Anyone else disappointed in the direction of OS X?

I don't like the Windows UI but some things annoy me with the new OS X features. One thing they did was instead of fixing iOS to stop Safari refreshing pages at random, they introduced this annoyance into Safari for the desktop. You can be writing a forum post, go to another website to grab a link and then all of a sudden, Safari just flushes every single open page. You can disable it by turning off multi-process windows but it disables all the Safari extensions.

I also don't use Launchpad at all. I'd like to use it but it's just not integrated into the experience and I rely on the dock as I've always done.

Changing the Finder to "All My Files" by default was a move I don't understand. I can't see the purpose of that file view at all. I highly doubt that the Apple engineering team are opening their coding projects that way so why make it the default view?

I wouldn't say that I'm disappointed with OS X but I'd rather that they stopped adding features that are clearly detrimental to the user experience. Using Lion, I actually feel like I was more content with Snow Leopard and I shouldn't feel that way.

Things like Quicktime too. Why can't I do an edit in Quicktime X and export to ProRes? Why can't I do a 'save as self contained'? Why remove these great features from the latest versions of their software? Even on Mountain Lion, I'm going to have to install Quicktime Pro 7 but one day, it's not going to work.

The Quicktime frameworks should have all the export options that QT7 had. This way you wouldn't have to use Compressor for every FCPX export.

They've messed up Textedit too. If you open a .html file, make a change and save it, it renames the file to .txt without asking. Why is it making changes without my permission? Auto-save has very little benefit but TextEdit is also happy to auto-lock files that haven't been used in a while and prevent me saving files at random because of permission errors that are resolved by reopening TextEdit - that's Microsoft-level software.

There seems to be a motivation at Apple to keep adding features now without actually caring if they are practical. I don't like that trend. I do like some of the moves towards iOS because I love using iOS but I don't use iOS in a productive way. If I need to be productive, I have no choice but to go back to Mac OS. I'd rather see iOS allow me to be more productive than see Mac OS make me less productive.

I actually like the way we are headed. And i think apple is being real clever about the way the make the splice. I read your post, and other that your worry about 'the kiddy feel of ios app' I don't understand what you mean... Care to elaborate?

 

In what version? Does that show up in 10.8 DP 3.1? I still haven't updated to that yet…

 

 

And you're not.

I agree that All My Files makes no sense.  And well from my experience it's confusing to a lot of people.

 

I think Lion is getting better with the point updates.  But Mountain Lion is what Lion should have been in the first place.

 

Yeah, you're writing an e-mail, fullscreen, on a 2560x1440 screen. This isn't 1994. Screens aren't 800x600 anymore. I understand a desire to change that, and I actually know an incredible way to make it much better (it just requires multitouch), but that's not the way Mail was designed to be used. Next you'll be saying you still fullscreen your browser.

Not speaking for the person who posted this but if I wanted simple little apps I would use iOS. OSX is a desktop OS, not a mobile. My biggest fear is that Apple will eventually close of the Unix part of the OS, no terminal, no X11. Also discontinuing side loading of apps, forcing everyone to install their apps via iTunes, the next version of OSX is already showing signs of this future.

 

Not really.  In fact ML shows that installing apps from sources other than the Appstore will be supported for a long time.  If they were planning on making the only source of apps the Appstore, they wouldn't have bothered developing Gatekeeper.

Marvin your posts are spot on. They are actually exactly the same as my main issues...

 

Safari losing webpages is infuriating. I might have to switch back to Firefox. I have always liked Safari's UI but this bug is a killer! It happens to me, too in Snow 10.6.8 with Safari 5.1.5.

 

QT X is a disaster. They gutted the Export options. I wonder when they will add that back. I hope they do for Mountain Lion. But it would be nice if they released a QT XI with those back for Snow Leopard too. I am sure they won't, though. :/

 

My wife has Lion. I have used it plenty so I'm not talking out of my butt. For me, Snow Leopard is far more powerful in that is has key features that were removed (expose) and also the UI is better, for me anyhow.

