The Great Mac OS X 10.4 Wish List

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1. 2003-10-29 6:41 pm

   Anonymous

   I wish they’d given me what I bought: I have TWO copies of “disc 3” and zero copies of “disc 3.” I called the local Apple Store and they said “sorry, if you didn’t buy it here we can’t help you.” So I have to deal with Apple — what CRAPPY customer service! I can’t BELIEVE the apple store isn’t willing to take it back. What a buch of LOSERS. I love Macs… but I’m so sick of Apple.
2. 2003-10-29 6:55 pm

   Anonymous

   >it’s already simple for a developer to add to the finder’s contextual menu

   I know that there is an API. But the Plugins ARE NOT THERE. People haven’t written too many or too useful things. Watson does the job better atm.

   >.mac mail accounts are imap-based, not http

   Whatever. I don’t use .Mac, I use Hotmail and Y!.

   >hotmail uses a proprietary http mail protocol

   there is this thing called “licensing”.

   >you do realize that microsoft will be the one to provide this

   Again, you fail to understand that corporations LICENSE stuff from each other.

   >php is installed, but not enabled, by default

   Not MySQL or PostgreSQL though. Read the article more carefully of what I actually ask for.
3. 2003-10-29 6:58 pm

   Anonymous

   Number one: x86 Support.

   Did anyone catch Intel recently discussing the fact that they’re losing interest in trying to penetrate the Apple market largely due to Apples continually falling market share? If they don’t do major price cuts (which would alienate many current Mac users), or support X86 soon, they’re out of the ballgame.

   You can argue quality, and the integration with the OS all you want, but unless they start targeting ‘Joe ComputerUser’, they’ll soon be relegated to being a niche player (even more so than today), and more than likely, simply a purveyor of media (itunes, quicktime, etc.).

   Number two would be theme-ability. I think it’s ridiculous that you have more say in how your OS looks with Windows, than you do with OSX (especially considering some of the cool hacks that OS9 supported!).

   How can Apple effectively say that their target audiences are more artistic and talented than their technologically challened Windows counterparts, but then lock them into just one look and feel? It’s almost a kick in the face that they’re saying “If you’re richer than the average bear, and intelligent enough to choose our superior technology, then we’re going to lock you down as far as what you can and can’t change”. Talk about paying more for less!

   At least ol’ Billy G lets 3rd party companies produce literally hundreds of products to customize your working environment the way you see fit. With Apple, they’re going after people who do so, arguing that their way’s the best, and any variation would damage the Macs “quality”.

   I’d like a G5, and OSX has some nice features, but I’m not going to shell out twice the money just to be locked into one look and feel which may or may not be the best for my needs! Talk about arrogance!

   Number 3: Offer a virtual PC emulator. The fact that MS purchased the only major player in the Mac area, and has subsequently removed any competing products (ie, Linux) from being officially supported means that there’s a market here for people who don’t want to neccesarily run “just” Windows in an emulated session. Apple should jump on this ASAP, as it will really impact many of the “Joe ComputerUsers” who might have more dollars than sense and are considering a switch. Requiring such switchers to initially invest in a complete replacement of their x86 software is ridiculous, especially considering the cost they’ll already be paying for hardware.

   Number 4: Allow other Window Managers to run OSX software. This kind of ties in with themability… OSX is basically a *nix variant with OSX running on top as its Window Manager. So it seems logical that you should be able to easily port KDE or Gnome over to run OSX with.

   Of course you can’t due to Apples arrogance, and the fear that it would “pollute” the Mac gene pool, but it’s a given that this kind of choice would interest more than just a few people (some of whom are already buying G5’s just to run Linux on anyway!)

   So there’s my top wishes. I really wish Apple well, and if given one would certainly evaluate it as a replacement for my main machine, but AMD 64’s looking to be a much better choice for me amd most current PC users to be quite honest.

   Yes, they’re right around the Mac price for a comparable machine, but you also can run all of your existing software, get cheaper addons, and tweak it to till you’re happy.
4. 2003-10-29 6:59 pm

   Anonymous

   Eugenia, fantastic and comprehensive article.

   My addition would be to have Safari recognize all the same pages that IE does. We need full-on ActiveX capability in Sarari! Yes, yes, IE is not W3C standard, blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, I use Safari to hit pages that don’t work properly, and have to open IE to work them. What’s going to happen when IE for Mac is obselete? Apple needs to step in and address this very serious situation.
5. 2003-10-29 7:01 pm

   Anonymous

   “A more practical way to do this would be to allow screensavers to run in place of background images (development-wise they are the same thing). This should be easily done with a Finder hack, but unfortunately the vast majority of screensavers available are not suitable for such task as they are all destructing and flashy.”

   Believe it or not, you just explained to yourself how it’s been possible since Jaguar. 🙂

   http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020824082233907
6. 2003-10-29 7:08 pm

   Anonymous

   I use the OS X Mail app to check my Yahoo account all the time. The limitation is that Yahoo wants you to pay for that service — this has been going on for the past few years. If you don’t pay for POP access and forwarding, you won’t be able to use an external mail program to check Yahoo mail no matter what program/OS you use.
7. 2003-10-29 7:11 pm

   Anonymous

   >Believe it or not, you just explained to yourself how it’s been possible since Jaguar

   Problem is, screensavers are NOT suitable for the task. They are destructing the user because they have too much movement and flashy effects. This is why I suggest that there should be special modules about this.
8. 2003-10-29 7:18 pm

   Anonymous

   I really like most of your suggestions, and I would add tabbing in iChat, though I see less of a need for it with Expose. (The fact that I know have 2 screens also helps)

   iChat still has many issues that need to be addressed, especially Groups which are nowhere near as functional as in other cleints.
9. 2003-10-29 7:19 pm

   Anonymous

   OK, this may sound silly, but I want it: the virtual desktops should be done KDE style. Meaning that you can have a different background image on each one if desired, unlike the way it is done in Gnome where you are stuck with one (unless there’s a trick or setting I am missing).
10. 2003-10-29 7:23 pm

    Anonymous

    I can almost hear Coocachoo angrily typing in response to the .NET on Mac comment;)

    .NET, whether you despise Microsoft or not, is good technology. Yeah, yeah, there is nothing extremely innovative about it, but almost all technology is incremental improvements over previous technology. There is nothing particularly innovative about java either. The virtual machine concept has been around for a long time.

    Ximian is looking for another Just-In-Time programmer, which I presume means they are serious about the PowerPC platform. It might be that Apple will wait for the Mono to get over “the hump”, wherever that is, and then help out. Even if they just assigned one full-time developer, that would help tremendously.

    The vast majority of windows programming in the future is going to be done using .NET apis and it can only help Mac if those apis are exposed on the macintosh. For those that will say, when is Microsoft going to write a ‘real’ application using .NET….well they already are. You don’t rewrite millions of lines of code just to try out a new language – you can rewrite parts of an application in .NET. They’ve already done this with Visual Studio, and the next Office will have substantial chunks of it written in .NET.
11. 2003-10-29 7:23 pm

    Anonymous

    Active X support shouldn’t be something apple would support. If it was an open standard, then OK. Speaking of Active X, not even IE on the mac supports it, if they can’t or don’t why would Apple.
12. 2003-10-29 7:26 pm

    Anonymous

    Apple will never release supported ports of unix apps with their system. Why would they bundle apps that compete with their own? It would be a bigger headache than anything.

    I agree that X11 support should be a little better and they should provide installation of those apps though Software Update. Make Software Update like Red Carpet…maybe they bundle fink for the backend of that.

    Besides that, I want a new file system a-la BeFS…I want iChat to slim down like Adium in window size and bulkiness. I want the Mail client to use the Finder-style sidebar instead of a drawer. In fact, get rid of drawers all together.

    I want a new version of iTunes that takes up less CPU and a slimmer GUI. I want rid of stripes, rid of brushed metal, and bring in the Final Cut Pro gray look…or at least add it as a theme.

    I want the dock to be configurable…bring back docklings. I want an RSS Reader dockling. I want the top menubar to stretch across two monitors.

    10.3 is a nice leap forward. We need more customization…slimming down of the GUI, and everything to be faster. We need to beat longhorn in the race to the database driven filesystem. We need to make this look less of an idiots OS and make it a serious OS. I work on Windows 2000 at work and sometimes I feel like I am getting more done and don’t play around when everything looks bland and gray. All the GUI widgets are small and don’t get in the way. Sort of like Platinum. I want that feeling back in Mac OS.
13. 2003-10-29 7:26 pm

    Anonymous

    Not only should Remote Desktop be free, but they should have a Citrix or Terminal Services like application, so that people running Linux/Windows can run MAC server software on their PC! MS and Citrix have done that for Apple. When they can create PC based software that MACS can access remotely it discourages a MAC version of the software! Apple should fight back by doing the same, and it would encourage the use of Apple servers.

