Re: [NTLK] might give up on newton

Hi Marty,

> > If Apple had done more fundamental improvements than just change the
> > colour of the buttons on its Mac interface in the last 20 years
> there
> > would be a bigger disparity between the Mac (& Win) and the Newton
> > than there actually is.
> <snip>
>
> Well this is just glaringly wrong. It might seem superficial in
> terms of interface changes, but clearly the underlying OS has
> changed a bit more then that...

I don't give a stuff anymore what is going on underneath or how
clever they might have been in building the foundations of Mac OSX if
the net result is a machine that is not easier to use and no smarter.
Impress me by making my workflow shorter, faster, more efficient and
by making Apple apps. less bug-ridden, clumsy and obstructive. Don't
put your cleverness only into things I can't see unless they benefit
what I can see.

If one uses a Mac like a big iPod then everything will be dandy but
if you use it to run a business, one sees just how little has really
changed since my first Mac in 1985. Problems have simply migrated
from one area to another because there are no ideas of any substance
appearing.

Generally speaking, compared to 10 years ago, the Mac is now
substantially more complex but the interface is actually less able
and consistent. Many parts of the visible system are either
illogical, sloppily constructed or badly designed. The management of
the file system and printing remain utterly archaic, requiring many
third party utilites to be manageable, our data is as atomised and
isolated as ever and performance of anything other than purely CPU
intensive tasks is way down on 10 years ago. I still use my PB G3
with Mac OS9 with many of the same apps. so the comparison is
apparent all the time.

For sure, Mac OSX is very robust compared to 9 and it looks pretty
but the application software is of very variable quality and it has
done nothing yet to expand or extend what computing can be and what
we hoped it might become in the 70s and 80s. I am seeing the same
mistakes being made over and over and instead of learning from the
past, Apple periodically bin everything and cockup all over again.
Truly, software is not engineering in any form that I understand the
word.

IMO, at the experienced user level, Mac OSX is complacent and old.

In many respects, I feel the same frustration about the Mac that
Frank has recently expressed about the Newt but in different areas.

I'm pretty much over it in that my expectations of the Mac are now
zero and every damn stupid thing it does every day is one more reason
to use the Newt whenever possible.

> PS Just look at how much more bloated it is!

And how :-)

Joel.

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Received on Wed May 14 08:00:10 2008