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Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

• pkamb 15y ago
  I haven't upgraded to Lion, and likely never will, because they removed the single best feature of OS X, "all-windows" Expose with no stacking into app bundles. Default Expose was terrible in Snow Leopard too (strict grid layout vs. the old natural spatial layout) but at least then there was a hack to get the old version back: http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-snow-leopard-for-mac http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-...
  • cantbecool 15y ago
    I completely agree. I can't believe that Lion does not have an "all-windows" Expose. It's annoying trying to find a hidden window by minimizing everything. If someone knows how to toggle between an applications windows, please let me know.
    • Nagyman 15y ago
      CMD+` will cycle through applications' windows, but it won't restore minimized windows.
      • cantbecool 15y ago
        Thanks, Nagyman. You have no idea how useful that shortcut is to me.
• omfg 15y ago
  Makes sense. They should totally start over because he can't figure out the way to delete mail. Or how to use Terminal to fix if after he messed it up. Link bait.
• llambda 15y ago
  Don't really see why this is big news. First I don't agree that the progressive versions of OS X are getting worse, but this is entirely subjective (for you they might be getting worse, I can't say). Second, based on the fact that this is largely a subjective opinion, given your workflow is not my workflow, does it really matter what Tim thinks about OS X? This is nothing but a rant. A very sparse rant at that.
• Tloewald 15y ago
  An odd rant. I will say that lion has been the buggiest version of macos x ever, but I suspect it's because they futzed with the file save APIs which touch everything. If it's still this flaky at the dot 4 release I might start whining.
  • watmough 15y ago
    I've managed to get used to most of the new stuff in Lion, but the screwing with the File save stuff is just mind-bendingly awful, and has broken things as simple as trying to re-save a text-file or image from a read-only folder to a read/write folder. Example: Choose a locked file and try saving a copy anywhere. Can you do it? I've resorted to using the Finder to copy things into accessible places to work on them.
• overgard 15y ago
  I'm somewhat of a new mac user, so I can't speak historically, but I will say that lion was quite a downgrade. It broke things that were previously working fine (my network drivers and my dev tools), removed useful features (rosetta), and really didn't add anything new that I care about. I never use the app store; I dislike mission control; really the only thing I actually like is the better window resizing.
  • tptacek 15y ago
    What network drivers did Lion break? Are you plugging custom network hardware into your Mac? Why? We're a pretty dev-tools-intensive shop here and while the transition to XCode4 has been hiccupy, I don't think Lion has broken anything for us.
    • fauigerzigerk 15y ago
      A lot of people (including me) are suffering from dropped wifi connections. There's a thread on the Apple support forums that has 1264 replies and 157731 views: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191630?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191630?start=0&tst... Apple has been trying to fix it ever since Lion came out. After 2 updates it's still not working for me.
      • watmough 15y ago
        I fixed my WiFi not reconnecting by zapping my PRAM. Cmd-Opt-P-R on boot and hold down until you get a couple of loud bongs. Yeah! I know! First time doing that has ever fixed a damn thing for me, but not reconnecting to my WiFi was starting to become an annoyance. This was on a new main logic board on my 2007 MBP running a fresh install of Lion 10.7.2 copied out of the Install app and burned to an 8GB USB key.
        • sounds 15y ago
          Switched to a Broadcom chip and still can't resolve all the silicon-level bugs. http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook Broadcom may make Tim Cook happier, but Atheros is more the "Steve" of wifi chips. However, the 2007 MBP uses Atheros - yours is actually a different issue.
• deleted 15y ago
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• dextorious 15y ago
  Well, I am really starting to hate Tim O' Reilly, too. I remember a time when O'Reilly books were the golden standard for things like Perl, Python et al. Nowadays it seems like they are producing crap, half-written books by the ton. Oreillynet was also, one time, one of the best places to go for nice, informative articles and tutorials. Nowadays it's just an assortment of lame blog entries and book promotions. And don't let me get started on "Safari books online", a sub par reading experience if I ever saw one.
  • primecoder 15y ago
    I feel this way about The Pragmatic Bookshelf...
• shadowfiend 15y ago
  There may be a good point hiding there, but I don't think he made it particularly well. He argues that OS X is getting worse. His specific complaint was that he couldn't find the Library folder to delete his mail. Two things to keep in mind: first off, people who set up Mail extremely rarely will want to delete their email. So on the list of use cases to optimize for, that one lives near the bottom of the ladder. Secondly, the Library folder is, for all intents and purposes, something that should have been hidden to begin with. The kind of stuff that goes into a Library folder goes into hidden directories on other OSes anyway (think Application Settings on Windows, or .config, .gnome2, .kde on Linux). The fact that Apple only just now got around to hiding a folder that did nothing but clutter up the home directory for most users is significantly more surprising than the fact that it's hidden. There was another complaint, which was that upon putting the relevant files in the Trash, attempting to empty it yielded file in use errors. That is indeed a problem, but he complains that he can't skip all of them, and that this is an old issue. So how this is related to OS X getting worse is unclear. It's definitely extremely annoying, but then I also don't think people find themselves deleting thousands of files of which several are in use very often. That said, one wonders what was using those files (unless he'd forgotten to quit Mail, but I doubt that). Basically, “the latest frustration”, his leading example of something that is “worse in Lion than in Snow Leopard”, seems to not be a very good example at all. What's missing are the ”so many [other] things”. I want to hear them, because I haven't found too many, and I think it would be interesting to see what others genuinely think is worse. Some disagree with the changes in Spaces, for example, which is understandable. What else?
  • willifred 15y ago
    I was left wondering why didn't he just export his mailbox. Or add his GMail account to Mail.app and just drag and drop his old inbox into his new Google inbox. There is absolutely no 'lock-in' with Apple's Mail client. The strangest part was the line about how there were 'many things worse in Snow Leopard than in Leopard.' There was hardly anything different about Snow Leopard from a user's perspective, the things that did change were pretty hard to complain about (smaller application file sizes, Microsoft Exchange support, and um... what else was there?). From a developer's perspective, Snow Leopard was a vast improvement. Just about the only 'bad' thing about it was the end of the line for the PPC. Emotions about Apple run so high, it's hard not to think of this as trashing one product (OS X) because of negative feelings about mostly unrelated products (iOS, the App Store, the Apple brand in general).
