Things you HATE about Macs...

[cwheatley]

I love how I can't get through a single discussion about Macs and/or PCs without reading someone bashing "fanboyism" or whatever.

Anyway, I love my MacBook. I honestly can't think of anything off the top of my head that I dislike about it. I guess gaming, but that isn't Apple's fault.

BTW, I think the reluctance to include the next generation video players (Blue-ray, HD-DVD) is a very smart idea. Who wants to pay $500 for a drive that may be completely worthless in under six months? Anybody remember Betamax?

 

[DaveF]

What do I HATE about my Mac? Nothing. Leopard fixed the details I hated. But there remain some issues that bug me, and Leopard brought a few new quirks that should be fixed.

I'd like to add these items to the to-do list for for 10.5.3 or perhaps 10.6

* Make the main menu bar opaque again. This was a very negative change for me -- the desktop image comes through too clearly and confuses the reading of menu items.

* Make the actual menus more opaque, like in Tiger. Again, trying to read text on a transparent menu, conflicting with the text in applications below, is not a positive interface change.

* Fix the green window button! Develop and enforce a consistent usage model for it across all applications. The problem is not that it doesn't maximize; the problem is that its behavior is the epitome of all that Apple stands against: confusing, variable behavior that varies by application with no underlying concept to guide it. Some applications it maximizes the window vertically. Others horizontally. Some, it "optimizes" the viewing area. In iTunes and Calc, it's used as "skinning" tool(!) and changes the program behavior! All of these are OK per se. But together they are incoherent and unusable! Pick a usage, and stick to it!

* Stacks auto-icon is bad UI. Fix it.

* Finder is much improved; Leopard thankfully added "Arrange By:" options for Column view. But it's still weaker, in ways, to the venerable Windows 98 and XP file system. The biggest weakness, for me, is that it doesn't remember per-folder view settings. Ars Technica has a detailed write-up on the shortcomings of Finder.

* I'd like keyboard cut/paste for files. Spring-loaded folders are a wonder; but sometimes the keyboard is faster.

* The ability to drag files to docked programs and have the app then load the file, as Windows does, would be great. I've read that Mac OS X does this, but I've not found it to work in general.

* I like iMovie 08, but it's painfully obvious it's a rushed product. Get it cleaned up, restore all the missing effects, transitions, and titles lost from iMovie HD. Add the missing DVD chapter stops to properly integrated with iDVD. Add sensible resizing features to the main window so the edit area can be maximized and the library section can be pushed out of the way. And keep working it; after the robust iMovie 06, it's a shame to be fighting with the immature 08, even though it's a clever new system.

* Do something about the Dock. A launch system that dynamically expands and contracts destroys the famed UI stability; it's hard to intuitively run programs when their position keeps moving. Similarly, I'd like a useful Miniaturize feature. That yellow button just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps miniaturize windows next to their Application icon so things are group functionally?

* Design and sell an Apple-specific ergonomic keyboard. I'm using MS keyboards until Apple makes a good keyboard. And I'm with Logitech mice until Apple builds a comfortable, multi-button mouse.

That's enough for now. OS X is a good system and I've enjoyed my switch. But let's not suggest it's perfect. Instead, I hope Apple stops making changes for the sake of change (Stacks, Transparent Menu Bar) and embraces strong new features (Quicklook, Time Machine).

 

[wesg]

I think it does shut down

- When you shut down a notebook, you can't close the lid or it will go to sleep mid shut down.

Maybe someone has already posted about it, but I found that my Core 2 Duo MacBook does indeed shut down if you close the lid during the shut down cycle. I even posted a blog entry about it. I'm going to check it again.

 

[eXan]

The ability to drag files to docked programs and have the app then load the file, as Windows does, would be great. I've read that Mac OS X does this, but I've not found it to work in general.

I don't know why you are having troubles with it. Just drag a file to the application icon and it will open it (of course only if the file format is supported by the application).

You can even drag-n-drop files to application icons in Finder, not just in Dock and to application aliases (yes it works, I've just tried it)

 

[CalBoy]

* Fix the green window button! Develop and enforce a consistent usage model for it across all applications. The problem is not that it doesn't maximize; the problem is that it's behavior is the epitome of all that Apple stands against: confusing, variable behavior that varies by application with no underlying concept to guide it. Some applications it maximizes the window vertically. Others horizontally. Some, it "optimizes" the viewing area. In iTunes and Calc, it's used as "skinning" tool(!) and changes the program behavior! All of these are OK per se. But together they are incoherent and unusable! Pick a usage, and stick to it!

