“Familiarity breeds contempt, right? So it stands to reason that anyone who uses a product extensively can find fault with it. Owen Linzmayer is no exception: His work requires him to use Mac OS X every day, all day long,” Informit reports. “Although Owen is generally thrilled with its capabilities and reliability, some things about Mac OS X really drive him up the wall. Take a gander at his list of 10 pet peeves; then share your own!”
Linzmayer’s Top Ten List:
1. Dock Items Bounce Indefinitely
2. Programs Force Themselves to the Forefront
3. Trashed Items Cant Be Opened
4. Software Update Off-Limits to Third-Parties
5. Dashboard Widgets are Modal
6. Painful Pinwheel Pauses
7. Permission Roadblocks
8. Exposing Package Contents is Confusing
9. Dumb Deleting
10. Sidebar Items Cant Be Renamed
Linzmayer explains each of his ten peeves in the full article here.
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…and how about that Finder – the one thing that Winduh does better…
I’m not going to take the time to fisk his list, but some of his peeves seem pretty goofy to me. I do agree with nos. 4, 6, 9 and 10.
permissions roadblocks???? surely they’re there to beef up security? is this guy writing viruses or something?
1. Turn it off.
3. Take it out of the trash
6. Upgrade/ stop being so impatient, they only last a second or two
7. Let’s see: ask for permission every time you mess with a system critical preference or install a piece of software, or be like windows and let things install themselves. I’d rather not have a bunch of spyware/viruses on my system, thank you very much.
8. If you’re an idiot
9. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve hit “delete” on a windows machine, only to yell SHIT! as a piece of critical time consuming data is lost forever. I think having to drag something to the trash ensures that I only delete what I really want to get rid of. It’s like of like the “asking for permission” thing.
When it comes right down to it, I think this guy is just too impatient to realize the benefits of having all of these safeguards in place.
aren’t the permission roadblocks what help make os x so secure?
How about…
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1. Like Mac OS 6 (the first one I used), windows can only be resized from the lower right corner.
2. Font management, even with “professional” 3rd party tools still sucks ass.
3. I get more crashes under Tiger than I have with any OS since OS 9.
4. A network drive that goes offline, like say my laptop going to sleep, can freeze up my machine while it searches for that drive. Grrr…
5. I still can’t load an FTP drive in the Finder like I can any other network drive with read-write privileges appropriate to my user ID. BTW don’t tell me I can load an FTP drive, I know that, I cannot use that drive FULLY.
6. The Force Quit dialog doesn’t have a button to open the Activity Monitor.
7. Renaming songs in iTunes 6.0.1 gives me frequent kernel panics. Arrrrgh…
8. Safari still beachballs on my new G5 Dual. Like when I was typing this message.
9. I don’t want anything setting Preview as it’s default Open With… application. No matter how many times I thought I’ve fixed this issue, a file will show up with a Preview icon. Grrr…
10. If you crash, you lose all updates to your Dock.
11. I can’t run the latest in Viruses, Adware, and Spyware. Oh wait.
For those of you questioning “Permissions Roadblocks”, I guess you’re the types who DON’T open Disk Utility and run “Repair Permissions” before running Software Update.
1. Dock Items Bounce Indefinitely
— Never experienced this
2. Programs Force Themselves to the Forefront
— Never experienced this, this is a horrible Windows issue though
3. Trashed Items Cant Be Opened
— Same as Windows
4. Software Update Off-Limits to Third-Parties
— This is for a reason
5. Dashboard Widgets are Modal
— I find many useful
6. Painful Pinwheel Pauses
— Rarely experience this
7. Permission Roadblocks
— Never experienced this
8. Exposing Package Contents is Confusing
— Not really, much easier than “Program Files” and “Documents and Settings” and the .NET assembly folder dlls all over the place
9. Dumb Deleting
— ???
10. Sidebar Items Cant Be Renamed
— Who cares
and some other pet peeves of my own.
Like why don’t Dock folders springload open when you hover over them or hit space bar while dragging an icon? Sidebar icons do this! Regular icons do this! Dock icons don’t. (And Finder toolbar icons don’t either–if you ever bothered sticking a folder up there.)
OS X is a great OS, and here’s how to make it better:
1. Discuss what you think should be improved and don’t flame people about it.
2. Don’t skip the most important step: http://apple.com/feedback
The worst, drives-you-nuts, inexcusable problem… for dual-monitor setups or more… having to mouse over to the main monitor to access menus. This sort of menu deal makes sense when you use one monitor, but is an amazingly awful thing to deal with in multi-monitor setups.
