OMG just how bad does Tiger have to get before we give up on it?

[octavedoctor]

It seems to me that Apple have completely lost their way with OSX.

I now have less issues with Windows than I do with OSX.

Here is a cross section of some of the problems after 10.4.5...

A bug means that i can't set my desktop icons' font to less than 11pt without the icon column distribution doubling in width

Every time i start up my Mighty Mouse preference pane is replaced with a generic one and to get it working I have to unplug the mouse and plug it back in.

Flash drives can't be ejected or unmounted once a file has been opened; the message "The volume {name} cannot be ejected because it is in use. Please try quitting applications and try again." This happens even when no applications are running.

My Wacom tablet no longer works even though I have installed the latest driver. Wacom are unable to suggest a solution.

My Lexmark printer utility no longer works. Lexmark are unable to provide a working driver.

It's no wonder we are the laughing stock of the Windows world. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple's smug team of prima donnas didn't make submitting feedback and bug reports such an obstacle course...

[ElDiabloConCaca]

For the Lexmark and Wacom issues, it sounds like a vendor problem rather than an Apple problem, but I do understand your concerns. We have to make-do with sub-par 3rd party drivers, and some parts of the operating system just don't seem "finished" yet or don't quite work right (although there isn't an operating system in the world that doesn't have this problem).

Apple has a VERY easy to navigate feedback page -- I don't know why you think it's an obstacle course:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

As for the flash drive problems, are they formatted as HFS+, or are they formatted as FAT32? Typcally, FAT32 is a "Windows" format, and will not perform as well as HFS+.

[octavedoctor]

It's the HFS+ ones i'm having the trouble with.

I have two MSDOS formatted flash drives and they aren't affected.

You're right that no OS is really finished, but people do seem to have trivial problems with OSX that we shouldn't really be having. Tiger is now the 3rd incarnation of OSX; they can be forgiven for the earliest version being "unfinished" but upgrades are supposed to change things for the better and not worse.

My guess is that the rubbish Spotlight feature is what is causing the problem. This is something i can well do without but it's so tightly integrated i can't uninstall it.

It's the problems with the mighty mouse that are the most absurd; if this was a third party driver i could understand there being problems but this is Apples own software we are talking about and it was only released a few months ago! How ridiculous is it that within such a short space of time they should release an "upgrade" that causes incompatibility with their own hardware? I have searched all Apple's archives to see if there is a driver update available but there's nothing. You can't even download the software if you lose your disc!

Yes you are correct that Apple's feedback website is easy to navigate, once you know where it is. Before that you have to spend some time searching for it though. Even when you do leave feedback you get no acknoweledgement and the rate at which Apple resonds to issues raised suggest they aren't taking much notice.

I recall when I ran Panther all my Windows using friends were able to burn CDs with an 800 mb capacity while OSX wouldn't recognise a CD with a capacity larger than 650Mb. This wasn't addressed at all to the best of my knowledge. The same thing is happening with the Mighty Mouse issue.

Another friend has just got rid of his G5 as it is unable to do most of the things he does with ease on his PC, such as editing Mpeg-2 files without demuxing. Formerly enthusiastic about the Mac, he know just regards it as an expensive toy for internet access rather than a serious machine...

There really is NO excuse for Apple's neglect of these issues of basic interface functionality: at this stage i expect OSX to be a bit more polished than it's predecessor, not less so.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Strange that the HFS+ ones do it... I'm at a loss, but I have had a disk refuse to eject before claiming files were open when no applications were running.

I'm not trying to be nit-picky, but 800MB on a CD is outside of the CD-R specification. It's just like "icing on the cake" that you can "overburn" a CD and squeeze 700 or 800MB onto it, but the CD specification is that 650MB is the limit. There is at least one application that can "overburn" on a Mac... if overburning is still important, it may help to check it out:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19058

I still think Apple's feedback page is relatively simple to find. It's the 4th link down (under a bunch of other feedback pages, like for .mac and iTunes) when you do a search from Apple's main page for "feedback." Also, Apple never responds to feedback nor bug reports, unless they need to get more information about a particular setup or configuration. Feedback is feedback, and is not meant for a reply. Apple also never publicizes bugs in their system until a fix is ready -- not even a confirmation, which, I think, is understandable. Instead of them working on a fix and saying, "We're working on a fix," they simply work on a fix and announce it when it's ready -- either way, they're working on a fix. Besides, not everyone has those problems -- if a large number of people report about one specific problem, then Apple does take notice and remedies the situation. If only a handful of people report a problem, then it would be logical to think that perhaps the problem is a consequence of the user and not a system-wide fault of OS X. Apple's working on fixes in a prioritized order, and it sucks when your issue isn't at the top of the list, so I don't know what to say...

