For the last 6 months I've been acclimating to OS X on my MacBook Pro. Having a day job that necessitates having a modicum of Windows familiarity and a strong affinity for the most masochistic of Linux distributions (Slackware, for those in the know), I've found in Tiger, the holy grail of my various OS meanderings (albeit a rather battered and less then golden artifact).

Let me say it right now: OS X is not perfect.

Although the idea of having a single place to do open source development with the robustness of UNIX, and an end-user experience second to none, definitely appeals to me, I shy away from outright Mac-boy fanaticism that characterizes most Mac owners. The reasons are simple: there are some glaring deficiencies that irk me and interfere with my rather specific usage of my machine. Notice that I use the word "irk" here. They are truly minor annoyances; not enough for me to flee back Windows/Linux. More on these problems later.

Although Boot Camp has been available for some time now, I've been pleasantly surprised by my utter disinterest in dual booting into another OS. Almost everything I need is available for OS X, and if its not, there is nothing stopping you from finding a suitable alternative in the form of pre-compiled binaries or source code. I subscribe to half-empty-kitchen-sink philosophy so this state of affairs suits me just fine. For those who absolutely must install every visual gadget, this setup may seem less ideal.

There is an additional unexpected benefit in my shift: the Mac really does allow you to focus on the task at hand without all the visual distractions that are common in Windows. In other words, it lets you focus on work. Its not quite as spare as the command line, but pr0n just doesnt't look great in ASCII ;^p. For someone who had a definite preference for the command line, this came as quite a surprise. The uniform application of anti-aliased text as well as the ability to set the back light to the low radiation/stun only setting has noticeably improved my reading speed when using my Mac. Although the Windows equivalent Clear-Text is available for WinXP and newer, there is definitely a difference in their implementations.

A new user may be tempted to splurge on purchasing Mac software and although the base Mac installation is already feature rich, there are just a few necessities missing. Image manipulation, package management for open source software, and a productivity suite for manipulating Microsoft Office documents, are just a few of the shortcomings. Although, iWork addresses a few of these issues, I opted to use software that is available in the widest number of environments (Linux/Microsoft/OSX). The following list fills the software gap on the Mac without compromising anything in terms of quality or functionality:

• XCode

  Having come from a Microsoft Visual Studio environment, I was pleased by the availability of developer tools for OS X without the additional cost of having to purchase and IDE. Just poke around the installation to CDs to find this great collection of tools. This package is required if you plan on compiling your own programs for OS X.

• X11

  There are just some applications that do not have native Aqua support. This allows those applications to run side by side with your native OS X apps. Granted these apps do not make use of the Aqua UI elements, but it is a small compromise to run some great software.

• Parallels

  The environment of last resort. If you can't find a native OS X version and it can't be compiled from source, you will have to rely on a virtualized Windows environment. Surprisingly, things like passable tax software are difficult to find for OS X. Never fear; their is an alternative for these situations as well.

• Fink

  Portage on steriods. If you don't that open source app on your system, fear not. Fink allows for compiles directly from source with dependency tracking.

• Open Office

  I've used prior version 1.x of this suite and was always disappointed with the format mangling that inevitably occurred when trying to open native Office docs. This is no longer a problem. Compatibility is almost near perfect; your colleagues will be able to tell that any of your docs where authored outside of Microserfdom.

• SeaMonkey

  MOAB (Mother of all Browsers). I know that Firefox and Thunderbird are getting all the press at the moment, but harken back to the heyday of Mozilla and you will appreciate the full-featured power of this next-generation online suite. It has all the advantages of its derivative offspring without the misfeaturism which mars the beautiful simplicity found in SeaMonkey. If you value stability over showy spectacle, this is the browser for you.

Now, onto my litany of grievances. As I stated, OS X is not perfect. The following represent a smattering of the issues that I've encountered :

• Bluetooth

  The idea of a personal area network has been realized with Bluetooth enabled devices and although I love the idea, having used the Wireless Keyboard and Mighty Mouse, the Apple implementation leaves something to be desired. Firstly, their is an ongoing issue regarding bluetooth and sleep/suspend modes. Despite numerous system updates, this issue remains unresolved. Suspending OS X and having it detect the presence, or lack thereof of bluetooth devices should be seamless. Given the relatively small variation present in Apple's product offerings, I would think it would fairly easy to standardize hardware used in their machines. You would think that having a relatively homogeneous hardware platform would translate in to better driver support, but not so. Bluetooth is one of the few components on OS X that can get the system to kernel panic requiring a hard restart.

  In addition, the latest wireless 802.11n updates have introduced signal jitter on connected bluetooth devices when transferring at high throughtput. Since Bluetooth and Wireless BGN share the same frequency spectrum (2.4 Ghz), I suspect the two are related. You ask, why not use the 5Ghz wireless frequency? This brings us to the next of my gripes ...

