Jeremy’s Little Corner Of The Web…

Over at OSNews, there's an article on MacOS X "Tiger" by Jean-Baptiste Quéru. He takes a critical view of the features previewed in the keynote at WWDC yesterday, and I thought I might comment on some of these points.

"-Data syncing. Nice, maybe, but every single app needs to do some work, and I'm ready to bet that at least some of them won't (who wants to bet that my default JPEG settings in Photoshop won't migrate over). That's also a domain where interoperability with the PC world would be crucially important but seems to be sorely missing. "

Hmmm… I can't really comment on the JPEG settings. I guess if it's stored in the preferences, and these are synched over, then there is no reason why they shouldn't be migrated. As for the interoperability with the PC world, I don't see how this is possible. As far as I know, that kind of information is stored in the Windows registry, and converting the Mac preference file over to its PC counterpart would be a hack-and-a-half. What if the software developer changed the format they store preferences in? Then the migration won't be successful. I don't think this is Apple's job, anyway.

"-64 bit support. Nice for those who have G5s, maybe. For those of us stuck with ancient machines (the G4 kind, which Apple still sells today on their web site) there doesn't seem to be any enhancement, and no indication that Photoshop CS will be able to use more than about 40% of the RAM on my 2GB dual G4). "

Obviously, 64-bit support is nice, if you have a G5. Apple is just giving the G5 owners the performance advantage that they would expect from a 64-bit processor. What would be the point of having a G5 if the OS could not take advantage of it? It's not like Apple has dropped support for the G4 (or G3s), either. Even though the MacOS X is fastest on the newer machines, I'm sure Apple has been tweaking and optimising MacOS X to run better on the older machines.

"-Dashboard. A plain, simple and blatant ripoff of Konfabulator. The kind that makes you think that software patents aren't a bad thing after all. The kind that makes Steve Jobs look like a fool when the big banners for Tiger read "Redmond: start your photocopiers". Shame on you, Apple, this kind of behavior really doesn't make me want to give you any of my money, if all you do with it is drive your own developers out of business. That being said the way the accessories slide in view over the existing apps is probably nicer than having them on the desktop. "

Valid point about copying and developers, but I've covered that already.

"-Safari RSS. Not overly impressed. I've worked on RSS as part of my day job, and honestly what Apple did is really not a big deal. If they don't improve the way they make RSS pages look (they currently all look the same), they'll have missed a big opportunity to really innovate. I'd much rather have learnt that they fixed some of the rendering bugs that Safari has, or that they did a better job at integrating PDF (actually, there's absolutely no integration at all in 10.3, so anything will be better), or that they improved direct navigation to images, or many other things where Safari has a lot of margin for improvement. "

I think that the RSS features in Safari are designed to allow the casual user to take advantage of it, not the people that have been using RSS/Atom readers for a while now. I think the pages in the RSS pane look quite good. The slider along the side that allows you to change the length of the summaries is also very cool.

Integrating PDF would be a great thing, as the current PDF Plugin I use can be quite slow, and is at times unintuitive. Safari's not perfect, by any means, but Apple is slowly getting there. For the time being, I'd use Camino.

"-Steve Jobs claimed that Apple's LCDs are a reference in image processing, and that other manufacturers use panels that Apple rejects. I'll start with only two words about image processing: "Sony Artisan". If you really want two more words I'll add "Lacie Electronblue". As for the quality of the panels that Apple uses, I'm officially inviting Steve Jobs to my place so that he can compare himself the quality of the screen on my IBM thinkpad and on Eugenia's Powerbook. "

Hmmm… can't really comment on the studio LCD displays, but I kinda-sorta agree here. The screen on my rev A 12″ Powerbook is nowhere near bright enough when used in the daytime (with no direct sunlight). I generally put the documents, webpages, etc onto the 17″ CRT monitor I have hooked up at home. Hopefully the newer machines are a bit better than this. (Yes, the brightness setting is on full.)

"-Steve Jobs claimed that the only OS transition ever to happen in the PC world was that in 1995 when going from DOS with Windows 95. Sorry buddy, but the transition from Windows 3.1/95/98/ME to Windows NT/2000/XP was at least as big. Or maybe I'd actually say that the PC world is unique in that it is able to maintain such a level of compatibility that no sharp transition is needed. The latest Windows is still able to run many 10-year-old applications. Most recent PCs can still run 10-year old DOS 6.22. By comparison compatibility in the Mac world is a total disaster. "

I wouldn't say compatibility in the Mac world is a disaster. When Apple came out with the PowerPC machines, they had a compatibility layer (if memory serves me correct) that allowed people to run applications compiled for 68k machines. When MacOS X was introduced, there was (and still is) the Classic compatibility layer that allows you to run many (but not all) MacOS 9 applications. There are also some incompatibilities between the major MacOS X releases (I can't name any off the top of my head), but from what I've seen, apps compiled for 10.0, 10.1 or 10.2 do run under 10.3 with little problems.

"-Steve Jobs was quick to mention that there hadn't been any major release of Windows since Windows XP (I really wonder what that "Windows 2003 server" thing was). Ignoring the case of the expensive server OS, he forgot to compare the cost of continuing to run the latest version of Windows and the latest version of MacOS on a PC and on a Mac both bought in 2001. "

If you're only talking about the money spent on OS updates, then yes, Windows wins. That would change if you include the time wasted reformatting your drive because some virus has infested it and it was impossible to remove it. It would also change if you included the money you spent on anti-virus/anti-malware/anti-spyware software.

