Comments on: 10 usability lows of Mac OS X

By: Sacha Vorbeck

Sacha Vorbeck — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:09:59 +0000

It seems that you can only resize a window via clicking on the bottom right corner. Would be better if you could resize the window on all the borders and corners.

I also miss the path to the current location in the finder.

When you dive into a sub-folder in the finder and then use the back-button, the folder isn`t highlighted any more.

There must be a reason for software like PathFinder to exist.

I also work with Ubuntu and Windows. Mac has some advantages but not everything is as great as the fanboys say.

By: Mike Schinkel

Mike Schinkel — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:02:29 +0000

A really excellent article. Thank you. The only low point was the Macultists attacking you in the comments for making all your legitimate criticisms. They obviously have far too much of their self-esteem tied up in the selection of their Mac.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:53:10 +0000

@connectionfailure: Thanks for your great comment. That’s a fantastic range of utilities – I’m off to check them out now.

By: connectionfailure

connectionfailure — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:42:21 +0000

Haven’t read all the above comments yet but many of these foibles can be overcome with more utilities.
For example DejaMenu lets the menus appear whereever the cursor is, which could be invoked with a key combo or one of the mouse button clicks, if you configure it correctly.
like @tman, I use DefaultFolder is a wonderful fix to Apple’s Open/Save Dialogs. I own a copy of it and it’s great.
FinderPop or FolderGlance are feature-packed contextual menu utilities you should check out too.
ReturnOpen allows you to use the return key to open files in the Finder.
RightZoom ‘fixes’ the green button to maximize like people expect it to and while you’re at their site they make a Start Menu if you miss that from Windows. also uBar does that too.
There is also a new util to put the menu bar on both monitors but its still in beta.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:54:37 +0000

@Maciek: Some good points there, especially regarding the green ball button. I never know what’s going to happen when I click that!

By: Maciek

Maciek — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:42:44 +0000

and here is my list

http://www.uxandall.com/my-10-pet-mac-usability-peeves

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:07:48 +0000

@Tony: Thanks for your comments. I’m amazed that Apple got rid of the Home/End keys on the MBP! At least there are still key combos for them. And I agree with your last paragraph – Mac OS X may have some usability issues, but it’s still the nicest-to-use OS out there

By: Tony Chung

Tony Chung — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:04:57 +0000

Errg… Matt — you have HOME and END buttons? As of this year’s MBPs, those buttons are now gone, gone, gone! I’d classify it another UI #FAIL. Fortunately my external keyboard was a carry over from Windows, so those buttons exist. There’s also some fancy fn-cursor trick but that’s kind of a waste. HOME is HOME. END is END. Way back on the UNIVAX. LOL.

Also, why label a BACKSPACE key “DELETE” … BACKSPACE is common from the days of typewriters. It made sense that BACKSPACE deletes characters before the cursor (hence, backwards movement) whereas DELETE removes characters after the cursor. This isn’t OS centric. It’s truly universal.

And I second or 3000000 the request to expand application panes from all sides. Come on, Apple, ADOBE gets it right in ALL their apps. It should be DEFAULT behaviour. Period.

And Ben hit TMan on the head with the cut-and-paste within the file system myth. Cut files don’t move until you paste them. That should be another default file system option. Add to this the non-expanding folders while dragging files. I find it a a wasted step to drag the destination location to the Places bar, navigate to the source, and drag files from the source to the destination. Some say it’s just a different way of working. I say it’s inefficient.

I’m glad to know others out there share my frustration that Apple is consistent in their inconsistency. Even still, I’m having the best experience working on Mac vs. 20+ years in the DOS/PC world. If these are the only things I can complain about, Apple’s done really well. One would hope it can only get even better.

Thanks for this post.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:16:38 +0000

@Kaan: Thanks for your opinion on cut/paste. I can understand both points of view. As James says, there is something strange about the fact that you “cut” a file on Windows, yet it doesn’t really get moved to a clipboard like cutting text. OTOH I too find it a pain that you have to copy/paste a file then go back and delete the original (stupid!). I’m not sure there’s a happy compromise between the two unfortunately — if there was then someone would have invented it by now!

However you can order things by date in the file chooser (though, for some insane reason, not by size). Just click the “list view” button top left, then click the Date Modified column header.

By: Kaan

Kaan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:30:34 +0000

James Katt How cut/paste is illogical? Dont you cmd+x while you wordprocessers? I dont want to copy/paste and then come back and delete the original one.

I really find finder awful. It doesnt let you order things according to size/date if the finder is used by another program. (Lets say you are on Firefox and try to upload a file from your document folder ) For me it is a problem. You can call me Windows-Centric I would call myself logic-centric.