VVanks
New member
"Now it comes to it, I don't feel like parting with it, its mine, I found it, it came to me!"
It was hard leaving the Windows world. I've enjoyed Windows for the past 10 years. From the flaky Windows 95, to slow booting 2000, to the hair pulling ME, to a solid XP and finally to Vista. Windows has served me well, maybe a little too well. I'm a good enough Windows user that I haven't been hampered down with adware, spyware or many viruses so I haven't really experienced the annoyances that many people have had. I've also had the help of a huge community to help me through the years so that was fine.
But now, it's time to let go on that golden ring, that safety net and move onto better lands, full of large cats, mountains! Mountains Gandalf, I want to see the mountains again!
*ahem*
I've been a mac fan since I touched the very first Macintosh Classic that my parents bought. The only thing that has kept me away from a mac since then is the fact that they don't play games at all, and the crazy pricing scheme they put for such a none-gaming computer.
But I've grown up, and it seems that Macs aren't so bad after all... or so it seems.
This isn't really a review about how good or bad Leopard is, that kind of discussion is moot. This article compares the things that Vista does well, and the things that Leopard does well, and the things that I can do better if I was in charge of UX design at Apple or Microsoft.
1. User interaction / Interface design
2. Window Management
3. Dock vs Taskbar
4. Font Antialiasing
5. File management
6. Command-line Level Operations
7. Semi-Conclusion
8. Performance performance performance performance!
9. Shortcuts
Trust me, if you get a mac, and you're a pretty geeky computer nerd, you'll be mastering all the shortcuts very quickly. Then you can impress the womenz who own macs and pretend they look hot with them
_______
More to come later!
It was hard leaving the Windows world. I've enjoyed Windows for the past 10 years. From the flaky Windows 95, to slow booting 2000, to the hair pulling ME, to a solid XP and finally to Vista. Windows has served me well, maybe a little too well. I'm a good enough Windows user that I haven't been hampered down with adware, spyware or many viruses so I haven't really experienced the annoyances that many people have had. I've also had the help of a huge community to help me through the years so that was fine.
But now, it's time to let go on that golden ring, that safety net and move onto better lands, full of large cats, mountains! Mountains Gandalf, I want to see the mountains again!
*ahem*
I've been a mac fan since I touched the very first Macintosh Classic that my parents bought. The only thing that has kept me away from a mac since then is the fact that they don't play games at all, and the crazy pricing scheme they put for such a none-gaming computer.
But I've grown up, and it seems that Macs aren't so bad after all... or so it seems.
This isn't really a review about how good or bad Leopard is, that kind of discussion is moot. This article compares the things that Vista does well, and the things that Leopard does well, and the things that I can do better if I was in charge of UX design at Apple or Microsoft.
1. User interaction / Interface design
OS X wins hands down in the UX department. Everything in OS X has that extra polish that Vista just can't replicate. Everything feels simplier, more to the point and less distracting. Whilst many people are accusing Leopard of stealing Vista's glass blurring effects, Leopard uses them much more to a usability effect than just an artistic one. For example, Menus are 95% opaque, whilst the 5% of the background leaking through is blurred. This gives menus a much more focused look with the idea that the background is far behind it (sort of like lenses focusing)
Although from an engineer's point of view, what works works, both operating systems work well in terms of interface style. Lets say Vista is a curvaceous lady in the black dress, OS X is the cute, well dressed sophisticated brunette from poly science.
Although from an engineer's point of view, what works works, both operating systems work well in terms of interface style. Lets say Vista is a curvaceous lady in the black dress, OS X is the cute, well dressed sophisticated brunette from poly science.
2. Window Management
The biggest problem with OS X however is the maximize function (or the Zoom button as they call it). It doesn't maximize the window to screen, and usually doesn't even zoom it properly. It just makes the window fit the content, which is mind boggingly annoying sometimes. For instance, in Safari, zoom button resizes the window to the content of every website you go to... in iCal, Mail, and iPhoto (and a plethora of other Apple's iLife/iWork software) it maximizes to the screen. Other software like address book, zoom button does absolutely nothing, and in iTunes it turns the big window into a mini-player.
