This doesn't seem like it is going to change. Ever. The course Apple was on software-wise when Jobs passed away Apple seems terrified of moving away from, even when it was clear at the time that desktop was not getting full attention over iOS.
No one in software at Apple seems to have the vision required to make positive changes, rather than cribbing from iOS as the Lions have. Jonny Ive can keep hardware running well, but software is languishing.
It used to be such an easy choice as to what OS I wanted. Mac OS X was prettier, more stable, more fluid and had better apps. I think Windows 8 is a much prettier OS, although the apps aren't there yet. Ubuntu is also plenty usable, has the UNIX underpinnings, and is less ugly in a number of spots than OS X (god I hate linen, and I have no love for skuemorphism). I've strongly considered running Windows 8 as my host system and virtualizing Mountain Lion, although I'm leaning towards sticking to Mac as host for now.
EDIT: FWIW, I would note that Apple's core programming: system libraries and such, remains top notch. It's the front-end that seems fairly clueless.
I've been considering a fulltime move to Linux for a long time, but have yet to take the plunge- I tried a few years ago, but the driver support for my Macbook was less than great.
Now, Lion seems to have slowed down my 2010 Macbook Air- at times it absolutely crawls when I'm positive it never used to. Is there anyone out there running Ubuntu full time who can say how good driver support is? In particular the trackpad- I've never had a perfect trackpad experience outside of OS X, Windows hasn't been able to do it either.
Yeah, SSD is completely negated when the file system has to wait for an external drive to spin up before it will be responsive, even if you're only using the local drive.
Because there's no setting for automounting and unmounting a Time Machine drive, I ended up using my old Macbook Pro as a file server and plugging in the external to that, then using a hack to get Time Machine to recognize it as a Time Capsule.
Running Ubuntu with either Unity or vanilla Gnome 3 about 75% of the time on my MBP 13", after having switched to it from the increasingly ugly consumer-tailored, unstable Lion. Unfortunately, OS X still has a great lead in terms of input, particularly the trackpad. There are a few ways to make existence under Ubuntu more pleasant. Here is an article that helped me:
> Now, Lion seems to have slowed down my 2010 Macbook Air- at times it absolutely crawls when I'm positive it never used to
That's not Lion (same system, OS, identical performance to day 1). I'd fire up Activity Monitor and see what's active when it's slow - there's probably something causing a ton of background I/O.
No one in software at Apple seems to have the vision required to make positive changes, rather than cribbing from iOS as the Lions have. Jonny Ive can keep hardware running well, but software is languishing.
It used to be such an easy choice as to what OS I wanted. Mac OS X was prettier, more stable, more fluid and had better apps. I think Windows 8 is a much prettier OS, although the apps aren't there yet. Ubuntu is also plenty usable, has the UNIX underpinnings, and is less ugly in a number of spots than OS X (god I hate linen, and I have no love for skuemorphism). I've strongly considered running Windows 8 as my host system and virtualizing Mountain Lion, although I'm leaning towards sticking to Mac as host for now.
EDIT: FWIW, I would note that Apple's core programming: system libraries and such, remains top notch. It's the front-end that seems fairly clueless.