• todsul 15y ago
  At first I thought the same. But I'm slowly coming around. I'd still prefer Snow Leopard with Lion's full-screen and mission control, but I trust Lion will improve with age. That said, I have my most productive dev environment now on Lion. The speed with which I can move between apps write code, compile, test, etc, is actually starting to push my laptop.
• Dejital 15y ago
  Tim has issues with one application, but blames the entire operating system. Is this fair? Further, the trash bin problem of not having an "Ignore All" button has always been around. That does not mean the operating system is becoming worse, just that an age old frustration (albeit a very obscure one) is still around. I have some issues with Lion, but they are grounded primarily in my complete satisfaction with Snow Leopard and lack of desire to change (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). When Tim says "there were many things worse in Snow Leopard than in Leopard," I cannot recall a single one. In fact, the Snow Leopard release was undoubtedly a very well received one.
  • dchest 15y ago
    The problem is not only the absence of "Ignore All", but the fact that Lion's applications have some strange bug with opening files and not closing them. Snow Leopard had it too with built-in screenshot tool (or Preview, I don't remember exactly).
  • WiseWeasel 15y ago
    Reading his rant, I just couldn't understand why he wouldn't simply fire up the terminal and issue a quick 'sudo rm -rf /path/to/mail/*' command. Deleting huge numbers of recently used files with the trash has always been hit-or-miss. This is Tim O'Reilly we're talking about here; he should know better.
• hmart 15y ago
  I think is THE golden opportunity for Linux on the desktop. But the best candidate - Ubuntu - also made terrible mistakes - Unity -.
  • ypcxz 15y ago
    Android. The phones just about to come out - 2GHz CPU and HD display.
• tptacek 15y ago
  I prefer Lion to Snow Leopard. I find myself appreciating the more controversial changes, like reversed scrolling and hidden scrollers. I followed Gruber's advice and suppressed the impulse to switch the defaults back to Snowpard behaviors and find that I'm less happy when I have to use Snowpard now. Meanwhile: * Mail.app under Lion is the best mail UX they've ever shipped. It's not a small improvement over Snowpard; it has a more reasonable layout now that makes Smart Folders make more sense, and search seems to have been completely rebuilt and actually works now. * I find myself liking Mission Control enough not to mind not having vertical virtual desktop arrangements. * Preview can sign documents now! * The Filevault fix is huge for me (Filevault is now a bona fide block level FDE), since it means I don't have to use PGP WDE, which was a debacle. My sense of it is, there is zero opportunity for someone to compete with Apple and Microsoft on conventional desktop operating systems, and the problems O'Reilly has with OS X are not generally going to be shared by people like my dad, who are (a) the only people Apple really cares about because (b) they're where all the money is.
  • billpatrianakos 15y ago
    People hate change. That's what it all boils down to. I've used a Mac since 10.4 and Lion was the first upgrade that annoyed me slightly. I only have one complaint though: Mission Control. I liked my old spaces. I want to arrange my spaces in a grid again. Otherwise I'd say that if you're open to it and give the changes a chance they'll grow on you. The scrolling feels natural to me now and I have a Mighty, not Magic, Mouse. Traditional scrolling now feels strange. For reference, I do frequently use a second computer running Crunchbang Linux so it's not like I'm used to it because it's all I use.
  • bluekeybox 15y ago
    > Mail.app under Lion is the best mail UX they've ever shipped. Totally agreed; I have been using Gmail web interface for years reluctant to switch to a desktop client, but switched immediately after installing Lion and checking out the Mail app.
    • falling 15y ago
      Same here. The Show Related Messages feature is even an improvement over Gmail's conversations. Now I want that on my iPhone.
• slig 15y ago
  What about a paid GNU/Linux distro that runs perfectly on recent Apple hardware? No drivers bullshit, just works?
  • rbanffy 15y ago
    Unless you pick your PC carefully with the purpose of breaking Linux, it mostly works out of the box. That said, installing Linux on a Mac seems offensive, like replacing the dashboard of a Maybach with the one of a race car. Macs are a beautifully designed combination of hardware and software that may work for you. Or not. I like Lion better than Snow Leopard, but neither works for me for work. Casual browsing and presentations are fine, but, for serious web application development, I want Linux.
    • dhughes 15y ago
      Like a teenager before a date Mac seems to be entirely about looks, oh everything works well both OS and hardware but sometimes it seems looks come before function. No separate delete or backspace keys, no multiple desktops, breathtakingly expensive hardware and software, awkward layout of files in the GUI, closing apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a minimize button (??), am I copying/pasting/cutting?, old text documents open behind new text documents are opened (a bug maybe or my fault). Apple OS X Lion is nice to look at and fairly easy to use if not entirely intuitive but it;s not as perfect as some people make it out to be.
      • watmough 15y ago
        You can't blame Lion for not having a delete key! It's a hardware choice. Add a wired USB keyboard (I use the long Apple one) and there's a perfectly functional delete key, right there! What you can blame Lion for, is the fact that Xcode4 can't even scroll a sodding code window at repeat rate. Quad-core and discrete graphics, utterly ridiculous.
        • dhughes 15y ago
          Yes true it's a hardware issue not OS and yes that's one option to use an external keyboard but I don't want to drag an external keyboard around with me otherwise I wouldn't have bought a laptop. The lack of a delete key actually labeled "delete" (not backspace labeled "delete") just seems to be a glaring error along with no separate number keypad. More thought went into making it look pretty than to make it useful. I'd sell this Macbook but I'm getting to like the swipe trackpad.
• hackoder 15y ago
  For those criticizing- He has given one example of what he thinks is wrong. Not all posts are meant to be essays... Briefly though, (as another user who switched from Mac OS X), I can certainly give examples of what he says: Not all of these are specific to OS X, its the overall hardware and software that is getting frustrating. More user-hostile - If you replace your SuperDrive with another drive, you CAN NOT boot any operating system (other than Apple's) off usb drives or even external DVD drives plugged into usb slots. So with two hard drives, you can not install Windows or Linux. [1] - Batteries are not considered user-swappable anymore. [2] More buggy - Battery life degradation when moving from SL to Lion. Apple forums are full of examples. [3] (78 page thread, no confirmation or fix from Apple). - We all know how annoying the switch to Mission Control was, right? [1] http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1125135 http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1125135 [2] http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1756 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1756 [3] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235?start=0&tst... [Edit: formatting]
  • ugh 15y ago
    “We all know how annoying the switch to Mission Control was, right?” No, we certainly don’t. I love Mission control and I think it’s an improvement over Exposé. Don’t pretend I’m agreeing with you. For me personally Lion has been a solid improvement. Quite a few things that used to suck about OS X still suck but I have seen nothing but improvements or neutral changes with Lion. (Yeah, I have some minor quibbles, but mostly about apps I hardly ever use anyway.) I had no technical issues at all. Again, that’s for me personally.
