Last week’s column was basically a rant about things that bothered me about Ubuntu’s GNOME/Linux combination. Besides the usual ‘I do not experience the problems you have, so you must be an anti-GNOME troll!’ and of the course the ever-present ‘How on earth can you complain about Free software!’, it did what is was supposed to do: bring problems under developer’s direct attention (for instance, Evolution’s UI maintainer emailed me, asking for more clarification). Now it’s Apple’s turn. Here is a list of problems I find the most annoying about Apple’s Mac/MacOS.
Note: This week’s Sunday Eve Column is a little early, as I’ll be in Amsterdam tomorrow, watching the first match of my country in the Football World Cup (against the Republic of Serbia/Montenegro).
- The MacOS does not exactly feel fast. It seems as if every action just takes a fraction of a second longer on the Mac than it does on other operating systems– as if the MacOS has a continual hangover. While the situation on the MacBook Pro Apple is loaning me has improved considerably, it’s still not what I want out of my operating system. Other than that, this MacBook Pro has a dual-core 2.0Ghz processor and 2 gigabyte of RAM; so no wonder it feels faster than on other Macs I’ve tried.
- MacOS X is an inconsistent mess. Yes, it really is. Graphically, that is. OSX now has, what, 7 or 8 different themes, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s 6 or 7 too many. Some people say Apple is experimenting with all these themes; that’s fine, but please keep that reserved for testers, and not for people like me who do not like to spend 130 Euros every 18 months on a piece of software that is only getting more inconsistent instead of less. If you like graphical consistency, stick with BeOS/Zeta or GNOME.
- One of my biggest pet peeves: that annoying Google search field in Safari. On Panther (Safari 1.x), you could remove it. In Tiger (Safari 2.0), you cannot. Why, you ask? Beyond me.
Tiger has some serious issues with… Screen remnants. More often than not, text input fields, whether they be on a webpage or in TextEdit or Mail or whatever, show lines twice when you delete a line, or something similar. Another annoying one is the scroll blob which gets, duplicated, or something; check the screenshot to see what I mean. Panther did not have these problems, but Tiger does– and we’re already at 10.4.6.
- Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity. It is really annoying when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive and you have to lay your ear on the keyboard to
seehear whether it is still doing something or not. Screw aesthetics, Apple, and choose functionality over beauty for a change. - Mail.app is a pointless email client, and I am flabbergasted I still use it every day. The amounts of emails I get and have in all my mailbox folders (about 40000) can bring Mail.app to a grinding halt, especially on PowerPC Macs. Other than that, Mail.app has its own theme (why, for god’s sake?), and lacks a vertical preview pane.
- Where GNOME has an evil taskbar, MacOS X has an evil dock. Yes, it looks cool and all, but it’s a UI nightmare. Instead of having a separate section for taskbar entries and application launchers, the dock has one section which aims to be both, but obviously sucks at doing so. It’s confusing. Seperate the two, and leave the current situation as an option.
- OSX needs a decent uninstaller, supplied with the OS (no, AppZapper does not count, even though it’s a great tool. Something like that should come standard with an OS). You see, Mac people will tell you how easy it is to uninstall applications: just drag to the trash and done. That’s wrong. When you drag an application to the trash, it leaves behind a trail of configuration files and the like all over the OS. Obsessive-compulsive as I am (my directory structure and email rules make little kids cry), I want an application to really be gone when I uninstall it.
- Apple needs to put more effort into backwards compatibility. They currently downright screw over developers (and hence the users) by breaking compatibility so often.
That’s it for Apple. Join me next week for… I don’t know, to be honest; either Explorer or KDE. That is, if there will be a column at all next week (I’m in the middle of a move). Enjoy the World Cup!
–Thom Holwerda
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
I generally agree with your sentiments, except for the:
Instead of having a separate section for taskbar entries and application launchers, the dock has one section which aims to be both, but obviously sucks at doing so.
I actually like this setup. It goes some way towards removing the restriction between running apps and non-running apps, and makes it so there is a one-stop place to get to your commonly used apps. I’ve got pretty much everything I ever use sitting on the dock, and so if I want to go to Safari, I just click on the Safari icon. I don’t have to care whether its already running or not — I want Safari, I get Safari.
It also helps tie down the idea that an application is an instance. In Winows, you get the metaphor that an application is something that can be instantiated, since it can appear multiple times in the taskbar. I think this metaphor unnecessarily exposes an implementation detail to the user.
When you drag an application to the trash, it leaves behind a trail of configuration files and the like all over the OS.
This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.
This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.
And just because every other OS has it justifies it how, exactly?
Nice to see you bring it up.
The only reason I can see for not removing configuration files would be that I’m uninstalling an application in order to reinstall it, and therefore do not want to lose my configuration.
However, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem making it optional to remove (or leave) configuration files.
I wonder what your directory structure looks like since it can make kids cry
EDIT: Not much fun for me in this year’s WC. Denmark did not qualify and my other team lost to Equador… *sigh*
Edited 2006-06-11 00:20
The only reason I can see for not removing configuration files would be that I’m uninstalling an application in order to reinstall it, and therefore do not want to lose my configuration.
That is a very good point. However, there are times when you are uninstalling and want to get rid of a bad configuration as well; in other words, you want to wipe it completely before reinstalling. All OSes have a hard time with this, but Apple does indeed make it more difficult than others.
It doesn’t justify it, I was just pointing out it wasn’t a MacOS X specific problem and should be fixed in general.
Well, it’s sometimes useful to have configuration data available for whenever you want to install the application again. With today disk capacity, and config’s size, I don’t know why should you wonder about it.
I think his real complaint is that it makes things messy to have tons of .files or .directories laying about that have nothing to do with installed programs, although I do like the fact that they’re still around if I ever reinstall the program.
This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.
Application data is like that, /etc isn’t. You’ve probably meant home filled with .folders and .files:)
But even this is just in one place and easier to clean up. Apple does install apps into up to 7 different folders. Not even one is deleted when you throw app in trash.
@Thom:
1-9 all real, except you could name better ones than HDD light
btw. “it did what is was supposed to do: bring problems under developer’s direct attention” best sentence ever, and do more of these trolling conquests, I for one agree that praising what works is pointless.
Edited 2006-06-11 00:47
# aptitude remove <package>
# aptitude purge <package>
– Felix
Edited 2006-06-11 00:45
Isn’t the command apt-get purge package under Debian, for example, removing configuration files?
I must admit I never checked thoroughly if it did…
A lot of installers give you the option to remove all profile data when you uninstall it. I’m pretty sure any MSI installer should.
Yes but some OS allow to remove them. eg Debian Package System has a command option that removes _everything_ created by the package or throught the package. For eg a DB like MySQL that even includes the Databases
Get a better package manager.
apt has a purge option to remove all config files so that nothing is left behind when you do an uninstall.
I think you can remove those files man….
Yeah, I am pretty sure you can…
Get over it. A million blogs have already said this.
Evolution’s UI maintainer emailed me, asking for more clarification)
Could you post these somewhere (maybe an update to the article)? I’m curious too.
Thanks Thom.
This is pretty much the same with every operating system. Ever looked under /etc or Application Data? They are usually strewn with files from every application ever installed.
On Debian systems, one can do “apt-get remove –purge <package>” to completely remove applications along with all their configuration files under /etc and whereever else. The same can be accomplished in a graphical way via the Synaptic package manager.
True enough, but dotfiles remain in users’ home directories, and these are not removed by apt, or anything else.
Unless you’re careful you’ll find that a Debian machine accumulates an awful lot of cruft as ~/.*. I tidy my desktop every few months just to have an idea of what is used and what is old.
Thing is dot-files exist in _every_ user’s home. If you’re the only user, it’s fine to get rid of the user’s dot-file, but if you’re not the only user, it may not be appropriate. What about those users who decide to install to their home? The notice that their configuration magically was destroyed. Nope, can’t do that. It’s the same with every OS except BeOS and other single-user OSs.
Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity
You can use /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app to see disk activity. Fire it up, hide its window, right-click or control-click on its dock icon, and select “Show Disk Activity” from the “Dock Icon” submenu.
OSX needs a decent uninstaller…
Yes, please.
You can use /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app to see disk activity. Fire it up, hide its window, right-click or control-click on its dock icon, and select “Show Disk Activity” from the “Dock Icon” submenu.
But “when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive”, to quote Thom, how are you supposed to fire Monitor.app up?
use MenuMeters
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/
sits up at the top, shows disk activity, ram usage, network activity, all very customizable and very handy for wanting to know when theres a lot of disk activity..
And I totally disagree with a HDD LED and that the Dock is stupid, and I rather like drag and drop installs vs having to run uninstall apps, though a choice in the matter would be nice.
Just spotlight for the app and it’ll bring up the prefs you can delete manually for now.
Just spotlight for the app and it’ll bring up the prefs you can delete manually for now.
Or use AppZapper.;)
# If you like graphical consistency, stick with BeOS/Zeta or GNOME.
I always hear people complaining how there is both gtk and qt apps in linux while windows and mac os x only have one, making it a lot better, but I always state this as the rebuttal. Windows has multiple themes (look at Office, WMP, Notepad, IE, an older app, etc) as well as OS X. Linux has this issue the least from what I’ve seen.
Pretty much all OS’es suffer from lack of consistency in look and feel, with BeOS/Zeta/Haiku, SkyOS, Syllable, AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS as possible exceptions (due to strict use of native toolkits – or porting foreign toolkits in a way so they use native toolkits).
For Linux it depends on the apps you need, and the themes you use. It is possible to make applications using different toolkits to have an almost identical look and feel. But it does require some work.
Lack of consistency in look and feel? Since I mostly use xterms, I dare say the look and feel is rather consistent 😉
– Felix
Heh, that’s of course a way to solve the problem
Windows has multiple themes (look at Office, WMP, Notepad, IE, an older app, etc) as well as OS X. Linux has this issue the least from what I’ve seen.
I believe this is not really an issue. As far as the widgets behave and feel the same, people do not seem to dislike if they look different, but indeed they seem to appreciate it, and this seems to provide a useful differentiating factor for commercial apps.
What is irritating is when widgets feel different, i.e. you get inconsistent behavior when you click. For example, some KDE toolbar buttons require you to press and hold, Gnome buttons don’t. Those are the inconsistencies that matter, and I’m not sure if Windows and OSX have them.
But, allow me to be self-centered and post my thoughts:
1. Very true. But it feels more “measured.” I find that on OS X, things (almost) always take the same length of time. But when I use Windows, things feel very fast, but then roughly 5% of the time, things will just lock up for a second or so.
That said, more speed = good!
2. I agree that there are a fair few different themes and that we probably ought to dump a couple. But to be honest I’m not entirely sure it’s really a problem. The basic layout of the windows never changes, and it’s nice to be able to easily recognize one of your apps from all the others.
3. Agreed, but of course before you couldn’t change the ratio of address bar to search field. Annoying tradeoff I guess. But still Apple really should be able to get this right!
4. Agreed. Bloody annoying.
5. Not convinced on the LED personally.
6. Um, how does Mail have its own theme. The “Unified Toolbar” is used in many apps. I don’t think it’s a pointless e-mail client. It’s a pretty decent general client. When you’re handling very large amounts of messages, you really want a different app to the one that your dad with 2 messages a day uses.
