I see that your experience has pretty much mirrored my own.
My post neglected to mention my frustration with Finder though. And the Dock. And the Disk corruption. For me, I seem to generate permissions issues just through normal usage. Normal usage being Firefox, Word, Adium, and the occasional Excel applications.
Amen! Switching sucks. Understand that I'm definitely not a fanboi. I understand that productivity, ease of use, multi-tasking, etc. factors in a person's technical aptitude, and usage patterns among other things. So I'm objective enough to NOT shoot down and discard an alternative just because it does something Different, or it does so in a way that I'm not used to because I've used Windows for that past 8 years.
I've owned my Mac Pro for a little over a month now. It's my first Mac. I'd label myself as a casual gamer: I like playing just about every type of game out there, i.e. WoW, Half-Life 2, Planescape, etc.. but I don't need to be running at 1600x1200 with 60fps. Hence, I was fine ordering the Mac Pro even though I knew I'd get better gaming performance from a Core 2 Duo system. I plan on running either MS Virtual PC or VMWare to run multiple VMs so that I can experiment with network environments, linux, etc.. so this is a good middle ground for me.
The reason I bought it was mostly because Dell and HP's dual Core 2 Xeon systems were significantly more expensive than the Mac Pro. This is also mostly due to the fact that Dell wouldn't let me order one without an LCD screen, and HP had very limited configuration options. So I'd get a Dual CPU PC, with quad cores for a relatively good price (3 Ghz, low end Nvidia 7300 card), and be able to give OS X a fair chance.
Yet try as I might, using my OS X on my Mac Pro and throwing everything I could at it to get familiar with the OS and the applications available to it.. it's a long way from winning my heart.
1. Interface
I honestly don't like the interface. It is more inconsistent between applications than I have seen in XP. Trying to click on round minimize/quit buttons is a pain compared to square buttons because they have less surface area for me to click on. The bubbly scrollbar also does not seem very responsive.
For the non-visual aspects of the interface, I absolutely love Expose. I've had Vista RC2 on a seperate system and it's Windows Flip pales in comparison to Expose. It's just easier to see the previews of your windows in Expose instead of Vista's cascaded view.
3. Resizing windows.
I'm used to being able to resize windows from any of the four sides. I've tried to adapt and live with only being able to do it on the lower-right. Yes, I can live with it. I don't want to, because I know this could be easier.
4. App closing.
Quitting applications doesn't always quit them. They "hide" in the dock. Why? I know I can hit Command+Q to close the window, but when I click on the "Quit" button, I expect the program to quit.
5. Performance.
OS X has been perhaps SLIGHTLY more stable than XP. Applications still crash and hang. The OS still kernel panics without giving a reason. The console logs don't always have the explanation either. This one irks me enough to point out because there seems to be some kind of mantra that is always implied by my Mac fanboi friends that such events are practically non-existant on OS X. Far from it.
6. Customization.
With XP, I at least had the option to change the themes to my UI. Not only do I prefer the visual style of XP, and now especially Vista's.. I liked being able to change the window colors. I even liked being able to change my cursors (I think that OS X's cursors are terrible.).. and change the system sounds. The Brain telling me it's time to take over the world every bootup is a small tiny perk. I know it might be possible to do this to OS X with 3rd party apps, but it's easy as pie in XP.
7. Responsiveness.
I've installed Boot Camp and XP just FEELS more responsive when I ALT+TAB, open programs, and use them. (Word, Excel, Outlook.) I've tried having OS X not do the genie animation when minimizing apps, but moving around in the UI doesn't feel as fast. Scrolling up/down documents is slower, navigating through Finder is also slower because of my personal issue with rounded scrollbars and "aquafied" ui elements. iTunes esp
Slashdot Mirror
I see that your experience has pretty much mirrored my own.
My post neglected to mention my frustration with Finder though. And the Dock. And the Disk corruption. For me, I seem to generate permissions issues just through normal usage. Normal usage being Firefox, Word, Adium, and the occasional Excel applications.
Amen! Switching sucks. Understand that I'm definitely not a fanboi. I understand that productivity, ease of use, multi-tasking, etc. factors in a person's technical aptitude, and usage patterns among other things. So I'm objective enough to NOT shoot down and discard an alternative just because it does something Different, or it does so in a way that I'm not used to because I've used Windows for that past 8 years.
I've owned my Mac Pro for a little over a month now. It's my first Mac. I'd label myself as a casual gamer: I like playing just about every type of game out there, i.e. WoW, Half-Life 2, Planescape, etc.. but I don't need to be running at 1600x1200 with 60fps. Hence, I was fine ordering the Mac Pro even though I knew I'd get better gaming performance from a Core 2 Duo system. I plan on running either MS Virtual PC or VMWare to run multiple VMs so that I can experiment with network environments, linux, etc.. so this is a good middle ground for me.
The reason I bought it was mostly because Dell and HP's dual Core 2 Xeon systems were significantly more expensive than the Mac Pro. This is also mostly due to the fact that Dell wouldn't let me order one without an LCD screen, and HP had very limited configuration options. So I'd get a Dual CPU PC, with quad cores for a relatively good price (3 Ghz, low end Nvidia 7300 card), and be able to give OS X a fair chance.
Yet try as I might, using my OS X on my Mac Pro and throwing everything I could at it to get familiar with the OS and the applications available to it.. it's a long way from winning my heart.
1. Interface
I honestly don't like the interface. It is more inconsistent between applications than I have seen in XP. Trying to click on round minimize/quit buttons is a pain compared to square buttons because they have less surface area for me to click on. The bubbly scrollbar also does not seem very responsive.
For the non-visual aspects of the interface, I absolutely love Expose. I've had Vista RC2 on a seperate system and it's Windows Flip pales in comparison to Expose. It's just easier to see the previews of your windows in Expose instead of Vista's cascaded view.
3. Resizing windows.
I'm used to being able to resize windows from any of the four sides. I've tried to adapt and live with only being able to do it on the lower-right. Yes, I can live with it. I don't want to, because I know this could be easier.
4. App closing.
Quitting applications doesn't always quit them. They "hide" in the dock. Why? I know I can hit Command+Q to close the window, but when I click on the "Quit" button, I expect the program to quit.
5. Performance.
OS X has been perhaps SLIGHTLY more stable than XP. Applications still crash and hang. The OS still kernel panics without giving a reason. The console logs don't always have the explanation either. This one irks me enough to point out because there seems to be some kind of mantra that is always implied by my Mac fanboi friends that such events are practically non-existant on OS X. Far from it.
6. Customization.
With XP, I at least had the option to change the themes to my UI. Not only do I prefer the visual style of XP, and now especially Vista's.. I liked being able to change the window colors. I even liked being able to change my cursors (I think that OS X's cursors are terrible.).. and change the system sounds. The Brain telling me it's time to take over the world every bootup is a small tiny perk. I know it might be possible to do this to OS X with 3rd party apps, but it's easy as pie in XP.
7. Responsiveness.
I've installed Boot Camp and XP just FEELS more responsive when I ALT+TAB, open programs, and use them. (Word, Excel, Outlook.) I've tried having OS X not do the genie animation when minimizing apps, but moving around in the UI doesn't feel as fast. Scrolling up/down documents is slower, navigating through Finder is also slower because of my personal issue with rounded scrollbars and "aquafied" ui elements. iTunes esp