6
th0bse
2y

Ok, so: I have a macbook for work. And for the most part, I love it. Its a good looking device that has a fast cpu, enough ram to run stuff locally for testing, even multiple services / environments at the same time without getting overly sluggish.

And, the best thing: It isn't Windows. I have a good, working shell (zsh), so I can use all the command line tooling I could wish for, I have a somewhat working package manager and everything.

But there are just some little things I really can't wrap my head around. And since everything is so locked in by Apple, there are no sensible ways to fix those things without having a bunch of extra programs / services running all the time, introducing overhead, configuration for things I neither want nor need, and so on.

First of all, why the hell did you think the normal way of typing "@" on a german iso keyboard is the key combination for closing the currently focused application? I am a daily user of macos for over 2 years now, and I still keep quitting applications regularly, almost every day.

Or, scroll direction: I use a mouse (g pro wireless) and not just the touchpad, but when I am in a meeting or something (or when I take my macbook with me to configure a switch that isn't accessible over the network), I don't want to take the mouse with me, the touchpad is pretty good, it is big, precise and everything. But for some dumb reason, they decided to reverse the scroll direction for the mouse by default, so if you change that to use the mouse like a normal person, it also changes the scroll direction for the touchpad. And, the worst part is: there doesn't seem to be ANY easy way to separate those two settings, or to automatically set the scroll direction when a mouse is connected.

So every time I use my laptop somewhere else, wich also happens regularly, the scroll directions is wrong, which means I have to go into the settings, change it, then change it back when I am at my desk again.

It just doesn't make any sense, stop trying to "know what our customers want", and please, dear Mr. Tim Apple, give your customers the freedom to know for themselves what they want.

Thanks for listening to my TED Talk.

Comments
  • 1
    My favourite part about Linux is DBus. No one ever thought of introducing a way to change scroll direction when a new device is connected, but that doesn't mean I can't do it in like 5 lines of Python.
  • 0
    There's a strange bug in Bluez or Sony's firmware or Pipewie where if I connect my Bluetooth headphones they aren't recognized as a sound device until I re-issue the connection command. So naturally I have a startup script that monitors all Bluetooth devices and when "connected" changes value it waits a second and then calls "connect". This is 11 lines including logging and it works without setup on all desktops that have Bluez, python3 and python-dbus.
  • 0
    Sure the persistence of that bug is itself a con, but since I know basic programming I can just figure out how to work around all the little quirks and then script the workarounds so that I never have to carry them out manually again.
  • 0
    Lol, much quality
  • 0
    @lbfalvy what is that “org.bluez is not defined by any service” error?
  • 0
    @aviophile I assume you don't have Bluez or it isn't running, but I'll need more detail.
  • 1
    I get your points. If your mouse is supported by logi option(s), it does handle the switching of directions.

    The direction settings are ridiculous. You have different settings for trackpad and mouse but changing the direction for one also changes it for the other.
  • 1
    @ChibangLW exactly, but that just makes the whole thing even more ridiculous. Why have separate options when in the end it's still the same thing. Then at least be upfront about your bad UX, don't try to hide it from me.
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