Apple

2005-04-01
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more coming later

disambiguation: Apples, the food.

Apple Mac_os-222x300-white

Platforms >

(on Wikipedia: Apple Inc. · macOS)
https://www.apple.com/

That's nice. The operating system itself is garbage, and the applications are junk. The interface is complicated and clumsy and slow. This, in comparison with Winblows, is pretty bad.

  • aka Mac, OSX



Apple Mac_os-222x300-white Apple Mac_os-222x300
United Technologies
United Technologies
Table of Contents [hide]

Explanation ∞

At one point I got so sick of Windows that I decided to entertain buying a Mac. Some time after, however, my opinion changed. I got a chance to play with a bunch of macs at work for a significant amount of time. I can conclude that the mac fails miserably on so many levels. It just hasn't grown up yet.

I heard the announcements of the intel/mac thing. That's nice. The operating system itself is garbage, and the applications are junk. The interface is complicated and clumsy and slow. This, in comparison with Winblows, is pretty bad.

2005-03-01 ∞

These notes were likely from significantly earlier than this time. Other dates I have are 2005-04-01 (ancient notes) to 2006-04-11 (earlier content management system).

Basic features are missing, and some features vary what they do or how they are used. Instead of being shackled to explorer, there's the finder. I'd be trading one evil for another. No thanks, I'm keeping Linux. Even a shitty distro beats the both of Apple's and Microsoft's offerings once configured a little more sanely.

  • The soft keyboard will destroy my tendons
  • It's too hard to grab and move windows around

  • It's too hard to maximize/minimize or otherwise switch between windows.

    • command-tab gets stuck when the mouse is in the way.
    • No hotkeys to maximize? Wait.. there is no such thing as a maximize.. on the finder it just does a kind of "best fit". I guess the green + doesn't always mean MAKE IT BIGGER. Sigh.
  • I found a reproducible destructive bug in 10.4 which nuked a couple of important files without warning or the possibility for recovery. When copying a file, it would instead delete it. No trashcan, no nothing. Zappo. Reproducible too.. fun stuff. Yes, it's been reported. Actually it's a pair of bugs as I understand.
  • More issues.. lots of it is just the agony of trying something new, but enough of it is "broken default syndrome". VERY poor decisions make the OS extremely cumbersome for normal folk (i.e. not a drooling idiot)

  • Keyboard-only navigation is an afterthought. Everything is shackled to the mouse.

Basically if it ever grows up I'll give it a shot. Now that they're planning to support it on the x86 I might give it a try. The number of people scoffing at their poor design decisions will increase a thousandfold, so maybe the designers will pay attention.

My concerns are purely with software. Hardware-wise things look really good. If they make x86 boxes as nicely as they've made their mac ones I might go for one, but then I'd be paying the "apple tax" since it'd be bundled with their OS. Geeze.

Utterly hopeless ∞

Finder is a piece of garbage. Why can't I see and switch between multiple finder windows? It's so horribly cluttered.

Windows keep spawning which are off the window. I have to "green plus" (twice) to see the bottom edge. Even then some applications won't go fullscreen.

It's a nightmare to use network devices.. I have to command-k, there is no easier way. The way I'd expect just doesn't work.

The hotkeys are completely screwed up. It's so frustrating to try to do things with the keyboard because I keep using the wrong modifier keys. The built-in customization doesn't cover what I want. I want to change alt-tab and such, but that functionality was intentionally left absent.

I have to use third-party applications to get anything. I even had to download a black screensaver. How pathetic is that?!

When I reboot, it takes time for networked logins to appear. Why am I not told that it's looking for them. In my eyes all the logins are just missing.

So if I type in the wrong password, the screen shakes. That doesn't communicate anything to me.

I am somewhere very strange inside my filesystem. Now I want to make a text file there. Ok, good luck. Go launch your application and then save it to your desktop. Then move it to the folder.

Oh wait, there's a "mac way". When the application has the save dialogue, drag the folder from finder into the save dialogue to switch directories. God that's counter-intuitive. Dragging is supposed to move things. The dialogue is inconsistent..

Supposedly there is an OSX file manager which may work. I'll need to look for it.

Software ∞

Misc ∞

  • ShapeShifter

    • For theming all windows/software.

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20200214205152/http://gnufoo.org/ucontrol/

    • Keyboard remapping
  • Remote-Anything is coming out for OS X.
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20051126221818/http://www.versiontracker.com:80/macosx/

  • Cage Fighter

    • Make mail look like the older, non-ugly style.

  • Firefox > Optimized Firefox for the Apple G5 processor

    • An unofficial build.

