After reading this article on Macenstein this evening, I felt compelled to bang out a quick blog to add a little truth to the reality distortion field that is already reaching fever pitch more than 12 hours away from Steve Jobs’ keynote at Macworld tomorrow.
The article’s title "On Macworld Eve: Two more mails in Vista’s coffin," makes me want to ponder his points a little more. First let me be clear on a few facts
I am a Mac user. I love my Macbook Pro. I love my iPod, and I love OS X.
Now for the disclosure that will shock and cause your brain to hurt. I work for Microsoft. I use Windows Vista every day on a desktop and a laptop. I actually really like Windows Vista too. So with that said, let’s look at some reality and alternate points of view. For the sake of this article, I am going to pretend (actually I am not pretending, I do) use ProTools on a Mac. Let’s rewind to Mac OS X Panther and pretend that I am running a shiny PowerMac dual 2.0 Ghz tower with the latest version of Pro Tools on it. Again, it’s not really hypothetical, I was.
So OS X Tiger came out and I wanted it. The only problem is that ProTools wouldn’t work with OS X Tiger. Only Panther. Sound familiar?
Now let’s fast forward to last year, I ran out to get Leopard, installed it on a brand spankin’ new current 2.2Ghz Macbook Pro and bam, bluescreen. Time Machine ran like crap on a brand new dedicated hard disk. There were glitches abound.
Since when are these things unique to Microsoft? Now we read that there is a petition to keep Microsoft from giving up selling Windows XP. Here is the reality…
If you are using a new computer with current software, Windows Vista works just fine. If you are using an older computer, keep XP on it, it’s probably on it anyway.
Microsoft may very well extend the life of XP, that’s anyone’s guess. But the negativity is pointless. I say instead of giving Vista the finger, give Vista a chance. It’s actually pretty damned solid on good hardware.
UK Schools Ditching Windows? Here is another take at bait and switch titling. Just because a school isn’t adopting Vista and Office 07 (which is common practice for corporations and educational institutions since Windows 2000 came out to replace NT4) doesn’t mean they are going all Mac or taking up the Linux bandwagon. It just means they aren’t making a commitment to Vista yet. This again, is common practice.
The point is that the tornado that is "hate Vista propaganda" is getting ridiculous. Ethical journalism has long left the building and people are now debating pure hyperbole and buzz. Nobody looks at the facts, the real compatibility and most of all most of the people writing the articles aren’t using it.
Get the facts, give it a shot, and don’t do it on your grandpa’s old commodore 64, use a reasonable system.
So here we are folks. I have been kicking around in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for a few days over a month now. I have had plenty of time to form my impressions and thoughts, so I have collected them to share with you. For the scanners out there, the final outcome is I really like it. I am still a little iffy on the $130 upgrade fee considering the new features, but if you are a Mac head, it’s not much cash, so go get it.
Top 10 of OS X Leopard:
Spaces, spaces spaces: If I had to choose one feature that sells me on Leopard, it’s Spaces. I would speak to the usability of them, but they are so well designed that you don’t even notice that you are using them most of the time. The big benefit is a much cleaner looking desktop while you are working without layers upon layers of windows. 5 stars.
Stacks: For some reason, the most useful stack to me isn’t enabled by default. A quick terminal hack away, you can enable an awesome “Recent Applications” stack that has your 10 most recent applications a click away. Talk about useful! The other stacks are mildly useful at best. I am using one for Recent documents, which I organize so its just a list of folders, Recent Downloads which I don’t find very useful and applications which can be really handy. 3 stars.
Apple Mail: It’s still no outlook to me, and I miss the 3 pane view, but there are some very nice features. Autosensing dates and address info is very nice. I also like related email highlighting. Being a new convert to gmail, I really wish it organized by conversation. 3 stars.
Time Machine: While I have known a few people who are having great success with Time Machine, it ran horribly on my computer. Perhaps a fresh install would help. I’ll look at it more later, but for a bad out of the box experience, I have to give it 2 stars.
System Preferences: With a much more organized look, they have made great strides, specifically in the network preferences. It’s subtle, but a huge win. 5 Stars.
Terminal: two words, Tabbed Terminals! For someone who uses the terminal a lot, and for me it’s every day, this is a huge plus. 5 stars.
New Menu: Who cares? Why was this such a buzz feature. It’s a little transparent, big deal. It doesn’t bother me, but doesn’t excite me either. Bring the Apple Menu back and then we will have something to talk about! 0 stars.
Boot Camp: It’s official folks, and if you need it, it’s incredible. I don’t use it, but if I needed a screaming fast gaming laptop or had some apps I just couldn’t use in Parallels, I would be all over it. 5 stars.
Finder: I am torn on the Finder. The new features like coverflow are really slick. But slick isn’t always useful. It’s still loads faster in grid or list view usually. I’ll give them an A for glam, but not sure it’s substance. 3 stars.
Quick Look: This is kind of an extension of the finder, but it deserves it’s own mention. This is an awesome feature. I find myself using it all the time. With new additions for looking into zip files and folders, it’s a sure win. 5 stars.
So there you have it folks, my top 10 for Leopard 1 month in. There are some huge wins and some subtle ones, but if you aren’t using it yet, go ahead and get it. It’s pushing it at $130, but I think it’s worth the cash.
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!
There has been a lot of buzz about things we like and do not like about Mac OS X Leopard. I posted my top tips recently, and now Wil Harris from Channelflip.com has gotten into the act on his Unwired show to provide you some slick tips and alternate applications to keep your Leopard purring smoothly. Enjoy!
I responded to a reader comment today, and I thought I would share the mail. I know that there is still all this Mac vs. Windows stuff (Is it just me or is this just like the East Coast vs. West Coast stuff…if only I could figure out which one was Biggie and which one was Tupac…now there is a philosophical question for you) so I thought I would share my response with you so I can show you how truly OS Agnostic this site is.
Sure I have been writing a lot about Apple lately with the release and testing of Leopard, but this site is not, nor will it ever be a place to carry on the nonsense that exists between Windows and Apple fanboys. Both are only as good as the person using them.
I recently switched to a Macbook Pro for my personal laptop (2.2Ghz 4GB Ram) but I was hardly out of love with computing. I still use Windows XP on my home desktop, Vista in parallels, and XP on my work laptop and desktop. I don’t have problems with them.
I love my Mac, but I am not using it because Windows was so bad I had to.
