Swad Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Our iAnnoyance competition has been garnering some attention across the Mac web and, as expected, several of the Mac faithful are upset with our first competition. “The Mac method of dealing with windows is vastly superior to Windows. Stop trying to change OS X into XP.” No where are these sentiments more apparent than in Ars Technica’s blog entry on the subject. First, it's an honor to be mentioned on a site for which I have a great deal of respect. A few of the comments, however, merit a rebuttal... $500? Anyone with enough talent to do this will feel like there are far more lucrative ways to fill their time. First, let me say that InsanelyMac does not exist to make money. We have some ads to help cover hosting costs and to do cool contests like this. One of the things I’m committed to with this site is ensuring that building revenue is never annoying. We could offer more if we compromised and made money the driving force behind this community. It's not, however, and we'd like to keep it that way. Secondly, this is the reason for taking donations. If the community wants this app, they can also assist in its development. Third, $500 is a great haul for a few hours worth of work. Finally, the money isn’t the point of the contest. It’s incentive, but the main reasons for this challenge are to allow programmers to show off their coding prowess and have some fun while giving something to the Mac community. Switchers need to get over it. Mac OS IS NOT Windows. I can live with close button closing something like the Calculator or Network Utility (apps with only 1 window), but I don't want to see this expanded to all multi-window apps. It just would NOT be "Mac-like". Thus the option for a per application setting. If you only want to change the characteristics of one app, you can. Most of these "annoyances" are just behaviors of OS X that are different than Windows. The term "fix" generally implies something is broken. Really, a contest like this appearing on a pro Mac website seems a little awkward. This author is forgetting that all apps don’t follow the Apple HIG (as noted in my original post). When inconstancies, like the misuse of the green Zoom button, abound in a user interface, the user suffers. But that doesn't change the fact that this competition is useless. The buttons work as designed. The thing is, a few apps are not truly following the proper rules (the Finder of course..) There are plenty of other OS X things that are far more annoying. Useless? I think not. One of the best examples is Activity Monitor. I would love the ability to quit that app when I use the red Close button. What’s wrong with giving me the freedom to do that? Also, we’ll be getting to other annoying (and less controversial) things later on in the contest series. The point of this challenge is to have fun and give the user more freedom. In the end, is that really a bad thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moksha Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Hear hear to the part about Activity Monitor (which I registered on Ars forums just to point out). That, along with System Profiler, get really annoying when two days after I thought I quit them, I find out they're still hogging RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 3, 2006 Author Share Posted September 3, 2006 Yeah, I saw your comment moksha. Thanks for the backup. Supposedly a well written app won't take any system resources while in the "closed but open" Dock purgatory. While this is mostly true, I've seen otherwise in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
non sequitur Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 the poitn of maximizing a window or closing a window instead of minimizing (not quitting the app) is not trying to make it like windows, its trying to give more preferences to the user. :/ its just logic to me, to maximize instead of make the window bigger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin_4e Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I don't think it could be said any better than non sequitur. The point of this app is to allow users more options and preferences to its users. Once this is done I'm going to be using the red X for quiting apps but not all apps. This isn't intended by any means to simulate Windows, although it can be used to if desired. Well, anyways I can't wait. Good luck to all participants! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Muchacho Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 there was a hack(?) for OS7.5-9.22 that did the same thing, i installed it on an old Powerbook i gave to my mum because she would never remember to close any apps after she finished with them, its not a new idea and has clearly been annoying mac users for years. It would be nice if add developers would give you the option to change how their apps react being closed in the add prefs though, even some windows apps give you that option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtm3dd Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 I feel really sorry that you had to write this post Mash. All we (I say we - the designers) were doing was giving people the OPTION to customize the behaviors as THEY wanted. If the readers at ARS like the way it works they dont have to use the app. It is just logic as Non Sequitur says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quixos Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Mash, IMHO you never have to justify a good thing. And for those wondering, future iAnnoyance apps will likely be 1) easier and 2) less contoversial (adding options to the desktop, etc). i hope you reconsider the above decision. i don't know why you would want to make it "easier", and the idea that Stoplight is controversial is absurd. please don't compromise your simple open-ended vision of iAnnoyances into mediocrity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conspicuo Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 Well, I´ve read the whole Ars thread and I really can´t understand the reaction of some posters. To me, this behaviour pretty much resembles some form of "tech" fundamentalism. Sirs, a computer/OS is not a belief/religion/dogma/whatever, but a tool. Any utility written to give options to the user -even if you consider it an stupid one- would have to be welcome. In any case, you have the choice to use it or not, and if I use it, it does not affect you at all! By the way, attempting to stop somebody´s choice has a very ugly name... Just my thoughts. Congratulations to the forum team and, of course, to the challenge winners. And please, excuse my poor English. Best regards, Enrique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
br0adband Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 I started to post in this thread just after it appeared but decided maybe I was going to be too harsh about what I wanted to say. I probably still will, but I gotta be me. Mash, I feel bad that you felt it necessary to make this thread at all, as some of the others sortakinda already said. You have nothing you need to justify to anyone, let alone "true" Mac fanatics that simply live each day hating anyone that doesn't think Apple and the Macintosh are perfect in every way. Sorry, but Apples aren't cherry blossoms (see "The Last Samurai" if you don't get the reference). Each person is unique, therefore each person actually has a specific way to use a computer, or a specific way it works best for that person. The good thing is that nowadays more and more people are actually beginning to realize "Wow, I can change the colors? I don't have to leave it looking like that? You mean I can actually make it look and work the way I want it to work because I think it'll be better that way?" Good for them, good for us, and those "diehards" that don't want to change anything, well... you know what you can do with yourselves. Windows users that are considering Macs are better off if they can make it feel, look, and sound like they want it to feel, look, and sound. I think it's silly at all that people don't customize their machines, personalize them in any way they can. If everyone was still using simple beige PCs, that would fly in the face of "Think Different" wouldn't it? bb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worldlybsd Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 Now I am not a software engineer or I would fix this one myself. What I'd like to see is a fix to repair what Apple did to iPhoto when they released the current version and iWeb. In previous versions you could create photo homepages directly to your.mac account from iPhoto. It was a snap. Now, you can no longer do this but instead you must use iWeb. Why did they change this? To make users buy more software of course but instead what they have done is upset a lot of users (check the mac forums). This is yet another example of how Apple sometimes moves forward in the wrong direction. Hopefully, I have given someone a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoopee3 Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 I think it could only be labeled as controversial if Apple themselves were making this change, and you didn't have a choice but to accept this change. Obviously you do have a choice - you can either not install the app, or configure it in such a way where only a few apps work in that certain way (personally i like leaving the Activity Monitor open, and having the icon changed to the memory usage). Is there a thread somewhere to post suggestions for the challenge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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