To be fair, this isn't actually a problem, unless you're an idiot like this guy. I've been running Windows 10 since it came out and never once HAD to shut down in the middle of something to install an update.

That said, you shouldn't switch from OSX for the same reason I won't switch TO osx.... change cost.

Even these days, switching to another ecosystem is still going to cost you weeks of time, so unless there's an incredibly compelling reason to switch, there's just no point.

The average PC user would start up a mac, try to play some games, go "oh i can't play most games", get confused because the operating system doesn't work like windows, then close it down and say it's shit.

If you're criticising Apple about anything other than price then you're criticising Unix which is pretty stupid. For coding or science i would not use a PC unless i had absolutely no other choice. But of course, that's mainly a compliment about unix-like machines which include apple but also your favourite linux distro.

People seem to think you have a lot more control over a PC than a mac and whilst that used to be true, it's not really true anymore. I personally feel i have a lot more control over how my airbook works (via command line and within OSX itself) than my windows desktop machine.

I always said if you know a lot about computers, you think macs are crap. But if you learn a bit more about computers, you realise what macs are good for.

They have without doubt some of the most quality engineered laptops on the planet. I have a Macbook and my wife has an Asus Macbook clone (straight down to the silver-polish finish). And yes, hers cost less and has a dedicated GPU so she could play games on it (if she had any interest in games) but the Macbook is lighter, keeps the battery charged longer, has a much more beautiful display (Retina vs Full Hd), is much more comfortable to type with, and the touchpad is just freaking heaven to use. I now hate having to use touchpads on any Windows laptop, even my bootcamped Mac!

And you hit the nail on the head about using the right tool for the right job--I work with video as part of my job sometimes and I don't think I can ever go back to video editing on a Windows machine. I can do it easier and faster on an OSX device.

I think also the initial outward simplicity of Mac operating systems makes them ideal for people who don't want to or don't have time to become "computer people" and worry about dealing with downloading the latest drivers or all of the other BS that you need to constantly deal with on a Windows machine. I especially wish my dad, who is constant calling me and my brother for help with his PC, would just switch over to a Mac as it would solve probably 95% of the issues he calls us about.

@lucky760, are you aware of this. i am running chrome on osx 10.6.8.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by Boise_Lib.

>> ^notarobot:

I still can't play Vimeo embeds on the sift. I have to click over to vimeo.com to get them to play. OSX, four different browsers.


Do you use FlashBlock extension?

I still can't play Vimeo embeds on the sift. I have to click over to vimeo.com to get them to play. OSX, four different browsers.

You know, the comic book filter in Photo Booth is much approved in OSX Lion.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I think he probably is a philanthropist – but it would be in some weird, Jobsian way – not a foundation or otherwise. The guy is a very, very private person. I’m sure there will be a lot of information that comes out after he passes. I suppose it would affect my opinion of him if he wasn’t.

Although I like my Apple products, I’m a big fan of open too. I use a lot of open source tools, especially on the web. I also love my Google products, Gmail, Google Docs etc. I feel like “Open” is misused a bit in the current IT world. Most of the tech titans have “open” and non-open technologies. Apple is a big supporter of an open web – and are behind and have contributed heaps to Webkit, the open source layout engine used by Safari, Chrome, Kindle and more. No, OSX and iOS are not open but neither is Windows and even Android is not quite as open as Google would like you to believe: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_15/b4223041200216.htm >> ^kymbos:

Do you think he is a philanthropist, @dag? Would it affect your view of him if he weren't?
It is interesting to me that he is viewed so differently to someone like Bill Gates, however. Gates seems to have copped so much criticism about Microsoft, while Jobs seems to be so revered by Apple fans. This is despite Gates' philanthropy, and the insular nature of Apple products.
I don't feel strongly about it, to be fair, but I find myself drawn to open platform products on principle.
What I see Apple doing in the language of economics is 'product differentiation'. They have created a point of difference between their products and their competitors that allows them to move away from competing on price.

I'll wait for OSX Meerkat. Hopefully by then they'll figure out if it's OSX or iOS, if it's a computer or a fucking tablet.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I agree with most of your points. I would like to make a small defense of the inability to change things in OS X. With mutability can come a lot of overhead and chaos. There is something to be said for an iron hand on the tiller of user interfaces - but only if you trust the group making decisions.

I am not a UX expert. Up until Lion I trusted the UX people at Apple to have a better idea about how humans can optimally interact with a computer. For the most part, I think they were right. Up until Lion - now I think I'm starting to be sold a crock. The decisions they have made don't seem to be based on making efficient interactions happen - but instead about some grand unified melding of Macs and iOS devices. It's bullshit.

The mandatory click to focus thing is really a taste thing. For me, personally it drives me batty. I don't want focus until I've clicked.

