The Worst Mistake Apple Ever Made
 

I'm not trying to be disputatious but am I the only one out here that thinks that Apples OSX (including 10.2) takes the Mac away from what it excells at, i.e. a production tool that did surpass everything out there.

I've resisted loading 10.1, but finally took the plunge, loading 10.1 then going to Jaguar. Result: Productivity crashes through the floor. Some neat tricks, some fancy gadgets, but nothing that really speeds things up or produces more work ... the reason for its being! Great if you want to play around, but not if you want to be involved in serious prepress.

They have taken a marvellous system, that allowed networking as easy as anything on a real plug and play basis, to being a security mad collection of bits and pieces that are great for the systems administrators or those that don't actually use the mac to produce work.

A fine example is 10.2 where the whole system comes to a halt when MSN Messenger discovers it needs an update, you download the update, only for disk copy to open and issue an error 95 message. Unlike previous systems where you knew where to look for a problem, you need a degree in Unix programming to even think of where the problem is, let alone solving it, whereas before you just took the offending extension out of the system folder.

If anyone knows how to sort out the disk copy error 95 I'd be grateful, but so far I am really underwhelmed by it all.

You're not the only one.. maybe one of the moderators will chime in and point you in the direction of the vocal minority that feels the wsame way as you.

Personally I like Jaguar very much and find the the move to a Unix based OS is a step in the right direction. I don't think moving from System 7 to System 8 to OS 9 ever increased my productivity. With the multi-threaded UNIX architecture, I can work in app W while apps X, Y, Z, AA, BB, CC, etc,.. are chugging away doing their thing. Multi-tasking is very nice. Stability is a very nice feature as well. To me, those spell serious productivity increases. If you've only recently moved to OS X from 9, then give it some more time before you condemn Apple.

Personally I think their biggest mistake was Cloning. I hated all those clones we bought.

[edit: cleaned up terrible English]

I'd throw in that my productivity has increased while using all of the OS X's, with the possible exception of the beta (waaay too much time playing around).

As for the -95 errors, one, those are no more confusing than the old type -1 errors in os 9 and below, two, it means corrupted disk image, not a unix thing. I understand what you mean about some problems requiring a goodly amount of unix knoweledge to fix, luckily (?) this one is easy to figure out. Try and redownload the file, or get it from a different place/switch products.

Also, MSN Messenger bringing the system to a halt isn't X's fault, it's MSN's.

I'd second the wish for easier sharing (try SharePoints, a share/freeware program (not really sure which) that pretty much makes it as easy as OS 9), and hope that it is something apple changed in 10.3

Moving to OS X Experiences. Should be a good discussion!

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JRS, you haven't told us what you're trying to do productivity wise. Overall, I'm much more productive in OS X, largely due to stability and the new workflow. All in all, my apps run comparably to how they did in OS 9, only some are a little slower, for sure. Still, when I factor in all the crashes and restarts, not to mention the improved multi-tasking for X, it's no contest.

I'm not sure what networking complications you're referring to. OS X is much more network responsive and easier to configure than OS 9 was, imo. Sharepoints does add back some of the lost features, as noted. I totally disagree that OS X is a security mad collection of bits and pieces that are great for the systems administrators or those that don't actually use the mac to produce work. In fact, don't be surprised if that remark illicits a harsh responses--as though only those in the print business are real pros who do real work with Macs.

You sound relatively new to the OS. Perhaps you need to give it a bit more time and learn to work with the strengths of the OS.

I find myself more productive in Mac OS X as well, whether I'm working on a piece of software, editing video, or simply looking things up in the database. The only networking problem I've run into is that X does not support any form of IPX, which can be troublesome on some old Novell networks.

The fact that I can do more things at once without having the system slow me down has been a great help.

I too am much more productive in OSX, but then I moved over from Windoze 98se so it goes without saying really ;)
I never used OS9, but OSX rocks like hell!!!

