OS X Annoyances

[Shigimatsu]

Two w- well, Three words.

 

Sound. Blaster. Audigy. >_<

[Paranoid Marvin]

One thing that annoys me is the Dashboard.

 

It's slow, and it can't hold many widgets.

 

Either it needs to be like the Vista Sidebar, or it needs to work with Spaces, to give me, like, 4 separate dashboards

[Ayanami]

One thing that annoys me is the Dashboard.

 

It's slow, and it can't hold many widgets.

 

Either it needs to be like the Vista Sidebar, or it needs to work with Spaces, to give me, like, 4 separate dashboards

 

Actually, my bigger gripe about Dashboard is that widgets that access the interent only access when you laungh Dashboard yourself. They should load up on startup/waking up, and check themselves every few minutes or so. I hate having to wait while my weather widgets take their time and load up....

[socal swimmer]

Actually, my bigger gripe about Dashboard is that widgets that access the interent only access when you laungh Dashboard yourself. They should load up on startup/waking up, and check themselves every few minutes or so. I hate having to wait while my weather widgets take their time and load up....

 

This is the single most important reason why I don't use dashboard. THe first time i open it up i have to sit there for about 3-5 seconds waiting. Why bother when i could bookmark the site, and get there faster by starting up firefox?

 

I was thinking. At startup, after everything has loaded, the dashboard could start loading, run at a nice level of 1. That way, it doesn't slow down other apps, and its ready to go when you want to use it.

 

Hey wait....

[Ayanami]

Yeah, that'd be nice. A friend of mine used to start dashboard every time she started up her laptop.....

Kinda annoying, I think.

[InorganicMatter]

By and far my biggest annoyance is that all the shortcut keys are different. Windows and Linux both use Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V for cut/copy/paste; Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+U for document formatting; Ctrl+Arrows to jump through words in a document and Ctrl+Shift+Arrows to highlight words in a document. Mac OS has to be difference and use Command+? for all those instead of the Crtl+?, and Home/End/Pageup/Pagedown all have different meanings on Mac OS than they do on Windows/Linux. Shortcuts are something that is intuitive and should be standardized on all platforms.

 

I use Windows 75% of the time at work/school, and can slide right into the Linux machines at school thanks to it using the same shortcuts as Windows - running Mac OS at home has been a huge adjustment because I've had to rehabilitate 10+ years of computer experience.

[Headrush69]

InorganicMatter, just in case you didn't know, you can easily swap the modifer keys in the Keyborad & Mouse system preference panel.

 

Won't change the functionality for home key, etc but will make using CTRL-X, CTRL-V, etc the same.

[waradmin]

This is the single most important reason why I don't use dashboard. THe first time i open it up i have to sit there for about 3-5 seconds waiting. Why bother when i could bookmark the site, and get there faster by starting up firefox?

 

I was thinking. At startup, after everything has loaded, the dashboard could start loading, run at a nice level of 1. That way, it doesn't slow down other apps, and its ready to go when you want to use it.

 

Hey wait....

WOAH. A WHOLE 3-5 seconds?? Thats insane! Serously, if you are stressing out about 3-5 seconds, you are honestly being to picky. I would love to see someone load up firefox, click their weather.com bookmark, then have the page load (which is the same concept, its all fetching data from the same server farm) in under 6 seconds. I press F12, wait the 3 seconds for my weather widget to load, and move on.

 

I am glad my widgets don't refresh over and over, because I have clips of sites as widgets; and as a webmaster I would be upset if people kept reloading a portion of my site over and over and over and over and over and over all day for days on end because they never shut their computer down and their widgets auto-reload. IP ban for them if I detected that.

[Synaesthesia]

You guys, have you heard of dashboard kickstart? It does exactly what you want, start up dashboard when you login.

 

Actually I found it kind of annoying after a while, so I took it off, but you might like it.

[InorganicMatter]

InorganicMatter, just in case you didn't know, you can easily swap the modifer keys in the Keyborad & Mouse system preference panel.

