Mac OS X is not user friendly

gxsaurav · 08-02-2009, 12:31 AM

Didn't know where else to put it. Found through Digg

Quote:

Things OS X Cannot Do

Right Click to Create Text Files: You have to open TextEdit, create a file, navigate to the right folder, and save as...just to create a stupid file. There is a plugin, but it doesn't work that well. Note: textClipping is NOT a solution. See my comment below.

Set a picture as background: You certainly cannot select a picture in finder to set it as background. No app in OS X lets you do that. You have to use go through a long series of clicks in desktop background settings and manually find your file. The only other way is to open your image file in firefox and set as background. Maybe iPhoto can do it, but it's useless for pictures that are not photos. Horrible design.

Choose entire folders to be wallpapers: You can add a folder, but SUBFOLDERS ARE NOT INCLUDED. What good does that do??? Again, iPhoto is useless for anything but photos, so unless all your wallpapers are photos, don't expect iPhoto to be a solution.

Merging folders: When you copy a folder, if the new location contains a folder of the same name, there is no way to merge the folders. Instead, Finder overwrites the original folder with the new one. All files in the original folder are lost. The only way to get around this is to use the unix mv command....very user unfriendly design.

Basic Things You Need Plugins For:

* Uninstall: Just dragging the application to trash doesn't delete the preference files associated with it.

* Preventing your computer from going to sleep when you close the lid.

* Resize your window from other than the bottom right corner.

* Open Terminal in any folder from finder.

* There is No Stereo Mix. Even with Soundflower, it's impossible to both redirect sound
and play them.

* Cannot turn off mouse acceleration. You need to buy software like USB Overdrive.

Trash is Broken

Cannot selectively delete trash: There is no way to delete one or several items in trash at a time. (useful when you want to double check the items one at a time before you actually delete them). You can only empty all the trash at once.

Cannot restore trash: If you accidentally moved something to trash by accident, there is no option to restore the file to its original location. You have to remember where it was. Why do you even need trash if you can't even restore what you deleted to where it was?

Cannot disable trash: Even though trash sucks so much, there is no way to disable
it. There is no way to delete files directly without moving to trash in finder's GUI.

Finder is Broken

There is no cut: There is no "cut" option like in all other OS. So to move a file you have navigate to the destination in a separate Finder window and drag to it, or drag while navigating in the same Finder window through many folders and hope you don't miss.

Can't calculate total size: When you select some files in a folder and right click -> Get Info to find the total size, Finder displays a box for EACH item with the individual sizes. Update: Cmd-Alt-I. Lets you do that. Hmmmm 3 keystrokes, undocumented, and no way to use mouse to do something this common. Great UI Design....

That's not what I want. I don't want to manually add up the file sizes.

Bad selection of shortcuts: Enter is rename, Command-O is open. Inefficient. The action that you do more requires more keystrokes. What kind of files are renamed more than opened?

Can't do quick keyboard navigation because you can't press enter to go into a subfolder.

More bad selection of shortcuts: Backspace should be move up a level in finder, not back. Moving up a level is used more often. Having to press 2 keys for it (cmd-up) is dumb.

Hard to rename files anyway: You cannot rename files in succession. In windows, you would press F2, rename, tab to the next file, rename... etc. In Finder, you have to: enter, name, enter, downarrow, enter, name, enter...etc.

Even harder to mass rename: There is no way select all files, rename them, and have finder append a number after each file like in Vista. Such a simple task shouldn't require automator.

Limited icon size: In icon view, the largest icon size is 128x128 (except in search mode), useless for previewing documents and image files. Yes, there is quicklook, but what if you want to preview multiple files at a time?

Hard to change icon size: It's even harder to change the icon size. You have to go to view options, which requires many clicks or Cmd-J. But the fact that you need to go to a preference dialog to change icon size shows the UI is pretty limited. (except in search mode, where there is a scroll bar to dynamically change size.).

Bad Spacing: The spaces between icons are too big. If you reduce the spacing (In view options again), the
filenames are unnecessarily truncated.

Hard to view metadata: Most views don't show file metadata (size, dimensions, created..etc). Only column view and search mode's icon view have them.

