Mac Veteran Writes Open Letter to Steve Jobs: Criticizing OS X

Dude needs some cheese with that whine.

Since when? My install took 10 mins.


What OS installer does?


So...


This I agree with, but I haven't had an update go bad on me yet..


So..


Thats a third party problem then...


Whine some more..


Same as other OSs.. so..


Thats a unix limitation


Um.. alright.. I am sure that the list of things it does well far exceeds this little list of nonesense. Looks like he had to dig hard to find anything bad. Let me guess, he still uses OS9 since its a "good os"....?

that was one worthless letter....

Who?

I've read MANY issues of MacWorld and other publications both on and off the net, and I know LOTS of writers, but I never heard of this guy.

Mike

In OS 9 you can drag a window by the border. Yes, he likes OS 9 better. Didn't you read the letter?

He was probably using pearpc to install OS X. Mine takes 15 minutes at most, and this is on an aging Powerbook G4 667 (gigabit ethernet).

Oh and regarding system updates, is archive and install too hard for him?

OSX's installer isn't fast, it's true. But good God; three days?! What machine was he trying to use?

RAM is not in the habit of reporting its manufacturer to the OS, last I checked, so the only way to detect this RAM would be to run actual tests on it. Thorough testing can take hours to run on systems with large amounts of RAM. The most thorough method known to date -the Major March- can take upwards of a week. This man is complaining about the install taking too long, and he wants to add in RAM testing?

Tough cookies. Anyone here remember OSX 10.0, then this installation phase was not performed? Although this is a minor annoyance, it results in performance gains which were more than worth it.

Only if you don't back up your Home folder. Everybody sing, to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It":

Alternatively, you can use the installer's "Archive And Install" option, which preserves user data.

Why is he actually trying to manage these things, as though they were INITs under OS9? Would he prefer that they be rolled into the kernel, creating stability and security issues?

This is a problem with that program, not with OSX. Apple is known to work with big developers to help fix bugs; they should be taking advantage of this.

This was true up until OS8, as well as OSX. No one complained then.

Actually, filenames can contain question marks, even on standard Unix, though they require a bit of hoop-jumping if you intend to use them in the Terminal.

There are only two characters which cannot appear in OSX filenames: slash (/) and colon (. Of these, the colon wasn't allowed in OS9 either, because it was used to separate folder names when dealing with file paths. The same is true of the slash in OSX. All other characters are allowed.

Fixing permissions does surprisingly little; although it can help on rare occasions, it is mostly voodoo. What Apple really needs to do is fix its Installer to keep permissions from being messed up in the first place.

If you read the letter, he was trying to change the names of some of the audio devices he has attached or something like that. I have no knowledge about anything audio, so that's the part I didn't understand too well.

Probably because it reminds people of Sept 11th.

That letter should be a wake-up call for many of you die-hard apologists. Seriously.
By the way, the OP forgot to mention another point:

� Permissions Suck.

Quote from the linked article:


Well, he needs to go and read up on the concept of domains. How many networked environments has this person maintained? Seperating the Library directories is a Good Thing(TM).

http://developer.apple.com/document...ts/Domains.html

here we go again with you.

Permissions are the reason OS X will never be prey to viruses like Windows is.

Adapt or die.

I guess because the TETENAL doesn't agree with permissions being a nuisance (like the vast majority of us). Permissions were integrated into HFS long before OS X, it is not something that magically appeared in OS X. (AFAIK Copland was a multi-user OS, too.)

If you take a look at what happens in the windows world, a big big weakness is XP Home Edition is the lack of permissions. Every virus/worm compromises the whole machine.

viruses spyware etc. suck.


locks on doors SUCK. they keep me from opening doors easily.

That you can't use / in filenames The actual filename of your hypothetical file there contains no slashes. It is actually called

What:does:he:mean?

Yeah, I read the letter that guy wrote. I don't think Steve Jobs is going to lose too much sleep over it.

Slashes in the Finder will be converted to semicolons in the Terminal and vice versa. In OS 9 days, folders were separated by semicolons whereas in all Unixoid OSes, they use slashes. M$ uses backslashes.

However, you are wrong about one thing: in Unix, you can use "/" in file names, but it makes things cumbersome and often many scripts don't work. So they are practically not used in Linux, etc.

That depends on which OS layer you are in. In the POSIX layer, you are correct. In other layers the slashes will be there/

Wow stuff like this is such a waste of time to even read. What do you OS 9 advocates and complainers hope to achieve? For Steve jobs to redesign the entire OS to stasify a group of like 20 ignorant people? Some how I just don't see it happening. Instead of wasting peoples time by complaining about OS 10 you should be spending time creating programs for OS 9, since no one else will.

