Wesley Moore’s Search for an Alternative to MacOS

Wesley Moore:

I deeply value the consistency, versatility, reliability and integration of Mac OS X and the excellent quality hardware it runs on. However the current state of the Mac has me considering whether it’s still the right platform for me.

He tried 13 different OSes.

Running each one I was looking for these attributes:

  • An integrated, consistent experience
  • Opinions and thoughtfulness:
    • One tool for each job.
    • A sensible/minimal selection of pre-installed applications.
  • Design:
    • Simple, easy to use/understand interface
    • Visually appealing and consistent
    • HiDPI support
  • Timely updates

His favorite was Elementary, which, at a glance, does seem to be the open source OS that most values good design. But I don’t see how most serious Mac users could switch to it happily. Moore might be able to do it because he’s a Ruby developer who works in vim.

The truth is, for most of us, there is no good alternative to MacOS. Nothing. And it took so long — not years but decades — for MacOS to get to where it is that I don’t think any other OS could ever catch up. That’s what’s driving the arguably paranoid fear that Apple is abandoning the Mac. It’s not so much the evidence (lack of updates to Mac Pro and Mac Mini, and concerns about software quality) as the high stakes: if the Mac goes away, the world will be left without a Mac-quality desktop OS.

★ Tuesday, 3 January 2017