There is nothing wrong with the green button. The green button does exactly what it is intended to do. The reason you get different sizes for each app/window is because the green button compensates for the content in a particular window. Naturally this will lead to different sized windows. While this may not make much sense now, give it some time and you'll find it's actually quite nice.

* The ability to drag files to docked programs and have the app then load the file, as Windows does, would be great. I've read that Mac OS X does this, but I've not found it to work in general.

I don't know what you mean exactly. I have a few PDFs, and if I drag them to Preview in my Dock, it opens them. Perhaps some clarification would help.

* Do something about the Dock. A launch system that dynamically expands and contracts destroys the famed UI stability; it's hard to intuitively run programs when their position keeps moving. Similarly, I'd like a useful Miniaturize feature. That yellow button just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps miniaturize windows next to their Application icon so things are group functionally?

Your programs move positions? If they are apps you commonly run, they should be in your Dock to begin with.

As for the minimize button, I rarely ever use it. With Exposé and now Spaces, I've had no reason to minimize windows.

 

[redshift20]

1. Folders sorting along with files in finder. I prefer folders to be sorted first.
2. The way it short...names for viewing.txt UGH!
3. TextEdit. Oh, how I hate thee!
4. Mac commercials. Stop with the immature insults. Neither platform is better, they're just different. Use what you like the most and shutup.

There's more I could say, but why bother? There's too much good to focus on.

 

[bov]

i hate how all of my dowloads (azureus, limewire, etc) stop and my Adium signs me off when i close the laptop. I know this would use more energy but i am willing to sacrifice.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

I wish I could turn off the system start "BONG".

That does get annoying I wish you could turn that down or turn it off...

On the PC you have PowerDVD, WinDVD, etc. Here we have to wait (and wait and wait and wait) for Apple to bless something new.

PowerDVD and WinDVD suck and I can't see how either of those applications any are better than the DVD Player you get with the Mac OSX, and also you have to pay for those applications unless you pirate them....

The thing I hate most about Macs is ex-PC users who think everything should work the Windows way.

Yeah, I tend to agree.

Most Mac converts the first thing they usually say is something in the regards of "I could do this on XP but I can't do it on my Mac", Mac does things different to Windows there is the good and back with both systems. I think it just comes down to learning the OS.

I switch to Mac back in 2002 after landing my first job and yes I couldn't make heads nor tails of Mac OS, fast forward a few year and now I'm more proficient with Mac OS and I feel really uncomfortable with XP, Vista, etc...

 

[CalBoy]

i hate how all of my dowloads (azureus, limewire, etc) stop and my Adium signs me off when i close the laptop. I know this would use more energy but i am willing to sacrifice.

I know this isn't ideal, but there is an app you can use to go around this. I believe it's called InsomniaX. If you do this often, it might be worth your while.

That does get annoying I wish you could turn that down or turn it off...

If the sound was off at the time you turned off your computer, it will not chime upon start up.

 

[projectMECCA]

lack of customizing. I would love to turn Spaces into a Desktop Cube or have a completely different theme, but its not possible.

 

[Nermal]

PowerDVD and WinDVD suck and I can't see how either of those applications any are better than the DVD Player you get with the Mac OSX

As mentioned already, they play HD.

 

[HLdan]

That's enough for now. OS X is a good system and I've enjoyed my switch.

Hmm. Could have fooled me with your long list of complaining.

 

[Slip]

1. Folders sorting along with files in finder. I prefer folders to be sorted first.

That is also one of the things I miss from Windows, it was convenient to see all of the folder within another folder (eg 'Holiday Pics' in Pictures) at the top of the window.

lack of customizing. I would love to turn Spaces into a Desktop Cube or have a completely different theme, but its not possible.

I agree with you on the Spaces transitions, some customization would be cool, maybe some of the effects from Keynote '08.

 

[DaveF]

There is nothing wrong with the green button. The green button does exactly what it is intended to do.

What's it intended to do?
* Optimize window size, like Finder?
* Maximize window size, like Firefox?
* Toggle program functionality, like Calc?
* Change program interface completely, like iTunes?

I like the idea of "optimizing" a window's size, but that feature is erratically, and often poorly, implemented by OS X applications. And sometimes, it's completely ignored by Apple themselves!

Hmm. Could have fooled me with your long list of complaining.

Yes indeed. It's necessary to blindly accept all aspects of something in order to claim to enjoy it.

I also like my home a lot, but that doesn't mean I ignore the door that needs to be repaired, the walls the need painting, or that I want to add a deck to improve the house further.

