Why does Apple, a hardware company, have a more well liked OS than microsoft (a software company?)

[dalekphalm]

Just now, corrado33 said:

I'm not even going to MENTION trying to search for anything on windows. 

Literally a few minutes ago, on a freshly installed Windows 10 computer, I searched for "Edge", and it didn't find it...

 

Windows Search has gotten better, but it's still pretty rough at times.

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Literally a few minutes ago, on a freshly installed Windows 10 computer, I searched for "Edge", and it didn't find it...

 

Windows Search has gotten better, but it's still pretty rough at times.

Exactly. I search for stuff that's installed on windows by default all the time and it refuses to find it. 

 

And why on earth is the "Add or remove programs" option not the first results when I search for "Uninstall". Windows search sucks. Apple's search is wonderful. Linus himself admits it. 

[DavidKalinowski]

On 11/28/2018 at 9:57 PM, corrado33 said:

Really? They don't? Why not? They're the freaking 30th largest company in the world. 

 

As for custom PCs, again, not a big deal. The drivers would just be written by the MOBO vendor (like they are anyway.) 

 

I guess the question is this.

 

Why does microsoft spend so much time writing drivers for all different types of systems when you have to install a shit ton of drivers (from the vendor itself, not microsoft) after you install windows anyway? Surely microsoft could make it more simple and depend on vendor drivers more often? 

 

Windows is often useless before the motherboard drivers are installed, so what exactly is microsoft writing for? 

microsoft generally dose not write the drivers, they create an API for the vendors to write their drivers. microsoft has created one of the most complex operating systems ever, and yet made it fairly easy for any programmer to create a program or hardware vendor to create a driver. and at the same time, still runs on OLD hardware (my computer is built from a gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard. the last BIOS update from gigabyte was 2009.. will the newest macOS run on 9 year old hardware? (and truthfully I built this system before 2009)

[MandoPanda]

3 hours ago, yosarianilives said:

I've not had a good experience using any of those features on Mac, plus their version of explorer is complete garbage and the way you browse files is not very useful or easy. And so many little things missing from their OS like the ability to refresh a finder window, etc It's just not a very polished OS even if the graphics are subjectively "pretty"

Everything you have stated comes from anecdotal evidence that leads you to your own opinion. Don't try to tout it as fact. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine. But don't condemn an entire ecosystem when you haven't even really tried it.

[Canada EH]

Just now, MandoPanda said:

anecdotal evidence

That is what any forum is all about, our experiences and what we have read.

[corrado33]

32 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

That is what any forum is all about, our experiences and what we have read.

Yes but if you try to pass of your own anecdotal evidence as truth without anything else backing it up, that's wrong. 

 

I have never known anybody who actually disliked MacOS when they were forced to use it for any decent length of time. Once you become familiar with it, it most certainly rivals and surpasses windows 10, without all the spying (Let's not forget about that now eh?). 

 

It's really funny on this forum how many of the "kids" (because we know they are) hate Apple and Mac, yet I'd wager that 75% of them have never used a mac for longer than a few minutes. 

[Canada EH]

4 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

disliked MacOS when they were forced to use it for any decent length of time. Once you become familiar with it, it most certainly rivals and surpasses windows 10, without all the spying (Let's not forget about that now eh?). 

Couple keywords there.

disliked MacOS

familiar with

 

People do not like change, they prefer what they know, those people only know Windows OS because that is all they used. I too never used MacOS aside from 20 yrs ago, so I too would dislike MacOS for a few weeks before I'd become accustomed to it.

 

To the point at hand, its up to the reader to digest the info.

[corrado33]

3 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

Couple keywords there.

disliked MacOS

familiar with

 

People do not like change, they prefer what they know, those people only know Windows OS because that is all they used. I too never used MacOS aside from 20 yrs ago, so I too would dislike MacOS for a few weeks before I'd become accustomed to it.

 

To the point at hand, its up to the reader to digest the info.

So hating something because of ignorance is ok? Seems a bit.... like facebook posts. And we all know how useful those are. 

[Johnny4990]

On 11/29/2018 at 9:02 AM, corrado33 said:

MacOS, in my opinion (and many others) is a really good OS. It's fast, secure, has good features, etc etc. Where as windows 10 is... Ok I guess. The whole "spying" thing wasn't cool, but I understand why they did it. And the possibility of ads in their stock programs in the future is terrifying. 

 

So how on earth does apple, a company that makes money selling hardware, have a nicer (or at least equally nice) OS to microsoft, which makes money selling software? 

Because Apple's hardware lineup is made up of just a handful of computers (laptops, Minis and desktops), it can afford to spend its time tweaking macOS on all the aforementioned pieces of hardware endlessly and thus making them 'nicer' to use with excellent optimization. Apple does charge a premium for the experience. 

Windows on the otherhand, is Microsoft trying to be the jack of trades with infinite number of hardware combinations on a huge scale. The probability of something going wrong somewhere is always there. So while it may not be perfect, it's good enough for the majority who cannot afford Macs or dislike its closed wall approach. 

[tikker]

On 11/30/2018 at 1:55 AM, corrado33 said:

That's my point. I'm arguing that it's not windows itself that provides the compatibility, it's the people who write the drivers. If those same people would write drivers for mac as well then they could likely get the hardware to work there too. (Taking into account all the "special features" that MacOS may not be programmed to use.)

But it is, as @Lukyp said Windows will aim to provide generic, basic functionality. So your device will work, but you may not be able to unlock it's full potential. This is, in my opinion, what it should do as an OS. Continuing on GPUs, vendors will often release updated drives when new games come out, to provide better support. Can you imaging updating Windows for every game that comes out?

[dalekphalm]

People also have to consider that hardware compatibility goes beyond drivers. Despite drivers using standard (or somewhat standard) code to interface with the OS itself, we know from previous experience that OS bugs can and do cause issues with specific hardware combinations that aren't seen in other hardware combinations.

 

This is fundamentally why macOS seems more stable, and is also easier (in a matter of speaking) to code for. Because Apple knows exactly which hardware configurations and drivers will be used by 99.9% of their users.

 

This of course doesn't count peripherals, but those can be an issue with both macOS and Windows.

[Kroon]

On 11/29/2018 at 4:48 AM, corrado33 said:

Tell vendors (Dell, HP, etc) to all install 1 type of NIC.

 

If MS would do that they would be sued before the products come to market.  MS have been sued and lost for using their market position. If MS started demeaning even little things as NIC European Union will soon have fined MS for more money then they are worth.

 

As been said already the number of hardware combination Apple have to adapt to are not even comparable to MS and take up a huge amount of time (=money) for MS.

[Canada EH]

Billy loves his money!

 

The krux of the question is "Liked" by whom?

[Maticks]

i've gone the other way i started using Mac OS in 2009 and loved it, over the last 2 years i've hated it.

Their has been not much development, everything is white and hurts my eyes.

I've switched to windows 10 full time dark theme and love it, the OS features these days seem like for like.

 

Maintained graphics drivers are the thing for me.

 

Before Windows 10, yes i think Apple had the upper hand, now days not so much.