However, I agree that those little details leave us wanting even greater quality and logic as we become more sophisticated computer users. Maybe some of the details are slipping in OSX as you said, but Apple has never provided a more stable and competitive system (even if you are, no doubt, a huge fan of System 7). I guess in hindsight, if I would have known as much as I do about Windows and Linux back when I was a Mac zealot using OS9, I probably would have come to the conclusion that Apple was junk aside from all of the great little details. Actually, I probably would have said the same about Windows considering what an improvement 2000 and XP are over their predecessors. Anyway, I try to keep all of the system crashes, PRAM resets and preference errors of OS9 in mind whenever I feel like bitching about OSX. Except the Finder. There’s no reason that shouldn’t be at least as functional as any Linux file browser. :)

But they really do need to make a moo-less MacBook. :)

I cannot imagine anyone discussing such small bugs on a site regarding any other OS, and that shows what high standards Apple works to.

Sure these are legitimate issues, and hopefully they will be fixed – but overall Mail.app is a pretty good mail client, and is certainly better than the competition.

That said, I wouldn’t go as far as to title my post “Why I hate Apple.” Because then people would complain again that I am being too negative :).

The truth is that Mail is a decent mail client, but could use a lot of work, because there are many so-called “details” that are just wrong.

The disruption caused by a search is one glaring example. It’s just unforgivable. It’s like Apple is completely focused on maintaining a single-window interface at just about any cost. I would much prefer a separate search results window, especially since I don’t use the message preview pane at all myself and am used to opening and viewing single messages in separate windows (although obviously the search feature also causes disruption for those who do use the preview pane). But it doesn’t look like Apple cares much about my preference in that respect anyway.

I guess such “details” simply are not on the mainstream Mac press’s radar.

After the search is cancelled (i.e. the search field is cleared), you original column widths aren’t restored and the wide date column is back.

Searching also seems responsible for the horizontal splitter bar between the message list and preview panes to sometimes forget its original location. And it’s tricky dragging that splitter bar so the message list is correctly centered without truncating the top and/or bottom row of characters. It needs a “snap-to-fit” behavior or something that makes it easier to select the desired number of rows in the message list, and not forget that setting.

Pierre might be able to describe that better than I did. :-)

Because, um, smartly resizing dates haven been there for ever. The Finder’s column view has had it in many Classic Mac OS versions.

What is really upsetting about the situation in Mail is that you can carefully adjust your date column to be narrow and then Mail will just resize everything when you do a search via Mail’s search field. After the search is cancelled (i.e. the search field is cleared), you original column widths aren’t restored and the wide date column is back. I’ve hated Apple for this one pretty much on a daily basis since the X.3 days…

cf Radar # 3521147 if you can.