7. I think the combined launcher thing works fine. What is annoying is the way everything moves position as you add or remove apps – there’s got to be a better way.
8. Yes, I think we could do with an unistaller. However, I like the fact that if I uninstall, but try it later down the line, my preferences are still intact.
9. Backwards compatibility seems fine to me.
Apps that don’t run on earlier versions are doing so because of just how much Apple has added to the frameworks as they’ve gone along. No sense in supporting an OS that few people are using.
Yes things have broken as we’ve gone forward, but recently it’s been OK. OS X is still quite young, it’s needed this approach to get the frameworks up and running and most of the bugs ironed out.
Um, how does Mail have its own theme.
The ‘pill’ buttons are used, where else in the OS?
http://www.resexcellence.com/mods_05/05-05-2005.shtml
though there is an easier way, i just can’t remember the name of the app or script
“1. Very true. But it feels more “measured.” I find that on OS X, things (almost) always take the same length of time. But when I use Windows, things feel very fast, but then roughly 5% of the time, things will just lock up for a second or so. ”
Windows feels VERY pokey yo me. Try switching between the front window and a window behind it in XP. It can take 15-30 seconds. In OS X, it is often instant.
OSX window management feels very solid. Try opening 50 windows in XP and do the same in OSX. Then move the top most window quickly around. The redraw behind the top window is perfect every time, never misses a beat, where on XP it doesn’t catch up to redraw and you get white trails from where the window was.
This is the advantage that OSX has, because if you want to move a window to the top, it just needs to switch window layers, where Windows does an actual redraw, which takes much longer. Compare this to screens on AmigaOS: They also switch immediately, because the switch operation is very fast for the hardware to do.
The wonders of Quartz.
Another thing is that the display is vertically sync’ed, so there is no visible tearing. When windows are small enough, they move around silky smooth, but when they get a little bigger, they wait till the next frame, rather than redraw immediately for some unprofessional looking tearing. That’s what you get with utilizing 3D cards properly for window management.
Edited 2006-06-12 13:51
1) I generally agree. Then again, I’ve got an iBook G4, so it’s perhaps not a great basis for comparison.
2) I couldn’t disagree more. I actually love the way OS X looks and think it’s appearance is far better than any other OS I’ve seen.
3) I think the search field is one of the most useful things in Safari. Cmd-L and Tab brings me right on the search field much quicker than actually typing google into the address bar.
4) I’ve *never* seen any of the problems you describe so I can’t comment on them.
5) Again, I don’t feel the need for an indicator given that I’m using an iBook.
6) I actually really like Mail.app. I used to use Thunderbird before I got a Mac but Mail.app works really well for me (although admittedly, I rarely let my inbox creep above 3,000 messages).
7) Again I disagree. I quite like the way the dock works.
8) A “decent” uninstaller would be a handy thing to have no matter what OS you’re using. At worst, I think Apple’s solution is on a par with that used in Win XP.
9) Dunno, never had any issues with this.
The one thing I would really love to see is a much more efficient Spotlight. Spotlight has the potential to be *really* groundbreaking but at the moment it’s just too slow for it to be of constant use.
Edited 2006-06-10 23:35
I agree on 1, 5 and 7, but others are not important to me; but I can add this
-The Desk Utility is less powerful than windows in managing partitions and volumes.
-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
-Networking Tools must be more concentrated in a single page rather than 3 tabs.
-No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).
-No capability to change keyboard combinations with many applications of OSX ( I don’t mean commercial appz)
-no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load that can be integrated in the Dock, which is necessary to give you clue of what is going on in the system in case of a problem or slow down.
-Directory Cloning is impossible, unlike TrueImage cloning for both windows or linux partitions which clone directories rather than sector by sector that consumes alot of space and time. (on 160GB HDD with 6 GB used space cloning mac will require 160GB uncompressed or 80 GB compressed because it doesn’t include a directory based cloning but rather sector by sector cloning
-Not so obvious startup troubleshooter (at least low resolution GUI Troubleshooter doesnot exist) that will help in case of problems (the troubleshooter is hidden inside OSX konsole commands for experts like eg: “-x” for safe startup, “Graphics Mode”=”1920x1200x32x60”, and others…
-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)
Edited 2006-06-10 23:49
I could argue with your post in more ways than these but this is the point that really annoyed me the most for some reason.
-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
How is the directory for Macs Users (/Users)harder than Windows Vista? Windows Vista’s Users folder is IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE! Located at the ROOT of the drive.
And Linux’s is acutally nested in another folder. Making it “harder” to find. At least Mac and Vista are at the root of the drive.
-The Desk Utility is less powerful than windows in managing partitions and volumes.
I actually think Disk Utility is more powerful than Windows utility. But I guess that’s really subjective.
-No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).
Simply install applications into “/Applications” then when you want to inventory your systems programs… navigate to “/Applications.” There you go and inventory of your apps.
-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)
Lock your screensaver. Apply screensaver to one of your Expose hot corners and there you go… an easy to use “Lock” funtion. There are other ways lock your session but this is the way I do it.
I could argue with more but these are the ones that irked me the most.
Sorry for being nit-picky.
JRM7
Edited 2006-06-11 00:50
The linux (sorry, most if not all unix) users directory is /home
How that is “nested in another folder” compared to /users on Mac OS X I really don’t know.
Some items that may interest you:
– The directory location of users is /Users/username
– Check out Carbon Copy Cloner, I think it does what you want it to do and it’s free.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
– You can quickly lock your computer by setting a hot-corner to activate the screen saver (Desktop & Screensaver control panel) and forcing authentication when waking from sleep or screen saver (Security control panel)
-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
I don’t think /User/username is an obscure location. You can also easily access your own home directory with command+shift+h or ~
-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)
You can use the undocumented shortcut command command+option+eject to sleep the computer
Not so obvious startup troubleshooter
Hold shift during startup will bring you to safe mode
“No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).”
Oh, you’re a funny, funny guy. Try doing your homework before posting.
Linux
rpm -qa
BSD
pkg_info
I think you mean on RPM based OS’s like Fedora Core and Mandriva, Debian based ones use dpkg or apt-get and Gentoo uses Portage, there is no single standard in Linux
Irrelevant: each and every linux distro (with the exception of Linux from Scratch, and you can hardly call that a distro) has a Package list and/or database.
Some even have GUI interfaces to them.
Care to mention the equivalent in windows?
And before you pont to “Add/Remove Programs” please, remember that appearing there is completely depemdent on the whim of the installer.
The lack of a unified package format is exactly one of the worst problems of windows.
Try to update all the installed software on a windows machine… or even simply try to *discover* if there is an updated version for each of your installed apps…
I wasn’t commenting on that, I was just bringing up the fact that there are multiple package management schemes in use with Linux, I didn’t mention windows because the parent post didn’t either, and I didn’t want to, as I was just addressing the point that there is more to the linux world than redhat. Please put your Anti-MS troll hat away
Can forget
ls -l /var/log/packages
in Slackware.
Can’t* rather, heh.
I agree on 1, 5 and 7, but others are not important to me; but I can add this
-The Desk Utility is less powerful than windows in managing partitions and volumes.
If you mean Disk Utility I think that it does it’s job done, but yes it could be better
-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
Uhmm it’s /Users/username a obscure directory location?
-No inventory system for installed applications (like linux too, unlike windows).
Yes this is true
-no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load that can be integrated in the Dock, which is necessary to give you clue of what is going on in the system in case of a problem or slow down.
There is a third party app called menumeters for this
-Directory Cloning is impossible, unlike TrueImage cloning for both windows or linux partitions which clone directories rather than sector by sector that consumes alot of space and time. (on 160GB HDD with 6 GB used space cloning mac will require 160GB uncompressed or 80 GB compressed because it doesn’t include a directory based cloning but rather sector by sector cloning
Like someone pointed out there is carbon copy cloner for this
“no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load that can be integrated in the Dock, which is necessary to give you clue of what is going on in the system in case of a problem or slow down.”
Run Activity Monitor and right click the dock icon and take your pick. I run it on startup.
“No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)”
Run Keychain Access, select preferences and tick “Show status on menu bar” to get a padlock with which you can lock your screen with a single click. You need not have Keychain Access running after you’ve completed this step.
{quoted for numbering}
1. The Desk Utility …
2. Directory Location of Users are obscure. …
3. Networking Tools must be more concentrated…
4. No inventory system for installed applications…
5. No capability to change keyboard combinations with many applications of OSX…
6. no small indicator for CPU/HDD/Memory/Swap/Load…
7. Directory Cloning is impossible…
8. Not so obvious startup troubleshooter…
9. No way to lock your session very quickly…
{/quote}
1) Since I don’t use Win, I can’t compare Disk Utility, but it’s never lacked a feature I need.
2) Ditto what everyone else has said.
3) Part of the reason Networking is a tad complex is because it supports multiple concurrently-configured interfaces *and* multiple network configurations, e.g. one setup for home and one for the office.
4) The System Profiler utility, which is part of OS X, will inventory installed applications (regardless of location), frameworks, system extensions, etc.
5) System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts lets you change shortcuts for any application.
6) Try the MenuMeters freeware.
7) Disk Utility can do both block- and file-level cloning, and if you use the command-line utilities that drive Disk Utility behind-the-scenes, you get fine-grained control. Read the man pages for the following utilities: diskutil (formatting tool), hdiutil (disk image utility), and asr (Apple Software Restore, a capable cloning tool). Furthermore, it is not correct that making a block-level image of a disk will use tons of space — empty space is not saved. There are also many GUI third-party utilities for file-level directory and disk cloning, as well as the various GNU utilities (like ditto and rsync/rsyncx) that come with OS X.
8) Boot up holding the Shift key.
9) What others have said.
1) In terms of ‘teh snappy’ – I always get the feeling that the developers and marketing guru’s are more concerned with ‘smooth’ rather than ‘snappy’; with that being said, I’m planted behind a G5 970 with a gig of memory, and have yet to notice the snappiness issue that you have present in your article.
2) In respects to the different user interface; the argument that Apple uses is this; the same underlying interface guidelines are being adheared to via the consistant lay out of menus and the like (which is actually the more important part of HIG), and each application should be treated like and individual, each with its own ‘personality’ depending upon what task it does.
For me, sure, I could handle having iTunes with the brush metal, and brush metal with Safari? hey, its not my cup of tea, but I got on with life, but thats where my tolerance stops; was it entirely necessary to make Finder brush metal? was it necessary to make mail.app a different theme? quite frankly, its a waste of engineers effort, tweaking things that should be bloody well left alone.
3) I consider that a whinge than actually a genuine issue; so what, google is sitting there is the corner, it isn’t taking up valuable screen realestate, unlike the bloated side bar which Microsoft will introduce with Vista.
4) They sound like redrawing issues more than anything else, more probably to do with what api is used, because on some applications, the issue doesn’t appear, whilst others, its a regular occurance; it seems to be an issue that only plagues carbon based applications, where as all the cocoa work like a treat.
5) This should be possible right now, using the current crop of Macs; when you put your Mac to sleep, the LED pulsates, why not make it flicker with disc activity; then again, a flickering light when reading the screen can be very irritating.
6) Mail.app, from what I see, was never meant to be a heavy duty mail application, but with that being said, why is the mail stored as individual files rather than being stored in a big sqlite database which is available via core data?
