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Apple dumbing down apps pre- vs post- MacOS Mojave?

Tony L said:
I suspect that is the view of someone who has never used Apple kit, let alone in the fields they traditionally dominate (music creation, deign, photography etc). There is a lot that hugely annoys me about the current products from a Right To Repair perspective, but they are a very good computer range running superb software and providing a level of systems integration that doesn’t exist without faff on other platforms. I’ll also be very interested to see how Intel, AMD etc respond to the M1 and beyond, a chip architecture that looks to have moved Apple years ahead of their competitors. My guess is we are going to see some extraordinarily powerful Macs and Macbooks this year with an efficiency that needs ridiculous water cooling etc to match with Intel architecture. I just wish they’d stop with the soldered-in BS when it comes to SSDs and RAM. I understand the performance edge such construction brings, but computers do need to be long-term serviceable IMO. In fairness I’d counter that to a degree as my 2012 MBP is still working perfectly (I upgraded SSD and RAM), as is my 4 or 5 year old iPhone (a 6S).

FWIW my main ‘tool’ is an iPad Pro. That is what I use for 98% of my job. I only fire the MBP up for accounting and some server maintenance stuff.
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Apples software solution in BigSur is mediocre at beast, it suffers just as many issues as any of my windows computers and if I am honest MacOs always has. If you stick with their basic inhouse apps, its ok, but other stuff just is not a great experience and I don't know if I can continue to blame Adobe, Microsoft etc. Why these apps perform so poorly on macs is outside of my understanding. That and crap networking, flaky as assholes thunderbolt connections (for instance kernal panic when waking mac with a connected screen) and frankly still poor keyboard with the new/old switches in the 2020 macbook, I am thinking I am done with them for my next lappy. New technologies for trackpads coming out right now is all it needs for me.

Trying not to be negative but other than the trackpad I cant think of a single reason why I would need a mac next time round.
 
To be honest I’m exceptionally close to not needing anything beyond an iPad now! I could almost get away with an iPad and NAS. I’d miss Logic Pro X, REW, and I’d definitely need an OpenOffice replacement (that is where all my business accounting etc is), but I guess an MS Office subscription would address that, and I’d miss playing Quake etc using a Model M, though that may be possible.

I really don’t know where I’m headed next. The Right To Repair aspect of modern Macs pisses me right off, but the overwhelming majority of PC laptops are even worse. It is all depressing landfill shit made by slaves in China whatever the brand on the front. I don’t really want to go back to Windows and I’m way too lazy and disinterested to fart around endlessly with Linux. As such I’ll almost certainly end up buying another Mac of some description, but I can’t decide if that will be another MBP or a Mini connected to the TV and run largely headless from the iPad. I’ll see what they come out with this year. I’m coming to the conclusion I don’t need a local music library beyond a phone’s worth for travelling and a backup of my own stuff (old bands etc), so that’s a load of storage I no longer need. I’ll sit and wait for a while. I do know I’m enthusiastic about nothing on the market today. I just want my existing functionality in a reliable and maintainable form.
 
For me, software quality on MacOS took a nosedive after 2010 or so. This could be down to a change at the top of the company's Software Engineering division at this time, but I wouldn't rule out the rise of iOS as the superstar platform around this time, or the delayed effects of pulling what was a very small number of software engineers away from MacOS X and onto the creation of iOS. These days, with iOS accounting for almost all of the company's revenues, I get the feeling that the developers who get assigned to macOS must feel like they've failed some kind of performance evaluation process.

I was handed a Mac laptop again about three years ago for a new job, and I have to say that despite it only being three years since I stopped using my last one, I absolutely detested it. The difference was that I'd kept my old one on 10.9 or something, but the new one had whatever the latest release was (Mavericks? I lost track after the cat names). I found it so irritating that once Covid-19 restrictions kicked in, I transferred all my work onto my (Windows) PC at home, and gave back the laptop.

@garyi Apple deliberately makes its programming environment different from the rest of the computing world's: it's a kind of lock-in strategy. Barring a brief period in the 1990s where they embraced the industry-standard C++ language, programming for Apple platforms has generally meant learning some kind of "different" programming language: on old Macs, it was Pascal, but at least that was a portable skill, and was taught in colleges. ObjectiveC, and now Swift, are languages with no value outside the Apple ecosystem. The very first OSX releases did have a way to write Mac applications directly in Java, another very popular language, but that was dropped very quickly, leaving the Apple OS as a closed shop again. It's this rejection of industry standards and open-sourced solutions that turned me, as a software developer, away from Macs, but this insistence on being different also has knock-on effects in the quality of third-party software - especially software that is available for Windows or Linux too; there's a lot more unnecessary "plumbing" needed to bridge between languages.
 
