Mac OS sucks

[BLINGMW]

While trying to get "Time Machine" to work, again, because every time I back up I have to start it over, then deleting files off the backup drive to see it go into the negative:


NEGATIVE 201K files to delete. That should be.... quick?

And then fighting to understand why all the worthless backup files are locked and why this dialog box does't have a "EFF IT DELETE THEM ALL" option:


I don't think any of these three options are what I want

All after trying to get files off Jess' iPhone which is still much harder than it should be, and as usual dealing with the general slowness of Mavericks.....
I came to identify a feeling that I've been trying to suppress for a few years now:

The Mac OS sucks.

I WAS a mac guy. I had an Apple IIe and learned BASIC on it when when I was 6. I was an active member of a MUG in high school and my first two jobs were supporting Macs in schools. My roommate and I were the only two freshmen at VT in computer engineering that refused the requirements to get a PC. I've owned Apple stock. But I've used Windows at work and for gaming for 14+ years now, and I'm completely run out of excuses. I've only written this post in the time taken waiting for the OS to finish doing things it shouldn't have to do.

Maybe this guy said it more completely than me:

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[HAULN-SS]

+juan. I use one at work about half the time. It's pretty bad. As a developer box, they try to lock you into the Mac ecosystem, and as a user experience, i've run into many problems in both hardware and software (had it two weeks and the hard drive had to be replaced).

[BLINGMW]

they try to lock you into the Mac ecosystem

They've always been like that to varying degrees, and 5+ years ago I considered it a strength. IF all their devices and software still worked super awesome together and met all my needs, it still could be. But that hasn't been the case for a while now. They now intentionally obselete their own hardware and software as quickly as possible. It's clear they want you to consider all their products as throw-away and replace, and you should do so every 2 years, because they don't want the new thing to talk to a 3 year old thing.

i've run into many problems in both hardware and software

About 5 years ago, I could brag that every Mac, I mean EVERY APPLE PRODUCT I've had and my extended family's had still works. iPods, desktops, laptops, stuff from college, high school, middle school, and our first IIe. We'd often buy refurb (already at least a year old), use for a few years, then pass on to someone else in the family, and the only thing that retired any of them was like, the invention of the internet, then maybe streaming video. And when I worked servicing and installing PCs but mostly Macs in a past life, the quality differences and DOA rates were night and day. 500+ Mac laptops, one DOA CD drive. 200 HPs? Start taking them apart, get about 175 working ones and return the scrap.

Then I passed our last iMac onto my dad and the screen died. Then a 3 year old macbook air which was already on its 2nd hard drive, and is now back on my desk because it won't even post. It is a brick. At least it still *looks* new. A few white iBooks are still floating around in the family and "working", but wow did they hire a BMW engineer to select the now dangerously jagged plastic used for the case? But all of that stuff is scrap anyway because it cannot run anything past 10.6, which is also 5 years old, the last decent OS they made, and is completely unsupported. I can't keep up!

What's also 5 years old? Windows 7, which we just finished upgrading TO at work, and at home. And my gaming PC is a 4 year old core-i7 slim Dell whose power supply was never meant to handle the video card I have in it now, it cost me $200, and it's kicking ass.

[rherold9]

Where I work at CampusNet on JMU's campus fixing students computers. I see more hardware issues on new or older Mac's than I do any Windows machine. And there are usually more Window's computer that roll through. And if Windows computer does have an issue it is 90% always a hard drive where with Mac's you see motherboard issues, and other weird things on brand new computer's. It is crazy.

Software wise I don't mind either. I used to hate Windows 8 now that I've gotten used to the shortcuts and the way it works it is my favorite OS out there besides some boot options I miss from Windows 7 that is a pain in the ass in Windows 8. OSX is okay. It is simple to fix and easy to narrow things down where Windows takes a bit longer to troubleshoot and has a lot more random issues.

[BLINGMW]

lol macbook pro repair

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[Mike]

lol macbook pro repair

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it was chapin with the freezer mac, right? or you?

[BLINGMW]

heh I forgot about that, yeah I think John had a freezer mac

[Mike]

good times.

anyway, i'm a mac guy. i was a windows guy until about 2007. i feel apple still has the edge in terms of usability and quality, but it's definitely slipping on the software side. hardware side? no contest. i have had no significant issues with macs over that time period [and i've had dozens], whereas i've seen countless PCs completely shit the bed.

