[jaske]

We've all downloaded, installed, used, and sometimes even made the mistake of paying for them: applications that simply do not deserve their reputation. Sadly, many are plain miserable, and face it, you wasted time, money, and you have nothing to show for it. In fact, maybe you've been foolish enough to try and justify your purchase after the initial pangs of disappointment begin to appear, knowing full well that you WASTED your money, and you suck, and damn, you should have splurged and bought the real program, or at least found a warez site.

And this is a big problem for "switchers," their only guidance maybe a paragraph or two at Versiontracker (if they stumble upon the site) or maybe they've read a putatively "independent" review in a mainstream Mac rag such as MacWorld (as if they would criticize any company that advertises in the mag. I mean, they actually praise Omnipage X, a program which cannot be installed under X without booting into 9 or logging in as root).

So, I'll start. First, OS X does not count. This thread is for applications only . . .

GraphicConverter. I know, it doesn't exactly "suck," but it also has outlived its usefulness (and that's the point of this thread: calling a spade a spade).

It's GUI is ugly, it's slow, and for the same price (via rebates) you can buy Photoshop Elements which does pretty much the same tasks. And yeah, GC may convert Atari files into some obscure format, but who the hell cares . . . I mean, all GC has over many programs its its ability to recognize formats 99% of folks don't use. And for myself, my biggest gripe with the program lay with that "manual" . . . I merely want to learn how to edit photos, and I made the mistake of buying the optional manual. What a sorry excuse for a set of instructions: horrendous grammar, lapses in logic, absolutely useless. My advice: avoid this program, go to DealMac, and buy Elements, or some similar, yet superior program.

Anyone else?

[BuonRotto]

http://perversiontracker.com/

[MacGorilla]

Quark Xpress. There is an overrated app.

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by jaske:
So, I'll start. First, OS X does not count. This thread is for applications only . . . Anyone else?

so....then why is this in the os x forum and not the software forum?

[jaske]

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
so....then why is this in the os x forum and not the software forum?

An error on my part. Maybe you could be proactive and appeal to a moderator to move the thread . . . I mean, you must actually care about that, right?

[Superchicken]

Apple works would probably be the first one that comes to mind... it's simply not as good as it could be.

or iPhoto... I mean it'ss good at what it does... but honestly... iPhoto is SLOW... I have no idea how it works but PS Elements under both OS X and 9 does the EXACT SAME FREAKING THING, acctually gives you a working preveiw of the file too and does it MUCH FASTER! I have no idea how on earth apple makes it so freaking slow! PS Element's file browser is just soo much faster than iPhoto and does the same thing!
now then add to this the fact that iPhoto's way of organizing files is absurd and it won't let you organize them into folders that when you wanna organize in fhte finder too so you can FIND the pics... it's near inpossible to find em! Havn't touched version 2 since I'm not running Jag but I've heard there's been very little done. Apple should ask someone from adobe to come over and show them how to make one of their selling features not be out done by a tiny part of Adobe's app!

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by jaske:
An error on my part. Maybe you could be proactive and appeal to a moderator to move the thread . . . I mean, you must actually care about that, right?

heheh...yeah....i'm sure they'll get to it!

[awaspaas]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
but honestly... iPhoto is SLOW...

You turned off the drop shadows, right? It's the dumbest thing but it sped up iPhoto to a very-usable clip for me.

I have a few entries for the sucky-app contest:

Windows Media Player - duh. Double-duh when mplayer can play most of its files perfectly.

Mailsiphon - Havent used this for a while but this is the worst carbon port I've ever seen. Click on anything in this app and you get a beachball for ~10 seconds. It may have improved since then though.

Limewire - terrible UI, atrocious responsiveness. Functionality was ok, but I switched to Acquisition a while ago and haven't looked back.

AIM - horrid UI, and did they ever update it to have the fonts antialiased right? Seeing Helvetica 12 in that Quickdraw-style semi-antialiasing makes me wanna hurl.

[Landos Mustache]

Konfabulator. I have never seen such a fuss over nothing.

