Since it’s weekend, which usually equates to no news, we figured we’d follow in Engadget’s footsteps by asking you, our dear and loving readers, what you would change about Apple’s current Mac Pro. Engadget readers already had a few things to say – this is the internet after all. And since this is OSNews, we add a question of our own: what would you change about Mac OS X?
Starting with the Mac Pro question, the most common complaint over at Engadget is obviously that of price. The Mac Pro isn’t “cheap”, but the obvious problem with the word “cheap” is that it’s all relative. If you think the price/value ratio is okay, then the Mac Pro certainly isn’t expensive. In any case, I’m not going there – I don’t need a Mac Pro.
Still, some other complaints appear to be pretty valid. A lot of people are asking for Blu-Ray, which I think is a valid thing to ask of such a high-end machine. You could vaguely argue that it doesn’t make any sense yet for average desktop machines or laptops, but when it comes to these high-end workstations used by professionals, I don’t think there is a valid excuse for not offering Blu-Ray at least an an option.
Another pain in the bum, according to many Engadget readers, is the RAM limit on the single processor machine. Currently, it can’t take more than 8GB of RAM, while competitors offer no such limit at all on similar machines. 8GB sounds like a lot to me, but professionals often need more than that.
There are also a lot of complaints on the video side of things. The default cards are too slow for such machines, many claim, and there are far too few options to upgrade to, and even those are outdated. In addition, anyone who has ever had to shop for a Mac video card knows the ridiculous price difference between Mac and “normal” PC video cards.
Then there’s Mac OS X itself, which we add into the discussion to make it more interesting for OSNews. What would you change? Personally, I’d love to have a better file manager built-in, one that does not suffer from split personality disorder like the Finder currently does. I’d also like a decent way to update applications across the board, a ban on packages with installers, and App Zapper built-in.
Fire away, people.
The most annoying part on taking laptops with you is the adapter in the power cable. If they could build that into the laptop it would make the power calbe less annoying when commuting or travelling.
If the build in adapter is smart enough it can automaticaly switch from 230V, 110V or 12V for example. In that case they could make to powercable such way it can fit in a sleeve with the laptop itself.
The issue here is component size, weight and heat, though technological advances in recent years have mitigated these problems to the point where it might be feasible on a high-end product such as this.
Is it physically possible at this point to make the power brick that small and still have it handle the demands of a high-powered laptop? I’m no expert in electricity, but looking at just about all laptops, they all have the power brick outside of the machine, typically midway through the cord. The only thing different about Apple’s is that they’ve made theirs into a more squareish shape rather than the typical rectangular brick. These bricks typically need a decent area around them to radiate off the excess heat, ever have one covered up for a while and checked on how hot it gets? Now, add that heat to that which is already generated by the laptop, and I think it’s probably a good idea to keep the power brick external. It’s a bit of a pain, but I’d rather that than have a laptop that’s in danger of constantly overheating.
Anyway… how did the topic of laptops come up again? The MacPro isn’t a laptop… oh well, interesting discussion in any case.
You pretty much said everything about Mac Pro that I can think of.
As for OS X, I am not a Mac user, so what I would like for it is to be more customizable. That would allow me to make it more PC-like (maybe I should say Windows like). You know, move the window control buttons to the right, get maximize button to actually maximize the window, etc.
However, I know that Apple was never big on customization. That is not their way. Their way is simplicity, so I don’t see any changes coming in that area for a long time.
Overall, OS X is a solid system. Maybe they should implement address randomization like in Vista, as the lack of it makes OS X easier to exploit: http://www.osnews.com/story/21171/Miller_on_Mac_OS_X_Chrome_Firefox…
Edited 2009-05-09 10:31 UTC
One thing I can’t understand is why did they introduce Appearance Manager in Mac OS 8, only to drop it with Mac OS X?
Early OS X builds had almost the same UI as OS 9, but then I guess they (or more likely Steve Jobs) felt the need to make the difference more obvious.
You must not have used the development builds of Mac OS X.
It had the same UI as NeXT OS and then started tacking on the “aqua” features.
It looked nothing like the classic OS then and still doesn’t now.
Then you have never used rhapsody, or the yellow box, or any of the pre OSX builds. They had a mixture of NeXTStep elements, but the UI was most definitively the Platinum shell from System 8/9
Actually on the surface it did look a bit like classic Mac OS before they changed the theme and added the Dock. Ofcourse in-terms of applications and functionality it didn’t look like Mac OS at all. Its was kind of weird actually. Imo, OSX didn’t really start looking interesting until version 10.3, with 10.4 taking it to the next level. 10.5 is a little too glitzy imo. I hope they tone it back in 10.6.
Because Jobs came back, with his team as well. They brought back certain values and ideas and the old MacOS simply wasn’t compatible with that. A highly customizable OS is counter to what Apple wants to achieve with OS X, and adding it would seriously break their OS to the point where it isn’t a Mac system at all anymore. It would add a complexity to the OS in many ways.
I know many people, chiefly certain kinds of geeks, crave the “I want to change everything”-approach and I think the honestly are better served by Linux. It’s the tinkers favorite OS after all.
Other kinds of geeks, like me, are far better served by a system like OS X. I want Apple to come up with the absolute best defaults that they can, and I will only change what I really really need to change. I often change very little on any OS I use and if you have bad defaults, then it is bad for me. I want my experience coherent and I want them to put their development money and time into giving me features which I find useful, and I want them to shy from complexity and embrace elegance through simplicity.
That said:
Mac Pro. Redo the case, it’s by far and large the ugliest mac around today. Make it cool and sleek. Other than that give us a Mac, which is the Pro but with a Desktop CPU instead (iNTEL i7 or what they are called today), smaller case, normal RAM, and the option of faster GFX cards.
OS X: Resolution independence (we have waited long enough). Better use of meta-data in the filesystem (iTunes, I am looking at you! XML database? I am crying inside! And changing something in the filesystem freaking breaks iTunes. Weak!) and the finder. Introduce proper surround sound in the core OS as well as all other products.
And if I can get a little extra hardware wish. Open Air Tunes so all hardware vendors can use it. I want it in my stereo, my surround equipment, in my speakers. I want it to handle full surround and I want the ipods/iphones to have hardware support. This would make me happy.
I think letting me change the color of the window chrome or of the widgets wouldn’t break OS X too much. Especially if 10.6+ doesn’t use bitmaps anymore.
OS X has no relation to 9 and previous.
It comes from NeXT OS, so Mac-like features have to be ADDED to Mac OS X.
Macintosh and Mac OS X are two completely different operating systems.
I know, and it shouldn’t really matter. Microsoft managed to keep the same shell with the same features for both Windows and Windows NT in the ’90s.
Edited 2009-05-10 16:20 UTC
For me, I’ve never been big on customisation; I might install some software and at the most change the background or something else inside preferences but beyond that I prefer not to fiddle with the stuff under the hood. I have a belief that engineers at Microsoft and Apple have made decisions based on more information than I could ever possible have the privilege of understanding. I know my limits and don’t go where I’m clueless about.
At the end of the day I really have to ask myself to what degree do end users really care about customisation outside of backgrounds and stuff. If Apple make their operating system applicable for the bulk of people sitting in the middle, I hardly think that it warrants them allocating funds just to get the last 10% or so interested.
Interesting… Considering the fact, Macintosh was years ahead Windows and, implemented those widgets that way… Windows implemented differently to differentiate (To the right, and not to the left). But if you see it closely, it is just a matter of taste.
And…Address randomization is implemented in Mac OS X Leopard, the problem is different… It is not fully implemented yet and not fully effective. But it’s there.
Windows originally had the close button on the left. (You had to double click it, though.) It might be true that it was moved to the right in order to be different from Mac.
I couldn’t agree more. It doesn’t matter who is historically “right”. What matters is allowing people to use their computers the way they are used to, and the way they like.
Linux is probably the best in this respect. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to make it work just right for you, but once you get it right, it’s great.
I believe that is the problem with Linux and why it has not grab the market share it deserves. Especially on the desktop.
Linux gives to much liberties to users. Because of those liberties, it is almost impossible for a developer to know exactly how the application will behave, so most of the time, the user ends up with a very poor user interface when you compare it with alternatives found on Windows or Mac.
So, common desktop users, find themselves in a really big mess and do not feel comfortable on it. If you feel strange with buttons on a side of the screen, imagine how a simple user will feel when they have to configure everything to look as they want to, but they do not know what they want. It can be a nightmare. So, they give up and go to Mac for simplicity and reliability or go to Windows for custom fit and popularity.
That’s a total lifesaver. Since 10.6 is going to have Grand Central and OpenCL it’s still an unproven quantity but I have high hopes it will lead to a snappier OS X experience.
If we’re talking looks, I think the Mac Pro is the ugliest machine in the lineup right now. It’s just a big chunk of aluminium really. I wish Apple would do more with it.
Patch faster, implement all of the security features that Vista and Linux have for years now and maybe even implement a mandatory access control (MAC) like Apparmor or SELinux.(Mac OSX MAC)
OSX is still really secure just because not a lot of people have an incentive to exploit it, not because the security is great. With less people using XP that might change.
Go and read something about launchd !
Whilst I don’t agree that you can compare XP and OS X security on the basis of marketshare alone, I do agree that Apple need to tighten up their security process. I would also like this to include rigorous updating of the open source software included, such as Apache & PHP. I’d rather Apple updated this, than me having to recompile PHP each time.
I didn’t compare XP and OSX.
In their default installs OSX is way way more secure than XP.
What I meant was at the moment XP is the preferred target for crackers, because it has low security and big marketshare.
If I were to believe all the OSnews comments every XP user will be using 7 soon, so OSX might end up being the most insecure OS (from technical standpoint .. in the real world inertia etc also come into play) with the biggest marketshare.
A totally rational exploit writer only thinks about how much effort he has to put into exploiting X number of machines.
And the ratio might some day tip in OSX favor if Apple is treating security like they did the last years.
I think we are years and years away from that scenario, but still security takes a lot of time and effort to get right. Red Hat and Fedora are doing the best job at the moment IMNSHO.
+1 on the Apple updating the *nix components like PHP and Apache. Yes they only seem to get updated when a new major version comes out, and sometimes not even then.
This has been debunked to death. Read the relevant literature.
As a counter-argument, Mac OS (7|8|9) while being used by the same percentage that use Mac OS X (and even less), had a lot of viruses. OS X has none (trojans requiring user interaction are not viruses).
So it’s not the market share percentage that defines how many viruses OS X has in re: to Windows, but O.S implementation.
(Back in the day, Amiga and Atari had a lot of viruses too, despite having only a tiny fraction of Mac OS and PC marketshare).
