[Zimphire]

Any "icon" previewing or storing app.

[mark2]

Great idea for a thread.
My vote for worst application goes to AppleWorks X. I absolutely HATE it. I consider it pure crap. As much as I hate M$, I finally broke down and bought Office (it's not as bad as the PC version).
I also bought Mellel, and in many ways, prefer it to AppleWorks, too.
Sherlock isn't much better, IMO.
And, Apple Help program REEKS.

iClock Pro, is pretty worthless, IMO.

[sandsl]

Originally posted by voodoo:
InDesign 2

a prime example

Um..no...
Worst Programs
Graphic Converter (for those who can't afford Photoshop mainly)
QuarkXPress 6 (Crappy UI)
Windows Media Player (Slow, Crappy UI, doesn't work with the latest WMV format, rubbish quality, handles window resizing appallingly)
Sherlock (Unbelievably useless)

Best Program of All Time:
Adobe Photoshop 7

[philm]

Let me add my vote for Acrobat 6. Such a disappointment. Takes ages to start up, the startup window insists on floating to always be the frontmost window so you can't do anything else during the 30s startup period.

The program adds its own mini-toolbar to all the Office applications in such a way that it is difficult to remove.

The whole app feels bloated and inefficient.

[voodoo]

InDesign 2 is overrated because:

it adds no significant thing to DTP - yet some people act like it is good or something.

its slowness is unmatched in the world of professional apps. shoddiest programming ever?

its import of QuarkXPress files is a sad joke.

its UI is a clutter of floating windows. a really cumbersome way to use a DTP app is when you can hardly see what you are doing because of all the floating windows.

the only thing it has going for it is a relatively low price compared to the competition.

that is one overrated app.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by philm:
Let me add my vote for Acrobat 6. Such a disappointment. Takes ages to start up, the startup window insists on floating to always be the frontmost window so you can't do anything else during the 30s startup period.

The program adds its own mini-toolbar to all the Office applications in such a way that it is difficult to remove.

The whole app feels bloated and inefficient.

I simply forgot this little gem. Acrobat 6 ... it must have slipped my mind since I erased it such a loooong time ago. That is one craptacular app and its only excuse for its miserable existence is that it is free (the reader anyway - but that is the one I'm talking about - I wouldn't dream of paying money for crap like that)

[philm]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I simply forgot this little gem. Acrobat 6 ... it must have slipped my mind since I erased it such a loooong time ago. That is one craptacular app and its only excuse for its miserable existence is that it is free (the reader anyway - but that is the one I'm talking about - I wouldn't dream of paying money for crap like that)

I was talking about the full version. I get all these non-features....and I paid for it!

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by sandsl:
Um..no...
Best Program of All Time:
Adobe Photoshop 7

But that's the latest and Adobe has started bloating it up with useless features. The best version was probably around version 5 or 6 when they decided to add layers (probably the most significant change to a bitmap image editor since apple came up with Mac Draw).

re: InDesign 2, you have to remember what it was being compared to when it was launched, Quark hadn't even launched QX5 (I think), although there was talk of it, and when I did eventually did come It was more of the same (and in OS9). It was also leaps and bounds better than ID 1 and 1.5. It had created choice (in some way) where there wasn't really any before. Yes it was hyped up way to much. A 'Quark Killer' it isn't, but it's close and remember Quark has took 6 versions to get this good, ID is only at V2 (not long till V3 though).

I forgot to add a useless app. how about Adobe Imageready.
Eather make an app that just does the job of preparing bitmaps for the web or make an app that can do all the image creation on its own. But don't do half a job. It's like a cut down Photoshop with some extra features bolted on. You try and do something you do a bit, then realize that that the next stage can only be done in Photoshop.
PhotoShop is already a huge bloated app why not just roll these features (animated gifs, easy rollover graphics creation etc.) into Photoshop. It could be a set of plugins, that the Print guys could disable.

[Apfhex]

Huh? What's wrong with GraphicConverter? I, for one, don't use it as a replacement for Photoshop. I use it because it's the best image viewer I've found. I WOULD use Preview, except that you can't set the default to view images at "Actual Size," and there's no folder browser. And it's also good for some good quick image editing.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
But that's the latest and Adobe has started bloating it up with useless features. The best version was probably around version 5 or 6 when they decided to add layers (probably the most significant change to a bitmap image editor since apple came up with Mac Draw).

That would be 3, IIRC.

