OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review 305
An anonymous reader writes: With the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Ars Technica has posted one of their extremely thorough reviews of the OS's new features and design changes. John Siracusa writes that Yosemite is particularly notable because it's the biggest step yet in Apple's efforts to bring OS X and iOS together — new technologies are now being added to Apple's two operating systems simultaneously. "The political and technical battles inherent in the former two-track development strategy for OS X and iOS left both products with uncomfortable feature disparities. Apple now correctly views this as damage and has set forth to repair it." Yosemite's look and feel has undergone significant changes as well, generally moving toward the flat and compact design present in iOS 7 & 8. Spotlight and the Notifications Center have gotten some needed improvements, as did many tab and toolbar interfaces.
Siracusa also takes a look a Swift, Apple's new programming language: "Swift is an attempt to create a low-level language with high-level syntax and semantics. It tackles the myth of the Sufficiently Smart Compiler by signing up to create that compiler as part of the language design process." He concludes: "Viewed in isolation, Yosemite provides a graphical refresh accompanied by a few interesting features and several new technologies whose benefits are mostly speculative, depending heavily on how eagerly they're adopted by third-party developers. But Apple no longer views the Mac in isolation, and neither should you. OS X is finally a full-fledged peer to iOS; all aspects of sibling rivalry have been banished."
Siracusa also takes a look a Swift, Apple's new programming language: "Swift is an attempt to create a low-level language with high-level syntax and semantics. It tackles the myth of the Sufficiently Smart Compiler by signing up to create that compiler as part of the language design process." He concludes: "Viewed in isolation, Yosemite provides a graphical refresh accompanied by a few interesting features and several new technologies whose benefits are mostly speculative, depending heavily on how eagerly they're adopted by third-party developers. But Apple no longer views the Mac in isolation, and neither should you. OS X is finally a full-fledged peer to iOS; all aspects of sibling rivalry have been banished."
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary:
Excuse me, but the only way for OS X to become a "peer" to iOS would be for iOS to become a whole lot better (e.g. to gain better multitasking and multiuser support, the ability to freely install software without a walled garden, a command line, etc.) or for OS X to become a whole lot worse!
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OS X server, a $20 purchase, lets you manage iOS devices and install whatever apps you want on them. Yes, without having to obtain App Store blessing. I don't think that the walled garden concept can be reasonably still thought applicable. Given that you get a reasonable device management capability for $20, I'd tend to think of it as a bargain, actually.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure that's correct. I think the apps you distribute via OS X Server to mobile devices have to be signed with a enterprise dev certificate, which will cost you $299/year
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This OS update is free for 10.8 and 10.9 users, no?
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes.
But once upon a time Apple used to ship a specific server OS called, predictably, OSX Server.
Nowadays they don't create two seperate OS packages, they use only one, but they additionally sell a bunch of admin tools which you can install on top of the ordinary OSX. This package is called OSX Server and sells for $20.
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The usual user case for this scenario is a company making specialized applications for the iPhone. In which case, the roughly thousand dollars required to gain this functionality is just a sneeze, not even a sniffle. Just because it doesn't fit your particular fantasy (and it doesn't appear you'd be interested in iOS at any price) doesn't mean it's not priced correctly.
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And of course, let's not forget the fact that all of this is beside the point since providing a computer without the ability for it to be programmed is fundamentally unethical to begin with!
That would be pretty bizarre ethics. Citation? (I'm guessing RMS. Maybe ESR?)
I don't remember much of a fuss over video game consoles. (Although obviously fringe figures like the aforesaid have been wearing hair-shirts for decades.)
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As for the "ethics", you're just flat making that issue up for th
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The purpose of a computer -- as opposed to some other tool -- is that it has the flexibility (by being programmed) to do many different things, including things conceived of by nobody but the user. A computer that can't be programmed is fundamentally not fit for purpose. Apple is selling devices that they have intentionally broken.
So that's the *purpose* of every single computer you own? Bully for you. That is not the purpose of every single computer *I* own. And I guarantee you it's not the purpose of every single computer most people own. What's more your statement is false on its face. iPads, etc *can* be programmed -- by anyone with the skill and tools to do so. You just need specific hardware and software and services in order to do so. Just because you're not willing to tool up for the task doesn't make it Apple's problem
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Can you write scripts like that on anything? A script that "knows" the state of another app? ( a real question, not a troll. ) It sounds like you want something similar to Applescript, which allows you to write a script which actuall
Your microwave is a computer, too. (Score:2)
Can you program it? It is perfectly reasonable for lots of people to want a "mobile device as an appliance", if that's not your brand of tea then shop elsewhere.
I thought we were done with all this walled-garden hysteria.
It runs a program internally (Score:3)
that implements the application of cooking something--why don't you expect to be able to re-write that program? Why don't you expect that you can re-write the code on the dozen micro-controllers in your car, or your refrigerator. What about your cable box? your DVR? your DVD player? How about that PS3 your kids play?
