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Comment by aj7 | Hacker News Reader

Just got a Windows 11 machine. Had to, to run Solidworks. Have it next to a new M3 iMac. They’re all configured with the same apps. Despite not having used Windows in 10 years, these machines behave identically. But Windows 11 is snappier. And you can actually find things that you don’t know where they are!

I was amazed.

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With all the ideological hate against Microsoft/Windows (even among its long-term users it seems) everybody seems to miss the part where Windows 11 is actually pretty good and I would say in some ways actually superior to macOS nowadays, especially with PowerToys.

For starter, it is much less annoying from a security/notification standpoint, you can tell it to fuck off and let you do your things if you know what you are doing.

macOS isn't too bad yet but is clearly lagging behind, Apple is unwillingly to meaningfully improve some parts and seems to refuse to sherlock some apps because it clearly goes against their business interests. They make more money earning the commission on additional software sales from the App Store, a clear conflict of interest. They got complacent just like Valve with all the money from running it's marketplace.

> For starter, it is much less annoying from a security/notification standpoint, you can tell it to fuck off and let you do your things if you know what you are doing.

In many corporate environments you can't.

macOS is behind. And this is speaking as someone who probably owns one of everything Apple makes, Apple stock, and was exclusively Mac for the last 10 years.

I have less than 50 hours use on my Windows 11 machine, a midgrade Lenovo P358 rig I bought renewed because it had plenty of memory and an Nvidia T1000 card. Yet it taught me that the test of an operating system is how quickly you can navigate around, and how well it can find things, given only clues. Windows 11 is just snapper, quicker, than the latest macOS running on a new M3 Mac.

This is also my experience. Worse, it is snappier on a 10 yo computer (top of the line though) than on an expensive 24GB M2 MacBook Pro.

There is some software that I find nice and convenient in macOS but it has gotten really hard to justify the price of the hardware considering the downsides.

I’m not knocking windows for me I’m just kind of hooked on the Mac trackpad and a few little things about the Mac that I prefer now. I use a networked Windows machine semi regularly and there’s nothing wrong with it. I just remember the days of BSOD and viruses and random shutdowns to install updates that couldn’t be stopped in the middle of the workday and 1000 other little niggles that makes me choose a Mac. I’m sure contemporary windows machines if configured right are totally fine, better even - my housemate keeps touching to scroll on my Mac screen because she has a windows laptop that comes with a touchscreen and I can see how that would be handy on the Mac.

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