How Could OS X Be Improved?
How many of us like OS X?
Ok, now, how many of us think it could be better?
Alright, got any ideas?
See, those first two questions were real easy, but that last one makes people pause a little. And so, after a little bit of thinking I compiled a list of what I think Apple could do to improve OS X.
The Finder
A lot of my complaints here are purely cosmetic. For example, I want to be able to change the opacity of the Finder windows. If you open the Terminal you can change the background color, text color and the opacity, which is wonderful. It allows you to customize your Terminal to suit your style. So, I see no reason why Finder windows shouldn’t have the same options.
OS X gives you the great feature of changing the background of a Finder window, you can set it to be a color or a picture. However, it is an all or nothing process. Which is nice, sort of, unless you want to have multiple colors or pictures in multiple windows. It would be a better if you could select a folder and set the background for it and all of its subfolders. That would be a much more effective feature. That way all of the windows that can be opened from your “Games” folder can have a picture of the Mario Brothers and your “Barbie Doll Pictures” folder can have a pink background.
The Dock
Once again that opacity thing rears its ugly head. Here is another time when it would be just swell to have control of the transparency of the dock. And while we’re at why not let us change the color of the dock too. And how about changing the shape of the dock? Instead of a semi-transparent rectangle how about one with rounded corners? Or maybe a thin bar through the middle of the icons, giving them a floating appearance. Once again it would be nice to several different choices in how the dock looks.
Spotlight
I love Spotlight but it definitely needs improvement. More search options would be the first improvement I can think of. I think they should keep the simple search bar that comes up when you hit [apple - space] but the more detailed search window needs to have a few more field. Such as a NOT operator. That way I can search for all files having the words “family vacation” but without the word “Florida”. Or how about an easy way to look for Quicktime files created last year with the word “racing” in it. Those are just a few examples of some improvements that could be made.
Extra Applications
I think that Apple could include a few more applications with OS X. The first one has to be a solitaire game. What can I say, I like the chess application but sometimes I want mindless entertainment, and let’s face it, that isn’t chess. So throwing in a couple of card games would be great. Maybe Apple could include a game like Snood too. And a decent FTP application would be useful as well, though I think more people will use the card game.
Desktop
First, I want a true multiple desktop setup, not an add on application such as Desktop Manager. Don’t get me wrong, DTM is a great application, I just want Apple to build that functionality into the OS. As such I want to have multiple desktops, each with their own background. And how about a picture in a picture while were at it? That way you could see what is happening on your second desktop while you are working in your first. I realize that wouldn’t improve productivity much, but it would look cool.
When are we going to get animated desktop backgrounds? Even if it is only something simple I still want it. Wouldn’t it be great to see the earth spinning, a flower growing or maybe the equalizer from the song currently playing in iTunes?
So, those are my ideas for some improvements to OS X. Maybe with a little luck we will see them in 10.5 someday. What would you like to see in Leopard?
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
1) Better AppleScript support (larger dictionaries) for native applications. I don’t want to have to resort to calling System Events in scripts, it’s clunky.
2) Make Mail.app as reliable and bulletproof as Unix Mail has been forever. No lost mailboxes or messages, ever.
3) Return the Scripts menu to the applications, or at least provide the ability to set keystroke commands on menu scripts *by application*.
James, most of your suggestions seem to eat a lot of extra cpu cycles…
What is most needed is some more speed. Don’t get me wrong, I think even on a modern G4 Tiger is well fast enough, but even if you throw plenty of RAM at it it can still run into speed-issues.
Cosmetics - yeah, well, could we please have out coherent interface back, not this strange mixture of how a window may look like? Or have that customizable without hacks?
Automator could see plenty of enhancements, for example it would be nice if it produced *working* workflows, and it would be even nicer if those were actually *faster* than doing the same thing manually.
An British - English Dictionary.
Not everyone appreciates americanized spellings!
When something goes wrong, OS X needs to handle it better (or allow you to). For example, I was recently ripping every CD I own into iTunes. Some of these CD’s were from the major bargain bin, and 10-15 years old. My Mini had major problems with them (maybe format has changed slightly?). Anyway, because it was caught in an endless loop of reading, it was consuming 100% of the CPU. I don’t have an Apple keyboard, so I don’t have the Eject button ( and I should not be expected to remember all of them). I can’t drag the CD to the Dock because just selecting the CD with the mouse takes 5 minutes before the OS does it. You want me to drag like that? So, there is a disk utility (now I know the name and location, but at the time I did not, am new to Mac). Tried to do a Spotlight search, but that never gets enough CPU time to actually run.
So it’s bad enough this happens once, but it happened like 6 or 7 times. One of the major contributors to “Ease of Use” is that in case something DOES go wrong, there is a very simple way to get out of the process.
Ok, so that’s the setup, here are the requests:
Spotlight searches should get 1st priority in CPU. Also applications should be searched first, unless I somehow say otherwise. When I type in “Fireworks”, don’t give me all of the settings files before the executable.
Highlighting the CD/DVD/Device and pressing Backspace (or something) should force eject the thing - maybe a confirmation if it’s busy.
Make Cut work, just like Copy and Paste do. Copying a 10 GB file and then having to go back and delete it from the original is annoying.
SOLITARE!!! I couldn’t agree more. I miss the stupidity of it so much.
That’s about it for my list. I love the OS, it just needs some tweaks.
