OS X to me keeps getting progressively worst every release.
Mac Mail is now unusable with large inboxes, spotlight is slow, the finder is still stupid (explorer is better then finder at this point). New power management in the near macbook airs is the worst.
I'm still on snow leopard because I didn't like the idea of spaces going from two dimensions to one. Nothing I've read since has told me it's a must-have upgrade.
The biggest thing I'm happy about is the old version of itunes. I can see podcasts in a grid and group them by album rating.
One issue that plagues me is that full-screen apps sometimes don't take up the entire screen. They're still allocating space for the menu bar. Lo and behold, there is an invisible menu bar there. Sometimes the apps still draw a (totally nonfunctional) window title bar. This only ever happens with Sublime Text, iTerm, and Chrome Dev Tools. Id est the three apps that I spend 99% of my time in. Quick Look also has severe performance regressions. It takes ~20 seconds to open the first time. Not so quick, eh. I suspect App Nap is at fault here.
This is most noticeable for me when using VLC and there doesn't seem to be a specific set of actions that prevent the ghost menubar from displaying. I end up just doing random actions (click different desktops, unfullscreen -> refullscreen) and hope the ghost disappears.
Apple really dropped the ball with multi monitor support since introducing the full screen mode. Seems like they have their sight squarely on laptops (with no external monitors) where it works really well (with swipe gestures etc.).
NFS issues... sigh... I'm so used to them that I stopped noticing. Getting Linux and OS X to agree on exporting/mounting NFS shares is why people hate computers.
Mail is probably the roughest part of Mavericks. They removed a variety of options for display and printing, and even after the patch that fixed Gmail issues, it still forces a re-download of your entire IMAP mailbox.
It also does some weird stuff with folders - if you had an IMAP folder named "Archive", it magically became special in Mavericks, which took some people off guard.
Tell me about it... Just few hours ago I filed a bug report where Mail hoses up at IMAP-fetching Gmail conversations that are at GMail's theoretical limit - 100.
Spent too much playing with it last week or so, just to get the core functionality out. But hey, it works now. :)
My complaint is a strange delay that affects the command line, in iTerm and Terminal alike. My coworker also has the same issue. It's quite tedious to type faster than the computer; over the network, I can understand; but locally, with a machine that's not stressed?
I can't help but think the new App Nap is to blame for this, but I have no proof.
I have the same issue. Though I've only installed Mavericks on my Macbook Air 11" so far, and I thought that it would be an issue with the machine's limited speed. This delay really bugs me and I hope that it is something software that can easily be fixed.
Now that you mention it, the first time I logged in on mavericks, I noticed a delay, akin to using msysgit on windows. I did fix this, I think by altering some of the parameters passed to the login command. Breaks a lot of other functionality, but it works.
I have to agree with the power button complaint as well. I have a 2013 MBA and I frequently hit the power button during a backspace spasm. I'm not sure if it's a problem with my machine, but it won't come back on right away if I hit some keys or the power button again, I have to wait for what seems like a minute or two.
We used to be able to use PowerKey [1] to remap the power key to something useful like ⌦. Mavericks breaks this. The ⌦ still gets sent, but the computer sleeps before anything else happens.
You would think they'd remember the problems that people had with the Reset button on the Apple ][ (it was right above the Return key). They eventually put a stronger spring under it to prevent users from losing their work.
Yes, it's overthinking. It's not so much about multi-monitor, which Apple has had working since the 80s, it's about the interaction with the full-screen mode they introduced in 10.7.
At first they blanked non-primary screens when an app entered full-screen, now they're offering this multiple totally-independent bodge.
> At first they blanked non-primary screens when an app entered full-screen
Right, which was of course a terrible idea and I hated it so much I never ended up using full-screen support when attached to an extra monitor (even if I like it well enough when I was just using my laptop on its own).
It doesn't seem to be much different from maximizing in Windows but ever since full-screen support was introduced it's been a bizarre combination of good ideas and the kind of bad ideas that only come about from never actually using the feature.
There's other issues with multi-monitor support in OS X that it sounds like they're addressing in Mavericks, but these other issues as well as loads of app compatibility ones I've been reading about are enough to keep me from upgrading.
His biggest gripe seems to be that windows can't span across multiple monitors. Seems like a result of Apple giving each monitor it's own "workspace" to prevent maximizing windows from blanking out the other screen - as well as letting you switch workspaces per-screen, perhaps they were too focused on complete screen isolation.
