In my house today, all of the computers are Macs. This is a long way away from three and a half year ago, when I said that Jaguar could not replace my PC. We’re chugging along happily running Tiger, just as productive as before, and enjoying every bit of eye candy. But OS X isn’t always cherry pie, it’s got its own set of faults, and some can be downright annoying. UPDATED
Since I wrote an article some time ago about five things that annoy me about Windows, I thought I’d do the same about Macs, which, although sleek, lovable, and awfully pretty, have their own shortcomings.
1) Mounting & Unmounting
I’m still not sure why Microsoft can get this right and Apple is still fooling around with the same typical UNIX unmount baggage. Although properly unmounted (by dragging to the “Trash”), I constantly get errors when unplugging my iPod and my Transflash adapter, which mounts via a USB connector. I don’t get why on Windows, I can simply unplug a device without fear of problems, while on OS X, I not only have to worry that the data has been corrupted (which is a Windows issue too), but also that as long as the computer remains on, I will continue to get Finder errors. In addition, although the Finder can be re-launched when it’s in a usable state, I have often found that once the Finder is hosed, it requires a reboot to fix.
It’s 2006, I want my devices to be plug and play, I’m not interested in error message when I want my devices unplugged. Period.
The reason this is so important is that Finder is the lifeblood of the Mac experience. Once the Finder is unstable, using OS X is hopeless. Even relaunching it won’t work, and in many cases, the shutdown process won’t even work: you’ll need to perform a hard reset. These days, I have many USB devices: a mouse, a thumb drive, an iPod dock, my transflash adapter, an external hard drive, etc. If connecting and unmounting devices is a problem, the entire Mac experience is a problem.
UPDATE: I’ve gotten several emails telling me that not unmounting is stupid. The gripe here is not unmounting- it’s unmounting and then STILL getting Finder errors even though the device is apparently unmounted.
2) Media Browsing
While using Windows XP, when I open a folder containing pictures and click one, I get an application called “Windows Picture & Fax Viewer. It opens near instantly (another issue entirely), and allows me to quickly and easily cycle through all photos in the directory. When I attempt this feat on the Mac, I get “Preview,” a multi-purpose application which can view everything from animated GIF files to PDFs. The problem is, Preview takes a good three seconds to open and only lets me view one picture at a time. Although Preview can handle more than one picture and allow you to cycle through them via the “drawer,” there’s no simple way to cycle through a large directory without extra clicks.
As we get into a true multimedia age, I need to quickly access my media. Using iTunes and iPhoto for everything is a hassle. I want to open photos quickly without adding them to any library, but I also want to play music as quickly as I can with WinAmp. Neither of these things can be accomplished today – not even closely. The fastest audio apps for Mac include Cog, MacAmp, and sadly, Quicktime Player. In all cases, the term “fast” is relative: none are fast, they are just faster than the equivalent iLife counterpart, iTunes. Why can’t any Mac application open in less than several seconds?
Furthermore, and more importantly, the iLife media management apps insist on you adding a double-clicked file to your library. I don’t want every MP3 in my iTunes library, and I most definitely do not want every photo I want to view at full fize entered into my iPhoto library. Fast media browsing and access ought to be key for OS X 10.5 “Leopard.”
UPDATE: I’m aware of the slideshow built into the Finder, and it’s great. It still involve many more clicks, which is the point. No one has bothered to argue with my point about fast sound file access. Apple – perhaps for Leopard, a play-on-hover feature?
3) Those F#&@ing Beach Balls
I’m running a dual-core 1.83 Ghz Macbook Pro with 1.5 GB of RAM. This is one of the fastest Macs on the market, according to Apple. However, it’s still pretty slow. In fact, I’m willing to concede that my 1.42Ghz iBook is just about as fast during all tasks except boot (which is, admittedly, definitely many times faster). Launching an application like Camino and loading an intesive web page like Gmail or digg.com can lock up the entire OS, down to the point that my dock icons won’t magnify for several seconds. Safari’s done it too, as has the Finder, as has mounting a large disk image. One of the big Windows kickers that Mac people laugh at is the ever-present hour glass. That stupid beach ball prevents me from doing anything, and although generally rare after the login process is complete, it shows itself at least once a day.
4) VPN client
In 2006, productive workers require a VPN client. The Mac PPTP VPN tool is pretty simple: it’s in System Preferences > Internet Connect. The big complaint is that there’s no obvious way to decline using the gateway on the VPN. In Windows, it’s pretty simple to do, but the problem is that if the VPN doesn’t allow you to relay internet traffic, you’re either connected to the VPN *OR* online. When I can preserve my default gateway, I can do both. This is why there are so many commercial VPN apps for Mac, because the bundled native client is lacking. There are workarounds, but they often involve knowing your IP (which means it’s not dynamic) and/or changing system files, which is reserved for power users and those with the guts to go to the command line and type commands with sudo.
UPDATE: I can eat crow with the best: it’s been pointed out to me that this option is available under Connect > Options.
5) Closing apps
This is the controversial one, for sure. When I bought my MacBook, I gave my iBook G4 to my fiancé. She originally used to use XP Home, then I migrated her to Xandros 3. After 4 months of using Linux with no real problems (other than the terrible Xine interface), she upgraded to my iBook. Although she has grasped using the Mac for the most part, including closing apps with Command+Q, she confessed that she doesn’t understand why she has to use Cmd+Q rather than just closing the application like she did in Windows and Linux. Her words: “If I hit the red X, that means I want to close the application, so why do I still have to use Cmd+Q?”
She’s right: when the last window of an app closes (and only when the LAST window closes), an application ought to quit, like it does on every OS ever written except those that run on Macs. Mac users have been apologists for this unintended behavior for too long. Applications should not expect to remain in memory eternally (until shutdown or reboot) unless explicity told otherwise. They should expect to close down and release all memory when closed via the red button.
Yes, this is contrary to what I said a few years ago, but after using it full time on my primary computer for awhile now, I’ve become ticked by this. Closing an application should not require a keyboard stroke intervention, and if the menu isn’t docked across the top of the screen, using the mouse to choose Appname > Quit is cumbersome.
UPDATE: As predicted, people got emotional about this. Here’s a hint about effective debate: when you start by telling someone that the way they prefer something is wrong, you’re not going to convince them, ever.
Despite a list of annoyances – and mind you, this is 5 of about 20 that actually get to me – I still think OS X rules the roost today. Novell’s next desktop product looks quite promising, but the ease and polish of Tiger are, in most aspects, unmatched today. All said, I’m still a successful, proud, and productive Mac user.
I want to close my Powerbook lid without it going to sleep. It runs fine with the lid closed and a monitor/mouse plugged in.
The reason you can’t do this (or so Apple has claimed) is that most of the heat dissipation is through the keyboard.
The reason the powerbook/macbook can get away without the exaught vents other notebooks have is because the vents are hidden under the keyboard. If the lid was closed while the computer was running full tilt, the computer would over heat.
But, as the grandparent points out, the Powerbook runs just fine with the lid closed when you have a keyboard and a display plugged in. I realize that the answer you gave is Apple’s explanation and not yours, but it just doesn’t quite make sense.
My guess is that they really don’t want people using Powerbooks as really big iPods (I sometimes used to listen to music on my old laptop when wandering around) because it can cause all sorts of hardware failures. Just a guess…
My #1 peeve when it comes to OS X is the lack of any sort of automatic window management. Arranging and resizing windows by hand was merely annoying on early Macs in the 1980s, but it is unforgivable in 2006.
Expose and virtual desktops are only klunky workarounds for a core problem in OS X’s window management.