    • Tycho 15y ago
      The thing about mission control is that they could easily have left the old expose intact as an optional alternative, but nooooo they had to remove it completely and fuck up thousands of users' workflow habits. I mean you have to admit the way mission control stacks windows on top of each other for each application is pretty ridiculous. Other than that it's fairly useful. But there was no good reason to remove the 'all app expose' feature, leaving only the within app expose. They either just overlooked it or want to brainwash users into some sort of app centric paradigm. It reminds of when they released the magic mouse and you could no longer have expose mapped to a third mouse button. Surely wasn't the only user dependent on such a useful feature.
• suivix 15y ago
  I've used Windows most of my life, use Linux for work, but I LOVE my MacBook Air.
  • barend 15y ago
    By virtue of its operating system?
• ronnier 15y ago
  People who are feverishly pro Android and Mac OS X users are in a weird situation. They are so anti iPhone that they are starting to turn on Mac OS X.
  • Andrex 15y ago
    I don't really understand this comment. Are you saying Tim is an Android fanboy and hates the iPhone?
  • jodrellblank 15y ago
    Alternately, lots of people hurried to "*nix with a nice GUI" and are now realising that it was just a stepping stone along the way to what Apple really wanted to produce: "Apps with no OS you need to care about, or can get to". Perhaps in 3 years Tim O'Reilly's post and commentary will be seen as early cracks in a dissapointed technical community leaving OS X in larger and larger numbers.
• miles_matthias 15y ago
  Deleting files and the GUI complaining that it's still in use has always been a frustrating thing. Why hasn't anyone at least taken the next step of showing what the user can do to delete the files? I've always resorted to opening Terminal and using some sudo's and some -f's. In regards to his question about future OSes, anyone think about a browser/cloud based OS like ChromeOS or JoliCloud being able to save him? These are the future of OSes so it would seem natural to look to them to create that simpleness he's complaining about.
• phamilton 15y ago
  I'll continue to use the only operating system where I can both develop with unix tools and watch Netflix.
  • MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
    Arr, ye know there be other, better, faster, cheaper ways to be obtainin' yer movies an' TV shows, right, me hearty?
    • JWHardcastle 15y ago
      You left out legal.
• megamark16 15y ago
  I came from a windows background, tinkered with Linux for a few years on and off, and when I started my current job I was given a Macbook Pro. After a few months of using it I as so frustrated, and found myself spending more and more time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, that when they were ordering new MBPs for the design team I offered to give mine up to a designer and buy a ThinkPad, thus saving the company over $1,000. I've been running Ubuntu (and recently Linux Mint) full time for both work and personal use for a year and a half. In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize sweetspot. When I click the Maximize button on OSX, it doesn't actually maximize the window 99% of the time, it just picks a seemingly random size. I saw an app a while ago that would let you control how your OSX apps are resized when you maximize them, but if I have to buy an app just to make my OS do what it should do anyway, there's something wrong. I need 10 different apps on a Mac just to do what I can do out of the box in Ubuntu. Nautilus can access Windows network shares, SSH/SFTP/FTP access, and can mount NTFS, HFS, and pretty much any other filesystem type there is. On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on OSX you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source. I just want to see hidden files in Finder, why is that so hard? Why do I have to google it and use a 3+ key combination to enable showing hidden files? I'm all for keyboard shortcuts, I'm a keyboard man, but until I learn and memorize them, you should put them in the menu where I can find them with a little hunting. And that reminds me, why can't I type a path in Finder? I prefer an address bar, where I can type a path to a directory I want to view, but noooo, I have to click around, and if it's a really deep folder I'm trying to get to I'm screwed. I like Home and End keys. Where are they? In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down the left or right arrows for a while. Maybe for some people this locked down, dumbed down environment works for them. Maybe some people love learning the myriad of keyboard shortcuts needed to get stuff done on a Mac, but I prefer Ubuntu, I can get stuff done a lot faster and without wanting to kill myself.
  • brown9-2 15y ago
• grandalf 15y ago
  I think the issue with Lion and also with Ubuntu 11.1 is that the GUIs are experimenting with various tablet concepts which significantly alter some of the behavior. It's pretty confusing at first but I adapted to Lion after about 4 or 5 days. I still don't quite understand Unity but expect to soon. I think most anyone who is willing to accept that the world is undergoing a transition into a world where tablets coexist with laptops, etc., will embrace this time as a period of experimentation, rapid change, and creativity.
• fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  I'm using OS X right now but I really hate all OSs at this point. OS X is a usability nightmare for me, slowing me down even after many years of using it and trying to adapt to its ways. Lion is buggy on top of that (never ending wifi troubles). Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am. And Windows is horrible as a development platform unless you stay slavishly within Microsoft's overpriced ecosystem. But ranting about this is probably pointless. There will not be a new OS any time soon. It's just too difficult even for the largest corporations to start from scratch.
  • Andrex 15y ago
    > Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am. Ubuntu was actually like the first desktop OS with an "app store," and Linux in general has taken all the hardware I've thrown at it with gusto. For instance, I have a USB Wi-Fi dongle. Windows 7 x64 couldn't use it, but all recent version of Linux have done just fine. > And Windows is horrible as a development platform unless you stay slavishly within Microsoft's overpriced ecosystem. Windows is fine for development. It may not have all the Unix-y tools, but it does have most of them. Just this week it even got a great Node.js port, in fact. Not to mention it probably has more IDEs and development environments than any other OS... I don't understand your complaints of it.
    • fauigerzigerk 15y ago
      I'm always running Linux on some systems and it works very well on servers. But on all the laptops I owned in recent years (MacBook, Acer, Dell, Toshiba) Linux was a hot, noisy battery hog. I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about powertop, CPU states, generations of power management daemons and kernel modules, USB drivers and whatnot. I got a lot of things to work but it has never worked nearly as well as Windows on the same machine. Sleep/resume is also extremely spotty. Recently I made a half hearted attempt to install Ubuntu on my iMac. I got nothing but a blank screen after booting up the installation CD. If you don't have any issues with Windows as a dev platform I can only assume that you don't work in C/C++ much or your code targets only Windows. And if Windows really got a great node.js port only this week you're making my point for me.