You probably own a few dozen processors which are similarly handicapped by the manufacturer to function as an appliance.
Your ethical criteria is arbitrarily created to castigate Apple for doing
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to program on an iPad download/install one of the many programming environments and stop bitching.
The iPad is not marketed as a 'computer' every one knows that. The fact that it is not easy to. 'compute' directly on it is well known.
Take it or leave it.
To install your 'own' software you only need a 'normal' developer account, to sign the software. An Enterprise account is not needed, AFAIK the distinction between OS X Server and OS X does no longer exist since 10.7.
And I don't get your bitching anyway. If you want a nice device to hack on buy a Nook or even more a Kobo, the later one even runs a more or less standard _linux_
However you can not connect your bluetooth keyboard to a Kobo/Nook.
So: get an android device and be done with it. The i ... being forced to use iTunes simple pisses me off.
ad I have right now is my last one as well, the fact that it does not mount as an USB drive on my Mac basically gave it the cupe de grace over the years
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at Apple's profit statements, the iOS App Store is break-even for them and they're not pushing profitability in that area.
So I really don't think that's why they don't let users break down the walled garden. I think it's because the nature of modern computing, breaking down the walled garden also means breaking down things about iOS that make it so nice. Thread safety, sandboxing, etc kind of break when you've got free reign to run whatever you want on the phone.
Also, who would really want a command line on their *phone*? Are you upset that iOS doesn't support CP/M apps too?
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I was using "command line" as a proxy for "scripting." An iOS version of Automator might be good enough*, but of course even Automator would include a call-a-shell-script Action, so it amounts to the same thing.
If you can't understand why scripting is important, then you don't understand what computers are to begin with (and an iPhone is a computer; it just happens to have a modem, microphone and speaker too).
(* On a Mac, Automator scripts are more
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The necessary foundation to make scripting work would break process and application isolation.
Making portable OSes more and more like desktop OSes would make them worse, not better.
I've yet looked at my phone and went, "Gee, I wish I could just do this with curl instead of safari."
The only thing that would make iOS even better would be some way to add media from inside apps. Apps can already write to the available movies. Just wish they could add podcasts and music.
(Which is odd because movies are DRMed on
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BS. OS X applications prove this isn't true. The point is not to be able to twiddle with an application's state arbitrarily; the point is for the application to expose a scripting API.
You've never looked at your phone and went, "Gee, I wish I could script the damn captive portal to this Wi-Fi hotspot so I wouldn't h
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not really? There's IFTTT and all sorts of apps that'll automate based on geofencing. You can tell siri to set up various tasks for you based on geofencing too...
But having a script trigger when a captive portal comes up would mean the script would have to know what's going on in the browser thread when the capture portal detection runs. Plus it's super fiddly and awful UX.
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The browser would have to trigger the script somehow, the script would have to read the contents of the browser, etc. etc.
You can probably find a scriptable browser in the App store, but I'm shocked you can't understand why this isn't a priority for Apple.
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If you can't understand why scripting is important, then you don't understand what computers are to begin with (and an iPhone is a computer; it just happens to have a modem, microphone and speaker too).
You seem to have got a warped idea of what a smartphone is. Just because it has a CPU does not make it a desktop substitute. There's no mandate for end user programability. And there's no demand for it in a mobile phone either. A few hackers who are stuck in the 1970s Unix concept of computing does not make a market for a mainstream device. Essentially no one buys a phone for scripting or CLI. And even if every single person on Slashdot said they do, that still wouldn't make it a market.
A phone is a communi
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That's only if you don't root. If you do however, you can do whatever the hell you want. Which is kind of dangerous from a consumer device standpoint.
I err with Apple on this one. I don't think that iOS should be giving you the gun in which to shoot your own foot with. Especially on the phone.
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Your analogy is completely wrong.
By "dangerous" I mean, "How badly will this go wrong if I shoot myself in the foot?"
I'm not saying you shouldn't use a screwdriver to pry open paint cans and used to drive screws. I'm saying you shouldn't use a nail gun as a TV remote.
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using Yosemite for a couple of months.
It's not turning into iOS. It's just working alongside iOS better. On the surface, de-glossification aside, it's more or less the same as Mavericks.
But of course, let's whip ourselves into a frenzy without even trying it out. This is Slashdot, of course.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
once you install a Start Menu replacement (e.g. ClassicShell)
In other words it's only different if you change the new UI for the old one.
It looks like Apple is doing the same thing
Not even slightly. There's no new UI that is like iOS, nor any "classic" UI to go back to.
Apple is flattening the graphical elements of the OS
Yes they are doing that. But that isn't enough to make OSX look anything like iOS.
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I really don't get the start menu love. The search feature is actually very quick and accurate once you start using it. Perhaps I'm not like other people, but when I go to run a program I already know what I want to run so it's easier to just start typing the name of the program than it is to navigate some legendary list of programs.
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I still open a shell and type the program's name. Old habits.....
