Not me: I wanted Apple’s software division to innovate like its hardware division. Extra power with nothing to use it on except more and more docker containers isn’t compelling to me. I’ve not upgraded my M1 Macbook Pro and don’t plan to
I'd much prefer they focus on fixing their existing software quality problems. No innovation needed, just boring old software maintenance and design work.
They need a "Snow Leopard-style" release. This was the macOS version that came after Leopard and it was explicitly a release with no new features. It just focused on performance, efficiency, and reducing overall memory usage. Famously Apple even advertised it as having "zero new features". Recent macOS releases feel like they're going in the opposite direction. Really wish their next release would be more like Snow Leopard.
This is all I want. My Macbook Air is already stupid fast. Now I want the OS to support working faster. I would love nothing more than a ton of small quality of life updates.
Windows also need this for 10 years, since Windows 10 launch. But never happened. I guess it's just not really viable, as they need to continue selling new devices...
I still don't understand how there can be like 10 different UI styles in Windows 11 with no progress to getting that fixed. It feels more likey they are adding new ones instead...
Wow I didn't realize that. Though since the re-skin caused a huge number of popular Electron apps to have big performance issues... it didn't seem that performance/optimization focused to me.
I’m being sarcastic of course - this isn’t a Snow Leopard release and it wasn’t marketed as such. There are in fact new features in v26: live translations and a revamped Spotlight. But these are treated almost as footnotes, with most of the advertising devoted to Liquid Glass: https://www.apple.com/os/macos/
Worth noting Snow Leopard also had new features, most notably the App Store. But it was marketed as a performance upgrade. v26 / Tahoe’s new features (excluding the UI reskin) are comparably small. But instead it is a massive slowdown & bloat release :(
I agree with your sentiment, but let's not rewrite history too much. Snow Leopard didn't have any new feature, but under the hood it was a massive undertaking IIRC: it introduced a 64-bit kernel and 64-bit system applications like Finder, Mail, Safari, etc. It also replaced many 32-bit system frameworks. Until Snow Leopard MacOS X was still mostly 32 bits.
When Snow Leopard came out it was very buggy, and many apps simply did not run on it. I've been a Mac user since 1993, and I think it's the only version of macOS I ever downgraded from. Don't get me wrong, it eventually became rock solid, the apps I needed were eventually upgraded, and it became a great OS.
But let's not mistake MacOS 10.6.8 for MacOS 10.6.0. And maybe let's not compare macOS 26.0 to MacOS 10.6.8 either, it's not quite fair. Ever since Snow Leopard I've been waiting at least 6 months before upgrading macOS. I don't intend to change that rule anytime soon...
They are already innovating more than they can deliver. While Apple's hardware quality is usually good, their quality standards are much lower on the software side.
This is surprising to me. I always thought Apple was ahead on the UX side of software with their attention to detail. Though it's been a while since their hardware design flaws, and their software has had new issues. Even Louis Rossmann has mostly stopped talking about Apple since their repairability changes (or due to having bigger fish to fry).
Apple UX: "intuitive" features you have to discover via some random video reel. Of course you have to drag your messages sideways to see when they were sent, that's Good UX!
Sprinkle with crashes and bugs that are never fixed and charge a premium.
Apple UX: A beginner on a new Mac can’t right-click and copy, because there is a right-click but it isn’t active by default.
Go to Spotlight -> Type “Settings” -> Locate the settings -> In settings, go to Accessibility -> Wait no, it’s Mouse -> Gestures -> Activate the right-click.
^ That’s the experience for beginners. That screen should be in the installation wizard if Apple wants to make it optional. “Customize your mouse gestures”.
Their hardware used to be atrocious and software was the only thing they would get praised on. Now they've gotten lazy in the software department and outstanding in the hardware department.
Side note, rossmann has stopped talking about Apple because he is not longer focused on Apple repair and is turning his attention to other causes not because of apple's "repairability" changes which are still a token gesture.