 

Won't change the functionality for home key, etc but will make using CTRL-X, CTRL-V, etc the same.

 

 

Yeah, but then it's a pain in the ass when I reinstall/upgrade/use another Mac.

 

Another annoyance is the fact that: the dock is forced on you, and there is no programs menu. Either you put a program in the dock for use, or blunder your way to the applications folder. I know a pop-up programs menu won't happen because that would be so Windows-ish, but I really would like the option for us old school guys. Apple doesn't seem to realize that there are still a lot of power users out there from the DOS days who want to be able to compute with both hands on the keyboard, avoiding the mouse.

 

Another annoyance, while not specific to OS X, is Numbers. I switched to Numbers thinking it would not do the "here, let me help you too much" thing that Microsoft Excel does. Boy, was I ever wrong!

[Headrush69]

Yeah, but then it's a pain in the ass when I reinstall/upgrade/use another Mac.

Huh?

It's a one time thing and why would you be re-installing so much.

That's like bitching that when I reinstall the OS I have re-enter the serial numbers of my commercial programs. Am I missing something here?

OS X has problems but is this really such a "pain in the ass?"

 

Another annoyance is the fact that: the dock is forced on you, and there is no programs menu. Either you put a program in the dock for use, or blunder your way to the applications folder. I know a pop-up programs menu won't happen because that would be so Windows-ish, but I really would like the option for us old school guys. Apple doesn't seem to realize that there are still a lot of power users out there from the DOS days who want to be able to compute with both hands on the keyboard, avoiding the mouse.

I think they realize but it's not a show stopper for them. Evidenced by their hardware choices, they AREN'T targetting power users.

 

P.S. Check out Himmelbar and you'll have a program menu.

 

Another annoyance, while not specific to OS X, is Numbers. I switched to Numbers thinking it would not do the "here, let me help you too much" thing that Microsoft Excel does. Boy, was I ever wrong!

Sorry no love for this argument, all on you.

Can't blame a product because it's not what you assummed it might be. Numbers is heavy targeted towards template based approach and helping less "technical" users into spreadsheet use.

[my1stmacisaHACK]

Actually, my bigger gripe about Dashboard is that widgets that access the interent only access when you laungh Dashboard yourself. They should load up on startup/waking up, and check themselves every few minutes or so. I hate having to wait while my weather widgets take their time and load up....

 

 

google for dashboard kickstart

[Macpaq]

The start up chime-my mac mini is connected to the stereo, whenever I restart the mini without turn the volume down, it makes this loud bang. I hate it.

[Konami®]

the only thing that annoy me is the lack of drivers and the few selection of good games, we need Crysis, Bioshock, etc

[uray]

well i like the visual/art of OSX, they're all beautiful, but then I realize that OSX user interface is bad by design, in perspective of efficiency and ease of use.

 

first all the problem begin with dock, i think it is stupid feature...

 

well yes it make OSX beautiful, but if you have a lot of applications installed the dock will be full, and it getting smaller, because of menu bar is used for main menu (and I think this is as annoyance too) then minimized windows is placed on dock which bring confusion which one is icon to start app and to restore app, further more the minimized icon doesn't have context menu to restore, minimize or maximize associated window so it is less useful compared to windows where windows users could managing their windows by only using taskbar, but in OSX you need to switch all over windows and find the minimize icon.

 

then because of dock is big, and located in bottom centered desktop (yes its by default), then there will be no maximize window icon principally, the max window size you can get is as large as desktop excluding the dock and menubar area, this will make users less productive and wasting screen pixels.

 

because of main app. menu is mainly using dock icons (to launch most frequently apps) then theres no application menu which contain all applications installed, the apple menu is don't have its purpose, its mainly used only to shutdown/logout/restart osx so why its there? for historical reason?

 

for give the functionality of mainbar (or for historical reason) apple use its as main menu for each window/app. these are very annoying and stupid by the view of user interface design, the reason is the contents of menubar will be not consistence, further more users have to switch window to see what menu the window contain. and one more the user need to know which window is currently active to know that which app the menu owned by, well yes you can read the first menu text but what happen when multiple window with same name is running?