Most of todays exploits have very little in common with the virii of the good old days. Today those things are coded by professional criminals with a clear money objective.
Apples and Oranges.
No it hasn’t. I’ve never seen that successfully debunked. What I have seen however, is that OS X has it’s first botnet, which Mac users allowed themselves to build due to pirated software (one of the most important vectors for malware in the Windows world).
I think people who believe that OS X is more secure than Vista will wake up one day and find themselves in the same boat XP users were in, circa 2002.
Social engineering to trick users into INSTALLING malware is a security issue with the OS?
No, but the user is the most common way to get malware on a Windows PC, not vulnerabilities.
As OS X becomes more popular and more of it’s users come over from the windows world, you can expect malware on the Mac to increase.
It doesn’t matter how it gets on the computer, it’s the fact that it is there. And it’s only going to get worse for Mac users
Sadly, it is not the case. Most of Windows machines get infected almost by themselves… I have seen it in University labs were users can only surf the web and do not have any way to install applications…. Somehow, Viruses just entered.
Network security in Windows is not good.
However, it is true… Malware on Mac OS X could arise if more people are using it, especially if people trick themselves into thinking Mac OS X is completely safe and stupid proof, which it is not. Because no OS is.
No system on Earth can be so safe that do not let the user harm the system, because the system is for the user, and the user has control. If not, this would be Terminator, or something like it.
So users, need to start thinking.
No it hasn’t. I’ve never seen that successfully debunked. What I have seen however, is that OS X has it’s first botnet, which Mac users allowed themselves to build due to pirated software (one of the most important vectors for malware in the Windows world).
I think people who believe that OS X is more secure than Vista will wake up one day and find themselves in the same boat XP users were in, circa 2002. [/q]
I believe, you are very misinformed about some things…. First, it is impossible, to make a system that is user-proof. No matter how hard you try. A computer system cannot prevent the user to do what he or she wants, because it is his or her computer. So If a person is so stupid to install a botnet because he thinks he is so smart that stealing software is cheaper, there is nothing a computer system can do about it.
The problem, and what the person told you is easy to understand…. There is no logic saying market share and viruses spread are related. Viruses are different, because, usually the user can get infected even with just using the computer.
There is a main problem with viruses and it is the way computer operating Systems are design. By design, Mac OS X and Linux are safer than Windows XP… And by design, Windows 7 is more secure than Windows XP…
Part of the problem is the way Windows was originally design, with no Network in mind . Windows 7 is taking care of many things, but in doing so, it breaks applications, so it has to offer a compatibility mode for Windows XP.
Apple happened to approach the thing very similarly in 2000 with Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X.
So, this just means something easy to understand… There are many Viruses for Windows, because, it is easier to write viruses for Windows, than say, any *NIX.
And that was the same for Mac OS 7/8/9, Atari ST and very especially AMIGA, which is the king of viruses if you consider market share.
Is Mac OS X Perfect? No, it is not… But the security design is better. The implementation is not as good as Vista, in some parts, but it is admirably secure.
And, until we fixed the browsers, and how they operate, no system will be completely secure.
If it has to be debunked over and over again… perhaps that is because the “debunkings” are not considered to be overly-convincing?
It’s kind of like the old “Quitting smoking is easy! I’ve done it lots of times!” joke.
The Macintosh had greatly more marketshare then than it does now. All the viruses for the Mac OS were written during the pre-System 7.5 era when the Macintosh had a reasonable marketshare. I don’t recall ever hearing about new viruses from Mac OS 8 onwards.
Be careful when drawing comparisons from those times, anyway; viruses were a much different problem back then.
There is IPFW, there is MAC but Apple has got a different problem: security VS usability.
http://www.h-online.com/security/A-second-look-at-the-Mac-OS-X-Leop…
Doesn’t MacOS X have MAC as part of the TrustedBSD project? All the major commits to FreeBSD lately reference Apple. Same with OpenBSM.
I think Mac OS X has ACL, but it is not widely used. At least in Leopard. MAC, I believe it is not used either… It would be nice though, but I believe these days is a server feature, not so much a desktop feature.
Although, in a few years that might change.
Maximizing and minimizing windows is broken in OS X. I would like WM to remember sizes and positions of windows.
I think I’m not alone on this one, but the Finder is the first thing that should go. Where’s the logic here? Who wrote that crap and labeled it a file-manager? What it can really do is only the basic stuff, like copy/paste/create directory and the occasional drag-drop; and what’s most important it is rather unfriendly to the user, like try jumping to /System/Library/Extensions without a normal location bar. And the worst thing is that there’s no real substitute, commercial or opensource/free/whatever. Every other Mac file-manager out there has more features than the Finder, but they still wouldn’t qualify for the title File-manager of the month. And I thought I would never say this, but Explorer’s a real King-Kong compared to Apple’s little Finder.
And what’s up with the Dock? I understand that Apple has its own way of doing stuff, but isn’t it a bit retarded to skip the minimized windows when alt-tabbing (or was it option-tabbing)? I mean, try raising the window you’ve just minimized by mistake! And why do they have a shortcut for the mentioned action and not one to reverse it? I won’t go any further, ’cause then my comment would be bigger than the article itself.
Not that I’m defending Finder (it’s been the ugly duckling of OS X since forever), but you can use the Go To Folder menu to enter a direct path (Cmd-Shift-G). You can add the Path button to the finder Toolbar, as well as the Path bar at the bottom in Leopard.
PathFinder – http://www.cocoatech.com/
* * *
Now Apparently, the Finder is getting a cocoa rewrite in Snow Leopard, so this may, hopefully, bring some much needed improvements that you brought up. We can only wait and see.
I know about the feature, but I meant more like a standard location bar with a normal autocomplete function.
I’ve tried every single app in this category, still nothing comparable to a serious FM.
We’ll just have to wait and see if the next Finder will mature.
Edited 2009-05-09 11:08 UTC
It has a long history of being one of the better file manager out there, starting with NeXT.
Yes, that and archive files to zip, connect to remote servers, browse filesystems, remote servers, external media, search for files with Spotlight capabilities, Quick Look files, create Burn Folders for writing CDs and DVDs, create and show Smart Folders (virtual collections of files based on saved queries), show 4 different views of your files.
Yeah, like you said, only basic stuff.
Yeah, it’s, like, so difficult. You have to click on the computer icon (to see all available disks), click on the hard disk icon, and then on the System, Library and Extensions icons respectively.
(Exactly as you would do it on any other OS –and even easier when using the Column view).
Or you could choose from the menu: Go -> Go To Folder and type “/System/Library/Extensions” in the popup box.
Yeah, universally appraised file managers like Path Finder ( http://cocoatech.com/ )are to sneer at.
Or, Fork Lift ( http://www.binarynights.com/ ).
This borders on crazy talk.
But I get it, you probably just started using OS X (migrating over from Windows to jump in the bandwagon) and the old ways are so ingrained into you that you can’t get your head around how things could differ from Windows in an OS.
No, it’s actually very convenient. If I minimized a Window I don’t want it to show up in an option-tab, because I don’t work with that Window at the moment.
(It’s the concept of a Working Set of windows. If I minimize something I want it to stay that way, until I tell it not too).
You mean like, I dunno, *clicking* on the window icon in the dock? Sure, it’s so difficult.
Because it doesn’t make sense.
When you are working with an active window, you can sent it a shortcut to minimize itself.
When the window is minimized, you are working with some other window. Where would the hypothetical shortcut for “reverse minimization” would go to? The last minimized window, in another application? Why should that be any special? This only makes sense if you minimize by mistake a lot and want to reverse it, not in normal usage.
As I see it (and you both demonstrate it), both approaches have their pros and cons, and both are valid.
On the other hand, with the virtual desktops we have today, I personally don’t see the use any more of windows disappearing from the switcher when minimized. If I really want to have one out of the way for a longer time, I can put it on a different desktop.
Wholeheartedly agree with you. I’m no “Mac user” by any means, but I use one periodically throughout the week, and the finder is my biggest qualm. It’s so hard to go to any given location on the hard drive (on any hard drive), and what if you want to launch an application you don’t use frequently enough to put on the dock? It’s possible, but only just. I always forget that I have to “File > Exit” every stinking program if I want to really exit (I assume Apple+Q works for that, though), and that’s just plain annoying. The dock, too– it’s nice to have for launching programs, but it’s a piece of garbage for minimized windows. I can never tell which window is the one I want to open (say, if I have multiple instances of the same program). I’m really hoping this will vastly change in the upcoming versions. But then I’m not an avid OS X user, so whatever.
EDIT: One more thing I’d like to add to the list is the current model of mouse– at least the one that came with the iMac I use from time to time. It’s the first Mac mouse I’ve used that finally implements right-click, so that’s a plus, and it finally has a scroll wheel, but it has the worst– shall we say “traction”– I’ve ever witnessed. No matter what surface it’s on, the mouse will randomly jump to the bottom or a corner of the screen. Also, the random buttons on the sides that don’t even feel like buttons need to go. I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally started the expose feature. Is there a way to disable this? I’ve actually not even taken the time to look in the properties. You can tell I don’t use it often (plus we got a different mouse for it, thank heavens).
Edited 2009-05-09 17:21 UTC
Use the Spotlight search menu to get to it. Press cmd-Space and type the app name. Spotlight may be slow at times, but it has its moments. For application launch, it’s usually way faster than digging through Applications. Also it can be used to find an open application, if you have so many open in the dock that you have a hard time finding its icon.
OK, but then try this trick, when you have to quit a bunch of apps: Press cmd-Tab to bring up the application switcher. Hold cmd and tab or shift tab back and forward to move to a different application. When you’ve reached the desired application, release tab and press Q, still while holding cmd. Then you can tab to a new app and quit it the same way very quickly, never leaving the application switcher. When you are done, you can tab back to the program you were working in, not dropping cursor focus, without interrupting your workflow. This is actually very well thought out.
The dock has behaved the way it does since 10.0.0, so it’s not likely to change. Minimized windows aren’t well implemented with the dock. A solution is using Exposé with F10 and while in that view, press and hold the Option key. Then you can see the window names as well.
I raised the “un-minimize” issue when Jaguar was released (and it was my 1st Mac OS X). I’m still (Leopard) waiting for a way to do that. Personally, I’d get rid of that functionality (Minimize). I think hide is better, but in either case, if you minimize by mistake (Safari 4 beta, i’m looking at you), it’s ANNOYING to go to the dock. Worse if if you have more than 1 display and the dock is “far”.
Being blessed with a proper Terminal (in contrast to cmd), the UNIX geek in me rarely uses Finder.
