Anything lacking in OS X?

[G99]

As the title suggests. Is there anything you want in OS X, that isn't there? For me, I'd want a newer Finder. The only thing from Windows I want in OS X is Pinball. Lol. Also, Dashboard and Front Row are still in their infancy, and could be improved. Your views?

 

[eva01]

New finder is #1 on my list

and better FTP integrated in finder personally.

Quicktime to support more file formats would be nice.

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

I really like Front Row...I don't want them to make it any more complex, although if they add television that is going to happen either way...

Um...the finder doesn't bother me much, although Windows Explorer is superior in my mind. However, with Spotlight, I never use Finder anymore. In fact, I haven't used Finder since purchasing my MacBook Pro....haven't even opened it yet. Wierd, huh?

Um...I like the idea of a remove-apps application, like Windows has...other than that, virtualization would be nice, once Vista comes out, I guess...

OH - look at this tho!!! I was all excited about Office 2007 (not Vista, but Office 2007 looks pretty cool) until I saw this picture, released TODAY:

http://officeblogs.net/UI/WordVista.png

It looks ugly with Vista. I don't understand the concept behind the glass, it doesn't improve readability AT ALL. Moreover, the giant Office button in the top lefthand corner is...well, not a great idea.

What do you think...?

 

[jsw]

Resolution independent displays.

And window resizing from more than the bottom right-hand corner!

 

[grapes911]

I'd want a newer Finder.

That's kind of vauge. How would you change finder to make it better?

Dashboard and Front Row are still in their infancy, and could be improved.

As you said, they are in their infancy. Tiger was the first version of OS X with Dashboard (you can include Spotlight in here too). FR was introduced way after the release of Tiger. I think it goes without saying that Apple is still trying to improve these things.


I honestly wouldn't change anything other than the normal little updates. The speculation about a new file system may be nice, but not necessary. The speculation about being able to natively run windows apps is nice, but they still probably won't be as fast and responsive as running windows. I can honestly say that off the top of my head, there is nothing that I want added.

 

[dejo]

For me, I'd want a newer Finder.

I hear this quite often. Can those not happy with the finder give some specific ideas of what they would like improved?

EDIT: Oops, grapes911 beat me to the query.

 

[eva01]

I hear this quite often. Can those not happy with the finder give some specific ideas of what they would like improved?

EDIT: Oops, grapes911 beat me to the query.

for me connecting to servers is just useless even thou i would use it if it was useful.

Also for some reason sometimes finder just seems to crash when i have been connected to my PM and go to school and click eject i just get a beachball for over a minute (don't know why)

 

[G99]

I really like Front Row...I don't want them to make it any more complex, although if they add television that is going to happen either way...

Um...the finder doesn't bother me much, although Windows Explorer is superior in my mind. However, with Spotlight, I never use Finder anymore. In fact, I haven't used Finder since purchasing my MacBook Pro....haven't even opened it yet. Wierd, huh?

Um...I like the idea of a remove-apps application, like Windows has...other than that, virtualization would be nice, once Vista comes out, I guess...

OH - look at this tho!!! I was all excited about Office 2007 (not Vista, but Office 2007 looks pretty cool) until I saw this picture, released TODAY:

http://officeblogs.net/UI/WordVista.png

It looks ugly with Vista. I don't understand the concept behind the glass, it doesn't improve readability AT ALL. Moreover, the giant Office button in the top lefthand corner is...well, not a great idea.

What do you think...?

That looks...horrible. What's that button's functionality? And, the weird blackish colour scheme make Office seem older, not newer.. Those tabs are confusing too.

 

[G99]

That's kind of vauge. How would you change finder to make it better?

At the moment, I really have no ideas. I have a pretty bad imagination. But, hasn't this Finder been around for ages? Isn't it time they did something new to it?

 

[G99]

Quicktime to support more file formats would be nice.

I agree. I'm not sure if this has been done, but I think mainstream codecs should be preloaded.

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

That looks...horrible. What's that button's functionality? And, the weird blackish colour scheme make Office seem older, not newer.. Those tabs are confusing too.

You know the heading 'File' used today...well, I guess that's what the 'Holy Office Button' is supposed to be. You can print, save, open from it. Or something...

 

[G99]

You know the heading 'File' used today...well, I guess that's what the 'Holy Office Button' is supposed to be. You can print, save, open from it. Or something...