OS X does not have the advanced window arranging and cascading capabilities of some X11 window managers. Fortunately, OS X is very programmable and you can write an Applescript application to resize your document windows to a certain size and arrange them in a certain way.
Only because your girlfriend comes from sub-par GUI operating systems and expects an application to quit when you close “the last window” doesn’t mean that the superior interface has to emulate the behaviour. I’d go CRAZY if Photoshop would be quit everytime I close the last open image only so I’d have to restart it for my next image… (?!)
That’s quite an odd view. Just because she’s used to something else it means she’s wrong? No.
There are only certain apps I want to remain open when I close the last window. On Windows, those apps generally have an option to do so. This is how OS X should do it as well. Or even a system-wide preference for people like you would be fine.
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Adam, I wish you luck in the bitching that is to follow because you criticized OS X.
There are only certain apps I want to remain open when I close the last window. On Windows, those apps generally have an option to do so. This is how OS X should do it as well. Or even a system-wide preference for people like you would be fine.
Yup, for those apps, hit cmd-w. Here’s your option right there. However, you will note that OS X didn’t also take away your ability to quit with cmd-q. Instead of arbitrarily defaulting to either hiding or quitting depending on the application (bad for consistency), you have to *choose* what you want to do. I’d rather choose than have the app as me “Are you sure you want to quit?” or “I have been minimised to the notification area. To quit, right click on my icon and select quit”.
I prefer consistency. In OS X, I know that clicking on the “x” will *always* close but not quit the application. In windows, clicking the “x” on the contact list of an IM application will generally hide the application, but not quit it. However, clicking the “x” on a “normal” applicaiton will quit it.
However, the inconsistency doesn’t really bother me in Windows. One learns after a while which application insists of going to the notification area and which one will actually quit. I am just pointing out that OS X was in fact more consistent in this regard.
Absolutely agree. mIRC and iTunes, for example, both minimize to the system tray when you hit the minimize button, but exit when you hit the close button. MSN Messenger minimizes to the taskbar when you click the [-] and to the system tray when you hit the [x]. SpeedSwitchXP, a useful applet to have on a laptop since XP’s CPU throttling seems to be brain-dead, has a very confusing system, there are close and minimize to tray BUTTONS, and also the close/minimize window buttons. I can never figure this out. Aaaah.
I love the fact that you can hide running applications by cmd+h, sure you can do this on some applications (thanks Opera!) under Windows, but it’s not as convenient or consistent as on a Mac.
Then again, that’s the probably the biggest reason to use a Mac, convenience and consistency.
Actually, the apps that DO stay open let you know, or at least ASK you first. So it’s not inconsistent really.
What if I don’t want to use a key shortcut? What if I want to be able to throw my mouse to the top right and click the X (presuming the app is maximized)? Why not make it possible at least?
Consistency is not as important as what the user expects. If an app lets the user know what it’s doing, then consistency isn’t as relevant.
At least in windows when an application does this, it puts itself in the “systray” instead of being hidden completely until you open a menu.
Actually, the apps that DO stay open let you know, or at least ASK you first. So it’s not inconsistent really.
Actually, this is really a windowsism. It stems from the fact that Windows is still incapable of managing virtual memory effectively, which means the user will constantly need to shut down applications in order to keep the OS in a responsive state. This is why windows applications will always have the systray option.
OS X can effectively manage virtual memory, which means the user no longer need to constantly worry about idle applications. If the application is not being used, the resource is automatically freed up. It also means the application can be called up quickly by the user instead of having to wait for a fresh application launch.
An OS X user only cares about which documents/objects are opened. The system takes care of the rest.
At least in windows when an application does this, it puts itself in the “systray” instead of being hidden completely until you open a menu.
The systray in Windows is often very crowded, since every application wants to avoid the taskbar entry clutter. This, along with the tiny area and the tiny systray icons, make the systray just as unusable as the taskbar.
Like I said before, an OS X user doesn’t care about which applications are launched: They just call it up and the system will do the right thing (launch if the application hasn’t been opened yet and open a new window if the application has no opened windows etc.) If you insist on knowing which applications are launched, you can use the dock, which indicates launched applications with a black triangle beside their icons.
Of course, many people new to OS X will find this behaviour to be unintuitive after years of using Windows. The key here is to try to work with the system instead of working against it.
Do you actually know how virtual memory in Windows works? When you minimize an application, a lot of its memory will be flushed to virtual memory to free up physical memory. So only those apps you have active and are working with are fully using their memory.
As far as the systray.. I never have a problem with it being overloaded. The max number of icons I’ll ever have in the systray is ~8. Some are rarely used, but I like having them there when I do need them (network icon, volume, ultramon, etc).
It really is just a matter of preference for the close thing, but I prefer for a program to close when I close the last window. And again, the ones I don’t almost always come with an option to minimize to the systray when I click close. Such as MSN (meh), uTorrent.
Do you actually know how virtual memory in Windows works? When you minimize an application, a lot of its memory will be flushed to virtual memory to free up physical memory. So only those apps you have active and are working with are fully using their memory.
I didn’t mean to suggest that Windows doesn’t free up memory from minimized applications.
However, if the application was paged, it tends to take ages to bring it up.
Actually, the apps that DO stay open let you know, or at least ASK you first. So it’s not inconsistent really.
Actually, this is really a windowsism. It stems from the fact that Windows is still incapable of managing virtual memory effectively, which means the user will constantly need to shut down applications in order to keep the OS in a responsive state. This is why windows applications will always have the systray option.
OS X can effectively manage virtual memory, which means the user no longer need to constantly worry about idle applications. If the application is not being used, the resource is automatically freed up. It also means the application can be called up quickly by the user instead of having to wait for a fresh application launch.
An OS X user only cares about which documents/objects are opened. The system takes care of the rest.
At least in windows when an application does this, it puts itself in the “systray” instead of being hidden completely until you open a menu.
The systray in Windows is often very crowded, since every application wants to avoid the taskbar entry clutter. This, along with the tiny area and the tiny systray icons, make the systray just as unusable as the taskbar.
Like I said before, an OS X user doesn’t care about which applications are launched: They just call it up and the system will do the right thing (launch if the application hasn’t been opened yet and open a new window if the application has no opened windows etc.) If you insist on knowing which applications are launched, you can use the dock, which indicates launched applications with a black triangle beside their icons.
Of course, many people new to OS X will find this behaviour to be unintuitive after years of using Windows. The key here is to try to work with the system instead of working against it.
Actually, the apps that DO stay open let you know, or at least ASK you first. So it’s not inconsistent really.
What if I don’t want to use a key shortcut? What if I want to be able to throw my mouse to the top right and click the X (presuming the app is maximized)? Why not make it possible at least?
Consistency is not as important as what the user expects. If an app lets the user know what it’s doing, then consistency isn’t as relevant.
Consistency is the best way to achieve what the user expects. In fact, given that most UI decisions were completely arbitrary at the start, the metaphors rely on consistency to work.
I should not have to be told what the application will do if I press “x”. You are complaining that it’s too hard to press shortcut keys, yet it’s better to have a dialog box pop up and having to read it and hit “ok”?
At least in windows when an application does this, it puts itself in the “systray” instead of being hidden completely until you open a menu.
Your application will still show in the dock if you hide it.
Where did I say it’s too hard to press shortcut keys?
I prefer consistency. In OS X, I know that clicking on the “x” will *always* close but not quit the application. In windows, clicking the “x” on the contact list of an IM application will generally hide the application, but not quit it. However, clicking the “x” on a “normal” applicaiton will quit it.
Actually, OS X is not as consistent as you think. Utility applications like Software Update and System Preference will quit once you close the window. However, multidocument applications will remain open when you close the last window.
