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Leopard as the New Vista?
ninja_assault_kitten writes "There's an interesting rant from Oliver Rist up on the PC Magazine site. He compares the catastrophe that is Vista to the recently released OS X Leopard. While clearly one is a lion and the other a cub, there do appear to be some frustrating similarities. From the article: 'A month of using Leopard with the same software I had under Tiger and the OS has dumped six times. That's six cold reboots for Oliver. Apple isn't even honest enough to admit that Leopard is crashing: The OS just grays out my desktop and pops up a dialog box telling me I've got to reboot. Like the whole thing is my fault. I even snapped a picture of it. After all, I HAD PLENTY OF CHANCES!'"
I am blind and use a screen reader, and I find Leopard's screen reader, Voiceover, will randomly freeze for a couple of seconds when browsing web pages. It is extremely annoying, but not as annoying as the extremely clunky keyboard interface. Hardly anything is automatically read, you have to use the shitty keyboard interface to find everything.
Like Microsoft, Apple claims their half-assed screen reader has improved. Like Microsoft, they've hardly done anything.
NOTE: I don't actually own a Mac, but I have an Apple fanboy friend who owns a Macbook with Leopard.
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
Since starting to use it, I've had a lot of problems with it, too.
When it comes to applications, Firefox crashes for no apparent reason. I thought it might have been due to Flash, but it has crashed even on pages without any Flash. And it works fine for other Flash-based apps. This didn't happen on Tiger.
I've also had Finder just freeze at times. Again, this is something that never happened with Tiger, or even Mac OS 9 for that matter.
The few times I've used bash at the terminal, it has core dumped on me. Yes, the shell is dumping core. Something about free()'ing already-freed memory.
Maybe this has something to do with the new features of Objective-C 2.0? I heard from some friends that a lot of Apple's code was rewritten to use the new features. I don't know if this is true or not, but maybe it could explain why the stability we've come to expect from Tiger just isn't there with Leopard? I mean, so many new language features will take a long time to stabilize. So maybe they shouldn't have been used for such core functionality, if that is indeed the case?
I concur. Leopard has SERIOUS problems. It is more than a "point upgrade"as the author states and has some nice new features and enhancements, but firewall breaks all sorts of things abd is as annoying as the Vista mother-may-I prompts giving warnings even after applications have been placed on the white list. DHCP doesn't acquire addresses properly and firewall must be disabled, airport turned off then back on for it to work again.
I've had 2 kernel panics in 2 days (I never experienced a kernel panic under tiger). I have also had the OS go unstable and Finder et al will crash randomly until restart. Final Cut Pro 6.0 crashes all the time doing things as simple moving the timeline. Spotlight crashes and reloads while doing searches sometimes.
Disk Utility can't repair disk permissions or recognizes them as incorrect when they are not (not sure which).
Java is completely screwed! No java 6 yet and javascript commands in safari do bizarre things sometimes like launching outside applications such as finder instead of doing what they are intended to do within the application!
Apple has some serious work to do if they want to keep Leopard installed on users' machines - and they had better do it fast!
Get a web developer
10.5.1 is out and it only fixed some of the issues I've had. I've found using OnyX to delete all caches (including the system cache) has helped, as in it's been 2 days since and hasn't crashed. But Leopard wasn't crashing every day or two, so only time will tell.
One thing I have noticed, the Intel systems I use crash (and have other bugs), but the PowerPC systems I have (including one at the very low end of Leopard supported systems) are stable. That was also reflected in the size of the 10.5.1 updates--the Intel update was over 150MB and the PowerPC update was about 35MB (IIRC the numbers, of course).
Some Differences as well.
Vista was Years Late Leopard was Months Late.
Vista had these problem for almost a year now. Leopard has only been out for a month
Yes Leopard isn't as Bullet proof and free of problems as Apple admits. I had a failed upgrade where I needed to erase my disk clean to get it to work. And after that I still have some minor problems... But the problems are minor and they remind me of an older version of the OS... Codename Tiger. Yes when Tiger was released it had a slew of minor glitches and bugs just like Leopard did.