I'd say it's more like satisfying the 50% or more of the userbase that's still comfortably using their Macs, waiting for OS X to be ready for them to switch platforms. It's not like those Powermacs are flying off the shelves, are they?

as if they were ever flying off the shelves? You're such an interesting person, it seems like you argue for the sake of arguing.



Edited by Detrius. Watch the personal attacks.

This statement fails on its face:

1) Claiming that those who have not switched are only doing so because they are waiting for OS X without any evidence to back up the claim is facile. Many people have not switched because many people will never switch until they buy a new machine; I know several people still using OS 9 because it is fine for their needs. These are not technically inclined people, so as long as the machine works, they're happy. If you have any data to back up your claim, I would like to see it;

2) 4Q2004 Power Mac sales were only off 4% compared to 3Q2004 sales. iMac sales were up 147% from 3Q2004. As all are OS X machines, your logic fails once again.

Ecxept that he's wrong about 9/10ths of it.

As opposed to insecure systems? Just because you're ignorant about computer security does not mean that computers should be insecure.

Nothing to see here - move along...

You must have been reading some other post because I never said that you couldn't use / in UNIX filenames but rather you can't use / in Mac OS X filenames.

And you can't.

I just named a file with a forward slash in the Finder just now. Am I hallucinating?

The only thing I agree with is that I do wish you could "roll back" system updates. I want to be able to quickly uninstall an update if it breaks something I need. For home users this is less important than the corporate user who really can't backup all files for a reinstall quickly. Losing 1/2/day on any Mac costs the company I work for tens of thousands of dollars.

The rest of his stuff is subjective babble IMO.

I am no apologist, but much of what he says he probably gleaned from thalo.net. I'm tired of this. I need no wake up call for an OS that works for ME better than whatever you envision is what is right for me.

Even you should know Panther doesn't take 3 days to install, since you have reinstalled it so many times trying to fix your dislike of everything OS X.

The firewire problems were not on FW400 drives, but mostly FW800. This guy doesn't know crap about what he is talking about.

Ya, permissions suck so bad. They would keep you out of my files for sure.


edited by Detrius. Seriously guys, watch the personal attacks.

I dare you to try it. Works fine for me. In the command line, the slash is converted to colons, so the Finder just exchanges slashes with colons in file names.

The list was my summary of his letter, not meant to imply that I agree/disagree with any of his points. I missed the complained about permissions.

In fact I believe permissions are necessary and useful, but that doesn't mean that Apple's implementation can't be criticised. Permissions got in my way a few times and at that point the OS is little help on how to fix the problem.

Colons.



On an HFS volume the file is actually called "What/does/he/mean?". Depending on the API the OS switches between colon and slash in the way OreoCookie describes.

I actually read that rant, and while I feel sorry for the guy, I have a couple of points to make.

A. Apple actually does supply a hardware checking application on a CD with each Mac. I got one, here in mountainous Switzerland, so I assume he got one as well. It's not perfect but it's better than most OS suppliers do. In other words, Mr Paul Lehrman, if you're too daft to see what came with your Mac, I can see you having other problems than just with the new OS.

B. With OSX there is also an Archive and Install option. It's been there for quite a while. If Mr Paul Lehrmann would actually bother to read the instructions and the options, he would not complain about losing data with updates. That said, I don't know if the installer will allow you to do an Archive and Install when the OS on the HD is newer than the one to be installed.

C. Optimisation during installation saves a lot of time that would otherwise have to be done during system start and software start. You pick which one you would prefer Mr Lehrmann. As for fixing permissions, it would have to be done after installation and opimisation, but it is an interesting point. Apple provides a feedback page where you can offer your advice about this.

D. This one is typical of an OS9 user used to enabling and disabling libraries by dragging them in and out of folders in the Sytemfolder. While I agree that the OS9 System was far simpler, it was also far less capable. Mr Lehrmann will just have to accept that it doesn't work like that anymore. I do agree that this is an opportunity for some third party, or even Apple to make an application that cleans out unsed Library items, but the days of simply dragging stuff in and out of there are gone, irrevocably.

E.
Uhm, Mr Lerhmann, these are all, to be honest, problems with third party software. If the software doesn't work with fast user switching, you either need an update from the developer, or you need to avoid using fast user switching. According to you and the developer, there is a problem with being able to read preferences from a user's Library, as I see it. That is a security feature, not a bug, and Apple will not change that (I hope). What I don't understand is why your developer isn't capable of wirting an application that writes a new set of prefs to the current users' Library.

