Snobby here. Forgot my password and rather than requesting it via email, I figured I’d start fresh. I never liked “SR” as a nic (from the MacFixit days), not sure why I chose it, but it stuck. Oh well. “Doogie” is more me, don’t you think? Ha.

As some of you already know, I did away with Mac, solely because of the performance and headaches of OS X and worked with the Windows platform exclusively. I never really felt comfortable joining the dark side, but XP, and its related Dell hardware, seemed to substantially outperform OS X, plus it was tremendously less buggy; it was more of a finished product.

Although I never got a virus or Trojan under XP, I never felt completely safe with the security issues and MS’s never-ending security patches to plug holes till something else came along – days later - that might compromise the system.

I was in the market for a laptop for my daughter and decided on getting her a MacBook. While at the Apple Store, I couldn’t help myself and bought the 20" iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo. She got the 13" 1.83 GHz MacBook.

It’s been a week now and overall I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with Tiger’s performance on both units, especially the 20” iMac. Navigating throughout the finder is as snappy as it ever was under XP AND OS 9; maybe even more. Internet browsing (Safari and Firefox), never Apple’s strength, screams now. Pages load as fast as they do with my Dell. This is something I never expected in my wildest dreams.

I’m new to Tiger (10.4.8) and OS X seems to be a different ballgame now. I finally consider it a finished product, but of course with it’s own set of flaws. But it’s integration with the hardware, and overall performance are nothing short of amazing, at least for the manner in which I use the machine. I’m not a graphics designer, nor do I use any heavy, processor-intensive apps, but even for recreational use, OS X was a hog, extremely dog-slow and extremely buggy – until now. With the boost in performance, the garish eye candy (what the fuck is up with Dashboard???!!!) even becomes more bearable. As I keep clicking away, at different apps, multiple windows, etc., I don’t hit speed bumps anymore, nary a beachball in sight. I know that could change in a week or so (history tells me that the Mac/OS X performance degrades over time), but right now all is good. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

As impressive as I am with it to this point, in the back of my mind I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mac hardware and quality hasn’t been top-notch over the past few years, and I almost expect a logic board failure or the fan to go kaput some time in the future. Do a Google search on “faulty logic board” and the first few pages seem devoted to Macs, despite their measly 5% or so share of the market. That is mind-boggling and totally unacceptable.


The Good
- Great performance. Snappy as hell. Even booting up/shutting down is so quick, it breaks records.
- Some Tiger features, i.e. Exposé. Love, love, love it. No need for third part apps like “Show Desktop” anymore to get rid of the clutter. Spotlight and searching within the finder window is also incredible and FAST.

The Not So Good

- Still too much eye candy. I could only imagine how much of a performance boost there would be without it.
- Font-smoothing. Better than in the past, but nowhere near as good as Windows’s “clear type.” I got so used to Windows that now my eyes seem to strain some on the Macs, especially in Safari. I suppose this will take some getting used to.
- Lack of intuitiveness and somewhat poor OS design. Seems like Apple likes to keep you guessing on what to click on next and where to click. Even when learned, time is wasted on chores that XP does with one click of the mouse. Navigating through XP is just so much more logical and intuitive, much like OS 9.

I’m curious to see what my impressions will be in a month from now. I still don’t have the faith in Apple that I once had.

Brother snobby!

Great to have you back man, how's tricks? If you want to login to your old account, I can send you your password. It's no big deal to change your name. But if you want to start fresh, that's fine too.

I think you're the first brother to go intel core duo... and it seems like you are pleased with the performance. All I can say is, yeah, Apple makes a great first impression. That's their game. Their major strength.

Great on the test drive, trouble on the track.

I'm with you on the not so good. I still think OS X is a bloated beast in need of a good less-is-more interface.

I'm running Tiger on a dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5 with 8GB of RAM. It's OK, but I still get beachballs, and still have trouble with the Finder. I have a LOT of trouble with Spotlight, and I have even more trouble with Mac Mail.

Searching contents of email is one of the most important things I do... I really need that to work. And it doesn't. I'll search for very particular strings I KNOW are in my past emails. The spotlight/find portion of Mail can't do it. I can trip it up at the drop of a hat. I can copy stuff from the text of an email, and friggin' PASTE it into the search field, and it still can't find it.

