Ten More Things I Hate About Mac OS X
Date: Mar 24, 2006
When I wrote "Ten Things I Hate About Mac OS X," I hoped that by pointing out rough edges in the user interface, readers would say, "I never noticed that before, but you know, that really is very annoying and should be fixed." Boy was I naive.
The article touched a nerve with many Apple apologists and set off a firestorm of controversy. A few of the comments the article generated were just plain nasty, questioning my technical prowess, if not my very manhood. Fortunately, there were brave readers who came to my defense, pointing out that all of my gripes were technically accurate, even if they didn’t share my frustration at the "flaw" I was discussing.
In the spirit of helping make Apple’s operating system the best it can be, here are 10 more things I hate about Mac OS X, presented in no particular order. For the most part, these are admittedly small annoyances, but it was Apple’s dedication to sweating the details that drew many users to its fine products in the first place. I hope that engineers in Cupertino will address these issues in a Mac OS X update soon, so that I can go back to loving everything that’s great about my computer, rather than griping about the few things I hate.
1. Small Open/Save Dialog Boxes
When the original 128K Mac was released in 1984, it featured a 9-inch monochrome display. Even if you don’t have a monster 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display, today’s Macs offer so much more screen real estate. Why is it then that the default Open and Save dialog boxes (see Figure 1) remain extremely small, forcing users to scroll to find the file or location they want?
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Figure 1 Small dialog boxes force users to scroll excessively and guess at precise filenames.
Fortunately, in most applications you can resize these dialog boxes by dragging the bottom right corner. Stretch vertically to see more locations and files and horizontally to see longer filenames. The resized dialog boxes are used in the future, but you must repeat the process for every application you use. Too bad there’s no way to set a larger default dialog box for all applications. I paid for a big screen and I want all of my programs to make the most of it without fiddling with each individually.
2. Can’t Disable Individual Login Items
If you have specified login items for a user in Accounts preferences, those documents, applications, and share points are opened whenever you log in as that user. That’s very convenient if you always want to open the same things at startup (see Figure 2).
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Figure 2 I’d replace the Hide column with an Open column in the Login Items pane of Accounts preferences.
However, sometimes you might prefer leaving some items unopened upon your next login. For example, suppose you typically use a PowerBook in an office with a number of peripherals, each of which requires its own application. However, when you are on the road, you don’t need nor want these applications to open because you’re not using the peripherals. Unfortunately, you’re out of luck. If you hold down the Shift key after logging in, all login items are temporarily skipped; there’s no way to disable individual login items.
I don’t know about you, but I never use the Hide checkboxes in the Login Items pane and would definitely prefer replacing them with an Open column instead. That would allow me to toggle individual login items as needed, rather than force me to go through the much longer process of deleting and restoring items.
Another thing that bugs me about the Login Items pane of Accounts preferences is that it displays data in tables, but provides no method for sorting same. Unless there is a very good reason to the contrary, data in tables should be sortable by clicking the column heading, with a second click reversing the sort order.
3. Desktop Doesn’t Do Nested Folders
One of the hallmarks of good user interface design is consistency. Even if a feature is not necessarily intuitive, it’s easier to understand if it works the same way everywhere it’s encountered. Unfortunately, Mac OS X isn’t as consistent as one might expect. For example, if you select a folder as the source for images in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences, it might work in one tab, but not in another.
In the Screen Saver tab, if you choose a folder, Mac OS X looks for images within that folder—and even digs into nested folders to find image files it can display as a slideshow. However, if the same folder is chosen in the Desktop tab, no images residing in nested folders are found (see Figure 3).
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Figure 3 Feel free to use images in nested folders for your screen saver (left), but not your desktop (right).
Because I like to keep my images in many different subfolders grouped by subject, year, location, and so on, I find Desktop’s inability to look into nested folders extremely limiting. Ideally, users should be able to select either an individual folder, or a folder and all nested items. This could be cleanly fixed by adding a Look In Nested Folders checkbox in the dialog box that appears when you click Choose Folder.
4. Disappearing Sidebar
Menu items should do what they say they will do and not have unintended consequences. Case in point: if you choose View > Hide Toolbar (Option-Command-T), not only does the toolbar disappear but so too does the Sidebar (see Figure 4). This isn’t the behavior described by the menu item, and it can leave users confused when the Sidebar disappears unexpectedly.
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Figure 4 Hiding the toolbar: before (left) and after (right). Why did the Sidebar disappear, too?
There’s no technical reason to treat the toolbar and Sidebar as inseparable. The Sidebar works fine even if you have removed all items in a customized toolbar, and it’s possible to hide the Sidebar while leaving the toolbar visible. This flaw could easily be fixed by adding a separate Show/Hide Sidebar item in the View menu to allow users to toggle the toolbar and Sidebar independently.
This new menu item would also fix a related problem. If you double-click the thin gray bar that separates the Sidebar from the columns to the right, the Sidebar (but not the toolbar) disappears. OK, in reality, it collapses to the left, but it happens so fast that it effectively disappears in the blink of an eye.
Only the most observant of users will discover the tiny little indent in the left border of the window, which is the sole visual affordance indicating that you can make the Sidebar reappear by dragging it open or by double-clicking the border. By adding a separate Show Sidebar item in the View menu, users would have a much more explicit method of restoring the Finder window to its previous setting.
