What OS X limitations still exist?

luca · June 11, 2002 8:26PM

I am aware that OS X has been REALLY slow to get to the "usable" point, where it won't give you a headache all the time. I suppose, by now, it's usable, but it still has limitations. It seems as if there are many very model-specific problems that were introduced by 10.1.5 (like if you use this specific monitor with this specific graphics card at this particular resolution, something won't work). So what large, broad-based problems and limitations still exist?

milekno77 · June 11, 2002 9:41PM

General limitations of os X...where to begin

First is speed. I suppose jaguar will fix this, but this OS is not fast. Maybe 'perceived speed' that is a fault of quartz.

Second -- web browsers. IE sucks. Chimera is nice, but far from finished. Omniweb is really nice, but is just not quite there yet either.

Third -- peripheral support. Printing is pretty weak right now. Scanner support is bad. Game controller support doesn't exist. CDRW support is good, but there are a lot of drivers that need to be written for other things.

Finally, applications are still a weakness. The major ones exist, but the ones i use a lot (adobe suite, office) don't really seem to do anything spectacular except run in X. Aside from the relativly minor things in office, I don't see a lot of advances for X apps. And of course less important apps don't yet exist for X.

Thats my 4 cents.

speechgod · June 11, 2002 10:20PM

USB scanners and games are the weakest links in the OS X chain.

Goodbye! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

(Just kiddin')

luca · June 12, 2002 12:04AM

The best way to name this topic would be "What would you like added to OS X?" Thanks for the responses. So mostly, drivers and speed are the problems. The drivers will work themselves out, provided certain companies and/or Apple bites the bullet and writes them (I don't know who actually writes them). I hope Quartz Extreme fixes the speed problem. My brother has X on his Rev. B Bondi iMac, and it runs, but it's very slow. 10.1.5's Rage Pro support helps, but it's still obviously slow. I'll stick with OS 9 until I get a fast, new computer.

rogue27 · June 12, 2002 12:09AM

I want:

Speed

Java 1.4

A better IE

Longer battery life

Scan directly to iPhoto and iPhoto should support many scanners like iTunes supports many CD burners.

Quicktime Playlists. iTunes has them. Windows Media Player has them. Why not Quicktime? It's great if you want to watch a collection of music videos on your computer.

[ 06-12-2002: Message edited by: rogue27 ]

ghost_user_name · June 12, 2002 12:46AM

[quote]Originally posted by rogue27:

I want:

Quicktime Playlists. iTunes has them. Windows Media Player has them. Why not Quicktime? It's great if you want to watch a collection of music videos on your computer.

[ 06-12-2002: Message edited by: rogue27 ]<hr></blockquote>

Add your collection of music videos to your "favorites." True playlists would probably make QT6 too much like iTunes.

trevorm · June 12, 2002 6:37AM

is USB Print Sharing available with Jaguar.. I see CUPS but no USB??? (I may not be looking hard enough)

ibrowse · June 12, 2002 1:15PM

[quote]Originally posted by rogue27:

Quicktime Playlists. iTunes has them. Windows Media Player has them. Why not Quicktime?<hr></blockquote>

QT6 has favorites, that's almost a playlist.

chris cuilla · June 12, 2002 3:58PM

[quote]Originally posted by rogue27:



Scan directly to iPhoto and iPhoto should support many scanners like iTunes supports many CD burners.

<hr></blockquote>

This (as well as directly burning a CD from iPhoto) seems like a "duh!" feature. Why is it missing? Just not quite ready? You KNOW Apple has this internally. I mean they are not stupid (are they?) I suspect you'll see it in iPhoto 1.2...perhaps at MWNY. Just having full scanning support will get Steve a standing ovation (sad as that is!)

Also...is Apple's iPhoto plug-in API public yet? This would be a great opening for 3rd parties to jack into iPhoto. This seems to have much more potential than even iTunes plug-ins.

amorph · June 12, 2002 4:08PM

[quote]Originally posted by trevorM:

is USB Print Sharing available with Jaguar.. I see CUPS but no USB??? (I may not be looking hard enough)

<hr></blockquote>

CUPS enables USB printer sharing, among many, many other things.

buonrotto · June 12, 2002 4:20PM

[quote]Originally posted by Chris Cuilla:

Also...is Apple's iPhoto plug-in API public yet? This would be a great opening for 3rd parties to jack into iPhoto. This seems to have much more potential than even iTunes plug-ins.<hr></blockquote>

There are already thirdiparty plug-ins to export from iPhoto, but I think you mean editing tools. I think this would be a great idea but the interface would have to change to accomodate more of them in that "toolbar" area.