You want Apple to invent reasons for you to need a more powerful computer? I could understand this argument for the iPad, but this is a weird complaint for Macs. Play a video game, use local LLMs, or get into video editing?
Never owned an apple device myself, but honestly I just want the existing tech to start coming down in cost. I grabbed a fordable this year and it's great. It was very much not worth $2200 though (and that was before tarriffs), so I grabbed a used 2YO model for $800 or so.
I'm already salavating at the thought of a fordable tablet in any form. But not at the thought of paying $3000 for one with current pricing.
Yes, my apologies. In an attempt to be "boring" I've also sworn off Swiftkey (owend under Microsoft which of course was now trying to push Copilot on me that way).
There's definitely an adjustment off of using a new keyboard after a decade.
I'm just saying I need a real reason to upgrade beyond "benchmarks make me feel good".
I can run local LLM's fine on my M1 Pro from 2021. I play games on it too. Why would I spend multiple thousands on a M(N) Macbook if there's no real reason to? It's not like when I upgraded from a 386DX to a Pentium.
I have a similar argument for phones right now. There are some AI-related reasons to upgrade, but there's not really a clear killer app yet besides frontier model chat apps. Why should I spend thousands of euros on an upgrade when I don't get anything significantly different for it?
> Why should I spend thousands of euros on an upgrade when I don't get anything significantly different for it?
You shouldn't and nobody is asking you to. Apple can sell their new computers to billions of prospective customers who wish to upgrade from x86 or buy their first computer.
I don't think anyone should upgrade if they're happy, but I also think faster chips do have real-world benefits that tend not to be appreciated by people who aren't valuing their time enough. I replaced my M1 MBP with an M4 earlier this year, and it's had a couple real-world benefits:
- builds are noticeably faster on later chips as multicore performance has increased a lot. When I replaced my M1 MBP with an M4, builds in both Xcode, cargo and LaTeX (I'll switch to Typst one of these days, but haven't yet) took about 60% of the time they had previously. That adds up to real productivity gains
- when running e.g. qwen3 on LM Studio, I was getting 3-5 tok/s on the M1 and 10-15 on the M4, which to me at least crosses the fuzzy barrier between "interesting toy to tinker with sometimes" and "can actually use for real work"
Honestly I'd be happy if they just made it stop lagging when I switch between multiple desktops in mission control. I spend most of my time in 3d party apps anyway. They recently added that lag I think with the liquid glass.
They tend to add lag in major OS releases. Gets people to consider refreshing their hardware. Just by sheer coincidence, they have a new model out this year! :-)
At this point does the hardware division really innovate that much ?
There is significant improvement from the M4 to the M5, but how much of it is comes from TSMC and how much from Apple ? They have exclusivity on the latest processes, so it's harder to compare with what Qualcomm or AMD is doing for instance, but right now Strix Halo is basically on par with the M3~4 developped on the same node density.
On the other hardware parts, form factor has mostly stagnated, and the last big jump was the Vision Pro...
I still think the future for the Vision Pro is very bright. I think this version is more to get developers working on applications for it. Spatial computing is a fascinating idea.
In my own lived experience, every person I have met IRL who is dismissive of the Vision Pro has never actually used it seriously for more than a handful of minutes. People I know who have swear by spatial computing being the next UI/UX revolution.
I own an AVP, and I agree. Now I bought it secondhand for half the price, so I acknowledge that necessarily means there is at least one counterparty out there who disagrees.
Using the AVP for one work day, once I got the right fit and optical inserts, was such an eye opener. It’s like using an ultraportable laptop after living an entire life with large CRT monitors & desktop rigs tied to an actual desk. An experience, btw, which also lived through. It just radially opened my eyes to fresh new possibilities and interaction mechanisms I never before thought possible.
But at $3.5k? No sane company exec could have been serious in thinking that would take off.
