Mac OS X's shortcomings and helpful add-ons

I love the power and flexibility that Mac OS X's Unix underpinnings bring to the system but I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by what the immature system lacks — especially from a usability standpoint — compared to Mac OS Classic and even Windows 98 and newer systems. I have been using OS X daily for about 4 months now and here's my long list of complaints (the first 6 are the most annoying to me):

1. Still very slow: even the latest 10.2.x "Jaguar" release is very sluggish and this affects usability
2. Column View sucks: must scroll horizontal and vertical and can't type to jump to select file/folder (very user-UNfriendly — a huge step backwards!)
3. Worse that you're forced to use Column View in all Open/Save dialog boxes (Default Folder X helps but I'd much prefer just old List View)
4. Dock sucks: Windows Taskbar is so much more usable than Apple's Dock — applications and minimized windows are much easier to identify in Windows Taskbar
5. Filename sorting doesn't work as it did in Mac OS Classic (or as in Windows), as most would want
6. Right-click on desktop to create a new folder and the new folder almost always appears behind another window or on the opposite side of the screen — never right where you click
7. Connect to Server (Command-K) is so much slower than old Chooser for finding shared Macs or AFP servers
8. Mounted AFP volumes often disconnect for no reason
9. After over 15 years of using Command-N to create a new folder, why change it now (especially to something that's hardly ever used)?
10. Get Info is sluggish, its disclosure triangles are not as efficient to use as tabs used in Windows (much smaller area to click on), and info for folders doesn't show number of items
11. Windows Explorer and Mac OS Classic's Finder are much more usable than OS X's Finder
12. Contextual menu dreadfully slow
13. Launching some applications and Preference Panes can be really slow (e.g. on my PowerBook G4/500MHz/768MB/OS 10.2.2 Calculator takes 5 seconds to launch)
14. Can't use contextual menu when dragging file/folder to intuitively move files in 1 step (yes, at least cutting and pasting files now works as it has for many years in Windows)
15. Why no Trash on the desktop? (thankfully Path Finder can bring this back)
16. Why no labels? (thankfully there's Labels X)
17. Why no WindowShade? (thankfully there's WindowShade X)
18. No submenu for System Preferences in Apple Menu to directly access Preference Panes (thankfully there's FruitMenu and many other 3rd-party add-ons that bring this back)
19. Apple Menu not customizable (again, thankfully there's FruitMenu)
20. No list of open applications like the old Application Menu to quickly switch active application — this is especially helpful if you always use a lot of applications (thankfully there's ASM)
21. Helpful Tooltips not as widely used and as responsive as in Windows
22. No current-path field in Finder windows — can't copy and paste paths to jump to location without 3rd-party add-ons (while you can Shift-Command-G, it's not as user-friendly and doesn't allow you to copy paths)
23. To confuse the new user even further, some features only work in Cocoa applications
24. No central place to cleanly add/remove programs like in Windows (no, opening the Application folder isn't the same)
25. No central place to change file-application associations
26. In Finder, to select a single file in List View (i.e. for deletion) you have to click on the tiny icon — you can't just click on the filename like you can in Mac OS Classic and Windows
27. No image/document preview in Finder windows — Windows 98 and newer have this very nice feature

Sure, for some of the above you can achieve same or similar functionality by using 3rd-party applications or system add-ons (or in a roundabout and/or non-intuitive way) but the 3rd-party add-ons cost money and likely make the system slower and less stable. Bottom line: system needs to be optimized much more and the user interface needs a serious overhaul.

(An aside: This period reminds me of the time Apple just switched to using PowerPC processors and so much was running in emulation — everything was slower on Apple's newest hardware. Applications needed to be rewritten to be "PowerPC native" and the system needed to be optimized much more. The situation only really got better around the time G3-based systems were introduced.)

After many hours of researching and testing (over the past 4 months) dozens of OS X add-ons that improve OS X's usability, here's my list of the best of them:

DiskSpy Solid ($5.00) - indicates network and hard disk activity, very helpful for troubleshooting

WindowShade X ($7.00) - brings back Mac OS Classic Window Shade functionality

Labels X ($7.00) - brings back Mac OS Classic file/folder (color) labeling

FruitMenu ($7.00) - brings back customizable Apple Menu functionality, submenus for System Preferences (and more)

Show Desktop ($5.00 donationware) - hides all open windows to show desktop (like 'Show Desktop' QuickLaunch item in Windows Taskbar)

Keyboard Maestro (Lite version free, regular version $20.00) - define keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys) for hiding all open applications, quitting all applications, activating a specific application, reconfigure Command-N for New Folder in Finder, and much more including program switcher and clipboard switcher

USB Overdrive X ($20 shareware) - allows you to use any USB mouse with scrollwheel and right-button contextual-menu functionality (trackball, joystick, and gamepad support as well)

ASM ($15 shareware) - brings back Mac OS Classic application switcher menu (shows current application and allows switch to another open application from menu list)

wClock (donationware) - simple calendar in menubar

FileXaminer ($10.00) - better Finder "Get Info" (shows number of items in folder, edit file Type/Creator codes, permissions (and more)

Posted by derek at November 15, 2002 11:32 PM