Things you HATE about Macs...

[macrem]

The thing I dislike most about Macs is new Windows switchers spouting off 1/2 baked remarks about "inferior" features that are really much better and when I explain why, those people usually have no rebuttal but then more people come with the same debunked remarks.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I kinda like this better. If I want to rename something, I can do it with the stroke of a single key. Why are you opening things with enter? If I'm on the keyboard and I'm looking for something to open up, I use Spotlight or Quicksilver. There I can use Enter to open up whatever I'm looking for.

You can rename in windows with a single key, F2. Its much more logical for the Enter key to Enter a folder instead of renaming it. 'Enter' and 'rename' have nothing in common and its a stupid way to have finder set up.

 

[yorkshire]

Sometimes I find I quit a different app to the one I want to quit. Also, I think there should be a way to quit apps with just one click.

 

[SlasherDuff]

Only thing I find annoying is I wish the finder window would stay the same size when I open it. I get tired of resizing it. Other than that, I love my Mac

 

[268144]

Cut

10.5.6 brought along cut..

 

[zync]

10.5.6 brought along cut..

Cut has been in the menu for as long as I can remember, but it is always greyed out like in your screenshot and never functions, which kind of makes it more annoying. Does it actually work now, or is it still always greyed out?

 

[268144]

Cut has been in the menu for as long as I can remember, but it is always greyed out like in your screenshot and never functions, which kind of makes it more annoying. Does it actually work now, or is it still always greyed out?

oh has it always been there? i thought it was 10.5.6, and yes it does work, i didn't have anything selected

EDIT: only works for things like pictures/video files/etc. not for folders, which does suck.

 

[Theophany]

A little more transparency in update cycles would be just freakin' dandy in my books. It's helpful in budgeting.

Aside from that, there isn't a great deal else that comes to mind. Most of my beef is with software developers more than Apple. That isn't to say I don't think there is nothing wrong with OS X, sure I have pet peeves, just none I can think of at the moment.

 

[zync]

Hmm. I'll have to play around with cut. I think it originally didn't work at all because of the possibility of losing files by pasting a file where there's a duplicate. Perhaps this is why it doesn't work on folders. That sucks but at least it's something.

 

[TH-Gunner]

The thing I dislike most about Macs is new Windows switchers spouting off 1/2 baked remarks about "inferior" features that are really much better and when I explain why, those people usually have no rebuttal but then more people come with the same debunked remarks.

Some things, yes, but you can't tell me that lacking "Restore from Trash" is "really much better." You can't tell me that lacking the ability to stretch a window from other sides or corners is "really much better." There are people trying to justify that it's actually better that OSX doesn't have these features that windows does, and that's foolish.

 

[zync]

oh has it always been there? i thought it was 10.5.6, and yes it does work, i didn't have anything selected

EDIT: only works for things like pictures/video files/etc. not for folders, which does suck.

After looking into it, I think you're mistaken. I can't get it to work on any file or folder in the Finder. It has been as it always was. I just wonder why they bother to leave it in the menu.

 

[zync]

Some things, yes, but you can't tell me that lacking "Restore from Trash" is "really much better." You can't tell me that lacking the ability to stretch a window from other sides or corners is "really much better." There are people trying to justify that it's actually better that OSX doesn't have these features that windows does, and that's foolish.

Why empty the trash if you're not sure the stuff needs to go? Why bother having the OS keep track of files that it has deleted? That's extra memory spent on nothing. If you want that, get Disk Warrior. I'm glad they didn't build it into the OS. That's why OS X is like half the size and uses half the memory of Vista—or is slightly smaller and uses about the same amount of memory as XP.

It's probably the same with windows. It takes extra resources for every edge to be resizable. Also, the mac way makes it less likely that you resize the window when dragging something near to the edge, like highlighting text. I don't mind only having it in the corner, but I'm not saying it's any better than the way Windows does things. It's just different.

If both operating systems were exactly the same, why would it matter which one we used? I would think that would be boring. They're close enough to each other that either camp should be able to use the opposite. They're far enough apart that people who spend more of their time on one can work faster on that one. To me, that keeps it interesting. Things like that also help you to decide to use one over the other.

 

[TH-Gunner]

Why empty the trash if you're not sure the stuff needs to go? Why bother having the OS keep track of files that it has deleted? That's extra memory spent on nothing. If you want that, get Disk Warrior. I'm glad they didn't build it into the OS. That's why OS X is like half the size and uses half the memory of Vista—or is slightly smaller and uses about the same amount of memory as XP.

