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twocircles

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2011
27
1
I switched from years of using Windows to OS X after months of observation. I needed a laptop. I work in an academic environment, so I watched what professors and students were using. Even though Apple laptop sales are small in comparison to Windows laptops sales, in my department, the Macs people actually carried with them outnumbered the Windows laptops 10:1 at that time, I kept count. I thought this discrepancy was incongruent. I found that many friends who had Windows systems did not carry them with them for daily use. While those with, especially MBPs used them all the time.

I concluded that MacBook Pros in particular were relatively more functional and more headache free. I think it is significant to remember that Windows at that time was just coming out of its Vista phase. I think Apple has enjoyed much of its laptop success in the past few years because their products were able to make the user’s task top priority and the OS and other tech fade into the background.

I got a late 2011 running Lion, and until Yosemite have had few time consuming issues.

File System
Just from a practical point of view, I can’t see a file system update happening until OS 11 is released. I am sure that this is being explored though. And, with the industry moving toward PCIe SSD as the drive standard, today’s solutions using HDD may not be optimal for SSD.

Appearance
I do not know why this is such a big deal. Just as OS X was moved to look more like iOS in Mountain Lion and Mavericks, Yosemite has been altered to look more like the Apple Watch OS using versions of the same icons. So, even though we were told last year that the flat look was to give Yosemite a more modern look, I think that it was really in order to unify appearance across products.

My only complaint is that they have not gone far enough. As several have said before, OS X could benefit from updated fonts and animations. It would also be nice for the Apple Watch to interface with Notifications with widget versions of many of the watch apps.

If you don’t like the colors of the icons take the ones you don’t use off the dock. I only have five of the OS X icons on the dock. The rest are in a OS X Apps group in Launchpad.

I forgot that I changed the Accessibility settings to Reduced Transparency a while ago to improve get rid of the increasing number of pinwheels. The gray has not been awe inspiring, but it also has had the distraction of what was going on with the colors of my screen. To tell the truth, I forgot about it and I guess I have had fewer pinwheels too.

While having the option to change colors and have scalable fonts would be really nice, the cost is a not insignificant amount of overhead. We are already complaining about bloatware.

Bug fixes
One bug that drives me crazy on nearly a daily basis is after cutting text, the cursor remains in select mode, so when I start typing, it types in one spot. Several clicks will correct this, but it is annoying.

Apple seems to be starting to abandon Apple Script. For example, some Apple Scripts won’t work with the latest release of Pages. I wish they would just say that we all need to learn Swift or whatever and change over our scripts or something, instead of things just letting things quit working.

Quicktime needs to be able to play MIDI files again.

Other waste of time bugs have been caused by 3rd-party apps who have problems with Yosemite. These have about caught up.

Features wish list
I use a number of 3rd-party apps that reside in the Menu Bar. These would all be better as part of the OS, so here’s my list if OS X 10.11 adds new features.

- Hide and manage the menu bar. I am looking at getting Bartender to make the bar do what the OS should have it do in the first place.

- Adjust the backlight and dark mode according to my preferences. (f.Lux)

- Let me control the brightness of additional monitors. (Shady)

- Let me disable idle sleep when I am doing something like a long download. Also, let me disable the lid sleep. (InsomniaX ) I use this to listen to audiobooks and music while on the go. I know I should probably get an iPad or iPod, but why? This works really well.

- Let me select and paste from the last 50 copy or cut commands or whatever number I set. (Copy Clip) This is really useful to copy and paste a lot of information from one document or app to another or several others. I just do all the copies, switch apps and do all the pastes with no going back and forth. Also, if I forget to paste something and copy over it, I can retrieve it.

- Control fan speeds to keep my MBP cooler, especially when connected to AC.

I have 3rd-party apps that add all of these features, but it seems to me that they should be part of the OS. I think part of the Apple’s strategy is to let us bloat our own OS with 3rd party apps that give us the features we want most.
 
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grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648

tdale

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2013
1,293
77
Christchurch, N.Z.
I switched from years of using Windows to OS X after months of observation. I needed a laptop, and I work in an academic environment. I watched what professors and students were using. In my department, the Macs outnumbered the Windows laptops 10:1 at that time, I kept count.

