Monday, October 29, 2007

10 Things I Hate About MacOS X Leopard

Almost everyone is hyped about the new release of MacOS. All those great new features. Auweeeeee! I'm a an Apple fan, for now - I'm starting to struggle to justify it. Leopard does have a lot of nice features, but it is missing a lot as well. Considering the delay of the OS, I'm disappointed mainly about these ten things:

  1. JDK6 is missing - WTF Apple!?!?!?
  2. Only read-only support for ZFS, unless you count the developer preview version at ADC
  3. Where is Xray? - The neat DTrace GUI that used to be promoted on Apple.com website a few weeks ago Update: The app is now called Instruments and is part of developer tools. Thanks Ron and Barry for pointing this out to me
  4. JDK6 is missing!!!!! Are you kidding me? Even James Gosling who liked to work on Macs, left Mac for Solaris
  5. MacPorts break here and there - This might not sound like Apple's fault, but considering that Fink and MacPorts are the two main ways to get unix apps installed on Mac, Apple should have cared more about making sure that "things will just work"
  6. Case sensitive FS is still only a second class citizen - I'm sick of all the dupes that iTunes and iPhoto creates, I'll be migrating to case insensitive FS soon
  7. Mac Mini and possibly some other Macs, currently come with "upgrade only" Leopard DVDs - this means that if my Mac goes fubared, I'll have to install Tiger and only then I can install Leopard. Lame!
  8. Why are Spaces one of the major features of Leopard? If I were Steve Jobs, I'd have added it long time ago, or if I added it only now, I'd be quiet and try not to attract too much attention to my past failures
  9. JDK6 is still missing! - Seriously how much longer do we have to wait?!?!?
  10. Why did Apple bothered to include built-in Ruby on Rails? Or should I say broken Ruby on Rails!?!? There was nothing wrong with installing Rails via MacPorts, but the one from Apple is already outdated and when I tried to upgrade it, it broke


MacOS X Leopard is "the most impressive Mac OS X version yet"? It's pretty good but hardly the most impressive without the latest Java.

20 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello Igor:

So, the neat dtrace gui is now called "Instruments" and it is installed with Xcode 3, I don't know if that is the version that comes on the Leopard disc, but you can download it for free from Apple's developer site.

rp
ron.pepin@gmail.com

Igor Minar said...

Good to know! Thanks Ron, I'll check it out.

Barry said...

Agreed with some of your points.
X-ray is now instruments as ronpepin said.

Software tends to break when the system is upgraded, not really defending it but it happens (and will be fixed)

I'm more upset that Java 6 did not make the final cut (yet) and how Apple is handling the situation.
It will get there though, probably as an update.

Igor Minar said...

I really hope that JDK6 will make it into 10.5.1 or 10.5.2. Many of us can't afford any more delays :-/

As you mentioned, it is very unfortunate how Apple is handling the situation. Nobody from Apple says anything and if people try to discuss things at Apple forums, the threads get deleted by moderators. What is that? It reminds me stories about communism!

Barry said...

From what I heard the same thing happened with Tiger and Tiger was released on the same day as an update.
Well it's a bit late for that, but I'd rather have a fully functional version.

What will most likely happen is that the new version is pushed out first and then in 10.5.1 or .2 it becomes the default (I vaguely recall something like that happening for 1.5 too)

Totally agree that Apple dropped the ball here and isn't up front with it's customers.

This lacking and the fact that Apple pushes ROR (like they used to push Java) do make me a bit worried about the future.
But then again, there is always Linux/Solaris :)

Unknown said...

yes I agree with everyone about my dissapointment abt Java 6.

Also, my old laptop (that was/is my guineapig for the Leopard install - I am writing this from 10.4.10) and it completely screwed the whole machine when I attempted the "Upgrade" option (as opposed to archive/install and new install). It was unusable, and there was no way to go but to go back and reinstall with the archive/installl option and then I have had better luck. Still the initial spotlight indexing and what seems to be a new installer take a lot of resources - I'm not sure if this is also the case on the intel platform but eventually when I am brave enough I will find out (on my MBP).

Anonymous said...

MacPorts is totally a non-point. I've been involved in package maintenance, and it's up to the package maintainers to have advance preparations in place for changes in the base system. If the MacPorts people don't have the manpower or resources for this, that's their problem.

Additionally, starting a blog post with "I'm an Apple fan for now" really colors the reader's opinion. In every case when it comes down to the final analysis, Apple's OS is an easier to use alternative than Linux, and a more secure / consumer-rights friendly product than Windows.

