MBP observations and things I'm not happy with

[Burrel]

Of course I'm no doubt going to get a load of abuse after this message but seriously, after forking out £1k on a MBP I expected it to be ***** hot compared to my recently deceased (after 5 years, though) Dell Laptop purchased for £400.

I seem to discover more issues or a slow response to programs rather than being wow'd by what it has to offer.

Maybe this could be an ongoing thread for other users who encounter similar or new frustrations which perhaps other users have solutions to.

1) When I open an e-mail through Mail I want to see the e-mail in a full screen window, not one half the size which can't even be expanded. Very poor.

2) From this week only I am now getting a message through Mail saying "Connections to the server “smtp.live.com” on the default ports timed out. Select a different outgoing mail server from the list below or click Try Later to leave the message in your Outbox until it can be sent. Now I'm not sure if this is due to a recent OSX update, because I had no issues sending e-mails before. Either way it's really annoying not to mention disappointing.

3) No delete button! What the hell! Instead you have to press two buttons 'fn and back space'.

4) Why on earth we as users don't have the option to have ALL programs/applications (not just some!) in a window that fits all of the screen is beyond me.

5) HDMI connection to TV. I have connected to 2 different TV's both with disappointing outcomes which I never encountered when hooking my previous laptop up to a TV via HDMI. When I drag the movie across to the TV and put it in full screen mode, I then have a blank screen on my MBP and am unable to do anything on there. On the other TV I tried, when I moved the movie across to the TV and put it in full screen mode, it went full screen on the laptop instead of the TV. On the Windows laptop I didn't have to mess about with any settings or try out different TV's, I could literally plug it in and choose to either have a mirrored or extended desk top.

6) Opening one program but it jumping onto another open program beforehand. Why on earth does it do this!?

7) The compress feature doesn't actually reduce the size of all the files once compressed, as we're led to believe.

8) When opening a program it doesn't seem as responsive as it was on a Windows laptop. I find myself thinking 'come on, any time now'.

9) Viewing photos. So far so terrible. With my Windows laptop I could open a picture, whether that be as an attachment in an e-mail or one saved on my computer, and it would be open in less than a second. With a MBP you have to wait ages for it to open in Preview or through something like Aperture. After that I can't even use my arrow keys to scroll through the other photos in that folder at a fast pace and instead have to open up each one individually.

10) When I plug in my external HD it never seems to recognise it and show it in my Devices.

11) I use UTorrent and if I delete a torrent then it deletes the actual downloaded file as well. When I did this in Windows it would just literally delete the torrent and I had no worries as to whether the file I downloaded would also be gone.

I think that's about it...for now!

 

[mzjin]

First of all...

Microsoft's Hotmail, Live, Outlook etc do NOT support IMAP, so your SMTP settings etc are all for naught.

I have an Outlook.com email address and 25GB Skydrive account, so I really wished there was better email support from MS, but at this point, they don't support IMAP. Your only option now is to use POP under OSX Mail.

Your other complaints have to with you not knowing how to use a new Operating System (OSX) and the options and settings that require a bit of a learning curve. Some of them indicate that you're just not that tech savvy at these things (UTorrent certainly does NOT delete downloaded files if you choose to simply delete the .torrent file)

I regularly use both, I bootcamp to Windows 7 on the same machine, and OSX is by far, a far more productivity oriented OS. There are some aspects that are extremely annoying though, like lack of cut and paste.

 

[Kate.]

4) Why on earth we as users don't have the option to have ALL programs/applications (not just some!) in a window that fits all of the screen is beyond me.

Applications have to be programmed to take advantage of full screen view. If the developer of the app doesn't deem full screen necessary/advantageous, there's nothing Apple can do about it.

9) Viewing photos. So far so terrible. With my Windows laptop I could open a picture, whether that be as an attachment in an e-mail or one saved on my computer, and it would be open in less than a second. With a MBP you have to wait ages for it to open in Preview or through something like Aperture. After that I can't even use my arrow keys to scroll through the other photos in that folder at a fast pace and instead have to open up each one individually.

