Still a huge step backwards
Written: Aug 18 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Has some good concepts that could work in theory
Cons: Pretty much everything
The Bottom Line: You'll be forced to use it if you get a new Mac, but if you have a choice, use OS 9.
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| volvo128's Full Review: Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Full Version (M9639Z/A) |
When Apple came out with Mac OS X, I thought they were making a huge mistake. Going along the old line of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" they decided to scrap their old reliable Mac OS 9 platform (which was an evolution of the original Mac OS from 1984) for a new Unix-based system that obviously needed some refinements.
I sampled the first OS X back in 2001 and I saw it as a toy, like an operating system that could be run as perhaps an alternative to OS 9 and never something to replace it. It lacked usability, features, and most importantly, was lacking some familiar stuff from OS 9 that everyone had taken for granted.
Fast forward to 2003. I bought an iMac G4 and found it wouldn't boot into OS 9. Very frustrating for me, since I thought Jaguar was also unevolved. While I found it to be a more usable system than the other OS X versions at the time, it still seemed like it placed too much emphasis on style and not enough on how well it actually worked.
I had heard Tiger was the best yet, but I find it to be more of the same. Tiger has more stuff, but it still lacks the charm of OS 9.
One big complaint is the Terminal program. A Mac was always known for its command line free interface and for not running an operating system on top of another one. Now, OS X is to Unix what Windows was to DOS. The Terminal program is, to me, worse than a DOS prompt.
The whole security thing also ticks me off. I'm the only one who uses these computers but it makes me set a password for myself. Last I checked I'm not going to commit identity theft on myself. Even if I had multiple personality disorder I wouldn't do this. Just to install something you have to type a password. It's ridiculous--makes airport security look lax.
There is way too much emphasis on style in this OS. Now don't get me wrong, I like fancy stuff, but OS X tries way too hard to be fancy with its graphics and whatnot. For example, the icon bounce replaced the simple flashing menu on previous OS versions. Not only do I find that annoying, but also it uses more computer power, slowing down machines that would FLY on OS 9.
The lack of customization is another problem for me. For the scroll bars, there are two colors--blue and gray. Since I don't necessarily want to put myself in the Civil War and want orange instead, I am denied that by the operating system. Windows would let me do it, and previous Mac OS versions were much more customizable. And there has to be some way to get rid of the beach ball cursor that doesn't involve $15 shareware programs. Even on Windows 95 one could change the cursor from an hourglass to whatever they wanted. 1995 was six full years before the first OS X version was released to the public. You would think Apple would learn from the more popular OS.
The so-called stability has failed on me. The Mac locks up just as often as an OS 9 machine, yet still less frequently than a Windows computer would. They claim OS X is crash proof, but I think any OS is and that whoever said that should take their claim back.
As I said before, Tiger is slow. My computer often feels sluggish. Tiger claims to defragment disks for you, but my disk feels very fragmented. Being a computer user for 17 years I know when a disk needs defraged--I've been defragmenting disks since 1995 and if there's an internal program in Tiger, then it's the poorest one I've ever seen.
In the Finder, there are still things that don't make sense. For example, why is COMMAND-N not new folder? It was new folder from 1984-2001 and now you have to press shift. I've lost countless minutes of my time with this frustrating change. Also, to make an alias, it's now COMMAND-L, not COMMAND-M.
It took this long to implement color-coding in the Finder under OS X (earlier versions didn't have this), but even that is a step backwards. As early as System 6 (1988), you could color-code icons. Now all that gets coded is the name around it, not the icon itself. And there isn't a Label menu anymore either--it's at the bottom of the file menu.
Spotlight and Dashboard are great ideas, but they aren't the best executed ones. On some machines, they are very sluggish. My dashboard often takes 30 seconds to come up. Spotlight will take a long pause in the middle of things so when I click on something, it will be something different that opens.
Classic compatibility is still poor. It has never impressed me and Apple seems to have put it on the back burner for good now that the Intel Macs can't even use it. This too disappoints me--a new PC can still boot into DOS and run software from 1981. The only one this benefits is the guys who sell used Macs.
And the worst part--the print dialog box. OS X has never handled printing well at all. Windows and OS 9 both had better systems. With OS X, the options are presented in a horribly unfriendly manner. The print center program is also poor in design. They tried too hard to make it easy but at the same time made easy hard. I'd take the old OS 9 system with the Chooser and the friendly dialogs any day.
I've long been a critic of OS X, don't get me wrong, but Tiger has really disgusted me for its lack of progress. I still use OS 9 a lot, causing me to use an older (and better built) machine than the new ones I've dumped thousands on. There are lots of good ideas in OS X, but they could have just as well been integrated into OS 9, which doesn't need Unix to run.
I'm not sure if I'll buy another new computer. Windows has its bugginess but this OS X thing makes me want to shout whenever I use it. OS 9 has been dependable and has every feature I need despite being old.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
volvo128
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Reviews written: 7
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