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On my first day with my new job I was presented with a new, shiny Mac G5 running OS X with Windows XP Pro running over Parallels.

So I decided to take notes of things as I came across them. Some of them are good but, by far, most of them are bad. I’m not saying that the things I complained about are serious enough to dump OS X and some of them I could be completely wrong about.

But this is what I wrote as I tried to come to terms with the oddity that is known as OS X.

1. I select a file and press Delete on my keyboard. Nothing. Oh, hold Command and then press Delete. Makes sense.
2. How come I can only resize a window from the bottom right corner? If my window is in the bottom right of the screen I have to move it first before resizing?
3. No eject button on the cd tray? It’s on the keyboard? What if the keyboard isn’t working or that button breaks? I have to replace the whole keyboard to get the drive open? I’m sure there’s an undocumented keyboard shortcut for opening the drive because Apple people love their undocumented shortcuts that only a select few know about.
4. But the keyboard is nice. Having two USB ports on it is rather handy.
5. Why does the keyboard have two delete keys but the vast majority of the applications don’t use both? For instance, in Photoshop Delete does nothing. You have to press Delete. Confused yet? To explain, there’s a Delete like there is in Windows, but the other Delete is Backspace in Windows. But the Mac gotta be different I guess. Oh yeah, the Delete that works in Photoshop? I call it the Backspace button, go figure.
6. Windows Explorer is far better at handling and presenting files and folders than Apple Finder.
7. Select a File and press Return on the keyboard, which should be Enter by the way, and does it open the file in question in whatever application it should? Nope. That’s the shortcut for renaming a file.
8. And how come the keyboard doesn’t have that cool Power On button the Macs during my college days had?
9. Mighty Mouse? Yes, it has right click functionality. But you have to click on the EXTREME right for it to detect it. I’m talking on the side of the mouse. Plus there’s a handy thumb button that I had to turn off because every time I wanted a right click I was using my thumb for leverage which would then press the thumb button.
10. But the little trackball instead of a scroll wheel is awesome.
11. Windows: click the close window button and closes down program
    Mac: click the close window button and closes window, program stills runs in the background until you close it as well
12. Some Windows programs do work in that you can close the document window without closing the program. But I’m talking about programs that do not have document windows not closing when you click the close window button. It literally closes the window but leaves the application running in the background.
13. Want a certain filetype to open in a certain application? Nope, that’s handled on a per file basis. There’s a way to force all file types to open in a certain application but it doesn’t seem to work all the time.
14. The widgets are useless. I want one on my desktop. I have to hold F12 which brings up the Dashboard, drag the widget I want to the desktop and hold the mouse button, let go of F12 to get rid of Dashboard and then let go of the mouse button. Drops my widget onto the desktop with a nice little ripple effect. But if you bring up the Dashboard again the widget you dropped on the desktop goes away. So you want two widgets on the desktop? Nope, one at time around here boys. I went with Yahoo Widgets which works exactly the way I want which Apple “borrowed” anyway. They just made a crappy version of it.
15. OSX has a main menu bar much like Windows does for each application that is open but it is not attached to the application window like it is in Windows. It’s dynamic so it changes its behaviors according to which application is currently active, which is fine and all. But this thing was designed in the day when NO ONE had dual monitors. For instance, Firefox is a web browser with a very important feature called bookmarks. Firefox people tend to use this a lot. Mac people apparently just memorize everything because unless your browser window happens to be on the monitor that the menu bar is on using bookmarks is annoying. Browser window on the left and menu on the right. Let’s say I’m on a cool page that I wish to bookmark and I don’t know the magic key shortcut combination on the keyboard to do so. I move the mouse to the right monitor and click to bookmark the page. The confirmation deal pops up in the browser window back on the left. So to use bookmarks I’m constantly shifting my mouse across both monitors for one application. Windows method? Keep that type of stuff within the browser window itself. It’s right there! What a concept!
16. You know the spiffy way of switching between applications with a keystroke? You know how in Windows it includes whatever explorer windows you happen to have open to see the actual files on the computer? Those handy windows are not included in the list of things to be able to switch to using the fancy keystroke. So if one of those windows is hidden behind an application you have to either move the application or tell Finder to move all of its windows to the front. Excellent.
