Talk:Mac OS X/Archive 7

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is an archive of entries that had begun in July 2007 through February 2008.


Contents

x86

Legaly speaking Mac OS X does not support x86 architecture. It can be hacked and modified to the point where it will support x86. So I will be removing x86 from supported architecture. If you believe I am wrong please respond here. 16:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Mac OS X legally supports the x86 architecture, as thats what modern Apple computers use. Josh (talk | contribs) 16:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes - "legally supports the x86 architecture" doesn't necessarily imply "legally supports all machines that have x86 processors in them" or even "legally supports all IBM PC compatible machines. Guy Harris 19:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The modern Apple computers use x64 architechture which is what the newest release of Mac is made for, but anyways it does support x86 which is found on the older Mac computers. Utkarsh Rastogi (talk) 10:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The newest release of Mac OS X is "made for" 32-bit and 64-bit PowerPC, 32-bit IA-32, and 64-bit x86-64 - Mac OS X v10.5 supports Macintoshes built with processors using all of those processor architectures. Guy Harris (talk) 20:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Who cares about the IPA

This is the kind of thing that makes wikipedia retarded! Anyone with half a wit can pronounce mac os x. I mean, come on!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.106.149.33 (talk) 15:30, 8 August 2007

You say that now, but after about 100 back-and-forth edits on it, you'll be glad the consensus led to the IPA version! MFNickster 19:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but can they pronounce it correctly? Is it the letter X or the Roman numeral 10? (Officially, it’s 10.) Is it oh ess or oss? (The answer should be obvious to anyone with half a wit.) —Frungi 14:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty apathetic myself, though it does grate on my ears to hear people say "oh ess ex." It is useful information, but I never thought it was important enough to be in the intro. It was enough to have it in the 'Naming' section (which has since been removed) . MFNickster 18:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I always used to think it was "Oh Ess Ex", and I thought it was interesting when the article said, "tɛn". Althepal 23:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, I can't help but wonder where you picked that up. To my knowledge, Steve Jobs and all other Apple employees have always said "tɛn", as an example here is the initial product announcement: [1] MFNickster 04:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I picked it up by reading. It is written with an "X", not the number 10. Why do I need to listen to Steve Jobs talk before I know how to pronounce it? And it is common to say "X"; I know I've heard that a lot, and then Apple people always complain about it (whatever). I still think it is important because of this. Althepal (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
It didn't occur to you that you can read 'X' as a Roman numeral 10? Surely you don't pronounce 'Super Bowl IX" as 'Super Bowl icks'? MFNickster (talk) 07:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Hey, it's an honest, common mistake. I'm a new Mac user, from Windows XP, pronounced "X" "P", not 10-P. Of course it occurred to me it could be roman numeral, but it just seemed so much more natural to read it "O S X". Althepal (talk) 18:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
No worries, I'm just trying to understand why it seems more 'natural' to some people that way. Some of them get very defensive when they're corrected on it, as we can see from previous edits to the article! MFNickster (talk) 20:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
It seems more natural because it seems cooler, it is uniquely spelled with a letter (unlike previous versions), and it also makes it seem more separate from Mac OS Classic. (It is like a seperate group, that's why people say OS X 10.5, not OS 10.5. And I don't think people naturally go around reading "Mac OS ten ten point five", you know?) When I read "O S ten" to myself, I always fell like I'm correcting myself, but when I read it "O S X", I feel like I'm talking about a cool OS. "X" is a commonly used letter for tech products to make them seem high-tech, you know. Anyway, it's not like it hurts to have the pronunciation in there. = Althepal (talk) 21:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
people like this is why i use linux now —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 20:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Grow up, 219.106.149.33. Apparently it's fitting that you couldn't care less about an integral system of the English language, since your grammar resembles that of a 5th-grader's.
Just saying. 68.60.122.20 23:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Uh, what exactly is wrong with his grammar? All I see is syntactically correct English. You probably were talking about his choice of words, which is still acceptable. P.S. Don't be a douchebag.--66.102.196.46 (talk) 04:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Just to be sure that this subject is over... I asume that is it very clearly that we say "Maek Oh Ess Ten", since the "X" is being read as a Roman numeral 10 instead of an alphabetical letter. And "OS" is short for Operating System, and since the pronunciation of a Abbreviation is usualy letter by letter, we say Oh Ess(əʊ ɛs)
TijhofGraphics -=[ talk / NL / EN / DE ]=- 21:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I've avoided this for a while, but I think it's true people say X over 10. An example from pop culture would be Kylie Minogue's latest CD, which is titled "X". It happens to be her tenth studio album. It's not said Kylie 10, but Kylie X. Bad example? Maybe, lol. Anyhow, yes, technically roman numeral X is said 10, but no matter how hard I try, personally, I say "Mac OS X", not Mac OS X 10, especially considering that the individual versions themselves as presented in this article and their own articles are formatted as Mac OS X 10.1, etc. Thus, why would someone say Mac OS (10) (10.1)? A lot of ten's. I guess it's possible people get it right and actually say this, but I personally can't. I do try though. Anyhow these are just my thoughts. I honestly don't care either way since I know technically I'm wrong, LOL. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 23:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to say, but most people who don't own apple computers pronounce it oh-es-ex, similar to how most people (incorrectly) pronounce 'MySQL' as my-sequel. I have never, ever heard anyone say 'maek' (mac) before it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael.Urban (talk • contribs) 18:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Most people don't know how to pronounce the capital of Iceland correctly, either, which is why the encyclopedia article for Reykjavík puts it right up front. Conversely, just because a lot of people don't say the name of the operating system incorrectly, doesn't mean they've all got it right. They are, of course, welcome to look up the correct pronounciation on Wikipedia... at least we've done the research to get it right. -/- Warren 23:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Something important is missing