5. No Auto-Fit Option for Finder Columns
I am a big fan of the capability of Mac OS X to cleanly show the contents of nested folders using the Finder’s column view. However, a simple addition to the preferences could make this so much more efficient to use.
Currently, the default column width is determined by the first Finder window you set up in column mode. All new Finder windows use the same window size and column widths, which is fine. The problem is that as you navigate through different folders, the default width often is inappropriate for the contents. If the column is too wide, there is some wasted space, and if it’s too narrow, long filenames are displayed with ellipses in the middle (see Figure 5).
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Figure 5 If Apple offered an Auto-Fit option for columns in the Finder, long filenames would be displayed in full.
If you Option-drag the column divider, all columns resize at once, and if you double-click the small control at the bottom of a column divider in a Finder window, the width of the column automatically adjusts to reveal full filenames. Wouldn’t it be better if there were a View option for having the columns in all Finder windows adjust their widths automatically to fit their contents rather than foist this excise task off onto the user?
6. Finder Treats FTP Volumes as Read-Only
One of the neat features of Mac OS X is its capability to mount an FTP (file transfer protocol) server on the Finder’s desktop, where it appears to function like any other volume (see Figure 6).
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Figure 6 FTP servers look like normal volumes in the Finder, but they don’t act that way.
Just choose Go > Connect To Server (Command-K) and then specify the location of the FTP server you want. After Mac OS X negotiates all the handshaking, your remote FTP server has its own icon on the desktop, and you can start browsing its contents. You can even copy files from the FTP server to a local volume. But heaven forbid you want to write anything to the FTP server! Sorry, but you can’t copy (upload) to FTP volumes in the Finder because Mac OS X treats them as read-only volumes regardless of their actual read/write access settings.
If you need to copy files to an FTP server, forget about the Finder and pick up a copy of a dedicated FTP client. My personal favorite is Panic’s Transmit 3.5.
7. Fax Modem Hidden in Odd PDF Button
In Mac OS X 10.3, if you wanted to fax a document, you would choose File > Print and then click the Fax button at the bottom of the Print dialog box. Inexplicably, Apple screwed up this simple and straightforward feature in Tiger. Fax capabilities are still in the Print dialog box, but now they are hidden in an oddball PDF button that doubles as a pop-up menu (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7 Panther put the fax feature right up front (left), but Tiger buries it in the PDF button/menu (right).
This is a classic case of exposing the implementation model instead of adjusting the interface to fit the user’s conceptual model. The engineers’ erroneous thinking is that Tiger saves faxes in PDF format, so naturally the Fax command belongs in the PDF menu. But most users don’t know nor care about the format for fax files, so it’s illogical to expect them to look in the PDF menu for the fax feature.
Apple should have left the Fax button out in the open where it was easy to find. If Apple had to jettison the Fax button to make room for the Supplies button, a much more logical solution would have been to add a Fax Modem choice to the Printer pop-up menu. After all, a fax machine is just a remote printer, and it should be possible for the user to choose it just like any other available printer.
8. Missing Servers Stall Startup
On my iMac G5, I have configured the Login Items pane of Accounts preferences to connect to my wife’s PowerBook G4 at startup so that we can enjoy the benefits of personal file sharing. Normally this works just fine, but if my computer can’t find hers (because it’s sleeping or disconnected when she’s traveling, for example), the startup process grinds to a halt until I acknowledge that this server is unavailable (see Figure 8).
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Figure 8 A missing server messes up the startup process.
Nobody likes failure, but Mac users expect their computers to at least fail gracefully. In this respect, Tiger disappoints. First of all, the fact that a server can’t be found shouldn’t prevent subsequent login items from loading until the user acknowledges the problem. Second, the Connection Failed dialog box should at least indicate the name of the server. In my case, I have but a single server in my login items, but it’s possible to have many, and using a generic dialog box hinders troubleshooting.
9. Finder Views Don’t Update Immediately
The Finder used to always update as soon as a change was made to a file, but now that’s not always the case. If I’m viewing a folder’s contents in column mode, I can rename an item and often it remains in the wrong place instead of being properly sorted immediately. Sometimes the item is sorted after a few seconds’ delay, and other times I have to manually refresh by clicking another item.
Here’s another example. In the Finder, click the desktop and then choose View > Show View Options. Select the Show Item Info checkbox, which displays the size and free space for each mounted volume below or to the right of its icon in the Finder. However, this information isn’t updated as files are written and deleted from the volumes, which is odd because the correct information is displayed in the Info window (see Figure 9).
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Figure 9 The Finder continues showing the wrong amount of free disk space even though the Info window displays the correct amount available.
10. Nagging Dialog Boxes
I am willing to put up with an "Are You Sure?" dialog box when I ask the Mac to perform a potentially destructive act such as repartitioning a hard drive. What I don’t appreciate is when the Mac questions my explicit instructions to perform harmless tasks, such as changing a file’s extension (see Figure 10).
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Figure 10 Protecting users against their will is annoying, so offer them a way to opt out of future warnings.
Tiger warns me that if I change a file’s extension, "the document may open in a different application." I’m fully aware of that; it’s the reason I want to change the extension in the first place. I can’t imagine anyone accidentally attempting to change an extension, but I’m willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt here if, in exchange, they would respect my wishes not to be nagged. First, the default button should be Add because that’s what I want to do. And second, why can’t Apple add a simple "Don’t Warn Me About This Again" checkbox to this dialog?