17. So, I make lots of image files intended for the web. I like to optimize my images as much as possible. I like to compare an image in different formats to determine whether one format works better than another based on final file size versus quality. In Windows the properties of a file gives you size on disk and actual size. In OSX it seems to only give size on disk. Which also seems to be severely bloated. For instance, a 310×310 gif file was reported as 100k on OSX and 22.9k on Windows. Huge difference there. Therefore, I have to either transfer the file to Windows or the server to see the actual size. I guess that’s why so many images on the web are bloated more than they should be because they were made on a Mac by people who don’t worry about such things.
18. Let’s say I’m working with a psd file in Photoshop that has layers. My nice image is ready to converted to, let’s say a jpg. So I perform a Save As which rightfully defaults to a psd file. But I want to flatten the layers and save it as a jpeg and overwrite an existing file. In Windows I find the file I wish to overwrite and double-click it. The file type is automatically changed to jpg, the layers are flattened, the file name is changed to the file I double-clicked and the jpg options are displayed. On a Mac I find the file and double-click it. It changes the file name to whatever I double-clicked and tries to save it as a psd file. Therefore whenever I wish to convert a psd to jpg I MUST tell Photoshop to change the file type by hand. Each freaking time. After about 100 images this gets tiring really quick.
19. I’m currently running OSX on a G5 desktop. The fact that OSX is displaying battery information like it would on a laptop doesn’t make me curious. What I’m really wondering about is why it says I’m at 98% capacity while running off AC power. Oh wait, it’s at 100% now so apparently it takes some time to charge the battery that isn’t there. Oh wait, it went back down to 98% so I lost some battery capacity somehow despite the fact there is no battery.
20. If I have the Finder (which sucks) set to list form and wish to create a new folder within a folder. I should be able to right-click on the folder and select New Folder. Oh wait, it isn’t there! If I right-click on the desktop it’s there so I must not be able to create a new folder within a folder. Oh wait, there’s a keystroke for new folder that works. But it doesn’t create the new folder within the folder selected but in the root. Therefore I have to drag the stupid folder where I wanted it in the first place.
21. I have since given up on list form and use icon view. List form sucks.
22. So mac applications are installed in an interesting way. You download a dmg file which is essentially an image file like a cd image. You double-click this file and it mounts the image to the desktop which now appears to give you two files for the same thing. Weird but fine so far. You typically get a window showing the actual application file in some way much like a compressed file. Now at this point what you do can be totally different from installer to installer. Some allow you to double-click in this installer window and it does everything for you. Some want you to drag the application file to the application folder that you have to open yourself which is easy enough if you can remember the shortcut keys for it. And some even give you an application folder icon to drag the application to within the same window which begs the question of why everyone couldn’t do this for you. But how do you start your newly installed application? Most likely you have to go to the applications folder to double-click the application or create shortcuts for yourself. Most installers for windows? You download the file, double-click the file, answer a few standard questions and finishes up for you leaving an icon on the desktop or start menu for you. Windows is much simpler.
23. As for those people that say windows installers put files all over the place on the computer? Macs do it too big boy! There’s even a cleaner application for the mac out there.
24. Getting OSX to always open a specific file type according to file extension in a certain program all the time is an amazing exercise in frustration. I can tell it I want this file and all others like it to open in a specific app and it’s a random chance it’ll actually work. It’ll even sometimes do the reverse of what I told it to do. And if you manage to get it to work in the first place any new files you create with that extension from that point forward will not obey the rule of which app to open with. You eventually have to do the exercise AGAIN and hope that it works which most of the time it does not.
25. For any app more complicated than the text editor there’s an issue with starting time. When you start an app in Windows it sometimes takes some time before it appears and you can start using it. With OSX starting an app often times the app will appear almost immediately but you can’t use it. You have to wait another moment before you can actually click on a button. So the app appears fast to make it seem like OSX is so much speedier than Windows but you still have to wait the same amount of time before you can actually do something with it. I’d rather the thing not appear until it was ready for me to use it.