Column view has problems: Let's say you're previewing through a bunch of images in quicklook and deleting the unwanted ones. (so you're pressing down arrow for next file)
When you press cmd-backspace to delete one file, the focus is BACK TO THE PARENT FOLDER. You have to remember and manually navigate to where you left off. It could be
1000 files...

File transfers don't display transfer rate

Cluttered list view: You can easily clutter up the list view by expanding too many folders. There is no way to automatically collapse all of them. You're stuck with a messed up view.

Sorting: Folders
are not always at the top when arranging by kind in list view. Need to
edit a system file to achieve this. Even if the folders happen to be on
top when you sort by kind, you cannot sort by an additional column.

Spotlight sucks

No customization: There are only 3 columns in spotlight search list view. So hard to find information about these files.

No customization: Cannot choose specific extensions or sizes to include/exclude from index. Only a limited preset of types.

Cannot search while indexing: And indexing takes forever.

Bad Calculator Syntax: 2^3 doesn't work. It has to be pow(2,3). I think that's the syntax
for C? Well I shouldn't have to deal with it.

Bad Navigation

No single key delete: It's cmd-backspace. Delete should be more accessible.

Tabs only cycle over text boxes, not buttons or check boxes.

Cannot close property/option dialogs with cmd-w: Inconsistent with other Finder windows.

No consistent shortcut to switch tabs: Firefox, terminal, adium..all have different shortcuts for those. Textmate doesn't even have a shortcut. No shortcut for tabs in preference dialogs, either.

Two ways to press a button: Enter = press highlighted/default button. Space = press bordered button. Confusing. Why can't I use tab or arrow keys to move the highlight?

Smart folder is actually a file: This means you cannot navigate into it in any application other than Finder.

Waste of Screen Space

Most applications take up too much vertical resolution: Why can't they have smaller icons? You cannot ``Shrink'' some of them either. For example... Safari.

Dock takes up too much space: If it's big, it takes up too much space. If it's small, it's impossible to tell one application from another, especially for minimized windows.

Slow unhide: Since it takes up so much space to be usable, I want to hide it. But the there is a long delay to unhide when you hover your mouse in the right place. Not customizable.

Finder again: List view (and other views) take the same space to display less files than Vista Explorer, even when the font size is 8.

Can't hide menu bar: There is no default way to hide the top menu bar to save space. (Many apps don't need a menu) You can use presentMyApps. But the keyboard shortcut to launch spotlight no longer works when the menu bar is hidden.

Window Management (see my other post)

No Show Desktop: The way Expose does it leaves parts of the windows on the screen until you undo it.

No option to show windows side by side: You have to manually move and resize the windows, which is hard because you can only resize from the bottom right corner.

Can't open another window for the same app with mouse: You can do cmd-N or cmd-T all you want. But there is no consistent place to open a new window with MOUSE. (Clicking on the icon in the dock only selects the app)

Expose doesn't include minimized windows: So it's useless for showing ALL open windows. You have to check the minimized ones manually.

Hide and Minimize: So an application can be in 4 states. Closed, Open with windows showing, open with no window showing, and open with some windows minimized. If you forgot about that, you'll probably do cmd-Q on the app to close it.

Separate minimized icons: Logically, windows belonging to an app shouldn't be shown separately from the app's dock icon.

Hard to cycle between windows: Using Expose requires an extra click (and it doesn't show minimized windows) Cmd-Tab switches between applications. Who needs to do that if you application doesn't have a window open? Cmd- ~ is limited to windows of the same application. Witcher is a third-party software that enables per window switching. It's no longer freeware. (And it didn't work that well for me)

The Plus Button: 1) There is no keyboard shortcut for it. 2)Sometimes it's useful, but other times the app can't judge the proper size. It's mostly inconsistent. Firefox just uses it to maximize.

You Need Maximize: Just having the plus button won't do. On a low resolution macbook screen, a "minimal proper size" is almost the full screen anyway, you can't do much with the space left. So why not take up the whole screen?

Video Players

There are several video players in OS X. Quicktime comes with OS X. The rest you have
to download yourself.

Quicktime: Not enough codecs by default. Bad interface, can't fullscreen unless you pay.

