alt Hacker NewsNot to mention that WindowServer seems to take 100+% cpu since the upgrade. Also I can't paste filenames in the save file dialog in some apps. And the URL field in Safari is just weird.
My computer was running so slowly that I had to minimize transparency in system preferences somewhere. I think I also turned off opening every app in its own space. And I hid the icons on the Desktop in Finder settings somehow, which helped a lot. There are countless other little tweaks that are worth investigating.
I also highly recommend App Tamer (no affiliation). It lets you jail background apps at 10% cpu or whatever. It won't help with WindowServer or kernel_task (which also often runs at 100+% cpu), but it's something.
I can't help but feel that there's nobody at the wheel at Apple anymore. When I have to wait multiple seconds to open a window, to switch between apps, to go to my Applications folder, then something is terribly wrong. Computers have been running thousands of times slower than they should be for decades, but now it's reaching the point where daily work is becoming difficult.
I'm cautiously optimistic that AI will let us build full operating systems using other OSs as working examples. Then we can finally boot up with better alternatives that force Apple/Microsoft/Google to try again. I could see Finder or File Explorer alternatives replacing the native ones.
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> Not to mention that WindowServer seems to take 100+% cpu since the upgrade
That's because some app is spamming window updates.
It's been an ongoing problem for many releases. AFAICT, WindowServer 100% CPU is a symptom, not a cause.
> Computers have been running thousands of times slower than they should be for decades
I've been hearing this complaint for decades and I'll never understand it. The suggestion seems completely at odds with my own experience. Regardless of OS, they all seem extremely fast, and feel faster and faster as time goes on.
I remember a time when I could visually see the screen repaint after minimizing a window, or waiting 3 minutes for the OS to boot, or waiting 30 minutes to install a 600mb video game from local media. My m2 air with 16gb of memory only has to reboot for updates, I haphazardly open 100 browser tabs, run spotify, slack, an IDE, build whatever project I'm working on, and the machine occasionally gets warm. Everything works fine, I never have performance issues. My linux machines, gaming pc, and phone feel just as snappy. It feels to me that we are living in a golden age of computer performance.
Is this a case of "It Just Works" or "You're Holding It Wrong"?
Nobody's been at the wheel for a while, it's just not a race car, it's a barge.
kernel_task using 100% is the system thermally throttling and the OS spamming NOPs to cool the CPU down
Good point. The implications are worth considering more deeply.
QubesOS seems a great migration target: it runs Apps/OS in secure sandboxes - and even with that overhead doesn't seem worse than the terrible MacOS 26 performance.
>I'm cautiously optimistic that AI will let us build full operating systems using other OSs as working examples.
Even if that would be possible, you can't run commercial software. And for many people, the software they run is more important than the OS.
I think we're already seeing the operating systems that AI can build, and I don't think they've been an improvement.