—
There are some aspects of the XP “finder” I’d like to see in the Mac Finder.
—
OSX looks a bit cartoonish. How about some skins or more themes?
to Chris: this list isn’t to tear down OS X or say it’s inferior to windows. These are things that bug him and he has the right to rant about them.
3. I constantly want to open things to make sure they are what I think they are before trashing them, and I can’t do it.
6. Yea, why not upgrade? It’s also a useful solution to that pile of money under your mattress that has been disturbing your sleep! rich asshole.
7. He’s not saying permissions are a bad idea, but they cause headache’s sometimes.
9. Having to hit cmd + delete drives me crazy too, I wish simply delete sent something to the trash. Your point about windows makes no sense. If you accidently hit delete on windows it sends it the recycle bin, not lost forever bin.
10. being able to rename CD/DVD’s in the sidebar before burning them would be a lot more convenient than going back to the desktop and double clicking on the name.
I don’t agree with any of these things. Go ahead Apple.
The Finder locking up for a few minutes when a network drive is no longer available sometimes drives me crazy.
Chris,
3 – why shouldn’t you be able to open something in the trash, just stupid not beeing able to do it, it’s just a folder like any other.
macman
4 – This is for a reason. And what good reason is that? why not let programs try to connect to an url they set when beeing installed and check for updates when the system does.
i agree with the deleting procedure, very annoying not beeing able to delete things right away like shift-delete on win.
something i’d like to see is screen area restriction. so a program can only use a part of the screen and not spawn windows outside of this area, xcode for example does a great job of hogging the entire screen. this restriction could be done by say holding down ctrl and draging from a border of the screen to restrict the apps area. this could quite easily be implemented.
the offline network drive stalls my computer for minutes while os x searches for it, very very annoying.
not beeing able to mount SFTP as folders sucks majorly.
i want to be able to sync to my cellphone (nokia 6230i) with iSync, now i have to resort to phonedirector and it doesn’t do a very good job.
a localized dictionary and spelling would be appreciated.
free remote desktop, vnc works but apple really should provide this service for free.
folder view, sometimes when i drag a file to a folder and it opens to reveal its’ contents, it’s displayed in big icons instead of a listview. this happens even though it has been set to listview when you open it normally. this can be very annoying if there are a couple of hundred files and folders and i have to scroll around to find the subfolder i want.
frontrow for all macs, cellphones with bluetooth works very well as a remote.
All in all though, OS X Tiger is the best OS I’ve EVER used, loving it!
9. Dumb Deleting
Maybe he’s comparing Mac OS to Windows in that in Windows, if you move something to to the Trash (er, I mean “Recycle”), Windows remembers where it came from and can put it back there should you change your mind. On the Mac, once it’s in the Trash it’s up to you to determine where to put it if you take it out of the Trash.
Most of my peeves with the Mac are with Finder. I prefer user interface of Windows Explorer, circa Win95/98 (in 2000 and later MS ruined a good thing) because it gives all the information I need in a minimum amount of screen space. The biggest problem with Windows Explorer is that the rest of Windows (malware, registry problems, etc.) come with it.
10. Sidebar Items Cant Be Renamed
False: Use the contextual Menu “Rename Item…”
3 – why shouldn’t you be able to open something in the trash,
False: drag it to an application that is sitting in the Dock. Dbl-clicking does not work but drag and drop works well.
3. Trashed Items Cant Be Opened
a) See “drag and drop Tip” from Number 3 (above)
b) The Finder slide show does work normally from the Trash. Veeeeery useful.
2. Programs Force Themselves to the Forefront
True (sometimes): Backup 3.0 does it. It is the only one tgat does it on my machine, but it really drives me crazy.
1. Dock Items Bounce Indefinitely
Never seen that. The app is calling for your attention… Do you ignore it indefinetely?
How about no trash can in the finder windows!
With some serious power usage, a lot of the above issues and others show up and should be improved.
The Finder freezing up the entire system, including the dock and all menus, needs to be fixed — FTFF!
Permission roadblocks are not an issue unless you have a little network going. Then items that you created and have the password for can be still off limits to you, no matter what! This is solved though various backbending approaches, like copying and pasting the contents of a file, but is often obtuse.
Some of the deeper interface issues are still clunky. For instance, save or locate dialogs are only half implemented, where columns sometimes can’t be fully adjusted to see the files.
Those finder copy sounds are atrocious. Sounds like a system failure when a copy is finished.
Try getting someone to switch to a mac, and then explain the whole DMG package mounting and installation process. Not a biggie, until they also have to know what to do with .sit files and .zip files as well. Odd.
