[HN Gopher] The Neo cannot scale with macOS behind on the basics
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       The Neo cannot scale with macOS behind on the basics
        
       Author : pholbrook
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2026-03-17 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.apotenza.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.apotenza.com)
        
       | pholbrook wrote:
       | The author says: "This is my detailed criticism of macOS (in
       | market context of the Neo), and the many paper cuts Apple needs
       | to fix to catch up."
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | I remember circa 2017 working for startups and traveling a lot.
       | Most of the people were using macs but I had an Alienware because
       | that way I could have a real GPU and train neural nets locally.
       | 
       | Back then a mac worked much better with the docks I could find
       | and monitors that had a dock plugged in. It was close to instant
       | and "just works" on the Mac whereas the Windows computer would
       | take 45 seconds to enumerate the dock _every time_.
       | 
       | The other day we had a power failure that caused my home server
       | which normally runs headless to go down and stay down. Right next
       | to that server is a Mac with a Studio display which has no
       | ordinary ports like HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, whatever. I had
       | to take the server upstairs and plug it into a old cheap monitor
       | I had there and it turned out that somehow the *-extras package
       | didn't get installed by Ubuntu and I had no network card drivers.
       | Not hard to fix, but another illustration of how Apple products
       | often are just a little less useful and valuable than they could
       | be.
        
         | thebruce87m wrote:
         | I've had that exact thing happen in Ubuntu too. Needed a usb
         | Ethernet dongle to get it working again.
        
       | quietsegfault wrote:
       | Wow, this is the first time I've read someone who actually says
       | that Windows is ... better ... than MacOS. Wow.
        
         | mikestew wrote:
         | I don't think TFA said Windows is better overall, but c'mon,
         | even a diehard Mac user like myself can see how stagnated, say,
         | task/app switching is on macOS in comparison to Windows. And
         | things like Mission Control always seemed like a "we'll come
         | back and polish that up later" feature, but they never did come
         | back to it.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | Hyperswitch and Hyperdock solved the problems for me.
           | Couldn't live without actual alt-tab behavior or window
           | previews.
        
           | commandersaki wrote:
           | I use cmd-tab/cmd-` on macos, and alt-tab on windows. I feel
           | they're mostly equivalent, not sure what's wrong with task
           | switching. The real issue is finding the right window/tab I
           | want in my browser, but searching tabs is now a thing and
           | works for me pretty much everytime.
        
         | x0x0 wrote:
         | I've used macs for pushing 20 years. The external monitor story
         | remains crap. Even on a recent mbp and a $1500 LG 5k ultrawide.
         | Plug it in and the display flickers back and forth. etc. Apple
         | do not care.
        
           | randerson wrote:
           | I wonder if they nerfed HDMI connectivity to get people to
           | buy the expensive Apple Studio displays. I just bought myself
           | a Studio XDR, and my MBP now wakes up in under 2 seconds,
           | compared to about 30 seconds with my old Dell monitor.
        
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       (page generated 2026-03-17 23:01 UTC)