
Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X. - antidaily
https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/g9WdNt6yVgR
======
tptacek
I prefer Lion to Snow Leopard.

I find myself appreciating the more controversial changes, like reversed
scrolling and hidden scrollers. I followed Gruber's advice and suppressed the
impulse to switch the defaults back to Snowpard behaviors and find that I'm
less happy when I have to use Snowpard now.

Meanwhile:

* Mail.app under Lion is the best mail UX they've ever shipped. It's not a small improvement over Snowpard; it has a more reasonable layout now that makes Smart Folders make more sense, and search seems to have been completely rebuilt and actually works now.

* I find myself liking Mission Control enough not to mind not having vertical virtual desktop arrangements.

* Preview can sign documents now!

* The Filevault fix is huge for me (Filevault is now a bona fide block level FDE), since it means I don't have to use PGP WDE, which was a debacle.

My sense of it is, there is zero opportunity for someone to compete with Apple
and Microsoft on conventional desktop operating systems, and the problems
O'Reilly has with OS X are not generally going to be shared by people like my
dad, who are (a) the only people Apple _really_ cares about because (b)
they're where all the money is.

~~~
bluekeybox
> Mail.app under Lion is the best mail UX they've ever shipped.

Totally agreed; I have been using Gmail web interface for years reluctant to
switch to a desktop client, but switched immediately after installing Lion and
checking out the Mail app.

~~~
falling
Same here. The Show Related Messages feature is even an improvement over
Gmail's conversations. Now I want that on my iPhone.

------
hackoder
For those criticizing- He has given one example of what he thinks is wrong.
Not all posts are meant to be essays...

Briefly though, (as another user who switched from Mac OS X), I can certainly
give examples of what he says:

Not all of these are specific to OS X, its the overall hardware and software
that is getting frustrating.

More user-hostile

\- If you replace your SuperDrive with another drive, you CAN NOT boot any
operating system (other than Apple's) off usb drives or even external DVD
drives plugged into usb slots. So with two hard drives, you can not install
Windows or Linux. [1]

\- Batteries are not considered user-swappable anymore. [2]

More buggy

\- Battery life degradation when moving from SL to Lion. Apple forums are full
of examples. [3] (78 page thread, no confirmation or fix from Apple).

\- We all know how annoying the switch to Mission Control was, right?

[1] <http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1125135>

[2] <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1756>

[3]
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235?start=0&tst...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194235?start=0&tstart=0)

[Edit: formatting]

~~~
ramanujan
Worst parts of Lion over OS X:

1) Removed "Save As". You now have to duplicate and then save the file.

2) Smaller resize/minimize/"maximize" buttons.

3) The green maximize button still doesn't maximize.

4) Switched default behavior with mouse scrolling.

5) Generally slower and more resource intensive, noticeable on older (2009)
Macbook Pros.

6) Terrible, lengthy switch over from the previous version of FileVault, if
you had that enabled.

7) Crashed a lot of programs initially, especially Chrome. Now not as much,
but very crashy a few months ago.

~~~
adbge
Seriously, wtf is up with removing "Save As"? I had to copy the text from a
file I was working on and paste it into a new file because the "Save a new
version" option wasn't doing anything.

One you missed: really horrible auto-correct feature Apple added. It will
replace a word when you're in the middle of typing it. Completely broken and
totally transparent. At first, I thought that WriteRoom was just buggy.

Oh, and the "Home" folder isn't exposed under the Favorites section of Finder
by default anymore. You have to go to "Go > Home". Took me a little while to
figure that one out.

~~~
ugh
Save as doesn’t make sense if the app auto-saves.

~~~
fiblye
"Save as" is usually used when you want to save it as a different file
somewhere else, and most people have cmd-shift-s ingrained in their mind.

This no longer exists and there's no excuse. Autosaving doesn't even do the
same job.

~~~
ugh
I don’t think you understand. This is about paradigm shifts.

Here is how it used to work: You open this old document because you want to
create a new one and use the old one as a template. You either _Save as_ right
away or (much more likely) you edit for a bit and do a _Save as_ at some later
point.

If you do this with auto save you are fucked. (Well, not really. There is now
Versions, so starting with Lion this is finally a recoverable mistake.)
Editing your document for a bit before doing a _Save as_ with auto save is the
same as mistakenly saving your document – overwriting your old document –
instead of doing a _Save as_. That mistake is catastrophic – I know it, I used
to make it often enough myself – and users would make it all the time had
Apple left _Save as_ in.

Now when you open an old document you will be asked – as soon as you start
editing – whether you want to edit the document or duplicate it, thus avoiding
that catastrophic mistake. You can also duplicate documents at any time.

The transition period will be painful, that’s for sure, but the end result is
pure bliss. It’s worth it.

A lot of changes with Lion are just like this. Sometimes some pain while
transitioning is the price for awesomeness.

~~~
greggman
And what if my workflow involves making multiple files based off the same
document? Say I making png buttons in Photoshop. I change the test to "Order"
pick save as, type "order.png", change the text to "Cancel" pick save as, type
"cancel.png", change the text to "Help" pick save as, type "help.png".

It sounds like that work flow just got massively tedious.

~~~
ugh
Duplicate → Save, Duplicate → Save.

One step turned two. Worse? Yes. Tedious? No. It’s worth it given the other
conceptual changes and the fact that this is very much an edge case.

------
super_mario
I currently use OS X for all my work and for personal/home use. But I have to
agree with the sentiment. I have had nothing but praise for Apple and OS X up
until Lion release. But this year has been a major turning point. End of
XServe, end of Apple java, talk of end of Mac Pro and the whole post PC world
thing, turning OS X into fisher price phone OS. Honestly, at this point I have
to re-think my future and make a platform switch. I have invested well over
$30,000 into Apple so far, but going forward I will most likely end up with
Linux for software development and Windows for Photoshop and video editing
(personal use).

I'm really just waiting to see what post-Lion OS X looks like, and if they
keep moving towards iOS/iPhone, then I really don't want anything to do with
Apple. I don't need a computer/OS from a phone company.

~~~
theatrus2
Have you seen the new Windows? Microsoft is steamrolling down the "new world"
path faster than Apple.

~~~
Andrex
Same with Ubuntu unfortunately.

Seems like one of the smaller Linux variants will have to save us. At the
moment, I'm quite taken with Fedora/Gnome 3. Although Ubuntu+Gnome 3 and the
upcoming Linux Mint with Gnome 3 are solid options...

Yes. I like Gnome 3. Gnome 3.

~~~
_grrr
Just installed Linux Mint - I love it! A real improvement over the bloated
Ubuntu 11.10 release and Unity. It's fast to startup and shutdown, responsive
and has a lovely UI.

------
megamark16
I came from a windows background, tinkered with Linux for a few years on and
off, and when I started my current job I was given a Macbook Pro. After a few
months of using it I as so frustrated, and found myself spending more and more
time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, that when they were ordering new MBPs for
the design team I offered to give mine up to a designer and buy a ThinkPad,
thus saving the company over $1,000. I've been running Ubuntu (and recently
Linux Mint) full time for both work and personal use for a year and a half.