• js2 15y ago
  FWIW, if he wants to back up his mail before deleting it, the supported way to do it would be to select the mailbox in Mail.app itself and select Export Mailbox… By hiding the Library folder, Apple isn't trying to be hostile: most users never need to access anything in this folder. Users who are advanced enough to be grubbing around inside the Library should also be advanced enough to know that you can easily get to it via command-shift-g "~/Library". Obviously it also shows up in the Terminal. Apple's merely hidden it from view inside the Finder.
  • martinaglv 15y ago
    Funny that this is the same argument people use to hate Unity.
• bitstream 15y ago
  As a developer, my decade long honeymoon with OSX may be waning. On the other hand there is still nothing that comes close to OSX for my nontechnical friends. And no... they cannot use Ubuntu. (I have scientifically-worthless empirical evidence)
• js2 15y ago
  Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior, it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG: Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the called the user state. The user can toggle between the standard state and the user state by clicking the zoom button in the title bar. Follow the guidelines in this section so that users can have the zoom experience they expect. Choose a standard state that is best suited for the tasks your app enables. A document window, for example, should show as much as possible of the document’s content. Don’t assume that the standard state should be as large as the current display permits; instead, determine a size that makes it convenient for users to use your app. If appropriate, you can allow users to take some app windows full screen if they want more space. Adjust the standard state when appropriate. The user can’t change the standard state that defines a window’s initial position and size, but your app can do so, based on other settings. For example, a word processor might define a standard that accommodates the display of a document whose width is specified in the Page Setup dialog. Respond appropriately when the user zooms. When the user zooms a window that is in the user state, your app should make sure that size defined by the standard state is appropriate in the current context. Specifically, move the window as little as possible to make it the standard size, while at the same time keeping the entire window on the screen. The zoom button should not cause the window to fill the entire screen unless that was the last state the user set. If the user zooms a window in a multidisplay system, the standard state should be on the display that contains the largest portion of the window, not necessarily on the display that contains the menu bar. This means that if the user moves a window between displays, the window’s position in the standard state could be on different displays at different times. The standard state for any window must always be fully contained on a single display. Don’t allow a zoomed window to overlap the Dock. You always want to make sure that users have full use of both your windows and the Dock. For more information about the Dock, see “The Dock.” http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Windows/Windows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-BACEDHFG http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...
  • vertr 15y ago
• super_mario 15y ago
  I currently use OS X for all my work and for personal/home use. But I have to agree with the sentiment. I have had nothing but praise for Apple and OS X up until Lion release. But this year has been a major turning point. End of XServe, end of Apple java, talk of end of Mac Pro and the whole post PC world thing, turning OS X into fisher price phone OS. Honestly, at this point I have to re-think my future and make a platform switch. I have invested well over $30,000 into Apple so far, but going forward I will most likely end up with Linux for software development and Windows for Photoshop and video editing (personal use). I'm really just waiting to see what post-Lion OS X looks like, and if they keep moving towards iOS/iPhone, then I really don't want anything to do with Apple. I don't need a computer/OS from a phone company.
  • hackoder 15y ago
    Completely agreed. I dont see why valid criticisms of what Apple is doing get such a negative response. A lot of us love Apple software and hardware, and have invested a lot of money in various parts of the ecosystem. We are not windows fanboys who are making a fuss without having ever used Mac OS. A lot of changes I can understand; moving forward may mean annoying a portion of your users. But a lot of these changes do not change anything for the better. There are no reasons for them at all, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
  • theatrus2 15y ago
    Have you seen the new Windows? Microsoft is steamrolling down the "new world" path faster than Apple.
    • wanorris 15y ago
      TBD. Incorporating user feedback and giving users options are pretty fundamental to Microsoft's standard operating procedure, so my guess is that the next public preview or beta of Win 8 will force a lot fewer changes on the user. Really, the desktop mode of Windows 8 doesn't change all that much for power users, it just replaces the utterly broken Start Menu with a fullscreen start screen. It also makes this start screen the default environment for unsophisticated users, which is probably a reasonable move. Aside from (IIRC) not letting you set a preference to default into the desktop mode on launch, the biggest problem with the start screen for power users was the low information density. This should be a setting, just like the default for Explorer is these giant icons and tiles for files, but you can easily switch it to use "Details" if you like to get real work done. I think the end result for power users on traditional systems is likely to be that they deliver a desktop mode with only modest differences and a start screen that serves as a much more usable replacement for the start menu (and possibly the option to turn it back off). The start screen also provides a better replacement for some other ambient things like the desktop widgets that nobody ever sees because their apps are on top. Meanwhile, that start screen, set to a lower information density (as was previewed), should be a pretty nifty base interface for tablet users and basic/new desktop users. I'm sure there will still be some people up in arms, and possibly rightly so if there are some things they don't fix between now and the final release. But Win 8 has the potential to be a significant step forward without being too coercive on people who already have a good workflow in Win 7.
• rickdale 15y ago
  Yeah, macs have some annoying properties that don't do exactly what you want. But, all that 'gloss' that O'Reilly refers to is the reason he purchased the Mac. Furthermore, OS X is still leaps and bounds better than other OS's for most users. The conveniences that most people would fail to notice is part of the beauty of the OS.
• DanBC 15y ago
  These threads follow a common pattern. Someone makes a list of things they dislike about an OS. That's not interesting, so they'll include a bit of a rant. Other people will agree, and add their own annoyances. Then a bunch of people will pop up and explain how to achieve most of the things that are complained about; or explain that they're not problems but features. (The green pseudo-maximise being my most frustrating example.) What people seem to miss is that discoverability is lousy in OSs. HN isn't read by stupid people who are un-used to tech. So why are what should be simple features either hard to find, or not present? Why do HN readers struggle with simple aspects of modern OSs? Apple (rightly, IMO) gets a lot of praise for usability. MS spent a lot of money on usability testing. Both of them have some awful awful things going on. My example of a hard to find feature: In windows XP when you copy many files from one directory into another directory you'll get a dialog saying "The folder already contains" etc, with 4 options, [YES][YES TO ALL][NO][CANCEL]. There was a secret option of [NO TO ALL] if you held shift and clicked no.