If I understand it correctly, there are two reasons why this behaviour could be called desirable:
1) Restarting the application is slow, so you might want to keep it around in memory. This is an entirely technical reason and could be called a compromise at best. Taking care of issues like this is what computers are made for.
2) Since the menubar is detached from the actual desktop objects on OS X, you might want to close the last object but still be able to access the menu. I’m not entirely sure why you might want to do that. I assume that the use case you mentioned (opening the next image) would be the most or only common one.
I personally stopped using File->Open menus long ago in favour of accessing objects directly from a file manager or search interface. I believe that’s a superiour workflow, so that reason does not appear convincing to me either.
Generally I’m of the opinion that the user should never be exposed to implementation details, and applications are arguably an implementation detail which often means something different to a user than to a developer (the developer will think “process”, while the common user will think “object on my desktop”).
2) Since the menubar is detached from the actual desktop objects on OS X, you might want to close the last object but still be able to access the menu. I’m not entirely sure why you might want to do that. I assume that the use case you mentioned (opening the next image) would be the most or only common one.
This is the big reason. If I’m working on a bunch of Excel files in Excel, I want to be able to keep accessing Excel whether or not I have any particular document open.
For better or worse, OS X is *not* a window-oriented or document-oriented OS. It’s an application oriented OS. Personally, I like that, because it adds structure to what would otherwise be a massive explosion of windows, but YMMV. I know that in my case, I can have tons more stuff going in OS X, and with Expose and the Dock still find my way around, than I can in Windows.
Correct, how hard / sleeky could they add a button to “close all windows and program”
I have to concur with those one. In fact, what pisses me off about OS X are the apps that close when the last document is closed. I can understand this for say Preferences, where keeping it around doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but lots of third-party document-oriented programs do this too.
I am surprise to know the problems you encountered.
Recently, I happen to see a new OS from DesktopLinux (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7069459557.html) named Tomahawk Desktop (www.tomahawkcomputers.com).
I had downloaded their evaluation version and is working good, there is no mounting or Unmounting issue, media browsing issue, closing application issue, etc. Why don’t you try and see?
this looks interesting, thanks for the info
1.) It’s called write caching. Turn it off, or enjoy that your disk writes to external media are 12,000% faster on small writes (the majority of writes). Windows has write caching, and you can turn it on if you want a floppy to be an, at all, useful device.
2.) Because they’re seperate binaries with shared libraries to link up at runtime as opposed to being a method inside the always running “explorer.exe” process or a static binary.
IE, they’re done correctly, and yes there’s a cost to that.
Maybe there’s a nice Mac app for quick browsing of photo’s? You could load up X11 and GQView, it’s a killer photo browser.
3.) There’s something messed up there. Finder does suck, and it does like to lockup everything, but it shouldn’t when you run Camino!
5.) Closing a window should do whatever the interface designers believed closing a window should do. In X11 and Windows a process is typically associated with a window, and that process exits if it’s the last window associated with it (although it doesn’t have to, it’s very easy not to in fact).
Mac does this, probably, because it’s big on SDI. Windows typically has MDI’s. It’s just something you’ve got to get used to.
I don’t even like Mac’s and I wouldn’t bring most of these things forward as if they were really problems…
IE, they’re done correctly,
Um… inject a little of your viewpoint, eh?
Why is that “done correctly?” From a user standpoint, there’s no real effective and fast way to access media – so I think advantage: Windows on that one. There’s a great way to store and search for media, but not to quickly *access* it. The only “correct” way to do it is to provide the user the best experience. In my case, this is NOT well done.
Actually, there is “effective and fast way” – with finder window in icon mode, go to View|Show View Options menu, check “This window only” option and then check “Show icon preview”. Play with “icon size” slider to suit your preferences. Done.
I remember this option since OSX 10.1, I wonder why everybody is talking as it were not here. And I’m glad that it is not on by default, XP auto-previews drive me crazy.
I have done that. That shows you something about 1 inch tall. I want to quickly browse through photos in a directory at the maximum possible size. Looking at thumbnails is not even close to a solution.
Select all pictures (Cmd-A), ctrl-click any of them and click Slideshow. This works only in Tiger though, I think.
if youre using tiger you and right click (or control click) an image (or group of images) and select “slideshow” then youll get full screen previews without launching an application, also you can have an index page on the screen… or choose to add the photos to iphoto then, its pretty handy.. might be what youre looking for..
quick way to play a music file is in column view, i do that sometimes rather then load up itunes, another option is just getting info on the file and playing it from there.
I find this issue to be the opposite with my machines. My Windows boxes give the ever annoying Device Unplugged error whenever I disconnect my flash drive. On my Mac I just yank out the cord and have no errors at all.
That is an thing that is useful for a lot of people and not so useful for others.
The benefits are that you do not have to wait for the application to load again next time you click an file.
I agree. I was going to post concerning this perceived issue, but it seems you have already beat me to it! When I was a Windows user, I felt the same thing. After running Mac for the last five years, I have come to appreciate this feature.
There are some inconsistencies with this, such as the System Preferences app. When you click the red close button on the title-bar, the application actually does quit. I can see this confusing some people.
True, but it all seems to be pretty logical to me. Applications will not quit unless you tell them to, or doing so is a clear benefit.
System Prefs is designed as a clear-cut “utility” application which is obviously centered around only one window. Therefore, it quitting when you click close seems a clear benefit.
But anything document-based etc. you really want to hang around until you actually quit it.
I also find that this behaviour is at its most useful in some ways when an app is launching. Often under Windows, I would find an app taking a while to launch. However, unless the developer specifically supplied a “splash screen” it is impossible to tell if the app is launching until it appears. This would often cause me to launch multiple copies by accident.
Having an application as the clear “head” of its contained windows really helps in this respect.
agreed, if i were working in photoshop i would hate to have to leave a document open to be able to load another without waiting for the program to launch again
Needs to disappear. There is no reason that one process should tie up the entire operating system to the point it is unusable. I have never had the problem with dismounting drives. I am not sure what he means with that. Comparing it to windows xp where to dismount the drive you have to click on the removeable hardware tab on the taskbar to remove it seems just wrong. On the mac you can eject removable drives via a keystroke. All the time people come to my office with USB flash drives with corrupted filesystems because the did not unmount them correctly. The others are not a big deal to me. I use the Cisco VPN client, works fine. Media browsing is easy; navigate to the directory, use apple-a (select all) then apple-o (open), everything will open in preview with the drawer showing each file.
matt
Media browsing is easy; navigate to the directory, use apple-a (select all) then apple-o (open), everything will open in preview with the drawer showing each file.
Yeah, I can see how that’s easier than just double clicking one file. Sigh…
You can go the the view menu in Finder, show view options, and turn on show icon preview. This will handle anything with a preview in it, i.e. jpegs, tiffs, gifs etc. Make the icon bigger and you don’t have to do anything except open the window. I really miss this on the PC. So, it IS way easier.
” Spinning Beach Ball..
Needs to disappear. There is no reason that one process should tie up the entire operating system to the point it is unusable”
Since when does one process tie up Mac OS X to the point it is unusable? Force-quitting applications is easy and much more reliable than on Windows in my experience. The Finder (if that’s what you’re referring to) is just another application which you can easily kill when it becomes buggy. A ‘Quit Finder’ menu item can even be added to it.
The Finder is not the computer
Edited 2006-04-03 16:31
No, many times the finder crashes so bad that it does make your system unusable.(ie a server becomes disconnected and the finer thinks it should still be there) I have been able to ssh in to my machine to quit the finder by command line, but homeusers would probably not be able to figure that out.
