This month there was yet another operating system upgrade available for our home computers, from Apple’s Yosemite 10.10 to El Capitan 10.11.
The biggest problems I find with upgrades like this in recent years is we don’t need them. This upgrade, like the last three or four, didn’t improve my computing experience at all. In fact, my computer at work uses an OS four generations previous to our home computers, and works perfectly. Perfectly.
What did this so-called system upgrade accomplish?
- It turned on a power-saving feature which I wanted turned off, since the USB ports quit charging my phone when the computer goes to sleep in the power saving mode.
- It deposited a number of new photos in my screen saver folder, which was my National Geographic folder because during a previous upgrade, my screen saver wouldn’t recognize any other picture folders.
- Mail wouldn’t allow me to pick up any mail until I logged into it as an internet sharing account, but then refused to recognize my password. To fix it, I had to delete the account in both Mail and System Preferences and add it to Mail again exactly the same as before.
- My favorite FTP program, Transmit, wasn’t supported by El Capitan, so I had to upgrade it.
- Several times, Abby’s MacBook Air insisted we upgrade, but when we clicked restart, it said the update wasn’t available at this time.
- The infamous beach ball of death/pinwheel of doom, indicating the system has to catch up, has been reinvented. Idea for Mac: create an operating system that never shows us that.
These annoyances seem awfully Windows 98-ish. When Apple was smaller and hungrier, they coded better, but lately they’ve been acting more like a corporate behemoth.
“These annoyances seem awfully Windows 98-ish. When Apple was smaller and hungrier, they coded better, but lately they’ve been acting more like a corporate behemoth.”
Yes, they do sound like that. I’m hearing a lot less “My [Apple product] runs perfectly” these days than I used to — and I used to hear it a LOT.
On the other hand, Windows has picked up some of Apple’s annoying habits too, like the lack of customization options for the desktop. A lot more is gray and featureless now in Windows, which is one thing I never liked about Apple’s default look.
When people said they wanted Windows to be more like Apple’s OS, they meant they wanted it to *work* correctly and crash less. And when Mac users said they wanted Apple to be more like… Oh wait. They never said that. :-)
Yes! It’s a pinwheel. Hammill always calls it a centipede. Anyway, I hate upgrades.