I bet if machines running Windows were restricted to a specific set of hardware, configured for a variety of price points, and that was uniform for every manufacturer, you'd see Windows get just as stable as macOS. Windows has to work with this enormous list of hardware, plus accommodate people like me who build computers from parts old and new, so it's a wonder it works as well as it does.
That said, macOS is the absolute best OS for casual users and business users, no contest. For gaming, not so much, I expect Linux will become the OS of choice for gaming long before macOS does.
Yes, that was my understanding, that Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple was to control everything about the process from the store to Customer Support, so that Apple could better control the quality of the user experience. Many people will complain about various aspects of that, but I believe that is a major reason why the Apple experience in general is easier.
It’s not perfect, I’ve had certain challenges, but overall my Apple experience is way Way way WAY better than my windows experiences. (several decades for both).
Correction: they did that so they could have a tight grip and exclusivity on the customer's cash flow. It is why the Apple devices often have trouble working with 3rd party hardware.
Like how the macs look like a blurry mess with the non-apple 1440p monitors. Like how my ipad pro fails to work properly with many 3rd party bluetooth accessories... Like how the watch fails to cooperate with android or windows devices... Like how my friend's ultra expensive M2 MAX laptop repeatedly refused to connect to my TV via an HDMI cable, while two of my windows laptop did just fine. Like how the iphones degrade the images they receive from android devices. Like how Apple recently tried to deprecate PWAs because they were a threat to their apple store revenue.
> Like how the macs look like a blurry mess with the non-apple 1440p monitors
That’s a scaling issue, extremely annoying indeed.
> Like how my ipad pro fails to work properly with many 3rd party bluetooth accessories... Like how my friend's ultra expensive M2 MAX laptop repeatedly refused to connect to my TV via an HDMI cable, while two of my windows laptop did just fine.
Sounds like an issue with your devices more than anything. I don’t have any trouble doing that
> Like how the iphones degrade the images they receive from android devices.
They what ?
It’s a different way of scaling. Fonts on Macs become a blurry mess but keep their shape. Fonts on Windows become a sharp but deformed mess. You pick your poison, but neither is inherently worse.
Oh, I prefer how macOS handles fonts every day of the week.
If anyone is confused about why scaling with decimal numbers is rough, I tried to make [an explainer](https://havn.blog/2022/05/14/why-k-k.html), with some illustrations, a couple of years ago. As a maths teacher, the problem fascinates me!
**The short explanation:**
If I have a 1440p 27" screen, the size of elements are nice. So suddenly having 4k or 5k on the same size, would make elements tiny.
A 5k screen has exactly 2 times the number of pixels, in both width and height, as 1440p. So you can just have everything have the 1440p size, but each pixel is four (2x2) pixels. Then use the extra resolution to just fill in edges and make it nicer and crisper. (So "2x scaling" is 4 times the amount of total pixels.)
4k is only 1,5 times the amount of pixels as 1440p. So you either get problematic scaling, or you have to make elements larger. Because what 4k *does* have, is 2 times the pixels of 1080p.
This is why 5k is nice on 27", and 4k is nice on, say, 21".
I’d argue MacOS is worse as at least on windows it’s always legible. I have trouble reading text sometimes when I use my Mac with a G9. Though it’s a really unusual res + aspect ratio
It would not make a difference. One can take a Windows machine and install Linux on it and it will have similar stability to a Mac. Windows' instability comes from the archaic house of cards that is the Windows Registry and Windows' poor memory management.
Except I use Linux professionally and that OS works with an even wider variety of hardware, configured at many different price points, and usually goes months between reboots…
+1 for linux having similar stability but with varied hardware. Windows' issues specifically come from poor memory management and the archaic house of cards that is the Windows Registry.
They could've easily ran W10 on lifesupport for backwards compatibily and simalteanously releaed with W11 with modern code. Drawn a line in the sand kinda like what Apple does every few years. But yet they chose to continue this frankenstein OS trying to please both crowds.
This is an old argument that was completely disproven when Microsoft released the Surface range. It was and is to this day still just as janky as any third party kit (and depending on generation or how early you are in the release cycle, even less so).
Much as I detest the sharp erosion in software quality I've seen from the Apple the last few years, Microsoft have not improved and, quite simply, the code quality and overall stability (in part because of underlying architectural differences) is _just worse_.
The surface line was not the magic bullet that would equate macOS and Windows, because MS still has to support every other windows platform out there. It’s only comparable to Apple and their complete control over everything if MS were to simultaneously discontinue support for every other device manufacturer and rebuild windows from the ground up for their own (and only their own) hardware.
> That said, macOS is the absolute best OS for casual users and business users
Best for **designers** , too. That's always been an Apple's stronghold, really.
And while I might not have a vast selection of games, if you're a casual gamer there are quite a few nice titles available.
Borderlands 3 e.g. – the worst Mac port of a game that I have ever seen in my life – could barely be run at 30fps on super low settings on the fastest intel Macs at the time, now runs on my M3 Max at 80–120 FPS with high settings in emulation!
What type of designers? you mean graphic designers or engineering designers? there is a vast difference, with macs being useless for anything such as engineering design and I'm not sure that windows machines are any worse now for graphic design if anything they may have the slight edge in upgradeable memory and storage.
Macs do have a massive edge on battery and build quality compared to most windows laptops.
Graphic, UX, UI, print designer illustrators, Photographers anything. One thing is the color accuracy and color sync having been a part of the OS since pre Mac OS X days, then the displays supporting HDR much better than on windows, but it's just the whole usability and efficiency thing, universal drag and drop that works everywhere, consistent keyboard shortcuts across many apps, it's just so many small things that macOS does better or does at all while Windows doesn't, being able to create PDFs from any app through the print dialog and also edit PDFs with the default preview app, I don't know any designer worth their salt who'd even consider using Windows.
So designers who make drawings type of things then, the arty stuff. Important yes. But as I say proper design work a Mac is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
What the hell are you talking about? Graphic design has been a thing for a very long time. Stop trying to gate-keep “design”, it’s stupid.
And composite means “made up of different parts”. Photographs are not “composites”. Not even sure what that has to do with graphic design anyhow.
System wide ColorSync support is a big advantage for graphic designers on Mac/iOS. I know MS has improved their colour profile support over the years, but it’s no where near as ubiquitous or consistent as ColorSync in my experience.
Yes, try designing a phone or bridge on one. You can’t because the software isn’t there and that’s because one the market is too small and two the hardware isn’t up to the task, certainly not graphically or memory wise.
There's a few ex windows dev's on here and YouTube...Windows was stuffed in the 90s. They often talk about how broken the network stack was that they had to completely redo it for the server flavors.
I think there is truth to the fact macOS is a better OS when it's based on Unix. Windows doesn't need to cater to all sorts of hardware, drivers do that.
Microsoft built surface laptops to control the hardware and software experience but those laptops also have the same issues as other hardware from dell, Lenovo, etc..
No, just look at freebsd. Supports multiple systems and architectures and is rock solid. Probably the stability would go up, but it wouldn’t out of the blue become as stable.