There is no market share data or graphical representation for all these operating system pages Something of this sort would, at least i think, greatly benefit any OS page


Note: the idea is to use general estimates as figures change quickly—Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.226.41 (talk) 06:22, 14 September 2007

The part 4 of the page named "Prominent features" is outdated, starting from yesterday, 26.10.2007, as new release of Mac OS X has emerged. This part(part 4) contains only "expected" features, while someone may already to point out what features are eventually exist in the current(latest) release.Thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.0.146.65 (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Finder Criticism

The same arguments were presented on this article and on the Macintosh Finder article. Thus I've moved the information to the latter article so that the same information isn't presented in two places. Further it assists in the overall goal to integrate the criticism into the main article or into their appropriate places. Cheers. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :) Dravick 02:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms

Can someone tell me why there is a 'criticisms' section for each Apple product like macintosh and macosx but no 'criticisms' section for windows, linux, etc ...

So 1) you put the criticisms section for all of them (linux and windows are far from perfect products) or 2) you remove criticisms section from Apple products to be fair (and neutral as the wikipedia claims ...)

Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.42.56.43 (talk) 07:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Criticism of Microsoft Windows, Criticism of Linux (that one used to exist). Dravick 23:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The last one doesn't link to any linux criticism, only to the linux article. Funny to see the 'neutrality' of the wikipedia. —from unsigned comment added by 195.42.56.43 (talk) 13:56, 01 October 2007 (UTC)

Look at the history of the redirect page, it used to be a complete criticism article. Dravick 02:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, a "Criticisms" section for some OSes -- and not others -- is unfair and non-neutral. Although I agree Wikipedia is currently flawed, fortunately you and I have the power to make it better. I recommend option (2) -- there should be no "Criticism of Mac OS X" article or section (although the article should mention notable critics and criticisms in other sections), and the same should be true for every OS. Option (2) seems to harmonize best with official policy, guidelines, and widely-agreed-with essays: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure, Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Article_structures_that_can_imply_a_point_of_view, Template:Criticism-section, and Wikipedia:Criticism. --70.130.44.41 18:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There should be, in Criticisms, a reference to the many who have received the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after attempting to install Leopard. --Repeal 16-17 01:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It is mentioned, on the Leopard page. There's no reason it should be here. V-train 03:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Dock criticism section should add that the dock SUPPORTS thumbnails for windows when minimized, but not all applications use this. --DoubleFelix

the thumbnailing is handled by the window server and has nothing to do with the application —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 20:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Section removed