• pixie_ 15y ago
  I use Windows as my primary UI, but also use ubuntu and OSX daily in virtual machines. I switch between visual studio, eclipse, and XCode constantly. I still prefer the windows UI to the others. Ubuntu, especially Unity feels always like a step behind the windows UI. In the latest release the taskbar won't stick, they took away the start menu, and menus are stuck at the top of the screen like osx. I like in windows how I can drag the window to the side or the screen and it expands to fill just the half. Of if I drag the border to the top it will auto-expand the window vertically. In OSX the max/minimize buttons are too small. And the task bar seems more visually appealing than practical (in windows it fills the whole bottom.) Also the download/install software process, it feels weird. Download a file, have it come up in some jump list, then mount it to the desktop where's there's usually 2 icons one saying to drag the other somewhere. Package management seems more straight forward in windows vs osx/linux. I do like XCode 4 though, I think how it works with tabs is much better.
  • X-Istence 15y ago
    Package management in Windows ... surely you must be joking. Having an all encompassing .app folder is simpler, and makes it easier for the user to delete stuff they no longer need/want without it spewing files all over the hard drive. DMG is just a disk image, just like Zip it allows you to contain multiple files and compress them. Not only that, but it keeps everything in tact such as symlinks, permissions and fun stuff so that when the user drags the .app to their Applications folder they have a self-contained functioning application.
    • pixie_ 15y ago
      Not all apps are self-contained. There are plugins, drivers, extensions to the OS etc... That's why having an install script/uninstall script that the OS can reference from one place is useful. Lots of install scripts also have repair functions, as well as options to modify the installation. Which is why having a my software control panel is useful.
• andrewcooke 15y ago
  i realise that people who are unhappy with osx are encouraged to move to ubuntu, while those who are happy with ubuntu seem to be moving to mint. but i just wanted to add that opensuse is still as solid as it ever was, and a new release (12) is due out in 3 more days. it supports kde and gnome (you choose on install via a single checkbox) and i have never understood why it's not more popular in the states - it seems (to me) to hit the sweet spot of minimal maintenance and maximum flexibility.
• nomdeplume 15y ago
  I first admired OSX because of its simplicity and the way it kind of just knew what I wanted to do and started me on the journey that way. Lion was a step backward. defaults were no longer what I would find convenient. Constantly asking me if I want to open windows upon logon even though I always uncheck the box so it should know by now. The reverse scrolling which makes it a pain to use any other system after getting used to reverse direction. I'm starting to like Linux Mint more and more.
• Jakob 15y ago
  If you don't like MacOS zooming and maximizing behavior, i recommend divvy [0] it has a heavy price tag but fixes those issues completely. [0] http://mizage.com/#macdivvy http://mizage.com/#macdivvy
  • DanBC 15y ago
    $14 USD for something which is standard in most Linux desktop environments? (And is probably standard in Windows, but I can't remember.) This is exactly what people complain about. Yes, this stuff can be done, but you need to set a bunch of options via the command line (no problem, but annoying if you have lots of stuff you want tweaked); then set a bunch of program options; then install a bunch of apps (some of which need to be paid for). It is baffling to me why I need to install 3rd party software just to stop my MacBookPro making the startup sound every time I turn it on. (The alternative is to remember to mute the sound every time I turn it off.)
    • egypturnash 15y ago
      Why do you turn your Mac on and off all the time? Sleep works fine. Just close the lid and stuff it in your bag, then open it up again. Yes I know it never worked on Windows. It works on a Mac.* The only reason I reboot is for an OS update or for the occasional installer that's too stupid to just launch the services it just threw into the "start this at launch" system. * well eeeevery now and then shit gets in the way and breaks it, upgrading in place to Lion introduced some heisenbugs with regards to using my Air closed with an external monitor, but they vanished after a reinstall. And this was the first time I'd had sleep problems in the entire decade I've been using Macs.
      • DanBC 15y ago
        Sleep has trouble with USB drives; sleep will just disconnect them uncleanly. Data loss and corrupt discs is not a feature of something that I would call "works fine". There are other problems with sleep, but that's the most obvious.
      • josephcooney 15y ago
• dilap 15y ago
  To all of y'all complainging about zoom button behavior, I agree it is pretty terrible, but! --there's an app for that. It's called "RightZoom". Works well.
• ZipCordManiac 15y ago
  Apple should at least give people the option to put an older operating system on a newer system. Similar to how PC vendors offer XP or W7. I tried to install my Leopard family pack on a computer that shipped with snow leopard - no dice. With the way things are, I'll never buy a new Mac, as I refuse to "upgrade" to Lion.
  • pat2man 15y ago
    Apple has never done this and probably never will. Not having to support older OS releases helps dedicate developer time to the new software.
• pat2man 15y ago
  When Apple release System 7 in 1991 people everywhere started complaining about the new changes and how it was worse than System 6. For instance it required a hard drive and couldn't boot off a floppy. Meanwhile the end users adopted it imediately and never looked back. Most of the complaints in the article are about features that we as developers love but that end users could care less about. As a developer I love getting in to my Library folder and changing stuff around. I love backing my computer up manually and not using Time Machine. I love having complete control of my windows and applications. But most users don't care. Most users never touch their Library folder and don't need to. Thats why its hidden. Most users don't need to back up their mail because its all on Gmail. Most users love the app store where they don't have to search all over the internet for a simple app. Mac OS is an end user centric operating system and it always has been. Developers and hackers will have to make some tweaks to the basic OS to make it work the way they want. Honestly looking up a few keyboard shortcuts, enabling hidden folders and installing homebrew isn't that hard.
  • flomo 15y ago
    System 7 was definitely slower on the most common hardware of the day (1MB toaster macs). My college had entire labs of machines stuck on 6.0.8 for a long time afterwards.
    • yuhong 15y ago
      Actually, I don't think System 7 could even run on 1MB Macs.
• code_duck 15y ago
  I started using OSX every day last year, after 12 years of Linux mixed with 5% Windows. Verdict: it's nice, but I'm not blown away and I miss Linux for some things.
  • cpeterso 15y ago
    What do you miss from Linux that is not available on OSX? MacPorts fills in the gaps for missing GNU tools.
