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points by epistasis 2 days ago | 0 comments

I'm loving my M1 Macbook Air still, and only a few weeks away from six years of use Sometimes it lags a bit when I'm running a macOS VM, and all the coding agent VMs, so I'm kind of interested in going to 32GB of RAM, but honestly this computer is still faster than any of my laptops that came before, even with the visual atrocity of Liquid Glass.

I'll go and look at this new box, drool a little, and realize that I'd get more personal utility from donating $3k (or whatever the trade in delta is) to a charity than upgrading my computer.

[–] markstos 2 days ago

My son's M1 Air CPU died suddenly. Maybe it was a thermal death from overheating. Not sure. But all the data on it was lost because the storage is soldered on. PSA to make sure devices with non-removable storage are backed up!

(We replaced it with a Framework... with removable storage.)

[–] katbyte 2 days ago

you should be backing up all devices with removable storage or not, SSDs can also die without warning.

[–] ankurdhama 1 day ago

Sure, but in this case your cpu dies or ram dies or ssd dies, in all cases you loose data, in an upgradable system you loose data when ssd dies. Different risk factors.

[–] dahcryn 1 day ago

that's just a false sense of security. A machine should be treated as a whole. Separate components only matter economically, not for data security.

My macbook updates my documents etc to my NAS, and the NAS syncs to crucial folders to the cloud (not everything for cost reasons)

You should always assume your device can be stolen, you can spill fluids on it (or a guest), a cat can pee on it, an electric shock may kill it... No matter how great care you take of it, shit happens, data needs to be safe.

The SSD dying standalone vs the system dying doesn't change at all for data security. It's not a different risk factor

[–] fizzynut 1 day ago

It's the same "risk" but a completely different probability for anyone technical because any minor failure is now a critical failure.

I wouldn't choose to buy a car I use every day that's 100x less reliable than a normal car.

[–] katbyte 1 day ago

Hard drives failing is a far more common problem in my experience. As is theft and loss - one should always treat a laptop as if it will fail at any moment and keep good backups.

If your looking for arguments against soldered storage the facts ssds are wear items and will eventually need replacement is a much better one.

[–] fizzynut 1 day ago

If almost ANY failure means the laptop is basically bricked then even with good backups it means days or weeks before being back up to speed, having a working laptop with recovered data, esp. when working on highly confidential data as agreements can mean you cannot upload the data to a cloud.

If given a choice, I prefer a system where a HDD/RAM/GPU/CPU/PSU/Screen/Port/Battery/Keyboard failure is barely if at all disruptive to one where all of these effectively brick the system.

[–] hulitu 18 hours ago

> A machine should be treated as a whole.

... single point of failure. /s

[–] katbyte 1 day ago

SSDs are a more common failure point, as is theft or loss or damage.

The point is it shouldn’t matter if the cpu or ssd dies because you have backed up everything already and are prepared for anything to fail or happen to the device rather then “oh the ssd is removable so in these select few situations I can recover my data”

[–] tynorf 2 days ago

> PSA to make sure devices with non-removable storage are backed up!

Really this should be devices full stop. Also, "backed up" should include no fewer than two backups on different media and in different physical locations e.g. Time Machine to an external SSD _plus_ continuous cloud backup.

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

The more you people keep harping on this ultra robust backup strategy, the fewer everyday average people are actually even going to attempt a backup.

[–] andruby 2 days ago

1/ You're on HN, the audience isn't "everyday average people"

2/ This is like complaining that climate activists were harping too much 30 years ago, and that's why nobody listened

[–] znpy 2 days ago

> 2/ This is like complaining that climate activists were harping too much 30 years ago, and that's why nobody listened

this is a serious issue though.

if you harp too much about something, it becomes background noise. people get desensitized.

if you harp about too many things, it fatigues people as well (ever heard of "alert fatigue"?).

so yeah, harping too much, too loudly about too many things is a serious and the society should really start looking into this

(edit: i am aware of the irony of harping about harping)

[–] andruby 2 days ago

What would have been the right amount of harping about the environment though? Or is it always going to be a pointless exercise trying to convince/alert people?

