Mac Users Deserve Better – 7 Unacceptable Problems with MacOS

[just_dave]

16 minutes ago, Martycrane said:

So i literally just went and checked because in my experience the segment about multiple displays is wrong, and sure enough my 13" M1 Macbook pro will drive 2 external displays. With the lid closed, it will drive my 4k monitor as the main display and my PA248 (1920x1200) as an extended display. With the lid open, it will mirror to the 4k and extend to the PA248.

 

i agree with almost everything else you wrote, but the bit about monitors in particular isn't true. might not be able to drive multiple 4 k monitors, but that is very different only being able to drive 1 monitor, which is simply false.

 

 

You're mixing apples and oranges. What you are talking about is that the system is capable of MUXing the embedded displayport signal to the Thunderbolt ports. It still doesn't change the fact there is just 1 single EXTERNAL display controller. There is obviously the second internal driver for the native macbook display.

[just_dave]

20 minutes ago, EdgyVenison said:

to the people at Apple that this is not great and they should try to allow more than one external display in future iterations.

For hundred bucks more they sure will. But 99.99999 % of entry level M macbook buyers will care more about the 100 dollar price increase than the extra monitor support.

[Martycrane]

3 minutes ago, just_dave said:

You're mixing apples and oranges. What you are talking about is that the system is capable of MUXing the embedded displayport signal to the Thunderbolt ports. It still doesn't change the fact there is just 1 single EXTERNAL display controller. There is obviously the second internal driver for the native macbook display.

nitty gritty on the hardware side isn't my strong suit, so forgive me, but does that explain the difference in behavior when the lid is opened vs closed? because there is definitely a difference, and i can drive two monitors with the lid closed

[EdgyVenison]

Some thoughts about the problems:

 

Corner Snapping
I feel like putting this on the first of the order kinda made the issue look bigger than it seems lol.
My personal experience: I purchased and downloaded Moom almost 10 years ago and never really thought / spent much time about it since, so over the 10 course of 10 years (and counting up) I really only wasted about 30 minutes total around this problem. It's not so bad when you think about it this way right?

 

Full Screen is Weird
I rarely use fullscreen, and when I do and I want to do something else, the first thing I will do is exit fullscreen, so this kinda feels a bit like a minor issue to me. Placing it on the second of the list also makes it bigger of a deal than it seems.

 

Traffic Light Inconsistencies
I think the traffic light buttons exist as the user-friendlier option for unfamiliar users, and having more options is good.

However in the long term, most users should get used to keyboard shortcuts more (Cmd+W, Cmd+Q, Cmd+Shift+F). I think I stopped using the traffic light buttons after the first year.
The problem highlighted in the video also feels very nitpicky: I personally don't (and don't know anyone that) fullscreen Notes, Calendar, or iMessages app. Or any apps really, I really only fullscreen videos I think.

 

Volume Mixer MIA
This is actually so bad and the developers of probably the best app to solve this knows it.

SoundSource is priced at a whopping 47$, but it does solve the problem. Fully agree and I wish macOS can do this out of the box

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

that's not Apple's fault.

Considering these are apps that Apple built (Music, News, Podcasts, etc) I kinda think it is. But I am new to MacOS and I'm moire than willing to be educated, if I can easily uninstall them, or put them all in one folder (because so far, I can't figure that out. OS 12.6.1 Monterey

 

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

As to why airDrop does not work over wired networking? the reason is AirDrop is an end to end (encrypted) connection between the 2 devices (it does not go over your router) the devices create an ad-hoc connection between them.

This is not possible over a wired connection, all the data (even if the stream were encrypted) would be passing through your switch (if not your router). 

And? Wifi signals can be intercepted by all devices nearby. There is literally no security difference.

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

Why are apple's display controlers so large? when the main reason seems to be power draw optimisation, it is clear that these controlers have a massive local cache likly large enough for a enough data to do the entier display stream compression for 5k without needing to round trip to memory meaning they can save a LOT of power, but then you do need to ask if your putting to a 5k display with display stream compression are not not also plugged into power? 

And how much cache would that be exactly? 4 MB? 20 MB?

[EdgyVenison]

9 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Considering these are apps that Apple built (Music, News, Podcasts, etc) I kinda think it is. But I am new to MacOS and I'm moire than willing to be educated, if I can easily uninstall them, or put them all in one folder (because so far, I can't figure that out. OS 12.6.1 Monterey

I am not sure why you are bothered by the preinstalled apps; they shouldn't do anything unless launched.

If I had to guess, perhaps you're bothered by the apps cluttering the Applications folder / Launchpad?

If so, FYI you can start applications from Spotlight (default hotkey Cmd+Space?), and it's by far the faster and easier way to do so.

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, just_dave said:

It's been CLEARLY stated and RESEARCHED the M1/M2 series chips CANNOT drive more than 1 external display because of a very straightforward silicon limitation - there is just 1 external display driver. That's it. Die shots and silicon analysis have shown Apple's ExDP controller is implemented differently, likely for maximum efficiency, and takes up a lot of die space (and therefore cost for fabbing).

