Children use smartphones way more than “PC” computers today.
I am probably the only person ever to grow up with a UNIX terminal server as my home computer. any crazy IT thing i do now pales in comparison to my dad, running ethernet cables through our heating ducts in a probable building code violation
**As someone who has ran fiber and ethernet to companies post a category 5 hurricane to get network connections back online for paychecks across 7 states including the virgin Islands… I have never seen that. And we used satellite radio dishes to send signals across areas when we rewired the emergency center (police, fire, etc) under marshall law. It’s fucking humbling to have all bridges shut down in the area to try to cut down on people pillaging and have them give you a badge to cross under any conditions no matter the danger because you are considered “needed.”. Some other poor souls could have stood on the beach watching it come in piling shit up and running home to drag my chicken coop into the garage throw 2 dogs in the car and “evacuate” only to where the hurricane actually ended up hitting harder. I was an idiot, but the office building i was working from was on the front of the Los Angeles times or w.e the next day to show the destruction. We dug crabs and sucked water for days out of pipes to get Ethernet run in moves for months… But yet I have never seen someone run them though heating ducts haha. (True story)
Edit: circa Hurricane Michael, Panama City 2018
…you dad did very well; give him a hug this december…
“Autistic children will be discluded from the study for skewing results”
“Autism involves a significant deviation from expected behaviour”
They have played us for absolute fools.
(I know autism describes a real cluster of traits, but it is only socially constructed norms that define those traits as aberrant, I am not saying it isn’t real)
Yeah, we create the rules that decide whether or not someone is autistic, and we decide what is viewed as “weird” (honestly, everyone is weird, if you were perfectly average in every way, you would actually, in a way, be weird)
Bigger distinction: Kids with computers vs. kids with “smart” devices.
I feel that is the difference we’re seeing though. Younger kids who generally live on smart devices have lower tech literacy.
And apple phones are “smart devices”
Why insert the qualifier there?
Because my phone isnt a smart device. Its a dumb device that does nothing by itself and everything i tell it to do. It allows me to remove things i dont like without self destructing and locking me out. It works offline without complaining. It doesnt spy on me.
That doesn’t really answer my question. I’m going to conclude that you just have some personal issue with Apple.
I wouldn’t blame them. It’s really difficult to do anything Apple hasen’t planned for on their tablets.
She must have had a Mac. Only Windows teaches both the knowledge and the fury to convince children to switch to Linux.
Switching from apple is like breaking out of prison.
Coming from windows it’s a breath of fresh air
For me as a user it always looked like Microsoft looks at how Apple does it and is eagerly employs the worst practices of not allowing the user to do anything ‘forbidden’ and not giving the user control in general.
Google is doing pretty much the same with Android for a long time, too.
With iPhones yeah, but MacOS is not very locked down at all. You can run all the unsigned code you want.
Although you could argue the new Apple Silicon Macs are kind of locked down, since Apple only allows kernel extensions on the older Intel Macs
god, running unsigned apps was a pain though.
Real question, what things on Apple were so restrictive that you think it’s a prison?
My only apple device was an iPod and it was the most cumbersome thing ever. Trying to put music on it on my own laptop was impossible as iTunes wouldn’t install. So I’d need to use someone else’s computer which would default to synchronizing their library with my device. So all my loser video game soundtracks will be on someone else’s device or their american sex music will be on mine. And those 33 pin or whatever Proprietary Cables broke if you breathed on it. Adding music was the closest thing to pulling teeth without actually pulling teeth.
Getting an Android phone instead of an iPhone was literally like breaking free. I can manage my own files directly on the device. I can download apps from anywhere. I can download music without proprietary software and expensive fragile cables. Oh, right, and I can charge it with the same cable my old brick phone used, the one that came with my portable charger, and one that powered my USB fan. A Standard Cable. Ffs.
American sex music
Lmao
I had a very similar experience with the ipod and avoid everything apple ever since.
ITunes did install on my windows laptop (wondering why i had to do that tho, why couldn’t i just drag my mp3’s to the device folder??), but it was still an instant locked-in experience. Whatever went into iTunes/ipod seemed near impossible to get back out. Mp3 in, gibberish out. Encoded to some apple © tm format, lost into the void. Coming from a normal mp3-player that was very unexpected and unpleasant.
