Everything I hate about the Mac

The premise of the Mac is that everything “just works ™️ “. It doesn’t.

In my experience, a Dell XPS 13 with Fedora GNOME is closer to “just working” than my Mac (M3 Air).

  1. Workspaces have an animation that you can’t turn off. I have to watch the “sliding” animation, and there’s no way for me to speed it up, or remove entirely.
  2. “Restart” doesn’t work. I press restart, some apps close, or prompt for closing. Then nothing happens. Then I press restart again. Then the computer restarts.
  3. Dark/light mode doesn’t work. If I set it manually, many websites just don’t register it, and I have to set dark/light per website as well.
  4. Dark/light mode automatic setting also doesn’t work. It’s now 19:32. It’s getting dark. I have “automatic” set for light/dark theme, system-wide. It is still at light mode, and I can’t set a schedule.
  5. Mission control doesn’t allow me to start an app. In GNOME, I can go to the equivalent of “mission control”, start typing the name of an app, and it’s right there. In Mac, mission control and spotlight search are different entities.
  6. I can’t close a workspace because there is no X for the first 2 seconds. I create a workspace. I go to mission control, put my cursor on the workspace I want to close. Nothing. A couple of seconds pass, and only then can I close the workspace.
  7. Creating a workspace takes 1-2 seconds. Why not instant? Why do I have to wait?
  8. I can’t click on the clock and get a calendar immediately. Instead, I have to add widgets. If I just want a small calendar widget, it’s not fully right aligned in that notification center thing that opens when you click the clock. It’s stuck outside, towards the left. There’s no way to align it.
  9. Notifications don’t work. I have to manually allow/disallow notifications. I’ve missed more than one meeting because I assumed that I would get a notification, from any of the installed apps. There was no prompt like “allow notifications?”
  10. The function key doesn’t exist on any external keyboard. Therefore, I must have different keyboard workflows for when I want to use the laptop, and when I’m connected to an external keyboard.
  11. I cannot have two external monitors plus the built-in monitor at the same time. Capped at two monitors total.
  12. Every system upgrade forces me to get Siri Intelligence and I always have to refuse it. I cannot refuse it and be done with it. Also, I always get that stupid “Welcome” animation. This isn’t the first time I’m using this computer, why are you welcoming me? Just install the god damned updates and get out of my way.
  13. Keyboard shortcuts are insufficiently customizable.
  14. I cannot freely manipulate windows with the keyboard, move them left, right, up, down, tile them, float them, move them to another workspace. I must use the trackpad for most manipulation.
  15. Liquid glass.
  16. Liquid glass.
  17. Liquid glass.
  18. The dock, when hidden, takes several seconds to appear when I slide the cursor down.
  19. The dock switches screens by default. I leave it at screen 1, but if I randomly go with my cursor down on screen 2, now it’s on screen 2. This of course moves my windows.
  20. What is the dock even? It has my open apps, and also apps that I closed, and also apps that I minimized? It makes no sense to me.
  21. What’s the difference between closing and minimizing? I expect that, when I close an app, that it’ll get closed, and disappear. But it just gets minimized. So I have to go to the dock, right click, and “Quit” it for real. Except for some apps which actually do close! What!
  22. Finder doesn’t show recent files. It just doesn’t.
  23. I wanna take a screenshot of a section of my screen. I have to press the most un-ergonomic combination of keys known to man.
  24. I wanna take a screenshot of a section of my screen. The “screenshot” app behaves completely differently from the behavior I get when taking a screenshot using the shortcut.
  25. Where’s “forward delete” (the Del key)? Does it even exist? The behavior exists when an external keyboard is connected.
  26. Bluetooth mouse and keyboard lag very very much.
  27. Why do I have to set different settings for my keyboard based on which keyboard is connected?
  28. When I turn on that thing where you can only have one app in focus, and the rest goes to the sidebar on the left, I can Cmd+Tab through apps that don’t even appear in focus. The app is closed? But I can go through it with Cmd+Tab. And it’s in focus in the sense that the top bar changes the name. But nothing opens! Visually I’m still on the app I was just at right before!
  29. “Reduce motion” in accessibility reduces only some motion, but other motion remains exactly the same, for example dock animations.
  30. Liquid glass.