Nothing more useful then having a big digital clock, stock ticker and itunes remote slapped on the desktop for the previous 10 seconds I spend in the Finder each day.

While this stupid thing is eating up CPU and RAM by the boatload I have more useful versions doing the same thing or better with a docking or Menuling.

[Josh Reid]

A bit off-topic, but in response to the original poster....You mention that PS Elements can be found inexpensively with rebates. I was wondering if you could give me some more info regarding the rebates--where they're found, their requirements, etc. I've been considering purchasing Elements, but since I can use Photoshop Limited Edition (which Elements replaced) in Classic, I haven't had the need to yet.

Also a question to any Elements owners--is it similar to Photoshop LE? People say that GraphicConverter is similar to it, but I do not like GC.

Thanks for the help,
Josh

PS-To add to the thread, I paid $35 for some stupid "Family Tree" program off of Version Tracker that was useless and after a crash in which I lost the software key, I could never re-gain full functionality.

[icruise]

I think konfabulator shows a lot of promise. What is available at the moment isnt the greatest (although some of them are pretty cool), but I have high hopes for things to come.

[[APi]TheMan]

While we're on the topic of Windows Media Player sucking...

I'm the Mac man of the dorms, so I see a lot of macs every week, and I see a lot of the crap that people use. I see LOTS of people using AIM in Classic, RealOne player, Windows Media Player... eh.

People just don't know what's out there; I tell a new person about VersionTracker every week.

[hew]

I would have to agree with Landos Mustache on this one. While making widgets is quite easy; The way widgets are displayed is absolutely useless. Widgets are too large to be useful. Even if you shrink them down it defeats the point. As it could easily be replaced by a dockling or menu extra/item.

I'm not saying it's useless for everyone, I'm just saying unless you like eye candy there are tons of better replacements for Konfabulator's widgets in my opinion that get the job done.

I for one am not happy to see Konfabulator useless for my needs as I've been waiting for it for months now. When I finally got my hands on it I was quite disappointed, especially with the price.

Oh well..

[ngrundy]

Time to pour peterol on the fire..

Overrated (or Simply Awful Apps)
There is of course one there has to be on this list...
OS9

Overrated to hell, and awful to boot(sic), I think it takes the cake for 'OS I can crash in the least ammount of time' Last clocked at 3 minutes while trying to mount a disk image and browse the web at the same time...

(sure it's an app, classic.app!)

[Moonray]

Originally posted by jaske:
So, I'll start. First, OS X does not count. This thread is for applications only . . .

This forum is for operating system issues only, there is another one for applications. So your thread is not overrated or awful but simply in the wrong place.

-

[simifilm]

Originally posted by jaske:
So, I'll start. First, OS X does not count. This thread is for applications only . . .

GraphicConverter. I know, it doesn't exactly "suck," but it also has outlived its usefulness (and that's the point of this thread: calling a spade a spade).

It's GUI is ugly, it's slow, and for the same price (via rebates) you can buy Photoshop Elements which does pretty much the same tasks. And yeah, GC may convert Atari files into some obscure format, but who the hell cares . . . I mean, all GC has over many programs its its ability to recognize formats 99% of folks don't use. And for myself, my biggest gripe with the program lay with that "manual" . . . I merely want to learn how to edit photos, and I made the mistake of buying the optional manual. What a sorry excuse for a set of instructions: horrendous grammar, lapses in logic, absolutely useless. My advice: avoid this program, go to DealMac, and buy Elements, or some similar, yet superior program.

Arrgh! Blasphemy! GC rulez my world, Thorsten Lemke is one of my personal all time computer heroes. The batch functions alone are priceless.

[jaske]

Originally posted by Moonray:
This forum is for operating system issues only, there is another one for applications. So your thread is not overrated or awful but simply in the wrong place.

-

Yeah thanks. Perhaps, as it's quite apparent you can read-and clearly you're not careless as I apparently have been-this has been adroitly mentioned above. Thanks again. Quick, go hunt down a moderator to rid you of the burning sensation caused by this post existing, any post, trespassing in the incorrect forum (by the way, is the feeling similar to a UTI? Just curious.)

