A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User's Perspective
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Finding my way around Finder
The OS X desktop is clearly different from what I was used to under XP. For starters, all of the icons have been moved to the right side of the screen; and where I was used to seeing a taskbar, there was this little translucent "dock" with a bunch of icons in it.
The OS X desktop and features, such as icon size, dock size and animations, are easily customizable.
Click to enlarge.
Under Windows, there is Explorer. It is the application that not only exists as a way of browsing your file system, but also as the "desktop" itself; the OS X equivalent? Finder. I don't think that I have to point out the similarity in the names. Yes, one company copied (or poked fun at) another.
My first reaction was that the icons on the desktop were far too large; indeed, they are, if you put them on a Windows desktop - but for some reason, they end up looking strange if you make them smaller. One of the biggest features of OS X is the ability to customize just about every aspect of the OS; I didn't like the size of the icons at first, so I simply changed the icon size through the "view options" menu. Although it's easy to talk about now, I had to ask how to do it online before I ever discovered the option - also the case with the majority of OS X, most of the power and customization of the OS remains hidden. I quickly realized that although Apple had targeted the entry level computer user with the interface of OS X, the OS was far more tailored to the power user in my opinion.
Where to start? Customization is much more possible (and easy to do) under OS X than any variant of Windows that I have ever encountered. Icon sizes are just the beginning; through the view options menu alone, you can change the positioning of the labels on the icons, the text size as well as the normal array of Windows options. And any changes you make here occur in real time - no clicking "OK" or "Apply". Just check a box and it happens instantaneously; and uncheck it, and everything goes back to normal. It's a small thing, but as I soon found out, much of OS X's appeal to me came in tiny gems like this.
The other thing to point out, which is quite possibly the biggest draw to OS X for me, is the fact that just about everything under OS X has a keyboard shortcut associated with it. I've found that if you got your start with PCs in the DOS days, then you end up being much more of a keyboard junkie than someone who is reliant on the mouse. I use the mouse when I have to, but when it's quicker to use the keyboard, I feel much more comfortable firing off a few keystroke combinations to get my point across. If you are anything like me in that respect, then OS X will be your playground.
I can't possibly list all of the keystroke combinations that I use on a daily basis, but there are quite a few. For example, I am a big "ALT-TAB"-er in Windows, but ALT-TAB is only really useful for switching applications, not closing them. The ALT-TAB equivalent under OS X, Command-TAB (the Command key is positioned where you'd expect ALT to be, so it works out fine), works similarly, but here's the catch - hit "Q" while you've selected an application and it will quit automatically. Nice, but nothing major right?
Want to minimize a window? Command-M will take care of that. Want to hide an application without minimizing it? Command-H. Hidden windows will automatically move to the end of the Command-TAB list, so you don't switch to them after you've hidden them.
Want to open a new Finder window? Command-N. Want to create a new folder on your drive? Shift-Command-N. I've always wanted to be able to create new folders in Explorer without using the mouse. OS X was a dream come true in that respect.
OS X will even let you define your own keyboard shortcuts for any application through the keyboard preferences panel:
Not impressed? Not a keyboard junkie? Then Finder is just as capable and as usable as Explorer. No big win for Apple there, but maybe a draw. For me, the little things are what intrigued me, but I'll admit - not everyone is as easily amused!
There is one aspect of the keyboard shortcut support that OS X does fall behind on, and that is support for keyboard shortcuts in dialog boxes. In some dialog boxes, hitting Command and the letter of the option you want to select will work, but in others, it will not. Furthermore, finding out the correct key to hit to select the option that you want is most definitely a guessing game, as there are no underlined characters or anything indicating what key to hit. Given OS X's strong support for keyboard shortcuts, this shortcoming (no pun intended) is puzzling.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
215 Comments
View All Comments
adt6247 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#20 -- This was an article about Anand's "experience", which is hard to define. It wasn't a straight apples-to-apples comparison. He was going on his perception -- the perception of a PC user.Frankly, I'd love to own a Mac. I could never bring myself to buy an iMac (integrated monitor == BAD), and even the dual 1.8 is out of my price range. I'm more of a Linux kinda guy myself, but what I'd like a Mac for is professional audio/video apps, like ProTools. And OSX being BSD under the hood, I'd find it much more comfortable than Windows.