Or is the only way to do that successfully, doing it subconsciously/covertly like the state actors are swaying public opinion? :-/

[–] podocarp 1 day ago

Unfortunately I think the sweet spot is to say it once or twice, go away, and then come back later with "I told you so"

No pain no gain also goes the other way, many times people don't learn until they get slapped in the face.

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

It's getting more average every day. QED.

[–] jasonvorhe 1 day ago

1. And yet we have someone on HN reminding everyone to even have a backup in the first place so let's not assume everyone on HN can't also make "average people mistakes".

2. You mean the climate activists who used to risk their lives back in the 80s on open oceans instead of gluing themselves to streets? Yeah, the times have changed.

[–] tynorf 1 day ago

While I was expressing an ideal setup, it isn’t all or nothing. A single backup is still better than none at all.

I suppose I didn’t specify exactly what I would recommend to someone who thinks it’s too hard, so here is that:

1. Install Backblaze. This is basically fire and forget. 2. (1) is enough for most people, but if interested (and on a Mac, which is what I’m familiar with), plug in an external SSD once a week or so for Time Machine. Setup involves clicking on the drive in the setup wizard and specifying an encryption password.

I don’t know about “ultra” robust, but this gives you protection from accidental deletions, natural disasters happening to your computer, hardware failures, and corruption from software bugs. The ongoing maintenance is plugging in a hard drive once a week.

If that is too much effort, just (1) provides natural disaster and hardware failure protection. It helps somewhat with the others but Backblaze only saves versions for 60 days and that’s a tight window to notice subtle corruption of e.g. your photos.

[–] dsego 1 day ago

I agree, if it has too much friction it's more likely you will postpone it. Any option, either just a cloud backup tool or a spare HDD or SSD with CCC or TimeMachine is better than nothing. And you have to plan for the most likely case, e.g. spilling beer on the laptop vs the house burning down.

[–] reeredfdfdf 1 day ago

For the house burning scenario, a cheap strategy is having one or two old HDD's in USB cases, located somewhere away from your house, in a place you regularly visit and trust security-wise. Then you can just make a habit of dumping the files there whenever visiting. Most important data of mine is safe even if internet goes down and somebody nukes the city I live in, for zero recurring cost.

[–] pdntspa 1 day ago

if you want to talk about 'average people' go hang out on reddit. How many times have 'average people' been brought up here explicitly to shut down a discussion. It is reductive and insulting

how many good things have 'average people' (and the avaricious wanterpreneurs chasing their dollars) ruined? Nearly everything!

[–] SoftTalker 2 days ago

And restore tested.

[–] smnplk 1 day ago

Even if the storage is soldered on the data can still be saved if it's not the storage that died and even then, it could be possible to retireve at least part of the data. Get a data recovery specialist.

[–] vjvjvjvjghv 1 day ago

That’s pretty expensive though.

[–] Schiendelman 2 days ago

Isn't icloud backup on by default??

[–] watersb 2 days ago

I'm not aware of any control over what gets backed up.

I'm assuming that all of my local work would be lost. But I'd still have the sixteen million duplicate photos.

iCloud's priorities are not a great fit for preserving my source code repos. Fortunately those aren't very big.

But when my son's Mac dies, his huge Logic Pro projects are toast. And he is a few thousand miles away now.

[–] martheen 2 days ago

In Windows, by default, Microsoft tools put projects in ~/source/repos, which OneDrive, in turn, by default won't touch so they'll be lost if the SSD fail and they're not in git.

However, OneDrive doesn't seem to even know how to handle source files (it doesn't even attempt to honor the gitignore), so rebuilding a project in folders covered by OneDrive results in flurries of temporary files being uploaded/updated to the cloud, hogging the bandwidth, with a bonus of locking files, crashing builds, or even reverting changes silently.