    By the way, emulators are bad for Apple the same way Terminal Services are, because it discourages a MAC version. Apple should create an Emulator to run OSX on a PC! Apple has to push Apple software onto Windows not encourage Windows software on an Apple. The same thing goes for LINUX. In fact, running LINUX on a WIN machine is possible! Come on Apple, think!

    Also, Apple you need to buy Sybase! The first time in the HISTORY of Apple and their is no BUZZ about that.

    You have no database on your platform and FileMaker Pro (FMP) is a piece of @#$^%&. FMP is NOT a replacement for Access! In my IT department, they laugh at macs because they don’t have a

    real D A T A B A S E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Don’t say MySQL et cetra, because that is not the same. It has to be better than FREE software otherwise people will choose LINUX!

    Focus on some buisness applications. Apple, why are you not running your SAP emplimentation on a MAC? Even MS can, even though it stinks compared to a 64 Bit UNIX implementation.

    OS X serve sould run on X86!!! Just pick a few HIGH end machines to support! There is no reason for not doing it for the servers!! They don’t need photoshope et cetra!

    Another thing (the last I promise), why does Apple not make any educational software?!?!? HELLO!!!!

    Dan
14. 2003-10-29 7:29 pm

    Anonymous

    >you do realize that microsoft will be the one to provide this

    >Again, you fail to understand that corporations LICENSE stuff from each other.

    Umm, Apple can’t license something that doesn’t exist. But Microsoft is working ont he new Media Player. So just drop it.
15. 2003-10-29 7:32 pm

    Anonymous

    You can keystroke through all active windows with (Command + ~).
16. 2003-10-29 7:33 pm

    Anonymous

    I would like to see only a few simple enhancements to the windowing environment.

    1) sloppy focus

    2) turn off click-to-front. this should be configurable, click title bar, click in window, double click in window, etc.

    3) windows can be lowered to the back of the stack. again make it configurable, click title bar, right click in title bar, left-right click in window, etc.

    I find systems with enforced click-to-front windowing almost unusable in a multitasking environment. I don’t want the windows to move unless I move them, otherwise they start getting in my way.
17. 2003-10-29 7:33 pm

    Anonymous

    I can do that with Command+TAB even nicer. What I need is a mouse-driven way to navigate through open windows of the same app.
18. 2003-10-29 7:33 pm

    Anonymous

    The author suggests that Mail.app supports Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. Obviously, he doesn’t understand that these use proprietary methods that Apple couldn’t use without an agreement with Yahoo or Microsoft. C’mon. He want’s IMAP/POP mail from Hotmail and Yahoo without having to pay for it. These services make you pay for POP/IMAP access because they con’t get ad $$$ if you access the service that way.
19. 2003-10-29 7:36 pm

    Anonymous

    > Obviously, he doesn’t understand that these use proprietary methods that Apple couldn’t use without an agreement with Yahoo or Microsoft.

    No, YOU don’t understand. For me, this is perfectly fine and I mention this many times on the article. I endorse licensing agreements between corporations!

    >He want’s IMAP/POP mail from Hotmail and Yahoo without having to pay for it.

    Outlook Express does it for hotmail, and no, I haven’t paid for it. Even if OE is an MS app that doesn’t mean that Hotmail department doesn’t lose money on it. But they do it nonetheless. Yes, it would require an agreement with MS and Y! for Apple, and I am perfectly fine with it. I pay $130 for Panther, EVERY year. Sorry, but such stuff should be included in that price.
20. 2003-10-29 7:39 pm

    Anonymous

    “Anyone knows how to share my scanner connected to an OSX machine, over the network to other Macs?”

    Yes!

    Launch “Image Capture”, open up the Preferences and under the “Sharing” tab, select “Share my devices”.

    Saweet. I’ve already shared my scanner with another Mac. Not sure if it works with Windows though?
21. 2003-10-29 7:41 pm

    Anonymous

    Too bad that I have to not launch ImageCapture though (as I explained in the article), because it blocks the official Epson driver and SilverFast (which is what my husband NEEDS to use with Photoshop in order to do what he needs). I wish “hardware sharing” was an item in the prefernce panel instead.
22. 2003-10-29 7:42 pm

    Anonymous

    To solve the instant message problem I think apple should go for a Jabber solution.

    They should make ichat a strait jabber app. They could then run a jabber server for ichat users. This server can still talk to the rest of the jabber network. To talk to the other networks like aim, icq, yahoo and so on they could install bridges on their server. These bridges actually work pretty well, it is just that most jabber servers get their IP’s banned from connecting to the other networks. Apple would not have this problem since they could deal with the other companies to get permission. Apple already has a deal with aol for aim support, they should try to get something like that for yahoo, gadu-gadu and the others.

    Advantages:

    1. This solution would be simple for the users since there would only be one IM service to set up.

    2. Connecting to the other networks would be transparent to users since they would not have to deal with 5 different IM accounts.

    3. Users are already used to the jabber style names from using email (being [email protected] sending am IM to [email protected] makes sense).

    4. Open protocals help Apple. Supporting something open like jabber is in their best long term interests.

    5. Supporting and maintaining connectivity to other networks would be easier for apple because everything is done on the server. No need to get everyone to update their clients.

    Disadvantages:

    1. Migrating users contacts and such from other networks. Apple could make this pretty easy. Automatically create a jabber account and migrate the buddy list from their present ichat aim account. Have a nice import legacy IM account wizard for the others that allows user to just enter their name, network, and password and the program will do the rest.

    2. Bandwidth costs of operating an IM server.
23. 2003-10-29 7:42 pm

    Anonymous

    * UFS2 (snapshots, quotas, extended attr, 64bits, acl)

    * fully 64 bit option

    * (multiusers) Conference option for iChat AV (in audio or video mode) and support of audio/video in AOL Clients (Mac AND PC, AOM AND ICQ; would be a great next step

    don’t know if some opendarwin stuff has made its way in stack tree: like systrace
24. 2003-10-29 7:43 pm

    Anonymous

    Outlook Express does it for hotmail, and no, I haven’t paid for it. Even if OE is an MS app that doesn’t mean that Hotmail department doesn’t lose money on it. But they do it nonetheless. Yes, it would require an agreement with MS and Y! for Apple, and I am perfectly fine with it. I pay $130 for Panther, EVERY year. Sorry, but such stuff should be included in that price.

    ? Sorry, but it’s not. Apple has said so and if you don’t agree with it then you shouldn’t buy their upgrade until they do include it. The fee that Yahoo charges for their service is nominal.

    Cry all you want, but I would rather that Apple spend the money that you want spent on getting yahoo access for FREE on more testers, programmers and other things..

    Not to mention that yahoo, Hotmail,etc.. all compete with .Mac which Apple also pushes heavily throughout their OS. Why do you HAVE to use their servers for an iDisk? Why is there no personal iDisk server? Oh yeah, because it’s Apple.
25. 2003-10-29 7:44 pm

    Anonymous

    Expose Enhancement

    Enable the blob then. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031010141631859 has instructions, or just use the app to do it thats on versiontracker. Seriosly – Apple gave you the options of hotkeys, corners, mouse buttons, or (undocumented) a blob floating button. Asking for menu bar button(s) or a dock icon seems to miss the point of the menu bar and the dock. But if you want them, I suppose it’s fair to have them on your list.

    Virtual Desktops (workspaces)

    This would be nice for us unix or beos geeks. Codetek has a quite good implementation on their site, but it would be nice to have it built in… though it could cause confusion for newbies, which is something apple strives to avoid. Maybe have it as a desktop option (number of desktops) with the default being 1.

    Reach same applications’ windows via Command+TAB and Cursor Keys

    cmd-TAB cycles apps. cmd-~ toggles through the windows in a single app. Someone else told you this before, but you shot him down as if he was an idiot instead of trying it. MAybe it doesnt work on your box, but it works on mine. YMMV.

    Path Navigation

    Customize your finder toolbar. There is a “path” button which will show you a dropdown. Or you can ctrl-click the title in the titlebar for the same thing. Not quite the same layout as the back button, as it requires two clicks instead of one, but it helps, and isnt as confusing for newbies. I wouldnt mind seeing the path buttons as an option though, to be honest.

    Fast User Switching Icon Item

    This should definately have a “small” version, with the names only showing in the drop down.

    Live Backgrounds

    This is generally pretty ugly when using screensavers, to your point. But it’s already doable, if not officially sanctioned. Sounds to me like you just want them to write some screensavers that are slower and don’t suck as backgrounds. I dont think you need apple for that.

    Some Theme Support

    Apple is anti-theme at the moment. I like that, because it keeps things classy looking. But there are good third party theme things out there already, and when there is a legitimate reason for it other than flash, apple come through (i.e. graphite vs. blue).

    Finder Plugins

    I think finder can do this already, but it isnt an official thingy. Wouldnt hurt to have, but it could definately start to divide user interfaces, which i believe apple tries to avoid.