$ open /System/Library/Extensions
I have been a Windows user since 3.1 and support a Windows environment to earn my living. As someone said earlier and after reading many of the complaints about the Finder I feel a great deal of the problem is people not being able to change their way of thinking about how to do things. Explorer like Finder has it faults but because of having used it extensively we forget how many things about it really annoy us. I switched to Mac for my home use the day after Leopard was introduced and yes learning how to do things differently was difficult at first. Once I learned to stop trying to do things the Windows way and started learning how to do things the Mac way the frustrations lessened greatly.
I now much prefer Leopard to Windows for MY use.
You’re 100% correct. People get used to doing something one way and that suddenly becomes the “right” way.
So if there was anything I’d change with Mac OS X it would be for Apple to provide better tools to instruct people on how to do it the Mac way. Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.
OS X? Really, very little. I’m actually very content with OS X. My complaints are mostly with Apple’s apps, more than with the OS itself.
Yes, finder could be better, but nothing can be perfect and I get very little frustration from OS X.
-“The Mac Pro isn’t “cheap”
Its hard to believe that some people are thinking that it is not cheap, as a Mac Pro is usually significantly cheaper than any other workstation with dual quad cores processors produced by Dell or HP, but being infinitely better designed. A Mac pro is definitely a good deal for any pro user wishing a monster machine with state of the art design.
-” Blu-Ray”?
I don’t know, i am not really sure that a lot of pro users need that. I would think that they don’t or a few do, given the Blu-Ray market today.
-“RAM limit on the single processor machine”
Well even if i think that this limit is not welcome, most of the machine with one quad core processor on the market have a limit of 8 GB.
-“graphical card”
Definitely a valid point. I also think that the choice is too small and that it should be much better. But recently, we got good news in that regard, Nvidia announced that the Quadro FX 1800 is coming to the mac this month, and the GeForce GTX 285 will ship in June. So the choice is suddenly much better, together with the ATI Radeon HD 4870, we’ve got the last high end cards. But it is not enough, i wish Nvidia and ATI will bring to mac more cards, like the GTX 295 or ATI’s FirePro line.
Also i wish Apple would also offer the ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 1 GB of VRAM, i can’t get why it is only available at 512 MB.
@kragil
Read that and read it carefully
http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa08/tech/hubbard_talk.pdf
And don’t come with your “And what?” BS, knowing that you seem little informed on what you are talking about. MAC is implemented on MAC OS X, and in fact a lot of state of the art security features are implemented on OS X, the real question is when Apple will leverage all those features to its built-in apps like Safari.
@dragossh
Because maybe it did not fit well with the Aqua paradigm.
@jakub007
What do you mean by broken? Even if it is not perfect, i rather think that it works quite well mots of the time or at least as expected.
There are Mac-compatible Blu-ray burners. Then again those could turn out to be this generation’s Zip drive.
I don’t understand why a Macintosh requires a mac-specific graphics card, when the various hackintoshes that work with generic cards show that this apparently isn’t necessary. The small amount of hacking required to make this work could just as well be done properly by Apple.
Could anyone please explain why it is this way?
So Apple can get more money by charging gfx card companies to make their cards Mac compatible?
I think it has to do with the BIOS (Windows) vs. EFI (OS X). I do not know how difficult it is to make a card support EFI, but that might not even be the issue. Since the Mac Pro is the only Mac that has removable graphics it might not be worth the effort to offer a bunch of cards, or even one more than they do now; however, I think it should be easy enough to offer the same cards, but with more RAM.
Maybe Apple will surprise us and turn the low-end Mac Pro into a Core i5 and keep the high-end Core i7. This could be done easily because the RAM and processor are on a riser board so the rest of the system does not need to be redesigned and would offer the following benefits:
1 – The low-end Mac Pro could get a price reduction.
2 – It would separate the two models even more while keeping both more powerful and expandable than the iMac.
3 – There would be little, to no, cannibalization of the other models.
I think that EFI from Intel normally has an interface to load the BIOS code from add-in cards. Unless Apple took that out.
It is a driver issue too. I believe Apple gets driver code from ATI and nVidia and customizes it to their own specifications. The driver code probably works on most nVidia cards and most ATI cards, but Apple only wants to support the cards they qualify in testing.
They can get away with it because the older PPC Macs used OpenFirmware and that really wouldn’t work without a different BIOS, so Apple customers are used to it.
I believe you’re correct. Apple does the main driver work for the cards. Until Apple releases a Mac for the rest of us (ie a Mac Pro without the Pro) I don’t see this changing as the Mac Pro is the only machine in Apple’s lineup with an upgradeable card.
Really, the Mac Pro is the odd man out, as all their other computers are just cleverly repackaged laptops.
On one hand I’m tempted to think that they should just let the video card companies develop drivers for OS X, so there’d be a wider selection of video card options… but then I think about how messy that gets on Windows if the drivers are crappy, and then I get to thinking maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea after all. Of course, lately, Apple hasn’t been doing a steller job with graphics drivers themselves…
Also, the Quad Core Mac Pro actually supports 16 GB of RAM. Apple only underreported it as 8 GB [to make foolish people buy the 8 core model?]
Source:
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/30/quad-core-nehalem-mac-pros-supp…
Apple’s specs reflect the memory modules that were available at the time of release which was 2GB at the time.
Now that there are 4GB modules, expect the specs of the next model to reflect that.
4GB modules were available at the moment of release and Apple was offering them on the 8-core model but not on the 4 core one. That’s how they offered 32 GB RAM with just 8 slots.
Better control over windows:
– Resizing in each corner via hotkey or moving via hotkey, like Window Maker.
– Vertical and horizontal stacking of windows.
– Moving windows between displays with a hotkey.
– Exposé doesn’t display mini-windows.
– Changing screen resolution screws up how windows are arranged on the desktop. It should really not be affected, if I’m playing a game at a lower resolution and then returning to the desktop.
– Some windows are put entirely out of view of the desktop or move up behind the menu bar where you can’t move them. They appear in Exposé, but you can’t grab them.
Generally in OSX:
– Some things should stay resident in memory, like window management, volume control so they are not susceptible to delays when swapping. (Mute dammit. Mute! The phone is ringing.)
– OpenGL on my late 2007 Macbook GMA3100 is really buggy and it’s gotten worse over time with updates. Some 3D apps crash after 30 seconds of use. Others are just incredibly, astronomically slow. Even kernel panics appear thanks to bad drivers. I’m a little scared that this won’t be fixed, just because my Macbook is made of last generation hardware. It’s plenty fast for my needs, but just really unstable.
– Get rid of all those space consuming printer drivers. (Snow Leopard will do that).
– Much better access to services. They are underused and hard to access without using 3rd party programs. It feels like a forgotten part of NeXTSTEP just stuffed in the back.
– Proper LaunchD management. Lingon for OSX Leopard is inadequate.
– EXT2/3 driver.
– New users are often confused as to why OSX might run slow or why the fans are running all the time. Activity Monitor often answers the question (a rogue app or a lot of swapping), but Activity Monitor is hard to understand for new users. Worse is that if it’s an app that persistently fails because it’s a startup item, some users will just give up and choose to entirely reinstall OSX (i.e. the Windows solution). There should be a simple way to indicate discretely that the computer is under stress for some reason and offer a way to solve it. Perhaps with a simple red indicator in the menu bar, which you can click and see what’s eating many resources right now.
Finder:
– Proper multithreading. Stop the beachball from appearing when a single network resource goes dead. Apple ought to make windows with a “disabled” appearance and generally block only the one window which is causing trouble. That would be very Apple like and much less frustrating.
– OSX relies too much on Spotlight in Finder where very simple filtering would work better and much faster like it did in Panther. They can say what they want, but Spotlight is just not 100% realtime. My old PowerMac 333 Mhz is sometimes faster at finding files in Panther than my Macbook.
– Slow drives are handled poorly. OSX often behaves as if your drives are the latest and fastest, always there and always reliable. Behold Finder grinding to a halt, if you put in a cheap and slow USB 1.1 memory key and it attempts to spotlight index it.
– Trash can’t be emptied because an unknown app is using a file. It can’t be that hard to just print in the dialog which app is using that file?
– Folder merging. Please add it. I have to have muCommander hanging around, just because of that single feature.
– Impossible to move a file without using drag’n’drop with the mouse and at times also keyboard.
– Duplicate existing window with the same path.
– A persistent bug that causes the folder renaming editing field to be very flakey. It’s been there since 10.5.0.
– Forward and back button has no popup history. It’s in Safari, so why not in Finder?
– If a shortcut alias to a folder on a network drive in the sidebar has once been dead, you must recreate it for it to work again.
Quicklook:
– Quicklook has some illogical and missing keyboard shortcuts.
– Quicklook ought to have some kind of all-purpose raw view for files that aren’t recognized, something like a hex editor view. It’s annoying to look at a file and not being able to see its contents.
Preview:
– Blur an area of a picture. This would be extremely useful if you are taking a screenshot for publishing and want to blur out sensitive information.
Spaces:
Just about everything. Throw it out and start over. It’s just done entirely wrong as it works completely backwards from the philosophy of the dock and how apps and windows work in OSX.
Automator:
While it appears simple to use, some tasks are hopelessly complicated or impossible, because the right commands simply don’t exist. There are just too few of them and the ones that are there are too complex. A more sensible list of commands would improve Automator a whole lot.
Safari:
– Search for tabs. I often have 50 tabs open. Why am I not allowed to search for them?
Give the people what they want and a machine mid way between the mac pro and the mac mini. A quad core machine, with a smaller limit on RAM and HDD etc.. so it wouldn’t compete with the mac pro.
Mac OSX as others have said im actually still pleased with the function and use of the OS on the whole. The one thing i would love them to change is when copying a folder with the same name to another drive causes the destination folder to be replaced, i would prefer the windows method of merging the two folders togeather.
Actually, now that Mac mini can run 2 monitors out of the box, I don’t have much need for Mac towers anymore.
While the built in internal hard drive bays are nice, it is quite simple to just plug in firewire drives on a Mac mini. Plus you don’t have to shut down the tower to open the box and swap them.
I rarely use up more than 2GB of 4GB on my Mac Pro. With the Mac mini’s supporting 4GB, that’s good enough too.
The one thing that drives me nutters with Mac OS X is the lack of short-cuts and mnemonics.
The need to install a third party programs so you can tab between different windows of the same program is a horrible hack on the system.
Other pet peeve for me is that if you have multiple windows of the same program all of them are visible if one is. There is all or nothing here.
On the same topic when you switch between different Desktops most often than not your open Finder windows is in focus.