You can turn this off if you don't want the dock and menu bar across all screens and don't use full screen. Then it operates the old way.
I have to admit to being a bit befuddled-- I don't understand the desire for full screen when you've got big monitors attached, so either and all options have always worked fine for me. I agree it was silly that full screen meant losing a second screen-- but I don't see what's wrong with this compromise.
I personally don't really want "full screen", just a more windows like "maximize" that hides all the distracting clutter in the background. On my windows machines I'll maximize an app window in each monitor and it provides a relatively clean work environment.
It seems to me that all this madness would be solved if you could do a Windows style maximize on an app window and the menu bar and dock auto hid I think all would be right in the world. Instead we keep getting this overwrought mess.
I would understand this on a laptop screen, but on a large screen virtually only an IDE makes sense to use up all that real estate. Even on a 13" laptop, my browser is rarely extended to full width.
That being said, you can drag the window to the size you want and have nothing but window and menubar. There are also a ton of third party software to automate this as a keyboard shortcut or similar if that's the key. Then viola, no weird dependencies on a weird feature not designed for 23" + screens.
I disagree, this is a strange sentiment that I see on HN all the time. That somehow the complexity of an IDE with dozens of debug windows and library organization trees deserve lots of screen real estate.
You know what deserves lots of screen real estate? Whatever I want to focus my attention on.
It could be a simple text editor, or VLC showing reruns of Road Runner cartoons while I balance my checkbook on another monitor, or a realtime log viewer in one screen and a process lister in antoher - point is, it doesn't matter, it's my way of working and it's not so bizarre that I need to acclimate myself to the clutter that inevitably shows up when using OS X for complex work.
The important thing is that I don't want all the other garbage I have backgrounded showing up in my field of view when I don't want to pay attention to it and I want this happen with a single mouse-click. This is a solved problem on virtually every other platform with a windowing metaphor in the last 25 years.
Apple's concepts around window resizing and full screen support make it seem like this is a problem so complicated we could solve P=NP and efficiently fold proteins with less effort.
I don't want to install addons, I don't want to spend several seconds breaking my work flow to resize windows just so or any other madness. This should have been solved with the first release of OS X, not the brain-dead hacks that keep getting shipped that nobody obviously thought to actually try and use in Cupertino.
> There are also a ton of third party software to automate this as a keyboard shortcut or similar if that's the key.
I do have an addon installed to solve this, but this is stupid core OS functionality and It's unbelievable that I'm living in the 21st century and full screening apps on multiple monitors requires years of waiting and entire OS upgrades.
Considering that mostly what I need to do on my Macs is virtualize Linux boxes, use MS-Office and ssh and run VLC, my next machine is going to be a Windows machine. Since
a) they're so cheap as to be virtually disposable
b) they haven't made core basic OS functions like moving files, accessing network shares without hanging the machine or Maximizing windows an unpossible task worthy of years of wait just to hope that they haven't screwed it up yet again and solved only by me wasting my time dragging things around or installing half a dozen third party kludges to hack the OS into something resembling a usable platform.
I'm not asking for weird edge case user environment things, or highly specialized workflows, or ultra-specialized niche window management or other things, just for the things to work as the user would expect.
I love love love my rMBP hardware-wise, but OS X as a user environment has been broken for a long time and it's regressing every release with problems that were solved on multiple platforms a human generation ago.
>The important thing is that I don't want all the other garbage I have backgrounded showing up in my field of view when I don't want to pay attention to it and I want this happen with a single mouse-click. This is a solved problem on virtually every other platform with a windowing metaphor in the last 25 years.
...
> I don't want to install addons, I don't want to spend several seconds breaking my work flow to resize windows just so or any other madness. This should have been solved with the first release of OS X, not the brain-dead hacks that keep getting shipped that nobody obviously thought to actually try and use in Cupertino.
If you're spending several seconds to press a button on a toolbar you're already disrupting your workflow in a way directly comparable to resizing a window by grabbing a corner. If "disrupting your workflow" is such a huge concern you'd want a keyboard shortcut for this action anyway.
Sorry, but I actually think not full screening a window is actually the far superior handling in a world with high resolution, large screens. There are other ways to "hide" things you are background like using Spaces or whatever they're calling virtual desktops.