[jaske]

Originally posted by ngrundy:
Time to pour peterol on the fire..

Overrated (or Simply Awful Apps)
There is of course one there has to be on this list...
OS9

Overrated to hell, and awful to boot(sic), I think it takes the cake for 'OS I can crash in the least ammount of time' Last clocked at 3 minutes while trying to mount a disk image and browse the web at the same time...

(sure it's an app, classic.app!)

Clever. Anyway . . . I'll add another to the list: OmniWeb. I mean, how useful is a browser that doesn't display correctly a large portion of pages. Sure it's pretty, but that's it. It's slow and absolutely inadequate. I don't understand how people can justify using the browser in its current incarnation. Maybe when its rendering components are updated.

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by jaske:
Clever. Anyway . . . I'll add another to the list: OmniWeb. I mean, how useful is a browser that doesn't display correctly a large portion of pages. Sure it's pretty, but that's it. It's slow and absolutely inadequate. I don't understand how people can justify using the browser in its current incarnation. Maybe when its rendering components are updated.

i beg to differ: while i use safari for nearly all of my browsing, omniweb gets the call when i am browsing japanese sites (especially those which take text entry in japanese). safari and internet explorer are not up to par in this regard.

[awaspaas]

Originally posted by simifilm:
Arrgh! Blasphemy! GC rulez my world, Thorsten Lemke is one of my personal all time computer heroes. The batch functions alone are priceless.

Mr. Lemke needs a few UI design lessons. I think Apple even used some screenshots from GC as a "what not to do" slide in the Aqua UI guidelines presentation at WWDC last year.

Oh, and that reminds me - GoLive is another app that needs serious work, for several reasons - one being the fact that it writes like 100 lines of code for a single javascript rollover.

[barney ntd]

If we're dissing things people rave about, my pet hate is fink.

I know it's not really an app, but talk about computing made difficult! Everything has to be done in the terminal, it screws up all your shell initialisation files, it never tells you what it's doing, and it offers more options that you can see at once without any indication of what difference they make. All in all, it turns your nice friendly mac into something alien: if I wanted to use linux, I would have got a PC!

Compare installing Apple's X11 or Gerben Wierda's teTeX to installing anything in fink, and you'll see the difference between what the macos X unix experience should be, and what the gnu geeks think of as "user-friendly".

Unfortunately, I have to use the bloody thing because I need the full version of R, and installing it by hand is even worse.

Barney.

[Landos Mustache]

Originally posted by Icruise:
I think konfabulator shows a lot of promise. What is available at the moment isnt the greatest (although some of them are pretty cool), but I have high hopes for things to come.

Like what? What information could you possibly need smattered all over your desktop other then how much CPU and RAM Konfaulator is eating up?

[JHromadka]

Originally posted by jaske:
GraphicConverter. I know, it doesn't exactly "suck," but it also has outlived its usefulness (and that's the point of this thread: calling a spade a spade).
. . . I mean, all GC has over many programs its its ability to recognize formats 99% of folks don't use. ... My advice: avoid this program, go to DealMac, and buy Elements, or some similar, yet superior program.

Some of those conversions are useful, though. What other program can convert images from ScreenShot Hack?Perhaps it has outlived its current UI, but not its usefulness period.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by barney ntd:
If we're dissing things people rave about, my pet hate is fink.

I know it's not really an app, but talk about computing made difficult! Everything has to be done in the terminal, it screws up all your shell initialisation files, it never tells you what it's doing, and it offers more options that you can see at once without any indication of what difference they make. All in all, it turns your nice friendly mac into something alien: if I wanted to use linux, I would have got a PC!

Compare installing Apple's X11 or Gerben Wierda's teTeX to installing anything in fink, and you'll see the difference between what the macos X unix experience should be, and what the gnu geeks think of as "user-friendly".

Unfortunately, I have to use the bloody thing because I need the full version of R, and installing it by hand is even worse.

Barney.