A general nitpicking that that includes both Mac OS X, Windows and Linux(Gnome, KDE) is that application steals focus. Simple demonstration: if I start a program which I know takes a long time to startup (say Photoshop / Eclipse) I switch to my programming editor and continues working and as I type along in the editor the newly started program comes up and steals the focus. This can get awkward if you just were about to press the delete button which now does something entirely unintended.
Have you tried using Cmd-Backtick?
Exactly
And I have it remapped as cmd-º (my keyboard is in spanish).
Now I have, and I’m liking it.
Thanks.
ofcourse KDE actually has focus stealing prevention which can be configured nicely….
Able to configure the trackpad with any gestures you want.
Swipe left to right with shift key to hide all running windows and show desktop. I know you can with FN+F11 but I want the ability to change it with what I WANT.
Can you voice activate to switch workspace by any chance?
I “lol”‘ed at the video chipsets that Apple rolled out with its nForce-based computers. Nvidia 9400M? 9500? Why does Apple’s over-the-top 8-core monster machine come with as much graphics performance as 2007’s “disappointing” Nvidia 8600? That’s an utter joke. I paid $1,500 AUD for my computer 18 months ago and got a silent version of the 8600… why pay $5000 AUD today and get essentially the same thing?
Also, if you’re the main backer behind an initiative to improve GPGPU, and have promised it as a major new feature to the upcoming version of your operating system, why would you ship all your computers with weak graphics cards that won’t be able to offer much in the way of GPU acceleration?
I hear ya, every time I look at the configurations for mac’s, I see the highest configuration for graphics, is 3 generations lower than the midrange card I bought almost 2 years ago. Why they insist on halfass graphics for a computer that cost more than my first 3 cars is beyond me.
I discovered many annoyances in OS X since I use it but the most dangerous thing was the unix-like handling of folders and files. I mean the bad thing is that there’s no merge command by default or as an option.
When I was a beginner Mac user I faced this problem several times that I lost a lot of files when I wanted to copy or move one folder over another.
In fact I can’t really imagine how it’s possible that they don’t realize that it’s extremely destructive and dangerous.
Even if i’m an advanced user now on Mac it happened to me one more time that I wanted to move a folder to another drive and the moving stopped. Then I wanted to continue by moving the folder again to the other drive and I forgot that it won’t continue the operation but overwrite the whole folder with the first one which does not contain the moved files…
Edited 2009-05-09 12:48 UTC
The way I see that, it’s doing exactly what it tells you. It asks you whether you wish to replace a folder–not existing files in that folder, but the folder itself. Replace means replace, and it does precisely what it is indicating it will do. If anything, Windows has made this one unclear by muddling the meaning of folder replacement.
What I’d like to see done is simply have three buttons in that dialog instead of two: replace, merge, and cancel. Everybody’s happy, and it couldn’t be more clear what will happen when you click the button.
While playing around with the Windows 7 RC on my laptop I noticed that the wording has been changed to “Merge” instead of “Replace.”
cp /path/to/source/folder/* /path/to/dest/folder/
done, the way it should be. I’d always wished a terminal command could be typed out from finder.
Yeah, yeah I know “gui this”, “not easy that”. But “Advanced Users” should be able to master the cp command.
I’m impressed – some people here have really long (and good) lists what could be changed. I’ll just add some minor points for OSX:
– By default, either disable Spotlight’s urge to leave dozens of hidden cache files on portable drives, or at least reduce the number. Just recently I lent my USB stick to someone running Leopard – and it came back loaded with indexing data useless to me.
– Make dragging documents out of the dock copy or move them. Really, the first time I tried that, I found it… counterintuitive to see a text file puff away in a cloud.
– Give me themes. Or at least a less depressing layout. But oh well, that has been discussed somewhere here on OSNews before.
– Make the mouse acceleration more customizable. I’m not aware of the way Leopard handles it, as I’m running Tiger. In Tiger, I had to install a 3rd party tool to get a (in my opinion) sanely moving mouse pointer.
To add to your first point… provide a way to disable the creation of OS X-specific files on non-OMac removeable storage, period. Even without spotlight indexing on these devices, almost every file I access gets a file named ._filename.ext, obviously replace filename.ext with the actual name and extension. That, plus the .DS_Store, .Trashes, and other such files in every folder quickly can get out of hand. You can disable .DS_Store creation for network services, but that’s about it and even that you need to do through a manual settings change in Terminal or use one of the many OS X Tweaking apps such as Tinkertool or Onyx.
Yes, I know you can purchase Blueharvest to stop this behavior (it watches for these files and deletes them on removeable storage the instant they’re created) or download service scripts that will clean the drive for you before you eject it, but that’s really not the point. Other oses have managed just fine, for many years, without cluttering up non-native formatted drives. Mac on the other hand has always done this… about the only good thing I can say about OS X in this regard is that OS 8 and 9 were much worse, and left a lot more clutter on removeable media.
I’ve been using OSX for a couple months now (was previously a linux/windows user). I have gotten used to most of the smaller annoyances (meaning the “mac” way of doing things). However my biggest complaints are:
1) The UI is very much mouse centric. There are keyboard shortcuts for some things, but not all. And a lot of the alert dialogues are modal with NO keyboard input at all. Some programs provide keyboard shortcuts for their alerts (creative suite being one), but they aren’t “obvious”. I found them only by accident (hitting the first letter of the label of the button), but no tab support
The biggest offender ofcourse is the “Your about to run an application downloaded from the internet” dialogue… get rid of it! Its useless.
2) Better dual/multi-monitor support. I’m a dual monitor junky. I will never be able to go back to using a single monitor. Sure they have expose and the like to help manage windows when working with a single monitor, but I personally don’t find these features useful at all (I’m working on a desktop, may be different when using a laptop i don’t know).
The biggest problem with dual monitors is the fixed “application bar” at the top of the screen. If you move a window to a different monitor, you have to mouse ALL the way back to your other screen to get context menus for your app. A HUGE oversight in my opinion. I think a dedicated menu bar for each monitor is a must.
3) Being an Ubuntu lover (I only switch to the mac because I have to have my adobe creative suite (photoshop/illustrator/flash) while still using an unix environment… and NO gimp is not a photoshop replacement for any true professional) but do sorely miss APT. I would love to see a built in package manager like APT.
Just my 2 cents
You need to turn on full keyboard access under System Preferences, Keyboard. That’ll take care of those pesky dialogs that won’t allow tabbing, as well as some other keyboard issues.
It only does that “Your about to run an application downloaded from the internet” the first time you run it, I think that’s a resonable reminder to be honest
I agree with the OP, get rid of that stupid dialog. I downloaded it, I opened it… which means, duh, that I want to run the app in question. Further, it does this for documents you download, too. I wasn’t pleased to see that in Leopard, I don’t need my computer to second-guess my actions thank you very much.
Reminder of what? Of the fact that I *just* downloaded an app and want to open it? At least give me the option to disable that stupid warning. Even Windows does this better.
And what if for some unknown security hole you have a file you didn’t download and it’s trying to open by itself?
Don’t be naive. I’m sure you don’t execute downloaded files ALL the time to consider that too annoying.
OS X has other more annoying things to worry about.
If you have a file that downloaded by itself, or via some worm, and is trying to open itself, it will. The warning only applies when the appropriate metadata is created and attached to the file by a known Application. Download a file with Safari and you get the warning. Download the file with wget or some other downloader and, low and behold, you don’t. Security helper? I don’t think so. So any file put there by another entity will execute without warning you, pure and simple… while most files you want to execute because you downloaded them yourself give you a warning. Bass ackwards, wouldn’t you say?
That is not the default behavior in Mac OS X, at least in Leopard.
All Applications, except those signed by Apple, the first time they are run they need to be authenticated in kernel, so it says the warning… This is an app I am going to execute it… download from the internet… blah blah…
The same happens with documents which call an App that has never been used. The system assumes once an App has been approved to execute the user is OK with it and it is safe. Computers do not know good from bad…. The App is signed. If a supposedly virus enters and changes the code of the App, which happens in Windows XP a lot, automatically the kernel does not let the App to execute next time and, when the user tries to execute, the System asks the user to allow it to execute again. And says, this App has changed… blah blah blah.
Of course, if the user is so stupid to allow a Virus to execute… There is nothing to do about it. It is his/her computer.
In fact, Skype, had a very strange issue at the beginning when Mac OS X Leopard came out. After the first time you run Skype, Sype changed part of its code and Mac OS X Kernel assumed it was a virus. So it did not let it execute again, and you need to reinstall.
I think it is very useful this kind of protection, but again, it is not idiot proof.
The thing about it says you download something from Internet is just a reminder to the user that this could be dangerous.
Especially, if it is a document, and it is asking to execute… If that happens it is not right. And the user must know what to do… Computers are pretty stupid. They do what they told.
Incorrect. Use a nightly webkit build, or lftpget or other similar command-line tool and download an app or dmg, then try to run it. Watch what doesn’t happen… no warning. Your point about documents executing is likewise flawed, as all documents when first downloaded from any web application that Apple incorporates this feature into will ask to be opened, executable content or not. There’s no way the user would have any idea what is dangerous and what’s not, and the sheer unhelpfulness of this feature for security purposes is ridiculous.
Is an average user likely to download files in this manner? NO. But is a worm likely to do so if one gets in, and therefore bypass this so-called protection? You bet.
Funny, that was a “security” feature added to the OS after OS pundits complained that there was nothing to tell a user they were trying to open some random app a web page deposited on their computer.
“The biggest problem with dual monitors is the fixed “application bar” at the top of the screen. If you move a window to a different monitor, you have to mouse ALL the way back to your other screen to get context menus for your app. A HUGE oversight in my opinion. I think a dedicated menu bar for each monitor is a must.”
I second that. Having to move my mouse so far to get to the menu bar was a pain. So much so that I decided to get a second computer to power my second display.
Xen is arguably the most powerful virtualization technique at the moment. In order to use Xen on Macs, however, one will have to run Linux or Solaris as host, and OS X as guest. The problem with this is that 1) Apple does not approve running OS X virtualized, and 2) you probably don’t want to do it that way around anyway. If Apple would add dom0 support to Darwin, OS X could become a very nice virtualization host. Apple does a good job of letting you dual boot XP or Vista. Letting you virtualize them at close to native speed would make even more sense.
I rarely use OS X but when I have to I am always amazed at how the OS changes but the Finder still seems primitive in its UI design. I prefer Gnome’s Nautilus or XFCE’s Thunar to the Finder. For such a GUI driver OS it amazes me the Finder appears to stand still as a file manager application. It is almost if the Apple magic never settled on the Finder.
I like the fact that MacOS X seems very well thought out. It looks great and offers a feeling of solidity and reliability.
