Thoughts on MacOS

The following was experienced in 2021.

I have used Windows for pretty much the entirety of my life. I never had the thoughts of using MacOS as I heard that it was a walled garden with tight control by Apple.

Last year, I finished my study in graphic design. In this industry, MacOS is pretty much a stable, so naturally our class was taught using this operating system.

So here are my thoughts on it.

Note: We were using Mojave, it apparently dates from 2013. The experience I had might not reflect the current state of MacOS.

First, I must say that the UI looks good. There is a good balance between minimalism and skeuomorphism (3D icons). The user experience is very smooth. It took me less than 3 days to familiarize myself with the system.

I was very impressed by the stability of the whole thing. I don't recall seeing any error or application crash. The only exception being Adobe applications failing to open as it could not connect to the always-online DRM, but that's Adobe being Adobe.

As we were using school computers, we had to naturally use specific applications and were not allowed to download anything. I am still not sure if every MacOS app needs to be in the App Store or not, but I think I saw standalone installers that would allow you to bypass it. I can't say much regarding this.

One thing I really dislike is how the computer, the screen and the hard drive are fused into one thing on most Mac models. This seems like a disaster waiting for happens, as if one component break, it's probably going to cost you a lot of money to repair it.

There are also models called Mac minis that more ressemble traditional computers. Most importantly, you can actually use a custom screen on that model.

Another thing I noticed is how Mac keyboards have USB ports on them. This is great...on paper. In practice, they have less power than those on the computers, meaning the risk of data loss is higher. This is not very nice.

A concern I have is how there is no way to disable the "computer is ready to update" pop-up. As far as I can tell, it does not force you to update like Windows 10, but he it will absolutely try to incite you to do so. The only work around is to configure it to happens during the night when the computer was not on.

On a final note, this OS has some really good quality of life improvements. Fr instance the Finder (equivalent of Windows explorer) can have tabs. There is also a feature called "hotspots" that allow you to see an overview of all opened windows. After using it, I can understand why they are perceived as "good work computers". They have a more efficient workflow than Windows.

Overall, using those computers was a nice experience. I still prefer Windows as there is more software available, but I must admit that the User Experience is great. I am still somewhat concerned about the potential control Apple might have on this operating system, but I do not have enough information to have an opinion on that subject.

Written by manpaint on 21 August 2022.