    Sherlock Plugins

    Sherlock already has plugins. All sherlock channels are server based using a public api. Sherlock in 10.3 actually searches out plugins from third parties for you. hit the channels button and look. Maybe you mean that you just want more standard channels from apple? or higher quality plugins? Apple has made the functionality 100% available since 10.2 came out. In 10.3 its made even more obvious to the end user.

    Scheduled Tasks

    Third party apps do this already. I suppose it wouldnt hurt to have it integrated into the os.

    Better Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition

    AT&T is probably the synthesis demo you saw – they make a GREAT product called Natural Voices.. i believe its the leader in the field. It would be cool if apple integrated something like that. I am not entirely sure it’s usage justifies that kind of licensing fee though, considering they have servable synthesis atm. Recognition would be nice, but thats a black hole for money… they could spend billions and never get it right. Not sure it should be their focus for 10.4.

    WMV/ASF Safari plugin

    This is not Apple’s task. This is microsoft’s. Hopefully since they have killed i.e. mac, they will look at creating a plugin for apple. They already promised the latest media player for os x, so it’s a waiting game.

    Undo on Safari

    Fair enough. I dont think i have often lost stuff in text fields in safari, but i can see how annoying it would be.

    Tabs in Terminal.app

    Amen. I wouldnt mind them as an option in iChat either.

    More IM Protocol support and USB cameras

    More iChat protocol support would be good, but i suspect their license from AOL limits what they can do in that regard. (thats how these companies seem to do things) – USB camera support would be great… i can only hope that htis is just a dev resources issue for apple and not a “sell iSights” one – at least they should make there be some kind of driver api so usb camera makers can add support for their device themselves.

    Better X11 Integration, KDE/Gnome consistency

    I think it would be cool if X11 were transparent as well… sorta like classic, but even more integrated. Toggleable in system prefs. I DONT think that Apple should expend money to make kde and gnome integrate better. They aren’t about building some other GUI. They are about building Aqua. If Apple decides to bundle QT and GTK/GTK2 with their X11 implementation, then maybe they should add some aqua like themes – but until then, it’s up to the fink or darwinports guys.

    Hotmail and Yahoo! Email integration to Mail.app

    It would be nice, but I don’t think apple should pay microsoft money to license support for setting mac users up to use microsofts email service. It isnt strategically sound. Would be nice if they had protocol plugins via a published api though. Does entorague support hotmail? Maybe you are just using the wrong email app.

    I know Outlook Express on windows does this. This is because Microsoft want’s to own peoples email account, and giving them access to microsoft hotmail from microsoft outlook express makes sense. By that logic there may be hope for mail.app – but microsoft probably wants people to see that as a weakness of apples, and apple probably sees it as not wanting to give their customers to microsoft. You get stuck in the middle of their battles. Such is life.
26. 2003-10-29 7:44 pm

    Anonymous

    Remember the Mac clone fiasco and how much that damaged Apple’s business? OS X on x86 would be much, much worse.

    As for my wishes for 10.4? Better integration with the kqueue mechanism… I would like to see live monitoring of all displayed file information. If you request info on a file, and its size changes, it should be dynamically updated. If you create a file in your Desktop directory from the command line, it should appear instantly on your desktop. Hopefully we’ll see this sort of thing in PathFinder or one of the other Finder replacements.
27. 2003-10-29 7:45 pm

    Anonymous

    I agree, it should be in the system preference panel instead of buried within Image Capture. While we are putting stuff in the preference panel, why not put the “Printer setup” and “Audio MIDI Setup” NOT in the preference panel too? er?
28. 2003-10-29 7:46 pm

    Anonymous

    1-client Remote Desktop

    This would be cool. I presume you mean 1 client at a time, and not 1 client total. Just a direct connect instead of the 10 screen dashboard, right? That would be cool for sure.

    Database Integration between Local and Networked Apps

    So to clarify, what you want is for apple to define a standard based on XML that allows apps to share information via rendevous? Presumably multiple standards – audio, photo, document, text, etc? That would be a very very difficult thing to standardize, considering how many different apps do things differently. It wouldnt hurt to add sharing to iphoto, and if it isnt there, finder, but i am not sure how much benefit the rest could have. But i am not 100% clear on what you want.

    Scanner sharing

    In image capture you can go into preferances and share supported scanners across a local network. I suspect it uses rendevous. This feature is in 10.3.

    Modern Web Presence

    Apple includes apache and php by default. Apache is the default web server on OS X client AND server. PHP has to be enabled in apache, which if you develop web apps, is not that difficult to figure out.. and if you dont, why add the security risk. MySQL isnt distributed because of licensing iirc. It would be nice if apple did, but i am not sure its worth their money since you can just download the package and click install, thus saving everyone involved some cash (except mysql of course, who dont make a cent that way)

    Included Virtual PC

    Would be cool. But it would also erode the market for mac native apps when people just started running windows apps and such – the goal is to build a seperate ecosystem. Besides, with Microsoft owning it now, it will never happen. Though I agree that apple shouldnt have let microsoft buy the one good pc emulator out there.

    Office Solution

    the second apple does a complete office solution, microsoft backs out, and apple is doomed in the enterprise. This would be BAD. Especially with the office 2003 Drm crap coming up.

    This is a strategic thing for apple, and they should definatley have one in the works (as a non-part-of-the-os product) – but i dont think they should release it. It would be nice if OO.o got native though.

    Support for the .NET Platform

    Isn’t mono being ported? Either way, .NET is way over hyped. It’s cool, but unless it conquers the whole market, they should be careful not to give it credit. Apple and Microsoft fight over standards and formats now – not applications.

    Full MIME support

    Amen. BeOS had this down to an art, and Apple should copy it down to the pixel.

    DB-based 64-bit Filesystem & ML Parsing

    64 bit yes. DB Based / Metadata yes. Natural Language Parsing? That seems like it should be the next layer up… maybe as part of finders search box. Could be cool, but i think it’s too soon to be truly useful.

    Application Management

    It would be nice if the installer “reciepts” acted as uninstallers. And then .apps were self contained.

    Support for more DVD-+RW/R devices

    Hardware support is good, but only as long as it doesnt break the “just works” factor.

    Better Unicode Support

    Ok. I thought Apple was pretty much in the lead on this already. but if there are holes, yeah, fill em.

    Better Backwards Compatibility

    I respectfully disagree. I hope apple continues to be willing to scrap things and get it right. Thats how you make yourself great. Backwards compatibility is just a set of handcuffs – though i could see it being something they should keep in mind more before they scrap something.

    Better Hardware Resource Management

    um.. isnt there a prefs pane that lets you designate what various things do? I am pretty sure you can turn off the image captuer auto thingy and then your problem would be solved. Seems odd to complain about official apple support of your hardware being added.

    Share a FireWire Drive without Rebooting

    Set up TCP/IP over firewire and share the drive. The boot to firewire turns the computer into an external firewire harddisk – all commands just control the drive. There is 0 reason to implement the incredibly complex syncing and error checking code that would be needed to do this while the drive was acting as an existing volume. Plus i think the hardware wont allow it. But when you are running an os on a system, you can share the drive a myriad of other wasy (NFS, Samba, etc) – so you dont need the firewire.

    Less bugs, more security

    OS X is one of the least buggy, most secure consumer operating systems available. But sure, less bugs more security would be nice. While we are stating the obvious, So would free money in the box, free upgrades for life, and bundled 2tb harddisks.

    Speed, speed, speed

    I’m sure most of us were hoping they would slow it down.

    Seriously though, i think you can tack this on the end of just about any wishlist safely.

    Subscription-based, Live Support

    AppleCare. Apple Store.

    The iSight/AppleRemoteDesktop would be interesting, but I am certain I dont want to see (or be seen by) most of the customer service reps I have spoken with. And I am not sure I want to give them access to my machine either… especially since most of them just advice “reboot” ;P

    Anyway – a lot of what you want is already doable in 10.3 very easily. Or it’s just picky. But there are some good ideas buried in there. ;P

    please note- written in a text editor, and osnews has no preview button. please forgive any formatting errors.
29. 2003-10-29 7:50 pm

    Anonymous

    > Someone else told you this before, but you shot him down as if he was an idiot instead of trying it.

    I shot it down because he said “active apps”, not “windows of the same app”. He wansn’t clear. Besides, I could not try it, as I am on XP at this very moment, plus I explained that I need a mouse-driven way for it.
30. 2003-10-29 7:56 pm

    Anonymous

    UFS2 (snapshots, quotas, extended attr, 64bits, acl)

    It would be interested to see if they could properly implement resource forks with UFS2 (unlike the current hack utilized by UFS1) and add support for background fsck to the kernel (shouldn’t be too hard as XNU and FreeBSD have the same VFS)

    fully 64 bit option

    Aah yes, this should be my #1 wish. I would like to see two builds of XNU, one 32-bit and one 64-bit, selected at boot time by the bootloader automatically depending on the underlying CPU architecture.

