I view it a different way: macOS and many of Apple's built-in apps/utilities are, at the very least, a less bad option compared to many others.

OS utilities like Image Capture, Preview, Apple's screenshot utilities, Spotlight, Quick Look, and quite a few others have been basically "killer apps" that make me want to use macOS over Windows for decades now.

Even basic areas like system settings have been a point of frustration for Windows for an extremely long time now, with Microsoft taking many years to truly migrate off of the Control Panel and deliver something half-decent in the Settings app. The Windows 11 iteration finally starts to feel like it's a little bit cohesive (but I still hate the Devices settings panel). The whole situation has really been a mess going back to Windows 8.

Another example: anytime someone says that printers universally suck I know immediately that they're Windows users because of just how much better Macs interact with printers and scanners and how much better and more reliable their configuration interface is. Apple single-handedly saved the entire printer industry from the depths of hell with AirPrint, before that Bonjour, and before that shipping OS X with preinstalled printer drivers.

Windows 10 couldn't decide what screenshot app I was supposed to use, thank goodness it's been consolidated after Windows 10's inclusion of two separate apps both worse than Apple's tooling.

Plus, Apple has to get credit for the sheer number of decently high quality non-enterprise apps that Apple just gives you for free.

Microsoft doesn't make anything that approaches the quality you get from Apple's free iMovie, Photos, Podcasts, Books, iTunes/Music, Contacts, Mail, Pages/Keynote/Numbers (without paying).

The only one of those apps I used when I was on mac for a few years was iMovie (actually my wife used it, I didn't use any of those apps).

Finder on the other hand...

"I don't use all the things that are better about Mac than Windows" is not a very strong argument for the merits of Microsoft's OS.

I’m with you, however mac os remain the best dekstop OS and iOS remain the best mobile one, even after all those years. So, they must be doing something right..

> So, they must be doing something right..

Resting on laurels, while trying to figure out how to destroy everything good about macOS by making it more like iOS.

iOS lacks many features that have been standard on Android for years and the only reason it feels so smooth is because the UI thread has pretty much the highest QoL that anything can ever have. iOS would rather drop your network call than drop a single frame.

Android variants all have things that iOS can only dream of having in five years (notifications was a fun one), just spread very unevenly throughout manufacturers. Samsung currently has a very good Android build.

Calling it the best is very far fetched.

The copying of features isn't one-sided. Both companies have had firsts there: https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/stolen-features-android-app...

When I switched from Android to iOS in 2016, I was shocked at how little was different, and I can only assume gulf has narrowed since then. A lot of features Android users just assume iOS users don't have are there: vendor-agnostic password manager integration, Safari browser extensions, Safari content (ad) blocker API (Chrome is restricting ad-blockers soon!), more complete home screen customization and widgets, lock screen customization and widgets (iOS 16, upcoming), custom third-party keyboards, grouped/customizable notification system, native console wireless controller support from all three consoles.

Features like granular privacy controls and screen recording (with the exception of some obscure Android OEM builds) debuted on iOS first.

I'd be skeptical with anyone declaring either platform "best," I think they're both roughly equivalent.

However, I do think that anyone who uses macOS is insane to go with Android. There are simply too many useful integrations between the platforms to ignore, combined with the fact that, even if the iPhone isn't the best phone, it's usually in the top handful of choices in terms the overall package.

Sometimes it's the little things that matter. The single most used app on all my Android phones I've ever had is Kindle. And one feature that I absolutely demand from any phone is that I can flip pages with volume buttons - when reading for long periods of time, it is much more convenient than swiping with your thumb. On Android, pretty much all the reader apps can do it. But, so far as I know, this is outright impossible to implement in iOS.

Personally, I don't think the OS should ever allow an app to hijack the physical volume buttons or other hardware buttons on a phone. That seems like an avenue for abuse.

(Tip: you can tap the screen on the right side to go to the next page.)

Personally, I think that my phone should be convenient for me to use.

I'm well aware of different ways to swipe pages. The reason why the hardware volume buttons are so convenient for reading is because you just put your thumb on the volume/page down button, and you no longer have to move it at all - only press down slightly every now and then. It's much more ergonomic for long-term reading than having to raise the thumb every time, even to tap.

That seems like a really small benefit at a potentially high cost, at least to me.

You can imagine that someone might create malware or otherwise hostile app that plays a loud/embarrassing sound and hijacks your volume buttons.

Having to lift a finger to turn a page seems like a really small problem in comparison to that one.

Smartphones are general purpose devices and have to make tradeoffs like this all the time. They can't just greenlight every useful function that every type of app might want. IMO if you want an e-reader, get an e-reader.

