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Foreword
Apple is undoubtedly reviving, so is the heated discussion of Mac OS X vs. Windows. Sadly, many of the comments I've read about Apple are quite unfair. Many comments are based on incomplete impression of Apple's products (e.g., Apple doesn't support right-clicking, or only professional graphic designers will ever need to use Apple products), and other comments are based on Apple's legacy OS – Mac OS 9. So I decide to create this small webpage to highlight some of the things I like about Macs. I try my best to be objective, but from time to time, I would bring comparison with Windows into the discussion. But I want you to understand that my intention is merely to help people gain a more complete understanding of Mac OS X, not to start another wave of battle. In fact, I'm getting rather tired of those meaningless debates; after all, every OS has its merits and weaknesses. So let's get started.
Aqua Graphical User Interface
As is well known, Mac OS X has a liquid-like user interface named Aqua. Steve Jobs describes the user interface as such: It’s water … The design goal is that when you see it, you want to “lick” it.
Mac OS X fully utilizes technologies like OpenGL and Quartz Extreme, and sets the entire user interface in motion. For instance, shown below is minimizing a window. It's worth noting that such effect was introduced back in 2001. Think about the system configuration at that time – and then compare it with the system requirement of Windows Vista, one can't help feeling uneasy. (If a GUI takes over a huge amount of system resource for itself, the design has failed.)
In my opinion, the user interface should not draw attention to itself; i.e., the user should be able to focus on what's inside the window, rather than get distracted by the UI. Mac OS X is rather successful in this area. Although the entire UI looks extremely gorgeous, it is not flamboyant enough to distract the user. Apple even placed an interface scheme called Graphite – which turns major UI elements into gray – into the system to minimize distraction. You might be curious: wouldn't it be utterly confusing if all three buttons are gray? Answer is, as soon as you mouse over to this region on your screen, a small X or - or + will show up to indicate the exact function of each button.
BTW, Quartz is PDF-based (that's why fonts are rendered so gorgeously on Mac OS X); this also means that you can easily generate PDF documents – almost every document can be easily printed into a PDF document:
Dock and Launching Applications
Dock is like the Windows Task Bar. You can drag frequently-used apps into the Dock. Later on, you can launch an app by simply clicking on the icon in the Dock.
If you want to see all your applications, they reside in the Applications folder. You can right-click on the folder to get a list of all applications just as in Windows. Even better, you can drag any folder/file/URL here. For example, I placed my Gmail link in the Dock to easily access my Gmail account.
And yet, my favorite way of launching apps is to use a third-party freeware "Quicksilver." Hitting command + spacebar, and an elegant floating window fades into the desktop, after which a few keystrokes would give me the application I want. You could even skip some letters; e.g., to find Photoshop, "pho" will do, but "pts" would also work!
Quicksilver is actually far more than just an application launcher. You can use it to create a new document, rename folders, etc. If you are the kind of person who loves using your keyboard, then you'd fall in love with this small little app.
Exposé and Application Switching
Computers get faster with each passing day, and we have become more and more accustomed to leaving many apps running at the same time. How do you instantly switch to the app you want to use then? Of course, you can click on the icon of the application in the Dock, or you can activate the application switcher using Alt + Tab, just like in Windows:
Or you can use Exposé. Activating Exposé can't be easier. You can use a function key like F9, or you can set a screen corner. On my computer, as soon as I move my mouse into the top-left corner of the screen, all the windows will be scattered around the screen:
Finder: Mac's File Manager
The file manager on the Mac is called Finder。Finder provides three view modes: the icon view, the list view, and the column view. My favorite is the column view, because it allows me to navigate through my hard drive by just pressing the arrow key. Also, the sidebar stores alias (shortcut) to folders that you access frequently. You can drag new folders into it; and if you don't need a particular alias any more, simply drag it out!
Spotlight: Search on a Mac
It is a great pleasure to search for documents on a Mac. Spotlight is like Google Desktop (and the later MSN Desktop Search and the current Vista Search). It makes full use of metadata, and can find your document almost instantly. For example, you'll get the pulldown menu after clicking on the Spotlight icon and typing in colin. Spotlight will list all your documents, folders, images, music, PDFs, etc. by category. Notice that Spotlight does not just search for documents with matching file names, it also searches through the content of a document (including the words in a PDF), metadata of an image, etc. Spotlight is lightening-fast. It can return thousands of results in a few seconds. What if you want all PDFs related to Colin? Just type in "Colin kind:pdf."