Resizing is also another issue with OS X. The only way to resize a window is clicking the bottom right hand corner and dragging to the appropriate size. If the window is bigger than the space between the topbar and the dock, good luck. This is another gaping hole in a polished OS. A quick solution is to put a 1 pixel border (there is already a 1 pixel border, make is selectable) that you can drag sideways or add another corner you can drag, maybe the bottom left? Oh I don't know, think of something Apple, it isn't that hard.
These mind boggingly bad interface design paradigms need to be fixed. In this case, OS X loses out badly to Windows hands down. I don't care how many times you can tell me that it's better, it is obviously not. And with Apple goes back and forth with the maximize and zoom, there needs to be a standard. Either make it standardized or fix it with another simple yet amazing solution like Apple usually does (fullscreen maximize is one idea)
In that sense, Windows Vista, with Windows 7 on the horizon (and that supertaskbar + fullscreen capability) makes Windows much more attractive in the windows management department. I hope 10.6 will offer a lot more standardization in terms of windows resizing and maximizing that will hopefully put it on par with something that Windows 95 had.
Resizing is also another issue with OS X. The only way to resize a window is clicking the bottom right hand corner and dragging to the appropriate size. If the window is bigger than the space between the topbar and the dock, good luck. This is another gaping hole in a polished OS. A quick solution is to put a 1 pixel border (there is already a 1 pixel border, make is selectable) that you can drag sideways or add another corner you can drag, maybe the bottom left? Oh I don't know, think of something Apple, it isn't that hard.
These mind boggingly bad interface design paradigms need to be fixed. In this case, OS X loses out badly to Windows hands down. I don't care how many times you can tell me that it's better, it is obviously not. And with Apple goes back and forth with the maximize and zoom, there needs to be a standard. Either make it standardized or fix it with another simple yet amazing solution like Apple usually does (fullscreen maximize is one idea)
In that sense, Windows Vista, with Windows 7 on the horizon (and that supertaskbar + fullscreen capability) makes Windows much more attractive in the windows management department. I hope 10.6 will offer a lot more standardization in terms of windows resizing and maximizing that will hopefully put it on par with something that Windows 95 had.
3. Dock vs Taskbar
Dock and the taskbar do very different things and very similar things. Neither does one or the other very well. The dock places icons on a horizontal (or vertical bar) and shows a small glow if that application is on. As good as the artistry behind this is, it is almost useless at any kind of information coverage. How many windows do I have open for that app? Which one is the foremost window I can select? What is the orientation in Z-index of the applications on my desktop?
The dock can answer none of these questions and only serves to put more and more icons on there, whilst getting smaller and smaller. The Dock from a UX design point of view is quite a mind boggling problem. You have moving targets, scaling targets, and the worst of all, magnifying targets. There is nothing really great to say about the dock except you must use it.
Of the top of my head some easy fixes for the dock:
Remove magnification
Make it span across the bottom of the screen.
Remove the unnecessary graphics like reflections, multiple shadows etc.
Split the right and left parts, putting the recyclebin ALWAYS on the right, and finder ALWAYS on the left.
As more items get added, you can group all the "off" items as a stack, and all the on items as their own section.
Make it so that applications CANNOT go behind it. This is a major issue with resizing when you apps become too big and appear behind the dock.
In essense Apple needs to learn from Windows 7's super taskbar (since they pretty much ripped off the dock and made it better)
Also, destructive icon placing on the dock is very very annoying. It makes the dock feel even more useless as it gives me a sense that it is not a shelf at all to place things. Once you put things on the dock, you cannot place them back on the desktop. In essense you are copying an alias to the dock and then destroying that alias once you remove it. I find this usage idea lacking in potential.
The dock can answer none of these questions and only serves to put more and more icons on there, whilst getting smaller and smaller. The Dock from a UX design point of view is quite a mind boggling problem. You have moving targets, scaling targets, and the worst of all, magnifying targets. There is nothing really great to say about the dock except you must use it.