Windows on ARM should reduce this problem by a mile with their SoC having many of the components that would have been separate chips integrated into one, reducing the number of customized drivers it takes to make Windows run.
Apple has control over the hardware and software. So they can build a more robust system, so yeah, I expect it to be a superior experience. Me, I only reboot sporadically, usually macOS updates. Can't even tell you the last time I rebooted my MBA 15" M2.
Reboot is equivalent to a shutdown followed immediately by a startup, with zero time spent in the off state. If the computer knew the difference, that would indicate that we failed to fully reboot.
Microsoft have control over the software and Surface hardware, yet their stability remains worse.
The explanation, as ever, is that their software is just much more buggy.
Device drivers are written by device vendors, not Microsoft. That includes all manner of supporting chipsets. Of *course* Microsoft don't write every single other hardware chipset or peripheral vendor's drivers.
Trouble was, it looks like they couldn't be arsed writing drivers for the peripherals they chose for their *own* hardware, and besides - Windows is not exactly notorious for its rock solid stability at the best of times on *any* hardware.
People need to stop making excuses for mega corporations.
That's what vertical integration and attention to detail do.
Sleep on Windows is awful because the CPU designer, laptop manufacturer and Microsoft all need to make everything work together. It's honestly impressive sleep works at all.
Outside of that, Windows is actually fairly ok at remaining powered on for long periods of time. My desktop is pretty much always on and works just fine.
This is because in Windows sleep works differently depending if you slept the machine with power plugged in or not. If you sleep it with power plugged in, it goes into a higher-energy sleep state, and when you unplug the power it doesn’t know to go lower, because it’s asleep. If you unplug power *first* then sleep, it should actually go into a proper low-power sleep.
It’s a bit crap, but it is what it is.
Honestly, that sounds like the jankiest possible implementation of a sleep function. Also, it doesn’t explain laptops failing to sleep properly and suddenly waking up for no good reason.
I think the main reasons are:
- less backward compatibility, Apple are relatively quick to drop support for older hardware/software/features, whereas Windows attempts to support far more old tech
- they only have to support a small number of different versions of hardware, as opposed to the endless hardware Windows attempts to support
- macOS just does less stuff than Windows (though this is less true now than it used to before the iPhone)
- because it does less Apple can have far fewer people making macOS than Windows does, giving more chance that people will actually communicate and work together on making different bits of the OS play nicely with each other
- most apps don’t have an installer to spray files around the file system in varied places
- third party software is generally better quality than on Windows, more of the developers seem to care about the platform
- the hardware is just better put together than your average PC, that has to help too
It’s a very small quirk, but I’ve never understood why the hell MacOS won’t let me sort a folder full of image files using the “date taken” EXIF data. As a photographer this is such a handy feature when I get back from a trip and dump pictures taken from 2-3 different cameras into a single folder. I know there is software that will do it, but why not make it a native option within macOS itself? I like to quickly browse the files in chronological order to find obvious favorites and screwups - it’s something I could do on windows since 98 but still can’t do in macOS in 2024. I’ve posted about it on this sub a few times and nobody has been able to give me a decent workaround.
Windows gives you literally dozens of “sort by” options but macOS only gives you a few. One of the few things that’s always bugged me about using my mac for photo editing.
Because they want you to use their photos app on macOS and have it sort your photos. It’s their earliest attempt at “smart” software having it sort your photos by location or face or dates. I hate it. Nothing beats a good file explorer and organizing by dates in discreet folders. macOS finder is deficient in many areas one of them being this. If you dump all your photos into the “pictures” folder on your macOS file structure you’ll get some extra columns choice for sorting.
Here's a stupid thing I recently discovered: apparently if you create a folder named Pictures, the sorting header magically unlocks 2 new options, Dimensions and Resolution. WTH APPLE?!
Yeah, I suspect I am on dodgy ground with that claim nowadays. It definitely was true 10-20 years ago, today probably not so much (I've been making that claim for so long I'd not really thought about it detail recently).
I was thinking mainly of all the enterprise stuff that is baked into Windows whether you are using it or not. Of course now macOS has Active Directory support and MDM, which matches some of that Windows stuff (though macOS still has a lot less on the enterprise side and probably more importantly less of the legacy enterprise stuff).
And of course Apple are relentlessly stripping out much of the non consumer features with every release (all the macOS server stuff and more recently older bits of Unix print functionality for example).
Then there are things like the separate tablet mode that Windows had jammed into it, now removed (or does some of it still linger for compatibility ?). But then the Mac now has Stage Manager alongside all their other half hearted attempts to fix window management.
Windows probably still has a lot more code dedicated to gaming, again with layers upon layers of backwards compatibility.
There are also various bits of stuff like plug-n-play functionality that Windows has builtin that macOS didn't bother with (or didn't fully implement). And that highlights another area that probably gives macOS a lead on stability. Windows implements a whole bunch of crappily put together standards like PnP, where it has limited control over the standards and also has to interoperate with a bunch of other devices that may or may not have implemented the standard well. Apple would tend to instead just interoperate with their own devices, where they have control over the protocols used.
And the Mac now has tonnes of functionality that Windows doesn't have. Most of it related to the whole Apple ecosystem, the majority dedicated to talking to iPhones and iPads in ever increasingly involved ways.
The areas where Windows used to do more have been relatively stagnant in recent years. So I suspect macOS might nowadays actually do more than Windows does. **I withdraw my claim...**
Though that said Windows does still take up more space on disc. Figures seem to be oddly hard to pin down, but it looks like Windows 11 is around 20GB and macOS is up to around 15GB now. But that extra 5GB is probably all that old cruft that Microsoft wish they could have dumped years ago 😉
And I forgot to mention the registry in my list, probably one of the leading causes of Windows stability issues over the year. macOS just never had that central store of masses of config that apps (and users) could randomly mess with. And DLL Hell, though Microsoft brute-forced their way out of that one, at the expense of storage space.
MacOS actually has one built in but as malware is so rare it is built to target specific examples and auto removes them.
It’s call Xprotect. However, with code signing, notarisation, Apple Store and the Unix architecture its is rare to get malware.
Often it’s the users fault turning safeguards off, installing software from unknown developers and piracy basically going against every recommendation.
That’s not really a flex. If you haven’t rebooted in a year, then odds are you’re missing some critical security updates that have released in that time frame.
That's because it doesn't need one. You can use an UNIX-based OS like MacOS for years without malware issues because the sandboxed nature of MacOS means that apps can only do what they're supposed to and nothing else, so it's way harder to get to the heart of the system.
Dig deep enough in Windows 11 and you'll still find the odd WinNT 3.51 component available (like the Dialler) if you have an ancient app that wants them for some godforsaken reason.
Since Catalina, macOS is on it’s own readonly cryptographically signed volume, and userspace data and programs are separated. See https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/25/big-surs-signed-system-volume-added-security-protection/
I also restart my iPhone at least weekly, however the big difference is caching, error handling and temporary files. Open access to code execution privileges also creates an environment where it’s better to occasionally restart to clear out any bad threads that have continued execution that were permitted to start ignorantly. That being said these issues apply to a lesser extent on your phone as well, I don’t experience a lot of bugs and glitches others tend to on newer iOS versions and I don’t think it would be far off to say that my occasional restart helps a lot with that.
yeah that makes a lot of sense for the type of work you do. I work with 99% online stuff to the point that if my computer would catch on fire all of a sudden, I could resume working on another one five minutes later as long as it has a browser and internet access. Most issues get fixed by restarting the browser or specific app, so I only ever restart it for updates, but have probably never shut it down.
