Mac OS X Annoyances: There's still room for improvement in this "must have" upgrade

Now that we've had time to test out the many new features of Mac OS X (update: and the subsequent 10.1.x and 10.2.x updates), there are a few issues we haven't seen mentioned elsewhere that deserve some discussion.

1. Internet Explorer 5.1 didn't understand URLs with capital letters. Every other major web browser does. For example, IE for OS X didn't access http://www.ItNetCentral.com, but http://www.itnetcentral.com worked fine. (Update: This flaw is fixed in the IE 5.2 release.)

2. The DHCP problem noted in our previous OS X tests persisted through most of the 10.1.x updates, but finally seemed to be fixed in 10.2. Interestingly, this problem cropped up rather frequently on a dual 500 MHz G4 Tower, but has never once struck an older 7300 running OS X via UnSupported UtilityX, or its successor, XPostFacto. This clearly suggests there may be a BIOS issue at least partly responsible. On our affected system, we had to use the Terminal commands sudo ipconfig set en0 BOOTP followed by sudo ipconfig set en0 DHCP to force the system's dynamic host configuration protocol to be reset. Not everyone has this problem, but macwindows.com notes numerous others reporting this glitch. Timothy Dove notes that the fastest fix he's found for the problem is to open a terminal window and type:

• sudo ipconfig set en0 BOOTP <return>
• sudo ipconfig set en0 DHCP <return>

This fixed the problem on our system, as well. (Users with a static IP address can type either one of the above commands followed by:

• sudo ipconfig set en0 MANUAL <ip address> <subnet mask> <return>

Note that, as always, Unix commands are case-sensitive.

Many discussions of this extremely common problem are ongoing in the forums at macfixit.com

3. The Dock doesn't conform to Fitts' Law. There's a dead spot below the trash bin where clicking does absolutely nothing. As the Dock is now corner-mounted by default, this is the same problem Mac OS 9 users used to criticize Windows about -- Windows 98 had a three-pixel dead spot in the corner below the Start button where clicking did nothing. Ironically, Microsoft has fixed this issue in Windows XP, while Apple has introduced the flaw into the Mac OS. There are a number of other issues that affect its usability, too. See this article on the usability of OS X for additional details.

4. The new "Turn off Text Smoothing" function in the General Control Panel is a nice addition, but there aren't enough options -- 8, 9, 10 and 12 are the only point sizes available. The largest size listed is 12. This turns off anti-aliasing in the smallest test sizes listed in the Control Panels, but why not let users choose any limit they want? Applelust.com has some screenshots illustrating the problem.

5. We encountered strange mouse behavior under OS X 10.1 we hadn't seen before - namely, the pointer rapidly moving from buttons in the QuickLaunch bar in IE to the Trash. (Maybe 10.1 was trying to tell us something?) This problem seems to primarily affect systems running Apple's new "Pro" optical mouse. We've never seen it when an opto-mechanical mouse is connected. But, using Apple's new mouse, spurious mouse movements when clicking on buttons seem unnervingly common, even when using a mousepad. (Erratic movements happened twice while installing the Mac OS 9.2.1 update required for Classic environment functionality under 10.1, for example.) We've witnessed this problem on both CRT iMacs and G4 towers. Interestingly, this issue, too, has never affected our "unsupported" PowerMac 7300, while running OS X. This, too, seems to be fixed in recent Mac OS X releases.

(Update: an Apr. 4 report by Aric Nicholson at Macintouch.com states: "Sometimes my Apple optical mouse skips because of the surface it's on. Even the slightest bit of reflectivity or shine or an irregular surface can make it occasionally 'flip out.' Mine is so sensitive it picks up the cloth fibers of my mouse pad surface, causing it to be 'jumpy.' So I created a new one made from a smooth piece of black mount board, and have had no 'jumpiness' since.")

6. Several icons previously placed into our Dock were replaced by question marks. One of these items was an alias to an iDisk volume -- it still worked, yet the icon was missing. The others didn't do anything. This behavior is inconsistent at best. Another puzzler: The Internet Explorer 5.1 icon was replaced by a question mark, although IE was still present on the system.