What I don’t like is the fact that Apple tries too much to do things differently than other OSes. This sometimes can turn out great, but just as long as you don’t do things differently just for the sake of being different.
For example, I hate the way pgup, pgdown do strange shit, how the cmd key is where the alt key is on normal keyboards, how cmd is used in combinations instead of ctrl etc
I hate the Dock. After 6 month of trying hard I’ve gone back to Windows XP, because of the damn Dock. Even with Expose you struggle. If I have multiple windows of the same program it’s a nightmare.
I hate the unique menu, it’s disorienting.
I hate Finder. It’s the worst default filemanager of any OS. I hate the fact that you can’t replace it completely. Even if you use other filemanagers the f–ker pops up when you least expect it.
I hate the way windows maximize. I hate the way zips are expanded when you open them. I hate that some applications have an installer but not an uninstaller.
Many of the above are not such a big deal and some of them have some kind of workaround, but day by day they get to you, little by little. I just can’t get into the Apple’s way of doing things. That’s why I’m writing this on my old Windows computer while my shinny new MacBook collects dust in a corner.
Regarding the command key… you realize that it’s been that way since long before Windows was even conceived, both in its placement and function?
Basically you want OS X to be Windows.
CMD was there for a long time and it’s sitting fine there, thank you. It’s more comfortable to use CMD+C than Ctrl+C.
Change the app, the menu changes to that app’s menu. I don’t see what’s so disorienting.
Usually windows don’t maximize, they zoom to fit the content. ZIPs are not folders, they should expand. And apps that come as .pkg and don’t have an uninstaller… well, give feedback to the packagers. It’s their fault.
Your other complaints are very valid, but still… don’t expect other OSes out there to be like Windows (aka the “normal way” of doing things).
Yes it’s true that I like those things from Windows. I also realize that a lot of the stuff that pissed me off has a tradition on Mac, but Macs have a market share of less than 10%, while Windows is around 90%. People will be accustomed to the way things work in Windows. IMO some of them even make more sense that way – like the PgUp/Dn stuff for example.
Let’s take Firefox for example. More or less they cloned IE’s UI and built upon that in the beginning. They weren’t so smug and self-centered to stay in their bubble and ignore their huge competitor.
I have a Mac at home, but everywhere I go (including work) – I’ll be using probably Windows computers and I’m gonna get confused. I’m going to press Ctrl on my Mac or Alt or the Win key on the Windows machine … it’s just a mess.
Since they are the underdog they should at least have a mode for Windows switchers. I’m so pissed that I was so close to adjusting to Macs (and to love it in the process), but this stuff just got me down.
So I guess this is the thing that upsets me most about Mac OS X (besides the retarded Finder): Just make a mode for Windows switchers – get the appropriate shortcuts, make the windows maximize to fullscreen and offer a downloadable taskbar utility to replace the dreadful dock.
Edited 2009-05-09 19:49 UTC
Why should Apple compromise YEARS of design just because windows users are too stupid or too lazy to learn something new. Obviously don’t have to change not since OSX usage has been on the rise. Younger less brainwashed users (such as college students) have no issues using OSX. Some of them (like me)first machine was actually an Apple machine. We are used to the way it works, just like Windows users are used to the way it works. That doesn’t mean that I expect MS to think or work like Apple (though Windows 7 is cutting it very close).
Apple has had its particular brand of UI design for years, and frankly to some of us, its superior in many ways to what’s out there. Sure there are little stupid things that they need to change but dumbing down their design decisions to pander to Windows users is not one of things they need to do. Their OS is what differentiates them from your run of the mill OEM, cloning windows will be just as bad as when MS did the same for Mac OS. Sure MS chnaged things around and stole a couple of things from other OSs but most of what they did was already established by Apple years before.
Here is a 711 word help document for Mac users on the topic of “How to right-click”:
http://www.macinstruct.com/node/66
Edited 2009-05-10 04:04 UTC
I might say the Mac users are pseudo-intellectual snobs, Steve’s bitches, shallow etc, but I won’t, because I’m trying to make a point here not insult people.
I’m not talking about dumbing down OS X. I’m talking about making a few existing features work in a different way – like changing some shortcuts here and there, tweaking the way windows behave – and I’m not saying to make that default – just offer it as an option. But we all know, Apple is not so big on options. They can do no wrong.
Ok, I admit, the Dock thing is a big thing, but … I really do think that the concept is retarded. Imagine you could still open tabs in Firefox, but you’d only have a tab for each different site. So, for example if I were to open 4 articles on OSNews I’d only see one OSNews tab, not 4. Apple knows it’s stupid, and this is why they’ve created Expose, but the Dock is their trademark and they can’t give that up, or admit they are wrong.
Funny you should mention the Dock and its behavior because Windows 7 seems to work similarly. It only shows you one Icon for your application not multiple task windows. One thing it does do is give you a preview of each task but the Dock shows you this information as well, it may not be as pretty but it does do it. In OSX you are usually discouraged from minimizing, the idea is that you will have all of the your windows open and if not open at least the application will be running. The Dock makes it very easy to see what is running and what is not, Expose makes it easy to see every window open per application, or all open windows. So basically changing the fundamentals of OSX because they don’t fit into your nice little Windows box, because you think Apple should cater to the masses is stupid. The way OSX works is the way Mac OS has worked for years for the most part with a huge swathe of NeXTStep thrown in for good measure and a couple of trick of its own like Expose thrown in to make up for a big failing in OS classic and 10.0 which was how to handle multiple windows in a sane way.
It would be a terrible mistake to that because Mac OS X and Windows have two different approaches to user interface. Mac OS X is more based on Applications, while Windows is more based on tasks.
Saying so… a Mac OS X App by default and by design has to take only the screen state that is necessary to operate… No the whole screen.
Windows, by default, switches the environment to the task… So an Application needs to take the whole screen by default.
This means two completely different ways of thinking. Mac OS X relies heavily on drag and drop because it assumes you can see both windows. Windows rely heavily on copy/paste, because it assumes you are in one task and you will switch to another task. In Windows, you will not see both Apps by default.
What you are thinking is making Macintosh behave like Windows, because you are just assuming Windows is the right way. You feel bad in the Mac, because you are using it as Windows and the paradigm is different.
The same thing happen to Mac users when they use Windows.
Is it a matter of getting used to ? It could be… But bear in mind some things:
1. Screens are getting bigger and bigger these days… Does it make sense any time you open an application to take the whole screen? Have you seen that on a 30 inch monitor? It is ridiculous. It is waste in pure form.
2. Considerations that made sense into designing a User Interface 10 years ago, do no apply today. Copy/paste is a great concept, but it is artificial…. People who are not into computers do not manage their lives thinking in tasks and copy/paste. Actually it does take time to get use to it. Drag and drop seems more natural, but, if you cannot see both Windows, it is useless.
I do not know, but unless you are using a Netbook, Mac OS X seems more about future than Windows approach.
Maybe that’s why they haven’t gotten around to implementing Cut in Finder?
Most people will not go above 20-22″, because of the physical space in their rooms and on their desks. And let’s not forget that laptops are becoming more and more popular by the day.
Copy/paste can be explained by a real-world metaphor – you take an object, put it into your pocket (clipboard) and take it where it’s needed. It’s not rocket science.
I understand the whole paradigm difference, and the fact that windows should stay visible for drag and drop, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have all the windows visible, say on a taskbar thingy, so that you could drop what you need there? I usually stop midway in a drag and drop operation because I forget where my target window is. Sure I can use Expose to locate it, but it adds unnecessary complexity.
Cut in Finder? Can you elaborate more… What do you mean?
Of course, not all situations are equal. Netbooks are terrible with this paradigm… Laptops, are fine, especially Mac Laptops because even though they are small, they have high resolutions.
For example, MacBook Pro 17 inch, is 1920×1200.
And it is not as big as 17 inch PC Laptop.
Of course it is not rocket science… But in order to explain cut/paste, you are using drag and drop… Can you see it?
A tricky user could tell you… Is not easier if I just put the thing where I want directly instead of placing it first in my pocket? And you might argue: Of course it is easier if you know where you are going to place it. In Mac it would be easier because you see the target, but in Windows would be very difficult because you don’t. In a pure philosophy design, of course.
It could… But I believe there must be a problem. And it crosses my mind, for example, if you have to drag and drop a text selection that needs to be inserted into some place. With tiny Windows, would be very difficult to find the place to insert the text.
In Exposé this is easy. Suppose you have the left/down corner to activate Exposé:
You Select the text, drag the selection to the left/down corner to the screen, Exposé activates, choose the window, then place it where you want it, and release the selection. That’s the way I have seen Mac users do it. It seems perfectly natural, and once you get used to it, seems almost the way you do it in the real world. A little Minority Report, but it is closer to real life.
Cut and Paste works, but it is more abstract. There is no spatial orientation, people do not have feedback of what they are doing, they need to focus and remember they place something somewhere they do not know where it is and it will appear there when they hit paste. You get used to it, and people will understand it, but the other way seems more real, more natural, more human.
I have known many switchers, most of them, if they get the metaphor right, they never go back to Windows. Most of frustrated switchers is because they want to use Mac OS X as Windows, and it is not. If it were, it would be Windows, not Mac.
Cut, as in Ctrl+X, to move files.
Drag and drop is fine for beginners, because as you said it’s easier to understand, but it can only go so far. If you need to have a workflow and do things fast you need to work with keyboard shortcuts, or at least to do things more precisely and consistent.
Ctrl+C, scroll, Ctrl+V is certainly much faster than click, hold mouse button while you go over the scrollbar button, or while you clumsily move the mouse wheel with another finger, do some precision pointing to find the right place to drop the text, and then release the button without moving the pointer.
Or Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab (or click on taskbar to swich window), Ctrl+V, instead of click, hold mouse button, activate Expose, find the window (but be careful not to release the button), activate window, release button.
It’s a mess.
Sure, Drag and Drop has its place, but not for copy and paste if you want to do something remotely serious with your computer.
I, for one, didn’t want to buy a 19″ monitor because the default resolution was too high – 1280×1024. Unfortunately it’s the only option and I had to settle for it.
I’d buy a higher resolution monitor only when the GUI of the OS I use will be made using vector graphics and would look fine scaled regardless of resolution and scale factor.
Ha! well no.. I have seen Mac users doint this operation with astonishingly precision. In fact, I must say beautifully fast.
You think copy/paste is faster because you are used to it and you have learned and trained to work around the limits, paradigms and metaphors of the platform. So, you are used to it. But, believe, the same things happen to a Mac users when they use Windows machine. And there are many Mac users who have only used Macs their whole life. Not everyone in Mac Land is a switcher.
