For the last several months, I've been using an M1 MacBook Pro as one of my main laptops for work and school, and in that time, I have developed a simultaneous love of the hardware of the 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro and hatred of MacOS as an operating system. It is important to understand that I am not the typical demographic of a person who would use and enjoy MacOS, as I am someone who uses and loves Linux from the perspective of its freedom, openness, and ability to tweak to my heart's content. As a result, it is not surprising that I have as many problems with MacOS as I do, but even in considering these problems, I still feel as though they could very easily be resolved without negatively affecting the target demographic of MacOS (the type of person who has been using MacOS for a long time and who wants a machine that just works, even if it just works in a way that is not necessarily as optimal as it could be). For a little more housekeeping, it is also important to note that I do like MacOS much more than Windows and would rather switch entirely to MacOS as my sole daily driver than use Windows as a daily driver again, as the problems that I have with MacOS are nothing compared to the continual and substantial problems that I have and have had with Windows for the entire duration I had the considerable misfortune to be a Windows user. As one final disclaimer: this is all my personal taste, and I do not think anyone is wrong if they like MacOS. With all of that out of the way, I will be explaining myself in the following statement: MacOS is a great OS for people who are not like me.
A recurrent theme throughout my time using MacOS is that it is a genuinely beautiful operating system. There are so many little touches in the animations, the transparency, the rounded edges, the consistent design language, the color usage, that make MacOS as an OS gorgeous to look at and use. Although I do prefer the more minimalist look of Gnome, and greatly prefer its functionality, I will not deny that MacOS surpasses every single other OS and desktop environment I've used thus far (if perhaps some configurations of Hyprland and Sway) in respect to the aesthetics. I can see very clearly why so many people swear by it, as I would be lying if I said that I didn't find it appealing to look at, and often very pleasant to use and interface with. Although the gestures are not as intuitive as those on Gnome for me personally, they far surpass what is in many desktops, and certainly what is on Windows. I do wonder if my opinion would have changed if I had used an external mouse as my main navigational tool, as with a touchpad, MacOS is second only to Gnome in my eyes. These gestures work in tandem with the fantastic trackpad, which is the best I have ever used, no contest. Not only is it massive, incredibly smooth, and satisfying to use, but the palm rejection is second to none, such that it almost feels like magic to me. Coming from Linux, where for most laptops the palm rejection is quite honestly terrible, it is a true breath of fresh air using a laptop that does not seem to be fighting against me unless I disable the trackpad or select for a trackpad that is small enough that it stays out of my way. Windows was no better in my experience. Unfortunately, this is where my positives end, and a mountain of frustration takes its place.
I do not think I have been more consistently baffled by the design decisions of any other operating system I have used in my entire life than when I have used MacOS. Not even considering the lack of even basic customization (which we will get to soon), the defaults are so ridiculously idiotic that I genuinely do not understand how anyone can use it without spending a while figuring out how to modify it to make it even slightly tolerable. Starting with file management: what the hell. By default, the file manager is floating, rather than stacking or tiling, which is absolutely insane. When I first opened Finder and tried opening a folder, only to find it moved over a tiny bit out of line with the rest of the folders, I was genuinely dumbfounded. Why would anyone want this? It just does not make sense to me why organizing the folders by name, or size, or type, or ANYTHING is not the default, instead of this weird floating method where you just drag and drop your folders anywhere. This feels so antithetical to any sensible workflow, I do not understand how anyone could find it efficient or useful in any way unless it is the only thing they are used to using. Fortunately, this can be very easily changed, but this problem of nonsensical defaults carries over throughout the entire operating system. For instance, without an external tool called Scroll Reverser, using an external mouse uses whatever scroll direction your touchpad has. This is a huge problem for me, because I use natural scrolling for the touchpad, as is the default with MacOS, but absolutely do NOT like natural scrolling for external mice. This has never been a problem on any other operating system that I've used before until I used MacOS, and I absolutely hate it. It is very frustrating to me that I need to install a third-party tool just to make mice work the way I want them to. This leads into my biggest problem with MacOS, and the most expected problem coming from Arch Linux as my main daily driver OS.
I just want to put the stoplights on the right side of the window. Why can't I put the traffic lights on the right side of the window? Why can't I switch out Launchpad for something a bit more functional? Why can't I change my desktop environment to something that I like more? Why can't I easily edit things in my /etc/ directory? Related, why can I only change things easily in my /home/ directory? Why do I need to ask pretty please every single time I want to download something that isn't in the App Store (which is most everything, because the App Store is ridiculously limited)? Why can't I make Siri fuck off? Why can't I use a different file explorer than Finder? Why can't I use Wine-like emulation for x86_64 games without spending 80 goddamn dollars for JUST THAT VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE, UPDATES COST EXTRA?????? You can't change anything. On Arch, if I don't like how something works, I can change it. If I want a different windowing system, I can change it. If I want a different file manager, I can change it. If I don't like having my window decorations on the left side of my window, I can move it to the right. Pretty much everything I might want to change to perfectly suit my needs can very easily be changed, and that level of freedom just is not present on MacOS, and very likely never will. It is hard to describe just how limiting it feels to go from using my computer in whatever way I want, no restrictions, to being treated like I can't be trusted with the sharp scissors. In a lot of ways, using MacOS feels like using a pretty toy, rather than using a real computer, and all the little frustrations with the OS cause me to end up hating my time on it, despite being in love with the laptop itself. This is to say nothing of my biggest problem: it is proprietary.
I've written about it before, but free and open-source software (FOSS) is very important to me, and MacOS is proprietary software. I have already written about this, so I won't repeat myself much, and will instead refer you here if you want to read more about FOSS. But the TL;DR is this: you can control your system like no other, you can prevent yourself from being spied on like no other, you can have freedom like no other. On MacOS, you are stuck with the whims of a multinational corporation, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. On Arch, if I don't like something, I can fork the repo and remove the change I don't like. It's as simple as that.
I absolutely love my Mac. The 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro is the best laptop I have ever used. It feels so premium, it is insanely fast, and everything about the actual hardware feels fantastic. The screen alone is remarkable, to say nothing of the very good keyboard, the perfect trackpad, the beautiful unibody aluminum construction that feels both durable and premium, and the very usable port selection. I also love MagSafe, and wish it was on all my computers after getting used to it on my MacBook. Yet, I am held back from considering my MacBook my favorite machine solely because of the operating system. I cannot enjoy my time as much as I wish I could because MacOS is just such a pain to use for my personal workflow. Once Asahi Linux becomes mature enough to daily drive, MacOS will be nothing but a distant memory. Maybe if I had grown up with MacOS, its quirks would be enjoyable and its issues would be features, but as it stands, I truly hate it. There are just too many little problems that do not have easy solutions, and what I've found to be my favorite way to use my machine is to put Alacritty into full-screen and use the laptop as the most expensive terminal. But even in this, it feels limited as compared to Linux, where I feel like I never need to leave my terminal to get my work done, whereas in MacOS, it feels like I always have to fight against a system that does not want me to use it.
If you like MacOS, I'm glad, and I hope you continue to like it for years to come. But after several months of struggling against it, I can say with certainty that it is not for me.
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