7) I have no qualms with the dock; it does the job, and I like the split between the active windows and the applications.
8) Agreed; they create packages, the package information is saved, now to uninstall, wouldn’t it just be a matter of reading the information back from those saved package details, and delete the listed files?
9) Backwards compatibility isn’t an issue; yes, there will be compatibility broken because bugs are found and fixed (rather than half assed work arounds like Microsoft does), but if you’re having problems with an application, the people you should blame are not Apple, but your application vendor, and their unwillingness to adequately support their software on your said platform.
It is the application vendors responsibility to ensure that your applicatin works on their operating system that they target, if there are incompatibilit issues found, it is their responsibility, as maintainers of their software to provide you with the necessary patch/service pack update to allow you to continue running your application without any hickups.
but if you’re having problems with an application, the people you should blame are not Apple, but your application vendor, and their unwillingness to adequately support their software on your said platform.
If apple bothered informing ISV’s about upcoming changes and possible breakages then this would be a valid point, but instead they like to surprise everyone by completely switching architectures so Adobe, for example, has to scramble to release Photoshop for the Mactels.
Edited 2006-06-11 00:24
If apple bothered informing ISV’s about upcoming changes and possible breakages then this would be a valid point, but instead they like to surprise everyone by completely switching architectures so Adobe, for example, has to scramble to release Photoshop for the Mactels.
Oh pulease, how many times must Apple say, “move to xcode” – they repeated it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, oh, and did I mention again?
If people wish to lynch someone, its the product managers at Adobe would would rather reward themselves with large pay packets then investing those profits back into their products.
One does not need to be a soothsayer to see the eventual move by Apple to another platform given the issues they were having with their existing suppliers, and the lack of competitive offerings for their laptops.
Apple have *clearly* labelled parts of the OS that are depreciated (Quickdraw), and the frameworks one should move to; if someone right now chooses to write their applications using Quickdraw rather than Quartz 2D, whose fault is that? Apple, who have clearly stated where they are going with MacOS X technologies, or the company who chose to ignore Apples advice.
Sorry, it may sound “flying blind’ but considering that Apple has NO vested interest in people moving to Xcode (by way of profit streams since the IDE is free), one needs to assume there is something else that Apple has planned.
I’m sorry, but as a developer, I would assume that Apple knows more about their own product line up than I do, hence, if they advise their developers to use a particular API or move to a particular development suite, there is obviously a reason behind it.
Edited 2006-06-11 01:26
So you’re saying if you use OS X, there is only one development environment, one that is also available on one OS, and that has a lot of flaws that make it difficult to use for large projects. I’d rather just continue what I’ve been doing that be forced to change my entire development style, and continue developing just for Linux and Windows. Its way too hard to develop on OS X given that their is only one IDE. When there is a monopoly in software, it tends to suck, as it does in this case IMO.
Well, don’t like using Xcode, then use Netbeans, which has native plugins to allow one to work on C/C++ code, don’t like that, there is always eclipse too!
Oh, and pulease, ‘Xcode doesn’t work for large projects’ is the same crap that people pull for Microsofts IDE’s, but some how Borland’s IDE is any better? I’m all for ‘this product is better’, but its absolute horse shit to say Xcode isn’t ready.
Xcode isnt’ ready for those who refuse to move; those who try and work through the mirade of possible excuses one could use as to avoid moving to a new IDE; the fact is, it is ready, there are vendors RIGHT NOW using Xcode for their ‘large projects’ and experience no problems, just like there are people in Corel, who use Borland for their Corel Wordperfect Suite, which, I would say, isn’t a piddly little project.
Oh pulease, how many times must Apple say, “move to xcode”
And I imagine you would similarly support Microsoft if they began disclaiming compatibility unless you move all your development to .net/managed code/C#/whatever.
If people wish to lynch someone, its the product managers at Adobe would would rather reward themselves with large pay packets then investing those profits back into their products.
In Adobe’s shoes, I’d hardly be eager to bust my behind to accomodate yet-another-Apple-direction-change – especially less than half a decade since the last one, and especially when Macintosh users represent a shrinking portion Adobe’s income.
And I imagine you would similarly support Microsoft if they began disclaiming compatibility unless you move all your development to .net/managed code/C#/whatever.
Oh bullcrap; if Microsoft came out tomorrow and said, “our next version of Windows after Windows Vista will drop Win32 support, so start moving your applications to WinFX”, isn’t that a clear enough hint to migrate?
In Adobe’s shoes, I’d hardly be eager to bust my behind to accomodate yet-another-Apple-direction-change – especially less than half a decade since the last one, and especially when Macintosh users represent a shrinking portion Adobe’s income.
What a load of horse crap; there has been NO CHANGE in the direction of Apple; MacOS X is the default OS, and XCode is the default development environment since Xcode first arrived on the scene; Adobe has NO excuses for their laziness.
Oh, and MacOS X isn’t a ‘shrinking’ amount; in their consumer products YES, but in their professional range, they’re either growing to maintain its market share or increasing in some areas.
Sorry, but when you shipments are growing in double didgets, you’re saying to me, that through some divine intervention that magically Apples marketshare of Adobe sales don’t go up with their over all computer shipments?! I find that hard to believe.
Oh, and given that Apple haven’t even shipped a PowerMac Intel version yet, lets wait and see what happens.
Apple was encouraging the move to Xcode for users of CodeWarrior, a dead product. They did not push people currently using RealBASIC, which did make the Intel move.
In 2003, Apple was pushing Xcode. In 2004, they noted at several sessions that Metrowerks was not staying up to date. At WWDC 2005, they announced the new architecture, and that a move to Xcode was mandator.
You cannot tell me that a sensible developer was unaware a year ago that Metrowerks was effectively out of the Mac business. Staying with CW at that time was a calculated risk, and a risk that Adobe lost.
I suspect that Apple would have been quite pleased were Metrowerks to have a new release of their compiler that did Intel, but Metrowerks is dead, dead, dead, and everyone who owned a copy knew it.
As far as the ‘What if Microsoft did it’ FUD, the argument is specious. A more equivalent situation would be if Microsoft started warning people that, say, Visual Studio would produce Vista binaries, and a major vendor had stuck with Borland C++ from the early eighties. When your tool vendor goes under, you have to move if the OS does.
Scott
Mail keeps all interesting metadata in a SQLite database (for very fast queries), but keeps the full message bodies in separate files to keep user data from being corrupted/lost if the database file is corrupted.
I have a mac mini core duo with 2GB RAM set up to dual boot Windows XP. OS X and Windows XP on this same box have equal snappy. That is to say, they are very VERY snappy.
My old G4 mini didn’t really have teh snappy, especially when you would right-click on something there was an annoying delay before the menu appeared, but the new intel core duo is as snappy as I can imagine an OS being.
I agree with most points, but I don’t understand the one about the dock.
What, exactly, do you want it to do? It works fine the way it is… I don’t know about you, but even as a mega-multitasker…I barely look at the dock as it is and I use alt-tab to get around, or expose. And I always know what’s open anyway, so what’s the problem? Seriously.
The theme “problem” is nitpicking in my opinion, but it’s still a valid point and I do agree. It would be nice if we could have a set number of them and just select them system-wide I suppose. But no big deal either way since I think they all look very nice as they are.
The HDD light is definitely a good gripe. Heck, they have a pulsating light to tell you when the laptop is asleep and it looks very spiff. Why not just use that one?
As for Mail.app – I love it. I don’t know why yours slows to a crawl, but I love the interface. It just..works. Really nice. I’ve found, however, that I generally don’t see mail in the same light as many other uber-techno-geeks. Perhaps that’s why I do love Mail. Honestly, I have a Gmail account and I rarely use the web interface. Why should I? With pop, and Mail, I have instant search anyway. So what’s the big deal about switching from Mail to Gmail on the web?
But they are one area where even I admit progress has been made. Apt and the various BSD package management systems all do as good of job as can be expected.
The general problem is intractable. Does “uninstall” mean
* remove this version so I can upgrade to the next
* remove this application
* restore the previous version
In all those cases, what should the uninstaller do about user data files? What should it do about application configuration files?
How do you handle dependencies on shared libraries?
configuration file management, especially when multiple applications diddle the same configuration file is a pain.
The solutions available now are all ad-hoc, but they work surprisingly well at solving the 80% of the problem that is the majority of cases. I’ll settle for having to cope with the rest.
your question up there about what uninstall means is more a problem of bad labeling then anything else.
most linux distros i have run into that are not “old-school” have a seperate upgrade option buildt into their package manager.
trow in a seperate downgrade option (and the backup of old files. alltho some will cry “waste of valuable filespace”) and your all set.
there are not many apps that cant handle being installed on top of a older version. thats how i do my installs in windows most times. heh, some installers even look for where older version was installed and give that as a default if available.
its funny how i go back to gobolinux, the “ugly duckling” of the linux distros
sure it uses scripts and so on for installation, but it uses the file system for managing the packages (and a future version will support drag and drop installs via monitoring of changes in the filesystem. you may even wget or similar into the correct folder and the install will start when done downloading).
basicly the layout is this:
/programs/”appname”/”version/
but under /programs/”appname” there is a generic config folder where all versions store their configs. want to purge them, delete the “appname” folder.
that should only leave the .folders in any users home area. but at most these are ascii files, and dont take up much space (and can be usefull when doing reinstalls of the same app, after a recovery of the home dir for some reason).
hmm, while its not designed with that in mind, gobolinux could be a very user friendly distro. it will not be idiot friendly tho
but i dont think any os realy should be…
How is the directory for Macs Users (/Users)harder than Windows Vista? Windows Vista’s Users folder is IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE! Located at the ROOT of the drive.
And Linux’s is acutally nested in another folder. Making it “harder” to find. At least Mac and Vista are at the root of the drive.
Huh? What’s /Users on the Mac is usually /home on Linux/Unix — no difference apart from the name really.
-Directory Location of Users are obscure. (unlike vista c:users or XP c:Documents & Settings or linux /home/user)
He originally said that Macs location for the “home” folder or Users in Mac is confusing. I was essentially saying the exact same thing you said. That the Mac is no different from Windows or Linux. I wasn’t aware I said otherwise.
Ah, but you said (well, nearly said) that linux’s user directory location wasn’t at the root of the drive. It is – e.g. the directory for user foo is /home/foo – just the original post wasn’t clear about it.
My primary gripe with OS X is the lack of automatic window management. You can’t tile windows or place them side by side except by manually dragging them into place and manually resizing them.
Expose kinda sorta helps, but only a little.
1. Not sure how much of the sluggishness is due to bad engineering and how much is due to weak processor. OS X can still stand to be optimized. On the other hand, I value UI responsiveness a lot more and OS X delivers on that.
2. Agreed. They should standardize on Aqua or Platinum
3. Agreed. There is no reason why they should remove the customizability.
5. I find mac HDs to be loud enough to hear when busy.
6. I don’t know where did they get the idea of the pill shaped buttons. It is the most ugly program I ever saw!
7. The dock is not an exact equivalent of the taskbar. Apple tried to de-emphasize the application launch process when designing the dock. The user just call up the program and OS X will launch the program if necessary.
