It's Yosemite. And none of the icons are the same. They couldn't be because the design guidelines are different. Of course in some cases there are common themes, where they have an app with the same and functionality on both. It would be stupid if there were not. But they are never the same.
NOT acceptable! Notifying me because there is some new featured software you want me to see
It doesn't do that. It only notifies you of actual updates to software you already have. If you were running the beta of Yosemite, that will be why you got it. I didn't have the beta, and I didn't get that badge. It's perfectly reasonable to nudge you off the beta and on to the release. The beta is not supported now that there's a release version.
The App Store app does have a big banner advertising Yosemite within it. But that doesn't cause an icon badge for me.
Personal likes can be subjective. But the failure of Windows Phone & Tablets in the market and the need of Microsoft to backpedal on the desktop is objective, The same Windows UI everywhere failed. A failure is not a foundation. It could be a learning exercise from which they'll recover. But in no way was it not a failure.
Search the web, and you'll see instructions for downgrading Mavericks to Mountain Lion using a Time Machine backup. And certainly during the beta testing phase you could downgrade Yosemite to Mavericks.
The release of Yosemite has only just come out, and I haven't tried it myself so I can't guarantee it. But it would be very surprising if you can't restore from a backup that's a previous OS.
I mean a fresh install of an older OS.
No, you can't do that. But what's the use case? You're going to throw away all your data and apps?
It's a shame they differ. But let's face it, actually having Foo.bar and foo.bar, or worse still Foo.bar and Foo.BAR in the same directory is a silly thing to do.
So now you're qualified to tell me what I do and don't like?
I'm qualified to say that the reason Google Docs sucks is because it's a web app.
ODF is pretty damn standard. Hell, even Microsoft has an open standard in use, currently. In fact, I can exchange documents between OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Star Office, and Microsoft Office in either format.
They are file formats. They are not methods of handing off open documents between different devices without first saving them somewhere. Completely different thing.
And even they are fucked. Documents moved between different office apps tend to break. Still. In 2014.
iCloud is nothing more than an online storage service. It takes data from one device and makes that data available to other devices. If they can't get that right, that's not growing pains, that's incompetence.
It's a sync service, that works on open files. And that's hard. Very hard. Always has been. And if you don't know that, that's your incompetence.
And yes, I'm a developer that has programmed with iCloud, and worked in the same office as the sync team for another OS company, so I do have a little insight into this.
I guess, really, what I'm asking for is a solution that we've actually had for decades. The ability to open a file in a common format, from the media of my choice. Why does it seem that nobody is capable of that once a mobile device is involved?
Repeat after me: file formats and sync are not the same thing. The only reason that you think it's easy is because it's not a problem you've ever been exposed to.
It's a power user option. Open terminal., and type the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE killall Finder
The rest of your points are simply a matter of you being used to something different. If and when you get used to the Mac way, and you go use a Windows or Linux computer, you'll think they are odd.
Maybe KDE has spoiled me, with its lashings of customisation options, but I can see if I were to switch to a Mac, I'd spend a lot of time downloading hacks and scripts to bring back the features I like to work with, and other scripts to do away with those that I don't.
That's not the way to go. OSX is not KDE, trying to make it so is pointless. Just as trying to make KDE like Windows would be.
Downgrading an OS by a major version is asking to break it. The upgrade scripts will normally change various datafile formats and contents. That's not a reversible process unless there are equivalent scripts to go the other way. And what OS developer is going to put the same development and testing effort into going backwards?
Thats not to say that you can't in GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux lets you tinker with most things. But it generally offers no protection from breaking everything when you do so.
Of course the right thing to do regardless of platform is to make sure you do a complete backup before upgrading, so you can go back to that if you want to.
I'd argue that Apples way is no different, and certainly not better. I don't do it often because I generally don't like the interfaces for any of the apps that have the capability
The difference is, as you then go on to acknowledge, that Google Docs is a web app, and Apple's apps are native. And the reason why the Google Docs are so bad you don't like them is they are limited by the fact that they are web apps.
