I installed the Classic Platinum theme and killed the Dock, which gives you an idea how much fondness I have for the gizmo'd-up GUI of OS X.

I usually tend to fall into the minority, but while I agree that OS 9 seems snappier, I also find that OS X feels smoother. The 'slowness' displayed in OS X makes OS X feel like a well-oiled machine and the snappiness in OS 9 makes it feel jagged and rough. Things typically happen fast enough for me.

Those sheets which slide out happen a bit too slowly (referring to the biovizier's post on page 1 of this thread), so I set it to 0.1 (1/2 of default) and it feels a lot better to me. But setting it to 0.001 (as in the original hint which his link takes you to) makes it just pop up there suddenly and brings back that OS 9 jumpy feeling to me.

As the hint demonstrates, it's not OS X that's slow. It's the speed of some of the visual effects that some people don't like. When you realize that you could be doing other things on your Mac instead of watching the effects it becomes clear that the only thing the effect may be slowing down is the user. The OS is very snappy, slow visual effects or not. :)

I agree with you. I'm not a Windows user at all, I want to make that clear now, but on the rare occasions when I have no choice but to use a PC I am surprised at how clean and responsive it is.

One of my pet hates is OS X mouse clicks and keyboard strokes getting completely lost or ignored. If you don't know what I mean, create a folder on your Desktop, put another inside it, and another inside that one and so on, until you've got a nest of folders five or six deep. Then, go back to the Desktop, select the folder you created, and hit: command-down arrow, down arrow, command-down arrow, down arrow, etc. as fast as you can.

This is how I normally navigate from folder to folder in Finder. But you end up having to hit that sequence of keys about twice as many times as you should. This annoys me no end. Try it yourself some time. Just because the Finder wasn't ready for my keystrokes, it completely ignores them. I don't know much about this stuff, but shouldn't it at least try to store them in some kind of buffer, and execute them once it's finished working out what's in the folder that I opened?

Also, disclosure triangles are notorious for not accepting mouse clicks. That annoys me too, especially in Get Info windows etc.

I don't think this can all be blamed on the Finder, as I've noticed unresponsive UI elements in interfaces that I've created myself in IB. And before anyone says it, my computer is 933MHz with 640 RAM. OK, so it's not the best thing available, but I'd expect more.

I still like my computer, and I'd never dream of switching to a Windows box, but that's mainly because I know how to use my Mac quite well, and I enjoy mucking around with it. I don't like everything about it.

Enough ranting...but thanks MBHockey for giving me a chance to vent my spleen. :p

You're doing it wrong, so you can't blame the OS. Trying to hit command-down arrow, then down arrow quickly and repeatedly practically guarantees that you'll hit the wrong one and then the OS should ignore you. There are at least a couple of better ways to do what you're trying to do:
1. Use List mode, select the folder you want and press option-right arrow.
2. View as columns and use right arrow.

I've noticed this too, but it seems more to do with the size of the triangles than the OS being responsive. They're so small it's easy to miss them.

This is the sort of thing that drives X-skeptics crazy. Blame the user, blame third-parties, blame everything else except the OS itself, which is perfect in every respect.

Sorry, but the OS has to function in the real world of human users. Dismissing every problem as being solely their fault is not only insulting to the person with the problem, but it's not in synch with the actual experience of many people.

The visual effects are inseparably part and parcel of OS X. If they're slow, the OS is slow. Saying, "The OS is very snappy, slow visual effects or not" makes no sense. It's like saying, "It's a nice warm day, ice storm and blizzard or not."

Well, those other ways are "better" only because the way posted by ALT147, which is completely legitimate, suffers from a bug. The issue has nothing to do with accuracy while pressing keys rapidly. Using the same scenario as above, with each of a series of nested folders only containing a single folder, the alternative key combination of ⌘O to open and "O" to select the next folder works as expected. On my system at least, as quickly as I can hit the keys, the system keeps up. It is only with the "command+down-arrow" combination in "icon view" (with folders set to open in the same window) that keystrokes are sometimes lost.

The "command+down-arrow" method works if a given nested folder's icon is positioned lower on the screen than its enclosing folder. If each successive folder is at the same vertical position, or higher than the previous folder, the "down-arrow" may fail to select it if the keystrokes are entered rapidly.

However, if the keystrokes are entered slowly enough, then they will register. If the "Finder" preferences are set to "Always open folders in a new window", then the keystrokes get stored in the buffer, and every nested folder opens, usually some time after entering the keystrokes, while the "Finder" animates each opening folder.

If there is actually a reason of which I am unaware for the different behaviours under the subtly different conditions, then it is just a bad UI inconsistency, but I suspect it is a bug. Either way, it's going to slow the user down, and I think it's fair, if not to blame the OS, then at least to criticize the abomination that calls itself "Finder".

But the OS does function properly for the most part. The fact is that while a visual effect is taking place you can be doing other things with the system. You may not like the visual effect, but that doesn't qualify it as a problem. You can't claim that the OS is slow just because it has hypnotized you into watching the effect. What matters is that you could issue another command and get a response while the effect is taking place. That's what makes it a fast, responsive system, and that's why your analogy doesn't apply.

I'm not saying that the UI is perfect. I don't think that's possible because everyone has their own idea of how a given task should be accomplished. I just wouldn't say that it is slow. Certainly not when compared to Windoze, where it's possible to click an icon and get no response for so long that you begin to wonder if the system crashed.

It probably is a bug, but the fact is that the OS provides at least two better ways to accomplish the task.
If you choose the slowest method, should you blame the OS for taking too long? You can drive from Maine to Florida along Rte 1 or I95. Rte 1 has lower speed limits and lots of traffic lights. Would you blame the car for taking too long if you chose to drive using Rte 1?