    • code_duck 15y ago
      MacPorts, brew and fink add up to a more complex, less reliable system than a typical Linux vendors' repository. Currently my brew is broken and I can't upgrade anything until I figure out why some obscure Gnome lib isn't compiling... I have not had any sort of issue like that with Linux in the past 8 years when it comes to upgrading routiney used software. OSX's command line utils are BSD style... so going between OSX and Linux shells, I often end up with messages such as 'ls: -l: No such file or directory' because I expected to be able to put flags anywhere in the arguments. Even between the vaunted Mac editors such as TextMate and Coda, I haven't found a text editor I like as much as Kate. There are various other issues I've struggled with, mainly relating to installing and upgrading open source software. Projects simply expect that you will be using Linux, and using this proprietary BSD offshoot is simply inconvenient due to it's usual *nix differences. Also, my own preferences and habits come into play. I like KDE, Gnome, WindowMaker... being able to press ctrl-alt-Fkey and get a fullscreen terminal... Gimp integrating with the window manager properly (to the extent it does at all, sure)... knowing where my Flash LSOs are saved... and so on.
• mattyohe 15y ago
  I'll repost a comment I left: Your first problem is that you started deleting stuff from a folder that Apple now deems wise to hide. With all due respect, why on earth would you start from the ~/Library folder? Why not delete these from the Mail client? You can even "backup" from inside Mail.app. (Right click a folder > Export) Also, if you really want the Library folder, you can just go to Finder > Go > (Hold option) Library There are real criticisms to be aired, this is not one of them.
• Lewisham 15y ago
  Having had a "I really am starting to dislike Mac OS X, but Windows 8 looks pretty good!" revelation, I started to use Windows 7. I came back after about a week and told Mac OS X I'd never leave it again. I reinstalled Windows 7 about 2 or 3 times, lots of weird, inexplicable errors, one of which required a Microsoft FixIt program to run as there were some "corrupt registry keys". Gosh, it was not good. That said, I agree that Mac OS X is not getting better. It needs to change. Everything since about 10.3 to today has been fairly incremental, and OS X is showing its age (ever wonder why Apple never changed to OS XI? It's because they're all the same...). It's also showing that it doesn't have any real push at Cupertino to get better. No-one is driving OS X. Hardware is being driven by Johny Ive, software was arguably being pushed by Jobs, but it's clear that he was only interested in iOS for years. I'd note that iOS is going the same way as Mac OS X: stagnating in the face of competition that is doing more interesting things (amazingly, that competition is Microsoft!). I feel like Apple is a company that rests on its laurels until the market practically forces it to change. The change that's coming for Mac OS X is that it will go away altogether. I think Steve hated it, and was waiting for the time when they could sell you iOS only. The only reason they keep Mac OS X around is for developers, and Apple aren't exactly known for making them happy. Microsoft's dual-paradigm Windows 8 shows it's not that crazy. I think Mac OS X has an expiry date of about 5 years from now.
  • sukuriant 15y ago
    What on earth did you do to make Windows start having "weird, inexplicable errors"? And, why do I never have these problems?
    • Lewisham 15y ago
      I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys. And I have no idea how it happened.
      • sukuriant 15y ago
• saint-loup 15y ago
  I'm quite happy with Mac OS X, but there's one thing that really annoys me: keyboard shortcuts. There's (almost) always one for what I want to do, but it's often to complicated for the frequency of the task. For instance, checking emails in mail.app is shift+command+N. Or changing the presentation mode in iTunes or Preview is alt+command+[3-6]. Because of my Azerty keyboard, it's actually shift+alt+command+[3-6]. Isn't one modifier key enough?
  • binbasti 15y ago
    Actually OS X is pretty consistent with keyboard shortcuts compared to other OSes. It's even one of my favorite things about it. That said, the checking mails example is a bad one, and moreover it used to be the usual cmd-shift-R and they only introduced the odd new one in Lion. Edit: sorry, misread your comment. But mine is still valid. Because of the many keyboard shortcuts for the OS UI, it's only natural that you need more modifier keys in the apps sometimes.
    • barend 15y ago
      Funny, one of my complaints about OSX compared to Windows is the (IMO) lackluster implementation of keyboard shortcuts. Perhaps I just don't see it, if so please enlighten me, but OSX's key bindings feel random and inconsistent to me. To elaborate: On Windows the Windows-key is the modifier key for global operating system functions, things like lock screen (win-l), explorer (win-e) and projector mode (win-p). Save for legacy bindings like CTRL-ESC, no global functions tie to the other modifier keys. The CTRL and ALT modifiers are therefore free to bind to functions of the currently active application. Some of these follow standard conventions, like ALT-F4, CTRL-S. Aside from these, any application is free to implement a keyboard scheme (and e.g. exploit symmetry) without clashing with the operating system. Contrast this to OSX where there appears to be no designated key for global functions. A "naked" F11 triggers Expose, Ctrl-F2 puts focus in the menu bar, Cmd-space pops up Spotlight, leaving just Opt as unbound. Like in Windows, there are some conventions like CTRL-comma. There is no global key to open a Finder window, although Spotlight alleviates much of the pain. With no standard key for global functions, the potential for key clashes is always there. Software that targets just OSX can avoid these, but cross-platform applications that originated elsewhere are quite often prohibited from using the same set of key bindings in every platform. Finally, OSX lacks a key binding for the context menu (i.e. the equivalent of SHIFT-F10 or the dedicated key on Windows systems) and mnemonic keys (the underlined characters in menu items; OSX wants you to type the caption of the desired menu item). The lack of mnemonic keys invalidates all my muscle memory in Eclipse, I really miss them.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• conradev 15y ago
  If you want something fixed, changed, or added, simply file a bug radar. Apple does certain things for a reason. If you disagree with Apple's reasoning behind something specific and want to change it, then change it yourself. Most commenters complaining about OS X can count the number of grievances they have with their fingers.
  • jiggy2011 15y ago
    How would one change things? I wasn't aware that OSX was open source.
• alanh 15y ago
  "each successive release ... buggier" Snow Leopard was more solid than Leopard. Lion followed Snow Leopard and does admittedly have more bugs. A "streak" of one isn’t a streak at all.
