I hate Macs

My boss just said we're moving to Macs. I don't know if he was serious, but it might really happen -- he's a bona-fide, born-again Mac zealot, after decades of using real computers (he even had his own, successful Windows-centric newsletter).

I joked that I'll switch to a Mac after they pry the PC from my cold, stiff fingers. In reality, I'll just go along with the program and lose about 30% in productivity.

I hate everything Apple -- starting with rock star wanna-be Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck and jeans on his big, lavish stage, telling the world every three weeks or so how Apple's newest overpriced gizmo will change the world. Snake oil, anyone? Snarky, sleazy sliminess, anyone?

Oh, how I loved it when he dropped the price of the iPhone after the first wave of slavish acolytes did their lemming-like duty and camped out overnight to boost his stock portfolio another few points. It's a testament to the blind obedience of Mac-boys everywhere that all the geniuses at Apple thought that move would go over OK. "Why would anyone complain? We're Apple!" But hey, good ol' Steve made it up to them -- just jump through a bunch of hoops and you can get credit at the Mac store.

And I hate the products themselves. Overpriced, overhyped and underwhelming. Oh, I forgot, they have such "elegant" design. They just "feel right." All the stubble-cheeked, pony-tailed, black-clad hipsters in the design department get it, but us dweeby drones doing the real work are just out of touch.

Gag me. I've always been a function-over-form guy. I don't give a rat's, uh, tail, if my computer is smooth and white and shiny. I just want to crank out the next project.

And don't give me those phony cost comparisons that try to make the case that, all things considered, Macs are cheaper than PCs in the long run. Just look at the damn price tags. Spin it any way you want, Macs and the other iCrap cost more.

And innovation? My god, take the blinders off. I remember sitting right here several years ago when Apple came out with the great new feature on their iPods called "shuffle." I couldn't believe it. Before then, you couldn't play your songs in random order? I had been doing that for years, literally. But then, I was into MP3s early on -- my first music player was a Rio PMP300, one of the very first on the market. I didn't have to wait for Apple to tell me they were cool. It took them a few years to catch on. Gee, where was the bleeding-edge innovation there?

And here's one for you: the new iMovie. Enough said. Too easy of a target. Wouldn't be iFair.

And what took them so long to jump on the Intel platform? That move (just the latest catch-up-to-everyone-else attempt) was another iShaft of their so-loyal camp followers. Didn't they just release shiny new iMacs or iBooks or iSomethings shortly before that, which instantly became so iYesterday and -- the biggest sin of all -- iUncool?

And, if I've got this right, iPhones use a slow, outmoded network, many iPod Touch players have defective video, and you have to send everything in to the shop just to change the freakin' batteries. And, in this age of openness and integration, iPhones are locked into one carrier, hackers are in an ongoing war to be open them up and use other applications, and songs from the proprietary iTunes can only be used on Apple's iJunk music players. Maybe I'm missing something here. What in the world is the attraction?

It's part of two proven usability concepts. One is Fitts' Law: the bigger something on the screen is, the faster it can be clicked on. The menu being on the top gives it what is known as "infinite height," making it effectively far bigger, and thus faster to click, than individual window menus.

Yeah...but putting a tool bar at the top of the screen doesn't make it any bigger. It just removes it from the window I'm actually trying to work on. So am I choosing the "File" menu for my current little window? Or the maximized (yeah, I know Macs haven't figured that out yet) window behind it? Or the other window I was just working on? Who knows?

The second is motor memory: your hand remembers where to click. The window always being on top means you can always get to it faster with motor memory. You use both of these concepts to click the Start button fast in Windows, but you lose both of these with window-based menus.

Very little that I want to do fast is contained in the Start menu. My hand is actually just a part of my body - it has no separate memory. What my brain does is connect with the window it is actually working on and attempt to manipulate that window directly - only with a Mac, the controls are completely disassociated with that window. I found that one of the most frustrating parts of attempting to adapt to a Mac.

And overall, it promotes your workspace as document-centric. If you're working on something, the menu for it is always right there at top. There's no wondering which menu to click out of the 12 currently showing. As far as the OS cares, whatever you're working on is what the OS is currently oriented towards.