8. There is really no need to remove the configuration files. They are just text files and not part of any database (unlike the window registry). Also, it’s really not hard to do the clean up manually: just go to ~/Library/Application Support and ~/Library/Preferences.
9. Tiger is the first version of OS X with a stable API. Let’s hope Apple keep their promises.
There is really no need to remove the configuration files.
I disagree strongly. I don’t want my filesystem to lose space due to stuf I actually told it to remove.
Also, it’s really not hard to do the clean up manually.
It is too much work, and too timeconsuming. And time, I don’t have.
How hard is it to pull up a Finder window, hit cmd-F, type the program name and hit cmd-del a couple of times? It literally takes 5 seconds. I don’t think there’s a faster way.
What I find annoying is that Windows forces me to use an uninstaller, taking up too much of my time. Time I don’t have.
What I find annoying is that Windows forces me to use an uninstaller, taking up too much of my time. Time I don’t have.
This bothered me about the comments on last week’s rant too: why on earth do people insist on bringing $INSERT_OS into the game? Where did I mention Windows? Where did I say their system is superior? Where? Point me to it, sonny!
AppZapper shows how it should be done, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Steve Jobs will be out at the WWDC in two months squealing innovation about this new uninstall system they innovated… While at the same time a certain group of developers are busy bending over.
“Where did I mention Windows? Where did I say their system is superior? Where? Point me to it, sonny!”
Relax pops, you didn’t. You gave an example of why you think uninstalling on mac os is a pain. I told you how to do it quickly, and I gave an example of an os that does it even worse. That’s all.
Besides, what did you expect? People comparing mac os features (or lack thereof) to stuff on linux?
Oh dang, I think I just named another os..
Insecurity.
“My pet OS doesn’t do it right.. but..but..b-b-b-b-but OS Y and Z don’t either!!!!!!”
It’s actually pretty annoying if you ask me. If an article is about one OS, don’t bring another into it unless it’s necceasary to prove a valid point. In this case, it was not.
“What I find annoying is that Windows forces me to use an uninstaller, taking up too much of my time. Time I don’t have.”
What I find really annoying is when Windows leaves uninstalled apps listed in the Add/Remove programs list and it also leaves garbage all over the hard drive – far more than any Mac application that I’ve just dragged to the trash…and in far more places. This even includes applications by Microsoft. You would think that at least they could manage to uninstall an application correctly on their own OS, but no.
This is an opinion piece and you are intitled to your opinion, but I disagree strongly.
You, and other power users such as myself, are a corner case. The amount of space taken up by the configuration files is generally not a significant amount.
App Zapper and its like have a place, but its place is not the default. Keep it simple on the typical Mac user and leave the config files in place. If you give them an option it will just confuse them. I am not trying to say that the typical Mac user is an idiot but instead that the typical Mac user does not want to know about this kind of decision.
If the excessive config files caused performance issues (i.e. registry rot in Windows) I would be more inclined to agree with you on this.
As for the rest of your points…. OK. I personally use a heavily customized OS X with Shapeshifter, for consistency of look and feel, QuickSilver, Salling Clicker, a fairly significant number of custom scripts (Apple and SH), and no Dock. I am a power user so I adjusted my environment to fit my needs. My needs, however, are not those of a typical OS X user so to suggest that OS X should change the OS to fit my needs is silly.
Perforce:
1) The uninstall routine makes sense for a typical computer user providing the leaving of remnant configuration does not effect performance.
2) The lack of HD light does not bother most Mac users I know and there is a free utility that shows HD utility in the app bar for those it does.
3) The dock is a simple representation of available apps and makes sense, I do not understand your complaint here. Ironically I do not use the dock at all, but the idea is reasonable. Click on an icon, if it is already running it comes to the front, if it is not it is launched. The user should not have to care about whether an app is running in a “perfect” computer environment (which OS X is not). They should just request an app and be presented with it.
I find mac HDs to be loud enough to hear when busy.
Yes, I hate mac HD’s. It’ about time they shut down the Apple Hard Drive Manufacturing Facility™ and start using of the shelf, dammit. WTF are they thinking.
“Yes, I hate mac HD’s. It’ about time they shut down the Apple Hard Drive Manufacturing Facility™ and start using of the shelf, dammit. WTF are they thinking.“
WTF are you talking about? My Mac came with a Fujitsu off the shelf drive. Every Mac I’ve seen has used standard off the shelf hard drives. There is no special “Apple Hard Drive Manufacturing Facility.”
WTF are you thinking?
joke <—-
>:O <—– you
Ever heard of the Apple Hard Drive Manufacturing Facility™?
Ever heard of sarcasm?
Thom, are there any plans to implement smilies on this board?
Why you no like ASCII?
Oh yes I do, but folks that don’t get obvious sarcasm are probably better served with little pictures. They might think my shift key was jammed.
Edited 2006-06-11 20:45
Wooosh! The sound of the joke going right over his head.
I’m not sure whether or not that was sarcasm… but if it wasn’t Apple surely doesn’t make its own drives. They’re the same drives found in PCs. Personally, I find my Fujitsu HD in my 12″ Powerbook to be extremely quiet. I can rarely ever hear it. The Maxtor HD in my iMac G5 is also rarely able to be heard. That said, I find it pretty easy to know if my Mac is locked up or not. It stops responding and that Spinning Ball comes up. I would hate to see an HD indicator. It’s just a waste of a light IMO. Most users don’t have a need for an HD indicator and won’t even know what its for.
Yes it was sarcasm. Sheesh people, if you had read the post I was replying to, you would have known.
5. I find mac HDs to be loud enough to hear when busy.
:-).
There is really no need to remove the configuration files. They are just text files and not part of any database (unlike the window registry).
I think that’s just desperation to be honest. AppZapper shows how it should be done, and there’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t have thought this through.
Why oh why do Apple and Mac fans have this ludicrous answer of dragging everything to the trash?
Tiger is the first version of OS X with a stable API.
Well done Sherlock. Of course it has a stable API – for itself. What’s being referred to is a stable API between different versions.
“AppZapper shows how it should be done, and there’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t have thought this through.”
So, does AppZapper also take care of invisible .files in your home directory or anywhere else? And those obscured anti-piracy files that some apps install to make sure you don’t use their time limited demo over and over again for example? My point is that no uninstaller gets every file. Why bother with extra applications for tasks that you can do faster through spotlight/finder?
“Why oh why do Apple and Mac fans have this ludicrous answer of dragging everything to the trash?”
Well, ‘dragging to the trash’ is really a metaphor. Every Mac user uses cmd-del to get stuf into the trash (at least I hope so, if you are actually dragging items into the trash please don’t tell me).
Why oh why do Apple and Mac fans have this ludicrous answer of dragging everything to the trash?
I would assume that Apple tried to create a system simple/understandable enough so as to make a dedicated uninstall application unnecessary. I’m not particularly a Mac fan, but I think that’s an admirable goal, in contrast to the Windows approach of presenting users with a system that is too complex to be maintained without the various helper/cleanup applications.
Well done Sherlock. Of course it has a stable API – for itself. What’s being referred to is a stable API between different versions.
First of all, you don’t have to be this sarcastic.
Also, you misunderstood me: By “stable”, I mean the API won’t change in all future versions of OS X (eg. Leopard)
I think that’s just desperation to be honest. AppZapper shows how it should be done, and there’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t have thought this through.
Why oh why do Apple and Mac fans have this ludicrous answer of dragging everything to the trash?
First of all, you don’t have to be this sarcastic.
On OS X, application packages (in reality, they are just folders) are self-contained (they don’t litter your hard drive). When you install an application, you just copy the package to your harddrive. Thus, it makes perfect sense to simply delete the package (folder) when you don’t need it.
The config and support files are created only when you use the application and they fall under the category of USER files. In fact, you may want to keep some of the those files (eg. your address book data is also stored under the Application Support folder).
First of all, you don’t have to be this sarcastic.
In this case some sarcasm is well deserved in the direction of Apple.
Also, you misunderstood me: By “stable”, I mean the API won’t change in all future versions of OS X (eg. Leopard)
Well, after five years of OS X’s existance that’s going to make everyone feel better, and really make developers more comfortable…… Not.
Apple supposedly making some thinly veiled promise that they won’t break compatibility isn’t at issue here, but the fact that after all this time in OS X they never realised this was even remotely important. If you don’t get that then you don’t get API and ABI stability.
First of all, you don’t have to be this sarcastic.
That’s not sarcasm, just a description of the way things are.
The only apps that have had problems with new releases of OS X are from developers that failed to listen to Apple’s warnings that the API features that those developers were using were likely to be changed and didn’t pay attention to the suggested options. This is the fault of independent developers. Additionally, it is not likely Microsoft isn’t guilty of the same thing. I have plenty of Windows apps that either stopped functioning, or lost functionality on XP. Further, plenty of users had application problems when XP SP2 was released, including businesses. Microsoft has also made it clear that more apps will have problems under Vista.
Now the APIs for OS X have been declared stable, only new functionality and new APIs will be added, not taken away. To add to that, in recent years there have been more developers attending the WWDCs that Apple has been holding and they are expecting a larger gathering of developers this year.
Apple recognized compatibility is important, hence they placed warnings in the API documentation to only use certain portions unless absolutely necessary and suggestions on what should be used. If application compatibility wasn’t important, then why did they create Rosetta and universal binaries?
I’ve had fewer compatibility problems under OS X than I have had with Windows. Just yesterday I ran an OS 8 app and I have plenty of OS X 10.1 apps that work perfectly. I can’t say the same about Windows.
Apple supposedly making some thinly veiled promise that they won’t break compatibility isn’t at issue here, but the fact that after all this time in OS X they never realised this was even remotely important. If you don’t get that then you don’t get API and ABI stability.
Name one application, besides hackware applications for tweaking undocumented features, which has broken due to so-called ‘unstable ABI and API”?
I’m running Microsoft Office 2004; circa 2004 application running on 10.4.6 quite nicely; iPhoto 2005, designed for MacOS 10.3.x, running quite nicely on MacOS X 10.4.6.
I could go on and on about the number of applications which have no problems with this so-called ‘unstable API’.
By not committing themselves to a stable API, it removed the shackles which could have possibly caused them problems later on; like Microsoft has now, fix a problem, create a new API feature to provide broken funcationality which application vendors rely on, and create another api call which is the correct one; so for every correction, they must do TWO additional steps – sorry, that is plain stupid.
Now that a sturdy ground work has been laid, Apple is now more confident about saying, ‘here is a stable api and abi’ – I don’t know about you, but Apple seems alot more conservative about making promises vs. the promise machine that is Microsoft, then breaking those promises whilst claiming that they’ve ‘got something great around the corner’ as some sort of consolation.
5. I find mac HDs to be loud enough to hear when busy.
Oh pulease, stop whining, if you’re complaining about a little noise from a MOVING PIECE OF EQUIPMENT, then maybe you should get your machine, put it back into the box it came in, send it back with a note saying, “I’m a whining bastard who can’t stand hearing something that is above a whisper, I want a refund”.
I’m sorry, but a computer will make a whirl, a whine, and a chicka-chicka (sound of a hard disk, be it slightly in accurate); if you can’t stand that, then get a PDA, oh, thats right, even *THAT* makes a gentle hum too; I guess you’ll have to give up on computers completely, due to this intolerable noise.
