Why do so many people fail to utilise 50%+ of the power of OS X?

Terminal? You must be joking!

I teach an OSX class at a local community college. Few of the OSX features I cover in this three hour class are already known to most of my students, and we don't get anywhere near Terminal. Most of them have never even seen Exposé!
 
OldCorpse said:
Aaah, Krevnik is spot on!

I'll make the case more provocatively, so the point is driven home.

Cromulent wrote:

I'm just interested to know why people do not want to use it who then complain that the GUI does not do what they want. Most if not all the complaints I read about tools such as Spotlight could be fixed if people just used the Terminal and Unix tools like Grep.

Answer: IT'S APPLE'S FAULT that users are not using the full power of OS X!

Welcome to design 101.

Power should not be hidden behind unintuitive and arbitrary tools. A well-designed UI combines simplicity, intuitiveness and power.

Which tool is better: tool "a" is equally powerful as tool "b", but in the case of "a" you can figure it out just by looking (intuitive), while tool "b" needs you to read and memorize a 500 page book. Remember, the power is equal - but the interface is vastly superior in tool "a" - so tool "a" is the better tool.

Welcome to evolution 101 and to economy 101.

We can't all be specialists in everything. Would you like to have to read and master a 500 page book to operate your DVD player, a 500 page book to master your computer, a 500 page book to master your microwave? No! That's why modern economy could develop when it took advantage of a basic evolutionary law. And it is a superior technology which can give you the power of a DVD, microwave, car, computer, application without demanding that you learn obsure commands, secret handshakes and arbitrary code.

The command line, in so far as it is not intuitive - is INFERIOR to an intuitive UI of equal power.

A good friend of mine is a Systems Administrator for a research facility. He'd often remark to me how "stupid" his computer users are. And I'd point out that the guys who use his computers and whom he calls stupid hold advanced degrees in physics and mathematics and are brilliant researchers. I say to him: it is YOUR TOOLS, you computer that has failed them. They are not stupid, your tool is stupid. One day computers will be so advanced, and SMART that they'll be as easy to use as a DVD player - they'll practically read our thoughts. Until then, computers are STUPID.

It's like the argument I often have with Europeans about stick shifts in cars. They tell me: "oh, stick gives you so much poweeeeer, controooool, automatic is stuuuupid." And I asnwer: then the problem is the automatic transmission is not far enough advanced. Today, the newest automatics are close to or superior to sticks - and way, way, way, way more convenient. Yet the stupid cult of the stick exists. Funny. Just as once a real man would start his car with a crank - none of this key business, lol. Except, the key is way better and nobody feels the urge to go out in the middle of the winter to crank up your car.

Think of what we are able to do because of better UI and automation - you could'nt possibly fly the advanced fighter jets today using manual methods. A computer does most of the flying - it increases your power. You can concentrate on flying, not fiddling with dials.

When operating a computer I want to concentrate on my work. I don't want to have to learn the CLI, or other medieval stupid crap. I want a modern UI that allows me to concentrate on work only - I don't want to have to remember anything - the less the better. The less the computer comes between me and my work the better. The best computer is the "invisible" computer. That's why folks have problems with their computers - because computers are often still too primitive and demand a lot of knowledge. I REGRET knowing as much as I already do about computers! I wish I did't have to know that you need to go through 12 stupid steps to accomplish something - I WANT THE UI to take care of it.

That my friend is the power of Apple - hide away the dirty, stupid, idiotic, unintuitve workings of the computer! This is what Apple always had over Microsoft! The computer gets out of the way and just lets you work - you don't have to remember obscure commands. "But my CLI is more pooooowerful!!!!! waaaaaaa!!!" In that case, the UI failed - get me the power of CLI with an intuitive UI.

I had an argument with a developer once. He told me the steep learning curve of his app was due to its power. BS! Any moderately talented programmer can design an app that's easy to learn and NOT powerful. Equally true, any moderately talented programmer can design an app that's powerful but hard to learn. But it takes a rare genius to design an app that's BOTH powerful and easy to learn/intuitive. And that's the promise of Apple. Many times Apple succeeds. Sometimes they fail. Like CLI.

So, if you find that people don't use the power of the computer, it's because it's badly designed. Don't bitch at users, get down and do a better job designing. That's how we climbed down from the trees and got out of caves.
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This is exactly what I tell people. You can either play with linux or any *nix and learn multi pages of commands, or you can get your job done.

That is why I like a GUI. it lets you do what you wanted to do, not stop you from doing it until you master the commands.