Niceplayer/Perian: Has a nice, minimal UI. Perian codec can't seek 720p videos without a long lag. Can't play 1080p videos smoothly (h264).

Movist: Same as above

VLC: Same as above, except with an ugly UI. Often crashes when seeking in videos.

MPlayer OSX Extended: Can seek all videos fast. Cannot play 1080p smoothly.

Plex: The only player that can play 1080p smoothly. It's a media center, not player. Horrible controls, low audio. You definitely don't want to use it for anything other than 1080p.

The KMPlayer: The best player ever. Plays 1080p smoothly. Fast seeking, Beautiful and efficient UI, excellent support of subtitles and keyboard shortcuts. Not available for OS X. (Don't even think about running it in VMware. It won't help you).

Documents/Pictures/PDFs

Preview: There is no Next or Previous!. So you can't go through a folder of pictures in Finder! Quicklook is not a asolution. As soon as you click on somewhere else or another, unrelated file, it disappears or changes.

Also, there is no way to use the mouse scroll to zoom the document you're viewing. You either have to keep clicking the Zoom button or keep pressing a 3 key shortcut, and keep switching to the panning tool.

Editing Pictures: There is no good free painting app. Seashore is not as good as Paint.net for windows. Gimp looks ugly on OS X and is overkill.

Problems with other default Apps

Safari: No way to open last (accidentally) closed tab (without plugin). I'm not talking about sessions. With multiple windows, you cannot drag a window into another Safari window as a tab unless the window you're dragging is also a tab. This is minor, but Google Chrome can do it.

iTunes: Takes any music file you have into its library. You have to use another player if you just want to test listen. (as a workaround, you can delete the file from library afterwards, but it's ugly).

iTunes has a feature to organize your music files based on metatags. Like anything Apple, it's not customizable. They always take the path of artist/album/songtitle. What if I want genre/composer/album/songtitle? It's also very hard to transfer your iTunes library to another player.

Photo Booth: There is no way to turn off the flashes and clicks when you take pictures. It gets annoying. It's even more ridiculous when what you're taking is not a self portrait. (Correction: Press Option for no countdown, Shift for no flash, can be combined)

iPhoto: More annoying than helpful for non-Photos. Also cannot create smart folders
based on picture resolution.

Address Book: You need an iPhone/iPod to sync Google Contacts with Address Book, unless you do a workaround. I don't see the point.

Other Problems

QuickLook: No easy way to specify filetypes for quicklook. eg. PHP is a PLAINTEXT
file. It should work in Quicklook.

No keyboard shortcut for Fast User Switching like in Windows-L for XP/Vista/Win7. It's useful when you're leaving your computer and want to lock it quickly.

External Keyboard: Function key mapping (Cmd, Ctrl, Alt..etc) doesn't work very well on non-Apple keyboards. Sometimes right functions keys don't work. Sometimes they mess up the laptop keyboard. There is also no way to emulate the FN key on non-Apple keyboard.

Firefox/Safari Bookmarks: Middle clicking your bookmarks in the menu bar in Firefox or Safari does not open the link in a new tab.

Boot Camp is Crippled

Hard to right click with touchpad on windows.

2 finger scroll is choppy.

No middle click for touchpad.

No tapping for touchpad.

Cannot disable touchpad while mouse is present.

After I removed bootcamp partition, I couldn't create another one without reformat. (tried repair, single user mode disk fix, defrag..etc) Doesn't happen a lot, but once is bad enough.

Hardware

If you don't want OS X, there is no reason to get the hardware.

One Button Touchpad: no longer a problem for newer glass pads, but very annoying if you do have it.

Bad LCD Screen: My Macbook's LCD has worse viewing angles than my $600 Lenovo NON-Thinkpad, from over a year ago. Friend with Macbook Pro has similar experience.

Low Resolution for the Screen Size: 1280x800 for 13.3" is semi-acceptable, 1440x900 for 15.4" is not! It should be at least 1680x1050, preferrably 1920x1200. If PC laptops can do it, why can't Macs? (Yes, some PCs have even lower resolutions, but they don't cost $2000). I know some people don't need such high resolution. This doesn't mean you shouldn't have the option of having it.

Only 2 USB Ports: Even netbooks have 3.

