Prepare for a shock, I miss… Apple Notes.
Like, really. Imho it’s a great note-taking app that is also performing really well even on large number of notes, that also natively syncs between the Mac and iOS, with full-encryption. It’s also an app that, well, does not expect its user to become an engineer and/or a dev unlike some certain others text editors out there ;)
The other one basic app I do miss is Apple Photos.
Like with Notes, I miss its simplicity while still including those very few more advanced features an amateur and very occasional photographer like myself seldom needed access to. Sure, there are excellent Libre alternatives, much more powerful and more complete, but they are all also much more clunky and complex to use which make it so that I use them a lot less than I used to use Apple Photos.
Pixelmator Pro, for the even fewer more advanced photo edits I need. Here too, we have Libre alternatives but I have yet to find a one that is as intuitive to use as Pixelmator is.
Affinity Designer. Inkscape is on its way to replace Designer for me, that’s one thing.
My spell checker/dictionaries/grammatical guides, for French and English: Antidote.
It used to run offline (no Internet required) on Linux, on Mac and Windows, and I happily paid for its license to be able to do so. But the latest version has dropped its support for Linux, unless one is willing to use the coud version, which I’m not.
All those apps are very different but they share one thing: they are not complex and unintuitive apps (I reckon it’s at this point I should get flamed to death, so be it).
I mean, even the most ‘complex’ apps I mentioned (like Antidote or, say, Affinity Designer) most users should be able to start using them quick (not master them, but start using them) because they’re not that complex and not that different. Mmm, I’m not an expert UI designer, it’s difficult to explain my feelings around that notion: many things are familiar if not similar between those apps, heck some are even so simple that there is no such thing as a ‘save’ button. I know it’s also very much a question of education and of acquired habits, but still this matters a lot to me and probably to other people like me. I’m getting old (and I’m not in good health) and I want to spend as little as possible of the time I have left learning new apps, to tweak them, or search for workarounds just so I could do what I’ve known how to do for many decades already. If I was to summarize what I failed to say: I switched to Linux not because I’m interested in learning new apps or in changing my desktop look (it’s really cool, I just don’t care much). I switched because I worry about the lightning fast erosion of our privacy in this digital world. It’s the ideology that attracted me to GNU/Linux. I have no major issues using apps under macOS/iOS, I only have major issues with Apple (and MS, and Google, and Facebook, Twitter, and so many other corporations) acting like assholes willing to destroy our societies and even the world itself so they can make a few dollars more during the next quarter. F. that, that’s my motivation to use G/L ;)
Also, thx for reading to that point without burning me (you will find a box of matches in the second drawer over there, you know where to find me) ;)
The problem of unintuitiveness is sadly very common in Free software, but it’s getting better… in a few spaces anyway.
For an Apple Notes replacement, I would suggest looking at Joplin, which I use daily for everything from database diagrams to recipes. It has a built-in sync feature, supporting a variety of options, all encrypted. I used it with Syncthing, which admittedly isn’t very easy, but there are other simpler options.
The problem of unintuitiveness is sadly very common in Free software, but it’s getting better… in a few spaces anyway.
It is getting better and even if it was not, I would still be ok with it: I may have been slow but I learned to favor my privacy/freedom over comfort ;)
That said, I know from talking with people around me (and from myself) that it can be a huge obstacle, no matter if they’re older like I am or much younger people. If it doesn’t just works, it plain sucks.
I was going to say I miss nothing but you reminded me of what I really miss. Mac Preview. It was so versatile and did a lot for a little built in program.
I used to use Sushi for gnome but it never did all file types and it stopped working for me a while back. I have never gotten it to work right again since.
Yes, I could have mentioned it too. It’s such a neat feature to have.
There are probably other things worth mentioning. And then a few others that have become a real pain under macOS, imho. For example, the new settings app has morphed into a Windows-like mess ;)
Like, really. Imho it’s a great note-taking app that is also performing really well even on large number of notes, that also natively syncs between the Mac and iOS, with full-encryption. It’s also an app that, well, does not expect its user to become an engineer and/or a dev unlike some certain others text editors out there ;)
Like with Notes, I miss its simplicity while still including those very few more advanced features an amateur and very occasional photographer like myself seldom needed access to. Sure, there are excellent Libre alternatives, much more powerful and more complete, but they are all also much more clunky and complex to use which make it so that I use them a lot less than I used to use Apple Photos.
It used to run offline (no Internet required) on Linux, on Mac and Windows, and I happily paid for its license to be able to do so. But the latest version has dropped its support for Linux, unless one is willing to use the coud version, which I’m not.
All those apps are very different but they share one thing: they are not complex and unintuitive apps (I reckon it’s at this point I should get flamed to death, so be it).
I mean, even the most ‘complex’ apps I mentioned (like Antidote or, say, Affinity Designer) most users should be able to start using them quick (not master them, but start using them) because they’re not that complex and not that different. Mmm, I’m not an expert UI designer, it’s difficult to explain my feelings around that notion: many things are familiar if not similar between those apps, heck some are even so simple that there is no such thing as a ‘save’ button. I know it’s also very much a question of education and of acquired habits, but still this matters a lot to me and probably to other people like me. I’m getting old (and I’m not in good health) and I want to spend as little as possible of the time I have left learning new apps, to tweak them, or search for workarounds just so I could do what I’ve known how to do for many decades already. If I was to summarize what I failed to say: I switched to Linux not because I’m interested in learning new apps or in changing my desktop look (it’s really cool, I just don’t care much). I switched because I worry about the lightning fast erosion of our privacy in this digital world. It’s the ideology that attracted me to GNU/Linux. I have no major issues using apps under macOS/iOS, I only have major issues with Apple (and MS, and Google, and Facebook, Twitter, and so many other corporations) acting like assholes willing to destroy our societies and even the world itself so they can make a few dollars more during the next quarter. F. that, that’s my motivation to use G/L ;)
Also, thx for reading to that point without burning me (you will find a box of matches in the second drawer over there, you know where to find me) ;)
The problem of unintuitiveness is sadly very common in Free software, but it’s getting better… in a few spaces anyway.
For an Apple Notes replacement, I would suggest looking at Joplin, which I use daily for everything from database diagrams to recipes. It has a built-in sync feature, supporting a variety of options, all encrypted. I used it with Syncthing, which admittedly isn’t very easy, but there are other simpler options.
It is getting better and even if it was not, I would still be ok with it: I may have been slow but I learned to favor my privacy/freedom over comfort ;)
That said, I know from talking with people around me (and from myself) that it can be a huge obstacle, no matter if they’re older like I am or much younger people. If it doesn’t just works, it plain sucks.
Thx for the suggestion ;)
You can compare Apple to the same drug Factorio is usually compared to.
I was going to say I miss nothing but you reminded me of what I really miss. Mac Preview. It was so versatile and did a lot for a little built in program.
I used to use Sushi for gnome but it never did all file types and it stopped working for me a while back. I have never gotten it to work right again since.
Yes, I could have mentioned it too. It’s such a neat feature to have.
There are probably other things worth mentioning. And then a few others that have become a real pain under macOS, imho. For example, the new settings app has morphed into a Windows-like mess ;)
You can run affinity after compiling a custom version of wine,idk about the other apps I mentioned.