26. That magic “open cd tray” key the mac keyboard has? Well, I have two cd tray slots in this machine. If I had two cd/dvd roms in the machine then how do I tell it which one I want opened?
27. You always have to click on an inactive window to make it active BEFORE you do anything inside that window. For instance, in Windows I see a button I wish to click on in an application that is currently inactive. When I click on that button not only does the application become the active window it also clicks the button in one fell swoop. OS X? No freaking way will that work because you have to click on the window first to make it active to click the button. Even if you can see the button and can actually click on it! Nope, won’t work. You click on the button, window becomes active and you click the button again. Now that is pure efficiency in action right there my friends.
28. I have finally found a Windows application that behaves what’s stated above. Hundreds of applications over the years and this is the only one I can think of that behaves that way.
29. Those fancy new USB flash drives that you can buy cheap now? You can plug one into Windows, perform whatever tasks you wish and when done, just pull it out. Easy and quick. OS X? Plug it in and you see an icon on your desktop appear which I admit is kinda cool. Perform whatever tasks you want but don’t you dare pull it out because it complains that you may corrupt the data. To remove the device you have to drag the icon to the trash icon to EJECT it just like a CD. EJECT THE USB DEVICE! Once you’ve done that you remove it which I guess is a manual eject in a way. Windows used to be like this with Windows 2000 which came out 8 YEARS AGO!
30. So I have a project folder on my computer where, obviously, all of my projects are kept. Since OSX remembers open windows after shutdown/restart I keep an open window to this folder. I had been keeping the window in list mode but I’ve gotten annoyed enough at that so that I started keeping it in icon mode which is more like Windows. After the first night of shutting down I restart the machine in the morning and what do I find? The window is there but it’s stuck at the folder that is currently open and I cannot convince it to go upward one level in the directory structure. At this point the window does not know what is above this folder in the directory structure. This is the most stupid thing as this means to keep the window in icon mode I would have to start each day at the root to be able to traverse the directory structure properly. No wonder Mac people are the most unorganized computer people I’ve ever seen! The stupid OS they prefer does everything it can to prevent efficiency and organization and this is supposed to be the OS better than Windows at such things.
31. I no longer keep the project folder open any longer. I just start a new window and navigate to the folder i need each time since the machine can’t traverse the directory structure with a window I kept open on restart.
32. For some strange reason most of the time when dragging an item from a folder onto the desktop the item appears at the top right of the main screen instead of where I dropped it on the desktop. But if I grab an image from firefox and drop it on the desktop the file goes to that spot on the desktop. Ok, I figured it out. If I drop a file on my main monitor it drops the file where I place it. If I drop the same file from the same place onto the secondary monitor then it moves the file over onto my main monitor. Therefore there are two completely different outcomes depending on which monitor I drop the file on. That is pure genius! It keeps me on my toes.
33. You cannot select a file, click apple+x to cut the file into the clipboard and then paste it into another location to move it there. You always have to drag it to where you want the file to go. You can copy and paste this way, just not cut and paste.
34. Fancy USB drive again. I wish to move a folder that is roughly 380MB to a 512MB USB drive. I select all of the existing files on the drive and delete them. Folder won’t copy over because there’s not enough room on the drive. OS X reports that there is only about 220MB available on the USB drive that I just emptied. Connected the drive to Windows and guess what? A bunch of hidden files including a hidden trash file of the stuff I just deleted plus a bunch more are present that I cannot see nor delete on OSX. I can delete them just fine in Windows and now I can copy over the folder no problem. I also discovered that the SFTP program I use, Fugu, allows me to see and, more importantly, delete hidden files. Therefore Fugu has a decent feature other than FTP that OSX should allow you to do easily in the first place.
35. Cannot find a way to sort files according to file type. What’s that about? In fact, the whole file type thing is totally screwed up in OSX to begin with.
36. I like how Mac people claim to be so much more organized than the Windows people. But OSX has such a better search system than Windows. If Mac people are so organized then OSX wouldn’t need such a nice search engine. It would have a crappier version of the Windows search engine. Or they wouldn’t need a search engine in the first place since they are so organized.