In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I
can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a
corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize
sweetspot.

When I click the Maximize button on OSX, it doesn't actually maximize the
window 99% of the time, it just picks a seemingly random size. I saw an app a
while ago that would let you control how your OSX apps are resized when you
maximize them, but if I have to buy an app just to make my OS do what it
should do anyway, there's something wrong.

I need 10 different apps on a Mac just to do what I can do out of the box in
Ubuntu. Nautilus can access Windows network shares, SSH/SFTP/FTP access, and
can mount NTFS, HFS, and pretty much any other filesystem type there is.

On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to
compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on OSX
you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source.

I just want to see hidden files in Finder, why is that so hard? Why do I have
to google it and use a 3+ key combination to enable showing hidden files? I'm
all for keyboard shortcuts, I'm a keyboard man, but until I learn and memorize
them, you should put them in the menu where I can find them with a little
hunting.

And that reminds me, why can't I type a path in Finder? I prefer an address
bar, where I can type a path to a directory I want to view, but noooo, I have
to click around, and if it's a really deep folder I'm trying to get to I'm
screwed.

I like Home and End keys. Where are they?

In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I
could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going
forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down the
left or right arrows for a while.

Maybe for some people this locked down, dumbed down environment works for
them. Maybe some people love learning the myriad of keyboard shortcuts needed
to get stuff done on a Mac, but I prefer Ubuntu, I can get stuff done a lot
faster and without wanting to kill myself.

~~~
HSO
_Suum cuique_ but some of your concerns really aren't:

> In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I
> can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near
> a corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize
> sweetspot.

They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to
press ALT to do it.

> When I click the Maximize button on OSX, it doesn't actually maximize the
> window 99% of the time, it just picks a seemingly random size.

There's now a full-screen mode that takes care of that.

> Nautilus can access Windows network shares, SSH/SFTP/FTP access, and can
> mount NTFS, HFS, and pretty much any other filesystem type there is.

One of these might be for you: [http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-
roundups/5-altern...](http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-
roundups/5-alternatives-to-the-os-x-finder/)

> On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to
> compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on
> OSX you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source.

Darwin ports? Fink?

> I just want to see hidden files in Finder, why is that so hard?
    
    
      defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE ?
    

Or just use the terminal ?

> And that reminds me, why can't I type a path in Finder?

CMD-Shift-G

> I like Home and End keys. Where are they?

Erh, fn-ArrowLeft/ArrowRight ?!

> In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I
> could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going
> forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down
> the left or right arrows for a while.

The keyboard tab in Terminal's preferences? Or switch from Emacs-like to Vim-
like navigation in the terminal?

> Maybe for some people this locked down, dumbed down environment works for
> them.

As I said, to each his own and there are valid concerns/tradeoffs about OS X.
But in this particular case, the only thing "dumbed down" here is your rant.

~~~
archangel_one
I think some of the points are valid; there may be solutions but they are so
obscure that people obviously never discover them. I've had a MBP for nearly a
year now and never knew that Fn+Left/Right substituted for Home/End (thanks
for the tip, btw). I can't see myself guessing Cmd+Shift+G to type paths into
Finder either... They're valid solutions but normally Linux is (not
unjustifiably) castigated for requiring obscure wizardry to do things, I don't
see why OSX should get away with it either.

~~~
Periodic
One handy thing is that because OS X uses Command for most of its window-
management and application hot-keys, control + key is almost always unmasked
by the application. Why is this important? Control-A and Control-E work in
almost any text input! They work in Adium, they work in Chrome for the
location bar and this textarea, and I'm sure many others.

I was pleasantly surprised because the Windows/Linux systems tend to mask
Control-A for select-all.

~~~
pyre
All native text inputs support Emacs keybindings. The only rub is that you
need to use Ctrl + Option to Meta.

~~~
Periodic
To me I think of it as Bash bindings, because that is where I learned them.
For text editing I've been using vim bindings, but I never found the vim mode
to work quite like I want it to on the terminal. I should look into that more.

------
Lewisham
Having had a "I really am starting to dislike Mac OS X, but Windows 8 looks
pretty good!" revelation, I started to use Windows 7. I came back after about
a week and told Mac OS X I'd never leave it again. I reinstalled Windows 7
about 2 or 3 times, lots of weird, inexplicable errors, one of which required
a Microsoft FixIt program to run as there were some "corrupt registry keys".
Gosh, it was not good.

That said, I agree that Mac OS X is not getting better. It needs to change.
Everything since about 10.3 to today has been fairly incremental, and OS X is
showing its age (ever wonder why Apple never changed to OS XI? It's because
they're all the same...).

It's also showing that it doesn't have any real push at Cupertino to get
better. No-one is driving OS X. Hardware is being driven by Johny Ive,
software was arguably being pushed by Jobs, but it's clear that he was only
interested in iOS for years. I'd note that iOS is going the same way as Mac OS
X: stagnating in the face of competition that is doing more interesting things
(amazingly, that competition is Microsoft!).

I feel like Apple is a company that rests on its laurels until the market
practically forces it to change. The change that's coming for Mac OS X is that
it will go away altogether. I think Steve hated it, and was waiting for the
time when they could sell you iOS only. The only reason they keep Mac OS X
around is for developers, and Apple aren't exactly known for making them
happy.

Microsoft's dual-paradigm Windows 8 shows it's not that crazy. I think Mac OS
X has an expiry date of about 5 years from now.

~~~
sukuriant
What on earth did you do to make Windows start having "weird, inexplicable
errors"? And, why do I never have these problems?

~~~
Lewisham
I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008
Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember
my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys.

And I have no idea how it happened.

~~~
sukuriant
That is quite curious... though can you really blame the operating system for
a program running on it? (Presumably SW:tOR)

~~~
tedunangst
People like to blame everything on Windows, including "I dropped my laptop
down the stairs and now it doesn't work right" type stuff. I think if
Microsoft had replaced the blue screen with a message that instead said "Your
$PC-MAKER computer is a piece of crap, buy a $OTHER-PC instead." nobody would
actually complain about Windows.

[a general comment, not directly related to lewisham's problem.]

~~~
barend
In some regards, they did. The crash reports from Windows XP indicated that
around 20% of all OS crashes originated in the display driver (1). Vista
introduced a new display driver model. One of its features is that the OS will
now survive a driver crash. The screen just goes blank for a few seconds.

1) <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480220.aspx>

------
shadowfiend
There may be a good point hiding there, but I don't think he made it
particularly well. He argues that OS X is getting worse.