I asked several people who didn’t carry laptops if they had desktops at home. Most said, no, they had a Windows laptop at home. I watched Mac users many times. They would pull out their MacBook Pros, open them up, do the work they needed to do, close them and put them away. Several times, I watched this happen in the time one group member got their Windows laptop started and logged in. I concluded that even though Windows laptops outsold Apple. MacBook users were actually able to use their computers.

LOL. I use both, and they do the same thing in similar ways, I don't see a difference in opening up a Windows laptop and using it as compared to OSX.

I tell this story because Apple has enjoyed much of its laptop success in the past few years because their goal was to make the task number one and the tech fade into the background. I think this may have been a Steve Jobs influence because they forgot this while he was gone and came back to it.

Macs no longer outnumber Windows Laptops 10:1. The market share of OSX has changed little over the years Just guessing, it is more like 4:1. So, competitors are catching up. I think Apple needs to be reminded periodically that while design has some appeal; latest tech is also a factor; and portability is convenient, the reason, I think, most people justify getting Mac is because at some level they think or feel that they will get more use out of it. There is a lot to be said for no worries, no headaches.

No worries no headaches?? Bugs are becoming a staple for Mac users

This is relevant with Yosemite because, to a great degree, because users have had to start spending time dealing with the OS. While logging on with wifi has not approached the nightmare of Windows wifi login proportions, What? Wif and Apple has always been an issue, Windows is fine. Windows uses wifi as the alliance deemed it to be used, Apple's implementation of wifi is not 100% compliant, hence issues. it has been an issue, and there have been other attention grabbing bugs.

I think the current build of Yosemite is pretty stable. Wifi problems and Safari problems when changing locations seem to have been mostly eliminated. However, I agree that even though the name might change, the next release needs to primarily be focused on stability, speed and fading into the background again.

File System
Just from a practical point of view, I can’t see a file system update happening until OS 11 is released. I am sure that this is being explored though. And, with the industry moving toward PCIe SSD as the drive standard, today’s solutions using HDD may not be optimal for SSD.

Appearance
I do not know why this is such a big deal. Just as OS X was moved to look more like iOS in Mountain Lion and Mavericks, Yosemite has been altered to look more like the Apple Watch OS using versions of the same icons. So, even though we were told last year that the flat look was to give Yosemite a more modern look, I think that it was really in order to unify appearance across products.

My only complaint is that they have not gone far enough. As several have said before, OS X could benefit from updated fonts and animations. It would also be nice for the Apple Watch to interface with Notifications with widget versions of many of the watch apps.

If you don’t like the colors of the icons take the ones you don’t use off the dock. I only have five of the OS X icons on the dock. The rest are in a OS X Apps group in Launchpad.

I forgot that I changed the Accessibility settings to Reduced Transparency a while ago to improve get rid of the increasing number of pinwheels. The gray has not been awe inspiring, but it also has had the distraction of what was going on with the colors of my screen. To tell the truth, I forgot about it and I guess I have had fewer pinwheels too. Its beachballs actually

While having the option to change colors and have scalable fonts would be really nice, the cost is a not insignificant amount of overhead. We are already complaining about bloatware.

Bug fixes
One bug that drives me crazy on nearly a daily basis is after cutting text, the cursor remains in select mode, so when I start typing, it types in one spot. Several clicks will correct this, but it is annoying.

Apple seems to be starting to abandon Apple Script. For example, some Apple Scripts won’t work with the latest release of Pages. I wish they would just say that we all need to learn Swift or whatever and change over our scripts or something, instead of things just letting things quit working.

Quicktime needs to be able to play MIDI files again.

Other waste of time bugs have been caused by 3rd-party apps who have problems with Yosemite. These have about caught up.

Features wish list
I use a number of 3rd-party apps that reside in the Menu Bar. I am looking at getting Bartender to make the bar do what the OS should have it do in the first place. This includes hiding the bar when not in use and giving me display and order options.

Most of these 3rd-party apps would be more efficient in the OS.

f.Lux - Allows me to automatically go to dark mode after a specified time. It also removes a lot of blue from the screen backlight in the evening, which has health and sleep effects.

Shady - Lets me control the brightness of additional monitors.