The only thing I liked about it was the (hardware) wheel.
So absolutely nothing to do with Mac at all. And you’re referencing a cable that hasn’t been used in literally over a decade and comparing it to a a cable that you’re using now? You do realize Android phones in 2010 used proprietary cables too, right?
I got my first android (Samsung Galaxy S3) in 2014, before I had a LG Rumor Touch. Both used micro USB.
I was turned off from Apple anything after having an iPod as a gift and discreetly hating it. I was further turned off when I saw that an iPad is just an elongated iPod Touch rather than a Microsoft Surface which is literally a PC.
So micro usb, the literal worst standardized usb connector in existence, is what you are claiming is better than an iPhone’s omnidirectional lighting connector.
And you know how I can tell you haven’t ever touched an iPad? 🤦♂️ “an elongated iPod touch” smdh.
An iPad is a fisher price toy for the price of a Surface. It’s nothing. I used the ones in school and when I was an election day employee. They’re scams
Mini is worse than micro, which is better than all the proprietary connectors it obsoleted
Lightning connector (2012) would be equal to USB-C (initially designed in 2012).
Micro USB would be equal to the 30 pin connector (and overlapping with mini USB.)
Lightning is still a problem on devices more than about 1.5 years old (everything “smart” that I own) and I’ve never had an Android phone that didn’t use USB, though some had additional proprietary connectors for a dock.
I - carefully - maintained a music library. Got an ipod. Loved the device. Though sync via itunes was cumbersome.
Wanted to sync my tracks back to another device. Nope. Not supported. Everz track was rewritten into some garbage, including its tags.
Locked in a prison without knowing.
My elderly parents got iphones. They started sharing pictures via their message app. Required multiple times showing them that we - android users - receive aweful pictures. Prison.
Apple watch is only syncing with iphones. Prison.
Used to be an app developer. Releasing something as open source for ios is not feasible. You have to anually pay 120 USD to publish. Prison. Therefore you release the app in a paid manner. They tell you which price to raise. And tax 30%. Prison.
A friend wrote a thesis with some apple-writer thingy. Asked me for some help saving in the required file format. Couldn’t manage to. Prison.
“Vendor lock-in” is the backbone philosophy for the entire company and literally every single product and service it has ever created.
Except wifi
What about WiFi? Apple didn’t invent WiFi, Australian public funded research institute CSIRO did.
They didn’t invent it, but when they made wifi products they didn’t limit them to just apples.
I saw a documentary once about the engineers working to make wifi a thing with Apple devices. I can’t find it, but you can see how the crowd reacts seeing it for the first time https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HFngngjy4fk
Every app on the App Store is so bad because of that fee too. There just basically isn’t anything open source. Its 90% of the reason why I switched to Android.
it’s always puzzled me why Apple themselves call installing non approved software “jailbreaking”, they’re straight up stating that their os is a jail
They weren’t the ones to come up with the name, so they have to follow what everyone else calls it.
apple usually renames existing concepts to make them sound better though
I don’t know. I think Mac gets a lot of hate simply because it’s a Unix that was sold to the devil and comes with a satanic concierge service.
Like, I’m not saying that selling your soul to the devil is possible but if I had to pick a handful of people that on the whole I would say probably did I would pick Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Elon musk, Jeffrey bezos, Larry Page, Vladimir Putin, and probably every Hollywood social elite and musician that sells a platinum record, every Republican senator, congress person, and every president after Jimmy Carter, and every CEO whose company is worth more than 10 million dollars who didn’t inherit the company from their parents.
Don’t forget Robert Jordan
The ambassador or the guy that wrote The wheel of Time series?
My mistake, Robert Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson
growing up my family had a mac desktop that i had access to while really young. eventually realized mac is a little terrible, so i tried bootcamp to get some proper use out of the computer. i successfully installed windows, but somehow fucked up and formatted the mac partition. all for windows to also suck
What did your parents do?
my parents were understandably pissed because i had deleted at least a few hundred gigabytes of photos and videos from the last decade. iirc i was banned from touching the computer for at least a year, which was funny because i was literally the only one who used it
Even as an adult I don’t trust myself not to fuck up so whenever I do installing or partitionning, I always disconnect my drive that contains the personal files.
