My Macbook spends first 10 minutes after boot by trashing CPU and disk with some sketchy mds_stores process. I have no idea what it does it do. Every single time. Looks like some kind of indexing for me which I didn't ask for (and I tried to turn related options off which didn't help al all).

Spotlight indexing (for Spotlight search: ⌘+Space). In System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy, you can add folders or disks to prevent Spotlight from indexing them.

I turned it off, it did not help. It still starts on boot and spends minutes indexing who knows what. I never use this Spotlight feature. I guess it looks for forbidden files on my disk, I heard that Apple does that and you need CPU to compute hashes.

I'd get that checked out. It's definitely not normal behaviour.

FWIW my very expensive 2017 iMac has the same behavior. CPU pegged 24/7 by "mds" and "mdworker_shared". Just opening Activity Manager right now, I see about 20 mdworker_shared processes, each claiming ~11% CPU. I think disabling Spotlight get this under control, but then again, I like and use Spotlight. Surely Apple is capable of writing software that doesn't need to run full blast constantly.

Just checked mine - 13" MPB 2018 - just booted no mds, mdworker_shared initially at 1.7% cpu now process has exited.

Yea, trust me, it's annoying. I have no idea why it's happening, and web searches and stack overflow have not been particularly helpful. I have resigned myself to just living with a warmer room and having my mac's fans running constantly. This problem has been going on for years, and it's obviously not on Apple's Radar (pun intended).

Lol! If you live near a store, take it in. I’ve had lots of good experiences with Apple stores and soft/hardware issues. The ‘geniuses’ can be a a bit full of themselves, but all in all outcomes are good.

Apple has service centers everywhere. Go have them look at it.

I’ve gotten probably $10k worth of repairs for free across my apple devices. I’ve even purchased broken apple devices in warranty to walk them to the Apple Store to walk out with new hardware.

Obviously it's a software issue and has nothing to do with hardware. Why would I waste my time and risk my laptop being damaged by incompetent workers. I have had enough bad interactions with service center to not visit them unless absolutely necessary.

mds_stores = spotlight. It's a macOS thing, can't be "fixed" on a store.

Chill, Jobs's fanboy. Not everyone has got money to burn. And how will a Linux laptop try and stop you from doing work?

GP's comment specifically says,

> 1. I want to be able to run my preferred free software.

and Apple in general is the chief abuser of this user freedom, less so on Mac devices, but extremely so on iPhone/iOS devices: it allows to run only vetted software, often against the interests of the users, and, in some cases, retroactively altering the deals [0], so "doing a market research" prior to buying the device, as many regular HN users suggest, won't really help.

[0]: Pray they don't alter it any further.

Apple just recently removed from AppStore one of the most popular map application (2GIS). It contains absolutely unique information for my city, lots of reviews, etc. It's hard to imagine my life without this app nowadays.

Now I'm thinking about Android phone, as my iPhone 8 started to throttle and I think it's time to upgrade.

To put this in context: the developer of 2GIS is a Russian company with headquarters in Novosibirsk, owned mostly by Sberbank. They have most likely been sanctioned due to Russian invasion of Ukraine. I don't think Apple had any choice in the matter of removing it.

Apple has had choice to allow side-loading. And some rumors that they're working on it is the only thing that keeps me interested in this platform, honestly. That's not the problem with Android, for example. Google can remove all they want from their Play Store, installing APK is easy.

PS it's funny that Europe pushing for side-loading could potentially help with by-passing sanctions.

There's nothing stopping you from side-loading Mac applications. Just download the application bundle, right click on it and choose "Open".

OP was talking about phone apps.

But the context of this entire post is laptops.

> Google can remove all they want from their Play Store, installing APK is easy.

Please, let's not act like this is a real solution. It's definitely better than not having that option at all, but:

- 99.5% of users don't even know it exists or how to do it because it's intentionally hidden away

- Because of the above fact, it's generally not viable to develop an application that can only be sideloaded, anything that gets removed from the Play Store usually dies

- Google has recently been moving away from the traditional APK format and towards their new "split APK" structure meaning you cannot sideload apps that were downloaded from the Play Store without a third party app to handle it

> Apple has had choice to allow side-loading.