It is why in my opinion windoze got popular. it was do the job not worry about what the commands are. Nowadays windoze is complicated again.

So OSX is the logical choice for the power of *nix and the ease of a beautifully engineered GUI.

Hats off to apple!
 
yellow said:
Actually, I believe that the idea that humans only use X% of our brains is a falsehood that has persisted.
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It's "you only use 10% of your brain at a time"

For instance, say you only use 10% of your brain to read emails. That's because reading doesn't require a lot of motion, or talking or cognitive functions.

Different parts of your brain control different things in your body and mind, it's impossible to use 100% of your brain at one time. You can't be calculating physic problems, browsing the net, riding a bike, talking, learning, memorizing, eating and etc all at the same time.

During a day, with multiple activies, you use a lot more of your brain.
 
I'm an OS developer by trade, and have worked on many flavors of unix over the years (kernel internals mostly). I've even written some of the code in Darwin (back when it was called Mach). Command line is second nature to me.

The thing that attracted me to the Apple platform was that I consider Mac OS X to be unix done right... you can run (and develop) powerful "unix" applications AND have a gorgeous desktop with powerful GUI applications.

While I love the command line, text editing with Emacs, and compiling with gcc, I also love great applications like: Final Cut, Firefox, Word, Mail, Photoshop, iLife, OmniOutliner, etc.. It's a system that I can use seamlessly for both home and work duties.

The Mac OS X CLI and GUI deliver the best of both worlds in my opinion.

Neither Windows or Linux can deliver on that.
 
Cromulent said:
Why do so many people fail to utilise 50%+ of the power of OS X?
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so you think you can utilise 100% the power of OSX? even if you indeed can do it, i could say "i can't understand why you fail to utilise a knife to its full potential, such as cutting foods at lightning speed like Martin Yan?" and "why are people so dumb that they don't know how to file their own income taxt and have to hire some accountant to do it for them?" and so on...

you can fully 100% utilise the Terminal by jsut reading the commands' description, good for you. my friend's father double-clicks on everything, even on web links, when he wants to open it, despite the 1000+ times i tell him it's not necessary to do that. but who cares if he keeps doing it? i know at least half the population of Canada doesn't. so long as he got the work done on time. English is my second language and i know i suck at it, but i'm good enough to be able to learn stuffs at university. should my parents blame me for not able to speak English like it's my native tongue? i don't think so.

the point is, not everyone is good at (or can do) everything.
 
Utilizing the other 50% of the 'power' of OSX would mean I'd be neglecting roughly 20% of my real life activities, which I happen to enjoy 80% more than I do the 10% enjoyment factor that I would get from spending 30% more brain activity on a 90% geekaloid pastime.
 
shrimpdesign said:
It's "you only use 10% of your brain at a time"

For instance, say you only use 10% of your brain to read emails. That's because reading doesn't require a lot of motion, or talking or cognitive functions.

Different parts of your brain control different things in your body and mind, it's impossible to use 100% of your brain at one time. You can't be calculating physic problems, browsing the net, riding a bike, talking, learning, memorizing, eating and etc all at the same time.

During a day, with multiple activies, you use a lot more of your brain.
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The next version should have pre-emptive multitasking and multiple cores to better utilize CPU power. At the very least, I would love to be able to contribute spare cycles to Folding@Home or whatever, while I procrastinate or take a nap.

But seriously, I think OS X combines the best of both worlds- a lot of raw, accessible power for those who need or want to access it, plus a great UI for doing the day-to-day tasks that most people are doing on their computers. OldCorpse's post pretty much says it all- most computer UI's are actually more stupid than the users.
 
The nature of technology.As things get more advanced,we abandon certain practices.There will come a time when nobody uses a keypad anymore.Just kind of how things go.
 
I'm interested by UNIX and terminal and I'm now starting to learn it (with the help of a beginners book). I'd hate to have to use it though. I reckon it's a useful skill to have as we use a few Suns at work that I'd like to get more out of and, frankly, it's nice to learn more about OS X. But I don't think that anybody should have to learn it as that is completely against what Apple are trying to achieve. My parents (completely un techy) are about to get their first mac. I can only imagine what they would think of terminal
 
Well, I have three Suns, four SGIs and a total of 14 systems running some form of Unix based OS (based on either System V or BSD)... If I open a terminal (on any of those systems) once in a month I'd be surprised.

Am I afraid of the terminal? No. I've been using Unix for more than 15 years. But there is nearly nothing that the terminal offers me for my daily tasks.