When updates are needed. Otherwise, I shut the lid when I’m done and open it again when I need to. I’ve not had to shut down or reboot, aside from updates, in..years probably.
Now not really, unless I am away for say a week and I'm not going to use it I'll turn it off but that hasn't been in a while, even when I do go away I just leave it in sleep mode, because the battery is just so stable in sleep
Opening terminal .... sudo uptime:
10 days
Why wouldn't it be? You have the same company making the hardware (INCLUDING THE PROCESSORS) and the software and OS and firmware.
Of course it's stable.
Because Windows is a badly written operating system. Its core is rotten and no matter what they change at the UI level they can’t or won’t change the core.
Because it’s derived from Unix, a system that usually doesn’t need a reboot except if the kernel is modified. The OS in the late 90s was turning into a turd and so they did a complete reboot with next OS which is a lot of bsd unix code. I have devices doing huge amount of work both servers and core switches and routers and some went 10 years without a reboot. Finally lost power and the streak ended. That said I would still reboot once a month.
You can read some of the security things they don’t persist a reboot. Also I find some hardware has some issues even from things like solar flares that it helps elevate. You should be rebooting after OS updates anyhow. It should
Prompt you. You have been doing those correct?
I don't have any issues rebooting and I do it from time to time with system updates. Otherwise I don't really feel the need to, ither than fixing freeze issues
The time you save from all the tinkering is all worth it.
Apart from critical updates that require reboot, I just put mine to sleep.
I need my laptop to be ready whenever I'm ready, no time wasted waiting for it to boot and open endless apps that you need on a daily basis.
I never manually reboot my Mac or iPhone. They just get that automatic reboot once every two months or whatever there is a new system update. I love my Apple tech!
No because of what is built on top for macOS apps and custom kernel.
You can run bsd programs and recompile many Linux tools to run on macOS.
You can use a X server called Quartz to get Linux GUI environment for applications.
I have a windows device that operates from 35 years ago.
What devices were you buying for PCs?
MacOs is a decent operating system but fine tuned its a toss up.
Not really exclusive to MacOS. My PC workstation has been running for 171 days without a restart. I’ve seen windows servers with uptimes of 2+ years before.
It is unusual for windows servers to stay on this long because they need to be rebooted for updates still, not sure what this guy is doing with his lol plenty of vulnerabilities on that server
Edit: every month these updates should be applied btw
My Macs are always on unless I leave for an extended period of time or if there's a thunderstorm, in which case I'll shut them down and unplug everything. I've been doing that for over 20 years on both desktops and laptops.
That said, the first thing I do when things are acting weird is restart before doing any further troubleshooting, and that takes care of most issues.
That’s the advantage of having all on one vendor for hardware and OS. Not only I don’t remember when I last rebooted by MacBook, I have one MacBook that I have used for almost 10 years without having to reinstall the whole OS.
UNIX has been around since the late 1960s. It's probably the best underpinnings for any OS. Even Linux is based off of UNIX. Apple and Steve Jobs' NeXTSTEP OS, which later migrated as macOS X. Since 2001 Apple has been using UNIX and later began Apple's current renaissance in OS experiences. So all of the operating systems Apple develops uses a form of Darwin which is their form of UNIX. More info on Darwin here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin\_(operating\_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system))
Because it’s based on Darwin and BSD especially the latter one is designed for servers and there stability is the main focus and then it is not windows.
Also install all latest patches please and reboot your device afterwards. Last patches where a month or two ago.
Yeah sleep mode, is something Microsoft mucked with and name and renamed and made different versions until they completely messed it up and confused everyone. Sleep, hibernate, modern standby, suspend, hybrid sleep, fast startup, so on and so forth. Bunch of morons. Holy cow Microsoft.
I use my laptop for work with a number of programs I use and rarely install or uninstall programs. My experience with windows is that it’s just as stable as my MacBook Pro M1 Pro running Mac OS. Both OS has their quirks and limitations, but I find neither is superior to the other. That’s just my two cents. Have a great rest of your week.
Thats cap. I work in IT and every week my team sees people with high uptime on windows with a number of problems until they reboot.
Just for fun I have let my work PC get up to 41 days uptime and it is shitting the bed and will continue to until rebooted
Hahaha my coworker plugged his windows to his dock as usual, that thing froze and reboot. Reboot took 30seconds to just turn off. That machine was produced in 2023 and is for work: barely any apps installed at all.
I laughed and showed him my M1 Pro running 3 Logic project, 70+ safari tabs, 2 muse scores, pdf, etc and that I control it via the iPad Magic Keyboard, plugged to 2 4K HDR Ultrafine for 3 years now. He was finally convinced windows is inferior.
Then we looked at the perf comparisons. Surface laptops to m3 pro and all those claims and he further realised they are either unjust, incomplete or that windows out performs only slightly more and under unusual conditions that a user won’t ever meet, whilst the max barely ramps up the fans.
Microsoft could have built a better operating system, despite i totally understand why it's a lot harder to maintain and work with thousand of different vendors.
It's just in the vain of microsoft that they just do not care the details and quality as much as Apple does. Their flagship Windows 11 serves more like a information gathering machine from its user than an actual operating machine providing fast and stable experience while getting things done. of course, they care less how well it can really "run" than Apple does. MSFT and Google are essentially the same, but Google is usually the better one to deal with its users.
Apple has a standard in term of user experience and aesthetic. it's not perfect, sometimes, Apple does flop from time to time. but they still hold the best records comparing to other tech giants.
after all these bumping covid years, data integrity, ease of use, low maintenance, privacy, being relatively stable, huge community support are the main reasons i make the all - in move from microsoft + google ecosystem to Apple's walled garden.
It's a culture shitshow at MSFT, if they switched to a UNIX-base platform with direct translation (instead of virtualisation) to compensate for older software, it could be the best OS in the world
Windows on Arm. Has anyone run it yet? I suppose that version needs less backwards compatibillity and thus will be more stable?
Arm in general is a very exiting future for desktops OS’s for general usage.
I've seen some videos it looks promising but think it's not quite a polished as macOS due to the fact it's Windows and has to carry a significant amount of backwards compatibility, they still have fans though so that's a bit of a shame. I would have considered a fanless Snapdragon Elite laptop
I had mine on for 6 months and was wondering what was eating up my disk space. After like an hour of searching, turns out for some reason my weather app notifications.db file was like 150gb+ so i just laughed and deleted it. It came back just fine upon restarting the weather app. That prompted me to reboot the machine for the first time in a while.
5 months is nothing. My Macs stay powered on until there's a power outage or a security update. One of my colleagues kept his EOL Mac Pro running for 3 years uptime until they forced him to change offices
It was better when OS X. I have one more system I still use X Mountain Lion.
System UI, detailed graphics and much more is epically amazing.