> I do have an addon installed to solve this, but this is stupid core OS functionality and It's unbelievable that I'm living in the 21st century and full screening apps on multiple monitors requires years of waiting and entire OS upgrades.
Ok. Seems like it takes virtually no effort one time to get the functionality you really want. If that's enough to make you super crazed and need a huge vent, that's fine. For me, that's a very plausible solution to a specific problem related to a preference that you likely developed because you are used to working on a different platform. It's true that:
> I'm not asking for weird edge case user environment things, or highly specialized workflows, or ultra-specialized niche window management or other things, just for the things to work as the user would expect.
... but you are asking for OSX to act like Windows has rather than how OSX has since it has had windowing (or at least as far back as my memory goes to the mid 90s). There was a choice made. It's a choice I didn't like when there weren't things like virtual desktops and when screen resolutions were lower and screen size was smaller. On a big screen with lots of pixels, I think it makes sense to double down on the traditional way they've handled enlarging windows.
To me, it just feels like Apple is dancing around just doing it the Windows way. Revision after revision they keep poking at the problem but don't want to do it the right way, and if feels like it's just because it was done first at Microsoft...which is silly IMHO.
All that being said, Windows needs to get on the multiple-desktop/workspace bandwagon. OS X's treatment of the subject is brilliant.
Personally I hate the "slide" animations when e.g. launching a new full-screen window. It takes about a second, but any keys I press during the animation seem to go into a blackhole (repro: full-screen chrome, open new window, start typing 123456789; typically 1-4 or 1-5 are lost).
Other than that, pretty happy (though I don't use many of the Apple apps).
Actually, the new multi-monitor support is great! Besides fixing the silliness (blanked second screen), this one can support screens of different DPI but similar apparent size.
Except when hooking IBOutlets up between monitors and the little dialog disappears, which can be annoying as hell. But even with that irritation it's miles ahead of how it was previously.
My only real gripe is that none of my machines will sleep now and I have to shut them down. I constantly keep finding my Macbook Pro burning hot while still closed and on my desk. My iMac does the same. I haven't found a solution yet.
I think I have the same problem with Chrome. When I open some links, Chrome loads the whole page but only shows a white background. As soon as I start to scroll, the content appears. It's pretty annoying.
I'm having real issues with the windows of certain specific apps (Chrome especially) either vanishing or retreating to the edge of the screen and becoming unmovable each time I lock the machine/it goes to sleep. Really annoying. Hopefully a bugfix soon!
p.s.: a fix I've found is changing the screen resolution (and back again) each time you unlock. hmmmmm.
I have the exact same issue, it's driving me crazy. I'm wondering where the issue lie as my partner as the same setup (same version of macbook air/same monitor) and doesn't seem to suffer from that issue.
The biggest difference is that I updated while he did a clean install.
> In Mavericks, pushing that power button automatically puts the computer to sleep, no questions asked.
Wtf, really? That was one of the features I used to show as a sensible difference between mac and PC... that a windows pc will just shut down your computer if you mistakenly touch the power button while handling it, whilst a mac wouldn't...
What happens when you press the power button is configurable in windows, and I would guess that by default it shuts down on a desktop and sleeps on a laptop.
The problem here is that Apple put the power button above the delete button and you end up sleeping your computer very often just because you miss the delete key.
It's not as bad. No work data is lost since it's just a sleep. Cycling back to working mode takes ~2s + the time to enter the password if you have a screen lock.
Access speeds to my SAMBA server are so bad since Mavericks I had to switch to NFS. Even with the workaround to disable Apple's version of sambaV3, I still have issues.
I couldn't get NFS to work. Really wish i could happily live with Linux on a MBPr. But the h/w complexity is proving very hard to support. Might be time to give it another whirl soon.
Also they keyboard layout is fucking stupid. It really upsets me when i'm coding. Going from a standard UK keyboard to an Apple abomination of a UK keyboard is highly mentally disturbing for my small brain.
My gripe is how the Magic Mouse works on Mavericks. On Lion it worked really well, now it flips out all the time. I get scrolling when my fingers aren't moving a lot, especially right to left. But I cannot tell you how many times I've tried to click on something...and only have the mouse move the page down just-a-bit, moving the link away from the pointer.
Mac Mail is now unusable with large inboxes, spotlight is slow, the finder is still stupid (explorer is better then finder at this point). New power management in the near macbook airs is the worst.