• dasil003 15y ago
  I think Tim is on crack. Snow Leopard was specifically about refactoring and bug fixes—huge under the hood improvements. It's true that Lion has some annoying bugs, but so did previous versions, I wouldn't say it's buggier on the whole (I certainly see far fewer kernel panics than I used to see circa 10.3/10.4). Lion is ambitious, so there are definitely some annoying UI changes, but there are a lot of meaty changes that offer huge improvements. Some of my favorites are: mission control is much better than exposé + spaces which I could never really put to great use. Fullscreen mode is very cool (although it sucks with multi-monitors, hopefully they'll fix that). Finally the ability to resize windows from every corner. Autosave. Remembering open windows. New gestures are great once you internalize them. What Apple is doing with sandboxing is really a revolution in PC security even if the costs are high to user and developer freedom. I'm pretty concerned about the App Store model and the future implications, but so far Apple is still doing amazing UX work. I imagine at some point I will have to go Linux if Apple keeps tightening their grip, but that day is not yet here.
  • dailyrorschach 15y ago
    I just got a new Air, and began using Lion, I have to say I've been very, very pleased. Especially on this machine it seems like it was naturally made for this type of computer. I use Alfred, but confession, I sometimes find myself using Launchpad... Though this seems to be true of most new OS X features they've introduced over the years, I plan not to use them, decide to give them a try, and end up really liking it. The only thing I can't do is the natural scrolling, because I switch between too many computers at work. I share the App Store concern, but I think they're going to find the right solution, developers have always been a key part of their plans, they get things wrong of course, but they tend to make it right, just not always as fast as people want - understandable gripe.
• emehrkay 15y ago
  His complaint does seem minor as does mine for Windows, can you scroll non-active windows yet?
  • sorchr 15y ago
    Yes.
• vegai 15y ago
  There has already been a vastly simpler system that predates OS X: Linux or BSD combined with X11 and an arbitrary window manager. Just stay away from anything that calls itself a "desktop environment" and you should be fine. Personal recommendation: http://www.archlinux.org http://www.archlinux.org & http://awesome.naquadah.org/ http://awesome.naquadah.org/ -- a nice compromise between easy configurability and the "suckless" simplicity mentality.
• bretthellman 15y ago
  I remember when a ticket to the movies was 5 cents.
• neuroelectronic 15y ago
  What's wrong with Windows 7? Shift-click ignore and it will go about its way.
• jsz0 15y ago
  People throw the word hate around a bit lightly these days. These things seem like minor annoyances.
• idspispopd 15y ago
  I find it hard to take these sorts of rants seriously. It's a user who wants to do things their own way, but not bother learning how exactly that is done. I call this mixed-level behaviour - e.g. users who won't use the built-in functionality, but not understand or correctly use the alternative more technical methods. Take the mail example, Mail.app already lets him export his mail box, delete his mail etc. He never needed to rifle through ~/Library to get at it. However if he's tech savvy enough to want to do it the manual way, then he should know how to fire up the terminal to access ~/Library, or more simply by holding the option key and choosing "Library" from the go menu. I don't this is breaking osx. While I can't vouch for why he has a magnitude of locked files, given the mail example I have a fair idea of how he's gotten in that situation. While os x does give him the option to gloss past certain locked files. He's likely seeing the error because he's removed files which are "spoken for" (i.e in use), these are often located in ~/Library and it's kind of the point of why ~/Library is hidden. Again, if he wants to be tech-savvy, he should just rm the files, or rm the contents of the trash folder. (Or if it was mail.app responsible, just originally remove the mail from inside Mail.app) OSX certainly has some way to go in addressing this kind of mixed level behaviour, but it's not going to stop you from shooting yourself in the foot. About the other features: while I don't appreciate the iOS-ificiation of mac os, it's trivial to turn these learning-curve reducing features off, and on laptops I find they make more sense than they do when using a mouse + keyboard.
• johnny6 15y ago
  Apple has become a zombie! Why? 1. They have lost their Zen design philosophy - it has come to the point of ridiculousness with the new features in Lion; features for the sake of features. Since Steve is gone, there is probably no way back. 2. They have lost their perceived moral superiority - system closedness, App Store censorship, sueing people left and right, don't seem to care one bit about chinese labour conditions; they are worse than Microsoft or IBM ever were. 3. They have lost their coolness - the cool kids dig free, independent software; they are not the "Think different." company anymore, they attract people who desperately seek to belong to the masses. They attract sheeple who buy an iPad to tell their friends that they, too, have an iPad. Summary: The Apple of today is a heartless consumer electronics giant, just like and worse than any other out there. It still sucks the last drops of blood out of the spirit it used to have in the past.
• rickmb 15y ago
  Rants about OS X, but only bitches about the email client like a clueless 90's Windows-user. Is there any reason to take this seriously?
• bdr 15y ago
  Two programs that make my life on OSX way better: Zooom/2, which lets me move and resize windows with my positioned anywhere on the window, activated with customizable key combinations. http://coderage-software.com/zooom/index_green/index.html http://coderage-software.com/zooom/index_green/index.html SizeUp, which lets me position and resize the activate window with customizable keyboard shortcuts. One common use case is to make one window take up the left half of the screen, and another the right half, if I'm working on something that needs information from both. http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
• pnathan 15y ago
  Pretty much everything I've read about Lion (and, ok, Windows 8) suggests theuy is taking a hard right towards non-techies. Meh. Give me Linux. In a few years, I'll be 100% Linux I figure.
• tobylane 15y ago
  Is it really called the maximise button? I was expecting the same as Windows the first week, but I learnt it wasn't (meant to be) called maximise, I stopped using it. A fill-screen button would be nice, but you just do it once manually and it remembers. Tim says the Library folder is hidden (power users would quickly change this, and several other things), and that the trashing system (or any copying/moving) is not as good as Windows. I do like W7's copy dialog, but it's very wordy, nothing in OSX would be that wordy.
• splicer 15y ago
  I think I'm going to go back to Snow Leopard tomorrow. I've been running Lion for many months now, and I still can't stand it. The only reason I'm sticking with OS X (rather than using Linux exclusively) is that I've purchased tons of pricey software over the years (e.g. Logic Studio and Adobe CS4). I hope 10.8 ditches most of the retarded "features" Lion introduced, and reverts back to the wicked HCI that Snow Leopard has.
• uptown 15y ago
  For me, the only problem I've encountered since installing Lion has been that Tweetdeck is no longer usable. I experience some strange window-focus issue where while that app is running, doing something entirely unrelated like typing a URL in Chrome's address bar will cause a random application to jump to the foreground. I've tried re-installing AIR, Tweetdeck ... though not Lion. I have no idea how to solve this. It worked fine prior to the Lion install.