Had Apple released a $129 update with half the features of Leopard, the alternatives are still dramatically poorer for the product's intended audience.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, who would dare release a system update without Java6... I mean, after all, surely Vista has it in the box, right?

uuklanger said...

actually, that is not to bad. It could be worse (like Vista). I am pissed that JDK6 is missing too. Apple really needs to let developers know where JAVA fits in their scheme.

The bigger thing is that they just need to communicate. If I knew why, I would calm down. Setting expectations is key to success. They have not set ours.

Anonymous said...

Including the same thing 3 times deserves a: WTF?

Instruments is pretty amazing, by the way. And so are a lot of other new features in the OS.

As for ZFS being read-only, you're stretching it a bit. First off, it's a GOOD thing that it's being rolled in, and my guess will be that Apple migrates to ZFS as their primary FS over time. Second, since when was including (and thus endorsing) a new and better technology a BAD thing?

Anonymous said...

Number of 300 new features we already expected in Jaguar, aren't we? On g3 machines!

Anonymous said...

This was a pretty lame post if you ask me.

Ten things you hate about Leopard?

Once you stop repeating yourself over JDK6, it's down to 8. Once you get over the renaming of DTrace it's 7. Goes to 6 once you realize that Apple - like any retailer of hardware - needs to flush their inventory of Macs with Tiger pre-installed.

5 if you consider that another thing you "hate" is the inclusion of something (Spaces)... but not because of how it behaves (like you do with ZFS), but rather that Apple is touting it as a feature.

You really should learn to focus better in your posts. Had you simply chose to call this something like "My Leopard Rant Over the Missing JDK6" and made some logical sense on why it's a mistake to not have it part of Leopard, you wouldn't sound nearly as childish.

Anonymous said...

You know if you aren't smart enough to do things on your own try to use the google.

http://www.robbyonrails.com/articles/2007/10/27/using-macports-ruby-and-rails-after-upgrading-to-os-x-leopard.

Igor Minar said...

Once you stop repeating yourself over JDK6, it's down to 8.
Yeah, I could have split it to jre6 and jdk6, but that wouldn't make things any better. If you were seriously working with Java and using Mac, then you would understand the frustration of having to wait for java6 for more than a year now, with no word about Apple's roadmap.

Goes to 6 once you realize that Apple - like any retailer of hardware - needs to flush their inventory of Macs with Tiger pre-installed.
You misunderstood this one. I don't care if I have Leopard preinstalled or not. What bothers me that the disc I got is upgrade-only and not full install. That means I need an existing 10.4 or 10.5 installed on my mac before I can run the installation. This means if I have a blank hard drive (after a serious malfunction), I have to install 10.4 and only then I can install 10.5. There is no reason for making things this complicated.

You know if you aren't smart enough to do things on your own try to use the google.
You don't need to worry about me not being able to get rails going on my mac. What I tried to point out was that instead of spending already overused resources on getting rails into MacOS, they could have done something more useful.

I love working on Mac, but my love is not blind (as it used to be). There are things I love about Leopard and I'll be sure to blog about those as well when I get settled.

Anonymous said...

Java 6. 10.6. See the connection? ;)

fikovnik said...

I like this post and I like that it is 10 things out of which java is repeated many times. Come on. This could be far the best OS available on the market, but because of those small silly things like java6 or macports, many people can't use it! It's really shame. You need to justify spending so much money, but with this it is really hard.

Anonymous said...

I paid $137 for leopard a week ago. 7 days later I went back to tiger.

leopard ran terrible on my aluminum imac... even with 2 gigs of ram.... the finder was very slow.... which was not an issue with tiger.

I can't believe I spent $ for this..... for slowness, and what just looked and felt inferior to Tiger.

I have sold it on ebay to recoup $75 of my money..... I will be using tiger for a long time apple.... I will not upgrade an OS again... especially one that costs $130+ dollars.

I've used macs 17 years, and upgraded OS's many times... leopard was my worse experience.

Sure time machine is cool, but at $137 bucks its a bit pricey

I spent an hour and a half troubleshooting the slowness on the phone with an apple tech guy... nothing we did would correct the slowness issue.. BUG? Beats me...

Igor Minar said...

:-)

To be fair, your hardware can't be considered as up-to-date.

On my MBP (intel 1 gen) Leopard (or certain parts of it) runs faster than Tiger.

Anonymous said...

My intel imac did not like leopard at all. after 7 days I went back to tiger.

If you have Tiger, save your money.

Anonymous said...

Dude... you haven't used windows don't you?

Leopard is fine. It's not perfect, but it's fine. I can get everything I want running in a few hours. With windows, that took me about 2 or 3 days...

So considering the options, Windows Vista, Leopard, and linux, I'll choose Leopard for my laptop.