Eh, I grew up with Macs, but I couldn’t afford a Mac for my first computer, or even a windows license. I got a computer from a family friend that was broken which I fixed up and installed Linux on.
This isn’t right at all… Mac’s are awful if you want to do things like play most video games. Linux is much the same.
That’s right. I said it. Come downvote me, fanboys, I don’t mind. I’ve seen what makes you cheer.
Proton is way better than whatever thing Apple has going on (didn’t they say they were working on their own proton-like thing? did they just forget about it? I remember seeing a video with some sort of dev preview a while ago…)
Most video games work perfectly in Linux now…
So here’s a teacher’s insight:
Mac:PC:Chromebook Rich—Poor
There is a very strong correlation between the wealth of the kids on my module, and the device they have.
Mac users really struggle to understand the concept of local files without being shown. PC users, alas, snort too much SharePoint these days to be considered healthy - trying to save a word document locally these days is like climbing a mountain blindfolded. As for the Chromebook kids, they do their best with what they have, and given how little compatibility those devices have with the software I teach, I’m proud of them.
Mac users really struggle to understand the concept of local files without being shown
Of all the critiques of Mac users’ computer literacy I’ve seen this doesn’t even seem to me like it’d make the list.
To be clear I am not saying you are wrong or don’t know what you’re talking about or something. I am just genuinely surprised to see that and I’m curious what you mean. I assume I’m just unaware of the issue.
Most of the time it’s realising the difference between local and cloud storage. A lot of students get confused when trying to upload their first coursework - usually it’s solved by just showing them the difference between local files (this is stored in a permanent local place) and cloud storage (this is stored permanently somewhere else).
Interesting I would think that would be more tied to smart phone usage as opposed to specific operating systems but I guess that’s not the case
Maybe it’s to do with the number of mouse buttons.
I’m assuming this is a joke considering Apple dropped that mouse many years ago lol
Mac users really struggle to understand the concept of
For me, it was trying to explain to a Mac user that she should have a separate profile on her Mac for work vs. personal
She’d convinced her employer that she could work from home using her own Mac (the office was all Macs except for the video production suite), and he said OK. Didn’t ask me, of course. Despite me saying a long time ago when someone else floated the idea, that it was poor practice from a security viewpoint.
Then three days later the call came - “I can’t access work files”. So I remote in, she’s got links to her personal iCloud Drive directories somehow mixed up with the work Google Drive.
I started to explain about using a different profile for work and just got a blank stare.
“You log off your personal profile and log into the work profile”
“How do I do that?”
I’ve been a dev for 7 years. I used a PC for the first 6 years and I switched to a mac the last year.
My experience with mac has been terrible. The file explorer is just horrible to navigate. It took me ages to find the way to go anywhere except the “favorite” folders. Compability with the remote linux-servers has been awful with broken keymappings and shortcuts. Using hardware from any other manifacturer is riddled with bugs. The machine is unable to adjust volume if the audio is passed through usb-c. And I routinely encounter bugs where I’m unable to interact with apps until I restart them. Everything which seemed to work by heuristics on a PC requires a lot of attention on my mac. I don’t care if I get a floaty animation and bouncy icon if I minimize a window. I just want alt + tab to actually bring back the apps I select.
I am not getting a mac the next time.
I feel the same way about any machine that isn’t a Linux laptop with fully implemented hardware support. I can’t stand macos or windows anymore.
In Apple’s defense though, they have better accessibility than anyone else - hands down. That’s about all they do right IMO.
I dunno, I used PCs pretty exclusively until about halfway through college when I switched and every time I try to go back it’s pretty bad. Windows sucks, it just does everything different than *nix systems, and they have like, 5 different ways of doing things? It feels like they’ve had multiple efforts to clean up the tech debt and never completed them.
And Linux is just lacking for day to day use. I still would love to switch at some point, but it just doesn’t have the right tools and polish. Like, I rely on Karabiner for key remapping and layering and the Linux story is pretty lacking there (though I haven’t looked in a while so could have gotten better). Core stuff for my day to day.
