Cryptic Names and Generic Icons in Library
My biggest current annoyance with OS X pertains to Apple's use of cryptically named files and generic icons in the Library folders. Users have to, at certain times, manipulate the files that are found in the Libraries. And I'm a firm believer that most objects the user will have contact with should be user friendly -- named appropriately and wearing a custom icon. (Now I'll leave the System Library out of this discussion, since users don't have to go in there.) Take a look at the folders found in a user's home Library -- all of the folders contained therein are generic. Is it too much to ask to have some icons to go on those folders? It wasn't too difficult for Apple to do it for the classic Mac OS. And then we have things like .plist files. These are preferences files, and is it so much to ask to have a standard .plist icon like the classic Mac OS did for preferences? It's simply user-unfriendly, bad UI to have all of these generic icons and cryptically named files. It certainly doesn't encourage third party developers to put any extra work into their support files since Apple doesn't seem to care about its own. We're coming to the fourth major iteration of OS X; I imagine there's little improvement in Panther. It seems as if we've gone back in time to the days of System 6 in this regard, which had a disorganized System Folder full of generic icons. Apple spends so much time designing icons for their applications, but they can't put even a little work to make the Library a less intimidating place. And that's unfortunate.
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