alt Hacker NewsTheir software is better than most (if not all) of closed-source universe. That's true, but the problem is, they were better in the past.
I'm using both Linux and macOS close to 20 years (Linux is even more than 20, IIRC), and macOS (aka Mac OS) used to be snappier, more stable, more uniform and had incredibly low number of papercuts around the UI. Now it has some nasty thorns here and there, while Linux is improving steadily and not regressing much as macOS.
Apple needs to overhaul their software stack. They can use a lot of sanding and polishing to bring the shine back. They need another "Snow Leopard" release, as many people say.
On the other hand, even with all these bells and whistles, they can't even get close to the composability of Linux systems. Doing so will also damage their bottom line, so they won't, and that's OK.
Replies
The thing where Linux (and Android, and Windows at least circa 2023) blows Apple out of the water is in UI latency. The built-in animations on Apple's software are sometimes hundreds of times slower than on their competitors, in ways which can't be accounted for.
Improving interface response times is the single best thing Apple can do to improve their UX. I don't need an interface which throbs, wiggles, jiggles, shines, and refracts, I need an interface that's snappy and fast.
As far as I know, MacOS is the _only_ desktop OS with this problem. The only way to fix this problem on MacOS is to do everything inside a virtual machine running anything but MacOS.
Linux benefits long term from the fragmentation that hurts it in the short-term. Competing projects means it is harder for software to go too far down the wrong road. Go to far and somebody emerges to replace you. And popular ideas emerge that others can copy from.
With macOS, you really have no choice to use what Apple offers. You can hope they listen to dissent but they may not depending on priorities. And things have to be bad enough to jump platforms before real dissent registers. And things have to get pretty bad for that.
Same issue with Windows of course.
With GNOME, KDE, COSMIC, and the Linux rat pack, it is easy to switch experiences without ditching Linux entirely. And somebody has probably even patched your DE of choice to address the papercuts you do not like.
> but the problem is, they were better in the past.
So true. I run into so many little and annoying bugs I sometimes wonder if Apple Execs actually use their own devices.
I've been using Apple since IIe in the 80s and all of the UI iterations. People make iOSification comments about macOS, and there have definitely been annoyances as they are seemingly trying to unify the UX. Maybe it'll make sense when they have touch controllable macOS systems, but making things that work well for fingertips and assuming they will work equally as well operating by a mouse is just bad.
As for Linux, I don't think I've ever used a system with UI for any serious amount of time. >99.999% of my usage is on headless systems through a terminal. As god intended.
A Snow Leopard move, at least for iOS, is what's on deck:
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/15/ios-27-will-reportedly-...
> That's true, but the problem is, they were better in the past.
You just have to look at their directors managing those software directions and you will exactly why it's become the mess that it is today.
This hits hard.
They were so much better. And have slid slowly into complacency, if not worse.
True, it's better than most for sure and I agree it used to be better. Though a lot of other software for windows and linux are really not that great so the bar is probably on the lower end.
I use both Linux and Macos, and I'd like to get rid of xcode or have something like Nautilus.
There are many, many things that are completely normal in Linux that are super clunky in MacOS at best.
But at least try to match Nautilus or Thunar ffs.
They were also worse in the past at times. Lion was a shit show. Worst OS X release. And does no one remember the 90s?
We need thinner phones. We need 19 cameras. The future is clear.
I agree with everything you just said. That’s exactly my take on it.
When Apple released its BSD-based OS X at the turn of the century, I was at Rice learning on Solaris machines, and also started dual booting Linux on my personal desktop at the time. My first few years in the working world were spent on Dells running Windows, so by the time I bought my first laptop in 2006, I was excited to spend my dollars on an unusual-looking white Macbook specifically because it had a *nix shell and the developer experience was vastly better to me than any machine I used at my day jobs. I still prefer working on Macs because ever since, they have just worked and Windows has gotten progressively worse (I know, because I have helped my parents with their Surface laptop). Unfortunately, Mac OS X has been less robust in the last several years, and I'd love to see them turn this around, both for the developer experience and for regular consumers. I still like using Photos, but I don't use their cloud for those, and I've been amazed over the years just how uninformative the Photos app on Mac can be when it flakes out and I have to try a rain dance just to get it to sync with my iPhone. That's pretty abysmal for a company that used to just work, but I believe it comes from the top. Steve Jobs used to enforce quality, and I want to see that again!