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Table of Contents   Page 1: Apple Core Rot: Introduction Page 2: Reader Comments on Apple Core Rot Page 3: Impossible to Complete a File Copy on Any Drives Page 4: Time Machine Silently Excludes Critical Data Page 5: Finder Copy Destroys File System on Boot Drive Page 6: Finder Refuses to Delete 'Backup Items' Page 7: Finder Silently Fails to Copy Files Page 8: Disk Utility Offers to Destroy 13 volumes on 4 Drives Page 9: Graphics Professionals Need 10-bit Color

Reader Comments on Apple Core Rot

Unsolicited reader comments.

I was speaking for myself in writing the piece, but it’s clear that I am far from alone. Striking is the overwhelming agreement (near 100%) support for Apple Core Rot (now that’s said, someone will make a point of “disagreeing” somehow***, and then there are the trolls). The consistent reader “dial tone” is unprecedented in context of everything I’ve ever written for this site. It forebodes market risks for Apple that so much frustration abounds out there.

*** It took a few hours after adding the “100%” comment, but someone dutifully wrote to "disagree", using as argument the claims that it must be my own ignorance of the facts, or “bad hardware”, or some unspecified cause. As evidence that I am wrong about the file copy problem, this person presented the fallacy that “it doesn’t happen to me, so it must not be possible”. And in regards to my system corruption issue an even simpler “it can’t happen because no user program could cause this”.

Andy W writes:

Your concerns resonate with *this* fanboy and the other Apple aficionados I work with. I've got persistent problems related to multiple displays that require (at least) daily 'killall Dock' commands, Calendar cache errors, file association issues, intermittant stuck-at-the-blue-screen (irony!) during reboot problems, and others. To add insult to injury, for the first time ever I had to wipe-and-reload a Mac (my MBA) due to persistent performance degradation.

I'm glad you're shining some light onto this. Apple needs to get off the ridiculous yearly upgrade cycle and get back to delivering a reliable, quality OS.

MPG: liking Apple and being a fanboy are different. A “fanboy” is not concerned with facts as you are, rather it is about coupling ego with the product and equating product criticism to personal criticism.

Alan S writes:

You could perhaps add to your list the way that sandboxing has turned TextEdit into an unreliable tool that must frequently be restarted. Fortunately, it is good at saving and restoring state so that restarting is relatively painless.

https://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57467145-263/sandbox-errors-may-temporarily-break-specific-os-x-application-functions/

Also, a problem that was created a long time ago and never fixed: TextEdit (actually NSTextStorage) cannot support a table containing a list containing a table. That's because a paragraph style keeps two separate lists of enclosing tables and enclosing lists. It's as if tables and lists were implemented by two programmers who did not talk to each other.

MPG: symptomatic. TextEdit will hang for 2-3 minutes with a large plain-text paste also.

Jonathan M writes:

Blown away. Excellent article on Apple Rot. Amazing. Thank you. It makes my post back in early December look like a cartoon.

https://mergy.org/2012/12/irecognition-i-am-no-longer-apples-target-market/

I really appreciate the detail and your points. Impressive.

MPG: everyone has their own work to do and own perspective.

Jeff G writes:

It resonates here as well: facebook.com/macsupportstore

Christopher H writes:

Good article - totally agree,I for one dread OSX releases now.Perhaps you could do a 'is linux a alternative' article just to look at the feasibility of it from a mac users perspective.I realise you're a heavy photoshop user though .

Thanks for the articles.

MPG: Linux is not a solution for my needs.

Jackie C writes:

I certainly share your view about the demise of the great working machine from Apple. But, the reality is, what are the options out there? I have been contemplating of switching back to PC but every time when I look at Windows OS then I just can't put myself in the PC camp again, especially if you have to spend a great deal of time with it.

With you expertise, what are/ will be the options?

MPG: no palatable alternatives at present.

Jewels writes:

Very interesting article, So much so that I have forwarded it on to Apple OS X feedback themselves let's see if you get a reply.