Well all I know is a 2020 macbook pro, 16 gigs ddr4 ram, dedicated graphics etc is so poor for Creative Cloud that actually I just dont bother any more. A real shame. I think its a combination of the two companies, but the reality is not everyone wants a powerful mac just to run bloody finalcut.

This technology is really exciting and I hope that apple does not sue them for some reason or purchase them


The only thing letting down portable PCs is the interaction inputs, touch screen is a nice to have but not a great way to interact, I agree with Apple there, but there is currently not a trackpad out there that touches apple. Lets hope this one disrupts things.
 
No. Plug it into a computer with itunes, then there is a method to get it into DFU but I have not done it for many a year so cannot help there.

Also not sure how that works for ewer MacOs as itunes is gone.
 
Thorn said:
Am I the only one who doesn't understand a word of this?
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Losslessly ripping and playing back DVD video content on a Mac with the facility to tweak the sound ought to be as easy as ripping and playing back CDs in iTunes. For many years it wasn't, until I discovered the RipIt For Mac app. Using this app to rip the DVD, and the DVD Player app to playback the ripped content was a relatively simple solution and did not require content to be converted to other formats and the use of 3rd party playback software.

I wouldn't have thought what I'm doing to be radical or niche, there must surely be other Mac users who watch ripped DVDs of live concerts and value the ability to tweak the sound if required?
 
Computers used to be a fun hobby. Now they are just like the washing machine, fridge and tele.....
 
The 2012 Mac Mini I bought last week came with Catalina installed and I've been giving it a brief 'test drive' before I downgrade to an earlier OS. I ventured into the new and highly controversial Music app and was pleasantly surprised to discover that is very similar to iTunes in its GUI and features. I recall there being a hullabaloo about it being explicitly commercial in its focus around Apple Music, but the truth is you can hide it in the exact same way as you can in iTunes by checking the 'Disable' box in Preferences->Restrictions.

The only misgiving I have about the new Music app is the fact that more than 90% of my library artwork is missing. I'm not sure if this is because I am using the Music app to access the iTunes library on my old Mac Mini through iTunes Sharing, or if there's a bug/quirk in the Music app that means it doesn't recognise artwork that the user has added manually, only artwork that has been sourced using the 'Get Artwork' function in iTunes. When I first started ripping CDs some 15 years ago I let iTunes get the artwork itself but then I switched to dragging jpg images onto the Artwork box in Get Info, and when I later switched to ripping CDs using XLD instead of iTunes I added the jpgs in XLD.

Has anyone else had problems with their artwork not displaying in the Music app? This would probably be a deal-breaker as I could not face the prospect of having to manually add all of my artwork again. It would literally take me months to do so given the number of albums I have!
 
ToTo Man said:
Has anyone else had problems with their artwork not displaying in the Music app? This would probably be a deal-breaker as I could not face the prospect of having to manually add all of my artwork again. It would literally take me months to do so given the number of albums I have!
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Yes, that is the reason I reversed-out of Catalina. I am, somewhat unsurprisingly, weapons-grade obsessive about cover art, sorting etc. I don’t just have the right cover for the album, I have the right one for that specific pressing/mastering, even if it means scanning it myself. Catalina just lost about 60% of it and I couldn’t face redoing it so I reverted to a backup of Mohave, which is where I remain.

PS To be honest I’m now coming to the conclusion that I may not actually need a local music library at all beyond my own personal archive (my old bands etc) and enough stuff to fill a phone for public transport. I just don’t actually use it in any context beyond that as I far prefer playing the physical LP or CD. By the time I’m so old and decrepit that becomes a problem I’ll likely be deaf enough not to care about mastering so could accept a streaming service (it would still worry me that essential music could vanish at corporate whim, e.g. I remember the whole of ECM vanishing from Spotify at one point, and no way could I accept that!). Basically when the time comes to replace my trusty mid-2012 MBP with a new one I may not factor music storage as a priority at all.
 
ToTo Man said:
Has anyone else had problems with their artwork not displaying in the Music app? This would probably be a deal-breaker as I could not face the prospect of having to manually add all of my artwork again. It would literally take me months to do so given the number of albums I have!
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Can't say I noticed any difference to be honest - but I gave up on iTunes finding artwork a few years back. Came up with far too many duds so I went over to finding them myself, storing in a folder and adding manually.
Replaced existing ones at the same time - was indeed a right chore but time well invested IMV (particularly when I started using RPis for playback)
 
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Tony L said:
To be honest I’m exceptionally close to not needing anything beyond an iPad now! I could almost get away with an iPad and NAS. I’d miss Logic Pro X, REW, and I’d definitely need an OpenOffice replacement (that is where all my business accounting etc is), but I guess an MS Office subscription would address that, and I’d miss playing Quake etc using a Model M, though that may be possible.