My company-issued laptop isn't far off $3.5k. The tail end of AVP development and release was happening during the pandemic. I can absolutely imagine sane company execs who looked at the new remote work reality (at the time), and figured every single major enterprise would buy every one of their remote employees (all of them) an AVP.
I kinda hope someone would have the sanity to stop that.
Zoom calls with mandatory camera on were already barbaric, asking employees to strap a headset for team meeting sounds like a generally cruel idea to me.
But you can't use it as one. It has a very small selection of native apps, and can of course run iPad apps in an emulation mode. That's it.
Most of the people actually using it for daily work are using the Mac Virtual Display. I work on my couch or bed, touch typing on my MacBook while my entire vision is filled with a projected, wraparound virtual display.
Immensely productive. But I'm basically coding on my MacBook while using a $3.5k external monitor, just in an unusual form factor.
It has a reasonable probability to get somewhere(that would require a lot of redesign, but they have th money to do so), but to be honest I wouldn't be happy with the most restrictive and closed ecosystem winning again in a new field.
If it was by design excellence and truly providing a better proposition it would sweeten the pill, but as of now it would be only because the way better products are from a company everyone hates.
In a weird way, Meta has been good at balancing hardware lockdown, and I'd see a better future with them leading the pack and allowing for better alternatives to come up along the way. Basically the same way the Quest allowed for exploration, and extended the PCVR market enough for it to survive up to this point. That wouldn't happen with Apple domining the field.
The Vision Pro was still pretty recent. They also refreshed the hardware designs of everything when moving to the M-series chips.
They also made that new wireless chip recently, the chips for the headphones, and some for the Vision Pro. The camera in the iPhone also gets a lot of attention, which takes a lot of hardware engineering. In the iPhone more generally we saw fairly big changes just a month or so ago with the new Pro phone and the Air. The Pro models on the MacBook and iPad are almost as thin, if not more thin than the Air line, which I’m sure took a considerable amount of work, to the point of making the Air branding a little silly.
The Vision Pro is a technical marvel, but as a hardware product it's uncomfortable (too heavy), bloated (useless front screen) and badly designed (straps are finally getting decent if we can trust the reviews).
These decisions IMHO fall on the hardware team, and they're not doing a good job IMHO. Meta's hardware team is arguably pulling more weight, as much as we can hate Meta for being Meta.
> headphones
Here again, the reception wasn't that great. The most recent airPod Pro was a mixed bag, the airPod max had most of the flaws of the Vision Pro and they didn't learn anything from it.
> camera
The best smartphone cameras aren't the iPhone by far now, they're losing to the Chinese makers, but don't have to compete as the market is segmented.
> MacBook and iPad are almost as thin
I wouldn't put the relentless focus on thinness as a net positive though.
All in all I'm not saying they're slacking, I'm arguing they lost the plot on many fronts and their product design is lagging behind in many ways. Apple will stay the top dog by sheer money (even just keeping TSMC in their pocket) and inertia, but I wouldn't be praising their teams as much as you do.
- 5G connectivity
- WiFi 7
- Tandem OLED Screen
- Better webcam
- FaceID
- Cheaper RAM (RAM is more important to me these days than CPU speed)
- More ports
- Better/cheaper monitors
- Make a proper tablet OS
- Maybe a touchscreen but I really don't want one
As someone who hates Apple's facial recognition implementation, I'm eagerly awaiting the day they ditch TouchID for FaceID. That'll be the year for me to upgrade to a high-spec laptop on the last generation with TouchID.
Honest question, why? Sounds like you have a technical issue with it. I’m not a fan of FaceID for digital privacy reasons, but the reliability and ease of use eventually forced me to give in. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone who hates Apple’s specific implementation of facial recognition.
First is that TouchID is faster and more consistent than FaceID in my experience, but also ergonomics and presence.