InsomniaX - Lets me disable idle sleep when I am doing something like a long download. It also lets me disable the lid sleep, which I use to listen to audiobooks and music while on the go. I know I should probably get an iPad or iPod, but why? This works really well.

Copy Clip - Lets be select and paste from the last 50 copies and cuts or whatever number I set. This is really useful to copy and paste a lot of information from one document or app to another or several others. I just do all the copies, switch apps and do all the pastes with no going back and forth. Also, if I forget to paste something and copy over it, I can retrieve it.

I also just started using a fan control app, which lets me control fan speed profiles.

I think part of the Apple’s strategy is to let us bloat our own OS with 3rd party apps that give us the features we want most.

I think the strategy was, to create a lovely design, and be user friendly. Thats SJ. Today its about making money. I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, is that Macs are no more popular now than years ago, market share wise. IMHO that means a decline as they have not taken advantage of the halo effect of the iPhone, and latterly, the iPad. I switched, not to get away from Windows but to add integration to my Apple devices.
 

twocircles

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2011
27
1
Yes, my sojourn with my MacBook Pro is relatively short only since 2011. I entered the game with Lion on a Late 2011 model. My experience with bugs from Lion through Mavericks has been minimal.

I have never had wifi connection issues until, maybe a little with Mavericks, but frequently with Yosemite. We had Dells and an HP in our lab, brand new, of the same vintage. We had wifi throughout the building. Macs would connect anywhere. The Dells and HPs required certain spots in the hallway and took forever to connect. We eventually ran Ethernet cable across the room to connect the laptops.

The funny thing was that three of us in the lab independently bought MBPs during the same week and showed up with them on the same day.

As far as Yosemite Bug Fixes goes, I forgot the elephant in the room. The path for each picture on my desktop background shows up in large print in the center of my desktop. I cannot figure out how I could have activated this, and its appearance coincided with a Yosemite and Photos update.

While I can’t say that love the Watch icon of Yosemite. I don’t see them going away until the novelty of the Watch wears off at the soonest.
 
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lowendlinux

macrumors 603
Sep 24, 2014
5,460
6,788
Germany
I think the strategy was, to create a lovely design, and be user friendly. Thats SJ. Today its about making money. I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, is that Macs are no more popular now than years ago, market share wise. IMHO that means a decline as they have not taken advantage of the halo effect of the iPhone, and latterly, the iPad. I switched, not to get away from Windows but to add integration to my Apple devices.

Macs are significantly more popular now than the back in the day.
 

tdale

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2013
1,293
77
Christchurch, N.Z.
Macs are significantly more popular now than the back in the day.

Googling, Apples global shipments share is currently 6%, and 12% USA
USA 2006 Installed base is 6%, 7% in 2007, 9% in 2010 and 12% now
Globally in the past it has increased, but still 6%

I thought it was generally 5% global, so not far off. Yes it is increasing, but still low.

----------

What additional integration do you wish for?

Can't think of anything new for integration.



Is your wish, for OS X 10.11, to have no (or fewer) wireless connection issues?

Not quoting me, but wifi issues tend to be regular fare for Apple. Their wifi is not 100% compliant.
 

twocircles

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2011
27
1
I am running 10.10.4, and the wifi connection issues I was having, which also involved Safari have gone away.
 

Linuxpro

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2015
174
4
Singapore
I would like a way to opt-out of updates on specific apps. I removed iMovie and some others. I also removed all the various references to it in the Library directories. Sure enough iMove is stuck in an endless cycle of updates. It has downloaded four times now. Every time I delete it, the app store icon re-appears in my dock with a red circle. It is so annoying.
 

Linuxpro

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2015
174
4
Singapore
Opinions vary on the wifi issue. For me it was consistent. It failed to hold a connection with my iPhone hotspot. Furthermore it would only connect to my home wifi at very low speed.

I discovered two "work arounds":
1. Disable handoff, iPhone calls, and airdrop so that the wifi resource is not tied up constantly polling your phone, etc.
2. Do not use bargain Bluetooth accessories. If someone uses a cheap Bluetooth mouse near your MacBook, the wifi gets trashed. I gave away my mouse and bought the apple mouse and my problem went away.

