We've been through the whole shopping experience, and the reason for switching to the Mac, in Episodes 1 through 3. Episode 4 was a review of the MacBook from a hardware standpoint. Now, after a little more than two months of use, comes a review of Mac OS X 10.4 itself.
Pipe Down, Fanboys!
This review will be a success, I think, if I can manage to annoy the fanboys on each side at some point during the review. No, Mac OS X 10.4 isn't perfect; however, it sure seems to be a lot simpler, and more stable, than Windows. Independent research by others has already shown it to be safer (although it's not absolutely safe, either.) It's tough to come up with a judgment of whether it is better, yet. After all, I have almost 12 years of Windows 95/2000/XP knowledge, shortcuts, and tips to rely on. When it comes to Mac OS X, I've got two month's worth of knowledge; in fact, I'm not even sure of the real name of the Apple-Squiggly key. So I'm not as efficient working on the Mac yet.
Part of the inefficiency comes from the fact that things aren't in the same places. The controls to close or minimize a window are in the upper left of the window, not the upper right. One location doesn't seem to be any better than the other, I just need to remember where they are. Copying and pasting use Apple-Squiggly C and V, rather than Control-C and V. I still find myself halfway through a cut and paste and wondering why it isn't working. Given the location of the Control and Apple-Squiggly keys, using the latter is an easier thumb movement.
Maybe the biggest difference, and one that I definitely think isn't as good as Windows, is that the menus for each program share a bar at the top of the screen, rather than in the top of each program's windows. Depending on how you've got windows set up, it means some extra travel time for mouse movements.
What I Don't Need to Know
Some of my specialized Windows knowledge isn't needed in OS X. For instance, I know how to edit the Registry in Windows. That's something I won't need to know on the Mac, for there isn't a Registry. Since it seems that mostly bad things happen in the Registry, which seems to double in size every couple of months on my Windows machines, I won't miss it. Ways to maneuver out of DLL Hell aren't needed either, for it appears that most applications keep their files to themselves, instead of planting components all over the place. Want to get rid of an application? Instead of going to the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and selecting it off the list, you just need to find the file and drag it to the Trash. (I've read that in some situations you'll need to go back and delete other files, too.)
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - sk T
as a mac user being 12 years experince will be definitely know all the shortcut.
As you are a litter more than two months but to critise OX is not perfect. Why not you to CRITISE than windows is truly unperfect,,,
In This World there is no perfection..
2 - John Davis
Bruce, you write:
"Maybe the biggest difference, and one that I definitely think isn't as good as Windows, is that the menus for each program share a bar at the top of the screen, rather than in the top of each program's windows. Depending on how you've got windows set up, it means some extra travel time for mouse movements."
As a long time Mac user, I like the fact that the menus share a bar at the top of the screen - it's standardness, it all fits together. Also, you use the mouse? Really? I hardly ever use the mouse. Most of the keyboard shortcuts are the same - for EVERY application. Memorize one set, you have them all. I do a lot of text work so my fingers are on the keyboard, I don't want to have to take them off and mouse up to the menu bar each time.
While we're on the keyboard aspect, if you haven't already done so, please check out Quicksilver and TypeIt4Me.
Dump the mouse!
Yours sincerely,
John Davis
3 - Mike Peter Reed
The thing with the bar along the top bugged the hell out of me for while, too. Now, using either Command-Tab or exposé the menu bar seems to be just as natural as pecking around the screen between windows on XP.
It took me about three months to become proficient with OS X after a similar amount of time on Windows systems and a couple of years on a Linux desktop.
It was the "option" key I could never find, cos on a UK keyboard it says "alt" on it and has a weird quantum junction lan changing switch signal symbol printed on it.
OS X isn't perfect by a long way, but it's the OS that best suits my personality of minimalist design and complexity hidden by simplicity of use.
4 - Paul
What do you use your computers for primarily. It would be useful to people to have an idea of that.
5 - no name
The squiggly key you refer to on the Mac is properly called the Command Key. I guess it's hard to design an icon to represent the verb -- command.
Wintel and Mactel pretty much take you to the same place these days. The difference is in refinement and elegance. It's just more fun, more productive driving the Mac, analogous maybe to driving a Ford vs Toyota.
Mac OS X Hints is a great website to learn tricks to becoming a power user of Mac OS X. Apple tends to make more decisions for you, but will often have "hidden" prefs etc. that give back control to those who want to drive hard. There is an enormous amount of power under the hood that most will never tap, especially with it's UNIX underpinnings.
6 - Yacko
The squiggly key, the key with the cloverleaf-like shape is called the command key. Sometimes it is referred to as the apple key, because some keyboards have that key also with an open outline apple drawn on it. This dates from Apple II days, when the keyboard had an open apple key and a key with a closed, filled in apple shape.