Seriously? Wow, okay. So if I'm working on contact "A" and I want to save its file, I should naturally proceed to the top of the screen, where in the background I have spreadsheet "B" with all my contacts in it? I want to, let's say, print out the details for contact "A", but not my entire contact spreadsheet "B" - I should ignore window "A" and click "Print" from the menu on window "B" to print "A"? What would I do if I had actually wanted to print "B"?

The Mac interface makes a lot of sense to people who have used Macs for a long time. Just as the Windows interface makes a lot of sense to people who have used Windows for a long time. But you're overselling to try to get people who've used "W" to switch to "M" by telling them it's more "natural" - just as you'd probably be overselling by telling "M" people that "W" is more natural.

Yeah...but putting a tool bar at the top of the screen doesn't make it any bigger.

Yes, it does. Read up on Fitts' Law. Give me a big, high-res screen and put a big button about 1/3 from the top-right corner. Now put a one-pixel button at the top-right corner. Which one can I always consistently click faster starting from the bottom-left?

The answer is the one-pixel button. Because it is at the corner you can't overshoot it with your mouse either vertically or horizontally. You can fling your mouse to the corner as fast as you can and still hit it perfectly. The other button may be bigger, but you will slow down while approaching it to ensure you click on it and not overshoot it.

Thus, for purposes of clicking, the Apple menu button is the biggest, easiest to hit object on the screen although it's pretty small in pixels (unless you configure other corners for other features, then it's tied). The rest of the menu is tied with the Dock for the tallest items on the screen. Everything else, including if it had window-based menus, is smaller.

This isn't fuzzy, feel-good stuff, this is hard science.

So am I choosing the "File" menu for my current little window?

How about whatever you're working on right now, the window for it is always at the top. Very simple.

Or the maximized (yeah, I know Macs haven't figured that out yet) window behind it?

Try purposely haven't implemented it. OS X hasn't implemented Microsoft's unforgivable personalized menus either. I haven't started regularly hitting myself in the head with a hammer either. There's a good reason for all three of these: they suck.

Very little that I want to do fast is contained in the Start menu. My hand is actually just a part of my body - it has no separate memory.

Yes it does. Do you think 90 wpm touch typists actually think about the individual keys they're hitting? No, they think "k" and their middle finger automatically presses down. This is the same with your mouse movements.

I found that one of the most frustrating parts of attempting to adapt to a Mac.

Bad Windows habits are hard to overcome.

You're making it more difficult than it has to be, just like Windows does. If you're working on "A" then click File : Print. It's that simple. If you want to print "B" then go to contact "B" (click on the window or use Expose), then click File : Print.

The Mac interface makes a lot of sense to people who have used Macs for a long time. Just as the Windows interface makes a lot of sense to people who have used Windows for a long time.

Like I said, I've been using Windows for about 20 years and have mainly played with Macs in the past. After a week or so of consistent OS X use the Windows interface didn't make sense anymore and my motor memory switched to what was more natural, OS X, even though I still use Windows more.

LOL! I hope y’all aren’t selling that as a ‘’feature’’. Completely disassociating a menu from the window in which its program is functioning is arguably the worst part for anyone who chooses to go to the whole Mac ‘’thing’’. That, like the inability to maximize a window, is a weakness that y’all should minimize as best you can.

It is a feature... Fitts' Law in action. The menu bar at the top of the screen is infinitely high... because the pointer stops there... every time you get there... and you cannot miss it, you cannot overshoot it. No matter how much more you move the mouse, spin the scroll wheel, twirl the ball, your pointer will wind up where it belongs. You cannot do that on a menu bar attached to a floating window where you have a 1/4 inch or less of precision required to hit the right spot.

Windows' multiple menu bars, often duplicates of other windows' menu bars are extremely wasteful of useful screen acreage as well.

And the Mac maximizes a window sufficient to show the contents of the window... not merely to fill the screen. Why use up all your screen acreage to show a web page that only requires 9 inches... or less? Mac users are often more likely to be using multiple applications that need to share the screen to accomplish the task at hand... not filling the entire screen makes the Mac user more productive. I am often popping between multiple windows, dragging and dropping clips, pictures, files and do not need to keep trying to move oversized windows out of the way.