Forcing Spotlight to reindex is the most counterintuitive thing going right now... and even that doesn't work when it comes to finding stuff in emails. I'm pretty sure it's "good for a penny/not good for a pound" syndrome, which goes back to the MacFixIt days... if people have only something like TEN emails stored, It probably works. Me, with years of email in there... it don't.

I would LOVE to see a new intuitive interface put over top of OS X now. I don't think Leopard will be it. It seems to be just adding MORE interface ("Spaces" already seems like a retread of crapsposé) instead of improving what's there.

but we'll talk more about this, when it's released. They really are hyping it an awful lot NOW for a spring release. That's another thing that worries me. More proof not much is gonna change. Um, but they sure make it sound like that on the Leopard "Sneak Peak" don't they? Love the disclaimer: "All features referenced in the Mac OS X Leopard Sneak Peek are subject to change."

I just upgraded the lab to 20" iMacs (2.16 GhZ, 2 Mb RAM), also bought a couple Mac Pros (2.66 GhZ, 4Mb RAM) for more intense applications, and I got a new MacBook Pro (2.16 Ghz, 2Gb RAM) for myself.

Speed is most certainly the best change. You can go ahead and do some quick thalo tests and all pass. Like dragging a window around in the Finder, I haven't been able to out-mouse it yet. And, as Snoogie (Snobby + Doogie) says, starting up and opening apps is very fast. Searching is very fast too.

However, there are some speed issues. I haven't been able to switch all my apps over to Intel versions yet, so I'm heavily using Rosetta. I do see some degradation of performance the longer some PowerPC apps are open. I'm hoping that gets resolved when I go Intel all the way.

Since my biggest issue was speed, and that has been resolved, I love the new hardware change. Thalo should definitely take a shot. It'd be worth it to loan him my Mac Pro with the 30" screen and let him go to town. But he'd probably get Cheetoh dust, gogurt drips, and nasty pubes all over the stupid thing!

Brother ex-Snobby, I would like to point out that your positive Experience is mainly caused by the better Hardware you're using now. Throwing more hardware-power at the problem is always part of a solution in forcing X to work faster.
I don't know when exactly you left X esp. what kind of hardware you were using back in the day, but the new MacIntels are def. offering a lot more power.
Yes, X made some progress - many things are more refined now.
No, just because X of course runs smoother on the latest hardware doesn't mean this software is optimized to the bone. I doubt we will witness this state of development some day, not in this IT-World we're used to.

Anyway, I feel good you're happy working on Macs again.

quote:

I just upgraded the lab to 20" iMacs (2.16 GhZ, 2 Mb RAM), also bought a couple Mac Pros (2.66 GhZ, 4Mb RAM) for more intense applications, and I got a new MacBook Pro (2.16 Ghz, 2Gb RAM) for myself.

Holy crap, miths. Why do all that BEFORE Leopard? You have to wait three revs on any Apple hardware, you know that! Especially the MacBook Pro. By the spring, I'm sure the bugs would be worked out to properly "showcase" Leopard. And by then there'll be speedbumps.

My plan is to go Intel after I see Leopard, not before. Then I'll abandon Seabiscuit, make the Radiator the OS X server, and get a new Mac Pro to design on. Maybe another 30". Maybe a 17" MacBook Pro. All depends on if Intel is worth it for my apps (Adobe/Macromedia apps, Strata, etc... I'd like it work with Quark, but Quark is probably getting retired for new work, 7 not as impressive as I'd hoped).

I'm curious, have you been using Windows at all on the new machines? How does that work?

Brother thalo! I'm of the belief that Apple heard (and still hears) you and all the other brothers and made some changes for the better. They're certainly not all the way there yet, but I do see a vast improvement. I commend all of you for keeping up the fight. If Apple had to rely on the opinions and assessment of the blinded, Mac-faithful, circle-jerking cult in their very own discussion boards and most other forums, we'd be in big trouble.