One would think backup tools, even if primarily for normal users are still literally made by programmers, at least consider the use case of programmers instead of just ignoring them entirely.

[–] ihateolives 2 days ago

OneDrive, Dropbox etc are not backup tools, they're file sync tools. This really should be common knowledge.

[–] KPGv2 1 day ago

i'm so tired of seeing this discouraging crap - "that's not a backup, LOSER"

file sync is backup against the things most people have to deal with (hardware breaking, theft, house fire, residential lightning strike)

[–] BSDobelix 1 day ago

>file sync is backup against the things most people have to deal with

I would say accidentally deleting a file is more common than a house fire, so NO, file-sync is not a backup nor is RAID (block-sync) or clustering (data/state-sync).

A backup is/should be a non-modifiable snapshot of data/files maybe even a state.

I give you an example:

You have a password-safe (as a file). Your computer blows up, but you are safe, because your password-safe is synced on Dropbox....but oh my god what was the password to Dropbox??? Your restore is gone because you forgot to "backup" your password-safe.

However you are not a Loser, being a Admin is a ~lost art and a really good paid one (again).... ;)

[–] Schiendelman 1 day ago

I guess I'm not tracking. I put all my source folders in my Documents folder on the Mac, and check the checkbox to have that sync to iCloud. It works quite well.

I also do a bunch of video work with Da Vinci Resolve, and those project files are in the same folder. I don't keep the clips there, those are on an external disc, but that's just because I haven't gone from the two terabyte iCloud plan to the six terabyte plan.

[–] simonh 2 days ago

Kind of, but without a sub you only get a trivial amount of storage.

[–] Schiendelman 1 day ago

Sure, if there's anything worth subscribing to, it's that first $1 a month for your critical files.

[–] kalleboo 2 days ago

There is no iCloud Backup for Macs, only iOS devices.

There is iCloud Drive sync, but that only syncs your Documents and Desktop folders, but any other files are not synced.

[–] frxx 2 days ago

Surprising somehow, to me. One would imagine Apple could make a good amount of money by selling storage and thoughts-off safety for normies? And catch up to what Google offered like then years ago already with ChromeOS.

[–] kalleboo 1 day ago

Yeah I've always thought it was weird, especially after they cancelled the Time Capsule, leaving no official Apple product to back up your Mac. I figured it was because the max iCloud plan was 2 TB and Apple sold Macs bigger than that, but then they increased the iCloud plans and still didn't do it...

[–] paulschreiber 2 days ago

iCloud will sync your contacts, Notes, Keychains, and other data on macOS.

[–] samatman 2 days ago

This is a not-very-large subset of the ways you can permanently lose data which exists in only one copy. Have a Time Machine. No step two.

> We replaced it with a Framework... with removable storage.

Cool. How are you backing it up?

[–] dzhiurgis 2 days ago

Can't a decent shop desolder it tho?

[–] tarsierscripter 2 days ago

All the data is encrypted and the key is held inside the secure enclave within the CPU. If the CPU fails then the data is unrecoverable.

[–] judge2020 2 days ago

That's a big ask. Probably only work the few hundred it'd take to do that, then get the data off it, if you had some super important documents // crypto wallet.

[–] dzhiurgis 2 days ago

Is it really? In China you can upgrade your iPhone storage this way. Sure it's not for your average phone case store, but it's not exactly rocket science either.

[–] ariwilson 2 days ago

Unfortunately not really a lot of places to do this in the US. And unlike shipping new devices from China to US, shipping used devices from US to China and back is prohibitively expensive.

[–] bdavbdav 2 days ago

Key is held on a separate chip unfortunately

[–] dwaite 2 days ago

encrypted by both a boot password and a secure enclave held key

[–] Eueudhsbsj32 2 days ago

Are you suggesting that both keys should be required for decryption?