When will someone at Apple wake up and realize that a hierarchical view of your file system (ala Windows Explorer) is perfectly acceptable? I like the macs multiple column view, but there are times when it’s just crying out for a tree view approach. I know there are 3rd party apps to do this, but I think in this day and age it’s not too much to ask…
Also, being able to drag removable media onto the trashcan to eject it seems like a very strange metaphor. I never understood how Apple came up with this one. It seems cute for the sake of it.
I agree. There is probably a reason why the tree sturcture is one of the best known visual data representation structures known to man.
Also, being able to drag removable media onto the trashcan to eject it seems like a very strange metaphor. I never understood how Apple came up with this one. It seems cute for the sake of it.
This behaviour is carried over from classic. Apple actually made it quite intuitive: if you drag the icons of the removable media to the trashcan, it will turn into an eject button. You can also use the pop-up menu to eject media.
In my opinion, all of these methods are more intuitive than Windows’ methods, which involves opening a separate dialogue just to eject USB drives (Windows 2000) or fishing for a taskbar icon (Windows XP)
This eject by dragging to the trash can is the one major usability disaster in Mac OS.
When you drag something to the trash can it is going to be deleted, not ejected.
I’d expect either the disk content to be erased, or information on mounting the disk to be erased.
The Gnome HIG (based on the MIG) has corrected this disaster.
It was implemented by accident in classic Mac OS, and has since been a gimmick for Mac-zealots. But intuitive? No way. It’s much more logical to press the eject button on the drive, or right click on the icon and press “eject” than it is to issue a format/delete command in order to eject the disk.
And dragging a disk/drive to the trash can equals deleting/formatting.
This eject by dragging to the trash can is the one major usability disaster in Mac OS.
When you drag something to the trash can it is going to be deleted, not ejected.
So don’t do it that way. Right-click and choose eject or click the eject-icon next to the disk in finder.
And you don’t drag the disk onto the trash, you drag it onto an eject icon – it changes when you drag a disk.
Edit: disk-utility is another way to unmount your disks.
Edited 2006-04-03 16:45
Extremely complicated solution. But no doubt a nice gimmick for Macpologists.
here are a few more “gimmicks” from this macpologist..
the eject button on the keyboard.
cmd – e
i dont deny in classic mac os that the trash can made any sense at all for ejecting. i think that made as much sense as going to start to shutdown. just old flaws.
but i guess i dont see how dragging the disk or drive to an eject icon is a gimmick, which insinuates that it is a shifty slight of hand trick to manipulate the mark
This eject by dragging to the trash can is the one major usability disaster in Mac OS.
When you drag something to the trash can it is going to be deleted, not ejected.
That’s why the trashcan will turn into an eject button once you *start* dragging the drive icon.
Of course, someone could still argue that the behaviour is not discoverable. At least the eject icon won’t confuse users any more.
This eject by dragging to the trash can is the one major usability disaster in Mac OS.
When you drag something to the trash can it is going to be deleted, not ejected.
That’s why the trashcan will turn into an eject button once you *start* dragging the drive icon.
Of course, someone could still argue that the behaviour is not discoverable. At least the eject icon won’t confuse users any more.
Apple actually made it quite intuitive: if you drag the icons of the removable media to the trashcan, it will turn into an eject button
I wouldn’t call that intuitive at all. To me is seems like really poor UI design. The trashcan should be for one thing only, deleting files.
In my opinion, all of these methods are more intuitive than Windows’ methods, which involves opening a separate dialogue just to eject USB drives (Windows 2000) or fishing for a taskbar icon (Windows XP)
The Win2000 “eject drives” dialog was lame, but XP allows you to right-click on a USB drive to eject it.
On the Mac you can right-click (or ctrl-click with 1 button) and choose eject. You can hit the universal eject icon in the finder.
Windows Start button – shutdown option is another UI disaster
You could always view the folder/disk as a List (cmd-2). This will bring the hierarchy up with a tree view, with the disclosure arrows to the left of folders. This is an old feature, carried over from Classic, but I still prefer it when viewing my projects, which consist of many folder containing a magnitude of different files.
Simple: if the hierarchy is collapsed, things become invisible, and if it’s open, the user has to scroll horizontally, which is a bit pain. Further the icons are smaller, and therefore harder to distinguish. This is why it’s not the default. It’s still possible to use it though, you just have to change the view.
As for the trash, that’s just a short-cut. The correct way to do it is from the finder menu. It’s an odd short-cut, and Apple have gone out of their way in OS X to correct it by having the trash icon change to an eject icon as soon as you start to drag a volume.
Edited 2006-04-03 16:26
about the file “tree” view.
I hear this all the time, maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t see the defference between the “list view” and what you’re talking about. I’m sure there must be more to it from the amount of talk it gets. then again how may times have I read people saying they don’t like macs because they don’t like the one button mouse. sheesh.
I switched to macs in ’97. I’ve NEVER dragged a volume to the trashcan to eject it (of course I’ve never used a one button mouse either). it just seems weird. just hit cmd-e for eject.
I also find very strange the guys comments about drives not unmounting properly, I can’t say I’ve EVER seen that.
and the idea that the app would close when I close the last window makes me want to break things. one of the big things that puts me off Linux. I’m constantly restarting an app that I didn’t want to quit. for those who can’t figure it out, on the mac you don’t have to close the window and then go close the app. just hit cmd-q for quit. the window will go away when the app quits. doesn’t that make sense?
bb
Edited 2006-04-03 18:20
They are already awake, it’s you who’s asleep. First off to get a tree type menu if you are running Tiger go to list view. (apple 2) This gives you a tree type view, flip down the arrow next to the folder. Same view as on PC.
In regards to “ala Windows Explorer”…Explorer to date is the ONLY browser I know of that is NOT WC3 compliant, and probably will remain so as I believe it will BREAK windows the way it’s integrated with viewing the filing system.
The trash can is “SMART” when you drag an item over it you will notice that is knows you don’t want to throw away a disc and replaces the trash can with an EJECT icon. If this seems strange to you then you definately need to stay on the PC.
I think problems 1+5 are due to the ingrained workflow one gets from using Windows and the KDE/GNOME Windows clones on Linux.
1) Preview is slow
…because he probably reflexively Cmd-Qs to close the window. Just leave Preview running.
5) Why incessantly close common apps (like Preview) at all? I’ve found OS X manages virtual memory much better than Windows, and I can have several users logged in with applications running and hardly any performance degredation.
A Mac user typically leaves common apps and their windows running because OS X promotes this sort of workflow. If you don’t fight it, you’ll be much more productive.
P.S.
As to certain apps being as slow on the Mac Book Pro as the iBook, make sure you’re using a universal binary. Otherwise the Rosetta translator kicks in to translate the binary to x86 on the fly.
Edited 2006-04-03 15:54
Thom, I really don’t know why you’re suffering from frequent beach balling on your high-end machine. It’s somewhat concerning, as I *rarely* see the beach ball on my 12″ iBook (always running at 533 MHz when on the battery)/1 GB of RAM. Applications that I’ve already used take about a second to start — that includes Preview, Mail, Safari, and so on.
Oh, a quick way to view every image file in a folder would be to Command+Option+drag the entire folder onto Preview in the Dock. I still prefer Windows XP’s method, but for now we have to make do with what we’ve got.
Does Graphic Convertor still come with OSX these days.
That should have a context menu which you can choose to browse a folder with. It will should certainly try to install the context menus on first launch.
Adam, not Thom.
Ooops. For some reason, I thought Thom had written this one.
Heh. My bad.
I have to say as, primarily a mac user, again, since 1999(mostly running some of the OSX DPs, some of which I liked better than the end product 10.0, especially DP3, also used 8.6 & 9.x.x in here for a while), I must agree with most of the points. (Was a prior mac user in the late 80s and early 90s).