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're typing the name of the program, of course there's little difference, except that Windows 8 covers your current workspace completely, yet doesn't even give you any visual indication that you can immediately start typing. This is endemic of the entire Windows 8 experience. There are no visual cues for *many* of the important things you have to do, and that's just a horrible design for a form factor with lots of real estate and a highly accurate pointing device.
I personally think the start menu is simply easier to use for a mouse user, especially when you don't remember exactly the name of what you're looking for (this can happen for rarely used programs or documentation, for example), because everything is logically grouped. You simply walk up the menu tree until you find what you're looking for and click it. Frequently used programs are pinned to the taskbar or perhaps populate the desktop.
However, it's a bit more than that as well. The start menu provides a logical anchor for nearly everything you can possibly do on a Windows machine. That's really, really important. There are shortcuts, but if you don't remember those shortcuts, you can simply click on the start menu and find it by browsing through the tree structure. It was an unbelievably stupid mistake, because MS completely discounted the psychological factor of removing a safe, always-visible fallback method for users to do whatever they needed to do on their computer.
From a design perspective, the Windows 8 start screen (well, the modern UI in general, actually) was also extremely intrusive for the user as well. This is fine for small form factors, because there's not enough screen real estate to do otherwise, but completely unacceptable for people with extremely large form-factor screens. You're unnecessarily blocking all other relevant information that the user is currently processing. After all, this isn't a phone, and so there's a high probability the user is working on or monitoring something else in another window (or many windows), and by removing those from view, you're creating a discontinuity in the workflow. The process is simply visually uncomfortable for large form factors.
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I really, really hope this fascination of the global design community with "flat and ugly" disappears soon. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with gloss, shine, transparency and gradients? I actually *like* those things, and every UI designer seems to be tossing those out and saying "Nonono, you don't actually want that. Here's what hip and trendy, even if you don't like the way it looks! It's modern! It's clean! It's the FUTURE!"
I'm actually fine with the anti-skeumorphic trend in general. After all
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I can see of Yosemite, Apple is doing the same thing with Mac OS X.
Can you be more specific as to what you're referring to? The biggest difference in the UI is that they reskinned things and change the icons and whatnot. You might not like the changes, but it's hardly the same thing as Windows 8's problems. The only things I can think of that make it more like their mobile OS-- at least this is all I can think of off the top of my head:
1) They added "Launchpad", which was done a couple of versions ago and is completely optional. Remove it from the dock and you never have to see it again.
2) They expanded the functionality of the notification area, and I don't really see there being a lot of grounds for complaints
3) They have a controlled "App Store", which again, was added a few versions ago and is optional.
4) They added an application for Maps...? I guess this makes it more like a mobile device. Again, optional.
5) Their chat/messaging application has increased support for SMS messages, which is additional functionality, and at least sort of optional.
I'm not seeing the problem.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
including things like their version of Androids Intents (that they call "extensions")....notifications pane from iOS (stolen from Android, natch)...
Right, so you're upset that Apple is using plugins, extensions, and notifications because all of those things were invented by Android developers. Sure.
They're making it possible to make and receive phone calls on the desktop.
So they've added functionality. I don't' think anyone is complaining about Windows 8 for added functionality.
They're changing a bunch of apps to more closely mimic the cellphone UI. According to the review itself, this is resulting in UIs with excessive whitespace...
You might need to point that out in the review. I don't doubt what you're saying, I just need context, and skimming the review for a second, I didn't see anything specific about that.
Having used Yosemite for a while, I don't see there being a lot of extra unused space due to "mimicking the cellphone UI". It actually seems like, in a lot of cases (e.g. Safari), they've cut down on "wasted space" in a way that may have been inspired by the cellphone UI, but not in a way that sacrifices functionality. I definitely haven't had the experience of noticing that things are spaced out strangely as though it were optimizing OSX for touch interaction.
Mostly it seems like they just re-skinned it. The textures and colors are different, with almost the same spacing.
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Boiling the frog may be a good analogy, although it suffers from a bit from having nothing to do with automobiles.
Apple, and 10.10 is going slower and is more nuanced than Microsoft and Windows 8. You have to change these things slowly, test some concepts, polish things - rather than just jump in and announced HI, I'M NEW, OH, YOUR NOT A TABLET? SORRY! (Metro, I'm trying NOT to look at you).
Clearly, everyone is trying for seamless integration of phones / tablets / desktops / clouds. Some good and some ba
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong.
Apple did not strip the major sematics of the UI that their users have enjoyed for 14 years for something that makes absolutely no sense on the hardware you've loaded it on, in the name of "one common [shitty] experience."
Apple has not completely hidden settings and configuration options - they are all still where you expect them to be. In fact, they moved some that were completely in your face for no reason into System Preferences where they should have been 10 years ago (I'm looking at you, Dock Settings).
Apple still gives you a fully functional terminal with real shell options and built-in standard scripting languages. Perl, Ruby, Python, and Bash are all there ready to go. You can even paste into the terminal without touching the mouse!
