I've been using Windows for the past couple of weeks and, granted maybe I haven't really given it a chance, using it after using Macs for 10+ years is not great.

Maybe developing on macOS has become a hassle (I don't see that, but sure), but doing everything on Windows is a hassle. Taking a screenshot. Opening the right file. Displaying UI at a reasonable scale. Think what you want of macOS 'recently', but Windows is just full of bets and decisions that show they're not really concerned about the user experience.

To me Windows Explorer feels like it hasn't been updated with modern features since XP, aside from adding the ribbon

At least in the Finder on the Mac you can turn your preferred behavior on (it's in preferences/advanced). On Windows AFAIK there is no setting for it.

Per directory. There’s still no way to set the desired view and sorting for the entire system.

And DMGs will open with no toolbar and sidebar.

AFAIK there is no way to get Windows to not sort folders on top.

I always used to find Windows File Explorer to be the one that was less feature-rich, but I haven't used it in... we'll just say a shamefully long time. But as someone who got used to Macs an equally long time ago, I've wondered if it's because the Mac seemed to make drag-and-drop such a central way of manipulating files and Windows emphasized "select object - select operation" as its central metaphor. If you're used to one way, moving to other system feels weird and clunky.

You can even drag a folder from a Finder window to a save prompt or web browser upload prompt and it’ll relocate you to that directory in the prompt.

The rich drag and drop functionality is one of my favorite features of macOS.

Right click and hold down the option key, I believe.

Linux desktop experience and all its software suite are rudimentary compared to MacOS with these additions. I'm coming from there and before that Windows, and MacOS is definitivelly the OS which offer the best desktop experience.

I am currently forced to use windows and it’s near impossible to get anything done with it without feeling frustrated. It simply doesn’t follow my speed and line of thought on anything.

I am quite shocked after using Mac for 7 years how little progress or even regression windows 10 went through. Without making this into a windows bashing thread only the explorer related things I can think of:

- unzip hidden behind right click or freaking menu button. And a dialog with checkbox to “show files after extraction”. Mac: double click. New folder. Done

- rename through right click or f2. Laptop means fn+f2. Mac: press enter, type, done

- quicklook on Mac is the single greatest feature ever. Mainly because it works in file dialogs. Need to upload a file but don’t know which one? Just quicklook. Windows afaik has no equivalent

- somewhat related, maximum length of file paths. There is no excuse for that in 2019. If unzipping fails because of this the software is just plain bad

And this is just explorer which I barely use. Shocking

> unzip hidden behind right click or freaking menu button

By default double click or Enter will cause Explorer to peak into .zip files, which is more natural to me as I might not want to unzip the whole file to see the contents.

> rename through right click or f2

The fact that in Finder the Enter button does not actually enter a directory or run/open a file but let me rename it was the biggest surprise. I personally rename filesystem objects rarely, while I 'execute' them all the time, it does not make sense!

> quicklook on Mac is the single greatest feature ever. Mainly because it works in file dialogs. (...) Windows afaik has no equivalent

Fully agree - it is a very useful feature. Explorer also has it under 'Preview pane' name, but it's disabled by default. I think that Mac version is better, because if I remember correctly it does preview PDF files, while Explorer does not. Other typical files work fine.

> somewhat related, maximum length of file paths.

Fully agree.

You are right, I hadn’t thought of that. But there is an easy solution that imho in a way is better anyways:

CMD arrow allows you to navigate through file structure including drill down, I.e. open folder.

CMD o opens/runs any file selected (also opens folders so it’s a not-so-elegant replacement for open on enter)

This to me makes more sense though now that I think about it because it differentiates between running (potentially unsafe/slow) and quick keyboard navigation through folders. I admit the CMD arrow functionality is a bit hidden

Renaming with anything other than Enter makes sense because Enter opens the file.

The file path thing is bizarre. Windows 10 supports a path length of 32767 characters. But last I checked you had to change a registry setting before it was the default. And getting W10 to respect a long file path in Python programmatically was a huge pain.

Does it? Enter is “text confirmation, make new line”. With single line inputs it’s expected to work like a submit for e.g. a search. Submitting a file name change happens with enter on windows as well. Now if you rename with f2, then submit with enter and accidentally press enter a single time you suddenly have executed or opened something you only wanted to rename. Enter, the most prominent big button with a single function after space, suddenly becomes a completely orthogonal context sensitive option. That’s weird

And don’t get me started on the use of enter in Microsoft teams based on context of your message...

If you are in a list or ‘’’ code formatted block the first enter will break out and allow you to write plain text below in the same message, the second enter will send the message

Ehm. If you're in the middle of writing text, yes. Which you aren't if you're going through a directory with the explorer. "Enter" also activates buttons. Enter is always context-sensitive. It changes depending on the application and context. I don't see what's wrong with this.

You also have the terminal, so you're free to `cd`, `find`, `locate`, etc...

anyway, I will say that WSL is a lot better than what we had, but it's no where near as great as terminal working on the Mac. Maybe WSL 2.0 will be better. But I do miss my Mac tooling.

Thanks, I didn't know about this! I'll give it a go!