Mac is all about drag and drop, but the dock and spotlight are not. Why?
Burnable folders don’t inform you how big you’re getting, until you hit burn and then are informed that you can’t do it.
Smart folders are not smart enough — no way to create one by “size”. Want to create a smart folder of all files above 500MB to delete any unnecessary ones? You can’t!
Sometimes closing a window quits the application, other times it doesn’t — such as the calculator, or font book, the dictionary, or system preferences. Any real pattern here?
But don’t get me wrong, for heavy lifting Mac X is SOOOOO much more robust than OS 9 — graybeards take THAT!!
Programs Force Themselves to the Forefront — While I agree this is tacky behavior, it is the fault of the application developers. I don’t agree that there is no time that an application shouldn’t be able to force it’s way to the front, but it is important to remind application developers that no matter how wonderful they think their application is, it may not be the most important thing in the user’s life at that moment.
My favorite example? iChat. It has a big ego problem and loves to force it’s windows on me.
Trashed Items Can’t Be Opened — This is actually a good thing–the item may disappear if the user chooses Empty Trash. I agree with his solution, though, and think it would be nice if Apple did this.
Software Update Off-Limits to Third-Parties — Hear hear! But I think it would be better if Apple just made the specifications public and allowed companies to host this on their own servers. When I installed software, I would add something to the “Software Update” list saying that to update this package, ask this server.
Dashboard Widgets are Modal — Well, the entertaining thing about Dashboard is that it’s great for information that you want to know but don’t need sitting around all the time.
For example, I removed the day-of-the-week from my menu bar and now I use the Calendar widget when I need to know the date. It works very well. CPU Temperature is another great example. I don’t need this cluttering up my desktop all the time, but it’s nice to see and when I hear the fans come on, I usually take a look.
Anything that requires a high degree of interactivity, though, remains on my desktop. For example, the calculator is still in my dock.
So it’s “modality” doesn’t bother me because that’s the thing I like about it, based upon how I use it. I’m in “Oh, let’s look at trivia” mode or I’m getting my work done.
Painful Pinwheel Pauses — Okay, I’ll solve a little problem for you. The pinwheel comes up when the application is busy and the user has an event waiting. Don’t want to see the pinwheel? Stop clicking on applications that are busy doing stuff. You won’t make them go any faster.
That said, there are some areas where OS X could be faster. Sometimes this problem comes up because the application is waiting for something from the operating system. For example, if I say “Read 100MB from this file” that might take awhile, as appropriate system resources are shifted around so that can happen. This delay can be made worse when other processes are running and they’re also doing disk activity. Various hunks of the kernel (Networking, file system) are not thread-safe and that can make matters worse because your process has to wait behind other processes.
Dumb Deleting — Some very good points. I don’t have as much of a problem. But if Apple were to fix anything, here’s what I would like them to fix.
Mac OS 9 had a great dialog box that came up when you went to empty the trash. It gave you some idea of what was in the trash. You would see something like, “The trash contains 178 items using 315MB of disk space. Are you sure you want to delete these items?” There were more than a few times that dialog box saved me (“315MB?! Shouldn’t be that much…”). The Mac OS X dialog box gives no information other than “you can’t undo this.”
Sidebar Items Can’t be Renamed — I’d like this, too. I actually hit this when setting up a sidebar item which pointed to a folder on a Windows volume. I really wanted to name it “Submit to Printer” rather than “printjobs”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. The solution was pretty easy, though: create an alias to the Windows folder named “Submit to Printer” and add that to the Sidebar.
“On the Mac, once it’s in the Trash it’s up to you to determine where to put it if you take it out of the Trash.”
With OSX you can Undo, if it’s your last action. On older Mac OS systems (Classic), you could select the file and do Command + Y, or Put Away, from the menu.
I dont like drop down menus
4. This is so because if they opened it to 3rd parties, they could install malicious code as “Apple” software. We don’t need to make it THAT easy for malware.
“False: Use the contextual Menu ‘Rename Item…'”
That will rename the original item. Not the same thing.
WTF is “Dumb Deleting?”
And what does he mean by “Widgets are modal?”
Here is the one definition that seems to fit the context best:’
modal logic
n 1: the logical study of necessity and possibility 2: a system of logic whose formal properties resemble certain moral and epistemological concepts
What’s the problem with that? It seems fair to me. :shrug:
MW: works. As for the rest of his list, works for me. Spot on.
“Sometimes closing a window quits the application, other times it doesn’t — such as the calculator, or font book, the dictionary, or system preferences.”
