The little (bad) things about Mountain Lion

[iko1234]

So as always I'm excited to check out a new version of an OS. However with Mountain Lion I am really underwhelmed. I find the new features kind of a "meh", but the little changes all over the OS are a big "oh hell no!!".

I don't really care about it being integrated with FB or twitter as I'm happy to use these services in the browser, so that's a moot point. And notification center is kind of useless in the grand scheme of things. So while I appreciate the new design and UI elements and iCloud integration, here are some little changes I noticed that I really disliked:

- Spotlight now preserves rich text, as do all other OS fields. Spotlight always had a secondary function for me: to quickly copy & paste with cleared formatting. I would quickly paste my rich text into spot light and copy it out of there just the text, no formatting. Not happy.

- Shortcut mess. The 'command+shift+s' shortcut is, in most applications has been "save as". Now it's "duplicate"? Maybe I'm stupid but I don't quite get "duplicate" or is it the same thing as 'save as' and they just renamed it? many other shortcuts have been seemingly haphazardly re-arranged. The convention has been to have 'command+shift+[folder shortcut]' in dialogue boxes (like 'command+shift+a' for applications folder), now for some things it's that, and for others (like desktop) it's just 'command+d'.

- Dialogue box buttons inaccessible via keyboard. Being able to interact with dialogue boxes via keyboard is a huge time saver. I hate that I either have to tab through them now (after enabling full keyboard access in keyboard settings), or go back to the trackpad just to click one button... "command+d" used to mean "don't save".

- Can't drag into dialogue boxes. If you try and drag a file into a dialogue box to select it, this no longer works. Please tell me this is a bug...

- Inconsistent gestures So this is something I would have hoped they fixed in ML, but why do two-finger swipes work in Safari and other apps, but not in Finder? Having to click the awkward command + [ or ] shortcuts is fine if you habituated yourself into it like me, but swiping would have been more intuitive.

- Inconsistent closing behaviour. If I want to quit text-edit or safari or some other apps it does the auto-save state feature. In other cases it prompts you with the "save as" dialogue box. Why is behaviour so inconsistent?

- iCloud is still a Pandora's box and not Dropbox. I love the idea of iCloud, I hate the idea of having to go to a settings panel with 10 clicks to see what files are stored on my iCloud folder. Why can't it just be a synced folder in Finder (exactly like dropbox) with a favourite along the left, where I can cleanly and simply view my files? I get that it might be a nudge into a world with app-centric file management like in iOS, but the main point is that file management should be a consistent experience in a file manager for all files on my machine. I don't want to have to re-learn how to manage files for each app that I use. Imagine having to use iPhoto to manage your files. * shrugs* The whole point is that my machine is NOT an iPad, and I don't want it to be simplified and abstracted to the point of no return.

- Gmail integration is worse than in Lion. I don't get why to this day they can't get Gmail integration right. Address book doesn't sync w/ gmail contacts in ML even when you tell it to in Address Book settings. Adding Gmail in mail still has the wrong settings for proper inbox integration under the mailbox behaviours section. I don't want to use iCloud for mail and contacts and I hate that they're quietly nudging us to do it.

- Apple ID mess. My original Apple ID was my gmail address. Great, but being forced to now also get a .me address for stupid things like syncing notes, which throws everything else (like purchased apps in app store) off is a nightmare. I never know which Apple ID to sign into. In iCloud, I'm the me.com, in app store, i'm @gmail.com. And ML does not make this process any easier, and I really wish it did.

- Scrollbars temporarily growing ugliness. This is a very personal bias, but you know that wonderful ML feature when you hover over a scrollbar with mouse and it "grows" so you can drag it? Looks really ugly to me the way they did it.

Sorry, really badly wanted to rant about this.

 

[Simplicated]

Didn't know about the Spotlight preserving rich text thing! Now we have to open TextEdit, press Command-Shift-T to get into text-only mode then copy again..

