Two days ago, immediately after several programs crashed and shortly before the entire OS locked up, I managed to capture this: http://i.imgur.com/ecCPlcs.png

That is Crash Reporter crashing. The following is the last screenshot I was able to take before the system stopped being able to write files: http://i.imgur.com/IK7j98P.png

Sierra has been an absolute nightmare in every respect that I have been forced to reboot on a weekly basis.

Apple's precipitous and continuing software quality decline is not an exaggeration or an illusion. It is flat reality. Professionals with any awareness should be evaluating their alternatives very seriously.

+1 to this. I purchased a brand new touchbar 2016 MacBook Pro. At a cost of 2800 dollars to me.

I've had the following problems:

1) They wrote a driver that blew out my speaker and I had to wait 5 weeks for a replacement. http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/30/apple-updates-boot... 2) There is graphical tearing and glitching everywhere. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/02/new-macbook-pro-graphics... 3) The OS restarts itself randomly. 4) You cannot plug in an external monitor and use a bluetooth mouse simultaneously.

I love macOS. I make software for macOS. The decline is real and people should start considering alternatives.

I considered all these issues and just ordered the new XPS 13 Dev Edition. I'm a bit nervous about making the change (and the rest of my ecosystem is macOS/iOS), but kinda excited.

Wow, we have a bunch on order at our office. If we have even half these problems they are all going back and we're getting Dell's or Lenovo's. Which is a really sad and disappointing outcome for me to consider.

I was a solid proponent of OSX for all development. I've only had to go through 2 macbooks in the better part of a decade, upgrading the OSX versions along the way ... and so, when it was time recently to buy macbook #3, I was actually a little sad that Apple's slipped so much recently and I had to go with an Asus zenbook (of course gutting windows 10 and running Ubuntu :-) Its running great, with none of the issues I was having with Mavericks.

yes, I would've liked to stick with Apple & OSX. no, I don't feel I could and still be as productive as I need to be.

Have you ever considered the possibility that your storage medium or random access memory is corrupt?

The Mac has passed the hardware diagnostics at the Apple Store multiple times. The components are unchanged from Yosemite, which did not have these issues. The OS has been freshly reinstalled, with the same problems.

This is also just one of a myriad of issues that have plagued the OS. Sierra has introduced me to new and wonderful ways to fail: http://i.imgur.com/HbVLWDq.png

If git is failing due to a system-wide file limit, that would explain why other programs are also failing. Perhaps some process has gone mad with creating files and if you find and delete those it will help things recover. (I agree with your general point -- just trying to be helpful in getting your computer back working.)

I reached the same conclusion, and the prime suspect in my investigations is Safari 10. However, once the system has hit the file limit, it never fully recovers without a reboot.

Google "too many open files" and you'll find posts about OS X but also Linux. Could it be git itself that's hitting a limit? Maybe you're hitting the shell's ulimit, not the system's per process or per-system open files max.

What year and ssd/hd?

I've had no problems except a couple programs that had broken features for a few weeks.

> Fonts and UI rendering look awful on Windows compared to macOS, there is just no comparison.

I've heard a number of people say this, and I'm always puzzled because it is exactly the opposite for me. Running on the same hardware (late 2013 MBPR 15"), Windows 10 font rendering is much more pleasing to my eyes. When I boot into OSX, the text looks terrible to me. (I'm still running El Capitan - has text rendering changed in Sierra?)

One thing I did in Windows that I recommend to everyone: I went through the ClearType tuner and adjusted the settings to my taste. I picked darker and heavier text compared to the defaults. That really punched up the rendering; everything is so crisp and clear, much nicer to my eyes than the blurry text in OSX.

I understand that OSX text rendering may be more typographically accurate, and I have some sympathy for that view. I appreciate good typography, especially after working at Adobe many years ago. (I built the first scalable font system for Windows, Adobe Type Manager.) But OSX text just doesn't look good to me.

And of course I don't disagree with anyone who prefers OSX/macOS text rendering, since this is very much a matter of personal taste.

Many confuse hardware differences (low-DPI versus high-DPI screens) with operating system differences.

Windows has had sub-pixel text alignment and LCD-oriented anti-aliasing ("ClearType") for, what, a decade? Text on my 267-DPI Surface Book looks absolutely amazing, and obviously text on a 226-DPI Macbook will look great as well.

For those who are not confused by hardware differences, I suspect the remaining matters are taste and familiarity. Having used Windows for a long time, my preference is for Windows' rendering and I find the rendering on macOS to be odd and uncomfortable. I'm struggling to find the right adjective—perhaps too comical or whimsical? Overall font selections and rendering don't seem as crisp and professional as on Windows.

Windows also supports ligatures and advanced kerning, so text on a web browser with good Windows API support (e.g., Edge or Firefox) looks fantastic. (Chrome was a notable laggard here, refusing to use modern Windows text rendering APIs for a very long time.)