As for people who think that they have some magical power because they can do things via the terminal... that form of geek-power from cryptic commands has long since fallen away. Sure, in the 60's, 70's, most of the 80's and parts of the 90's, those types of skills were worth the time and energy needed to gain them... now, there really just isn't much of a point for most people. Most tasks are visually based (not text based) with computers these days. As such, text based commands and inputs are (for most people) the computer equivalent of taking a wagon train* cross country rather than flying.

No one can ever say I'm not nostalgic, but text based computing (outside of some very specific tasks) is just a thing of the past... and should stay there.

:rolleyes:

Honestly, anyone who thinks that 50% of the power of Mac OS X comes from using the terminal has missed 95% of the true power of Mac OS X.





* I'd be willing to bet most people today would feel like they were part of the Donner Party if they were forced to attempt to mirror all their normal tasks via CLI.
 
OldCorpse said:
It's like the argument I often have with Europeans about stick shifts in cars. They tell me: "oh, stick gives you so much poweeeeer, controooool, automatic is stuuuupid." And I asnwer: then the problem is the automatic transmission is not far enough advanced. Today, the newest automatics are close to or superior to sticks - and way, way, way, way more convenient. Yet the stupid cult of the stick exists. Funny. Just as once a real man would start his car with a crank - none of this key business, lol. Except, the key is way better and nobody feels the urge to go out in the middle of the winter to crank up your car.
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You've unwittingly given an example of where sometimes you can't reduce the complexity but retain the power. Automatics reduce the amount of control you have. That is why they are called "automatic". For some people's needs - yours - the reduced effort needed makes them superior. For others, the reduced control/feedback provided makes them inferior. Sometimes two things, while not being mutually incompatible, will never be fully compatible either.

I'm not a Terminal user, so I fully agree that there is Terminal functionality that would be better integrated into the UI. But I know from my own line of work (specifically, automation control on - often quite old - mixing desks) that sometimes bashing keys is just faster and more intuitive, although it requires you to know the system first. No amount of UI design can change the sheer time it takes a mouse to get across the screen.

Multitouch, of course, may change all this...
 
As with all things in life, people do not use 50% of the power of OS X simply because they don't need it. Since nearly everything one needs in his/her everyday life can be accessed through GUI, why bother with complex terminal commands? It would be less productive and more error-prone.

However I know many people, me included that use the terminal for various reasons.
 
yellow said:
Actually, I believe that the idea that humans only use X% of our brains is a falsehood that has persisted.
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It is used mostly by motivational speakers that I personally don't like. I wonder if this a motivational topic for OS X users :confused:
 
I only read the first page, so forgive me if this was mentioned.


I don't use the terminal for the most part because A. It seems cumbersome, B. There are tools such as Tinker Tool which do the commands for me (better then nothing).

I am mainly interested in C. What types of things are we non-terminal users missing out on. If theres 50% more to Mac OS X that I am not aware of, then I am really excited to learn the terminal.

Thanks.
 
asphalt-proof said:
That's working out just great for Linux right? Oh wait, the most popular distro is Ubantu which is so Mac-like!! Hmmm. Those dang linux geeks... if only they would use more than 50% of their OS power.
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Hmm, sorry, no, you'll see people torn between distros, not a majority of all sorts of users going to one.

Generally all of the newbies (seriously, in all honesty, be it good or bad) tend to go to one of the more user-friendly distros (Ubuntu, Fedora)...others go with gentoo or slack (personally I love portage), and even more decide to use (name any one of hundreds of possible distros) just because.

Ubuntu also offers free install disk shipments and has a huge community of people. Of course it's tempting. Plus Ubuntu tries to take all the good parts of OSX and implement them...I'm thinking of proposals for this year's Google Summer of Code right now and the Ubuntu project lists a few ideas, most of which are derived from Mac OS X.

That doesn't mean source-based distros like Gentoo are worthless and unused compared to the likes of Ubuntu, to the contrary, both forums and wiki are overflowing with people, and the IRC channels rival each other in size (floating around a thousand users each).

Also, if you're gonna confuse eye candy like Beryl or GNOME to be an OS, then you're sadly misinformed on this subject.
 
shrimpdesign said:
It's "you only use 10% of your brain at a time"

For instance, say you only use 10% of your brain to read emails. That's because reading doesn't require a lot of motion, or talking or cognitive functions.

Different parts of your brain control different things in your body and mind, it's impossible to use 100% of your brain at one time. You can't be calculating physic problems, browsing the net, riding a bike, talking, learning, memorizing, eating and etc all at the same time.