Yeah...but putting a tool bar at the top of the screen doesn't make it any bigger.

Uh, yes, it does. It makes it infinitely tall. No matter how much you move your mouse upwards you cannot reach the end of the menu bar at the top of the screen. You can keep moving your mouse all day and never reach the end of the menu bar and go beyond it... and the buttons that drop down the menus on the bar are also infinitely tall... so as long as you are in the area of the button, you click it without overshooting.

Let's use the Atari game Pong as an analogy... if your paddle on the screen were infinitely wide, you could never miss the blip... and the game would be pretty boring (which after a while it is anyway). But that is an example of Fitts' Law... you cannot miss that which is infinitely large. The windows in Windows do not have a hard edge that stops the mouse pointer from going any farther... it is easy to miss and then have to reverse motion to return to the target. That cannot happen with a menu bar with a hard stop.

My hand is actually just a part of my body - it has no separate memory. ;/i>

Try telling that to a concert pianist or a touch typist. There is such a thing as muscle memory... and it is well documented. Having a menu that is movable around the screen negates any advantage that muscle memory can give the user... it DOES indeed require the use of your brain to determine where to stop on a window menu. You have to literally look and control the function of your hand. With a menu designed with Fitts' Law in mind, your hand will wind up where it belongs... every time without your brain being distracted from what it needs to be doing to supervise your hand finding the menu.

Simple... click on window A and select print on the menu bar under "file"... then click on window B and select print from the menu bar under "file". Both print commands will be in exactly the same place and will require no hunting to find.

Shoot, I just realized I failed to respond to a dozen or so posts between you :-p

I understand Fitt’s law, but I don’t do things by rote memory - I think about what action I need to take before I take it. Thus it is much more reasonable for me to interact with a given window by clicking a menu connected with that window than it is for me to take a time-out to think about which window I currently have highlighted and then click on the top of the screen, well away from the window, to act on that window.

Similarly, I understand the Mac’s desire to get the user to accept its predefined preference for a window size, but sometimes I want to read a web page at something other than the Mac’s idea of the ‘’optimal’’ text-wrap width. Or I may want to watch a video at something other than the resolution defined for me as ideal. Windows lets me maximize those windows, and Mac doesn’t. I’m actually surprised this isn’t a bigger deal for the fanboys; Apple sells some huge high-res displays for a pretty penny and I wonder why the buyers don’t demand to be able to use that whole display automatically.

My bottom line is that Windows lets me use my computer as I want to, while Apple tells me to use my computer as they think best. As long as I’m given that option, I will continue to avoid Apple like the plague even if in some given situation their forced recommendation could be an improvement. I like to buy my computers, not rent them under a restrictive covenant.

It is painfully obvious that you have never really used a modern OS X Mac. So much effort and so much misinformation, Turbo. Let me help you learn what a Mac can really do and set the record straight.

I understand Fitt’s law, but I don’t do things by rote memory - I think about what action I need to take before I take it. Thus it is much more reasonable for me to interact with a given window by clicking a menu connected with that window than it is for me to take a time-out to think about which window I currently have highlighted and then click on the top of the screen, well away from the window, to act on that window.

No, unfortunately you don't, Turbopilot. Your own statement proves you don't. Rote memory has nothing to do with it. Being able to consistently and quickly hit a specified target without "rote" memory does. You don't have to memorize where the menu bar is... you can hit it every time even if you've never been to it before. I can hit the Mac menu bar and the dock with my eyes closed... every time. You cannot do that on Windows menu bars.

On Windows, no matter how many times you've been to the menu, you still have to adjust and re-adjust the position of your pointer to be sure you are on it... especially if you move it quickly. This has been studied to death... and trying to hit a menu in free floating window is not intuitive or easy to do... or as fast as hitting the infinitely tall menu bar at the edge of a screen. Trying to accurately hit a button or drop menu title on a free floating window menu requires the user to slow the mouse before reaching the window or making a series of small adjustments up and down to finally zero in on the location he needs. That interrupts the work flow.