This is nothing like Windows 8. This is actually better than what came before.
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I mourned Spaces for about a day until I started actually playing with Mission Control, with the goal of Trying Things Their Way. I now like MC much better than I ever liked Spaces. It works like I'd expect it to without any of Spaces's dumbnesses.
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You might need spectacles. Yosemite GUI is nothing like iOS8.
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Other than the flat UI, I've been using it as a beta for a few months now. Not much really different from previous releases except some new gewgaws under the hood and some better SeatBelt like security policies. If you have debug mode in your Mac's NVRAM set, there are a few new things like a cache that gets rebuilt on bootup.
Couple new features, a new coat of paint. For the cost of the upgrade ($0), I cannot complain, and I'm pretty sure it brings to the table a number of security updates as well.
As for
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Mac App Store top paid apps:
7. Pixelmator.
9. Final Cut Pro.
Most of the rest of the top 10 are utilities, used by everyone, creatives and consumers.
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Case in point, the removal of the "Software Updates" item from the Apple menu. Yes, the button simply launched the App Store, and you can get to Software
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The App Store icon in the Dock displays a numbered badge when there are any updates - OS or App Store apps. When there as OS updates, you get a popup-notification.
These are both far superior then having to remember to check Software Updates from time to time, as in days of yore. (And it's several versions ago that that was the primary update point.)
Removing obsolete menu items is a good thing.
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NOT acceptable! Notifying me because there is some new featured software you want me to see
It doesn't do that. It only notifies you of actual updates to software you already have. If you were running the beta of Yosemite, that will be why you got it. I didn't have the beta, and I didn't get that badge. It's perfectly reasonable to nudge you off the beta and on to the release. The beta is not supported now that there's a release version.
The App Store app does have a big banner advertising Yosemite within it. But that doesn't cause an icon badge for me.
Re:Desktop is dying we need a good Workstation OS (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue I have with Windows 8, and OS X.10 is the fact that they are trying to make the OS into the next tablet/mobile OS.
No, they aren't. At least, not Apple.
They are making your Mac work with your iDevice more seamlessly. There's a pretty big distinction there.
Anyone claiming this is akin to Windows 7 -> Windows 8 isn't paying attention. For one, Apple has never (and still doesn't) ship a touchscreen Mac, so it would be quite ridiculous to put a touch-centric UI on OS X. OS X is still clearly ruled by the mouse / trackpad and keyboard, and will be for the foreseeable future for one very good reason - OS X is where the content for iOS is made, and iOS is where the content made on OS X is consumed.
That is the business model for Apple, and very close to what Google is doing too if you haven't noticed. They haven't exactly been whipping people to get Android onto laptops - that's what ChromeOS is for.
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Apple will most certainly once ship touch screen Mac Books and Desktop computers.
There are simply far to many scenarios where such a devise is useful.
I'm pretty sure a MacBook Air, with touchscreen, and the option to 'fold away' the keyboard is already in the making.
Well I use a MacBook Air with a iPad as second screen. I'm developing a small touch based IDE ... programming in a 'minority report' style is simply incredible fast ...
The problem right now is that 'touch interfaces' are still not fully understo
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The issue I have with Windows 8, and OS X.10 is the fact that they are trying to make the OS into the next tablet/mobile OS.
No, they aren't. At least, not Apple.
They are making your Mac work with your iDevice more seamlessly. There's a pretty big distinction there.
Anyone claiming this is akin to Windows 7 -> Windows 8 isn't paying attention. For one, Apple has never (and still doesn't) ship a touchscreen Mac, so it would be quite ridiculous to put a touch-centric UI on OS X. OS X is still clearly ruled by the mouse / trackpad and keyboard, and will be for the foreseeable future for one very good reason - OS X is where the content for iOS is made, and iOS is where the content made on OS X is consumed.
That is the business model for Apple, and very close to what Google is doing too if you haven't noticed. They haven't exactly been whipping people to get Android onto laptops - that's what ChromeOS is for.
I agree, having used iPads with a bluetooth keyboard and regular Windows Laptops with a touch screen as well as regular laptops I have to say I prefer the old fashioned keyboard+touchpad combination when using any laptop irrespective of whether it runs Windows, Linux or OS X because I can keep my hands on the keyboard most of the time and move the cursor with my thumb or index finger. I find that browsing, for example, goes significantly faster on OS X than it goes on iOS even with a BT keyboard because the
Minimalism Overkill (Score:4, Insightful)
I really wish this sad trend of minimalism would go away.
In a way, I feel minimalism reflects the decline of our society because let's face it, we aren't putting all that much effort into our designs at this point.
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Thank you! Apple keeps trying to take things away, but they've gotten to the point where it hurts functionality.
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The thread is not about Yosemite, in case you have not noticed but about the new Maverick.
Mac OS X 10!
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Adding chrome to a design is only more effort in the sense that you have to spend a lot of time adding that chrome. Otherwise, minimalism is at least just as hard because your intent and functionality can't hide behind the pretty blinking lights.