The pinwheel of death is still present, and nearly annoying as it has been ever since, oh 10.1(?). I will say that Apple has managed to reduce it’s annoying presence to a degree with every release since 10.2. (It seems to me that 10.0-.2 were polishing of OSX with a little optimization added in 10.2 which GREATLY speeded up operation from 10.1). In 10.3 and .4 even more optimizations were, apparently, made under the hood with noticeable speed increases even on older systems, of which, most of mine are.
Other items: Preview.app, come on it’s free, it’s multifunctional, it’s just about as good as acrobat for PDFs, and loads quicker. For images, do yourself a favor and find a better free or shareware app. I can’t really recomend any right now, as I’m still looking for a good one myself for 10.4.
Cmd-Q, ahm, Apple apps are NOT one window encompasses the entire app as Windows programs traditionally are. I’ve forgotten the exact GUI technical term for this, but this is the menu bar is attached to each and every application window, v. a global application menu bar for the entire program. I prefer this UI paradigm to that of Windows and X11, which also tends to do the same thing. Bottom line, this is a trivial thing to get used to. If the user cannot, they’re probably NEVER going to like ANY Mac OS. Tip: if you REALLY want to quit an app, just CMD-Q it, simple, easy… second nature to me, although I do tend to use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible under Mac OSes unlike Windows of X11 based apps which tend to have extrememly convoluted(or poorly situated key combos wrt key locations on keyboards) and non-standard between app shortcuts.
USB devices: actually I don’t use many, but the ones that I do I haven’t had a problem with under OSX via missing sync for wince(and I do) and Sony PalmOS devices, and actually PC Cards which use a similar subsystem for mount/dismount if used for memory cards. On the other hand under windows PocketPC sync and the Sony mount tools seem pretty flakey, about half the time even after doing their pre-dismount step the driver usually complains that the device was not properly dismounted and may be corrupted. To me windows is still plug ‘n pray while if OSX ever had a problem the missing sync or built in drivers have never complained to me. BTW windows does things EXACTLY like mount/unmount although it is hidden from the end user, originally it was VMS style, but God knows what MS has done to it since…
VPN: rarely use it, and when I have it’s worked, but I’d rather just tunnel through ssh whenever/wherever possible.
boot time: The funny thing about times is that one day shortly after reading the original boot time articles, on a whim when I was using my 1G G3 upgraded pismo which needed a reboot I decided to time the reboot. It took around 40s for the Pismo to go from powerdown to login then completely loaded desktop. IIRC that is pretty close to the boot time of the x86 imac. Not sure about the macbook or mini though. (I REALLY want to see what the x86 powermacs are going to be like…) So, the boot time is quicker than windows, but not as fast as BeOS, although the sleep function for notebooks under OSX is virtually instant sleep/instant on unlike windows notebooks, and I get FAR better battery life with the G3/4 based mac notebooks than I have with similar x86 based notebooks. Although when I upgrade ntoebooks again I expect that I’ll be torn between an origami machine(I love tablet style portable, but only if they have decent cursive OCR) and the smaller sony subnotebooks. Too bad Apple doesn’t cough up a tablet.
Mounting and Unmounting
The reason why you can’t simply unplug something is because there is no way for the operating system to anticipate it. If every USB port locked when you plugged something in, and you had to hit an eject button to unlock it, then you’d be fine. However that’s not the case (for the obvious reason that it’s unwieldly, and unnecessary for many devices). The alternative is to immediately flush every write to the disk, which really slows things down. As an example try using OpenOffice on a file stored on a floppy on Windows, and then the same file on the same floppy with Linux: the Linux experience will be a lot smoother, faster, and enjoyable. This is the advantage of mounting/unmounting, and it’s why Apple uses it.
Indeed, I’m waiting to see when a Linux vendor will create a kernel module to allow users to mount CDs as R/W storages, and then have the changes be automatically written out on unmount.
That said, the finder should have a bit of intelligence built in to detect when its users are lacking in the same area 😉 Pulling things out of a PC with no warning is always going to have side-effects. I hope the Finder re-write will address this.
“Fast media browsing and access ought to be key for OS X 10.5 “Leopard.”
You contradict yourself with that quote. iTunes and iPhoto provide fast media browsing (startup time is another issue). And they do have a preview app for the once off case, which would probably work pretty well with DnD. You want fast, temporary, media browsing, which is a little less obvious. Extra Finder views would probably be the key here (thumbnails, etc.).
VPN
2006 is not the year of VPN. Most ISPs are still getting used to the idea of TLS. It would be a nice addition, but it’s a non-issue for the majority of Apple’s users
Application Closing
I’m still not convinced that this is not a difference rather than a defect. Cmd-Q is far faster than using the mouse at all, and not that hard to learn. Hitting the X is not significantly harder than going to the menu. Having apps hang around in memory (or, more realistically, in swap) is a good way of boosting the slow app startup you complained about earlier.
I don’t deny that Mac OS X has it’s issues, but if this is your top five, than I don’t think it needs worry very much.
it’s an older version that was on a couple of iMacs I picked up on ebay 10.1 i believe but to really get anything done over there I first had to install OS9(all my mac apps here are for classic)and while the eye candy is the best iI have seen anywhere bar none I tend to agree with you on every aspect of this article even to the point that I will say it’s a damn shame that Apple never bought the BeOS,which for my money deos everything better save the eye candy and usb(which wasn’t around that long back in the day)as a matter of fact I can’t see where OS X is all that much better than yellowTabs hacked BeOS 6(Zeta)
I’m sure tha be Inc would have had those issues ironed out by now had they not went belly up,actually within it’s own limited scope BeOS was the most plug and play friendly OS I have ever seen,to the point where I can take a beOS hard drive and slap it in a totally different BeOS comapable machine and everything just works,on the other hand FreeBSD(the core of OSX ) is the worst I have tried to date ,naturally apple does the configuring for you in OS X,but just imagine trying to run it on the plethora of hardware windoxe or even BeOS runs on,trust me there would be a lot of manual configuring.It just makes me wonder…I still RUN BeOS R5 to do graphics and multimedia work,mainly because of the speed and multitasking ability although I find myself using Linux more for Internet surfing these days due to the superior java and flash support.BTW I remember on my old BeOS mac there was a way to run Mac apps in Be or vice versa it was called SheepShaver but i forget which OS it ran from but it was like the classic thingy in OSX..this stuff worked reasonably well in the later 90’s I just wish Aplle would have went with Be
From an ex-BeOS (r5.0.3) user, do yourself a favor and try out Tiger (10.4). You are only kidding yourself if you take 10.1 as an example of what OS X is today. I have gone through the 10.1 – 10.4 upgrade cycles, and each revision is optimized and runs better on my current hardware than the previous version.
As for BeOS, I am back to testing the Haiku builds, and am very happy with its early stability. Too bad it is under QEMU on my PowerMac G4 1.2GHz! I am rooting on the Haiku team, and even am building an AMD system to run the new builds on.
It is too bad that BeOS won’t run on a modern ppc machine but hopefully in time Haiku may ,Linux does,I suspect that the main reason R5didn’t was more due to the legality of the matter than Be Inc’s engineers inability to figure it out.Also Apples recent move to the
intel platform is also a good sign that we will be able to once agian be able to enjoy BeOS on our Macs.
(1) Select all images in the the folder you want to see
(2) RIght-click (or ctrl-click) and select “Slideshow”
…
(3) Enjoy?
Note: the slideshow feature of the Finder has an autoplay option (default) and you can select the Index button to arrange all selected photos onto a grid so you can choose the photo that you want to zoom to immediately.
