There are basically two sorts of people engaged in the Aqua debate: those who like the "lickable" look of Apple's forthcoming OS X Aqua interface, and embrace its new features like the Dock; and those who think that since the current MacOS interface "ain't broke," Apple's gratuitous decision "fix" it is wrongheaded. I am in the latter camp.

I have not yet had the opportunity to use one of the pre-release OS X builds, and some commentators in camp 1 suggest that those who have no hands-on experience with Aqua should not criticize it. I disagree. The appearance of the Aqua interface has been graphically documented on many Websites. You can look at some here if you're interested. I presume it looks pretty much the same there as it will on my PowerBook's desktop, and I see no reason to withold comment on its aesthetics until I have it installed.

Secondly, my perhaps somewhat quixotic purpose in criticizing now aspects of Aqua that I provisionally dislike, such as its gaudy, oversized graphics abandonment of the real desktop and lack of real Apple menu, is in hope (not very lively hope but still hope) that Apple can be convinced to "unfix" the OS X user interface while there's still time, which is quickly running out. To wit, if there must be Aqua, there should still be an integrated option to revert to the time-honored Mac OS interface that we know and love, sort of like Microsoft building a Word 5.1 interface into Word 98 for those who prefer it.

While I haven't yet tried OS X myself, my son (who lives 200 miles away) installed the developer release 3 of OS X on his Lombard PowerBook last week, and he reports that at this stage of the game at least, things are much as we had dreaded. The oversized graphics are not adequately downsizable, the Dock is a pain, and you can't park stuff you're working with on the desktop -- at least not without considerable hassle (see below). There are no constantly-visible text labels on the icons of stuff in the Dock. In short, he doesn't like Aqua's functionality, although he is less critical of its appearance than I am.

It should be emphasized that we are discussing Mac OS X Developer Preview 3 and not the shipping version of Mac OS X, and some or all of the issues under discussion could change in the final version. For an in depth and technically literate review of Mac OS X developer release 3, see John Siracusa's article :"Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water " on Ars Technica. (Thanks to readers Craig Hollinshead and Michael Krzyzek for bringing this Mr. Siracusa's article to my attention.)

Another person with developer release 3 installed is Mac reseller Gerry Curry of Atlantis Kobetek in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Gerry has kindly granted me permission to quote his impressions of OS X in this column.

As well as being an authorized Apple reseller and service provider, Gerry Curry is an Apple Certified Tech and Systems Engineer, who says he also has enough experience working with the various Windows operating systems to know that he would never want to make a living off of them.

Gerry says that his first impression of OS X is that it reminds him of Linux... but with an easy install. "It is not so much a Mac OS with UNIX underpinnings as a UNIX OS with a few nods to the Mac world," he observes. "UNIX is everywhere in this OS... and it's inescapable. Right from the get-go it's assumed that you will be in a multi-user, networked environment."

Gerry installed OS X developer release 3 on an iMac DV. After playing with it for an hour, he concluded that this new OS is a "completely new operating system. Nothing that you have learned using a previous Mac OS will be of any use to you whatsoever. It doesn't look like a Mac, it doesn't feel like a Mac, and it certainly doesn't work like a Mac. He observes that "MacOS 7/8/9 have about as much in common with this new OS as Win 98 or Linux."

"Looking through the directory folders," he continues, "you see a whole multitude of folders with strange names like bin, dev, etc, Local. Stuff that no novice computer user should ever have to see. You also have to deal with strange concepts like 'root' and 'administrator.'

(Note: Reader Roger Carlson says we can "forget about bin and dev and underscores and extensions: we did a search on DP3 and turned up about 8 folders named "applications". One for the user, one that seemed to be for a master user profile, one shared amongst users, one shared amongst machines, one for the system...."

On the other hand, the Ars Technica article by John Siracusa notes that "The buttons (with the exception of "View" on the far right) are simply shortcuts to the conceptual root item, ~/, ~/Applications, ~/Documents, ~/Library/Favorites, and ~/Library/People, respectively.... The 'Computer' conceptual root continues to show mounted volumes as they come online as well as the 'Network' item which is a shortcut to /Network. Most Unix-ish directories (/bin, /dev, /lib, etc.) are hidden in the Finder, as are dot-files (files and folders beginning with a period). Bundles ('.app' files like "TextEdit.app") show up as single items of type 'application' with their own icons.")