The interface is much too busy for my liking, but the speed of this machine helps compensate for the heavy duty work the processor must go through to handle some chores. Putting an Intel chip on these babies was the only way to go. I think when you get your Intel Mac, you'll notice a vast difference.

But still, this OS lack the intuitiveness of OS 9 and XP. Brother thalo, I know that you're old school and love the one button mice, but in this day and age of two (and more) button mice, OS X.x, in all it's garishness and busyness, still expects the user to make use of the keyboard for some esoteric commands when a simple click, right or left, should suffice.

I shouldn't have to find out second hand, or word of mouth, that pressing the apple, option, control, P, and F4 keys, while jumping up and down in my chair with beef jerky dangling from my mouth, will open some useful window, application or control panel. Especially when the OS lacks intuitiveness in the first place. This shouldn't be some video game with hidden cheats.

That said, with what we are given by Apple, an Intel Mac won't disappoint. I think you'll be quite satisfied with the power of the new Macs.

Oh, btw, bro. I thought your second email was a duplicate of the first one, and I deleted it. I hadn't read your response here. Would you mind re-sending my "Snobby" password? Thanks.

hey mith! My 20" is the same set-up as yours, and speed is surely not an issue, especially with Universal apps.

However, the Office 2004 I purchased, while better than MS Office apps in the past, still lags a bit, but it is bearable. The first time I open it after a shutdown, it takes a while to open, but after that, when it's in cache, it opens in a snap.

Still, waiting 4-5 seconds for the print window to open isn't fun.

I'm glad you're happy with your purchases. You got some very impressive machines there!

hey smiths! By no means is Tiger perfect. It's just that with a more "powerful" machine, it's flaws are less noticeable because your'e focusing more on the job at hand.

Prior to this Mac I had the iMac 800 MHZ with 512 MB of RAM. At the time, it was promised that OS X would run perfectly on it; that I had enough juice. Wrong. The beachball never became my friend, no matter how often it made an appearance, which was quite often. Apps would crash like crazy. But hey, UNIX is a stable workhorse, so they say!

After almost 20 years of Macs, and countless machines, I grudgingly went with the Win platform. Though I knew Windows well enough because of my job, I never would have considered giving MS a dime...until my disappointing OS X experiences.

After two years of XP and Dell, I hate to admit it, but it was a good experience. Very stable, intuitive and extremely quick, but I was never comfortable with MS and their security, even if my machine remained clean.

quote:

I know that you're old school and love the one button mice, but in this day and age of two (and more) button mice, OS X.x, in all it's garishness and busyness, still expects the user to make use of the keyboard for some esoteric commands when a simple click, right or left, should suffice.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. One man, one vote... one mouse, one button.

Bolloxing up the mouse is just another interface failure. What it says is that there are too many layers of interface for the available input devices, and so you have to add different types of input.

The analogy is computer gaming. Compare the game controllers of today, like the PSP or whatnot, to something like, oh, Defender or Pac-Man, or Asteroids. Highly playable games, with what, a joystick and one friggin' button?

Now there's so much interface and combos and overcomplicated nonsense that players completely lose sight of the game. Some manage to become immersed, but only after a long training period with all the arcane commands. The object of the game is to become a chimp and rote-learn all these deliberately counterintuitive moves.

To me, that's what OS X still is. To get around how crappy the interface is, you have to memorize the workarounds. Some of them are completely ridiculous. To this day I'll catch myself in the middle of some procedure that is totally ingrained already, and go... fuuuuuck, what the hell? Am I really making this a part of my workflow? It makes absolutely no sense.

The legacy Mac was great because the intuitiveness and pervasiveness of the interface led to mastery. Now, mastery means learning BS you shouldn't really have to. I think good interfaces design the BS right out, and what they leave is stuff anyone can do.

If Moms and Dad's could pick up a PSP and play just as well as some couch-potato kid, then the kids would feel gypped. All that time mastering the nonsense... I think what the marketeers have discovered is that some people groove on complexity. If it's too simple, it's not as good of a time-waster.

A great interface without endless opportunity to explore and master bullshit, is less engrossing to slackers.