  • Proteus

    • Instant messager client with support for AIM (including .Mac accounts), MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, iChat Rendezvous, Gadu Gadu, and Sametime with more in the works!

  • SereneScreen Marine Aquarium

    • Screensaver
  • Solarwinds screen saver

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20120721063046/http://www.entropy.ch:80/software/macosx/

  • was http://pro.wanadoo.fr/chombier/

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20120630063407/http://homepage.mac.com:80/calumr/

    • Flurry screensaver
    • DooMLegacy

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20181114014001/http://www.fruitz-of-dojo.de:80/php/download.php4?

  • http://www.bresink.com/osx/index.html

    • TinkerTool
      -- An application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system.
    • TinkerToolSys
      -- A professional maintenance tool for Mac OS X. It allows you to change advanced operating system settings and offers a wide variety of maintenance features. The latest version comes with powerful new functions, e.g. verifying the integrity of preference files or removing superfluous language packages.
    • PrefEdit
      -- A utility that allows you to inspect and edit all preference settings for Mac OS X applications. (Note that this is different from the "System Preferences" application which controls the operating system settings only.) The settings are displayed in a browser and can be edited by simple point-and-click operations. You can also do a full-text search on all settings, or clean up unused entries of applications that have been uninstalled.

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20130430025022/http://unsanity.com/ (free products, commerical products)

    • Silk
      -- Enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.1.5 in all Carbon applications. This means antialiased text in Netscape, Mozilla, and many others. Why wait for developers to update their Carbon applications when you can get the silky smooth text everywhere, right now? Moreover, it can substitute one font with another in your applications, change the theme font (the font used to display menus, window titles, and other interface elements).
    • Application Enhancer (APE)
      -- A system used in our and third-party products that helps them to enhance and redefine various applications behavior running on your system.
    • Menu Master
      -- A haxie that allows you to change or remove menu shortcut keys in any application with ease. It takes about 15 seconds to learn how to use Menu Master, and saves you lots of time later because you can use the shortcuts you defined and do not bother remembering which ones the developer of the software invented for you. Additionally, you can set shortcuts to any menu item that had no shortcuts, or remove shortcuts from menu items. Menu Master gives you a complete control over your menus, all just for affordable US $10.
    • Dock Detox
      -- A haxie that will remove application icon bouncing in the Dock. Normally in Mac OS X, you can turn off the application launch bounces, but not when a particular application is requesting your attention. Dock Detox alleviates the Dock from this excessive bouncing.
    • ShadowKiller
      -- Removes window and menu shadows in MacOS X. This changes the look of MacOS X completely, and speeds up its operation for slower Macs (such as G3).

  • https://balance-software.com/

    • Ittec
      -- Puts you just a click away from everything on your computer. No more cluttered desktop and dock, no more moving windows so you can open your hard drive, no more switching to the Finder to find a file. Just click on your menu bar or desktop with the control key down and everything (including your own personal, customizable list of commonly used files and folders) is right there!
    • Under The Hood
      -- A $9.99 utility for MacOS X that allows you to view and change attributes of files and folders from a contextual menu.

  • https://www.charlessoft.com/

    • Pacifist 1.6.3 is a shareware application that opens Mac OS X .pkg package files and allows you to extract individual files and folders out of them. This is useful, for instance, if an application which is installed by the operating system becomes damaged and needs to be reinstalled without the hassle of reinstalling all of Mac OS X. Pacifist is also able to verify existing installations and find missing or altered files*, and also has the ability to optimize your system's performance by updating prebinding information on your hard disk.
    • DockDisks 1.0b5.2, an unsupported hack that makes disks appear in your Dock when you insert them, allowing you to reduce clutter on your Desktop.

X11 is an optional install with 10.3, and I can install other window managers.. I can probably install all kinds of fiddley little apps too.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100915110825/http://developer.apple.com:80/Darwin/runningX11.html

XDarwin ∞

http://www.londonhotelsgb.com/ar/xdarwinorg/ [ 1 ] was http://www.xdarwin.org/about/

An implementation of the window server for version 11 of the X window system on the Darwin operating system, underlying Mac OS X. Information on where to download and how to compile and install XDarwin is available at xfree86.org. They are to Switch from XFree86 to X.org!

Lists / Various ∞

Tips and Tricks ∞

Replacing Mac OS X's Finder ∞

Resources ∞

Security ∞

2009-05-09:

Random/Unsorted ∞

Emulation ∞

Footnotes

4 comments

4 comments on “Apple”

  1. Created.

    I'm so soulfully tired of Windows.. I'm buying a Mac, and I will eventually be converting my i686 hardware as a server running FreeBSD. Then this site will be screaming fast. =)

    Reply

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