So that's what it's for

 

[Mojo67821]

http://officeblogs.net/UI/WordVista.png


What do you think...?

I actually really like that screen cap. It looks pretty cool. I'm a recent convert to OSX though, so I don't have a dislike for windows like most of the people around here.

I would though like to be able to resize my windows from somewhere other than the corner... that can be quite the pain.

 

[khisayruou]

I hear this quite often. Can those not happy with the finder give some specific ideas of what they would like improved?

EDIT: Oops, grapes911 beat me to the query.

Path Finder, its everything Finder should be, just to name a few features...tabs, drop stack, built in ftp, and more viewing info for files.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Path Finder, its everything Finder should be, just to name a few features...tabs, drop stack, built in ftp, and more viewing info for files.

However great Path Finder is, its still needs to be cleaned up UI wise. Simpiler looking is always better for Apple.

 

[grapes911]

Path Finder, its everything Finder should be, just to name a few features...tabs, drop stack, built in ftp, and more viewing info for files.

I find it to complex for a simple OS. It's nice to have an app that can do these things for users that want them, but I would be really disappointed if apple made this the new finder.

 

[khisayruou]

I find it to complex for a simple OS. It's nice to have an app that can do these things for users that want them, but I would be really disappointed if apple made this the new finder.

I agree, the UI is quite busy and it can be complex, but I feel finder needs
many of the features that Path Finder offers and it can still maintain
some form of simplicity. Like tabs, it would be something that would be really
nice. Perhaps built in file compression.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

I posted this on the Apple Nova boards a few months ago when they were asking this question and these suggestions still apply. However, Apple has added the bootloader for Windows that used to be on my list!

This is what I would like to see in future versions of OS X. Although much of this has been suggested before, and some are more suggestions for apps, these ideas would make my Mac experience more perfect than it already is....

1. Consistent UI across all applications and the OS.
2. Resolution Independence
3. Better Samba networking
4. Make finder sortable by various criteria (iTunes currently is)
5. A separate movie store and application to organize movies in the user/movies folder (I know not really part of the OS)
6. The ability to burn Photo Disks from iPhoto that doesn't include the file structure
7. A separate administrator account created by default (to help make the OS a little more secure
8. More canned automator routines.
9. An iTunes alarm clock widget that will wake the computer and play a song from iTunes (I know there are ways of achieving this but it could be more elegant)
10. A TV and DVR app (probably won't happen but I can dream) added to Front-Row
11. Fullscreen video in QT standard
12. Support for virtual desktops built-in
13. The ability to replace text in text-edit, pages etc from the system dictionary/thesaurus and widget (without copy and paste).
14. Support for more chat clients in iChat
15. More codecs included with Quicktime (maybe even a WMV one?)
16. Virtual surround sound decoder for DVD player (for those with 5.1 speakers but no external receiver)
17. Front Row Released as a download for all macs
18. Finder preferences, disk utility, airport admin utility, keychain, directory access etc all located in system preferences...(What new user would think to look in the applications/utilities folder for these apps?)
19. A cocktail like maintenance app by apple
20. An app for networking...(Again what new user would think to hit command k to connect to a network?)
21. The ability to share, lock, and encrypt individual folders without using filevault, moving files to your home folder, or a third-party app
22. An apple cd/dvd app...I know they don't want to put Toast out of business but I'm sure they could build in more burning functionality out of the box.
23. Perhaps Apple should create there own virus detection/quarantine app (Currently there aren't any viri but thats not to say that there won't be...I don't think Apple should rely on 3rd party companies to ensure our security..)
24. DRM DVD Ripping
25. The ability to convert to different file formats besides AAC using iTunes (again not an OS change but still needed) I wanted to convert a song I imported from a CD to a ringtone...I had to download Audacity to do this because you can't save in .mp3 in iTunes or Quicktime (this is ridiculous!)
26. Better support for various plug-ins in Safari (there should never be a website Safari can't open)

 

[Superdrive]

You can convert to MP3 within iTunes. Go to Preferences>Advanced. Change the encoding settings to MP3 and customize as needed. Select the file you want in your library, then click Advanced>Convert Selection to MP3. Bingo bango, there is your MP3. That also recognizes custom times if you want to take a 30 second snippet for your ringtone.