Sean
DTM is a great application, I just want Apple to build that functionality into the OS.
Yeah, sure! The best way to get tons of bad press and another developer mad at you. Remember Konfabulator/Dashboard? Or Watson/Sherlock?
Focus on speed of all OS tasks and much much less on the eye candy. I don’t give a damn how much prettier OSX is over Windows 2000 or XP if it feels twice as slow as these OS’s. Improve file sharing with Windows to make it as seamless as possible.
The Case of the Disappearing Thesaurus
I am writing a paper. If I pick up my thesaurus, and my paper disappears. If I pick up my paper, the thesaurus disappears.
Q: How is this possible? A: Widgets.
You are writing in your word processor, and trying to think of a list of synonyms for “good.” You invoke the widgets, go to the thesaurus, and seek out the words. You try to copy the words, but they are not selectable. So you click on your document to manually copy the word list, the thesaurus disappears. Poof! It’s gone. You bring it back, but you are unable to type.
To improve OSX, let go of the marketing-centric word/concept “widget” and stick to the user-centric word “tool”.
I should be able to select synonyms from the thesaurus, or at least see them while I’m typing. I can in the real world. If anything, I think some of what we are calling “widgets” should be persistent, and able to ride atop open applications.
It’s not just the thesaurus. I have similar concerns about the clock, the calculator… an a few other widgets. Why must I use a desktop calcluator? Why must I use a stopwatch to time my scripts? The more I think about it, the more I believe that the false distinction “widgets” is what lead to these odd behaviors, and user interface issues. Abolish this false class of programs, and allow the “widgets” the freedom to be used with other programs.
faintdreams, in fact a dictionary that lets you choose from several languages would be excellent. One could make additional langauges available via download so they do not clutter your system.
A color palette that has an option for transparency in all applications. The Finder only lets you choose the color in terms of solid colors, but there should also be a transparency option. I would also like to see a color that is the inverse of what is behind it. This would be great for the subtitles of DVD’s.
Better disk and network server support. My system slows down noticeably when I am connected to a fileserver or have an optical media in the drive.
I’ve been using Clear Dock for the dock and, since it’s free, it’s an easy alternative for those tired of the semi-transparent dock.
Since I’ve given up the tech side (many years ago) I don’t worry about issues like Terminal - or even Automator.
Since I’ve gone from a systems developer in my youth to an old fart that just wants to use my Macs I find that I’m pretty happy with OS X - especially when struggling with old minis in the 80s. I find that the best people to improve OS X are the guys at Apple.
There are some shareware programs that I would like to see Apple buy, fix up a bit and incorporate into OS X. TypeIt4Me heads that list.
In general I would like to see Apple work on keeping the PPC Macs current with the Mactels heading our way. WIth “universal binaries” we should be getting many years out of our investment.
Besides that I would focus on the other apps. Fill out iWork with a spreadsheet and small database (from FileMaker so it will allow upward compatibility), improve iPhoto (not to Elements 3 or 4 standards, but add the features that allow you to clean up old photos) and improve the clarity of iSight/iChat (and allow for a degraded iSight video when using a dial up line).
I guess it gets down to a few ongoing improvements and then innovate, innovate, innovate.
For Dock transparency and colour, check out Transparent Dock (Mac Update or Versiontracker).
For me, the biggest feature i want to see added is spring loaded folders in the dock!
I also wouldn’t mind seeing the finder being totally redone. Written in cocoa, it should have the ability to turn off brushed metal and turn off the toolbar without loosing the sidebar. Things that would normally be in the toolbar (burn, search) should instead be in a separate little section within the window, like they are in iPhoto. And finally, in this separate little section there should be a drop box for storing a file temporarily while i go and find the new location for it to be moved to.
One can readily change the main menu choices at the top of the screen in SAFARI, by merely sliding the mouse across the top of the screen. It then displays each menu, as you go, so that if you originally chose one particular menu, and then changed your mind, you can readily move to the next one. But this is not true of the BOOKMARKS BAR, where, if you look at one drop down menu, you have to exit it with another click, before moving to another drop down menu. This should be changed as the main menu choices function.
Highlighting the CD/DVD/Device and pressing Backspace (or something) should force eject the thing - maybe a confirmation if it’s busy.
Since you don’t have an Apple Keyboard, you might want to map the Eject button to a key on you keyboard through System Prefernces -> Keyboard
Make Cut work, just like Copy and Paste do. Copying a 10 GB file and then having to go back and delete it from the original is annoying.
To move a file you can hold down the OPTION key while draging the file to it’s destination.
SOLITARE!!! I couldn’t agree more. I miss the stupidity of it so much.
Are you for real!
Apple should buy Quicksilver from Blacktree and make it part of OSX 10.5. Since I’m using this program I’ve increased my productivity in an immeasurable way.
When something goes wrong, OS X needs to handle it better (or allow you to).
I totally agree. I just had a problem this morning. I was emptying a big folder from the trash and it got hung up on the last file. You can’t force quit the trash, so I had to reboot. Annoying.
Make Cut work, just like Copy and Paste do. Copying a 10 GB file and then having to go back and delete it from the original is annoying.
I also agree with this. I want to be able to Cut and Paste in the Finder with Apple X and Apple V on the keyboard.
Also, I would love a feature like the one in XP that previews image files on the folder icon for images inside that folder. Very handy.