Bouncy in your face icons - agreed, annoying - but not as bad modal windows you have to dismiss.


>> ^srd:

>> ^dag:
Up until Lion I would completely disagree with you and say the UX of OS X is simply the best. Yes, I'm talking against Windows 7, Gnome, KDE et al. Now however, I'm starting to cast a wandering eye back towards Linux.
Windows 7 however, is a frigging awful experience any way you slice it. It's stupid little things like the alt-tab selecting whatever window is in the background when really you just want to cycle through the icons. Also, I can't believe they still haven't killed the dysfunctional bloatware ridden system tray. The retarded nanny-ware labyrinth that has to be navigated to connect to a wireless network makes my eyes bleed.
The way I'm feeling now is that all operating systems suck hard, but OS X sucks a little less, at least until Lion - which, again, is starting to suck much harder for all the reasons outlined in this video - and more.


Gnome, KDE, Windows et al have been scampering after the OSX UX for some years now, and I agreee have been doing it rather badly. And this is a trend I'm very skeptical of. However, if you like the workflow that OSX/Quarz imposes, I'm sure you can be happy with it. Where I take exception is having no choice except for what some people in a meeting in Cupertino decide is how I should do my work.
Things that really put me off:
- Menu bar at the top of the screen instead of attached to the individual application... Sure, thats traditional on apple computers and that made sense back in the days when the Mac didn't have real multitasking. But nowadays it's just terribly confusing and imposes longer mouse travel distances.
- Mandatory click-to-focus, which can be seen as a neccessary corrolary of the previous point. I've been using the focus-follows-mouse model (without raise-on-focus) for 15 years now and the difference is jarring. Imagine having to click away an overlay on each and every page you go to in your browser.
- Bouncy in-your-face animations and notification boxes that are reminiscent of Paperclip. Shut up already and get out of my face, I'm trying to work, not playing a game of whack-an-icon.
- Apple marketing OSX as 64 bit but delivering it in 32 bit mode and not telling you until you a) find out by accident and then b) spend 10 minutes gooling around until you find the command to switch it to 64bit default mode (no GUI level preference here for whatever reason).
I'd be a lot happier if I had a choice. Either by having real preferences that goes beyond what color scheme do I want and in what way do I want to stroke my touchpad to do what. Or open up the possibility for alternative window managers.
For all the "think different" attitude that Apple likes to spread, the OSX ecosystem seems to be hard at work to remove individual preferences. Apple turned into the opposite of what the 1984 commercial implied.
Dag, if you're looking at linux again, both KDE and Gnome (especially Gnome 3) are IMO horrible too. If you don't like them, give XFCE a go. I've been using it since '03 IIRC, when I grew tired of Blackbox. And you'd be in good company too

>> ^dag:

Up until Lion I would completely disagree with you and say the UX of OS X is simply the best. Yes, I'm talking against Windows 7, Gnome, KDE et al. Now however, I'm starting to cast a wandering eye back towards Linux.
Windows 7 however, is a frigging awful experience any way you slice it. It's stupid little things like the alt-tab selecting whatever window is in the background when really you just want to cycle through the icons. Also, I can't believe they still haven't killed the dysfunctional bloatware ridden system tray. The retarded nanny-ware labyrinth that has to be navigated to connect to a wireless network makes my eyes bleed.
The way I'm feeling now is that all operating systems suck hard, but OS X sucks a little less, at least until Lion - which, again, is starting to suck much harder for all the reasons outlined in this video - and more.



Gnome, KDE, Windows et al have been scampering after the OSX UX for some years now, and I agreee have been doing it rather badly. And this is a trend I'm very skeptical of. However, if you like the workflow that OSX/Quarz imposes, I'm sure you can be happy with it. Where I take exception is having no choice except for what some people in a meeting in Cupertino decide is how I should do my work.

Things that really put me off:

- Menu bar at the top of the screen instead of attached to the individual application... Sure, thats traditional on apple computers and that made sense back in the days when the Mac didn't have real multitasking. But nowadays it's just terribly confusing and imposes longer mouse travel distances.

- Mandatory click-to-focus, which can be seen as a neccessary corrolary of the previous point. I've been using the focus-follows-mouse model (without raise-on-focus) for 15 years now and the difference is jarring. Imagine having to click away an overlay on each and every page you go to in your browser.

- Bouncy in-your-face animations and notification boxes that are reminiscent of Paperclip. Shut up already and get out of my face, I'm trying to work, not playing a game of whack-an-icon.

- Apple marketing OSX as 64 bit but delivering it in 32 bit mode and not telling you until you a) find out by accident and then b) spend 10 minutes gooling around until you find the command to switch it to 64bit default mode (no GUI level preference here for whatever reason).