When Tiger was released Apple was still using Power PC Processors, By the time Intel Systems were released and huge amounts of people were migrating to Apple Tiger was Well in the Mid Cycle where most of glitches were cleared. So most people are use to the solid Mid-Cycle OS. But Tiger had a bunch of glitches, also Panther, Jaguar. When they were in the early Pre 10.x.4 release. It happens in early releases. Similar things happen in Linux too, but the Linux Zealots minimize it just like the Apple Fan Boys do. Stating it is the problem with 3rd party software or there are super simple workaround, etc...
Also there is the issue of the greater number of Mac Users, just the fact that more people are using the OS there is more bugs that are found by users who don't know to fix them. For example I had to hard reboot my Mac this week because of some glitch with Parallels, Going to sleep in middle of a disk write on a USB disk, While asleep the USB Disk was unplugged and when it returned it didn't want to completely wakeup like the program was trying to write to the disk (this may have happened in Tiger too, I was doing something I rarely do). But what happened was the disk got corrupted so things were running poorly. So I rebooted in Single user mode and did an fsck on my disk and fix the problems. Easy for a Unix/Linux/Mac Expert. But if they are a newbie use to using windows this would cause them to reinstall the OS. Many of the people using the older versions of OS X where Well experienced with Macs, and a lot of the Newcomers in the PPC days were people converting from Linux to Macs. Today Macs have a wide base not at all prepared for handling new version bugs.
Things are not as bleak as Vista is, it is actually normal stuff. We just have forgotten it over time.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Same here. Leopard has run fine. The worst that happened was that I had to update a couple piece of software, which is to be expected.
That being said, I've seen some real doozies come through the computer shop where I work. Most can be fixed with an Archive & Install, but some are ugly ones that I still can't figure out, like one new iMac that utterly refuses to launch iWork no matter what I do.
Well, to edify you...
10.5.1 is already released.
And my opinion on the author's rant...
Many of the author's points dont make any sense in comparison to MS and Vista. SP1 isn't due out (as of now) till Q1 2008... OSX's update is already out... don't see the similarity.
He also claims that MS "mostly" admitted to XP pre-SP1 crashing a lot - but that was after SP2 was released and they announced Vista... in my opinion, years later doesn't count as "admitting" anything (especially as their "admission" was more of an advertising tool touting how Vista would fix all the issues that XP had - as they do with every release). That's like the weatherman admitting they were wrong about it going to be sunny last Sunday - when instead it poured... gee thanks, we've known that for quite a while, and it's too little too late. So, I dont see the similarity between that and Apple's stance - which is to (far more quickly) release an update - AND admit to many of the issues, up front and quickly (see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306907 and http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798). So, where's the similarities? MS takes years to admit many major issues, months or over a year to release a questionable SP (SP1? c'mon... the SP needed an SP - namely SP1A)... and Apple admits to and attempts to fix the issues in a couple months...
Vista Similarity 2: Needless Graphics Glitz
Hmm... may be "needless" but people like them - when done right. Vista radically changed the interface in many areas, making things more confusing - while requiring most of a user's computing power to do so. OSX refined their user interface, and added to it in ways that didnt make doing simple things more confusing... and dont use nearly as much of the CPU/resources to do so... where is the similarities? And in the case of consistency between various parts of the OS or programs, neither is perfect, but OSX is light-years ahead.
Vista Similarity 3: Pointless User Interface "Fixes"
Then there's how Microsoft screwed up Vista's UI, reorganizing things that didn't need to be reorganized--like the networking screens... Under XP you can get to those with a single right-click on the desktop. Under Vista, it's three layers down for no good reason...
...Not to be left behind, Apple has messed up its own UI, too, but Apple did it with piles of senseless graphics enhancements.
So, MS totally messed up the Vista interface, made it more complex to interact with, and made it more confusing... Apple added graphics to make it prettier (which Vista is just as guilty of). How is there a similarity between trying to make an interface prettier by totally messing it up and making it more difficult and complex - or making an interface prettier?
Vista Similarity 4: Nuked Networking
Ummm... yeah... I see that similarity... with Vista users gotta wait till Q1-2008 (maybe) for a fix (maybe - doubtfully on some issues since it is due to components of the DRM).... compared to a sercurity/networking fix already being out for OSX Leopard.
Where is the similarity? That they both had networking issues? Neither were apparently secure out of the box - but Vista (for various reasons) dragged down network performance to boot - and made network operations more difficult... while Apple quickly dealt with (and admitted to) their networking issues.
