9 Things to Hate About OS X


OS News has published a column detailing pet peeves and hates about OS X. It's part of an OS series, with the previous one focusing on Gnome and the next on XP or KDE. Here's an overview:

1.OS X doesn't exactly feel fast. Well, compared with what? My work P4 running at 2 point something GHz is dog slow, frankly. All OSes have lags here and there. Depends on the task. Finder tasks are fast in OS X. If you're using a non-UB app, sure, it's slow(er). But without specific evidence, it's hard to tell what he means. Try running some intensive graphics on a G5 or Core Duo and see how you go versus a Wintel box.

2. MacOS X is an inconsistent mess. Not sure what's meant by this. Well, to be fair, Tog has complained about this too, but he's been fairly quiet of late. Frankly, Tiger is an easy transition from OS 9. It's still intuitive. We wish they'd put in a proper classic Apple menu as standard though (tip: try Classic Menu). But Steve appears determined to force us to use the NeXT-style browser. If he'd had his way, we'd still be in a single-window environment. However, Spotlight and Exposé rock. Big time.

3. One of my biggest pet peeves: that annoying Google search field in Safari. On Panther (Safari 1.x), you could remove it. In Tiger (Safari 2.0), you cannot. Why, you ask? Beyond me. Really? So don't use it. I find it indispensable (ditto for Firefox and iCab).

4. Tiger has some serious issues with... Screen remnants. More often than not, text input fields, whether they be on a web page or in TextEdit or Mail or whatever, show lines twice when you delete a line, or something similar. Never noticed it.

5. Macs need an indicator LED for HDD activity. It is really annoying when your Mac becomes slow or unresponsive and you have to lay your ear on the keyboard to see hear whether it is still doing something or not. Screw aesthetics, Apple, and choose functionality over beauty for a change. Gadzooks, no. Minimal is beautiful. A damn light flashing all the time? Please no.

6. Mail.app is a pointless email client, and I am flabbergasted I still use it every day. The amounts of emails I get and have in all my mailbox folders (about 40000) can bring Mail.app to a grinding halt, especially on PowerPC Macs. Other than that, Mail.app has its own theme (why, for god's sake?), Can't agree with this one. Mail syncs with my work IMAP server, even using a third-party dial-up connection and syncs all the mail I send from the office as well as trashes and everything. It's second only to the now-very-obsolete Claris Em@iler in my book.

7. OS X has an evil dock. Well, again, you don't have to use it. You can hide it. Get Classic Menu and put everything in there. Exposé takes care of the rest.

8. OS X needs a decent uninstaller. Half agree. Some apps do. Some don't leave a trail of files as the author suggests.

9. Apple needs to put more effort into backwards compatibility. They currently downright screw over developers (and hence the users) by breaking compatibility so often. Again, some truth in this. 10.2 broke a lot of 10.1 apps. 10.3 did it again, so you need, say, Jag or Panther apps.

So: your pet hates? Do you agree or disagree with this list?