His specific complaint was that he couldn't find the Library folder to delete
his mail. Two things to keep in mind: first off, people who set up Mail
extremely rarely will want to delete their email. So on the list of use cases
to optimize for, that one lives near the bottom of the ladder. Secondly, the
Library folder is, for all intents and purposes, something that should have
been hidden to begin with. The kind of stuff that goes into a Library folder
goes into hidden directories on other OSes anyway (think Application Settings
on Windows, or .config, .gnome2, .kde on Linux). The fact that Apple only just
now got around to hiding a folder that did nothing but clutter up the home
directory for most users is significantly more surprising than the fact that
it's hidden.

There was another complaint, which was that upon putting the relevant files in
the Trash, attempting to empty it yielded file in use errors. That is indeed a
problem, but he complains that he can't skip all of them, and that this is an
old issue. So how this is related to OS X getting worse is unclear. It's
definitely extremely annoying, but then I also don't think people find
themselves deleting thousands of files of which several are in use very often.
That said, one wonders what was using those files (unless he'd forgotten to
quit Mail, but I doubt that).

Basically, “the latest frustration”, his leading example of something that is
“worse in Lion than in Snow Leopard”, seems to not be a very good example at
all. What's missing are the ”so many [other] things”. I want to hear them,
because I haven't found too many, and I think it would be interesting to see
what others genuinely think is worse. Some disagree with the changes in
Spaces, for example, which is understandable. What else?

~~~
doe88
Overally I don't consider 10.7 being worse than 10.6, I'm ignoring Mission
Control stuffs as I was ignoring Exposé. But there is one thing I find it
maddening above all is the settings and behavior of Terminal.app, I understand
_nothing_, this is insane. The behavior of Terminal.app is insane, it's even
harder to explain since I fail to understand its logic.

~~~
aw9994
Check out iTerm2 if Terminal.app isn't doing it for you anymore.
<http://www.iterm2.com/>

~~~
doe88
Thanks for the tip will definitively try it out.

Edit: Wow I just put my shell command /bin/zsh and the default behavior seems
to fit my needs without reading all the options. It closes all the tabs when I
quit, it doesn't keep a kind of useless history displayed when I start a new
session, the theme thing works right away. Thanks, I will be using it from now
on.

------
overgard
I'm somewhat of a new mac user, so I can't speak historically, but I will say
that lion was quite a downgrade. It broke things that were previously working
fine (my network drivers and my dev tools), removed useful features (rosetta),
and really didn't add anything new that I care about. I never use the app
store; I dislike mission control; really the only thing I actually like is the
better window resizing.

~~~
tptacek
What network drivers did Lion break? Are you plugging custom network hardware
into your Mac? Why?

We're a pretty dev-tools-intensive shop here and while the transition to
XCode4 has been hiccupy, I don't think Lion has broken anything for us.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
A lot of people (including me) are suffering from dropped wifi connections.
There's a thread on the Apple support forums that has 1264 replies and 157731
views:
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191630?start=0&tst...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191630?start=0&tstart=0)

Apple has been trying to fix it ever since Lion came out. After 2 updates it's
still not working for me.

~~~
watmough
I fixed my WiFi not reconnecting by zapping my PRAM.

Cmd-Opt-P-R on boot and hold down until you get a couple of loud bongs.

Yeah! I know! First time doing that has ever fixed a damn thing for me, but
not reconnecting to my WiFi was starting to become an annoyance.

This was on a new main logic board on my 2007 MBP running a fresh install of
Lion 10.7.2 copied out of the Install app and burned to an 8GB USB key.

~~~
sounds
Switched to a Broadcom chip and still can't resolve all the silicon-level
bugs. <http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook>

Broadcom may make Tim Cook happier, but Atheros is more the "Steve" of wifi
chips. However, the 2007 MBP uses Atheros - yours is actually a different
issue.

~~~
watmough
I actually made myself a Broadcom airport card, for less than $20 and it's
faultless. Atheros cards have always worked great for me too.

The only time I've ever had WiFi problems is under really really old versions
of Ubuntu on a ThinkPad.

I suspect a lot of problems are caused by interference, or really densely
populated areas. Even out here in the boonies of North Houston, there are 8 -
10 WiFi networks visible, neighbors etc.

------
js2
Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not
a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior,
it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG:

 _Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which
is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location
by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the called the user state.
The user can toggle between the standard state and the user state by clicking
the zoom button in the title bar. Follow the guidelines in this section so
that users can have the zoom experience they expect.

Choose a standard state that is best suited for the tasks your app enables. A
document window, for example, should show as much as possible of the
document’s content. Don’t assume that the standard state should be as large as
the current display permits; instead, determine a size that makes it
convenient for users to use your app. If appropriate, you can allow users to
take some app windows full screen if they want more space.

Adjust the standard state when appropriate. The user can’t change the standard
state that defines a window’s initial position and size, but your app can do
so, based on other settings. For example, a word processor might define a
standard that accommodates the display of a document whose width is specified
in the Page Setup dialog.

Respond appropriately when the user zooms. When the user zooms a window that
is in the user state, your app should make sure that size defined by the
standard state is appropriate in the current context. Specifically, move the
window as little as possible to make it the standard size, while at the same
time keeping the entire window on the screen. The zoom button should not cause
the window to fill the entire screen unless that was the last state the user
set.

If the user zooms a window in a multidisplay system, the standard state should
be on the display that contains the largest portion of the window, not
necessarily on the display that contains the menu bar. This means that if the
user moves a window between displays, the window’s position in the standard
state could be on different displays at different times. The standard state
for any window must always be fully contained on a single display.

Don’t allow a zoomed window to overlap the Dock. You always want to make sure
that users have full use of both your windows and the Dock. For more
information about the Dock, see “The Dock.”_

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Windows/Windows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-BACEDHFG)

~~~
vertr
Hold shift while clicking the zoom button to maximize the window. Edit: in
Chrome only.

~~~
neetij
Or install a utility like RightZoom.

~~~
cpeterso
Thanks for the tip! I didn't know about RightZoom.

Here are some little known Mac utilities I like:

* MutableCode's _Breakaway_ let's you configure separate audio volumes (including silence) for with and without headphones.

* Stereopsis' _Flux_ adjusts your display's color temperature to match the type of lighting in your room (e.g. daylight, halogen, fluorescent) to avoid the blindly blue glare in a dark room.

~~~
webspiderus
F.lux is actually available for all platforms! I've been using it on Windows
for a while, one of my favorite small utilities.

~~~
hollerith
Well, not iOS yet.

------
llambda
Don't really see why this is big news. First I don't agree that the
progressive versions of OS X are getting worse, but this is entirely
subjective (for you they might be getting worse, I can't say). Second, based
on the fact that this is largely a subjective opinion, given your workflow is
not my workflow, does it really matter what Tim thinks about OS X? This is
nothing but a rant. A very sparse rant at that.

