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a honest review from someone who went full-time mac and came back to windows

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alxwz:
Great, a flame war!  :D

The funny thing is, that I regard OS X as a step backwards in Mac interface usability, and I actually consider Windows to be more intuitive overall.

The worst thing IMO is the jack of all trades, master of none Dock, an application launcher that doubles as a program switcher, task bar, trashcan and whatever else. Or how Apple ruined the "apple" menu. Next are drawers, that slide out of the display area when you have your program window maximized to match the display size. Or windows that suddenly slide into the viewable area. There are way too many moving targets in this interface.

It sucks that you can't move a file, only copy (and go back to clean up the original file after the fact - edit: this refers to moving between different drives or cut/paste via context menu). Column view in the finder is a completely weird idea, and the entire finder is a sorry excuse of a file manager. There are tons of decent file managers on Windows, and not a single one for Macs (Pathfinder follows the finder too closely for my taste). It's annoying that I can't reach some buttons and many menu elements with the keyboard and am forced to use the mouse. And yes, it's completely counter-intuitive that hitting the return key on a selected file doesn't open the file, but goes into rename mode, which is much less useful.

I even hate the oversized trackpad of my iBook, because I keep tapping it inadvertedly. And their once-legendary reliability has gone overboard (my iBook is a prime example for that).

I could go on for a while, so there are a lot of valid negatives about Macs.

But there are also some applications that provide elegant solutions for real productivity problems where I can't see equivalents on Windows. Like Tinderbox, Omni Outliner, DevonThink, Packrat, Mellel, Scrivener and others. Merlin, maybe.

And I enjoy not needing any anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-WTF for my Mac.
Plus, I don't need to "activate" my OS (wait, it came with a hardware dongle called "Mac", so this point is moot).

No, I'm not into a pissing contest. And I wish Apple had bought Be way back then and put their classic GUI on it instead of buying NeXT and rebranding their OS "Mac OS X".

Edvard:
Allen:
My sentiments exactly.
Which is why I don't jump into such contests and why I shake my head everytime Linux hits the newsblogs and the diehard (on both sides) get out their pistols and the potshot duel begins...

I liked BeOs too, about 2 years late though.
I signed the petition for Palm to release the source and the whole bit.
Have you looked into the 'resurrection' of BeOs... HaikuOS?

nontroppo:
...and not a single one for Macs (Pathfinder follows the finder too closely for my taste).-alxwz (July 23, 2007, 02:19 PM)
--- End quote ---

Have you tried Forklift? http://www.binarynights.com/ -- the best thing I've found so far (SFTP/FTP support is critical to me). muCommander is the next best (free) alternative.

But there are also some applications that provide elegant solutions for real productivity problems where I can't see equivalents on Windows. Like Tinderbox, Omni Outliner, DevonThink, Packrat, Mellel, Scrivener and others. Merlin, maybe.-alxwz (July 23, 2007, 02:19 PM)
--- End quote ---

Ah Scrivener - :true-love: - I've tried endless programs for writers on the PC and they are so flaky in comparison. I wonder what it is about Mac as as a platform that provides the basis for such elegant software (Quicksilver is another example)?

Lashiec:
Hum, it seems that Mac have some really interesting software there.

justice:
BeOS!  :-*

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