Why have Time Machine?

Answer: cuz crap goes wrong. And I like to have a powerful OS that can do cool things like restore 1000 files from whence they came.

If you think something like keeping track of where a file move to the trash came from makes a computer resource-hungry, I invite you to take a programming class.

It's probably the same with windows. It takes extra resources for every edge to be resizable.

lol again, if you think that makes a computer resource-hungry, you ought to take a programming course. If you want to nitpick like that, you'll end up going down the road of "Why not use Tiger since it's less resource-hungry?" Answer: we like more features and more options.

Also, the mac way makes it less likely that you resize the window when dragging something near to the edge, like highlighting text. I don't mind only having it in the corner, but I'm not saying it's any better than the way Windows does things. It's just different.

Valid point. But wouldn't you agree that there ought to be a way to resize a window from the bottom ONLY or the side ONLY such that you're controlling ONLY either the horizontal or vertical? Maybe make one spot in the middle at the bottom resizable, for example.

If both operating systems were exactly the same, why would it matter which one we used? I would think that would be boring.

It wouldn't matter to me because I don't use operating systems based on their names or popularity status or whatever. I use the one that has the best features for me.

All I'm saying is that it's nice to have options. Don't you think it would be great if there were a check box that said something like "Make windows resizable from all sides and corners: YES/NO"?

 

[Haemorrage]

The thing that annoys me with macs is their price. I'm sure most people would agree that they would like to buy a cheaper mac. It would put Apple in a better position to compete in the marketplace so it can attract more switchers from PC to Mac.

Also, I don't like how macs are so fussy when it comes to memory upgrades. It would make life alot easier if they could take the same RAM sticks that their PC counterparts would take. Lastly, I wish Mac OS X would natively have read/write support for NTFS external hard drives. Just in the case that they have changed that, can someone let me know because I still have an eMac that's running Jaguar

 

[janstett]

The reason Apple are not realising a Blu-Ray drive is because they want people to buy HD content from them ($$$), via the iTunes Store.

Not all HD content is the same. I avoid buying movies from iTunes (because I'd rather have a physical copy of the disc as a "master") but as far as I recall iTunes content is only 720p, right? Is there any 1080p content available on iTunes at all?

Plus, as was mentioned earlier, online versions of movies are going to be optimized for minimal file size and not for quality like a disc master would be.

 

[janstett]

Having just returned from a weekend vacation with a few hundred photos, I just thought of another one -- picture previews. The Mac preview.app is unintentially inferior to its Windows counterpart.

My case -- I have a directory with hundreds of pictures in it and I want to preview them, usually to review for red-eye removal, proper orientation, or deletion because they're out of focus or whatever. The complication arises when the directory has mixed content -- non-photo files such as videos, music, or Windows garbage files like thumbs.db. In Windows I can right click on any of the pictures and say "Preview", and move easily from one picture to the next. In OSX selecting one file and saying "Preview" only lets me manipulate that one photo (which is arguably logical). But selecting all then won't let me send them to preview because of the mixed file types. So in other words, there's no trivially easy way for me to preview and fix a directory of photos that may have a few straggling non-photo files inside it.

And no, I won't use iPhoto and never will, don't even go there.

Another annoyance is the dreaded .___*********** thumbnail files (one per photo) that OSX creates on other file systems. I store my photos on a NAS (I assume XFS) and it drives me berzerk, is there any way to disable that?

 

[ikermalli]

You don't get to play the "fix the pc game" anymore, and once you are done surfing the web, you can't go around looking for something that will protect your mac

 

[janstett]

You don't get to play the "fix the pc game" anymore, and once you are done surfing the web, you can't go around looking for something that will protect your mac

Really? Every now and then my Macbook comes up with the screen colors all wrong and I have to do cmd-option-p-r, the first couple times I had to look it up over and over again. And there is a trojan in the iLife 09 torrent that's out there. Enjoy

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Really? Every now and then my Macbook comes up with the screen colors all wrong and I have to do cmd-option-p-r, the first couple times I had to look it up over and over again. And there is a trojan in the iLife 09 torrent that's out there. Enjoy

As long as you're not torrenting iWork (not iLife) and you steer clear of codecs that are installed from porn sites you'll be fine.

 

[zync]

Why have Time Machine?

Answer: cuz crap goes wrong. And I like to have a powerful OS that can do cool things like restore 1000 files from whence they came.

