as we say in old europe

http://www.resexcellence.com/news/?p=160

Even die-hard X-Men are pissed off by the rudeness that - alas - has infected the community.

What a ironic twist of fate.

Hahaha... oh my god, what a pack of pussies.

Please. These guys don't know from rude. They've just been so conditioned against anyone piping up and expressing displeasure at ANYTHING, that they flip out at the barest hint of it.

One of the things that has always irritated me about the online community in general, and the Mac Community in particular, is that nobody can take a friggin' joke, and people get all lit up and righteously indignant when anyone complains about anything. As if the slightest criticism or being pissed off at something is going to wreck the fun for everyone.

Meanwhile, ONLY the pissed-off "rude" posts are really read. Everything else is grabass, trading smileys, and licking each others' ass cracks.

Oh my god, do you think Steve Jobs never pitches a fit? Never gets rude and starts asking what the fuck? I guarantee he does. Apple walks all over us, because the user base has gone all nicey-nice. As if Apple is doing us a favor by being in existence at all.

Well, as you all know, I see it very, very differently. Apple has us to friggin' THANK for its position in the world, and it's time they started delivering products that actually work. Once the finally do, all is forgiven. Every rotten thing I've ever said about them or OS X will be forgotten.

But oh my holy christ, we're not there yet. I'm still shocked and appalled at how really really BAD OS X is, after all these years. It's unconscionable. I have been yearning for something hardworking and pro-capable, and it's clear--abundantly clear--that I don't have it yet.

And I blame X-Men.

Once you start congratulating Apple for shoveling crap in your face, they'll continue to do it. Once you show them that they can do no real work, and still take your money, you give them a free ride to grift the living piss out of you.

Prefacing every criticism with praise or apologies makes Apple think you think they're doing a good job. Well, I think they are doing a crappy job. And any advances are a result of complaining. The hew and cry of pros forced to deal with a casual use operating system in real-world shredders across the nation. Until you have tried to make a scorching deadline using a slow, unresponsive, and quirky beast like OS X, you haven't walked a mile in my shoes.

Until you know what it means to FIGHT an interface, rather than USE it... you'll never know where I'm coming from. X-Men sit around and obsess about what friggin' desktop picture they're gonna use, or watch the slow genie-suck in awe. Play with widgets until they grow hair on their palms.

Pros need application software to work. They need a file management system like the Finder to work. They need fonts to work.

I personally could give a rat's ass about anything added to the operating system software for the purposes of attracting dumb shit digikid casual users into the wonderful world of the Mac. Not if you have to mortgage performance and productivity for it.

When the DESIGN of the interface is the main reason nothing fucking works, I say it's time to go back to the drawing board and remember what the hell computers ARE. Tools. If you make them harder to use, by heaping on the happy horseshit and eye candy, then you fucking FAIL to produce tools. What you are producing is what I often call a distraction engine. A twiddle-array where you sit around tweaking your interface all day long, then look up at the clock and it's time to go... you've gotten squat done.

That OS X appeals to the slacker, time-waster, GoGurt slurping digi-retards of this world, I have no doubt. But back in the day, when Apple was governed by the higher principles of the original Apple Human Interface Guidelines--then toolness was job #1, and coolness was a close second. OS software used to fit on friggin' FLOPPY disks. Now a single DVD can barely contain it. Trouble is, much of the crap that takes up space is complete bullshit that has nothing to do with anything but impressing the easily impressed.

To get its soul back, Apple needs to go back to toolness, then they'll get REAL coolness, not this sham façade of it. When they are the one to ditch all the rendering and lighting effects, and realize that icons and interface elements don't have to give the ILLUSION of anything, then they're on the way to understanding LESS IS MORE. On the way to understanding good graphic design.

I'd love the designers at Apple to do an experiment. See what crap can be SUBTRACTED from Aqua without any true loss of functionality. All the nonsense that has nothing to do with stuff WORKING, but that's all about how it looks. For one week, make the way it looks SECONDARY to how it works. Try to make the fastest, easiest-to-use, most minimal and simple interface since the dawn of the computer age... and you know what? THAT'S what's gonna make the Mac great again.

Stop trying to rope in rubes, and start thinking again about the way people really work, and what they need in a personal computer to be productive. Pretend for one minute that computers are serious pro tools, and then design an interface...see what you come up with. I'll tell you right now, it'll be more like the legacy than it will be like Aqua.