MPG: The mouse yells at the elephant. And I prefer that readers make their own comments, no one can speak on my behalf. I don’t expect Apple to change; it has gone into protect-the-franchise posture and one-size-fits-all, which means iP* and iM* products. Fortunately, Apple does not make clothing or condoms.

Dom S writes:

Interesting post & I have a gut feeling that, as well as your more knowing technical observations, Apple has been under too much share-holder pressure to focus on iOS and its products and at the cost of Mac OS X and its products.

You can see this reflected within forums like Gearslutz ( music & audio production forum ) where the amount of posts regarding Hackintosh or switching to Windows have come up more frequently, especially as we (in the music industry) are gasping for the next MacPro!

As a Logic Pro user (since 1997 i.e. pre-Apple days) I feel tied into their eco-system, and to be honest for most of the decade I have enjoyed watching their massive success, but the past 2-3 years has made me worry about the relationship between Apple and Logic (Emagic).

One saving grace, no pun intended, is that the current version of Logic Pro still has in its file menu "Save...", "Save As..." & "Save a Copy As..." and it works as specified, I hope that Dr.Lengling and his team keep & protect this at least, especially as we are waiting for Logic Pro X to drop, fingers crossed!

On a side note I've been using the much extolled Accelsior card in my 2009 MacPro & it performs like a champ, I think it has made the MacPro what it should always have been...no bottlenecks!

Love your site, very useful with great attention to detail, I don't know how you find the time but I hope you can keep up the fabulous work!

MPG: Apple pro apps were an early symptom of the contempt for professional users now running rampant at Apple.

Dirk S writes:

Thank you so much for this article!

I experience the fallout of Apple's neglect of quality assurance over the last half year. From the total of only 5 Apple computers, I have bought so far, 3 Apple computers had so severe hardware related manufacturing issues, that they either died or had been brought back to the shop.

I am now on Computer no. 4 of 5, which also shows issues (Retina 15" with all of the known current issues, one can find in hot discussions).

I have a rather short history of using OS X (since Leopard), but I do see with every single iteration more bugs, more crashes and more features, that are completely un-useful, while certain functions, I used daily have been either crippled or removed.

I hope, Apple steers it's way back on track to supply first rate computers for professional use. I don't care about the consumer electronics for entertainment purpose.

Please keep your great sites going, I am a follower for some time!

MPG: I’d consider the Mac Pro to be exceptionally reliable in general, so I would not include the hardware in my complaint.

T writes:

I think there is also a problem with Apple's change to releasing an OS every year. It takes me at least a month to switch OS versions and get everything stable.

I am not willing to have an unstable month every year. Every 3 years, maybe but not every year. This is the whole reason 30% of users are still running 10.6. In fact there are more users running 10.6 than there are running 10.7. (Mountain Lion is less than 3 percentage points ahead of 10.6.)

Such rapid pace OS development means that there is never a stable platform to develop on or a stable platform to use. I don't think the end user or the developer are well served by this.

MPG: The rapid change is a marketing tool bereft of consideration for users who would benefit from more than puerile eye-candy “upgrades”. Developer duress just makes more bugs for users.

To use one example of consumer software, symptoms include the kitchen-sink nightmare that is iTunes, which as I found recently cannot do the one thing properly that it did five years ago: import CDs (it creates duplicate or triplicate tracks for all and has no concept of importing a series of disks properly). Nor does it let me deal with my iPhone without shoving billboards of crap into my face.

Larry writes:

The only one I'd call into question is the Fusion example since it's technically a hack implementation. I don't outright disagree - just objectively noting that Apple hasn't tested for the scenario involved as the current Fusion as deployed doesn't allow that scenario.

The rest are concerning... general OS bloating in general too.

MPG: the Fusion comment is fair in a way— but what’s not fair is the expectation that no Mac user ever wants to tweak the hardware config, or the fact that damage can occur if used in certain ways. It shows logical incompetence in software design; basic checks should be made if functionality is intended for only one very specific combination.