I think a lot of it is muscle memory. Like yeah, it’s hard to relearn a lot of muscle memory type things. But if you open a terminal, it’s just like any *nix based system, same layout. You can navigate anywhere and open the Finder with
open, etc.I respect that muscle memory is a big thing when iit comes to OS preference. I have spent more than a year now to configure to my preferences and build up muscle memory and understanding of my mac. It’s just not happening. Small things which were trivial to me on PC suddenly requires my full attention and I feel like I’m spending a ton of energy doing simple things. And I feel the same way when I look over the shoulder of my collegues who are seasoned mac users. Things which I would do in no time on PC seems to take many additional clicks and more time for them as well.
But my biggest issue is the hardware compability. I like my mechanical logitech keyboard, which features a mac layout (physical stamps on keys). But several buttons are mixed up when connected. And the key mapping seemingly varies depending on whether it’s connected through bluetooth or usb. As mentioned audio passed through usb-c is not possible to adjust thourgh the default system. I had to download a third party app to adjust volume - which also stinks because the volume at the lowest setting is a lot higher than I want for some cases. My stream deck seems to work with the mac by a coinflip: half of the times I start the machine, it won’t connect.
But the thing that really works me up is when I ask people about the hardware issues. The answer is always “you need to buy apple hardware”.
And that’s where I really fall off. I want to use hardware which I find comfortable to me, but it feels like everything about the mac is trying to make me buy more apple stuff.
And I feel the same way when I look over the shoulder of my collegues who are seasoned mac users. Things which I would do in no time on PC seems to take many additional clicks and more time for them as well.
That’s really strange, can you give some examples? Just curious what things are easier to do on Windows (assuming that’s what you mean), I just have never had that be the case. Maybe it’s cause I’m a webdev and most tooling for web stuff is tailored for *nix systems?
But the thing that really works me up is when I ask people about the hardware issues. The answer is always “you need to buy apple hardware”.
Uh whaaaaat that’s crazy. Yeah I’m the same way, I’ve cycled through a lot of different mechanical keyboards and whatnot to find the one I like now (Ultimate Hacking Keyboard, dumb name but nice features lol). But I can’t say I’ve ever had an issue with a keyboard having hardware compatibility like that… I guess I don’t really use function keys. Again I use Karabiner to remap that kinda stuff to a different layer, which works universally so the same layering works on my laptop as my mechanical keyboard and I don’t need to have different muscle memory for different work-zone setups.
This is the article that got me introduced to Karabiner, even if you hate Mac I do recommend giving it a look. One of the best things I ever did was use Karabiner to modify my layout and reduce hand movement/chording. It completely fixed my RSI issues. My current layout treats the JKL; home row keys as arrow keys when I hold down Capslock, and Capslock + CMD turns them into jump-by-word so I can navigate really fast. Rarely use a mouse when writing code these days. Oh, and Capslock + ’ is delete, surprising how often that is a common hand movement. Plus plenty of other small optimizations. Really couldn’t live without it.
So a few examples on the first point:
When connected to a virtual desktop at the project me and my collegues are currently working with, the mac has a weird keybinding issue where keys passed through to the virtual image are mixed up. No windows computer has this issue. At my previous project, the same issue occurred for those who used macs to access virtual desktops. Also, some of the shortcuts are consumed by the OS, making them inaccessible.
Connecting to multiple monitors is weird. The hardware at my office allows for daisy-chaining connected to a laptop through a single USB-C. At least for PC. Both my collegues and I have struggles with connecting to the monitors, and typically, we end up having to rewire the screens to have multiple inputs to the mac.
So the things from the top of my head are probably mostly software related, and it might be environmental issues with lack of support in virtualizations and firmware of the office equipment.
Regarding the keyboard issues, it might be a local problem. I use a Norwegian Logitech keyboard, featuring a layout with ÆØÅ and different locations for several symbols compared to the US-layout. So maybe the compability differs because of that.
I’ll check out Karabiner for sure, thanks! I use a Vim-plugin for developing and have made a bunch of mappings to reach keys which are mixed up in the virtual desktop. It sounds like Karabiner would fit my workflow well!
When I was 12 I installed Linux… and now I have autism. And I’m gay!
That’s like half the fediverse here
We get it, you use Arch.
Gaytism
There’s truly not individual unique experiences.
Well there’s a simple explanation right? When you’re growing up grappling with issues like homosexuality, disability or just feeling like an outsider - spending more time at a computer provided an escape from a judgemental and unwelcoming world. This is the same reason so many of us are night owls well into adulthood, cause we grew up feeling safer when the adults were asleep and we could maintain our personal boundaries.