I've been away from the board (catching wind of Panther made me check to see if there's any chatter about it yet), but I still very well remember switching to OSX for the first time. As a long time user of Macintosh computers (1984!), I felt very oddly out of control when I first switched. I didn't know where anything was. I didn't know how to move around efficiently. Things that I used to do with pre-OSX systems quickly and effortlessly suddenly became slow and tedious. It was most definitely an uphill battle.

Fast forward a bit. Now that I'm passed the initial learning curve with OSX, there is absolutely no way I would ever go back! OSX rocks. It's slick. There are so many tricks you can do to accomplish the task at hand that it puts pre-OSX systems to shame.

It's all in the learning curve. Anything new and different won't feel right at first. You won't know the nifty little trick to do what you're wanting so you start off doing it the long, slow way. But give it a chance. Read. Read. Read. Learn new ideas. Experiment with new features. Make the OS work for you. And it will.

One thing I most particularly like about OSX is that I don't need to screw around with bad extensions anymore. Yeah, sure, when things didn't work in pre-OSX days, you could play around with the extensions, and maybe, just maybe, you could find the dreaded "offending extension." Remember the days of multiple extension sets with Conflict Catcher? Oh, yes, those were the days of productivity. There's nothing like spending the next 4 hours trying to discover that the nifty extension for one app didn't play nice with the other nifty extension for another app. Solve all your problems by only firing up one of the two extensions at a time. What a time saver it was: turning extensions on and off while closing down all of your apps and rebooting.

Now I have NO conflict problems. Even if there is a conflict, it's not a problem. The one, single app chokes, and the worst thing I have to do is force quit that single app. Everything else on my Mac continues to work flawlessly. Gone are the days of losing everything in 15 apps because 1 app had a problem. I can keep my Mac running for days... weeks... MONTHS before even thinking of rebooting. Heck, if it wasn't for electrical storms passing through Texas, I don't know if my Mac would ever be rebooted.

Give OSX a chance. I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised. In time, OSX will feel like old home, and nothing would pry your boney little fingers away from it. Go back to any other OS? Ha! Never!

Windows is an OS? :eek: I thought it was just a virus catcher. ;) :D

Many people "hit the wall" with OS X not too long after they switch over. In my opinion, the more you know about 9 the harder it is to unlearn 9 and and get used to the X way. Even after a couple of years in X i'm still unlearning OS 9 habits.

So, JRS, to you I'd say give it some time, your frustration is just part of the process, it will pass.

I agree that disk images are kind of dumb, although the existed in 9 as well, and until .sitx came along there wasn't a good alternative to disk images in X.

I also agree that networking, particularly printing, is more difficult. Apple's DockBrowser can improve networking, search on the main hints site for it. I have not found anything that improves printing.

I have noticed that I am getting much more adventureous with multitasking in OS X. If I'm with a client and we start some long process like burning a DVD or downloading some big update I just say, "Well, what else can we work on?" and then dive right in to giving tips on MS Word or whatever. I think multitasking and the lack of system wide crashing are the two biggest benefits.

Main concensus is stick with it
 

Judging by the main concensus, I should stick with it, and I shall. As I said, I wouldn't be surprised if it is my reticence to change. But so far I've had to get New Quark, new Photoshop, New Suitcase, etc. etc., just to even do the job I did before. We have 5 macs and a PC linked before, as easy as anything, but now just a drop off folder, rather than complete access to each machine.

For example, the problem I spoke of earlier, i.e. disk files failing to load, turned out not to be the Messenger file, as all disk files played up. I tried repairing disk passwords etc., but to no avail.

In the end I had to bite the bullet and reformat the drive, then start all over again, with OS9.2 and OS10.1, running through updates, but yet to update 10.2, as I suspect that is where the problem arose.

Only then would the disk file work, but I haven't updated software on 10.2 to the latest, as I am concerned that this is where the problem may be.