Robert S writes:

Thank you for speaking the truth. A friend of mine that works for Oracle has told me before how antiquated the OSX core system is.

Hopefully, something positive comes out of it.

MPG: I’m not sure it’s fair to say that the OS X core is antiquated. But what is antiquated is the OS X file system, which should have long ago moved to ZFS.

Arne K writes:

A very, very old speech from Mongolia says “He, who talks the truth, has to have a fast horse”

This becomes more and more true for realistic critics and also fans of Apple Computers. What you wrote is oh so true! I have to shout out “yes, oh, yes!” several times when reading your great article. If I would be a millionaire, I would have some guys to write this in golden letters into granit stones and build them up right in front of Apples headquarter.

It is all so damn true and oh so sad. And so unneccessary.

I can underline EVERY word of it and I have a lot of pro-friends who can also. To kill the OS X hardware servers, the X-Grid, the unbeleaveable bad maintenance of mac pro and OS X – it’s all so stupid and it makes me angry. And all you get when complaining about FACTS is such a shiny-teeth-a**hole of marketing hobo telling you everything is ok or Apple Fanboys running around like Duracell-apes, singing how “stylish” and “cool” everything “feels”.

It’s sometimes so absurd, one could break out into laughter. But it’s not funny at all. This is about serious business of thousands. ZFS is gone from OS X to Zevo and now it’s at greenbytes… why it’s not in OS X?

HFS+ is a system from the stone-age of PC’s, even older than NTFS – and worse, too.

But when you got shareholders and managers who just stare at the value site of something, captured in short term benefits, it’s what you get. It’s all about money and more money. It should be quality and usability first and then the money will come naturally.

I thank you so much, stay sharp!

MPG: Apple is building up a lot of badwill out there among longtime supporters.

Gerben W writes:

I agree with your message: Apple is neglecting its foundations. I have also been a long user of OS X (and NeXTSTEP before it). The same thing happened at NeXT, where all the attention was going to applications and application-development technologies (Frameworks for NeXTSTEP came and then lingered). Apple's core was hardly ever updated. Simple errors in the Clib persisted from 1988 until NeXT stopped operations in 1996. BSD was at a slightly patched 4.2 level in 1996. Etc. etc.

The focus was on those technologies that were deemed important for sales. Never on technologies that enabled sales 5 years from now.

In the beginning of Steve & Avie Tevanian at Apple, this seemed to have been rectified. Apple worked on a large number of deep foundational technologies (e.g. MPEG decoders, file system events daemons that enable stuff like Time Machine, etc. Many enabling technologies. But over the last years Apple seems to have lost its attention for the quality and strength of its foundation. See for one how OS X Server was dumbed down (you want multiple domains on your server? you're on your own) and how fundamental technologies like PHD/syncing has always been on the edge of usaibility/reliability.

MPG: That’s a good way to put it: “neglect”. Makeup over pimples.

Gert S writes:

Just continue the way reporting things. If the big company with the apple sign wants to control everything, they confirm that that they are not interested in their customers and their needs, only in their own profit. The question is only how long they can do it.

Your site is much more informative and trustful than the one from Apple.

I have a MacPro / Hexcore / 48 GB, MacBookPro 17" and an iPad 2, but I'm not a fanboy of a company. I see these as tools, nothing else.

MPG: I am in the same boat, seeing these things as tools. But what is the job? Apple’s business today appears to be 80% entertainment and consumer oriented as the product line makes clear as does walking into any Apple Store. Hence the disconnect with pro users. The pity is that Apple could address both markets instead of leaving “Mac Pro professionals” (used in the broadest sense) twisting in the wind.

