Q: El Capitan breaks useful things, adds useless things

- Mail no longer allows me to choose what email account I'm sending emails from.

It's not gone. I can choose the from address.

- Mail also twitches spastically when dragging messages from the inbox into folders.  The list of messages updates three times in a second, with the moved message disappearing and re-appearing, very distracting.

Never seen this on my Mac.

- You turned off Dashboard by default.  I figured out how to turn it back on, but no thanks to you.

It was always still available by running the Dashboard Application in Applications folder, regardless of how you set it up in Mission Control

- The 2016 versions of Excel and Word crash on El Capitan, didn't in Yosemite.

I haven't noticed any crashes; but, I would expect them as Microsoft can't manage to create an Office for any OS that doesn't crash occasionally. They patched the crap out of Office just after El Capitan was released.

- Calendar now often fails to add events properly when copied and pasted in from Mail.  It used to always work.

I just drag and drop, but haven't done much of that, either, so I wouldn't know if it did or didn't at this point.

- Doing a Spotlight search and hitting return brought up the Calculator app, not the file I was searching for by name (which doesn't have the word Calculator anywhere in it); how did that even happen?

It will bring up the calculator if you search for a calculation. I've never had it just randomly do so, though.

- The new iTunes is more concerned with trying to sell me radio than letting me access my music, which is what the program should exist for.  (And by the way, don't even get me started on the iPhone's latest OS and how terrible the audiobook, music, & podcast apps have become.  I've stopped using the music app altogether, it does so many things that get in the way of the actual music!)

Yes, it does, but I haven't looked at the Music selling parts since it was released. I'm not sure how that interferes with your music, or podcasts, or whatever. I just click on the Music tab to get my Music, the podcast tab to see my Podcasts.

Podcasts are tremendously better for me, on both platforms, but then I only care about one.

- If you want to do something useful with a new OS, make the wifi work better!  It still has problems where nearby non-Apple laptops don't, and that's been a problem for years.

Again, something I've never experienced. I know from these forums that many people do have WiFi problems, but I can't offer any fixes or workarounds as I've never experienced the problems myself. But, it seems from this forum, that they've managed to make a big dent in much of the WiFi problems. Seems every OS they've released in the last four years has had various problems with WiFi. The El Capitan forum seems to have a lot less mentions of WiFi than I've seen in the past.

Good Interface Police wrote:

 

Just complaining about El Capitan--none of the new features have turned out to be useful to me, and you actively broke several useful things.  Specifically:

 

- Mail no longer allows me to choose what email account I'm sending emails from.  How can you think that's a good idea?!?  It's important to be able to send a specific email from a specific address, even if you're replying to a message that was received from a different address.

 

- Mail also twitches spastically when dragging messages from the inbox into folders.  The list of messages updates three times in a second, with the moved message disappearing and re-appearing, very distracting.

 

- You turned off Dashboard by default.  I figured out how to turn it back on, but no thanks to you.

 

- The 2016 versions of Excel and Word crash on El Capitan, didn't in Yosemite.

 

- Calendar now often fails to add events properly when copied and pasted in from Mail.  It used to always work.

 

- Doing a Spotlight search and hitting return brought up the Calculator app, not the file I was searching for by name (which doesn't have the word Calculator anywhere in it); how did that even happen?

 

- The new iTunes is more concerned with trying to sell me radio than letting me access my music, which is what the program should exist for.  (And by the way, don't even get me started on the iPhone's latest OS and how terrible the audiobook, music, & podcast apps have become.  I've stopped using the music app altogether, it does so many things that get in the way of the actual music!)

 

- If you want to do something useful with a new OS, make the wifi work better!  It still has problems where nearby non-Apple laptops don't, and that's been a problem for years.  Fix bugs, don't create new ones.  Or make the Finder more like Path Finder!  That would actually be useful.

 

What are you doing, Apple?  Stop turning into Microsoft and get it together.

If you don't actually have a question for us to help you with, you're in the wrong place.  If all you want is to rant/unload/give Apple a piece of your mind, then you should actually go to http://www.apple.com/feedback .  Apple doesn't read these forums, this is strictly a user-to-user community.  To respond to your complaints, however:

1. Yes, you can.  I do it all the time.  When you're composing a message, there is plainly and clearly a way to change what address the e-mail is being sent from.
2. I've never seen this on my Mac, not in any operating system I've used.
3. Dashboard is turned off by default because they're phasing it out, and it'll probably be gone by the time the new operating system comes out (10.12).  You found a way to turn it back on.  Thus, there is no problem.  I turned mine back on too.
4. Have you installed updates for Office 2016?  I know Microsoft has released several since El Capitan was released, as there were issues with Outlook.
5. I don't know.  Perhaps you could take a screenshot of this phenomenon to show us?
6. I've never had a problem listening to music in iTunes.  I just click on the "My Music" tab at the top and voila — my music.  I don't care about Apple Music because one, I can't afford it and two, I have no need for it.  The "My Music" tab and "Internet Radio" are the only things I give a toss about.
7. If your wifi connection is troublesome, have you thought about resetting your modem/router?  Talking to your ISP?  Why is it automatically Apple's fault?