Getting to a top screen menu bar is as easy as flipping the mouse toward it and then merely moving side to side to select the target menu... Hitting any corner is even easier and quicker. I use a track ball and I can merely spin the ball in the general direction of a corner and it will hit it every time.

As for figuring out which window will be affected by the menu bar at the top of the screen, you don't have to think about it... you are already WORKING in that window... just go to the menu bar and any action you take applies to the window you are currently working in.

Quit trying to make it harder than it is.

By-the-way, it isn't "Fitt's Law" - The guy who created it is named Paul Fitts, not Fitt.

Similarly, I understand the Mac’s desire to get the user to accept its predefined preference for a window size, but sometimes I want to read a web page at something other than the Mac’s idea of the ‘’optimal’’ text-wrap width

Excuse me but you are blathering nonsense. There is no "desire" about if from the Mac (or even the UI designers) ... the Mac merely opens the window to the size needed to view the material in its entirety or to the size of the screen, if the contents is too large to display. This approach avoids hiding other windows that may be necessary to the task at hand. The fact is that on most sites, text wrap width is set by the web page designer... not Apple. (FR is an exception, being primarily a text based service.) You can easily drag any Mac window to any size you desire. The maximize button on the Mac merely opens the page to the width needed to see the page completely. If you want it wider (with extra large white borders because the page is hard coded to that width), you can drag it further.

Or I may want to watch a video at something other than the resolution defined for me as ideal. Windows lets me maximize those windows, and Mac doesn’t.

You see: ignorance. That last sentence is just flat out wrong! Who told you that? You can watch a movie from any resolution in full screen... or any size at all. Sometimes I want to watch a video in a little tiny window in the corner of my screen... sometimes the subject matter is important enough or spectacular enough to watch watch it on the full extent of my 23 inch Cinema display... without borders. The Mac lets me decide... and I can do it at any size in between as well. Heck, with a Mac, I can hold down the Control Key and zoom into anything on the screen... so I can make a video that is playing on a website at a hard set size fill the entire screen if I want. That's really handy for some of those itty-bitty videos that play on some news sites.... or for looking at some tiny jpegs.

Do you really think that Macs would have been selected by the majority of graphic artists and video creators if they could not resize the windows they look at their creations on? Think again. They choose them because the can do that... and they choose Macs because they make them more productive... because of the incorporation of Fitts' Law into almost every aspect of the Mac's user interface.

Apple sells some huge high-res displays for a pretty penny and I wonder why the buyers don’t demand to be able to use that whole display automatically.

You want full screen? Simply click on view full screen... and even the borders go away.

I will continue to avoid Apple like the plague even if in some given situation their forced recommendation could be an improvement.

Your plague avoidance has left you completely ignorant of what Macs can and cannot do. Really, your telling Mac users such as myself and antirepublicrat (who also are fully conversant with all of MS Windows capabilities and failings - I make my income by working on Windows computers for quite a number of very satisfied client businesses) what a Mac can and cannot do is laughable... if it wasn't so sad. When you sit here and tell us that we cannot do things we are doing every day, you just display an your abysmal ignorance and lack of knowledge about the Mac and its use. Ignorance is curable, Turbo.

Wow, so much, I can only add a little.

When I was talking about memory, I wasn't talking about your active, conscious memory. I was talking about how your nervous system has been conditioned to respond by all the times you've used it so far. It's basically learned reflex.

If you think about it, you experience this all the time in your daily life. Think of the pedals in a car. I don't think about hitting the clutch, I don't look for the position of the clutch -- I just press it. My body has not only memorized its location, but its sequence and use in relation to shifting. Could you imagine what it would be like if, as you were driving, the location of the pedals kept switching around? Driving would be very difficult as you have to consciously think of the location of each pedal before pressing it.

"I think about what action I need to take before I take it." That's fine. You've defined a Think-Action sequence. Fitts' law and motor memory combine to make the Action part of that sequence faster.

That's not to say Apple uses all of these perfectly. For example, motor memory for dragging things to the trash is somewhat degraded since the trash can moves from side to side a bit depending on what's on the Dock. OTOH, it never strays far, and does give you a big visual indicator that you've hit it.