Really. You are an idiot. Your last paragraph proves that your whole post contradicts itself. Ff you want a GUI for Fink, just use FinkCommander. What you are saying is kind of like saying a standard transmission is worse than an automatic transmission in every way, but you keep buying cars with standard transmissions. When asked why, you say "Using an automatic the same way you standard transmission is much harder, and very bad for the automatic."

As for your reasons for hating Fink, they are ALL wrong. Fink doesn't touch ANYTHING outside of the directory you install it in, would NEVER touch your shell initialization file (it recommends you add a single line, to make Fink easier to use), always tells you EVERYTHING it is doing, with options to show you even more info, like the contents of files as it unpacks them. If you can't be troubled to learn all 6 of the essential Fink commands, you really should remove your BSD subsystem altogether.

Installing Apple's X11 may be super easy, but you have to type 3 terminal commands to remove it, as opposed to 1 for any given Fink installed package.

[Nonsuch]

Windows Media Player is probably the worst app I am forced to use on a semi-regular basis. I could give a flying crap what the MacBU does with IE, but I really want a functional media player.

Amadeus is probably the crashiest program I've ever used on OS X.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
Windows Media Player is probably the worst app I am forced to use on a semi-regular basis. I could give a flying crap what the MacBU does with IE, but I really want a functional media player.

You might want to try the newest version of VideoLAN Client. It has played every .wmv and .asf I've thrown at it (and much better than MacWiMP ever could). It also has (IMVHO) a very beautiful GUI (in case you ever used it and were turned off by the craptacular GUI of older versions).

[xenu]

Originally posted by Moonray:
This forum is for operating system issues only, there is another one for applications. So your thread is not overrated or awful but simply in the wrong place.

-

From all of us, thank you mummy.

Most over rated app?
Sherlock. Completely useless.

[Peter]

The most overrated app is as the above post says, Sherlock. Totally crap if you live anywhere except USA.

[jaske]

Originally posted by JHromadka:
Some of those conversions are useful, though. What other program can convert images from ScreenShot Hack?Perhaps it has outlived its current UI, but not its usefulness period.

I realize that GC can convert obscure formats. But, one should ask why that is a saving grace.

Possibly many formats are obscure and "under-supported" because they provide little utility over competing formats, or even value for most users (and let me be clear that I do not use obscure in the pejorative sense). Maybe some need to capture Palm screens; I'll concede that GC is great for working with these/similar image formats.

My contention is that GC is overrated, especially as it is commonly referred to as the "swiss-army knife" of graphics. And even if it is fair to use that metaphor, who really needs all of GC's blades? Most folks don't. Further, most of its blades are also in Element's arsenal, as well as other programs, and these programs simply are better at these common tasks.

GC is overrated because it's remaining value (obscure image conversion) is not useful for most, and GC does not offer competitive value for its common tasks/functions. Sure it has utility; but that utility is specialized, and I contend that the application rating should reflect GC's limited utility. I mean, folks should not buy the app unless they need to convert Palm screenshots. Everyone else should buy another imaging program.

[jaske]

Originally posted by PeterClark2002:
The most overrated app is as the above post says, Sherlock. Totally crap if you live anywhere except USA.

Actually, I think Sherlock may take the prize. First, I find little advantage to Services programs. I prefer opening a browser, clicking a bookmark, typing my personal information (which, for example, should leave a cookie so that my zip code for my weather preferences remains), etc. I don't see services programs as offering much of an advantage: Open the program, click which service, enter a zip at least once, and another to change location . . . the number of steps seems fairly close.

But Sherlock is sooo much worse than Watson. It's slow, buggy, and doesn't offer decent services, like adding TV Guide events to iCal (I'll admit that's a cool feature of Watson).

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by macmike42:
You might want to try the newest version of VideoLAN Client.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've used it before but this update is a real improvement.

[Judge_Fire]

Since there is no centralized Department of Mac App Rating, calling something universally overrated is pointless, IMHO.

There are so many user contexts, within which very different software might well be real lifesavers and spoken highly of.

For me, GC in all its UI clumsiness is something I need to use weekly. From my viewpoint, you're underrating it [/rant]

But yeah, I know what you mean.