How does Fallingwater [fallingwater.org] reflect a decline in society when compared to Versailles [chateauversailles.fr]?
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Minimalisim requires *more* effort, not less. Which is more of a design challenge: 1) expose every setting for every aspect of a system, pick reasonable defaults, and trust the user to learn enough to figure out how to adjust every setting, or 2) greatly narrow the choices, pick a very few settings to expose, get it right at design time.
You may personally prefer one or the other, but minimalism puts a lot more work on the designer than the kitchen sink approach does.
Sibling Rivalry? (Score:2, Insightful)
Siblings should not be the same. Are you and your siblings exactly alike? You're better and some things and they are better at others.
A desktop and a mobile OS should not be exactly alike. Sure, they can share similarities, just like you share traits with your siblings. But even twins are not exactly the same. Nor should they be.
A desktop OS should be designed for different jobs than a mobile one.
Out of context... (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone's taking that snippet waaaay out of context.
OS X and iOS work better together now, they don't work the same.
As in, for example, you start typing a document on your desktop, like you normally would, and you can continue it on your phone seamlessly and automatically if you have to go out. Both with different, and appropriate, interfaces.
This isn't about making your desktop work LIKE a phone. It's about making your desktop work WITH your phone.
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As in, for example, you start typing a document on your desktop, like you normally would, and you can continue it on your phone seamlessly and automatically if you have to go out.
I've been able to do that for years with and desktop and smartphone OS combination, via Google Docs and Office 360, amongst other solutions. It's nothing new, and I'd argue that Apples way is no different, and certainly not better. I don't do it often because I generally don't like the interfaces for any of the apps that have the capability, so I tend to only use one of said apps (in my case Google Docs) when I know, in advance, that I'm going to be editing a document on the go. Beyond that, the ability to
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The difference between this and Google Docs is that it's baked right into the OS, and has hooks for third parties to implement it in their applications.
So that is some sort of standardization. At least, on Apple devices.
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Don't get me wrong, TextEdit is great for taking notes, and I use i
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I'd argue that Apples way is no different, and certainly not better. I don't do it often because I generally don't like the interfaces for any of the apps that have the capability
The difference is, as you then go on to acknowledge, that Google Docs is a web app, and Apple's apps are native. And the reason why the Google Docs are so bad you don't like them is they are limited by the fact that they are web apps.
What are you missing here?
As to it needing Apple devices on both ends, Apple has always been a "whole widget" company. One of the reason there products work so well is because they retain total control of hardware and software.
If there was a quality existing standard for handing off between different Office apps on different apps/OSs, then Apple might use it. But there's not.
Furthermore, there have been major growing pains with iCloud over the years even with it just being used from Apple's own APIs. Making it generic would introduce more problems.
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And the reason why the Google Docs are so bad you don't like them is they are limited by the fact that they are web apps.
So now you're qualified to tell me what I do and don't like? then, please, Mr. Psychic, tell me what I don't like about the interface of Apple's native document editing apps. I'm sure it's nothing to do with them being web based, since, you know, they're not. In short, you're wrong for reason I'm sure you'll never be able understand.
If there was a quality existing standard for handing off between different Office apps on different apps/OSs, then Apple might use it. But there's not.
ODF is pretty damn standard. Hell, even Microsoft has an open standard in use, currently. In fact, I can exchange documents between OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Star Office, and Mic
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So now you're qualified to tell me what I do and don't like?
I'm qualified to say that the reason Google Docs sucks is because it's a web app.
ODF is pretty damn standard. Hell, even Microsoft has an open standard in use, currently. In fact, I can exchange documents between OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Star Office, and Microsoft Office in either format.
They are file formats. They are not methods of handing off open documents between different devices without first saving them somewhere. Completely different thing.
And even they are fucked. Documents moved between different office apps tend to break. Still. In 2014.
iCloud is nothing more than an online storage service. It takes data from one device and makes that data available to other devices. If they can't get that right, that's not growing pains, that's incompetence.
It's a sync service, that works on open files. And that's hard. Very hard. Always has been. And if you don't know that, that's your incompetence.
And yes, I'm a devel
Cut the Crap (Score:3, Funny)
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Swift must be a good programming language... (Score:5, Funny)
Swift must be really in demand. In the past few weeks, I've gotten at least five recruiters with positions open, but with requirements of at least five years work with the language.
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*whoosh*
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"All aspects of sibling rivalry banished"? Nope. (Score:2)
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And yet, everyone that I've talked to in the hardware business still doesn't believe a touchscreen laptop adds any value. They exist specifically because of marketing hype and touch hysteria.
And yet, everyone that I've talked to in the hardware business still doesn't believe a touchscreen laptop adds any value. They exist specifically because of marketing hype and touch hysteria.
You're right, Apple would never do anything driven by marketing hype or touch hysteria.