I've removed the criticism section from the article. It doesn't belong and isn't encyclopedic. First of all, it provides no information of this "finder criticism" (which, and I say this as someone who has for a long time used Windows and now use both XP and OS X, works very well IMO, better than Windows Explorer). Second, the "dock criticism" provides only one man's opinion. It is hardly a weak point for the operating system and would be just as valid as complaining that Windows has a taskbar. I mean, he's confused about adding and removing items from the dock? So what? That's not a criticism. I'm a new user coming from years of Windows and I see no problem. Also, he can't distinguish minimized icons? When I minimize windows and programs and openoffice.org documents and stuff, I see live previews, with headers coming up with a mouse-over. That allows for quicker identification than only having the beginning of the title of the window always showing up in a taskbar. Just because MS Office doesn't show the preview doesn't mean that is Mac OS X's fault. And it takes up room? Let's see, with a user-defined height of between 16 and 128 pixels, and auto-hide allowed, it can take up little to no room. It even handles very large numbers of icons and programs and windows much better than the Windows taskbar (since it shows pictures instead of words, it can fit more stuff). One person's quips don't make it a popular or valid criticism of the operating system. So the section seems to be invalid, and so I removed it. Althepal (talk) 01:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. Criticism comes from critical analysis and commentary put forth by individuals. There's really no other way this works. See Critic for a proper description, and Wikipedia:Criticism for guidance on how criticism is to be included in the encyclopedia.
Also, who are you and why should we care about your personal experiences? That's not what Wikipedia is here to document. Bruce Togazzini is one of the best people in the world to turn to for analysis of the Mac OS interface, given that he wrote the original Apple Human Interface Guideline. -/- Warren 01:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If he is so good to analyze it, how come he got so many points wrong and is so confused? But the fact is, he wrote a different guideline, so wouldn't that make what he says POV (since it is a change from what he wanted)? Look, I am no official source, so I can't counter his statements in the article, but what I'm saying is true, and that's why it can't be in the article. Also, look at the Windows article for example. There are plenty of things wrong with it, but there is no section in there with saying what one person thought of it. If there would be a section, it would be encyclopedic, have common and supported arguments, and be cited with multiple (not just one) well respected sources. For the Windows Vista article, now, there is a criticism section. It contains almost 30 sources, not just one. It is encyclopedic. It talks about VERY COMMON problems and issues that many people complain about, and it has nothing like "someone who worked on designing the gui of Windows 3.1 said they are confused by the layout of the control panel in Windows Vista". You see what I'm saying? Unless a well based, significant, encyclopedic and reliable criticisms section can be made, there shouldn't be one in the article. I've also seen elsewhere on the talk page where people complain that this section just doesn't get the facts right. Even if a significant person said it, that isn't enough to get it into the article. Please consider this, and I'd like to work together to make sure the article is as best it can be. Let me know your thoughts.
By the way, you made the comment here only after I re-removed the section. I don't appreciate your tone. I don't want to edit war, I just want to discuss it to get the best outcome. At least as of now, I feel very strongly that this section has no place in the article. Althepal (talk) 01:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Warren, as I mentioned below in the languages dispute, the Bruce Taggazoni piece is rubbish. You tend to have quite a few disputes on here don't you? It must be noted that just because you approve of something doesn't make it encyclopedic. Secondly your tone and use of inappropriate language in the reverts, such as "I don't want to deal with this shit from you again Althepal" is completely unacceptable. 1) You do not OWN this article, 2) statements like that are not appropriate on Wikipedia, thus if you don't want to consider the view of other editors then you must consider leaving Wikipedia. You are making the whole process of editing hard for other users and are not welcoming or friendly and hide behind guidelines that you yourself do not follow. Further anyone whose a regular knows the guidelines you cite left and right are open to interpretation and you frequently interpret them to suit your needs. Unless we're talking about copyright or living persons your interpretation is as good as any one else's. Frankly the type of attitude you display is not welcome on Wikipedia. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 10:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all stop the personal shit. Comment on the edits not the editor.
Second of all Tognazzini, whether you agree with him or not, is a recognized usability expert. His criticism of the Dock is probably the most well known commentary on the Dock. The only problem with the criticism section as it stands is that it doesn't make clear is that he criticizing the Dock in pre-10.4 versions of Mac OS X and doesn't make it clear that most of his comments compare the Mac OS X dock to similar interfaces on Mac OS 9 or earlier. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 16:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
AlistairMcMillan, I have nothing against the article having a comprehensive and encyclopedic criticism section. However, if there was such a section, and this part from Tognazzini was in it, I would still remove that part of the section. As I and others have stated, just because this person said something about the dock, doesn't mean it needs to be in the article, and frankly, he is just wrong. If every one of his points would be balanced by actual facts (e.g. "He said that minimized items in the dock just show the program icon and make specific identification impossible without using the mouse to show the title. However, almost all minimized windows actually do show the live thumbnail, making identification even easier than if only the title would show."). However, I don't think this is necessary, because (a) he is a biased source (meaning, he naturally won't like the dock because Apple scratched his idea and did something else, and (b) it isn't a popular criticism and isn't significant to the operating system. If an encyclopedic section were to be written, fine, but this section is just poorly written and put together, cites only one person (yes, he may be a big person to look to for opinions about this, but its not enough) (if they would cite another source from pc world or cnet, maybe that would be a different story), and it just doesn't suit the article. Because of all this, it seems very clear to me that the section just shouldn't be there. Althepal (talk) 18:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It's upsetting when a fellow editor is not WP:CIVIL, but it's really sad when an administrator is in-civil as well. I was calling an editor out on his incivility towards another and his disruption of Wikipedia in hope of ending the negative tension and 'tone' here. However since you know best, in the future I will take my complaints regarding editors and administrators who are not civil and disrupt Wikipedia through the user conduct RFC process.Nja247 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Disruption of Wikipedia.... now that's rich. I reverted Althepal's complete removal of the criticism section once, and he reverted it five minutes later, before I had a chance to finish writing my reason for doing so on the talk page, so I reverted him a second time and left it at that. In spite of WP:BRD, Althepal went ahead and did the removal a third time, at which point I figured it was time to leave it alone because I'm not too keen on getting into another stupid argument with him, especially when his (and apparently your) rationale for removing the criticism runs roughly along the line of "I think Bruce is wrong". Again, we aren't here to judge those sorts of things.
In any event, there seems to be an agreement that criticisms of specific components goes in the articles in question, and that's fine by me, though the now-empty criticism section should at least have some prose in it to briefly mention that certain highly-visible components have received criticism. Have a look at how the Windows XP article handles criticism of Windows Genuine Advantage, as a decent example from a featured article, a status which will continue to elude this article if no criticisms are mentioned at all. -/- Warren 03:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I STRONGLY suggest removing the criticism based on these points