Regarding the points 1 and 6, too many themes and Mail having its own disparate widgets, I believe these criticisms are essentially one in the same – and quite valid at that. That said, I’m sure many of us have noticed how some applicaitons “override” the widgets/controls the OS exposes so as to provide a unified look and feel. This is done for many reasons, some developers really do have a better way, others just want to be distinctive. And some just botch the UI with the deviation.
In the process control industry, widgets used to represent process equipment vary markedly and the OS does not really provide any controls that would lend a unified look. For example, how does one illustrate a level guage or an LED meter or a vessel level so that it is intuitive? You have to create a unique widget. And that is the allure of high-level OO languages. I can, for example, inherit the basic properties of a slider widget, but then tweak it to do my bidding as a controller setpoint adjuster – one that operators will be familiar with and understand. A proper abstraction of the real world.
Therin lies the goal. An OS tries to provide an abstraction of an object that folks can identify with and this is just hard to do. There are no clearly right answers, but there may be some clearly wrong ones! Will the next version of Windows or OS X help us to use our systems in a more intuitive manner, with all the shading, translucency, and gimmicks that eye candy affords. It will be fun to see.
In any event, good article.
I would love for an option to the turn it off. I don’t mind it but there are times when I want it out of way. And the various themes through out the OS is getting on my nerves. Mail.app is bad the Finder UI is just a nightmare.
when you want it out of the way, is it not enough to hide it?
cmd-option-d
3. One of my biggest pet peeves: that annoying Google search field in Safari. On Panther (Safari 1.x), you could remove it. In Tiger (Safari 2.0), you cannot. Why, you ask? Beyond me.
I use it all the time, and find it extremely useful. Still, and assuming you actually do search, try installing AcidSearch (free, http://www.pozytron.com/acidsearch ), to make the most of that little search box.
4. Tiger has some serious issues with… Screen remnants. More often than not, text input fields, whether they be on a webpage or in TextEdit or Mail or whatever, show lines twice when you delete a line, or something similar. Another annoying one is the scroll blob which gets, duplicated, or something; check the screenshot to see what I mean. Panther did not have these problems, but Tiger does– and we’re already at 10.4.6.
I have never EVER experienced that with Tiger, on any machine, nor have I seen anyone I know report that before. Are you sure this isn’t a problem just with your setup? Did that happen on different machines you tried?
5. Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity. It is really annoying when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive and you have to lay your ear on the keyboard to see hear whether it is still doing something or not. Screw aesthetics, Apple, and choose functionality over beauty for a change.
As others have suggested, just use Activity Monitor (under Applications/Utilities), close the main window and set its dock icon to show HD activity. Personally, I use MenuMeters to monidor HD/Network/CPU on the menu bar (free/GPL, http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/ )
About 4.
I have had this happen before but I have only noticed it running one program: Camino.
It is strange when it happens.. not often either but I have seen it.
Again… only in Camino.
JRM7
From what I understand, thats a known issue, along with a parculiar bug in reference to picture distortion, IIRC, the developer of Camino said that it was an issue with the API itself, Apple know about it; so basically all those who rely on that piece of functionality, are at the mercy of Apple.
It happens to me if I bring up a WMV video from Camino into quicktime. Then the redrawing goes haywire and Camino needs to be restarted.
About the screen remnants, I see them a lot too, both in Camino, Safari, Adium and various text editors like Subethaedit. It seems to be app specific and maybe it’s simply a buffer clearing that is not being called.
“I have never EVER experienced that with Tiger, on any machine, nor have I seen anyone I know report that before. Are you sure this isn’t a problem just with your setup? Did that happen on different machines you tried? ”
I’m sorry you don’t get to use that response
remember? apple sells a complete solution, they just work, they only support limited hardware to make sure everything works how its supposed too… etc
also for UI gripes who decided that it was a good idea to put the application name to the left of the application menu (file,edit…) thereby causing the file menu to shift around as you change apps. i mean isn’t the rationalization behind global menus is that they’re easy to find? and wasn’t the name to the right of the menu in like 10.1
I’m sorry you don’t get to use that response
remember? apple sells a complete solution, they just work, they only support limited hardware to make sure everything works how its supposed too… etc
Yes… and no. What is the epitome of a “complete solution/limited hardware”? A game console. Yet a few of Xbox 360 early adopters reported graphic glitches and/or crashes after long periods of use. It turned out to be a hardware issue that caused a few units to overheat, not a general hardware/OS problem.
In any case, that’s not the main reason I asked whether he experienced the same scroll bar/text boxes problems in other machines. It could well be the case that the particular combination of software that he uses on his main machine were to blame, so I was wondering if other setups (from other people who probably don’t have the same apps workflow than him) were affected, or only his machine(s). The text issues he mentions are particularly strange.
Edit: (spelling)
Edited 2006-06-11 06:19
Isolation does require knowing whether it is the machine, the GPU in it, perhaps bad ram, misbehaving software, the odd haxie, etc.
I, also, have not seen this behavior on my G5, my MBP 17, or my three powerbooks of various vintages. I do not doubt that it is happening, but I suspect that it is resolvable by figuring out what is different between his machine and the many machines that do not show it.
If many machines do show it, then we may be in luck, and the bug might actually be easy to track. I do recommend taking screenshots with Grab, then posting them and a system profile to bugreport.apple.com or feedback.apple.com .
Scott
I use it all the time, and find it extremely useful.
I never use the search field. I prefer to use Google’s website. I hate having to look at stuff I do not need; and the search field takes up quite an amount of space.
I have never EVER experienced that with Tiger, on any machine, nor have I seen anyone I know report that before. Are you sure this isn’t a problem just with your setup? Did that happen on different machines you tried?
It has happened on every Mac I have ever played with. My iBook G4, this MacBook Pro, my iMac G5, and all the machines I’ve used at the Apple Store. Even the most die-hard Mac zealots confirmed this issue, so it seems more of a rule than an exception.
It has happened on every Mac I have ever played with. My iBook G4, this MacBook Pro, my iMac G5, and all the machines I’ve used at the Apple Store. Even the most die-hard Mac zealots confirmed this issue, so it seems more of a rule than an exception.
I too have never, ever seen this on any of the Macs I owned or have used including various Powerbook G4s, iMac G5s, Power Mac G4s. Jaguar, Panther, Tiger – never have I had problems with redraw.
@4: I have this from time to time. In Safari, Camino, Mail.App. I just never care much about it. I dunno. Nitpicking.
“Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity
You can use /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app to see disk activity… ”
When a Mac freezes, good luck to bring the monitor up
2) Iridium is awesome. It’s a bit like Uno, but not so dark. I’m totally spoiled by it. I can’t even stand brushed metal or pinstripes anymore.
But on this topic, someone mentioned Windows Media Player, and oh my god is that ever right. That thing is an abomination. If you maximize it, the title bar duplicates, revealing a menu you can’t even get to normally. At least all Mac UIs work consistently, even if they don’t look uniform.
One of my biggest pet peeves: that annoying Google search field in Safari.
I really don’t like that it’s connected to the address bar, but not because I want to get rid of it. I want to put the address bar first so I don’t accidentally close the windows when I click “back.” This is the only thing on here I agree to be a real problem.
4) More often than not? That must be a typo. Or a corrupt system file. That seriously isn’t normal. I get the scroll bar thing on the odd occasion, but never the text problem.
5) It’s probably about the smoothness. A flickering light is going to look annoying. All the worse if they use the power light. And some pretty intense disk access on my PCs doesn’t even register on the LED, so it’s an inconsistent function. Maybe it’s in too many short bursts or something. The Activity Monitor thing is useful — I just used it to confirm that the rattle I’ve been hearing is in fact a fan and not abnormal disk activity — and there are plenty of Dashboard widgets to do the same, which you can even move onto the normal desktop if you enable “developer mode.”
6) The point of Mail.app is to come with the system and be integrated and immediately useful. If you’ve outgrown it, then leave it behind. Most people have no problem with it, and it has nothing to do with the GUI of the operating system. (Not that 5, 8, or 9 are exactly on topic, either.)
7) You know how when you go to work on someone else’s Windows PC, your first thought upon viewing their setup is always “bleugh!”? That’s what putting in too many GUI options leads to. That said, you’re completely wrong about this. Just because you can click an app to put its windows on top doesn’t mean the dock is by design anything like a taskbar. F9 is what you’re after. The dock is a task manager with persistent entries. It’s low level and high priority. Control-click to force quit, and it actually works, unlike XP which interprets “force quit” as “take your time.” And because of what it is, it’s the absolute best launcher you can find anywhere. Name another OS where you can go across and launch everything without losing the system, or at least not being sure which clicks actually registered. The dock is exceedingly well designed for its function.
Obsessive-compulsive as I am (my directory structure and email rules make little kids cry), I want an application to really be gone when I uninstall it.
It sounds like you’re not afraid of the manual approach. I don’t see why this is any different. I’ll go into ~/Library every once in a while and purge some stuff. But as long as its disk usage is insignificant, it’s not a concern.
9) Think of it like panning for gold. If the developers are serious about their product, they’re forced to keep it up to date. I’ll admit it’s a little evil, but frankly, I love the result. Mac apps in general are top notch.
Snappy = MACINTEL, after using intel I would never go back to powerpc G4
Neal Saferstein
I could argue one or two things, but this article is pretty on-target. And I really like my Macs.
Looks like Leopard will address the still-lackluster finder. OS X gets faster with each version. The screen remnants annoy me from time to time. Most Mac users become accustomed to the Dock or buy aftermarket bling. I rarely go to the Dock now that I’ve become accustomed to launching with Quicksilver.
Let’s have the trashcan on the desktop. The Unified theme is pretty — go with it everywhere. The mail lozenge buttons or weird. I never, ever use the Widgets — what a resource hog. But i might now and then if they lived on the desktop, rather than the current modal mostrosity.
I still think OS X is the finest general desktop today. That’s not dissing the others — they each have their strengths and little hells. But OS x suits me rather well.
If you aren’t using widgets, why don’t you just disable them?
you can use widgets on the desktop, enable debug, then click and hold on widget whilst doing keyboard shortcut, ta da, on the desktop
seems a “beta” application.. I am wonder WHY still sucks, you cannot resize the windows like other OSs , you have to use the lower right corner only..
Also the biggest crap is the file selector (that called by the applications) YOU cannot rename/delete etc…
you have to go back to “finder” in order to perform these tasks…
“Name another OS where you can go across and launch everything without losing the system, or at least not being sure which clicks actually registered.”
Okay, Linux. I tried going along Enlightenment’s ibar on my desktop and clicking on every icon, and you know what? It launched every single app. Not once did my mouse cursor or music skip, and the launch animations didn’t miss a beat either – at least not until UT2004 went fullscreen and covered them.
Don’t act like OSX’s ability to do that is something special – it’s not, it’s the norm. It’s only Windows that’s not capable of that sort of thing.
My Windows does that, you’re right, it is the norm
[about the dock being a good thing]
> I actually like this setup. It goes some way
> towards removing the restriction between running
> apps and non-running apps […]
> It also helps tie down the idea that an application > is an instance. […]
I fully agree when it comes to “unique” applications, where having more than one instance doesn’t make any sense. Examples are IM clients, mail and rss readers etc.