Again, this is behavior that application developers are responsible for. Thus, some are good and some are bad. However, as I understand it, applications should not quit until the user choosers Quit except if the application only has one window and cannot perform any useful task with that window closed (ie, calculator, dictionary, system prefs).
For example, Calculator is kind of useless without the calculator window being open. Same with Dictionary or System Prefs.
“And what does he mean by ‘Widgets are modal?'”
Sorry. UI terminology.
Thing that are “modal” relate to a “mode.” It is usually used in regards to dialog boxes (ie, a “Modal Dialog Box”) which limits you from doing other things until you answer the question in the modal dialog box.
Generally, application modes are considered “bad” because being in a certain mode limits us from doing other things. For example, I couldn’t search while I’m entering data. It’s mostly based on old command-line systems.
Some instances, however, are “good.” Arguably, selecting a tool from a palette in a graphics program puts you in a “mode.” Select a pencil, you’re in line drawing mode. Select a paintbrush, you’re in painting mode. Trying to do this in a non-modal manner would be next to impossible.
Exactly, in this case the developer is Apple, and is a part of the OS X install.
Address Book should quit when closed, then, but it doesn’t. Odd.
(the above is a response to Peter)
MW= “moving”. I’m moving? I’m moving!!
I think that icons only bounce in the Dock sixty times (i.e. for one minute only) and then stop, even if the application has not yet fully launched.
I remember this from experience launching Classic and Classic apps for the first time each morning on an ancient iMac 333 under MacOS X 10.2 (still working fine under 10.3.9!).
i have found tiger to be less reliable than panther , the search function is also poor
10.3.9 was the pinnacle imo , its been downhill since then
🙁
You shouldn’t be able to open documents in the trash. It would be confusing, IMHO.
Another trash “problem” I have found is that I can save documents directly in the trash.
This has happened a lot of times in Photoshop.
When selecting save, or “save for web” the default folder sometimes prompts me “.Trash”.
First couple of times I didn’t notice it until I tried finding my image.
Dashboard Widgets are Modal
I find it good to be able to type in my ZIP code in the temperature widget and the widget automatically gets the location that’s nearest.
Doesn’t modal use less memory? I’d rather have smaller memory widgets, sos I can have more of ’em out!
Be patient with Tiger, it’s only at 10.4.3. by 10.4.9 you’ll be whizzing along faster than with Panther. And with the Tiger goodies.
Personally, I’m hesitant about 10.5, it seems it’s more of a port to x86 than anything else.
None of these issues are really a problem if you know how to use a mac properly. For the ‘unko’ novice user I can see this might be a problem.
Only 2 ‘BEEFS’ if thats what you want to call it are…
The maximise window functionality. Dare I say it, I’d actually like the Windows maximise feature to be added to OSX. Or at least the capability to turn it on or off.
I currently use Saft to force my Safari browser go full screen rather than just the width of the tables inside the visited website.
When Saft is switched off the browser constantly needs to be resized to fit the webpage content which is a real pain in the arse. Those times I really miss Saft.
I dont like being able to see another applications windows and pallets when I’m working in another app, it’s just visually confusing and can cause me to click on the wrong section bringing the unwanted app to the front.
If thay added that functionality capability to the Mac OS so it effected all apps I’d be happy. Seems logical and a much better user experience.
Second beef is the column view in the finder. If you select the first and second items in column view usually the third column is partially obscured by the window frame or you see half of the fourth frame which is useless because you cannot read the filenames anyway. Again cant the functionality be added that allows the columns to snap to the window dimension rather than have to bugger around with the corner of the window to see all three/four/five columns neatly.
At least have the ability to turn this feature on and off.
I’m done!
Yeah it has it’s problems but has there ever been an OS that doesn’t have any? Come on guys, It Rocks!
To ComputerAgnostic :
To sum up my problems with OS X, I would say that it isn’t NeXTish enough. A lot of the little annoyances we have with OS X have been very elegantly solved in NeXTSTEP, like resizing a window (you could do it with both bottom corners and the bar between them) or that menu problem you’re talking about. For that last one, there is, at least, a third party solution : DejaMenu. Highly recommanded if you have multiple monitors.
Yes, OS X rocks ! It could roll too…
The only one I agree with overwhelmingly is number 2.
I cant STAND it when an app decides that it’s more important than what I’m currently working on. Especially when I’m typing something and looking at the keyboard only to realize that all ive been doing for the last minute is switching tools in Photoshop.