Gerry Curry continues:

"I wanted to select my printer and mount my file server, but after 2 hours, I still haven't figured out how to do it.

"I did find out that in order to change the color bit depth of my monitor I have to 'log out.' To change any of my TCP/IP parameters, I actually have to reboot. I thought the Mac OS was above that kind of nonsense!

"Many file names use underscores, many applications have .app suffixes. When was the last time we saw that on a Mac?"

Many Aqua skeptics have expressed misgivings about the humongously big, "Fisher-Price-style" icons in the OS X demo, only to be told by Aqua boosters that the icons will be resizable. Gerry Curry says that icon sizes are adjustable... sort of.

"It seems that you can only set default icon size for icons that you place on the desktop. And you can only put aliases (or are they going to start calling them shortcuts?) on the desktop," he notes.

"When you open a volume or folder and select icon view, you can adjust the icon size," Gerry continues, "BUT, you have to do it for EVERY INDIVIDUAL window. There's no system-wide default.

"Grid spacing is also not adjustable, and is set for the largest icon size. So if you resize the icons to normal size, they end up spaced apart enough to leave room for 2 icons in between. Holding the Command key down does not force icons to snap to the grid. When you view using the Finder, there seems to be no way to change the icon size at all.

"To go along with the icons, the file name is displayed in a large, bold font. It's way too big, and cannot be changed.

"When you 'launch' the Finder, regardless of view, you have a series of folders displayed across the top of the window [sort of like the ones that appear at the top of the Sherlock II window] that Apple has decided everyone will be using often. You cannot change the folders, so If you delete or do not use an Apps folder, or a Docs folder or a Favorites folder, but do use a Programmes folder or an Internet folder or a Utilities folder, you're out of luck.

All this sounds distressingly Windows-like to me. One of the things I love most about the classic Mac OS is that it lets you do things the way you want to, not as the OS programmers decided you should do it.

"All I can say," says Gerry Curry, "as a reseller who caters to a large number of novice consumers with a sprinkling of small business users, is that if Apple puts THIS OS on all it's machines this fall, I'm going to be making a whole lot of money doing things I never wanted to do, to people who deserve a whole lot more."

Gerry says that all he wanted was the Mac OS GUI he knows and loves, with modern underpinnings. "What I seem to be getting," he says, "is a dog's breakfast, chock full of features that less than 1 percent of my customers will ever need or use."

"This thing is going to be installed on EVERY new Mac that ships, starting this Fall. [Note: Gerry is no doubt technically correct that OS X installations are scheduled to begin (late) this fall, but on machines that will ship in the New Year] I'm going to be expected to sell this to 70 year old retirees who just want to write and print a few letters, do their taxes and send the occasional e-mail to the grandkids. I've never been so scared in my life." So there you have it from a guy who knows his stuff and who has used OSX.

I think Apple is sailing into dangerous waters here. I believe that the Mac OS interface is one of the biggest attractions and loyalty-generators the Mac platform has going for it. Radically altering it could backfire spectacularly, especially with people like the Eazel group developing user-friendly GUIs for Linux. Eazel, which is spearheaded by members of the original Macintosh team from the early '80s, says it will produce a Linux interface that is as easy to use and as intuitive as the classic Mac OS. If they deliver on that promise, and Apple antagonizes a large proportion of their loyal user-base with a no-options Aqua, well, you figure out what the implications might be.

As an Applelinks reader commented this week:

"The Aqua interface as it appears so far is a jumble of inconsistent obtrusive icons, and changes to the interface that do not at first glance seem to be an improvement. As someone who often spends 12 hour days on my computer, I most definitely DO NOT need an interface with swirling windows and translucent shadows. I just need the OS to be easily understandable and usable. And then I want it to get out of the way and let me get my work done."

Low End Mac's Gerard Bagwin is even more assertive in describing his impression of OS X's Aqua GUI. "Aqua Blows," says Gerard. "I hate Aqua and the QuickTime 4 interface. I hate those traffic light buttons. I hate the rounded off appearance. And, I have a whole rant about the menu bar: that retarded Mac OS smiley in place of the Apple Menu,... that pointless Go menu, and that functionless Apple in the middle of the menu bar."