 

I said before that minimized window located on dock, but its getting worse when running application and application menu is located on same dock too, osx only use tiny little invisible black triangle on the bottom icons of running app which lead to more confusing interface.

 

ok thats enough all the problem caused by the so innovative beauty state of the art docks...

then we see there's no "cut" context menu we need to copy, paste on destination, and back again to delete those (does it hard to put "cut" menu?), then the problem getting worse... there's no "rename" menu too... its so silly

 

then the fcking ugly there is no frame for window, ok thats no problem about no-frame but the problem is you can't resize window easily, why they just dont give the access to all side of window even there's no frame or resizer icon?

 

then we go to file management function, osx provide it with finder window, look there's no thumbnail!!? no location edit bar / URI?? i need to take multiple click on icons and search for the icons to take me to destination i want, you can imagine its as pain as when the internet browser doesn't have URL edit bar its, it mean useless!

 

ok there's a lot of osx user interface flaws i can mentions... but it will make another page to write. and one that make me laughing is when i see and always see the video presentation of osx, they emphasized and highlight the feature on application level, not operating system level, look they demonstrate how iChat work, how the animation of timemachine, the safari, dashboard... well the point is, its just another ordinary application which every OSes could do when there is installed app. on it... its all {censored} and doesn't make me impressed.

 

oh yeah another thing... apple make OSX and only give permission to run it on apple hardware (that's the ugly unflexible and doesn't cheap PC) ?? can you imagine if microsoft only make window to run on microsoft PC? apple should consider osx to run on open platform that's violation of human right!

[gizmoarena]

[...]

oh yeah another thing... apple make OSX and only give permission to run it on apple hardware (that's the ugly unflexible and doesn't cheap PC) ?? can you imagine if microsoft only make window to run on microsoft PC? apple should consider osx to run on open platform that's violation of human right!

 

if apple have released open platform mac os x, most of us would have bought mac os x instead of windowz.

apple is ruining their market. count the number of hackintosh users, i guess now they are almost equal number of authentic mac users

[juggeli]

well i like the visual/art of OSX, they're all beautiful, but then I realize that OSX user interface is bad by design, in perspective of efficiency and ease of use.

 

first all the problem begin with dock, i think it is stupid feature...

 

well yes it make OSX beautiful, but if you have a lot of applications installed the dock will be full, and it getting smaller, because of menu bar is used for main menu (and I think this is as annoyance too) then minimized windows is placed on dock which bring confusion which one is icon to start app and to restore app, further more the minimized icon doesn't have context menu to restore, minimize or maximize associated window so it is less useful compared to windows where windows users could managing their windows by only using taskbar, but in OSX you need to switch all over windows and find the minimize icon.

 

then because of dock is big, and located in bottom centered desktop (yes its by default), then there will be no maximize window icon principally, the max window size you can get is as large as desktop excluding the dock and menubar area, this will make users less productive and wasting screen pixels.

 

because of main app. menu is mainly using dock icons (to launch most frequently apps) then theres no application menu which contain all applications installed, the apple menu is don't have its purpose, its mainly used only to shutdown/logout/restart osx so why its there? for historical reason?

 

for give the functionality of mainbar (or for historical reason) apple use its as main menu for each window/app. these are very annoying and stupid by the view of user interface design, the reason is the contents of menubar will be not consistence, further more users have to switch window to see what menu the window contain. and one more the user need to know which window is currently active to know that which app the menu owned by, well yes you can read the first menu text but what happen when multiple window with same name is running?

 

I said before that minimized window located on dock, but its getting worse when running application and application menu is located on same dock too, osx only use tiny little invisible black triangle on the bottom icons of running app which lead to more confusing interface.