Of the top of my head some easy fixes for the dock:
Remove magnification
Make it span across the bottom of the screen.
Remove the unnecessary graphics like reflections, multiple shadows etc.
Split the right and left parts, putting the recyclebin ALWAYS on the right, and finder ALWAYS on the left.
As more items get added, you can group all the "off" items as a stack, and all the on items as their own section.
Make it so that applications CANNOT go behind it. This is a major issue with resizing when you apps become too big and appear behind the dock.
In essense Apple needs to learn from Windows 7's super taskbar (since they pretty much ripped off the dock and made it better)
Also, destructive icon placing on the dock is very very annoying. It makes the dock feel even more useless as it gives me a sense that it is not a shelf at all to place things. Once you put things on the dock, you cannot place them back on the desktop. In essense you are copying an alias to the dock and then destroying that alias once you remove it. I find this usage idea lacking in potential.
4. Font Antialiasing
OS X > Windows
Enough said. Font antialiasing in OS X is a lot smoother, the shapes are a lot better, position is a lot easier. To sum it up, OS X uses pretty much the same antialiasing technique as photoshop does. The font is much easier to read and smoother on the eyes. I've felt that my ability to read large amounts of text on my mac is much less straining on my eyes than it was on a PC.
Enough said. Font antialiasing in OS X is a lot smoother, the shapes are a lot better, position is a lot easier. To sum it up, OS X uses pretty much the same antialiasing technique as photoshop does. The font is much easier to read and smoother on the eyes. I've felt that my ability to read large amounts of text on my mac is much less straining on my eyes than it was on a PC.
5. File management
Windows Explorer's file management is pretty neat. You are given a nice hierachal list of files on the left pane, a short favorites list above it and the main preview window to the right.
Finder approaches it with a focus on your favorites taking up all the left hand side, whilst having a list of files on the right. Dragging a folder to the left creates a shortcut, and dragging it off the list destroys it in a puff of smoke. A problem here is that dragging a shortcut off the list panel on Finder to the dock doesn't work - something that really needs fixing in Snow Leopard.
As far as file management is concerned, Windows has had the upper hand since Apple decided to throw away their old spatial Finder of OS 9 and use this new bastard child of spacial and file manager style Finder. Although Finder "works", it has many problems. Many times it will behave lke a file manager, that is, moving and copying files will be kept to the same window. However, dragging and dropping files using spring loaded folders creates new window childs. This gives the user the idea that the file browser is a spatial oriented file browser because each folder creates a window. This disorientation is somewhat annoying at times, as Finder tries to behave like both. For example, you can try this on your Mac - drag a file to one of your favorites folder (eg, downloads) and the right panel will change. However, once in downloads, drag the file to any folder in the right panel, and it will pop-up an entirely new window.
Although people will get used to this paradigm (folders in favorites refreshes the main screen, whereas folders in main screen creates new window), it doesn't really follow any sort of solid file management design. Is it a file manager (similar to Explorer) or is it a Spatial file browser (like the old Finder)? Lets see what 10.6 brings.
In the end, Windows Explorer, with all it's quirks and annoyances still belongs the king of file management. I like the Finder, it works for me, but it just feels unfinished especially with the destructive left bar, and the sometimes work cut function.
Finder approaches it with a focus on your favorites taking up all the left hand side, whilst having a list of files on the right. Dragging a folder to the left creates a shortcut, and dragging it off the list destroys it in a puff of smoke. A problem here is that dragging a shortcut off the list panel on Finder to the dock doesn't work - something that really needs fixing in Snow Leopard.
As far as file management is concerned, Windows has had the upper hand since Apple decided to throw away their old spatial Finder of OS 9 and use this new bastard child of spacial and file manager style Finder. Although Finder "works", it has many problems. Many times it will behave lke a file manager, that is, moving and copying files will be kept to the same window. However, dragging and dropping files using spring loaded folders creates new window childs. This gives the user the idea that the file browser is a spatial oriented file browser because each folder creates a window. This disorientation is somewhat annoying at times, as Finder tries to behave like both. For example, you can try this on your Mac - drag a file to one of your favorites folder (eg, downloads) and the right panel will change. However, once in downloads, drag the file to any folder in the right panel, and it will pop-up an entirely new window.
