Apple sucks iBalls!
Tiger gives me few more reasons to stay a dog person.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: OS Wars
| Today was a great day of disappointments for me on the computer front. After much pondering, for reasons I will explain, I decided to take a trip to the Apple store and Upgrade my Mac to OS-10.4 "Tiger". I have had a Mac for 3 years now. I spent $3000 on it, and have used it probably a grand total of maybe 80 hours. This is my own fault. There is nothing really wrong with it. It is just that I find myself using my PC. I'm a windows fan, even though that's not something most people will admit. As a skinner and a customizer there is much more possible in windows. This, along with a long list of reason why I don't use my Mac much, have caused it to be a bit neglected. Today I wanted to remedy that. So with much to-do I drove to the mall - a place I try to avoid at all costs - went into the Apple store and to my surprise managed to get a copy of "Tiger" without any of the sales people talking down to me. (This is something that I have become used to at the Apple store). $129 later I left the mall and aside from a great disappointment when I find out that Wetzel Pretzel is out of Grateful Garlic pretzels (I cried only a little), I start home with joy in my heart, and a fancy pull string bag full of OS-10.4 . On a side note; I could not help but notice that the nice Apple black box with the big brushed silver X that Tiger ships in is almost an exact duplicate of the 1990's teaser poster for "Malcom X". Coincidence..... well, probably. Now I get home, and the annoyances begin. First a bit of background. I bought my Dual G4 Power Mac Right when OS 10.2 had just been released. 10.2 was a big improvement over 10.1 so I was pretty happy with it. It did what I wanted and I do not use the Mac much so I never updated to 10.3 "Panther". I still had iMovie, and iPhoto, and iDVD installed. They had been updated several times and worked fine (when I found the time to play with them). A year or so ago they quit giving away iDVD and I hardly noticed. I still had the version that came with 10.2 and I had never actually used it, so I did not care much. I remember Steve Jobs saying in his Keynote at the time, "You can still get iMovie, and iPhoto, and iTunes, for free, and if you buy "iLife" you get iDVD as well, plus a bunch of crap." OK so that's not quite a quote, but that was the gist of it. Shortly after that I became quite busy with my new job and much more interested in the PC side of things again. In short, I quit paying attention to what was going on with Apple. Sure I caught the highlights, "Garage Band" comes out and "Dashboard vs. Konfabulator", but over all my Mac attention span was about as short as the amount of time that my Mac was on. This, I discovered today, was a bit of a mistake for me. | |
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First problem: Now, it seams that I have lost some software. I am a bit pissed, but I don't use the iApps often except iTunes, and that one primarily on my PC. So I decide to suck it up an live with it. I suppose if I cared enough I could do a fresh install of 10.2, then upgrade it to 10.4. But I don't quite feel up to that. | |
| Dashboard, or as I like to call it, "The Great Anti-Climax" Moving on. Now lets check out these cool new apps. First, since I am a skinner and I was one of the first people to start messing with DesktopX, I have to check out DA, DA, DAAAA, Dashboard. Now Dashboard was getting a lot of airtime, because on the surface it seams a blatant rip-off of Konfabulator, which is more or less a Mac version of DesktopX. (Another debate all together; we won't get into it here). Well the good news is that Konfabulator should not have much to worry about. Dashboard pretty much sucks. Now this is my opinion only but I can tell you what: I'm not impressed. Sure the graphics are nice, sure they have some nice widgets. BUT, and this is a big but, YOU CAN NOT LEAVE A WIDGET RUNNING ON THE DESKTOP. They only appear on the "Dashboard". The dashboard is essentially a full screen window that darkens the rest of the screen, and with nifty effects pulls you widgets out to be visible. So essentially you are task switching to reach them. At this point you can just switch to the real app. I realize that this means that if you want to see any one Dashboard widget, you have to show them all. You can't, for example, leave a to-do list up on you desktop and work in an app; its all or nothing. This should be Apples slogan. OK OK, but the widgets are so pretty.... So are Konfabulators. Well, that is also disappointing, but perhaps I am overlooking something. I go to the Dashboard configuration. Humm what can I change... I can change the keys it uses, I can set up hot corners to call up the Dashboard. That's it. OK I'm still annoyed by this..... Lets move on. Now still sticking with Dashboard I click on the Icon in the dock and it slides up this nifty tray of widgets. All of the provided widgets are very polished and work well. I try a few and am impressed by their cool spinney 3D effects that make it so the configuration for the widgets are on the back of each widget. You have to see this to under stand but its pretty sweet and makes me long for Longhorn to get its compositor working 100%. Hear that Ian? Well...one last bitch about Dashboard: I was assuming that since Apple makes dashboard and they have full control of the OS that it would be very well integrated. So I check out the weather widget. Its pretty sweet. Nice graphics. New shiny weather Icons, nice. Let me change the zip from the default of Atlanta to