Try Xee. It's free and will allow you to scroll through pictures the way you want to.

11) I use UTorrent and if I delete a torrent then it deletes the actual downloaded file as well. When I did this in Windows it would just literally delete the torrent and I had no worries as to whether the file I downloaded would also be gone.

This might be an issue with uTorrent rather than OS X in general. I've used another torrent application that gives me the choice of deleting the torrent file or the data file itself. Try checking the preferences if you haven't already.

There's no reason you should receive abuse for posting things to which you're unaccustomed or don't understand. But for most of the items on your list, there are explanations, alternatives, etc.. Some things like the lack of delete key is chalked up to using a smaller form keyboard on a laptop. Others, like the slowness you mention —*assuming this is a newer model MBP — might take a little troubleshooting. Everything else can be solved with the time and experience.

 

[elizacat]

11) I use UTorrent and if I delete a torrent then it deletes the actual downloaded file as well. When I did this in Windows it would just literally delete the torrent and I had no worries as to whether the file I downloaded would also be gone.

I think that's about it...for now!

This might be a new thing with Utorrent happens on my windows laptop too.

 

[Burrel]

First of all...

Microsoft's Hotmail, Live, Outlook etc do NOT support IMAP, so your SMTP settings etc are all for naught.

I have an Outlook.com email address and 25GB Skydrive account, so I really wished there was better email support from MS, but at this point, they don't support IMAP. Your only option now is to use POP under OSX Mail.

Your other complaints have to with you not knowing how to use a new Operating System (OSX) and the options and settings that require a bit of a learning curve. Some of them indicate that you're just not that tech savvy at these things (UTorrent certainly does NOT delete downloaded files if you choose to simply delete the .torrent file)

I regularly use both, I bootcamp to Windows 7 on the same machine, and OSX is by far, a far more productivity oriented OS. There are some aspects that are extremely annoying though, like lack of cut and paste.

That's the crazy thing, Mail worked fine for the past 2 months with regards to sync, sending and receiving mail. It's only been this week where I have now had that message.

I do certainly appreciate what you say about not really knowing my way around this OS having been so used to a Windows computer and it being a massive learning curve. I'm forever learning new things and reading up on how to do certain things as I make no excuses for my lack of tech experience compared to most of you guys.

Maybe it was naive of me to think that, for example, I wouldn't need to touch the settings in UTorrent so it doesn't delete the downloaded file and would just expect that to be a given, which is what I was used to in the past.

 

[mape2k]

7) The compress feature doesn't actually reduce the size of all the files once compressed, as we're led to believe.

About what kind of files are you talking about? Could you please give me an example? Please don't tell me you tried to compress .jpg or .mp3 files?

----------

I do certainly appreciate what you say about not really knowing my way around this OS having been so used to a Windows computer and it being a massive learning curve. I'm forever learning new things and reading up on how to do certain things as I make no excuses for my lack of tech experience compared to most of you guys.

I also was a heavy Windows/Linux user for until I was 24 (had my first own PC when I was about 15). Seriously, the learning curve is not that hard. Mac OSX is pretty easy. Of course you have to learn new ways of getting things done. Give yourself some time and you will see that in 4 weeks from now, you won't want to switch back to PC anymore. At least that's what I experienced and I hope the same happens to you...

 

[Burrel]

Applications have to be programmed to take advantage of full screen view. If the developer of the app doesn't deem full screen necessary/advantageous, there's nothing Apple can do about it.



Try Xee. It's free and will allow you to scroll through pictures the way you want to.



This might be an issue with uTorrent rather than OS X in general. I've used another torrent application that gives me the choice of deleting the torrent file or the data file itself. Try checking the preferences if you haven't already.