7. System performance is higher than it was in 10.0 overall -- though still far slower than Mac OS 9 in many regards. Copying a large folder with many files is slower than it was under Mac OS 10.0.04 -- evidence, apparently, of a change in the default file-copy memory buffer allocation.

8. DVD playback quality is exceptional -- the video playback is significantly smoother than we've seen in any previous Mac OS version. However, attempting to restart the system in Mac OS 9.2.1 while playing a DVD in 10.1 caused OS X to hang and, on our test system, pressing the power button to clear the error condition caused only an odd "space invaders" sound to emanate from the system speaker -- neither Mac OS X nor Mac OS 9.2.1 would boot following a restart. Pressing the Option key to bring up the dual-boot menu allowed us to reboot the system successfully. However, we were alarmed to discover that Mac OS 9.2.1, on our system with an extra ATI RADEON PCI video card, displayed an error dialog warning us that "DVDVideoGadget -- DriveIsDVDDrive could not be found." Fortunately, the DVD video and audio still played. Interestingly, the Mac hangs completely if the DVD disc is left in the drive when the system is set to boot OS X 10.1 and restarted.

9. DVD playback is not supported under OS X at all on B&W G3 Macs, or on any system without a built-in DVD drive. Apple's Knowledgebase article #106470 states "Other computers with DVD-ROM drives have hardware decoders, which DVD Player 3.0 does not work with. To play a DVD-Video disc on these computers, restart the computer using Mac OS 9." That's pretty weak, considering its earlier statements that OS X would be supported on these G3 models.

10. iDisk is less secure. Apple violates the WebDAV specification and sends your password in a way that makes it is easy for hackers to discover. There is a workaround: use AFP to access the iDisk (e.g., afp://idisk.mac.com). MacCentral has details; MacObserver and OpenDoor Networks provide further information.

Incidentally, recent versions of Windows can access iDisk volumes, too. Just type the name (e.g., http://idisk.mac.com/<your account name>/) into the Windows "Add Network Place" wizard and type the password when prompted. Unlike the Mac, Windows sends the WebDAV password securely. Once the volume is mounted, drag-and-drop operation of the "virtual drive" is similar to the way it works on the Mac.)

11. Microsoft has confirmed an issue we've been following for a few months now, in which applications set to start up at login time sometimes hang the machine. Matthew Centurion of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, speaking to MacInTouch, stated,  "Some of our customers have experienced an issue where opening an Office v.X application will cause the Application Icon to start bouncing in the Dock, but will never successfully finish launching. Sometimes a restart is required. Many have identified this to be an issue with Carbon applications set to automatically start-up at log-in. Their workaround is to disable all applications in the Automatically Start-Up at Login list." This, he says, seems to be an issue with OS X and not just Office v.X. See the Office X reader report at MacInTouch for discussion of this issue. In what may be a related issue, we've seen quite a few reports of "the spinning OS X ball of death" that suggest this issue may affect manually launched applications as well.

12. We've seen cases where adding an external SCSI hard drive (even when using a SCSI card such as the Orange Micro 906F that requires no additional software) to a Mac running OS 9.2 will crash the Startup Disk control panel before the option to set the boot option to OS X 10.1 can be selected. Turning off the external drive solves the problem. A similar issue affects older Macs running Unsupported UtilityX (AKA XPostFacto) when a SCSI CD writer is connected but, oddly, only if the drive contains a CD. (Wierd!)

13. Optimizing Mac OS X updates takes forever. This process, which is technically known as "prebinding," is required after installing many updates. Some, such as the 10-19 Security update, are so slow, you might think your Mac has frozen.

14. Mac OS X versions prior to 10.2.2 shipped without a convenient backup utility (<ditto> notwithstanding). Fortunately, open source software developers came to the rescue. We prefer Mike Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner. This freeware utility was created with AppleScript Studio. It encapsulates ditto and will assist you in cloning your startup disk. It has been updated several times and is now able to clone from a non-startup drive. It's currently our recommended method of backing up OS X.

Some users prefer Howard Oakley's hfspax. It, too, is free. A shareware tool capable of copying a complete OS X volume is Randall Voth's Synk. On the commercial end, FWB offers BackUp ToolKit for OS X and says Version 3.0.4r1 or newer can copy or restore a complete Mac OS X volume. However, this version does not support removable media and is thus best suited for internal drive-to-drive backups only. A better choice is Synchronize! Pro, a US$99 app from Qdea.