Firewire is useless: unless you're doing high end video editing. OK, so new Macbooks got rid of firewire, but they STILL ONLY HAVE 2 USB PORTS!!!

No Microphone Port: The microphone port on the Macbook is a lie. It's an unamplified Line-in port. You cannot expect to plug in a microphone and have it work.

Cannot Boot From USB Drive.

With All These Problems...

Do you really want a Mac? The only reason you should use Mac is if you're a rails programmer and can't live without TextMate. Or if you need the Unix shell and cygwin is not good enough for you.

I know what Mac fanatics are going to say: "If you can't do it in OS X, then you don't need to do it.", followed by a bunch of personal insults... Hopefully this post will at least warn users who are about to be "influenced to switch" of buying a Mac without knowing if they really need it.

Source

iMav · 08-02-2009, 12:39 AM

oh crap I needed something like this an hour back!

chooza · 08-02-2009, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gxsaurav

Didn't know where else to put it. Found through Digg

Source

Good Bro. I dont know abt apple. Thanks.May this will be an opener for some MS bashers

Liverpool_fan · 08-02-2009, 01:09 AM

One Sentence:
The concept of user friendliness is subjective...

rockthegod · 08-02-2009, 07:58 AM

^^kinda agree .... Its all Macs in my lab, and being a long-term Windows and Linux user, I find OSX to be irritating in many aspects.... hence I work in my laptop and avoid Macs as far as its possible to..... BUT on the other hand I have seen my boss, a long term OSX user, finding difficulty to use PCs with as much ease as he does with his Mac.. .so yeah, its subjective and no point in bashing any OS.... use whichever u r comfortable with....

**MetalheadGautham** · 08-02-2009, 10:33 AM

I agree too. Its always relative and subjective. NOBODY will believe me if I say ArchLinux is easier than CentOS for example.

SunnyChahal · 08-02-2009, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Mac OS X is not user friendly

lolucrazy?

@Gautham,Arch is easier than nothing PERIOD

If you like it then use it or GTFO. Why even care to bash any OS. I personally don't like XP. Will I go shouting on roads that XP sucks?
As for Mac OS X,every OS has its flaws but you just can't call it broken or anything.
Take Vista for example. The pop ups when installing any application. Its asks at least twice before installing something. Do you call that user friendly?
I guess you guys are full grown ups unlike me and still post this Mac vs PC non-sense.. Sigh!!

**MetalheadGautham** · 08-02-2009, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunny1211993

lolucrazy?

@Gautham,Arch is easier than nothing PERIOD

If you like it then use it or GTFO. Why even care to bash any OS. I personally don't like XP. Will I go shouting on roads that XP sucks?
As for Mac OS X,every OS has its flaws but you just can't call it broken or anything.
Take Vista for example. The pop ups when installing any application. Its asks at least twice before installing something. Do you call that user friendly?
I guess you guys are full grown ups unlike me and still post this Mac vs PC non-sense.. Sigh!!

See!!!!!

This is what I mean. Its always relative and subjective.

Sunny PROVED my point stronger than ever.

He finds it really easy, saurav finds it hard, while I don't see whats the point.

It IS, it WAS, and it WILL BE always subjective and relative you say how something is.

vish786 · 08-02-2009, 12:46 PM

"Mac aint friendly anymore to windows users"

phreak0ut · 08-02-2009, 07:07 PM

Whenever I go to an Apple Store or any store which has Macs for demos, the person who is around, almost always doesn't want me to use the machine there! It's really annoying!! Even if he lets me use it, he keeps breathing down my neck, as though I'm gonna take away the 21-incher or whatever. This has made me to stay away from Macs for the first reason: I can't get to feel the Mac. The next reason being, the guy almost always acts like a snob. WTF would I want to buy from a dealer who doesn't want to guide his potential customers? Also, I found that single-button mouse VERY annoying.

iMav · 08-02-2009, 07:26 PM

^^ Give them a good dressing down. Trust me such faggoty sales-men need that. Besides the feeling of venting your frustration on a macboy has an al together different calming effect

chooza · 08-02-2009, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phreak0ut

Whenever I go to an Apple Store or any store which has Macs for demos, the person who is around, almost always doesn't want me to use the machine there! It's really annoying!! Even if he lets me use it, he keeps breathing down my neck, as though I'm gonna take away the 21-incher or whatever. This has made me to stay away from Macs for the first reason: I can't get to feel the Mac. The next reason being, the guy almost always acts like a snob. WTF would I want to buy from a dealer who doesn't want to guide his potential customers? Also, I found that single-button mouse VERY annoying.