I’m autistic and gay but I also have a secret third thing that stopped me from figuring out linux. The “AD” in ADHD (there needs to be a better way to distinguish between having attention deficit, hyperactivity, or hybrid). I have tried like four times now to figure out linux and my brain just doesn’t get the dopamine it needs from that activity and I just can’t focus 🫠
There is a shoet way to say it: Inattentive type (type I), Hyperactive type (type H), and Combination type (type C)
I routinely describe myself as ADHD type C
C
There is a way to distinguish them ! There is Innatentive type, Hyperactive-impulsive type and Combined type
It looks like Linux got much friendlier as of lately, and requires much less figuring out, but ymmv and you can of course run into issues, unfortunately.
Nowadays we usually have the benefit of being connected to the internet from something other than the computer we’re fiddling with, it was quite hard to troubleshoot modem issues when you need that modem to work for the internet connection.
Weird flex, but ogay.
I dunno, maybe it depends on the age. I grew up with a G3 PowerPC and system 9, and I did spend a little time with early OSX (panther). My schools had these terrible Athlon boxes that could barely run XP without blowing up, and as I was leaving high school they were trying to get them to run Vista. That gave me the early impression that Macs were just better, until I went to a vocational school with Ivy Bridge Dell laptops running Windows 7. A friend of mine convinced me to try Linux, and I was impressed with how much easier it was to set up for development, but I ultimately stuck with Windows hosts for gaming, and Linux VMs, then Docker, then WSL for development. I’m still trying to put in the work now for moving away from Windows entirely now that AI is here and gaming on Linux is better. I think maybe it might just come down to having the resources, because if I got to try all three with at least decent hardware, I would have made that journey a lot faster.
Imagine paying for a blue tick on Xitter.
could’ve been before elongated muskrat bought it
It’s not unfortunately, there’s a date of 09/12/2024 under the original tweet
oh… oh… oh…
The weird thing is that the UNIX core of MacOS would lend itself really well to tinkering. It’s a shame that Apple lobotomizes all the hardware they sell with locked down firmware…
It’s why I much prefer MacOS over Windows. The command line makes sense. The file and folder structure makes sense. The defaults can be a little bit weird but a little configuration can help me feel right at home.
Ironically, I found macOS to be a lot more technical than Windows. It’s how I got my start with Linux. At least changing the default browser changes the default browser. I’ll be using macOS and Linux side by side.
Yeah tinkering with my Mac is what got me over to Linux as well. Yeah with Macs some things are locked down or a little tricky to find, but with windows nothing makes any sense to me and I feel like I’m constantly fighting it.
Hey! 🙋 I’m an autistic person (diagnosed at age 3). I grew up using Mac computers mostly, because my father preferred them for his work. Although I would encounter Windows a lot when I was at school as well. However, I didn’t really know how to use Windows until I started seeing videos on YouTube about it (such as this one). This was when I was around 10. So I started experimenting with different editions of it (Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows XP, etc.) via a pirated copy of Parallels Desktop. I also found out about Linux, and toyed with Ubuntu with a bit via Parallels. I found it fun, and thus considered the idea of installing Linux properly onto my Macbook. Unfortunately, the trackpad support wasn’t there. So for my 11th birthday, I asked for a “Windows laptop”, and immediately after getting it, I set up some dual-boot with Windows 10 and some fork of Ubuntu called “Pinguy OS”. (I spent way too much time looking at DistroWatch.) Then, I distro-hopped for a bit until I finally settled on Void Linux when I was 13. I’m now 18 and am running Void full-time on my current laptop, it doesn’t even have a Windows partition. :)
Yooo, another autistic geek 2006er!
I was diagnosed at age 4 and i started with Flash games on a Windows 7 family desktop. The first PC i could keep in my bedroom was an old netbook with XP and Lubuntu gifted to me by my mom(i only used the linux part tho). Then, later, another XP-era laptop with Linux Mint, before the current win10 laptop i have today(used it with Windows so far cuz i’m lazy and i used to need windows software but i plan to Linuxize this as soon as win10 is discontinued)
When i take the jump i’m prolly gonna settle for KDE Neon or any other Debian-based that can run KDE and then try to theme it to get something as close to Frutiger Aero as possible.