[Ken]

I've never been more frustrated than I was the other day in trying to help my girlfriend back up her iPhoto pictures the other day. She has a ridiculous amount of pictures (pretty much filled her MacBook air which I already had my old job upgrade the SSD to 256) and I finally convinced her that she needs to back them up to the cloud. That time machine crap didn't work and I already have onedrive automatically backing up her iphone pictures so I figured I would do that, if only it were that easy. Maybe it would be easier to pay Apple for their storage but I already have office 365 and she gets 1TB through that.

Anyway, I can't event count the amount of times I wanted to toss her fucking MacBook air and iPad Mini (which was slow as fuck btw.) To me it seems that they tried to dumb things down so far that if you want to do anything even a little bit outside of the norm, you're fucked.

[BLINGMW]

She has a ridiculous amount of pictures (pretty much filled her MacBook air which I already had my old job upgrade the SSD to 256)

The topic of large pictures and dumbed-down interface reminds me of how flabbergasted I was that on Jess' iPhone, you cannot reduce the quality of pictures and video. One setting. Max. WTF this thing is taking pictures that are twice the size of our good camera that I set to 5 mp (which is more than enough for casual pictures), and don't even get me started on video holy crap. I don't need 30 FPS, 1080P, lightly compressed video of my kids. Sorry kids, those precious moments better be REALLY good cause daddy needs a new backup drive now.
(yes I can and do recompress the video to something reasonable, but I'd rather not have to)

[davej]

listen man, Steve knows knew best, so you'd better just back the eff off.

my favorite apple moment was when they told people they were holding their phone wrong and that's what caused the poor antenna performance.

but hey, when your cash on hand is greater than most countries GDP, you can get away with stuff like that.
this is why i own stock, but no products.

[Jake]

<fanboi>

I really do like my Apple stuff - keep in mind, I'm pretty invested in the entire ecosystem. I have a Mac Mini (from 2008, ugh), an iPad "4" (Retina screen + Lightning connector), iPhone 6 and two Apple TVs. Content flows really well between the iOS stuff (ATV included) and I dig AirPlay. Being able to play anything from your phone with a couple of taps is slick. Slicker than Chromecast, which requires the right app to be supported, or a browser tab... eff that.

That said, my Mac Mini is from 2008, and while it can still run a recent-ish version of Mac OS (I'm on 10.7 I think?) and remain compatible with all of my newer products, it's supremely slow now. I only use it to offload photos/videos from my phone/camera/GoPro to an external drive for backup (my work laptop is a brand-new Dell ultrabook, so it's dumb to buy a new #anything for home) but it's rough even doing that.

A buddy of mine does IT for a small company and was allowed to pull a few "old" computers from their recycling pile, so he gave me one. It's some HP with an i3 processor and IDKLOL GB of RAM and hard drive space. Amazing how much zippier it is.

I guess what I'm getting at, is that if I had to buy a newer computer to replace the Mac Mini, I could buy a $300 HP i3, or a $999 Mac Mini, and get similar performance. And given where all my money is going right now (E36) I can't justify the new Mac.

I do think it's impressive that the '08 Mini is still chugging along. It's had the same OS and software installed, with updates applied (no wipe-and-redo) since I got it in 2009.

[ViPER1313]

Back before their switch to Intel chips, the PPC Macs were always years behind comparable PC setups in speed (with the exception of 1 or 2 Photoshop filters). After the switch, the only difference between a PC and a Mac is the $500 premium you pay for a pretty case and Apple's "design quality". You can buy an Intel chip, Gigabyte motherboard, Nvidia graphics card and the HD of your choosing and build a 100% compatible Hackintosh (because you are using the same OEMs that Apple sources from) for a fraction of the price, and the only thing you are missing out on is the logo on the box.

I do think it's impressive that the '08 Mini is still chugging along.

I don't think that 7 years on a computer is that impressive :dunno: Out of the 10+ PCs that I have bought or built, I have only had a handful of minor hardware issues, mostly dead hard drives or failed cooling fans, which I consider to be almost like wear items on a car considering how much they get run :dunno:

The D800 laptop I bought used from Andrew is still running fine (a friend of mine owns it now), although I did have to replace the HD at one point. My college PC (AMD 3500+) that I built in 2004 still runs great, I was able to upgrade the processor in 2008 to a dual core server chip and used it up until last year. My i7 media center PC, which has been running near non-stop since 2009, has never had an issue. The 2008 Dell Vostro laptop I am writing this on has only needed a battery in the 7 years I have owned it, which I was able to replace for $30 instead of having to trash the machine.