F. The man is, I think, firstly, talking about customising MIDI patch files in xml format. As far as I know, he's refering to property lists. Apple supplies a property list editor on its Developer tools CD that makes it unnecessary to edit the files by hand. Not mention that there are literaly dozens of other xml editors for OSX. Perhaps Mr. Lehrmann simply needs to learn about internet forums (I know, they are also shockingly new and dangerous technology and complex and difficult to use ) and how to ask questions there. I think that 90% of his problems would have been solved within a few days if he had simply asked about his problems here on this forum or one like it.

As for the Audio MIDI setup,although I have no experience with this, I see that you can both copy the settings to the clipboard and make a number of configurations in the device list. Since that data is almost assuredly stored in a property list somewhere, I'm pretty sure you can copy it and reuse it. If this is a real problem, which I suspect it's not, then file a bug with Apple. They have a feedbakc page.

Dissapearing USB and Firewire devices after sleep might be Apple's problem and it might be 3rd party. I have no USB audio devices so I can't say, but my scanner, printer and mouse, all of which are on usb, are always there after sleep, as is my firewire drive.

G. [/quote]The Oxford 911 bridge chip problem is now over a year old. The problem was with the chips, not OSX, and every single manufacturer has since provided firmware updates. Again, Mr Lehrmann, exactly under which rock have you been living? Also, you say that you had ALL your 20 years worth of data on your drive, all 60 Gigs of it. I don't know just how stupid some people can be, but really, if your lively hood depends on 60Gigabytes of audio data that you have, and you haven't made offline copies on DVD since the technology became available in the last 5 years, I don't know if you can be helped. Mr Lehrmann, you are begging to lose your data and your livelyhood. Get a DVD burner if your Mac doesn't have one, and burn that stuff to DVD.

H. Brushed metal windows can be dragged by the frames, as was the case in Platinum. Aqua windows can't. I don't like this inconsistency either, but it's similar to the way other OS' work. In OS9, you couldn't have a colon (":") in a file name. In OSX, files can indeed have slashes and question marks in their names, at least on my machine. If you look at them in the terminal, those characters are simply escaped. No rocket science there. What "_Icon" files is he referring to?

Again, I think this whole open letter thing is mainly a bit of sensationalism on Macworld's part and OS9 user frustration on Mr Lehrmann's part. If he's taken the time to ask a few people online about these problems, I think most of them would by now be solved.

Wrong.

What/do/you/mean?

If you look in the terminal, you'll see that the / is replaced with a : . This is normal. OSX, or rather the darwin kernel, switches : and / around so that it can read and write OS9 files and disks where the file seperator was a :

No, as opposed to overly paranoid security schemes.
Just because you're ignorant about usability does not mean we can't have a secure platform that stays out of our face as much as possible.

We need permissions to make the OS more secure. Remember that there was no internet when the original MacOS (and any flavor of Windows) were created! So permissions were not a necessity. Nowadays, permissions are necessary, because the world has changed.

Also, nowadays, your computer can do a lot lot lot more than in the OS8 days. You can browse Windows networks, run a webserver, run an ftp server, access your computer from the outside, etc. etc. etc. without installing any kind of extra software (like -- say -- Dave).

So OS X stays out of your way as much as possible, but because of the broader range of services and networking, things are more complicated than before.

There was no Internet in 2001, when Windows XP was released?

So what's "just right", then? Windows and its Swiss cheese, or is even that too paranoid? Oh, but I know; you want a machine that just does whatever anyone wants it to do, with no regard whatsoever to security. "Mommy, I DON'T WANNA PUT MY NAME ON THE PAPER FOR SCHOOL!"

OSX is not overly paranoid. Overly-paranoid operating systems exist, of course; you'll find them in use by the NSA and similar agencies. But making sure that someone doing something dangerous is actually allowed to do it is not paranoid.

actually, the darwin kernel does recognise both colons and slashes as path delimiters and converts from the one to the other depending on the environment. The Finder doesn't allow you to use colons in a file name and the terminal doesn't allow you to use slashes, but the inverse is true; the Finder allows you to use slashes and the terminal does allow you to use colons. In fact, slashes in the Finder are shown as colons in the terminal and vice versa. The actual magic is done by the kernel however.

If you want the dirty details, Wilfredo Sanchez, the guy who wrote the kernel bits to do this, has a long paper on it on his site: http://www.wsanchez.net/papers/USENIX_2000/

That's not quite true; the Internet did exist when Macs were first created. The Web did not -it wouldn't be invented for several years yet- and Macs had no form of TCP networking until the introduction of MacTCP, so the Net was basically closed off to them until then. The closest one could get was to use a BBS with an Internet gateway, and these were rare.

