10 Things I hate about OS X

neruda

I've read a couple of Letterman-top-ten-like articles listing things that people hate about OS X.

http://www.informit.com/articles/art...&seqNum=1&rl=1

www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=6183



These articles sometimes list "flaws" which are wholly based on personal preferences or the author complains about a "missing" functionally which is not actually missing but they are not aware of (see this for a perfect example

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...hreadid=64140.



What do you hate about OS X?



I really don't "hate" anything about OS X ("best operating system ever"), but here are two things I dislike:



1. Finder view: when you change view to list, column, or icon in one location the preference does not carry over to other folders (ie, choose list view in the desktop and the documents folder does not change to list view). I have dozens of folders and the view for each one is different. Is there any way to make the finder stick to one option across all folders once you change it (so that if I choose Icon view on the desktop all other folders will also be displayed in Icon view)?



2. 10.4.6 and the spinning beach ball: I didn't think it was possible, but since updating to 10.4.6 the beach ball has gotten more annoying (Powerbook 1.67ghz). Sometimes the beachball stops spinning and freezes (maybe the beachball needs its own beachball with this update). Lovely. Can't wait to get that MacBook in October.



Also, sometimes the menus for two different applications are displayed at the same time on the menu bar (this never happened before this update).

sc_markt

I hate the following things about OS X:



1) Lable don't shade folders like they use to in classic.

2) I find the dock useless. I wish Apple (or some 3rd party developer) would add a feature similar to taskmenubar. I'd much prefer switching (or switching-hiding) between apps using one hand and one or two clicks of the mouse.

3) I wish there was a way for OS X to tell you when someone has entered your computer via one of its ports (or by some other network connection).

4) I also wish you could see and examine what your computer was sending out via a modem or other network connection.



I have a few other things I wish were different but these are the ones that annoy me the most.



- Mark

neruda

Quote:

Originally posted by sc_markt

I hate the following things about OS X:



4) I also wish you could see and examine what your computer was sending out via a modem or other network connection.



I have a few other things I wish were different but these are the ones that annoy me the most.



- Mark

Try Little Snitch. Some people swear by it.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17642

ipodandimac

OS X is by no means perfect, but I can think of over 100,000 reasons I hate Windows and they all fall under one category.

kali

I hate the Dock.

gene clean

The Finder. It's general slowness. The perceived slowness and the little animations that are supposed to entertain me while there's a process in the background that is being executed.



The Finder. The slow file navigation. The piss-poor USB driver. The piss-piss-poor FireWire support. The fact that I can't turn off the so-called eye candy.



The Finder. Did I mention the Finder?

progmac

Quote:

Originally posted by sc_markt

I hate the following things about OS X:



1) Lable don't shade folders like they use to in classic.





- Mark

this little doo-dad adds said functionality:



http://bronsonbeta.com/heyfolders/

neruda

Quote:

Originally posted by ipodandimac

OS X is by no means perfect, but I can think of over 100,000 reasons I hate Windows and they all fall under one category.

Me too. OS X has some minor things I dislike, but I would NEVER go back to Windows XP. Never.

danosaur

I mentioned this in another thread:



One small thing that annoys me about OS X is the Aqua task bar. The way it animates looks really pretty but its tricky too. Sometimes - just as an optical illusion - when it is actually standing still, it looks like its slowly moving forward.



A few times I've held my cursor there for a minute to see if it had moved.

chucker

Quote:

Originally posted by Danosaur

One small thing that annoys me about OS X is the Aqua task bar. The way it animates looks really pretty but its tricky too. Sometimes - just as an optical illusion - when it is actually standing still, it looks like its slowly moving forward.

The what?



The Dock doesn't animate. The menu bar doesn't any made. Scroll bars don't animate.



I can only assume that you mean progress bars, but that doesn't seem to make sense?

gregmightdothat

Quote:

Originally posted by Danosaur

I mentioned this in another thread:



One small thing that annoys me about OS X is the Aqua task bar. The way it animates looks really pretty but its tricky too. Sometimes - just as an optical illusion - when it is actually standing still, it looks like its slowly moving forward.



A few times I've held my cursor there for a minute to see if it had moved.

What's a task bar?

dac0nvu

I do have one "peeve".