There's no reason you should receive abuse for posting things to which you're unaccustomed or don't understand. But for most of the items on your list, there are explanations, alternatives, etc.. Some things like the lack of delete key is chalked up to using a smaller form keyboard on a laptop. Others, like the slowness you mention —*assuming this is a newer model MBP — might take a little troubleshooting. Everything else can be solved with the time and experience.

Thank you very much for your helpful response, Kate.

I definitely take on board your comments about the applications and it was something I hadn't even thought about to be honest with you.

Thank you for also recommending Xee. I will download it now and hopefully that will improve things.

From looking at another users post it does indeed seem like an issue with UTorrent rather than Mac. So I will look at my preferences and if I can't find a solution there then I will try good ol' Google!

It is the new MBP model which I have (13").

Thanks again.

 

[mape2k]

1) When I open an e-mail through Mail I want to see the e-mail in a full screen window, not one half the size which can't even be expanded. Very poor.

3) No delete button! What the hell! Instead you have to press two buttons 'fn and back space'.

9) Viewing photos. So far so terrible. With my Windows laptop I could open a picture, whether that be as an attachment in an e-mail or one saved on my computer, and it would be open in less than a second. With a MBP you have to wait ages for it to open in Preview or through something like Aperture. After that I can't even use my arrow keys to scroll through the other photos in that folder at a fast pace and instead have to open up each one individually.

1) you can resize the Mail main window as you desire. If you want to view a mail full screen, double click and expand the window.

3) backspace alone will do the trick. Much faster and easier than hovering the mouse around.

9) use spacebar or the quick look button to quick look the attachments. much faster than windows preview or other programs. quick look works also in Finder btw, nice feature that I dearly miss whenever I am at a PC.

Edit: Please see my above post regarding 7) and your other post as well.

 

[Burrel]

About what kind of files are you talking about? Could you please give me an example? Please don't tell me you tried to compress .jpg or .mp3 files?

----------



I also was a heavy Windows/Linux user for until I was 24 (had my first own PC when I was about 15). Seriously, the learning curve is not that hard. Mac OSX is pretty easy. Of course you have to learn new ways of getting things done. Give yourself some time and you will see that in 4 weeks from now, you won't want to switch back to PC anymore. At least that's what I experienced and I hope the same happens to you...

Great, thanks for the tip. I'm definitely in it for the long haul so I'm prepared to do what it takes!

It was a bunch of .cbr files which I tried to compress. From what you put above it sounds like jpeg's and mp3's are a no go, but the page on the Apple website does seem to lead you to believe that you can compress any type of file if there's actually a number of them you want to compress and zip.

 

[playsontheleft]

Other than the slowness which I wouldn't expect from a new Mac, it sounds like most of this comes from inexperience. If you switched to a Mac expecting things to be exactly the same as they are in Windows then I'm questioning why you switched at all; there is certainly a learning curve and at first it seems steep but it really isn't. But of course you know that now, so no worries.

If you're just looking at photos, not actually interacting with them, and you want to look through them with the arrow keys then there are two ways to do this pretty easily - either with Quick Look (press space with the item selected in Finder, then navigate with the arrow keys) or open all of the photos at once in Preview. That should work fine.

I feel like once you get more used to the Mac, things like this will become second nature to you. Regarding your delete key complaint - yeah, when I think about it it's odd too, but now it's such a minor thing that I don't think twice about holding cmd and pressing backspace at all. You get used to the minor inconveniences and end up enjoying your computer a lot more in the end.

As for your general sluggishness... yeah, a new Mac shouldn't be under-performing like that at all. If Spotlight is indexing then that'll slow things down for a little while. If not, then you might want to use Disk Utility to double-check that your HD is fine. Because, simply put, a properly working new Mac is not slow and should absolutely slaughter an 5 year old $400 Dell.

It was a bunch of .cbr files which I tried to compress. From what you put above it sounds like jpeg's and mp3's are a no go, but the page on the Apple website does seem to lead you to believe that you can compress any type of file if there's actually a number of them you want to compress and zip.