Woah, woah. I never claimed to be an OSX expert. I have used that operating system for a total lifetime period of about one hour (unless that's what those Macs that came in the different color translucent cases - were those the iMacs? - used, but that must have been almost six years ago so I don't count it). My info comes strictly from a) my own personal experiences in that very brief time and b) the statements I read, from pro-Mac people, probably about 75% of which were things that were posted here on FR.

First, when I talk about maximizing windows, I mean doing it automatically - I am aware that you can manually resize windows on Macs just as on PCs. But if you're citing mathematical theorems to show how a Mac can save you hundredths of a second in clicking in a menu, you can't be expecting a user to drag a window exactly to the upper left corner, then drag the other corner of the window down precisely to the lower right of the screen. That would take a relative eternity (and I'm still not sure it would snap the window to the sides of the screen - it would not do so on a PC).

There is no "desire" about if from the Mac (or even the UI designers) ... the Mac merely opens the window to the size needed to view the material in its entirety or to the size of the screen, if the contents is too large to display.

I happen to have 14 tabs open right now, and having just checked, seven of them use the full screen size. Since half the things I'm doing use the full screen, I'd rather just be able to maximize the window than have the window resize itself based on what tab I'm viewing. Likewise, I just checked my most frequently used programs list - I run almost all of them maximized, with the exceptions being things such as Folding@Home (which runs minimized) and SlingPlayer (lets me watch my home TV over the Internet - I manually adjust the size of the window depending on my bandwidth). I wouldn't want, for example, Word to shrink to the middle of the screen and expose whatever is behind it just because I was at a zoom level that left some space on either side of the page. From what I have been told, the Mac would make me manually resize the window to cover the whole screen, whereas on my PC I can click the "Maximize" button and immediately use 100% of my screen.

You can watch a movie from any resolution in full screen... or any size at all.

Then I was mistaken, based on what I had been told. When I mentioned that I couldn't figure out how to maximize a window, no one ever replied that some programs let you do so, or that you can make manual adjustments - the replies were always along the lines of how foolish it was for anyone ever to want to maximize a window and how much better it is not to maximize your windows. That's why I assumed you could not in fact maximize any window; this is the first time I've seen it stated that some programs (like the video player) apparently do let you maximize automatically. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had written a little app to change the behavior of the Mac maximize button. If you found a link to such software, you could end the entire discussion immediately by showing that you can make a Mac maximize its windows. Instead, the discussion is always about how much better it is that the Mac won't let you (for some programs, but not others, apparently).

Think of the pedals in a car.

I think this example makes my point. The pedals in a car are always in the same relative position, clutch-brake-gas, below and forward of the steering wheel, under the dash. This is like how the menu bar on Windows is always at the top of a window, oriented left-to-right, File-Edit-View, etc.

But the Mac menu bar always has the same absolute position at the top of the screen, regardless of where the window is. This would be like always having the pedals exactly 18 inches above the road and 3 feet behind the front bumper on every car, even though this would put them at chest level in a low sports car and underneath the floorboard in a big truck.

Fitts' Law (with my apologies to Dr. Fitts for getting his name wrong before) is fine for describing the action that you want to take. Since I can already hit a menu bar in less than a second, I don't see a big time savings, but I will accept that there is some. But in my opinion, it's massively outweighed by having to think about where the menu bar is when it's not related to the window. This seems to me to be especially true when you may have a number of layered windows, some of which may or may not be covered at all by parts of other windows.

Sooner or later, I'm sure you would learn it and it would be a wash. But this is my point: for some people (such as myself) it is a preference to have the menus attached to the windows. It makes more sense to me to physically connect menus with the windows they manipulate. It takes me longer to think about finding a menu physically separate from the window, even though according to math I can move my cursor to it faster after I have thought about it. Likewise, I prefer to have most of the windows that I use maximized. I prefer not to have a bunch of irrelevant junk from other windows cluttering up my screen when I'm working in a different program. Are these the only acceptable preferences? No. But they are my preferences, and Windows indulges them while OSX apparently does not. I can be corrected if I have facts wrong, as with the media player. But I somewhat resent the idea that I need my preferences corrected to be in line with those of the OSX designers.

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