4 got multiple undo, 5 got editable text, 5.5 got a whole load of useful web stuff. After that the updates were less compelling. I upgraded to 7 for OSX compatibility, but I wouldn't have otherwise.

Amorya

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Amorya:
That would be 3, IIRC.

4 got multiple undo, 5 got editable text, 5.5 got a whole load of useful web stuff. After that the updates were less compelling. I upgraded to 7 for OSX compatibility, but I wouldn't have otherwise.

You call Healing Brush an useless feature?

[Amorya]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
You call Healing Brush an useless feature?

I can't say I've ever used it, tbh

Although I'm not a professional, so Photoshop is probably an overkill for me. I use it for web graphics, some mild compositing, touching up the odd scan, etc...

Amorya

[Macpilot]

Mail. Very unpredictable.

I don't know what the problem is with Sherlock....I really like it.

Is Watson that much better? Is it free?

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Amorya:
I can't say I've ever used it, tbh

Although I'm not a professional, so Photoshop is probably an overkill for me. I use it for web graphics, some mild compositing, touching up the odd scan, etc...

You should definitely give it a try sometime. It is best suited for touching up the photos. Healing Brush is similar to iPhoto 2's Magic Brush but way more powerful.

I use it from time to time to erase pimples, freckles, and several other unwanted dots/dust/scratches on some photos.

I couldn't live without it now.

[ratlater]

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.

What are you doing to your stuff? I use firewire all the time on multiple machines and devices. Hard drives, DV cameras, FireWire disk mode on laptops, IP over FireWire and 2 iPods. I've never ever had a single FireWire related problem. I think FireWire is one of the most underrated technologies and I wish more stuff had it. Plug and play, power, speed, what more could you want?

-matt

[teszeract]

Useless programs? er.. uh.. mm.. I must have forgotten them.

[teszeract]

Version 10 of most apps.

[teszeract]

InDesign? No good for doing work in. But it has an aqua interface.

[sandsl]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
You should definitely give it a try sometime. It is best suited for touching up the photos. Healing Brush is similar to iPhoto 2's Magic Brush but way more powerful.

I use it from time to time to erase pimples, freckles, and several other unwanted dots/dust/scratches on some photos.

I couldn't live without it now.

Agreed. The healing brush does a remarkable job.

I'd like to see some major new features/advances in future Photoshop versions as well. ImageReady is useless for me- never used it.

[jaske]

Dreamweaver MX 2004 should be added to the list. Awful, buggy, miserable . . . yeah, css is easier to manage, especially from design view, but the program is so slow . . . I mean, I can only type 25 words a minute, and in design view typing is so damned slow that I actually type faster than the program can handle. If Go Live can ever get their css-act together I'll switch in a heart beat ( or maybe I just need to actually learn to code css and more complex HTML).

[ryaxnb]

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).

It's GUI isn't ugly. And GraphicConverter is great for occasional use (for people like me.) It's a good app in a tool set. Why? Because it's free. If you don't use it often, pop-ups don't matter too much.

[Peter]

Graphic Converter is a decent app, cheap and a good cheap MS Paint program and much more.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
It's GUI isn't ugly. And GraphicConverter is great for occasional use (for people like me.) It's a good app in a tool set. Why? Because it's free. If you don't use it often, pop-ups don't matter too much.

it isn't free - if you use it on regular basis you are expected to pay for it.

[SOLIDAge]

no one has mentioned Office?
the damned thing hangs my entire PB (Jaguar) when trying to load it, then I have to force quit it 80% of the time, the other 20% it loads fine, but is still SLOOOWWW...thankfully Panther has fixed this problem.

Mail's constant freaking error messages bothers me to no end as well...and i don't see why they occur....Oh ya, Windows Media Player...CRAP, and Internet Explorer, how could all of you overlooked this "gem"...its the most sluggist, cumbersome browser EVER.

iMovie 3, and iDVD3 are also slow, and almost unusable pieces of crap...

as for Office?
i'd much rather use Apple Works.

Photoshop and iTunes get my vote for best ever.

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

Completely off topic, but when I was messing with PS 8 beta, there didn't seem to be too much more bloat, it just seemed faster (lots), and a little more refined - for instance when using it in full screen mode, you are not limited to viewing the edge of the image on the edge of your screen (bad explanation I'm afraid.)

Worst application: Flash MX - this relatively important and expensive piece of sh!tware is buggy, crash prone and poorly implemented. Anybody working in this on a Mac surely agrees?