As far as advancements, I'd like to see improvements to everyday actions that I don't know I need yet. Similar to Dashboard, etc. I'd really like to see some customization features to iChat.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

You can convert to MP3 within iTunes. Go to Preferences>Advanced. Change the encoding settings to MP3 and customize as needed. Select the file you want in your library, then click Advanced>Convert Selection to MP3. Bingo bango, there is your MP3. That also recognizes custom times if you want to take a 30 second snippet for your ringtone.

As far as advancements, I'd like to see improvements to everyday actions that I don't know I need yet. Similar to Dashboard, etc. I'd really like to see some customization features to iChat.

Cool!

I just checked this on the Windows version of iTunes and you are correct. I thought that it only had convert selection to AAC in the Mac version but I can't verify this as I am macless while I wait on my new one I thought that the encoding setting was only for importing CDs....

Thanks for the tip! Boot Camp and now this; another one bites the dust!

 

[Chaszmyr]

I'd like to see an image browser built into Finder, as an optional view type for folders. Better FTP integration would also be nice. Most of all, I'd like the ability to search for phrases in spotlight, but I have a feeling that part of the way it is indexes such that it works so quickly is because it catalogs specific words, and therefore cant search for phrases.

Thinking bigger, I'd like to be able to enable an environment like Classic to run Windows apps, complete with full 3D acceleration.

 

[Superdrive]

Agreed on the photo front. Windows has us beat in that respect. 128 pixels only goes so far and the out of order slideshow is over done. A default photo view in a folder would be a great thing.

ddrueckhammer I'm glad you got it to work out. My directions were kinda vague. I made my ringtones about two weeks ago.

 

[ahunter3]

Resolution independent displays.

And window resizing from more than the bottom right-hand corner!

I'd like a return to window moving from more than the window titlebar, myself.

What is it that you're calling "resolution independent displays"? No comprende. (I assume you don't mean "independent of each other" since we quite obviously have always had that).

 

[ahunter3]

My own list:

1) Ditch spring-loaded folders in favor of PopupFolder functionality (when you drag a file onto a volume or folder it should pop out a menu showing all contents with the folders behaving like a hierarchical menu; drag onto one of them and its contents pops up and so on. Release and in drops the file).

2) Apple should buy DefaultFolder from St. Clair Software and extend it somewhat, to fix the crippled Open/Save/Save As dialog boxes. You should be able to delete, move, rename, get file type & creator code, finder label, finder comments, and previews of any file in the current folder; Command-clicking the foldername should not only let you slide up the hierarchy, you should also get a popup to the side showing the full contents of any folder in the hierarchy, and be able thereby to navigate not only up-hierarchy but to the side and back down a different path in a single click.

3) Return optional legacy AppleTalk networking. The real deal, backwards-compatible to System 6. And fix SMB, get it faster, get it to quit depositing Finderturds (._DS_Store, etc) inside PC volumes unless they can be made invisible to the PC OS. And include optional legacy PC networking (NetBEUI, pre-Active Directory NetBIOS, etc).

4) Give the option of "placing" the Dock in the main menubar as a Dock menu item (a hierarchical menu of course). Also the option of not only hiding the Dock but turning off auto-reveal on mouseover (so you have to specifically invoke the Dock to make it appear). And put a PrefsPane field to change keystroke ⌘-Tab to something else if desired, or disable it altogether.

5) A "Get Info" tab that's useful. Display permissions in all formats (rwxrwxrwx, 777, "you can read", etc), display size, creator code, type code, file-specific binding, finder comment, label, created & modified dates, "will open with", unix path, Mac path, lock flag, custom icon flag, and any other metadata associated with the file.

6) Fix the Finder window-refresh problem.

7) With the exception of column view, each folder should have a position and a native view; whenever opened, it should manifest itself at that size, shape, and view.

 

[flyfish29]

I wish Expose would group windows into subgroups when "expanded" so all the stickies would be grouped together for instance instead of spread out over the entire screen- try it, get five sticky windows open and watch them scatter like fish in a shark tank! I would also have windows stay in their relative space...ie. I have the iTunes controller small in the upper right of my screen. When I "Expose" it moves way to the left even though it really doesn't need to to show all the windows. I have open. If it always went in the upper right or right where it is on the desktop it would be easier to find every time I need to click it to change songs, etc.

I think side docks along with a bottom dock all at the same time would be nice. ie. your side dock on the right could be all your iLife type apps, the bottom the ones you use most like Office, Safari, etc., the ones on the left could be system stuff like application folder, sys. prefs, macJanitor, Disk utility. Users could group them how they want.