Despite this, however, viruses flourished on earlier versions of the Mac OS. How did this happen? Simply put, they spread the old-fashioned way: hopping from file to file, rather than from machine to machine. They spread through the file-sharing sections of BBS systems, and from floppy to floppy as users shared files with their non-wired cousins. It's actually quite shocking just how much of the Mac userbase would infected at any given time.

The old Mac OS was never secure enough. We got some protection from remote hack attacks, simply because the Mac had no network services built into the OS at all, but this severely limited the power of the OS, and it did not close every door. It was a rare Mac lab indeed -particularly in the schools systems that formed the core of the Mac userbase- that didn't have at least one hacked or infected machine.

The world hasn't really changed much, now that I think about it. Permissions are nothing more than correcting a mistake that was made in the original Mac OS: namely, they bring security to an OS which never bothered with it before.

That's part of it, but there was always some degree of security which we needed but never had. OSX corrects that, and if mAxximo's uninformed opinion clashes with that, then I suggest he switch to Windows, where the OS designers think the same way he does about security.

WTF?


Oh, I get it - the first point meant to say that installing Panther should take 3 days. I get it now.


Actually, this is a valid point. The prebinding stage isn't really as necessary anymore as it used to be in 10.0 and 10.1.


Um... Archive and Install?


/Library, /System/Library, ~/Library. 3 < a million.

Plus, you only really ever have to deal with two of those: /Library and ~/Library. Gee, separating the Library into two places is so confusing!


Well-known third-party audio program's fault.


Actually, he has a point here as well. The MIDI setup could definitely be improved. Aside with being able to save configurations, I wish it would let me drag the MIDI settings into /Library and have them recognized by all users (for some reason, it doesn't work currently). These are hardware settings, after all...


AFAIK, it's always been this way. It did this with OS 9, too, at least in my experience. If you don't put the machine to sleep, this doesn't happen.


WTF?

That was fixed a long time ago.


Well, unless they're brushed metal. Minor point.


Yes, they can (to the guy who claimed the actual filename would have colons instead of slashes, you are wrong. The HFS+ path delimiter is the colon, and the actual filenames will have slashes in them, which appears as colons in the Terminal and in Cocoa apps).


Okay, this one's valid. When you copy a folder that has a custom icon to an MS-DOS formatted disk, it bails out, because the invisible icon file has a carriage return in the filename, and the FAT format apparently doesn't like that. It should just go copy the rest of the files and move on instead of abandoning the copy like that.


ARGH!!! First he wants the "Optimizing" phase to take less time earlier on, but now he wants to double the time it will take, for this reason:


You don't! Why must people keep on perpetuating this?

I don't know what you hope to achieve with your constant complaining about OSX. Apple isn't going to change the system back to an OS9 type system anymore, regardless of how much you complain about it. Think about that. Now what do you do when other things in your life don't go the way you want and you can't change them? You either accept those changes and learn to live with them, or you leave the platform and go to Linux, using GNOME or KDE, or to Windows, or you stay with OS9 as long as you can.

Those are your choices. If you read my reply to Paul Lehrmann's open letter, you'll see that much of his complaint is based on a lack of knowledge and an unwillingness to find solutions on his own. In other words, an inability to adapt. This is very similar to your complaint. You find it difficult to adapt as well.

If you can adapt you'll be happier in the long run, I think. Almost all of your complaints, such as OSX being less usable etc, will not really change anything, but, if you really must, carry on complaining. I personally will carry on with OSX, and, you'll find, Apple's marketshare has actually grown in the past year, so it means that lots of people are happy with OSX.

You can make dire threats about Apple's impending doom and insults to others who don't agree with you till you're blue in the face, but you're a member of a shrinking minority. Your post about the Layers magazine shows that you have no idea about what you are talking. This is 2005, not 1987. Times and situations have changed.

Why hasn't mAxximo been shown the door yet?

Did you file a bug?

Why I'm not surprised that you pulled an �If you don't like it, switch to windows�?
So telling.

You just don't *get it*. It's OK. It's not about �going back to System 9�.


Show me ONE post of mine insulting someone. You'll see others freely insulting me for sure.

Because Windows is an example of what happens when people build an OS around the "usability"-trumps-security attitude you espouse. I was not entirely serious when I said to switch to Windows, but it provides a perfect example of what happens when people think the way you do about security. The OS is so horribly insecure that within mere minutes of first connecting to the Net, your average machine is already hacked.

Not that it matters. What you are advocating is not usability, but convenience, and you're advocating it at the cost of necessary security. You are the one who does not "get it".