I also have a hard time knowing where to begin or end on this topic. There's lot of big ideas and little details I would like to see fixed, improved, considered or are too far-out to think of as a limitation per se.

I've been harping on this topic recently: I think Apple's help system is a limitation.

syn · June 12, 2002 4:31PM

the most glaring omission imho is the lack of a journaling fs, and proper meta-data. The rest will come with Jaguar.

torifile · June 12, 2002 4:44PM

What are OS X's limitations? Not many, and those that remain will cease to exist after Jag.

What are the applications limitations? Not relevant to OS X. iPhoto scanning support, Adobe redraw problems, Office flakiness, etc, etc, are problematic. They are application specific problems(with the exception of the redraw problems. They might OS X's fault. Who knows?). Now if you want to go into detail on how XX application can improve, fine, but don't malign OS X for something that's not it's problem.

That said, speed, speed, speed. Power management options. Better printing/driver support. That's about it. I've only got gripes about the first two since most of my hardware is relatively new.

[ 06-12-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]

spotbug · June 12, 2002 6:25PM

My QPS USB Que! Drive still does not work in OS X. Even with the "working" driver installed.

dstranathan · June 12, 2002 7:36PM

Here's the real reason I don't use OS X in a desktop production workflow:

1) Quark Xpress (F*CK QUARK, INC)

2) Outlook Exchange client (Apple and M$ are silent)

3) Distiller (Adobe, whats up?)

4) Transmit needs to be more stable (minor issue)

5) Faster web browser (duh)

6) Finder speed-ups (Jaguar)

7) CDFS file support (my new pet peeve!)

8) MT-Newswatcher is buggy as hell (I'm grumpy, OK?)

-------------------------------------

Don't give me that "It will run in Classic mode" crap. As much as I marvel at the blue box technology, there ain't no way Im moving my entire company to OS X , training them on X, and THEN explaining the concept of running 9 in X..no way. As a network admin/IS guy, I have way to much work to do. I won't move 50 users to OS X only to have to run 2 OS's! I will move my users to OS X because OS X is better than 9. 'Nuff said

------------------------------------------------

OK, now for the good news:

I will be moving my 2 AppleShare IP servers to OS X this summer (XServes maybe) . I'll wait for Jaguar.

I will move my FMP Database server to X this summer. (on OS 9 now)

I already run an OS X SAMBA server for my Windows clients internally. I love this stuff!!!!

I have a OS X FTP server online. Runs great.

I have an OS X Apache server online. Runs great. Runs PHP 4 too...

I have an OS X MySQL server online. Runs great. Still tweeking this thing...

neutrino23 · June 12, 2002 9:21PM

1. USB printer sharing (coming)

2. Better AppleScript support - Finder is not yet recordable.

3. Energy Saver CP needs to support scheduled sleep and wake functions.

4. Scanner support (basically a responsibility of the vendors but it is curious that they are all so late to the party)

5. Better Open and Save dialogs. Something like Action Files from Power On software in OS 9 would be great.

6. Better Samba support out of the box.

bryan fury · June 13, 2002 12:12AM

I agree with Luca

Im waiting until X is really fast , then im gonna upgrade to a fast desktop..

Only prob. - how long will this take?

1-2 years........

ghost_user_name · June 13, 2002 1:22AM

I sometimes feel like I"m the only person that ever used them. But...

Labels

I can't even begin to convey just how incredibly helpful labels were in Mac OS 9.

dstranathan · June 13, 2002 8:01AM

Lables!

/me smacks myself on the forehead

Yes, Labels! I use 'em too! Right now all my fave Wolfenstein maps are blue and the maps I hate are orange!

imac david · June 14, 2002 2:30AM

Audio support for line in and line out.

Messing about in OS9 to achive that with USB converters is a pain.

David

evo · June 14, 2002 3:15AM

The Dock still sucks. It just doesn't cut it as an all-in-one icon plop zone. Window management in X still sucks. If I have a bunch of windows open, and minimize them, it's hard to tell what is what with those tiny thumbnails on the Dock (that don't dynamically update.. tsk tsk). The app icon on top of the window thumbnail in Jaguar will help, but sheesh, it really is hard to keep your windows organized when you have 5 apps open.

There isn't a rock-solid, X-savvy browser yet. Hopefully the rumors about Apple releasing their own (iWeb) are true.

Aqua is still painfully bright white, and the pinstripes are still annoying. Is Apple acknowledging this by releasing a plethora of brushed metal apps? The controversial Aqua has not seen any cosmetic changes since its intro, where as just about every other part of OS X has.

What OS X limitations still exist?

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