I hear ya brother thalo, simplicity is the key. We are in total agreement on this one. I probably wasn't very clear, but essentially we are saying the same thing, though I prefer the two button mouse to achieve this. Nothing complex, just bring up the contextual menu up with a right click to perform basic tasks. When I need to type, I'll go to the keyboard. I'd prefer to work with one hand; I find it more intuitive, plus my other hand remains free just in case I happen upon some good porn.

But, the more I'm working with Tiger, the more I see how poorly OS X is still designed, that some things just haven't changed, even if it is more of a joy to work with this new Mac because of the tremendous boost in speed and performance.

I'll give you just one example (of many) that I just discovered as I was playing around in Safari. It may be minor, but it epitomizes how little thought is put into the design of the OS and Apple's proprietary applications.

As we all know, tabbed browsing is a nice feature that can be utilized in IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. It's most useful on OS X because there is enough clutter to contend with. Apple even touts it as a feature in Safari. Now take a look in Safari's prefs and tell me if you see an option to open new pages in a new tab, as every other browser offers (by this I don't mean a blank new tab, but having a link open up in one, or say, a bookmarked site). Nope, not there. There *is* an option (which is very different) to "open links from an application" with a disclaimer stating, "This applies to links from Mail, iChat, etc." Well, it sure doesn't work with your everyday links on your everyday websites.

But wait. Opening up a bookmarked page or link in a new tab CAN be achieved Safari. Only, one must research and find out that you have to hold down the Apple key while either clicking on the link or going to a bookmarked page.

Now why isn't this an option in Safari's preferences as it is in every other browser on the face of the earth, something that most people who surf the net expect as a choice? Does Apple have to be different? Would it not be chic if Apple abided by industry standards? Do I really have to take my hand off my dick to hold down the Apple key to open a bookmarked page or link in a new tab?

I guess I'll add this to the other 1,489 little Apple secrets I'll have to memorize just to get around the OS. This was my original point. You have to perform calisthenics to do even the most mundane tasks in OS X, something a simple preference, or a more logical and intuitive OS could and should achieve.

I swear, if it weren't for the speed of this machine I'd probably be pounding my head against the keyboard, wondering what the fuck I was thinking buying two more Macs. But, I have to admit that the performance and speed is comforting and temporarily takes my mind off some of the same old crap I grew to despise about OS X. It's almost like a disguise, if you know what I mean. Well, that, plus my daughter is ecstatic with her MacBook, so that helps keep me sane.

OK...what's really putting a bit of a sour taste in my mouth is that I went back on the Dell today for the first time since I got this Mac. The Mac and OS X comes nowhere near the speed, performance, UI (yeah XP is a lot leaner), and intuitiveness of XP. Every app just seems to work so well in XP. In OS X, apps seem foreign, as if they are disconnected from the Mac. Even the f'n mouse is somewhat nervous and jittery-both the ridiculous Mighty Mouse it came with and the MS Wireless Intellimouse (much better) I replaced it with.

I have a feeling I'm gonna go through a few Jekyll and Hyde transformations for a while with this Mac, so bear with me.

"The Mac and OS X comes nowhere near the speed, performance, UI (yeah XP is a lot leaner)"

This is the reason I no longer do work on my Mac. XP feels so much more productive for me. I now have a Macbook 1.83ghz 1GB for casual use. I've confirmed my suspicions: it doesn’t matter how many OS revisions Apple does, whether it’s an IBM or Intel CPU, whether the machine has 1 or 8GB ram, OSX will always have that unresponsive feel, bits and patches, here and there of inconsistent timing. Most Mac users don’t realize this because we’ve gotten used to it. But it’s junk. As soon as I touched a XP machine it was clear to me, OSX has a problem.

I’ve confirmed with a friend that OSX’s unresponsiveness is most likely due to the Mach kernel. There might be some fault in Quartz, but it’s mostly the kernel. And it makes sense. There are things in 10.0 which were unresponsive and continue to be in 10.4, only that, the “quality” of the unresponsiveness improved, but it’s still there. What has remained fundamentally unchanged from 10.0 to 10.4? The kernel.