For example: Let's say I'm a private detective. It might be nice for there to be an app that records audio and video at all times without any visual indication of my phone doing so. However, having that kind of OS level permission available to apps on an app store is probably a bad idea. I'll need to go out and buy a dedicated recording device.

Sure, we can argue about where the line gets drawn. If you like Android for allowing apps to modify hardware buttons, fine. But, I would prefer a device where physical buttons perform consistent functions. A middle ground might be some kind of buttons dedicated toward custom or app functions – but, to me, why bother when the entire screen is a customizable button?

All I can say is that I've been using Android for well over a decade now, and not once have I seen malware that hijacked volume buttons. It might actually be a permission the app has to request - I don't remember.

Either way, this was meant as an illustration of how small factors can affect decisions. I have had an iPhone as my primary phone for a few months, and this one thing was the single biggest issue I had with it at the end of the day - not that there weren't others, and some were actually more annoying when they happen, but this one is at the top because it's something that's constantly in my face. Thus, I'm not going to buy another iPhone for this reason alone; my response to "you're holding it wrong" is "you're making them wrong".

Have a look at GrapheneOS impressive feature list, iOS has some work to do.

iOS’s security was praised by GrapheneOS’s creator many times - I believe according to him the best choices for a secure mobile at the time of writing was GrapheneOS on the latest pixel OR an iphone.

They trade blows in different security features.

iOS still doesn't let you place icons anywhere you want on the home screen, though. It's been fifteen years.

Desktops, and Android, have allowed you to do this for decades.

You mean it forces them to be lined up in a grid? Otherwise, I have no idea what you're on about.

You cannot put an icon anywhere you want on the home screen.

Icons are lined up left to right, in a row.

You need to insert icons inside a row and then all the other icons to its right will be pushed right and/or down.

So you want icons to be able to overlap each other, or be different distances from each other, or what? I'm trying to figure out what exactly you're trying to accomplish. What would be the benefit of totally arbitrary, down-to-the-pixel placement ability?

No, not talking about overlapping.

Just talking about being able to grab an icon and position it anywhere I want on the screen (possibly snapped to a grid).

Right now, icons have to be aligned in rows anchored in the top left corner, so that whenever you insert a new one, all the ones after that get pushed right or down, messing up your entire layout.

We've had this ability on desktops since Windows 3 thirty years ago, and Android has had it since day one. As does macOS. Why not iOS?

I have to admit that I don't understand your use case, but I'd be a hypocrite to denigrate your preference simply because it's not one I would use.

I don't know how else I can describe it, maybe you're so used to it you don't see how limiting it is.

Here is a thread on reddit describing it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/r2vs1x/why_cant_you_pu...

There are a few solutions around it, some require a jailbroken iPhone, others use empty widgets to create "fake space".

Why do your icons move around so much? I've added or removed applications from my iPhone and the only limitation I see is that they have to be in a grid with no empty spaces between them. Otherwise the same application icons are in the same place, every day, year after year.

Do you have a screen shot that could illustrate what it is you want to be able to do?

Man... I don't know what's so hard to understand. You put icons on your desktop anywhere you want all the time, don't you?

They're not all stacked up starting at the left corner, are they?

Imagine that all I want is three icons on my home screen, all lined up on the right edge of the screen, where they are easy to reach by my thumb.

You can't do that on iOS.

To answer your question: No, I do not, ever. I don't want shit all over my desktop. I have them auto-arranged in a grid. On Windows they start on the left, on Mac they start on the right. So when I (for example) take a screen shot and it gets deposited on the desktop, I know where it's going to be.

But now that you finally gave a concrete example of what you want to do, I can at least picture it.

Yes, this is a very real downside, but Apple has put effort into making the home screen more customizable than it was. It has an app drawer, it has the ability to add/remove home screens without filling one up first, and it has widgets, the major omissions that Android hasn't been missing for many years.

And, yes, it would be really nice if Apple had a system to install third-party launchers, there's no denying that.

I know this is really silly, but you can definitely workaround the issue and effectively have the same end result as Android if you really want it:

https://iempty.tooliphone.net

Overall, every individual omission from one platform to another is going to be a question of what is important to the buyer.

For some, it might seem ridiculous that, in fifteen years, Apple still doesn't offer a truly customizable home screen. That's a fair criticism. At the same time, it's a fair criticism that it took until 2021 for Google to release a phone that will get 5 years of security and feature updates (Apple never guaranteed this directly, but the iPhone 6S delivered that level of support from when it launched in 2015 until the release of iOS 16 this fall that will drop iPhone 6S support: 7 years of full feature and security updates).