 

[CalBoy]

What's it intended to do?
* Optimize window size, like Finder?
* Maximize window size, like Firefox?
* Toggle program functionality, like Calc?
* Change program interface completely, like iTunes?

I like the idea of "optimizing" a window's size, but that feature is erratically, and often poorly, implemented by OS X applications. And sometimes, it's completely ignored by Apple themselves!

The reason it's different for each app is because each app is different. Firefox is actually one of the few apps that will maximize with the green button (the iLife ones are also part of this group, but that's usually because iTunes and iPhoto have a lot of content to display at once).

Yes indeed. It's necessary to blindly accept all aspects of something in order to claim to enjoy it.

I also like my home a lot, but that doesn't mean I ignore the door that needs to be repaired, the walls the need painting, or that I want to add a deck to improve the house further.

I didn't write the quote you quoted. Please cite the correct person.

 

[Killyp]

I wish they'd give you an option to hide the zoom button, I've never really used it.

 

[janstett]

PowerDVD and WinDVD suck and I can't see how either of those applications any are better than the DVD Player you get with the Mac OSX, and also you have to pay for those applications unless you pirate them....

Well, for starters, they play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray titles... Which is what I use my DVD player for, not to marvel at the elegance of the interface.

If you really want to know what your Mac us doing, open Activity Monitor.

The original gripe was over not having a hard disk access light.

AM doesn't tell me if the HD is being accessed. When an app is unresponsive, or I'm copying 900 gigabytes of data, it would be nice to have a hard disk access light. Like if Parallels is taking a long time to suspend, I'd like to know if it's still writing to the disk or if it's hung up.

Before shutting down your Mac (why do you shut it down anyway
) mute the volume.

Because my MacBook has drained and gotten hot in my laptop bag. I don't trust sleep. And for my Mac Pro, I don't want to risk something like a lightning strike while I am not home (and yes I have surge protectors, et al but I've lost protected equipment to lightning strikes before). So I keep them behind a surge protector that is turned OFF.

And lowering the volume on shutdown and raising it again on reboot, yeah, that's a great solution. Maybe I can write an automator script to do it. Simple!

And I wish Windows could write (or at least read) Mac-formatted drives.

It can with MacDrive. I used it and I don't trust it I think it has some bugs. I used to run it with a very small XP partition on my Macbook and store data on the HFS partition. I sufferred a few corruptions of OSX during that time. I can't point fingers but I suspect MacDrive. Since then I have a bigger HD and I don't use MacDrive and I'm still good.

You don't like Leopard's DVD Player? It doesnt NEED alternatives.

If it can't play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, it does NEED alternatives. If you could be bothered to actually LOOK at the features of the PC DVD players (and I forgot about the 3rd one, Cinemaster) you'd see they do all kinds of things Apple's DVD player doesn't do. They can do all kinds of neat tricks for upscaling and deinterlacing, unblurring text, playing from the hard disk, trick play (faster or slower time scaling), etc.

Openness and competition have a bad habit of doing that.

I gotta love how people who DON'T use a product everyday are wrapped in their ignorance (in the literal sense of the word) and don't want to listen from someone who spends significant time with OSX *and* its competitors. Know-it-alls! In Steve We Trust, right?

Dont eat over your MBP.

I don't, I'm very fastidious and routinely clean it. I'm very OCD with that. My iPhone is wrapped in a condom. . Crap still gets in the speaker grilles and there's no way to get it out. Even when I had my MBP disassembled there's no way to clean it.

It makes a loud click that lets you know you've pressed it (yes, I've pressed Power buttons on MBPs, many of them).

I've never heard a loud click on either my Mac Pro or my Macbook Pro.

Ask site developers to stop optimizing for IE and take Safari into consideration.

and what about when it works in Firefox but not Safari? Guess what, sometimes it IS Apple's fault.

For what reason doesnt the default sleep appeal to you?

I don't want sleep. I want hibernate. I don't want the battery draining AT ALL. I've put my machine to sleep in my bag and found it drained the next day. It also gets hot in the bag. With a PC I can hibernate and come back to it a month later and pick up exactly where I left off without setting my laptop bag on fire.

As already been said, relaunching Photoshop is better?

Maybe by closing it I'm trying to state "I'm done".

Again, learn some keyboard shortcuts.

Cause keyboard shortcuts are intuitive and easy for beginners, right? Mac is the system that people who've never used a computer can walk up to and use, as long as they memorize a chart of keyboard shortcuts first then?