Although people will get used to this paradigm (folders in favorites refreshes the main screen, whereas folders in main screen creates new window), it doesn't really follow any sort of solid file management design. Is it a file manager (similar to Explorer) or is it a Spatial file browser (like the old Finder)? Lets see what 10.6 brings.
In the end, Windows Explorer, with all it's quirks and annoyances still belongs the king of file management. I like the Finder, it works for me, but it just feels unfinished especially with the destructive left bar, and the sometimes work cut function.
6. Command-line Level Operations
With a Unix backend, OS X command line operations trumps Windows in every respect. After using Linux for quite a while, I felt right at home. This was one of the biggest revelations for me when using OS X. It is pretty much a Linux distribution with a multimillion dollar interface. I was able to jump right into the console before I even booted up safari. I have the console set up Quake style, which makes me feel like the 13 year old again on my 586 with 8 floppies of Quake.
7. Semi-Conclusion
After wanting to use a Mac for the past 8 years, my dream has been realized. Although my experience hasn't been completely overwhelming, maybe it is because of the 8 years of hype I built up for my self but nevertheless, I am very satisfied with the OS X experience. I will keep updating this post as I use the mac for the next few years to come and as OS X is upgraded to newer and better versions.
8. Performance performance performance performance!
OS X has been touted as an operating system that has been getting faster and faster after every release. While true, this is probably the biggest tom foolery the Mac group has ever gotten into. Mac OS X is slow. It started slow and they've added improvements to make it fast. Not the other way round. OS X 10.0 was so slow that the FPS of the interface as limited to 20FPS and people just didn't bother with it. Now if Windows was like that... wow I would like to see the headlines then.
As much improvement as they've had over the past years, Leopard's Quartz interface is still a little laggy at times. Vista's interface has never lagged on me, ever. On MBP, even on battery Vista's interface is smooth as a baby's bottom. I'm talking about the 3D engine here, I mean I have waited for programs to load but never for an interface to catch up to my commands. This is especially obvious when you're in a menu and you move your mouse over the selection boxes quickly, you can feel the CPU or GPU trying its hardest to catch up with you. To add insult to injury, interface is sometimes (not common but more than a few times) unresponsive, ie you press expose and nothing happens, you press it three times, nothing happens... then suddenly your screen does a 4 expose animation and you can't do anything to stop it.
To be honest, OS X has probably the worst performance compared to the speedy WinXP and even the ram hogging WinVista. The interface takes long to draw (long as in .25seconds, where as windows is nearly unnoticable), the resizing of carbon and even some cocoa apps (especially the haunted Finder) is way too laggy and you find the window often trying to catch up to your mouse.
Games definitely run worse in OS X than in Windows (World of Warcraft is deathly slow 20% compared to Windows version). Firefox also runs very slow on OS X and hogs a lot more ram / cpu cycles.
I'd also like to note that video playback on OS X is a huge CPU sucker. Running a youtube video in Firefox in Windows XP uses about 0-3% of the CPU (I will post the charts if you don't believe me) and running the same youtube video in firefox, safari, opera in OS X uses about 40-50% (Maxing one core!!!).
Ram usage is also a big misconception that OS X users don't realize. OS X uses about 700mb of ram on idle (wired ram) so I don't know why they laugh at Vista so much about ram usage. If you're a real computer user you'll need 4 gigs of ram (80 bucks on top of a 2200 dollar isn't really much if you ask me, why Apple don't supply it with ALL their computers is beyond me). I wanted to get 8 but there is a chipset problem that Apple has neglected to fix (I use a lot of virtual machine so there are issues there)
Now after saying all that about OS X, there is hope and I believe Apple has seen their fallacies. Snow Leopard or OS X 10.6 is rumored to have massive improvements in ram usage, interface performance, and a plethora of optimizations which i heartly look forward to. Address book, which currently takes up 55mb on your harddrive has been shown to only take up 3mb on a snow leopard install... which is very good. I think apple has realized that they've spent too much time adding new features and not really honing down their features very well. So for performance, Apple is taking a whole development cycle to hone it down and hopefully crush Windows 7 in the coming year.