There is no reason to cut and paste a file in Mac OS X. What If you cut a file and forget to paste it later? You need to remember, and people are terrible remembering things. And besides, if you want to move a file to a very strange place, why not place it first on the desktop. Find the place you want and then, drag it from the desktop. That is the whole idea of the desktop, because it is a place to store temporary files. Desktop is not a giant wall with shortcuts to launch apps… That is not the way it was design 20 years ago.
And by the way… You seem to be thinking in mouse and hold clicks… Using a trackpad/trackball or a properly configured mouse which retain holds when you click is not so difficult, for example.
Besides Mac has shortcuts also, lice Command+N to open a second Finder window to do drag and drop.
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That is understandable because you are using Windows and Windows was designed with low resolution in mind. Microsoft cannot control the hardware and they settle to make a system that looked OK in low budget monitors, which are very common in Business. Everything is very pixel related and with high resolution everything looks very small.
However, Mac OS X was not design the same way. Apple controls hardware, so they know the whole user experience. They do not use ultra low budget monitors. They only use high resolution displays.
In fact 1280×800 is a 13 inch resolution in Mac hardware. And it looks fine, because Apple made its design thinking about high resolution.
You are assuming a bunch of stuff because you think Windows is right and makes sense to you… But that is not always true. Windows have nice ideas, but Windows is not right about everything, in fact, Windows is highly inconsistent in many things.
The fact that Windows is the dominant platform, because it has lots of market share does not prove Windows as a superior technology product. However, it says a lot about Microsoft and the very good decisions they made in its business model.
Any user interface specialist can tell you hundred of things that were better implemented in systems that these days are now dead or almost dead… Like Amiga, Atari ST, OS/2 and many experimental and academic systems. Please do not assume that Windows success is related to its interface design or technology merits, it is just related to Microsoft business strategy.
There was a time, when DOS was also the most popular platforms, and GUI systems were also selling like Atari ST, Amiga and Macintosh. Mac has always been expensive, but Atari and Amiga were really cheap, even by today standards, and they had mouse and everything else. They failed to grab market share, though, but that’s another story.
You put things into words much better than I did, but what you posted here is what I was getting at. Windows users for some reason think that Windows has to be well designed because the OS was ingrained into them.
I have a user at work who has never used a Windows machine before and she has asked me several times about copy/paste among other things. She is used to using drag and drop for everything. Its weird because most other users think she’s an idiot because she doesn’t know how to use windows or do basic things in windows, but they would probably get the same response from her if they sat down in front of a Mac. She genuinely doesn’t understand windows, and who would expect her to (except her boss ofcourse). If you’ve never used windows before then its hard to get. I know when I first used Windows 3.1 I couldn’t make heads nor tail of it. When Win95 came out I was even more confused. Start Menu what the hell was that? Where the hell is the program manager (I had gotten used to 3.1 by then), but I learned, I didn’t expect Win95 to work like what I was used to (though it actually did have a compat mode for 3.1 one where it would work very similarly).
My first computer experience as a child was an Apple][ in grade school, then a Mac in the later years.
Well, the solution is simple… and one that every platform except Mac has figured out. When you cut a file, it is not moved, altered, or changed in any way… until you paste it. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Why would I want to drag the file to the desktop, then drag it into the folder I want instead of opening the folders and quick cut/paste? Finder has a copy/paste which actually works, why not allow cut to work as well? Oh, and what about those of us who for one reason or another can’t really use the mouse or trackpad?
Well, if you cannot use a mouse or a trackpad, you cannot use a graphical interface. So the discussion is pointless. Even under cut and paste, or drag and drop you need a pointing hardware device. If you cannot point or see, this discussion is over, because I realize you are not serious about what is being discussed here, you are just trying to be right whatever cost is and just started to say stupid things. This is an OS News discussion, I expect some level of intelligence.
On the other side, what you are referring to is copy/paste, and copy/paste is implemented. But a cut/paste, which does not really cut is a terrible approach. Imagine that you cut a file and you are traveling to the target folder, then you forget to paste it, because you got distracted by another thing, like a mail that arrived. When is it safe to rollback the operation? In an hour? In 5 minutes? What the user expects?It is an inconsistent operation to a casual user.
A system must try to protect the user from doing stupid things and cutting files is not a transparent operation because it involves disappearing a file.
Cut and paste also consume resources. Because you can cut a file, but how many times can you paste it? Endless times, so the behavior is not consistent, if you just make the file invisible. You need to hold the file somewhere in memory, or move it to somewhere first, and resolve things at the moment of actually pasting it. What if I want different operations over different items and I cut them all… Where do they go?
This happens in Microsoft Windows and when you move a file using cut/copy/paste you can actually see a dialog that says: moving file with a progress bar. Mac OS X drag and drop use less resources, those dialogs are never seen on Mac OS X when you drag and drop something. So it tells you cut/copy/paste is more resource intense.
But now… A thing to consider: When do you really need to cut and paste a file? Only when you are moving a file through different hardrives. Mac OS X uses a command+drag and drop to do the same thing and it is a better approach to do it. It involves origin and target, visual feedback and it behaves as user expects to do it.
But because, in another platform, Windows, things are done differently, then Apple should follow? It makes no sense at all. You have not provided a better way to do it, but a different to way to do it. Cut/Copy/paste files is used in Microsoft Windows because it is implemented to work around the task oriented interface. It is not implemented because it is better… In fact, it is a very dangerous operation. Disappearing files is not a transparent procedure, even if it is not erased. And it is a terrible decision that had to be made in order to make Windows task oriented approach work. Linux distributions that mimic a task oriented approach have to implement it too, because it is needed in order to work.
But If you do not share that limitation because you are using another approach to user interface… Why on Earth you need to work the same way around a limitation you do not share? And efficiency is not the answer, because Mac OS X is pretty efficient too. Just to make switchers feel at home? If a switcher feels good at home? Then why switch?
Mac OS X is a different operating system, a different GUI, it is not a Windows copy, just like Windows is not a copy of Mac OS X. Even though they share lots of common ground and have copied bits of each other through the years.
Maybe when I’m in England they can make an American mode for when I’m driving on their roads too?
Maybe when I’m in India they can make an English mode so I don’t have to learn their language.
Maybe the whole world can make a lazy mode so that I can be coddled my entire life without having to relearn anything…
http://www.danrodney.com/mac/index.html
That’s exactly the same thing I thought when I read this. It would be nice, though… But almost impossible.
I hate how PC keyboards have CAPS LOCK and CTRL keys in the wrong place. LISP machine and Sun users everywhere for decades have suffered because of this on PC keyboards. It’s not fair! Wahhhhh……
You’re whining because it’s different but there’s also method to the madness. It’s easier on the fingers and they got there first. Before PC users even could envision the concept of system-wide copy and paste, the mac had it.
Apparently you have not figured out how to map Expose and dashboard to screen corners. Makes life a bit easier. You can even set it to display only the focused application’s Windows. Even cooler is that you can drag and drop while using expose in this fashion. Like if you want to drag something from your desktop to an app when you have a lot of Windows open.
Personally I LIKE the dock behavior.
Docks were in use long before OS X. NeXT had a dock, CDE has something like the dock, KDE panels, the GNOME panel, etc.
Again, you’re whining because it’s different. People like it enough that even Windows 7 has a dock now.
Wahhhhh….. I have to learn something, it’s so different…..
Maybe if you learned something about computing instead of memorizing a few learned tasks someone showed you a long time ago on a Windows machine, you might be better off.
You can keep that piece of crap Windows box, we won’t miss you. It sounds like Windows is the right choice of operating system for you. I wish you many years of joy.
Hate the way program dialogue boxes won’t let you copy/paste, delete or rename. The finder itself takes up way too much screen space. Other than that, I’ve no real problem with it. Was asked to fix someone’s Vista laptop recently – with all the loaded-on bloat certain makers are so fond of – and seriously missed the declutter of OSX.
I’d change the keyboard. I miss not have a ctrl key on the right side of the pad, so much. I’d also add a home and end key.
I wish I could keep one window in front of the others (aka “Always on top”).
Yep, KDE style, that would be nice.
There’s a tool for OSX which does that for Cocoa applications:
http://infinite-labs.net/afloat/
It adds new options in the “window” menu entry. Not really elegant but nice to have the option.
Doesn’t work in Carbon applications like Finder, iTunes, Photoshop though. Applications with their own tool kit like Firefox are also not supported.
Thanks for the tip.
Lack of a standard integrated iSCSI initiator is one annoyance. You can get one from a third party but what storage vendor would want to qualify all of them.
Another annoyance is support for NFSv4 is only alpha. OSX’s support for CIFS is more developed then NFS since at least it supports ACLs.
1. Cut function to work (Command+X); because it never worked and if it works locally it would never work on the mounted network volumes.
2. Finder has address bar and able to show hidden files/folders and to allow traversing folders with .app extension
3. maximize button to maximize to the whole screen
4. a short-cut to engage screen saver or to lock screen (much like Ubuntu Ctrl+Alt+l; or windows Win+l)
5. Mac Pro to have dual PSU; and to have capacity for 6 or 8 HDD and to have 5 years extended warranty
6. any mac with pro to have 5 years extended warranty
7. Availability of accidental damage warranty for at least the Pro laptops.
8. Availability of dpi and system fonts customization to allow people to better see the interface. Much like in Ubuntu “System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts>Details>Resolutio n”
9. A new Desktop in the line between Mac Pro and imac that has no integrated screen while having expansion capabilities, better Cooling and midpowerful CPU (up to Core2Quad)and midpowerful RAM (8GB ECC Max). and let’s call it “Mac Mid” for “Mac Middle”
10. Volume Control in their Mice
11. Much better Graphics Solution especially on Mac Pro and previously suggested Mac Mid.
12. Much better pre installed unix support and much better Console than X11 (needs a complete revision).
I wish all developmental packages installed rather than going to get xcode and install it then still you need to configure it. I need gcc and other packages available out of the box.
13. There are still more I wish to see and finally I wish Apple would listen
Thanks for reading
I’ve been given a new Macbook Pro by the company I work for. Very nice, very fast machine. I pretty much love it except:
All of the USB/Firewire ports are on the same side of the machine. With the work I do and the peripherals I usually have connected to the machine, the left side gets very busy, very fast. And once you have a couple of cables plugged in, you can forget using many usb thumb drives as they won’t fit.
And Finder seems anemic.
That’s pretty much my list of gripes. I’ve been very happy with everything else. It’s been very stable under heavy load (lots of A/V editing and conversion and graphics creation). Also, with the new version of the “laptop” I’m using, it’s *much* cooler even under load.