I’m wondering why people always talk about dragging volumes to the trash to unmount them. I mean, you don’t really do that, right?
I can think of four or five different methods to unmount volumes, but dragging to the trash is the last on my list by far. Personally I just hit command-E
The specs: Apple didn’t skimp on the unit they sent me: it was PowerMac G4 with dual 1.25 Ghz processors, a 120 GB IDE hard drive, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, a “superdrive,” which can record DVDs, a 64 MB video card, gigabit Ethernet, a 17″ flat panel studio display, and a fresh copy of Jaguar, Mac OS X 10.2. Total value, according to Apple’s website as of today: $4298.00.
Nobody questions the review date?Not that i care though.
For $4298.00. you can get a PMG5 QUAD 2.5Ghz/512/250GB/16XDL-SD/GF6600 NL (Apple).
That was a previous article from 2002, where I had different findings about OS X. Did you actually read this article?
1) Never had problems with this, even when just unplugging I’ve never had Finder instabilities. That’s with an iPod, USB-key and a firewire external disk.
Finder was unstable with network disks (SAMBA) but I haven’t had that problem since my last update.
2) Agreed. I hope someone here will suggest some brilliant app 🙂 Although to be fair this is not really an OSX fault. We just need a good third party app.
3) Can be an issue but on my mini it’s infrequent enough not to bother me. However when you have a top of the line rig I can see how this would be annoying.
4) Not really an OSX problem IMHO. OS’s include to much crap already (even when it’s high quality crap as in OSX 😉
5) Question of preference (I like it BTW) and thus not an OSX fault per se.
I absolutely adore how in OSX closing a the last window does not close the application. Clicking the red x simply does NOT mean: close application, it means: close window. I agree with other posters that this is imply a matter of preference, and not a fault in OSX.
1) Mounting & Unmounting
I can not believe anybody believes windows got that right. First the compare of mounting images and disks and giving them names and a place in the root filesystem to stinking driveletters even microsoft hates driveletters (see DFS). And what about not finding your flash-drive because windows chose a stupid drive-letter you already use. Mounting is the only good way i can imagine.
My first week using os x I thought I was closing apps, then realized they were still open. It annoyed me. After a while I’ve grown to enjoy that. I could say that the address book ought to close when I’m done with it (it is just that one window afterall) but I’m glad that it’s consitent across all the apps.
I’ve also gotten very used to the powerbook suspending when I close the lid. There are times it gets quite hot, even with the lid open. I imagine that if the lid were closed it would cause problems. The fact that it suspends every time and returns every time to where I left it is a far cry from what used to happen with my dell (running windows or linux). Suspending was such a gamble with that laptop that I shut it down when I was done with it every day. Took some of the convenience out of it. In regards to suspending, I’d love it if I could plug/unplug a mouse or the power without changing the state. There are times that the powerbook is asleep, then I realize the mouse is still in, and unplug it. The powerbook then wakes up, realizes it’s closed, and goes back to sleep. I don’t really see a need for that.
Overall I’m really happy with os x… what really annoys me the most is that I can’t run it on anything but a mac
Are you running the latest build of Camio, the Universal Binary? If you aren’t, I would expect load times to be horrendous since your MacBook would have to load it via Rosetta’s emulation layer.
Finder and disc mounting may be different than Windows, but you are running a differnt OS. Things happen differently. It’s designed that way, see Apple’s HIG. Guidlines, after all, not every application follows them and even Apple has gotten iffy about it.
As for VPNing, I’d recommend checking out Rui Camero’s Tao of Mac, he’s got a bunch of great resources for that sort of thing.
Over all, I personally feel that the portable experience with 12″ Macs is far better than any PC laptop I had, even with the quirks.
Most of the problems you have and what ‘MS gets right that MAC OS X does not’ is simply a matter of what you are used to. Of course they are two different Operating Systems that take different approaches to the same problem: how to run a system for the user and it’s interface.
1) Mounting & Unmounting
That the Finder chokes up is a problem. That you have to unmount is not (even in XP it is preferable that you tell the system to ‘unplug’ but I have yet to encounter a problem because of it)
2) Media Browsing
Their own approach to it. MS loads a lot of things at start up, their viewer being one of them. I find it odd in 5 that you complain about the always on aspect of a program in Mac OSX unless you cmnd+q and don’t see the irony of things running when you have not even told them to start. It makes it easier for the user if the user may not have a viewer application installed. OSX just takes a different approach.
5) Closing apps
This is purely a different approach to the applications that OSX takes. I’m sure Mac users are annoyed that they have to reload an app when they press the ‘x’ and wish it remained resident until told not to.
The problem with beachballs on Intel Mac’s, Powerbooks and iMac G5’s etc., is because of some or all of these factors:
1: 32 bit processor = 2 GB RAM limit
2: 2 GB RAM limit regardless in most Mac’s
3: Not enough RAM in stock machines
4: The high price of Apple RAM
5: Slow hard drives, non-upgradable drives (anything under 7,200 RPM with 16 MB cache is slow)
6: In PowerMac’s Apple is stocking these huge 250 and 500GB drives which when near full are extremely slow getting data to Mac OS X.
7: Futuristic and feature rich Mac OS X which relies heavily upon files on the hard drive.
I hardly ever see a beachball, perhaps one or two per year and it’s usually because of a glitch in a program.
My machine?
A Dual 2 ghz PowerMac G5, 4.5 GB of RAM and a RAID O pair of 10,000 RPM 74 GB Raptors as a boot drive.
I have enough RAM to cover Mac OS X (.5 GB) Photoshop (2 GB) a open Photoshop file, iTunes and Safari.
Then if that doesn’t cover it, if Mac OS X needs to swap memory to disk, the RAID O delivers instant 185 MB p/s writes instead of 25, 35 or 45 MB p/s you might find on other Mac’s.
Of course once you start filling that boot drive up and start writing to the smaller sectors in the center of th eplatters, your going to see even more performance degradation.
Now if you think about cost, a MacBook Pro is nearly as much as a PowerMac. It doesn’t give one upgrade options, it lacks Firewire 800 and SATA, it comes with slow boot drives that are small. It’s fragile and easily lost, broken or stolen. The screen is small, you can’t multi-task with it well, you can’t upgrade the video card or the drives without breaking your warranty/AppleCare and not only that, it usually comes with two less CPU’s than a equally priced PowerMac.
A better way to go is to have a PowerMac at home that will last easily 5-7 years, give excellent performance and security with no beachballs and a cheap laptop (PC with Linux, MacBook or Dell with Windows etc) to take on the road.
It makes no sense to have a dual processor machine and you can’t do anything with it because it’s hobbled by the hard drive and RAM limits.
#1. and #5. are just preference. Both Operating systems have to manually unmount usb/external devices. Deal with it. Closing a window vs. closing an application is all preference. If you don’t like it then you don’t like it, most people do end up liking it however. Myself included. If I want to close an app, I just use Cmd-Q instead of Cmd-W. Much better placement of keyboard shortcuts as opposed to alt-f4 by the way.
#2. you can use slideshow which is built into Finder and Spotlight windows.
#3. I have a macbook pro and It’s much much faster then my 1.5Ghz 12inch PB with 1.25GB of RAM. Sorry about your beach balls, but I rarely see them. Not on my Macbook Pro or my 12in PB.
#4. Connect –> Options –> Uncheck “Send all traffic over VPN connection”
Is it really so in Windows that closing the last document quits the app? It is not so in Macromedia Flash, or Freehand, or Adobe Photoshop, or Illustrator, or Dreamweaver or zillion other apps. What the heck are you talking about? The only real difference is that, on a Mac, the application does not have that stupid gray background robbing your desktop.