Some of my friends said to disable 2.4GHz on the router. I live in Singapore. 5GHz works poorly here, so that is not an option. Others said use a more basic router. Some of the so called premium routers (Asus RT-N56-U or example) cause more trouble than they help.
 
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tdale

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2013
1,293
77
Christchurch, N.Z.
Opinions vary on the wifi issue. For me it was consistent. It failed to hold a connection with my iPhone hotspot. Furthermore it would only connect to my home wifi at very low speed.

I discovered two "work arounds":
1. Disable handoff, iPhone calls, and airdrop so that the wifi resource is not tied up constantly polling your phone, etc.
2. Do not use bargain Bluetooth accessories. If someone uses a cheap Bluetooth mouse near your MacBook, the wifi gets trashed. I gave away my mouse and bought the apple mouse and my problem went away.

Some of my friends said to disable 2.4GHz on the router. I live in Singapore. 5GHz works poorly here, so that is not an option. Others said use a more basic router. Some of the so called premium routers (Asus RT-N56-U or example) cause more trouble than they help.

Your post is interesting, if I have time tomorrow I will play with turning off anything else wifi or BT and see how that goes.

Apple wifi is not 100% compliant, which is a fact.

I have a fibre problem, unrelated to Apple or wifi. I was on 30/10, then went to 100/50, and the other day I changed to 200/20 and I'm not getting that, so its with the fibre company to check my profile
BUT, on my rMBP I get 31/11 about what I got on the 30/10 I had. When I was on 100/50 I got 97/52, so all good. Why is it that now I get 31/11 on the rMBP, and between 37/11 and 39/11 on my 6 Plus and iPad Air 1????

I assume these two devices use the same wifi chip and antenna, makes sense. I assume the rMBP has better wifi, maybe it doesnt, but as the rMBP can achieve the proper speediest on 100/50 why doesnt it give an accurate result, or a vaguely similar result to the other two devices, taking into account that the wifi chip may differ? Bizarre.
 

Loqman

macrumors newbie
May 13, 2015
3
0
more customizing for users

As a power user my wishes may be very easy and simple. Please:

1. Let us search for bookmark folders names. If I have collected a bunch of links in a certain bookmark folder, one out of 1.000 ones, let me have an easy access to it for reference afterwards. When I collected hints for my friend Rudolf (so the name of a bookmark folder) it does not help me to find no link contained in that folder, because no link has the name Rudolf in his link name. But I need that links in relation to my friend Rudolf, - or in relation to each of the 1.000 members of my community or customers…

2. Let us adjust or customize the text color of system apps - and the background color. In the App Store I like black text on orange background, not grey on white, eg.

3. Let us tag our mails in Mail with the same tags as in Finder: no limitation in number or color.

4. Finder should show the several tags assigned to a file as full circles near by near in the column "Tags" and that circles should have their name as tooltips shown when crossing the cursor over them.

5. In the tooltips for buttons please add the information of the actual shortcut (provided that has been defined).
 

Linuxpro

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2015
174
4
Singapore
Your post is interesting, if I have time tomorrow I will play with turning off anything else wifi or BT and see how that goes.

Apple wifi is not 100% compliant, which is a fact.

I have a fibre problem, unrelated to Apple or wifi. I was on 30/10, then went to 100/50, and the other day I changed to 200/20 and I'm not getting that, so its with the fibre company to check my profile
BUT, on my rMBP I get 31/11 about what I got on the 30/10 I had. When I was on 100/50 I got 97/52, so all good. Why is it that now I get 31/11 on the rMBP, and between 37/11 and 39/11 on my 6 Plus and iPad Air 1????

I assume these two devices use the same wifi chip and antenna, makes sense. I assume the rMBP has better wifi, maybe it doesnt, but as the rMBP can achieve the proper speediest on 100/50 why doesnt it give an accurate result, or a vaguely similar result to the other two devices, taking into account that the wifi chip may differ? Bizarre.

I do not know if it matters, but turn of the bluetooth device completely as well.

Most compact computers have a single chip for both bluetooth and wifi. I do not know if the root of the problem is the chip or the driver. I suspect :apple: writes its own firmware to drive the chip as well.