- It is mostly one man's opinions
- Wikipedia discourages criticism sections
- Almost all of what is being said about the dock has changed with the release of Leopard, the newest OS. Since when do we criticize old OSs?
- It looks plain stupid.

That's my humble opinion. Thanks.--Asderoff (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The links to the Finder and Dock article can be put into the See also section or the List of main features section. (Though I do agree with you on your points, Asderoff.) Althepal (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error altered

I've replaced "messenging" with "messaging" in the Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) section. --Spobbs 13:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Please excuse me for not initially placing my edit under old text. --Spobbs 13:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Leopard 9A559 Desktop.png

Image:Leopard 9A559 Desktop.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 13:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

new iPods

Apple has said that the new iPods released along side the iPod Touch also have a modified version of OS X loaded on them. I thought the page should reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.254.50 (talk) 15:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Mac OS X 10.4 Intel as a separate release?

In the image of the separate Mac OS X boxes, shouldn't there be a separate Mac OS X 10.4 Intel box? It makes sense to show how they are technically two different operating systems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.108.13.2 (talk) 00:54, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a retail release of Tiger for Intel. It only ships pre-installed on Macs, doesn't it? MFNickster 00:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
True, but there are, technically speaking, Mac OS X Tiger Intel install discs. Besides, the purpose of such a change is more to chronicle the timeline of Mac OS X rather than actual retail availability.--70.108.13.2 02:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, there are separate install discs, but I don't agree that they are "two different operating systems." They're more like 2 forks of the same operating system. MFNickster 03:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Leopard

Could someone please change the screen shot of tiger at the top of the article to a leopard one as it is now the 26th of October. Also could someone update the "X" to the one from leopard and state that the latest release is is leopard. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.23.150 (talk) 21:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Is wikipedia a subsidiary of Microsoft?!

Honestly, I can't believe this. In the Criticism section, there are lots of lies about the Dock, and the text is cleary written without neutrality in mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.11.218.123 (talk) 23:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

If there are lies, find them and delete them. Of course be able to show why they are lies and refute any sources given to support their argument that you do not agree with. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 22:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Pricing idea

It would be wise for a separate article to be created simply about OS X pricing. It should be a table showing the prices in all the currencies that it's sold in and of course the family packs and also the server version pricing. It would unclutter this and every single OS X article as there could simoly be a section titled "pricing" with a link to See article: Mac OS X pricing. It sounds quite reasonable and I may work on it myself. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 22:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there any reason to have pricing in the article at all? WP:DIRECTORY #4 would suggest that the pricing section should be deleted. —Jeremy (talk) 23:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Before this small table was created each and every OS X article (Tiger and Leopard especially) were inundated with unsourced and indiscriminate placing of pricing in the articles making them unreadable. Having this accurate and sourced table in one central location alleviates these editing issues in the former two articles. The guideline you mentioned speaks generally of unsourced information and street prices, neither of which apply in this table. For the reasons listed I believe the table to be justified as it not only is relevant to this article, but also to other OS X articles. Guidelines are to be construed individually, except of course hardcore restrictions such as copyright infringement. I rather not go back to reverting on a daily basis unsourced and badly placed pricing information in the individual articles. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 09:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Just read through the pricing table. The use of currency symbols, decimal place and thousand markers are inconsistent. This is an English-language article and so why shouldn't we denote these as they are commonly understood in English (i.e. comma for thousand, period/point for decimal place and possibly currency symbols at the start of the value)? --Rdiggle (talk) 14:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I agreed with the idea to convert all pricing number format to English style. 58.64.89.62 (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Please read our policy on prices. See WP:DIRECTORY. "prices of a product should not be quoted in an article unless the price can be sourced and there is a justified reason for its mention" Emphasis mine. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Error in Box images