In this pulldown menu, Spotlight only shows twenty most frequently accessed documents. If you click Show All, Spotlight will show all the results in an elegantly designed window. Notice that on the right-hand side of every item, there is a small icon labeled "i." If you click on it, you'll see all kinds of metadata related to the item. In the Images group, there is even a slideshow button – one simple click, and all your images will be displayed in a slideshow.
Many applications, like Mail and Finder, support Spotlight technology. You can even specify all kinds of search criteria. For example, here I want all images in the home folder that are related to Colin, in the RGB color space, and are 50 KB or above in size:
Even System Preferences integrates Spotlight. A few keystrokes, System Preferences will highlight the items you might want. System Preferences even understands the Windows language: although in Mac OS X, we're more accustomed to using the term Desktop Picture, but if you enter Wallpaper, System Preferences will still understand what you're saying. Similarly, if you want to configure your wireless connection, you can simply type in Wireless, or even 802!
Dashboard
Dashboard is like Konfabulator. And now Windows Vista also has something similar, called Gadgets. Hitting one button, or on my computer moving my mouse to the lower-left corner of the screen, Dashboard "flies" into Desktop. Dashboard hosts all kinds of small applications called Widgets. I usually have widgets for weather forecast, sticky notes, unit conversion, calendar, English-German dicitionary, and system resource monitor open. You can download thousands of other widgets online.
It's pretty cool to launch a widget. Shown below is when I launch the Translation widget. It behaves as if it lands on the water surface. Notice the rippling effect.
Similarly, closing a widget is also a lot of fun. It's like the entire widget is sucked into the Close button.
Slideshows on a Mac
Browsing through pictures using slideshows is quite easy on a Mac. Just radomly choose a bunch of images, right click, and you can activate a slideshow:
Here is what you'll see after you enter the slideshow mode. You can easy use the transparent controller to foreward, backward, or add pictures into the iPhoto library.
It's also worth mentioning that you can also show all images as index cards. This is a bit like Exposé – it'll tile all the pictures neatly in the window (Below left: generating index cards in process; Below right: index cards are now generated.)
Stories of Mac's Mouse
Many people complain that Macs have only one-button mouse. This is not accurate. Mac OS X fully supports two-button mouses. Below is my mouse configuration (I'm using Apple's Wireless Mighty Mouse). At first glance, you definitely think it's a one-button mouse. But in fact, when you press the right side of the mouse, it acts just like you're right-clicking.
Let's take a look at my trackpad configuration as well. As you can see, my trackpad also supports right-click (called secondary click). Just hit the trackpad with two fingers. In addition, you can move two fingers up/down and left/right to scroll through a document.
Stability and Security of Macs
You might know that Mac OS X is based on a rock-solid indutrial level Unix foundation. This means that Mac OS X is as stable as the server version of any OS. It can run 24/7 without a hitch (but I have to admit that there are no absolutes). If you don't turn off your computer, Mac OS X would even run some small scripts to maintain itself in good shape.
Mac OS X also supports protected memory, so even though one application stops responding, the entire system will still be up and running quite properly. Of course, Mac OS X supports preemptive multitasking and all other state-of-the-art technologies to realize the full potential of multi-core systems.
Up till today, there is only one or two proof-of-concept malicious applications (Don't worry. They no longer work). So Mac OS X is widely regarded as one of the most secure OS in the world. Many people think this is because of the small user base. Well, this definitely helps. But another major reason is its Unix foundation – Mac OS X is arguable inately safer than Windows. (Aside: I read an article the other day about how Unix has more bugs than Windows. It was a fun read, but what it mentioned merely in passing is the number of critical bugs. . . . Clearly, Windows surpasses Unix in this area). Anyway, at least now, Mac users don't need to worry about viruses.
What's more, Mac has its built-in firewall to provide another layer of safeguarding:
Mac OS X also has a feature called FileVault, which encripts all of your documents (According to Apple, it'll take a supercomputer trillions and trillions of years to crack the code).