Are you sure? DP MST would only use a single display driver.

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, EdgyVenison said:

I am not sure why you are bothered by the preinstalled apps

Because I'm funnt that way. I didn't install them, I don't want them. I don't care how little space they are taking up, it's a non-zero amount and by making them difficult to remove, it's pissinig me off (shades of the BS Windows 10 does with all their pre-installed crap)

If I want a podcast app, I'll track one down, don't force it on me and then make it nearly impossible to remove. That's the BS domain of MS. Pissing off users is what MS does, Apple should be above that.

[HenrySalayne]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

(shades of the BS Windows 10 does with all their pre-installed crap)

Let's just say you should see Windows 11.

 

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, HenrySalayne said:

Let's just say you should see Windows 11.

 

I have, this is why I'm switching to MacOS. I use 10 at work and we are going to 11, and I flatly refuse. I"m tired of fighting MS to make the OS get out of the way and let me do my damn job. I"m done with Windows (after Win 9 goes out of support on July 11)

[BondiBlue]

1 hour ago, Martycrane said:

So i literally just went and checked because in my experience the segment about multiple displays is wrong, and sure enough my 13" M1 Macbook pro will drive 2 external displays. With the lid closed, it will drive my 4k monitor as the main display and my PA248 (1920x1200) as an extended display. With the lid open, it will mirror to the 4k and extend to the PA248.

 

i agree with almost everything else you wrote, but the bit about monitors in particular isn't true. might not be able to drive multiple 4 k monitors, but that is very different only being able to drive 1 monitor, which is simply false.

What adapters are you using to connect the two monitors? The 13" M1 can't drive two separate external monitors by itself, so if they're not mirrored (which is what it should do with two monitors) then you must have some sort of DisplayLink-type adapter. 

 

The external monitor limitation is not related to the resolution of each display. Two external monitors simply aren't supported natively. 

[HenrySalayne]

11 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I have, this is why I'm switching to MacOS. I use 10 at work and we are going to 11, and I flatly refuse. I"m tired of fighting MS to make the OS get out of the way and let me do my damn job. I"m done with Windows (after Win 9 goes out of support on July 11)

It's a little bit off topic, but here is a recent example of the same search being done in the Play Store and the IOS App Store:

 

 

A search for "whatsapp" will trick you into downloading Google Maps or a dating app on iOS while it takes you directly to the download page on Android. This was quite a surprise to me. Everybody was saying the user experience on iOS is soo much better. It's not. Not even close.

So I'm not sure if you really get a better deal with MacOS.

 

PS: Everyone, please stay on topic. This was just an example and wasn't supposed to start a discussion to derail this thread.

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, EdgyVenison said:

 

That being said, I think it is still good that this is brought up in the video regardless. It brings more awareness of the issue, and sends more signal to the people at Apple that this is not great and they should try to allow more than one external display in future iterations.

The tradeoff would be increased costs, I expect apple have very good numbers on the % of users that used MBA (intel) with 2 displays attached. And from that have figured it is not worth increasing the cost for all consumers just to satisfy 0.1% (if that) of users. 
 

1 hour ago, Ultraforce said:

They do explicitly say that the criticisms are specifically for vanilla MacOS and I think they even mention or at least show Rectangle as a third party choice.

Yer I like how it must only be vanilla macOS but then they get updates about the windowing choses of Firefox (not exactly vanilla). The fullscreen beahvor of Firefox is a chose (odd one) made by that developer the apis to do the `correct` thing are there, they are not private or otherwise restricted Firefox can use them and LTT as a company will even have enough skilled engineers that could go in and do the patch if they are so upset about it, of cource that depends on this being a bug in the eyes of the Firefox maintains who might consider this a feature as it is clearly not the default behaviour they have put work in to have it work this way. 

[Streetguru]

Wait, I have the solution, just don't buy apple products?

[hishnash]

14 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

So I'm not sure if you really get a better deal with MacOS.

 

on macOS you basicly never use the App Store and when you do you don't get ads as the Mac app store does not have search ads... apples adoption of search ads is nasty and they need to re-focuse on these things and find a way to tell investors that long term growth is more important tan short term revenue increases... (but that is not easy). 

[Soukamoshirenai]

20 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

It's a little bit off topic, but here is a recent example of the same search being done in the Play Store and the IOS App Store:

 

 

A search for "whatsapp" will trick you into downloading Google Maps or a dating app on iOS while it takes you directly to the download page on Android. This was quite a surprise to me. Everybody was saying the user experience on iOS is soo much better. It's not. Not even close.

So I'm not sure if you really get a better deal with MacOS.

 

PS: Everyone, please stay on topic. This was just an example and wasn't supposed to start a discussion to derail this thread.

Example of what, is this an /s or did you just bring up iOS into a Windows/MacOS discussion. Windows with Edge and Bing is much more intrusive than it ever was, not sure what your point is.