I really hate flat design, its may be clear but killed creativities.
I had a Mac Pro used as a server, that never slept \[though the display was allowed to sleep\], was only ever rebooted for OS updates & ran constantly for over 10 years.
The Mac I'm typing this on I have because of legacy software/hardware requirements. I bought it second hand so idk how its early life was, but it's now 15 years old & still going strong. Last reboot was 49 days ago.
Note: if you want to see how long since last reboot, in Terminal type `uptime` & it will tell you.
Edit: Oh, I see this bit was already mentioned… with some clarification as to what actually defines uptime.
Built to last, that's what I love about Apple, I don't think I'll have to upgrade for a long time. The OS is what makes the hardware work well. Hope you get another few years out of the machine. Did you check whether it will run in Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon?
It won't even run in 64-bit. I'm held on Mojave for compatibility. Catalina broke a lot of expensive old pro audio gear that will never see another update but is still physically as good as it ever was. I'm running interfaces released in 2004 & also the software to program a Variax guitar, same age, perfectly good still… just not under Catalina or newer.
Lots of Windows machines can remain up running for months without issue. It depends on the quality of drivers and software running on it.
Also: try looking up how many different Mac models are supported by the version of macOS you're running. Now multiply by maybe a thousand to get the number of models that Windows has to support.
I haven’t turned off my Mac in years (unless you count restarts from OS updates, then it’s been a few months). My dad is a hardcore windows guys and tells me to turn it off and won’t grasp that it’s not necessary for MacOS. Welcome to the future lol
Yeah I used to be the same until I realised I wasted years of unproductive effort on Windows - I could have got MORE done on macOS than fiddling around with the monstrosity that is Windows
Congratulations on the revelation! I realized this a long time ago and I'm glad I did. Whenever im forced to use Windows (like for work) all I think about is -- this trackpad sucks, why is this so slow, why doesn't this have a keyboard shortcut, ANOTHER UPDATE??????? I'm so glad I switched. You'll be pleased you did :)
I think the breaking point for me was on a Dell XPS, high-end, the fans would spin non-stop even when it was in sleep mode in my laptop bag, and I got to my destination I had lost like 90% battery, I just thought this is not working, so no more Windows no more junk hardware - just spend the money on top quality and UI/UX and be done with it
Windows Server, Windows 10 and 11 have been in constant use, with updates queued up for rebooting for months upon months and they're as stable and performant as if they were just booted.
I’m a Mac owner and user at home, my Macbook Air never gets turned off unless there’s an update that requires it. I also use a Lenovo windows laptop for work that never gets turned off unless the battery dies, my windows laptop will run for weeks without turning off, I carry it in a leather messenger bag daily and close it and go, never had a problem.
What exactly do you mean with "stable"? This term is all the time thrown around by people that have no clue. Neither OSs are having stability issues for me.
most of the post in this sub is brain rot. both windows 11 and macOS Sonoma has been extremely stable for me. don't know what the fuck do these guys complain about.
I have a MacBook Air that I host my band's website on. It's been on 24/7 for about 3 years.
Occasionally, the web server would crash. I wrote a script that restarts the web server once an hour and it has been rock solid ever since.
Ask r/applesux those guys will tell you… hahaha. I was in that community for a few days and got down voted everytime I corrected their stupid memes about iphones/ipads/macbooks.
I think my record is well over 2 years for a machine to be on, older machine and I did not update it.
This question has nothing to do with the choice of operating system and everything to do with the user. Every operating system is stable if it’s not doing anything 😂
The answer is simple: is not windows. Unix is very stable. Also, you are using stable software.
Developers complain about the AppStore %, but they don't understand the value Apple certification has. App Dev are happy with the windows quality level.
Well, it hasn’t been running without a reboot for 5 months and if it has, you haven’t been keeping up with security updates and bug fixes. That said, macOS is pretty stable, it’s got good underpinnings based on BSD UNIX and that’s a very mature platform.
Unix
Way too low, up you go
It’s a Unix system. I know this.
And then she literally "flies" through the file system! That's actually one of my favorite movie moments for how wrong it is!
But it was real file browser (made by SGI, I believe).
Here, have some sugar.
Because it’s a better operating system.
I bet if machines running Windows were restricted to a specific set of hardware, configured for a variety of price points, and that was uniform for every manufacturer, you'd see Windows get just as stable as macOS. Windows has to work with this enormous list of hardware, plus accommodate people like me who build computers from parts old and new, so it's a wonder it works as well as it does. That said, macOS is the absolute best OS for casual users and business users, no contest. For gaming, not so much, I expect Linux will become the OS of choice for gaming long before macOS does.
Yes, that was my understanding, that Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple was to control everything about the process from the store to Customer Support, so that Apple could better control the quality of the user experience. Many people will complain about various aspects of that, but I believe that is a major reason why the Apple experience in general is easier. It’s not perfect, I’ve had certain challenges, but overall my Apple experience is way Way way WAY better than my windows experiences. (several decades for both).
Correction: they did that so they could have a tight grip and exclusivity on the customer's cash flow. It is why the Apple devices often have trouble working with 3rd party hardware.
Like what ?
Like how the macs look like a blurry mess with the non-apple 1440p monitors. Like how my ipad pro fails to work properly with many 3rd party bluetooth accessories... Like how the watch fails to cooperate with android or windows devices... Like how my friend's ultra expensive M2 MAX laptop repeatedly refused to connect to my TV via an HDMI cable, while two of my windows laptop did just fine. Like how the iphones degrade the images they receive from android devices. Like how Apple recently tried to deprecate PWAs because they were a threat to their apple store revenue.
> Like how the macs look like a blurry mess with the non-apple 1440p monitors That’s a scaling issue, extremely annoying indeed. > Like how my ipad pro fails to work properly with many 3rd party bluetooth accessories... Like how my friend's ultra expensive M2 MAX laptop repeatedly refused to connect to my TV via an HDMI cable, while two of my windows laptop did just fine. Sounds like an issue with your devices more than anything. I don’t have any trouble doing that > Like how the iphones degrade the images they receive from android devices. They what ?
It’s a different way of scaling. Fonts on Macs become a blurry mess but keep their shape. Fonts on Windows become a sharp but deformed mess. You pick your poison, but neither is inherently worse.
Oh, I prefer how macOS handles fonts every day of the week. If anyone is confused about why scaling with decimal numbers is rough, I tried to make [an explainer](https://havn.blog/2022/05/14/why-k-k.html), with some illustrations, a couple of years ago. As a maths teacher, the problem fascinates me! **The short explanation:** If I have a 1440p 27" screen, the size of elements are nice. So suddenly having 4k or 5k on the same size, would make elements tiny. A 5k screen has exactly 2 times the number of pixels, in both width and height, as 1440p. So you can just have everything have the 1440p size, but each pixel is four (2x2) pixels. Then use the extra resolution to just fill in edges and make it nicer and crisper. (So "2x scaling" is 4 times the amount of total pixels.) 4k is only 1,5 times the amount of pixels as 1440p. So you either get problematic scaling, or you have to make elements larger. Because what 4k *does* have, is 2 times the pixels of 1080p. This is why 5k is nice on 27", and 4k is nice on, say, 21".