I can count six names of versions of os's, but there are only five boxes. can someone fix this? Pokoleo 02:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No error - the first two versions, "Cheetah" and "Puma," had the same box style. MFNickster 03:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


Significant Error in Language Support

The article lists 22 languages supported by OSX. This list provided by the article are actually the languages supported by the INSTALLER program, not the operating system itself.

The entire list of languages supported by OSX itself is available in the "International" system preference, under the Language Tab, and with the "Edit List..." button pressed.

Under OSX 10.5.1, there are (by my count) 137 languages (and regional variants) supported.

There are so many languages supported, that only the 15 most common are shown by default, which is why you must press the "Edit List..." button to see them all. They include almost every language I have heard of, including four dialects of German (German, Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg), three of French (France, Switzerland, and Quebec), three of Dutch (Netherlands, Flemish, and Afrikkans). Even Klingon is present (!).

In addition, the Canadian, British, and Australian dialects of English are also clearly supported, which directly contradicts the article. Indeed I am currently running Canadian English as my default language.

Instead of editing the article directly, I suggest someone with a copy of OSX 10.5 look at the International System Preference panel. The whole criticism of OSX as offering "limited" language support should be deleted as lacking any basis in fact. The list of languages should either be expanded to 137, or perhaps even omitted as taking too much space.