I also have 300MB fiber to my flat.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I would like a way to opt-out of updates on specific apps. I removed iMovie and some others. I also removed all the various references to it in the Library directories. Sure enough iMove is stuck in an endless cycle of updates. It has downloaded four times now. Every time I delete it, the app store icon re-appears in my dock with a red circle. It is so annoying.

On iOS it seems to recognize that you no longer have an app installed, it's odd that this same level of functionality is not present in OS X. I wonder if this is due to some sort of corruption. I'm not being notified of apps that need to be updated but are no longer on my Mac. I'll have to double check that once I get back on my rMBP later this morning.
 

Linuxpro

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2015
174
4
Singapore
On iOS it seems to recognize that you no longer have an app installed, it's odd that this same level of functionality is not present in OS X. I wonder if this is due to some sort of corruption. I'm not being notified of apps that need to be updated but are no longer on my Mac. I'll have to double check that once I get back on my rMBP later this morning.

I also removed Photos, Messaging, Mail, iBooks, Photobooth, FaceTime, Garage Band, Chess, Game Center, Keynote, the Game Center daemon, the airdrop daemon, the spotlight daemon, and the iSight Camera drivers (pretty much neutered it by removing everything I considered to be a solutions looking for non-existent problems to solve).

The only app exhibiting this behavior is iMove. Strange!

I discovered that holding down the option button allows me to re-delete iMovie now. Perhaps doing so on the command line is no longer required?
 
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xmichaelp

macrumors 68000
Jul 10, 2012
1,815
626
...I can’t see a file system update happening until OS 11 is released...

That will never happen. OS X is a brand name and is meant for incremental updates. The only way they'd rename the OS is if it was completely different like OS 9 and OS X.

They were actually going to update the file system in a regular update years ago but decided against it when the company that made it was bought out.
 

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
Off-topic: Apple, ZFS and Sun (history)

… They were actually going to update the file system in a regular update years ago but decided against it when the company that made it was bought out.

If you mean ZFS, then (off-topic from the wish list for future OS X 10.11) the past timeline of ZFS was quite different. You’ll find more information in discussions of ZFS.
 

F1Mac

macrumors 65816
Feb 26, 2014
1,283
1,604
That will never happen. OS X is a brand name and is meant for incremental updates. The only way they'd rename the OS is if it was completely different like OS 9 and OS X.

Well "Mac OS X" was a brand name as well and they changed it to "OS X". Apple can do whatever they want with their own brand names I would guess.
 

RJCII

macrumors newbie
May 14, 2015
3
0
My personal wish list is primarily bug fixes. Gimme another Snow Leopard guys!

1. Stop that #shipfirstpatchlater trend. The WiFi issues have been horrifying

2. Safari wants to stop rendering pages after 15 tabs are open. On a 16 GB RAM rMBP running nothing else.

3. Make Mail desirable for me again. I've actually been on Mailbox Beta for a while.

4. OS animations need a revamp. It should not stutter this bad.

5. I had to disable the menu bar on both monitors I have because of a terrible 'redraw' bug that made whichever monitor I moused too refresh.

6. (shameless plug) OS X is currently rendering fake dead pixels for me in dual display mode (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1882180/)

In terms of New Things I would like to see :) :

- Put some life into iWorks. I LOVE iWorks but I still thank the heavens I kept '09 around. This universal binary iWorks is good - but still needs serious attention. Would love to see it standard in OS X + collaborative working like Google Docs.

- Notification Center needs some life. How to put plugins into there needs more transparency to the consumer

- Please make it easier to manage iDevices for those rare occasions we do need to plug them in to transfer content.

- I would like to see Power Nap's abilities expanded. Possible framework to let App Store Apps update while sleeping.

- Multi-person FaceTime video chats!!!
 

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
ProductName: Mac OS X

… brand name …

Whilst such things change, I don't foresee any change to the ProductName in the near future.

Code:
sh-3.2$ sw_vers
ProductName:	Mac OS X
ProductVersion:	10.9.5
BuildVersion:	13F1077
sh-3.2$

I should not expect consistency in all areas. Mac OS X 10.8 was UNIX 03 certified after the product was known as OS X; subsequent certifications (for 10.9 and for 10.10) were/are for product names that excluded the word 'Mac'; and so on.
 
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