Ah why can't we select files in dialogue boxes anymore? It's one of the features of OS X that is far superior than Windows

On Apple ID, you actually could use @gmail.com as your iCloud account. I don't know what happened when you set up iCloud?

 

[iko1234]

icloud

Yep I know, like I said I have gmail as my Apple ID. The problem is that a single feature "syncing notes" does not work with iOS devices unless you're signed into iCloud with a .me address. So my whole point of getting a .me was to get the notes working, which throws everything else off.

 

[Cougarcat]

- Spotlight now preserves rich text, as do all other OS fields. Spotlight always had a secondary function for me: to quickly copy & paste with cleared formatting. I would quickly paste my rich text into spot light and copy it out of there just the text, no formatting. Not happy.

This may or may not work for you depending on your use case, but what I do in Lion is I flip the "Paste" and "Paste and Match Style" commands in my word processing apps via Keyboard Shortcuts, since I almost always want to match the formatting of the document I'm pasting into.

- Inconsistent closing behaviour. If I want to quit text-edit or safari or some other apps it does the auto-save state feature. In other cases it prompts you with the "save as" dialogue box. Why is behaviour so inconsistent?

Developers have to enable autosave functionality. Unless you are talking about Apple apps, in which case it sounds like a bug?

- iCloud is still a Pandora's box and not Dropbox. I love the idea of iCloud, I hate the idea of having to go to a settings panel with 10 clicks to see what files are stored on my iCloud folder. Why can't it just be a synced folder in Finder (exactly like dropbox) with a favourite along the left, where I can cleanly and simply view my files? I get that it might be a nudge into a world with app-centric file management like in iOS,

You answered your own question there. I don't like it either, but that's why Dropbox still exists.

- Apple ID mess. My original Apple ID was my gmail address. Great, but being forced to now also get a .me address for stupid things like syncing notes, which throws everything else (like purchased apps in app store) off is a nightmare.

Syncing notes works fine for me in Lion/iOS with my gmail address. Definitely sounds like a bug, I don't see why they'd change it in ML.

 

[phobox]

Ok Im going to admit that I dont understand the issues people are having with Apple ID's and iCloud. I keep reading that people have ended up with multiple accounts, one with their usual Apple ID address and one with their iCloud address etc and how confusing it all is. This is the bit I dont get. When you sign up for iCloud you are given the option to use your current Apple ID. Thats exactly what I did when I signed up and so I use the Apple ID I've always had to sign into everything, all works fine. Why do people end up with multiple accounts? Unless they arent paying attention during the sign up process, I fail to see how this happens.

 

[Simplicated]

Ok Im going to admit that I dont understand the issues people are having with Apple ID's and iCloud. I keep reading that people have ended up with multiple accounts, one with their usual Apple ID address and one with their iCloud address etc and how confusing it all is. This is the bit I dont get. When you sign up for iCloud you are given the option to use your current Apple ID. Thats exactly what I did when I signed up and so I use the Apple ID I've always had to sign into everything, all works fine. Why do people end up with multiple accounts? Unless they arent paying attention during the sign up process, I fail to see how this happens.

Well I believe OP's rationale behind having another @me.com address is valid. Notes syncing require an @me.com Apple ID to work.

 

[obitow]

- Apple ID mess. My original Apple ID was my gmail address. Great, but being forced to now also get a .me address for stupid things like syncing notes, which throws everything else (like purchased apps in app store) off is a nightmare. I never know which Apple ID to sign into. In iCloud, I'm the me.com, in app store, i'm @gmail.com. And ML does not make this process any easier, and I really wish it did.

You can use anyone. They are the same Apple ID. The thing about the @me.com is because to sync notes (and iCloud mails), you need an IMAP account. But you could just use Gmail for that. Works fine, but without push.

 

[westonm]

cmd-delete is "don't save" in dialogs now.

 

[fhall1]

Yep I know, like I said I have gmail as my Apple ID. The problem is that a single feature "syncing notes" does not work with iOS devices unless you're signed into iCloud with a .me address. So my whole point of getting a .me was to get the notes working, which throws everything else off.

