There’s no one standalone reason why I think macOS is better than Windows for productivity. Instead of a single killer blow, it’s death by a series of smaller wounds.
The only real way of describing it. So many little niceties from decades of attentiveness, even if things have been backsliding in recent years.
Fantastic description! This is an issue that made it difficult to justify to my management to allow them to allow Macs, but thankfully Apple Silicon was big enough of a game changer to sway the decision
This was the reason I switched to Mac for work related stuff, the performance is insane for most of the stuff I need it to do.
Exactly my case. Apple Silicon was a game changer in relation to performance against cost. Was able to replace my old top PC with a mac mini and improve my work on Adobe suite. Impressive. The ecosystem with my iPhone was also an amazing improvement. Airdrop is fantastic.
I haven’t used an apple silicon device yet but I understand they’re insane on battery and performance.
And airdrop is stupid useful in so many scenarios.
There’s a nice browser run and open source alternative to airdrop called Snapdrop. It uses web rtc to transmit data from device to device directly and can be self-hosted. I use it to transfer data between my Mac and my windows pc as well as my steam deck.
Thanks! I will check that out. Does it transfer from iPhone to a windows pc too?
Yes, every device I tested so far (apart from Netscape on windows 3.1)
That’s gonna be a no from me dawg, I fuck around exclusively in ‘scape. 🤣
Same here. I’m an Apple user since 2008 but had a bad period in my life where I needed to squeeze every € and couldn’t afford a new Mac so I had to build myself a Hackintosh, which was ok at the beginning but missing a lot of things (the special connectivity between devices like airdrop or continuity) but now I’m recovered and bought a Mac Mini M2 and it’s like coming fully home again. No more random panics or wasting time diagnosing errors, and it’s incredibly fast. The jump in performance jumping from a Haswell CPU to a M2 in mind blowing and a joy to appreciate every time I use it
It just works. Something that can’t be said of how windows feels
this is one of those subjective things that highly depend on what your job actually entails
I had to use mac for the last month because my Linux laptop broke… I want to die
That’s how most users feel about Linux.
Except they never used it. I used mac for years…
I’m a SysAdmin for a large university and work with our loan services team quite often to get faculty and staff loaner machines for various reasons. They typically stock Win, Mac, and Linux laptops for users. The number of Windows and Mac users that complain about the Linux experience in our surveys is off the charts. The Macs get the highest praise, with Windows right behind it and Linux systems are typically trashed in the surveys. It’s reached a point that team plans to reimagine the Linux to systems Windows and investing in more Macs.
Linux is quite a spectrum, I wonder what Desktop Environments they use like KDE or Gnome.
They are mostly RHEL 8 and 9 builds and a few Ubuntu systems mixed in.
I ran arch (btw) for years on my XPS. Just grabbed the new Air 15 and I don’t think I could go back. Considered trying Asahi, but I just don’t see a reason to.
I can do all of my Linux development on the M1 MBP using a Fedora VM through Lima. It works pretty darn well.
This article is ridiculous.
I moved from a desktop PC to a 2015 MBP and I’ve been extremely satisfied with it. It’s nothing short of a miracle how little issues I’ve had with it. It’s fast and everything just work. Was expensive as hell but worth every penny.
That being said my next laptop is probably not going to me a MacBook but the Framework laptop. Not only do I not like Apple as a company but I also want to support what Framework is doing and the only way to do that is by putting money where my mouth is.
I’m a pretty die-hard Mac guy but must admit I love what Framework is doing. That concept plus macOS and Apple Silicon would be the ultimate machine imo
Yes I’ll keep dreaming lol
This article is ridiculous because it doesn’t mention why these differences exist at all. Like for example Macs don’t have window snapping because Microsoft patented that feature back in the Windows Vista days. & Batch file renaming is a Unix thing. I have always liked Exposé and hot corners and also mission control, but many windows users hate it. It’s entirely subjective and not at all rational. I guess that’s the point of an opinion piece but it really lacks the context that would have made this article informative, just a little research would have been cool.
It seems wild that something like dragging a window to the corner to snap it into place is patented. The one feature I long for on Mac.
Install Rectangle.
I use Magnet, it’s available in the app store.
Anyone trying to batch rename files on Windows should check out PowerToys. It’s a first-party app that adds a lot of useful utilities. One of them is PowerRename, which lets you batch rename files using regex for precise search and replace. It also has the option to preview changes before applying them.
PowerToys is crucial for making Windows feel productive. Definitely get that installed.
I use both MacOS and Windows.
I think both have their uses and strengths. I don’t really like putting one down over the other.
