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Your top 5 favorite things about Mac OS X

ghall

ghall

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 27, 2006
3,771
1
Rhode Island
First off, I wasn't sure if this went into Mac OS X forum, or in the Community Discussion, so I chose the one that made the most sense. Mods, please move this into the correct forum if needed.

Anyway, what are your favorite things about Mac OS X? It must come bundled with the retail version of Mac OS X, so iLife or Boot Camp etc, doesn't count. Also, it cannot be a hardware or firmware feature.

Also, since nothing is perfect (not even Mac OS X :D), you can post your 5 least favorite things, if you so desire.

Mine favorites are:

1. Exposé - My screen gets really cluttered, so it's nice to be able to see all my open windows at once. Also, I like being able to access the desktop without havin to minimize all my open windows.
2. Preinstalled drivers for countless perpherals - Saves a lot of hassle after I purchase a new USB device.
3. Spotlight - I loose things all the time, it's great to be able to find something quickly.
4. Automator - 3 words: Batch image conversion!
5. Save as PDF - It's great to save any webpage or any document as a PDF.

My least favorite are:
1. Brushed Metal - Yes, for some reason, my biggest pet peeve with OS X is the brushed metal windows. They just don't seem very asthetically pleasing to me.
2. The Documents Folder - Not a huge deal when you first get your Mac, but that folder gets too cluttered with things that other apps drop in there without asking first.
3. Burn Folders - I rather like the concept of burn folders, but I think they were done very poorly. When you create a burn folder, it should ask you what kind of optical media you will be burning this data onto, and it should prevent you from putting more than what will fit.
4. Aqua - Don't hate it as much as brushed metal, but I still hate it.
5. Disk Utility - Sure it's a very useful app, but it needs defrag capabilities, among many other features.
 
OSX has on-the-fly defragmenting IIRC:)

I love:

1. Exposé
2. Force quit - A million times better than Ctrl+Alt+Del
3. The dock - a great representation tool and is not cluttering my 13" screen as I have it on Autohide
4. Two finger scrolling - Brilliant!
5. How fast it loads compared to Windows

I hate:

1. Brushed metal - I use UNO, so its not so bad
2. How bad OSX is with networking
3. Dial-up capabilities - I use broadband, but when my grandad still used AOL dial-up with his new iMac, it was a nightmare to set up (I know dial-up is outdated, but if Apple sell a USB modem, they should make it easy to use)
4. An equivalent of Stuffit or The Unarchiver should be at OS level
5. I have no idea why X11 isn't on the standard install
 
psychofreak said:
OSX has on-the-fly defragmenting IIRC:)
I hate:

1. Brushed metal - I use UNO, so its not so bad
2. How bad OSX is with networking
3. Dial-up capabilities - I use broadband, but when my grandad still used AOL dial-up with his new iMac, it was a nightmare to set up (I know dial-up is outdated, but if Apple sell a USB modem, they should make it easy to use)
4. An equivalent of Stuffit or The Unarchiver should be at OS level
5. I have no idea why X11 isn't on the standard install
Click to expand...

Well I kind of disagree with that, heh. Last night I just got tiger installed on an ibook and was amazed on how easy it was to establish file sharing/itunes library sharing etc under the same network. I was just surprised at the ease in comparison to windows. :p
 
nateDEEZY said:
Well I kind of disagree with that, heh. Last night I just got tiger installed on an ibook and was amazed on how easy it was to establish file sharing/itunes library sharing etc under the same network. I was just surprised at the ease in comparison to windows. :p
Click to expand...

Most networks are with OSX to Windows if they are not with your own computers, and the complex procedure of will it/won't it connect and the public file system is rubbish compared to a 'share this folder' option that should be in place IMO...
 
Love:

1. Print to PDF w/o Acrobat.
2. Automator.
3. Aqua.
4. Modifier key + drag to do cool stuff.
5. System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts.

Hate:

1. Finder.
2. Finder.
3. Finder.
4. Finder.
5. Finder.
 
Absolutely Adore:

1) Stability
2) Dock
3) CTRL+mousewheel
4) Not limited by the GUI.... some things require the Terminal
5) Ease of use

Take to Trash:

1) Finder (especially the preview column when QuickTime doesn't have the desired codec for previewing a movie...).. craptastic spinning beachball
2) Network browsing
3) Gaming
4) Free QuickTime player not supporting Full Screen mode. Sure there are alternatives, but what gives...?
5) Non unified "theme".
 
everyone seems to have nailed the best already so mine's

Finder>go >go to folder>

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test/
and audiotest.au :D


made me smile :apple:
 
liketom said:
everyone seems to have nailed the best already so mine's

Finder>go >go to folder>

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test/
and audiotest.au :D


made me smile :apple:
Click to expand...

I just did that.



I have never been so scared in my life.

Didn't realise my MacBook was on full volume.

:(
 
liketom said:
everyone seems to have nailed the best already so mine's

Finder>go >go to folder>

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test/
and audiotest.au :D


made me smile :apple:
Click to expand...

