> the Apple versions rose to success with all of these as competition by providing a better experience
At one time, Apple clearly was a better experience.
Now, with features removed and new "privacy and security" features added, I'm not sure they are a great experience. For example, my Macbook reminds me of Windows Vista, except for worse, every time there's a system update and I have to reboot to permission the camera for a web conference.
I've learned to dread OSX updates because instead of adding new useful stuff, it seems like we just move things around, change out the icons and add some more intrusive "touch the fingerprint reader" authentications... plus I have to re-permission half of the apps and hardware just to do my job. Then there's the whole reboot, unlock, install, reboot, re-lock cycle. It's seriously worse than Windows Vista. Anyone remember the I'm a Mac/I'm a PC commercials?
I have never needed to reboot because of permissions, basically just had to click “allow” a few times, so this stuff doesn’t really bother me. It’s a very slight inconvenience.
Big Sur performance on older hardware has been a disaster though. Even on a $2500 MBP 15” from 2017. On M1 though it’s excellent.
If you're referring to the Kext/DriverKit changeover, this is just false - Kexts still work in Big Sur, they're just trying to slowly shift the ecosystem to DriverKit. Nothing has truly changed there yet.
If you're referring to a broken thing within Kexts/IOKit itself, that would be a pretty severe bug that would get attention within Apple. I feel confident saying this as I've reported bugs like this and they get appropriate priority levels.
Lastly, if you're writing (signed) driver code, you generally have access to resources within Apple to get answers to questions. I'm not even a large company and it was relatively easy to get in touch with those teams - and this stands in contrast to other teams within Apple.
> I've learned to dread OSX updates because instead of adding new useful stuff, it seems like we just move things around
To be fair, that also describes Windows. As best I can tell, every release since 7 has primarily focused on renaming and adding indirection to the ways you get to the same old control panels.
And I haven't ever had to reboot to allow a camera. I have several, ranging from a microscope to an SLR that also is my webcam.
> As best I can tell, every release since 7 has primarily focused on renaming and adding indirection to the ways you get to the same old control panels.
I thought this was the UI museum feature where you can time travel back to Windows NT4 one layer of indirection at a time.
I still don't know how they managed to make the settings control panel replacement so bad in windows 10.
For example, you go to the proxy setup, the pac URL location is a tiny text box no matter how big the window, and if you have restrictions on your system you cant view the full address or copy it.
At one time, Apple clearly was a better experience.
Now, with features removed and new "privacy and security" features added, I'm not sure they are a great experience. For example, my Macbook reminds me of Windows Vista, except for worse, every time there's a system update and I have to reboot to permission the camera for a web conference.
I've learned to dread OSX updates because instead of adding new useful stuff, it seems like we just move things around, change out the icons and add some more intrusive "touch the fingerprint reader" authentications... plus I have to re-permission half of the apps and hardware just to do my job. Then there's the whole reboot, unlock, install, reboot, re-lock cycle. It's seriously worse than Windows Vista. Anyone remember the I'm a Mac/I'm a PC commercials?