Andrew W writes:

I've been using Macs since the "bad old days" of Mac OS 7.6. I remember thinking OS 9 was "amazing", then Panther was "rock-solid", Tiger even better. I found many bugs in early Leopard versions, but 10.5.8 seemed ok. 10.6 was the best ever, it was truly the OS I had been dreaming of since the 90s. Windows, Linux, Solaris, none could touch the ease-of-use, flexibility, and raw power/performance of 10.6.

Then we come to 10.8. While I haven't seen all of these bugs first hand, I can tell you that I've seen ALL of those Finder bugs – as well as many, many more. It's so annoying when a network copy is interrupted; the partially-copied file is "stuck", and it can't even be removed via Terminal. I have three half-copies of a VM I was copying over AFP because I still haven't figured out a way to remove them.

This kind of thing is why I still treasure my Power Mac G4 to the point that I installed Ruby 1.9 and Rails 3 on to it. That wasn't easy, but the rock-solid foundation of Leopard has already more than made up for the effort. Saddest part is that even with 10.7 my MBP spanked the G4 with performance, but 10.8 is getting slower and slower. The 733MHz G4 with ATA/100 disk is now faster at rendering Rails templates and responses than the quad-core i5 MBP with SATA.

I run Fedora Linux in Boot Camp and while I love Fedora, and it makes my MBP fast again, it just doesn't have the apps that I need. Photoshop, Illustrator, Safari (even with Apple's decline still the best browser IMO), Reflection, Colloquy, iWork, MS Office, and I'm an iPhone app developer so I need Xcode / Instruments. It has open-source "equivalents" but I don't want "equivalent", I want the real thing. Bottom line is that in the Panther/Tiger days I didn't mind being "locked in" to the Apple walled garden because every release was even more amazing than the last. Now, I'm not so sure.

MPG: No good alternatives to OS X at present. Apple could lock up the pro market by focusing on rock-solid reliability and performance along with new Mac Pros and similar.

Samuel S writes:

Thank you! I'm glad to hear I'm not crazy...

I've been a Mac admin since 1986, starting with a bunch of 512Ks with HyperDrives all networked and connected to DarpaNet.

I'm about ready to change careers, supporting my clients and keeping them productive has become difficult at best, and often impossible. Today I've got a pissed-off client with an esoteric Snow Leopard font issue I haven't been able to find yet...

I downgraded [sic] myself from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion and have been plagued with too many issues. My few users who have Mountain Lion are having radically more issues than they did in Snow Leopard. The basic GTD apps are dysfunctional: Mail, Calendar and Contacts.

Sadly, after being an Apple evangelist for 26 years I'm finding I can barely recommend Apple over Windows, and I suspect this will change in the near future. I would recommend that my workplace clients use Windows, but in it's typical infinite wisdom about what people want, Microsoft turned Windows 8 into a phone OS and it's suffering from many of the same productivity issues as Mountain Lion.

What's weird to me is that corporations who need to get their work done aren't speaking up about their loss of productivity, increased IT costs supporting buggy software, et al. But, a CIO wants to expand their empire, so this situation just makes them more valuable to the company...

MPG: Apple’s Mail/Calendar/Contacts apps are rife with bugs and getting worse.

Frank S writes:

I think your Apple Core Rot article should be required reading for all the top people at Apple. I hope your message spreads far and wide and gets more professionals demanding better from Apple.

I'm wondering how Apple is comparing with Microsoft at this point? I've been testing Windows 8 on my Mac via Parallels and I think it's many steps backwards from Windows 7.

And, similar to how many Windows users skipped Vista, I will for the first time since I've been using Macs (80's) be skipping an entire OS for my daily work even through my hardware is fully compatible with the latest OS's. I'm using 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and will be migrating over to Mountain Lion 10.8.x without ever having upgraded to Lion 10.7.x in between.

I tested Lion 10.7.x on a bootable clone and used it in some work settings on other people's computers and determined it wasn't worth the hassle. And, to be honest, the only reason I'm migrating to Mountain Lion 10.8.x is because I'm being forced to do it for some compatibility reasons (and I'm still only doing that kicking and screaming).