mine. Look there the 6 day forecast, that's nice. I continue playing with Dashboard and when you call up the bottom tray these little X's appear in the corner of all the widgets. One of the early problems we had with DesktopX is that people did not know how to close objects, so I am glad to see that they have included that. So I close the weather widget. This turns out to be a bit of a mistake. It seams when you close a widget it is as if it was never run. That's right, when I run the widget again I have to change the zip, position it, as well as set it to show the 6 day forecast, all over again. Now I don't know if this is the case with all the widgets, but it seems that Dashboard only remembers settings for widgets that are running. You can't open and close them at you leisure and expect to keep the settings you have established. You have to leave them running ALL THE TIME. Well like I said, you cant have them visible while you work in any other app, so I guess it is not really a drain on memory, but let me just say if I made a widget for DesktopX that behaved like that I would get flamed with complaints, and I would deserve it. |
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| Well, it is late, and I have been ranting too long. I shall try and summarize my OS 10.4 "Tiger" experience. The loss of my iApps was my fault for not reading the manual first but still, come on Apple, this is the kind of bait and switch that you would be screaming at Microsoft for doing, and everyone would be screaming for court action. Luckily Apples market share is so small that they can get away with things like that. (Well lucky for them at least). I assume that eventually I will crack an buy a copy of iLife that I will never use and Apple will be a little closer to being popular enough to start suing. I am sure there have been tones of usability fixes and such, but the one thing that I was looking for, better Samba sharing, was still not there. Come on Apple, can't you have one of you programmers take a day to come up with a GUI for the smb.conf file? I have been able to right click on a folder or drive in windows and share it since windows 3.11. You just took Samba for UNIX, can't you afford to at least give it a pretty face? As for Dashboard; very pretty at first glance. For a skinner or widget user it is pretty much useless. I will be keeping Konfabulator on the Mac and have already begun the search for a way to disable Dashboard. This is a great example of how an idea can be taken, yet not understood at all. I could be wrong. I'm sure some people out there are wild about Dashboard. I can just say I'm not one.
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That sadly is about all that impressed me with Dashboard. When you go to the "More Widgets" webpage you find some nice widgets and some crap in about the same mix you find at WinCustomize or the Konfabulator gallery, but nothing to rock my world. Needless to say I don't need a "Next Episode of Stargate" countdown widget. That's what my PVR is for. One last thing of note: not all widgets are free. This is not surprising, but something to remember next time you see a pay suite or theme. .jpg)
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Reply #42 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:19 PM
Reply #43 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:26 PM
Reply #44 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:37 PM
Reply #45 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:00 PM
| plus my comp got less 'blue screen' when im using his theme, so it make me wonder weather how good is it to get a real Mac. And another thing u should take note about Microsoft products-You will get a lot of 'Blue Screen' when u using Microsoft XP |
LoL..I cant speak for anyone else but I can tell you for a fact that I never get BSOD's using the system normally..no matter what WB or theme I am using...I have gotten a few..very few, but thats because I was doing something that deserved them..LoL
Either you have a poor installation of XP, Or you have other programs conflicting with XP or your PC is just on it's way out the door..
Whatever the case you had better look into the BSoD's soon, or go and get that MAC because I have a feeling your going to be needing something! XP is ALOT more stable than it seems you have had the privaledge to experience..
Just my thoughts,
Zero.
Reply #46 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:02 PM
Mac Skinning Theme, Your PC Somehow Runs Better and Gets Less BSODs?
I'm Hoping You Say No - I'm Guessing You'll Say Yes.
Reply #48 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:46 PM
| That'd be 'privilege.' |
Seems to me you understood the word just fine, at least enough to correct it's spelling....whats the problem?
::beats the vultures back:: I swear they are swarming these days!!
Reply #49 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:58 PM
| This Goes To Wheelhot. Are You Trying To Say That Because You Use a Mac Skinning Theme, Your PC Somehow Runs Better and Gets Less BSODs? I'm Hoping You Say No - I'm Guessing You'll Say Yes. |
Me, too...
Reply #50 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 11:01 PM
| correct it's spelling....whats the problem? |
correct its spelling...what's the problem? .... 
Now, guys....this is my job...stop stepping on my turf, m'kay?...
Reply #51 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 12:55 AM
Just to further feed the frenzy: Apple will be releasing 10.4.1 update in approximately a month: seems they already saw some problems (the forgetful widgets, for example) from their testers while 10.4 was being boxed.
