From a person who complains about the nuisances… well, just about anything, would you expect anything less? Every product, may it be a car, my choice of toothpaste and shaving cream, and as incredulous as it may sound, even my computers (that includes both my of choices in Mac & PC) are far from the utopian world where flawless products prosper.
So here are a few annoyance that I’ve found with my Mac:
- The Finder -
The Finder is an adequate file management system. Part of my unhappiness with it is due to my experience with Windows Explorer for the past several years. Although Windows Explorer has its share of flaws, both file management system can take a few tips from the other. Although the more time I’ve spent with Finder, the more familiar and comfortable I became. It is also quite apparent that since moving to the Mac, I tend to interact with files a lot less with Finders than individual applications. For example, organizing my photos is done through iPhoto, music through iTunes. However, this also brings me to the next caveat…
This is one feature that saved me a lot of headache in Windows. Instead of having to move files by manually drag & dropping, I often just “cut” the files from one directory, then navigate and “paste” the files where I need them to be. You can still “copy & paste” files in the Finder, but you can’t “cut” them completely. Which makes moving files much harder within a single Finder window. I understand this design in a way, forcing users to open multiple Finder windows prevents users from “getting lost”. Not allowing cutting & pasting “files” also prevents the users from cutting a file, then go into a program and copy/cut a text/image, and possibly induce the complete loss of the file by overwriting that data in the Clipboard. Windows separate these two actions, when you cut or copy a piece of data in any software, the cut performed on a file is just completely cancelled. Even though I understand Apple’s rationale, I would rather if they had left this as an user-enabled option.
Windows Remote Desktop really works remarkably well. It is free with higher versions of Windows XP, allows you to access your computer with relative ease (although also a very apparent lack of general security). The remote desktop software hooks into the windows UI, so it allows for a much faster redraw rate, which gives you remote desktop interaction that’s almost comparable with local operation. I have not tried Apple Remote Desktop (which is reported to be much faster than VNC) at all, since it costs a huge amount of money for my single user purposes. VNC is somewhat acceptible, but still too slow compared to Windows Remote Desktop. I even tried Desktop Transporter from Devon Technologies, and although it had really good graphic quality, still wasn’t any faster than VNC. The only thing left to try is Timbuktu, which is still expensive, although not as much as Apple Remote Desktop.
Despite those complaints, the nuisances that I’m experiencing with OS X are far less troublesome than I had with Windows. I had installed Windows XP on this machine in Bootcamp, anticipating needing to run some Windows app at some point. I also pondered getting Parallels. The truth is, I haven’t found any software in Windows that I can’t find a replacement for in OS X. Often times the replacement software is much more intuitive than its Windows counterpart (that’s entirely another blog entry, eh?). The only thing I wish I can do is run Windows games, and I haven’t found a single game that really makes me want to dual-boot back to Windows at all.
I heard rumors that Parallels is working on getting game API calls routed through their virtual machine. There has always been such software for Linux to get Windows games to play within Linux. So… I guess that day will come.. eventually.
Although it isn’t perfect in the world of Mac, it’s close enough to convince me to get a Macbook Pro to go with my quiet behemoth at home.