    I would also like to see Apple implement a *fully optimized* 64-bit ABI for OS X. Many may remember analysis showing that the current 32-bit ABI is not well optimized (and consequently Apple enforced prebinding systemwide)

    This should be coupled with a release of the IBM XL C/C++ compiler for OS X supporting this new 64-bit ABI. Obviously the old 32-bit ABI would remain for backwards compatibility.

    The C++ ABI should be the gcc 3.3 one, and Apple should ship 64-bit versions of all frameworks utilizing this ABI. This is what Sun does with Solaris. It would also be nice to see Apple move to DVD-ROMs for installation media.

    I’m certain some are worried about how much bloat this would add to the base installation. Well keep in mind 64-bit userland support would be G5 only, and those G5s will likely have, at a minimum, an 80GB hard drive, so 5-10GB of underlying operating system and applications really isn’t that bad in comparison.

    Applications could then be compiled with both 32-bit and 64-bit support, thanks to the Mach-O binary format. Provided Apple does implement an optimized, 64-bit ABI, this should result in a significant performance boost for applications utilizing the new ABI, due to inefficiencies of the old design. I believe it’s quite likely Apple has been working on this for quite some time internally, and didn’t manage to get the base frameworks 64-bit clean or the development tools modified in time for the release of Panther.
31. 2003-10-29 7:57 pm

    Anonymous

    Sorry, I guess I didn’t clarify. Command + Tab scrolls through active applications… Command + ~ scrolls through active WINDOWS of that application. They don’t do that same thing there
32. 2003-10-29 7:58 pm

    Anonymous

    [i]It’s cool, but unless it conquers the whole market…t[i]

    Since Microsoft has 93%-95% of the market already and the vast majority of new windows apps will be written in .NET(look at the Longhorn SDK info) it’s pretty much inevitable that it will conquer the market.
33. 2003-10-29 7:58 pm

    Anonymous

    Fair enough. Sorry for being harsh. Hopefully I was able to clarify – its a bit of an odd keycombo, but it’s great when it works. It is NOT a mouse option of course. then again, neither is the cmd-tab in the first place. You should look into ASM. It’s an oldschool os 9 style switcher for the menu bar.. brings all app windows to the front for the chosen app.. then just click one or use the window menu.

    And arent you a powerbook user? are you suggesting you dont carry your laptop everywhere you go? ;P (this is a joke…mostly)
34. 2003-10-29 8:01 pm

    Anonymous

    > And arent you a powerbook user? are you suggesting you dont carry your laptop everywhere you go? ;P

    I have 13 computers here (3 Macs, 1 NeXTStation, 1 BeBox, 1 Pegasos, 7 PCs). Pick and choose.
35. 2003-10-29 8:01 pm

    Anonymous

    First of all, lots of really great points made in your article. Just a little rant:

    Virtual Desktops (workspaces):

    Honestly I’ve never understood why anyone would use this feature… If you need more desktop space just use a higher resolution (most trinitron 19″ monitors, including mine, support 2048×1536 at 75hz or higher). Add two (dual head) and you’ve got 4096×1536 to play with

    Live Backgrounds:

    This isn’t quite what you were requesting, but there are several programs/haxies that allow you to use a screensaver as your desktop background, heres a few:

    http://www.versiontracker.com/php/search.php?plt%5B%5D=maco…

    Hotmail and Yahoo! email integration to Mail.app

    Seems weird that you’ve been having problems with the httpmail plugin, I’ve been using it since the first release and I’ve yet to have any stablity issues. As for yahoo support, I’m sure it would be simply a matter of changing the parsing code for the httpmail plugin since its open source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/httpmail-plugin/) As for apple including support, I doubt that will happen any time soon… then again they did add outlook support…

    More IM Protocol support and USB cameras

    http://www.ecamm.com/mac/ichatusbcam/

    Better Backwards Compatibility

    Maybe its just me but I kind of like this, since it forces developers to optimize their programs. Don’t get me wrong though… stupid name changes and relocations of core system frameworks that seems to happen between each major revision is pretty ridiculous. I’ve downloaded source code to several programs that haven’t been updated since 10.1 and many of them won’t even compile without changes to the source.
36. 2003-10-29 8:06 pm

    Anonymous

    >If you need more desktop space just use a higher resolution

    I am sorry, but my 12″ Powerbook can not do more than 1024×768 and none of the iBooks can either (when on the go, I can’t get with me a 30kg monitor). I DO have a 1600×1200 SONY monitor here and that’s what I am going to use with my new PowerMac G4 I am getting soon, but this isn’t the panakeia for all cases.
37. 2003-10-29 8:10 pm

    Anonymous

    “Database Integration between Local and Networked Apps” – This is done already. OS X has OpenLDAP on db4. As in any repository system you have to do some work on your own. No biggie.

    PostgerSQL and mySQL are avalable for OS X – is it so difficult to download them? If you are thinking of Web then you should have internet connection. This is really not a serious wish. Hitachi just released DNAStar for OS X – that is the tool I use a lot: can Apple add it too to the next OS release? In other words, one can not ask Apple to include everything. Beside, in no time users will criticize Apple for bloated install DVD (as in case of some linux distros)

    Speed, speed, speed – very good but you contradict yourself:

    DB-based 64-bit Filesystem & ML Parsing – this is slowdown, not speed increase although usefull, same goes with idea to allow screensavers to run in place of background images.

    I have few wishes too:

    – heavy duty OpenLDAP support, stop modification of unix servers: for example OS X version of samba has problems with other samba implementations (BSD/linux – try to keep high network load for hour or so),

    – tune networking (for example past problems with mtu discovery)

    – Make possible to completely strip down all eyecandy stuff.

    – Make priority from Implementation of new and COMMON technologies as an example mentioned above DVD formats.

    – moving to x86 makes not much sense but if Apple at some point would go back to the idea of clones, then linux would not be a treat and “Bevare Windows!”

    – Help OpenOffice to make great office suite. Starting from scratch will demand more time but enhancing what is already available would be much easier. Better Apple should buy WPO the only real competition for MS office.
38. 2003-10-29 8:23 pm

    Anonymous

    @ the M$ Access comment:

    Access is a piece of junk. It uses the windows file system (thus cannot be used by any other platform), it can get corrupted very easily (data and hard work goes down teh drain) and it doesn’t scale well. I do not like FMP THAT much, but I believe that it is better than access.

    @ the Y! and Hotmail comments:

    I have been subscribing to yahoo for 2 years now (since they started requiring a subscription to POP). I can use entourage and any mail application (including mail.app) to get my yahoo mail. In terms of hotmail and getting licensing… this is murky. M$ is the only one at the moment who has access to hotmail (via outlook, express, and entourage) and they want to keep it that way. Is it really worth it for apple to lisence it?

    @ Greek

    RIGHT ON! Either make it all unicode (unlikely) or better support all languages in carbon mode too! Also while we are at it, give us a QWERTY russian keyboard layout for OS X just like you did on OS 9! Typing in a russian-typewriter keyboard is so cumbersome

    @ VPC

    Now that M$ has it… forget about it Besides VPC is aging technology! It only goes up to a Pentium MMX! That is ancient! Apple might want to invest some money in making an emulator for this century, not the last one. I would be on-board with an apple x86 emulator because this means that it wil be better integrated with the OS and the hardware, it can tap into more resources and run faster and more efficiently.

    @ Remote desktop

    I agree! Lets make it standard! We have a lot of sharing options in the sharing control pane, so why not this???

    @ More bundled apps

    They included apache…so why not include MySQL and other development/deployment apps with they XTools package?

    @ Integrated IM

    I would like an iChat to support Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Jabber on top of AIM. Yahoo and other file sharing apps have dropped the ball when it comes to the mac. Bad file sharing/transfer abilty, no video/voice conference or chat…so apple needs to step in and kick some derriere 😉

    @ Office package.

    I agree that when apple makes such a complete package, M$ backs out, bad for apple. Appel could do this had they a bigger marketshare and the ability to reverse engineer M$ products faster, that way they could add compatibility right away. For now it is just up to us to do so. The nice thing is that panther’s TextEdit can open and save in the M$ Word format (it is not compelte though – no graphics, tables and such)

    @ backwards compatibility

    Right on! In terms of classic thought, I have not used classic in 2 years I finally got rid of it when I installed panther. In the future though it would be nice to have a classic-like solution to run older apps without the need for a macos 9 folder (which was 1Gb on my HD!)

    @ .NET

    hmmmm…. how would that work? M$ is trying to keep people locked into the M$ platform. if others try to get such support in their systems what is there to keep users locked into M$ and not go elsewhere?

    MY WISH LIST

    @ Improve the addressbook! I like it but make it more modular like the newton! I do not like the 5 e-mail limit, or the 2 mailing address limit Also add bdays and anniversaries to the addressbook!

    @ Better iCal/addressbook integration. I would like (if the addressbook suppoted birthdates) for birthdays to go into iCal automatically once I enter then in the addressbook.