What are you missing here?
As to it needing Apple devices on both ends, Apple has always been a "whole widget" company. One of the reason there products work so well is because they retain total control of hardware and software.
If there was a quality existing standard for handing off between different Office apps on different apps/OSs, then Apple might use it. But there's not.
Furthermore, there have been major growing pains with iCloud over the years even with it just being used from Apple's own APIs. Making it generic would introduce more problems.
If you can't understand why scripting is important, then you don't understand what computers are to begin with (and an iPhone is a computer; it just happens to have a modem, microphone and speaker too).
You seem to have got a warped idea of what a smartphone is. Just because it has a CPU does not make it a desktop substitute. There's no mandate for end user programability. And there's no demand for it in a mobile phone either. A few hackers who are stuck in the 1970s Unix concept of computing does not make a market for a mainstream device. Essentially no one buys a phone for scripting or CLI. And even if every single person on Slashdot said they do, that still wouldn't make it a market.
A phone is a communicator. Not a desktop substitute.
But once upon a time Apple used to ship a specific server OS called, predictably, OSX Server.
Nowadays they don't create two seperate OS packages, they use only one, but they additionally sell a bunch of admin tools which you can install on top of the ordinary OSX. This package is called OSX Server and sells for $20.
And of course, let's not forget the fact that all of this is beside the point since providing a computer without the ability for it to be programmed is fundamentally unethical to begin with!
That would be pretty bizarre ethics. Citation? (I'm guessing RMS. Maybe ESR?)
I don't remember much of a fuss over video game consoles. (Although obviously fringe figures like the aforesaid have been wearing hair-shirts for decades.)
The App Store icon in the Dock displays a numbered badge when there are any updates - OS or App Store apps. When there as OS updates, you get a popup-notification.
These are both far superior then having to remember to check Software Updates from time to time, as in days of yore. (And it's several versions ago that that was the primary update point.)
Nope. The failed Microsoft experiment of the same GUI on desktop and mobile was not and will never be done by Apple. They are aligning technologies, not UIs.
It doesn't matter how real those limitations are. If there's any complication or limitation at all, real or perceived, people won't use it.
Same reason people aren't using Android NFC.
If you continue telling people to call your "real" cellphone number after signing up for Google Voice, you are proverbially Doing it Wrong.
Problem is of course that everyone already has the mobile phone number. This would require getting everyone to change it. Which is hard enough if ever your mobile phone number has to change. Given that your existing mobile phone number will still exist, good luck trying to get everyone to call this other number instead.
And you want to biggest limitation of all? Absolutely real, and completely prohibiting most people from using it? Google Voice is a US only service. Apple's system works in every country.
In other words, Google Voice requires you to have a separate telephone number, that's not your mobile phone number. Depending on what services they want, people have to contact you on the two separate numbers. (Google Voice has limitation on SMS, international calling etc.)
Depending on which number they use, your ability to accept the call on a computer will either exist or not.
As a result of the complications, Google Voice isn't a big success.
As always Apple goes with a solution that cuts out all the confusion. One phone number, all services.
It's already been pointed out to you that in the presentation they also compared with the last iPad. So the information you're whining about was there. Now it's interesting for some people to see how far we've come since the first iPad in 2010. Why are you so concerned that this additional statistic is suppressed?
Slashdot Mirror
It's Yosemite. And none of the icons are the same. They couldn't be because the design guidelines are different. Of course in some cases there are common themes, where they have an app with the same and functionality on both. It would be stupid if there were not. But they are never the same.
NOT acceptable! Notifying me because there is some new featured software you want me to see
It doesn't do that. It only notifies you of actual updates to software you already have. If you were running the beta of Yosemite, that will be why you got it. I didn't have the beta, and I didn't get that badge. It's perfectly reasonable to nudge you off the beta and on to the release. The beta is not supported now that there's a release version.
The App Store app does have a big banner advertising Yosemite within it. But that doesn't cause an icon badge for me.