Vista Similarity 5: Bundled Apps as New Features That Suck
Ummm... at least most of the apps that come with OSX are somewhat useful and will get used... unlike what comes on a Vista machine.
But in MS's defense, much of the crapware is installed by the computer OEM - not by MS.
Pointing out Leopard's deficiencies is one thing... yeah, it seems to have quite a few (though at least Apple admits to and
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
At least Canonical has a reason for it to suck though: Microsoft and Apple intended to put out decent operating systems.
For the people I know:
- Vista owners are installing XP,
- Gutsy owners are installing Feisty, and now, apparently
- Leopard owners are rolling back to Tiger.
It's a fucking banner year for the OS. I hope 2008 is better.Put identity in the browser.
I actually am one of those fanboys and I've gotta admit I'm very surprised by the number of issues that have come up with this release. These aren't small issues either. From the perspective of a sysadmin;
- X is hosed.
- Finder takes up large amounts of CPU at odd, mainly inconvenient times.
- It's much less graceful than 10.4, even in Tiger's early releases.
- There have been more than one borked upgrade that I've been witness to, which is brand new to me.
- First day of use I nearly lost my keychain, and it's still not 100% right.
- The new tmp layout broke a few key native OS X apps (Cyberduck, but the dev of Cyberduck was quick on the fix!)
- Weird arbitrary menu re-shuffling that seems out of the norm for Apple's usually anal layout and design philosophy (WTF is going on in the Network Prefs? It's been simple and straightforward since OS 8, and now it's like a circus).
- Longer and more frequent pauses in this release. I'm sensitive to the difference between perceptually slow and really, truly slow, and these are truly slow pauses.
There IS good of course, some of the new features I actually dismissed turn out to be awesome, like, not willing to downgrade back to 10.4 awesome, so I'm going to tough it out. But if I had to turn back time I'd wait until some time next year to order my copy.
As it is now I jumped the gun on ordering and I upgraded a bunch of clients to 10.5, to my present dismay (including my wife). Basically I bought on the good feelings I had towards 10.4.8-> and this release hasn't lived up to that standard.
So it's not that Apple is never bad, but what is new is the WAY that this is bad.
-- The unsig...
I have a PPC system on Leopard and compared to Tiger its relatively the same with few if any crashes. If anything crashed on me it was Safari beta and Safari 2 but Safari 3 is much improved. I'd also say the Finder is much better in Leopard but it still sucks with copying and moving files. I use the command line for that (not that I mind). But this is the OS X experience for most users and should be able to rely on Finder.
Spotlight seems to take longer, but I also recall disabling it on the command line as it would hang for days at first install. Tried to re-index it and then turned it off. At least, I thought I did, but it is still turned on.
This is even more evidence that Leopard is just like Vista: A lot of people have problems with it, and a lot of people dont. For the most part, people seem to be able to get by and use it just fine without a single problem. However, there are enough problems with it that people all over the internets are bashing it with no remorse claiming that it is a total flop and that MS/Apple totally dropped the ball. Both OS's follow that pattern. Leopard and Vista both have some problems, yet a lot of people don't have any problems at all using them. As an early Vista adopter on 3 different machines without a single problem on any of them since then, I can understand how you might feel about this Leopard situation :)
Nice in depth review of Vista there, some corrections if you don't mind. The Cancel or Allow thing only appears when a program requires admin rights for me the only time I see this is when I'm installing a game or driver. Fraps does also require it but it does have good reason to want admin rights. I agree with the model I don't want ever application on my PC to need admin rights. Vista DRM layers are one of the great myths, they did contribute to the driver isue that Nvidia/ATi had but unless your planning on running DRM media (some of us never will) they don't effect your pc in anyway.
I like the UI differences Vista has made the only bad choice as I see it is placing the network sharing centre behind the network connections screen placing Device manager straight into the control panel was a brilliant idea and the re arrangement of the user folders helps seperate things out.