Same. I usually say “they both suck.” Neither one really meets my expectations for what a desktop operating system should be able to do these days. Every now and then I find myself wishing for some little feature enhancement in Finder and shucks… that’s just never going to happen, is it?
What’s an example of an enhancement that you’re looking for that’s not possible? For that matter, what expectations do you have for a desktop OS that they don’t satisfy? Does any OS satisfy those expectations? It seems a bit contrarian to just say they’re all terrible and I feel like the answer is going to be some very weird, esoteric thing that you can only do on a customized Linux install.
I use my Mac as my daily driver but also have a gaming PC, a Linux machine for testing, and a Steam Deck. I wouldn’t say at all that macOS sucks. Linux is 2nd for me. Windows just gets worse with every release.
I’m sorry I don’t feel like taking the effort to get into it in detail. But perhaps the one thing I could point out that’s fairly easy is how the rate of innovation on Mac OS has slowed down ever since iOS took center stage. Most of the innovations are about better integrating with your phone, too.
I love building PCs, I like windows for gaming. Mac is pretty much useless there and the PS5 doesn’t have a keyboard or mouse which makes it a different experience. . A pc can be anything.
But I’d never use windows for work over MacOS. The seamless integration with an iPad for sketching and overall experience is amazing.
Gaming on Linux has progressed at light speed in the past several years. I’m in awe at the number of titles that run exceptionally well.
macOS is a great OS, and I’ve used it pretty extensively now. Every time I try to make it my primary OS I end up wanting to go back to Windows soon after. And this is from a die hard Linux advocate. Part of the issue is the cost and lack of easy upgrades for the hardware, the other is I just find macOS to be frustrating for anything but normal “user” stuff. So for me: Linux for servers and hobbyist stuff, macOS if no other option, Windows for just about everything else.
It’s basically good there’s choice. I run Linux exclusively on my gaming laptop, with the improvements in Proton I can now game on it as well as everything else such as desktop productivity/photo editing/Rust programming. I also enjoy MacOS (and love what they have done with the Mx series) but can’t afford a Mac and well, I game a lot.
I can use Windows (My career started with TWM, so I can use anything) but it annoys me so I tend to avoid it.
The last version of Windows I used on a computer I owned is 3.1
Every time I need to use Windows I’m so insanely lost and have next to no idea what I’m doing, like it’s seriously like I’m 80 yrs old and using a computer for the first time lol.
It doesn’t help that it feels like it’s vastly different in how the start menu works depending on which version I’m using.
I have a gaming PC aside from MacBook so keep my Windows muscle memory mostly up-to-date but what I find is I’m constantly in the back of my head going “Why it this like this? Why are you asking me this? Why do I have to do this?” while using it. It just throws up so many stupid barriers and forces you to do things you shouldn’t have to do.
That was what drew me to macOS around 15 years ago, that it got out of the way and just let me do whatever I sat down to do. It’s still true today.
Part of my lost feeling in windows is also definitely not knowing any keyboard short cuts ( if it even uses them ? ). I can use my Mac and barely touch the mouse.
One of the things I still love about my 11" MacBook Air is the ease of using multiple desktops (spaces). Even with the tiny screen, I can quickly switch between apps and keep things organised with the trackpad gestures. Drag and drop is also more seamless in macOS compared to Windows.
Windows also has multiple desktop “spaces”, but the touch side is way smoother on the mac.
I really want a modern 11" (small bezel) MacBook.
Of course I also want the 15" air so maybe I just like cool stuff. But I think there’s a place for a real ultraportable that’s not trying to kludge any of the awful keyboard cases on an iPad.
Windows also has multiple desktop “spaces”, but the touch side is way smoother on the mac.
I much prefer MacOS over windows due to the spotlight search. The only thing I wish was added is a detailed audio interface. It’s frustrating having to go to a app to turn it up or down.
Yeah a volume mixer that isn’t natively built in is a very missed opportunity. I don’t want to have to pay extra money for software that most other OSes ship with lol
I use Mac for productivity but windows for gaming. I love spotlight on macOS. I recently discovered PowerToys for Windows (made by Microsoft), which includes a little add on that provides spotlight-like function on windows. You can even assign your own keyboard command to it, so I have main assigned to WIN+Space, just like Mac.
There are power toys for windows which add the spotlight search functionality as well as ear trumpet which is amazing for turning specific apps up and down by themselves just from a single menu
This could be a game changer, as i didn’t know these existed. Thank you!