I agree with many points already made, so I won’t mention them here. Some points that haven’t been mentioned yet:
– Localized keyboards: Pleeeease print characters that are accessible via alt or alt-shift onto the keyboard keys. It’s highly annoying to look for ][~{}|\ on a german keyboard, especially for people new to the Mac.
– Menu bar on multiple displays: While I love the menubar being at the top of the screen, mouse ways get really long when multiple displays are involved, especially if they are of size 24″+. I don’t know what the ideal solution would be, but I’m confident that the Apple engineers will find a good solution if they start considering it to be a problem.
– Mail.app: Although not being an integral part of the OS itself, I’ll mention it here anyway, since it ships with the OS and these 2 points make it absolutly unusable for me: 1) Proper threading of mail conversations: The current solution is of no use for mailing lists or private conversations with more than 3 or 4 mails and more than 2 participants. Have a look at how Thunderbird, or even better KMail, does this, as Thunderbird too often doesn’t get it right. And 2) Better handling of huge Mailboxes over IMAP. The current IMAP support is dog slow, at least way too slow for my mailbox which currently contains a couple hundred of thousands of mails.
I’ll echo one of Thom’s points – Fix The Effing Finder! Even just a straight port of OpenTracker would be an improvement.
Software installation. Distributing apps in disk images is clever and all, but I can’t count the number of novice OS X users I’ve encountered who leave apps in the DMG files and run them from the disk image every time. It wouldn’t take much to address – maybe a dialogue saying “This disk image appears to contain an application, would you like to copy it to the Applications folder? [Copy] [Cancel].”
Disk Utility. Is there any good reason why it can’t create a new volume from unpartitioned space without erasing any existing partitions on the same disk?
Give users an option to swap the Ctrl and Cmd keys – c’mon, BeOS was able to manage that 10 years ago. I have an old G4 hooked up to my KVM, but almost never use it because I’m using a Model M keyboard – no windows/CMD key, so most keyboard shortcuts don’t work.
That option is already there. System prefs, keyboard pain, then click the modifier options button. You can set each modifier there and what you want it to do, so set ctrl to command and leave alt as option and you should be set. Note this applies to Leopard, I don’t remember if this functionality was in Tiger or earlier.
Ah-ha, thank you sir! I’d never noticed that before, and the setting is present in 10.4.
Despite preferring many Mac-isms (largely as a result of using BeOS), using Ctrl for things like copy/cut-paste, closing windows, quitting applications, etc, is just too ingrained in my mind at this point.
First, Apple’s choices are too limited for my tastes. I either get a Mac Pro, iMac, or a Mac Mini. What I would like to have is a non-Xeon tower that I can use the monitor of my choice and swap components at will. Besides, those laptop components used in the iMac are more expensive than off the shelf components that are standardized. I want quality, but I don’t need Xeon, nor do I want limitations placed on me. Basically, I want what would be a pretty nice gaming rig on the PC, but as a Mac.
Second, what’s with Apple’s graphics card choices? They’re rather lame. Do they not understand that many Mac users also want to play games in Windows? Crysis is extremely demanding…
they need to use core i7 processors. theres no reason to use xeon processors.
and they need to offer the pro mac, in more hardware options. for example. a one chip system with 4 gigs of ram. a 2 chip system with 8 gigs.
Actually, Apple uses Xeon processors because i7 processors cannot be used in multiprocessor designs.
i7 processor are artificially handicap. Intel removed the necessary components to create a multiprocessor computer because i7 is user oriented and common users do not need a machine with two discrete CPUS.
Apple does not offer i7 on the cheap Mac Pro and Xeon on the high end, in part because Xeon are very expensive, and buying them in larger quantities make them cheaper. So, Apple uses only Xeon to keep costs down. That’s why Mac Pro with one CPU are expensive, but Mac Pro with two CPUs are cheaper than a comparable DELL. Since only professional people use Mac Pros, it makes sense.
However, I agree, it would be nice if Apple had more machines in its portfolio. And I assume one day might have.
From what I understand, the i7 does not support ECC memory which makes it a no-no for professional server use.
And no, ECC is not only about testing if memory is faulty at boot.
Another reason to use the Xeon version of the I7 is the ECC RAM support. With the integrated memory controller of the I7 CPUs it isn’t a motherboard feature anymore; it is a CPU feature just as with AMD’s Opterons.
Non-ECC RAM will have memory errors. In many gigabytes there will be some every week. In a gaming computer that may be tolerable, but not in a workstation.
Change the license. This is the worse thing about OsX.
I want to be able to install OsX on the regular PC machine. Everything else will come later.
And the reason is that Apple computers are stylish in the such a specific way, which can not be loved by everyone. Personally, I do not like Apple design. I would prefer something different, something not so rectangular, something not so black and white, with different keyboard. So I am not buying Apple machine. But I would like to try OsX. I would install it if I could just to try.
I would like Apple have a Core2Quad version of the Pro as entry level machine, with basic video card and all the Xeons as dual cpu with powerful video cards.
Talking of the Mac Pro, I would like an entry level model, like a Core 2 Quad with standard DDR2 memory instead of those Xeon-with-ECC-RAM monsters.
I’ll also use the opportunity to talk about the things which bother me about OS X. Some of the things might already have been mentioned by previous posters but repeating them surely won’t harm anybody. I’ve been using Linux (primary) and XP (secondary) for several years and have been an OS X user for the last 1 1/2 years.
So, in no specific order:
*) Make mail proxy aware as it seems to ignore the global proxy settings. I’ve never gotten it to work without 3rd party tools on the campus.
*) Implement Cisco VPN as most of the campuses I’ve been on require it to use the network.
*) Cut/Paste and merge support in Finder. The current destructive behaviour could still be made available with the option key.
*) Mnemonics: Since I don’t have a mouse with me most of the time I’m dependent on quick keyboard access to most menu items. The OS X way is rather clumsy and less efficient than in KDE or XP.
*) Give me the possibility to bring minimized windows back from the dock via keyboard.
*) New Time Machine interface. The current is just plain horrible. Once the first wow effect wears off it’s just cumbersome. Let me access backups directly in the finder without having my workflow disrupted by this slow animation crap.
*) Spotlight interface is sometimes cramped and it’s hard to decide which result item to use when all visible characters are the same (especially when searching for websites)
*) Quicklook should automatically work for all supported codecs/containers or at least after I’ve assigned QT player to it. I had to edit some XML files to get Quicklook working for MKV containers.
*) Which brings me to: More codecs out of the box, especially WMV.
*) FFS, don’t disable features arbitrarily, Apple. I’m looking at you, GMail address book sync (which is only available for IPhone users).
*) Rework spaces or at least give the options so that it works like virtual desktops on Linux. The current implementation isn’t useful to me as I can’t separate my tasks on a per application basis. For instance, I’d like to have a set of applications open for work and another one for university and alt-tabbing shouldn’t display application from all desktops.
*) Better privacy controls in Safari, especially extend cookie policies to Flash cookies (LSOs) as well. Plus, allow me to create session cookies only and define exceptions if needed.
*) Add Growl support to all appropriate applications or offer an officially supported replacement for it.
*) Maximize windows where appropriate. The “fit to content” approach fails in tabbed interfaces like Safari where each tab can have it’s own unique width and Safari doesn’t resize the window automatically so the window is still too wide or the content is cropped.
*) Unified theme and controls. While Leopard improved the situation OS X still have at least three different sets of controls.
So, that’s all the things that I can think of at the top of my head. Since people are also bringing up security again: Have Charlie Miller comments about the lack of OS X’ lack of security mechanism have been debunked or have the more ardent Apple users already wiped this memory from their brain?
Edited 2009-05-10 10:46 UTC
I’ll address a few of these, in particular the keyboard-related ones.
Better idea… just add a Merge button to that dialog.
This one is a bit of a double-edged problem. On one hand, mnemonics are nice for speedy access to menu items that don’t have shortcut keys. However, there are quite a few programs, both on the Windows side and on the *NIX side (GNOME in my case) that do not have mnemonics for menu items and sometimes this makes reaching them quickly with the keyboard impossible. For instance, say you have two options in the file menu: save, and save as. Under most mnemonics, Save has the mnemonic of “s,” while save as has “a.” Leaving aside the fact that you can save with either ctrl-s or cmd-s depending on your platform, say you want to get to save as. Save, however, still has the mnemonics of “s,” while the program developer did not assign one to save as. Now, you’re only option is to arrow down to save as, since pressing “s” will invoke save, leaving out the possibility of first letter navigation, and none is assigned to the option you want. The way OS X does it may seem clumsier in some cases, but I like that it’s consistent. The more you type of the menu item you’re after, the closer you get to it and it works for all menu items, regardless of what the programmer might have decided to do. Personally, I find it to be much more simple and efficient, and if there’s a menu option you access frequently but that is clumsy to get at this way, why not just assign your own custom shortcut key to it? OS X has the ability to do this for any menu item in any application that utilizes the standard menu bar, i.e. 99.9999% of all Mac apps. System prefs, keyboard pain, keyboard shortcuts tab, click the + button and select the Application and specify the menu item you want and the key to which it should be assigned. Presto, your own quick access keys customized exactly how you want them.
Covered already. Ctrl-f3 to go to the dock, left/right to the app in question (or start typing its name in Leopard), and press down arrow to pull down the Dock menu for that app which, among other things, contains a list of windows for it.
That is completely uncomfortable. Given the simplicity of minimizing an application (and how easy is to minimize it by mistake), taking all those steps is super out of the question… those minimized windows should show up when you alt-tab(or another similar).
Also it doesn’t react consistently. If you minimize Mail (for example) and then you alt-tab to another application, when you return to mail you should have a way to bring it back without all that stuff. Else you alt-tab to mail only to have a Menu Bar(??) and no visible window.
Why should individual windows show up in cmd-tab? It’s for switching between applications, not windows of applications as opposed, say, to the way alt-tab works in Win or *NIX desktops, where it switches through all open windows. I like my app list uncluttered, not filled with every bloody window I’ve opened and if I want to bring a window back, I’ll bring it back on my own. It’s a matter of taste, I guess.
There should be an alternative to alt tab to bring minimized windows back, or the minimize functionality shoud go away forever. An alternative Alt-Tab for a application (much like alt-tilde) works, but that will bring those windows back from the Dock.
True, and I don’t know what functionality minimize serves anymore, seeing as using hide makes more sense in most cases. Only use I can think of for minimize would be to shrink a video window so you could still see it but keep it small and out of your way, but that could just as easily be done as a control for that particular window, allowing it to be detached and resized… I believe Apple themselves are doing this with Quicktime X in 10.6.
