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Notes for the Apple macOS operating system.

• 2005-03-01 (etc) - 10.4 - Tiger on a Mac Mini - (model not recorded)

  • 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).

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 (etc) - 10.4 - Tiger ∞

(Mac OS X Tiger)

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.

Last updated 2022-11-03 at 20:43:50