As much improvement as they've had over the past years, Leopard's Quartz interface is still a little laggy at times. Vista's interface has never lagged on me, ever. On MBP, even on battery Vista's interface is smooth as a baby's bottom. I'm talking about the 3D engine here, I mean I have waited for programs to load but never for an interface to catch up to my commands. This is especially obvious when you're in a menu and you move your mouse over the selection boxes quickly, you can feel the CPU or GPU trying its hardest to catch up with you. To add insult to injury, interface is sometimes (not common but more than a few times) unresponsive, ie you press expose and nothing happens, you press it three times, nothing happens... then suddenly your screen does a 4 expose animation and you can't do anything to stop it.
To be honest, OS X has probably the worst performance compared to the speedy WinXP and even the ram hogging WinVista. The interface takes long to draw (long as in .25seconds, where as windows is nearly unnoticable), the resizing of carbon and even some cocoa apps (especially the haunted Finder) is way too laggy and you find the window often trying to catch up to your mouse.
Games definitely run worse in OS X than in Windows (World of Warcraft is deathly slow 20% compared to Windows version). Firefox also runs very slow on OS X and hogs a lot more ram / cpu cycles.
I'd also like to note that video playback on OS X is a huge CPU sucker. Running a youtube video in Firefox in Windows XP uses about 0-3% of the CPU (I will post the charts if you don't believe me) and running the same youtube video in firefox, safari, opera in OS X uses about 40-50% (Maxing one core!!!).
Ram usage is also a big misconception that OS X users don't realize. OS X uses about 700mb of ram on idle (wired ram) so I don't know why they laugh at Vista so much about ram usage. If you're a real computer user you'll need 4 gigs of ram (80 bucks on top of a 2200 dollar isn't really much if you ask me, why Apple don't supply it with ALL their computers is beyond me). I wanted to get 8 but there is a chipset problem that Apple has neglected to fix (I use a lot of virtual machine so there are issues there)
Now after saying all that about OS X, there is hope and I believe Apple has seen their fallacies. Snow Leopard or OS X 10.6 is rumored to have massive improvements in ram usage, interface performance, and a plethora of optimizations which i heartly look forward to. Address book, which currently takes up 55mb on your harddrive has been shown to only take up 3mb on a snow leopard install... which is very good. I think apple has realized that they've spent too much time adding new features and not really honing down their features very well. So for performance, Apple is taking a whole development cycle to hone it down and hopefully crush Windows 7 in the coming year.
9. Shortcuts
Now you don't see this in a OS review, but I have to mention it. Windows users will be very surprised by the shortcuts in OS X. As weird as they come, if you master the keyboard shortcuts you will truly be able to do wonders on OS X without the other person knowing what you did. I've been able to surprise girls who own macbooks with my ability to things with shortcuts. Nearly every menu item has a shortcut and every OS function has one too. And you can define custom shortcuts in the keyboard pref pane that will make your mac fly. So in this sense, the OS Xs shortcuts completely obliterate Window's measly win-D, win-E, win-F, win-whatever. The way I'm operating OS X right now is similarly to how I play Starcraft. Ctrl -1,2,3,4 are my command groups for spaces 1,2,3,4, cmd-1,2,3,...0 are my bookmark shortcuts on safari (something that I initially found annoying but now master at, I can surf to any of my favorite sites without even thinking...) cmd-del to delete item, cmd-shift-del to empty recycle bin (or the Trash Compactor as I've called it muhahaha)
Trust me, if you get a mac, and you're a pretty geeky computer nerd, you'll be mastering all the shortcuts very quickly. Then you can impress the womenz who own macs and pretend they look hot with them
_______
More to come later!
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