The menu bar, ah the menu bar... Apple's thinking is that a single menu bar that changes is easier to use. It may be a longer distance for the mouse but because the bar serves as a border for the cursor. it is easier to hit the mark. If you have a menu above each window, you will find yourself de-accelerating the mouse to hit the mark, possibly overshoot, and/or need to make some other adjustment. With a Mac, all you have to do is shoot the cursor up and then move sideways to the menu item you want. The Mac way encourages users to set their mouse sensitivity as high as possible, since you need less precision to hit some of the interface elements. I can move my mouse 2" horizontally and it completely covers the horizontal distance on my 19" 1440x900 monitor. Try it. As such I prefer the Mac way.
If you have any other questions about Mac quirks, please blog them, as I am sure somebody can at least give the reasoning why they are that way, even if that reasoning still leaves you scratching your head.
7 - Bruce Kratofil
Thanks for all the comments
I happen to be out on the road today -- and I see that half my review seems to be missing. It's going to be awhile before I can get back and do something about that. If things seem a little truncated, it's because they are.
Bruce Kratofil
8 - High Heels
I've used Macs for years, for everything, but in the past year have been using a PC laptop for everything but film editing for myself and with students. It's ok. Everything is ok when you get used to it I find, there are weaknesses and strengths in both. This is vague, isn't it? But that's how I feel about it. Stuff works well if you have the option of choosing the best thing for the purpose.
9 - Mark
I would just like to expand on Yacko's comments regarding the menu bar. It's actually much faster to hit a menu item the Apple way, because you're aiming for an infinitely tall column instead of a small rectangle on the screen. Mac users will flick the mouse up (which with the acceleration will make it to the top of the screen with minimal actual movement), then most likely you'll see them move along the menu bar maintaining a slight upward mouse movement (since it's impossible to move the cursor too high). Perhaps try aiming for the very top of the menu item (instead of the middle as I'm sure you're accustomed to) and see if your speed doesn't improve.
Regards,
Mark
10 - Javbw
Yea, the "curly-Q" squggley key is Command. Apple used to have a little icon "Apple" next to the menu commands, or shortcuts referenced by programs on Apple //'s. All the normal keyboard shortcuts, the popular ones anyway, were mapped to the outlined apple key - the "open-Apple" on the left side of the keyboard, and a solid printed "closed-Apple" on the right, where the modern day command keys are. So the shortcut "Copy" was "open-Apple C" which, when in a manual or being told over the phone was confusing. If I remember back to when I was... 8, the closed-Apple was used mostly to do esoteric commands to check the kernel and whatnot. It was never widely used to my knowledge. Plus, from a marketing standpoint, having little Apple logos over everything in the os is weird, and dilutes the brand. The Windows icon isn't in the menu 12 different times, so with Mac OS 6? (after ProDOS 5 - what ran the Apple // & such) they introduced the squiggley. Since all the previous popular shortcuts were mapped to "open-Apple" key already, Apple put it on the Command key along with the squiggley symbol, even though ALL references to it in the OS were gone - only the squiggley was used. This was merely to help people transition to the "command" way of thinking. They never dropped it. I still hear people refer to it as "Apple C" to copy. I'm sure the old orphaned "Open-apple" will be there for as long as Apple uses keyboards- even 20+ years after proper references for it changed.
11 - Howard Dratch
Although it is true that the apple-squiggly key is officially labeled "Command", I think you have re-named it well. It does have an apple and then a graphic device officially called... hmmm..."squiggly" seems appropriate. You really should email Steve Jobs with the suggestion. They might name something the iSquiggly in your honor.
12 - Peter
Supposedly, the squiggly for the command key is reminiscent of the "bathroom" sign used in some European country. I don't know if this is true or not, but I think that's why the Apple keyboards also show an Apple as well as the squiggly for the command key.
As for placement, I think it's one of those things you get used to. I'm a long time Mac user and the command key tends to live just under my thumb. The control key, on my keyboard, lives at the far left and would be trickier to get to. I just looked at a Windows keyboard and it is in the same place.
13 - Yacko
so with Mac OS 6? (after ProDOS 5
Actually Mac operating systems start back at version 1 or less. For a guide to older Mac system software.
System 5 was an Apple IIgs operating system, though there was also a 6.0 and 6.01. For a runthrough of PRODOS versions.
For further info on the Apple key.
14 - Lefty
You state: 'Independent research by others has already shown it [Mac OS X] to be safer (although it's not absolutely safe, either.)'
Why do you need to stick in the '(although it's not absolutely safe, either.)' when this is implicit in the sentence in the first place??
When one uses 'safer', it implies not absolutely safe.