    @ iSync improvements. I would like for iSync to support the Windows Mobile, Linux PDA, EPOC and other PDA and Phone platforms (Bluetooth, Ir, Serial, net- connection) — How about the Apple newton ? I realize it is not sold anymore but I still use mine and I would like to install apps and sync it without resorting to third party apps (even if they are free )

    @ Defrag and Cleanup utilities (kinda like the ones windows NT has). I realize that when you install something it “optimizes” your HD (probably defrags) but I would like to do so without the need for and installation or buying Norton.

    @ A better CD-Burning utility? I do not want anything fancy, just a simple user interface, drag and drop, then burn … kinda like Toast

    @ VCD and SVCD support in the DVD player

    @ More digital cameras (still and video) supported by the OS!!!! please!!! I have a digital camera by sony and I cant get my vids into my mac!

    @ Can you give us a scientific/graphing calculator like you used to do in MacOS 7,8.9 ????

    @ I like the fact that you have given us many japanese and chinese typefaces…but what about other non-roman and non-kana scripts like greek, hebrew, cyrillic, etc, etc etc ????
39. 2003-10-29 8:26 pm

    Anonymous

    As a UNIX-administrator (FreeBSD and Linux) I’m used to edit text-files for NFS, apache-configuration, firewall-rules etc. As much as I love the shiny look of OS X, I dislike the (from a UNIX-admins point of view) akward Netinfo-tool.

    Why? Because I don’t feel that I have complete control.

    I don’t mind people want GUI’s for everyday-tasks. But the text-files aren’t where they usually are on most UNIX systems. So my wish for 10.4 is a closer integration between the traditional locations for text-files and a revamped GUI-tool (but _not_ Netinfo).
40. 2003-10-29 8:26 pm

    Anonymous

    There are actually plugins for Opera/Mozilla of MPlayer. So if Safari uses the standard for Mozilla plugins, everything should be ok.
41. 2003-10-29 8:27 pm

    Anonymous

    1. KEY COMMANDS. We should have a unified language of key commands, like in Windows. Key commands should be everywhere, in all programs, and there should be consistency in what the different commands do in all the programs.

    2. MAXIMIZING. The green maximize button should maximize the windows all the way to the screens edges, like in Windows. Now some program does this, some program does not, there is no consistency. And of course there should be an omnipresent key command for this function.
42. 2003-10-29 8:30 pm

    Anonymous

    comments:

    @ ability to strip down eye candy:

    I like the idea. – perhaps theming and the ability to get simpler themes that require less CPU/graphics card power

    @ virtual desktops

    most unices have them, so why not? but I would prefer if it were an option at install time rather than something that gets installed mo matter what. I had a 3rd party virtual desktop app installed and did not use it much (from 10 to 10.2 — used it 2 times and those were for testing purposes, in day-to-day life I did not use em at all)
43. 2003-10-29 8:32 pm

    Anonymous

    For a PC person myself I have looked at the Mac and have seen pros and cons;

    Here are some cons that need to be remedied(correct me if I’m wrong).

    1: Demetalization; Place in the preferences section in each app that uses the Metalized interface the ability to turn it off(this is my #1 excuse not to purchase a Mac), hacks are unacceptable work arounds(my #2 is price but that is a different topic).

    2: Theme system; You shouldn’t have to purchase additional software to make changes are go into the CLI.

    3: Icon Manager; Once again you shouldn’t have to purchase additional software to manage your icons.

    4: Create additional iLife apps like a labeling program(iLabel) and audio editor/mixer(iSound).

    5: An Office Suite; Create a better suite than appleworks and cheaper than Office. Apple can make a really different Office suite by going out and buying OmniGroup to get OmniGraffle Pro and OmniOutliner and combine it with Keynote plus develop a new word processor and spreadsheet. Each app except Outliner would cost 100$. Then sell a suite for 200-250$(containing a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Diagramming, and a PIM that leverages existing OS X software).

    6: Solid disk utilities, Anti-Virus and Backup Software should also be built into OS X(it should be in Windows as well). If you build in CD burning and included a DVD creating app you should included these.

    Many other features have already been posted.

    If this improvements are made there would be so many apps that it would give end users a better value. This could also make a subscription method more viable since Apple would be updating many apps throughout the year. The possibility of OS X, iLife, Symantec level utilities, and an Office suite plus a years worth of customer support say 150-200$ a year could be viable and cheap for the user long-term.
44. 2003-10-29 8:32 pm

    Anonymous

    last item on my wish-list before I leave

    @ I want keyboard shortcuts for launching apps! I used to use this feature extensivelly in OS 9 and now it is gone

    @ Folder tabs, like in macos 9. please bring them back!
45. 2003-10-29 8:36 pm

    Anonymous

    very good article about 10.4 on osnews ! hope apple reads some bits….

    my special wishlist:

    -theming, but i fear apple is too proud of trashed metal etc.pp.

    -option to kill all zooms, fades, blendings, fx in the gui… annoying and slows down the workflow. esp.on slower machines.

    -open choice of fonts for finder, menus etc.

    reason: x wastes a lot of screen-space, you can’t choose tighter bitmap-fonts for menus. annoying!

    i still use 9 because it uses my ibook screen way more effective. plus, small aa-fonts are really hard to read. This is a scientific fact.

    (ok, and my os9 is an etablished workhorse, all my tools are sharpened, trained and available with no hassle, working in design, dtp, pre-press, music)

    -remove the static menu-bar ( :-)ooh, thats like demanding an apple 3-button mouse)

    instead: a pop-up menu system located at the mousepointer, nothing’s more annoying than rolling to the menubar…

    all in all i’m always concerned about effectiveness, less clicks, less mouserolling, more speed speed speed 🙂 it’s sad beos didn’t make it. it was smooth and fast on my lousy powermac 7500 with 200mhz. now i got os-x which is slow on my 600mhz ibook. but i’m 100% sure you’ve heard this story a 1000 times.

    best, andi
46. 2003-10-29 8:36 pm

    Anonymous

    The (+) zoom button never seems to do what I want it to do. I need a way to maximize the window to full screen. Clicking (+) and having the window shrink is never what I want. Safari and iTunes are good examples of how (+) fails to serve my needs.
47. 2003-10-29 8:36 pm

    Anonymous

    Dev focused

    1) Include Enterprise Objects Framework for Obj-C. (Java version is part of Web Objects)

    2) Restructure all Apple Apps to allow 3rd party service instead of .mac

    3) Enable all Apple Apps to allow for 3rd party plugins to extend functionality. Create open and documented plugin apis

    4) Make all Apple Apps file formats open and documented

    User focused

    1) Allow for higher screen resolutions than 72 DPI
48. 2003-10-29 8:41 pm

    Anonymous

    I don’t think Microsoft is willing to license all these things to Apple, they will give them a hard time!

    about the Safari Browser, it does not have to support Active X, i thought that ActiveX had to be removed because of the latest trial about plug-ins in Internet Explorer.

    They will remove these plug-ins and probably accept W3C standards. So webpages will get w3c approved since everyone is browsing with Explorer and plug-ins are being removed in the future
49. 2003-10-29 8:42 pm

    Anonymous

    The green button is the ZOOM button, not the MAXIMIZE button. It doesn’t maximize the window by *design*. It’s a feature that it only enlarges the window as big as needed for the data being viewed.

    See the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for MacOS X at: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/…

    if you don’t understand.
50. 2003-10-29 8:43 pm

    Anonymous

    Check out http://www.screentime.com/swf_desktop/swf_desktop_main.html

    I’m using other products of ScreenTime Media and they’re quite good 🙂
51. 2003-10-29 8:47 pm

    Anonymous

    .NET is good technology. I like using it when I have to work on Windows.

    If .NET ever gets loose on Mac, in a decent quality way, Cocoa (and Carbon too, for that matter) is probably dead. Cocoa is better than .NET, but no one except a few hobbyists would ever touch it again if .NET gives them a Windows version without a full port. (The development environment would most likely BE Windows in this case, BTW.)

    Of course, there’s the conspiracy theory that MS is quietly hoping for Mono to succeed on Linux, planning to buy a few judges/politicians/etc and use them to slam their rival in a few years. Who knows?

    If Apple released Cocoa for Windows (in a decent quality way), they might not take much share away from .NET but they’d help themselves enormously. That 99% of the commercial developers that won’t even look at Cocoa now just might.
52. 2003-10-29 8:54 pm

    Anonymous

    I understand the green button is a zoom button. I am asking Apple to implement a Maximize feature for applications that need it. With expose and alt-tab in place, it is easy to multitask between applications that occupy the full screen. In addition, when using applications such as photoshop or BBEdit, having windows clutter the background can be very distracting. 10.4 needs to bring the user interface guidelines up to date.

    How many times have you wanted Safari and iTunes to occupy the full screen, and found yourself clicking the zoom button a couple of times, watching in astonishment as clicking (+) minimizes the interface – and finally you settle into moving the window to the top left corner of the screen and dragging it out to fill up the entire window as best possible.
53. 2003-10-29 8:59 pm

    Anonymous

    I use pop access to my Yahoo account everyday without paying anything.

