Then some OS X features completely baffle me. Like installing software. I'm not a "Mac guy" and each time I ask someone how to install software downloaded off the web I get a different answer, all preceeded by "You just ..." and then 10 or 11 simple steps. Apparently they have never heard of installers. I'd guess from this, that the average Mac has never had ANY software installed after it left the factory.
"Whenever I try to run this application, I get the warning 'This was downloaded from the internet', etc., etc. I have to click 'Okay' every time I use the app. It doesn't seem safe."
The problem? They had dragged the app straight from the disk image onto the dock.
That said, OS X installation is about as simple as you can get. (Though I wish Apple would finally include Homebrew as its default package manager.)
There's a perfectly good system wide Installer on the Mac, but nobody uses it unless they have to, because installers suck (they ask, among other things, which drive you'd like to install the software to -- what normal user knows the answer to that question?).
A number of vendors are working to improve application downloads by distributing applications as self-extracting zipfiles that put the original archive in the trash on extractions, and making it so that if the application is launched from the downloads folder or the desktop it initially politely asks if you'd like to "install" the application. This is pretty foolproof. Even if the user declines to move it, the Application will still work from the Downloads directory or the Desktop, it just won't be as easy to find.
It didn't help that PackageMaker used to be one of the oddest, most incomprehensible pieces of software you ever had the misfortune to use. It's a bit better now, but most developers I know have sworn off it for good.
Apple does have a technology called "Internet-Enabled DMGs", which automatically mounts, copies the application, then unmounts and deletes the dmg. It's not widely known about or used.
No, drag-and-drop is NOT unintuitive, and if that was all that it took then great. But Mac guys are so used to the ringamarole that they forget this part: "Oh yeah, then mount the dmg, then open the virtual drive, then drag one of the various icons (which one???) to your Applications folder, oh yeah open that first in the finder, then close the virtual drive and unmount the dmg, then find the downloaded wad (what was it called again?) and delete it." All of those operations accessed from different menus/tools.
First, Safari used to download things to the desktop. This meant the DMG file was sitting right there, looking ugly, taking up space.
Second, Safari used to, by default, open "Safe" attachments (which included disk images), and open the Finder window to the newly mounted image automatically.
The upshot was that, assuming the developer had made an effort to indicate what to drag where with a big honkin' arrow, after your download was done there would be a pretty clear sign of what to drag where to install the app. Unmounting an deleting the DMG has always been an issue (and the internet-enabled DMGs are better for this), although only the unmounting bit is unique to OS X. Under Windows you're still going to have an installer file lying about that has to be deleted.
Both of these things went away, though, and many developers haven't caught up with the times.
Actually, I get the impression that most Mac users have laptops.
Meanwhile, junctions on Windows largely solve the installation location problem, except for those apps that use hard links behind the scenes (especially for transactional installation changes) and expect those hard links to work, especially across temporary directories etc. In practice, I've found this is only Microsoft apps.
Given that, I agree with you in thinking that the majority of Macs haven't had any applications installed on them since they left the factory. Why? Macs come with a much wider range of applications than Windows boxes. As long as its not common for consumer PCs to ship with Office and Firefox pre-installed, there'll be more software installation on Windows than on PCs.
I'm curious - coming from a Windows background, how did you know to do this on a Mac?
It sounds so simple when you describe it but I think its one of the last thing a power Windows user (who knows about extracting zips, running installers, exes and dlls, etc) would think to do - since dragging and dropping a single icon would work for a very small percentage of Windows apps.
How could any user be confused by that? (Also, Safari is by default configured to open DMGs automatically, so all the average user needs to do is click the download link and follow the arrows).
Edit: Adium's (http://cl.ly/5b23589883bbc4467a04) is probably an even better example.
Because it looks more like an static image than something you can interact with?
Not that I have the problem now but I remember the first app I downloaded in osx was Quicksilver, which, at the time, the DMG opened to a grey background and a giant quicksilver logo. My windows/linux brain assumed the DMG was empty due to a corrupt download or something and I ended up downloading it a second time. Of course turned out the logo WAS the appfolder.
There is even a line of text that explains how to interact with the two object presented, if you aren't already familiar with the paradigm.
Specifically it doesn't do anything more to imply there are two objects presented, like say "drag the (image|icon|folder) below to (your|the) Applications folder to install."
It seems to me that while it might be a great way to install something - incredibly simple - years of Windows use would completely program someone to not consider something so simple.
Or even better, something akin to Zero Install (http://0install.net/) coated with OS X system sugar would be even better. That would also resolve the problem of software updates which are a pain on OS X, unless the program goes handle them by itself.