That was awesome. That would be the 6th item on my list. :D
 
things that i love
1. aqua
2. Making the dock really small, and turning the magnification on max, hehehe.
3. speed
4. stability
5. NO EFFIN SPYCRAP ADCRAP or VI..CRAP!

things i hate
1. finder
2. msn messenger for mac
3. safari. ITS HIDEOUS
4. Limited p2p programs..
5. I know 4 isnt apples fault.. but it really bugs me!
 
Thins that I love:
1. It's not Windows
2. ditto
3. ditto
4. ditto
5. ditto

Things I dislike (nothing I "hate")
1. Aqua
2. Finder
3. Apple makes it so damn hard to use fonts that I want (w/out using 3rd party apps, that is)
4. fanboys
5. seriously, thhat's pretty much it
 
Love:

1. Target Disk Mode.
2. Relative lack of security threats.
3. The Mac Community.
4. Mostly intuitive OS.
5. Print to PDF built-into OS.

Hate:

1. Finder.
2. The fact that the system chime is tied to the volume you left it on.
3. Prohibitively expensive service parts.
4. How poorly Flash performs on Macs.
5. Seriously, FTFF.
 
ghall said:
5. Disk Utility - Sure it's a very useful app, but it needs defrag capabilities, among many other features.
Click to expand...

YES!

I just went through a lot of trouble because of this. OS X's on-the-fly defragging only deals with files smaller than 20 MB. While it is great, and really defragging bigger files won't make as big a performance difference as defragging the little files, the issue arises when you need to partition.

I've been using my new 160 GB hard drive for two weeks, and Boot Camp refused to let me partition because the drive was too fragmented (I have several full-length movies ripped, iMovie projects, and two Parallels virtual machines...still only 40 GB used though). And guess what? THERE ARE NO TOOLS TO DEFRAGMENT. The cheapest is iDefrag for $30, for something that is built in to every other OS on the planet.
 
Five things I love:

1. The Hold Control+mouswheel
2. Spotlight
3. The Dock
4. Force Quit (Without eveything going haywire like xp)
5. You can use Logic Pro!!
 
My favourite things about Mac OS X are:
1. Aqua
2. Exposé
3. the Dock
4. Stability
5. Multitasking abilities

My least favourite things are:
1. The amount of bad program ports from windows
2. The lack of many program choices (ie bittorent clients)
3. When programs decide not to respond
4. Kernal Panics
5. It doesn't have as many games as windows
 
My five favourite things about Mac OS X:

1. Exposé
2. Multi-Document Interface (instead of each-window-is-an-application)
3. Cocoa text engine (Atsui, AAT, advanced typography, excellent smoothing, system-wide Unicode, etc.)
4. Elegant internationalization and handling of languages
5. The Dock

What don't I like?

1. Finder networking issues
2. Slow reactivity of volume controls and other OS functions
3. Lack of vertical Japanese and ruby text support
4. The new iTunes look (e.g. drab, Linux-like scrollbars)
5. Dashboard quirks
 
Mac OS X

I love:

It looks stunning
It solid UNIX stability
The fact that it runs MS Office
OS X Software Update
Did I mention how good it looked?

I hate:

Printing
Finder

Thats about it :)
 
Im fairly new to osx and one of the things i like most (apart from the whole thing) is when you hold down the :apple: key and scroll with your click wheel. Awesome:D
 
robPOD said:
Im fairly new to osx and one of the things i like most (apart from the whole thing) is when you hold down the :apple: key and scroll with your click wheel. Awesome:D
Click to expand...

I think you mean Ctrl+Scroll, not :apple: +Scroll :)

If you like that, try out :apple: + option + Ctrl + 8

Remember that 'option' is sometimes shown as Alt
 
Likes:

1 - Spring Loaded Folders (Mwahahahah, got this one first :p)
2 - Exposé (ohhh yes!)
3 - The Dock (especially the genie effect!)
4 - UNO makes it the best GUI E.V.E.R!
5 - Drag and Drop Wonderland :D

Dislikes:

1 - Err, FINDER! :(
2 - Windows Messenger for Mac
3 - The poor behaviour of Flash sites and everything else SWF (I can't understand why this happens, can someone clarify?
4 - iChat not being available for other than AIM or .Mac accounts
5 - .Mac not being free for legit OSX owners

I guess that's it :)
 
Nym said:
Dislikes:


2 - Windows Messenger for Mac
3 - The poor behaviour of Flash sites and everything else SWF (I can't understand why this happens, can someone clarify?

I guess that's it :)
Click to expand...

these two things are the only things that make me regret having bought an imac.. the two things i use most every day run slower than molassis going uphill backwards in the winter! .. and all the alternatives to win messenger for mac are java.. which with a g3 and 512 ram.. just isnt an option. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE JAVA SO MUCH!? ahhhhhhh! *points to limewire and kicks the ***** out of it*
 
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