Meanwhile, if you bought a Pixel 3 in 2018, you got your final update this year. I personally think that's downright unacceptable considering the maturity of smartphones when it was released.

The problem with me making comparisons like this is that they'll always seem like a cheap whataboutism, but that's generally how these feature-to-feature comparisons work. For me, in 2016, I saw a situation where Google was not delivering everything I needed in a smartphone, but I also recognize that other people have other needs.

It's not just for cosmetic reasons, there are practical, actual benefits from a user experience standpoint.

For example, I put the apps that I use the most often on the right hand side of the screen, where my thumb can reach them faster. I can't do that on iOS (well, I can, but then any new app I put on the home screen will mess the entire arrangement and I will spend another ten minutes calculating what to insert and where to get all these icons back on the right side of the screen).

I just don't understand how Apple, a company that prides itself on great user experience, is still putting their users through this UX hell fifteen years after the release of the iPhone, and they don't seem to think it's an important feature to add.

> iOS lacks many features that have been standard on Android for years and the only reason it feels so smooth is because the UI thread has pretty much the highest QoL that anything can ever have. iOS would rather drop your network call than drop a single frame.

This is a bit of a simplification but in broad strokes it is kind of correct. And it turns out this actually makes good UI!

Don't worry Apple will roll out a "new" feature that has been around for years on android and the masses will cheer how innovative Apple is.

You must be kidding. There's no excuse for Android's incompetent architecture, which orphans millions of devices with every release because it apparently lacks a competent hardware-abstraction layer and driver model.

You can install creaky old Windows on millions of devices with disparate hardware configurations on the day of its release, but Android users must wait weeks, months, or forever for their telcos to dribble out hacked, proprietary versions of Android for every model of device ONE AT A TIME. Seriously, WTF? And this is from the great "open-source" OS that was supposed to free us all from vendor and telco tyranny.

What a fraud.

Welcome to the wonderful world of ARM and driver blobs. Half of the waiting time is waiting for Qualcomm to release a blob (and that's if they even want to), the other half is including it in your build, and eventually making your fork's changes if you want to do so. For every single SoC in your lineup. Then testing if they can support the new requirements of Android.

Apple would have the same problem if iOS was open source and distributable by anyone, their chips being able to be made by anyone. Once again, Apple has picked the easiest (and least open) path, so, yeah, they can upgrade easily.

Thanks for the info. Why can't the driver be abstracted enough to allow a new OS install as long as the ABI of the driver doesn't change? Major Windows versions installed over the same drivers for years. I've never written a hardware driver, so I'm left to guess or speculate.

That's out of date. They added a very competent HAL and driver model yonks ago:

https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/hal-types

The big lift here was scrapping the Linux driver model which was at the root of most of the pain.

So now everyone can update their phones on the day of a new Android release?

No, because generally very few/no people want to install a totally untested OS onto their phone. But the work needed by phone makers to update to a new Android is drastically reduced, so they can reduce the latency by a lot.

A released OS should not be "totally untested." If it is, that's a whole other problem right there.

Untested on that device.

Yeah, android is lightyears ahead in a few things, but hardware and privacy-wise iphones are simply that much better. I try to reevaluate the platform every now and then, but the closest I got to changing was Pixel 6 with Graphene - which I decided against due to frequent hardware bugs..

Android has been years behind having a framework for low latency audio and it has always struggled with power efficiency.

The need for low latency audio on your phone is... debatable.

Power efficiency, absolutely, and a lot of this is due to them not really giving a damn for a while. Which was great! You truly could do anything with your phone, run things in the background forever, etc. Nowadays, Doze, Android Resource Economy and the need to go through Foreground Services/WorkManager makes it quite a bit harder to do.

> The need for low latency audio on your phone is... debatable.

No, it's just not important to you.

Garageband seems to be pretty popular on all the iOS form factors. iOS has for most of its life had a strong offering of music composition and production apps. iOS has had a high quality media framework for years, Android has not.

And if the need is so questionable, why did Android finally get around to addressing it?

And this seems like an odd argumentative path for an Android fan to go down - downplaying the importance of more niche needs outside social media and cow clicking as not important. iOS does just as well or better for messaging, Instagram and TikTok. If you only care about the smart phone basics for the masses iOS ecosystem is pretty hard to beat with better battery life and support.

That was sorted out with Oboe/AAudio, when they took Samsung's audio SDK into Android.

>"...however mac os remain the best dekstop OS..."

I would say this is a matter of opinion.

Certainly not one I agree with.