If you think something like keeping track of where a file move to the trash came from makes a computer resource-hungry, I invite you to take a programming class.

Please don't attack my intelligence. I've taken many programming classes thank you. It depends upon how you do it. Time machine is the best way that Apple thought of doing it and I agree with their decision. That is the best way to do it.

I can see remembering the last few files that were deleted. But when do you purge that info? After an hour? After 5 files? I routinely delete video files that are gigs in size. If I were running on my laptop, I'd need those gigs free instantly, instead of lying dormant on my disk until permanently deleted. That is what emptying the trash is for, assigning those blocks of disk to be rewritten over. You could also make the OS check remaining space and not allow the file to be reclaimed. Then you have to come up with extra UI and alerts and crap to let the user know if their file can be reclaimed. Sorry, I'm for the simple approach that doesn't add extra code. Call me crazy.

If you pick any of the examples I gave above you'll find people complaining about those approaches. At the end of the day, this is Apple's IP and they get to decide what to do with it.

lol again, if you think that makes a computer resource-hungry, you ought to take a programming course. If you want to nitpick like that, you'll end up going down the road of "Why not use Tiger since it's less resource-hungry?" Answer: we like more features and more options.

lol, again I have taken programming courses. If you are indeed a programmer, your philosophy is one that I despise. No matter what, adding extra features adds to needed resources. You have to watch for extra events. Sure, these days our computers are fast enough and advanced enough that it doesn't always matter. However, this is bad programming. Little things add up.

When did programmers stop thinking that it was important to optimize their code? It's that kind of philosophy that makes things like Flash so slow. Programmers must find the balance between features and bloat.

Valid point. But wouldn't you agree that there ought to be a way to resize a window from the bottom ONLY or the side ONLY such that you're controlling ONLY either the horizontal or vertical? Maybe make one spot in the middle at the bottom resizable, for example.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be, they can do whatever they'd like with their OS. I'm just questioning the need for it. I don't see it, and I don't agree with your statement. It goes against Apple's philosophy. They make things simple. There is nothing more simple than being able to resize from one easily identifiable corner. Is it really that much of a pain to move your hand that extra inch? Increase your mouse acceleration and you won't even have to do that. Would you like a keyboard shortcut to allow you to do it too?

It wouldn't matter to me because I don't use operating systems based on their names or popularity status or whatever. I use the one that has the best features for me.

All I'm saying is that it's nice to have options. Don't you think it would be great if there were a check box that said something like "Make windows resizable from all sides and corners: YES/NO"?

This is something we can agree on. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be options. I'm just saying that they don't need to be turning Mac OS into Windows. And I never mentioned anything about using an OS because of it's name.

 

[TH-Gunner]

When did programmers stop thinking that it was important to optimize their code?

Sure they should optimize it, but taking away noob features that should be basic to all OSs is lame.

Let's look at it this way: if apple can make something as great as Spotlight (which took ages for windows to catch up on, and it still sucks), then they should have the ability to restore from the trash. Even the prorgam AppDelete has a feature for restoring files from the Trash, so let's not pretend that this is some monster feature that's going to bring us down to the level of vista.

Speaking of Spotlight, this is a scenario I've run into where Restore from the Trash would be useful:

I search something in Spotlight and I dump it. Oh, darn, I noticed there are a couple other files with the same name further down the list, and I have dumped the wrong one. I want to restore from the Trash - but wait - I don't know from where the file came! Darn, no Restore from Trash either...

On an OS as great as OSX, I really shouldn't have to write down the directories of files to keep track of them myself. What we're talking about for adding a Restore from Trash is a mere list of text files and a way to keep track of them. Even if you had 1000 items on the list, you're still talking about KBs of space.

Just my little rant. If I'm looking for tip-top performance to get every last FPS in a game, I'd gladly run a minimal kernel + X. That's where I don't mind my OS lacking basic features like Restore from Trash.

Again, not a deal-breaker, but certainly something that would be nice to see.

 

[Benjamindaines]

The only thing I can complain about is the lack of upgradeability of consumer models. This has recently gotten better in the notebook models, however iMacs are still very limited, and the Mac Mini must be the ONLY computer you need a putty knife to open. I don't care if I can upgrade my graphics card (cept in the iMac) but I want to be able to easily and without killing Apple Care upgrade my hard drive!

 

[zync]

Sure they should optimize it, but taking away noob features that should be basic to all OSs is lame.