------
js2
FWIW, if he wants to back up his mail before deleting it, the supported way to
do it would be to select the mailbox in Mail.app itself and select Export
Mailbox…

By hiding the Library folder, Apple isn't trying to be hostile: most users
never need to access anything in this folder. Users who are advanced enough to
be grubbing around inside the Library should also be advanced enough to know
that you can easily get to it via command-shift-g "~/Library". Obviously it
also shows up in the Terminal. Apple's merely hidden it from view inside the
Finder.

~~~
martinaglv
Funny that this is the same argument people use to hate Unity.

------
fauigerzigerk
I'm using OS X right now but I really hate all OSs at this point.

OS X is a usability nightmare for me, slowing me down even after many years of
using it and trying to adapt to its ways. Lion is buggy on top of that (never
ending wifi troubles).

Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a
data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am.

And Windows is horrible as a development platform unless you stay slavishly
within Microsoft's overpriced ecosystem.

But ranting about this is probably pointless. There will not be a new OS any
time soon. It's just too difficult even for the largest corporations to start
from scratch.

~~~
zmmmmm
Got to agree ... every OS these days seems to annoy me in huge ways. I was
surprised after I moved to a Mac that it had huge usability issues and even a
lot of basic bugs. For some reason I always just accepted that Apple nailed
usability but OSX (Snow Leopard) was annoying as hell. I miss so much the
standard ability to navigate menus with hotkeys in Windows. I'm forced to use
the mouse for a huge number of things that I never had to in Windows.

But then in Windows there are an almost equally number of annoying things, the
primary being the lack of a Unix-like environment by default. I end up going
with Cygwin but that has all its own issues.

Then Linux is just a neverending pita with driver issues, crappy versions of
things like Skype, no possibility of MS Office, etc.

In the end I don't particularly care what OS I use because I know each and
every one is just going to require me to customise the crap out of it before
I'm happy (I will say for Windows and Linux that I nearly always end up
getting there, so far with OSX I'm not and I'm not optimistic about the future
with the direction Apple is moving).

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Two things have made the Mac a little more comfortable for me recently. One is
an OS extension/plugin called Witch. It allows you to switch between all open
windows in MRU order the same way Alt+Tab does on Linux and Windows.

The other one is to enable "All Controls" on the keyboard shortcut preferences
panel. That allows you to use the tab key to move between active buttons in
confirmation dialogs like "do you want to save changes?".

------
Dejital
Tim has issues with one application, but blames the entire operating system.
Is this fair? Further, the trash bin problem of not having an "Ignore All"
button has always been around. That does not mean the operating system is
becoming _worse_ , just that an age old frustration (albeit a very obscure
one) is still around.

I have some issues with Lion, but they are grounded primarily in my complete
satisfaction with Snow Leopard and lack of desire to change (if it ain't
broke, don't fix it).

When Tim says "there were many things worse in Snow Leopard than in Leopard,"
I cannot recall a single one. In fact, the Snow Leopard release was
undoubtedly a very well received one.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Reading his rant, I just couldn't understand why he wouldn't simply fire up
the terminal and issue a quick 'sudo rm -rf /path/to/mail/*' command. Deleting
huge numbers of recently used files with the trash has always been hit-or-
miss. This is Tim O'Reilly we're talking about here; he should know better.

------
DanBC
These threads follow a common pattern. Someone makes a list of things they
dislike about an OS. That's not interesting, so they'll include a bit of a
rant. Other people will agree, and add their own annoyances.

Then a bunch of people will pop up and explain how to achieve most of the
things that are complained about; or explain that they're not problems but
features. (The green pseudo-maximise being my most frustrating example.)

What people seem to miss is that discoverability is lousy in OSs. HN isn't
read by stupid people who are un-used to tech. So why are what should be
simple features either hard to find, or not present? Why do HN readers
struggle with simple aspects of modern OSs? Apple (rightly, IMO) gets a lot of
praise for usability. MS spent a lot of money on usability testing. Both of
them have some awful awful things going on.

My example of a hard to find feature: In windows XP when you copy many files
from one directory into another directory you'll get a dialog saying "The
folder already contains" etc, with 4 options, [YES][YES TO ALL][NO][CANCEL].
There was a secret option of [NO TO ALL] if you held shift and clicked no.

------
omfg
Makes sense. They should totally start over because he can't figure out the
way to delete mail. Or how to use Terminal to fix if after he messed it up.

Link bait.

------
pixie_
I use Windows as my primary UI, but also use ubuntu and OSX daily in virtual
machines. I switch between visual studio, eclipse, and XCode constantly.

I still prefer the windows UI to the others. Ubuntu, especially Unity feels
always like a step behind the windows UI. In the latest release the taskbar
won't stick, they took away the start menu, and menus are stuck at the top of
the screen like osx.

I like in windows how I can drag the window to the side or the screen and it
expands to fill just the half. Of if I drag the border to the top it will
auto-expand the window vertically.

In OSX the max/minimize buttons are too small. And the task bar seems more
visually appealing than practical (in windows it fills the whole bottom.) Also
the download/install software process, it feels weird. Download a file, have
it come up in some jump list, then mount it to the desktop where's there's
usually 2 icons one saying to drag the other somewhere. Package management
seems more straight forward in windows vs osx/linux. I do like XCode 4 though,
I think how it works with tabs is much better.

~~~
X-Istence
Package management in Windows ... surely you must be joking.

Having an all encompassing .app folder is simpler, and makes it easier for the
user to delete stuff they no longer need/want without it spewing files all
over the hard drive. DMG is just a disk image, just like Zip it allows you to
contain multiple files and compress them. Not only that, but it keeps
everything in tact such as symlinks, permissions and fun stuff so that when
the user drags the .app to their Applications folder they have a self-
contained functioning application.

~~~
pixie_
Not all apps are self-contained. There are plugins, drivers, extensions to the
OS etc... That's why having an install script/uninstall script that the OS can
reference from one place is useful. Lots of install scripts also have repair
functions, as well as options to modify the installation. Which is why having
a my software control panel is useful.

------
phamilton
I'll continue to use the only operating system where I can both develop with
unix tools and watch Netflix.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
Arr, ye know there be other, better, faster, cheaper ways to be obtainin' yer
movies an' TV shows, right, me hearty?

~~~
JWHardcastle
You left out legal.

------
Tloewald
An odd rant. I will say that lion has been the buggiest version of macos x
ever, but I suspect it's because they futzed with the file save APIs which
touch everything. If it's still this flaky at the dot 4 release I might start
whining.

~~~
watmough
I've managed to get used to most of the new stuff in Lion, but the screwing
with the File save stuff is just mind-bendingly awful, and has broken things
as simple as trying to re-save a text-file or image from a read-only folder to
a read/write folder.

Example: Choose a locked file and try saving a copy anywhere. Can you do it?

I've resorted to using the Finder to copy things into accessible places to
work on them.

------
pkamb
I haven't upgraded to Lion, and likely never will, because they removed the
single best feature of OS X, "all-windows" Expose with no stacking into app
bundles.

Default Expose was terrible in Snow Leopard too (strict grid layout vs. the
old natural spatial layout) but at least then there was a hack to get the old
version back: [http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-
on-...](http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-snow-
leopard-for-mac)

~~~
cantbecool
I completely agree. I can't believe that Lion does not have an "all-windows"
Expose. It's annoying trying to find a hidden window by minimizing everything.

If someone knows how to toggle between an applications windows, please let me
know.