Ayy! 🤝
I’m also thinking of trying KDE the next time I install Linux. I’ve been using GNOME for the vast majority of my time on Linux, though I’ve also dabbled with Xfce and Antergos’ built-in OpenBox configuration for a short while.
Awesome! What made you pick void?
Apologies for the late reply, my internet went down for a day. Anyway, before I was using a distro called Antergos (basically Arch with an easy installer and a few custom packages). When it was discontinued, some people waited for what is basically its spiritual successor, EndeavourOS. Others switched to using vanilla Arch. But I decided to use Void after some research, as to me it was Arch but with a few advantages to my favour:
- At the time, Void had an installation wizard while Arch didn’t (you manually installed it by following the wiki, basically). Now,
archinstallexists, I guess. - It’s still rolling-release, so you can update whenever you want easily, but at the same time not bleeding-edge, so packages don’t break as easily.
- Unlike most Linux distros, it uses runit as the init system instead of systemd. I’m no rabid systemd hater, but you gotta admit that runit is just easier to learn how to use.
- And finally, by adopting a non-major distro, I just wanted to promote Linux apps being compatible with as many distros as possible, and not just either Debian, Fedora, or Arch (or whatever derivatives exist thereof).
(Also, happy cake day! I didn’t know Lemmy had cake days until now hehe :)
- At the time, Void had an installation wizard while Arch didn’t (you manually installed it by following the wiki, basically). Now,
Personally, I guess that you learn more the more issues you have. MacOS is a more closed down ecosystem compared to Windows, malware is less popular and as hardware comes usually bundled with the OS, you shouldn’t encounter as many driver or hardware issues in general.
As a kid I had so much trouble with incompatible software, viruses, adware, drivers, broken hardware etc. And as I had noone to ask, it tought me a lot about the fundamentals of IT and how to research such issues myself.
Counterpoint, I grew up at a time when Mac’s still couldn’t do much outside of what apple specifically developed for them, so I learned a ton about emulation and virtual machines and such to play games or use Photoshop. I guess that supports your hypothesis, I can rock Unix command line stuff and containers like a pro, but hate figuring out drivers
Yes, I completely see that. This is not a black or white question. You can use Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS… and learn close to nothing or you can geek around hour after hour to expand the boundaries of your device.
I would just assume, that you learn less if everything you want to do, works out of the box. And ‘working out of the box’ a typical selling point of the Apple ecosystem. Which of course doesn’t mean that you can’t have a steep learning curve. Your use cases obviously weren’t delivered out of the box, so you had to get creative as well.
I had a jailbroken iPod Touch with a shell on it and spend hours and days overcoming system boundaries just out of spite. I also remember vividly trying to bring mobile games to a Symbian phone, tweaking around with a HP iPAQ on Windows Mobile, manually typing Midi ringtones with a text editor on a Nokia. :D
And then there’s 90s Linux because your parents got a used computer with a friend that came with only that and they didn’t want to spend money buying windows 😢 it’s like learning to swim by being yeeted into the ocean, with a couple sharks hanging around.
At least 80s kids got assembly.
Linux had always been good - put together a new computer, move the OS from the old one, put Linux on the old one…
Find Linux is so much fun, dual boot the new machine on Linux, only keep windows for games
My audio collection from then is all .ogg files
Debian didn’t have a stable release until 1996… Even Slackware didn’t shape up nicely until around 98 from what I remember. SLS gave it a GUI but wasn’t well maintained. Linux wasn’t really “good” until early 2000s at the very least.
I just wanted to play Space Cadet Pinball or Commander Keen as a kid, not compile my programs.
You’re clearly talking about modern Linux.
I don’t think I had budget to buy my own computers until '99, and that’s when I first played with Linux
Too bad correlation does not imply causation.
I’m should bring that Ubuntu CD I had shipped to me as a kid to a therapist.
I had one i lost it. i also had a CD of solaris before oracle bought them out a long time ago.
I still have my SuSE 8.2 9.0 and 9.1 discs, and the official books I bought in a book store to get 9.1. I also have my Solaris discs. They are somehow part of the few things I haven’t lost in all of my moving.
my parents kept them then threw them out when i left home.
