For oh so many years I was using Arch Linux exclusively, but my ageing hardware pushed me in the direction of trying out something new. Arch’s AUR was hammered with DDoS attacks and malware infiltrations. I am not sure whom Arch has made so angry, but it all became quite tiresome… Since I switched to an iPhone earlier this year, I thought macOS would be a good idea.
My new setup became a MacBook Air, which replaced my Lenovo Yoga and my old desktop PC. I’ve added a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The rest: ethernet, external display and webcam, connects through a single USB-C port, using a hub in between. I love this setup, as it allows for easy mobility when I need it. I’ve already noticed that the amount of time I work in other rooms of my house, or even outside, has drastically increased. Having one machine for everything is great.
For what I do, which is writing, development and design (the latter mainly in Figma), the MBA is sufficient in terms of hardware.
The connectivity with the iPhone is also great. I like iCloud and the Books app; the fact that you can just drop an EPUB into the app and it all gets synced, including the reading progress, is great.
I am new to the iPhone, and would not go back to Android, though the differences are not as dramatic as some people claim. For me it comes down mostly to UX. Android flagships cannot even agree on an app store: should it be Google’s or Samsung’s? So they ship with both, with no ability to remove one. This is just one in a line of many small inconveniences that make your life harder for no good reason. Pre-installing Microsoft apps, again without the ability to remove them, is another one.
macOS compared to Linux, that’s another story. Setting aside application availability, Linux is the clear winner here. I was using the GNOME desktop for many years, and there’s just nothing that compares. It’s really very well thought out. It offers a consistent visual language, solid core usability, a great base set of default applications and enough customisability to iron out the remaining small flaws, mostly present in the shell.
It’s also surprisingly stable and bug-free, even on a bleeding-edge distro like Arch. I always thought: if an OSS product is so well designed and polished, then a commercial system like macOS must be at least on this level, if not better.
Sadly, I was mistaken. Let me say first of all: I am not a fan of Liquid Glass. It gives this cheap, plasticky, even kitschy feeling. It feels over-engineered. Novelty for the sake of it. It adds nothing to the user experience and will look dated quite fast. Besides, it’s not so far from what Microsoft was doing with Vista years ago. I am not a fan of transparency in general; it harms readability. With that said, I am not a fan of an overly flat and plain design language either. In a strange way, macOS seems to have managed to combine both, and it does not appeal.
And then there’s the UX…
I get it, the Dock is part of the branding. And it looks great in screenshots. But in reality, it’s just not that useful. I feel Microsoft got it right with the taskbar. The Dock eats lots of space unnecessarily, and it’s always somehow chaotic and unorganised.
I was expecting there to be apps that solve most of the UX problems, only to realise the options are few and flawed. There’s a somewhat thriving ecosystem of launchers, like Alfred and Raycast. But launchers are not the weak point; Spotlight has come a long way. The weak points are the Dock, the menu bar, the app switcher and virtual desktops, and for those there are no solid replacements. I assume this is because macOS does not allow customisation in these areas.
Apple also did not grasp the concept of virtual desktops. They exist as a cosmetic addition. There’s none of the proper isolation and configurability you get on most Linux desktops.
macOS is also surprisingly buggy. Some people say this is a new thing. There are app crashes and strangely inconsistent behaviour. I am especially surprised by how shortcuts work, as it seems an app can just override global OS-level shortcuts.
I might be one of the rare people who use Stage Manager. I find it makes app switching and organisation at least somewhat bearable, especially in combination with virtual desktops. It’s buggy, though. When used with multiple displays, it sometimes just gives up.
There are also no coherent replacements for some of the core apps, like Finder, which, I have to say, is a terrible product, greatly lacking in features, especially compared to GNOME’s Nautilus.
I wonder if Apple just gave up on the desktop OS. Are they just patching things, keeping the design in line with the iPhone, and calling it done when they reach a “good-enough” level? It’s rather disappointing, especially since the hardware is quite pricey.
If I were buying again, I’d say: iPhone yes, MBA maybe not. A Framework 16 with Arch would be more appealing. For now, though, I am sticking with the MacBook, though I miss Linux more than I thought I would.