Edited 2006-04-03 18:10
The resize/maximise button. It’s behaviour is just plain wrong – I don’t want to have to resize it afterwards because it is still to damn small to read.
Preview. How hard would a ‘fit to width’ option be to include?
Something’s really wrong with your Macs. I have a PowerBook G4 with 1GB of RAM, and:
1) Mounted drives eject almost instantly.
2) Finder => View => Show View Options => Show icon preview – images now appear in Finder. Also, try Column view which has a larger preview. For MP3s, use Quicktime to open them instead of iTunes.
3) I rarely see a beach ball, and especially not when launching Camino. Something is slowing down your Macs.
4) You’re right
5) I prefer my apps to not quit until I explicitly ask them to. It means they open much, much faster. For example, double clicking an image means Preview is nearly instant.
.. as a lot of times, when I go from folder to folder (via the cursor keys) it has the BAD behaviour to “auto-resize” the finder window!!
AND not ONLY this..
some dialog boxes did not “map” their buttons to the keyboard! A very VERY annoying thing..!!
OS X does not require those Windows-esque “quick launch” agents because of this Application versus Application Window metaphor. Applications such as the System Preferences, which make no sense to remain open when the last window is closed, do quit after the last window is closed. Although this may irk you coming from a Microsoft background, it is the desired behavior for most long-time OS X users.
Please do not confuse “broken” with personal taste.
i don’t get it why do people want Mac OS X to behave like Windows XP?
Not everyone wants everything in OS X to behave different just for the sake of being different and “unique”.
found this utillity for viewing images.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/MilkyWay.shtml
It can be annoying at times, so I have it in my menu bar and turn it on when I actually want it running.
BAsically you select (One click) an image in finder and it immediately display’s it. Works so far on gif,jpg,pdf,tiff,psd,png,bmp, etc.
You can view it with or without borders, or background colors, or even in a 3D style image.
Very handy for thumbing through a large image collection quickly. Tho
I dont mean to sound like a complete mac zealot here but the previous posts about not fighting the interface and workflow are spot on. Go with the flow and stop thinking that everythng must mimic windows in order to be correct. And if you still dont like it then dont freakin’ use it!!!
Unfortunately, you do sound like a zealot.
A person with true interest in the best platform would examine how users want to use and interact with the system and provide that.
A zealot says “this is the way you must do it, or else you’re doing it wrong.”
Sadly, even though I really love my Mac, I’m ashamed of fellow Mac users. They are the only ones who are incapable of flexibility. The response is *always* “Apple is right and you are wrong.”
A zealot says “this is the way you must do it, or else you’re doing it wrong.”
OS X could mimic KDE and have an option for everything, which is the only way to satisfy everyone’s perferences. However, other users would now complain that the system is too complicated to configure. So in order to keep everything simple, they have to sacrifice some flexibility.
Macs, like any products, can’t be perfect and certainly can’t satisfy everyone’s every whim. By choosing a Mac, you have decided that its advantages outweighs its disadvantages. Instead of feeling annoyed, you can always try to make the most out of the situation. One of the ways to do that is to try alternative workflows.
Sadly, even though I really love my Mac, I’m ashamed of fellow Mac users. They are the only ones who are incapable of flexibility. The response is *always* “Apple is right and you are wrong.”
Please don’t characterise every Mac user (except yourself) as the stereotypical zealots.
I mostly agree with you. It’s too bad people don’t seem to feel that way about Windows. It’s a conspiracy instead, or bad design, or what ever.
The idea that Microsoft and Apple are the same just to feed some “I’m okay, you’re okay, everyone has problems” idea of equality is disingenous. Microsoft’s designs are inferior, for the simple reason that their history of hard UI research is limited. They design to focus groups instead of to UI principles*, and they’re programs are made by vast armies of programmers instead of small, focused teams. Their designs are inferior because their development model is inferior. Anybody who doubts this need not do anything more than compare Longhorn and the original NT project. The former suffered from massive featureitis, and its development model caused deficiencies that required months of code to be scrapped. The latter was built by a relatively small, focused team, with a leader more interested in principles than focus groups, and resulted in a product that was technically excellent.
The meme that “Microsoft can do no wrong and Apple can do no right” is stereotypical and neither company deserves the characterization. However, like most stereotypes, there is some underlying reason for the characterization. After having lived with Microsoft products for decades, I don’t think there is any doubt about where the characterization about Microsoft products comes from.
*) One could argue that Apple is heading in this direction as well, and that might be true, but at least they’re still largely rooted in the HIG research they did in the 1980s.
Edited 2006-04-03 23:50
The meme that “Microsoft can do no wrong and Apple can do no right”
What? Where did that come from?
You totally blew my comment out of proportion dude. It wasn’t that Microsoft/Apple is never right/wrong at all. You completely misread it.
Ack. I meant it the other way around. I intended to say that the meme that “Microsoft can do no right and Apple can do no right.”
A person with true interest in the best platform would examine how users want to use and interact with the system and provide that.
Users often want to interact with the system in the way they are familiar, and quite often that’s the Windows way. The Windows way is quite often the wrong way, from an objective standpoint. The fact that the user may want to interact that way is irrelevent.
Take something as simple as shortcut keys. Why on earth is CTRL the primary Windows shortcut key, when ALT (or CMD, which is where ALT is on a Windows keyboard) is just as easy to reach, and can be reached by the thumb, rather than the pinkie? The pinkie is the weakest finger, and cannot move to CTRL without moving the whole hand, while the thumb can easily slide under the hand to reach CMD. Indeed, that preference isn’t just a Mac thing — many *NIX users remap CTRL to CAPSLOCK or ALT to avoid “Emacs pinkie”. Should OS X use an objectively inferior method of interaction just because people are used to it? I’m glad it doesn’t!
That is not to say that OS X does everything the right way. It does many things wrong, and those things have been documented elsewhere. However, it’s application model is not one of those things. Sit down with a user whose never touched a Windows machine and see for yourself. My mother, whose never been comfortable with Windows and its taskbar, started using her new Mac very easily. Its intuitively simpler — there is no distinction between a running and non-running app on the dock. If she wants Safari, she clicks on Safari, and the system does the Right Thing under the hood.
Same could be said to you. Stop thinking whatever OS X does is the correct way. Maybe there is a better way
How the heck is this OS X problems.
These are complete user problems and lack of knowledge, don’t blame the OS for your incompetence.
I’d rather spend the time and eject flash devices and external hard drives than loose data like I have on Windows so many times.
They aren’t wrong, or broken, it’s a different way of doing things.
Useless article.
Sorry, but I find it useless anyway.
What the…? These are either user or application issues!
1. Mounting and Unmounting. As long as you don’t have some process using the device (you don’t have any of that Norton’s crap loaded do you?) and you actually wait for the icon to disappear from the desktop, you should NEVER have this problem. Use disk utility to do a check of the devices you are having this issue with to see if there are any problems with them.
2. Media browsing. Umm, I’m really not sure what you’re on about here. There are in fact three ways of doing something similar on the Mac. Firstly, you can set the view for that window to Icon, turn on “Show icon preview” then set the icon size to whatever you like. Or, you can set the window to Column view and as you click (or use the arrow keys) to scroll through the item it will show you a nice preview in the far right column (just turn down the little Preview arrow). Or, if you want to use the Preview application, select all in the Finder then right click and select Open with… Preview and you will get a draw in Preview with all of the items displayed – including might I point out, any PDF’s you have in there.
