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chris200x9

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 3, 2006
906
0
I dual booted my macbook with ubuntu and for a minute I was in love with linux and thought I might perminantly switch. Then I tried to read my c++ notes while in an IDE, and guess what everything was full screen, or at least bigger windows than in mac OS X, and I said to myself "I can't arrange the windows so I can read my notes as I program!".

so long story short I think Mac OS X's best feature is the window size and how it's built for multitasking.



I would like to hear what in your opinion is Mac OS X's best feature and why.
 
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i say expose its unbelievably handy when multi tasking. Its also very fast and glitchfree.

Plus its something that no other OS seems to be able to sucessfully copy
 
One of the most taken for granted is super quick sleep and waking.

I've yet to see a Windows (XP or Vista) laptop of any brand operate as fast as OS X in this regard. I can simply use OS X as soon as I can get my hand on the trackpad and then a few seconds after that, thanks to Leopard, my wireless connection is back up (it's even faster than Tiger was at reconnecting).
 
IT WORKS (as expected) :cool:

I would be great, if I could say the same thing about my work computer (Windows XP). Unfortunately, I don't have a choice there.

I was wondering if a jab at another operating system would show in the top ten seeing as how the OP asked about OSX:rolleyes:

I would agree that expose is awesome and extremely useful.
 
I'd be hard pressed to choose between Window Management and Speed and Lack of Viruses / Spyware / Adware.

Window Management
I know I'm cheating by grouping together lots of features into one but they all complement each other so well and make day to day tasks quick.

Something as simple as Command-` is one of the first things you miss when going back to Windows. Just being able to loop through windows in the current application is extremely useful compared to EVERY single window open as is the case in Windows.

Then there's the Zoom button, which especially in a widescreen display, makes more efficient use of space and allows you to have windows side by side and encourages multitasking.

Add the fact that you can Hide applications, move background windows without focusing on them and (in Leopard) scroll non active windows and productivity is greatly increased and I haven't even talked about Spaces yet ... !

Speed and Lack of Viruses / Spyware / Adware
It's just so refreshing not having to wait for the latest anti-virus update to download and install at least once a day when starting up the computer and knowing that if you let other people use your computer they're not gonna inadvertently install adware and spyware on my system.

Best of all though is that startup and shutdown times remain the same over time whereas in Windows things just get slower and slower over the months and a complete reinstall seems necessary at least once a year. In Mac OS it feels like I've got a new computer every day with everything running nice and quickly.

I was wondering if a jab at another operating system would show in the top ten seeing as how the OP asked about OSX:rolleyes:

The trouble is is that it's hard to show how good the above two features without showing them in some kind of context and that context for a lot of people is Windows. I personally think that there are many features of Windows that are noteworthy and Apple really should have implemented as well (why do I have to go to the lower right corner of a window to resize it? That's madness when having to using a trackpad!).

But in terms of the above two it can't compete. I don't, like some people on these forums, HATE windows and find it impossible to use. I like it. I just prefer Mac OS more. Simple as that. :)
 
the fact you dont spend your time trying to fix a problem, but instead doing what you wanted to do in the first place. I also love window management and the dock. puts the Taskbar to shame imo.
 
I dual booted my macbook with ubuntu and for a minute I was in love with linux and thought I might perminantly switch. Then I tried to read my c++ notes while in an IDE, and guess what everything was full screen, or at least bigger windows than in mac OS X, and I said to myself "I can't arrange the windows so I can read my notes as I program!".

so long story short I think Mac OS X's best feature is the window size and how it's built for multitasking.



I would like to hear what in your opinion is Mac OS X's best feature and why.

You can easily change window size in linux. Easier than in OSX because you can use any corner to resize. I don't know why you see this is a "feature" of OSX.
 
You can easily change window size in linux. Easier than in OSX because you can use any corner to resize. I don't know why you see this is a "feature" of OSX.

I assume chris200x9 was referring to the "Zoom" button because, especially in an application like Safari, you don't end up wasting any space as the window is automatically resized to perfectly fit its content. Well in theory anyway, some applications don't implement the feature very well.

There are definitely some advantages in using Linux's window management features though. The fact that you can make make any window "always stay on top" and "shade' it (i.e. reduce to its title bar) are very useful features indeed.

Man I wish Apple had a built in option to keep a certain window always on top and had assigned a keyboard shortcut for zooming a window ...
 
The hardware it runs on.

When it comes to software though, I'd say Cocoa + the dev tools.

Edit: on the zooming discussion above, I like how non-cluttered the OS X interface is without resorting to wasting screen space. It's compact and uncluttered at the same time. Gnome is pretty uncluttered to, but everything takes up so much space - while working at 1280x1024 with MonoDevelop, it felt 800x600 all over again. Never had any problem with Xcode at 1024x768 though.
 
It isn't Windows.

2nd that; but I find it's not good enough 'cause *nix has always been stable and virus-free and "not Windows". On the other hand, it's circular reasoning to say one loves osx because it's osx, so....

Besides the obvious, my #1 feature would be great catalog of commercial software.

Sure, most commercial software are also available for Windows, but as Windows is not an option my point is OSX has enormous *commercial* software catalog compared to *nix systems. If you need to use Protools or Photoshop for example, your choice is instantly limited to OSX and Windows; and because Windows is not an option I find OSX does not even have competition.

Did I already say Windows is not an option? :D
 
Although it's really two things, I think simplicity and elegance. There's much more, but those were the two that attracted a long-time Windows user to OS X
 
It's built to run even on low-end machines, spotlight, expose, and multitasking features.
 
Scalability: it can be as easy or difficult as you require. There's everything from clicking to Quicksilver to UNIX and the Terminal, and all in between.
 
i like how osx has brought me to a forum where i can talk about using the os.

previously, i've only been in computer forums designated to *fixing* my os. :rolleyes: *ahem* anyone familiar with hijackthis? lololol :D:D
 
It's built to run even on low-end machines, spotlight, expose, and multitasking features.

When I'm searching in Spotlight with my 1.5 GHz / 1.25 GB PowerBook G4, text input lags behind, characters appearing only once a second while typing at full speed. Same deal for Mail in Leopard, when there's a big email (like 3 pages or so, plaint text), text input is so extremely slow that I go to TextEdit to type it out, then go back to paste it into Mail.
 
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