"The ideal OS," he continues, "should be fast, have useful features, work on all Macs with sufficient memory, stay out of the way, and have a non-obstrusive interface (which is definitely not Aqua!)." Gerard likes the look of OS 7.5.3. I, who substantially share his dim view of Aqua's looks, am partial to the Zen-like simplicity of System 6.

"A back to basics OS is what we need, not inconsistent icon sizes and photographic toolbar icons that mean nothing." Gerard notes.

I agree. We Aqua-skeptics are not the stick-in-the-mud Luddites that Aqua boosters are wont to characterize us as. I have no problem with innovations that actually make something work better. I do have trouble with change for the sake of change, and with function taking a back seat to form.

So, lest I be accused of being an unrelenting curmudgeon wallowing in total negativity, let me say that there are a few features in Aqua that sound like they make sense. One of these is the Browser view, which is included in addition to List and Icon views. The Browser, which is another NeXT-derived feature, lets you peruse several folder levels in the same window, which can be convenient at times as I've discovered experimenting with the shareware app. Greg's Browser. This is a worthwhile addition, so long as it remains optional, and the other choices are still there. The integrated Search box in each Aqua Finder window is a useful and sensible addition as well.

However, the classic Mac OS interface works for me. I use the desktop extensively as a clearing platform and dumping ground for my work, and it's usually cluttered with dozens of icons of documents, application aliases and folders. I set my save dialogs and download dialogs to the desktop, and virtually everything that lands on or is created on my hard drive makes a stop on the desktop before it is transferred to a more permanent destination. I don't have to click on an expanding window to find my stuff; it is all right there at a glance until I decide to move it elsewhere.

Ars Technica's John Siracusa says that the Aqua desktop is indeed a "normal" desktop, and that real items may be stored on it, not just aliases. He notes that "each user's desktop is just the contents of the 'Desktop Folder' buried under their home directory. Unfortunately, the default action when items are dragged to the desktop is to make an alias. Holding down the command key while dragging will moves the item, and the option key will copy it. These key bindings need to be re-mapped to the classic Mac OS policy: no modifier for move, option for copy, and command-option for alias. There's no good reason for the change." I hope he's right that it's that simple and that Apple will do the right thing.

Because document and folder icons in particular tend to look the same, I depend greatly on the text labels to sort out what is what at a glance. I understand that Aqua's icon labels only show up on mouseovers [again, refer to the Sherlock II button bar for a demo], which is emphatically not satisfactory for the way I work.

I am not as heavy a user of the Apple menu as some people, but it does its job well, and is a lot more useful than a decorative MacOS logo in the middle of the menu bar. The menu bar is crowded enough most of the time, and doesn't need any non-functional deadwood cluttering it up. John Siracusa reports that there is no adequate replacement for the Apple menu in OS X at this point, and that the only workarounds are clumsy. No Notepad; no easy access to Control Panels; no (fill in whatever usual stuff you do with the Apple Menu).

Other stuff gone AWOL are the pop-up tabbed folder windows (which I use a LOT); the Application Menu palette and "hide others" command -- both of which I use dozens, if not hundreds of times per day; the Control Strip (again, I am a heavy-user). John Siracusa observes that while he thinks Mac OS X DP 3 is well-intended, Aqua manages to get most of the details wrong: "The dock is a total write-off. It doesn't need to be 'fixed' so much as it needs to be split-out into individual components that do a particular task (and do it well), rather than a catch-all dock that does everything atrociously... I continue to enjoy the technical aspects of Mac OS X, and I hold out hope that Apple will listen to its users and reconsider some of the UI decisions made for Mac OS X."

As for the command-line directory dreck Gerry Curry noted lurking under the Aqua window-dressing, perhaps that is the necessary price of getting UNIX's stability and functional superiority on the Mac, but it represents a quantum leap backwards in terms of user-friendliness. The whole mess seems to be a quantum-leap backwards in terms of flexibility.

These are not trivial complaints. As it stands in developer release 3, OS X either eliminates or cripples virtually every feature I use in the classic Mac OS to get my work done the way I like to do it. And the "well, you can always just keep using OS 9" kiss-off doesn't cut it. I want the good, "under-the-hood" stuff that will come with OS X, but I wish that Apple hadn't decided to make the "hood" itself a GUI analog of the infamous "screaming chicken" decal Pontiac used to plaster on the Firebird's engine bonnet back in the '70s.

Charles W. Moore

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November 21, 2008