Thank God the flash player has improved, at least half of the tortuous equation has got better.

[trusted_content]

Originally posted by PeterClark2002:
Graphic Converter is a decent app, cheap and a good cheap MS Paint program and much more.

That's the point. It's great for converting a few things, is rather cheap, and when you want to do a quick and dirty sketch (Something Awful threads come to mind), it's perfect.




Plus, the slideshow feature makes for a great pr0n viewer.

[madra]

...And, Apple Help program REEKS.

jeez. you're right! in fact it's so malodorous, that i've dug down into the contents of a lot of my apps and placed the index for their help files into safari as bookmarks, so i can access their help in my browser without waiting for the clunking POS that is apple help viewer to start up.

BTW- do i get some kind of award for "revival of most dormant thread"? i came across this thread while doing a search for sommit or other seem to have brought it back to life.

[nica]

My vote for worst application goes to:
wallet from waterfall software. Application to store passwords,
registration info, contacts.

Reasons:
- Sloooowwwww after 10+ entries
- Export of data not reliable (back-up!)
- Overpriced

I am guilty of paying for this piece of crap
but feel better now that I have stopped a few purchases with this post.

[BZ]

I cannot believe anyone put OmniWeb and GraphicConvert as WORST APPS.

GC is a great app, saves me all the time. Is the UI the best? I don't really notice.

OmniWeb on the other hand has the best UI, Sticks to to all OSX guidelines (customizing the tool bar) and has a ton of features. It is easy nagware (but I bought).

The top two on my list are:
Quicken 2004 (worst money ever spent on softwar)
Sherlock, although part of OSX, it did a poor job of stealing what Watson was/is doing a good job of doing.

BZ

[willed]

Originally posted by madra:

BTW- do i get some kind of award for "revival of most dormant thread"? i came across this thread while doing a search for sommit or other seem to have brought it back to life.

You obviously haven't seen soem of the crap that John B. Smith has been digging up in the lounge recently.

On topic - those who complain Sherlock is useless outside the US should get Barney Hilken's 'UK Shopping' package. I think he posts here, this is where I heard about it. I keep Sherlock in the dock because of that - it searches for DVDs, music, software, books or computers on the net aver many websites. Very useful, but it shouldn't have been down to him to sort it out - Apple should think about its international customers.

[madra]

Originally posted by willed:
You obviously haven't seen soem of the crap that John B. Smith has been digging up in the lounge recently.

haven't been in the lounge for years. is ca$h still making an arse of himself?... or did he get through puberty in the end?

[kovacs]

Originally posted by [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.

Tell them about macupdate.com , versiontracker doesn't deserve your publicity...

[voodoo]

Originally posted by kovacs:
Tell them about macupdate.com , versiontracker doesn't deserve your publicity...

I second that!

(madra: cash is well cash)

[fortepianissimo]

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

I have to agree totally - I mean, why do you need a second app when a browser can serve all the purposes?

[fortepianissimo]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I second that!

(madra: cash is well cash)

I third that! People, please start promoting macupdate.com instead of versiontracker.com - the former provides free watchlist service!

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by kovacs:
Tell them about macupdate.com , versiontracker doesn't deserve your publicity...

Why not? Just curious. Low End Mac's best of the Mac web vote last year gave VT a higher rating then MacUpdate.

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

Because VersionTracker is so slow it is like pulling teeth - at least for me.

[madra]

macupdate doesn't censor your posts like VT does.

after having versiontracker delete a post of mine once too often, i spent a boring but revengeful half hour one night, going through their DB and deleting all the 300+ posts i'd made there over the years.

publish 'em all or dinnae publish any of them!

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by madra:
macupdate doesn't censor your posts like VT does.

after having versiontracker delete a post of mine once too often, i spent a boring but revengeful half hour one night, going through their DB and deleting all the 300+ posts i'd made there over the years.

publish 'em all or dinnae publish any of them!

This is not a personal judgment - I don't remember seeing any of your VT posts and don't know what they were like. However, I will say that many posts on VT need to be deleted.

[Tulkas]

Maybe someone already pointed ya'll to perversiontracker.com

Yes, it mocks poor sad developers... but its so damn funny

[york28]

Flash MX- My favorite thing it does is publish a movie incorrectly (as in buttons not working, script getting ignored,etc), and you have to close and relaunch the program to fix the problem. But then the same exact file ppublishs fine. Argh!

Official AIM client. Too bad I use it for file transfers.