I really don’t know where I’m headed next. The Right To Repair aspect of modern Macs pisses me right off, but the overwhelming majority of PC laptops are even worse. It is all depressing landfill shit made by slaves in China whatever the brand on the front. I don’t really want to go back to Windows and I’m way too lazy and disinterested to fart around endlessly with Linux. As such I’ll almost certainly end up buying another Mac of some description, but I can’t decide if that will be another MBP or a Mini connected to the TV and run largely headless from the iPad. I’ll see what they come out with this year. I’m coming to the conclusion I don’t need a local music library beyond a phone’s worth for travelling and a backup of my own stuff (old bands etc), so that’s a load of storage I no longer need. I’ll sit and wait for a while. I do know I’m enthusiastic about nothing on the market today. I just want my existing functionality in a reliable and maintainable form.
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They've just put the M1 chip in the iPad Pro now Tony.

Mine's a few years old and running the older A chips and it's still razor fast so these must be something else. https://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-pro/
 
I’ll be interested to see where the iPad Pro ends up over the next few years. To my mind, whilst obviously improved over iOS, iPadOS remains the weak link/bottle-neck on what is just astonishing hardware. My iPad is last year’s spec, so plenty powerful. The things that keep me needing the MacBook Pro as an occasional fall-back are all OS/software-related. If I could run proper OS X on the iPad Pro I’m pretty sure it is all the computer I would ever need.
 
Tony L said:
I’ll be interested to see where the iPad Pro ends up over the next few years. To my mind, whilst obviously improved over iOS, iPadOS remains the weak link/bottle-neck on what is just astonishing hardware. My iPad is last year’s spec, so plenty powerful. The things that keep me needing the MacBook Pro as an occasional fall-back are all OS/software-related. If I could run proper OS X on the iPad Pro I’m pretty sure it is all the computer I would ever need.
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Ah sorry Tony, I didn't realise you'd recently bought one. It'll do you for 5 years at least!

Cheers, Rack.
 
S-Man said:
I consider myself fortunate (and wise ;)) that I have never bought anything from Apple.

I inherited an iPad from my deceased father. It needed a password - which I guessed. I took to my house with the intention of giving it to my mum in her care home for Facetiming. After it had changed location, Apple locked it so that it needed the Apple ID. I could not guess it. I spoke with Apple several times and they said I needed either the ID or the original proof of purchase. I had netiher and the iPad is now as good as landfill.

Beware: with Apple you are guilty until proven innocent!!
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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I’ve been a Mac user for almost 30 years. I’m not a computer/software geek, just an end user who needs an efficient and stable OS to work with. MacOS gives me that more than WinOS. I have had several of their desktop and laptop machines and never had an issue, apart from a glitch when using the motherboard for video/display in one MBP.
I am always slow to upgrade OS and that keeps the headaches away.
I find Android better for smartphones than iOS though.

Like @Tony L I currently still own a 2012 MBP because it’s their last user-serviceable laptop they made. That is disgusting.

I also had trouble with the AppleID. At one time when I was setting up the two-factor authentication and thought that I had logged into iCloud with one of the machines, I reformated the other and when I tried to access my account I had been block and could only be access from one of my other machines. Called Apple and they said nothing could be done so I lost my passwords, my mum’s and those belonging to my wife which she didn’t keep stored. It was a massive hassle. :mad:
 
garyi said:
Apples software solution in BigSur is mediocre at beast, it suffers just as many issues as any of my windows computers and if I am honest MacOs always has. If you stick with their basic inhouse apps, its ok, but other stuff just is not a great experience and I don't know if I can continue to blame Adobe, Microsoft etc. Why these apps perform so poorly on macs is outside of my understanding.
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I have been a long time MacOS user (since OS7 I think) and don’t agree with your assessment, but I am not using Big Sur.
I suspect that Apple after Jobs may lose its North...

But I am running CAD and 3D render software on old Macs with no issues at all. Same with Photoshop or a really labour-intensive software such as HQPlayer.

My old 2012 MacBook Pro is faster and more stable rendering CGI than the 2 year pro high-spec Dell desktop I have at the office.

I’ve often thought of getting a non-Mac machine for the customisation possibility and value for money but WinOS put’s me off.
 
"I’ve often thought of getting a non-Mac machine for the customisation possibility and value for money but WinOS put’s me off."

Whats important is that any applications that you need to use work well and then you don't actually use Windows per se but only as a platform to support your applications. In this respect Windows is possibly better than Apple except for a few specialist apps specifically designed for that software.

Your current working Apple OS can be migrated to run under Windows as well thus retaining your emails etc. I have done this for my youngest and migrated her Macbook Air 'disk' to a new Windows gaming machine and everything works fine just as it did on the Apple hardware - I get to keep the Macbook Air! One caveat with this approach is that Apple won't allow the migrated system to use OpenGL and limits video RAM to 128MB - you can see why..........

So its worth thinking about seriously.

Cheers,

DV
 
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