ACtually problem is not you. its Apple itself. He knows if god fobid, any thing went wrong, then he has to wait form months for the part to return back from SErvice. Isiliye, woh chahta hai ki bhaiya chal raha hai toh chalne do, kuch ho gaya na bhagwaan hi maalik hai.
Lol

gxsaurav · 08-02-2009, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phreak0ut

Whenever I go to an Apple Store or any store which has Macs for demos, the person who is around, almost always doesn't want me to use the machine there! It's really annoying!! Even if he lets me use it, he keeps breathing down my neck, as though I'm gonna take away the 21-incher or whatever. This has made me to stay away from Macs for the first reason: I can't get to feel the Mac. The next reason being, the guy almost always acts like a snob. WTF would I want to buy from a dealer who doesn't want to guide his potential customers? Also, I found that single-button mouse VERY annoying.

He is afraid U might push the key combination ctrl+alt+delete

& if that doesn't work you will say Mac sucks, so before u can do it, he will stop U

chooza · 08-02-2009, 09:48 PM

^ hehehe

IronManForever · 08-02-2009, 11:37 PM

WOW! Its interesting to note how well the human mind adapts! I have used windows for long.
I realised 'none', I repeat NONE of the given pointers. Until I read them here, that is.

Nice read. Some are wrong though.

Charan · 08-02-2009, 11:57 PM

LOL

.. really funny

tarey_g · 09-02-2009, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Mac OS X is not user friendly

Mac OS X user is not Windows friendly

Nuxer · 09-02-2009, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarey_g

Mac OS X user is not Windows friendly

or Windows user is not Mac OS X friendly

amitabhishek · 09-02-2009, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Mac OS X is not user friendly

Mac is not pocket friendly.

tarey_g · 09-02-2009, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitabhishek

Mac is not pocket friendly.

Mac is only Deep Pocket friendly

a_k_s_h_a_y · 09-02-2009, 04:43 PM

Yippee !! Another Round !!!! Its 2009 !! We are missing some people !!! Hope all of them get back soon.

Obviously users will take time to get adjusted to MAC OS X. Especially Windows Users, because they are used to the UI designed by MS.

Faun · 09-02-2009, 08:47 PM

Well...Mac is different

phreak0ut · 10-02-2009, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gxsaurav

He is afraid U might push the key combination ctrl+alt+delete

& if that doesn't work you will say Mac sucks, so before u can do it, he will stop U

Hehehe..... I think they generally think that I might actually try out

For fun

harishgayatri · 13-02-2009, 01:54 PM

Hey I found the single button trackpad pretty good

It is very easy to use
to do single click tap once with one finger
to do double click tap twice with one finger
to right click tap once with 2 fingers simultaneously

and that's it

I got my Unibody 13.3 inch MacBook and it is excellent and also userfriendly

SunnyChahal · 13-02-2009, 02:04 PM

^^
Of course it is but we're talking something else

pickster · 13-02-2009, 04:56 PM

"Firewire is useless" ??
you are bashing Mac hardware cuz it had some extra port cuz you dont use it?
oh come on man.

its fair that you say that they have only USB two ports (which incidently even my Vaio had

), but bashing for something extra is stoopid.

permalink · 28-04-2009, 11:35 AM

A small correction about the bootcamp part.
It's not fault of OSX itself.
All the problems you told about bootcamp are actually windows issues (bootcamp is merely a partition manager and bootloader combo, when you select windows you're booting into windows just like in a normal PC), driver issues and the fact that apple trackpads have only one button.

hellknight · 30-07-2009, 10:30 AM

Hi-Speed USB has already pwned FireWire.. and it was previously said by tech pundits that adaptation of Intel processors in Mac would kill FireWire and it happened... on the other hand.. i think that there is no way to know the size of multiple files of folders combined in Mac OS X..