I just started a new job two weeks ago. Standard issue for engineers at the company is a choice of laptop: Dell (Windows) or MacBook Pro (Mac OS X). Already being very familiar with Dell and Windows, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to kick the Apple tires.
The hardware is very nice: bright widescreen LCD display, stylish silver finish, pleasant-to-the-touch keyboard, and the very retro one-button trackpad. However, I have been more annoyed than enthralled by everything else that is Mac:
- Everyone raves about the great UI, but while it might be good for completely novice computer users, it’s not so great for anyone who wants to actually get any real work done. Particularly annoying is the motif of a single menu bar at the top of the screen. If I move my application window down to the bottom of the screen, I still have to move the mouse all the way back up to the top of the screen to activate the menu. In Windows, the menus appear within the application window, so the menu bar is never that far away. The single menu bar at the top of the screen saves some screen real estate, but I’m more interested in getting work done than I am in watching my desktop background change colors.
- There is no convenient keyboard-able shortcut system to activate the menus: one must know either the undocumented Ctrl-F2 keystroke to reach the menus, or the pre-built shortcut keys for various functions (open, save, cut, copy, paste, quit, etc.). In Windows, the menu is easily accessible via “Alt”, and the “hot” keys are denoted with underlining.
- The trackpad is neat: one can pan around windows with one hand by holding one finger to the trackpad and using another finger to issue a scrolling motion. However, shipping the laptop with just one button? A single-button trackpad and single-button mouse might look more stylish, but Apple needs to just invent the stylish moral equivalent of a two-button mouse.
Anyway, there are already lots of websites out there that complain about similar issues (and just as many that tout the superiority of such “issues”), so I’ll just say that those are the top-three annoyances.
The whole suite of iLife applications (iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, etc.) is probably fine and very nice, but at least for normal engineering work, I gave it a shot, and didn’t like it. So I’ve spent the past week getting my MacBook Pro to work and look just like my Linux desktop (this is where I will admit that I like the “OS X” part of “Mac OS X”). It has been a much more fruitful exercise bending the MBP to my will, than teaching this old dog the new Mac tricks.
#1 by alex on Sun Sep 17, 2006 - 3:31 pm
now you just need the outfit to go along with the laptop.
http://www.lifeclever.com/2006/09/07/how-to-dress-like-a-mac/
#2 by Linette on Tue Sep 19, 2006 - 11:31 pm
Welcome to the fold. I’m glad you finally saw the light… :)
#3 by Linette on Tue Sep 19, 2006 - 11:32 pm
Oh, and welcome back to the bay area! Hoping to join you guys up there soon…
#4 by infobhan on Tue Oct 17, 2006 - 5:22 am
Here’s a couple tips: go to Keyboard and Mouse panel in the System Preferences. Click on Trackpad. Activate “use two fingres to scroll” and “place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click.” Now you right click by putting two fingers on the trackpad and clicking and perform the equivalent of a scroll wheel by dragging two fingers up and down.
The advantage of the menu bar at the top of the display is that you don’t need to vertically aim. Just fling the cursor to the top of the screen and you are there. Takes a little getting used to when you switch from Windoze, but you’ll soon find that it’s the latter that prevents you from getting “real work done”.