My MacBook Pro early 2011 has been a dream performance-wise on 10.6.8, so I didn't want to ruin it by updating to Lion 10.7.x and losing time/money from work fixing things that currently aren't broken.

I used to really look forward to Mac OS updates for the added speed and stability back in the day. Nowadays, I pretty much dread them. Snow Leopard 10.6.8 has been very solid for me overall considering all the abuse I put it through.

I'm going to have to continue testing Mountain Lion 10.8.x on my clone for a LONG while before I can "trust it". And, I resent how much time that takes as well. I wish I could trust Apple to do the right thing and just upgrade my production machine, but I've been burnt too much to do that now.

It's almost as if Apple and Microsoft are challenging each other to see who can regress the most at this point.

MPG: Earlier OS version weren’t exactly free of bugs either, but there was more focus on making at least some true OS improvements instead of superficial eye-candy changes while forgetting real improvements (where we sit now).

William H writes:

Lloyd, I recall back in the 90's there were surveys of productivity, comparing Mac and PC users. It always seemed Mac users were more productive and made more money per 'computer unit' that PCs. I recall this had to do with what my programmer-father called the dumbing down of [Mac] computers.

In other words you weren't stuffing around all the time programming and doing that sort of sh*t. Instead, you switched on your computer (that cost twice as much but worked straight out the box) and were working and being productive all the time. As a programmer HE wanted to have control. As a photographer and filmmaker I wanted to switch my machine on and be working productively immediately.

Ironically there have always been few games for the Mac because we are busy being productive...

In recent years I have had the misfortune to have to use a PC for a particular business application. I have done this both through Parallels on my MBPro and on dedicated PC laptop (the MBPro does it better, by the way). Well, the language that comes from me every time I have to use that piece of sh*t is unbelievable. You have to press so many buttons to do something that is just one click with the Mac. And clearly 25 years of Mac-using has now hardwired my brain to work in a particular way and think of directories in a particular way because I can never find anything in Windows.

And why is everything so many mouse clicks away (I use a tablet; not a bloody mouse!). And why are PC desktops such a bloody mess of files and folders.

I also get the shits with Mac periodically and consider witching over to PC. But the PC is far less stable and slow and non-intuitive AND every time I switch on to PC it has to download and update a load of files and restart. Then I want to switch off but I have to do restart to install or some shit like that... Seriously, how does the world get by with PC? I guess it keeps a load of people in work.

Sadly, Mac is heading that way too. Or rather HAS gone that way already. That previous wonderful "lack of control" (actually there WAS control if you knew how) of Mac that allowed me to switch on and be productive has become a lack of control and lack of reliability and lack of easy usability lets spend more time trying to get our systems working.

I still use Mac OS X version 10.6.8 because it works and I'm terrified of upgrading and spending a heap of time making things work. Also, I question the dollar cost to lose that control for a questionable increase in speed.

I'm very angry they f*cked up Final Cut Pro. I switched back to Premiere after 12 years away.

Now I can't sleep at night for fear they f*ck up Aperture next. In spite of it's minimal problems it is way better from a productivity point of view that all the other.

I hate iTunes now.

Thank God they are still better than PC still. But for how long?

What's that expression... something about he who lies with dogs must be prepared for the fleas.

MPG: bad feeling towards Apple.

Brian C writes:

For me this article was somewhat cathartic. I face another evening trying to restore my MBP to the way it was before an update and re-boot a few days ago. I moved to Mac to avoid this stuff yet find myself having to fiddle more than ever with technology that is no longer improving my productivity or aligned with my somewhat basic requirements.

MPG: The thought of having to reinstall from scratch is an unpleasant one, which is why I keep a bootable clone backup of my boot drive.