I think my candidate would be PowerPoint. Good enough to be a global standard, but with MS certified crappy image scaling and media handling features included.

Some software companies put on shiny little finishing touches to their apps, Microsoft must have a department dedicated to the exact opposite.



J

[JLL]

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
Like what? What information could you possibly need smattered all over your desktop other then how much CPU and RAM Konfaulator is eating up?

Code:
 522 Konfabulat   0.0%  5:25.77   1    56   129  7.14M  11.9M  10.4M  81.8M
  521 Konfabulat   0.0%    0:08.31   2    77   133  5.60M  8.04M  8.39M  74.5M
  520 Konfabulat   0.0%    0:11.35   1    55   107  2.00M  10.4M  5.25M  74.6M
  519 Konfabulat   0.0%    0:09.33   1    59   104  1.90M  7.57M  4.55M  70.8M
  518 Konfabulat   0.0%    0:13.34   1    59   103  2.02M  7.55M  4.61M  70.7M
  517 Konfabulat   0.0%    0:00.71   6    60    97  1.45M  6.19M  3.41M  68.3M

[tikki]

I got yuo all beat. How about Hotline 1.9. ugh.

or Pitbull. It would be awesome, but its so frigging slow. Isn't it a realbasic app?

[jonn804]

With TaxCut, after you spend 30 minutes entering your data, you can not file your income tax because the update you need does not exist. This after spending $60 for the so called program.

[jaske]

Originally posted by jonn804:
With TaxCut, after you spend 30 minutes entering your data, you can not file your income tax because the update you need does not exist. This after spending $60 for the so called program.

I was going to purchase TaxCut this week. What's it missing?

[dampeoples]

Originally posted by Josh Reid:
A bit off-topic, but in response to the original poster....You mention that PS Elements can be found inexpensively with rebates. I was wondering if you could give me some more info regarding the rebates--where they're found, their requirements, etc. I've been considering purchasing Elements, but since I can use Photoshop Limited Edition (which Elements replaced) in Classic, I haven't had the need to yet.

Also a question to any Elements owners--is it similar to Photoshop LE? People say that GraphicConverter is similar to it, but I do not like GC.

Thanks for the help,
Josh

PS-To add to the thread, I paid $35 for some stupid "Family Tree" program off of Version Tracker that was useless and after a crash in which I lost the software key, I could never re-gain full functionality.

There is an upgrade rebate in the box for Elements ($30) I suppose it would work from LE if you have that. It is LE, they just call it Elements now.
What family tree program? I just got MacFamily Tree for $25, I suppose it's OK, it crashed once, but I had moved the media files it was looking for, so i suppose that was my fault

[chris v]

Vue Scan.

Abysmally slow, no feedback, blank pop-up menus, crashy.

And it's literally overrated, as its author is purported to have created several dummy versontracker accounts and given himself 5 stars whenever someone writes him a bad review.

CV

[dampeoples]

Can't say I blame him, there are a good number of reviews on VT that are just stupid.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by dampeoples:
Can't say I blame him, there are a good number of reviews on VT that are just stupid.

If by "a good number" you mean 99.9%, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

[jaske]

Originally posted by dampeoples:
There is an upgrade rebate in the box for Elements ($30) I suppose it would work from LE if you have that. It is LE, they just call it Elements now.

This is one of the available rebates available for owners of other graphic apps, and LE does qualify. And, if you check dealmac.com over the course of a month, you'll find a deal where an online store is offering an additional rebate for Elements. In fact, Amazon.com tends to have a perpetual deal, where they seem to offer $30 off via their own rebate, combined with the in-the-box rebate. Just check around.

[jaske]

Originally posted by chris v:
Vue Scan.

Abysmally slow, no feedback, blank pop-up menus, crashy.

And it's literally overrated, as its author is purported to have created several dummy versontracker accounts and given himself 5 stars whenever someone writes him a bad review.

CV

I think VueScan is an very good program. What scanner are you using? I've never had any of the problems you mentioned, and I'm impressed by the fact that Hamrick can write software for so many scanners when the actual manufacturer refuses to do so (often claiming that the difficulty of the task prevents writing a driver).