If anyone has any questions, I can email screenshots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mingoc (talk • contribs) 23:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What colour are your tires? :-) Putting "Canadian English" or "British English" in front of (the annoyingly chauvinistic :-)) "English" does, indeed, make the spelling checker complain about "color", and putting "English" in front does make it complain about "colour" (although both "tires" and "tyres" are accepted with all three selections).
In System Preferences, moving a language other than (American) "English" to the top of the list in the "Language" tab of the "International" pane immediately affects the "Region:" menu of the "Formats" pane - at least in some cases; putting "Hrvatski" at the top did cause it to show the region as "Sjedinjene Države (engelski)", but putting Guarani at the top left the region in Croatian. Perhaps I don't have full support for all the languages installed, but that does raise the question of how full the support for some of those languages is. (And none of those language changes changed the names of the tabs in the International pane - even selecting "Français", exiting System Preferences, and restarting it left the names of the panes and the tabs en Anglais.) Guy Harris (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You have to log out and log in for the language change to take effect. Some fonts (like certain Indian ones) are optional in the installer, so you have to choose to install them. The only applications guaranteed to respect your language choices are Apple ones, because many apps only have support for a few languages built in (the OS will not attempt to translate the menus, just notify the app that another lang is requested; it's up to the app to decide how to respond). Still, it's ridiculous to say that OS doesn't support these languages when it clearly does. 22 languages is clearly the wrong number. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mingoc (talk • contribs) 20:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried switching to Icelandic in the International preference panel, and nothing changed in terms of the baseline operating system localization. Granted there's probably only half a million people in the world who speak Islenska, so it's not surprising that they haven't done a full translation. I'm actually pretty confused by this, given that whoever put this list into the article included Icelandic. Is there an Icelandic version of OS X that's only for sale in that country or something? -/- Warren 01:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that the Language panel in System Preferences is just letting you tell the operating system which order to use when it is searching through an application's bundle trying to pick a language. If you open up an application's bundle you'll see which languages are actually available. Out of curiousity I opened a few bundles on a Mac here and found the following: Finder.app, Dock.app and SystemUIServer.app seem to only have English localisations, while Safari has eighteen. Note also that the Mac OS X installer gives you a few options to choose which localisations you install, so your mileage might vary. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... makes sense. After changing my localization to Islenska, I noticed that Adium actually provides the correct text, whereas the main OS didn't. I couldn't see any convenient way to install other languages, either... this does contrast with Vista Ultimate which does offer that capability via Windows Update. It's a valid criticism IMO, but without any decent sources to make the same statements, yeah, you were right to remove the text from the article. -/- Warren 23:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually it doesn't make sense at all as it's a valid criticism and there does not need to be any sources for obvious facts. You can see at http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/ the amount of languages supported my Leopard compared to those supported by Windows at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292246. This is just another example of McMillan forcing his agenda upon well meaning editors on Wikipedia. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 10:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
"My agenda"? Like asking editors to follow Wikipedia guidelines and policies, like WP:NOR or WP:AGF? Do you have an citable example of someone making this criticism? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 14:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The policies you list do not mean that one cannot deduce a criticism from primary sources such as those supplied from Microsoft and Apple. Further, do we really need to scour the internet to find some arbitrary 'source' to post what is fact? Do we really need a source such as that piece by Bruce Toganazzini about the dock? It isn't exactly what I'd called 'sourced' as it's simply his opinion. Conversely citing primary sources are, according to you, not enough. Since when?
You of all people should know the guidelines and "policies" you have so freely cited here and on my talk page are actually to be assessed individually, except for hardcore restrictions such as copyright infringement, etc. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 14:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you really do need to find someone "important" (ie. they'll meet our requirements for reliable sources) to express criticism before you can include it in the article. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is the relevant policy here. You can't take two data points (e.g. languages supported by OS X Leopard, languages supported by Vista), and infer an opinion or point of view from them. Even putting a simple "OS X Leopard supports __ languages whereas Vista supports __ languages" in a "Criticism" section is considered POV-pushing, since now it's you as an editor that is trying to make the case that this is something to be critical of. You can't do that. -/- Warren 15:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Yea that's why I moved it from the 'criticism' section and tried to make it NPOV (i.e. simply stating the facts and not saying one is bad or better). We all know (you included as you said so above) that it's a valid point and it's too bad it's not mentioned in the article. However some people always get their way under the guise of guidelines, so I'll leave it to rest. However do note that your opinion on someone being credible or not may differ. That dock piece is a joke in my opinion, though to others it's good enough. It's as if so long as any joker in the world wrote something then it's simply good enough, but putting 2 and 2 together from primary sources is not. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't obsess over comparisons with other operating systems.
Take a step back from this for a minute and think about what you're suggesting. Do you really want this article to go down the path of constant references to Windows, Ubuntu, Solaris, and other operating systems? Isn't there enough we can say about OS X without having to resort to that?
The agenda here is writing good articles. Sometimes this means leaving out fiddly details that will distract the reader from getting a good overview of the subject at hand. The number of languages that Windows supports has precisely zero relevance to the subject of Mac OS X. Conversely, the Windows articles shouldn't mention how many languages OS X supports. If someone wants to figure out who has better language support, they can read both articles, check the underlying sources, and draw their own conclusions. People are smart like that. -/- Warren 18:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
At least from the 10.5.0 installation DVD I used recently, the translations it offered to install matched the languages it offered as the primary language for the installation - English (presumed to be installed by default, as that's what I selected as the installation language), Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese (it offers a choice between Brazilian Portuguese and "Portuguese of Portugal" as the primary language; perhaps installing "Portuguese" installs both), and Polish. It doesn't speak of installing any of the other languages, so perhaps, whilst those are supported by some apps, they're not supported by apps that come with OS X. Guy Harris (talk) 00:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

So someone finally gave some examples with references and it's still deleted? Interesting...Nja247 (talk • contribs) 10:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

(pronounced /mæk əʊ ɛs tɛn/)

Seems like the last word is closer to 'ten' than X. Maybe I have the lingo wrong, so I did not change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geo8rge (talk • contribs) 19:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well yeah, "ten" is correct. That's why it's in the article. Wikipedia does get things right sometimes, you know... ;-) -/- Warren 01:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

X is roman numeral 10. My point is that people I talk to pronounce the X as the letter x, as in "ow es ex". Not a big point but it is an encyclopedia Geo8rge (talk) 00:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, but I humbly suggest that you refer these people to the encyclopedia article, rather than expect the article to accommodate these people! MFNickster (talk) 02:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
And the article will now, right where it says it's pronounced "Mac O-S ten", refer you to a page on an Apple Web site where it says you're supposed to pronounce it "Mac O-S ten". The people Geo8rge talks to are not pronouncing it the way Apple says you're supposed to pronounce it, so the Wikipedia shouldn't say it's pronounced the way they pronounce it. Guy Harris (talk) 04:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
So should we say Jaguar or Jag-u-ar? Companies are constantly trying to force people to pronounce things a certain way. If marketing people (of which I am one) would get off their high horses and realize that when you name something ambiguously, people will say it different ways, then we would all have an easier time of it. But for a reference work (which I think Wikipedia is supposed to be) the usage is what is important, not the marketing crap. It is irrelevant what Apple says it should be, what should be reported in a reference work is what people call it. Both ways should be mentioned (then you can say that Apple prefers it this way). Where would the English language (or any language, for that matter, but this is the English section of Wikipedia) if Webster said, this is how it should be said, instead of reporting how people actually used the words. Thou wouldst still speak like unto this ungainly manner! -- Paul123 15 APR 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.3.58 (talk) 19:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the article needs to tell people how to pronounce it. I do think it needs to include the information that the 'X' is in fact a Roman numeral 10. MFNickster (talk) 01:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Dock criticisms removed