How would you restore the backup if your secure hardware device is lost/stolen/damaged?

[–] vel0city 2 days ago

The backup would live someplace other than on the broken machine. It would be encrypted some other way (or maybe not at all, depending on threat profile).

No point in encrypting those family photos burned to disc.

[–] pmontra 2 days ago

And the owners of the computer can't get the key in the secure enclave? Are they part of the threat model?

[–] rafram 2 days ago

“Some person with physical access to the computer” absolutely is part of the threat model.

[–] pmontra 2 days ago

Some person, yes. The owner, no.

[–] JoshTriplett 2 days ago

The standard way you distinguish "adversary with physical possession" from "owner" is "do they have the owner's passphrase".

[–] xenator 2 days ago

How removable storage will protect you from burned down laptop? Do you plan to keep SSD in your pocket while you are sleeping?

[–] swiftcoder 2 days ago

The removable storage will presumably not be encrypted the way the soldered storage is

[–] rytis 1 day ago

what does that even mean? why would encryption depend on how storage is attached (soldered or plugged in)?

[–] swiftcoder 1 day ago

It's unrelated to the physical connection, but the drive encryption used on the built-in drive keeps its keys in the CPU's secure enclave, so dead CPU == data lost, regardless of whether the ssd itself is damaged.

Obviously if you used the same encryption scheme on a removable drive you'd hit the same issue - but most people don't do that, because storing the encryption keys in the Secure Enclave makes your drive effectively no longer removable.

[–] thenthenthen 2 days ago

I got a second hand M1 air like two years ago for 200usd with 1tb hdd and 16gb ram. I got it after my intel Air died after about..12 years? (Edit: the ssd died, which is removable… but literally had a plane to catch). All my pros have died within a few years. Air all the way. Never looking back.

[–] giwook 2 days ago

> All of my pros have died within a few years

What are you doing to them?

I still have MBPs from 2015 and 2018 that have not 'died'.

[–] wilkystyle 2 days ago

Similar experience. In active use in my house:

    2012 MacBook Pro
    2015 MacBook Pro
    2019 MacBook Air
    2020 M1 MacBook Pro

The longevity is incredible.

[–] glenngillen 1 day ago

At least two of these are now on completely unsupported OSes that are no longer receiving security updates (and lots of latest versions of apps won't work). Especially given the uptick in major CVEs of late I'm very nervous about reconnecting any of these machines to the internet :/

[–] Yossarrian22 1 day ago

That's what Linux is for I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro running Debian and its still perfectly usable(after maxing it out to 16 GB RAM, installing an SSD, tossing the CD drive, repasting the CPU, and replacing the battery). I'm curious to see how long it can keep on trucking, at some point the charger may be the difficult part to procure; it’s not very robust.

[–] wilkystyle 1 day ago

It's a great point! The 2015 has been a linux machine for ~5 years, and the 2012 is my wife's laptop, used once every couple of weeks. Trying to get her to upgrade to a MacBook Neo for this exact reason.

[–] windowsrookie 1 day ago

Opencore legacy allows you to install newer versions of MacOs on old Macs. Or Linux runs just fine on the older Intel Macs.

[–] KPGv2 1 day ago

no one is going to hack your laptop that sits behind your router at home checking emails and browsing the web

I get that this is hn and we're paranoid about everything, but come on, what CVE is a threat to joe sixpack here where he should drop $2K on a new machine to protect against it?

[–] Uncle_Brumpus 1 day ago

In 2024 I sold a 2010 MBP that still worked. I beat the hell out of it in college dual booting and cooking the cpu playing Trackmania for 12 hours at a time or running Solidworks, then after I graduated it sat closed behind my stove sharing its wifi connection (my neighbors unprotected wifi) out the ethernet port and into my own managed router for about 4 years. Up until the last days it was running Windows as a host for controlling my old not-network-connected 3d printer. I definitely got my money out of that machine, someone paid $150 for it.