 

ok thats enough all the problem caused by the so innovative beauty state of the art docks...

then we see there's no "cut" context menu we need to copy, paste on destination, and back again to delete those (does it hard to put "cut" menu?), then the problem getting worse... there's no "rename" menu too... its so silly

 

then the fcking ugly there is no frame for window, ok thats no problem about no-frame but the problem is you can't resize window easily, why they just dont give the access to all side of window even there's no frame or resizer icon?

 

then we go to file management function, osx provide it with finder window, look there's no thumbnail!!? no location edit bar / URI?? i need to take multiple click on icons and search for the icons to take me to destination i want, you can imagine its as pain as when the internet browser doesn't have URL edit bar its, it mean useless!

 

ok there's a lot of osx user interface flaws i can mentions... but it will make another page to write. and one that make me laughing is when i see and always see the video presentation of osx, they emphasized and highlight the feature on application level, not operating system level, look they demonstrate how iChat work, how the animation of timemachine, the safari, dashboard... well the point is, its just another ordinary application which every OSes could do when there is installed app. on it... its all {censored} and doesn't make me impressed.

 

oh yeah another thing... apple make OSX and only give permission to run it on apple hardware (that's the ugly unflexible and doesn't cheap PC) ?? can you imagine if microsoft only make window to run on microsoft PC? apple should consider osx to run on open platform that's violation of human right!

 

You should probably forgot the "windows" way of doing things. Especially i just don't get why some people have to minimize windows to the dock and why applications needs to be maximized. I have never minimized window to dock and i think that i never will cause it is so waste of time and waste of precious dock space doing that. I found more handy and faster to just leave all windows open and navigate through windows and applications with expose and command+tab. And maximizing windows would be so waste of screen space at least for browser windows and many other windows witch just don't need to be fullscreen. Some people still surf the net with their browser window maximized with their 20" monitors and that looks so ridiculous when the actual web content takes half of the screen with huge empty bars on sides.

 

For the application launching i use Quicksilver which is way more handy than some application menu would be.

 

And for the last thing i totally disagree with you again. I hope that apple never makes OS X for ordinary PC:s. Its just way more easy to do software for computers which hardware is strictly controlled. No need to make operating system compatible for thousands of different combinations of PC hardware.

[superstition]

Here's my list:

 

1. Permissions! The permissions control/reliability of OS X is far from ideal, especially in a lab environment.

 

2. Lab administration. Leopard was supposed to provide guest accounts, but they can't be customized without a lot of hacking.

 

3. Apple could learn a lot from DragThing when it comes to providing a shortcuts Dock. Their Dock falls short for shortcut holding, although it works alright the following: Finder, Trash, clicking open apps/windows. Turning off the magnification helps, as does making it tiny and putting it along the right side of the screen.

 

4. Application-centric design, not task-centric design. Apple is still stuck in 1984 with its Macintosh and never really learned from the 1983 Lisa, which was closer to task-centric. It had a document-centric design with stationary, but the metaphor was imperfect because a user had to tear off "Terminal" stationary. Lol. Users should not have to know that "Safari" is a web browser or that "Acrobat" makes PDFs. Computing should start with tasks and work from there. I have DragThing organized in my labs with tabs like "page layout", "language learning", "games", and "chat". People can select the appropriate task and find program shortcuts inside.

 

5. Leopard has gone backward with audio and video file previewing. The full-length slider has been replaced with an ugly black box and shoddy invisible controls that only start and stop.

 

6. The mishmash of window skins. This has improved in Leopard, at least.

 

7. Dashboard being enabled by default and requiring a terminal command to disable it completely.

 

8. Spotlight replacing filename search as the default. I only want filename search most of the time.

 

9. ByHost preferences. Ugh. Why does Apple use a machine's network address for the names of things like screensaver and software update prefs? This is a real pain when imaging multiple machines.

 

10. The spammed Documents folder. Either clear out the {censored}, or get rid of the folder completely. Users shouldn't have to look at Microsoft User Data and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't belong in this folder if it's supposed to hold a user's personal documents.

