My old Lenovo X220 convertible tablet PC was dying - SSD errors everywhere (SpinRite fixed, but I could not trust the SSD any more) I could have replaced the SSD, but chunks of the plastic case were falling off, the USB 3 port had long since failed...
Plus, although I loved my pen computer, I had started using an iPad (my daughter's, although she was not using it), so my need for portable web browsing and email on a screen larger than my phablet was being better met --- while my need for a portable computer with lots of pixels that was convenient to do real work on was not being met. The 1366x768 pixels are not enough - even my iPad mini has more resolution.
Plus, my daughter uses a MacBook, since her old school insisted on Apple. I wish that she would switch to something cheaper, like Windows or Linux on a Wintel laptop - but she is happy. And I figured that I would be able to help her more if I were more familiar with the MacBook, through everyday use.
Plus, I just upgraded my wife's and my daughter's iPhones, and I switched myself from Android to iPhone. Plus the iPad I mentioned above. The big reason for this was TouchID. Fingerprints are the Next Killer App. (I suspect that this is the real reason for the jump in Apple's sales for Xmas 2014.)
So I figured: Why not be 100% Apple and buy a MacBook?
Big mistake.
So I bought a high end MacBook Pro Retina, 2880x1800, 1TB disk.
(Actually, despite all the reasons for considering Apple above, I might have purchased a good Windows PC with a retina level display - except that at the time I could not find one with a 1TB SSD from the manufacturer. And I had just been burned by buying an aftermarket SSD from Crucial, that turned out to have major loss-of-data problems.)
Big mistake.
Now, the MacBook is a pleasant machine. Sure, there are annoyances like the Mac's option and command rather than control and alt - but you can get used to those. If I could get away with only using Mac applications.
Unfortunately, I have to use some Windows applications. And/or Microsoft applications running on MacOS.
For example, I am writing this plaintive blog entry because the MacOS native Microsoft PowerPoint.app, is hung. Again. When I kill it, it hangs again. I have had to reboot my MacBook twice today to clear this problem.
OK, so maybe the fault is Microsoft's rather than Apple's. Nevertheless, since I had fewer problems on Windows, it's a ding against buying my MacBook.
Perhaps I should use non-Microsoft tools, like Apple's Keynote.app to prepare slides? Or something Open Source? Sure... but I have to be able to exchange .PPT files. And the non-MS apps often produce .PPT that is broken, that is not WISIWTG (What I See Is What They Get). Sometimes they cannot open the files. And there are features missing.
FrameMaker was a biggie. I need to use FrameMaker, an obsolete techpubs app. No longer available on UNIX, only Windows. Attempting to use obsolete Version 7 FrameMaker on an old SUN SPARC remotely across a slow network wa painfully slow. So I transferred my PC Framemaker license to Windows 8 running on Parallels on my MacBook. That was one of the big reasons to buy a 1TB SSD - I had filled up my old 512GB SSD with just one OS, and now I had to install two.
And this works acceptably well. I can use FrameMaker on my Mac.
But... using a virtual machine environment like Parallels is a pain. Now I have two OSes to maintain: two OSes that must be updated regularly. Twice as many reasons to reboot. Sure, if I am rebooting the Windows Guest I can continue to use MacOS - but not vice versa.
My original plan had been to try to only use FrameMaker on Windows under Parallels, and use native MacOS apps for everything else. My Office license gave me access to the native MacOS versions of all of the Microsoft apps I use.
Except... they are all a bit off. A bit lacking. E.g. conversation mode doesn't really work in native MacOS Outlook.app. So I started using Outlook under Parallels. But now if I click on a link, it starts Internet Explorer. Gack! So I have to install Chrome inside Parallels, as well as Chrome on MacOS...
Eventually I have ended up with both MacOS and Windows versions of most of the apps I use installed.
And now things get really confusing. I must say ctl-C under Parallels, and cmd-C in MacOS. Now, which version of the app am I using? If you type the wrong keystroke at the wrong app, crazy things happen. (Remapping the modifier keys is a slippery slope...)
The only way I can stay sane is to try, as much as possible, to only use the more functional Windows versions of apps. It's still confusing when I have MacOS apps versus Windows.
Tell me again: if I am mainly using Microsoft apps under Parallels virtual machine, why did I buy a Mac again?
Yes: I insist on having UNIX-like commands. But Cygwin gives me most open source UNIX commands and Microsoft/Windows apps, with a lot less hassle than using MacOS for UNIX-like commands and Parallels for Windows apps.
(Perhaps things would be better with Linux as the host and Windows running in Xen. Linux and Windows have more similar user interface behavior than Windows and Mac.)
And then there are the generic Mac shortcomings:
I hoped and expected that MacOS, being beloved of artists and graphics folk, would support multiple monitors well. BZZTTTTT!!!! On my dinky little Lenovo I used to drive 3 external monitors: a 30" 2560x1600, and two 24" 1200x1920 to read full pages of books and papers. My MacBook can only drive 1 of each - this would be totally unacceptable, except for the fact that the laptiop display itself is so nice.
Fingerprint: my old Lenovo had a fingerprint reader, no MacBook does (at this time). This is especially annoying, since I am chanting "Fingerprints are the next Killer App", and bought an iPhone mainly to get TouchID.
LastPass does not work well in the Apple ecosystem. I now have to type in my (long) password many more times a day than I used to.
MacOS apps usually do not come with uninstallers. Supposedly they do not need uninstallers. BZZZTTTT!!!!!