 

One nice thing I read is that Expose is finally back in Mountain Lion! As it was in Snow. I hope Mountain Lion continues to evolve in a positive way before it's released. More color in the OS at least for icons would be nice. Perhaps an OPTION (like choosing "Aqua" or "Grey" in Appearnce" would be nice that had a more far-reaching impact, e.g. on icons in sidebars.

 

In what fashion was it taken away in Lion?

The part where it worked. All the windows are hidden in Lion. Like Windows 7. You can't SEE them.

 

A bit of an improvement could possibly be grouping apps together and then when you click them they explode into a group of windows for that application. However, I'd still like a global Exposé option. I'm glad it's back.

 

I think the reason a lot of people have reservations with Lion is until recently Apple was ADDING features, not taking them away. It has started to dumb down the OS.  I am all for options. Simple Finder, sure fine, make it an option. But now it looks like it's iOS X by default in Lion. And the GUI is increasingly monotonic and, well, flat. I really like the transparent "black" overlays like the UI of QT, actually. I am not saying all new things in OS X updates, even in ML or Lion are bad. But the overall feeling for me and apparently many others is that starting in Lion, we get one or two nice things, and a bunch more steps backward, or loss of features outright. From their "streamlining" mobilme, to losing Expose and Spaces, to stunting support for ipv6, to neutering QT X Pro, to removing features arbitrarily like Rosetta (why not just leave it there, and with a disclaimer saying it will not be updated anymore nor supported, and leave as an unsupported features, would that really have killed Apple, at least for another year or two?)...And a lot of additions, too are annoying. Mail and iCal and Address Book continue to get goofier and uglier. 

 

I love Snow Leopard, though. I'm happy with my MBP I've beefed up with RAM and an SSD and I'll wait and see how Mountain Lion comes out. I hope they take some feedback from the user reception of Lion. It looks hopeful in that they already have, with adding Exposé back in the latest ML preview.

 

What are your thoughts? Tallest Skil are there any things in Snow Leopard you like better than in Lion/ML?

Edited by Aquatic - 5/10/12 at 5:36pm

Funny you brought up Gatekeeper up because that is one of my biggest concerns. Thats why I said what I did, I'm afraid it's a dry run to see how many people actually go outside of iTunes to install programs. If the number turns out to be low, then comes the biggo ax flying down. I'm not saying it's going to happen, it's just my biggest fear. Plus I really don't want Gatekeeper to even be present on my system and I will find a way to uninstall or deactivate it. I don't need my system telling me that installing something could be dangerous to my computer. Why after 12 years of OSX is it now a problem, its not, it's this pussification or nuetering the complete control from the user that seems to be the trend now with modern consumer OS's. Will I ever type, "sudo rm -rf /" in my terminal one evening because I'm tired of looking at it, probably not but I still want that power when I need it. OSX and Solaris are my two favorite OS's because they are so powerful and open. I know Apple has had some great luck with iOS because it's simple and elegant but please Apple leave your mobile OS seperate from your desktop.

 

Yeah, it's called click the radio button.

 

Yay, oh thank god. That was really freaking me out. I wasnt looking forward to a popup everytime I wanted to install a program. Where did you find that article from?

 

Article? It's just in System Preferences/Security & Privacy. 

Or at least it will be when Mountain Lion comes out.

Would you know much money Apple charges for a app certificate? Quite the racket their building, . What about program that are installed via the command line, there is no way for the system to detect those. This is going to be interesting and I wonder if Apple is keeping track of your apps that are installed via iTunes or slide loaded. It might be time to block out going traffic to Apple.

Will it still popup and say something like, "You are installing a application that doesn't have a certificate that has been blessed by the Apple Pope, are you sure you don't want to continue? You could possibly hurt your computer or this program might even kidnap a family member." "I see you've clicked Yes, may god have mercy on your soul you atheist, where's your daughter?".

 

Took a while… all of my applications are grandfathered… If you're downloading it, you get the standard download popup the first time, but you never get a warning afterward.

Great news, thank you.