[Martycrane]

45 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

What adapters are you using to connect the two monitors? The 13" M1 can't drive two separate external monitors by itself, so if they're not mirrored (which is what it should do with two monitors) then you must have some sort of DisplayLink-type adapter. 

 

The external monitor limitation is not related to the resolution of each display. Two external monitors simply aren't supported natively. 

i use a targus dock180usz-60, it does require displaylink being installed on my mac. said it somewhere else but the nitty gritty hardware side is not my strong suit, but it definitely drives 2 displays with the macbook closed. open it will mirror to one, and extend to the other

[BondiBlue]

11 minutes ago, Martycrane said:

i use a targus dock180usz-60, it does require displaylink being installed on my mac. said it somewhere else but the nitty gritty hardware side is not my strong suit, but it definitely drives 2 displays with the macbook closed. open it will mirror to one, and extend to the other

Exactly what I thought. You're using a DisplayLink adapter, which is a hardware-software solution to add additional software-driven displays. Your MacBook is not natively outputting to both of your monitors. Your MacBook will only output to one monitor if you connect them both directly to it. 

 

So no, the one external monitor limitation of the M1 chip is not false. Your laptop only actually supports one external monitor. 

[Martycrane]

13 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

Exactly what I thought. You're using a DisplayLink adapter, which is a hardware-software solution to add additional software-driven displays. Your MacBook is not natively outputting to both of your monitors. Your MacBook will only output to one monitor if you connect them both directly to it.

 

So no, the one external monitor limitation of the M1 chip is not false. Your laptop only actually supports one external monitor. 

be that as it may, it still leaves us with what was actually said in the video, which is objectively false. it even says it on the page they display (6:21) when alex makes the statement that you're limited to a single external display, that using a displaylink dock you can drive more than one. if they clarified that natively it can't do it, that's one thing, but he never actually says that. it's a hard statement that you can't do it. maybe small but it's at least worthy of a mention.

[Olgyd]

I do like how two of the three points in "We DO like macOS!" are just UNIX things.

[Olgyd]

  

8 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

window snapping i just use Rectangle for. iirc Apple can't do the windows-way because Microsoft patented it. not their fault. 

Good news, then: it expired in April. Chop chop, Apple. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6661436B2/en

 

Might be worth noting Microsoft later actually came up with a completely different solution to snap windows, also patented: https://istartedsomething.com/20090627/windows-longhorns-aero-snap-circa-2005/

So clearly if one put their mind to it, coming up with a solution that doesn't infringe on Aero Snap was very doable.

Then again, at this point it's just easier to wait until that second patent expires too...

 

Might also be worth noting that the new Windows 11 tiling feature was patented by a company in Texas

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9423923B1/en

Which Microsoft went to court over

https://ptabdata.blob.core.windows.net/files/2017/PGR2017-00027/v8_Exhibit 1008_Declaration_of_Nils_Sundelin.pdf

And settled for an undisclosed sum

https://docdro.id/MLNu2Rz

But I guess that's too much money for a billion dollar company to spend.

 

8 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

Volume for individual apps is stupid. i dual boot Windows on my Mac and i've never ever felt like wanting to use that. the only time it comes in handy is when i wanna turn down spotify but keep the system volume high for watching coding tutorials on youtube while listening to music. but like, spotify has it's own volume control i don't need the OS for that option.

Ah, the classic "dismissing any and all critique because I personally don't have an issue with it". I think macOS is stupid and never ever felt like wanting to use [it], does that mean I am now correct in saying nobody needs to use macOS? And who needs Procreate? As somebody who doesn't draw, MS Paint works just as well... so does a blank wall, actually...

 

For those open to discourse, it's useful because it gives a single unified location to check what app is making noise and quickly mute it.

 

Also, as somebody else pointed out - you basically said "it's useless, except for this one time when I actually found it useful, but it's useless".

8 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

why you want to create an empty file in a folder is beyond me, i've never needed that. 

See above.

[Ashleyyyy]

3 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

Considering these are apps that Apple built (Music, News, Podcasts, etc) I kinda think it is. But I am new to MacOS and I'm moire than willing to be educated, if I can easily uninstall them, or put them all in one folder (because so far, I can't figure that out. OS 12.6.1 Monterey

 

you can't because the OS relies on the apps to be in those locations... i mean, Apple isn't the only one who does that, try renaming system32 in Windows

[Ashleyyyy]

1 hour ago, Olgyd said:

For those open to discourse, it's useful because it gives a single unified location to check what app is making noise and quickly mute it.

 

Also, as somebody else pointed out - you basically said "it's useless, except for this one time when I actually found it useful, but it's useless".

first of all if you can't figure out what app is making a given noise you shouldn't be using a computer that supports multitasking. second i never said it was useful. using spotify's own volume control is much faster and more convenient than the windows sound mixer which comes straight out of Windows 98.