Windows has some very useful user interface things - like bumping a window against the top or side to maximize. MacOS lacks these. Add-ons like SizeUp help, but do not work for all apps. Like, SizeUp does not work for EMACS, or for FrameMaker. My two most frequently used apps.
Overall, app behavior under the Window manager is much less consistent in MacOS.
MacOS has no equivalent of AutoHotkey. AppleScript comes close, but cannot do everything that AHK does. (I had forgotten how many AHK shortcuts I used on Windows. I can run AHK on Parallels - but then the shortcuts do not work everywhere.)
Did I complain about MacOS's lousy support for multiple, large, displays?
Like, you cannot move the notification area around.
Like, the Dock can only be at the bottom of a screen, or at the side of all - not at the side of any display, the way I can move the windows taskbar.
Windows spanning multiple displays on MacOS are awkward. Not the default on Yosemite. You can get them, but then you lose the Dock appearing on any display.
The whole basic Apple concept, dating back to Xerox, of a menu bar at the top of the screen, with several windows swimming in the display, is a big loss with a large display. It's a LONG way on a 30" monitor, to move your mouse from the bottom right hand corner of a display to the menu bar at the top left hand corner. Would not be so bad if there were more keyboard shortcuts... but Apple dislikes keyboard shortcuts, and no AHK equivalent. No mouse warping.
Did I mention how expensive Apple hardware is? PC hardware is about 33% less, if not half the price.
---
The list goes on and on.
After 2.5 months of using the MacBook, I like it less and less.
It was probably a big mistake to buy a MacBook to run Parallels. It wopuld probably be better to run Windows with Cygwin. Perhaps Linux with Xen to run Windows, but even that is 2X the OS sysadmin work.
Perhaps one day I will not need to use Outlook, or PowerPoint, or Word. Then, I think, MacOS might be worthwhile. But not now.
Now, I am waiting for Windows 10 to be released. If there is a retina class Windows 10 convertible, with touchscreen and pen and fingerprint, enough RAM and a 1TB SSD, I will switch. If I can afford to. If buying the MacBook has not exhausted all o0f my computer budget for this year.
---
Now, the smaller list of what I like about the MacBook:
It does have a nice LCD. (But so do many PCs nowadays.)
There is a large variety of interesting IMAP mail clients in the Apple MacOS app store. Some of them are almost as good as the iPhone and Android mail client apps. There are far fewer of these on Windows.
Much of what I do nowadays is cloud based web apps. These usually run okay on both MacOS and Windows.
But native apps on MacOS, or Windows apps under Parallels? Better to be native Windows.
8 comments:
You could also just run Windows only on the macbook, or dual boot with bootcamp.
Did I mention that the MacBook is slow to rtecognize USB devices?
At my desk I plug the MacBook into a USB keyboard, trackball, and a USB display. (I wish it were 2 or 3 USB displays.)
After starting from scratch it takes 5 minutes to recognize these devices.
Did I mention that my MacBook regularly, every hour or so, loses USB - and then restarts USB a few minutes later (like 5 minutes)?
This stops me dead, since I have USB keyboard, trackball, and display.
So I walk away for 5 minutes...
It is acting like a "Don't sit down for too long" fitness tracker alarm. But I am on a walking desk, so I do not need that.
Did I mention that if my MacBook goes to sleep, when it wakes up the main 30" display (HDMI at work, DisplayPort at home) is staticky?
Sometimes it comes back after a minute or so. Sometimes I have to plug/unplug.
Sometimes I have to reboot (3 times yesterday - none so far today).
This also happens if my MacBook has been "undocked" for a while, like when I am at a meeting, and I return to my desk. Both USB and display. It often takes an extra 5 minutes to get back to normal when I return to my desk. Which is a loss if al I have is 5 minutes between meetings.
The MacBook does not remember multiple multi-display configurations as well as Windows.
This is something that Windows took many years to learn how to do. E.g. in 2002, Windows really only remembered one multi-display configuration.
But since, what, 20`0, Windows has done a good job of remembering different display configuration s. E.g. at work and home I have similar displays, but one of them is portrait flipped rather than portrait (cable length issue).
Windows remembers which is which, I suppose by looking at Display IDs, and restores my preferred display arrangement.
Mac OS does not.
MacOS tries to pull all windows to the laptop LCD when undocked, but sometimes leaves a window mapped off any active display.
Fortunately, MacOS does not support as many displays as I am used to using in windows, so there is less opportunity for it to happen.
Still, I would like a "pull all windows to current display" command.
And another thing...
I keep getting the MacOS "whirling color pinwheel of hang".
Sometimes in Microsoft or Parallels apps.
But right now, Right This Very Instant, in SnagIT.
A MAC native app that helps manage screen clippings.
I am only writing this blog comment because sometimes, not always, the pinwheel wait goes away after a few minutes.
Since it does not seem to be doing so, I will have to kill/restart SnagIt.
I need a strategy for dealing with such hangs: perhaps "kill after 30 seconds, except of a lot of unsaved work".
Fortunately, most modern apps save continuously. EMACS, however, does not. I may try making autosaves more frequently...
Can you just install Windows instead of OS X on your MacBook?
To the suggestions that I install Windows instead of OS X on my MacBook:
Yes, I am leaning that way.
I keep hoping that my MacBook issues are just learning curve, that I will come to love the MacBook.
Although I suspect that much of my issues are more related to using the Parallels virtual machine to run Windows as well as Mac. Largely because of FrameMaker.
That does not excuse the Mac problems with USB and multiple displays.
Post a Comment