• Airport Extreme 802.11.n support

  Theoretically, 802.11n should allow for roughly 500Mbs of wireless throughput in either the 2.4 or 5 Ghz frequency spectrums. This is 5x faster than 100Mb wired Ethernet, or approximately 10x faster that wireless 54G. So much for theory. I bought the Extreme in the hopes that it would improve the speed of my wireless connections by being compatible with the wireless 802.11n adapter in my MacBook Pro. It has improved in speed, if at a more modest 2x increase. Not only that, the latest updates seem to have throttled the top speed to 300Mbs. The network manager reports this throughput despite the fact that my machine is no further than a few inches away from the base station. There are other annoyances as well: Why is channel selection disabled for 802.11n? Why does 802.11n fail at relatively short distances when using the 5Ghz spectrum in my 800 ft/sq space? It literally allows for connectivity only as far as the room where my access point is located Why are there no diagnostic tools to help determine possible causes of signal interference?

  I understand the complexities of creating OS device drivers, but I wish Apple would perform more extensive QA testing before rolling out "fixes" which actually degrade either performance or functionality. At the very least, they should be forthcoming in the compromises between various updates.

• Lack of network signal strength / wireless info

  This is a no-brainer, and for the record I am already aware of third party utilities that accomplish this task. The problem I have is that this feature should be something built into OS X. A bit of browsing on the Apple Forums reveals a pattern of wireless connectivity issues related to the installation of third party utilities. It stands to reason that avoiding anything that touches the network stack is a "good thing" given the prevalence of these types of issues. At the bare minimum, Apple should introduce a wireless connectivity tool that allows you to view networks within range and their associated security info and signal strength.

• Hidden files in Finder

  The ability to control which files are displayed in Finder should be customizable. It should not require a Finder/Terminal hack to create/use Unix . files. I understand the necessity to isolate the less experienced user from the Unix internals, but this should be customizable through some mechanism such as a defaults setting. There are a number of legitimate uses for . files and more experienced users should not have to suffer for "perceived" security considerations with no real merit.

  This "feature" was particularly problematic for me when I attempted to relocate my iTunes library to a Samba network share. Unknown to me, OS X stores directory metadata in a readwriteable file .DS_Store. If you prevent the creation of . files on the Samba share, OS X will fail mysteriously. Just keep in mind that . files are useful for normal system operation as well.

• Runaway processess

  There is no way other than having top run in a Terminal or the Activity Monitor running constantly in the background to know that a system process has failed unexpectedly and is running your CPUs at full throttle. The more astute will notice the Chernobyl-Like-Heat radiating beneath sweaty palms, but the common user will only notice the disastrous after effects of such a system.

  The number of heat related posts in the Apple Forum are staggering. Being able to identify and terminate a runaway process is a sure way to maintain the longevity of your system. There's nothing like having full CPU utilization and both fans running to drain the battery prematurely as well.

  If the two system monitoring alternatives presented above don't appeal to you, I recommend downloading the iStat widget. Not only can you configure it display the most resource intensive processes on you machine, but it also provides a host of additional information such as the temperature of various thermal sensors in your machine.

• Half-baked updates

  This is a peeve which I carried over from Windows and did not expect to have to deal with in OS X. If updates are to be release for public consumption, at the very LEAST, some regression testing should be done on the updates so that at the minimum they do no harm to an existing system by destabilizing it, and at most, they actually fix the problems they purport to fix. Lateral progress is to be expected sometimes, but retrograde progress is a definite no-no.

• Safari

  What can I say? As the default browser of OS X, I found Safari somewhat underwhelming. There is nothing here that you can't get with the more capable SeaMonkey. The truly, truly crappy part about Safari is that the system wide browser settings (such as the default browser) are embedded in the Safari Preferences. How about putting these settings in the System Preferences so that we can remove the necessity to have Safari run on the system at all?

• Mail

  This application is far from being useful and is targeted towards the light-weight/casual email user. Its perennial speed issues as well as its inability to deal with large mailbox sizes (think in the tens of thousands of messages) makes this probably the most useless OS X app for me. I didn't even last a day with Mail before deciding that SeaMonkey was the way to go. Unless there is a compelling reason for Apple to develop Mail and Safari, users would be well advised to avoid them entirely.

Apple is not Microsoft and for that, I am grateful. But if they continue in this vane, the quality that distinguishes them may become diluted and eventually lost. As Apple users, we must insist on a level of hardware/software integration that exceeds user expectation by simply working. I realize that this is idealistic, but I believe this to be the core of the public's perception of Apple, and should not be disregarded lightly. If Apple is to have any chance to grow their market share in the personal computing segment, they should avoid disabusing their relatively tolerant user base who have paid a premium for their product on the assumption that they would be entitled to a hassle-free computing experience.