Macs Suck Too, Apparently
It’s not all sunshine and smiles in Happy Apple Land. Marc Logemann has posted a list of top ten things that he hates about the Mac. The one that got me was adv. Mouse settings only adjustable by 3rd party shareware apps. Surely not! Apple-heads, tell me it’s not true!!!
To be fair, he’s also posted a list of 10 things he loves about his Mac. I’m particularly pleased to see startup scheduling for tasks like nightly backup. I was wondering if the Mac could do this.
Really it all depends on what you want to use your computer for, and what your expectations are, I suppose.
If you’re a Mac user, would you agree with these top 10 lists? What do you really love or hate about your Mac?
One thing I find slightly weird about Macs is that you apparently can’t maximize windows easily. Why would you not want to use all your screen space for the task you’re working on? Controversial topic I know. I’m sure I’ll get used to the Mac way soon enough.
(on a totally unrelated note: this Quicksilver thingy looks great!)
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May 16th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Please then tell me how to disable mouse-acceleration without 3rd party tools? I really would like to know what your Apple heads say to this…
May 16th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Good question Marc. I’m wondering this too of course!
I did a quick google and discovered that Microsoft’s IntelliPoint driver removes the mouse acceleration. Not an ideal solution unless you have a Microsoft mouse I suppose!
There’s also a post here about how to tweak the acceleration curve (see 4th post). Not sure why Apple don’t put these options in the mouse settings dialog though?
May 16th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Hmm…
I’ve got a logitech wireless combo and I can’t say I’ve had a problem that has required me to even look at the settings. My only problem is switching mindsets when I switch from PC to Mac and use Keyboard shortcuts(I’m using a Belkin KVM while I slowly migrate stuff from my rusty old P3)
The impression I get with OSX is that you can make these sorts of edits but you need to be a confident Terminal user, know where to go and what to edit. Not unlike using regedit in some respects.
For the record, I’m no Apple head, although I have been using Macs since the mid 90’s, Mainframes and Sun micros before that. In my experience all computers suck occasionally.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
I laughed after seeing the title of this (as opposed to your excitement of buying a Mac in the newsletter).
Matt, I used to work for a college media department, and we had macs everywhere. Many of the computer labs were nothing but high-end macs. It took me about a week to figure out where the eject cd button was on the keyboard (f12!).
On top of that, to this day I have never understood WHY there is no right click button. Or WHY you can’t just “CTRL+F” to find something. No, it has to be “APPLE+F”. Have you ever tried that? Try it now, it’s the hardest thing to do next to building an enterprise AJAX application!
However–I do like Motion. And all the final cut pro and dvd studio pro software. Thumbs up.
You’ll get a kick out of this Matt: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6553260189868317794
May 17th, 2006 at 1:46 am
They may suck, but they suck less than the competition I reckon. Besides, I’m struck with gear-lust for the new MacBook – too cute=)
http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
May 17th, 2006 at 2:06 am
More seriously, I think there are a lot of things to dislike about the mac, not least:
– the slightly random nature of whether or not windows in the background will respond to a click-through,
– the limited nature of the dock,
– the issue of Spotlight being slightly dim,
– Safari’s tab performance (better than it was),
– lack of customisation options and flexibility in the Finder
– the way the whole OS caters to the mass consumer market and has few pro options in terms of organisation (related to the point above)
– The utter lack of consistency on Apple’s own human interface guidelines
These are all issues with the core OS. Some can be addressed by third party apps I know, but they should be addressed by Apple.
Marc, lots of your points relate to third party apps or to the Beta of Boot Camp, but I’m with you on some of those points, esp the spam filter in Mailapp.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Andrew – yeah I get the feeling that you can tweak all these things if you don’t mind going “under the hood”. Coming from a Linux background I’m used to this luckily! 😉
Jared – that video’s great – very well put together 🙂 I hear what you’re saying about Apple+F too – I’m trying the equivalent on my PC keyboard now (alt+F) and it’s pretty hard to get my hand in the right angle! Again, something I’ll get used to I suppose. I read somewhere that the Apple shortcuts are easier for touch-typists to use than the PC Control key shortcuts – not sure how true this is…
May 17th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Si – so the Macbook is finally announced. Looks lovely doesn’t it. Amazing price too – cheaper than the 20″ iMac! I guess you’re paying for that lovely big display with the iMac. Much better graphics card and SuperDrive on the iMac too, and of course bigger hard drive options.
Still, you’ve got me thinking now… iMac or MacBook? *lol* Nah, I reckon I’ll stick with the iMac – more suited to being a main workstation. Might buy a MB later on as a backup/roaming machine if I get on with the iMac!
May 17th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
We should seperate the Mac from the software it runs. Mail’s spam filter does suck but there are other apps – Thunderbird for instance. I use Gmail mostly now with the Firefox extension, 100% spam efficient. Don’t like Safari? I’ve got 5 browsers installed. Use the great Camino or Omniweb or Opera, all superb in their different ways. Take your pick! Slow startups on some apps? I rarely switch my machine off. Limited dock? There are several great launchers out there. Etc etc. No right click mouse? I’ve used a multi button mouse (with scroller) for years (Logitech). Some people hate iChat. Fine! Use Adium. Check out the great Open Source software for Macs. Enjoy yourself.
May 28th, 2006 at 1:27 am
I’m a very fluent PC user who tried switching to an iBook last year, fed up with the constant MS fixes, AV updates, spy/ad-ware clean-ups, for the promise of an “easier, more secure, less hacked, more immune” platform. Since all my files are MS Office, I had to get the Office for Macs add-on.
Skipping the details, I found the iBook very difficult to adapt to, and in many ways, much less intuitive. It looks like Windows, but doesn’t work like Windows. After 10 months of wasted effort, I’ve purchased a nice refurbished ThinkPad, and my iBook is for sale. Wish I new you were looking for one!
http://orlando.craigslist.org/sys/161972648.html
-Gary
May 28th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Oh yeah, and I still get updates to the OS, the apps, you name it, all the time!
May 30th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
It is hard to adapt to the Mac after using Windows (or Linux for that matter). Like you say, on the surface it looks the same, but dig a bit deeper and it’s a very different beast! On the whole I like what I’m seeing though. Everything feels so well integrated on the Mac.
ThinkPads are fantastic machines though – I have one myself. Enjoy! 🙂