[–] simonh 2 days ago

My first gen 5k iMac (2014) is our kitchen machine these days. Still a joy to use. The final gen (2020) model is still my main machine.

I almost wish one of them would konk out so I can get an M series, but then I wouldn’t be on a 5k iMac anymore, which would suck. Love these machines.

[–] thenthenthen 2 days ago

Just use. There were two models that had issues with the gpu desoldering, 2012 and 2015 iirc? I was lucky enough to have them. I put the mobos in the oven (180deg for seven minutes?) and that would fix it. For about a month… and then 2 weeks.. and then… I actually have a 2018 that I borrowed from a friend after my 2013 Air ssd gave up, it is still working I think, but its twice as slow, at least as my Air was. Its so weird. The Air stayed ‘snappy’ even after my friends Pro’s would become too sluggish. Maybe because I never update ;)

[–] giwook 2 days ago

Sounds like user error tbh.

[–] thenthenthen 2 days ago

Its from when they switched to lead free solder. Its a known issue.

[–] opan 1 day ago

Did they really wait that long? I thought most commercial products went lead-free in like the '80s or '90s. I have an old Sony PVM with known issues due to low quality lead-free solder, fixed by reflowing/adding fresh solder. From what I can gather it was released in 1994. In the same vein I'd have expected lead-free to be a bit better by 2012.

[–] Yossarrian22 1 day ago

Mid 00's, its part of why Xbox 360s were dying left and right.

[–] watersb 2 days ago

The last few models of Intel Mac Pro that I used were mostly good at getting really hot.

Dropbox would fire up to do massive walks of the filesystem tree and the fans would take off. I think the thermal interface material on the GPU got cooked at some point. It would be a relatively easy fix, for me a couple of hours, but I chose to fix it with an M1 MacBook Air.

[–] kranner 2 days ago

They fare differently in dusty environments, for one. Airs being sealed do well.

[–] evantbyrne 2 days ago

The old airs were legendary. My 2012 still runs just fine despite being beaten to hell. Would still be a great dev machine for non-GPU workloads if it weren't for a lack of OS updates. Have been very happy with my M1 Pro as well though.

[–] reaperducer 2 days ago

Another 2012 Air user here.

The battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, but as long as it's plugged in, it keeps chugging along.

[–] wglb 2 days ago

I replaced my original in a 2012 pro. The replacement died so I run it without a battery.

[–] awad 2 days ago

Wow turns out there's a whole community of us! Same boat. I usually recycle, hand me down, trade-in but have really had a hard time letting that little one go.

[–] kyleee 2 days ago

I also have a 2010 air still in service. Replaced the battery once with an Amazon special. It’s due for another but I just keep it plugged in mostly

[–] monegator 2 days ago

the 2012 was a really solid generation (the 2010 as well. i still have both, not running osx anymore of course)

[–] TacticalCoder 2 days ago

> The old airs were legendary.

You gotta be kidding me. The old M1 Air had the "bendgate" where several people, me included, saw their screen die overnight for no reason. Tens and tens of pages of people complaining about it only to be with "you're holding it wrong" answers. Insanity.

I think Apple fixed that mess with the gen after that one.

[–] reaperducer 2 days ago

We're not talking about M-series Airs.

[–] opan 1 day ago

I think differences were greater pre-M1, these days Airs are like low budget config Pros missing the fan. I highly doubt they'd last any longer. Maybe you could argue that with the best CPU/GPU options used in the MacBook Pro it will degrade faster than any Air, but if you spend about the same on each, I expect the Pro to win.

[–] olalonde 2 days ago

I'd still buy MacBook Airs even if they cost more than the Pros. The lighter weight and the silence of having no fan are worth more to me than the extra performance to me.

