The Canary Benefit

I haven't done production work on a Windows machine for a long, long time. My desktops have been Linux since 0.99pl11 (was that '93?). My laptops were Windows until Linux started working on them, and then I switched.

It was good. I put up with the hassles: the upgrades, the incompatibilities, the laptops that would talk to some video projectors but not others. I got behind in my patching, and had a server root-kitted once (well before we had an online store, in case you're concerned).

As the business grew, I found myself spending more and more time admining boxes. So, somewhat late, I made the switch maybe 3 or 4 years ago, first with an Apple laptop, then with a Mac Pro. As I grew more and more confident in the decision, I switched more and more of what I did to OSX. A bunch of our externally facing code runs on Linux and BSD, but it is all administered by third parties—folks whose job is to keep up with all the stuff that needs doing. Everything else runs on Macs.

And I've never really regretted the switch. I still don't.

But, like miners keeping an eye on the canary, I monitor the one real thing that makes my switching viable. The key benefit of switching for me is the lack of hassle. I spend a bit extra for stuff that just works. .Mac syncing lets me move from desktop to laptop without a thought, but now I have a syncing loop where each machine tries to override information that is identical in the other. Things just aren't as smooth as they were.

Am I regretting the switch? No. OSX works well for what I do, and it gives me access to tools I need (such as InDesign for covers, Sibelius for scoring, and so on). But I'm also not such a acolyte that I'll never move off the Mac if I start seeing the kind of hassle I used to experience with Linux reentering my life. Modern Linux distros have come a long way since I last used one on a laptop, and I know that I could probably switch if I needed to with little regret.

So, what do I want from Apple, both tomorrow at MacWorld and then over the coming months? Easy. I want to see fewer cool features—features which seem to add problems—and a refocusing on what made Apple the machine of choice for a certain kind of developers. I want my Mac to be as hassle free, secure, and reliable as it was when I first started using OSX.

Right now, the hassle-free canary seems to be somewhat distressed. I'm monitoring its health closely.

Comments

[Ryan Allen]

What in particular is causing you headaches? Are you talking about Time Machine?

I've been using Macs almost full time since 10.2 (I switched because I could use a native shell without switching to linux from Windows and still do things like burn CDs without having to be a Linux expert), and I've seen nothing but lots of small improvements, OS X improves with every release I think.

I don't use TimeMachine and it doesn't impose on my experience. So, I call you out - what on earth are you talking about specifically?

[Steve]

Leopard is causing my canary distress. I'd be pleased, only mildly though, if they were to fix it up.

Written from whatever this OS ver is (pre-leopard).

[Matt]

.Mac syncing worked fairly well under Tiger -- after years of fixes. Now in Leopard it appears to be completely rewritten, and almost completely broken. Apple's web site says, turn it off.

Hope they get it fixed in 10.5.2 (no, I haven't picked up the developer preview -- all my current Leopard machines are production at the moment).

In general, though, I'm happy with Leopard. I certainly think I like Time Machine.

[Dave Thomas]

Matt:

Time Machine is cool, except that if you use it with an external drive, and they time out and wind down, then every File Open dialog seems to wait for them to spin up (so I've switched Time Machine to internal drives).

Ryan:

What I'm talking about is having to hit the "Report to Apple" button twice a day as various apps die (Mail.app is a favorite). Don't get me wrong, I still love it. But I'd love to see the effort going into stability as well as new features: I moved away from Windows because Microsoft didn't get that algebra. I'm worried Apple is falling into the same trap.

[marick]

"Time Machine is cool, except that if you use it with an external drive, and they time out and wind down, then every File Open dialog seems to wait for them to spin up (so I've switched Time Machine to internal drives)."

I haven't had that problem with a laptop plugged into a firewire drive (for 3 or so hours a day). So far I've been lucky with Leopard. (Installed onto a wiped disk, then restored with the migration tool.)

[Giles Bowkett]

Hey Dave, you can kill the "Report To Apple" button.

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

I wouldn't be able to use Safari at all otherwise.

[fg]

My canary isn't happy either. Spaces breaks Alt+Tab switching and the transparent menus are so heavy the eye that I'm tempted to switch back to Tiger until they let me switch transparency off.

[jens]

I second the comment by 'fg'.
Even though you switch Spaces off, the keyboard mapping will still be there.. which makes life hard for the netbeans user (me)

[Ron Lambkin]

It wouldn't be a big surprise to me to see Microsoft switch to a *nix operating system within a few years. If that seems wierd, think about it a bit:

1. Most MS users don't have any idea what their operating system is under Windows, and care even less. The appeal of Windows to them is that they are familiar with it, since it came with their computer. It is the interface and applications that they have learned to cope with that is important to them.

2. MS would get safety, reliability and ruggedness underlying their Windows interface, instead of continuing to backfill an operating system that is inherently unstable. Further more, they would get an army of open-source programmers who would continue to improve it at no cost to MS.

3. MS strength is in their applications, development tools and network administration tools. If they moved some of their best people now wasting their time patching the MS-OS monster, they would be even more dominate is the fields where they perform best.

4. Apple wasn't afraid to abandon an OS platform which was better than MS, but still somewhat quirky. They did it well and have been gaining adherents ever since (particularly developers like Ruby/Rails). I suspect that Apple would not welcome a switch by MS to *nix.

Unless hubris wins out, look for this change within 2-5 years!

[James Edward Gray II]

"…and the transparent menus are so heavy the eye that I'm tempted to switch back to Tiger until they let me switch transparency off."

You can now shut the menu transparency off in 10.5.2.

James Edward Gray II

[James Edward Gray II]

"Even though you switch Spaces off, the keyboard mapping will still be there.."

You can switch off the key bindings in the pop-up menus at the bottom of the Spaces System Preferences panel.

James Edward Gray II