It's mainly true on low DPI screens at 1:1 scaling with small point sized fonts. At a certain size, all fonts basically look alike in that case. It does happen on high dpi screens at 1:1 scaling too, but you need a magnifying glass to see the issues.

There's an app called MacType which makes the rendering more like Mac on low DPI screens, but I don't think it gets updated very often.

I am no professional in typography nor have I used any other Mac than the Macbook 12" (2015), but putting it side by side with my Acer Predator Z35 (35" curved screen), I still like macOS' text rendering a lot more.

Maybe it's the fact that it has a huge resolution on a 12" screen. Seems very likely that the higher pixel density makes for a crisp and beautiful text.

Again, I am not a pro in this area. I am a programmer. So just speaking intuitively, macOS still wins in my eyes.

However, probably the best test would be to put Windows 10 and macOS side by side on identical 27" full HD monitors?

Higher pixel density makes a huge difference in text quality, of course. Your MacBook has 226 pixels per inch, and the Acer Predator Z35 has a very low 79 pixels per inch - that's almost a 3:1 difference linearly, and more than 8:1 by area.

On other words, given the same physical text size on each monitor, your MacBook is using more than eight times the number of pixels to render each character.

Given a choice between macOS on a 226 PPI monitor and any other OS on a 79 PPI monitor, I would definitely prefer macOS too. :-)

You're right that the best way to compare font rendering is on the same monitor for each OS. I wouldn't use 27" FHD monitors though. Those would have 81 PPI, about the same as the Predator.

In my case I'm comparing OSX and Windows on the same hardware: the MBPR 15" (220 PPI) plus a ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K 24" 4K monitor (187 PPI) rotated to portrait mode. I'm a big fan of smaller high-DPI monitors like this. 187 PPI is a reasonably close match to the MBPR's 220 PPI. Both Mac and Windows look nice on each of these displays, I just find I like Windows better of the two.

Here's a spreadsheet I've been maintaining that lists the pixels per inch for a variety of machines and monitors:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4bCgr-VjMmeCjHf6Udy...

>> putting it side by side with my Acer Predator Z35 (35" curved screen)

The reason why you notice the difference is because of the low DPI for the screen size on your Z35. Windows fonts render badly on those screens at small point sizes. If your same screen was, say, 4K and you were running with text scaling, the fonts would look -way- better.

> If your same screen was, say, 4K and you were running with text scaling, the fonts would look -way- better.

Oh, I'm sure of it. Thing is though, I picked the Z35 and not the Z34 because I also want to game on the machine and going to [almost] 4K was a no-go, even with a GTX 980.

I suppose one day I might just switch to huge dual-monitor setup: one for gaming and one for everything else. Seems like quite a hassle though, having in mind that my Z35 occupies a huge chunk of my otherwise pretty big desk.

I have 2 x 27" 4K screens side by side (at 1:1 text scaling - yes, I'm crazy, but it's for work so the tradeoffs were worth it for me).

You can still play your games at 1080p on a 4K screen - the pixels divide up evenly by 4, so I don't think it would look any worse than playing on a native 1080p panel of the same size.

If you really, really want mac style text rendering on your monitor, check out an app called MacType. The text will look much closer to how Mac renders fonts.

I'll definitely try MacType. Seen your other posts about it. Thanks.

If by "professional workflow" you mean programming, I agree. But I'd have no problem using Linux for that instead of MacOS.

However, for many "professional workflow" means using the MS Office suite and a browser. For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS.

I've had fine experiences with Java, Javascript, and Python development on windows. I've developed also on Mac and Linux and after maybe a getting used to the the workflow on each system I haven't found the OS to be a major impediment for me outside of some tools and libraries only existing on certain platforms.

I'd say that macOS tends to be more stable, and The office suite has an actual price instead of a shitty subscription model.

Does it have a price? The last time I checked it was free.

OTOH, I don't see many professionals trusting Apple software in the long run (ex. Final Cut).

It's only free to the original buyer of a new Mac since something like 4 - 5 years ago. If you've never bought a new Mac and registered it with your Apple ID, it's not free.

I always thought it was free too, but learned otherwise recently from a colleague battling with it.

There are tools purposely missing from Mac like visio and project(?). I don't get why they are needed but my project manager does.

Visual Studio for Windows applications and XCode for iOS ones pin you to particular platforms.

> For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS.

"Denny's is as good as any Michelin Star restaurant."

Dollar for dollar Denny's is as good as any Michelin Star restaurant.

I think this was flagged down because it was flippant but the statement is true and insightful. And I think it's is a big driver of why the App Store went to FTP.

I've eaten €1500 meals at 3 star restaurants like L'Ambroisie and $10 Grand Slam meals at denny's. They fill different roles and both can be enjoyable.