3. Yes, the beachball is annoying. Undoubtedly. I get them too – occasionally. I have found that some javascripts on web pages cause this more than anything. It is a frustration, but it is not OSX that is causing the problem. I have an iMac G5 and I hear the fan when the processor is being really strapped. This seems to occur when I go to one of these pages. This would indicate to me that something within that application is causing the problem. For me this isn’t an issue as I generally have a Terminal window open (I manage Linux servers) and I can easily kill the offending process – even if the Finder seems unresponsive. If all else fails I kill the loginwindow process and log back in – this generally exorcises the demons.
4. VPN Client. I almost gagged on my morning coffee when I read this. Once again, this is a user problem. PEBKAC – or possibly RTFM. I have five VPN’s established to client’s sites concurrently, all carrying ONLY traffic for those networks, all created with the built-in VPN tools. Here’s the drum – open Internet Connect, click on your VPN, go to the Connect menu and select Options, now uncheck the little box that says “Send all traffic over VPN connection”. See, simple hey.
5. I think others have covered this too, but I certainly don’t want an application to close just because I close the last document I am working on. There are in fact Mac apps that do this – some of the iLife suite as an example. This is because if you close your iPhoto library it knows you can’t do anything else with the application so its time to quit. For the most part other applications aren’t like this. If I close the last Word document I have open (not that I use Word – ewwww) do I want Word to close? In some cases yes, so instead of closing the document just hit CMD-Q, but as there is a pretty good chance I’m going to want to use my word processor again at some stage that day, I’d rather it stay open. After all, when the process isn’t being used it isn’t using any processor cycles, so who cares.
4. VPN :: Being a security engineer it upsets me that Checkpoint won’t update their VPN client to run on Tiger. Since Tiger has some new kernel updates from Panther, Secure Client no longer works. This isn’t a problem with Apple, but its a PITA that I can’t VPN into my corporate office with a Mac.
4. VPN Client. I almost gagged on my morning coffee when I read this. Once again, this is a user problem. PEBKAC – or possibly RTFM. I have five VPN’s established to client’s sites concurrently, all carrying ONLY traffic for those networks, all created with the built-in VPN tools. Here’s the drum – open Internet Connect, click on your VPN, go to the Connect menu and select Options, now uncheck the little box that says “Send all traffic over VPN connection”. See, simple hey.
Wow. That is a stunning security risk, for your clients’ sake please tell me you’re at least running with a decent firewall somewhere. There’s a reason strict security policies generally prohibit split-tunneling on remote connections, and you’ve just underscored it…
Aiiieee.
i’ve never had an OS which build in media browsing i liked – they all suck! windows preview as well as OSX preview – but this is no annoyance in my opionian. i don’t know anybody who’s even using the built in media browsing feature of the os, but install 3rd party tools instead.
for OSX i would recommend viteminSEE, which is cocoa, very fast and of course can browse all pictures of a directory. go – get it!
Something is wrong with having the spinning beach ball. Thats not normal. Repair permissions etc. You can see all your pcitures by tunring on thumbnail view. Ohter people have already pointed out fixes to your other complaints showing how little you know aobut Macs. But of course OS News loves anti-mac articles because they get alot of page views. Yippee!!
Typcal Mac fanboy – address whatever you think the problem is, not what it actually is. Thumbnail view is inadequate for looking at anything with any detail.
1) Mounting & Unmounting
First, dragging to the trash to unmount? Why don’t you do it the easy way a click on the eject icon next to each mounted HD/usb stick/iPod/etc? Windows, and any other system using caching to optimize volume performance requires that you unmount your drive before unplugging it.
Also, you mentioned that you have several USB devices, including your mouse. There is *no way* that your usb mouse will give you that message! The only reason that message shows up is when a device appears as a data storage device, like in USB drives, digital cameras, iPods, etc.
2) Media Browsing
Several things to comment on:
“Preview takes a good three seconds to open”
Then there is something wrong with your machine, your OS install, your HD or some app running in the background! Even on a 500MHz G4 Preview opens in less than 3 seconds!
“and only lets me view one picture at a time. Although Preview can handle more than one picture and allow you to cycle through them via the “drawer,” there’s no simple way to cycle through a large directory without extra clicks.”
No extra clicks, just a keystroke
cmd+a, then double click your file.
I want to open photos quickly without adding them to any library, but I also want to play music as quickly as I can with WinAmp. Neither of these things can be accomplished today – not even closely.
TIP: Look in the preferences of each app. iTunes has had the option of not adding a copy of every track to its Library for years, and I’m pretty sure that iPhoto ’06 has that option as well.
As for playing music quickly “like WinAmp”, switch to column view. ta-da!
I find iTunes, with its “smart playlists” (like “all Rock songs that I haven’t played in the las 2 weeks, that have a 4 or 5 star rating and are less than 4 minutes long) extremely better than browsing my HD and manually selecting tracks to play/to add to a temporary playlist. But if that is what you like, check out the (now freeware) MacAmp Lite:
http://www.macamplite.com/
3) Those F#&@ing Beach Balls
Other than when VLC hangs, I never see a beach ball on my daily usage. Mounting network drives in the Finder does cause that too, although it doesn’t affect the Dock or anything else, everything else remains perfectly responsive. I guess it only affects some Mac models but not (so much) others(?) Have you tried repairing permissions?
4) VPN client
Already addressed by other posters/updated on the article.
5) Closing apps
It’s a matter of personal preference. If your first experience with an OS was Windows, with its “an application is a window” (usually maximized too), then the Mac way may seem odd. There are many applications for which this behavior (not quitting) makes sense, just as many windows apps minimize to the tray instead of closing.
I like to keep iTunes running, but I don’t need to see any windows open for that. Same deal with Mail, I want it running in the background so it can download new ,ail, but I don’t need to have the mail window open for that.
Also, some apps launch in a second (small and not so small apps, like Word & Excel), but others, like Photoshop take a while, so I don’t want the app to quit the moment I close my last open window.
– Single-window mac apps usually do quit when you close their window, unless there is a reasonable motive to keep it running that way: listening to music in iTunes, periodically checking for new emails in Mail, etc.
– Multi-document apps usually stay open since each window represents a document, not the whole app, and there is the (logical) assumption that you may be working with several documents at a time, and accidentally quitting the app because you closed document A before opening document B, with the associated reopening of the app later would get old very quickly, even if reopening an app takes just a second.
Anyway, remember to check iTunes & iPhoto preferences regarding the “Copy/don’t copy to library” option.
I can’t believe not one person has come up with a decent solution for quick media viewing. All I want is to be able to click on a image, and that image displays at the maximum size that will fit the screen. I can then use the keyboard or mouse to scroll through the images quickly. Selecting all images in a directory before clicking on an image is retarded (and will likely lock up my Mac Mini.) Suggesting thumbnails or slideshows indicates you just don’t understand the question.
Kuickshow on KDE does this perfectly. Why am I not able to find a single third party image viewer on the Mac which just does this simple job?
My best guess is that Apple doesn’t want OS X to be like Windows wherever possible. They always try to offer a “better” way, and they sometimes fail.
“As predicted, people got emotional about this. Here’s a hint about effective debate: when you start by telling someone that the way they prefer something is wrong, you’re not going to convince them, ever.”
You are doing the same in your “story” …
I’m just sharing my experiences. It appears that several in the comments are explaining to me not how to accomplish what I want, but rather, how to alter the way I prefer something to suit the way OS X handles it. I don’t view that as productive or effective computing.
I still love OS X, but I really am annoyed by the lack of empathy many Apple users have for other’s preferences.
Why, it’s FFVIEW of course!
Google for it, “ffview”.
You’ll be glad. Oh, and its Open Source.
FFView still doesn’t appear to be what I’m after, but I’ll give it a go.