We fixed the problem, but still it was a whole thing. And there's no guarantee another similar problem won't pop up in the future either, unfortunately.
While it undeniably is a fantastic machine otherwise, I honestly think a higher end Dell or whatever that runs Linux would have been a better choice for the job. At least for the developer staff.
So your problem has nothing to do with ARM architecture or macOS itself, but on a lack of RAM.
Docker uses a lot of RAM on every platform, not only on macOS.
Looks like your company made a bad decision when choosing its hardware.
We use 16Gb M2 Pro to run docker instances running a copy of our infrastructure (ELK, CH, MariaDB, some maintenance batches, video encoding etc) with zero issue.
Even before reading the article, I can already guessed that the author uses only the laptop's screen for work. I tried MacOS for 6 months, really liked that I can ultilize many of Linux commands that I only used to manage servers. But using multiple monitors is such a pain with MacOS that I can never understand how people put up with it. I then slowly understand why people keep saying "I can't see you or if you raised your hand" during meetings, it's because they use only one single screen.
I do think MacOS will have a huge advantage over Windows and Linux if they overhaul the window system. However, seeing how "holding it wrong" consistently coming up in discussion, I don't see any chance soon, if ever.
What's wrong with multiple monitors with macOS?
- M1 only supports 1 extra monitor. (M1 pro does support two, but only through an expensive thunderbolt dock or through two cables from different USB/TB ports.
- No volume adjustment of external monitors if they are not from Apple.
There are maybe many more (maybe no window snapping like windows if you count that), but those are the issues that I noticed.
I was referring to behavior of desktop environment behavior and not MacOS support for external monitor. In fact, I remember that MacOS was way ahead of Windows in supporting screens with different pixel density. And text rendering, especially text rendering.
Lol, is that a joke ???
I use Linux and MacOS. The scaling tools on Linux are the absolute worst. I have a 15 inch 1080p laptop plugged to a 24 inch display and this is a fucking nightmare to make the two working correctly. Whatever the distribution or the GNU, being Gnome, XFCE, Wayland, Sway. Arch or Debian based…
On the other hand I got a 14 inch MBP connected to 2 UltraFine 24 and an 2560x1080 monitor with absolutely zero issue.
I can adapt every single definition on every single screen, and the system remembers the def I set when plugging/unplugging.
MacOS external screen management tools is the best I’ve ever seen.
Your comment shows that you know absolutely nothing about macOS
My main PC is a 4k and 1080p monitor, running Plasma Wayland. Using 150% scaling and 100% on the other so pretty much the worst combination you can have in terms of monitor jank (mixed scaling together with fractional scaling). Functionality wise it's completely fine, there are some graphical bugs though. Mixed-DPI scaling used to be impossible on X11 but that's because it's old and not designed with that in mind at all. IIRC sway also worked well for me with that setup. What problems did you have?
Multi-monitor on macOS is fine for my purposes too though. I was actually blown away by how well Continuity display works with my iPad.
Your comment shows that you know absolutely nothing about macOS
I think this is the biggest problem with Apple: you're holding it wrong. Apple cannot be wrong and there can never be any discussion about how to approach a problem, let alone address it. There can't never be a problem, and that's what's wrong with MacOS.
What's an example of something that works better with Windows multiple monitor support over macOS?
Linux I totally get. I love how Linux window managers make it easy to give each monitor its own separate virtual desktops. I tend to have one monitor that's fixed and another that I change between tasks.
Taskbar that I can configure to either displayed on the monitor that the window is displayed, only in the main desktop or both.
Hover over taskbar icon with multiple windows to see thumbnails.
Predictable minimize/maximize behavior. I don't quite like the idea of window fitting the content but to each's own taste but I can't stand the random fullscreen that some app do on MacOS.
Making use of maximize button to display snapping options on Windows 11 is also very convenient.
And not to forget the little Finder function that allows you to create a new folder with all of the items you've selected, which are automatically moved into it.
Oh how I wish windows could or would add this. And hitting the space bar in the Finder to look at a file without opening the requisite app. And just Preview. He’s right, there are tons of little QoL improvements that make macOS feel so superior.
Peek, another powertoys util, attempts to fill this gap using ^+space https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/peek
I installed powertoys last night but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Still no new folder from selected files option, but lots of other things sound useful.
MacOS window management is unfortunately a total mess. To the point that I still feel more productive on a dirt-cheap linux laptop, vs. my expensive work-isssued M1 machine with great hardware
Rectangle is the only way I find MacOS to be useful when it comes to window management.
It's not better or worse, it's just...different.
If you've been using Macs for years and you learn all of the Mac-specific shortcuts and window management tools, it's fantastic.
If you're trying to get it to act like Windows or your favorite Linux window manager, you'll find it frustrating. However, if you absolutely insist then you should just install a third-party window snapping tool.
I feel the same about Windows not having virtual desktops for years. Windows users had other solutions, but coming from both macOS and Linux window managers, I thought it was ridiculous they had nothing built-in, so I always installed a third-party virtual desktop tool for Windows.
Yeah that's a good way to put it, when I picked up my Air recently I was extremely frustrated by how it didn't quite do things quite like Gnome 40x and how it missed some of the Windows things like Window Snapping but once you get used to the gestures it's not so bad.
Also yeah virtual desktops are a god send on Gnome/MacOS it's frustrating to not have them on Windows.
undefined> If you’re trying to get it to act like Windows or your favorite Linux window manager, you’ll find it frustrating. However, if you absolutely insist then you should just install a third-party window snapping tool.
I mean there are things in Gnome that I prefer but what I found useful was to start using the workspaces / virtual desktops more and using the three finger swipe up a lot on my Air. That helped when using multiple profiles on chrome a lot because using cmd + ` was just not it for me.
Auto snapping would be great but at least you can tile windows to left / right so that's something and you can add keybinds for it
Virtual desktops (accessible with keyboard shortcuts) are a must IMO. I usually set up ten of them at a time- MacOS is actually mostly ok in that regard, expect for the fade animation you can never turn off, and the fact that as soon as you full-screen a window, the system insists on moving it to a totally new workspace (that can't work with any your predefined shortcuts), instead of just full-screening it within the current desktop. What were they thinking?
Rectangle is the only way I find MacOS to be useful when it comes to window management.
tmux manages windows just fine :)
@gzrrt @tastypoobutt go for the iPad Air gen 5 with stage manager, works great!
For me, it's mac at home, windows at work.
I work mostly in Microsoft Office, and it's just not very good on Mac. Also I prefer the start menu because the way I use it, it has labels so I can see at a glance what document I'm trying to get at. And I can't stand not having tree navigation in finder. Opening two windows to copy something to another folder is super annoying. If you want good screenshot management, I use greenshot. Works better than anything native on either platform.
But for home use with photos and music, I'm quite happy to use mac. The laptops are undoubtedly superior in terms of hardware.
I really like using MacBooks (for anything other than gaming). My biggest gripe is about how difficult Apple makes them to repair. I need to replace a battery on an old MBP and I’m dreading the dozens of screws and dealing with the adhesive…
This is how I first moved over as well. I got a job in a small office that used iMacs and over time I grew to love it. Windows 7 was my last edition of Windows.
Parallels means I do both interchangeably and it works great