[–] epistasis 2 days ago

I wonder if this is from not trying to get maximum performance, and instead focusing on efficiency? But I've noticed this too. I definitely prefer the Air form factor over larger models as the primary benefit, but the durability seems to be a big benefit too. Fewer ports, thinner shell that seals tighter and can't flex as much due to the curved metal instead of flat surfaces... everything about it just seems like a better design.

[–] thenthenthen 2 days ago

Yeah the formfactor, the noise, the heat… even the performance seems better except for what, benchmarks..?

[–] asdff 2 days ago

No fans though. I like being able to crank them full blast. I'm not sure this pro would ever actually run the fans all out with my usage with the existing fan curve. Apple always favors it running quiet and hot, but I don't mind loud and prefer cool palms. I grew up with far more noisy rigs.

[–] JMiao 2 days ago

incredible deal

[–] thenthenthen 1 day ago

Yes. The screen broke after one week, but the seller even replaced it for free. They seem to go for double that today now :/

[–] brandonpelfrey 2 days ago

I bought my M1 Pro the week it came out and it was unlike any computer I ever had, expectations, compute, battery life especially. It was just a joy to use and not worry about chargers. I'm so glad they went this path.

[–] stefandesu 20 hours ago

I can't believe it's been almost six years already. I still remember how mind blown I was by that computer, and I still love my M1 Air. I hope I don't need to upgrade for another few years.

[–] socalgal2 2 days ago

My worry is mostly storage. SSD do not last forever

[–] tedk-42 1 day ago

There were so many dummies out there saying those early M1 macbooks were doomed to fail early coz of high SSD swapping

Apple with their SoC really changed a lot of people's minds about hardware.

[–] freakynit 2 days ago

I freaking hate liquid-glass UI Apple has "forced" onto us. No freaking way to disable it. I hate it so much.

[–] randomblock1 2 days ago

There's a slider to reduce the liquidity

[–] gessha 1 day ago

Big Tech found the wrong slider

[–] Telaneo 2 days ago

Reduce != disable.

[–] woah 2 days ago

Been on HN for many years now, and the one thing that never changes is people posting angrily about small UI changes. It makes me wonder- if things have only ever gotten worse, what was the peak UI? MS DOS?

[–] linguae 2 days ago

On the Windows side, Windows 2000 and XP/Vista/7’s Classic mode, though Aero was quite nice. I’m not a fan of the interfaces from 8 onward, and I didn’t like Luna in XP.

On the Mac side, it’s a toss up between the platinum interface of Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X Tiger. With that said, I have a work-issued MacBook Pro running Golden Gate as my daily driver, and Liquid Glass is alright. It’s not what I’d prefer if I had a choice, but it’s not a dramatic departure from previous versions of macOS. A Cheetah or Puma Mac OS X user should be able to navigate Golden Gate with ease, mostly.

[–] Uncle_Brumpus 1 day ago

I am a HUGE sucker for Mac os8/9. I currently have a PPC Mac Mini and a Powerbook G4 that I tool around with occasionally for nostalgia's sake. I used slew of various G3 computers running OS9 as my main personal computers picked from the scrap bin at my dad's job (graphic imaging company) from ~2004 until I went off to college in 2010. I had some kind of modified Mozilla browser (Classilla I think?) that had modern-ish web support.

I've been on the lookout for a good condition G3 beige desktop, that was my first ever computer that was "mine" and I really want one just for the sentimental value.

[–] rzzzt 2 days ago

Windows 2000 / XP in classic mode / XP / Vista / 7. For OSX I'd say High Sierra to Catalina.

[–] al_borland 2 days ago

I’d go with Tiger (10.4) for peak OS X, personally.

[–] asdff 2 days ago

Leopard was better because it introduced spaces. Honestly I think that whole concept (I know windows has something analogous now) was the biggest step change in OS functionality I've seen in my life having started on windows 95.

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

Expose added in Panther was the last window management feature that changed my day to day usage of PCs.

