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Jef Raskin On The Mac

der Kopf writes "Jeff Raskin, one of the creators of the Macintosh and inventor of the click-and-drag interface, states in an interview for the British newspaper The Guardian that "the Mac is now a mess. A third party manual (Pogue's The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages, and far from complete. Apple now does development by accretion, and there is only a little difference between using a Mac and a Windows machine."" While I think Raskin has some good points, I think there's a far cry between the Mac & XP.

13 of 539 comments (clear)

  1. Desktop Environments Ranked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Ranked according to stability, features and available applications 1. Windows XP 2. Mac OS X 3. GNOME 4. CDE 5. KDE - Too Unstable

  2. What i like about XP by cybrthng · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Is I know how it works, and on what hardware. I can buy an old PC and know it will be slow - but it will work - and with everything plugged in.

    After experimenting with OS X i've found that there is a bunch of stuff you have to play the upgrade game on and you have to be smart about which "old" hardware is supported.

    IE a Pentium 2/3 CPU with enough memory runs XP just fine - i expected an appropriately configed G3 to do the same with OS X - and i was wrong.

    And now that i've moved on to Athlon64 and i'm running XP X64 (which is 2003 with XP "laf") and it runs great - stable as a can be - and with recognizeable performance increases (bye bye 16 bit legacy support)

    I'm also burnt out on the brushed metal look, the costly updates and dodgy performance unless your willing to fork out big $$$

    like others have said.. until there is a "white box" or generic - i can't afford the upgrade game and after my experimenting around i won't bother until prices come down on more capable OSX systems.

    I want a workstation to learn from, experiment with and have fun on - not necessarily just to look cool on my desk

  3. Re:GUI design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It proves that Windows XP interface design sucks and that end users would prefer things the old inefficient way they were rather than use the new crappy interface of XP.

  4. Re:Not jaded at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Instead of attacking the person, try to attack his points. Wow, look at that, you can't. This probably has to do with you not knowing anything about the actual topic of programming and user interfaces, and not another Mac OS vs Mac OS X vs Windows pissing match

  5. Re:The whole one-button mouse thing has to go... by l4m3z0r · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Insightful? Who moderated this moron as Insightful? Want a two-button mouse on a Mac plug one in, there you go it works. In fact you can buy 2 button mice from the Apple store here notice that they have many different options, including track balls, wireless mice, and also mice with more than 2 buttons with/without scroll wheels. Mod down parent as troll because that what this is, uninformed troll garbage.

    And for the record, as far as laptops go, the necessity for the second mouse button just isn't there, especially when the keyboard shortcuts are designed so well. I have a 2 button mouse plugged into my mac, and dont use the second button(unless gaming). It simply is a waste for me to move my hand to the mouse to do something with the second mouse button that would be better served as a keyboard shortcut.

  6. Re:It's nice to hear some criticism of the Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Oh joy! Another I'm a fucking retard and here's why and I want to buy a Mac but won't.

    What a pathetic dork.

  7. Re:Not jaded at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Jef Raskin needs to step off and get a job somewhere making his little fabulous interfaces that he cries about on every website. If he's so damn smart about creating the perfect OS, then where is his creation? He can't produce one because he has to work 60 hours a week at Burger King to make ends meet. Jef, your time has come and gone and it's OVER for you. Nobody even finds the dumb spelling of your name cute--Jef is NOT spelled with one F, not even if you did invent the Mac OS. You should stop your whining and go back and work on the OS X team. Maybe they would find you as annoying as I do, duct tape you and throw you out the window after about 3 hours. Do us a favor and get down off of your soapbox for once and PRODUCE this perfect OS you speak about.

  8. Meh by t_allardyce · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I love OSXs interface the problem is its so lacking in basic utilities that you take for granted anywhere else. Just one absolutely stupid example is the QuickTime player that comes with it, it can't play in full screen! thats right, the fucking thing can't actually play in full screen, at first you think its just hidden somewhere and theres no way you could leave out something so basic (well maybe back in the days when video was postage stamp size and 5fps but certainly not in the last 5 years) but then you find out you have to actually upgrade and pay fro QuickTime Pro that has this functionality, totally insane! Another example, StuffIt expander, as far as i can tell, it can't compress (unless you upgrade?) it always bugs you about upgrading and the only way to do anything is to hit the shell and tar/gzip etc.. The last major problem is a usability issue. While i can fully understand the way the menu bar works its totally not obvious to new users, does it really need to be at the top? you can't even choose.

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    This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
  9. MacOS X is unmanagable by ElitistWhiner · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The constant influx of third party solutions is prima facia evidence of how bad the user base judges the existing configuration of the Mac OS. MacOS X files fail to interoperate between versions of its own OS releases. Files simply lockup. USB is a mess. Hardware from one version no longer works on another version.

  10. I would remind you by Dogun · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Java is not a modern language, but a step backward in time.

    That's flamebait, btw people.

  11. Re:Not jaded at all by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    words and phrases such as "modern"

    A meaningless term when applied to operating systems.

    "virtual memory"

    Irrelevant to user interface

    "true multitasking"

    Irrelevant to user interface

    "protected memory"

    Irrelevant to user interface

    and "brushed metal".

    Eye candy with no performance benefit -- rendering vector or bitmap graphics in the window painter will never be as efficient as a simple color fill.

  12. i couldn't have said it better myself by aichpvee · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    "While I think Raskin has some good points, I think there's a far cry between the Mac & XP."

    Yeah, XP has a ton of software and Macs have a cheap copy of Shake and one button. Other than that they both suck pretty equally.

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    The Farewell Tour II
  13. Re:The difference is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Try Ctrl + Clicking, dick.