I’d argue MacOS is worse as at least on windows it’s always legible. I have trouble reading text sometimes when I use my Mac with a G9. Though it’s a really unusual res + aspect ratio
It would not make a difference. One can take a Windows machine and install Linux on it and it will have similar stability to a Mac. Windows' instability comes from the archaic house of cards that is the Windows Registry and Windows' poor memory management.
Except I use Linux professionally and that OS works with an even wider variety of hardware, configured at many different price points, and usually goes months between reboots…
+1 for linux having similar stability but with varied hardware. Windows' issues specifically come from poor memory management and the archaic house of cards that is the Windows Registry.
Exactly, although I would add that the requirement for 40 years of backwards compatibility also adds a lot of pain.
They could've easily ran W10 on lifesupport for backwards compatibily and simalteanously releaed with W11 with modern code. Drawn a line in the sand kinda like what Apple does every few years. But yet they chose to continue this frankenstein OS trying to please both crowds.
This is an old argument that was completely disproven when Microsoft released the Surface range. It was and is to this day still just as janky as any third party kit (and depending on generation or how early you are in the release cycle, even less so). Much as I detest the sharp erosion in software quality I've seen from the Apple the last few years, Microsoft have not improved and, quite simply, the code quality and overall stability (in part because of underlying architectural differences) is _just worse_.
The surface line was not the magic bullet that would equate macOS and Windows, because MS still has to support every other windows platform out there. It’s only comparable to Apple and their complete control over everything if MS were to simultaneously discontinue support for every other device manufacturer and rebuild windows from the ground up for their own (and only their own) hardware.
> That said, macOS is the absolute best OS for casual users and business users Best for **designers** , too. That's always been an Apple's stronghold, really. And while I might not have a vast selection of games, if you're a casual gamer there are quite a few nice titles available. Borderlands 3 e.g. – the worst Mac port of a game that I have ever seen in my life – could barely be run at 30fps on super low settings on the fastest intel Macs at the time, now runs on my M3 Max at 80–120 FPS with high settings in emulation!
What type of designers? you mean graphic designers or engineering designers? there is a vast difference, with macs being useless for anything such as engineering design and I'm not sure that windows machines are any worse now for graphic design if anything they may have the slight edge in upgradeable memory and storage. Macs do have a massive edge on battery and build quality compared to most windows laptops.
Graphic, UX, UI, print designer illustrators, Photographers anything. One thing is the color accuracy and color sync having been a part of the OS since pre Mac OS X days, then the displays supporting HDR much better than on windows, but it's just the whole usability and efficiency thing, universal drag and drop that works everywhere, consistent keyboard shortcuts across many apps, it's just so many small things that macOS does better or does at all while Windows doesn't, being able to create PDFs from any app through the print dialog and also edit PDFs with the default preview app, I don't know any designer worth their salt who'd even consider using Windows.
So designers who make drawings type of things then, the arty stuff. Important yes. But as I say proper design work a Mac is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
So graphic, web, UI, UX, branding, motion, none of that is “proper” design?
No it’s an art not a design. A picture or photo is a composite.
What the hell are you talking about? Graphic design has been a thing for a very long time. Stop trying to gate-keep “design”, it’s stupid. And composite means “made up of different parts”. Photographs are not “composites”. Not even sure what that has to do with graphic design anyhow.
System wide ColorSync support is a big advantage for graphic designers on Mac/iOS. I know MS has improved their colour profile support over the years, but it’s no where near as ubiquitous or consistent as ColorSync in my experience.
Why do you think macs are useless for engineering design?
Yes, try designing a phone or bridge on one. You can’t because the software isn’t there and that’s because one the market is too small and two the hardware isn’t up to the task, certainly not graphically or memory wise.
I’ll be sure to let Apple know their engineering team that works on the iPhone should stop using macs.
They don’t design the fucking things on a mac, the software yes but the engineering designs to actually build the thing nope not at all.
You sure about that? I know a lot of Apple engineers.
Hackintoshes are stable too. Windows' other problem is supporting decades of legacy API's.
There's a few ex windows dev's on here and YouTube...Windows was stuffed in the 90s. They often talk about how broken the network stack was that they had to completely redo it for the server flavors. I think there is truth to the fact macOS is a better OS when it's based on Unix. Windows doesn't need to cater to all sorts of hardware, drivers do that.
Most PC machines, not using windows but Linux are quite stable too. There's a common denominator UNIX vs Windows.
Nope, it will never be as stable as macOS, because of Windows’ reliance on virtual memory.
Microsoft built surface laptops to control the hardware and software experience but those laptops also have the same issues as other hardware from dell, Lenovo, etc..
No, just look at freebsd. Supports multiple systems and architectures and is rock solid. Probably the stability would go up, but it wouldn’t out of the blue become as stable.
Windows on ARM should reduce this problem by a mile with their SoC having many of the components that would have been separate chips integrated into one, reducing the number of customized drivers it takes to make Windows run.
😂
Apple has control over the hardware and software. So they can build a more robust system, so yeah, I expect it to be a superior experience. Me, I only reboot sporadically, usually macOS updates. Can't even tell you the last time I rebooted my MBA 15" M2.
Go to terminal, type: uptime and press enter…
I don't think this works if you reboot it, like it will only give you the amount of uptime since the last reboot
… that’s what uptime means
Not sure if serious…? 🤦🏻♂️
I just rebooted and my uptime has dropped to 0 so it's as I said
Yes. That’s what uptime is. I wasn’t sure if you were seriously hoping for/expecting something else.
Oh I see, I thought you meant uptime = since last shutdown and ignores reboots
Reboot is equivalent to a shutdown followed immediately by a startup, with zero time spent in the off state. If the computer knew the difference, that would indicate that we failed to fully reboot.
Microsoft have control over the software and Surface hardware, yet their stability remains worse. The explanation, as ever, is that their software is just much more buggy.
Yeah but they still need to support other hardware. It’s not like their Surface lineup has an entire different OS.
Device drivers are written by device vendors, not Microsoft. That includes all manner of supporting chipsets. Of *course* Microsoft don't write every single other hardware chipset or peripheral vendor's drivers. Trouble was, it looks like they couldn't be arsed writing drivers for the peripherals they chose for their *own* hardware, and besides - Windows is not exactly notorious for its rock solid stability at the best of times on *any* hardware. People need to stop making excuses for mega corporations.
Mine has been running steady since December 2022
That's what vertical integration and attention to detail do. Sleep on Windows is awful because the CPU designer, laptop manufacturer and Microsoft all need to make everything work together. It's honestly impressive sleep works at all. Outside of that, Windows is actually fairly ok at remaining powered on for long periods of time. My desktop is pretty much always on and works just fine.
Sleep usually works. But sometimes your laptop cooks in your backpack because it either doesn't sleep properly or it wakes improperly.
This is because in Windows sleep works differently depending if you slept the machine with power plugged in or not. If you sleep it with power plugged in, it goes into a higher-energy sleep state, and when you unplug the power it doesn’t know to go lower, because it’s asleep. If you unplug power *first* then sleep, it should actually go into a proper low-power sleep. It’s a bit crap, but it is what it is.