Expose + Cmd-tab/Cmd-backtick being separated == a gap that Linux/Windows have somehow never managed to close in 20+ years now.

[–] al_borland 2 days ago

I never used Spaces much.

Apple was actually last to the party on that. Linux had virtual desktops for years at that point, and Windows had them as well through Microsoft PowerToys. I’m pretty sure I was running it on Windows 2000.

[–] pmontra 2 days ago

I had virtual desktops on UNIXes with X11 well before Linus started working on Linux. They came for free to Linux because they were implemented by many window managers.

[–] 0bytes 2 days ago

Not Linux, the X Window System. The first implementation in a window manager predates Linux by a couple of years. And to no surprise Xerox had them first

[–] ant6n 2 days ago

The problem is that window management is so atrocious in Mac OS that using multiple desktops is just asking for trouble. Like of you close one window of some software, it will jump to some random other window of the same software on some other desktop.

In the end you’ll spend a significant amount of your time trying to “get back” to where you just where (that alt-tab, a possible savior for this in all other OSs, doesn’t work at all on Mac just adds to the UX mess)

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

The separation of Cmd-tab and Cmd-backtick is one of my favorite things in Appleland... what about it is broken to you compared to alt-tab?

[–] asdff 2 days ago

Ehh I'm not to caught up with window management on macos. Bunch of shells open I might use tmux. But otherwise I just keep things in piles organized in spaces, and use expose all to get to whatever I need in the pile. It works much like the piles on my desk in real life so I'm comfortable with it. But it was better in leopard when it was a grid of spaces vs a line of spaces. Less rigidity was nice.

[–] larsmaxfield 2 days ago

Liquid Glass was not a "small UI change". It disrupted many accessibility aspects of macOS, so much so that Apple toned down quite a few aspects of the design in subsequent updates, even adding a slider to reduce the effect. [1]

The quantity of requests for how to disable Liquid Glass on Apple Discussions is staggering. [2]

[1]https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/09/macos-golden-gate-liqui...

[2]https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256227663

[–] richjdsmith 2 days ago

Yea, I am trichromatic color blind, and it is legitimately unusable for me. I am unable to type on the keyboard. I know there are changes since it launched, by after my ipad updated automatically, rendering it near useless to me, I just disabled updates on my iphone.

[–] ericd 2 days ago

I'd say Snow Leopard was peak.

[–] asdff 2 days ago

I think the biggest thing isn't really whatever it is but the act of changing and forcing everyone to change into the new ui that is the disruptive part. It is a combination of window dressing changing but also sometimes functions breaking. It is ironic because software written for developers prides itself generally on maintaining compatibility with say depreciated flags, or if things will be depreciated plenty of notice ahead of time. But that only holds for cli software. GUI software and the OS that all goes out the window. Stuff breaks, workflows break, you have no recourse and in fact they might make it genuinely difficult to go back to an older version. Like this part of it is the shitty part. Never mind how it happens to look. It is the forcing effect.

[–] setr 2 days ago

I think it’s also because these UI changes are always designed to improve first-impression and first-usage. They are outright hostile to anyone who wants to go fast and get faster — the power user. At minimum the re-arrangement resets any gains you had, and at maximum its irrecoverable because the UI is now fundamentally designed to slow you down.

This eventually becomes awkwardly precise complaints about information density and general change; but the underlying issue is I want to go fast and the system says no

[–] ericd 2 days ago

I think the only real solution to this is to switch to an OS with a backing org that has optimization for power users as a first-class goal. I've been liking Omarchy and NixOS for that. I say this as a Mac user since 1989.

[–] 72deluxe 1 day ago

Perhaps it is the annoyance of change for change's sake. If you buy a car and then the interior changes after an update, it'd be pretty annoying, yet that is what is foisted on us.

[–] opan 1 day ago

You're probably less likely to see posts saying "I'm glad they kept the UI the same, I already liked it".

