Tuesday, October 1st, 2024
macOS Isn't All That Bad.
It's a short post, I know.
macOS Isn't All That Bad
Recently, I ended up with a MacBook Air from 2014. It’s got 8GB of RAM, and the top-of-the-line i7 for that particular model. Well, I decided I wanted to try to get the latest macOS running on it. The newest that particular model can run is Big Sur (officially). However, there are tools (specifically OpenCore Legacy Patcher) that can allow the system to run a newer system. And that’s what I did.
Previously, I had done this to a 2010 Mac mini I had. The experience was awful. The thing hardly ran Sonoma. 100% CPU usage most of the time. I should probably just go back to High Sierra on that Mac.
I went ahead and installed OpenCore on the MacBook. I was expecting the experience to be far worse. I ended up choosing Sequoia, as it is the latest (macOS 15) as of the writing of this post. After running through the install, I had to install the patches for it to run properly. Not a big deal. It took it around twenty to thirty minutes to install the patches. After that, everything worked. Without being slow.
The only real slowdowns I noticed was on first boot with the patches, some kind of widget-related process was eating up CPU, but I assume this was just from the fresh install. After a few minutes of it sitting around, it eventually calmed down and worked just fine. I was able to browse the web on it just fine, along with most of the other macOS apps working on it. Video wallpapers also worked, albeit with some choppiness due to them being 4K 120FPS files if I’m not mistaken. At times they would play back fine, but most of the time there are obvious frame drops.
I’ve been using this thing on and off for web browsing, especially when I don’t want to deal with the desktop, but need a keyboard and mouse. This thing has been fantastic for that. And the keyboard shortcuts seem to be easier. I think having the Command key right next to spacebar makes it easier to push, especially on a laptop.
Another thing on macOS that I’ve always liked is the ways it handles menus. On the vintage Macintoshes I’ve used (that were on System 7), you used to have to press and hold to open a menu and keep it open, then drag the mouse to the option you wanted, release it, and it would select it. You can still do this on modern macOS. It is actually quite nice and saves me a bit of time. My PC, which uses KDE as a desktop environment on Ubuntu Linux, also has the same functionality. I use a trackball mouse on desktop and it works super well with that.
Besides functional things, Apple has also managed to make macOS visually pleasing. This is one of the things I’ve always liked with Apple products. They make them look good straight out of the box. I install El Capitan first things first when I got this laptop. It looked like it was meant to run on it. It looked real nice on here. But even though Sequoia wasn’t meant to run on hardware this old, it still looks really nice, and goes in well with the aesthetics of this old laptop.
All in all, I ended up really liking macOS and would absolutely pick it over a Windows device due to my strong dislike of Windows. I once tried to use Windows for a day and gave up. It was not my cup of tea. This is the first time I’ve tried something other than Kubuntu in ages and ended up really liking and actually using. My only real grudges with the experience I’ve had are hardware ones: no RAM upgradeability (at least easily. I’ve seen forum posts where people have soldered in more), and the low-resolution display on this MacBook Air (1366x768). Even then Apple does manage to keep it looking nice even though I doubt there are any devices sold by Apple (except their watches, maybe) with such a atrocious resolution.