Software on Macs
In China, many people have the impression that Apple is for high-end professional users. But in the States, Apple has been constantly passing along the image that Apple is all about entertainment. Just look at the recent Get a Mac ads: Mac takes pride in creating family album, while PC is busy with spreadsheets. . . . Maybe it's change to change our impression.
Many people claim that the Mac OS doesn't have an abundance of software. Well, it's true that Windows surpasses Mac OS X in the number of games (of course, major games like Warcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft are still available for Macs. And with Apple joining the Intel league, more and more games are being ported to the Mac platform.) But other than games, I can almost always find substitutes that work equally well or in many cases better. You'll find that there are many applications on the Mac that will boost our imagination and elevating our productivity to a whole new level.
Address Book (comes with the OS)
The name speaks for itself: Address Book is used for storing your contacts. It's powerful, and yet has a very friendly user interface. In the picture below, I chose to display the phone number in large type. According to Apple, you might need to make a phone call at the other end of the room; with the large display, you can still make out the numbers. How considerate!
Pathway (freeware)
Pathway is a very neat app used for doing research with Wikipedia. It can connect all the pages you've visited and form a huge web. You can also take notes in the floating panels while browsing through these pages.
Photobooth (comes with the OS)
If there is one app that decreases your productivity on the Mac, Photobooth is the one. You will spend hours in front of it, taking pictures of yourself with the many different effects (e.g., distorting mirrors). The most interesting part of this app is that once you click on the take-a-picture button, it'll count down 3-2-1, and then turn the entire screen white to simulate a flash. So even in the night when lighting is not perfect, you can still get quite decent pictures.
Automator (comes with the OS)
Got many files to rename? Want to print a bunch of documents into PDFs, encrypt them, and then email them to your boss? These are highly repetitive tasks, and you probably don't want to start over every time. You can "program" with Automator – don't be scared off. Automator allows you to program by simply dragging and dropping. Below, I demonstrate how you can rename a bunch of files so that they appear in the format "iChat_Christian + two-digit-number." The best part is that you can save these workflows as small apps or embed them into the Contextual Menu (Right-Click Menu) so that next time you can easily complete similar tasks.
Comic Life (comes with the computer)
Comic Life is a very cute app. It helps you to easily create your own comics.
Delicious Library (shareware)
I use Delicious Library to manage my books and CDs. Below, I was using my iSight camera to scan the ISBN of the book, and Delicious Library automatically found the book online, and downloaded the information into the database. Isn't it cool?!
Dictionary (comes with the OS)
Mac OS X has the complete New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition and Oxford American Writers Thesaurus. If you want a English-Chinese dictionary, you can download the free TranslateIt! Its deluxe version even supports point-and-translate.
Grapher (comes with the OS)
Aside from a normal Calculator, Mac OS X also comes with a powering graphing application "Grapher." It can even handle differential equations!
Microsoft Office (commercial)
Believe it or not, Microsoft Word debuted on the Mac platform, and was later ported to Windows. In fact, even today, Microsoft still seems to test some technologies on the Mac platform first, before adopting them into the Windows version. Below what you see is the Notepad view of Word 2004. I use it both for note-taking and recording.
Of course, Excel and Powerpoint are also available for Macs. Here is the page layout view in Excel, which didn't make its way into Excel until Excel 2007.
iCal (comes with the OS)
Want your life organized? Then you must try iCal – Apple's own calendar application. iCal is very powerful; you can easily specify how an event should recur during the week, and when to stop the recursion.
iChat (comes with the OS)
iChat might not be a popular app in China, where QQ and MSN dominate. In the States, because iChat is fully compatible with the protocol of AIM, it is quite popular among Mac users. I love iChat's interface – the bubbles are just so cute!
iChat also supports multi-person audio and video conferencing. The interface is simply unbelievable:
(courtesy of David Pogue)
Aside: On a Mac, you can replace OICQ with LumaQQ. MSN Messenger also has a Mac version. But I actually like Adium, which supports almost all major protocols: AIM, MSN, GoogleTalk, etc.
iGTD (freeware)
iGTD is obviously a Get Things Done app。I use it to maintain my to-do list.