On a serious note, I love my capacitive touch laptop (running Windows 8.1). As a developer I don't use the touch screen that much except for testing my cross platform, multi-touch enabled apps, but when I do use it "as an end user", it is nice as an extra option. Mostly I find myself gripping the side and casually scrolling a web page with my thumb, or pinching to zoom into a web page, etc.
Now let's get to the easy st
Interesting they keep doing lengthly reviews... (Score:5, Interesting)
These Ars OSX reviews have always been really impressive things, full of technical examination and as you can see, very long to write...
It made more sense to me back when you had to pay for an upgrade though, so you could see if it was worth getting. Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...
That said I hope they keep doing them because it is nice to have a deep technical examination of what is new.
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Re:Interesting they keep doing lengthly reviews... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...
I dunno about that. These reviews always show me features I've never known were in the OS and some of the thinking and history behind them. Do you need to read these? Of course not, my wife uses OSX and wouldn't understand every fifth word, nor would she care. I look forward to his disassemblies. Just takes me a while to get through them ....
I don't spend a whole lot of time dithering with the OS. I use a computer for it's applications. But the more you know, the more work you can get out of the machines. Still and all, I can't get too wound up about missing a few pixels here and there. Glad somebody does.
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These Ars OSX reviews have always been really impressive things, full of technical examination and as you can see, very long to write...
It made more sense to me back when you had to pay for an upgrade though, so you could see if it was worth getting. Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...
That said I hope they keep doing them because it is nice to have a deep technical examination of what is new.
Apple makes it very difficult for the average person to downgrade after you upgrade OS. If you try and run, for instance, the Mavericks installer after having upgraded to Yosemite, it will fail and tell you to install a newer version of OS X. There may or may not be a way around this, I've never tried.
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Downgrading an OS by a major version is asking to break it. The upgrade scripts will normally change various datafile formats and contents. That's not a reversible process unless there are equivalent scripts to go the other way. And what OS developer is going to put the same development and testing effort into going backwards?
Thats not to say that you can't in GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux lets you tinker with most things. But it generally offers no protection from breaking everything when you do so.
Of course the ri
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Downgrading an OS by a major version is asking to break it. The upgrade scripts will normally change various datafile formats and contents. That's not a reversible process unless there are equivalent scripts to go the other way. And what OS developer is going to put the same development and testing effort into going backwards?
Thats not to say that you can't in GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux lets you tinker with most things. But it generally offers no protection from breaking everything when you do so.
Of course the right thing to do regardless of platform is to make sure you do a complete backup before upgrading, so you can go back to that if you want to.
Go ahead and try to wipe the entire drive and then install an older version of MacOS. Put in a new drive and try to install an older version. They change something - I don't know if its in the SMC or something, but it will give you an error. I do not mean downgrading the OS on top of an existing install. I mean a fresh install of an older OS.
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Search the web, and you'll see instructions for downgrading Mavericks to Mountain Lion using a Time Machine backup. And certainly during the beta testing phase you could downgrade Yosemite to Mavericks.
The release of Yosemite has only just come out, and I haven't tried it myself so I can't guarantee it. But it would be very surprising if you can't restore from a backup that's a previous OS.
I mean a fresh install of an older OS.
No, you can't do that. But what's the use case? You're going to throw away all your data and apps?
Well, no one else here said it yet... (Score:2, Interesting)
Upgraded yesterday. I can't comment on the internal changes, but IMHO the new look is ugly. It even looks like the 'X' in the close button isn't centered. I want my old look back.
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Do you have Retina? I believe the new look is optimised for that.
Did you backup before upgrading?
First taste of Mac OS X (Score:2, Informative)
I recently started a new role, where we predominately use Macs. As a long-term Linux user, I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out Macs, in case one day I decided to switch. Initially, I was very impressed, but after a few days, I find the whole thing to be dumbed down, unnecessarily.
Re:First taste of Mac OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to Dolphin, I find Finder far too limited, especially the inability to show hidden files. I've got no idea why there is no such menu toggle built into it. What are Apple afraid of? This is especially annoying when I have to look for .m2 and .git files. Sure, I can use the command line, but it's not as intuitive.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall finder
The mouse scrolling was odd; the whole concept of "accelerating" while operating the wheel doesn't feel as natural as moving 2-3 lines with each movement. I had to download an app to get it the way I wanted (or, the same as it works in Windows and KDE).
The scrolling behaviour is designed to work with touch pads, because they're the primary analog interaction device on OS X, I'd strongly suggest you grab one.
It took me ages to realise that Command-Tab cycles through open applications, but not the windows. I found several windows all hidden behind one another that had been there for days, because OS X's window manager didn't present them to me. Apparently, I have to use Expose or something like that to see all of them.
Correct, exposé is the right tool for this job. You can also use cmnd-` to cycle through windows within an application.
Oddly, most things on Mac are Command+. However, on the command line, Ctrl+C is still used to break a program.
That would be because there are well established unixisms at the terminal. This has the substantial advantage that even in a terminal window, you can still use cmnd-c to copy things without losing ctrl-c to kill applications. Note, a lot of common terminal shortcuts like ctrl-a and ctrl-e for start and end of the line work throughout the OS.