Let's look at it this way: if apple can make something as great as Spotlight (which took ages for windows to catch up on, and it still sucks), then they should have the ability to restore from the trash. Even the prorgam AppDelete has a feature for restoring files from the Trash, so let's not pretend that this is some monster feature that's going to bring us down to the level of vista.

Speaking of Spotlight, this is a scenario I've run into where Restore from the Trash would be useful:

I search something in Spotlight and I dump it. Oh, darn, I noticed there are a couple other files with the same name further down the list, and I have dumped the wrong one. I want to restore from the Trash - but wait - I don't know from where the file came! Darn, no Restore from Trash either...

On an OS as great as OSX, I really shouldn't have to write down the directories of files to keep track of them myself. What we're talking about for adding a Restore from Trash is a mere list of text files and a way to keep track of them. Even if you had 1000 items on the list, you're still talking about KBs of space.

Just my little rant. If I'm looking for tip-top performance to get every last FPS in a game, I'd gladly run a minimal kernel + X. That's where I don't mind my OS lacking basic features like Restore from Trash.

Again, not a deal-breaker, but certainly something that would be nice to see.

I agree with you about this. I wouldn't mind being able to restore. And if I had written the OS, I'd probably allow undeleting about 10 files. And I'd make it so that securely emptying the trash gets rid of that undelete ability.

Yeah, it would be just a few kb in extra space to keep a log of those files, but, with the restore case, I'm trying to point out that it's more complex than just adding the functionality. It's also about user experience and making sure that users know what's happening. If you're deleting a lot of big files on a drive with low space, what happens with respect to restore? It's questions and cases like that which can lead to a slippery UI slope. At what point do things actually become unrecoverable? If emptying the trash doesn't get rid of the files, what's the purpose of emptying the trash? I'm pretty positive that this is why Apple lets Time Machine deal with that stuff instead of adding it to the trash.

I know that since it was so easy on Windows to recover things, I'd often delete things and then need to restore them. Since I switched to Mac OS, I never accidentally delete files anymore. I make sure that what's in the trash needs to be gone. I rarely even take things out of the trash after I put them in there. I don't even have the OS warn me when I use a key command to empty the trash. If I have things in the trash, I usually delete them immediately.

 

[zync]

The only thing I can complain about is the lack of upgradeability of consumer models. This has recently gotten better in the notebook models, however iMacs are still very limited, and the Mac Mini must be the ONLY computer you need a putty knife to open. I don't care if I can upgrade my graphics card (cept in the iMac) but I want to be able to easily and without killing Apple Care upgrade my hard drive!

Depending upon what kind of labels the machine has in it and how good you are at opening cases (check iFixit guides for hidden clasps that could easily break), you can tinker with certain things. It sucks that doing some things will void your warranty, but if I recall correctly, the last time I opened my PowerBook, the HD didn't have one of those labels that you have to destroy to swap the HD. I could be completely wrong though. Of course you'd have to swap it back if you needed service.

 

[janstett]

lol, again I have taken programming courses. If you are indeed a programmer, your philosophy is one that I despise. No matter what, adding extra features adds to needed resources. You have to watch for extra events. Sure, these days our computers are fast enough and advanced enough that it doesn't always matter. However, this is bad programming. Little things add up.

OK, I just had to chime in here. Based on this statement, at very least you've never written so much as "hello world" in a GUI environment.

The OS (specifically windowing framework) sends your application events telling it to resize itself and gives it the new height/width. It makes abso-freaking-lutely no difference if the user's stimulus for this size change came from a single corner grab handle or from any point on the window frame. The purpose of this event is for the application to adjust and redraw the window.

Does it "add to needed resources" to the application? Not a shred. If the Window is resizable, it doesn't matter how the event and new dimensions are given to the app. Is it overhead to the OS? The default window behavior would have to be changed to have a resizable border around the windows but then it bubbles throughout the rest of the system. It's hardly resource intesive. Far less than Expose and a transparent Apple menu, to be certain. How quickly we forget about OS9's (and prior) wasteful eye candy such as the flashing menu selections on far less powerful hardware -- and you're worried about whole window resize handles?

It's just the annoying way that they choose to handle it in OSX and nothing more.

And might I add a reason why it's inferior -- one can't grow an application window in the negative X and/or Y axis in a single step. In other words, I'd have to MOVE the window up and to the left, and then in a separate step move down to the lower right corner of the window and resize it. As opposed to grabbing the upper right corner and expanding it in a single step.