this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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I really like apples OS and their UX is miles better than windows and any Linux desktop I’ve used. The main computer runs windows, but if I never have to touch another windows laptop I’d be very happy. The trackpad experience alone makes it better than any windows laptop I’ve ever used.
Linux is flat out not an option in any way since Lightroom and photoshop don’t run.
Fair enough. As I've gotten into photography I have avoided all Adobe products due to how shit they are from a OS clean living point of view, and then being a subscription. But I also don't heavily edit my photos so ART / Rawtherapee and GIMP work ok for me.
I’m working on becoming a freelance photographer, so adobe isn’t even close to optional. Unfortunately adobe makes good products on a shitty subscription model.
I’m going to take another look at darktable, but the size of my library doesn’t help anything with open source programs
Capture One?
First looks don’t look super positive. Sounds like they’re going down the enshittification route though. I figure if I’ll pay I’m going to pay for adobe since I really do hate how much I like using their products
I think this is another place I just don't get because I never used Adobe seriously - what is a size of library? And why would it affect OSS programs specifically? I just use my file manager (thunar or krusader) or CLI (bash) and both work pretty well with dozens to hundreds of files per folder, and I try to not have thousands of pictures in a given folder because that just means I've got a messed up pile of photos to ever refer back to. My current trip length and amount of photos will mean I need to break it up when I copy them over to my RAID, but I'd want to break up by day / location anyway so I can go back and find them later.
My 2023 Lightroom library sits at ~70k images and is about 1.5TB of files (shoot 45MP RAW files, a memory card is 256GB). Simply put, if the optimization of whatever I’m using isn’t extremely well done, it bogs down quickly. Even Lightroom struggles occasionally.
All of my organization is done through Lightroom, pictures get dumped to a 16TB RAID array in my local machine, then go into archival storage. I don’t do manual folder organization because it’s extremely slow for my uses.
Damn, I find it the opposite. Apple's UX is a nightmare, though better than Windows. The window management is dreadful, tiling doesn't exist, and you have to remember the craziest keyboard shortcuts to do the most basic of things.
Tiling can be replaced by 3rd party apps pretty easily.
I’m more interested in what keybinds you’re needing to use constantly. I can’t think of more than 3 or 4 that get used, all the others are extreme niche cases
I'm sorry but "you can get [basic OS functionality that has existed elsewhere for 15+ years] by installing this random third party tool and pray it works in future updates" isn't acceptable.
Linux would rightly be criticised if it were like this. MacOS not having tiling is a joke.
There are other bizarre usability issues. Like not being able to minimise a program by clicking on its icon in the dock. An action that's far easier than aiming for the small minimise button on the top left of the window.
The app grid isn't integrated with the multitasking view, which is a bit limiting - you can't drag apps onto virtual desktops as you open them, which is a really good way to organise your workflow.
But again I can't get over just how terrible window management is on MacOS. It is a nightmare. Pressing close doesn't close an app it just hides it and keeps the app running, what? Pressing maximise doesn't maximise the window, it goes full screen. Whyyyyyyy? Maximising a window is such a basic thing, it should be easy! But I'm sure in MacOS style, that's something you can probably do with some crazy keyboard shortcut+clicking on the green button.
About the shortcuts thing - for example, holding Alt while clicking maximise enlarges the window to show more content, without fully maximising the window. Neat. That's a useful feature. But it's not discoverable. It's not in the GUI, there's no tutorial, there's no hint at all.
MacOS is full of random keyboard shortcuts like this, ones that you're never told about.
Mission control is alright but it's faaaaaar behind Gnome's Activities view or KDE's Overview.
The MacOS store looks pretty but it's so limited in terms of programs. E.g. I couldn't find VLC, probably the most popular video player that exists. On Linux, if an app exists, it's 99% guaranteed to be in the app store.
App management is good if the app is in the store, but my god if you have to do the Windows-style hunt for a download online then manually install it's annoying.
Search for app online. Find the right website. Navigate to the download page. Download the DMG file. Open the DMG file. Drag the app to your applications folder. Delete the DMG file you downloaded.
It's just needlessly complex. And I've seen people get confused and run the app directly from the DMG rather than moving it to the applications folder, which causes issues sometimes when the app runs in read only mode. Why doesn't it just pop up with a "would you like to install this app to your applications folder? Yes/No" on first running? And if you say yes, it moves the files and deletes the DMG? It's needlessly complicated.
There are good things. Most of it is sleek and pretty like Gnome, being able to "stack" files of a certain type is a very cool feature, the widgets are all well designed and consistent, and all use a standardised API. The system tray icons work in a better and more standardised way than anywhere else IMO. Spotlight works just as well as Gnome's search or kRunner, possibly better, even.
Look I could go on all day with this, good and bad, I'm a bit obsessive over these things, UX is a passion of mine, I even did my thesis on UX design trends. I could talk about Windows or various Linux DEs the same way.
But overall, MacOS just feels old. It's a bizarre mix of looking very polished whilst also being clunky and feeling 15 years out of date in terms of how it actually works and the way you interact with it.