With a taskbar, you have usually 3 entries:
– app starter icon
– taskbar entry
– systray icon
As the taskbar is usually a mess, the systray icon is often misused as a somewhat better organized taskbar, but actually it was intended for showing status. A dock merges these, so this is a good thing. Just click the app, who cares if it was running or not? Start it if it wasn’t, otherwise raise it.
OTOH, I see it as more problematic when it comes to document-centered applications, like a word processor, or a browser where you have multiple documents in multiple widgets in SDI-style. Then the dock approach doesn’t make that much sense to me.
Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity. It is really annoying when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive and you have to lay your ear on the keyboard to see hear whether it is still doing something or not. Screw aesthetics, Apple, and choose functionality over beauty for a change.
I don’t understand how this is a useful feature. A system could be doing a lot of things without ever reading or writing to disk. Looking for hard disk activity is a lousy way to figure out if a system is dead or alive. I would think this is more of a PC feature because windows grinds away at the disk more than other OSes in my experience.
What would be infinitely more useful is for a set of key strokes or hitting the power button a preset number of times should bring the sytem into a “known good” state of execution, where you may be able to perform some useful analysis. May be bringup an activity monitor window or shell so you can do some thing useful.
Still I really like the concept of just dragging your app to the trash. For the majority of native mac apps there is only one configuration file. It think the OS should just ask you:
You have put the application XXX in the trash, Would you lik to:
– Delte the configuration files for this app
– Keep them (if you plan to reinstall)
– Always delete
– Never ask again
OTOH for most people those hundred of bytes taken by small text configuration files really don’t matter.
The problem is more with apps that install frameworks. But frankly, once you got use to the idea that your peace of mind costs a few megabyes… it’s not such a big problem.
PS: for those lacking a led (I do) I recommend MenuMeters.
So we can’t past a week on Os News without an article claiming that Apple suxe.
——–
“1.Other than that, this MacBook Pro has a dual-core 2.0Ghz processor and 2 gigabyte of RAM; so no wonder it feels faster than on other Macs I’ve tried.”
Anyway, Mac OS X is a lot faster on a Mac mini Core solo with 1 Go of RAM. You just want to criticize mac os x here.
“2. Some people say Apple is experimenting with all these themes”
Some others just like to have applications not looking like the other ones (which is just boring)
“4.Panther did not have these problems, but Tiger does– and we’re already at 10.4.6.”
I haven’t this problem on my Mac Mini Intel, Mac Mini G4 and powerbook G4, all running Mac OS 10.4.6. Sorry for you.
“5.Mail.app is a pointless email client”
+ 44 000 mails here and no slow down.
“7.Yes, it looks cool and all, but it’s a UI nightmare. Instead of having a separate section for taskbar entries and application launchers, the dock has one section which aims to be both, but obviously sucks at doing so”
It is what I found so cool on the dock. Not having a difference between the launch bar and launched application. It is just simple.
“8.When you drag an application to the trash, it leaves behind a trail of configuration files”
Yes and usually you are just happy to retrieve your preferences when you install it again latter.
—–
Finally, you seems to have problems will all OSes (and GUI). Never thought that the problem was *YOU*.
“Even the most die-hard Mac zealots confirmed this issue, so it seems more of a rule than an exception.”
Only words here, no proof, nothing … Who is him ? Your friend ?
Edited 2006-06-11 08:01
Finally, you seems to have problems will all OSes (and GUI).
Yes, and what is wrong with that? It’s being objective, is it not? Oh wait, I thought you said it’s just another weekly anti-apple article.
I think I just fell victim to a troll…
I don’t see why everyone is sitting here bickering about whether OS X is good or bad when it has been proven, by science, that DEs/Window Managers hit their peak with Window Maker.
>Other than that, Mail.app has its own theme (why, for >god’s sake?), and lacks a vertical preview pane.
Like this?
http://harnly.net/software/letterbox/
Especially on themes, on tiger you have four themes:
the old aqua with stripes
metal
unified
mail’s unified
not to mention other toolkits appearance (but to me this is not a problem)
Actually Apple seems to stick with unified, the latest iLife suite comes with that, probably for leopard they will move the whole thing to unified
Mail.app appears different, but to me the greatest problem of mail it’s that it doesn’t have a decent threading view, that really sucks
The dock it’s nice, mac applications are separated from their windows (at least they should be, since there are some exceptions) so the dock has the function of showing running applications (in classic this was done in the menubar) leaving to exposè the job of windows managing. the only little problem I find in the dock it’s that it should separate minimized windows area from, the “bookmark area” where you could place aliases to finder and bookmarks
Mail.app appears different, but to me the greatest problem of mail it’s that it doesn’t have a decent threading view, that really sucks
Mail’s threading is lame, but bugs that cause message lossage are the “greatest” problem. A couple of my thread-related annoyances:
• Collapsed threads only display the unread message count.
• IMAP server threading capabilities are unsupported.
3. You can change this yourself if you have the developer tools installed.
Go to Applications and right click on Safari select Show Package Contents.
Navigate into Contents, Resources, English.lproj. Here you will find all the .nib files used in Safari. If you open ToolbarItems.nib and delete the search field, it will be gone when you restart safari. Backup just in case…
This is not for everyone of course, and it is a bad solution, since it will probably be overwritten when a new version comes out. But it is a solution at least. I use this to get rid of the metallic look from all my applications where it is possible.
This has actually survived a couple of safari updates for me.
hey thom,
i wish your team good luck for the game!
from germany,
undo
It seems strange to list this as a specific problem with Mac OS X when all mainstream OSes suffer from this to a certain extent. In my opinion the consistency of UI design in Mac OS X is much better than most.
While there are minor inconsistencies in the feel of Mac apps, it’s mainly an issue of aesthetics, with important things like menu design or cut/copy/paste and drag and drop between apps being highly consistent. The same isn’t true of the inconsistency found in the mix of MDI/SDI apps in Windows, or a mix of KDE/GNOME apps in Linux, where important functionality can be highly inconsistent.
Of course it’s getting better in Linux and can be solved completely if you can find all the apps you need for either KDE or GNOME, but despite the mix of visual themes I find that the consistency in Mac OS X is still far superior.
Thanks for the article and the willingness to take on a topic with so many ardent supporters. I’m a Mac fan myself but would love to see certain aspects of the platform improve.
(2. MacOS X is an inconsistent mess.) I see what you’re saying but don’t feel strongly about it. For better or worse, this type of diversification is going to increase on all platforms due to the increasing prevalence of Web apps. People want to brand their apps, so they skin them. In Apple’s case I don’t really mind because the behavior is consistent across themes and the graphics are similar enough that, for example, a scrollbar always looks like a scrollbar.
(5. Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity.) Agreed. I always feel a bit silly in cafes putting my ear to my laptop. But I think there’s a more pressing indicator light issue. The sleep light on laptops is problematic, particularly on the new Intel laptops that take a little while to go to sleep. It lights when you close the machine and gently pulses when asleep. If you’re waiting for sleep to begin to put the laptop in a bag, it’s hard to tell exactly when it begins pulsing.
(6. Mail.app is a pointless email client) Mail is my email app of choice for a number of excellent features (and for MailActOn), but I agree it could use some attention in terms of bug fixes and performance improvements. The worst is the awful bug where the rules file becomes corrupted and duplicate copies of hundreds of messages that were already deleted or sorted get dumped back in your inbox. More generally, it can just be really slow with large IMAP mailboxes.
I believe I saw something about a plugin or hack that gives you a vertical preview pane, for what it’s worth.
(7. Where GNOME has an evil taskbar, MacOS X has an evil dock.) Yeah, the Dock is way less useful than it could be. I don’t use it for much beyond seeing what’s open and as a drag and drop target. In its place (and partly in place of the Finder) I use Butler, which I heartily recommend to anyone (see my blog post at http://meganstoehr.com/?p=9 for more info and other useful utilities).
(8. OSX needs a decent uninstaller) I agree wholeheartedly with the problem, but wonder about the solution. Apps that are self-contained packages are extremely convenient to install and maintain. Drag where you want to install, drag to trash to uninstall. In contrast, apps that make extensive use of shared areas like /Library require more work, not only to uninstall but also in general system maintenance tasks like doing an Archive and Install of the OS. (For example, you have to reinstall the Adobe Creative Suite or copy all the support files over.) Now I imagine in some cases there’s a reason for this approach – files shared among multiple members of a suite, for example – but I bet there’s a better way. Sticking more strictly with the package approach would solve a number of problems at once, and instead of bringing Mac OS X up to par with Windows or Linux would put it out in front.
(9. Apple needs to put more effort into backwards compatibility.) I have the opposite impression here, though I’ve heard stories of compatibility issues. Usually when I upgrade most things (with the exception of anything really low-level) just keep working.
That at the same time that OSNews runs an anti-Dvorak sensationalism blurb an OSNews article attacks Apple for backwards compatibility. Funny. I’ve got games meant for an entirely different operating system on entirely different hardware that work quite nicely on my existing Mac. GAMES. Backwards compatibility?
HELLO to 68K compatibility mode!
HELLO to Carbon.
HELLO to Rosetta.
Whatever.
“That at the same time that OSNews runs an anti-Dvorak sensationalism blurb an OSNews article attacks Apple for backwards compatibility. Funny. I’ve got games meant for an entirely different operating system on entirely different hardware that work quite nicely on my existing Mac. GAMES. Backwards compatibility?
HELLO to 68K compatibility mode!
HELLO to Carbon.
HELLO to Rosetta.
Whatever.”
Exactly.
I’m running apps from the Mac OS 8 days, a few games from different game consoles, a couple of Linux apps (mostly mathematics and statistical analysis tools), and I can run Windows and Windows apps through an emulator (a free emulator I might add) called Q which can emulate not just x86 hardware but a variety of other architectures…all on my PowerBook G4.
Compatibility problems? That’s the most rediculous thing I’ve heard. I’ve had greater compatibility and flexibility since I switched to a Mac then when I was using Windows and Linux.
Not to mention the support in Cocoa for maintaining compatibility between frameworks and apps. And countless other things Apple has done to ease both forward and backwards compatibility like the G3/G4 simulators, etc. Like I said before … whatever.
Have you had to use Entourage?
I’m forced to use Entourage. (Long story in a nutshell: rising out of the ashes of 10.3.5 caused a screw up in Mail when I tried to export the contents that I have never been able to fix.)
Every time I see how well my husband’s junk mail filter works, and think of how easy it was to configure his junk folder to erase messages more than 7 days old, or when I see that Mail doesn’t randomly strip attachements the way my Entourage does, I am filled with great bouts of stabby hate.
Edited 2006-06-11 15:09
Not to mention that they’ve included development kits that allow developers to target any pre-existing version of Mac OS X. What is this? Dvorak style trolling for ad revenue?
i don’t seem to have any issues with mail. my mailbox has close to 1000 messages in it. i don’t have the screen rementants issue. have 3 macs and none of them seem to have it.
“1. The MacOS does not exactly feel fast. …”
This only happens to me when I am running a heavy load and far less often than any other OS I’ve run including Windows (surprised?…didn’t think so) or Linux. For me Finder is usually fine.
“2. MacOS X is an inconsistent mess. … OSX now has, what, 7 or 8 different themes, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s 6 or 7 too many. …. If you like graphical consistency, stick with BeOS/Zeta or GNOME.”