I would also add that you cannot set a view option to have Finder windows remain in one view format. When using the back and forward buttons in the Finder, how about all views in one mode, not hopping around to whatever mode each window was previously in. This is also very confusing for beginners.
“Be patient with Tiger, it’s only at 10.4.3. by 10.4.9 you’ll be whizzing along faster than with Panther. And with the Tiger goodies.”
If you can’t deliver new features with the same (or higher) quality as the current system then don’t add them. it’s not reasonable to wait a year (aprox for 9 updates to come out) for a feature to become stable, that’s close to MS quality 🙁
Tommy Boy some of those issues sound like specific things that are screwed up on your machine only and aren’t a flaw in the design of the OS.
The vast majority of people do not get kernel panics when renaming songs in iTunes. Your general lockups and Safari issues would also fall under this category. Chances are your problems boil down to just a few things.
Bad/cheap RAM install
Third party hardware or software install
corrupted fonts
Maybe because I’ve been using MAC for such a long time and have never used windoze, I can’t bring up anything based on a comparison, or based on something I missed from switching. Being from the kool-aid drinking cult of faithful, I’ve always sort-of just waited for Apple to tweak the OS with each new release, and they usually come through. As someone mentioned http://apple.com/feedback is there for a reason, they are listening.
That being said, MY BIGGEST GRIPE that DRIVES me FRIGGIN NUTS is accessing the address book via the widget. After finding the address I am looking for, if I return later to type in another query, the widget “bonks” and will not allow this, I am forced to open the widgets, delete the existing address widget and then add another address book window.
In other words, I’m pretty pleased with things, and I know they’ll improve.
p.s. highlight item in side bar, command+I, go to “Name & Extension” and change the name.
Tommy Boy, run Disk Util repair permission and get DiskWarrior 3.0.3 (Tiger compatible). Your problems are your problems.
Do the above and they’ll most probably go away.
Cheers
PS
None of the things you mention happen on the 2 or 3 hundreds Macs we have here.
PPS
Even #4: here developers start compilation/link processes with networked system, put the laptop to sleep, go to other locations, wake the laptop and everything resume.
I would like an EASY way to have the entire date in the menu bar. Ex: Monday, January 9, 2006
If these are your problems, you ain’t got any problems!
After reading all of the above complaints about Mac OS X, and possibly agreeing with a few of them, I can only think that if this is all that us major users can find as the major faults of this OS then Apple is doing an excellent job of making an easy-to-use computer.
To compare Mac’s list of faults and flaws with those of XP/Vista would be very similar to comparing their lists of known viruses.
Macs aren’t perfect; they just seem that way when compared to XP.
Toby: “None of these issues are really a problem if you know how to use a mac properly.”
That´s exactly what all my windows pc owning friends say also when I tell them the problems with Windows: “None of these issues are really a problem if you know how to use a Windows computer properly.”
Mike Buonarroti: “Macs aren’t perfect; they just seem that way when compared to XP.”
But ain´t that the rub? XP is so bad OSX is fantatstic. But couldn´t OSX be lots better? That´s the point. Not, well OSX has problems, but it could be worse – you could be using XP.
We should be hypercritical of OSX – how can it be better compared to itself? It will only move forward, evolve to the next better level if we demand better from it, not sit back and chuckle snidely, “if you don´t like switch to XP/Vista then you will appreciate OSX”.
Owen Linzmayer appears to be a complete noob yet writes a book on OS X. Most of his beefs are changes with simple contextual menus or User preferences such as moving a dock icon, changing a key command or going to an applications Preferences menu. I suggest going to his article, reading it and, politely, telling him what you think. I get so annoyed by “journalists” who simply write things and have clearly not worked very hard to figure stuff out. The “rename items in the sidebar” gripe is a good example. I never tried so when I read that the first thing I tried was a “right-click”. Bingo “rename sidebar item”. How hard is that?
This list contains very petty stuff indeed. Compared to what Windows users want in their OS, what they have to put up with, the mess that IT guys have to go through to troubleshoot (which is why I don’t do Windows), it’s nothing really.
If one has a beef about what is in or is not in Mac OS, write a nice, intelligent email to Apple to make your case.
I´ve got both XP and OSX computers – I have no problems with either. XP is a bit clumisier to use and kind of ugly, but on the other hand I don´t necessarily look forward to the OSXification of XP with the new Vista. I am not an eye-candy type of guy that OSX likes to show off.
——–
But when Apple releases an iPod that can hook directly to the internet lots of people won´t even need a computer anymore.
There’s no Start button to Shut Down! (j/k)
How many of you folks agree with HK Guy, that Windows does file browsing better? I always thought the Finder was the essence of the Mac user experience.