I'd be a lot happier if I had a choice. Either by having real preferences that goes beyond what color scheme do I want and in what way do I want to stroke my touchpad to do what. Or open up the possibility for alternative window managers.

For all the "think different" attitude that Apple likes to spread, the OSX ecosystem seems to be hard at work to remove individual preferences. Apple turned into the opposite of what the 1984 commercial implied.

Dag, if you're looking at linux again, both KDE and Gnome (especially Gnome 3) are IMO horrible too. If you don't like them, give XFCE a go. I've been using it since '03 IIRC, when I grew tired of Blackbox. And you'd be in good company too

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Up until Lion I would completely disagree with you and say the UX of OS X is simply the best. Yes, I'm talking against Windows 7, Gnome, KDE et al. Now however, I'm starting to cast a wandering eye back towards Linux.

Windows 7 however, is a frigging awful experience any way you slice it. It's stupid little things like the alt-tab selecting whatever window is in the background when really you just want to cycle through the icons. Also, I can't believe they still haven't killed the dysfunctional bloatware ridden system tray. The retarded nanny-ware labyrinth that has to be navigated to connect to a wireless network makes my eyes bleed.

The way I'm feeling now is that all operating systems suck hard, but OS X sucks a little less, at least until Lion - which, again, is starting to suck much harder for all the reasons outlined in this video - and more.

Also, I don't give a shit about all the other "cult" crap you cite as a reason not to use an OS. I don't pick my computers based on style, other people's behaviour or religious beliefs - and IMO neither should you.


>> ^srd:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Fuck Lion. I'm waiting for OSX Direwolf.

Fuck OS X. I've had these tinboxes (aka MacBook Pro) thrust on me by my ex-employer about a year ago. My last encounter with Apple computers before that was with a Mac Classic when I was in 10th grade. So I didn't really know what I was getting into. Before that I worked for 15 years on Linux.
At first I thought "Ok, Apple, you're all about UX and intuitive design. Enlighten me! (and lets forget the abomination that was itunes for the moment)". Oh boy was I sorely disappointed. The workflow that was thrust on me by MacOS X on the GUI side rubbed me the wrong way, regardless of which aspect. So I thought "Ok, fair enough, those were the default settings. Lets change things a bit.... Uh. Wait? That half dozen scared little options is _all_ I get to fiddle with?". Trying to google for solutions was just as sobering. Apple ignoring feature requests for over 8 years, other people frustrated with the same problems I was facing and the most frequent response to valid questions on (non-Apple) help sites wasn't a "I'm sorry that's not possible" but a condescending "Why would you even think of doing that?".
I lasted for one more day after that before installing Virtualbox and running a useable environment (for me) in there.
I'm not going even to get into the hardware aspects of these machines...
So what I'm taking away from my forced encounter of the turtleneck kind is, we're getting the worst of both worlds:
a) Apple is currently as arrogant as Microsoft was in the 90s
b) Apples user/fanboy base is just as bad as the Linux crowd was in the 90s.
=> It's a cult. They are producing overpriced, mediocre machines with mediocre UI that is a far cry from the intuitiveness that is so often touted.
I'm glad some people are escaping the Jobsian reality distortion field.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Fuck Lion. I'm waiting for OSX Direwolf.


Fuck OS X. I've had these tinboxes (aka MacBook Pro) thrust on me by my ex-employer about a year ago. My last encounter with Apple computers before that was with a Mac Classic when I was in 10th grade. So I didn't really know what I was getting into. Before that I worked for 15 years on Linux.

At first I thought "Ok, Apple, you're all about UX and intuitive design. Enlighten me! (and lets forget the abomination that was itunes for the moment)". Oh boy was I sorely disappointed. The workflow that was thrust on me by MacOS X on the GUI side rubbed me the wrong way, regardless of which aspect. So I thought "Ok, fair enough, those were the default settings. Lets change things a bit.... Uh. Wait? That half dozen scared little options is _all_ I get to fiddle with?". Trying to google for solutions was just as sobering. Apple ignoring feature requests for over 8 years, other people frustrated with the same problems I was facing and the most frequent response to valid questions on (non-Apple) help sites wasn't a "I'm sorry that's not possible" but a condescending "Why would you even think of doing that?".

I lasted for one more day after that before installing Virtualbox and running a useable environment (for me) in there.

I'm not going even to get into the hardware aspects of these machines...

So what I'm taking away from my forced encounter of the turtleneck kind is, we're getting the worst of both worlds:
a) Apple is currently as arrogant as Microsoft was in the 90s
b) Apples user/fanboy base is just as bad as the Linux crowd was in the 90s.

=> It's a cult. They are producing overpriced, mediocre machines with mediocre UI that is a far cry from the intuitiveness that is so often touted.

I'm glad some people are escaping the Jobsian reality distortion field.