I've been using Lightshot to try and make screenshot taking a bit more bearable, but its still no cmd-shift-4 drag region and have a screenshot on my desktop.

You can find all keyboard shortcuts here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12445/windows-keybo...

It's amazing how bad Windows still is at this. In my experience, connecting monitors of different densities results in crazy things breaking, like the "maximize window" feature.

Only a few years ago Mac multi-monitor support was horrific. You couldn't straddle two screens with a window. And heaven help you if you were dealing with full screen, your second monitor was effectively disabled.

The only bad Windows density thing I run into is when I occasionally remote desktop into Windows Server 2012, which doesn't know about HiDPI or resolution changes, so if it starts on the wrong screen everything is hilariously tiny. That's fixed in more recent Windows Server versions.

Former is PrtScn key on my keyboard. Microsoft ships Snipping Tools and lately Snip n Sketch for screenshots - never had any issues with either.

Latter - not sure what you mean - opening the right file as in setting default program to open a file? That's easy enough and it's the best experience on Windows.

I /remembered "Snipping Tool", so I searched for "Snip" and launched that, and it shows a menu that says like "Snipping Tool is deprecated, use Snip n Sketch" so you click that and a new app opens (but old one stays open as well) and you take your screenshot and then its open in a window that you have to go and save.

I know I'm biased because its what I'm used to for 10 years, but on Mac I just have the (insane) cmd + shift + 4 shortcut engrained that'll snip a part of my screen and save to my Desktop. It's just so much quicker than Windows.

re opening file: I miss Quicklook to make sure I have the right file selected. Also miss being able to drag a file into an open dialogue box to select it to open.

Copies it into the buffer, silently. No notification, nothing. Great UX.

In Ubuntu it's even better, it actually saves it as an image file (and does the annoying shutter effect). But the repeat key is not turned off... so if by any chance you hold it down by mistake, thinking it was the right ctrl, oh boy, you get a shitstorm of shutter effects and dozens of screenshots in the pictures folder. Very annoying. I don't know which I hate more, Ubuntu or Windows.

Do you expect Ctrl+C to not be silent either? Because that's what PrintScreen and all the other clipboard operations were designed as.

Unfortunately it's one of those things that is incredibly useful but isn't mentioned anywhere.

But the touchbar lets you touch a single button, off-screen, and then clearly choose between these options: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201361

I told myself I have to eventually migrate... still hasn't happened. There's just no reason to dive into horrible Pythoning, Dockering, NodeJSing (do I have to bring up Node-Gyp?)

For development Windows has a long way to go, even with WSL.

I have Windows installed on a Bootcamp partition on my Macbook Pro. Aside from the hassle and quirks of a different operating systems (coming from MacOS I find Windows extremely lacking in UX), I find perplexing the way Windows handles color profiles. Same computer, same screen, but everything is super saturated in Windows. In some websites with a lot of color in the background it can be jarring.

I eventually came across trackpad++, which at least renders it usable, but still unpleasant - I travel with a USB mouse these days (sigh, which obviously means a USB dongle for the MBP...).

I had a few worries going into it. Would it be able to sit on my lap and other laptopy places, was Windows going to be alright, what about development. Stuff like that. It can function as a laptop, in fact it’s probably the best machine I’ve ever had on my legs because the hot part doesn’t touch you. It can’t sit on your chest while you lie down, however, so it’s certainly not a full laptop replacement if you need those positions. Windows with WSL has been amazing though. The only thing I’ve missed from OS/X was iMessage integration, and that was already annoying because more and more of my connections have been switching to android. It’s probably the first device I’ve been genuinely excited about since I got my first smartphone, and ironically it feels like something Apple should’ve made. And not just the design, the ability to isolate your dev environment with suse enterprise is just so much better than containers on os/x. Probably not better than dual-booting if you need more speed, but I don’t.

The real showstopper is that the keyboard is an almost certain failure point and fixing it means a multi-week wait. Losing my primary machine for such a long time would be a catastrophe. With Lenovo and Dell, I can easily add a 5 year next-business-day on-site service warranty—for the same price as AppleCare+. But AppleCare has no business-class warranty service options, just shitty mail-in service.

I bought a ThinkPad P1 recently. There was an issue with the touchpad I noticed as soon as I unboxed it. I called Lenovo Premier support, which has no wait time and no phone menu: calls are answered by a highly autonomous support agent (I believe in Florida) who can do whatever is needed to fix the problem. By noon the next day, technician was onsite and replaced the entire top half of the unit (equivalent to the MacBook keyboard repair).

I just wish it ran Linux better - I find Windows unusable.

Either way, except for some Windows annoyances I really don't miss my MacBooks.

I had a Surface Pro 4 before this and the keyboard on that was also amazing despite a much smaller size, and the keys didn't degrade at all.

Having to throw out a fully functional device once the battery goes weak should be a practice that gets banned at least for the sake of the environment.

1: https://cmder.net/

https://github.com/felixse/FluentTerminal is the closest I've found to the feel of the Mac one.

So much better IMO, just the keyboard alone was worth the switch. I was a little worried I would miss the display but I really don't mind the smaller screen.

an interesting product would be a keyboard sleeve. it doubles as a carry sleeve when the macbook is closed.