Useful built-in macOS command-line utilities

Disk Utility used to be excellent, a model of how an app should be. But then they rewrote it in Swift and now it's just bad.

Apple promotes Swift heavily but the results are not really encouraging. I don't think the "so-so" results are entirely because of Swift (probably due to newer, less battle tested software and also newer/younger devs) but still the fact is, all the not-so-great new software from Apple came with Swift rewrites, hard to not make a connection...

I have known the UI bring bad in general and I think it has more due to APFS… I used to be able to do backups but APFS is so different to everything else that at this point I wish Apple switched to ZFS but honestly that wasn’t gonna happen after the buyout of Sun to oracle .

https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/18ez5b0/why_disk_utili...

AFPS is more complex yes, and it's sad they let down Time Machine (somewhat) with it, considering the capabilities. But that's pretty much on point with current Apple, they would rather have you pay for iCloud "backup" than make an individual/personal solution that doesn't require subscription to their services.

It's a bit sad because the whole point of Apple was, "we are not IBM" after the PC got its start. They are very much IBM now.

As for ZFS, it has its use for sure (servers) but it's very heavy on ressource and very complex. I don't think it's just because of the buyout of Sun, overall, it's just overkill for a personal computer; and since Apple completely left the server market, even for SMBs, there is no real reason to push for it.

In the end it's not really about any filesystem, the problem is mostly that Apple is not a user focused company as much as it used to be. They could make better technical UI/Apps/Solutions but they don't care that much, they make too much money selling gadgets (those are good but really not the same thing as "proper" computers).

> all the not-so-great new software from Apple came with Swift rewrites, hard to not make a connection...

That's a leap, but I understand your point of course. It _MIGHT_ also be said it all came from ObjectiveC experts having a first go at Swift, too. Or from groups that were run by some common set of "get it out the door" middle management types.

Or any of a thousand reasons.

Apple wanted a unified format for all of their devices; you’re not going to run ZFS on a watch, phone, set top box or headset.

I wish iCloud backup was a true backup. It's really a sync, so if you accidentally rm -rf a file well you better hope you can yank out your Ethernet cable in time (or turn off wifi)

Well they do have a backup functionality, aptly named "iCloud Backup" but that's only on iOS. It's very frustrating because they are always in a rush to copy the worsts parts of iOS/iPhone for the Mac but they don't care much about bringing the good thing as long as it doesn't make them that much money.

I guess the rational is that if you have a Mac you also have an iPhone and your important data is already on your phone and thus already in a backup.

In theory they also have a file history for iCloud and you could restore files for up to 30 days, I think. I say in theory because the few times I have tried it, it was incredibly unhelpful. But that's pretty much usual with Apple, the practice is actually very far for the theory/marketing.

Yes I thought about that possibility too, but I believe most of the Objective-C old school expert are mostly gone from Apple. It makes sense when you look at the timelines, people that were there for the early Mac days are just hitting retirement age. Most of the executives have been replaced in one way or another, that's an indication.

And of course, Apple has a middle management problem, but that comes with Tim Cook's style; he cares about values that are just not conductive to progress and excellence. It all ends up about "getting shit done" and not caring that much if the results are actually any good. So, they do stuff on schedule and are content with it no matter how bad it is, typical careerist behavior.

To be fair, a lot of our modern society seems to have been overtaken by these types of people, they are very popular and very "successful"; it's more noticeable at Apple because it used to be very different...