You sound like you like Windows a lot better than OS X.

For EVERYONE who gets upset by what I'm saying, please listen closely. I like Mac OSX. It's my primary platform. However, I use Vista, XP, and Linux as well, every day. I have a long list of complaints about all of them. Now, the title of this thread is "Things you HATE about Macs.". So I listed the things that I think can be improved. People are suggesting I should go back to Windows, what crybabies. THAT is another thing I hate about Macs, that it's treated like a religion and I'm a heretic for daring to say it isn't perfect. That's what made me hesitate about ever buying one in the first place.

BTW, the glowing Apple logo is gorgeous!

Well, I disagree, I think it's shameless, gaudy and garish. It could only be worse with a strobe light and an air horn going off every 5 seconds. At least Apple could let you turn it off. Not to mention it wastes LCD brightness in the name of vanity. Perfect shamelessness for when you're sitting on your duff at Starbucks blogging about LOST and Dennis Kucinich instead of, oh say, getting a job, right?

And whoever suggested dropping the Samba share onto the control panel login startup window, thanks, I'll try it and report back.

I love how I can't get through a single discussion about Macs and/or PCs without reading someone bashing "fanboyism" or whatever.

Anyway, I love my MacBook. I honestly can't think of anything off the top of my head that I dislike about it. I guess gaming, but that isn't Apple's fault.

See, that's the problem. Nothing is perfect. The fact that you can't complain about anything just suggests to me, IMO, that you are a fanboy zombie and not really using your computer to its maximum potential. My opinion as an engineer is that with enough seat time everything is flawed.

BTW, I think the reluctance to include the next generation video players (Blue-ray, HD-DVD) is a very smart idea. Who wants to pay $500 for a drive that may be completely worthless in under six months? Anybody remember Betamax?

Or Power PC.
Or Motorola 68000.
Or OS9.
Or Netwon.

This is tortured logic IMO, to justify Apple's technological failure to be bleeding edge as a benefit. Especially when it is clearly innovative in so many other areas. But to a fanboy zombie, only Apple's innovations are important, all other innovations are irrelevant.

 

[Fast Shadow]

I've been a Mac user since 1984 and my list of things I hate about the OS is rapidly dwindling. There's not much really left, other than the fact I hate that video card specs in Macs lag so far behind the PC curve.

 

[Maccleduff]

Well, I disagree, I think it's gaudy and garish. At least Apple could let you turn it off. Not to mention it wastes LCD brightness in the name of vanity. Perfect for when you're sitting on your duff at Starbucjs blogging instead of being at a job, right?

The apple logo use the screen backlight to light up.

Hence if you turn the screen brightness to zero it doesnt glow.

 

[janstett]

^
I know how it works. The only saving grace (power-wise) is that they didn't put another light emitter in there to suck up power, they're leeching off of the display backlight. But still, wouldn't the screen be that much brighter if the logo wasn't leaking light?

 

[adamfishercox]

I hate Mail and Safari always crashing.

 

[HLdan]

I also like my home a lot, but that doesn't mean I ignore the door that needs to be repaired, the walls the need painting, or that I want to add a deck to improve the house further.

You also have a choice to fix the things in your home just as you have a choice to use what works for you which seems to be MS Windows.

 

[DaveF]

The reason it's different for each app is because each app is different. Firefox is actually one of the few apps that will maximize with the green button (the iLife ones are also part of this group, but that's usually because iTunes and iPhoto have a lot of content to display at once).

So again I'll ask: What's the green button intended to do? I doubt it was intended to be a catch-all button for whatever the developer wanted to slap in there. Yet that's how it behaves.

A key attribute to Apple UI design is consistency. I remain surprised that the green button, a key UI element, so defies normal Apple elegance.

 

[adamfishercox]

The green button expands to view all the content. For webpages, it expands to fit the webpage. Although it seems to not work very well. I never really use it.

The best way to think about it is a mode-switching button.

 

[66217]

So again I'll ask: What's the green button intended to do? I doubt it was intended to be a catch-all button for whatever the developer wanted to slap in there. Yet that's how it behaves.

A key attribute to Apple UI design is consistency. I remain surprised that the green button, a key UI element, so defies normal Apple elegance.

The green button expands to view all the content. For webpages, it expands to fit the webpage. Although it seems to not work very well. I never really use it.

The best way to think about it is a mode-switching button.

I agree that the green button is difficult to predict what it is going to do in each app, but when you get to know how it will react, it is great!

At least in Photoshop it works wonders. I use it quite often there.