 

11. The Leopard download folder. It is annoying. If I download a sex video or photo, I don't want to see a preview of it in my Dock while I'm working. I also don't want to deal with a folder that's so hard to open.

 

12. The way things can be dragged out of the Dock accidentally and a user won't necessarily know what it was that disappeared. This can happen quite a bit, particularly with older users, inexperienced users, and people like me who keep the Dock on the right side of the screen, hidden, which can conflict with scroll bars. There should be a way to lock the Dock's items so they don't just vanish, undo changes, and maybe even have an "are you sure" dialog as an option when dragging things out of the Dock.

 

12a. The Dock presents a moving target. As one adds minimized windows, the position of things changes.

 

12b. Worse, the default, with its giant pictures at the bottom, is usually not changed by users because they don't know they can resize and move it. So, they complain that they don't like OS X. Blaming users for their ignorance of Apple's design strategies isn't necessarily the right solution, either. When I've shown several users the way to resize the Dock with the separation bar, they're amazed. All have agreed that it's better smaller and along the right, so documents aren't cut off.

 

13. The Apple menu. It's ridiculous to have a menu that's a graphic of an apple when other menus have names. How is it intuitive at all to have "shutdown" or "recent items" under a picture of an apple? Many users don't realize it's a menu. Plus, it's underpowered. Surely there could be more functionality in it, at least as an option.

 

14. The bright red/blue American flag for the keyboard layout menu. The other icons and menu items are monochromatic and black, so why must I be annoyed by the bright red OS 9 icon? The human eye is attracted to red, which makes it stick out even more.

 

15. The clown button ("stop light") window controls. "Tog", who was an Apple UI guy years ago, wrote about this broken metaphor and its problems. It's too colorful, for one thing. I don't want to see three bright colors. The grey version hides the functionality. The mouse-overs are easy to overlook, especially with the strong 3D lighting in Tiger's grey skin. I could go on, but this is one aspect of OS X's UI that has needed improvement for a long time.

 

16. The horsey 14 point menu font. On a Cinema Display it's not so bad. On a 1024x768 monitor, it's absurd.

 

17. The inability to change scroll bars so they appear on the left side of apps' windows instead of the right. This would prevent the interference with the Dock and also make the interface more comfortable for left-handed mousers.

 

18. The inability to switch the cursor to point to the right for left-handed mousing.

 

19. The lack of a full defrag utility! The fanboy BS some Mac users have spouted about defragmentation over the years in response to my complaints is contradicted by the fact that OS X HFS+ volumes do become fragmented and a number of 3rd party program manuals (like Digital Performer) suggest using defragmented volumes.

 

20. A bunch of Finder view issues. It would take too long to describe them all. In a nutshell—it's cluttered...inelegant.

 

21. The way some programs, like Garageband, won't let users install to a volume other than the boot volume. This is so archaic. If I don't have a lot of space on my boot volume, why on Earth isn't OS X smart enough to allow the installation of gigs of things like instrument samples for Garageband to another drive?

 

22. The "put hard drive to sleep when able" setting in Energy Saver can't be customized.

 

23. The System Preferences should be organized alphabetically by default, not categorically.

 

24. Scrolling arrows should be located at the top and bottom of windows by default, not jammed together at the bottom.

 

25. There should be no "Mac OS Software" link in the Apple menu.

 

26. System Profiler shouldn't be hidden in About This Mac, and Apple certainly could use better wording than "more info".

 

27. There should be simple folders for startup and shutdown items. Users could drag something in just like in OS 9. It's problematic in some situations to have to get into Accounts to mess with login items and there is no "shutdown items".

 

28. The System Preferences could be more intuitively organized, particularly Network and Sharing. Why isn't Firewall in Network? What about Security?

 

29. Java isn't up to date. Correct?

 

30. OS X should be smart enough to locate Apple programs when updating, instead of requiring users to leave the Applications and Utilities directories exactly as Apple has organized them.

