For me, it's Apple's privacy stance (which I know could change at anytime, but that's where we are at right now). Give me a Pixel & all the Google stuff but without Google, and with advanced data protection and Apple's tracking protection and transparency and I'm in.
As long as apps on Android can do crap like the web-to-app tracking via localhost and other shady data harvesting that Google continues to allow, I don't touch it no matter how much better it is and how much I prefer the workflows.
Also, on either platform, why is it still not possible to toggle off network access in app permissions. Its a glaring and deliberate omission.
I guess it depends what you’re comparing it to but macOS is (for me) the best of a bad bunch of compromises. POSIX with app boundaries that are (mostly) respected, if not particularly granular. There’s nothing I really hate about the platform save for homebrew and being walled in to the ecosystem.
I actually love modern Linux with Gnome, and it has all the parts these days to be a great desktop operating system, but I find the freedom there undercuts a lot of the promises (Flatpaks are a good idea in theory that doesn’t work in practice as the sandboxes are overly liberal and overreach on most apps because no-one’s forced to justify why they need the permissions they do etc).
I spent so long on Windows that I really don’t miss it. The Window management was way better for so long, but the idioms drive me crazy (registry issues and programs still freely writing anywhere they like), and supporting everything forever has massive drawbacks to usability (although Winget sort of slightly helps with this but it’s not much better than homebrew).
That's exactly why I don't particularly care for it, but still use it.
My first choice would be Linux + a tiling WM. I used DWM for years before Apple Silicon, and have been on mac ever since the M1. These new machines are so nice that I can't go back to anything else now, whether I hate the software or not.
But macOS is just baffling. There's POSIX underneath, and it's mostly reliable, and it has a lot of little nice touches - being able to search the menu with Cmd+Shift+/, emacs keybindings in nearly every text field, etc. But then there's stuff that makes no sense. Why do I need a third party app for any sort of sane window management? (and even then, I haven't fully replicated my preferred way of working, only gotten close enough with Aerospace, and more recently Raycast). A third party app to set a keyboard shortcut to launch an application. I can't disable the animations for switching virtual desktops, and when you switch there's a lag before it's responsive again for keyboard input (I just want this to be instant).
So much of how macOS expects you to interact with it seems to be mouse/touchpad driven, and that's just not how I prefer to use my computer. At least with Raycast I now have shortcuts to launch and switch to apps (but not specific app windows because of the app/window separation in macOS). Yet even still, I can't set a keyboard shortcut to move a window to a different space. I have to click and hold the title bar and then press my shortcut for moving to that space to move the window - Apple decided that action MUST involve the mouse.
I also can't set window rules. I can't tell my terminal to always open on workspace 2, or mail.app to always open on workspace 4 at a specific size, etc. Making an app full screen also creates a new ephemeral space that can't be switched to with the usual Ctrl+NUM keyboard shortcut. I can't set a window to be always on top.
I'm more or less waiting for Asahi Linux to get support for DisplayPort ALT mode & M4 support, although I'm not holding my breath.
I do appreciate having access to the big commercial apps though on macOS, but ultimately I want my M4 macbook pro w/ Linux & hyprland.
- Window management wise the new tiling controls/keyboard shortcuts added last year have replaced third party tools for me. It's not as customisable as rectangle or moom but it covers halves and quarters which is mostly all I need. Additionally the "arrange" feature is nice letting you automatically tile N most recently used windows in a given layout.
- For window rules you can right click on an app in the dock and under options assign it to the current workspace and it should reopen there.
- 3rd party software like BetterTouchTool can "throw" windows to other spaces. But it did feel a bit hacky from memory (small but perceptible lag)
- The new spotlight features coming this year look quite promising for keyboard driven workflows.
I’ve migrated a home server to a Mac mini. It was awful to achieve. Trying to get a machine to boot, connect network shares and start containers was a week long effort. I can do it in Ubuntu in about 10 minutes from a clean install.
So much is disgusting UI options hidden deep some in the (awful) settings app.
But the result is a server that is fast, powerful and using 6-7W per hour, compared to the old Nuc 9 it replaced that used 70W.
It’s just so good. The OS lets it down.
