Since my first post, the Mac mini has replaced a Gateway Windows box as our HTPC, I’ve moved to a 27″ iMac, and the wife has transitioned to a (white, non-Pro) Macbook.
- Some of my complaints about the OS X dock have been addressed by a nifty app called HyperDock. HD adds Aero Peek and Aero Snap to OS X, effectively co-opting the best gizmos MS added to Windows 7.
- OS X’s means of organizing apps (such as it is) blows donkeys. I’m really looking forward to what OS X Lion delivers on that front.
- The Mac App Store is 9/10 of the way toward awesome. The process of finding and installing apps is nearly identical to doing the same stuff on iOS, which means it is a giant improvement the traditional methods of acquiring and setting up new software.
- Best thing about the Mac App Store: thanks to Apple’s standardizing on a single DRM model across devices and media, every App Store app comes with a five-user/machine license. Yeah, DRM sucks, but that’s positively generous compared to the licenses on 99% of the apps/games available on other platforms.
- Worst thing about the Mac App Store: even as a stand-alone, non-iTunes-based application, the MAS is sluggish as hell. Not as painfully slow as, say, the iTunes store on the iPad, nut annoying.
- The 27″ iMac has pixel-density issues for people with shitty vision. This thing is natively 2560×1440, but in order for me to be able to read really comfortably, I need to drop it all the way to 1600×900. I’ve got it at 1920×1080 at the moment, and everything is just a touch too small for me. Apple really needs to get its ass in gear and make OS X resolution independent.
- On a similar subject, I have to give Apple huge props for their accessibility system. The Mac’s built-in screen magnifier is so much better than the one in Windows… I use it all the time, particularly sense I can manipulate the zoom just by holding down CONTROL and swiping one finger up and down the surface of the mouse.
- Finder is no Windows Explorer. Okay, fine, it’s better than Explorer circa WinXP, but it isn’t even close to the stuff MS is shipping in Windows 7. There are plugins and replacements you can use to fill the gap, but again, this is something Apple needs to address.
- I’ve come to appreciate the One Menu Bar To Rule Them All approach in Apple’s UI. It ultimately saves lots of little bits of screen real estate, and gives all those little tray icons somewhere (mostly) unobtrusive to live.
- Built-in VNC is nice.
- Apple’s uninstall process for non-App-Store apps is both cool and slightly irritating. Basically, uninstalling is as simple as right-clicking an app’s icon or folder and clicking “Move to Trash”. Can’t beat that. But in a move designed to protect the average user and keep the process as logically pure as possible, doing such an uninstall does nothing about any cache material and other data the app may have been using on your machine. To get rid of that stuff (which, mind you, is unnecessary 95% of the time) you either need to buy an app, or dig through the Finder manually. It’s still better than the Windows Way, but decidedly sub-optimal.
- When you get down to it, you don’t really notice that the Mac software market is so much smaller than that of Windows; whatever you’re needing, there’s probably a Mac equivalent that will do the job. What you notice is that about half the time, there is no free equivalent. I suspect the Mac App Store will eventually change this, but at the moment, small utilities that would be free on Windows are $19.95 on the Mac.
- Even on a quad-core, 6GB machine, running a Windows XP virtual machine inside OS X is annoying. Everything works as expected, but it quickly makes an otherwise speedy Mac rather sluggish. Thankfully, I’m pretty much completely weaned off Windows apps… I’ve got everything I need running natively in OS X.
- The more time you spend with a Mac, the more you start to appreciate Apple’s industrial design. And OS design, for that matter. They pay attention to details that other manufacturers and developers ignore.
- The wife’s Macbook is a delight. It has the longest running battery either of us have ever seen in a full-sized laptop, which is a huge deal. But perhaps even bigger is the simple fact that it is a laptop that virtually never gets hot. You can get it to heat up if you bury it in blankets or something, but if it’s sitting on your actual lap, it stays pretty much room temperature at all times.
- In contrast, the top of a quad-core, 27″ iMac? Near the exhaust vent? Don’t touch that. Trust me.