Example: You have two apps open side by side...say, Safari and iPhoto. To navigate a link on the web you single click. In iPhoto, to change from one album to another, you single click. Now you have both apps open side by side. But if you are on iPhoto (active app) and you click a link in Safari (inactive app), the click doesn't navigate to the link, it makes Safari the active app. You then have to click a second time to navigate the link.....and vice versa. From my (very limited) experience with the Mac, this seems consistent with all the apps. You have to click once to make an open app active, then a second click to do what you wanted to do.



-DJ

chucker

Quote:

Originally posted by dac0nvu

I do have one "peeve".



Example: You have two apps open side by side...say, Safari and iPhoto. To navigate a link on the web you single click. In iPhoto, to change from one album to another, you single click. Now you have both apps open side by side. But if you are on iPhoto (active app) and you click a link in Safari (inactive app), the click doesn't navigate to the link, it makes Safari the active app. You then have to click a second time to navigate the link.....and vice versa. From my (very limited) experience with the Mac, this seems consistent with all the apps. You have to click once to make an open app active, then a second click to do what you wanted to do.



-DJ

The behaviour you want is called click-through. John Gruber wrote about it extensively not once, but twice.

curiousuburb

And in most cases, such as with Safari open behind an active Finder window, you can CMD-click or right click and select from contextual menu and links will open in New Tabs in Safari without making it the foreground app. Works fine.



So a variant of click-through does work. Just not with single or left click.

dac0nvu

Thanks for the articles and suggestions. Can't say I agree with the articles, but it does explain things.

kim kap sol

Quote:

Originally posted by dac0nvu

Thanks for the articles and suggestions. Can't say I agree with the articles, but it does explain things.

What if you accidently clicked on a "blow computer up" button within an inactive window? Would you agree with the article then?



I think the thing that makes me cry the most is the window elements (edit: used the word widget earlier but to remove any confusion, I'm gonna use 'window elements') that do allow click-throughs...such as the close button...and the apps that don't at least warn you that there are tabs or partially filled forms (yes, I'm looking at you, Safari).



Perhaps a balanced solution would be the ability for developers to tag elements inside windows as 'destructive' and 'non-destructive'...and the 'destructive' elements would not allow click-throughs. That would be pretty sweet but it's not ever gonna happen in the next 4 years. But if it does, I'll give you all 5000 bucks. Sweet deal, eh?

dac0nvu

Quote:

Originally posted by kim kap sol

What if you accidently clicked on a "blow computer up" button within an inactive window? Would you agree with the article then?

Um, no.



Because, being *used* to click-through, I know that what I click on will work. I'm not talking about willy-nilly thowing the mouse around and clicking, I'm talking about heading for a background widget/control/whatever and clicking on it. My meaning was, (coming from all my life as a PC user and finally making the switch to a Mac), that I find it a little frustrating not having this "feature"...frustrating, just like it seems to longtime Mac users when they click on a background app and it actually *does* click-through.



Whether it's due to inconsistent behaviour in an OS or totally switching from one OS to another, the frustration comes from things not working as you expected. I'm all for having click-through as a configurable option.



I *love* my brand new, first Mac. And I'm surely not about to go back to a PC just because of a little thing (aka, "peeve") like click-though.

gene clean

Quote:

Originally posted by Chucker

The what?



The Dock doesn't animate. The menu bar doesn't any made. Scroll bars don't animate.

He probably means the magnifications of icons and/or the bouncing of icons when launched or when they want the users attention.

chucker

Quote:

Originally posted by Gene Clean

He probably means the magnifications of icons and/or the bouncing of icons when launched or when they want the users attention.

Oh.



But then, how does:

Quote:

Sometimes - just as an optical illusion - when it is actually standing still, it looks like its slowly moving forward.

Fit in?

placebo

1. You can't move or rename files in Save dialogue boxes.

2. Dragging a file into a Save or Open dialogue box to move the view to that folder works inconsistently.

neruda

Here's another one:



The computer goes to sleep or logs out when ever I'm doing something which takes a long time, thereby interrupting what I'm doing. Examples: downloading large files or rendering Final Cut Pro projects (I usually leave the computer for awhile and come back). This happens even though I've turned off the screesaver, set the "put computer to sleep" and "put screen to sleep" to never. Is pressing the keyboard keys the only way the OS knows that the computer is being used? I know that there are always processes running even when nothing is being done by a user, but why can't the OS tell that you are rendering or downloading so that the the computer is not shut down or put to sleep after long periods without keystrokes?



Don't know if this something peculiar to my machine or if this is an OS X thing, but I don't remember this happening with XP.