~~~
Nagyman
CMD+` will cycle through applications' windows, but it won't restore minimized
windows.

~~~
cantbecool
Thanks, Nagyman. You have no idea how useful that shortcut is to me.

------
rickdale
Yeah, macs have some annoying properties that don't do exactly what you want.
But, all that 'gloss' that O'Reilly refers to is the reason he purchased the
Mac. Furthermore, OS X is still leaps and bounds better than other OS's for
most users. The conveniences that most people would fail to notice is part of
the beauty of the OS.

------
grandalf
I think the issue with Lion and also with Ubuntu 11.1 is that the GUIs are
experimenting with various tablet concepts which significantly alter some of
the behavior. It's pretty confusing at first but I adapted to Lion after about
4 or 5 days. I still don't quite understand Unity but expect to soon.

I think most anyone who is willing to accept that the world is undergoing a
transition into a world where tablets coexist with laptops, etc., will embrace
this time as a period of experimentation, rapid change, and creativity.

------
idspispopd
I find it hard to take these sorts of rants seriously. It's a user who wants
to do things their own way, but not bother learning how exactly that is done.
I call this mixed-level behaviour - e.g. users who won't use the built-in
functionality, but not understand or correctly use the alternative more
technical methods.

Take the mail example, Mail.app already lets him export his mail box, delete
his mail etc. He never needed to rifle through ~/Library to get at it. However
if he's tech savvy enough to want to do it the manual way, then he should know
how to fire up the terminal to access ~/Library, or more simply by holding the
option key and choosing "Library" from the go menu. I don't this is breaking
osx.

While I can't vouch for why he has a magnitude of locked files, given the mail
example I have a fair idea of how he's gotten in that situation. While os x
does give him the option to gloss past certain locked files. He's likely
seeing the error because he's removed files which are "spoken for" (i.e in
use), these are often located in ~/Library and it's kind of the point of why
~/Library is hidden. Again, if he wants to be tech-savvy, he should just rm
the files, or rm the contents of the trash folder. (Or if it was mail.app
responsible, just originally remove the mail from inside Mail.app)

OSX certainly has some way to go in addressing this kind of mixed level
behaviour, but it's not going to stop you from shooting yourself in the foot.

About the other features: while I don't appreciate the iOS-ificiation of mac
os, it's trivial to turn these learning-curve reducing features off, and on
laptops I find they make more sense than they do when using a mouse +
keyboard.

------
dasil003
I think Tim is on crack. Snow Leopard was _specifically_ about refactoring and
bug fixes—huge under the hood improvements. It's true that Lion has some
annoying bugs, but so did previous versions, I wouldn't say it's buggier on
the whole (I certainly see far fewer kernel panics than I used to see circa
10.3/10.4). Lion is ambitious, so there are definitely some annoying UI
changes, but there are a lot of meaty changes that offer huge improvements.

Some of my favorites are: mission control is much better than exposé + spaces
which I could never really put to great use. Fullscreen mode is very cool
(although it sucks with multi-monitors, hopefully they'll fix that). Finally
the ability to resize windows from every corner. Autosave. Remembering open
windows. New gestures are great once you internalize them. What Apple is doing
with sandboxing is really a revolution in PC security even if the costs are
high to user and developer freedom.

I'm pretty concerned about the App Store model and the future implications,
but so far Apple is still doing amazing UX work. I imagine at some point I
will have to go Linux if Apple keeps tightening their grip, but that day is
not yet here.

~~~
dailyrorschach
I just got a new Air, and began using Lion, I have to say I've been very, very
pleased. Especially on this machine it seems like it was naturally made for
this type of computer. I use Alfred, but confession, I sometimes find myself
using Launchpad... Though this seems to be true of most new OS X features
they've introduced over the years, I plan not to use them, decide to give them
a try, and end up really liking it.

The only thing I can't do is the natural scrolling, because I switch between
too many computers at work.

I share the App Store concern, but I think they're going to find the right
solution, developers have always been a key part of their plans, they get
things wrong of course, but they tend to make it right, just not always as
fast as people want - understandable gripe.

------
johnny6
Apple has become a zombie!

Why?

1\. They have lost their Zen design philosophy - it has come to the point of
ridiculousness with the new features in Lion; features for the sake of
features. Since Steve is gone, there is probably no way back.

2\. They have lost their perceived moral superiority - system closedness, App
Store censorship, sueing people left and right, don't seem to care one bit
about chinese labour conditions; they are worse than Microsoft or IBM ever
were.

3\. They have lost their coolness - the cool kids dig free, independent
software; they are not the "Think different." company anymore, they attract
people who desperately seek to belong to the masses. They attract sheeple who
buy an iPad to tell their friends that they, too, have an iPad.

Summary: The Apple of today is a heartless consumer electronics giant, just
like and worse than any other out there. It still sucks the last drops of
blood out of the spirit it used to have in the past.

------
botker
What a waste of time it is to complain about the way someone else configured
your system. You're the one who chose to use a window manager that doesn't
offer custom keybindings. If you can't live with it, then either write your
own window manager or switch to a OS that doesn't impose its dogma on you.

OSX is a non-contender in my book because of its complete disregard for the
standard Unix directory structure, its use of registry files, its ancient BSD
utilities last updated in the '90s, and its lack of a package manager that
actually integrates with the rest of the system. Of course the window manager
sucks too, but that's only if you judge according to functionality. To be a
Mac aficionado, you've got to judge only according to how slick the UI looks.
Right?

------
bdr
Two programs that make my life on OSX way better:

Zooom/2, which lets me move and resize windows with my positioned anywhere on
the window, activated with customizable key combinations. <http://coderage-
software.com/zooom/index_green/index.html>

SizeUp, which lets me position and resize the activate window with
customizable keyboard shortcuts. One common use case is to make one window
take up the left half of the screen, and another the right half, if I'm
working on something that needs information from both.
<http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>

------
bitstream
As a developer, my decade long honeymoon with OSX may be waning. On the other
hand there is still nothing that comes close to OSX for my nontechnical
friends. And no... they cannot use Ubuntu. (I have scientifically-worthless
empirical evidence)

------
slig
What about a paid GNU/Linux distro that runs perfectly on recent Apple
hardware? No drivers bullshit, just works?

~~~
rbanffy
Unless you pick your PC carefully with the purpose of breaking Linux, it
mostly works out of the box. That said, installing Linux on a Mac seems
offensive, like replacing the dashboard of a Maybach with the one of a race
car. Macs are a beautifully designed combination of hardware and software that
may work for you. Or not.

I like Lion better than Snow Leopard, but neither works for me for work.
Casual browsing and presentations are fine, but, for serious web application
development, I want Linux.

~~~
dhughes
Like a teenager before a date Mac seems to be entirely about looks, oh
everything works well both OS and hardware but sometimes it seems looks come
before function.