1. Dock Items Bounce Indefinitely
– If you continue to ignore, but it’s better than…
2. Programs Force Themselves to the Forefront
– Toast does this, Missing Sync with it’s dialog box, etc. Worse in Windows, though.
3. Trashed Items Cant Be Opened
– Makes sense. If you want to use it, it probably isn’t trash.
4. Software Update Off-Limits to Third-Parties
– That’s a good thing! Imagine if MS did this…
5. Dashboard Widgets are Modal
6. Painful Pinwheel Pauses
– Yes, that can be annoying.
7. Permission Roadblocks
– And one reason why don’t we not yet have viruses?…
8. Exposing Package Contents is Confusing
– Then don’t mess with them if you don’t know what they are
9. Dumb Deleting
– ID ten error?
10. Sidebar Items Cant Be Renamed
– Then rename the parent object.
I want to see Apple really conquer fonts. Fonts are a basic OS thing and the Mac has been a tool of professional designers since the beginning. Why are fonts still such a pain?
I want to see unique icons for each font type.
I want to have the ability to edit font suitcases like you could pre-OS X. Useful for those moments when someone puts 16 fonts in one suitcase or a suitcase includes multiple formats: truetype and postscript.
Why can’t Apple produce the absolute killer font manager right in the system rather than a consumer level, half-baked one? Pros need to handle thousands of fonts.
I want more skins and themes!!!!!
I think he is one to something with points 1, 2, and 6, although I would have worded them differently.
I would prefer that Dock icons either bounce 3-5 times, or better yet glow with a soft pulsing border and not bounce at all.
Programs that force themselves to the forefront are a major irritation for me, and that has been such a pet peeve of mine that I’ve almost launched a “OS X Annoyances” website to deal with it. It’s not so much the “coming to the front” that bothers me, as it is taking the “focus” (meaning that suddenly any keys you type are directed to the new application). I am a fast, keyboard-intensive user, and it is not a few times that, whilst I was typing, suddenly another program popped up unexpectedly (or a dialog or alert) and whatever keys I happened to be typing did something unintended. On a side note, Safari has this problem with loading pages. If you are in one tab, and another tab is loading, when the other tab finishes loading you will get switched against your will to the other tab (maybe happens with windows too, I don’t remember).
Programs that lock up easily with a spinning beach ball are really annoying too. I’ve found, oddly, that launching Activity Monitor will sometimes unfreeze an application. Have no idea why….
A few other things I might change: Selectively permanently delete items in the trash. Improve Finder FTP performance (major bug/annoyance: hitting the cancel button during FTP connects sometimes has no effect, and there is no connection timeout). Improved keyboard navigation of dialog boxes, especially drop-down lists.
I hate that Dock items bounce indefinitely, too. And to Bounce? who said “The app is calling for your attention… Do you ignore it indefinetely?” Yes, I know it’s calling for my attention and yes, I am ignoriing it indefinitely; what’s your point? The “feature” is still annoying.
I also hate when windows of apps force themselves to the front. Worse than children. And you can’t kick the app in the head like you can kids.
I dislike that I can’t open items in the Trash via double-click but it doesn’t bother me that much.
I don’t care that Software Update isn’t open to 3rd parties. In fact, if I thought about it, I’d probably appreciate it since it would just clutter the UI.
Um, the Dashboard is meant to be modal. This complaint is basically against Dashboard completely. Someone should introduce the fellow to Konfabulator.
The Pinwheel is pretty. I like to watch it spin. It calms me. It reminds me to never hurry. Life it too short to stress out over waiting.
I’ve had a lot of permissions problems on our Windows network but I do enjoy hearing all these sheltered folk here explaining the reason for permissions and how this isn’t an annoyance.
I enjoy Package Contents and don’t ever want to see them go away.
I also enjoy deleting Dumb off of my computer at every possible opportunity.
I’ve had few troubles with the Sidebar. Renaming is one of the problems. It doesn’t bug me so much.
“Address Book should quit when closed, then, but it doesn’t. Odd.”
AB should not quit when its app window is closed. That behavior is supposed to be for utilities (though Apple implements this inconsistently, as usual).
“I think that icons only bounce in the Dock sixty times (i.e. for one minute only) and then stop, even if the application has not yet fully launched.”
Not talking about launched apps that have hung.
“Be patient with Tiger, it’s only at 10.4.3. by 10.4.9”
This is assuming there will be a 10.4.9. Apple has already noted they have slowed their OS development. The may conceivably skip from 10.4.5 to 10.5.