My Mac has been set up to be case insensitive. LS, GrEp, cAT, TAIl all behave as if they had been typed lowercase.
So? Why is this an issue?
Pressing home and end take me to the top and bottom of the document, rather than the line I'm edit, making me have to do some finger gymnastics when I want to highlight an entire line I'm working on. That's probably just personal preference, though.
As I said above ctrl-a and ctrl-e. Also cmmd-left arrow and cmnd-right arrow.
I'm not entirely sure why, when I click on the green plus, some windows will resize to fill the whole screen, while others will just get a little larger.
This was changed in Yosemite, the green plus now full screens all apps. The reason for the odd behaviour is because of a lot of windows devs failing to understand what that button was meant to do. The original behaviour in Mac OS was to make the window exactly big enough to hold the content in it, and no bigger. Lots of people implemented it as maximise though.
Maybe KDE has spoiled me, with its lashings of customisation options, but I can see if I were to switch to a Mac, I'd spend a lot of time downloading hacks and scripts to bring back the features I like to work with, and other scripts to do away with those that I don't. Can't see myself switching to a Mac any time soon, if I'm being totally fair.
So what you're saying is that on Linux you're willing to install the appropriate software to make the machine behave like you want it, but on Mac OS, having to install software is unreasonable?
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My Mac has been set up to be case insensitive. LS, GrEp, cAT, TAIl all behave as if they had been typed lowercase.
So? Why is this an issue?
Linux filesystems are, by default, case sensitive. I can have Foo.bar and foo.bar in the same directory. If my source control is set up properly, I can see and work with both files properly on Linux but not on Mac OS. You can use a case-sensitive filesystem in MacOS, but last time I tried the OS itself was very buggy and unpredictable when dealing with files. Perhaps this has been fixed since 10.8, I don't know, but the general rule of thumb is to NOT use a case-sensitive FS on MacOS.
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It's a shame they differ. But let's face it, actually having Foo.bar and foo.bar, or worse still Foo.bar and Foo.BAR in the same directory is a silly thing to do.
Re:First taste of Mac OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Cycle through windows: Command + `
Move cursor to beginning/end of line: Command + Left/Right
Case insensitivity: You can enable this, but there might be repercussions
Green plus: Only maximizes windows in Yosemite. Schizophrenic behavior is gone. The original idea was that it would resize the window to be exactly as large as it needed to be in order to show all its content, but it was often confusing.
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Green plus: Only maximizes windows in Yosemite. Schizophrenic behavior is gone.
The review disagrees [arstechnica.com]. In windows that don't support full screen, the green + still does whatever it is that it does, and if for some reason you want to do that on windows with real fullscreen support, you can Option-click the green dot.
Which means that in Yosemite, clicking on the green dot will either take you into fullscreen mode or do who even knows when it's a plus and not a pair of arrows. I'm not sure that's really an improvement if you want to remove "schizophrenic behavior."
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You may want to look into uBar (ubarapp.com)--I've heard good things about it. I'm considering it myself, though I've never had problems with the dock.
Different systems have different control paradigms. The fact that things don't work the way you expect doesn't mean they're bad, just that they're different.
For instance, cycling through open applications makes a lot more sense to me. I really like that I can raise a single window without bringing the entire application to the front. This is something that co
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I recently started a new role, where we predominately use Macs. As a long-term Linux user, I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out Macs, in case one day I decided to switch. Initially, I was very impressed, but after a few days, I find the whole thing to be dumbed down, unnecessarily.
A little googling would help you with all these issues.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES
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Compared to Dolphin, I find Finder far too limited, especially the inability to show hidden files. I've got no idea why there is no such menu toggle built into it. What are Apple afraid of? This is especially annoying when I have to look for .m2 and .git files. Sure, I can use the command line, but it's not as intuitive.
Others have pointed out the hidden preference to change this, but since that's incredibly unintuitive and very annoying, I'll offer a different method.
If you only want to descend into a hidden directory that you know exists, you can use Shift-Command-G and enter the path directly. This will open the Finder window inside that path. You won't see any hidden files (other than the specific directory you're in) but it's the "quick and easy" way of entering hidden directories.
But I agree, there really, really sho
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I'm also a linux user that's ended up on OSX due to management.
Totalfinder is less essential than it used to be, but it's still damn useful for fixing most of the flaws in finder, not least because it adds a shortcut to toggle hidden files/folders, shift-cmd-.
Like you, I've got an acceleration fix to make it work linearly - just what I'm used to, and I use windows + linux at home, so it makes more sense to change OSX.
I've found having a magic trackpad pretty handy for the gesture support. It works fine as y
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especially the inability to show hidden files.
It's a power user option. Open terminal., and type the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
The rest of your points are simply a matter of you being used to something different. If and when you get used to the Mac way, and you go use a Windows or Linux computer, you'll think they are odd.
