5 Things Apple Should Change in Mac OS X - Part 1

In many ways, it's easy to slam Windows XP and Vista: Just start counting security flaws or user experience nightmares. When you're the Goliath of the operating system world, everyone wants to hurl stones. But what about the proverbial David, or in this case Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X? Looking for flaws in Apple's operating system seems like picking on the little guy -- until you remember that Apple is doing very well these days and has made much of its vaunted user interface and seemingly secure operating system underpinnings.

Even though it's been out for more than 18 months now, Mac OS X 10.4, or Tiger, is a noticeably better operating system than XP or Vista. But it's not perfect. OS X has its own quirks and flaws, little irritants made all the more irritating by the fact that they come out of Cupertino, which should know better. There are some things about the way it works that aren't as flexible, usable or convenient as Windows.

Since we highlighted 20 Things You Won't Like About Windows Vista, it's only fair to take a look at the little things in Tiger that users find equally annoying. With perhaps one or two exceptions, our list isn't about making Apple's operating system work like Windows. It's about making the Mac all it can be.

There are probably a lot of features and functions that Apple could -- and probably will -- add to OS X. But we're not pointing out missing features; we're focusing on 15 of the little things already in OS X that need refinement or rethinking based on our everyday use of Macs.

15. No Date Display. For all their convenience features, one of the most obvious data points that neither the Mac nor Windows quite does properly is your basic readout of today's date. You probably already know today is Thursday or Friday. What you're more likely to be unsure of is whether today is Dec. 7 or Dec. 8. When you think about it, is there really any more obvious piece of information that people tend to forget than today's date? Isn't this an obvious thing a computer should display? We think so.

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Apple displays the date, grayed out, on the menu that opens when you click the clock face on the right side of the main menu. Windows delivers today's date in a pop-up when you hover your mouse pointer over the clock in the taskbar. Until Vista, Windows didn't even have its own calendar. People use their Windows XP clock-settings configuration dialog to check calendar dates. (As a result, they often wind up changing their system dates accidentally -- which these days can trigger a nasty WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) antipiracy warning.)

Apple has a couple of choices. It could, and we think should, add a basic six-digit date area to the main menu-bar clock. It might read Dec-07, or for outside the U.S., 07-Dec. Considering all the other programs that append icons in that area, Apple should feel no compunction about using this space. Lose the day of the week if you have to, or make it optional. Another possibility is to make the iCal icon in the Dock dynamically display today's date at all times. It does so automatically whenever iCal is running. Why not just make it dynamically display today's date at all times?

(See How to Make Mac OS X Better: Readers Show the Way for a solid workaround to problem 15.)

14. Widgets Can't Be Placed on the Desktop. The Dashboard is very nice, but its all-or-nothing approach is frustrating. We want to be able to drag and drop individual widgets to the desktop. Granted, we don't want many widgets on the desktop. We might like more if they weren't so large. The Dashboard looks great, but while we nip in to use the calculator now and then, it doesn't get as much use as it might. There are also some readout-type functions (how hot is my Core 2 Duo?) we might like to have that just wouldn't be all that useful when you have to actively pursue them to see them. Windows Vista's Sidebar is slightly better than the Dashboard because it can optionally display at all times, or you can put individual Sidebar Gadgets on the desktop.

1. Over-protective Shutdown Error Trapping? When I shut down, I want to shut down. If I actively go through the process of choosing Shut Down or Restart, whether it be by selecting the option from the Apple menu or depressing a key combination, I want the system to shut down or reboot, not ask me if I'm sure. --Thom Reid

Editor's Note: Technically, the Mac will shut down or reboot without user input, but it waits two minutes to give users time to cancel in case they chose that action by mistake. Perhaps Apple could let users reduce the interval until shutdown -- 10 seconds seems a more useful wait time than two minutes for power users.

(For quick ways around this problem, see How to Make Mac OS X Better: Readers Show the Way.)

2. Renaming Isn't Easy. The process of renaming files is highly mouse-centric on the Mac. There's no F2 option (as there is on Windows) that lets you select the file and press F2 to expose the filename-editing mode. The mouse process requires very precisely timed mouse clicks. Anyone who has ever been forced to rename a long list of files under both Windows and Mac operating systems will likely agree that the Windows way is easier. --Michael Cullison

(Many readers wrote to say this is a nonissue. We agree. See How to Make Mac OS X Better: Readers Show the Way.)

3. Secondary Mouse Button. My number one pet peeve is that Macintosh notebook computers only have one mouse button. Yes, I know that the Mighty Mouse has two invisible buttons and that the most recent releases of OS X Tiger have enabled an optional two-finger tap on the trackpad as a secondary click. But for those of us used to a real second button on our mobile computers, this can be really annoying. --Joe McClellan

This article is an excerpt from Scot's Newsletter, published by permission. Scot Finnie is Computerworld's online editorial director, and Ken Mingis is Computerworld's online news and Mac editor.

4. Managing Finder's Columns View, Problem No. 3. A third problem can occur when the Column view Finder window opens as part of an application dialog. In this setting, as you tunnel down a deep folder hierarchy, you may find that the left side of the Finder window has been pushed off the screen. That's because the starting point is anchored by the location of the application dialog box. Sometimes you may find that the button you need to press (like Save, Open, New Folder, whatever) is actually somewhere off-screen once you've navigated to the proper location in the folder hierarchy. While this doesn't happen often, it's ugly when it does.

5. Finder's Hobbled Cut Command. As far as we can tell, there's no way to Cut a file in Finder. The common usage in Windows is to use Edit > Cut and Edit > Paste to move a file from one location to another. The Finder does make it relatively easy to perform drag-and-drop moves, but there are times when that can be awkward, especially on smaller-screen Macs. In that case, being able to cut a file in one window, navigate to another window, and paste the file there is a handy alternative. While Finder offers the Cut command on its Edit menu, it doesn't work on files. And if you use keyboard commands instead (Command X and Command V, for example), it leaves the original file in place -- or in other words, it becomes a Copy, not a Cut, operation.