At any rate, I think it would make us happier here if we could maybe take a stab at your issues, one at a time. It may be that something's just gone a little awry with your installation or system, and it could be an easy fix for some things. I'm sure we'd all hate to see someone become dissatisfied with the Mac platform, so if you're willing to give it a go, let's tackle the issues one by one so your computer doesn't end up like your friend's.

[fryke]

Sounds like your computer's a rare case of "woops!". I'd backup and clean install and carefully re-setup. It's certainly not how 10.4.5 works for me, my colleagues and our clients. So... I have to resent phrases like "OMG how bad has Tiger..." etc. While I'm not completely pro Tiger (there are a _lot_ of things I think they should have left to the choice of the user/admin, for example...) and in many cases prefer Panther, I have to say that our systems have been stable since 10.4.2, whereas Panther was a _really_ horrific story, the system being finally stable at 10.3.4 and then unstable/bug-ridden 'til 10.3.8 and _again_ unstable/bug-ridden with 10.3.9. Tiger certainly looks much better to me in that regard. Saying it's worse than Windows is pure flame-bait. And we don't need trolling around here. See board-rules for reference.

[powermac]

Certainly, Tiger has some bugs. As with any Mac OS, my is stable as a brick house. True, I don't have much third-party items installed or in use. Any release of a new OS needs time to mature. We all agree, the Finder needs some work, and hopefully, Leopard will address those issues.

As Fryke stated, perhaps a reinstall is what you should prepare yourself for. My PB was a bit flaky when I purchased it, with the factory installed Tiger. Before I got settled into it, I did my own fresh install, been cruising smoothly ever since.

[octavedoctor]

It's a fresh install followed by a straight upgrade to the 10.4.5 combo update.

I am a Mac evangelist and have used nothing else since system 8 so accusing me of being a troll is neither constructive nor accurate, neither is reference to justifiable criticism of what i feel is a badly implemented series of changes to an otherwise stable interface as being flame-bait. On a forum such as this we should be able to freely discuss and criticise both Apple and OSX or are we just a collection of mindless label-junkies who will buy anything with an Apple brand regardless of whether it's any good or not?

The fact is that the calls here for a "fresh re-install" echo the mantra of the Microsoft support people when things go flaky with Windows; if this doesn't tell you how bad it's got then nothing can...

In case you missed it, my problem isn't with third party software at all; apart from the Wacom and Lexmark drivers all my third party software is working fine. A new printer has solved the Lexmark problem...

The main problem is 10.4.5's incompatibility with Apple's own Mighty Mouse.

I can well understand that many of the improvements brought by Tiger are important and valuable. God forbid that some ruthless chinese hacker should gain access to my important collection of guitar circuit diagrams or my archive of nude celebrities through some obscure QuickTime exploit!

However what is far more important to me is that my computer's human interface should work properly and it doesn't. I shouldn't have to unplug my mouse and plug it back in every time I switch on: that's stupid, it's the sort of thing i expect from a PC and not a Mac...

Incidentally, I have a large collection of CDs here clearly labelled 700mb and some labelled 850mb. OSX now recognises these capacities but it's only recently it has been able to, while XP was able to recognise and burn to those capacities at least two years ago. Why'd it take Apple so long to catch up?

I appreciate the concern of all of you; my dissatisfaction with Tiger and Apple notwithstanding i am not about to turn my back on the Mac but i will hold to my criticism that Apple as a company are smug, secretive and slow to respond to the stated requirements of their user base preferring instead to foist upon us the changes that they feel we should be having rather than the ones we clearly want. This is why i believe Tiger is a mess and i have no confidence that "Leopard" will be any better...

[ex2bot]

I was far more frustrated with all the goofy problems, general clunkiness and ugliness of Windows 3.1 - XP than I am with OS X bugs. Far more.

This all falls into the realm of opinion.

It's too bad you're having these problems. Are you asking us to help or trying to convince us that OS X stinks?

We'll be glad to help, but it's going to be a very, very tough (well, impossible) sell to convince us it's a good idea to trade OS X for a Microsoft OS. You or anyone who wants to go WinXP is welcome to it.

I don't miss the search doggie, the pop-up balloons, activation, Luna, any of that ugly sh*t.

Doug

P.S. I can't believe XP doesn't journal its filesystems or support EFI. What kind of OS can't support EFI and journaling?