I've been using Windows for years. Since 3.1, actually. I've never worked on a Mac before this quarter at college. I've had the opportunity to work on them extensively, and so far, I H AT E them. HATE HATE HATE. This thread is NOT to flame, it's just one man's honest opinion after working on them for two months. If any regular users have tips on how to deal with my issues below, please share, so my experience using a Mac can be much less frustrating than what I've been dealing with so far. Maybe it's because I just am not used to it and don't know how to work it and am too used to Windows, but here are some things that annoy me:
- On Windows, if I want to resize a window, I drag from any edge (top, bottom, either side, any corner) and get it done. On OS X, it seems like the only way to do it is to drag the bottom right corner, then I have to move the whole window, then drag from that corner again. Maybe there's some button to hold down or something, but I haven't found a way to do it. To me, that isn't intuitive. That's obnoxious.
- On Windows, if I hit the X on a window, it's closed. Shut down. Gone. On a Mac, if I hit the orange minus button, it gets minimized. Great. If I hit the red X button, it...doesn't close!? It just gets minimized? What is that. What's the difference then between the orange minus button and the red x button then? I have to hit command Q or something, or File>Close...seriously? How is that intuitive and not annoying?
- If I want to get straight to my desktop on Windows, I hit the desktop button in the taskbar. Simple. On Mac, I haven't found a way to do this. I have to minimize every window that's open. That's tedious, especially when I have a dozen windows open.
- This is just personal taste, but on Windows everything looks different. Apps have their own look and feel to them, with different colors and such. On OS X, everything is bland and the same. Same grey ugly title bar thing at the top of the screen. Some people like the unified look, I personally think it's bland and terribly dull. Windows seems to have a lot more flavor to it.
- With Windows, I feel like I have more viewing space of a page or window if I maximize it. With the Mac's Dock, I feel like I'm losing some window real estate. Maximized windows have the doc below it, and a bunch of extra space around the sides of the dock shownig the desktop. Nit picky, but it annoys me.
- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.
- On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:
- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down
- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac.
In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.
What are everyone else's personal expereinces with this OS (OS X)? Any other thoughts, irritations, etc?
EDIT: A couple of other annoyances:
- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! ***?
- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it. Some windows, for example from Firefox, show up to the right of the Dock, and then one is under the main Firefox app on the "permanent" side of the Dock. Ugh...
- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.
Can anyone help me out here? Is there some secret to enjoying a Mac? Are there any fixes for my problems? Anything you can tell me to help me along, or bring me some peace and zen when working with OS X?
- On Windows, if I want to resize a window, I drag from any edge (top, bottom, either side, any corner) and get it done. On OS X, it seems like the only way to do it is to drag the bottom right corner, then I have to move the whole window, then drag from that corner again. Maybe there's some button to hold down or something, but I haven't found a way to do it. To me, that isn't intuitive. That's obnoxious.
- On Windows, if I hit the X on a window, it's closed. Shut down. Gone. On a Mac, if I hit the orange minus button, it gets minimized. Great. If I hit the red X button, it...doesn't close!? It just gets minimized? What is that. What's the difference then between the orange minus button and the red x button then? I have to hit command Q or something, or File>Close...seriously? How is that intuitive and not annoying?
- If I want to get straight to my desktop on Windows, I hit the desktop button in the taskbar. Simple. On Mac, I haven't found a way to do this. I have to minimize every window that's open. That's tedious, especially when I have a dozen windows open.
- This is just personal taste, but on Windows everything looks different. Apps have their own look and feel to them, with different colors and such. On OS X, everything is bland and the same. Same grey ugly title bar thing at the top of the screen. Some people like the unified look, I personally think it's bland and terribly dull. Windows seems to have a lot more flavor to it.
- With Windows, I feel like I have more viewing space of a page or window if I maximize it. With the Mac's Dock, I feel like I'm losing some window real estate. Maximized windows have the doc below it, and a bunch of extra space around the sides of the dock shownig the desktop. Nit picky, but it annoys me.
- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.
- On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:
- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down
- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac.
In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.
What are everyone else's personal expereinces with this OS (OS X)? Any other thoughts, irritations, etc?
EDIT: A couple of other annoyances:
- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! ***?
- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it. Some windows, for example from Firefox, show up to the right of the Dock, and then one is under the main Firefox app on the "permanent" side of the Dock. Ugh...
- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.
Can anyone help me out here? Is there some secret to enjoying a Mac? Are there any fixes for my problems? Anything you can tell me to help me along, or bring me some peace and zen when working with OS X?