    Yahoo offers two options : Pay or allow Yahoo to send some advertisement mails.

    I have chosen the second option and have never received any advertisement on my mailbox ! There’s no need to pay
54. 2003-10-29 8:59 pm

    Anonymous

    This happens to me quite a bit… I agree that the + button should maximize the window.

    “How many times have you wanted Safari and iTunes to occupy the full screen, and found yourself clicking the zoom button a couple of times, watching in astonishment as clicking (+) minimizes the interface – and finally you settle into moving the window to the top left corner of the screen and dragging it out to fill up the entire window as best possible.”
55. 2003-10-29 9:04 pm

    Anonymous

    they are crap, expose is a much better solution, feels natural, and doesn’t feel as flaky and unnatural as virtual DTs; i’m sure there’s a million 3rd-party apps for this if it’s so dear to you, but to me it screams bad KDE UI
56. 2003-10-29 9:06 pm

    Anonymous

    To each his or her own. I don’t have this problem personally. Probably an individual preference…

    “How many times have you wanted Safari and iTunes to occupy the full screen, and found yourself clicking the zoom button a couple of times, watching in astonishment as clicking (+) minimizes the interface – and finally you settle into moving the window to the top left corner of the screen and dragging it out to fill up the entire window as best possible.”
57. 2003-10-29 9:07 pm

    Anonymous

    expose does a much better job at it (of course it’s not a VD, but a more natural workaround for cluttered screens). IMO virtual desktops are very sketchy and dont work
58. 2003-10-29 9:08 pm

    Anonymous

    For the jackass that can’t understand why anyone would use virtual desktops….and who thinks that using higher resolutions is actually a solution

    1) If you’ve got 15 applications open at one time, as many developers and sysadmins do, you often want selected subsets of them on the desktop at a time. That is, 1 or MORE, but not ALL of them. And you want those groupings to remain constant.There is no other way to accomplish this without a lot of window management.

    2) some of us don’t have eyesight that can cope with things being that small.
59. 2003-10-29 9:14 pm

    Anonymous

    Virtual desktops and expose do not solve the same problem.

    Virtual desktops are for GROUPING applications. Expose is for selecting a single applications.

    Anyone who thinks that virtual desktops are “flaky, unnatural, or don’t work” has never used a real unix implementation of VD. If VD is integrated into the windowmanager like it should be (rather than a third-party hack) they are not flaky at all.

    An who is to say what is natural? Some of us are GLAD that our computer doesn’t have to mirrow a real desk. And some of us don’t have desks piled high with disorganized clutter.
60. 2003-10-29 9:16 pm

    Anonymous

    MY WISH LIST

    @ Improve the addressbook! I like it but make it more modular like the newton! I do not like the 5 e-mail limit, or the 2 mailing address limit Also add bdays and anniversaries to the addressbook!

    Done! If you’re on 10.3! 😉

    @ Better iCal/addressbook integration. I would like (if the addressbook suppoted birthdates) for birthdays to go into iCal automatically once I enter then in the addressbook.

    Almost there – they have dates but no hotlink to iCal – yet!

    Cheers Daniel
61. 2003-10-29 9:17 pm

    Anonymous

    I updated the article with a mockup to explain my request:

    http://img.osnews.com/img/4931/visual_expose.jpg

    It is true that I am mouse girl, a visual person. I don’t learn shortcuts. Except copy/paste/cut, ctrol+z, alt-tab and cntrl+S, I don’t use any other shortcut on my OSes, be it Mac or Windows or Linux. I am sure there are others like me, “visual” people.
62. 2003-10-29 9:18 pm

    Anonymous

    Bad KDE UI?

    If only mac os x had the comprehensive window management that KDE has!
63. 2003-10-29 9:20 pm

    Anonymous

    Expose Enhancement:

    I don’t think many people would need this. As you say, there are already quite a few ways to activate Expose. Shouldn’t be a problem to create what you want as a 3’rd party app though!

    Virtual Desktops:

    No, this is not KDE or Gnome. Learn how to use cmd-H cmd-alt-H, alt-clicking, cmd-whatever-your-localization-uses-to switch windows etc.

    Reach same applications’ windows

    Maybe…

    Path Navigation

    Sounds cool!

    Fast User Switching Icon Item

    I’ve got that iMac your’re talking about…

    Live Backgrounds

    Sure, why not, if the people at Apple feel that they have nothing better to do.

    Some Theme Support

    Tried Duality? Works just like you want to. (Except X11. But you reallt mean GTK+,GTK+2 & QT, don’t you?)

    Finder Plugins

    As others have said, they already exists. Tried StuffIt Deluxe? It has most of the things you’re asking for.

    Sherlock Plugins

    http://developer.apple.com/macosx/sherlock/

    You wrote OSNews? You could fix it!

    Scheduled Tasks

    Tried searching versiontracker.com for “Cron”?

    Better Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition

    Yeah, it’s been like that since they introduced it in the System 7.5 era.

    WMV/ASF Safari plugin

    Coming Soon! Windows Media Player 9 Series for Mac OS X will deliver compatibility with 9 Series audio and video content.

    I bet they will include a new plugin!

    Undo on Safari

    That would mean adding undo to the NSTextField. Would be quite nice!

    Tabs in Terminal.app

    …yeah, maybe? I like to display the cmd-number and process name in the title bar. Works quite well.

    More IM Protocol support and USB cameras

    Agree!

    Better X11 Integration, KDE/Gnome consistency

    Are you asking Apple to write a new X11 implementation, rewrite QT and GTK and rewrite all X11 apps to work like OSX programs? I wouldn’t want that…

    Hotmail and Yahoo! email integration to Mail.app

    I wouldn’t use Hotmail if someone paid me. (Most of my friends with Hotmail get 300 spam emails per day!!) There are lots of other free alternatives.

    1-client Remote Desktop

    Yes!

    Database Integration between Local and Networked Apps

    Most professionals do these kinds of things with fileservers, don’t they?

    Scanner sharing

    Would be nice.

    Modern Web Presence

    Seriously? With the OSX Client? Maybe as downloadable packages from Apple.

    Included Virtual PC

    Microsoft owns VirtualPC. A Virtual PC is.. a PC. Microsoft does not allow people who have agreements with it to sell PC’s without an OS. So, it’s never going to happen..

    Office Solution

    Yes, yes, yes!

    Support for the .NET Platform

    Sure.

    Full MIME support

    Works good for me. Better than on any other OS.

    DB-based 64-bit Filesystem & NL Parsing

    Sherlock?

    Application Management

    Yes! Tried DesInstaller?

    Better Unicode Support

    But the worst thing is the lousy support for Unicode in the Terminal and BSD layer!

    Better Backwards Compatibility

    I never feel that I have any problems with this…

    Share a FireWire Drive without Rebooting

    The ability to share any folder/disk on the computer would be nice!

    Speed, speed, speed

    Yes, yes, yes!
64. 2003-10-29 9:24 pm

    Anonymous

    The http Hotmail protocol is plain XML format and works on an open standard called WebDAV. It is easy to create an application that uses the Hotmail server.

    Here is one place where you can find the exact details of their format:

    http://jhttpmail.sourceforge.net/httpmail.html
65. 2003-10-29 9:26 pm

    Anonymous

    Why does Apple care what MY desktop looks like?

    If I want a flashing purple background, that’s my business, not Apple’s.

    Frankly, I think looking at a mac is like staring at a lightbulb. All I want is to get rid of those damned white screen backgrounds….on EVERYTHING…not just on the applications that let me.

    Why can’t I design my own color scheme like KDE? And why can’t they be them implemented system wide?

    And while we’re at it, why can I only change the background color in the icon view of the finder? Why not the in the other views as well? And why not alternating colors for the rows of the list view (like pathfinder)?
66. 2003-10-29 9:30 pm

    Anonymous

    YOU STILL DON”T GET IT!

    Virtual desktops are NOT merely application switchers.

    They are for GROUPING applications. Get it???? GROUPING is not SWITCHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Switching application with mice or keyboards or expose is beside the point. I’m not talking about SWITCHING applications….I’m talking about GROUPING applications ……

    Or can’t you fathom why someone would need to have multiple, but not all, applications visible at one time?
67. 2003-10-29 9:33 pm

    Anonymous

    I need OpenOffice!!!!!! It is an essential part of my PC usage (and my wife’s too). The current version is not likely to be tried here, sorry. Come on Apple, put some weight in behind it!
68. 2003-10-29 9:35 pm

    Anonymous

    BrazenRegent:

    “…plus develop a new word processor and spreadsheet.”