While you don’t discuss it, there are more inconsistencies within Windows. How about classic vs the XP style start menu? What about the control panel? Would you like categorical or classic view? What about Media Player looking different than everything else or how Paint doesn’t have the same gradient in the filemenu bar as Explorer . I know of plenty of Windows users, including system administrators that have considered Windows to have become very inconsistent since the release of XP and worse after SP 2. Additionally, what of Windows apps that have their own style of window? Ad-Aware and Avast both come to mind as having windows not seen elsewhere in Windows. Additionally there are a few Windows utilities that just don’t fit. Running scandisk on boot is just a blue screen with white text. I’ve see utilities that can provide a consistent appearance with the rest of the OS during boot while some utility runs prior to loading the rest of the OS. Why doesn’t this happen with utilities provided by Microsoft? I’ve seen a couple of Windows apps that drew what looked like something from Win 3.1 or 95 under Xp with the Luna theme running. I haven’t seen these inconsistencies on a mac.
Where do you come up with 8 themes? Brushed metal, Aqua, or Wood.
Agreed about Gnome. Very consistent.
BeOS was consistent though I didn’t like it. The tab at the top of every window made it seem like something was missing.
“3. One of my biggest pet peeves: that annoying Google search field in Safari. ….”
I like it. If you don’t, either switch browsers or do as someone else suggested and change your pref file to get rid of it. If you don’t like having a search field there, you probably will not like IE7 or most any other new browser. I agree though. It should be optional.
“4. Tiger has some serious issues with… Screen remnants. ….”
I haven’t really had this problem on my mac. On Windows yes – quite frequently, but not on OS X.
“5. Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity. …”
Don’t you have something better to do than stare at an HDD activity light? I rarely need this. As other readers pointed out, there are multiple solutions for this. 1. use the Activity Monitor which came with OS X , 2. a widget (put it on your desktop), 3. third party software. Try “Force Quit” when your machine is unresponsive to see if one of your apps isn’t playing nice.
Besides…I thought the article was supposed to be about desktop environments – not status monitoring hardware such as activity lights.
“6. Mail.app is a pointless email client, and I am flabbergasted I still use it every day. The amounts of emails I get and have in all my mailbox folders (about 40000) can bring Mail.app to a grinding halt, especially on PowerPC Macs. Other than that, Mail.app has its own theme (why, for god’s sake?), and lacks a vertical preview pane.
Mail can’t be that pointless if you are still using it. I actuall find it to be very responsive and feature rich. I like it more than I did when I was using Outlook XP/2002 under Windows. The search functionality provided via Spolight has been very useful and quick. When I first started using Mail.app, I thought I would need to switch to something like Entourage (Outlook for Macs). Then I stopped trying to treat it like I did Outlook and found it was actually a more elegant email client. I’ve tried Thunderbird (both Win and Mac) and found it to be rigid. If you want to talk about useless mail clients, take a look at Oulook Express. POS.
If you want a vertical preview pane, get “letterbox.”
Mail.app is a great email app and you really must not think it is that bad if you are still using it. As for the buttons – who gives a crap? They work.
“7. …MacOS X has an evil dock…
I find this type of comment usually comes from someone who is trying to treat their Mac like it is a KDE/Windows/Gnome box. I personally find the Dock far more effective than the Win or Gnome taskbar. I find the Dock to be easy to use and unobtrusive. If you don’t like the dock, switch it out with one of the many replacements that are available.
“8. OSX needs a decent uninstaller, supplied with the OS …Mac people will tell you how easy it is to uninstall applications: just drag to the trash and done…”
I think Windows is far worse. Windows sometimes leaves an option for uninstalling an uninstallled application and leaves crap behind all the time when it uninstalls an application. Both in the registry and as files scattered across the HD. You have to search and delete in the registry and there is no certainty of where they will be or even if you’ve used all the terms needed to find every entry for an application. ? Norton Antivirus will have entries for both Symantec and Norton and “av something or other.” I’ve seen other apps have separate entries by app, manufacturer, and by previous app name when the application had changed names. Others can be even more cryptic. Then you get to search other files on your HD. How about Documents and Settings\%Username%Application data followed by Documents and Settings\%Username%Preferences. That is a mess. At least on OS X there is one place to look for files – Library. With Spotlight, file clean up literally takes only a couple of seconds whereas on Windows it may take considerably longer. Just delete – it’s faster and easier.
That said, I would like to see an application inventory/manager available to help automate this process and allow users to see at a glance everything they have. It is a nice feature in Windows (when it works correctly). I also agree with the user that said an option should appear when you drag the app to the trash to get rid of all the preference files
As far as uninstalling under Linux, I really can’t comment. I haven’t had a need.
“9. Apple needs to put more effort into backwards compatibility. They currently downright screw over developers (and hence the users) by breaking compatibility so often.”
Apple has said from day 1 of OS X that the APIs were all subject to change and that they can expect things to break if they used certain calls. This is a problem with the developers not listening to Apple’s warnings. It wasn’t until 10.4 that the APIs were stabilized (or at least that was the claim that was made at the last WWDC – hopefully it is true).
I haven’t had the compatibility problems that you indicate. I’ve had far fewer problems with compatibility on OS X than I have had on any other OS. I just got through using an app from OS 8 right before I wrote this. I’ve also got DarwinPorts which is letting me run Linux apps. I can also run Windows apps under Q and I can also emulate other hardware such as SPARC or x86. Compatibility? Not a problem here.
I have had compatibility problems under Windows with Windows apps. So have businesses. How about XP SP 2? When that first came out there were lots of complaints of apps breaking. I myself had a few apps have problems after SP 2 that did not before I installed it.
My main gripe is that osx goes to such lengths to hide all the unix underpinnings, i understand that most apple geeks don’t want to deal with all that crap but there should at least be an option to unlock that stuff. For instance, have you ever tried to navigate to the /usr or /etc directories via gui?
well, this may be unwaranted as i am pretty new to the OSX world and maybe there is a way to do it that i haven’t found yet.
anyway, not a big deal as i am quite competent on the command line, simply a source of annoyance.
one other thing, i hate itunes and there is no decent alternative.
My main gripe is that osx goes to such lengths to hide all the unix underpinnings, i understand that most apple geeks don’t want to deal with all that crap but there should at least be an option to unlock that stuff. For instance, have you ever tried to navigate to the /usr or /etc directories via gui?
well, this may be unwaranted as i am pretty new to the OSX world and maybe there is a way to do it that i haven’t found yet.
Yes, there is a way 🙂
In the Finder, select go to the “Go>Go to Folder…” menu or just press shift-command-g (command == the Apple key). Then, type your path. It also supports tab completion, like a terminal, try /usr/i[tab] for instance. This also works in file dialogs: select File>Open… (or File>Save) and then press shift-command-g.
““For instance, have you ever tried to navigate to the /usr or /etc directories via gui?”
Yes I have. Make all files visible so that you can make an alias of every normally invisible directory you plan to use. After hiding these invisible directories again you still have the shortcuts leading to them. At least that’s how I do it.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1 and
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 0
to show/hide hidden files and folders. Finder restart is required to see changes.
One thing that OS X lacks is a decent Alt-Tab functionality. It lets you switch between applications, yes, but not indivdual windows. For that functionality, you have to go to expose, and from there it takes more time to select the window, depriving me of my precious miliseconds. It would be far better if it had an individual window list, much like every other window manager.
Sorry, but have you tried Apple+` (the key usually found below Esc) ?
Microsoft Windows’s task manager can’t distinguish between the different windows and which applications they belong to. You have to Alt-Tab through the whole mess.
On the Mac:
Apple+Tab : switch application
Apple+` : switch document
Also, the general Apple+Tab functionality is soooo much better. Not only are the icons large enough to clearly see what they are, but you can instantly click on the one you want, which is very fast (or use the cursor keys).
Finally, for those who like window lists, you can go to either the Window menu or the Dock menu for the application to see just that.
Off-comment: For a real application inventory, launch the included System Profiler (via Applications->Utilities, or About This Mac->More Info…) and look at the last section, labelled “Software”. You will find also find listings for Extensions, Fonts, Frameworks and a few more.
“Off-comment: For a real application inventory, launch the included System Profiler (via Applications->Utilities, or About This Mac->More Info…) and look at the last section, labelled “Software”. You will find also find listings for Extensions, Fonts, Frameworks and a few more.”
Thanks for providing that. I had forgotten about that functionality in System Profiler. I usually don’t need that capability, but it is nice to know it is built in.
App management has never been a problem for me. /Applications
Pretty easy to remember.
You should check out Witch. It’s a small program that sits in the background, and when you press Option+Tab, it pops up with a list of all windows and their titles.
http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?section=witch
– Simon
that is fricking awesome, huge help, thanks.
…because I am a jerk, I have to admit he is right.
http://www.candiazoo.com/images/artifact.jpg
…This happens to me ALL of the time.
I’ve only noticed that scrollbar glitch in Safari (though not recently) but don’t remember where I read about it being a known bug.
This was Camino. But it happens elsewhere… altho’ I cannot think of them at the top of my head.
About the dock, the first thing I do, is turn of Magnification. While it looks very cool the first few seconds, it quickly becomes annoying because the icons move around like they do, making it harder to aim for the icon I need.
After that’s it’s UI bliss. Everything that the Windows taskbar does and a lot more is elegantly combined in the dock and uses much less UI space and I love that.
Magnifacation has been off by default since 10.3…
Erm no it hasn’t. My PowerBook G4 came with 10.4 preinstalled, and dock icon magnification on by default.
And I’m keeping it that way. I like the effect, and I find it easier to not miss the icon I’m after.
– Simon
using ‘pulease’ makes you sound like a 15 year old…
I could not agree more — when in Gnome I always have meters on the taskbar running showing CPU/Memory/Network activity so I *know* what’s going on — when I need more detail -> top. In OS X I’ve used MenuMeters: http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/#sshot but as you pointed out with your comment on the 7 themes, MenuMeters look like crap compared to the rest of the OS; the Gnome integration was/is spot on.
Also, while I’m late the to party someone may read this, in Linux you can re-compile your kernel to allow for the pulsing ‘sleep’ light on the front of your iBook to be the Harddrive indicator, and I *loved* it! You’d think Apple would make that an option, as not having ANY idea what’s going on (aside from the frozen spinning beach ball. Even though I only have an 800Mhz iBook with 640Megs/RAM I never thought it would feel so slow. Yeah, I’ve used OS X Optimiser, without much relief. Yet I boot over on to the Ubuntu side and it’s *much* faster.
Here’s part of the problem with speed:
http://fak3r.com/articles/2006/05/10/linux-speeds-past-os-x-again
DISCLAIMER: I’ll likely buy a Mac Mini in the next few months
1. OS X Feels sluggish because your used to using Windows which is a decade old technology.
2. OS X is an inconsistent mess. So install the “UNO” theme. Perfect solution.
3. Removing the search field in Safari can be done with the developer tools. Whats the big deal anyway? Not like removing it will save space of any kind.
4. Screen remnants? what?
6. Mail is hands down the best e-mail client on the market – with ease of use, and features. But yes, it does get bogged down with large amounts of e-mails. I have to force quit mine from time to time. Want the preview pane on the side? Use the widescreen plugin.