 

31. There should be the option of a comprehensive and advanced boot screen with visual options so users don't have to use keyboard commands to accomplish many things, like selecting from boot volumes, zapping PRAM, clearing caches or rebuilding them, repairing permissions, etc. I know some people get a thrill from knowing the secret codes/commands, but computers really need to move past requiring users to use CLIs and hold-down keyboard codes. If there is a CLI, it should come with a partial graphical interface, like a modern version of the Apple III's SOS (or a mouse-driven system BIOS). Imagine if system BIOS screens were replaced with a CLI. Ugh.

 

32. Lack of support for Creative PCI sound cards.

 

I can think of more, but this is what's on the top of my head at the moment.

[Maxintosh]

i guess now they are almost equal number of authentic mac users

As I understand it, they are less than 5%

[aprodigy]

Quote-begin:

...but computers really need to move past requiring users to use CLIs and hold-down keyboard codes. If there is a CLI, it should come with a partial graphical interface, like a modern version of the Apple III's SOS (or a mouse-driven system BIOS). Imagine if system BIOS screens were replaced with a CLI. Ugh.

Quote-end:

 

Well, I definately hope that your vision will NEVER come through. Gimme a 'bash'-shell and I can perfectly live with it - in case of system-administration tasks (i.e. clustering, failover, ...) even prefer it - and actually, I'd sometimes definately be happy to give my bios some special parameters and/or options along the way without big entering of the setup and booting afterwards again.

 

it all depends on what you are doing and trying to accomplish with 'your' computer and as so, your demands may be different. i sit in front of these kinda stupid machines since i'm 7 years old, that's 23 years by now, and even though i'm not 100% in place with apple all of apples ideas, they just seem to deliver an acceptable compromise between having to use a console and pushing a mouse around while still preserving a lot of functionality.

 

 

you go a bit too far as far as i'm concerned...

 

 

and well, there a quite a couple (even built-in) solutions for some of your problems.

[polarity]

What really gets to me is when I'm using ssh to remotely set up a computer on my own network, and when repeatedly reinstalling an OS, using the same IP, it keeps giving me warnings about possible man in the middle attacks, and refusing to let me connect until I edit the known_hosts file.

 

I know the host key has changed because I changed it. There is no man in the middle. If there was I'd be able to walk over to him and kick his ass.

 

Having to go edit a file is a real PITA when every other OS I've used just asks me if I want to continue.

 

I'm so sick of this and the lack of a working solution (OSX ssh_config ignores StrictHostKeyChecks=ask), so I chmodded my known_hosts file to 444.

 

 

FU Apple. I don't need baby sitting.

[S.SubZero]

Damn you .DS_Store!

 

Seriously. I know it can be disabled, but it should default that way, especially connecting to Windows shares. Which begs the question; if you can disable it, why do you need it?

 

Related are the additional hidden files it creates. I like when I do some work on a document and gee, what's this extra file here.. .(filename). Oh. I remember a while back on my old G4 I did some rips of audio CDs and every directory had double the entries since for every mp3 it also created a hidden .(filename).

 

I'm *afraid* to put my OS X on any foreign network, more because I'm worried I'll leave junk all over the network anytime I connect to anything. Can't there be a "don't leave junk all over the network" checkbox somewhere?

[pebcak]

1. Home/End keys.

 

2. Sloppy focus.

 

 

3. Different behavior when it comes to copy & paste. Aqua apps vs. X11 apps... they should find a solution.

[Ongeloof]

Delete keys, and non app specific shortcuts....

Be careful what shortcuts you make!

 

Think Mark

[yamcha]

Games, you have to download Universal Binary otherwise you run into errors, i still don't know why it turns into an issue, I mean tiger isn't too far from leopard , yet still some things don't work unless u have UB. Hmm Another annoyance for me is theres no cut function, there should be it's much more convenient.. they should def add that. hmm and not being able to close windows with keyboard(Appz Ctrl-Q, doesn't work on folder windows), I'm sure theres a shortcut but i haven't figured it out, but u can hide which is a great feature imo way better then minimize.. Thats about it I think.