Vista is working on millions if not billions of computer configurations its biggest problems have been drivers and as far as I can tell those driver issues are slowly being phased out. Mac's are supposed to "just work" and yet there is a strong vocal group claiming the latest release is causing them major issues. Microsoft may have a good excuse for why my scanner made by a small company six years ago doesn't work on Vista x64 (actually someone pointed me at anouther driver and it now does) or the fact that Riven won't install (10 year old game.) Whats apple's excuse? They control all the hardware so there are only dozens of configurations and talking with the big companies who produce software for your platform can't be that hard. My own expearence is a little different if you have an issue with windows there will be someone else who's had it and hopefully a work around/fix. If there isn't a workaround you'll find people squatting on a companies forum moaning until there is. Linux seems to me to have split into two camps the first is highly friendly (Ubunutu camp) and they are helpfull. The second is the old school linux camp, this is made up of people who believe the command line is the only interface a person should use and will flame you if you ask why you have to go through it rather than a wizard (my favorite being make one yourself.) Its the sole reason I'll only try Ubunutu because I know I could probably get help if I needed it. Don't get me wrong many projects are getting better but they seem to be the projects tied to (or come preloaded with) Ubunutu
While I think it's laughable to call it a failure at all, especially a failure on the order of Vista, Leopard, as released, does have a number of disappointments for me. I expect them to be automatically fixed in a software update before long, which is far less painful than a massive SP2 or whatever. Here's what I've found:
Some application incompatibility; most Softphones I've tried won't connect to their server. X-Lite won't, and after pointing the finger to Apple (and somewhat rightfully so), have grudgingly stated they will come out with an update for it. But what magical thing could they be using on a TCP/IP stack that would suddenly break??? Something weird must have changed at quite a low level. (The free SJPhone, which works with Vonage, does seem to be one of the rare ones that does work, which will do for now.)
While Spotlight does offer more features and flexibility now, it does come with a performance penalty. I seem to get reindexing and indexing more often than before, slowing down the system.
General system performance seems more sluggish, and boot times a fair bit higher than Tiger. Things like Expose' seemed a little jerkier than in Tiger. (Although this seems a bit better lately, perhaps 10.5.1 update helped this.)
I had one program (Azureus) that wrote to syslog with a bunch of exceptions; Leopard now keeps its syslog in a database (/var/log/asl.db). When this file got large due to Azureus, syslogd suddenly started taking up 99% of the CPU, dragging down the system. It took awhile to chase this one down, having to remove asl.db and kill syslogd (so it auto-restarted). That's a pretty sloppy hole for a consumer OS, in my opinion. (Although one could partially blame Azurues/Java for dumping excessive amount of exceptions to syslog in the first place.)
I've seen my first OSX crashes with Leopard, as well. The were all centered around plugging/unplugging USB devices; in this case, a dying/dead USB MP3 player. Yes, the player was not responding well (bad ram), but it's no excuse for the USB driver bringing down the system. I haven't seen this repeated, so maybe it was isolated to that one bad device, or maybe the 10.5.1 update fixed it.
I have seen one or two occasions where the system just got so sluggish and unresponsive that I had to reboot. Rebooting to make the system run better was unheard of in Tiger.
Adobe Professional's PDF virtual printer thingy doesn't work in Leopard. Adobe has acknowledged this, and promised an update early in the new year. Ugh. Thankfully OS X's print dialog has a save-to-pdf option, which will do for now, although I find it's not quite as good generated PDF content as Acrobat printer produces. (Sometimes, hauling things into Acrobat, then optimizing/saving them, works out okay.)
iWork's "Pages" consistently crashed whenever I tried to edit a table (unless I kept the mouse *extremely* still after clicking in the table, d'oh). An auto update a couple of weeks after Leopard's release seems to have fixed this one nicely, though.
There were a couple of low-levelish kernel extensions that no longer worked for me, but that's not terribly surprising in a major upgrade, and they were nothing core to my work, just curiosities.
Mounting Windows shares seems to be a bit less reliable than before. Some times it won't connect, and once or twice I had to reboot because finder was wedged trying to mount a share, and I couldn't even relaunch Finder. Not great. But things seem to be working better lately (maybe 10.5.1 helped that).
All that being said, I was amazed at how smooth the update from Tiger went; coming from the Windows world, I expected a reinstall to be the only feasible upgrade option. The upgrade to Leopard, however, went off without a hitch. (I did extensive backups, and a test install on an external drive, being so paranoid of losing my stuff in the upgrade, but it wasn't needed, it seems.) Almost everything worked, except for the bits mentioned above. Parallels was one app
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.