[geeks] MacOS X

[David Cantrell]

[this is straying dangerously close to religion.  Please be careful
 not to flame if you reply!]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 10:17:04AM -0700, Peter L. Wargo wrote:

> I know of converts as well.  A good friend who has *always* been an X/UNIX
> bigot just bought a 500MHZ G4 cube, cus in his words: I gotaa admit, APple
> has the best interface."  Same with my PC-using spouse, who is now an
> addict to her powerbook G3.

I'll admit, I like the way the 'Platinum' GUI looks.  It's just pretty
enough to not look clunky, and minimalist enough to not take too much
screen space.  Aqua, on the other hand, looks like a toy and takes far
too much space.  It also fails even more of the usability tests I
mention below than Platinum does.

However, for me, it fails the usability test.  It is wrong that I *have* to
use the mouse, or that when I do I can't click directly on the menus or
toolbars of an app which isn't in the foreground.  There's countless other
little usability niggles I have as well.  Unfortunately, in making it
drool-proof and suitable for beginners, they have broken it badly for
everyone else.

And one HUUUUUGE bug in Apple's design is that there is no # key on their
UK keyboards.  PC keyboards have it, but Macs don't.  For no reason
whatsoever.  Yes, I do know how to type it by chording thirteen different
keys at the same time, but there is no indication whatsoever how to do
this on the keyboard, nor is it in the paltry printed manuals.

But ... I can live with that, just about, provided it plays my mp3s and
syncs with my Palm.  But I could never use it for real work.

Give me the BeOS window manager running in X on top of Darwin!

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave
   -- Fergus Henderson