I agree, in my experience, MacOS is one of the most reliable operating systems I've used in terms of lack of crashes or spurrious bugs; the most common bug I see is my mouse pointer dissapearing, which is fixed by opening the tasks view.

If only they could so something about the truly terrible window switching crap, where you'll have to hit the same icon in your doc multiple times to eventually with a bit of luck get to the window you wanted. Why can't we have window previews like Windows has had since Windows 7 or just about every DE on Linux

hold down option when you release the selection to force hidden windows up. i too hate this behavior.

Right or control click the dock icon and choose the one you want. You can also press control-down arrow key to show current app windows or up for all windows/desktops.

My mouse pointer also disappeared for a time when it by accident crossed over to my iPad. After disabling that feature it never happened again.

> best mobile one

It stagnated enough for android to come really close, while the other issues didn’t improve much (side loading will be on Apple’s dead body, default apps setting still being too few), and there is no end in sight to the constant nagging for more service revenue.

Nowadays both OS are mostly on par, for instance android 13’s per app language setting is one of those QoL things that were iOS’s turf but are now more prominent in android.

Even though I really dislike how Google screws Java developers with their Android Java approach, I really appreciate their "my way or the highway" regarding the use of managed languages on the platform.

So I wouldn't consider iOS the best mobile one in that regard, as probably no one that suffers being brought sundenly to the home screen due to pointer errors in Objective-C.

Not really. Remember that their "competition" at the time the iPhone came out was utter shit, and Android (although a far cry from those days) is still pretty much shit.

Symbian was quite alright from user point of view, not so much from Symbian C++ developer experience though.

Some of its features are yet to appear on iOS.

I remember its existence but never used it. It was also not popular in the USA. Motorola dominated, and if you looked at their offerings and their syncing software it was incredible how utterly incompetent it was. For example, their contacts didn't have addresses... I mean, WTF? And the syncing software (to Outlook, for example) just straight-up didn't work. I had a Motorola phone with 32MB of memory, and it couldn't hold the data my 8MB Handspring Visor could.

When the iPhone came out, that was the dominant landscape: PDAs and horribly incompetent phones. Internet browsing meant WAP (a clumsy attempt to dumb Web pages down enough to show on tiny, all-text phone screens) or a Blackberry. Blackberry rested on its laurels and a shitty, shitty browser until dead.

There are plenty of things that Apple remains bafflingly ignorant of, or just petulantly refuses to fix on its mobile devices. Great example: The iPhone, after 15 years, STILL doesn't notify you of missed calls. That's right: You don't even have the OPTION to get audible alerts of missed calls, but meanwhile you can get up to 10 alerts of missed TEXTS. That is simply stupid.

Then came the Apple Pencil... and no support for it in iOS. Every app developer had to implement handwriting recognition independently. WTF? Why didn't Apple simply allocate a square area in the on-screen iPad keyboard to accept written characters, which Palm OS nailed in the '90s?

Annnyway... I looked up Symbian because I work in Qt a lot now, and it was originally from Nokia. I knew it had been developed for phones, but could not imagine why. That's because I didn't ever interact with Symbian or see it in the wild and know it was from Nokia. So thanks for the note. I think Qt is pretty cool, and my team just made a good desktop app with it. I'm curious why the C++ Symbian experience wasn't good.

Symbian wasn't originally from Nokia, rather from Psion, it was born as EPOC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPOC_(operating_system)

Symbian C++ had a couple of issues, namely several restrictions of accomodating C++ for a microkernel, before the days of C++98, and organically growing from there.

So there were several idioms and restrictions on how the language could be used, and the toolchain went through several iterations, MS-DOS batch files, Perl scripts, Metrowerks based compiler, eventually replaced by an Eclipse based IDE (after a false start), Carbide.

Qt came later into the picture as Symbian was being modernized, and after a POSIX compatibility layer (PIPS) was added into the platform.

You had the security rules that iOS "invented", C++, Java and Python toolchains, being able to run http server on the phone, 3D support for C++ and Java applications.

But Symbian C++ was a bit of a pain (see link below), it was being modernized via PIPS and Qt (as mentioned), but then Elop came to Nokia, the famous burning platforms memo came out, and everyone went away.

Nokia development culture was pretty much anti-MS, so most went elsewere, instead of bothering with Windows Phone 7.

http://symbian.tomuta.ro/GUID-C3206E31-251C-4AFC-90C2-04B38C...

Interesting, thanks!

I agree, SwiftUI's progress is just very slow. Especially their multiplatform support in Xcode 14. UI will look good in iOS but on macOS it's just very bad.