They had that choice, and they've chosen not to. This, on one hand, keeps you from side-loading 2GIS, but on the other hand, keeps seniors' iPhones from crapware (as per TLA).

> That's not the problem with Android

The wider problem is what will happen when your side-loaded APK will need to make a TLS connection to 2GIS website, but its TLS certificate has been declared invalid by the cert authority (because sanctions). Or what will happen when the BGP routing protocol will direct the traffic to 2GIS website to go to a sinkhole (because sanctions). Or what will happen when 2GIS web servers from HP and Dell will be rendered inoperable by a remote command (because sanctions).

> it's funny that Europe pushing for side-loading could potentially help with by-passing sanctions.

No doubt Linux, OpenOffice, and RISC-V will be of tremendous help to Putin's Russia.

> on the other hand, keeps seniors' iPhones from crapware

The crapware they install is from the official app store, not "sideloaded" apps.

True, but on any other platform you'd just sideload it. State sanctions do not apply to people doing things in private, for the most part.

Apple had a choice to NOT have a restrictive policy on not allowing app sideloading. It wouldn't be an issue for users if they could just download the app themselves.

This way Apple could comply with sanctions, removing the app from the AppStore, and not causing their users any real harm.

This would also allow users in China to use messaging apps like Signal.

Mac also comes with all sort of crap installed you cannot get rid of. It may be a bit less intrusive than Microsoft, but it's basically the same strategy, just that they control the hardware and you don't notice it that much.

Linux gives you full customizability on the other hand, but it's not for everybody (yes, in theory there are some very simple and usable distros, but in practice users often need software that is not available on them, like Office).

At least a modern Mac is smooth and usable out of the box - which is more than I can say for just about any big brand windows laptop you can buy today.

It feels like theft when a windows laptop is advertised based on its CPU, except when you take it out of the box 60% of that cpu is consumed all the time with some terrible HP bloatware or something. What an utterly terrible experience.

What crap that you can’t get rid of does a Mac come with?

Yea, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that cannot be uninstalled. Perhaps iMessages/Facetime. Maybe they are referencing the fully populated Dock? Those apps can all be uninstalled though. It's not different than Windows or Linux showing you the default apps that come with the OS.

Most of the preinstalled apps (Home, Maps, Siri, Stocks, ...) cannot be uninstalled by dragging them from the Applications folder to the Trashcan. I don't have any use for any for those apps, so I would really like to get rid of them instead of cluttering up my Applications folder.

For some others it works (for instance Numbers and GarageBand). The randomness (why can some preinstalled apps be uninstalled, but other not) is pretty close to a dark pattern.

I don't think you can uninstall Cortana or Calculator from Windows. The stocks app I will grant is a little weird.

The uninstallable apps on macOS also are never required to have open and running. So yea, it's 4 or 5 extra items in your main ~/Applications folder, but that seems like a small price to pay for all of the other benefits.

I see. Agree you should be able to delete those, but even if you don't use them, they're a far cry from "crap" especially in the context of the discussion about exploitative bloatware that runs constantly and makes low-end laptops unusable.

None of the extra Apple apps do anything unless you run them, so the worst case they take some storage and mental space (when you see them in your Applications folder). And they're obviously included because Apple thinks they're actually useful to enough people, even if you disagree.

The music app

What's wrong with LibreOffice?

"Just get a Macbook" isn't really a solution. Sub-1000€ customer grade hardware is plenty capable for a lot of tasks people might want, and some other users want the ability to run the OS of their choice too.

Personally I consider the modern OSX interface a huge hindrance to get any decent work done, compared to Windows and any Linux with a DE.

If you just need a computer to connect to the internet and occasionally entertain yourself, you can get an OK looking laptop for $500AUD or about $300USD/300EUR. Never mind sub 1000EUR. That’s kind of an insane price when you think about it. And it is too good to be true, because they load it up with junk.

But people aren’t thinking about the software. They see a half decent looking machine for very little money and bite because they don’t want to spend more.