I'd mention Quark, but it's not really overrated. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, says that it sucks. Including me.

WMP, RealOne, etc.- I do not tollerate bulging, nonstandard interfaces when they look like crap. On Windows this is the norm, but on a Mac it's just not going to cut it.

iPhoto- I don't care why, just make it go faster. I have an iBook, yes, but all I'm doing is scrolling thumbs. I cringe every time I use it, but still do, because it's too convienient. Someone tell me that there's a replacement available somewhere that I've missed.....

[madra]

Originally posted by york28:
iPhoto.... I cringe every time I use it.... Someone tell me that there's a replacement available somewhere that I've missed.....

luckily there is!

[neilw]

[iView MediaPro is really expensive for what it is. I've no interest in paying $160 for an application like that.]

Anyway, I'm compelled to put in my vote for Word X, the biggest, smelliest turd of all. Is it necessary to have around? Yes. Do I ever want to be forced to use it? Please god no.

Maybe it'll be better under Panther, but for now, it is the most frustratingly slow program I've ever seen. iPhoto is merely slightly sluggish by comparison; Word X on the other hand periodically tells you to go take a crap while it figures out how to do something complicated like, say, scroll down to an embedded image in a document. Tabbing between fields in a table? 2 or 3 seconds. I sometimes wonder if this program isn't just an x86 program with a built-in VPC. Oh wait I forgot, Word under VPC is actually faster at some things.

WMP also sucks pretty hard. Remember when we used to have this notion that MS MacBU actually was doing some good work?

Might as well not spare Apple: Sherlock and Help Viewer are pretty useless, and iPhoto *really* needs to be sped up.

[OwlBoy]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Quark Xpress. There is an overrated app.

amen!

-Owl

[bbales]

Originally posted by jaske:
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.

I paid for VueScan, and it worked well for, oh, say two weeks or so. Then, nothing. The scanner made HORRIBLE noises and I got a black hole for my troubles. I did some searching and, months later, I can't even remmeber what I was going to have to do to make a $40 piece of shareware work properly. I simply went back to booting in 9. Then, I finally bought a Canon scanner that will work in X. The old one (UMax) still sits on the floor...

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by bbales:
I paid for VueScan, and it worked well for, oh, say two weeks or so. Then, nothing. The scanner made HORRIBLE noises and I got a black hole for my troubles. I did some searching and, months later, I can't even remmeber what I was going to have to do to make a $40 piece of shareware work properly. I simply went back to booting in 9. Then, I finally bought a Canon scanner that will work in X. The old one (UMax) still sits on the floor...

Um, are you sure that couldn't have been a hardware problem? With the scanner making noises right before it died and all...

[voodoo]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
amen!

-Owl

You can do amazing things with XPress. Nothing overrated about it.

It works, is clean, fast and lean. It does the job only as well as you can. It is controversive but only because of economic interest.

It is too darn expensive - but it is also the foundation of an industry. Not a hobby-tool.

[ApeInTheShell]

With time and effort any application can become over rated and bloated.

Internet Explorer for example was a decent application on Mac OS 9 but performed poorly under Mac OS X.

Camino went down the tube. I don't know if they stopped trying but I use either Mozilla, Firebird or Safari.

ICQ with a lack of workable features such as file sharing, sms etc.

Even MSN's instant messenging window uses entirely too much space and should slim down. It's interface doesn't follow the UI standard's, but nothing is as hideous as VLC.

There is also the breed of java applications that give you a choice to change themes. I like that but not when I have smoothstripes and it looks like god awful windows still.

It isn't easy to create an application but it is also not that hard to remove features. Maybe developer's will stop releasing shareware that is still beta or alpha.

[Gavin]

You've got to give VLC some slack. It comes from linux where they've never seen a good interface.

On the other hand, I've been working with windows for the last few weeks and my definition of 'sucks' has reached new depths. Maybe I'm a little desensitized.

My vote for simply awful goes to anything written in java. It's like java programmers have some sort of ugly interface color blindness.

[bbales]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Um, are you sure that couldn't have been a hardware problem? With the scanner making noises right before it died and all...

That's just it. It WASN"t a hardware problem! The thing worked fine if booted in OX9. That just happened when using VueScan. And it happened multiple times.

The scanner didn't die. But I bought it in 1997 (early '97, too) and Umax hadn't made drivers in years, let alone drivers for OSX. It just finally got to be a pain to have to reboot, just to use the scanner.