37. The keystroke to hide entire applications and the files that are open can be different from application to application. So again, more fancy keystrokes to remember from application to application.
38. If OSX is so easy to use for beginners then why does Apple offer one on one training at the Apple stores? Dell doesn’t offer training at those mall kiosks.
39. When I select a file the window does not exactly give useful information. For example, it may state something like 1 of 4 selected, 148.37 GB available. If I want to know the size of the file or files I have selected I have to bring up an information window. Why not just tell me in the freaking window with the other somewhat useful info? Windows will even give me interesting info on selected items such as the resolution of an image or the resolution and bitrate of a media file.
40. Apple is supposed to be such design geniuses yet they make a gorgeous 30″ monitor with one, just ONE video input which is DVI. Want to hook up something else to it to use as a TV? Nope. Buy the Dell 30″ as it’s the same thing but cheaper with plenty of video input options.
41. Also about that nice 30″ monitor, the power cable that also includes the USB and Firewire cables are one thick cable that is permanently attached to the back of the monitor. If the cable goes bad the whole monitor is sent in for repairs. On a PC? I pull the cable out and get another one that’s laying around as the power cables on monitors and cases for PCs have been the same standard cable for YEARS!!
42. More Apple design magic. You have three options on how to view files in a Finder (sucks!) window. Icon, list or columns. The buttons list them in that order; icon, list or columns. The highlight help text lists them in this order; list, columns or icons. Therefore the buttons are in the wrong order according to the help text. But at least the icons are easily recognizable for what they are or everyone would be clicking on one button thinking it was for something else.
43. Multi-tasking is as much a joke on OSX as it is on Windows. I see no real difference. If I’m doing something that requires a good chunk of resources then all the other programs chug until the first one is done. Which is exactly what logic dictates would happen.
44. I’ve gotten so used to doing CMD+Q to quit an application since clicking on the close button doesn’t actually quit the program. Well, this sucks now because of Parallels. I have a Flash FLV player open on Windows and I mistakenly hit CMD+Q to quit the player which of course quits Parallels. This, in turn, makes me lose Windows forcing me to reload everything. At least it was decent enough to remember where I was when I accidentally closed it.
45. I have a nice, new MP3 player that is an external device that can be plugged into a computer via USB. The Apple commercials always brag about how the Mac is so superior in that you can just plug such devices in and they JUST WORK! It’s simple! They just work! For Windows you have to go get drivers and configure it and all these complicated things that people are too stupid to figure out. By now you’ve got to be able to guess where I’m going with this. I plug my MP3 player into my Mac and the only thing it can do is charge the battery. It doesn’t even show up in Windows through Parallels even though Parallels sees the thing. And of course it works fine on my Windows machine at home. No drivers to download or anything. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I had to download drivers for any external device to work on Windows. But Apple marketing wouldn’t lie to us would they?
46. Upgraded to Leopard. At the end of the upgrade it was reported that the computer was unable to boot from the hard drive so I needed to reboot and start the install process again. Rebooted and I had Leopard. No reinstall required. So does that mean Leopard is not installed properly or was the error message an error?
47. So far I haven’t seen the big deal with Leopard. 150 new features and updates? Don’t see them. Although Spaces seems cool so far. The new look of the Dock is cute but it functions the same as before so you pay for a skin upgrade. The fan thing with a folder from the Dock seems ok but I haven’t played with it much yet.
48. This thing with OSX and file types is really starting to get annoying. So Flash has video files that have the extension flv. I had OSX convinced that opening flv should cause them to play in an flv player that I have installed in Windows through Parallels. I recently installed Premiere Pro in Windows and now for some reason a newly created flv on the OSX is registering to open with Premiere on the Windows side. There is no reason for this as flv is not a file type that Premiere opens.
49. Gave up. I am now running Windows XP SP2 on my Mac G5 Tower. Windows can only see 2GB of the 5GB of RAM I have, but I have to say that my productivity and ability to do small things quickly has skyrocketed. Mighty Mouse is gone, tossed and replaced with a $20 mouse that is a more comfortable experience. I still have OSX on a partition to go to just in case but this machine is a Windows machine now. At least Apple made it an easy process to get Windows running as the main OS.