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Apple's OS X Leopard In Depth
jcatcw writes "Computerworld begins its Week of Leopard with an in-depth review and image gallery covering Apple's newest version of OS X. Is it worth the wait? Well, Yes. It trumps Vista, of course; the Finder, Quick Look and Cover Flow provide better functionality and eye candy; Time Machine is the biggest undelete ever and the restore function is one of the coolest things we've ever seen; it has iChat; and has lots of updates under the hood. The answer might be no if you're lacking in the hardware department - an FAQ on how to get ready for the new version will help."
Does anyone know what holds MS back from adding the Multiple Desktop feature? I know it can be had with 3rd party software, however last time I used one it really slowed down my machine and caused some crashes.
The lack of such a feature that has been around for eons in the Unix/Linux world drives me crazy!
Sure, Vista is great - if you hated the actually useful features that were promised for Longhorn that were stipped out, having your OS use fifteen frikkin gigabytes of space, a big performance downgrade, and DRM hooks all over the operating system as Microsoft puts the MPAA over you.
Haha, fisher price PC, that's a good one.
Btw, my FisherPriceBook Pro has a UNIX core, I ssh into my CS university account from home to do my work, do my programming in what is IMO the best IDE I have had the pleasure to use.
What "more power" do you have that I don't?
This is a feature that should be high on anyone's list: the ability to direct someone else to change system settings without having to give them a long GUI script along the lines of "Open this, click here, click there, this should say X, type Y". I just love being able to package up these types of changes into a command-line like that.
How is this possible? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to google for exactly how MANY developers Microsoft has versus how many apple has....but Microsoft had at least 5000 developers that worked on Windows Vista. While they must have lowered their standards in the last few years, originally microsoft was only hiring top graduates from top schools like MIT and CMU.
They have a gigantic number of some of the best people they can buy.
So why does their stuff suck so much by comparison to a small corporation? Apple cannot afford nearly the resources Microsoft has...I wouldn't be surprised if their OS X team had 1/5 the people.
I know that skill matters...but surely the top of the class people at Microsoft are no worse than the hippies at apple?
Acronis isn't a good example...
When you see Time Machine think Vista 'Previous Versions' with a prettier UI, and no ability to track or keep file changes on the volume.
Vista does both on volume backup copies of changes and external backups automatically, and presents them in the same 'previuos versions' UI timeline list.
Just like Time Machine, in Vista you can view folders or documents at any previous time whether they are a recent change that is still stored on the volume or a backup from six months ago on an external hard drive.
Vista also does this more transparently, without the need for application integration because of its simplicity in accessing the previous version via a simple open/save dialog box.
Time Machine's UI is much prettier, but since it has less functionality than Vista, and adds overhead by backuping up files every hour, the pretty UI doesn't make up for the lack of features.
Does anyone else find it strange that Vista's backup and previous version system is more advanced than OS X's Time Machine, and yet you hardly ever see it mentioned on a review or when people are talking about Vista. Apple adds a generic version of the same thing, and the press and fans go wild...
And I'm not even saying this to discount OS X's Time Machine, as it is a good feature and a great feature for OS X and Mac users, but strange how something gets accolades when Apple does it, and is dismissed when Microsoft does it and even technically does it better.
Another major issue with the shared menu bar is that half the time, the app I want to do something with isn't on "top" -- something which is non-obvious when the windows are spread out and not overlapping, but I've already gone up to the menu bar, and then have to go back down and foreground the app (or alt-tab), and then return to the menu bar. This notion of the "on top" application defeats the purpose of multiple and/or large monitors. With enough screen space, everything seems to be "on top".
Secondly, I don't have this problem of missing the menu bar at all. All of the forwarded X apps I use have the menu bar in the window and my experience is that they are easier to use because of that fact, not harder. As for why they're easier for me, I tend to look first, then travel. When I'm looking at something way off to the right -- easily two feet away from my physical focus -- I have to turn my head to look at the upper left corner after which I'll go there with the mouse. This is harder than simply continuing to look at the application already under my eyes' focus.
If you'll notice, I said Apple should offer window-bound menu bars as a choice. That way, people who don't work like I do can have things the old way, and I can have things organized conveniently for me. Offering a choice is certainly better than the one-size-fits-all, there-is-only-one-true-way system we have now.
Finally, after years of complaining, Apple has finally (re)introduced multiple desktops for those who want them. Apparently, choice is good. On that note, only middle-click-paste and window bound menus to go. Perhaps by 10.7.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You are trying to give Apple a pass on an issue they really don't deserve one. They could have used even a nominal virtualization system if they were not going to create a subsystem capable OS structure like MS did with NT to ensure support for non main OS level APIs.
And it's a bloody good thing they didn't. OS 9 was not even up to the level of Windows 3.1. It wasn't up to the level of Win16 or Win32s. The classic Mac OS API was so bloody horrible that it should have been dragged screaming down to hell along with Yrkoon of Melnibone's black soul on Strombringer's burning blade. Steve Jobs did the whole computer industry when he shoved a stake in its curdled and stinking heart. It was so bad that when I read "Inside Mac" in 1985 I was convinced that the Mac was doomed and got an Amiga... it was like reading an orchestral score for the kazoo and 32 sackbutts in 17/23 time. The shenanigans you had to go through to safely use pointers. The complete lack of scheduling. God damn you to Moorcock's hell for making me remember this stuff... writing classic Mac applications was like writing device drivers for a pre-thread operating system... you had to put bloody sequence points in and guarantee that they got hit every N milliseconds or the whole grand multitasking illusion would come tumbling down. It was so bad that an early G3 running classic Mac OS was less responsive than a 68030 running NeXTSTeP... I had the two of them running next to each other and the contrast was appalling.
Apple's real crime was waiting as long as they did before killing it. And now it's dead I'm glad, I tell you, glad!
If that is your solution, I can rest my case.
Actually, this is exactly my job; I think it's even what my card says, minus the personal insults :-)
You only find this surprising because you're not used to it because not a lot of people who are responsible for UI on Windows and Linux actually take care of their responsibility. It's always easier to go with preferences, or with what the majority likes best. This is a cop-out, and UI designers should be ashamed of themselves if they don't have the cojones to stand up for their applications and implement the best solution.
Also, "the best solution" has got nothing to do with what I think. This is science; the best UI solution for any given issue can be found using proper application of theory (see Fitt's law), usability tests and UI iterations.