jecastej - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
What I like about this article is the safe felling / deep thinking analisis. Not anybody hating anybody else because he/she picks a different flavor.As a Mac user who works in computer graphics who also uses a PC at work I constantly feel that the Mac is like a taboo for the PC world, and it should not be. I don't hate PCs, I just still prefer a Mac. And as a matter of fact I'm constantly reading articles in websites like Anandtech, because what I really love is technology and freedom.
If something else came out that I liked better and I could buy it I want to be free to choose, and to change my mind at any time.
So this is the intention of this community: That the user takes better well informed decisions.
jediknight - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#14: Not quite..1) Save memory use for 20 tabs vs. 20 windows
2) BUT, lose functionality to compare two webpages at the same time. The fact that a modal dialog in one tab stops you from switching tabs is very annoying.
3) Without extensions, switching between tabs uses a "dumb" behaviour.
Not to say that I don't like Firefox, but I don't find tabbed browsing to be as big a deal as some make it out to be.
GL - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
brain29,I don't think Anand is being forced to upgrade. Any level-headed Mac user understands what he means regarding performance: his system is not Snappy (TM)! There are a few specific tasks, such as resizing a window, that are just sluggish under OS X. There are 2 ways to address this issue. One is by beefing up your hardware. Another is by optimizing your software.
OS X still has a ways to go before being fully optimized. In fact, the software is quite unoptimized which is why it can drag down a dual 2.0 GHz rig. The software code itself can be tightened up, and the compiler can be greatly improved. You have to remember that Apple uses gcc which has never been known to generate optimal PowerPC binaries, and they also use Objective-C which has not had as much attention given to it for performance improvements as other languages. 10.4 will be compiled with the newest gcc which has been tuned better to the PowerPC 970 and Objective-C.
With respect to text rendering speed, which may be at the heart of a lot of problems such as the Safari rendering speed, apparently optimizations are in the pipeline. Perhaps someone more "in the know" can elaborate or shoot down this, but I've heard that all text is rendered as bezier paths in OS X. Moreover, Quartz2D Extreme, while accelerating bezier path drawing quite nicely, did not speed up text rendering as much as it should have given that the text was just a special case of drawing bezier paths. This performance discrepancy is supposed to be addressed in 10.4.
Apple has consistently improved the speed of OS X by noticeable amounts with each point release. 10.3 was quite a bit faster than 10.2 which was quite a bit faster than 10.1 which was tremendously faster than 10.0. 10.4 is expected to keep up this tradition, and from what I've been told, it does address graphics rendering speed. Mind you this is speculation as I haven't used Tiger 10.4 and those that have are under NDA.
If I were Anand, I'd wait it out. I've used the new dual 2.5. It is noticeably faster than the dual 2.0. However, it is ever so slightly wanting in the Snappiness department. I suspect a dual 3.0 would finally be Snappy. At the same time, software improvements that should appear at the time the 3.0 is introduced might mean that you don't need such brute force to be Snappy. So Anand's dual 2.0 rig might inherit the Snappiness at some point in the not-so-distant future:-)
BTW, good job on the article Anand. With this subject, you really have to walk a fine line, and I think you did just that.
wilburpan - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Disclaimer: I've been a huge Mac fan since back in the day that 128 MB of RAM was considered enough for anyone. Overall, I thought this article was very well balanced in terms of how a Windows oriented user would look at a Mac system. There are two issues that I do have, however:1. "...we know our Windows servers, and we know what hardware works best under them, and thus, once assembled and properly maintained, we had no real issues with them." Using familiarity with Windows as a reason for preferring how Windows does things is not quite a valid argument. Substitute the word "BeOS" (to pick a neutral term) for Windows in the above sentence, and you'll see what I mean. For me, I am used to having the close window button in the upper left hand corner. Saying that this is an advantage for OS X because Windows puts the close window control on the other side would be equally invalid.