As Palm-users are fond of saying- no OS or piece of software is without its bugs or caveats.
Reply #52 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 2:10 AM
As far as the 10.4.1 update goes, I've heard talk that it will be available by the end of May.
Reply #53 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 5:30 AM
| BTW, if you actually WANT a Dashboard widget to stay on screen then hit F12, open the Dashboard dock and, as you drag the widget off the dock, hit F12 again. The Widget will now remain on the desktop until you hit F12 again. Frankly, I can't think of many widgets I'd want on my desktop continuously, though. |
Well, I did not know this, so I just tried it, and it works. Kind of. The problem is the next time you call up the Dashboard it gets picked up on the overlay layer and is gone again. This is odd behavior seems more like a bug then a feature. Perhaps if they fix that I will be more inclined to Dashboard. until then it is still pretty much useless.
| Back on the original topic- I thought there is an option NOT to to a clean install? I've seen a number of "upgrade" installs at our university that worked quite well, although not on mine, so I can't give specifics on how it's done. |
I know I can upgrade, but like I said, I wanted to do a clean install since I had not done one since I got the thing.
PS. I know I cant spell, and it is sad that this thread has become a debate over moderation. Lets get back to were we should be, The Mac people telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, and the PC people telling me Mac's suck.
Reply #54 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 6:09 AM
The Dashboard "Layer" thing is intentional. They think you'll only occassionally want to see your widgets and then want to hide them again. There's some truth to this since I find Macs have a tougher time effectively managing screen space and flipping between many apps and windows. It's really my only major complaint with the OS. In windows I find it much easier and faster to move around between a lot of stuff, Macs just seem a little more cluttered and slow in this regard. Of course that could be also because I'm working on a 15" laptop monitor too.
Reply #55 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 6:28 AM
And Bichur, you said:
| Maybe spellcheck doesn't come packaged with Tiger? |
OS X has had a systemwide spellcheck for some time.
Reply #58 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 9:59 AM
My last mac was a beige G3 mini-tower - I'm running OS 9.2.2 on it without any issues, but in order to upgrade to Mac OS X, I'd have to upgrade to a faster processor, add more memory, buy a better video card, and I would still be limited to OS 10.2 (I couldn't run Panther or Tiger on it - they require built-in USB & Firewire-based machines...)
I'm amused (and amazed) that Apple can convince users that the journey between OS 10.1 and 10.4 justified 4 separate purchases. In many ways, Mac users work as beta-testers for Apple and when new "features" are released, we can be convinced to pay for each one. The Mac-specific press dropped support for the older OS (and therefore the older machines) years ago and in the Mac universe the buzzword is upgrade or be left behind.
Apple is about image, not substance - yes, they build beautiful machines and the look of the OS is fantastic, but when you scratch the surface, you still have a computer. You still type on a keyboard, move the mouse, and relate to images on a screen. It doesn't change your life, it's just a slightly different experience. And although it's a superior machine to PCs in many areas (such as artistic creation) it doesn't make working on a spreadsheet or letter to the editor any better.
Reply #59 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 10:36 AM
Me? I'm learning by proxy - I've seen that you've made a mistake and I'm not gonna do the same
People are saying that Apple is getting away with things that Microsoft can't. That’s true, but then in the personal computer market, they only have a 5% (?) share. The little fish has got to survive somehow.
I think I'm using Dashboard as Apple intended. The only widget I leave running all the time is the weather widget. If I wanted to see the widget on the desktop (if that was possible – see below) I'd still have to hide/move all the windows to actually see it, so instead of F10 to show the desktop, I just hit F12. Other widgets I load and close as-and-when I need them so the dashboard bar is handy for that. I do the same for DesktopX widgets - they all remain hidden until I actually want to see them, then I just hit F10 to unhide/hide them. There is a program call Amnesty http://www.mesadynamics.com/amnesty.htm which leaves widgets on the desktop, I've not tried it myself yet.
Speaking of the Dashboard bar, I'd love a DX widget to do something similar, a bit like the OD Launchpad
Reply #60 Wednesday, May 11, 2005 12:24 PM
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Reply #41 Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:12 PM
However, since all Macs ship with iLife apps, you don't lose those apps...you simply restore the versions you have. Nothing lost... In fact, as I recall, Panther shipped with essentially the same versions as contained in Jaguar. Restore what you have and you'll be no worse off than anyone else who didn't buy the last two versions of iLife.
Just a general observation but why do some people get hung up on version numbers? It's like $129 is too much to pay for 10.4 but if Apple simply slapped a v12 on it then the price is okay? Oh, and MS does charge for point releases... Win98 was v4.1, IIRC, and XP is simply 5.1. The price to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP Pro cost me around $200 retail.