Paul C writes:

I really appreciate the work you put into this piece, and with that in mind I’m going to take a minute and tell you my story:

I’m a professional software developer who targets multiple platforms. I had been using windows laptops for years and years, and when the first all-in-one iMacs came out (early 2006?) I switched to Mac and Parallels Desktop. Man, was I impressed! And productive? Like never before. From there it went to MB Pro, bigger iMac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad. Time machine too, the works. It all “just worked”, at least initially.

My reality check came in Aug 2011 when I was on vacation in Italy first time with my new iPhone 4s and iPad II. Same place I go every year, same hotel, lovely terrace where I can sit, drink coffee, email. Imagine my shock and surprise when I couldn’t get a WLAN connection on my beloved terrazzo! The hastily summoned proprietor, however, assured me that he had in fact improved the WLAN by installing better and additional access points, even extending the range. After all, when I went inside the building, it “just worked” again. After a few days googled, I was able to identify the problem: Apple had replaced some of the WLAN radio hardware with a more power-saving version, thus resulting in more power for the flashy new display, but alas less range for the WLAN. All other guest’s phones and devices worked fine, and to my great disappoint, so did my 1st gen iPad, and my iPhone 3. The gut feeling that things were changing for the worst, came to reality for me on that day - just like you describe in your introduction. Later, with the introduction of the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, my worst fears materialized. At the point where Apple stocks were at their highest level I realized they were going to drop fast - and they did.

I made the switch back to Windows when 8 came out - it’s not perfect, but it has promise. A major hurdle to overcome was the ability to create iOS apps without needing an Apple development machine, which turned out to be no problem. Switching back has not impacted my productivity, and in retrospect I might add that I have experienced major hardware failures on a significant portion of my Apple products, most notably my TimeMachine. Of all my hardware inventory, only my original iPod, my 1st Gen iPad, one iPhone, and a MacBook Pro are in original condition. Everything else has been in the shop at least once or has failed beyond repair - that would be 3 iMacs, 1 MacBook Pro, 2 MacBook Airs, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, 1 iPad Touch, 1 TimeMachine at least.

So there’s but a single point in which I beg to differ from your excellent article: if you think that Apple is f*cking their professional customers in favor of consumers, you’ve got that wrong. Apple is f*cking their consumer customers just as hard, it’s just that there are a lot more of them taking up their valuable time. We’re back to the Apple of the Scully era, it’s all “just money” once again.

MPG: Murmurations of discontent whether or not entirely justified spell future trouble for Apple.

I have 1/2 mile line-of-sight to the cell tower. My iPhone 4s holds a call pretty well, that is if I hold it just right using the “Apple fealty” grip.

Florin J writes:

The moment a non-engineer got to occupy the highest seat at Apple, I was expecting something like this.

You'd expect Apple to have learnt its lesson, and not to yield to non-engineers that easy, after they almost went bankrupt when Jobs was pushed out in 1985. Obviously, nobody told the people at Apple that whoever doesn't know history is cursed to repeat past mistakes.

Yes, Jobs was a freak for aesthetic perfection, but he was also an engineer, and for him at least it was obvious that aesthetics and engineering quality could only go hand in hand. Once there's no engineer in charge anymore, management starts only caring about what's visible and about revenue, and acts surprised when the entire block collapses because engineering has been under-funded and neglected for years.

In the longer term, I expect this to hurt Apple more than other companies. Apple's main argument for customer fidelity and high prices is the quality of its products. Apple's management may only look at the nice graphics in the UI, at powerpoint presentations and at the polish of the oleofobic displays. End users, however, can't get around actually feeling the decrease in technical quality.

MPG: these issues are years in the making. Hard to fault Apple for making itself the most financially successful company in history in terms of impact and financials. Still the light that burns ever so bright might burn out more quickly than expected when the roots of success are neglected.

Irene S writes:

Has anyone doing OS X updates read the Apple Interface Guidelines in
the past 4 years?