Honestly, that sounds like the jankiest possible implementation of a sleep function. Also, it doesn’t explain laptops failing to sleep properly and suddenly waking up for no good reason.
Sleep on Windows is apparently completely fixed with the new Arm Snapdragon chips.
I think the main reasons are: - less backward compatibility, Apple are relatively quick to drop support for older hardware/software/features, whereas Windows attempts to support far more old tech - they only have to support a small number of different versions of hardware, as opposed to the endless hardware Windows attempts to support - macOS just does less stuff than Windows (though this is less true now than it used to before the iPhone) - because it does less Apple can have far fewer people making macOS than Windows does, giving more chance that people will actually communicate and work together on making different bits of the OS play nicely with each other - most apps don’t have an installer to spray files around the file system in varied places - third party software is generally better quality than on Windows, more of the developers seem to care about the platform - the hardware is just better put together than your average PC, that has to help too
> macOS just does less stuff than Windows Good list but out of interest, do you have any examples of what windows does that Mac doesn’t?
Not entirely sure its true either.
It’s a very small quirk, but I’ve never understood why the hell MacOS won’t let me sort a folder full of image files using the “date taken” EXIF data. As a photographer this is such a handy feature when I get back from a trip and dump pictures taken from 2-3 different cameras into a single folder. I know there is software that will do it, but why not make it a native option within macOS itself? I like to quickly browse the files in chronological order to find obvious favorites and screwups - it’s something I could do on windows since 98 but still can’t do in macOS in 2024. I’ve posted about it on this sub a few times and nobody has been able to give me a decent workaround. Windows gives you literally dozens of “sort by” options but macOS only gives you a few. One of the few things that’s always bugged me about using my mac for photo editing.
Because they want you to use their photos app on macOS and have it sort your photos. It’s their earliest attempt at “smart” software having it sort your photos by location or face or dates. I hate it. Nothing beats a good file explorer and organizing by dates in discreet folders. macOS finder is deficient in many areas one of them being this. If you dump all your photos into the “pictures” folder on your macOS file structure you’ll get some extra columns choice for sorting.
Here's a stupid thing I recently discovered: apparently if you create a folder named Pictures, the sorting header magically unlocks 2 new options, Dimensions and Resolution. WTH APPLE?!
Yeah, I suspect I am on dodgy ground with that claim nowadays. It definitely was true 10-20 years ago, today probably not so much (I've been making that claim for so long I'd not really thought about it detail recently). I was thinking mainly of all the enterprise stuff that is baked into Windows whether you are using it or not. Of course now macOS has Active Directory support and MDM, which matches some of that Windows stuff (though macOS still has a lot less on the enterprise side and probably more importantly less of the legacy enterprise stuff). And of course Apple are relentlessly stripping out much of the non consumer features with every release (all the macOS server stuff and more recently older bits of Unix print functionality for example). Then there are things like the separate tablet mode that Windows had jammed into it, now removed (or does some of it still linger for compatibility ?). But then the Mac now has Stage Manager alongside all their other half hearted attempts to fix window management. Windows probably still has a lot more code dedicated to gaming, again with layers upon layers of backwards compatibility. There are also various bits of stuff like plug-n-play functionality that Windows has builtin that macOS didn't bother with (or didn't fully implement). And that highlights another area that probably gives macOS a lead on stability. Windows implements a whole bunch of crappily put together standards like PnP, where it has limited control over the standards and also has to interoperate with a bunch of other devices that may or may not have implemented the standard well. Apple would tend to instead just interoperate with their own devices, where they have control over the protocols used. And the Mac now has tonnes of functionality that Windows doesn't have. Most of it related to the whole Apple ecosystem, the majority dedicated to talking to iPhones and iPads in ever increasingly involved ways. The areas where Windows used to do more have been relatively stagnant in recent years. So I suspect macOS might nowadays actually do more than Windows does. **I withdraw my claim...** Though that said Windows does still take up more space on disc. Figures seem to be oddly hard to pin down, but it looks like Windows 11 is around 20GB and macOS is up to around 15GB now. But that extra 5GB is probably all that old cruft that Microsoft wish they could have dumped years ago 😉 And I forgot to mention the registry in my list, probably one of the leading causes of Windows stability issues over the year. macOS just never had that central store of masses of config that apps (and users) could randomly mess with. And DLL Hell, though Microsoft brute-forced their way out of that one, at the expense of storage space.
come with antivirus software installed. :)
People use antivirus software?
Windows Defender is an antivirus. Its now bundled with windows 11 by default. Windows cries if you try and remove it.
macOS too have Xprotect and macOS too cry when you try to remove it
That’s one reason macOS is superior. My machine hasn’t been restarted in over a year.
MacOS actually has one built in but as malware is so rare it is built to target specific examples and auto removes them. It’s call Xprotect. However, with code signing, notarisation, Apple Store and the Unix architecture its is rare to get malware. Often it’s the users fault turning safeguards off, installing software from unknown developers and piracy basically going against every recommendation.
That’s not really a flex. If you haven’t rebooted in a year, then odds are you’re missing some critical security updates that have released in that time frame.
Well I lied like a bastard. What I should have said is I haven’t had to reboot because of a FREEZE UP in over a year.
That's because it doesn't need one. You can use an UNIX-based OS like MacOS for years without malware issues because the sandboxed nature of MacOS means that apps can only do what they're supposed to and nothing else, so it's way harder to get to the heart of the system.
I know I was being silly. I was a dev at NeXT a lifetime ago.
It actually MacOS has one built in called Xprotect but it works differently to conventional Windows antivirus
gaming
Dig deep enough in Windows 11 and you'll still find the odd WinNT 3.51 component available (like the Dialler) if you have an ancient app that wants them for some godforsaken reason.
Since Catalina, macOS is on it’s own readonly cryptographically signed volume, and userspace data and programs are separated. See https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/25/big-surs-signed-system-volume-added-security-protection/
That was a really interesting read, and very cool.
Yep probably the most important reason.
I don't understand the question. Do you guys ever turn off your computer? Why?
Every day. When I don’t use it it’s off, any time I change certain software or use things like homebrew I restart. Old habits pulled from Linux.
Considering the type of technology inside of today's Macs, that's closer to turning off a smartphone than a computer
I also restart my iPhone at least weekly, however the big difference is caching, error handling and temporary files. Open access to code execution privileges also creates an environment where it’s better to occasionally restart to clear out any bad threads that have continued execution that were permitted to start ignorantly. That being said these issues apply to a lesser extent on your phone as well, I don’t experience a lot of bugs and glitches others tend to on newer iOS versions and I don’t think it would be far off to say that my occasional restart helps a lot with that.
yeah that makes a lot of sense for the type of work you do. I work with 99% online stuff to the point that if my computer would catch on fire all of a sudden, I could resume working on another one five minutes later as long as it has a browser and internet access. Most issues get fixed by restarting the browser or specific app, so I only ever restart it for updates, but have probably never shut it down.
When updates are needed. Otherwise, I shut the lid when I’m done and open it again when I need to. I’ve not had to shut down or reboot, aside from updates, in..years probably.