Maybe KDE has spoiled me, with its lashings of customisation options, but I can see if I were to switch to a Mac, I'd spend a lot of time downloading hacks and scripts to bring back the features I like to work with, and other scripts to do away with those that I don't.
That's not the way to go. OSX is not KDE, trying to make it so is pointless. Just as trying to make KDE like Windows would be.
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I'm not trying to convince you to like OSX, but just to attempt to give an explanation:
Compared to Dolphin, I find Finder far too limited, especially the inability to show hidden files. I've got no idea why there is no such menu toggle built into it. What are Apple afraid of? This is especially annoying when I have to look for .m2 and .git files. Sure, I can use the command line, but it's not as intuitive.
As someone who provides support for general users, I think Apple has handled this reasonably well. There are a lot of hidden files that a lot of people would find confusing. There are .DS_Store files and .Trash folders, along with the /etc directory in the root. If they had a little button on the Finder to "show hidden files", I have no doubt that there would be a lot of users who would hit it, see all the "Junk" in pl
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You seem to have nailed on the head, pretty much all the "big problems" in OS X. Where I work, there was a huge migration from PC's to OS X, probably starting around 2003-2004-ish. The hardware (macbook pro) is actually among the best in the industry. Especially right now (omitting the 2011 models that had the NVidia defect, and Apple's appallingly bad handling of that). (Yeah - apple is really bad at acknowledging hardware defects, for a company that charges exceedingly "premium" price-points). Many of
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I prefer the OS X method of window/application switching. But more to the point, I think expose is a better method than the alt-tab method, straight up. You can do it for all windows or just the application you're in. I've always found it faster. It's something I miss when I'm on other systems. (I've tried the Windows versions, but I've yet to find one that's nearly as good.)
OSX finally has object store support (Score:2)
With the recent announcement, I'm so relieved my favorite object store [openstack.org] is now integrated with with OSX.
yawn. (Score:2)
I need to look deeper but so far there's been 12 pages of "these buttons look different" and "the window titles are now vibrant!" but nothing about how applications actually work the way they should now ... So far I still don't see any real advantage to moving up from 10.6.8...
Unless I missed them fixing some of my nits:
- When you move a mail message out of your inbox, one option needs to be "move this to the same folder you previously moved messages _from_this_sender_"
- When I switch desktops, it should l
Re:Windows 8 (Score:5, Informative)
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Nope. The failed Microsoft experiment of the same GUI on desktop and mobile was not and will never be done by Apple. They are aligning technologies, not UIs.
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It's not a failed experiment.
'Success' does not need to mean, "Everyone universally enjoys this XXXX".
I'm a Windows Phone user as well as a Windows 8 user. I like both of them. I like that they've combined them. It works very well for me.
The interface needs to be refined in order to appeal to more people, but that does not mean it is a failure. It just means that Windows 8 was the first iteration of something that could/should/can be very, very good.
Taking the first steps toward a goal is not failure- i
Re:Windows 8 (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal likes can be subjective. But the failure of Windows Phone & Tablets in the market and the need of Microsoft to backpedal on the desktop is objective, The same Windows UI everywhere failed. A failure is not a foundation. It could be a learning exercise from which they'll recover. But in no way was it not a failure.
Re:Windows 8 (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm a Windows Phone user"
WOW! Finally, I've 'met' one. According to the sales states there was someone who bought a Windows Phone but I didn't expect to actually make contact with you. Hey, how's it working out?
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I've met one too, in person. They worked for MS.
Re:Sad that the technical stuff goes last (Score:4, Informative)
You DARE denigrate the OS X God that is John Siracusa*? You miserable infidel!.
How can you NOT bow down to the man who must have spent every waking minute of his life since 10.10 was released in alpha form working on this magnum opus? How can you NOT revel in his insights as to the amount of white space needed to click on a menu bar? How can you NOT bask in the glory of a 25 page Ars article (thank His Noodliness for Adblock).
Philistine.
* Thanks John, I mean really. I've followed you since BYTE Days (not that I understood half of what you were saying). But 25 pages?
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You can still close windows in Windows by double clicking the left side of the title bar (where the window menu used to be), even in Windows 7 (not sure about Windows 8 or Windows 10 as I have used neither).
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"more childlike IU", yep, it looks like crap. I wish there was a switch so we could select the interface look we wanted, that probably would have been expensive for Apple to keep two looks around, but the Yosemite look just plain sucks MS balls.
Re:Planned obsolescence (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm with you on the eye rolls. I'm not sure how a free upgrade with new features, to an already purchased product constitutes planned obsolescence. I realize language shifts, but planned obsolescence to me is when a product you purchased has a given shelf life where it loses the capability to do what you bought it for. This is a product that still does what you paid for it and actually increased utility, just some features that you didn't pay for anyway you can't use.
Did anyone buy the MacBook in 2011 and say "you know, when they stop charging for OS upgrades, and give out free updates and dozens of new features to the mac and iPhone, i won't be able to use this one new free feature they both get 3 years from now, curse you Apple!"