Thats why I don't use Pixel devices, or any Android devices really. I know its a precarious situation with Apple since they could reverse their stance at any point and sometimes they get it wrong, but they have yet to completely fail me when it comes to privacy.
In any event, it'd be nice if there was a 3rd mainstream vendor in the mobile race[0][1]
[0]: Both design wise and conceptually, I miss WebOS when it was strictly under Palm. It could have really been something. Why they didn't embrace multitouch screens I haven't a clue, it was the one thing that baffled me.
[1]: The one project I really wanted Mozilla to take a long term view on - Firefox OS - was another great innovation of our time that didn't get the love or support it deserved. It was a blast using web technology to build apps that ran fluidly on modern hardware. Unfortunately, it was all too often relegated to cheap manufacturer hardware that couldn't support it ideally, but even with this being true, they pulled off alot of technical excellence with that project.
I haven't tried /e/, I prefer installing a raw lineage with microG myself (although I don't currently use the microG part), but it seems like you and your parent commenter would be in the intended target.
I do agree that an alternative would be great. I'd gladly use Linux mobile with good, realiable hardware.
I already own a Pixel running GrapheneOS, but if this happens I'll probably order one as soon as they come out to cast a vote with my wallet.
Not expensive and work great. Was playing with one today. I am impressed.
And yes, it allows you to disable network permissions for apps, among many other nice things.
Huh? WebOS was Palm embracing multitouch screens.
It is such a breath of fresh air. It is so quiet and functional. It feels like it prioritizes me, the user. I am so grateful to have this OS.
Of course it has flaws, but they're lesser flaws. Like the crop tool is sometimes unusable in the gallery app. I can live with that. I couldn't live with the AI onslaught and spyware infiltration.
Beyond the monochrome icon pack that cannot be changed in the included launcher (which is so aesthetically challenged with an appearance that only a mother could love), the browser that cannot grasp dark mode, and the lack of the accustomed pattern unlock, I find the lack of one singular thing intolerable:
I want root. At a minimum, adb rooted debugging.
I realize that I could unlock the bootloader and Magisk this thing, but with the number of correct decisions that have been made by the authors of this operating system (and they are legion), they do not recognize one fundamental need of administrators:
I want control of my systems.
That is really a shame.
I did consider it at some point but not having google wallet(apparently nfc payments are only available via banks' apps there) was too big of a downside for me.
Wallet is there, you can hold digital cards, and transit cards, and your Ikea member card, etc. It's GPay that won't work to do the payment. And it's Google the one being a bully and deliberately making you think like that towards any alternative that's not in their list of approved systems that can be used in your own phone.
Because from where I stand they do load everything into their cloud. They insist on having you pay for iCloud through obnoxious means. They have you go through their store for everything. They even have an ad platform.
What supposedly so good about it? Their track record seems awful to me.
It's still a compromise, sure, but it's a better compromise than what Google offers.
Plus small things. Apple's tracking protection for example is opt in instead of opt out on Android. Google's core business is ads, they won't push features that can negatively impact that. Apple also has an ad division but it's not their main focus, hardware is. They can implement better privacy without impacting their bottom line. Apple's refusal to unlock phones at the request of the FBI, etc.
It's not that Apple is the be all end all for privacy, but they are far ahead of Google and are by far the most convenient option if you are within the walled garden.
Or so they say. Has that actually been proven?
The end-to-end encryption guarantees on this page seem pretty real to me and have little to do with marketing: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
It's very easy to completely disable iCloud. I've never used it and don't intend to, despite running a mac as my primary computer for ~12 years now.
My experience widely differs.
Apple will nag you all the time if you don’t have iCloud or just use the free tier and the free tier is very limited. You lose the only way to actually easily sync the phone when you disable it.
Most of the iPhone owners I know including me have caved and pay the additional tax every month.
As an example I think Androids have a single device ID which is given to all apps. But iOS has a per app device ID.
Another reason I stick with Apple is style/design. Aside from the latest Alan Dye-led stuff, Apple's design has been top-notch, they make every other company look like they lack class and design-sense.
With that said, I did like Nokia's Windows Phones and the the period of Microsoft's design revolution where Surface devices had suede or whatever. That massive Surface table thing was dope too but man, Windows just keeps getting worse...somehow!
I'm looking forward to getting a Framework laptop at some point and installing Linux.