Exactly my view.  Much ado about nothing.  Considering how much pain it has caused some users (not me), it hardly seems worth the effort.

The one that is really a step backwards is Mission Control.  That need to go up to the top to expand the desktop bar is just silly.

The one huge real improvement is not even mentioned and that is the ability to make the menu bar a reasonable text size without destroying one's resolution.  It still baffles me that there is no reference to this anywhere.

Apple's intransigency about documentation to set the record straight continues to baffle me.  As an example, I have been attempting to seek a way in which to make a boot disk copy using Disk Utility (no suggestions, please.  I have completely given up).  It was surely possible in the past, since there are so many vociferous comments to the fact.  But, I would swear it is no longer possible using Disk Utility.  I finally gave up because there is no reason I can't use the internet recovery, if necessary, unless there is a worldwide calamity that the loss of the internet and, thus, my Mac will be of little concern.

I guess they just don't get paid enough to develop accurate documentation on how their machines work.

Whickwithy wrote:

 

Exactly my view.  Much ado about nothing.  Considering how much pain it has caused some users (not me), it hardly seems worth the effort.

Over 20 million people have downloaded El Capitan worldwide.  The number of people having issues, issues that cannot be resolved by getting rid of bloated, third-party crapware, is incredibly small.  The vast majority of people here in the ASC that seek help because of problems with El Capitan get them fixed, mostly by uninstalling applications/drivers that are not compatible with El Capitan and running Malwarebytes to get rid of malware/adware, if they don't choose to remove it manually.

You're making K2 out of an ant hill.

You're making K2 out of an ant hill.

Not really and don't get me wrong.  I think the Mac is, by far, the best home computer out there.  I think, though, that Apple tried to make El Capitan into more than an ant hill, which it is not.  And, clearly, it has caused some level of havoc for users and I just don't see  the necessity of it.

What concerns me most is that this promoting of something that really was like a sigh in a hurricane seems to me indicative of a company that has lost some level of confidence in itself.  The fanatical and unreasonable defense brought to bear by some seems indicative of the same.

I'm expecting, by the way, that you meant 2K?  I have no idea what K2 would be.

Whickwithy wrote:

 

You're making K2 out of an ant hill.

 

Not really and don't get me wrong.  I think the Mac is, by far, the best home computer out there.  I think, though, that Apple tried to make El Capitan into more than an ant hill, which it is not.  And, clearly, it has caused some level of havoc for users and I just don't see  the necessity of it.

 

What concerns me most is that this promoting of something that really was like a sigh in a hurricane seems to me indicative of a company that has lost some level of confidence in itself.  The fanatical and unreasonable defense brought to bear by some seems indicative of the same.

 

I'm expecting, by the way, that you meant 2K?  I have no idea what K2 would be.

You'd be expecting incorrectly.  If I meant 2K, I'd have said 2K.  K2 is a mountain, second only to Mt. Everest in height.  Perhaps you've heard of it?  Also, I don't think you know what the expression "making a mountain out of ant hill means."  It's a more folksy way of saying "much ado about nothing."  In other words, the majority of complaints about El Capitan are resolved fairly quickly, and that overall, it's nowhere near as troublesome or problematic as people are making it out to be.

Ah!  A mountain.  Funny name for a mountain.

I don't think you know what the expression "making a mountain out of ant hill means."

Ohhhh, that hurt!  Actually, I've heard it usually stated as a mountain out of a mole hill but, yes, I think I might have recognized the reference.

Let's see, at last count, there seems to be a complaint or response to a complaint about every four minutes?  Seems like a lot to me.  For all intents and purposes, the number of problems seems to overwhelm the number of improvements with El Capitan.

Besides, you're most focused on anything that may seem, in the slightest way, some possibly disparaging remark concerning Mac/Apple.  Why such a vested interest.  To me, it's just a damned machine.   And, the primary point is that El Capitan is a lot of brouhaha about nothing and has caused some people problems.  Why did they even bother really.  Maybe some people see an improvement in performance.  I don't.  Maybe the just like thinking up new mountain names to use too much.

No matter how good something is there are always a minority of users who can't get it together with new things. So they blame new things.

Considering I used to design them, that's not my problem.  Also, I'm not really saying there is anything wrong with it.  It just seems to be a spinning of wheels with no traction to it.

It's just a lot of to do about nothing.  There is just absolutely nothing, other than the one feature that goes unadvertised and promoted, that did a thing for me.  And, some reversals in fortune.  As GIF mentions, there are plenty of things they could improve.  How 'bout making it that any two apple products could communicate over the wifi without having the web in between?  It really wouldn't be hard to do.  Or, making it that, at startup, all windows end up exactly where they were?  Or, doing a better job at memory cleanup? 

You're problem is quite clear, you are unable to perform an OS installation correctly. Unlike myself and the millions of others who can.

You didn't read very closely, Csound1.  Another that is defending the wind.

Have a nice day.

You too!

I'm a-gunna stick my centime in here.  I admit I find fault w\some features of my Macbook Pro.  And at length, I come to this site to educate myself, never to take issue and whinge.  I eventually twigged that them wot provide help are not here to listen to rant: they are here to help us as best they can with the knowledge they have.  It's kind of like complaining to your bus driver about traffic. Peace out.

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