2. The issue of viruses and security is never raised. Regardless of the "security through obscurity" arguments people have raised, the fact remains that by their nature, OS X and other *nix-based OS'es are more secure than Windows. Of course, you can obtain a virus program and a firewall program and spend time maintaning those and reset the Windows defaults, but in OS X, you don't have to worry about those things. The criticism is often raised (justifiably) that Macs come underpowered, especially regarding the amount of RAM they are configured with, and complaints are made about the need to spend extra money for RAM. Why similar criticisms about the need to spend extra money for a virus program for Windows aren't similarly raised, especially since the cost of virus programs often are recurring (see Norton AntiVirus' subscription payments for virus definition updates).
CindyRodriguez - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#16.. you've never seen a Xeon or Opteron workstation? How many dual P4 or dual Athlon64 boxes have you seen? And don't get me started on comparative performance. G5 are faster than either in some benchmarks and they are slower in others. The PPC 970 is a good chip and if you are going to make comparisons vs. comparitive x86 hardware you should be fair.I imagine I've not shown you any problems with the article because you don't know the subject matter. I'm in a PC/Mac support office and we're all having a good chuckle about it.
#18.. My point isn't that it's a day outdated. My point is that Anand is doing a 1 month look back on a machine that was pulled off the market 3 months ago. My complaint is that though he acknowledges early that the machine has been rev'ed, he carries a tone through the piece that this is the latest greatest and it's not. Look at a dual 2.5 GHz G5 for $3K and compare it do a dual 2.4 GHz Opteron from a good vendor with a warranty and compare those too machines on price and performance. The Opteron will beat it in a lot of benchmarks (due to the rockin low latency mem controller) but It won't destroy the mac on price and I can still find benchmarks where the mac is faster.
My impression of the article is, Anand didn't bother to do any research and he provides backhanded digs when he has anything nice to say. I understand that the article is the Mac from a PC users perspective, but it would have been much better if he would have written the article as the novice, then did the research and fact checked it as a journalist.
raulmot - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Anand,You should try using the Mozilla Camino browser if you want a Mozilla based browser with the look and feel of OSX. It was built specifically for the Mac. Firefox added Mac support more as an afterthought.
That said, I don't use a Mac and don't know what your experience would be like, but I am an avid Firefox user and understand Camino may be more what you're looking for.
brain29 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Of course the article is outdated. Even if he had written it yesterday it would have been outdated. Technology moves very fast nowadays. What's rediculous is that he has had his machine for however long and already you have given him reason to have to spend another 3 grand to upgrade. I know that if I spent that kind of money and found out that they upgraded my system. I'd be pissed. That's one reason I will probably never switch. I don't want to drop that cash on a rig and then be forced to do it again in 2 years. The thing that makes Mac's run so sweet, (proprietary hardware) is the thing that keeps me from gettin one. Ironic?GL - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Calm down Cindy,Regarding the .app bundles, you are correct. But I suspect Anand was misled by the installation of Office 2004. In grand Microsoft tradition, they decide to play by a different set of rules. Office installs as Anand suggests. But it's the only application that I know does. The rest are .app bundles like you say.
Anand,
Here's a keyboard tip. When you get to a dialog, you typically see 3 options: Cancel, an alternate choice (glowing but not highlighted, i.e. Do Not Save), and the default choice (highlighted, i.e. Save). Escape is for Cancel. Spacebar is for the alternate choice. Return is for the default choice.
Kishkumen - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#11 - Whoa, what? Since when is a G5 processor equivalent to a Xeon or Opteron? Anandtech is reviewing a workstation, not server.So far your quasi-flames have yet to convince me of one thing contrary to what Anand said in the article. In your own words you're nit-picking, not providing well-supported arguments to the contrary.