But only from the iPhone X to 14, after which the Dynamic Island took over.
(I'll see myself out)
Not sure I understand this? One assumes that "daily driver" involves Linux VM use in this context[1], and ChromeOS's Linux VM integration is just wildly ahead of WSL (which really isn't bad) or the mess on OS X (awful). Installed Crostini apps appear as native apps in the UI. Transparent cross-filesystem access works flawlessly. Wayland and X11 apps appear with native decorations. Clipboard/WM/IPC integration does exactly what you expect. USB devices prompt you if you want to connect to the VM on insert (and remember the setting) etc...
And yes, I'm biased because I work there. But really it's a great development environment.
[1] I mean, if you're doing iOS development or need an M4 Max for performance reasons, or need some legacy Mac tooling like Adobe stuff, you're probably not looking at alternative platforms at all. Someone making the choice you posit is like 99% likely to be a web or embedded person working at a Linux shell as their native environment.
The only designs I'm fond of are the macs. The iPhone looks pretty meh these days. The software side is slowly getting worse, it was great and they've lost the plot making changes for changes sake
GrapheneOS may interest you.
>Also, on either platform, why is it still not possible to toggle off network access in app permissions. Its a glaring and deliberate omission.
GrapheneOS specifically supports this for all installed apps.
If aosp was actually open, like managed by all biggest phone seller in a consortium, i bet we would actually have feature that people want to get. Instead of a thousand « material you » redesign, that honestly looked ugly from the get go and isn’t much better years later.
Many people want to be able to invert the recent and back button, most in fact, yet Google stubbornly refuse to add that setting. That’s just an example, but this repeat a thousand time over the whole Android project.
Ultimately, I tolerate Android from a privacy standpoint because we're still able to fully modify our devices and use open-source app sources. The minute that goes away (and it feels like Google isn't as tolerant of it anymore), I go.
This is literally GrapheneOS or LineageOS+microg x) which ironically is fully available on Pixel phones and and a slowly vanishing number of others...
I just got my first MacBook Pro this month and feel this exactly. I prefer Windows as an OS hands down. It works with all my peripherals and has better configuration options.
But the hardware makes up for it. My MacBook Pro is about twice as fast as my new x86 desktop from work. Its battery is nearly 15x longer than my Razer laptop and four times as fast.
I’ll take gaps in the software quality for all of the progress in hardware quality.
1) it's known they scan all your content and pics on iCloud
2) the phone's always listening, always
3) once that I forgot my password to the MacBook, all one needed to do to access my data was to enter recovery mode and reset the password. Sure it logged me off from browser sessions, but all my files where there available to anybody
To me apple is overly invasive with their icloud accounts and things, and password resets taking weeks, yet I see no evidence it is any harder to get my data than on other devices, if anything, it's easier.
So what is the claim here? Some tracking less by advertisers? That's privacy? An ad less about computers and one slightly less correct about idk wine?
The fact is that anybody with physical access to my devices has an easier time logging through the apple ones than the windows/androids i own and that I care more than advertising
> once that I forgot my password to the MacBook, all one needed to do to access my data was to enter recovery mode and reset the password. Sure it logged me off from browser sessions, but all my files where there available to anybody
Sounds like you didn't have FileVault (FDE) turned on. If you did, that wouldn't work you'd have needed your recovery key.
> it's known they scan all your content and pics on iCloud
They can't if you have ADP.
> Some tracking less by advertisers? That's privacy?
Yes, it is privacy. Let's not understate the massive surveillance that ad networks do, Google included.
Google is an advertising company, they have zero incentive to offer the same level of privacy that Apple does and probably never will, it would be directly detrimental to their core business.
https://developer.android.com/privacy-and-security/risks/bac...
Also, ADP does not work in UK, at all.
The rest of the message I won't even comment. All things that if you care you get easier on any other device.
And Apple's ad business is booming while other are stagnant.
Do you not know how computers work? That how it works on every computer without encryption.
You wouldn't have been able to access to the data passwordless if you had enabled Filevault encryption
They are? By what metric? This sounds made up to support the assertion that a company which doesn’t do broad data sharing with third parties, but keeps it to themselves, is somehow less (or no less) private than those who do.