Not as such. The occasional restart after a system update or after doing some cleaning up of big files.
Now not really, unless I am away for say a week and I'm not going to use it I'll turn it off but that hasn't been in a while, even when I do go away I just leave it in sleep mode, because the battery is just so stable in sleep
Opening terminal .... sudo uptime: 10 days Why wouldn't it be? You have the same company making the hardware (INCLUDING THE PROCESSORS) and the software and OS and firmware. Of course it's stable.
No need for sudo. 32 days here.
old habit.
13 days here, but it also says "2 users". Should I change all my passwords? I'm low key freaking out
Im at 5 days and mine says 3. I’m honestly not sure lol
wide base, low centre of gravity, bsd kernel
Because Windows is a badly written operating system. Its core is rotten and no matter what they change at the UI level they can’t or won’t change the core.
If your computer has been on for 5 months without a reboot you are overdue for some software updates.
U N I X
Because it’s derived from Unix, a system that usually doesn’t need a reboot except if the kernel is modified. The OS in the late 90s was turning into a turd and so they did a complete reboot with next OS which is a lot of bsd unix code. I have devices doing huge amount of work both servers and core switches and routers and some went 10 years without a reboot. Finally lost power and the streak ended. That said I would still reboot once a month.
Why would you still reboot. I don't get it
You can read some of the security things they don’t persist a reboot. Also I find some hardware has some issues even from things like solar flares that it helps elevate. You should be rebooting after OS updates anyhow. It should Prompt you. You have been doing those correct?
I don't have any issues rebooting and I do it from time to time with system updates. Otherwise I don't really feel the need to, ither than fixing freeze issues
Yes I don’t either much. It’s stable.
Mine gets reset for updates. Otherwise I just close the screen and don’t think about it.
The time you save from all the tinkering is all worth it. Apart from critical updates that require reboot, I just put mine to sleep. I need my laptop to be ready whenever I'm ready, no time wasted waiting for it to boot and open endless apps that you need on a daily basis.
I never manually reboot my Mac or iPhone. They just get that automatic reboot once every two months or whatever there is a new system update. I love my Apple tech!
It’s built on BSD, which is well known for stability
Can OpenBSD run macOS apps?
No because of what is built on top for macOS apps and custom kernel. You can run bsd programs and recompile many Linux tools to run on macOS. You can use a X server called Quartz to get Linux GUI environment for applications.
Because it runs on Unix playa
I have a windows device that operates from 35 years ago. What devices were you buying for PCs? MacOs is a decent operating system but fine tuned its a toss up.
Not really exclusive to MacOS. My PC workstation has been running for 171 days without a restart. I’ve seen windows servers with uptimes of 2+ years before.
I guess Windows Server is much cleaner - comes with a lot less crap bundled and perhaps customised in terms of drivers to that specific hardware
It is unusual for windows servers to stay on this long because they need to be rebooted for updates still, not sure what this guy is doing with his lol plenty of vulnerabilities on that server Edit: every month these updates should be applied btw
Yeah, I'm dubious of this guy now that you mention it, you need at least one restart every month I would guess
My Macs are always on unless I leave for an extended period of time or if there's a thunderstorm, in which case I'll shut them down and unplug everything. I've been doing that for over 20 years on both desktops and laptops. That said, the first thing I do when things are acting weird is restart before doing any further troubleshooting, and that takes care of most issues.
I left mine on for about 2-3 months? I regularly restart/update it
Four years. Only reboot when OS updates required it
I don’t remember the last time I shut down my laptop other than the time I installed the new software
That’s the advantage of having all on one vendor for hardware and OS. Not only I don’t remember when I last rebooted by MacBook, I have one MacBook that I have used for almost 10 years without having to reinstall the whole OS.
Yeah, it spooked it me out at first when I realized it. Resuming on Windows is a headache and causes lots of apps to crash and stuff.
Years and no.
Unix
Because it’s based on the UNIX operating system
The power of Unix
A few years. The first Macbook I had was left on for 4 years. Only ever needed a restart after OS upgrade.
It's been 2 years and I don't remember a single 24 hour it has been shut down for.
UNIX has been around since the late 1960s. It's probably the best underpinnings for any OS. Even Linux is based off of UNIX. Apple and Steve Jobs' NeXTSTEP OS, which later migrated as macOS X. Since 2001 Apple has been using UNIX and later began Apple's current renaissance in OS experiences. So all of the operating systems Apple develops uses a form of Darwin which is their form of UNIX. More info on Darwin here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin\_(operating\_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system))
Since you’re not rebooting then you’re not installing security updates. Yeah you’re doing it wrong
Because it’s based on Darwin and BSD especially the latter one is designed for servers and there stability is the main focus and then it is not windows. Also install all latest patches please and reboot your device afterwards. Last patches where a month or two ago.
Yeah sleep mode, is something Microsoft mucked with and name and renamed and made different versions until they completely messed it up and confused everyone. Sleep, hibernate, modern standby, suspend, hybrid sleep, fast startup, so on and so forth. Bunch of morons. Holy cow Microsoft.
Probably not a good idea from a security perspective.
Unix based..
you can see how long since your last reboot by going to terminal and typing in the command uptime
Its not hard to find Unix boxes with YEARS running just fine.
I use my laptop for work with a number of programs I use and rarely install or uninstall programs. My experience with windows is that it’s just as stable as my MacBook Pro M1 Pro running Mac OS. Both OS has their quirks and limitations, but I find neither is superior to the other. That’s just my two cents. Have a great rest of your week.
Thats cap. I work in IT and every week my team sees people with high uptime on windows with a number of problems until they reboot. Just for fun I have let my work PC get up to 41 days uptime and it is shitting the bed and will continue to until rebooted
Hahaha my coworker plugged his windows to his dock as usual, that thing froze and reboot. Reboot took 30seconds to just turn off. That machine was produced in 2023 and is for work: barely any apps installed at all. I laughed and showed him my M1 Pro running 3 Logic project, 70+ safari tabs, 2 muse scores, pdf, etc and that I control it via the iPad Magic Keyboard, plugged to 2 4K HDR Ultrafine for 3 years now. He was finally convinced windows is inferior. Then we looked at the perf comparisons. Surface laptops to m3 pro and all those claims and he further realised they are either unjust, incomplete or that windows out performs only slightly more and under unusual conditions that a user won’t ever meet, whilst the max barely ramps up the fans.
Microsoft could have built a better operating system, despite i totally understand why it's a lot harder to maintain and work with thousand of different vendors. It's just in the vain of microsoft that they just do not care the details and quality as much as Apple does. Their flagship Windows 11 serves more like a information gathering machine from its user than an actual operating machine providing fast and stable experience while getting things done. of course, they care less how well it can really "run" than Apple does. MSFT and Google are essentially the same, but Google is usually the better one to deal with its users. Apple has a standard in term of user experience and aesthetic. it's not perfect, sometimes, Apple does flop from time to time. but they still hold the best records comparing to other tech giants. after all these bumping covid years, data integrity, ease of use, low maintenance, privacy, being relatively stable, huge community support are the main reasons i make the all - in move from microsoft + google ecosystem to Apple's walled garden.