You can port a mobile number to a fixed line number? You can't in my country. Only mobile to mobile and fixed line to fixed line.
But then again, as I mentioned Google Voice doesn't exist in my country, or any others other than the US, so this may be a moot point.
Personal likes can be subjective. But the failure of Windows Phone & Tablets in the market and the need of Microsoft to backpedal on the desktop is objective, The same Windows UI everywhere failed. A failure is not a foundation. It could be a learning exercise from which they'll recover. But in no way was it not a failure.
Search the web, and you'll see instructions for downgrading Mavericks to Mountain Lion using a Time Machine backup. And certainly during the beta testing phase you could downgrade Yosemite to Mavericks.
The release of Yosemite has only just come out, and I haven't tried it myself so I can't guarantee it. But it would be very surprising if you can't restore from a backup that's a previous OS.
I mean a fresh install of an older OS.
No, you can't do that. But what's the use case? You're going to throw away all your data and apps?
It's a shame they differ. But let's face it, actually having Foo.bar and foo.bar, or worse still Foo.bar and Foo.BAR in the same directory is a silly thing to do.
So now you're qualified to tell me what I do and don't like?
I'm qualified to say that the reason Google Docs sucks is because it's a web app.
ODF is pretty damn standard. Hell, even Microsoft has an open standard in use, currently. In fact, I can exchange documents between OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Star Office, and Microsoft Office in either format.
They are file formats. They are not methods of handing off open documents between different devices without first saving them somewhere. Completely different thing.
And even they are fucked. Documents moved between different office apps tend to break. Still. In 2014.
iCloud is nothing more than an online storage service. It takes data from one device and makes that data available to other devices. If they can't get that right, that's not growing pains, that's incompetence.
It's a sync service, that works on open files. And that's hard. Very hard. Always has been. And if you don't know that, that's your incompetence.
And yes, I'm a developer that has programmed with iCloud, and worked in the same office as the sync team for another OS company, so I do have a little insight into this.
I guess, really, what I'm asking for is a solution that we've actually had for decades. The ability to open a file in a common format, from the media of my choice. Why does it seem that nobody is capable of that once a mobile device is involved?
Repeat after me: file formats and sync are not the same thing. The only reason that you think it's easy is because it's not a problem you've ever been exposed to.
especially the inability to show hidden files.
It's a power user option. Open terminal., and type the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
The rest of your points are simply a matter of you being used to something different. If and when you get used to the Mac way, and you go use a Windows or Linux computer, you'll think they are odd.
Maybe KDE has spoiled me, with its lashings of customisation options, but I can see if I were to switch to a Mac, I'd spend a lot of time downloading hacks and scripts to bring back the features I like to work with, and other scripts to do away with those that I don't.
That's not the way to go. OSX is not KDE, trying to make it so is pointless. Just as trying to make KDE like Windows would be.
Do you have Retina? I believe the new look is optimised for that.
Did you backup before upgrading?
Downgrading an OS by a major version is asking to break it. The upgrade scripts will normally change various datafile formats and contents. That's not a reversible process unless there are equivalent scripts to go the other way. And what OS developer is going to put the same development and testing effort into going backwards?
Thats not to say that you can't in GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux lets you tinker with most things. But it generally offers no protection from breaking everything when you do so.
Of course the right thing to do regardless of platform is to make sure you do a complete backup before upgrading, so you can go back to that if you want to.
I'd argue that Apples way is no different, and certainly not better. I don't do it often because I generally don't like the interfaces for any of the apps that have the capability
The difference is, as you then go on to acknowledge, that Google Docs is a web app, and Apple's apps are native. And the reason why the Google Docs are so bad you don't like them is they are limited by the fact that they are web apps.
What are you missing here?
As to it needing Apple devices on both ends, Apple has always been a "whole widget" company. One of the reason there products work so well is because they retain total control of hardware and software.
If there was a quality existing standard for handing off between different Office apps on different apps/OSs, then Apple might use it. But there's not.