    If Apple was going to implement its own spreadsheet, then it should repackage and shine-up its own version of Gnumeric, just like it put KHTML into Safari. Gnumeric is the only spreadsheet I’ve seen in recent years that can pretty much replace Excel in virtually all spreadsheet tasks. And, they wouldn’t have to charge much more than they’re charging for Appleworks, since Gnumeric is already written.
69. 2003-10-29 9:37 pm

    Anonymous

    VDs are god’s gift to men. Expose is fine as a visual way of organizing windows, but they are not a replacement for true VDs. By the time you hit F9, find the window you want, and click on it, I could have swapped through all of my VDs. I use them so much that the CTRL+Fx hotkeys KDE assigns by default are too slow, so I assign them to WIN+Q, WIN+W, WIN+A, etc. That way, I don’t even have to move my hands to get to the VD I want. When you’re a code monkey, you want something that allows you to switch between your dozen xterms without breaking your concentration. A reflexive mechanism like hotkeys + VDs allows you to do this, while a visual one like Expose does not.
70. 2003-10-29 9:38 pm

    Anonymous

    I would like Mail to be like Opera’s M2, with access points, etc.
71. 2003-10-29 9:39 pm

    Anonymous

    Path navigation has been built in since OS <X:

    Command-click on the proxy icon at the top of any finder window. The path all the way to the root is revealed. Drag to where you want to be, release the mouse button, and you are there.
72. 2003-10-29 9:41 pm

    Anonymous

    >Command-click on the proxy icon at the top of any finder window.

    that’s a drop-down menu. That’s two clicks, plus the time for the brain to look for the right thing. With Path Navigation you only do ONE click, and it is much easier to the brain to realize what is where.
73. 2003-10-29 9:42 pm

    Anonymous

    I think, Apple do really need to start to extra a button of mouse in their product by default.. 😛
74. 2003-10-29 9:49 pm

    Anonymous

    Better Mp3 player support in iTunes both windows and mac.
75. 2003-10-29 9:54 pm

    Anonymous

    well, I have a samsung video camera, and it works fine with iMovie, and there are not even any official listings of ANY samsung video cameras.
76. 2003-10-29 10:01 pm

    Anonymous

    Virtual desktops are for GROUPING applications. Expose is for selecting a single applications.

    Another solution for grouping applications is suggested by PWM (http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/pwm) For people who don’t like to follow links, PWM allows you to group windows arbitrarily by “docking” their titlebars in a tabbed fashion. The entire group can then be manipulated by dragging the tab bar around. Admittedly, this isn’t ideal in some circumstances–where you need to see at least two of the windows you want to group at the same time–but perhaps then expose could be used for each group to display them all.

    KOMPRESSOR
77. 2003-10-29 10:05 pm

    Anonymous

    What OS X needs is robust, bulletproof printing. This has been sorely lacking since OS 9. Too many graphics professionals depend on Macs for OS X printing to be anything less.
78. 2003-10-29 10:05 pm

    Anonymous

    All three of these just pull back in some features from the past:

    1) Put a Next button in Mail, just like every other email reader.

    2) When emptying the Trash folder, provide info on how many files and how much space they take up. This has been a lifesaver on several occasions when the wrong stuff found its way into the trash.

    3) In Safari, do like Netscape/Mozilla and provide a popup menu with just a mouse button press (specifically to provide the easily-accessed Back button. Using the Ctrl key or navigating to a menu is a pain.

    Little things, but they’d really polish up the experience of using Mac OS X.
79. 2003-10-29 10:09 pm

    Anonymous

    1. an ability of Finder to sort ALL folders BEFORE files, not to mix them together alfabetically in column view.

    2. office suite – Apple should take existing OpenOffice (because it’s great!) and add Cocoa GUI and native OSX integration and sell it for lets say max $100.

    3. themes

    4. option to adjust GUI eye-candies to your preferences (to turn off some them, etc.)

    5. virtual desktops

    6. more speed… at startup!
80. 2003-10-29 10:09 pm

    Anonymous

    great article, hopefully this can be maintained and Apple can keep an eye on it.

    A couple of other suggestions:

    Better Proxy Support

    We run a novell border manager firewall on our M$-dominated network and both Mail and Safari choke on it. The only reason I use entourage for mail is that it can tunnel over the proxy, while Mail can’t. Safari chokes on secure connections over the proxy, forcing me to use Internet Explorer. Hate them both! Can’t believe this is still not fixed!

    SyncML on .Mac

    All the synchronisation servers for mobile phones using SyncML (like my Sony Ericsson P800) are windows only. Why not upgrade .Mac to allow syncing of your phone’s contacts/calendar over GPRS? I’d pay for that.
81. 2003-10-29 10:15 pm

    Anonymous

    I do not know what poessessed Apple to a) permit MS to buy VPC from Connectix and b) allow IBM to deliver G5 chips that broke VPC. Mac OS X was a wonderful emulation platform: Stable, immune to PC hazards (virii, Trojans, Windows in general), easy to use and good looking, too. Besides, people who run emulations need powerful hardware – lots of G5 buyers.

    So, what now? With RealPC gone up in smoke (or should I say “vapor”?), VPC in the hands of MS and MacBochs real slow, what option so we have?

    Once, there was Orange PC with their hardware card. Imagine this: I small box, no bigger than many MP3 players that connects to your firewire port. It carries a PC chip with low power requirement and some RAM. The rest of the hardware (HD, RAM, Video) is emulated on the Mac. The little thingo works just as well in notebooks.
82. 2003-10-29 10:18 pm

    Anonymous

    Nice one! I’ve been waiting to write my wish list and now you provided the incentive.

    Draws:

    Get rid of draws. The window size should stay the same and options should happen internally.

    Mail:

    Need to be able to hide folders. Especially, “.mailboxlist” that gets created by my IMAP server.

    There really needs to be a status bar that shows the URL you are just about to click to unregister you from the mailing list that keeps sending you those huge HTML emails! 😉

    Window resizing:

    Be able to alter window size from any corner or any edge not just limited to bottom right. A la windows.

    Enable double clicking the top bar of an app window to maximise it – just like windows.

    Full keyboard access (TAB-ing):

    “Full keyboard access” should be a consistent experience in all apps. Needs a lot more work to get it to work pervasively. Need to be able to TAB through icons and list boxes within a given app.

    Safari does not do proper “full keyboard access” within the HTML pages. You can’t TAB through URLs and then hit space to take you there.

    Safari:

    Just keep working on it. Need much more options in the prefs like pop-up exclude/include server list.

    GUI:

    Choice of metal or white (at least). Problem with metal is that grey writing on a grey background does not an ideal viewing experience maketh. Also, more flexible font sizing pervasive within apps and os – sometimes fonts are just too small.

    Application management:

    Apple should open up software update so that ALL third party apps can use it – I heard this as a rumour but not sure what happened. It would be lovely. Install and uninstall (when created) should be opened up to third parties too. Although it’s simple, we really shouldn’t have to drag apps into the Applications folder. “Seamless” is the word and that means no seams! 😉

    Auto complete:

    The new “Complete F5” option in the Edit menu of Mail and some other text markup apps is great. But it needs more work so that you can just switch on the “auto complete as you type mode”. That’ll be fun!

    Address Book enhancements:

    Have you had a look? Couple of things are very interesting. From one card you can make reference to another card using the “Names” item. You can say someone is the father of someone else. It doesn’t do reverse logic – yet.

    Also, need the dates item to link to iCal.

    Also, you can now set up lists and email your updated contact details with them. But this is kludgy and you really need the sharing protocol that you talk about. Which leads me too…

    Database Integration between Local and Networked Apps:

    You used that magic word: interoperate. Someone said “database driven filesystem” and you cited [url=www.gnome.org/~seth/storage/]Storage[/url] but once you’re sharing data from one app to another across networks then you’re into territory more like peer to peer/server systems like [url=www.osafoundation.org]Chandler[/url].

    Then if you really want any app to share any data with any other app with permissions and trust then you’re really going into the semantic area and you should be building on top of [url=www.w3.org/RDF/]RDF[/url].

    So, my wish list ends with wanting to see Apple adopt a semantic file and sharing system along the lines of [url=www.kendra.org.uk/wiki/wiki.pl?KendraToolsProjectPlan]KendraBase[ /url]. I want it so much that I’ve hired a developer to build a prototype. I can’t wait! 😉

    Cheers Daniel
83. 2003-10-29 10:31 pm

    Anonymous

    “Even Windows XP can still run most apps written for Windows 3.1 12 years ago, and don’t forget how Microsoft took the sales by storm with Windows 95 because of their very good Win3.1 and DOS compatibility that allowed businesses to run apps dated back to 1981.”

    Windows XP also has bugs in it that date back all the way to Win95 codebase. Sometimes fixing the OS means changing the way that various subsystems interact. This does tend to break older applications, but the other alternative is vulnerabilities like Blaster which effected every 32 bit version of windows ever made.

    You also asked for a more modern filesystem. I agree with your there but there’s a cost for that. If you want a better FS, you’re going to have to give up Classic. I personally never use Classic (I hated Mac OS 9 and all of it’s predecessors, terrible system design despite the pretty interface) so I could lose it without missing it. But something tells me most Mac users aren’t ready to cut the cord just yet. So pick one or the other. Backward compatibility or a better file system. Quite frankly, you can’t have both.
84. 2003-10-29 10:32 pm

    Anonymous

    Rayiner Hashem,

    To me the best implementation of hot keys for virtual desktops is in XFce. Mouse wheel. Probably there are other wm that do it exactly the same way.

