@s.hackleman said:
@creayt I keep hearing this claim from several people, but I just haven't seen it.
No, I totally get it, and a lot of people have shared your experience. Sometimes I wish I was one of them. Having owned every single Mac model in the last 5 years or so with the exception of most mac minis and the newest Mac Pro ( though I have used a handful of the minis ) and the newest MacBooks w/ the single USB, and having experienced it on and each and every single one of them, I feel pretty expert in commenting on the subject. It's very perceptual and personal. The types and instances of latency in OS X ( which can be very random, sometimes the exact same task w/ an identical load will create a delay, stutter, or hesitation that 7/8 other times it won't, it's almost like OS X is sending analytics on everything you do up to its servers sneakily in the background and the IO somehow cock blocks the entire machine unpredictably intermittently ).
Don't get me wrong, there are a good handful of things I like and even prefer about OS X to Windows, the interesting and artsy-looking text aliasing, the interesting and useful add-on projects that help bandaid its glaring usability holes and add new features ( I can't use a mac for more than an hour or so without installing Zooom 2 and Jitouch ), the ability to quit programs mid-Command+Tab, the idea of attempting to make an operating system beautiful ( even if they fail as often as succeed ). I just don't think it's subjective to say that OS X as an operating system is very slow compared to Windows in most important ways to a user like myself at least. Independent of how a system performs when pledged into rich benchmarking for specific usage patterns, encountering random, frequent, consistent latency in your overall experience w/ an OS is much more important than say a rendering finishing a few minutes slower. The point is that the more your OS instantly reacts to your actions the more quickly you can use it. If you're having to mentally monitor the interface as you interact with it and switch files/contexts/tasks/apps/workspaces, and conscientiously slow yourself down waiting for the system to be ready for you, it becomes not only very palpably counter-productive, but frustrating. I notice the latency even in little things like how long it takes after depressing the keys until the app switcher comes up ( Command + tab ). To most people I've talked to it feels instant, but as someone w/ terribly responsive ADD and perfect eyesight and who consumes energy drinks regularly, the delay is there. And it's gone when you install Windows in Boot Camp.
Anyway, I always say that it'd be incredible if Apple focused on and mastered performance engineering the way Microsoft has, but I won't hold my breath because Apple is run w/ more of a business and profitability focus, so as long as the experiences their very limited set of options provide are good enough ( and furthermore, they don't want things to be too fast as a rule because then if so they can't tell you the new thing is 200% faster in 6 months and sell you on a replacement ), they're fine with it. Microsoft, on the other hand, attempts to get their software to run as closely to instant on all hardware as a rule, which is why the OS performs noticeably faster and more responsively on any mac than OS X does.
I/O: This feature can help accelerate performance when operating on SSDs. "