“None of these issues are really a problem if you know how to use a mac properly.”
How presumptuous of you, asshole. I’m sure if we all had you teeny intellect, we wouldn’t see any problems in the world.
“The maximise window functionality. Dare I say it, I’d actually like the Windows maximise feature to be added to OSX. Or at least the capability to turn it on or off.”
See, if only you knew how to use a Mac, you’d realize this isn’t a problem.
Is this guy a mac novice?
1. You can turn that off in Dock preferences.
2. That’s not an OS problem, that’s a problem with the programs you use. It happens in Windows, too.
3. Neither Windows or Mac allows the opening of files while they are in their trash bins.
4. It would probably cause a large security gap for malware pretending to be something they’re not. Windows Update isn’t open either.
5. There are freeware applications available to put Dashboard widgets on your desktop.
6. Your iffy programs are causing this. I never have this problem. Re-evaluate what programs you are using and see if it only happens in these programs. It’s most likely inefficient code on their part.
7. If you’re working in the CLI, it’s not that hard to use sudo.
8. You’ve got some time on your hands if you’re watching dialog boxes. Besides, it’s all GarageBand. Look at the icon.
9. Is this your biggest problem with Mac OSX? Everyone should buy one then.
10. Right-click the icon and hit “Rename.” Don’t say you can’t do something unless you’re sure.
1,If your dock item bounces indefinately then you have a problem because that’s not normal. 2.Programs only go to the forefront when you click on the application. 3. If you’re trashing it then why do you need to open it? 4. Why do you need software updates coming from Apple’s software update? 5. Dashboard widgets are cool. 6. Pinwheel pauses ususally happen when an application doesn’t have enough resources to work properly. There could be some improvement here. 7. Permissions are permissions and are meant to be a road block if you’re not supposed to be able to do something. That’s why they call them permissions. 8. Use the right application for opening packages like Pacifist and it won’t be confusing. 9. Mac OSX won’t delete something unless you say you want it deleted. And it won’t delete something that you don’t have permissions for like it supposed too. This guy needs to go get some OSX training. In OSX Tiger 10. if you have a 3 button mouse or use the keyboard with the control key you CAN rename items in the sidebar by highlighting rename.
Again this guy needs an education in OSX.
Go post all of these complaints to Apple at:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
This might help them to fix some of these issues. Who knows, maybe they don’t know about some of these issues. The only way it will get better is if the actual users tell them what we want.
“Sidebar Items Cant Be Renamed”
Of course not — they’re one-click launchers! Control-click one of them and choose “Open Enclosing Folder” and then you can rename it.
“1. You can turn that off in Dock preferences.”
Do you know what the guy is even complaining about?
“2. That’s not an OS problem, that’s a problem with the programs you use. It happens in Windows, too.”
Hmmm, I wonder how those applications bring their window to the front? I wonder if it’s through the operating system?
“6. Your iffy programs are causing this. I never have this problem. Re-evaluate what programs you are using and see if it only happens in these programs. It’s most likely inefficient code on their part.”
Yes, it’s time for everyone to reevaluate the Finder and Safari and iPhoto and .Mac services.
“7. If you’re working in the CLI, it’s not that hard to use sudo.”
While you’re at it, don’t forget to put tape on your glasses and buy a pocket protector.
john Horvatic: “Programs only go to the forefront when you click on the application.”
Unfortunately that is not true. I wish it were true.
The whole Finder.
Also, when you have a drop-down menu, and you accidentally click a part of it that’s not the menu or if the mouse goes outside the menu, it disappears! talk about frustrating! also annoying is that you can’t close minimized windows by right clicking them in the dock… nothing’s perfect yet.
I still don’t get why they don’t give you easy access to all applications, like the Start menu – my solution was to put the Applications folder in the dock and right-click, but this is clumsy and slow [depending on the size of the folder, mine’s ~5GB and takes 3-10secs to load. grr]
“3. If you’re trashing it then why do you need to open it?”
What is it with you simple-minded folk? Can you even conceive of a world outside your own?
Todd, You wanted full date in the menu bar…done
Use the international control panel, this is a work around, but completely NON-hack, NON-third pary software.
Go to the formats tab in the international control panel.
click on “customize…” in the Dates area,
select the date in the text field, and <apple-c>, or “copy”
then click cancel
now click on “customize…” in the Times area,
important: choose medium in the pull down menu
then place your cursor somewhere in the text field, and “paste”
click OK
Now you know the theory, just tinker to get it right for you.
I place the Date before the Time, and I put two spaces between them so it looks cleaner in the Menu bar.