7. The Dock – there are way to many solutions to this to list.
8. Uninstaller? AppZaper – you solved your own complaint, so why complain.
9. Apple has publicly stated they will not change the OS X API again.
All these things have solutions to them already. So what are you complaining about?
An OS can’t fit everyone’s likes. That’s what there are third party solutions for, that address all your complaints.
1. OS X Feels sluggish because your used to using Windows which is a decade old technology.
Stop bringing Windows into the game, it’s like an obsession to some people. I’ve not been a Windows user since god knows when. It might be that me having relied on BeOS for a few years made my demands for software a little too high for multi-billion Dollar companies like Microsoft/Apple, or huge communities backed by lots of multi-billion companies like the Linux community to fulfill.
2. OS X is an inconsistent mess. So install the “UNO” theme. Perfect solution.
When I spend 130E every 18 months I may at least EXPECT to get an OS which improves its consistency, instead of making it worse, right?
3. Removing the search field in Safari can be done with the developer tools. Whats the big deal anyway? Not like removing it will save space of any kind.
The big deal is this: it was removable in Panther. It’s not in Tiger. That means somewhere along the road OR a bug sneaked in, OR it was a consious decision to force that silly Google thing on people who just don’t give a rat’s ass about it. Either way, it’s wrong. And yes, it does take up space; that of the location bar.
4. Screen remnants? what?
Didn’t you see the screenshot? I have this odd behaviour confirmed with MANY Mac users.
6. Mail is hands down the best e-mail client on the market – with ease of use, and features.
Ok, I’ll stop now. The above clearly shows you are nothing but an Apple zealot. I just wasted some of my extremely valuable time on you. Damn.
1. OS X Feels sluggish because your used to using Windows which is a decade old technology.
Excuse me, but WTF?! That’s certainly a new angle on the word ‘slow’.
The general consensus amongst users is that OS X is simply slow, and in need of some optimisation. For supposedly a premium piece of software that people are expected to pay for every eighteen months, it’s the least that is expected.
2. OS X is an inconsistent mess. So install the “UNO” theme. Perfect solution.
How about it stops becoming an inconsistent mess in the first place?
4. Screen remnants? what?
Have a look at the screenshots. I actually went into a John Lewis store to try out a Tiger powered Mac, as I’d never encountered it before. The weird thing is there seems to be no pattern. In general usage the UI seems to get its knickers in a twist.
Even more bizarrely, how has this occurred in Tiger? Surely Apple are building on a solid, stable, working and finalised codebase here?
6. Mail is hands down the best e-mail client on the market – with ease of use, and features.
Well, there’s no reliable groupworking and calendaring (relying on Exchange again) and it suffers some pretty serious scalability issues with large and multiple mailboxes. That’s not a good e-mail client.
What you’ve written is a marketing statement pulled off Apple’s web site.
9. Apple has publicly stated they will not change the OS X API again.
Oh, hell. That makes everyone feel a whole lot better after five years of OS X, and will really guarantee the loyalty of developers………
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9842/
Hahah, yeah, MDN. The Mac world’s very own FoxNews.
MDN. The Mac world’s very own FoxNews.
To me MDN seems like The Jerry Springer Show for Apple/Mac (ab)users.
You may have some points here, but what is the alternative? Windows? The list would be alot longer than the one you’ve listed going that route. Linux? We’ll, yes Linux is better than Mac OS X, but my mom,gradma and youngling isnt going to use it, cuz it wont serve their needs of being compatiable with their apps and its ease of use. Point is, not matter what you say its way better than the trash Microsoft makes. I’d give up speed for a more solid and secure OS anyday. So go out and buy your $499 special and shut your pie hole.
Seriously, It’s like casting pearls before f*cking swine.
” It’s like casting pearls before f*cking swine”
You must be referring to those Windows users we Mac-fanciers are trying to court?
Actually I was referring to Thom Holwerda
Hey Thom!
If these are your problems, you don’t really have any problems, do you? 😉
I mean this in the nicest way!
I agree with most of the points, but also find them rather small gripes.
check out menumeters for unobtrusive system stats
mail is good for the basic user. You don’t have to use it, and there are many good alternatives
Apple should bundle an uninstaller, whether you decide to use it or not.
I like the themes, and i only notice 4: aqua, metal, the new tiger theme in spotlight and mail (hopefully will completely replace aqua), and the pro theme which is very similar to the tiger theme. I don’t consider the UI in garageband a theme. I think its a unique UI and there is nothing wrong with an app having a unique UI.
I find the dock to be okay, but i agree that giving choices in how it behaves would be nice (there are also alternatives)
MY BIGGEST GRIPE: Sharing files and folders in OSX just sucks
There was a HDD monitor in the classic era. Flashed a pixel in the (black) outside corner. There’s a myriad of other places it could live instead.
You could roll all your UI complaints into one. As for mail, there is an add on called Letterbox that gives you what you want. Only works well with a widescreen and even then it’s scrunching the message.
There’s huge discussions on dock replacements. I don’t use the dock much, but for what I use it, it’s fine.
You can lock your session quickly. Open the keychain (horribly hidden option:) and turn on the option to show in menubar. The first option in the lock menu is to lock the screen.
If these are the reasons OS X sucks, it’s not a bad operating system. I personally find several of these points rather nit-picky.
I mean, who really cares about the Google bar in Safari? I personally find it useful. Sure, it would be nice if one could remove it (or, better yet, select the search engine of one’s choice). But is this really one of the reasons that OS X sucks???
As far as speed goes, I just set up a new eMachines PC running Windows XP. Granted, it isn’t a top-of-the-line system, but it is seriously slow. I’ve waited easily five or more seconds for it to draw a window. And it takes forever to start up and login. My iMac G5 is lightning fast by comparison. Could OS X be faster? Sure. So could every OS.
I have encountered screen remnants in every version of OS X. Remember the Dock poofs that never disappeared? In general I don’t think Tiger is as bad as previous versions, but they are a valid issue. Again, I don’t think they are “suck” caliber, but they sure are annoying.
I also disagree regarding Mail.app. I think it’s a very nice email client. Mine is stuffed with emails as well, but I have no problems with speed. If you don’t like Mail, there are numerous third party clients available. I’ve checked out most of them (including Entourage) and always come back to Mail.
So, what does suck? The user interface!!!
What has happened to Apple??? I thought Aqua was very nice. Sure, it needed some work. I found it a bit too bubblegum for my taste, but overall I liked it. And then Apple foisted that hideous “Brushed Metal” look upon us. Now, between Tiger, iTunes, and the Apple Pro applications, we have multiple UIs. Sure, they work in a similar fashion, but why aren’t they unified? What on earth is the point of this? It is confusing to new users and irritating to experienced ones. Come on, Apple. Get it together! Unify the UI!!!
While (hopefully) waiting for Apple to get its act together on this issue, anyone wishing to unify the Tiger UI should download UNO ( http://gui.interacto.net/ ). It has more than successfully addressed my biggest gripe with OS X.
The Dock is a mess. I hated it from day one. Perhaps the Dock, as it is, works for Joe Average user. However, I hate having all of my running apps, favorite apps, and open documents in one place. Maybe I wouldn’t have a problem with this arrangement if I only ran one or two apps at once.
My solution has been to create a hot corner in the upper left corner (behind the Apple menu) using MaxMenus ( http://www.proteron.com/maxmenus/ ). This hot corner pops up a menu with all of my favorite apps. This addresses one of my main gripes with the Dock. However, I still wish I could remove running applications from the Dock so that it only serves to hold open documents.
Apple really should give us some Dock preferences. The Dock concept is great. However, the user should have more control over how it operates.
Finally, I agree 100% on the need for an uninstaller. We’re now four major (and countless minor) revisions into OS X and there’s still no easy way to uninstall configuration and support files after trashing an application. What happened to the good old NEXTSTEP way of doing it? Simply double click the package in the /Library/Receipts folder and click “Uninstall.” Why did Apple drop this great feature???
Thanks for sharing your list of gripes. Perhaps Apple will listen…
The only reason I can see for not removing configuration files would be that I’m uninstalling an application in order to reinstall it, and therefore do not want to lose my configuration.
What about applications that install kernel extensions? Sure, they are few and far between, but a kernel extension has the potential to affect the system in ways that configuration files can’t.
Just a thought…
Two other reasons to do a complete uninstall:
1. You’ve borked the setup for the program and can’t figure out how you set it up that [non-functional] way, but you want it to work again.
2. You’re experiencing a bug and want to verify that it occurs with a clean install through a repeatable set of steps
Without a functional uninstaller, this can be rather difficult. With something akin to Debian’s aptitude purge, it’s relatively easy to clean up system-wide files (user files are a different story, but hopefully those are relatively easy to deal with, as they’re all under ~/.appname or something similarly identifiable).
I have MenuMeters running in my menu bar on my MBP, and it is working quite well. It gives me disk activity lights, a load bar, and a network activity light. I would rather not have another LED added to the box, given that I have one in my menu bar.
I rather like the google search bar in Safari, and use it a fair amount. I would rather not have it removed. It would not hurt if it were a separate widget from the address bar, but I suspect they wanted to have the resizer dealy in it.
Similarly, mail.app handles the hundred some odd email messages I get a day with reasonable grace. I suspect it would get clunky with more messages, but it works well enough for my current volume, aided by a dozen or so rules.
As a developer, I have just not had any real backwards compatibility problems, nor have most of the developers I know. Those working at a fairly low level have, but in the main, Apple is pretty good about telling you what is changing, and making it possible for ‘current and last version’ developers to stay working. Even the “Intel targeted at 10.4/PPC targeted at 10.3.9” sdk setup seems to work ok for the apps I have tried.
Scott
-No way to lock your session very quickly by shortcut like in windows or linux (windows+L) (linux custom made: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+l)
I’m sorry hraq, but there is an equivalent to windows+L to lock the a Mac. If you use cmd+opt+eject keys it will put the Mac to sleep. If you have ticked the “Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver” option under System Preferences->Security you have effectively locked the computer. Or go to System Preferences->Dashboard & Exposé and set an Active Screen Corner to “Start Screen Saver”.
No way to sort Safari book marks into alphabetical order (unless someone knows better)
No way to create a blank link & type in the url or path (like Windows create desktop shortcut Wizard) [I know we have drag & drop and aliases don’t break when the target is moved. But still……]
No way to format line spacing in mail, or use a better editor to do more advanced things (as you can with Outlook & Word). Despite this I like Mail.
No way to edit the Apple Menu (unless someone knows any better)
No way to format line spacing in mail, or use a better editor to do more advanced things (as you can with Outlook & Word). Despite this I like Mail.
It’s a one-way editing solution (editor to mail), but TextMate can do this, it seems:
http://www.hawkwings.net/2006/04/26/using-textmate-as-editor-in-mai…
No way to sort Safari book marks into alphabetical order (unless someone knows better)
Bookdog (shareware).
No way to format line spacing in mail, or use a better editor to do more advanced things (as you can with Outlook & Word).
TextMate (shareware) has an InputManager so Cocoa apps (like Mail) can use it as an external editor.
No way to edit the Apple Menu (unless someone knows any better)
FruitMenu (shareware).
There may be other choices; those are just the first ones that came to mind.
Hi,
Everyone can send feedback to Apple using this form:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
I agree with most of your comments.