No separate delete or backspace keys, no multiple desktops, breathtakingly
expensive hardware and software, awkward layout of files in the GUI, closing
apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a
minimize button (??), am I copying/pasting/cutting?, old text documents open
behind new text documents are opened (a bug maybe or my fault).

Apple OS X Lion is nice to look at and fairly easy to use if not entirely
intuitive but it;s not as perfect as some people make it out to be.

~~~
whiskers
"breathtakingly expensive hardware and software"

Where can you get something _considerably_ cheaper than the Macbook Airs that
sport:

\- 128GB SSD (13")

\- 1440x900 (13") display

\- 4GB of RAM

\- Core i5

\- operating system included

\- thin, light, and have quality construction

For £1099 including taxes?

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230171)
is such a thing, and at $1099 USD, it's nearly half of your quoted price.
Unfortunately, it has a widescreen which has more pixels than you asked for,
but somehow I don't think that's a bad thing.

It comes with Windows, but if you want a _real operating system_ , you can
install any Linux you like on there. Or a BSD. Go for it.

Also, I was going to just answer "mu" to your question, and be done with it.
Macbooks don't have quality construction; that's why their hinges keep falling
apart after a year or two of actual use. It's been a problem since the
Powerbook days.

So, uh, yeah. Apple products are too fuckin' expensive.

(Oh, and there were a handful of VAIOs that also fit this criteria, but let's
be honest, VAIOs are not real computers.)

~~~
philwelch
> Macbooks don't have quality construction; that's why their hinges keep
> falling apart after a year or two of actual use. It's been a problem since
> the Powerbook days.

Uh, what? I've had two MacBooks that have seen continuous use since 2006 and
2008, respectively, and this never happened to me. In fact, the aluminum
MacBook (not even unibody) is in pretty fantastic shape, which is quite unlike
every single non-Apple product I have ever owned and used for such a long
period of time.

------
nomdeplume
I first admired OSX because of its simplicity and the way it kind of just knew
what I wanted to do and started me on the journey that way. Lion was a step
backward. defaults were no longer what I would find convenient. Constantly
asking me if I want to open windows upon logon even though I always uncheck
the box so it should know by now. The reverse scrolling which makes it a pain
to use any other system after getting used to reverse direction. I'm starting
to like Linux Mint more and more.

------
vegai
There has already been a vastly simpler system that predates OS X: Linux or
BSD combined with X11 and an arbitrary window manager. Just stay away from
anything that calls itself a "desktop environment" and you should be fine.

Personal recommendation: <http://www.archlinux.org> &
<http://awesome.naquadah.org/> \-- a nice compromise between easy
configurability and the "suckless" simplicity mentality.

------
dylangs1030
I have to be honest, I really just don't agree. I use Mac OS X Snow Leopard
(I'd upgrade to Lion, but it's not a priority right now). I can see why things
like the windows not maximizing, etc. would be annoying. Here's a perspective,
though:

1\. That issue of windows not resizing is generally a complaint made by native
Windows users who are already _used_ to that property. I'm not saying this
makes it an invalid complaint, just putting it in context.

2\. Compared with Linux, Mac OS X has more support (this doesn't mean it's
superior). Compared with Windows, Mac OS X (at least in my experience) is more
sensitive to power users and coders, and people who know what they're doing
more. Now, I've used different distributions of Linux, and ideally, I love
Linux most. But it just doesn't have as much support as Mac OS X because
proprietary backing breeds rapid progress (in the sense of universal or near
universal support at least). Sometimes you have to fork your own solution when
you're confronted with a problem in Linux. This also happens in OS X, but
often times, there's more trouble shooting advice or solutions freely
available and accessible. Just a perspective.

------
pat2man
When Apple release System 7 in 1991 people everywhere started complaining
about the new changes and how it was worse than System 6. For instance it
required a hard drive and couldn't boot off a floppy.

Meanwhile the end users adopted it imediately and never looked back. Most of
the complaints in the article are about features that we as developers love
but that end users could care less about.

As a developer I love getting in to my Library folder and changing stuff
around. I love backing my computer up manually and not using Time Machine. I
love having complete control of my windows and applications.

But most users don't care. Most users never touch their Library folder and
don't need to. Thats why its hidden. Most users don't need to back up their
mail because its all on Gmail. Most users love the app store where they don't
have to search all over the internet for a simple app.

Mac OS is an end user centric operating system and it always has been.
Developers and hackers will have to make some tweaks to the basic OS to make
it work the way they want. Honestly looking up a few keyboard shortcuts,
enabling hidden folders and installing homebrew isn't that hard.

~~~
flomo
System 7 was definitely slower on the most common hardware of the day (1MB
toaster macs). My college had entire labs of machines stuck on 6.0.8 for a
long time afterwards.

~~~
yuhong
Actually, I don't think System 7 could even run on 1MB Macs.

------
safeer
I think Tim O'Reilly's argument is pretty silly actually. Here's my response:
<http://bit.ly/v6Adhu> (re-printed below). \---

I understand what Tim is saying, but I disagree that it's time to start over.

With Mac OS X, Apple definitely seems to have begun heavily focusing on
feature development over refining existing UX. But the claim that successive
releases of OS X become more user-hostile and encourages more lock-in is a bit
of a stretch.

Apple has never developed for the power user, and they never should -- this is
part of what makes their products so great; their unrelenting focus on the
common case. In fact, complaining about a hidden library file for Mail.app
misses this point entirely. It's actually a wonderful feature, since the
common user is more likely to mess up their own mail library than to have a
need to move it between disks.

+Tim O'Reilly's second point is valid, though, the UX for emptying the trash
can definitely be improved. But again, is the common case deleting 400,000
files? Is the "delete whatever you can checkbox" too odd for a normal user to
understand? Let's take the mom example; if your mom emptied the trash after
deleting a file, would she want to know if it couldn't be emptied, or would
she be OK with it being emptied without her recently deleted file actually
being removed?

People can yell for a OS do-over all they want. The fact remains though: Apple
focuses on UX more than any other company I know. If that UX doesn't cater to
your particular needs and you'd rather have power-user flexibility and
features, even if it means less polish and more annoyances when dealing with
common tasks, use Linux or Windows. Or, better yet, just learn to use the
Terminal and you can have the best of both worlds.

------
dredmorbius
For an old (but still largely relevant) laundry list of things on Mac that
drive Linux fans nuts (and generally, back to Linux), there's a 2006 ORA
DevCenter article by Chromatic, "Switching Back". Both the column and comments
are still highly germane.