During a day, with multiple activies, you use a lot more of your brain.
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Yeah, I hate how scientists pull out data that people who have no clue start using to describe humans. "Imagine if we used the other 90%". I guess it's not their fault since the statement is not very clear. It's kind of like that saying: if a tree falls in a deserted area, does it make a sound? Well one things for sure, the laws of physics are not going to be ignored, and vibrations will emanate from the ground which the tree hit. And since sounds are vibrations in the air, I guess that yes it will make a sound, seems kind of obvious and not really a question.

The chicken and the egg one is more interesting. I'd say the answer is neither because surely eggs were utilized by animals before chickens. Hell, even insects lay eggs.
 
janey said:
Hmm, sorry, no, you'll see people torn between distros, not a majority of all sorts of users going to one.

Generally all of the newbies (seriously, in all honesty, be it good or bad) tend to go to one of the more user-friendly distros (Ubuntu, Fedora)...others go with gentoo or slack (personally I love portage), and even more decide to use (name any one of hundreds of possible distros) just because.
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Personally, I believe this is one reason that Linux isn't making it and Mac OS X is.. with so many distros, and the UI still being rather unfriendly to newbies, Linux is struggling to break into the general home market. Failed dependancies anyone? :rolleyes:

Royal Pineapple said:
a pretty UI does not an OS make
vista is a perfect example
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No.. but by the contrary.. most people need a UI that makes sense and is well thought out, and one that they can rely heavily upon. Grandma isn't going to want to go searching for packages to install on her Linux box.
 
f1400 said:
Yeah, I hate how scientists pull out data that people who have no clue start using to describe humans. "Imagine if we used the other 90%". I guess it's not their fault since the statement is not very clear. It's kind of like that saying: if a tree falls in a deserted area, does it make a sound? Well one things for sure, the laws of physics are not going to be ignored, and vibrations will emanate from the ground which the tree hit. And since sounds are vibrations in the air, I guess that yes it will make a sound, seems kind of obvious and not really a question.

The chicken and the egg one is more interesting. I'd say the answer is neither because surely eggs were utilized by animals before chickens. Hell, even insects lay eggs.
Click to expand...

Firstly: don't blame the scientists (at least good ones). Those "10% of your brain"-type truisms don't come from scientists. They usually come from some TV presenter repeating what they heard from some guy who misinterpreted what his friend said about what she had read in the newspaper which was reporting on an article in a science magazine which was reporting on a science project which happened to mention something similar, in a different context, in a much larger study. And the study was probably never replicated anyway. :D :eek:

Secondly: sounds are not vibrations in the air - they are your brain's subjective interpretation of those vibrations. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether, in the absence of anyone to hear them, air vibrations are just air vibrations.

And as for the chicken and the egg...
 
I am one of those avid shell scripters. I'll gladly do some shell scripting if I can get a repetitive task done more quickly that way. However, Mac OS X was designed with computer newbies in mind. Many of them never realize how much is hidden away at the command line.
 
yellow said:
Personally, I believe this is one reason that Linux isn't making it and Mac OS X is.. with so many distros, and the UI still being rather unfriendly to newbies, Linux is struggling to break into the general home market. Failed dependancies anyone? :rolleyes:
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I agree, but I don't think Linux is for everyone. Rather you can make it what you want to be, provided you know some tiny amount of the knowledge you need to get the things you want working.

That being said, my mom prefers gnome+ubuntu or Mac OS X to Windows XP. I don't know how that works, but somehow she says windows doesn't make any sense to her.

Then again, she bugs me constantly about how things don't work on the Mac or in Linux when it comes to dumb embedded crap her friends put on some forum she frequents that tends to be Windows-only stuff that just doesn't work on a Mac.
 
yellow said:
Personally, I believe this is one reason that Linux isn't making it and Mac OS X is.. with so many distros, and the UI still being rather unfriendly to newbies, Linux is struggling to break into the general home market. Failed dependancies anyone? :rolleyes:

[...]

most people need a UI that makes sense and is well thought out, and one that they can rely heavily upon. Grandma isn't going to want to go searching for packages to install on her Linux box.
Click to expand...

If Linux (KDE, Gnome, whichever) had a better and more consistent UI, and installing applications were as easy as OS X, I think it would be a smash hit. I know so many people — myself included — who gave it a shot as a desktop OS but gave up.
 
CaptainHaddock said:
If Linux (KDE, Gnome, whichever) had a better and more consistent UI, and installing applications were as easy as OS X, I think it would be a smash hit. I know so many people — myself included — who gave it a shot as a desktop OS but gave up.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I think that's really been hurting them up until now. With so many fractured versions of the same beast..
 
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