Yeah ear trumpet I’ve been using for years but somehow never see anyone mention it. Maybe there’s a better tool that I don’t know about. But the spotlight function in power toys is amazing since when I switched to Windows from Mac I missed that a lot.
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Kde plasma is working great for me! Just upgraded to bookworm. I’m definitely not going back to a proprietary system.
Even before reading the article, I can already guessed that the author uses only the laptop’s screen for work. I tried MacOS for 6 months, really liked that I can ultilize many of Linux commands that I only used to manage servers. But using multiple monitors is such a pain with MacOS that I can never understand how people put up with it. I then slowly understand why people keep saying “I can’t see you or if you raised your hand” during meetings, it’s because they use only one single screen.
I do think MacOS will have a huge advantage over Windows and Linux if they overhaul the window system. However, seeing how “holding it wrong” consistently coming up in discussion, I don’t see any chance soon, if ever.
What’s wrong with multiple monitors with macOS?
- M1 only supports 1 extra monitor. (M1 pro does support two, but only through an expensive thunderbolt dock or through two cables from different USB/TB ports.
- No volume adjustment of external monitors if they are not from Apple.
There are maybe many more (maybe no window snapping like windows if you count that), but those are the issues that I noticed.
You are saying absolute shit
M1 supports one external 4K display on laptop, two on the mini
M1 Pro supports 2 external 6K displays on laptop, 3 on the mini
You can extend any M1 Capability with an external hub.
Furthermore, you are comparing Linux (an Operating System) to the M1 (hardware). That’s stupid.
M1 supports one external 4K display on laptop, two on the mini
Yea, they key here being 4K. Try connecting 1080p or 1440p which normal people tend to have around and you get terrible scaling.
I am a diehard Apple fanboy and don’t see any viable alternative for any of their main product lines. But their multi monitor performance is comically bad: I have Thunderbolt docks and two monitors work fine through that from a technical perspective. Though dragging windows between monitors is not seamless and macOS even rubs it in your face with some quirky UI hints when you are “leaving” one monitor and enter another like it’s the 90s. Icons and real life data in the menu bar have had scaling issues for a decade now on the screen you are not currently active on with a window (but can still see in real life, because eyes). There is an old desktop wallpaper saved somewhere from when I first connected the monitors that stays on the second one (the first monitor has my normal wallpaper). I know I can change this independently, but why?! When opening monitor settings you can adjust things like refresh rate or color profile independently, which is nice, but each window for adjustments opens on the screen it is adjusting. Apple’s whole multi monitor experience feels clunky and dated and hasn’t been getting any improvements for years, which tells me, nobody at Apple uses multiple screens.
Not ideal but the volume control can be fixed using monitor control: https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
And there are many third party implementations of snapping like magnets.
I was referring to behavior of desktop environment behavior and not MacOS support for external monitor. In fact, I remember that MacOS was way ahead of Windows in supporting screens with different pixel density. And text rendering, especially text rendering.
Lol, is that a joke ???
I use Linux and MacOS. The scaling tools on Linux are the absolute worst. I have a 15 inch 1080p laptop plugged to a 24 inch display and this is a fucking nightmare to make the two working correctly. Whatever the distribution or the GNU, being Gnome, XFCE, Wayland, Sway. Arch or Debian based…
On the other hand I got a 14 inch MBP connected to 2 UltraFine 24 and an 2560x1080 monitor with absolutely zero issue.
I can adapt every single definition on every single screen, and the system remembers the def I set when plugging/unplugging.
MacOS external screen management tools is the best I’ve ever seen.
Your comment shows that you know absolutely nothing about macOS
My main PC is a 4k and 1080p monitor, running Plasma Wayland. Using 150% scaling and 100% on the other so pretty much the worst combination you can have in terms of monitor jank (mixed scaling together with fractional scaling). Functionality wise it’s completely fine, there are some graphical bugs though. Mixed-DPI scaling used to be impossible on X11 but that’s because it’s old and not designed with that in mind at all. IIRC sway also worked well for me with that setup. What problems did you have?
Multi-monitor on macOS is fine for my purposes too though. I was actually blown away by how well Continuity display works with my iPad.
Your comment shows that you know absolutely nothing about macOS
I think this is the biggest problem with Apple: you’re holding it wrong. Apple cannot be wrong and there can never be any discussion about how to approach a problem, let alone address it. There can’t never be a problem, and that’s what’s wrong with MacOS.
Oh there are some issues with macOS, especially for a long time user like me who’ve witnessed the disappearance of some features for the sake of user friendliness. But the one suggested in that comment? Just plain ignorance.
And to be fair, that’s exactly the problem with the vast majority of Apple haters who just don’t know shit about the subject.