The problem is that unresponsiveness is not easy to point out in OSX because it’s inconsistent. Sometimes a menu may respond quickly, sometimes it may delay. There is no clear pattern. And when people test menu responsiveness if the first time is slow, and consecutive repetitions fast, they wrongly conclude it’s fast. The issue is that most of us rely on that first time, and if it’s slow, then most of the OSX experience will be slow.

It's really a pitty, especially since most Mac users are sold to the impression that OSX is fast, which isn't clearly so when compared to an OS like XP. OSX literally lagged me hours of work because of unresponsiveness, I will not go back, regardless of the hardware.

quote:

Originally posted by thalo:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. One man, one vote... one mouse, one button.

Bolloxing up the mouse is just another interface failure. What it says is that there are too many layers of interface for the available input devices, and so you have to add different types of input.

I don't particularly like the current implementation of mouse buttons interacting with the UI, however, I don't think a 1-button mouse is solution. Realize that the richer the input device, the richer the communication. For instance, the MacBook's trackpad allows for gestures to scroll content around, which is mileages more fluid than traveling to scroll bars. Even if there is a learning curve, if it provides more efficient workflow then I think it outweighs the downsides of a learning curve.

Games, sure, you learn new shortcuts for every new game. With an OS, you learn a gesture once and use it forever. I think it's worth it.

You know, trif, in the 3+ years I worked with XP exclusively, there have been no more than a handful of times that I hade to control, alt, delete to end an application. Probably Adobe Acrobat was the culprit 4 of the 5 times I had to do this. NEVER has IE or Firefox "quit unexpectedly" under XP.

I've had this iMac less than a couple of weeks and Firefox has crashed twice, Safari 3 times. I've also opened up other apps that didn't respond, and a couple of times I tried to force quit, and the "force quit" window appears then disappears. After a couple of attempts it worked. I don't f'n get it.

After going back to the XP yesterday for a bit, it's apparent that OS X lacks the fluidity and responsiveness of XP. I liken navigating in XP to driving a Porsche, where you hug every curve and feel sure-handed behind the wheel. Everything seems so instinctive and crisp.

On the other hand, OS X, even with the speed boost, still seems like I'm skidding on ice. I don't trust that it's doing what I ask of it, my eyes constantly glued to the road to make sure that I'm on course. Very unproductive.

As for my daughter's 1.83 MacBook, she loves it, though I've had to assist her with the spinning beachball a couple of times. This crap just doesn't happen in Windows XP.

So far I'm still somewhat satisfied with the Mac purchases if only because the speed compensates for OS X's shortcomings, plus I'm getting the security I never felt I was getting with the Win platform. Other than that, XP trounces OS X.

Edit: In all fairness, two of the 3 times Safari quit unexpectedly happened after I installed PithHelmet. That opens up another can of worms. Why doesn't the supposed "advanced" Safari have a built-in ad-blocker, a la Firefox (right-click, block the bastards), to go along with its pop-up blocker?

But again, Firefox never quit on me in XP and here in Tiger it has quit twice. Yeah, blame the apps, never OS X. (I'm talking to an imaginary X-Man).

quote:

Holy crap, miths. Why do all that BEFORE Leopard? You have to wait three revs on any Apple hardware, you know that! Especially the MacBook Pro. By the spring, I'm sure the bugs would be worked out to properly "showcase" Leopard. And by then there'll be speedbumps.

I didn't have a choice. Too many new people and not enough computers. Thought I might as well make a clean sweep. Besides, no matter when you buy, better always comes out soon there after. Since I haven't been burned by Apple, I don't see any reason to wait.

I haven't installed Windows yet. No need to now since I have 2 Windows laptops driving necessary equipment. If I need it later, I'll try it. However, I'm really intrigued by CrossOver Mac from CodeWeavers, which allows you to run Windows apps without Windows installed. That may be my option when we do introduce Windows apps to our Intel Macs.

quote:

Originally posted by No Not Doogie Why doesn't the supposed "advanced" Safari have a built-in ad-blocker, a la Firefox (right-click, block the bastards), to go along with its pop-up blocker?

Yea, Apple's minimalist "superior" design often hinders functionality .

