Mac OS is worse than windows in most respects when it comes to user choice. Things like app store requirements are slowly making their way from the phone to the devices and Apple will continue to lock down their ecosystem.

I strongly encourage windows over macos, and Linux over Windows, if you can get away with the software supporting your use case.

People love to say stuff like this. Meanwhile, I've never opened the App Store, have installed every GUI app on my system with Homebrew, most notable apps aren't even distributed through the App Store...

You're an exception to the rule and Apple will slowly squeeze their ecosystem to capture more control for the sake of "security and user experience". They've already started with the security chips and hardware locks on their laptops.

Apple is and always has been extremely dev-friendly on their desktop platform. Apple employees develop on macOS. More tellingly, so do many Microsoft employees.

That's not going to matter when we are talking about billions of dollars of service and app revenue from customers and the chance to lock developers into the Apple ecosystem as hard as they've locked consumers in.

On my Mac I have an actual command line very similar to Linux.

Not some bastardized WSL1/2 or powershell.

I love using my macs for development, but I would not say that it's "very similar to linux". Having to go out of your way to install a package manager is one of these things.

WSL is close enough to linux that a lot of docs just add in a little note for WSL users to follow linux instructions instead of windows.

I don't even think it should be a design goal to perfectly simulate the Linux interface. MacOS nix underpinnings are much more BSD than Linux. Yes, a package system like homebrew needs to be installed, but on the plus side you can choose if you want homebrew or macports.

There's no getting around it, we have to individually learn all of the systems that we're on. Every time I'm on a linux system (I mostly use BSD) I'm badly thrown by systemd. This is my fault--I need to learn it--but it's always annoying to have to relearn how to do basic tasks on a similar yet different system.

I agree about the need to simulate Linux isn't always desirable.

However the need for a package manager is obvious, even Windows (itself, not WSL) has come around to recognizing this. Yet we still have to rely on a complete third party for such on mac (thankfully, we have open source options, at the bare minimum). Surely Apple can come up with something! Especially since afaik the brew maintainer failed to get past the interview process at Apple, surely they can do better!

> Especially since afaik the brew maintainer failed to get past the interview process at Apple, surely they can do better!

Is this really your litmus test? What other Company/Manufacturer do you hold to the same level as Apple?

Any developer that creates 3rd party software that’s not hired by the OEM must be shit?

No, you're misunderstanding me. I'm stating that if Apple doesn't even think the maintainer is good enough to get hired, surely they can produce a better solution than him. This doesn't indicate that the 3rd party developer is shit at all, not sure why you would assume such.

Perhaps don't leap to negative conclusions so abruptly.

> This doesn't indicate that the 3rd party developer is shit at all, not sure why you would assume such.

Perhaps don't leap to negative conclusions so abruptly.

You’re correct I completely took your words out of context and weaponized my frustration. I apologize.

Does sed -i work on macOS these days? It works great on WSL.

The macOS toolchain sucks and typing in gsed all the time sucks even more.

Your beef appears to be with BSD. And when you install the GNU tools it tells you how to setup your path to not have the prefix.

Yes, the GNU toolchain is leaps beyond BSD.

Ah yes, and then plenty of scripts that assume BSD sed break.

> Mac OS is worse than windows in most respects when it comes to user choice.

Maybe, but the things they do with your lacking choice are 10000x better than what Windows does.

While Windows has its advantages, you'll get a better experience (e.g. battery life) on Mac OS, partially because Apple is locking down the app experience.

You can still use Linux or Windows if you want. Just don't try to take the choice away from the rest of us.

This is total FUD. Other Apple devices are locked down like you say, but Macs are wide open.

There is nothing preventing me from installing any software I want on it (so long as it is supported by macOS of course). The best, easiest, safest, path of least resistance app install experience is of course through the App Store, but it is not mandatory to use. Windows also has an App Store since Windows 8. That being said, I can download and run any software I please on my Mac without Apple's permission. Notarization is only required to prevent a scary (but easily bypassed) warning from popping up. This is also similar on Windows. Software that has not been properly digitally signed will pop up a similar scary warning.

To top all of this off, macOS is a certified UNIX^tm system, which means I can easily compile software from source and use package managers like Homebrew. Apple has made no indications of removing any of this.

Additionally, they have put no barriers in place to prevent the installation of Linux on Apple Silicon Macs via the Asahi Linux project, so that is always available as the nuclear option if Apple goes full lockdown on my devices.

I don't want user choice, I want a computing appliance that Just Works - I don't want to spend all my time being a sysadmin.

I've found OSX to be the best in that regard, there's a single place to find apps to purchase and download, and they Just Work. OS updates Just Work. I plug in peripherals and they Just Work.

The same for my iPhone - much better experience than Android.

I used to think user choice was important, and then I realized I was sacrificing user experience for a freedom that I never exercised.

> I used to think user choice was important, and then I realized I was sacrificing user experience for a freedom that I never exercised.

Once given up this is a freedom you will never get back, and when a government leverages this control to do something like erasing apps off your machine or tracking what you do there will be no choice left but to accept it.

Demand usability and choice from your products. The apples of the world have established a false dichotomy.

I recognize your value system but I feel compelled to point out we are Hacker News. The hacker ethos is flexible open general purpose computing spirit. The hacker ethos is breaking systems & pushing limits.

I don't recognize your values as contributing the the computing universe. I don't recognize them as hackerly.

>There are ads in my OS user interface!

Yes.

But this can all be turned off through settings, GPO or this: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

There are things I dislike about macOS, but most of them seem like issues of personal preference or just some difficulty remembering the macOS way to do things after many, many years using Windows and Linux. Occasionally there are head-scratching decisions about this or that application, and my wife gets completely twisted around trying to manage her windows--there is some impedance between mental models here for some users for sure.

But Windows now? Holy cow, in Windows it feels like they're trying to screw with me at this stage. MacOS issues mostly seem like the people at Apple are trying to make a good product that their users will like. Microsoft seems like serving their end users is secondary to another goal (advertising revenue?) Mind blowing.

Some people are commented about macOS being more locked down. I don't know what the current status is on Windows with regard to this, but the OS is a lot more locked down than an equivalent linux system. You can't dump onto the filesystem wherever you want. This improves system integrity and makes the devices more secure, you might not think this is worth it, but this point is inarguable.

For the moment at least, I have been able to install any utility I want and have not felt constrained in the slightest. It's not a problem for me to install things into the non-system directories and modify my $PATH variable and the like. If this changes, I guess I'd have to regrettably move back to Linux, but while we should be attentive, there's no reason to hate macOS for what we fear it may become instead of what it is.