I'm not even running ML and to get notes syncing between my iPhone and iPad using iCloud it made me set up a .me address....it would not use my apple ID

 

[parlour]

You can use anyone. They are the same Apple ID. The thing about the @me.com is because to sync notes (and iCloud mails), you need an IMAP account. But you could just use Gmail for that. Works fine, but without push.

I can do everything with my @gmail.com Apple ID. Syncing notes, syncing everything, never had any problems. I also have a @me.com email address but that one is connected to my Apple ID. I have a single @gmail.com Apple ID and never had any problems with it.

 

[OS X Dude]

I can do everything with my @gmail.com Apple ID. Syncing notes, syncing everything, never had any problems. I also have a @me.com email address but that one is connected to my Apple ID. I have a single @gmail.com Apple ID and never had any problems with it.

I'm the same - my Gmail address allows me to sync notes.

 

[ErikGrim]

- Can't drag into dialogue boxes. If you try and drag a file into a dialogue box to select it, this no longer works. Please tell me this is a bug....

That was a bug in DP1. Has worked fine (and as expected ever since).

 

[km83]

2 things: Removing the time remaining from the battery. I would kill to get this back.

And what is the point of notifications centre if the apps have to be running as well...

 

[haravikk]

And what is the point of notifications centre if the apps have to be running as well...

Especially when Apple now wants apps to support auto-termination, while sandboxing makes the use of daemon processes annoying at best…

 

[dcorban]

- Spotlight now preserves rich text, as do all other OS fields. Spotlight always had a secondary function for me: to quickly copy & paste with cleared formatting. I would quickly paste my rich text into spot light and copy it out of there just the text, no formatting. Not happy.

Why not just use shift-option-command-v and skip all that Spotlight voodoo? That's the default, but I assume you can change it to whatever key combination you wish.

 

[Cougarcat]

2 things: Removing the time remaining from the battery. I would kill to get this back.

iStat Menus.

 

[kristoffer4]

iStat Menus.

I don't want a app just for that when the OS did it on it's own before.

 

[mrblack927]

- Inconsistent gestures So this is something I would have hoped they fixed in ML, but why do two-finger swipes work in Safari and other apps, but not in Finder? Having to click the awkward command + [ or ] shortcuts is fine if you habituated yourself into it like me, but swiping would have been more intuitive.

I always used 3-fingers for navigation, 4-fingers for spaces, which I realize isn't the default but imo it makes a lot of sense:

1 finger: move pointer
2 finger: scroll
3 finger: navigate
4 finger: spaces

And this makes the behavior consistent between Safari and Finder (in both apps, swiping 3 fingers to the left will trigger the "back" command). AND it's consistent with iPad gestures (4 fingers changes apps, like spaces). I never understood why Apple didn't make this the default, but to change it just go to trackpad settings in the system prefs and change 3 fingers to "4", 2 to "3".

 

[talmy]

- Shortcut mess. The 'command+shift+s' shortcut is, in most applications has been "save as". Now it's "duplicate"? Maybe I'm stupid but I don't quite get "duplicate" or is it the same thing as 'save as' and they just renamed it?

I think you are behind the times. Lion make the change from Save-as to Duplicate. And they are not the same (many discussions about this here a year ago). ML gives back Save-as as option-command-shift-s.

2 things: Removing the time remaining from the battery. I would kill to get this back.

And what is the point of notifications centre if the apps have to be running as well...

Click on the dock icon to see the remaining time. However the remaining time is and has always been bogus because it assumes exactly the same system utilization as you are doing at the time you look at the remaining time! Percentage is a much better measure, and you can still display that all the time.

The new paradigm is to not shut down applications. Lion and later shut down and restarts applications that are idle as needed. I typically have 20-30 apps at a time "running". Also if you use command-W to close a window rather than command-Q to quit you get rid of the annoying problem of apps starting up on old documents.