I'm stuck on Mountain Lion because I bought an iMac in August. The
Finder and windows bugs are outrageous! No programs I own seem to
work correctly except for some photo editing apps. So I paid a small
fortune for a machine to run only Adobe Photoshop CS 6 and Lightroom
4, because Word crashes, Filemaker 12 isn't backwards compatible, so
I refuse to upgrade to that version, and a host of other apps don't
work correctly.

I had wanted to sell my old iMac, but now must keep it to write and
actually get work done. I only have a drafting table and it has a 24"
and 27" iMac on it. Way too much hardware to juggle on a small deks.

MPG: not every bug is Apple’s fault, but even a few problems can make or break a workflow. As for backward compatibility, that once was an admirable quality of OS X, but now Apple deprecates and removes APIs willy-nilly, constantly foists strict new rules on developers which not only demands considerable effort to comply, but that in some cases preclude or degrade the very functionality that users themselves desire. The whole approach forces a non-virtuous upgrade cycle onto developers, or simply forces out otherwise fine software from the market.

Terrence B writes:

Thanks for speaking up. Complete agree, and I could easily add another two dozen ways OS X and Apple apps are broken that never seem to get fixed.

Sadly, Apple doesn't seem to care about their core customer base anymore.

MPG: How about one major OS release whose only (only!) goal would be to fix every last stinkin' bug and performance problem?

Geoff D writes:

An excellent article with which I sadly agree (I have used Macs since OS 7.1).

Until 10.7 I used to update my Mac's OS as soon as I was reasonably confident it would work OK with the apps I needed to use, so I could enjoy the improvements that each version brought. However, buying new hardware is always a risk when it forces one to transition to a new version of the OS so once it became clear that 10.7 would no longer support Rosetta and applications with 32 bit Kexts, and needing a new desktop machine, I bought a 2010 version MacMini with 10.6 just before the model was replaced by the 2011 one running 10.7. I installed the free 10.7 upgrade on a second boot partition so I could try it out but at any time go back to 10.6. (I keep my 3rd party apps on another non-boot partition so they can be used with either version of the OS - makes life much easier). Unlike any previous update I found NOTHING in 10.7 that was a significant improvement on 10.6 and plenty of changes that made usability worse.

I later updated the 10.7 "test" boot partition to 10.8. Whilst 10.8 is an improvement on 10.7, I still found myself reverting as many of the UI changes as I could so as to resemble their behavior in 10.6. The result is that I am still using 10.6 for real work and just booting into 10.8 occasionally to keep it up to date. I had begun to think that perhaps my resistance to change reflected my advancing years (I'm 65) but reading this article has reassured me that this is not the case and has confirmed my intention to put off permanently switching to 10.8 for as long as possible.

I know its not a realistic possibility but I can't help thinking that if Apple doesn't see a business case for catering any more for serious and professional users, they should allow a third party company or create a subsidiary to take over this effort. I'm sure there would be many willing to take up this opportunity even when prevented from competing in the more lucrative mass markets.

MPG: Surely iTunes 11 sets the heart aflutter with raptures? Upgrading to 10.8 will feel so satisfying once 10.9 appears. Then you can unf___ it too! Except that Apple will probably pull the fuddy-duddy feature options at some point, causing me to lose what little remains of my hair.

Wolfgang W writes:

I couldn't agree more. This ridiculous piece of software called Mountain Lion is a joke. I really do not understand how they can abandon a perfectly working OS such as Snow Leo (6.8) for a buggy, less user friendly, unreliable ML. ML has a lot more bugs and problems than the few that you mention. I just name a reproducible black screen after auto-logout. This baffles everybody and few people realize that they just need to move the mouse like an eraser to "wipe" the black (rarely grey) screen for seeing the log-in screen. I am not yet talking of iTunes 11, for example. Bugs, bugs, bugs...

Thanks for your initiative. P.S.: I am expecting the 8.3 update with little hope for a better interface.

MPG: I can’t think of any credible improvement from 10.6 to 10.8 either, and some definite steps backward including color mangling during printing.

The good news is that OS X 10.9 might make 10.8 feel much better?