Top 10 things I would have done differently in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Today I’ve been using Mac OS X Leopard for 4 weeks on a daily basis. On a PowerMac G5 at work and and on my Macbook Pro at home.
And in this article I try to point out some things I probably would have done differently when I was to decide that to put in Leopard.
The list is in semi random order whichever item came to mind first is at the top.
So there is a simple form of preference here. But not necessarily a order or importance.
- Leave the firewall port based and have it actually work. The ‘all-new’ firewall in Leopard is completely broken and is so dysfunctional I disabled it because it just doesn’t block anything or even leaves my computer in stealth. The firewall in Tiger worked fine and should not have been changed. Merely updates to optionally offer application based rules instead of port based ones.
- Have the trash appear as a stack instead of a Finder folder. To truly have stacks integrated in the system and not have it as a by-product inside a existing system they could have made the trash a stack just to show how it works and for looks of course. Now it seems the system ignores stacks and shows of as pure eye-candy with no real function.
- Spaces should be on a cube. Like Linux has had for years. When switching desktops offer some more visual options regarding the actual switch. Stick the desktops to a cube… The sliding isn’t bad and is quite fast but it’s too limited for “the most advanced OS ever”.
- Offer more options for theming Mac OS X. If Apple and ‘Mac’ was truly about fun and games and creativity why not offer a form of SDK or various themes to style the OS to your personal liking? Why force everyone to use the exact same theme, icons and mouse cursors? Sometimes I so miss such options.
- Allow more options in Timemachine, regarding the back-up schedule for example. I can imagine most people don’t want hourly back-ups… Like me… once every few days is enough for me.
- Also for Timemachine, allow a broader selection of storage devices. Like network disks or another server than Xserve and XSan. Technically this is not impossible as I’m doing it right now using Rsyncx.
- Obtain the app Growl and create systemwide support for it. Much like the current app does now. But then truly built-in.
- Expand the clock view in the upper right corner to include a quickview or preview of the iCal calendars you use. Like when you click the clock a menu/dynamic window comes out showing the current month in a calendar and this weeks appointments in a list below it. Also allowing a certain degree of management like adding events or a simple search would be very nice.
- Better navigation controls in Finder. Perhaps even add a bar showing the current path and allowing to navigate with that as well or opening upper layers/folders in a new windows for more easy control and copying/dragging files around.
- Not be so wary about security and let it go a bit. Sure, people should be made aware of the risks. But at the same time it struck me how much more alerts and warnings there are compared to Tiger… Almost as if they don’t trust their own system and feel like they need to tell the end user this over and over. Isn’t OS X still the more safe OS along with Unix/Linux?
Maybe you have other things you would have done differently. Don’t hesitate and post them in the comment section. I would like to hear about them. Maybe someone (Apple) takes not of it and makes changes accordingly. Or some software enthusiast will make some app or tool to accomplish said points in a stylish and proper manner. Who knows!
But for now…
bye.
SHRIKEE
www.sothq.net
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
1. Very valid criticism. Apple dropped the ball here.
2. Very neat idea. It seems very obvious when you said it, but I never thought of the special treatment of the Trash folder.
3. Fast user switching already appears with the rotating cube transition. I’m not attached to the transitions as they are now, but this one was already “in use”.
4. Considering that CoreUI is a new framework of XML definitions of resolution independent artwork, it looks like Apple is heading in the direction of interface themes. But it looks like they have a long way to go before getting normal Aqua (which they have a decade of familiarity) ready with this new tech.
5. You can turn off back ups just by unplugging your external hard drive. After two weeks Time Machine will remind you it hasn’t done a backup, but otherwise it’s not very noisy about missed backups.
6. Network backups will happen. Is it a technical problem or something Apple will make us pay more for (Leopard server or an Airport update)? That’s yet to be determined.
7. The idea behind Growl is nifty. System wide notifications. I have to think that the programming side could be improved a bit before being made a standard part of the system.
9. When you choose View > Show Path Bar, the Finder puts a breadcrumb path at the bottom of each window. You can drag and drop things onto a different folder in the path and you can double click any part of the path to go straight there. That’s already pretty close to what you’re asking for isn’t it?
10. I disagree with lightening up on security. One day Apple will have a major bug that will draw national attention like “Melissa” or another major windows virus. Showing that security is getting more lax will be a bad thing when that day comes (and it will eventually).