8 ms·

I don’t get it either. What are these people doing that keep saying that Mac OS is snappy. It’s the same slow garbage as windows. One problem is that you need

by ant6n 22d ago

I don’t get it either. What are these people doing that keep saying that Mac OS is snappy. It’s the same slow garbage as windows. One problem is that you need Firefox because safari doesn’t peppery do ad blocking. But once you have 20 tabs open or so, it uses 5GB GB ram. But perhaps your also need safari for something else. That’s another 5GB of RAM. Then once you count a finder replacement (2GB ram), and some office stuff (probably 1-4GB for each app window), 16GB of ram are almost as sluggish as an old windows laptop. Add MS Teams, and the thing is brought to it’s knees. And Mac OS has a lot of quirks and the window management is atrocious (alt-tab doesn’t switch between app windows, a bunch of apps to get alt-tab behavior don’t work properly either). I feel like more and more that Mac Users are being forced by the atrocious window management to only have one window open per software, so then the system is fast. Problem is when you have multiple tasks going on in parallel, then you need many windows and desktops.

sznio 22d ago
main difference is that Mac OS can actually use swap. With Windows you can as well just restart the whole machine, once it touches swap it won't stop thrashing ever.
unsnap_biceps 22d ago
I live with safari and finder and all my office ware is native (mail.app) or web based (Google Docs). Chat is via slack, but I use the website and not the native app. I've adapted to the quirks and I'd bet that's a lot of the reason why it doesn't feel slow to me. I feel I have plenty of windows open at once but likely less than you do. Different folks different strokes as they say.
- ant6n 21d ago
  If you have to use specialized software to make your system snappy, then it is, as a system, not snappy. The attitude about the MacBook is that it never slows down … what, unless you use MS office?
  - unsnap_biceps 19d ago
    my point was I'm not using specialized software, I'm using the software shipped with the system. MS Office isn't Apple Software, so holding apple responsible for Microsoft code quality seems counter to your first point.
    - ant6n 12d ago
      If I have Office stuff open and the whole system crawls, then the system isn’t snappy. It’s like the claim is “get a Mac and you’ll never see a slow down ever again! Just as long as you run software that won’t make the whole system come to a crawl”
  - jen20 18d ago
    Quite a stretch to call the browser and email client that ships with the OS “specialized”.
    - ant6n 12d ago
      Only using built in software is indeed a specialized use case for an OS. The point of an OS is to run any software.
barrell 22d ago
I don't really think it's all that much about macOS. I think it more has to do with the state of web development - claude.com or chat.com or grok.com all can use up to 5GB of RAM as an idle webpage in the background regardless of browser. Most apps these days seem to be electron apps which can fire off multiple 4+ GB node processes doing who knows what. I think most true native apps don't have these issues. Unfortunately there is very little incentive to build on the macOS platform these days, which is where I point more of the finger at Apple. UX, UI, & DX are all quite a bit worse for Mac native.
self 22d ago
> One problem is that you need Firefox because safari doesn’t peppery do ad blocking. ublock origin lite is on the app stores (both mac and i-devices), and works reasonably well. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...

by ant6n 22d ago

sznio 22d ago

main difference is that Mac OS can actually use swap. With Windows you can as well just restart the whole machine, once it touches swap it won't stop thrashing ever.

unsnap_biceps 22d ago

I live with safari and finder and all my office ware is native (mail.app) or web based (Google Docs). Chat is via slack, but I use the website and not the native app. I've adapted to the quirks and I'd bet that's a lot of the reason why it doesn't feel slow to me. I feel I have plenty of windows open at once but likely less than you do. Different folks different strokes as they say.

ant6n 21d ago
If you have to use specialized software to make your system snappy, then it is, as a system, not snappy. The attitude about the MacBook is that it never slows down … what, unless you use MS office?
- unsnap_biceps 19d ago
  my point was I'm not using specialized software, I'm using the software shipped with the system. MS Office isn't Apple Software, so holding apple responsible for Microsoft code quality seems counter to your first point.
  - ant6n 12d ago
    If I have Office stuff open and the whole system crawls, then the system isn’t snappy. It’s like the claim is “get a Mac and you’ll never see a slow down ever again! Just as long as you run software that won’t make the whole system come to a crawl”
- jen20 18d ago
  Quite a stretch to call the browser and email client that ships with the OS “specialized”.
  - ant6n 12d ago
    Only using built in software is indeed a specialized use case for an OS. The point of an OS is to run any software.

barrell 22d ago

I don't really think it's all that much about macOS. I think it more has to do with the state of web development - claude.com or chat.com or grok.com all can use up to 5GB of RAM as an idle webpage in the background regardless of browser. Most apps these days seem to be electron apps which can fire off multiple 4+ GB node processes doing who knows what. I think most true native apps don't have these issues. Unfortunately there is very little incentive to build on the macOS platform these days, which is where I point more of the finger at Apple. UX, UI, & DX are all quite a bit worse for Mac native.

self 22d ago

> One problem is that you need Firefox because safari doesn’t peppery do ad blocking. ublock origin lite is on the app stores (both mac and i-devices), and works reasonably well. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...