For years there was a restaurant in Palo Alto that was really quite good and which my wife loved to visit. I was never happy because while the food and ambience were good, I always felt the bill was 50% higher than it should have been.

In the case of apps, most of them, for most users, don't justify the time put into them. Since that's true, people aren't idiots and won't take an up front risk on buying an app that doesn't work for them. That's why free download/in app purchase to really use has really taken off.

Oh, and it's well worth it to me to pay for a Mac. The fact that it's true for me doesn't justify your decision to buy a Mac or contradict your decision not to.

> I was never happy because while the food and ambience were good...

...supply and demand. That you were willing to eat there despite the higher prices suggests you found value in the food. You can bitch about higher prices all you want, but you paid them.

Likewise, for a lot of professionals the difference between a $3000 MacBook and a $1500 Windows notebook over the lifespan of 3-4 years is inconsequential. You could easily make up the difference by brewing your own coffee versus getting something at a store.

> ...supply and demand. That you were willing to eat there despite the higher prices suggests you found value in the food. You can bitch about higher prices all you want, but you paid them.

Yes, well the decision criterion was that it made my wife happy. So I suppose they optimized for that factor :-).

If you could afford to eat at both, if the difference in cost was mostly inconsequential, which one would you choose on a regular basis?

If both were free I'd pick the most expensive one obviously.

This is definitely an example of YMMV, if someone claims that macOS is better than Windows because of a prettier UI and smoother font rendering, I simply laugh.

For me it is more important to have a file manager that doesn't lock itself creating .DS_Store files in the middle of an I/O operation (ex. copying a folder from an external drive).

To be fair, Windows has the same issue with Thumbs.db files, but I can't remember the last time it happened to me, in contrast, with macOS it is annoyingly easy to trigger error -36, just connect a clean drive and copy a big folder...

Windows hasn't used Thumbs.db files on most drives since it switched to a central cache in Vista.

It still uses them, it was not difficult to find a screenshot from a recent version of Windows.

http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ximg_54e...

Yes, it still uses them on (certain types of) external drives (in certain types of folders) and in folders that already have them from a previous version of Windows (sometimes), but nowhere to the extent that it used to use them (because there now is a central cache for most of them), and nowhere near the extent that macOS uses .DS_Store.

ETA: All of which is why my first post said "most drives"...

It switched back in a later version

It didn't "switch back", it just uses them in certain compatibility and/or external drive situations. I hedged with "most drives" for a reason.

If I'm staring at something for 10 hours a day smoother font rendering is a big benefit.

Smoother means less legible, at least on low DPI screens. But it seems to be a personal preference as to what someone will actually like more.

The only time I've had any problems on windows is if the font is too small.

I just installed Windows 10. My start menu by default was full of stuff I will never ever use. After deleting/uninstalling apps (where it would allow me) the OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable.

"OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable. " - I would like more details on this. I don't think I've heard of that before?

Not sure if you're being sarcastic (there's the non-Nexus Android experience after all), but I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro on my gaming machine a while ago. Full retail license and an official .iso downloaded from Microsoft. There's barely anything installed on that machine, however I was also surprised to find Candy Crush in my start menu after a while. It's probably just a shortcut to the store, but it does look quite a bit like it's already installed.

by default windows 10 will show you 'suggested' apps in your start menu programs list. This can be disabled in the settings (just open settings and search for suggestions)

It does happen after an upgrade (ex. the anniversary update).

Although it does not install Candy Crush, just a stub to install it, anyway, it is certainly unappealing.

Showing a featured app on the windows store tile != Installing an app.

It is certainly not "the" Windows Store Tile, they're annoying stubs like the "Get Office" one.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Windows_10_bu...

The OS puts Candy Crush in your menu and it's installed on demand. So to users it will seem like it's always been installed.

All the pre-installed software is my big pet peeve for Windows 10. I don't want weather, or contacts, or xbox, or 3d builder, or email, or alarms, or skype, or office, or calendar, or groove, or money, or news, etc... I've deleted them and they just come back because of some provisioning setting.

Buy a signature edition laptop directly from the microsoft store, then you will not et any crap-ware.

Things like Candy Crush, Skype, and Office aren't the full installs but instead are stubs that install the applications on first run. Even if you buy a retail copy of Windows 10, that junk is still in there.

A signature edition makes sure that the only crapware is stuff that Microsoft installed.

This isn't true. You get Candy Crush. That's the whole problem.

OK, then Microsoft changed what gets installed. A year ago when I bought a signature laptop, no junk was pre-installed, IIRC

Wait until you get the random start menu no longer works bug. Not only does the start menu not appear, clicking on the File Explorer icon will take 30 + seconds to open, every time. There are links where thousands of people have posted various fixes but from my understanding MSFT hasn't actually fixed the underlying cause. To their credit they have released a utility that fixes the issue however.