Owen. You must be on a Gateway box or on Mac OS 7
he’ll make a happy vista user
One other peeve: When you connect to a share through the Finder network browser, the share appears in the sidebar and on your desktop (if so configured), but then you have to click on one of those to actually view the files. It would be better if at that point the shared files appeared automatically, as they do when you use the “Connect to Server” command.
What is the thing about DELETING?
Someone above mentioned that you can’t delete from the keyboard like Shift-Delete in Windows. Actually, you can. It’s called CMD-Delete (Backspace).
A beef with Safari.
If you open a webpage in one tab, then click to another to do something while it’s loading, it pops up when you are on the other webpage. This should be able to at least be turned off. I hate that feature.
My pet peeve is simple: non-existent advertising of OS X outside the choir hall.
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Thanks, effwerd, for calling some of these commenters on their ignorant arrogance and/or lack of reading comprehension.
No, you CAN NOT turn off the icon-bouncing problem the author is talking about in System Preferences. He’s talking about when an application puts up something like an error dialog, which causes its dock icon to bounce continuously. Why should you have to quit what you’re doing in another application just to get the other app to shut the hell up about it? Maybe it’s not that important to you at that moment.
I especially love the response, “Windows is like that, too.” Who gives a crap about what Windows does? Is that really your yardstick of OS perfection? The author said nothing about this being a Mac-versus-Windows comparison.
The pinwheel problems were not about crashed apps. He is talking about stupid pauses during seemingly trivial actions. I sometimes get a several-second pinwheel when I simply scroll a web page in Safari on a brand new Mac. WTF?
Dumb deleting had nothing to do with wanting a key command to instantly delete a file. Can you people even read?
The guy who brought up sudo should be tarred and feathered. Did you write this?
http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/linuxbeat3.htm
I’m a happy Mac user but I would agree with his peeves. Why does the Mac community get so defensive when someone simply points out issues?
This is a strange thread. I don’t have any problems with OS-X.
What kink of Mac, how much memory, what kind of hard drive, how many apps opened at one time? These along with other things can cause pin wheels, bouncing icons and other slow downs.
This astonishing… a bit like finding blemishes on Michelangelo’s David…!
By comparison, going through the same process with Windows would be like finding positive things to say about a tumour…
“[…] Especially when I’m typing something and looking at the keyboard only to realize that all ive been doing for the last minute is switching tools in Photoshop.”
Learn to touch type so you can look at the screen while you’re typing.
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(Just kidding. That happens to me every now and then, too…)
That’s your ten worst?!?!?
Man, you’re in Heaven and don’t even know it! OS X users are just spoiled.
Especially when I’m typing something and looking at the keyboard
WTF?
How long do you look at the keyboard? Are you afraid the keys are not in the sameplace as last time place you used them?
It has to be freeking hilarious to watch you type.
Some thoughts for mugwump earlier today,
Re: >The Finder freezing up the entire system, including the dock and all menus< < I agree, especially when iDisk decides to hang, after only copying a couple of html files!
Re: >Those Finder copy sounds are atrocious< < If you don’t like them, just turn them off! System Prefs -> Sound -> Sound Effects
Re: >… the whole DMG package mounting and installation process…< < Yes, I agree; it’s easy once you’re used to it, but alot of newbies have a problem with virtual disks mounting and unmounting, throwing the .sit’s and .zip’s away after, etc.
Re: >Mac is all about drag and drop, but the dock and spotlight are not. Why? < < I don’t understand how the Dock is _not_ working for you with D&D, or how you would even use D&D with Spotlight. Please tell us.
Re: >Burnable folders don’t inform you how big you’re getting < < Pain in the a**, agreed! And you’d think it would be such a simple fix, and such an obvious necessity when it was coded at Apple!
RE >Smart folders are not smart enough — no way to create one by “size”. Want to create a smart folder of all files above 500MB to delete any unnecessary ones? You can’t! < < You’re mistaken on this one, mugwump. I have a “smart folder” for >100MB files. Just define as “Search for” + [blank] on line 1, and on line 2, “Size” + “Greater than” + [your number] + “MB”. Then Save the critera, and you’re done.
Personally, I like OS X a lot, especially Tiger, even though I am sometimes frustrated by little annoyances. I wonder to myself, don’t the guys and gals (and even Steve himself) at Apple use this stuff as “power users” and see the same issues? Perhaps I need to read the Human Interface Design guidelines that Apple uses to understand better what appear to be silly quirks to me.
All the best to everyone this New Year! Tomorrow is going to be fun!! (MacWorld) Cheers!