I heard so much fluff about OSX that I had 10.4 running for probably close to a year. I used it as my primary system, so I could really get a feel for it. I wasn’t enthralled with Safari, so I ran Firefox, and I used iTunes, and even hooked the email client up to our Exchange server. I used iChat on the AIM network, and everything pretty much worked.
User interface design is very important, and Apple has done a pretty good job. However, despite what some people choose to believe, dragging that icon into the applications folder or dragging it into the trash doesn’t always cut it. There’s more there than meets the eye. This can be shown by what happened to iTunes and Firefox, which pushed me to ditch OSX in favor of linux.
iTunes was running fine, I primarily listened to their numerous free internet radio channels. Then iTunes wanted to be updated. After updating, it wouldn’t start. I tried to reverse the update, but there was no way to do it. I tried downloading an older version and trashing the updated version, but it didn’t work. So apparently, dragging the iTunes icon into the trash and emptying it doesn’t actually uninstall the program, and running the installation from an older version would freeze the system. I ended up digging into the installer (oh yes, there’s a lot more to it than one little icon) and manually copying a piece of the program to get it to work again.
The more I used OSX, the more I found that while it was fine for many tasks, when it came to stuff just below the surface, it was a total pain. Want to set up your network? Let our assistant help you. Didn’t work? Let our assist help you again. Something isn’t working quite right? Call Apple support. It seems like Apple has worked so hard to figure out what you want and give it to you, that they would be insulted if you didn’t just accept their choice. So they give you what they think you want, without any other options, regardless of whether or not it actually WAS what you wanted. It’s that arrogance that annoys me, more than anything else.
Wanna change the color scheme? Of course we allow it! Here you see that you can easily change the colors of the three buttons in the upper left corner, and here are your options: (gray, gray, gray) or (red, yellow, green). Aren’t we the colorful ones now?
Commercials say “it just works.” Well, Mr. edgy, young-looking commercial dude, what happens if it doesn’t? Dragging an icon into the applications folder may be a nice installation in theory, but there’s a lot more going on under the hood, and if something goes wrong, fixing it isn’t so simple. What do I do when Firefox asks me if I want the latest version? What happens if I say yes and then Firefox won’t start? When I click the icon, it bounces once and dies, what next? Tried dragging it into the trash and reinstalling, didn’t work. In Windows, I’d probably go into the registry and blow away anything that had anything to do with it, but OSX doesn’t have a registry, at least as far as I know. It certainly doesn’t make itself available in case of emergency, if it exists.
So I’m stuck. Either use the mediocre safari browser or reload OSX with a note NOT to install updates. Or ditch OSX , install linux, and attempt to embrace the open source community which, if you think about it, kinda gave birth to Firefox in the first place.
I guess “it just works most of the time” isn’t as catchy, and “it usually works, but you’re screwed when it doesn’t” probably never saw the light of day. At least they’re more culturally aware; the grey screen of death in OSX is in four different languages:
Thanks Apple, I appreciate the diversity. Why let non-apple-branded computers run your software while you’re at it? Oh wait, then you’d have to deal with everyone, kinda like Microsoft.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I would have an intelligent comment, but I have no damn idea what it is you just said.