[http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/linux/2006/06/01/switching-
back...](http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/linux/2006/06/01/switching-
back.html?page=all)

------
ZipCordManiac
Apple should at least give people the option to put an older operating system
on a newer system. Similar to how PC vendors offer XP or W7. I tried to
install my Leopard family pack on a computer that shipped with snow leopard -
no dice. With the way things are, I'll never buy a new Mac, as I refuse to
"upgrade" to Lion.

~~~
pat2man
Apple has never done this and probably never will. Not having to support older
OS releases helps dedicate developer time to the new software.

------
ashishgandhi
Just to add, holding down the Option key while pressing it alters it behavior
to be a maximize button in most apps. Some apps (like Chrome) use the Shift
key to get this behavior instead.

I would like things to be more consistent. In fact, if I were in charge, I
would want this button to be a maximize button by _default_ , while using the
Option (i.e. Alt) key should _alter_ the behavior to the second _option_ which
is to resize to the best fit for window content.

But this may need debate since now we have fullscreen mode for apps in Lion.

------
miles_matthias
Deleting files and the GUI complaining that it's still in use has always been
a frustrating thing. Why hasn't anyone at least taken the next step of showing
what the user can do to delete the files? I've always resorted to opening
Terminal and using some sudo's and some -f's.

In regards to his question about future OSes, anyone think about a
browser/cloud based OS like ChromeOS or JoliCloud being able to save him?
These are the future of OSes so it would seem natural to look to them to
create that simpleness he's complaining about.

------
tobylane
Is it really called the maximise button? I was expecting the same as Windows
the first week, but I learnt it wasn't (meant to be) called maximise, I
stopped using it. A fill-screen button would be nice, but you just do it once
manually and it remembers.

Tim says the Library folder is hidden (power users would quickly change this,
and several other things), and that the trashing system (or any
copying/moving) is not as good as Windows. I do like W7's copy dialog, but
it's very wordy, nothing in OSX would be that wordy.

------
andrewcooke
i realise that people who are unhappy with osx are encouraged to move to
ubuntu, while those who are happy with ubuntu seem to be moving to mint. but i
just wanted to add that opensuse is still as solid as it ever was, and a new
release (12) is due out in 3 more days. it supports kde and gnome (you choose
on install via a single checkbox) and i have never understood why it's not
more popular in the states - it seems (to me) to hit the sweet spot of minimal
maintenance and maximum flexibility.

------
brindle
This isn't news, its just a random rant. I agree that as OS X adds complex
features we lose flexibility in other areas. Many of these are are not
frequently visited but its still annoying and unacceptable. Fortunately, if
Tim knows where to find these files and really wants to delete them, an "rm
-rf" from the offending directory would do the trick - I'd like to think that
99% of the people reading this forum know this. Ditching mail.app for GMail?
Seriously??

------
uptown
For me, the only problem I've encountered since installing Lion has been that
Tweetdeck is no longer usable. I experience some strange window-focus issue
where while that app is running, doing something entirely unrelated like
typing a URL in Chrome's address bar will cause a random application to jump
to the foreground. I've tried re-installing AIR, Tweetdeck ... though not
Lion. I have no idea how to solve this. It worked fine prior to the Lion
install.

------
mattyohe
I'll repost a comment I left:

Your first problem is that you started deleting stuff from a folder that Apple
now deems wise to hide. With all due respect, why on earth would you start
from the ~/Library folder? Why not delete these from the Mail client?

You can even "backup" from inside Mail.app. (Right click a folder > Export)
Also, if you really want the Library folder, you can just go to Finder > Go >
(Hold option) Library

There are real criticisms to be aired, this is not one of them.

------
alanh
"each successive release ... buggier"

Snow Leopard was more solid than Leopard. Lion followed Snow Leopard and does
admittedly have more bugs. A "streak" of one isn’t a streak at all.

------
code_duck
I started using OSX every day last year, after 12 years of Linux mixed with 5%
Windows. Verdict: it's nice, but I'm not blown away and I miss Linux for some
things.

~~~
cpeterso
What do you miss from Linux that is not available on OSX? MacPorts fills in
the gaps for missing GNU tools.

~~~
code_duck
MacPorts, brew and fink add up to a more complex, less reliable system than a
typical Linux vendors' repository. Currently my brew is broken and I can't
upgrade anything until I figure out why some obscure Gnome lib isn't
compiling... I have not had any sort of issue like that with Linux in the past
8 years when it comes to upgrading routiney used software.

OSX's command line utils are BSD style... so going between OSX and Linux
shells, I often end up with messages such as 'ls: -l: No such file or
directory' because I expected to be able to put flags anywhere in the
arguments.

Even between the vaunted Mac editors such as TextMate and Coda, I haven't
found a text editor I like as much as Kate.

There are various other issues I've struggled with, mainly relating to
installing and upgrading open source software. Projects simply expect that you
will be using Linux, and using this proprietary BSD offshoot is simply
inconvenient due to it's usual *nix differences.

Also, my own preferences and habits come into play. I like KDE, Gnome,
WindowMaker... being able to press ctrl-alt-Fkey and get a fullscreen
terminal... Gimp integrating with the window manager properly (to the extent
it does at all, sure)... knowing where my Flash LSOs are saved... and so on.

------
nchlswu
To me, Lion really cemented the fact that the end goal of Mac OS is to make an
invisible OS that requires zero tinkering just like iOS. Everyone should be
able to use it and no one should have to access the file system.

This transitional period poses a huge problem for Apple and looks to be the
cause of most complaints I've seen. What are they going to do about the power
users who were their early adopters? Is an 'admin' or 'power user' mode
appropriate?

------
daniel_iversen
I don't really know why people are so upset. I was a hardcore windows user and
I've been a Mac user now for 11 months and I love it! I don't think I will
ever go back to windows and to say that Mac is going off track and turning
into windows because of something this small is just crazy.. Short of
something like the iPad, OS X more than Windows is A step in the right
direction of how personal computing should be, it "just works"..

------
splicer
I think I'm going to go back to Snow Leopard tomorrow. I've been running Lion
for many months now, and I still can't stand it. The only reason I'm sticking
with OS X (rather than using Linux exclusively) is that I've purchased tons of
pricey software over the years (e.g. Logic Studio and Adobe CS4). I hope 10.8
ditches most of the retarded "features" Lion introduced, and reverts back to
the wicked HCI that Snow Leopard has.

------
saint-loup
I'm quite happy with Mac OS X, but there's one thing that really annoys me:
keyboard shortcuts. There's (almost) always one for what I want to do, but
it's often to complicated for the frequency of the task.

For instance, checking emails in mail.app is shift+command+N. Or changing the
presentation mode in iTunes or Preview is alt+command+[3-6]. Because of my
Azerty keyboard, it's actually shift+alt+command+[3-6].

Isn't one modifier key enough?

~~~
binbasti
Actually OS X is pretty consistent with keyboard shortcuts compared to other
OSes. It's even one of my favorite things about it.

That said, the checking mails example is a bad one, and moreover it used to be
the usual cmd-shift-R and they only introduced the odd new one in Lion.