Thank you being an example of the problem I was referring to. Appreciate your help complimenting my point.
What’s an example of something that works better with Windows multiple monitor support over macOS?
Linux I totally get. I love how Linux window managers make it easy to give each monitor its own separate virtual desktops. I tend to have one monitor that’s fixed and another that I change between tasks.
Taskbar that I can configure to either displayed on the monitor that the window is displayed, only in the main desktop or both.
Hover over taskbar icon with multiple windows to see thumbnails.
Predictable minimize/maximize behavior. I don’t quite like the idea of window fitting the content but to each’s own taste but I can’t stand the random fullscreen that some app do on MacOS.
Making use of maximize button to display snapping options on Windows 11 is also very convenient.
I’m glad they mentioned rectangle, I found that app amazing. I have however upgraded to Amethyst for my app tiling though.
I’m a dev, so if I’m not doing .NET development. I found windows quite limiting. The new terminal stuff is nice but it’s native on a mac. I’m not sure about Docker because that really spins the fans on my 16 Intel Pro.
Also, things like Spaces and virtual desktops have been pretty sweet for a long time now. Windows, I can’t recall but it’s been a horribly broken PowerToy for so long. I can’t believe people were to recommending it. I think some people were telling me it’s native now, but like, it’s crazy how it wasn’t done properly years ago.
I’ve found Magnet to be great for snapping windows about the screen.
Magnet is good but Rectangle is free
edit: oh rectangle was already mentioned, whoops
Docker uses a feature of the Linux kernel called kernel namespacing, so on macOS (and windows too iirc) it spins up a Linux VM which runs your Docker containers.
Docker is not great on MacOS on Apple Silicon. Docker engine uses A TON of memory, around 8 gigs even with no containers running, and you can run into compatibility issues. My office, where we use Docker extensively, upgraded everyone’s workstations to Apple silicon Macbook pros recently. We’ve been less than thrilled so far because turns out one of the images that we use as the base for many of our projects has trouble running on ARM chips. We fixed the problem, but still it was a whole thing. And there’s no guarantee another similar problem won’t pop up in the future either, unfortunately.
While it undeniably is a fantastic machine otherwise, I honestly think a higher end Dell or whatever that runs Linux would have been a better choice for the job. At least for the developer staff.
So your problem has nothing to do with ARM architecture or macOS itself, but on a lack of RAM.
Docker uses a lot of RAM on every platform, not only on macOS.
Looks like your company made a bad decision when choosing its hardware.
We use 16Gb M2 Pro to run docker instances running a copy of our infrastructure (ELK, CH, MariaDB, some maintenance batches, video encoding etc) with zero issue.
Docker for Mac has to run Linux in a virtual machine because macOS doesn’t natively support the containerisation APIs. That’s why it takes more memory and runs a bit slower than it does when running natively on a Linux machine.
I want to go to Mac, but the cost of additional ram is horrendous, and it’s directly baked in to the soc. Through work I have a few very high end machines, and even the high end ECC ram I’ve put in those costs significantly less on a per mb basis than what’s going into the macs and cannot be upgraded if required.
The value proposition just isn’t there at the scale I’m hoping to play with. 64gb ram would be wonderful for a machine, but that’s pushing into high end mac territory which adds a couple of extra grand in local currency to the price tag vs an x86 build.
Docker most certainly does not use as much memory on Linux. Maybe on Windows, but not on Linux. It’s not an issue with the amount of RAM. I had the same amount of memory on my previous Linux machine and it never even started swapping, whereas the new Macs start swapping soon as my usual dev environment with all the containers and the software and whathaveyous is up. Fortunately the system handles it pretty well, so it’s not very noticeable.
I mean one of the main selling points of Docker is that it’s not supposed to use a lot of memory to begin with because it’s not a full-on VM. Otherwise I’d never been able to run it on all my puny first gen Raspberry Pis and tiny LXCs. But of course this applies to Linux mostly, because it’s designed to share the Linux kernel. Hence the need to expend extra memory and CPU for compatibility on Windows and Macos.
Do agree on the bad hardware decision bit though. Ours are 16GB M2 Pros too. The boss, who’s not the most tech-savvy person on the planet, chose those because that’s what he uses. One day we found out that we were getting new laptops and that they would be M2 Pros, and that was it. If I was in charge of the purchase, I would deck everyone out with high-end x64 laptops that have a usable number of IO ports. Would have been significantly cheaper too. Everyone is just alt-tabbing between their IDEs and terminals anyway, so they’d hardly miss the “macos experience”.
