MacOS has a predictable UI. However, Apple products have the LEAST customizable UIs of any system I've used (probably predictable = 1/customizable)

I'm not sure I agree with that. Frankly, I don't find macOS's GUI to be particularly polished, or even pleasant. Of course, people that like macOS usually do, but, well, that's somewhat self-selecting.

I honestly think thinks like Cinnamon or KDE are nicer that the macOS GUI.

!! _That is exactly_ one of the reasons why I jumped from Windows to Mac! Back in the Windows 8 days. So much more consistency API-wise and much less fear of your favorite thing being abandoned!

Apple actually uses their own shit, unlike Microsoft internal warfare that would make the Sengoku period seem like a kiddy playground.

Amen. I recently migrated to iMac/Mavericks from Windows 7 and there are a number of really useful things you can do in Windows 7 that there aren't good analogues for in Mavericks. Task-switching, for example, leaves a lot to be desired. Apparently a third party application, Witch, can fix that - wonderful (and not really a good fix if you are using windows virtual machines side-by-side). Launchpad is horribly designed, has phantom stuff on there and you can't delete them directly. I still like the machine but it's funny to think that windows had the edge in a number of usability areas.

Hmm ...

I'm on the developer side and I don't know if I count as traditional macOS user but I've personally bought 3 macs (including the current M1 one) and use another mac from my company to work.

IMO I have almost 0 interaction with mac user interface. My time are either spent in terminal or in a browser. There's little need to 'interface' with whatever UI mac comes with.

I love mac mostly because of its hardware form factor and its shell. I can't tell you any GUI gimmick despite using it as my main driver for years.

And that’s a damn shame, because they make much more sense.

> As the one oddball computer manufacturer that uses their own layout, perhaps it's time for Apple to offer PC keyboard layouts as an option on their machines out of consideration for people who have to use multiple platforms.

Lol no. I use Linux, Windows and macOS each about a third of the time (Linux for work, Windows because I have to, and macOS for fun and working from home), the last thing I would want is my Mac at home getting significantly worse just to reach the lowest common denominator. Besides, you can use any PC keyboard already if you really like the window key.

The use of control as the modifier key for keyboard shortcuts is an unfortunate historical accident, not the better way.

To you. To others (like me) the biggest appeal was the only even vaguely usable & consistent OS, supported by nice hardware. Now they have replaced the nice hardware with thin-and-light toys with fake keyboards, we're in a bind.

> It seems to me that a Hackintosh is the worst of both worlds. If you spend that much time hacking around the hardware anyways, why not use Linux ?

Quite, I agree. I don't want to futz with either hardware or software, so have gone for a Windows laptop. Windows is profoundly horrible, but it does work for me without having to mess around. We really have reached the point in 2018 where there literally are no good options. Just least-worst for the task at hand.

I can't stand having to change 30 years of muscle memory to make one specific brand of desktop computer work the way that I need it to. And then what happens if I have to help a junior dev at their desk?

That's why I absolutely adore both Linux and Windows - they generally let you work the way that you want on the hardware that you want instead of the one-size-fits-all way that Apple wants. It certainly does make Apple a ton of profit though because fewer moving parts and fewer software options most certainly equates to higher profits.

> The products seem to continually improve and raise the bar for what I expect from a computer. I always feel bad for my co-workers...

I wouldn't worry too much about it because the vast, vast majority of developers are on Windows and I can assure you that they'd be absolutely sickened if you made them use something that didn't behave just like Windows; something that is lacking even the most rudimentary window management features such as macOS.

Try this experiment if you think macOS has good window management: Open "About this Mac" then use Alt+Tab to switch to another app - now try to use your keyboard to switch back to the window you just switched away from. For people who like using a keyboard to do things, macOS is not good - unless you also enjoy hacking the system against Apple's will and risking losing your preferences on any given update.

For developers who find even Windows limiting though, I recommend switching to something that can run XFCE because those guys have done an absolute bang up job of emulating all the best parts of the Windows UI system while adding even more advanced features.

The vast majority of the world disagrees. The only reason anybody uses OS X is because it's Unix. Other than that, the UI is atrocious and severely lacking. It doesn't even come close to the robust utility that Windows offers.

This is because we expect "computers" to do so many things. When their area of responsibility shrinks to more trivial tasks, like only browsing or running simple apps, the limitations become less of an issue.

There will always be a need for a "development" caliber platform where you can do whatever, install anything, build whatever you want.

It's just that for 90% of the people out there, they don't need or want this. While I find it amusing that grandma's new MacBook Air comes with a C compiler, bash, and Perl, this really isn't something she's ever going to find a use for and would hardly notice if it was absent. For the 10% of the market that does care, perhaps they need a different sort of product. The two markets are destined to split.

That's because the GUI is not a part of the OS. The GUI is not an integral part of macOS - it's just that Apple sells one bundled, the same way that Canonical and Red Hat bundle Gnome. We had a number of other OSs that made a similar decision, on Lisp machines, Smalltalk workstations, Apollo's DomainOS, and a couple others I can't remember. None of these survived to this day.

It is almost absurdly bad. The only OS that still hangs, freezes, and crashes regularly. It is like Windows 98 quality wise and seems to get worse instead of better.

The whole UX is also insane. Every feature is hidden behind some obscure keyboard shortcut that you have to google or you just get used to working with this useless toy os.

The terminal is garbage. Everything is slooooow as fk (typing, mouse, etc).

It is shocking that the internet industry has standardized on working on this garbage when they run Linux on their servers and would be far better off developing on the software they actually use.

It just demonstrates the cult mindset and horrible lack of real technical proficiency in the industry.

I completely disagree.

First of all, Windows 95 had preemptive multitasking (the Amiga was the only computer that had this at the time), Mac OS was single task and used a terrible scheduling and it would be years before Mac OS gained preemptive multitasking because of terrible architecture choices that made this extremely challenging.

From a GUI standpoint, Windows 95 was a total revolution and made Mac OS look completely antiquated: rendering, scrolling speed, font types, menu items and dialogs, etc...

Reminds me of the days when I had to buy Windows to test if my website worked on IE.

In the case of Apple, I have to buy the hardware too!

ehhh. I think if you did some analytics of “apps Mac users use” an absolute ton would be “a web browser and very little else”. I can think of very few truly native Mac apps I depend upon and that keep me on the platform.

What does keep me on Macs is that every now and then I need to compile an iOS app. Apple give me no choice. Aside from that I’d say a lot of developers choose Macs because they’re the least worst POSIX platform, not because Mac native apps are a shining beacon on a hill.

This is what you don't get. Apple users don't want to have to do this, so they buy something that fits their desires right off the bat with OS X or iOS.

I'm halfway in between, Apple makes the best hardware, Linux is the best OS. If you want the best of everything, it takes some work.

I guess it's what you're used to. I don't find Windows decrapification to be that much more effort than Linux configuration.

> it's not worth the money of buying the overpriced unrepairable and unupgradeable hardware

For your use case, presumably not.

The ship seems to have sailed for upgradable Apple hardware (and I expect Apple did their homework and discovered 90% of Mac Pro systems were never upgraded anyway) but I still appreciate the advantages of hardware-software integration, nice form factor and battery life, unified CPU/GPU memory, etc.