I bought Dell Latitude 3410 for $600. It was loaded with Ubuntu with zero bloatware as far as I can judge. Just some Dell logos and some module blacklists. I upgraded it with SSD and RAM, replaced Ubuntu with Fedora and now it's a little beast which can back me up if my main laptop would die.

In order for that consumer-grade hardware to be that cheap, the vendors add bloatware from other vendors to augment the loss of profits by selling at close to cost., or at least a severely limited margin. This has a knock on effect of making what would be decent enough as a simple daily driver have extremely poor performance.

Linux on laptop works really well on older devices in particular. Zero problems so far with Mint on old Thinkpad.

Got a 12th gen LG gram, literally everything just works out of the box with Fedora. Old hardware not necessary for Linux.

Arch on a 5000 series AMD 2in1. Even the pen works.

Macs just have different annoyances. Ever since the notarization crap was added, programs randomly either start instantly or take several second. For some reason this randomness is even more infuriating to me than being constantly slow. Another probably unrelated thing: It takes up to 10 seconds on my new M1 Mac for the first debug session to start in Xcode. Of course this is not the sort of evil malware the article is about, but for me as a user it's just as frustrating to wait for anything on a 21st century computer. An M1 Mac is so fast compared to a 30 years old computer that everything should always happen instantly.

All in all I like my Mac better than my Windows PC or Linux laptop, but Apple software is just regressing a bit slower than the others.

While I broadly agree that modern Macs "have other annoyances", if this is the one causing you grief, you can get rid of it in 30 seconds.

`sudo spctl --master-disable`

Turning off Gatekeeper also turns off the notarization checks.

I have a running theory about software developers: the average programmer makes code just fast enough that it doesn’t feel slow on their own machine.

Of course, us software engineers usually buy very expensive computers! The end result is that the average software will always run slowly on the average hardware, forever, no matter how fast hardware gets.

It’s a tragedy and I hate it. I feel like software engineers need “slow CPU thursdays” or something, where every Thursday your cpu is intentionally throttled down to run at the speed of a below average user’s computer. If we don’t feel our user’s pain, we will never understand it.

(Though this would only take off if we could whitelist the compiler somehow. Hm! I wonder how you’d implement that!)

> would only take off if we could whitelist the compiler somehow

Well, a slow compiler means you write less code and pull in fewer dependencies to solve a problem, win-win ;)

From a development point of view, you may have a point, though mechanisms to circumvent this are addressed in this thread. But for the typical user, or indeed other 'Pros', these are not showstoppers. Since the topic of the whole thread is about poor performance generally for typical users, I think your (valid) concers are somewhat moot. What is distressing is that in order to get something that is easy to self-manage, Apple is the only choice. Microsoft try to be all things to all people, and linux is still too complex for the majority of everyday users to manage. The closest is Ubuntu, which is often treated with distain by the vocal OSS purists.

I hate to say it, but this is the correct answer. iPhone's are great as well. I used to not understand why people loved Apple so much.

Now I understand that Apple just works when Windows/Android often don't, and iOS/MacOS are generally more user-friendly for non-tech people.

Except that in cases where Apple devices don't just work you are screwed. A few years back a friend of mine had her MacBook Air's system language suddenly change and wasn't able to change it back as the option panel to do so just froze each time. I had to do an extensive Google search as most answers I found were generic variations of "bring it to an Apple shop" or "reinstall and use a backup" (which we did, didn't fix the issue). In the end I had to edit some config file to switch the language back. Safari's language was still wrong afterwards, but she could live with that.

That does suck, but one of Apple’s strengths is that you can walk into an Apple Store and have stuff like that fixed- usually quickly and often for free.

You must not use macOS a lot if you think it doesn't get in the way.

Every single workday for over a decade. Mac is never the issue. The butterfly keyboards were a disaster but I got those replaced with overnight shipping both ways.

Well, good for you. Not my experience. Last thing that bit me, in a long list of annoyances and bugs: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/ehcjya/comment/fcm...

As for hardware failures, again, good for you. Here it's more like 3-4 days before getting it fixed or replaced.

Linux hasn’t gotten in the way of my work at all. When did you last use it?