If you haven't done so, give Omniweb a try, version 5.5 is as fast as Safari or faster, and it has built-in ad-blocking among other great features. I have to admit it's one of the few exclusive Mac apps that I wish it were on XP.

quote:

Originally posted by No Not Doogie Howser:
Mac hardware and quality hasn’t been top-notch over the past few years, and I almost expect a logic board failure or the fan to go kaput some time in the future. Do a Google search on “faulty logic board” and the first few pages seem devoted to Macs, despite their measly 5% or so share of the market. That is mind-boggling and totally unacceptable.

Has it occurred to you that this is because the "main logic board" is actually called the "mainboard" by pretty much every other manufacturer on the planet? Apple is the only company that uses that term.

From what I can see, googling for "logic board failure" returns pretty much ONLY Mac links. Think these facts might be related?

Oh, and Welcome to Macintosh.

quote:

Originally posted by spheric*:

quote:

Originally posted by No Not Doogie Howser:
Mac hardware and quality hasn’t been top-notch over the past few years, and I almost expect a logic board failure or the fan to go kaput some time in the future. Do a Google search on “faulty logic board” and the first few pages seem devoted to Macs, despite their measly 5% or so share of the market. That is mind-boggling and totally unacceptable.

Has it occurred to you that this is because the "main logic board" is actually called the "mainboard" by pretty much every other manufacturer on the planet? Apple is the only company that uses that term.

From what I can see, googling for "logic board failure" returns pretty much ONLY Mac links. Think these facts might be related?

Oh, and Welcome to Macintosh.

Well, oh, yeah, you got me there. But, still, Mac logic boards have been unusually problematic the past few years. Fans too.

Thanks for the welcome to the Mac community, though I've been a Mac user almost 20 years until a couple of years ago when I was pretty much fed up with OS X and Mac hardware. Hence, my use of "logic board." I guess I'm so used to calling the motherboard that.

I just recently came back, buying both the 20" iMac and a MacBook. Overall I'd have to say I'm satisfied with the performance, but OS X is not nearly as polished and responsive as XP.

quote:

Originally posted by Trifid:
[
If you haven't done so, give Omniweb a try, version 5.5 is as fast as Safari or faster, and it has built-in ad-blocking among other great features. I have to admit it's one of the few exclusive Mac apps that I wish it were on XP.

Trif, I believe I've tried Omniweb in the past. Anyway, I downloaded their trial version and have been playing around in it. Lots and lots of things to like about it. My *only* complaint is that it doesn't seem to hold my preference for its window size I after I quit out of it and start it up again. I have to resize the window each time. That reminds me of OS X not being able to hold prefs in years past, i.e. the finder window and columns sizes and view. Tiger seems have to improved on that issue.

Other than that I'm impressed with Omniweb. It seems to combine the best of Firefox and Safari and then some.

quote:

Trif, I believe I've tried Omniweb in the past. Anyway, I downloaded their trial version and have been playing around in it. Lots and lots of things to like about it. My *only* complaint is that it doesn't seem to hold my preference for its window size I after I quit out of it and start it up again. I have to resize the window each time. That reminds me of OS X not being able to hold prefs in years past, i.e. the finder window and columns sizes and view. Tiger seems have to improved on that issue.

Yeap I had the same issue with window sizes as well. Turns out there is a menu at Window --> Save Window Size which saves the windows size and position. I'm still not sure if I like this over Safari's way, but it works.

The main problem now, is that OW will remember window location at launch but not in subsequent new windows. No one seems to have an explanation for this, it's weird that the problem hasn't been addressed yet.

But yea, sometimes I can't believe how much faster OW than Safari is, and all the great features that it has. And it's so much more Mac-like than Safari, for example, editing links in the favorites bar happens in place, rather than on a separate modal dialog as in Safari. When favorites overflow in the fav bar, they'll go on a second bar, rather than the hideous double arrow Safari and the rest of OSX has. It's great.

Thanks for the tip, Trif. And yes, overall OW trounces Safari. Safari and is yet another example of Apple moving away from the intuitiveness and foresight that once set them apart from everybody else. It's ironic that it now takes 3rd party developers like OW to reel Apple in and make things more "Mac-like" as we once knew Mac.