With a phone with a fingerprint scanner, I can have it unlocked as I pull it out of my pocket, and I don't have to bury my face in my phone, e.g. to pay. I can unlock it while it's sitting on a desk.
Similarly with the fingerprint scanner on the Macbooks, I don't need to have my face squarely in the center in front of the screen. It's a very bad experience unlocking an iPad Pro with FaceID, but I have no problems experience unlocking an iPad Air with TouchID.
But I think I'm a minority here, so at least I can save some money when the long-rumored FaceID Macbook comes to fruition :D
Price gouging on RAM is a very intentional decision by Apple to charge 8x market rate for it. Same for storage, you can get a blazing fast 4 TB NVMe SSD for just a few hundred bucks vs $2k or whatever Apple extorts from you.
It’s just market segmentation. Other companies do this by putting nonperformant CPUs lacking sufficient bus lanes in the consumer laptop. Apple gives the entry models a real piece of hardware, just with insufficient RAM. I like this situation better than the alternative.
Yeah I get that, but it still feels really unpleasant from the side of a regular customer. Sure, Apple is targeting the software industry and media industry who'll pay $5k for a fully kitted out MBP for all of their employees. And the regular normies who don't need much RAM/storage get amazing hardware at a good price point - good for them.
But as a regular guy who just has a lot of files and tends to keep tons of browser tabs open... it really sucks that I'm in the situation of getting extorted for $3k of pure profit for Apple, or have to settle for subpar hardware from other companies (but at a reasonable price). Wasn't an issue when the RAM & SSD weren't soldered on, but now you can't upgrade them yourself.
I think the point is that every manufacturer is playing this game, and with comparable margins.
I have no idea what the hip PC laptop is these days, is it still the Lenovo Carbon X1? I went to their website and picked the pre-configured laptop with the most RAM (32GB), best CPU, and 1TB SSD. This was $3k: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...
Roughly the same size and specs as the most expensive pre-configured MacBook Pro of the same screen size (the MBP has 36GB RAM, +4GB over the Lenovo, and a much better processor & GPU for $3.2k).
It's all market segmentation. Apple is just being upfront about it and giving you a clean, simple purchase page that shows the tradeoffs. Whereas Lenovo is using car salesman techniques to disorient you with a bewildering array of options and models all of which have decision paralysis-inducing tradeoffs not entirely in your favor.
Then go get another computer? Why do you rage against a product which you don't like? Forget about Apple and stick to other makers. There's plenty of products and manufacturers I don't like. I never think about them.
Not sure why you're taking it so personally and getting defensive. Was my comment not related and relevant to parent comment? I did in fact buy another computer because I don't like getting price gouged. Have a nice day.
I don't even want more docker containers - I want to be able to run the same containers with much less overhead on the system. Hoping their new native containerisation plays that out soon.
It’s actually very sad to see the state final cut is in. It’s a perfectly competent NLE for speed editing and has some solid features, but they had a real piece of software on their hands for years and just kind of sat around doing nothing from 2018 or so onward. I guess it just isn’t generating enough revenue to warrant the attention it deserves. It was my workhorse for a solid decade, I passionately defended FCPX because it was truly excellent after they got it to a good place 12-18mo in. Their native multicam and audio sync blew premiere/plural eyes out of the water for years. But now it’s just so…meh
I can’t imagine leaving Resolve to go back even though I still wayyyy prefer the FCPX UI.
I still have to install third party apps like Rectangle, LinearMouse and Middle to get a fraction of the ease of navigation I get on my Linux machines.
I still have to install a third party terminal like Kitty or Ghostty for basic, modern rendering.
Rectangle is great, Ghostty is great, I too install something to tweak the mouse speed/acceleration curve (don't remember which one).
Do we need all these bundled in? Generally a dedicated developer can make those much better than whatever they'd do in-house.
I'd say where it would be an issue is if you cannot make an app that gives you the behavior you want because the OS is missing the necessary APIs and configuration toggles needed too.