Furthermore, there have been major growing pains with iCloud over the years even with it just being used from Apple's own APIs. Making it generic would introduce more problems.
If you can't understand why scripting is important, then you don't understand what computers are to begin with (and an iPhone is a computer; it just happens to have a modem, microphone and speaker too).
You seem to have got a warped idea of what a smartphone is. Just because it has a CPU does not make it a desktop substitute. There's no mandate for end user programability. And there's no demand for it in a mobile phone either. A few hackers who are stuck in the 1970s Unix concept of computing does not make a market for a mainstream device. Essentially no one buys a phone for scripting or CLI. And even if every single person on Slashdot said they do, that still wouldn't make it a market.
A phone is a communicator. Not a desktop substitute.
Yes.
But once upon a time Apple used to ship a specific server OS called, predictably, OSX Server.
Nowadays they don't create two seperate OS packages, they use only one, but they additionally sell a bunch of admin tools which you can install on top of the ordinary OSX. This package is called OSX Server and sells for $20.
And of course, let's not forget the fact that all of this is beside the point since providing a computer without the ability for it to be programmed is fundamentally unethical to begin with!
That would be pretty bizarre ethics. Citation? (I'm guessing RMS. Maybe ESR?)
I don't remember much of a fuss over video game consoles. (Although obviously fringe figures like the aforesaid have been wearing hair-shirts for decades.)
Mac App Store top paid apps:
7. Pixelmator.
9. Final Cut Pro.
Most of the rest of the top 10 are utilities, used by everyone, creatives and consumers.
The App Store icon in the Dock displays a numbered badge when there are any updates - OS or App Store apps. When there as OS updates, you get a popup-notification.
These are both far superior then having to remember to check Software Updates from time to time, as in days of yore. (And it's several versions ago that that was the primary update point.)
Removing obsolete menu items is a good thing.
once you install a Start Menu replacement (e.g. ClassicShell)
In other words it's only different if you change the new UI for the old one.
It looks like Apple is doing the same thing
Not even slightly. There's no new UI that is like iOS, nor any "classic" UI to go back to.
Apple is flattening the graphical elements of the OS
Yes they are doing that. But that isn't enough to make OSX look anything like iOS.
You might need spectacles. Yosemite GUI is nothing like iOS8.
Nope. The failed Microsoft experiment of the same GUI on desktop and mobile was not and will never be done by Apple. They are aligning technologies, not UIs.
I don't know how you imagined it didn't.
I said limitations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
It doesn't matter how real those limitations are. If there's any complication or limitation at all, real or perceived, people won't use it.
Same reason people aren't using Android NFC.
If you continue telling people to call your "real" cellphone number after signing up for Google Voice, you are proverbially Doing it Wrong.
Problem is of course that everyone already has the mobile phone number. This would require getting everyone to change it. Which is hard enough if ever your mobile phone number has to change. Given that your existing mobile phone number will still exist, good luck trying to get everyone to call this other number instead.
And you want to biggest limitation of all? Absolutely real, and completely prohibiting most people from using it? Google Voice is a US only service. Apple's system works in every country.
You are assuming that choice is necessarily a good thing. The paradox of choice says it's not.
Dell has far more choice than Apple. All of them worse.
As all Macs already come with Thunderbolt connectors this is not a problem.
In other words, Google Voice requires you to have a separate telephone number, that's not your mobile phone number. Depending on what services they want, people have to contact you on the two separate numbers. (Google Voice has limitation on SMS, international calling etc.)
Depending on which number they use, your ability to accept the call on a computer will either exist or not.
As a result of the complications, Google Voice isn't a big success.
As always Apple goes with a solution that cuts out all the confusion. One phone number, all services.
It's already been pointed out to you that in the presentation they also compared with the last iPad. So the information you're whining about was there. Now it's interesting for some people to see how far we've come since the first iPad in 2010. Why are you so concerned that this additional statistic is suppressed?
Pointless customisation.