[–] jen729w 2 days ago

If you consider the transition from macOS 15 to 26+ 'small', I think you should see an optician.

Like GP, I despise the new design. I'll say the old design was pretty peak design. Windows looked like windows. Buttons like buttons. With accessibility tweaks (for transparency and borders) I could make it very, very usable.

This new thing is a crime against UI. Every icon now sits in a circle, and takes up % more room as a result. Because … it's pretty? It isn't pretty.

I upgraded my laptop thinking I was going to develop an app and that I'd need to be on the latest design. I ended up developing a TUI so I needn't have bothered. Every time I see my partner's laptop, still on Sequoia, I shed a little tear.

[–] oofabz 2 days ago

Mac OS 7.6.1 was peak Apple

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure Appearance Manager and the corresponding unreleased-but-leaked Hi-Tech theme was 8.5-or-so-and-up-only, which means I must reject 7.6 on aesthetic grounds ;)

[–] SoftTalker 2 days ago

It was great if you could tolerate an application crash taking down the whole operating system hard.

[–] epistasis 2 days ago

Small improvements don't get much accolades. And for the most part, the UX is so good that most changes tend to be neutral or for the worse. And when you're really attached to something and there's on an unnecessary change, it feels almost like betrayal!

I, for one, prefer Apple products because they sweat the small stuff more than the other options, and when they have put in effort to make things worse it's kind of infuriating.

I do a bit of desktop Linux work too, and it's OK, but hard to complain when it's all open source volunteer work! Windows is so terrible that I wouldn't even know where to start. What's the point? There's nobody at Microsoft that even gives a damn.

[–] cmoski 2 days ago

No, it was Windows 3.11

[–] dasKrokodil 2 days ago

NeXTSTep

[–] pebble 2 days ago

Small?

[–] bluecalm 2 days ago

The way things are going you will be able to run your favorite flavor of Linux on those pretty soon. It will be the best of both worlds: the best hardware and a good OS. Hopefully Apple doesn't take steps to block it.

[–] dzhiurgis 2 days ago

Whats so forced on you? I'm on still on Sequoia and no one forced me to update to latest OS. Everything still works and I get security updates.

[–] zerd 2 days ago

They're going to force us soon. When getting a new device I don't think you can install an older version either.

[–] BugsJustFindMe 2 days ago

> No freaking way to disable it.

Um. https://imgur.com/a/ydt3MN5

[–] tedd4u 2 days ago

Liquid Glass is more than just the transparency. There are many other changes that cannot be disabled that way. Not to mention the overall lag compared to Sequoia (I skipped Tahoe entirely so I had a direct knife-edge transition). 27 is less bad than 26 but Liquid Glass doesn't make anything better than prior UI and makes several things worse, even if you turn down the transparency.

[–] ndiddy 2 days ago

I imagine that the UI changes since Sequoia regarding the giant buttons and whitespace are because Apple plans to release a touchscreen laptop (most rumors say it will be announced tomorrow) so they've decided to make the UI touch friendly at the expense of bloating the UI for everyone who doesn't have a touchscreen. Microsoft made this same decision with the Windows releases after 7.

[–] LoganDark 2 days ago

The rumors also said it would be announced today, so we'll just have to see. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, after all.

[–] macintux 2 days ago

Press event is tomorrow. I don’t think a touchscreen laptop is a good idea, but I guess we’ll see whether Apple can do a good job with it.

[–] selcuka 2 days ago

A touchscreen laptop is only a good idea if it can also be used like a tablet (with a detached keyboard). Otherwise it's useless.

[–] tedd4u 2 days ago

Yeah I think this is probably right. I use a 13" MBA as my primary machine so space is crucial and Liquid Glass wastes it.

[–] yieldcrv 2 days ago

you can probably get the battery replaced for a better speedup

[–] mag7269 2 days ago

Donate $3k… to some charity that’s going to use it to justify their COO’s $200k/year salary. GTFOH!