I don't know about .cbr, but the reason why the other file types don't compress well is because they're already compressed formats. Neither a Mac nor a PC will get on with them too well. If you don't feel that OS X's default compressor is working for you then there are alternatives you can try.

Also, Transmission is the best torrent client for the Mac imo. Very lightweight and simple - give it a try if you haven't already.

 

[NikkiJayne]

11) I use UTorrent and if I delete a torrent then it deletes the actual downloaded file as well. When I did this in Windows it would just literally delete the torrent and I had no worries as to whether the file I downloaded would also be gone.

Are you sure it deletes it? I use BitTorrent and for some reason it doesn't save files to my specified folder. This is how I find my downloaded files, may work for uTorrent as well: http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/3958-downloads-disappear/

Anyway I suffered with all the gripes you have, until I realised this is a completely different operating system and I have to get used to it. After a few weeks I have found I much, much prefer it to Windows. It seems more logical, at least to me.

 

[Irock619]

Thank you very much for your helpful response, Kate.

I definitely take on board your comments about the applications and it was something I hadn't even thought about to be honest with you.

Thank you for also recommending Xee. I will download it now and hopefully that will improve things.

From looking at another users post it does indeed seem like an issue with UTorrent rather than Mac. So I will look at my preferences and if I can't find a solution there then I will try good ol' Google!

It is the new MBP model which I have (13").

Thanks again.

Another thing you can do is sign up for a workshop at your local Apple store. Apple has a free workshop that teaches windows users how to transition into a Mac.

 

[Dark Void]

It sounds like you need to simply get the hang of switching over to OSX, and a lot of the problems you are having seem to be application related - it's just going to take time to make the transition until you are comfortable with them or until you discover ways to simulate certain experiences that you had on a your previous laptop and OS.

It's not for everyone though, but at least give it more of a chance before jumping to the conclusion that it's no good - it's just different then what you are used to after 5 years.

 

[mzjin]

That's the crazy thing, Mail worked fine for the past 2 months with regards to sync, sending and receiving mail. It's only been this week where I have now had that message.

I do certainly appreciate what you say about not really knowing my way around this OS having been so used to a Windows computer and it being a massive learning curve. I'm forever learning new things and reading up on how to do certain things as I make no excuses for my lack of tech experience compared to most of you guys.

Maybe it was naive of me to think that, for example, I wouldn't need to touch the settings in UTorrent so it doesn't delete the downloaded file and would just expect that to be a given, which is what I was used to in the past.

Most likely, you were using Lion which had different Mail settings (POP) than the Mountain Lion settings.

 

[mape2k]

Great, thanks for the tip. I'm definitely in it for the long haul so I'm prepared to do what it takes!

It was a bunch of .cbr files which I tried to compress. From what you put above it sounds like jpeg's and mp3's are a no go, but the page on the Apple website does seem to lead you to believe that you can compress any type of file if there's actually a number of them you want to compress and zip.

What I actually meant is that some file formats are already compressed as they are. I.e. .jpg or .mp3 etc. If you compress them, you won't get much compression rate. Otherwise, there would be no need for these nifty file formats and their compression algorithms. Maybe .cpr files are also compressed by their nature?

 

[spoonie1972]

for looking at pictures on the fly... have you tried pressing the spacebar while a file is highlighted in its folder? you can arrow through a whole folder pretty quickly.

 

[mzjin]

Here's a big tip also.

GET BetterSnapTool.

It takes the best feature of Windows 7 and applies it to Mac OS.

 

[Yuke]

It was a bunch of .cbr files which I tried to compress.

.cbr files are already compressed - technically they're a .rar file (and .cbz is a .zip file) containing a bunch of images - typically one per "page" of the comic, with 2-page spreads often being a single file. In many cases, the images are already compressed types too (.jpeg, etc...) so the .rar compression isn't really doing much, except packaging the files together.

You can see it for yourself - duplicate the .cbr file, and rename the extension to .rar, then uncompress with something like The Unarchiver.