Edit: sorry, misread your comment. But mine is still valid. Because of the
many keyboard shortcuts for the OS UI, it's only natural that you need more
modifier keys in the apps sometimes.

~~~
barend
Funny, one of my complaints about OSX compared to Windows is the (IMO)
lackluster implementation of keyboard shortcuts. Perhaps I just don't see it,
if so please enlighten me, but OSX's key bindings feel random and inconsistent
to me. To elaborate:

On Windows the Windows-key is the modifier key for global operating system
functions, things like lock screen (win-l), explorer (win-e) and projector
mode (win-p). Save for legacy bindings like CTRL-ESC, no global functions tie
to the other modifier keys. The CTRL and ALT modifiers are therefore free to
bind to functions of the currently active application. Some of these follow
standard conventions, like ALT-F4, CTRL-S. Aside from these, any application
is free to implement a keyboard scheme (and e.g. exploit symmetry) without
clashing with the operating system.

Contrast this to OSX where there appears to be no designated key for global
functions. A "naked" F11 triggers Expose, Ctrl-F2 puts focus in the menu bar,
Cmd-space pops up Spotlight, leaving just Opt as unbound. Like in Windows,
there are some conventions like CTRL-comma. There is no global key to open a
Finder window, although Spotlight alleviates much of the pain.

With no standard key for global functions, the potential for key clashes is
always there. Software that targets just OSX can avoid these, but cross-
platform applications that originated elsewhere are quite often prohibited
from using the same set of key bindings in every platform.

Finally, OSX lacks a key binding for the context menu (i.e. the equivalent of
SHIFT-F10 or the dedicated key on Windows systems) and mnemonic keys (the
underlined characters in menu items; OSX wants you to type the caption of the
desired menu item). The lack of mnemonic keys invalidates all my muscle memory
in Eclipse, I really miss them.

------
ljf
For any 'non-geek' friends (or just non-geek hacker news readers like me) try
JoliOS from www.jolicloud.com - it's Ubunto with a friendly HTML5 skin.

Easy install of apps, auto update of the OS, really easy to use, sync across
loads of computers, runs on any laptop or pc that can run XP, and is FAST.

I have it on a netbook and also as a dual boot on y pc, and I now rarely boot
to Windows.

------
todsul
At first I thought the same. But I'm slowly coming around. I'd still prefer
Snow Leopard with Lion's full-screen and mission control, but I trust Lion
will improve with age.

That said, I have my most productive dev environment now on Lion. The speed
with which I can move between apps write code, compile, test, etc, is actually
starting to push my laptop.

------
conradev
If you want something fixed, changed, or added, simply file a bug radar.

Apple does certain things for a reason. If you disagree with Apple's reasoning
behind something specific and want to change it, then change it yourself. Most
commenters complaining about OS X can count the number of grievances they have
with their fingers.

~~~
jiggy2011
How would one change things? I wasn't aware that OSX was open source.

------
jsz0
People throw the word hate around a bit lightly these days. These things seem
like minor annoyances.

------
astrodust
Someone should send him a copy of bash for beginners so he can learn how to
use the open command and rm -rf effectively.

When you use rm it does not put things in the trash, but removes them
directly. The open command can open anything, even "hidden" things.

------
pnathan
Pretty much everything I've read about Lion (and, ok, Windows 8) suggests
theuy is taking a hard right towards non-techies.

Meh. Give me Linux. In a few years, I'll be 100% Linux I figure.

------
jphackworth
I just wish you could speed up the animation for switching between workspaces.
Being used to Gnome some of the whizzier OS X animations just seem like a
waste of time.

------
ronnier
People who are feverishly pro Android and Mac OS X users are in a weird
situation. They are so anti iPhone that they are starting to turn on Mac OS X.

~~~
jodrellblank
Alternately, lots of people hurried to "*nix with a nice GUI" and are now
realising that it was just a stepping stone along the way to what Apple really
wanted to produce: "Apps with no OS you need to care about, or can get to".

Perhaps in 3 years Tim O'Reilly's post and commentary will be seen as early
cracks in a dissapointed technical community leaving OS X in larger and larger
numbers.

------
rickmb
Rants about OS X, but only bitches about the email client like a clueless 90's
Windows-user. Is there any reason to take this seriously?

------
zeynalov
My iPad and iPhone won't open the page. It makes them crashed. Only from PC it
can be read. Anyone with the same problem?

------
adrianscott
I primarily use whatever O/S my customers, users and site members
predominantly use. Not a bad rule of thumb.

------
emehrkay
His complaint does seem minor as does mine for Windows, can you scroll non-
active windows yet?

~~~
sorchr
Yes.

------
gbog
tl;dr enormous thread fight about shortcuts, most useless one I've seen here.

------
Jakob
If you don't like MacOS zooming and maximizing behavior, i recommend divvy [0]
it has a heavy price tag but fixes those issues completely.

[0] <http://mizage.com/#macdivvy>

~~~
DanBC
$14 USD for something which is standard in most Linux desktop environments?
(And is probably standard in Windows, but I can't remember.)

This is exactly what people complain about. Yes, this stuff can be done, but
you need to set a bunch of options via the command line (no problem, but
annoying if you have lots of stuff you want tweaked); then set a bunch of
program options; then install a bunch of apps (some of which need to be paid
for).

It is baffling to me why I need to install 3rd party software just to stop my
MacBookPro making the startup sound every time I turn it on. (The alternative
is to remember to mute the sound every time I turn it off.)

~~~
egypturnash
Why do you turn your Mac on and off all the time? Sleep works fine. Just close
the lid and stuff it in your bag, then open it up again. Yes I know it never
worked on Windows. It works on a Mac.* The only reason I reboot is for an OS
update or for the occasional installer that's too stupid to just launch the
services it just threw into the "start this at launch" system.

* well eeeevery now and then shit gets in the way and breaks it, upgrading in place to Lion introduced some heisenbugs with regards to using my Air closed with an external monitor, but they vanished after a reinstall. And this was the first time I'd had sleep problems in the entire decade I've been using Macs.

~~~
DanBC
Sleep has trouble with USB drives; sleep will just disconnect them uncleanly.
Data loss and corrupt discs is not a feature of something that I would call
"works fine".

There are other problems with sleep, but that's the most obvious.

------
bretthellman
I remember when a ticket to the movies was 5 cents.

------
dilap
To all of y'all complainging about zoom button behavior, I agree it is pretty
terrible, but! --there's an app for that. It's called "RightZoom". Works well.

------
hmart
I think is THE golden opportunity for Linux on the desktop. But the best
candidate - Ubuntu - also made terrible mistakes - Unity -.

------
dextorious
Well, I am really starting to hate Tim O' Reilly, too.

I remember a time when O'Reilly books were the golden standard for things like
Perl, Python et al. Nowadays it seems like they are producing crap, half-
written books by the ton.

Oreillynet was also, one time, one of the best places to go for nice,
informative articles and tutorials. Nowadays it's just an assortment of lame
blog entries and book promotions.

And don't let me get started on "Safari books online", a sub par reading
experience if I ever saw one.

~~~
primecoder
I feel this way about The Pragmatic Bookshelf...

------
suivix
I've used Windows most of my life, use Linux for work, but I LOVE my MacBook
Air.

~~~
barend
By virtue of its operating system?