What’s wrong with the built in terminal app? I tried Ghostty but I found it less usable overall (e.g. you can’t easily set different themes for different windows). Terminal rendering performance has never been something I’ve noticed as being a real issue.
Never had any issues with scrolling or non-ASCII characters, personally. I’d use tmux for split panes if I wanted them, but I rarely do in practice. Also, the built in terminal does have functionality for placing terminal windows in different parts of the screen, so it’s quite easy to put two windows side by side.
Obviously, it’s fine to prefer another terminal app. I’ve personally been quite disappointed by the much-hyped alternatives to the default.
That particular issue is just a conceptual mismatch. Exactly 0% of the time do I want to segregate my activities as "chrome" things vs "terminal" things vs whatever. When I want a feature like that, multiple desktops (mission control or whatever) is the tool of choice.
The backtick thing is just a constant annoyance. My workflow is to open windows doing the things I want some, and I want to quickly switch to the window with my next work item. Instead, I need to keep track of extra mental state and figure out if backtick is the right keystroke or if tab and then backtick is the right thing to do.
It's...fine. I'm thankful I have better options at home, but it's tolerable at work with a few third-party apps.
That was the killer feature that convinced me to switch from Windows + Linux to Mac a long time ago. I often have too many windows open, and the conceptual separation between apps and windows helps me find the right task faster. Especially because I can also switch to an app that doesn't have any windows open at the moment.
Yep, my description was mostly negative (I personally hate it because I don't think that way), but I was serious about it just being a mismatch of expectations. There's nothing written in stone about the MacOS method being wrong, and it's nice that it works better for some people. UI is partly objective and partly subjective, and this particular point definitely falls on the subjective end of the spectrum.
As someone who was new to Mac and eager to use AppleScript for automation, I was disappointed to find that a number of things just don't work under AppleScript in Apple Silicon. It's pretty deprecated; Shortcuts seems supported though.
While it’s certainly true that AppleScript has taken a bit of a back seat to Shortcuts, as far as I know everything AppleScript that works on Intel should work on Apple Silicon.
It's been a long while, but I remember running into issues running scripts using osascript to click through an application to work properly on a cadence. I remember my debugging ending when it seemed the consensus was that some things just wouldn't work any more on Apple Silicon.
Apologies that my memory fails me here! This was a few years ago, I only have my zsh history (and the name of a now-deleted script) to go by.
> How much innovation is there to do in the OS at this point?
Infinite, just like in any complex UI. All the basic interaction primitives built into the OS are somewhat broken, from app/window management and text editing to keybindings and mouse gestures
> How much innovation is there to do in the OS at this point?
1) Sign Nvidia's drivers again, at least for compute (there's no excuse)
2) Implement Vulkan 1.2 compliance (even Asahi did it, c'mon)
3) Stop using notifications to send me advertisements
3.1) Stop using native apps to display advertisement modals
4) Do not install subscription services on my machine by-default
5) Give macOS a "developer mode" that's at-least as good as WSL2 (if they won't ship GNU utils)
6) Document the APFS filesystem so the primary volume isn't inscrutable, akin to what M$ did for NTFS
If they're trying to get me to switch off Linux, those would be a nice start. I don't think any of that is too much to ask from a premium platform, but maybe my expectations are maligned.
> 5) Give macOS a "developer mode" that's at-least as good as WSL2 (if they won't ship GNU utils)
The de facto answer is Homebrew — even internally at Apple. They just can’t publicly say it without liability issues.
> If they're trying to get me to switch off Linux
It’s important to know that Apple is not trying to get you to switch from Linux. Converting “UNIX workstation” people was an effort of theirs circa 2001 but that marketing campaign is long over with.
Their targets are consumer, prosumers, and media/influencer people. They give app developers just enough attention to keep their App Store revenue healthy.
Plan your long-term computing needs accordingly. You’ll see what I mean in the next 12-24 months.