OmniPlan (commercial)
OmniPlan is a project from OmniGroup; it's like Microsoft Project, facilitating you with project management and resource allocation.
iLife (comes with the computer)
iLife is Apple's digital life hub/suite.
Personally, I'm a big fan of iPhoto, which is actually an entry-level application for photo management and editing. With iPhoto, you can easily eliminate red eye. It also has a one-button smart enhancement feature. You can also choose to edit your photo in full-screen mode.
Want to make a card, calendar, photo album? On a Mac, it'll take you only a few minutes. iPhoto has many elegantly designed templates to help you create the most beautiful calendars, albums, birthday cards, etc. without much effort at all.
Aside from iPhoto，iLife also includes other powerful yet easy-to-use applications like iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand. Here are iTunes and iMovie:
One thing that I just have to mention is that Mac OS X has built-in ambient noise reduction. So the quality of recording is usually much higher than on a PC.
Keynote (commercial)
Apple's Keynote is my favorite application for making presentations (other than Beamer and ConTeXt). The slideshows created with Keynote are just superior to that created with PowerPoint. By using Quartz Extreme and OpenGL, Keynote provides stunning 3D effects, of which my favorite is Cube. Keynote also provides unique features such as alignment guide, slides grouping, etc.
Safari (comes with the OS)
Safari is Apple's own browser. It is so fast that its rendering speed can rival Opera's. Its user interface is simple and elegant. Safari also supports RSS. Below is the RSS page flying in after I clicked on the RSS button.
Oh right, applications like Safari is written with Cocoa (Apple's Objective-C API), so they support a variety of system services; like this:
A Few Professional Applications
Almost all major pro apps run flawlessly on the Mac, e.g., Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Flash, Maya, and so on.
Let's first take a look at Photoshop. I actually prefer to use Photoshop on a Mac. That's because on Windows, if you maximize the Photoshop Window, everything else – stuff on your desktop and other applications – is covered. This problem is nonexistent on Mac OS X. As you can see, I can still see the Finder window, and my chat window. This design also makes dragging from one window to another easy.
And Maple:
Stata, an application I use for my Econometrics class, also has a Mac version:
And here is a calculator application that I really like: Magic Number Machine. It's very smart; I merely entered 4/127, and it converted it into a fraction automatically.
Of course, TeX runs without a hitch on Mac OS X. Here I'm showing compiling a LaTeX file in TextMate (one of my favorite editors):
It might be hard to believe that even the Terminal on Mac OS X is prettier than others. I usually set it as green characters on black background, and I also make the window transparent.
Development on Mac OS X
It's not difficult at all to develop applications on Mac OS X. You can use such technologies as Java, Ruby, Perl, Carbon (C), etc. The best way, though, is to use Cocoa (Objective C) – many programmers admit that using Cocoa increases their development pace by many times. The tool you need for your development, Xcode, is complete free of charge, and you can download it from Apple's website.
Mac Speaks Many Languages
Mac OS X is multilingual. If you want to change your user interface to German, just drag Deutsch to the top of the list in the System Preferences, International, Language tab. Now log out and log back in, and your Mac now speaks German.
Some Applications that Live on My Computer
- Communication: iChat, Adium, Skype, LumaQQ
- Productivity: iGTD, iCal, OmniPlan
- Office: Address Book, Microsoft Office 2004, Pages, Keynote
- Design: Adobe Acrobat 8.0, Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Lightroom, Corel Patiner X
- Network: Chicken of the VNC, CoRD (Remote Desktop), Transmission (BT), Transmit, Speed Download
- Web browsing: Safari, FireFox, Camino, Opera
- Web design: RapidWeaver, Coda
- Others: Chmox (chm), CocoThumbX, Data Backup, Delicious Library, Disco (burning)
- Media: EasyWMV, FlickrUploadr, GarageBand, HandBrake (ripping), iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, MPlayer, Photo Booth, RealPlayer
- Games: Chess, Frozen-Bubble, Warcraft, World of Warcraft
- Mathematics: Mathematica, Maple, Stata
- Development: TextMate, Xcode
Want to Talk to Me?
If you have any suggestion and comment, or if you just want to talk with me about Macs, please email me at helin.gai \at gmail.com.
