Windows 10

[Snake Plissken]

The ribbon is crap though; it doesn't have any functionality that the old fashioned menu bar didn't, and it artifically restricts the number of commands you can display on the screen compared to its predecessor. It was form over function then, and it still is today.

Yes. It artificially restricts the number of commands... to only the relevant ones for the action you are doing. There is no point showing you a whole bunch of Picture editing options if you haven't selected a picture.

[Wouter D]

I detest how much screen real estate it eats. Some of my laptops are old. They do not have too many pixels to go around. Because of the ribbon, it's impossible to have a full page overview that is anywhere near legible, and this used to not be a problem.

[Snake Plissken]

Click the arrow at the right hand side to minimise it?

[hobbes]

But for what I do for a living it’s a good habit to get into using the command line as much as possible.

Are you a computer hacker from 1980s thrillers?

[Snake Plissken]

Can't you tell by the fact that he wears a hoody over his head while typing?

[Mr Cogito]

Exactly. There is a reason that Office has never been knocked off its perch, and it is because all its competitors have been designed by people who have no idea how to design a UI for ordinary people.

Oh, there might be another reason for that, just off the top of my head.

OS X is lovely but the Apple premium just isn't worth it anymore.

I'm coming round to that view too, as a Mac enthusiast of many years standing. The shorter version is that what did for Mac OS most of all was Apple's iOS.

[Snake Plissken]

Oh, there might be another reason for that, just off the top of my head.

Nah. The .docx format has been open for over a decade (it's several XML files in a renamed ZIP) and the fact that people can (and do) create PDFs in anything shows that users will switch if given incentives.

There was the perfect opportunity to Do Better with the move online to stuff like Google Docs. Still is, as even as a Microsoft Guy I'm happy to push Draw.io over Visio Online. But Office Online is streets ahead in terms of UI, interfacing properly with the desktop apps and so on.

The shorter version is that what did for Mac OS most of all was Apple's iOS.

*nods in agreement*

I rather suspect Apple would happily ditch the entire Mac line if it could.

[hobbes]

I rather suspect Apple would happily ditch the entire Mac line if it could.

Really? I'd have thought charging two grand for a £400 computer would have been exactly the thing they'd want to keep doing.

[Snake Plissken]

Not in the numbers that they sell.

[hobbes]

SO you ARE a computer hacker from 1980s thrillers!
PS1="\u@\h (drop emoji icon) \W "

[Wouter D]

Click the arrow at the right hand side to minimise it?

So I can either have all of it, or none of it?

In an older version of office products, I had one wonderfully slim bar of self-chosen buttons that I used a lot. There was no reason for that to become a ribbon.

[Snake Plissken]

Right. So you want to customise the options that appear?

Right click on it.

[Stumpy Pepys]

I've never owned a Mac but aren't their high-end machines still the industry standard when it comes to music production and film editing? If not, what hardware would typically be used in those industries now?

For film-editing they were, but I'm not sure if they still are. If you're using Final Cut, then that's Mac only. However, Adobe Premiere and Avid are Windows and Mac. My impression is several studios migrated to Windows because of Apple's lack of support for the Mac Pro.

Music production seems to be mostly Mac, but Pro Tools is also available for Windows. Logic was available for Windows until Apple bought it. Garageband is Mac-only.
Also all the other good music tools seem to be on the iPad, particularly the emulators.

[WOM]

I've used nothing but Mac products my whole career in advertising. I had to write on a Compaq pc for about 18 months, but I've never even seen an agency art director work on anything but Mac.

[Lang Spoon]

Graphic designers and printers still seem to insist on Macs. Maybe that's just the fannies at my place refusing to learn how to navigate their way around a Surface.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Graphic designers and printers still seem to insist on Macs. Maybe that's just the fannies at my place refusing to learn how to navigate their way around a Surface.

Apart from the keyboard shortcuts, the differences between Creative Suite on Mac and PC are very small indeed.

[Lang Spoon]

Just dicks then. As I suspected.

[Fussbudget]

Yeah I use it on both PCs and Macs and it's exactly the same, you'd have to be completely computer illiterate not to be able to switch between the two. Even the shortcuts are basically the same, if you just replace Cmd with Ctrl in your shortcuts when on a PC it'll work 90% of the time.

I think a lot of graphic designers stick to Macs (though I do know some that only use PCs) because they look cooler and "graphic designers all use Macs" rather than out of any actual necessity.

[anton pulisov]

I used Macs in the mid-1990s when they were genuinely better than Windows. But that hasn't really been the case since Windows 98, and definitely not since Windows XP.

The entire Apple business plan is based on selling status and prestige.

As much as I don't like Microsoft, it would have been terrible if they had lost out to Apple in the 1980s/1990s. Microsoft's approach at least promoted an open hardware platform, which ultimately helped push things like Linux forward. Imagine if the entire world was locked into Apple hardware.

[3 Colours Red]

I preferred Apple without the cult of Jobs (and to an extent Ive) built around it when he returned - yes, they were mostly making shite in that period but at least it was weird and interesting shite.

Apple's comeback almost certainly wouldn't have happened if Microsoft hadn't bailed them out in 1997. Maybe that's where Bill Gates got his taste for philanthropy from.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Apple's comeback almost certainly wouldn't have happened if Microsoft hadn't bailed them out in 1997. Maybe that's where Bill Gates got his taste for philanthropy from.

Or to avoid being broken up for being a monopoly.

[Snake Plissken]

That would have been impressive, considering that the initial consent decree was two years earlier, and the anti-trust case didn't get filed until almost a year later.

It was partly to settle patent issues and because Office was a revenue stream on Macs as well. Anyway, they sold up in 2003, when Bad Microsoft was at its height. (Two years after the iPod launch - they really did have a sense of timing.)

[Gerontophile]

Linux is for students and criminals.

I thought you said Linus.

[3 Colours Red]

I really need to put some kind of disclaimer on my posts. I keep forgetting that facetiousness only works in meatspace.