It could of course be like the song Hello Mother, Hello Father, and hopefully one day I'll be saying I don't want OS9 back, but that day isn't here yet .... but I don't preclude it.

Thanks for all the replies though, it is reassuring. What makes it worse is pride...as I was really hot on Macs until OSX.

For my nickel, Apple's biggest strategic blunder was in not porting A/UX to the PowerPC back in 1991. We could have made the transition to Unix with a Mac face back then and perhaps trumped NT (and maybe Linux) at their birth. Also the long string of projects which were started and never brought to commercial viability throughout the 90's by the Advanced Technology Group.

But, c'est la guerre, eh? :D

My Father Literally could not work any more in 9, No matter how many times I did from Scratch reformats and rebuilds etc. I had to run out replace his Bronze Powerbook with a 12 Inch Aluminbook with X on it (I was dying to move him to X for the Stabilty for over a year ).

Since he has Moved to X He hardly ever has a problem. I here from him Computer wise once every 6 to 8 weeks at most. With 9 he Literally spent 1/2 is day Battling the system back to a working state with DiskWarrior.

*********I do not miss 9. I do not miss 9 for my personal machine either. One of those Clones. Good Riddens. Yuck. And I used to earn most of my living being a consultant for Macs and PC with my specalty being Macs. My Personal machine was tweaked it would run ok for a couple of days at best.

This is not to say you can not mess X up. Add bad hacks, bad software, bad ram etc. You ruin your day. That said I would mot use 9 if you paid me. Apple has been trying to move beyond the bounds of its "Classic OS" for years. System 7.5 was really where it should have ended. It was kept going by despiration to make somthing like X e.g. Taligent, Pink, BEOS, etc. It Was like a Bad Friday the 13th movie.

10.15 was the first usable version of X. Jaguar is Good. Panthter will be better still.

One major Caveat OSX works losely speaking on any hardware made after 1999, supposedly almost aything that came with its own G3 processor (with certain exceptions). That said your luck can be spotty on things that were not made in the last few years.

I have much more difficulty with getting X to run on Biege G3 333 Towers, My Fathers Bronze 400 Powerbook.

And conversely I virtually had no trouble on a Older and newer Powerbooks: G3 266 and a G3 500 Powerbook took to X like a fish in water. Same Postive response from B/W G3 300.

In summary, older equipment is some what spotty. Keep in mind these systems firmware and hardware were not even gleam in someones eye when X was being designed.

Even a Silver Aprox. two Year old G4 Tower 867 was barely designed with X in mind. Jaguar X has been with us only briefly, 10.1 since around Mid 2001 not counting the Beta that came out prior. In Short hardware from the last couple of years is Solid. Hardware designed earlier should work. Though it has been my experience that hardware that is older then 2001 is sometimes problematic.

JRS,

I had to write a java applet in system 9 and I had not booted in 9 since 10.1 came out. System 9 felt "old" and "primitive" as I was installing MRJ 2.2.5 and the MJR SDK 2.2 ... in fact, I wanted to finish the job quickly and I couldn't wait to go back to the power and stability of Jaguar.

Perhaps, once you learn a bit more about MacOS X, no way you would want to go back to System 9, you will just not enjoy the experience.

AUX good call but
 

AUX good call but even IBM trusted Apple to come out with Pink/Taligent and even today IBM seems fonder of Linux on there Iron then AUX:)

JRS, it's so fun to hear you go through the learning curve. Not that I don't feel your pain, but because I truly DO feel your pain. My very first post on this board was asking how I could turn OSX back into the Mac OS I had come to know and love for so many years. I felt OSX had taken over all control from me. It seemed so... so... well, so UNmac.

For a laugh, I looked up my original thread. I laugh now when I read my own posts. While I still have a ton to learn about OSX, I sure have come a long way in this last year.

