2005 August | The Mac Night Owl

Archive for August, 2005

The Tiger Report: Why Does Mac OS X Need Application Uninstallers?

Saturday, August 20th, 2005

I used to laugh at Windows users. If you’re not acquainted with the other side of the computing world, maybe you don’t realize there’s an Add/Remove Control Panel that does precisely what the title signifies. There’s good reason to require a special method to remove an application in the Windows environment, because it normally doesn’t consist of just a single file, but many strewn throughout various spots of the operating system. A power user can sort things out, of course, but normal people would rather let it happen in a more orderly fashion, with an uninstaller that would, assuming it worked, delete all vestiges of that application and its support files. Sound familiar?

The situation on this side of the tracks was once entirely different. Where you could once ditch a Mac application simply by tossing away a folder and a few preference files, things are no longer so simple. The Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X throw all illusions of simplicity out the window. Multiple Library folders, Preferences folders, kernel extensions, and all the rest combine to make the process of getting rid of some applications far more difficult. Some even add Uninstall functions in their Installer applications, or provide a separate utility for that purpose and that’s a blessing.

At the same time, you wonder if Apple did all it could to tame Unix for desktop use. Sure, it comes across, on the surface at least, as just a prettier Mac OS, but that’s just a clever illusion, and a little exploration of the contents of your hard drive will reveal a ming-boggling level of complexity, at least to the average user. And I haven’t even covered those dreaded invisible files. You can’t just poke around anymore with a feeling of confidence that it is extremely difficult to get into real trouble, although the need to enter your password will reduce some of the potential catastrophic effects of putting things in the wrong place.

But sometimes I think that, in the quest to pile on vast numbers of new features with every Mac OS X release, Apple has forgotten the impact on regular folks who use Macs. Things are supposed to just work, but you end up doing far too much manual labor to help things along.

Now I suppose it’s a sign of the times. The word simple has a far different meaning in this day and age. A single-button mouse, for example, is out of style, you feel you need a degree in electronics to master a typical high definition TV or a car with a navigation system. Just turning things on and getting on with your business isn’t enough anymore. Even selecting a radio or TV broadcast is no longer easy. With over 130 stations on your satellite radio, more than 300 on your cable or satellite TV, what will you miss if you only stick with one station? Or maybe you just switch stations over and over again in frustration, not finding anything worth more than a moment of your attention.

Well, I at least have hopes you’ll discover my radio show among the clutter and listen for a while.

Perhaps job number one for Apple Computer is to now strive to make Mac OS X simple. That may be an impossible task, but it may also be almost impossible to find 200 more great features for Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Maybe it’s time to reorganize the ungainly beast from the ground up, find a better way to manage those tens of thousands of system files so you can sort things out without taking an advanced course in Unix.

Would it be, for example, too much to ask to restore the ability to simply copy your operating system from one drive to another simply by dragging and dropping a few folders? Do you remember how it used to be, when you wanted to “clone” a hard drive under the Classic Mac OS? You didn’t need special software with the powers to see that invisible spectrum of files that Apple has deigned to hide from your prying eyes.

No, I am not just an aging hippy trying to regain my youth, return to a time when life wasn’t so chaotic. Today, we have vastly more powerful gadgets at our beck and call. Virtually every computer on our desktops these days is a supercomputer, with powers and abilities to do far more than launch Microsoft Word and run a spelling checker. Apple Computer has prospered because its designers had the amazing ability to make the complicated seem simple, and certainly the iPod epitomizes that concept. That’s why competing music players don’t stand a chance.

Perhaps it’s high time for Apple to try to get back to its roots with the Mac OS. No, I don’t expect you to be able to store a bootable operating system and all the software you need on a single removable disc. But would it be too much to ask that you not be forced to deal with an obscenely complicated operating system, command line tools and other annoyances when things go wrong?

My friend John Rizzo, proprietor of MacWindows, has written a neat little book, “Mac Annoyances,” subtitled, “How to Fix the Most ANNOYING Things About Your Mac.”