Microsoft deserves every bit of ridicule lobbed its way for adding advertising to it's start menu in Win10. That being said they aren't the only offender, my iPhone has a folder of apps called Apple Trash filled with Apple's collection of worthless default apps that can't be removed from iOS.

Like what? This used to be true but I believe most of it was remedied with iOS 10.

Watch and Home, for example

Most built-in Apple apps can now be hidden in the normal way.

Get some perspective. Operating systems have included simple games since the 80s. Minesweeper, anyone?

While I agree that it's more a minor annoyance than a dealbreaker (for me at least), the fact remains that there's a big difference between including a simple game or two and installing (or "suggestive-selling") a "freemium" money-sink from a third party.

Basically the way I look at it in order of annoyance/offensiveness:

- Free, standalone application made by same company (this is a free gift as far as I'm concerned)

- Free, standalone application made by another company (ok, this is starting to approach crapware but as long as it can be uninstalled and doesn't try to sell me anything, I'll deal)

- Link, installer, or preinstalled application that requires later purchase from same company (OK, this is an ad and pretty offensive)

- Link, installer, or preinstalled application requiring later purchase from third party (this is most certainly unwanted crapware that they were paid to include)

Try to get the LTSB build, less clutter.

Many would use Surfaces with Linux. They are excellent hardware, albeit tricky to run Linux on as they include some exotic components for touch recognition and dreadful Marvell network adapters.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/

Win10 is pretty stable, what issues are you referring to?

Windows itself isn't bad, but the driver ecosystem is completely rotten. Any muppet with a code signing certificate is apparently capable of writing driver code that gets injected into the kernel.

But this isn't a problem if you buy quality hardware?

Yes. It's often the case that a good motherboard will have some super generic driver either for the ethernet component or the on-board audio chip.

It's truly astonishing how bad it is even with big name vendors like Asus.

I've had various issues on two separate clean installs of Windows 10 in the last two weeks, one of which was the start menu being broken, and the user profile being damaged to the point where I had to do a full reinstall. Official App Store apps don't install for various reasons (Onedrive) or become damaged etc.

I guess this may be a case of 'grass being greener' as suggested by someone else in this thread. I just don't seem to remember having any of these issues on my 2010 Macbook Pro running El Capitan. Then again, this is purely anecdotal.

Win 10 is pretty stable, but I for one had all kinds of issues when it just installed the Anniversary Update on it's own. I couldn't use my start menu without the computer locking up for about a minute. Spent a few hours researching it, tried multiple fixes which didn't work.

Grass is greener. You start noticing issues with Mac OS X as well once you start using it professionally.

I agree, I hate the state of mac hardware, but I would have a very hard time leaving the macOS for the windows OS

On 4k hidpi monitor fonts and UI looks great. And you can run windows on Mac :)

"Great" on Windows is "typical" on macOS. The approach to rendering fonts is completely different, where Windows tends to nudge things towards pixel boundaries and in so doing ends up distorting the type considerably.

Font rendering on Windows is barely better than Linux.

Right after I switched from Mac to PC, I used something called MacType [1] to ease my transition.

On HiDPI monitors, though, it turned out to be unnecessary.

[1] http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-windows-fonts-look-like-ma...

It really depends on DPI of your monitor. I have both MBPr and Windows PC with 4k 24'' monitor. On FullHD I can't look at Windows, on 4k it looks great (UI looks more sharp than in macOS, fonts looks almost as good as in macOS). And Linux fonts rendering is not even near - last time I saw it, it was completely awful, although it was on FullHD monitor, not 4k.

Seems just fine on my 1080p 22" monitor, or on this 26" 2560x1600 monitor beside it. Then again I'm a dirty Gnome user on Debian, so perhaps my vanilaness is saving me. But even a few years ago on my last A8 & 1080P 15.6" laptop it was fine, definitely much better than 1366 by potato.

I'm sorry if my words were offensive for somebody - it's all questions of personal perception.

Hah, was being sarcastic with the whole dirty Gnome user bit, no worries!

On 4K a Windows machine looks tolerable, but I'd hold back from calling it "great". It's more like the deficiencies are less obvious.

Windows has long been indifferent to faithfully representing fonts, to accurately representing colors. They've always promoted readability at the cost of mangling fonts, and of performance.

The macOS rendering system has always been set up with high-DPI displays in mind, they were able to work out a lot of rendering problems on things like the iPhone and iPad before committing to the computer version of same.

Windows on a 4K display looks close to but not quite as good as a Mac on a 1440p display, it's just that stark.

This is all personal preference obviously, but having done a lot of design work I'm more easily irritated by little quirks.

Do you think your points are valid for an office workflow?