Agreed. I don’t know what the best idea would be, the little shareware called Witch? (I don’t remember) did this “the right way”, or something close to that.
There are compromises – E.g., the way it’s handled in BeOS. Alt-tab cycles through applications – but when you’ve tabbed to a particular app in the list, you can use the up/down arrow keys (or the mouse) to select an individual child window belonging to that app.
In most Windows apps, the “Save As” option can be activated by just pressing “A” while the “File” menu is open (so it can be done completely from the keyboard with Alt-F-A).
Although since XP, that’s not apparent unless you disable the “Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation…” setting. Win7 does seem to work that way by default, fortunately.
Simple, the price. I know it’s an amazing machine, but it’s priced to high.
Or maybe Apple should introduce a Desktop Mac that is not and all in one (iMac) and use standard Intel Core2Quad CPU.
The lineup would be:
– Entry level : Mac mini
– All in one : iMac
– Performance desktop : Mac Tower
– Workstation : Mac Pro
That would be nice.
Actually, I’d put a tower or other desktop below the iMac as well. Not everybody wants an all-in-one and, knowing Apple, any Core2 Quad machine they make would be priced as much as the iMac or more. So, have a tower that’s the same specs as the iMac, just not an all-in-one machine for situations where the Mini is too low-end and the iMac isn’t suitable.
Edited 2009-05-10 13:18 UTC
I’d like to see Apple add “capabilities”. If they did OS X would become the most secure desktop OS out there.
Capabilities allows much finer grained security than existing systems. For example, on this machine any app I’m running can access any file of mine. So, if an app gets compromised it can read or delete all my data.
Capabilities would prevent this, the app would only access the files it’s normally allowed to access or the files I say it can access.
The lack of this is a major flaw in modern desktop OSs which is very odd as it’s been around for decades and even my phone has it.
A few common hardware pieces that are nice and standard even in cheap PCs would be nice in all Apple computers:
SD-Card-Slot:
I can understand that Apple doesn’t want to ruin the looks of their computers with some ugly 1000-in-1-Cardreader. But c’mon… most devices today use SD/SDHC cards. And I guess much more people use SD cards than Firewire. I hate it to carry around a card reader because my MacBook doesn’t have a slot for it.
Blu-Ray:
Blu-Ray has won the format war, BDs are getting very common, low-bitrate 720p download videos are not the answer to high-bitrate 1080p Blu-Ray videos. At least it should be an option.
eSATA:
Much faster than Firewire, standard in modern PCs and on better external drives.
HDMI:
Very small, a lot of modern monitors have it (instead of Displayport!), every new TV set has it, integrated sound signal – Macs should have that instead of some proprietary Apple only connectors like Mini Displayport! I don’t want to carry around some stupid adapters. And I don’t wanna connect another cable only for sound.
Faster USB:
It’s pathetic that Windows on my MacBook has 3x faster USB transfer speeds than OSX on the same machine.
Edited 2009-05-10 15:25 UTC
Agreed, 100%, on the SD card slot. Even my $400 netbook has that, but no Macs do? Hell, my brother’s Aspire 5110, a piece of crap laptop if ever I saw one the number of times it’s needed fixed, has a card reader… and that laptop is about 3 years old, by the way. Keep up with the times, Apple!
I’ve never encountered slower USB on OS X, so not sure what’s going on there with your machine.
Blue ray and HDMI… HDMI yes, blue ray I couldn’t care less about. Until movies aren’t $40 a piece and until the standard is finalized, I can do without, I’ve got better uses for that money and I have a huge DVD collection I’ve built up over a period of years. Perhaps make blue ray optional, I’ve no interest in it myself and don’t want to spend the money on what I won’t use. HDMI would be a very good idea though… of course, the Apple TV has that and Apple won’t want to cannibalize Apple TV sales, especially since the one major factor that made ATV attractive (HD movies on the iTunes Store) is now available with standard iTunes. So while it would be nice, I wouldn’t count on it especially with Apple’s investment into this displayport crap.
It’s quite simple, really …
Better openness when it comes to portability of open source projects unique to Darwin/Mac OS X, such as CoreFoundation, mDNSresponder and the Kerberos LKDC-feature. I’d really like for Apple to see these technologies as a way of making the whole family of open source OSs fit together nicely in a way you’d never see coming from Redmond …
What I’m basically targeting here is the portability of Apples open source projects for the benefit of the entire open source ecosystem!
Calendarserver is a true hit on Linux and FreeBSD so why stop there? Let the really good ideas rub off …
Needs to add the ability to resize and move windows with the use of the Option (or Alt) key on the keyboard while dragging the mouse. Just like almost every other Windows Manager on a UNIX based system, even down to TWM if I remember correctly. Thats it. Really they get that and I will save up to actually buy the highly over priced yet so well engineered hardware that they make.
The worst thing OS X has added recently is the multi-touch pinch to zoom in/out in Safari etc.
It’s totally unusable. It kicks in when you’re simply trying to scroll and the sensitivity seems completely random. Worse, you can’t even disable it. Apart from being perceived as cool and iPhone-like by Apple designers, only an idiot would think this better than doing Command +/-.
OS X has reached a stage of evolution where, unless you radically change the whole desktop metaphor, most attempts at refinement are going to be loved and hated in equal measure.
Edited 2009-05-10 22:10 UTC
<eom>
OS X Needs:
SLI and Triple SLI. Give me 3 double-wide x16 full length, full-use bandwidth slots.
Another vote for finding a reasonable way to reduce the price. Perhaps the current offerings are good values for the cost, but that’s not what I am referring to. ($38K USD for a low mileage Cadillac Escalade Hybrid may be a bargain, but I’m still not buying.) A lower end laptop that could still run the latest OSX well would be a welcome addition.
One thing I miss about Macs in general is the little Happy Mac logo at bootup, I miss the poweron button on the keyboard, I thought that was genius. It needs to make a comeback. I loved that the old old Macs didn’t have one sliver of a console screen anywhere in its bootup or shutdown process. Now when you bootup you don’t actually get a console or anything but you can tell that the EFI bios is booting, then switches to the bootloader then the bootloader loads the window manager that switches to the Login screen or desktop (if autologin is on). This is probably the least most important thing but I used to like the way the old Macs used to boot, it was very comforting (unless you got a sad mac).
Funny that even this article turned into a mac vs pc debate. ANYWAY..
I want the dock to let folders open on click, besides the “fan, grid, list” options. To do this I create a link of a folder and keep it in the dock.
I also want the movies to play in the dock — they removed that from leopard.. YES it’s useful for me as when I’m watching some favourite film or episode I tend to keep the preview in the taskbar in windows while multitasking; especially useful when I wanna skip the boring parts ^_^
Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Solaris and Linux for the past 15 years, or maybe am just not familiar enough with the “Mac” way of doing things, but there are some features that I, as a SysAdmin, would really like to see in OS X:
1) The package management feature of OS X feels like it’s lacking compared to Solaris, and it seems like it’s a good decade behind Linux. It neither includes an uninstall feature as an inherent part of the package management tools nor does it enforce (or even encourage) the inclusion of an uninstall feature from 3rd party package makers. The official Apple way to uninstall an application is “Just drag it to the trash”. That’s nice and fine, but what if the application installed things to more than just /Applications? Specifically, what if what I’ve installed modified the kernel? Just dragging the application to the trash does not remove everything. It seems that the standard response to this question is “Why would you want to worry about that? It’s not like what’s left behind takes up much space.” But the answer is (a) security: if an app included a kernel extension for which a bug has been found allowing escalated privileges, then I want to know that it’s been removed. And (b) homogeneity: I want to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I have one mac that was installed a year ago and kept up-to-date, and I install a second mac today, then the two are both truly identical. Without an uninstall feature in the package manager then over time there is no way to ensure true homogeneity without periodically reinstalling all of the machines.
2) Apple’s answer to installing multiple machines is their System Image Utility, which is an absolute joke to use. At best, after churning away on an image for a couple of hours it would then crash on me 50% of the time. This makes the tool a huge waste of my IT time — and therefore a huge waste of our organization’s time. I’ve resorted to using free tools from the ‘net.
3) Apple could really stand to learn a thing or two about the way Linux package management handles repositories and updates. I really was spoiled by the way that I could set up a repository for our organization and create packages for /everything/. I could boot a machine form the bare metal and have it install the OS, apps, and configure itself without lifting a single finger. No pre-built images necessary. (And with a single command from me, I would know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that all of my linux boxes were up-to-date and identical.)
4) As an administrator, I also need the ability to log into a remote machine and do stuff. This is trivial with linux/solaris, but so much of Mac’s OS isn’t designed to work well (or even at all) from the command line. Try changing a system preference from the command line. While some settings are easy to change from the command line, other settings are just laughably hard. And if you don’t do it right then you’ve bricked a machine.
5) I could even find my way to forgive Apple for #4 if they would at least write Aqua to support a second session that I could connect to remotely, where I could use the GUI to get things done without having to kick the user off of their workstation.
6) And while I’m on the subject of GUI administration, Apple’s Aqua just wasn’t designed to allow GUI scripting access to everything.
Please Apple, you’re killing me here. Automation is the SysAdmin’s friend. Please, for the love of God, allow me to automate things better and easier than this!
As a user I really like the OS. (Don’t get me wrong, I could pull out a whole separate soap box for things I don’t like about the user experience, but all in all it’s actually quite nice to use.) But from an administration stand point I think Apple could stand to learn a few tricks from the FOSS community.
Price is too high compare to other laptop… with mac pro price i think new user will go for pc laptop..
Not compared to what you’re getting. You must be comparing it to a run-of-the-mill HP laptop at Sam’s Club or something. Go ahead and spec out a Dell with similar specs… The price climbs fast!
Why does Apple insist on removing useful tools from the base BSD OS Darwin.
md5sum – Why would you get rid of such a small and useful tool, and then not even provide an alternative.
cron – depreciated and replaced by launchd. Why remove something that is so universal across *nix platforms.
Reboots – why does the updater insist on a reboot after updating itunes, quicktime or just about anything else. Fine if I updated firmware or the kernel, but every little change needs a reboot???
Anyone have other unix tools they have gone to use only to find them missing?
MacPro… make it cheaper. I don’t mind paying a small premium over a white-box PC, but the price needs to be in line with any other Intel-based systems being sold at BestBuy.
OSX… Sell it as a shrink-wrap OS with support to run on white-box PCs. I’d dump Windows in a hot minute… and so would millions of others.
Also, make Darwin an OpenOSX for the hackers and future OSX developers. Reap what you sow…
mikebo
Edited 2009-05-14 17:27 UTC