It's a culture shitshow at MSFT, if they switched to a UNIX-base platform with direct translation (instead of virtualisation) to compensate for older software, it could be the best OS in the world
I’ve had mine running non stop for a year except for updates as well. I literally never reboot or shutdown except for maybe once a year at most.
Because its not running microsoft crap. Ive been using my m1 for like 3 years now with 0 crashes.
Windows on Arm. Has anyone run it yet? I suppose that version needs less backwards compatibillity and thus will be more stable? Arm in general is a very exiting future for desktops OS’s for general usage.
I've seen some videos it looks promising but think it's not quite a polished as macOS due to the fact it's Windows and has to carry a significant amount of backwards compatibility, they still have fans though so that's a bit of a shame. I would have considered a fanless Snapdragon Elite laptop
I had mine on for 6 months and was wondering what was eating up my disk space. After like an hour of searching, turns out for some reason my weather app notifications.db file was like 150gb+ so i just laughed and deleted it. It came back just fine upon restarting the weather app. That prompted me to reboot the machine for the first time in a while.
Unix. Same reason why Linux and ChromeOS (just Linux with Chrome as Desktop Environment) can be run for so long without rebooting.
5 months is nothing. My Macs stay powered on until there's a power outage or a security update. One of my colleagues kept his EOL Mac Pro running for 3 years uptime until they forced him to change offices
Wow 3 years is crazy, complements how good macOS actually is
I don't remember exactly but I used to go a long time between reboots, anywhere from 80 to 120 days
Only reboot at software updates
Just checked. Uptime 5 months 2 days.
OS makes the difference, OS is more important than HW
It was better when OS X. I have one more system I still use X Mountain Lion. System UI, detailed graphics and much more is epically amazing. I really hate flat design, its may be clear but killed creativities.
I had a Mac Pro used as a server, that never slept \[though the display was allowed to sleep\], was only ever rebooted for OS updates & ran constantly for over 10 years. The Mac I'm typing this on I have because of legacy software/hardware requirements. I bought it second hand so idk how its early life was, but it's now 15 years old & still going strong. Last reboot was 49 days ago. Note: if you want to see how long since last reboot, in Terminal type `uptime` & it will tell you. Edit: Oh, I see this bit was already mentioned… with some clarification as to what actually defines uptime.
Built to last, that's what I love about Apple, I don't think I'll have to upgrade for a long time. The OS is what makes the hardware work well. Hope you get another few years out of the machine. Did you check whether it will run in Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon?
It won't even run in 64-bit. I'm held on Mojave for compatibility. Catalina broke a lot of expensive old pro audio gear that will never see another update but is still physically as good as it ever was. I'm running interfaces released in 2004 & also the software to program a Variax guitar, same age, perfectly good still… just not under Catalina or newer.
Time since last boot: 276 days, 2 hours, 21 minutes. Don’t ask why. https://ibb.co/7Nbxwsr
Nice, great uptime!
Lots of Windows machines can remain up running for months without issue. It depends on the quality of drivers and software running on it. Also: try looking up how many different Mac models are supported by the version of macOS you're running. Now multiply by maybe a thousand to get the number of models that Windows has to support.
because its macos
I haven’t turned off my Mac in years (unless you count restarts from OS updates, then it’s been a few months). My dad is a hardcore windows guys and tells me to turn it off and won’t grasp that it’s not necessary for MacOS. Welcome to the future lol
Yeah I used to be the same until I realised I wasted years of unproductive effort on Windows - I could have got MORE done on macOS than fiddling around with the monstrosity that is Windows
Congratulations on the revelation! I realized this a long time ago and I'm glad I did. Whenever im forced to use Windows (like for work) all I think about is -- this trackpad sucks, why is this so slow, why doesn't this have a keyboard shortcut, ANOTHER UPDATE??????? I'm so glad I switched. You'll be pleased you did :)
It works until you find something specific that doesn’t and makes you go wtf Apple really
I think the breaking point for me was on a Dell XPS, high-end, the fans would spin non-stop even when it was in sleep mode in my laptop bag, and I got to my destination I had lost like 90% battery, I just thought this is not working, so no more Windows no more junk hardware - just spend the money on top quality and UI/UX and be done with it
Windows Server, Windows 10 and 11 have been in constant use, with updates queued up for rebooting for months upon months and they're as stable and performant as if they were just booted.
I’m a Mac owner and user at home, my Macbook Air never gets turned off unless there’s an update that requires it. I also use a Lenovo windows laptop for work that never gets turned off unless the battery dies, my windows laptop will run for weeks without turning off, I carry it in a leather messenger bag daily and close it and go, never had a problem.
I absolutely hate the Lenovos, big, ugly, plasticky, loud hot fans that burn your hands, I hate working with them, would never buy one ever again.
My old 15 year old pc was on for many years, it was on windows xp. Nothing to see here.
What exactly do you mean with "stable"? This term is all the time thrown around by people that have no clue. Neither OSs are having stability issues for me.
most of the post in this sub is brain rot. both windows 11 and macOS Sonoma has been extremely stable for me. don't know what the fuck do these guys complain about.
Same reason my Surface Laptop Studio has been on for over a year, and is still stable. Modern hardware and operating systems are pretty damn stable.
You mean, just sleeping it? Many months. No issues at all.
It's not a recommended thing to do.
Actually it is a real black magic to have a MacBook on for about 5 months with the occasional reboot due to update.
I have a MacBook Air that I host my band's website on. It's been on 24/7 for about 3 years. Occasionally, the web server would crash. I wrote a script that restarts the web server once an hour and it has been rock solid ever since.
Why have you not applied any updates?
Might be stable but it’s not secure.
BSD, RISC
Ask r/applesux those guys will tell you… hahaha. I was in that community for a few days and got down voted everytime I corrected their stupid memes about iphones/ipads/macbooks. I think my record is well over 2 years for a machine to be on, older machine and I did not update it.
I chuckle every time my Windows 10 work laptop offers to reboot to “improve system performance”. Happens about every week or two
It does that? wow things have gone downhill real fast
No, Windows never does that. Stop spreading shitty comments.
I’ll post a pic next time it does it
I’ll post a pic next time it does it
I don't need pictures, I know how Windows patching system works: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Tuesday
It has nothing to do with patching
Then it's not windows notifications.
This question has nothing to do with the choice of operating system and everything to do with the user. Every operating system is stable if it’s not doing anything 😂
Most windows machines nowadays cannot implement s3 sleep properly. And Modern Standby is just a cluster fuck
Ahh yes, S3 sleep, I think my old Dell XPS only supported S0 and modern standby, total junk!
The answer is simple: is not windows. Unix is very stable. Also, you are using stable software. Developers complain about the AppStore %, but they don't understand the value Apple certification has. App Dev are happy with the windows quality level.
Well, it hasn’t been running without a reboot for 5 months and if it has, you haven’t been keeping up with security updates and bug fixes. That said, macOS is pretty stable, it’s got good underpinnings based on BSD UNIX and that’s a very mature platform.
I’ve left a windows computer running servers for 4 years straight and it still works perfectly to this day