Unfortunately, the most annoying thing about today’s Mac is the Mac OS itself.

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A Warning to Apple Computer: First Impressions Count

Saturday, August 20th, 2005

Imagine you heard lots of hype about a certain new product, you were tempted, and finally you took the plunge. You brought one into your home or office, or perhaps both. And then you sat back, satisfied that you’d made the right decision, at least for a short while. Then things changed. You encountered unexpected troubles, and some were not amenable to easy solution. Within a short time, you came to regret your decision.

Sound familiar? Well, if you’re a dedicated Mac user, no doubt you’ve told your friends and family members about your enlightenment. Every time you hear about a new Windows virus, such as the worms that have affected many Windows 2000 users in recent days, you may feel emboldened that you don’t have to put up with such grief. That assumes, of course, that your office isn’t still using Windows 2000 and, if they are, failed to install a recent Microsoft patch to protect against the problem simply because such updates sometimes create more problems than they solve.

But aren’t Macs the most reliable personal computers on the planet? Isn’t Apple’s tech support first rate? At least that’s what the reader surveys in recent years by Consumer Reports magazine show. But being the best doesn’t mean perfection has been achieved or can be achieved. And when troubles arise, you feel just as tempted to toss your Mac into the trash as the frustrated Windows user inundated with festering malware.

So what am I getting at here?

Well, in recent days, I’ve read troubling reports about the most recent Mac OS X security update. Now the intent of the update is certainly laudable. No operating system is perfect, and you want to make sure holes in the system are closed before they can be exploited by Internet vandals. But something appears to be wrong with this particular update. There are reports of startup problems, and 64-bit applications, such as Wolfram’s Mathematica 5.2, won’t work on a Power Mac G5. There is, fortunately, a newly released version 1.1 of the update that addresses this problem. Oh well, better late than never.

No doubt Apple will get it right the second time out, but how could it miss such obvious problems? Mathematica is a showpiece Mac application. Apple used it to demonstrate to developers the ease of converting applications into Universal Binaries, to run on both PowerPC and Intel processors. Surely they tested the this application when they prepared that security update. How could it be otherwise?

All right, Apple can be forgiven for one transgression of this sort. In recent years, though, there have been other problems, some more troubling than a malformed software update. Take that extended repair program involving a large number if iBooks manufactured between May 2001 and October 2003. If you experience a number of bizarre video symptoms, you are eligible for free logic board replacement. Now maybe you can understand a few week’s production of defective logic boards, but over two years worth?

Update: And there’s more. A survey of readers of Ric Ford’s Macintouch site reveals a surprisingly large number of hardware failures involving first generation iMac G5’s. In fact, the original 20-inch iMac G5 had a 31% failure rate. Most problems involved the power supply and the CPU. This is, of course, a random survey, and it’s also true that people with problems are more apt to tell about them than people who have flawless experiences. But imagine how many first timers are among the owners of those iMacs? Sure, the problems aren’t hard to fix. Unlike most other Macs out there, this particular product line is relatively easy to repair. In fact, you can do it yourself if you are handy with a screwdriver, and obtain the proper replacement kit from Apple. It’s also true that the second generation iMac G5 seems far more reliable, so Apple clearly made some changes along the way. At the same time, a warranty extension program for the original generation product line is now in place to address video and power supply issues.

I don’t want to be an alarmist. Sometimes it takes months for failure-prone components to actually malfunction. Last minute changes from a supplier or on a production line could cause unexpected consequences, even if the designers test everything thoroughly. All of the hardware failures were covered under warranty, but that’s a poor substitute for the inconvenience you suffer from such a failure. What happens if your Mac goes down for the count while you’re finishing a crucial project for a client? Even if you back up your data religiously, that failure might happen before you had time to generate a copy on an external drive or server.

Yes, a Mac may be far more reliable than the competition. But Apple is at a highly critical juncture these days. Market share, for the first time in years, is on the rise. Mac switchers may not be as tolerant as you and I about buggy software updates and malfunctioning computers. Apple needs to work harder to keep those new customers. There won’t be a second chance.

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