I don't really care about the flame war above but the criticisms of the dock have no place in this article . The section was about the dock (a single part of the OS) that may or may not fully apply to every version of OS. Windows criticisms are put in the different releases, Ubuntu criticisms are placed in its different components, why are we doing it different here? Even the finder criticisms are in their own article. If the criticisms are valid doesn't matter, they are in the wrong place. Even the article being cited is "Top ten reasons the Apple dock sucks", where do you see OS X in there? If you believe this cricism needs to be in Wikipedia put it in its proper place in the (non-existent) dock article. BJTalk 21:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I also merged the section to Dock (computing) (the OS X dock really should have its own article). The article has also been lock for almost a month and everybody warned (even the person not involved!). BJTalk 18:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The administrator who locked the article is going to unlock it. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Good. Are you in agreement with the merge? BJTalk 19:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Honestly I think it's a mistake, but why not. I think the reasons given here for removing the Dock criticism are nonsense. The dock is a component of Mac OS X, it is not sold separately, if you are criticising Mac OS X's dock, you are criticising Mac OS X. And don't get me started on comparing this article with others; aside from anything else "Microsoft Windows" is a bunch of very different operating systems that share similar APIs and GUIs, with the earliest being released two decades ago, while "Mac OS X" is one operating system that has gradually developed over the last half decade. The two articles should have very little in common because they are about very different things. But hey what the hell, move all the criticism from an article that I'm sure gets a significant number of page views out into articles that have hardly any. I swear I'm trying to assume good faith here, I really am. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
And when you criticize the Finder you aren't criticizing OS X? Complaints about the Finder are much more widespread than those of the Dock, why don't we have that in this article? BJTalk 20:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Ask User:Nja247.[2] AlistairMcMillan (talk) 21:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
He has a point. Where should criticisms of components be? All in this article, all in their own articles or covered briefly here and in detail at their article? BJTalk 22:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems appropriate that the criticism section be in the Dock or Finder article and not here, since the Mac OS X article doesn't go into detail about these things, since (for the Dock) those criticisms apply to all docks and are very minor in light of the entire operating system, and since both the Finder and Dock have changed so much from version 10.0 to 10.5, it would be hard to show its significance to the entire line systems itself. Maybe in the list of prominent features in this article, Dock and Finder can be listed, both linking to their articles that discuss them and also contain information about their criticisms. Althepal (talk) 23:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The Dock and the Finder are highly visible, cornerstone components of Mac OS X's user interface; the fact that they have been criticised is worthy of mention in this article, though it'd be fine if it was just a couple of sentences with links to the sections. -/- Warren 03:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I had re-done the Prominent features section of the article so it would include the links to both the Finder article and the Dock article, both of which contain sections about the criticisms. Nja247 added links at the bottom of that section which go directly to the sections of those articles regarding the criticism (since those links had been removed and instead replaced with general links in the list itself). However, I don't think this is necessary, and I'll say why. First of all, there are already general links to those articles, and so I don't think it is necessary to link again to a specific section of those articles. The reason I can think of why you might have added those links is that this way we are not hiding that there are criticisms for those things. However, that concern is not necessary, because (second of all) those criticisms are actually very insignificant to the article as a whole, and even in regards to the subsequent articles containing the criticisms, I find the criticisms lonely (not a lot of people have made those criticisms) and flawed (the criticisms are really more like opinions, and outdated ones at that), so it seems that there isn't enough reason for the specific sections to merit individual links. (It's not like we're hiding that there are criticisms, it's that the criticisms aren't important or popular enough in regards to the operating system to make special links for them.) Since I don't know if the majority of people here would agree with me or not, and since it's not like it really damages the article to have those links, I'm going to leave them alone, but maybe after reading this you can decide if indeed you want to take the links out yourself. Althepal (talk) 07:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The re-do was quite good overall, but I felt removing all reference to criticism was not appealing. However unlike other editors, I'm quite open and flexible, so if its agreed that the article would be better off with the see also links removed, then please do so as I have no particular argument against it. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 08:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that it's insignificant, considering that the critics are well-known commentators and the components criticised are highly visible and well-known parts of the operating system. But, whatever, if your goal here is to banish criticism from the article, fine, have your way because I can't be bothered to argue with people who don't have any concept of what criticism is. The article won't ever achieve featured article status so long as you insist on this; you'll have to be satisfied that this article won't be consdered amongst Wikipedia's best work, unlike, oh, say, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. -/- Warren 11:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Warren, my goal isn't to banish criticism from the article. It's just that IMO these criticisms aren't significant enough to the operating system to merit special extra links, any more than you would want to put some link to the Aqua GUI article talking about development. I'll let other people decide what to do with the 'see also' links, but I'm putting up my opinion. By the way, I don't think that references to any possible criticisms you can find help the article become featured. Windows Vista has a criticisms section and isn't featured. Just make sure it is well written and contains all the information about it. For example, maybe it's not featured because it lacks a section on how Mac OS X has caused the Mac market to grow several hundred percent. Anyway, even Windows NT doesn't have a criticism section or make special links to criticisms, because the different versions of Windows NT have different issues, and so to any criticisms of the dock or finder made years ago don't apply to more recent versions of OS X. Leopard has been criticized for having a transparent menubar which could make it difficult to read the menus, but we don't link or talk about a criticism of the menu bar since it isn't for OS X, it is for OS X 10.5. I just want to make sure the article is featured status and that it doesn't contain special links that aren't really merited. That's my opinion and my argument, I'll let others take it from here. Althepal (talk) 19:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
There should be valid criticism in the article which is incorporated into the body of the article itself, such as in the Windows 2000 article. Note how that article doesn't have a criticism section (except for security issues), but rather general criticisms are integrated where appropriate throughout. This would be the best solution overall without ignoring all criticism, which I don't find appealing. There are two issues however: 1) the criticisms in question are already on Wikipedia, therefore having it in two places is redundant and bad editing 2) there is little to no detailed information presented in the article about the dock or the finder, they're just one of many bullet points with a meagre amount of information. Thus, it would be difficult to simply incorporate criticism where its due without expanding upon the article itself. It'd be nice to see all major components and features of the OS to be expanded upon in the article slightly, including the Dock and Finder which would assist in incorporating criticism. Of course any expansion should be concise (so that it doesn't turn into the volumes of long Wiki articles, as is the case with Windows) and done using valid sources and without copy/pasting Apple literature (something I feel happens on some of the detailed Windows articles [ripped from MSDN tech docs in particular], though I don't have examples and it's irrelevant here).
Regardless, the latter point is quite appealing to me, i.e. a concise expansion of the information regarding core OS X features and then adding appropriate criticisms, however this is something I'm not up to as I'm too busy with school and the issue of having the information spread over multiple article would need addressed in my opinion. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Incorporation of criticism and even making links to criticism is fine by me, on condition that it applies to OS X as a family and not just some of its versions. Althepal (talk) 19:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this goes along with my issue with repeating the same information all over Wikipedia. I think the "See also" links help avoid the redundancies, without pretending no valid criticisms exist. The main OS X article is an appropriate place to address OS X criticisms (though again they should be incorporated into the body of the article if at all possible) unless the valid criticism is specific to a particular cat, which may require that point being made on the article relating to that version. Overall though, I believe that a good editor should question the criticism with the Finder and Dock since they've both been tweaked with Leopard -- and the criticism predates Leopard. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I merged the criticism info into the article. However (especially) for the Finder criticism, I vote that it be removed from both this article and the finder article, since it was in regards to the finder in 10.2 which is very different from the one in 10.3 or 10.4 and was modified even more in 10.5. (The criticisms were by John Siracusa, someone who wrote an article about the spatial Finder rules in OS 9.) I really don't think what was said about it applies anymore. Also as Jasyn Jones http://www.macwrite.com/yourturn/missing-the-boat-on-panther.php explains, come Panther, spatial Finder options were added, and it only changed and improved more in Tiger and Leopard. It seems that it doesn't really apply to the Finder anymore, certainly not to the OS X article enough to talk about criticism. Althepal (talk) 20:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yea the information is dated and maybe it should stricken except for on the individual articles relating to the version of OS X to which the valid criticism used to apply. Though the current version of this article makes the point well enough to me, but it could be described as un-needed/outdated by others. I suppose it depends on consensus. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 21:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)