• daniel_iversen 15y ago
  I don't really know why people are so upset. I was a hardcore windows user and I've been a Mac user now for 11 months and I love it! I don't think I will ever go back to windows and to say that Mac is going off track and turning into windows because of something this small is just crazy.. Short of something like the iPad, OS X more than Windows is A step in the right direction of how personal computing should be, it "just works"..
• dredmorbius 15y ago
  For an old (but still largely relevant) laundry list of things on Mac that drive Linux fans nuts (and generally, back to Linux), there's a 2006 ORA DevCenter article by Chromatic, "Switching Back". Both the column and comments are still highly germane. http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/linux/2006/06/01/switching-back.html?page=all http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/linux/2006/06/01/switching-back...
• gbog 15y ago
  tl;dr enormous thread fight about shortcuts, most useless one I've seen here.
• jphackworth 15y ago
  I just wish you could speed up the animation for switching between workspaces. Being used to Gnome some of the whizzier OS X animations just seem like a waste of time.
• m0wfo 15y ago
  FWIW I found some serious un-Jobs-like inconsistencies in Lion. I thought the basic mission control concept was sound but there were too many key combinations from Snow Leopard left out, launchpad was a joke and Xcode was made free again. RIP Steve but I'm getting a Lenovo next time around.
• botker 15y ago
  What a waste of time it is to complain about the way someone else configured your system. You're the one who chose to use a window manager that doesn't offer custom keybindings. If you can't live with it, then either write your own window manager or switch to a OS that doesn't impose its dogma on you. OSX is a non-contender in my book because of its complete disregard for the standard Unix directory structure, its use of registry files, its ancient BSD utilities last updated in the '90s, and its lack of a package manager that actually integrates with the rest of the system. Of course the window manager sucks too, but that's only if you judge according to functionality. To be a Mac aficionado, you've got to judge only according to how slick the UI looks. Right?
• ashishgandhi 15y ago
  Just to add, holding down the Option key while pressing it alters it behavior to be a maximize button in most apps. Some apps (like Chrome) use the Shift key to get this behavior instead. I would like things to be more consistent. In fact, if I were in charge, I would want this button to be a maximize button by default, while using the Option (i.e. Alt) key should alter the behavior to the second option which is to resize to the best fit for window content. But this may need debate since now we have fullscreen mode for apps in Lion.
• dylangs1030 15y ago
  I have to be honest, I really just don't agree. I use Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I'd upgrade to Lion, but it's not a priority right now). I can see why things like the windows not maximizing, etc. would be annoying. Here's a perspective, though: 1. That issue of windows not resizing is generally a complaint made by native Windows users who are already used to that property. I'm not saying this makes it an invalid complaint, just putting it in context. 2. Compared with Linux, Mac OS X has more support (this doesn't mean it's superior). Compared with Windows, Mac OS X (at least in my experience) is more sensitive to power users and coders, and people who know what they're doing more. Now, I've used different distributions of Linux, and ideally, I love Linux most. But it just doesn't have as much support as Mac OS X because proprietary backing breeds rapid progress (in the sense of universal or near universal support at least). Sometimes you have to fork your own solution when you're confronted with a problem in Linux. This also happens in OS X, but often times, there's more trouble shooting advice or solutions freely available and accessible. Just a perspective.
• zeynalov 15y ago
  My iPad and iPhone won't open the page. It makes them crashed. Only from PC it can be read. Anyone with the same problem?
• ljf 15y ago
  For any 'non-geek' friends (or just non-geek hacker news readers like me) try JoliOS from www.jolicloud.com - it's Ubunto with a friendly HTML5 skin. Easy install of apps, auto update of the OS, really easy to use, sync across loads of computers, runs on any laptop or pc that can run XP, and is FAST. I have it on a netbook and also as a dual boot on y pc, and I now rarely boot to Windows.
• brindle 15y ago
  This isn't news, its just a random rant. I agree that as OS X adds complex features we lose flexibility in other areas. Many of these are are not frequently visited but its still annoying and unacceptable. Fortunately, if Tim knows where to find these files and really wants to delete them, an "rm -rf" from the offending directory would do the trick - I'd like to think that 99% of the people reading this forum know this. Ditching mail.app for GMail? Seriously??
• safeer 15y ago
  I think Tim O'Reilly's argument is pretty silly actually. Here's my response: http://bit.ly/v6Adhu http://bit.ly/v6Adhu (re-printed below). --- I understand what Tim is saying, but I disagree that it's time to start over. With Mac OS X, Apple definitely seems to have begun heavily focusing on feature development over refining existing UX. But the claim that successive releases of OS X become more user-hostile and encourages more lock-in is a bit of a stretch. Apple has never developed for the power user, and they never should -- this is part of what makes their products so great; their unrelenting focus on the common case. In fact, complaining about a hidden library file for Mail.app misses this point entirely. It's actually a wonderful feature, since the common user is more likely to mess up their own mail library than to have a need to move it between disks. +Tim O'Reilly's second point is valid, though, the UX for emptying the trash can definitely be improved. But again, is the common case deleting 400,000 files? Is the "delete whatever you can checkbox" too odd for a normal user to understand? Let's take the mom example; if your mom emptied the trash after deleting a file, would she want to know if it couldn't be emptied, or would she be OK with it being emptied without her recently deleted file actually being removed? People can yell for a OS do-over all they want. The fact remains though: Apple focuses on UX more than any other company I know. If that UX doesn't cater to your particular needs and you'd rather have power-user flexibility and features, even if it means less polish and more annoyances when dealing with common tasks, use Linux or Windows. Or, better yet, just learn to use the Terminal and you can have the best of both worlds.
• nchlswu 15y ago
  To me, Lion really cemented the fact that the end goal of Mac OS is to make an invisible OS that requires zero tinkering just like iOS. Everyone should be able to use it and no one should have to access the file system. This transitional period poses a huge problem for Apple and looks to be the cause of most complaints I've seen. What are they going to do about the power users who were their early adopters? Is an 'admin' or 'power user' mode appropriate?
• adrianscott 15y ago
  I primarily use whatever O/S my customers, users and site members predominantly use. Not a bad rule of thumb.
• astrodust 15y ago
  Someone should send him a copy of bash for beginners so he can learn how to use the open command and rm -rf effectively. When you use rm it does not put things in the trash, but removes them directly. The open command can open anything, even "hidden" things.