That being said, I dropped this app as soon as the OS X driver was released for my scanner and I could scan from Photoshop and Elements.

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by jaske:
This is one of the available rebates available for owners of other graphic apps, and LE does qualify. And, if you check dealmac.com over the course of a month, you'll find a deal where an online store is offering an additional rebate for Elements. In fact, Amazon.com tends to have a perpetual deal, where they seem to offer $30 off via their own rebate, combined with the in-the-box rebate. Just check around.

the one big problem with these is that too many (almost all of them) are not valid outside of the usa....

[madra]

slightly off-target, but i'd like to cast a vote for firewire as most over-rated technology of recent years.

well, to be fair, maybe it's not the technology in itself, but certainly apple's implementation of firewire in it's various gadgets has, in my opinion, had all the build quality of a house of cards:

4 out of 5 G4 powerbooks in our dept at college suffering burnt out firewire within months of purchase.

my own G4 suffering a similar fate

my ipod [whose firewire connection was shaky at the best of times] also shuffling off the mortal coil.

SCSII may have been annoying at times [rem restarting every time you connected a new gadget?] and pokey to set up [oops! i've given my scanner the same SCSII ID as my external hard drive!] but at least the connectors were rugged and durable and you didn't have to cross your fingers every time you connected a peripheral, hoping it wouldn't burn out the port.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by madra:
slightly off-target, but i'd like to cast a vote for firewire as most over-rated technology of recent years.

well, to be fair, maybe it's not the technology in itself, but certainly apple's implementation of firewire in it's various gadgets has, in my opinion, had all the build quality of a house of cards:

4 out of 5 G4 powerbooks in our dept at college suffering burnt out firewire within months of purchase.

my own G4 suffering a similar fate

my ipod [whose firewire connection was shaky at the best of times] also shuffling off the mortal coil.

SCSII may have been annoying at times [rem restarting every time you connected a new gadget?] and pokey to set up [oops! i've given my scanner the same SCSII ID as my external hard drive!] but at least the connectors were rugged and durable and you didn't have to cross your fingers every time you connected a peripheral, hoping it wouldn't burn out the port.

That's load of bullshit. Firewire is not as weak and cheap as you claimed it to be.

If you think USB and SCSI have a more durable design, I'll laugh my ass off.

BTW, your sig is overrated too.

[pimephalis]

Originally posted by macmike42:
If by "a good number" you mean 99.9%, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

That is one shiny, gleaming kernel of truth there macmike42.

[madra]

adam betts:

That's load of bullshit. Firewire is not as weak and cheap as you claimed it to be.

If you think USB and SCSI have a more durable design, I'll laugh my ass off.

who mentioned USB?

if you think firewire connections are anywhere near as durable as SCSII [of which i have several examples on old 'gadgets' which are still working perfectly after nearly a decade] as compared to my experiences with firewire [approx 66% failure rate within a couple of years] then i'll likewise jettison my rear end

BTW, your sig is overrated too.

who by?

[NeXTLoop]

Originally posted by madra:
slightly off-target, but i'd like to cast a vote for firewire as most over-rated technology of recent years.

well, to be fair, maybe it's not the technology in itself, but certainly apple's implementation of firewire in it's various gadgets has, in my opinion, had all the build quality of a house of cards:

4 out of 5 G4 powerbooks in our dept at college suffering burnt out firewire within months of purchase.

my own G4 suffering a similar fate

my ipod [whose firewire connection was shaky at the best of times] also shuffling off the mortal coil.

SCSII may have been annoying at times [rem restarting every time you connected a new gadget?] and pokey to set up [oops! i've given my scanner the same SCSII ID as my external hard drive!] but at least the connectors were rugged and durable and you didn't have to cross your fingers every time you connected a peripheral, hoping it wouldn't burn out the port.

I'd be looking at what FireWire devices you're plugging in. I've had several computers that I've used FW devices with, and have had no problems whatsoever.

[voodoo]

InDesign 2

a prime example

[Synotic]

Originally posted by voodoo:
InDesign 2

a prime example

Uhhh... what?