Sorry, have to pipe in and toss in my two cents on Windows.

I use Windows at work, eight+ hours a day, five days a week. Is the UI ugly? Hoo boy, yeah. Is it fast? Yep. Is it unstable? No. Do I click on icons and wait for them to open? Yes, on Windows and OS X. Any problems multi-tasking? No.

The Windows machine in question has a sub-2 GHz processor (don't remember the exact number at the moment) with 512 MB of RAM. Most of the time, the taskbar is nearly full of programs*. Switching from program to program may take a second, but that's because I'm overworking the RAM. The machine would do much better with more. Once the program is brought to the front, however, it's quite speedy.

Both OS X and Windows have little "quirks" that drive me batty. In OS X, for example, if I plug in my iPod, iTunes comes to the front. But I don't want iTunes in front, I want to keep typing in the window that is now hidden by iTunes. In Windows I can't drag documents onto the task bar, I have to wait until it brings the application to the front, then drop the document onto the application window (even though it's totally clear what I want to do). Gahrggrl.

But to answer the original question, yes, in some ways the Windows UI is faster than OS X. Personal opinion, I haven't done any benchmarks.

* Note that I align the Windows taskbar vertically, so it takes about twenty apps to fill it up -- as opposed to the normal horizontal orientation, which takes about four apps.

I'm having a hard time picturing this. The visual effects are integrated into the UI. The UI is the face of the OS. How is the user supposed to be using the system outside of the UI? And even if you could somehow run behind the UI's "back," I think you're asking a lot of the average user to try to work at odds with what's in front of them on the screen.

We never had to discuss problems like this with the pre-X Mac. Just as Unix used to run on computers with less computing power than my cell phone, the Mac ran a fast, responsive UI on computers that were a bump on the road compared to the Mount Everest of the G5.

Markle

It's called multi-threading or multi-tasking and it's one of the biggest advantages of OS X over OS 9. It's what allows you to run a Quicktime movie and have an iTunes song playing while you run a photoshop filter at the same time and still bring up other apps. That's snappy, and it requires little of the user. They only need to recognize that they can begin another task while waiting for one or more to finish. It has nothing to do with running behind the UI's back, since pre-emptive multi-tasking is part of the UI, as well as the core of the OS.

Markle, you don't even use OS X, so you don't know what its performance is like at all. Ordinary users don't have to run the system "outside the UI" (i.e., through the Terminal). And the UI is pretty darned responsive, even though not as snappy as OS 9. We're talking fractions of a second here, which is negligible, and more than compensated for by stability, multitasking capabilities, and a whole host of other features.

I think folks have become so accustomed to passive entertainment they feel obliged to sit and watch each effect every time it occurs. Sort of similar to reposting the same post across multiple Internet forums year after year after year. ;)

Every computer OS (and it must be around 100, including variants) that I've ever worked with had at least several things which annoy me. All of these pale in comparison to some of the traits in people I know which annoy me, and I'm sure my traits which annoy them. Fortunately we manage to get along anyway. Mostly. :D

Yes, I understand what preemptive multitasking is. I didn't understand that is what you were referring to. The way you were talking about people being able to do something else while the graphic effects were taking place made it sound like it was a way for them to kill time while waiting for the animations to finish!
:cool:

If the animations are fast enough for you, then you don't need to "kill time" or begin a new task. The point is that if the animations aren't fast enough, you can kill time or begin a new task. The choice is yours, and only because the OS & UI are fast and responsive.

I'll say it again, and hopefully more clearly: I believe people who complain about the OS being slow are really complaining about the animations, and animations don't really slow the system or the user unless the user gets sucked into just watching them.

Yes, Phil, I don't use OS X on my personal Mac, and things like this are the reason why. But as we've been discussing for the past 5 years, that doesn't mean I'm living in a cave without any exposure to it.

Don't you ever ask yourself why, with G5 supercomputers, it's not any better than that?

As to whether preemptive mutitasking, better memory management, etc., are worth what's been lost in the transition from Mac to X, that's simply a matter of individual opinion. YOU, Phil, have been such a fan of X from the start that I think you could have happily lived the rest of your life with the Public Beta!

This has been a rare debate for me because I'm totally aware that the ship has sailed. It's just that sometimes, when I think I'm seeing the sort of denial that seems to be blaming everything and everybody but the OS itself for its own shortcomings, the old fires can light up a bit. Anyway, the conversation is always interesting!

Markle

True in principle, but it's a distraction that cuts productivity and makes the system seem slower than it may otherwise be. People have to make a conscious effort to avoid them. So long as they are as conspicuous as they are, it's poor interface design. Users should have more control to dial it back. But since the boys from NeXT took over Apple, there has been a strong bias against user choice in OS X and making it as customizable as the Mac was.

Markle

But it is better. Much better than you realize. As I write this, I have just installed Tiger. My system is running two versions of www.d2ol.com and Tiger is indexing Spotlight (3 minutes remaining). I've got Mail running in the background, logging into two mail servers every 5 minutes. I'm playing around with Widgets and I'm checking this site and a few others on occassion. My system is still very snappy. I could watch a video if I chose and it would still be snappy. There is just no way that OS 9 could do all of that without feeling like a slug, assuming it didn't crash.

LOL! Well, as I've shared with you before, I hardly used PB and didn't even discuss it on any forum anywhere because it was . . . well . . . Beta!

The difference in responsiveness is fractions of a second, at best. Hardly noticeable! And when you consider all that you can do in the X Finder that you can't do in the old Classic Finder, it's no contest, really.

Debate all you want over here, however, but I don't think you'll make many converts. ;)