    Anyway I see that in all this excitement about expose people got confused. With virtual desktop one could arrange windows using expose in each of VD. How this two things can be mixed?
85. 2003-10-29 10:32 pm

    Anonymous

    1) Built in Tk to go with the built-in Tcl (and Perl, and Python, all of which will happily use it if appropriately built). I know this is a free download, but if it were preinstalled it would make explaining how to install apps that use it a lot easier.

    2) A more functional Python with libraries like Tkinter, wxWindows, gdb, etc. built-in.

    3) A Mail.app that is clever enough to handle mh formatted mailboxes and can recognize X-faces and PIcons in addition to .Mac icons.

    4) More formats should be handled natively by QuickTime; in particular formats like MOD that are widespread but don’t seem to have easy-to-find-and-download plug-ins available.

    5) XCode should directly support more languages.

    6) The really annoying HTML acronym tag behavior of Safari (being rendered in italics without the non-abbreviated form available anywhere) should be fixed.

    7) Safari should have more capabilities with regards to choosing helper applications for various file types.

    8) OS X shouldn’t be so dependent upon filename extensions. MIME types are much more reliable and should be used in preference to them whenever available.

    9) The older Apple apps Newton Press and NCU should really be carbonized; honestly, this is something that should take a single experienced engineer with access to the source code just a day or two.

    10) FTP & WebDAV support should be improved, particularly with regard to SSL and not leaving garbage files around on non-native volumes.

    That’s all that comes to mind right now, but I’m still exploring…
86. 2003-10-29 10:33 pm

    Anonymous

    Eugenia, you state in your article that BeBochs is in poor condition compared to VPC, however BeBochs is just one branch of the Bochs tree.

    Apple have done great things with OpenSource software and could again, there is already a working PC emulator* for OSX based on Bochs, I fail to see why apple couldnt make a better one yet. Especially since they could offer Linux and older MS OS support that will likely be axed in MS VPC

    *I forget the name…. sorry
87. 2003-10-29 10:35 pm

    Anonymous

    > Eugenia, you state in your article that BeBochs is in poor condition compared to VPC, however BeBochs is just one branch of the Bochs tree.

    That was just a typo. I meant “Bochs”.
88. 2003-10-29 10:38 pm

    Anonymous

    I know this isn’t the same as what you suggested, Eugenia, but this is a pretty cool feature of Panther (playing a movie on the desktop with Expose):

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031024200346697
89. 2003-10-29 10:40 pm

    Anonymous

    http://swizcore.com/SS/macOSX.php

    ok, these are third party themes, but seems that they’re using the macosx engine and not a crap-application like windowblind on windows

    i’m not sure because i don’t have a mac 🙁 but maybe it’s an hidden feature but an existing feature
90. 2003-10-29 10:42 pm

    Anonymous

    OK, now that my gears are turning, here are a few more:

    4) Virtual desktops! Despite some prior comments that don’t seem to understand their utility, they are extremely useful. I’ve used them for years on SGIs and Linux boxes and they’ve provided much-needed order and speed on my busy desktop. “Ernst Persson” clearly doesn’t get it, but virtual desktops are a vast improvement over single ones.

    5) Focus-follows-mouse. Not as the default, but definitely as an option. Of course, there should also be an option to also pop the window to the top (or not) when the focus changes.

    6) Themes. OK, they’re usually ugly–but it sure would be nice to be able to modify the UI a bit (especially the location and appearance of window icons).

    7) Unflatten metal icons! 10.2 saw the icons on the metal apps get flattened (such as the Play/Pause button in iTunes). Why? The blobbier versions looked better and were more consistent with the other UI elements. Pump ’em back up!
91. 2003-10-29 10:45 pm

    Anonymous

    Virtual desktops and Focus-follows-mouse both are part of the shareware utility “Virtual Desktops” from CodeTek. It would be nice for OSX to support them natively, but at least there is an alternative.

    http://www.codetek.com
92. 2003-10-29 10:49 pm

    Anonymous

    My girl is making on a set of Kanji learning cards in Adobe Illustrator. She cannot name the files by their Kanji because this doesn’t work in Adobe Illustrator’s file save panel. If she changes them after save, they just get messed up again if she happens to resave. Maybe this is a problem with Adobe, but it seems to me that it is a side effect of carbonizing classic OS apps. Most of the new OS X software (stuff coming from classic origins) are carbonized classic apps and most of them have inconsistent behaviors compared to their native counterparts. This is just one of them.

    Honestly, language support is a basic issue. Half way doesn’t cut it. Also, there’s not much use in using a non-Kanji file name to identify and organize sets of Kanji learners cards in folders.
93. 2003-10-29 11:04 pm

    Anonymous

    GUI: Choice of metal or white (at least). Problem with metal is that grey writing on a grey background does not an ideal viewing experience maketh. Also, more flexible font sizing pervasive within apps and os – sometimes fonts are just too small.

    —

    … yes, small fonts in x burn in the eyes, the current anti-aliasing code at those sizes doesn’t cut it! it’s obvious, instead of anti-aliasing a charset first and then use this, apple chooses to render char by char.

    result: each time different anti-aliasing on same chars within a text. e.g. sometimes an “i” is a quite ok char, next “i” could be a blurred POS. that looks horrible at small sizes.

    there are many great bitmap-fonts out there, ironically these are used most of the time in flash-based websites. it’s sad: websites get crisp small fonts, os’es went to blurry small fonts.

    i have to admit, that i am NOT against anti-aliasing – but at small sizes it simply doesn’t work.
94. 2003-10-29 11:12 pm

    Anonymous

    The problem with OS X’s font rendering is that it is too simplistic. It does a straight-forward AA pass with very little hinting. Thus, glyph shapes are accurately preserved, but often letters end up fuzzy and unevenly weighted. OS X’s rendering would look great on a very high res (200+ dpi) display, but looks poor on the average displays we have today.
95. 2003-10-29 11:15 pm

    Anonymous

    Just to let other know my bitter experience…

    I decided to pay the 30$ a year based on the promise that it will work with my mail application.

    This proved to be only a half truth. Yes, you can read your e-mail (unless you leave it open in another place), but It’s a really painfull experience to send a message using their SMTP server with Mail.app due to the fact that it’s very erratic, sometimes it works, sometime it doesn’t.

    And if you are thinking about contacting customer service, I can only tell you two things:

    1) No phone number listed.

    2) No e-mail address listed, only a web form to ask a question to their “staff” (and at the end, they just send you a copy of the same thing that is on the website).

    Please, if someone knows a workaround of this problem let me know!

    Note: I’m trying to use entourage and it’s also a little bit erratic, sometimes you need to authenticate the server and later you need to de-authorize it.
96. 2003-10-29 11:17 pm

    Anonymous

    Also, there’s not much use in using a non-Kanji file name to identify and organize sets of Kanji learners cards in folders.

    What’s wrong with labeling them by their kun-yomi written in roomaji?
97. 2003-10-29 11:26 pm

    Anonymous

    As a Windows user (previously a Mac user), I’d have to say that the only thing that would encourage me to switch back at this point is value. The thing is that I’m plenty comfortable with the Windows UI, so right now, so value and compatibility amongst a large number of products is more important to me than the HW or SW exterior design of one product.
98. 2003-10-29 11:47 pm

    Anonymous

    Feature:

    Ability for the Operating System to dynamically reload itself when updated, without requiring a restart, and leaving all applications running (paused while the invisible reload of the OS happens).

    Or atleast, give the ability for most of the services to reload themselves upon update, w/ out taking down the whole OS. You should not have to restart a system as often as you have to currently.
99. 2003-10-30 12:06 am

    Anonymous

    on option to make the trackpad click a leftbutton and the trackpad button on the bottom of the trackpad a rightbutton click.
100. 2003-10-30 12:08 am

     Anonymous

     I disagree with almost all of you. THE GUI IS NOT THE ISSUE!

     This is the problem that Apple had with the original MAC. They spend WAY too much time with the GUI. They need fundamental services, like an Enterprise Database (SYBASE) and more programming tools and support from more third party vendors. The vendors is what made MS Windows succeed. When I asked a windows user why they use it (even when they complain) they almost always say “It is because of the applications, and third party hardware support”.

     Apple, you need a real database, Lisence E-Directory from NOVELL! Purchase/Merge or partner with Word Perfect Office and Sybase! Appleworks and Filemaker is too Wimpy. People make fun of the MAC OS because it doenst have Enterprise worthy applications. People can use Photoshop on Windows, you have to have Windows like software running on the MAC. I am about to Switch back to WIndows because I am having such a hard time with the LACK of buisness software. FORGET ABOUT THE GUI!
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