MacFixIt notes other ways of making a bootable backup of an OS X volume. Mike Bombich has created a comprehensive guide to the principles of backing up/cloning a Mac OS X disk. It has been recently updated with some important information especially about using hfspax to backup an entire volume and restore it to yield a bootable system.

15. Mac OS X versions prior to 10.2 had no SMB-compatible resource discovery mechanism. Thus, there was no built-in way to pull up a panel similar to the AppleShare browser function in OS 9's Chooser and browse for shared folders on Windows PCs networked via TCP/IP -- you have to know the explicit name of the machine (or its IP address) and the exact name of the shared resource to which you are trying to connect. Apple's instructions on how to connect to a Windows network via the SMB/CIFS protocol built into Mac OS X didn't work for us. However, as outlined in our article PC to Mac and Back, elsewhere on this site, we're not alone. As it turned out, our problems were caused by a firewall (BlackIce, on our test machine) running on the Windows side. Also, be sure that you get the SharedFolder name correct. For example, to connect to the default share on a machine running Windows XP, the syntax would be: smb://ServerName/SharedDocs (i.e., smb://ServerName/FolderName).

16. Strangely, some hard drives formatted with Hard Disk Toolkit or other third party software (SilverLining, Anubis CharisMac, et al) can be accessed from Mac OS 9, but not Mac OS X, and in some cases it's the other way 'round. (We partitioned and formatted a drive with CharisMac, but had to update the driver with HDT 4.52 in order to make the partitions visible under OS 9. Generally, troublesome drives are most effectively made OS X friendly by initializing them with a Mac OS 9-compatible utility (Drive Setup, HDT, etc.) first, then booting into OS X and seeing if OS X can access them (and, if so, reinitialize them) with Disk Utility.

17. Apple's Developer Tools are installed by default on new Macs at /Applications/Installers/Developer Tools. However, if you wipe the disk (for example, to repartition the drive) and reinstall OS X, you'll lose them. The solution is to restore your system and applications from the software restore CDs.

18. There's no floppy disk support for Macs such as the Beige G3 and older models running OS X via XPostFacto or via a third-party add-on drive. Fortunately, a project at http://www.darwin-development.org/floppy/ aims to address this problem. The current driver doesn't work very well (if at all), but there's hope....

19. One of the most obvious differentiators between Macs and PCs is their performance in various tasks -- and the advantage is not, as those "twice as fast" Mac ads would have you believe, squarely in Apple's court. Indeed, a recent article in Wired News entitled "Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly?" notes that the sluggish graphical user interface of OS X makes an $1800 iMac surf the Web more slowly than an older $400 PC running Windows -- and this is tangibly obvious by even the most casual observer. Pages on average take as least twice as long to be displayed, even on such unmatched platforms. Acknowledging the problem, an Apple spokesperson euphemistically states "We are merely at the beginning of the performance opportunities in Mac OS X."

20. Moving files from their default locations can cause problems and sometimes isn't possible at all, at least without fairly advanced hacking. This is absolutely un-Mac-like behavior. Indeed, the installer has other quirks, too. MacNightOwl.com offers details.

21. Jaguar has its share of disturbing tendencies, too. Applelust.com has details.

Conclusion
The above-noted issues notwithstanding, the 10.2.x upgrades are definitely in the "must have" category for owners of the original 10.0 or 10.1.x releases. At the very minimum, 10.1.4 with the relevant security updates is the baseline system if you have a SCSI CD-writer or other device for which it adds support.

For Further Reading
(external links are beyond our control)

• "All Right, So Mac OS X 10.1 Isn't Perfect" The Mac Night Owl
• "What's New In Mac OS X 10.1?" The Mac Observer
• "Sweet Mac OS X Dreams" Mac Write
• "Ten Mac OS X Loose Ends" Mac Write
• Mac OS X Eighty Bug Round-Up insanely-great.com
• State Of The OS: 10.1.2 - insanely-great.com
• "Apple exec refused 'Kill Dock' bribe The Register
• "Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly?" Wired News

Thanks to Apple Canada for the loan of some of the equipment used in our tests.