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macOS 26 Tahoe's Dead Canary Utility App Icons

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405 points Bogdanp | 1 comments | 26 Aug 25 00:03 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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doesnt_know ◴[26 Aug 25 02:19 UTC] No.45021562[source]▶
I feel like when I'm presented with most modern criticism of Apple devices/software I tend to agree, but despite all the mostly valid criticisms I see batted about, who is doing consumer tech better?

I've recently (finally) managed to purge the last instance of Windows from my life when I replaced Windows on my gaming desktop with Linux. So I've got Linux on the (gaming) desktop, a Steam Deck and Debian stable on a server, which is great.

But I mean, that covers my home office? I still need a phone (iPhone), a smart watch (Apple Watch) and while not critical, certainly adds a lot of value for me. The things that connects to the TV (AppleTV) is the best of all I've tried when compared to any other type of solution (Firestick, Chrome Cast, Home Media Server, Built-in TV Smarts). I've also got an M4 MacBook for dev, which is frankly fantastic when compared to whatever other hardware I could get here in NZ and would involve going back to Windows anyway?

So I mean, what are the actual valid options really? Apple still offer great devices and the integrations between them are the best on the market imo.

Perhaps in a perfect world Pine64 devices would be rock solid and I could run Linux everywhere, but failing that, what else ya gunna do?

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LoganDark ◴[26 Aug 25 02:24 UTC] No.45021600[source]▶
The fear is that Apple is losing the expertise and attention to detail that resulted in that best-in-class consumer tech.
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MBCook ◴[26 Aug 25 03:09 UTC] No.45021860[source]▶
And, to GP’s point, there is no one to replace them.

As someone who lived Apple stuff were between a rock and a hard place. What we loved is dissolving away into mediocrity or worse. And we don’t like the competition better. If we did we’d already be over there.

Add in that lots of companies like to follow Apple’s design leads, for better or worse, and we’re left with nowhere to go.

So we really want the thing we liked to be good again. Or at least to stop getting worse for no good reason.

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1. linguae ◴[26 Aug 25 03:37 UTC] No.45022002{3}[source]▶
This is exactly how I feel as someone who enjoyed the Mac during the Jobs era of Mac OS X and has been quite disappointed with the state of personal computing since then. The Apple experience is not the same today as it was during the Snow Leopard days. It seems to me that the old guard at Apple is gone and that the people making the key decisions at Apple in the past decade or so are taking Apple in a different direction than what I would like, as someone who is a big fan of both the classic Macintosh and Jobs-era Mac OS X.

What I'd give for a modern OS with an interface designed with the principles of people like Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini in mind, combined with rock-solid underpinnings taking advantage of the best that OS research had to offer in the past 30 years. In other words, I want an updated Smalltalk/Lisp machine with a classic Mac interface brought up to 2020s standards regarding networking, security, and other concerns.

Modern macOS to me is a disappointment compared to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and don't get me started on the lack of user-upgradeable RAM in modern Macs. However, Windows 10/11 is even more disappointing to me compared to Windows 7, which was a nice OS and is my second favorite version of Windows, my favorite being Windows 2000. Desktop Linux seems to be in an eternal Sisyphean cycle of churn.

So, today I begrudgingly use Windows on my personal machines and macOS on my work-issued MacBook Pro, longing for a compelling alternative to appear one day that pushes personal computing forward.