"In summary, I don't think that MacOS 10.4 is worth my $129 (or my $199 since I have multiple Macs, assuming that they maintain their policy about upgrade pricing)."

Hmmm… Have you heard of the MacOS X Family Pack? It allows you to run up MacOS X on up to 5 computers in the same household, for US$199 (instead of US$129 for a single copy). This may not apply to your situation, though.

"In my experience each upgrade on MacOS X comes with a lot of pain, lots of broken compatibility with at least some of the drivers and accessories that I can't live without on MacOS, and I'm getting to the point where my Mac experience is stuck between a rock (continuing to use 10.3 and all its problems) and a hard place (upgrading to 10.4 and deal with all the new bugs and incompatibilities). "

I haven't had any major problems between each of the major releases. There are some driver incompatibilities, but doesn't this occur with Windows, too? If I remember correctly, Windows XP introduced some sort of driver signing, which caused a bit of pain when it was first released. I know that a relative of mine was unable to use her Canon printer because there were no drivers for Windows XP. What were you saying about broken compatibility, again?

"As a footnote, here are a few of my gripes with MacOS X:

-I find the hardware support to be very poor. 10.3 doesn't have any kind of decent out-of-the-box support for my good Keytronic USB keyboard (it swaps some of the modifier keys), for my good Logitech USB mouse (it makes it several times slower than it is supposed to be). Finder doesn't burn to my external Sony firewire DVD-R. I can't print a full-page letter picture if I tell the OS that I'm printing on letter paper and I have to pretend that I have legal paper, which then causes quite some headaches when trying to center prints. "

I've never had to use any sort of keyboard other than ones from Apple, Macally or Logitech, so I can't comment on the first gripe.

As for the Logitech USB Mouse, you can always increase the tracking speed of the mouse, as well as install the Logitech software, if it isn't already. I'm sure there's a setting there. If your DVD-R doesn't work, try contacting Apple or Sony.

For the printing, have you tried reducing the margins? I'm pretty sure there's a setting in Page Setup or the Print window.

"-poor multi-user support. Fast user switching is only available when displaying the user name in the menu bar (try to create a user named "Jean-Baptiste Quéru" and to enable fast user switching while using Photoshop CS on a 1280-pixel-wide screen and you'll see what I mean). Also many applications don't work well (or at all) when you're not the primary user of the machine, and many applications can't be installed at all if yo're not the primary user, while other applications cannot be installed to be available to all users at the same time even when installed to the primary user. "

Hmmm… I've only used Fast-User Switching briefly, but I know you can switch users when the screensaver password window shows up. There should be a way to switch users by not using the menu item, I agree.

The reason those apps can't be installed if you're not the primary user is because they don't have Admin privilege. It protects the system from being screwed around by users who might not know what they're doing. If it's a problem and you know they won't screw up the system intentionally, give them the Admin privilege! The same idea exists in Windows 2000 and above, as well as in Linux/UNIX.

"-non-intuitive installs, and non-existent uninstalls. I've installed several instances of software that wouldn't install automatically and needed some files to be moved around by hand. I've seen instances of software where an upgrade to a newer version would not replace the older version but would actually live side-by-side, with no visual indication about which version was the newer one. There's no uninstaller worth mentioning that can clean up after your /Library, /System or your personal ~/Library for certain apps. "

Non-intuitive installs? Almost every app I install shows up in a disk image that mounts on the desktop and shows me a window. I can drag the app to wherever I want (not just /Applications) and it will work. No DLL hell, nothing. When you place an app into a folder where an older version of the app exists, it asks if you want to replace the older version with a newer version. When using the Apple installer, it will detect if you're installing a fresh copy or upgrading and notifies the user by the title of the button when you are ready to install!

If an app installs files into /Library, /System/Library (which they shouldn't) or ~/Library/, then they will generally include some sort of uninstall functionality. If they don't, then that's the developer's fault, not Apple's. Windows has similar functionality, with each app containing an uninstaller. Very few apps that I use would actually require an installer/uninstaller, since they're largely in self-contained in bundles.

"-non-existent keyboard shortcuts. I really dislike how there doesn't seem to be any way to dismiss certain alerts with the keyboard, or how there doesn't seem to be a standard way to access with the keyboard menu items that don't have a shortcut. I got really annoyed when I found no way to move a window with the keyboard (which would be quite handy when a window ends up in a spot where you can't access its title bar with the mouse, e.g. underneath the Photoshop toolbar). "

This is a valid point. I don't know if there are any keyboard shortcuts to dismiss dialog boxes, but I remember in MacOS 9 and below there was a way to do it.

UPDATE: Mat pointed out the fact that there is a setting in the Keyboard prefs that allows you to turn on full keyboard support, which will allow you to tab between buttons, lists, etc. It's under the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab on the Keyboard & Mouse Preference Pane.

You probably already know this, but you can get out of most (any?) dialog window by pressing escape. According to Mat, "c" will cancel, "s" will save and "d" will not save. I haven't found an app to test this out in, though, as they all contain text fields containing a filename.