July 29, 2013

What I Hate About OS X 10.8.5

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

100px-MountainLionHero In my attempt to obtain a new router, an OS X update was thrust upon my Mac. Here are the reasons I do not like this new operating system.

To begin, I was completely satisfied with OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. I didn’t want to upgrade to OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion. I knew of the new features it offered and nothing intrigued me. I don’t need to bring my Mac the same giggly goofy gizmos of iOS. Yet, here I am.

After it installed, Mountain Lion attempted to floor me with its impressive new features. Most of these I discovered by accident as I went through my daily routines:

Mission Control. I still have no idea what this feature is or why it’s necessary. It was an icon on the Dock, one that I promptly got rid of, but yet it’s still mapped to the F9 key on the keyboard. Back in Snow Leopard, this feature blew all my windows out across the screen, so that I could see an overview of what’s open. That’s handy, but the Mission Control thing apparently has designs on using programs full-screen or something? That makes no sense to me.

Full screen programs anger and confuse me.

Launchpad. Again, another app I promptly banished from the Dock. This one pops up programs like iOS tiles. Didn’t need it. Got rid of it. Pleased.

Notifications. I can’t get rid of this one, but I can turn off the notifications. Apparently it works better if you’re immersed in Apple hardware and all those devices and their apps enthrall you with various notifications. That’s not me, but I can’t peel away the thing.

Dashboard. They messed with this one, but I found a work-around. In Snow Leopard, the widgets flew in over the screen, like an extra layer, which I found handy. In Mountain Lion, they overtake the screen, preventing me from seeing the desktop. I fixed that. I don’t know how I did, but now Dashboard works like it used to. Pleased.

Mail. I don’t like the way the new Mail program threads the messages. I’ve tried to curtail it as much as possible, but I’ve been unsuccessful. I’m looking into getting the PostBox email client as soon as I have a spare moment.

Terminal. Yep, I’m probably one of the few who gives a rip about the Terminal app. I use it! Heck, I even start programs from the command prompt. For example, I don’t know where the Airport Utility is located, but I know that this command starts it up:

open -a Airport\ Utility

I’m a geek, I know.

The new Terminal fixed a command line editing bug from the older version. That’s good. But the scrolling command in vim now scrolls less than a full screen, which I can probably fix (and will). Also, tabs don’t wrap on program output, which is weird. I can probably fix that someday as well.

Finder. I like the new Finder interface. That’s a plus.

Dictionary. The new Dictionary app (which I use frequently) is nice, as is the ability to look up words in a document without having to visit the Dictionary app. That’s keen.

Other minor features are a plus as well, but for the big toys — the things they advertised — I’m underwhelmed.

OS X 10.9 Mavericks? Probably not.

2 Comments

  1. Dan- Im glad youve finally commented on Mountain Lion, Ive been very curious as to what you think the difference would be to Snow Leopard. Just a while ago you said you would rather use BSD than upgrade to ML.

    Here are my comments about your comments:

    Mission Control- I like Mission Control, its a good way to access windows when the desktop is cluttered with open windows. But I agree it would be better if it did not use fullscreen mode

    Launchpad- Launchpad just presents icons full screen, I think this is better than hunting down icons in the application folder of Finder.

    Dashboard- I havent found any widgets that are useful so I dont use Dashboard, but that is weird how it goes to full screen, kind of nullifies the purpose of widgets

    Terminal- Im surprised you dont use one of those advanced Linux terminals like tmux from macports or homebrew. Also OSX uses an old version of vim, you could use MacVim. Most of the unix stuff on OSX is old, most every programming professional uses homebrew to use the latest stuff.

    #Finder. I like the new Finder interface. That’s a plus#
    Finder is the only part of OSX that I find annoying. I dont like how icons dont snap to grid. There is no button to open a new window, they honestly expect you to drag to those tiny folder icons inside the finder window. The fact that each directory has its own icon style is annoying, I think it should be unified so you dont have to change the icon settings in each finder window. Windows and Linux do folders and file managers right, OSX is just different to be different in my opinion.

    #OS X 10.9 Mavericks? Probably not#
    From what Ive heard, Mavericks is only going to remove the bloat and unneeded running processes which will considerably improve RAM use and battery time in MacBooks.

    Comment by BradC — July 31, 2013 @ 10:17 am

  2. Thanks for the tip on homebrew.

    I suppose I know too many Finder tricks for me to express my enthusiasm. The OS X Finder is loosely based on the old NeXTstep OS file manager (which I forget its name). That was one of the best file manager’s I’ve used. In fact, it’s funny: I pop up my old NeXT slab computer every so often and the desktop there looks exactly like my desktop on my current iMac. I’m a creature of habit.

    Comment by admin — July 31, 2013 @ 10:22 am

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