I also hear you about having to upgrade everything. I darn near had to start all over. I wasn't even running OS9. I was still on OS8! I had tons and tons of software and even some hardware that would not make the upgrade with me. I was still using MSWord 5.1! Talk about upgrading! It cost me a royal fortune as I also have Photoshop, Illustrator, and a ton of other expensive software packages (some of which became totally obsolete when I moved to OSX). Was it worth it all? You betcha!

I may have upgraded to OSX kicking and screaming the whole way, it didn't take long before I was kicking myself for not upgrading sooner.

SharePoints
 

You probably want to check out the SharePoints utility:
http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/
It will allow you to do what you want.
I'm not quite sure what the problem is that you are referring to as it seemed that you were previously talking about a problem that was to do with MSN Messenger that seemed likley to be a bad dwnload or something. I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade to 10.2 since it is so much better and with fewer problems thatn 10.1

BAD DOWNLOAD
 

No, it wasn't a bad download, as it was happening with other disk images, indeed any disk image would come up with the error 95 message. After downloading the messenger file about 5 times and other files it was clear it wasn't the files I was downloading, but the system.

10.2 was loaded and it was OK, it was the latest update that screwed it up.

To be sure though I started from fresh, and it then worked, but I notice now that the latest update for 10.2 has changed, as the last update now is 10.2.6, which is earlier than the other version downloaded.

It is now functioning OK, and I suppose I'll end up attached to it .... just as they change it!

Thanks for all the comments, the main thrust seems to be that you all think it's pretty great, and I'm not disputing that, it's just not that great for me .... yet.


Mind you can't be that bad .... I haven't turned to Windows!

Re: BAD DOWNLOAD
 

JRS, just to point out here that Classic works better than ever and will get the job done in some of those older apps that haven't been upgraded yet. Using Classic + X is how most of us got around a couple of years ago. Then when you would normally upgrade an app, you phase out the Classic version and get the version that will run on X--some will actually run on both. Same goes with older hardware; just run it in Classic until you would upgrade it. Classic + Carbon apps have helped to make the transition as smooth and inexpensive as possible.

The hardest thing for me is remembering the small differences between Linux and Darwin. I get some things confused still. I learned all my unix based knowledge on my Linux machines. I loved Linux, and the cult following and online support it had. That is why I like OS X and this website, it reminds me of the hardcore Linux guys out there that would and could answer any question you threw at them.

The thing I think apple needs to imporve on is application efficancy. To me it seems most web browsers run slow at times and won't always connect to certain sites on my macs here at work. Also I see some bugs with 3rd party devices. Now this isn't really totally 100% apples fault, but they could improve on it definately. 10.2 is leaps and bounds from 10.1. It can only get better from here on in I believe. We will hopefully see a lot of bugs out now with 10.2 be gone with 10.3.

Re: BAD DOWNLOAD
 

Sounds like you applied the 10.2.8 update. Apple released this update, then pulled it due to various problems. If you do go from 10.1 back up to 10.2, 10.2.6 should be ok; but if you still have the 10.2.8 updater saved on your computer, maybe better to leave it aside! :-)

In this story, MacFixIt lists some of the problems that have been reported with 10.2.8:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...30926163005125

I don't see any mention of disk images there, so perhaps you have found another 10.2.8 bug.

If you decide to go to 10.2.6, let us know if the disk image problem comes back again. Good luck!

Zach

10.2.8
 

Perhaps I am judging OSX from a faulty basis. It's always difficult when you load up software that you have avoided like the plague, then have problems, as I attributed it to the usability of the software and the many 'operator errors'. Perhaps it was compounded by 10.2.8, but my knowledge base on OSX is just too low to be able to tell.

It's akin to getting new software that is supposed to function, but before the software has really been field tested, then finding it doesn't work .... searching for the reason it isn't working and accepting it is your fault .... only a few days later to see reports that errors have been diagnosed!

I see comments about going back to 10.2.6 or earlier, but how is this done without reloading the software again? Please excuse my ignorance.