Windows apologists constantly add these FUDish qualifications when complimenting Mac OS X. Methinks it's to avoid realizing their true action; ie., that they are castigating that very, nonintuitive, unstable, & unsafe OS known as Windows that they had been duped into using all those years.
15 - Richard Klein
I had to switch to a Mac for my job. I've now been using it for about 6 months and there are a few things that drive me crazy. Command+Tab does not allow me to tab to different windows in the same application, The menu bar at the top is a pain with a two monitor setup, and the fact that I have to click into so that it has focus before I can click on a button.
That said, I really like most other things on the Mac.
16 - Mark
Hi Richard,
This isn't exactly the same, but you can use Command-` (grave accent, just above the Tab) to switch between windows of (almost all) applications. So between Cmd-Tab and Cmd-` you can get to any window. (I do this, but often I use Cmd-Tab to get to the right application, and if the window I want isn't in front I hit F10 to activate Exposé in "application windows" mode.)
Regards,
Mark
17 - Daniel Woolstencroft
Thanks to a "technical problem", half of Bruce's article seemed to be eaten on the way to publication. I've just fixed that, so if anyone _thinks_ they've read the whole piece, it's worth having another read.
Apologies, and thanks to Bruce for bringing it to my attention.
18 - Bill
Another way to access the windows of a running application is to right-click on the application's icon in the dock. That will give you a window list, from which you can choose.
19 - Mark
A couple of comments on browsers. There are a lot of choices on the Mac, and Firefox has its plusses. What it doesn't have, and Safari, Camino, and OmniWeb do have, is integration with Mac OS's system-wide services, which I use at least daily. (Opera may also have these, I haven't used it lately.)
For instance, there's a system-wide as-you-type spell checker useful for web forms. There's a system-wide dictionary, accessible by placing your cursor over the word in question and pressing "D" while holding down Command and Control. (It takes a second or two to initialize, and keep the Cmd and Ctrl keys held down to read the definition.) There's the system-wide Keychain, where a web password I saved in Safari is available in OmniWeb. And there's the whole "Services" menu under the application menu. (Select something, such as some text, and see what options are active there.)
These are not high-profile features, and they are easily overlooked, but for me just make life a little nicer on a day to day basis. They make the browser feel more like other Mac apps. As a result, I find I use Safari and OmniWeb most often, Camino when I need a Gecko-based browser for some site that doesn't play well with WebCore, and Firefox only when I need to do some JavaScript debugging.
Regards,
Mark
20 - Arnold Ziffel
I have always called it the "splat" key.
21 - Steve W
"Maybe the biggest difference, and one that I definitely think isn't as good as Windows, is that the menus for each program share a bar at the top of the screen, rather than in the top of each program's windows. Depending on how you've got windows set up, it means some extra travel time for mouse movements."
One of the biggest differences between the Mac OS and Windows is the Windows hides inappropriate options, and the Mac OS greys them out. When a navigation button is hidden in a window or on a webpage, the others move to fill in the gap. If the button is greyed out, all the buttons maintain their original position. I prefer the Apple way.
(It's nice to be able to open a window and browse data by clicking next, next, next, ... without moving the mouse. If when I'm using Windows, and the first time I click Next the Application inserts a Previous button where the Next button was, I invariably click Previous without noticing.)
This carries over into menubar placement. When using Firefox for Windows, I find that some internet applications (websites) open windows sans menubar. ALL windows in Firefox for Mac OS X use the same menubar. This can be very handy when Web Developer and other Firefox add-ons are installed.
Windows dialog boxes do not have menubars, either. Many Apple dialog boxes inherit either the application or OS menubar.
Your problem may be that you have been smacked down so many times by Windows that it does not occur to you that the Mac OS provides new freedoms.
22 - Paul
OS X apps will dump preference files and other stuff in /Library and /Users/USER/Library, You can use Appzapper (and a free app whose name escapes me at the moment) to grab these files. Just drop the app icon onto AppZapper, and it'll find all of the associated files. Another thing to remember is that OS X apps are actually folder called packages. If you right-click on the icon, you can get into the package and mess around.
23 - Ken Edwards
The Command key Bruce?
24 - Nodame
"What I'd like is to have the display cluster all the subfolders at the top of the list, and then the files below it."
Normally, folder sizes are not calculated. Therefore, sort-by-size groups all the folders together.
25 - Ken
Ah, the menubar debate. It's a common one, and really depends on the user.
Mac advantage:
-you know what's in the file, or any, menu (that is, one file menu per application rather than 2 (app and open window)
-you know where the menubar is at all times
Window advantage:
- menubars are closer to doc windows, particularly with large
screens or 2 monitors
Personally, I tend to accidently quit apps in Windows when I'm just trying to close a window, as the "x" buttons are usually close to each other.