[Macworld.com]

Rob Griffiths wants Apple to offer a version of OS X that offers user control over features where control hasn't previously existed. And he's willing to pay up for it. [more]

[Buffyzdead]

duhh ahh.. hmmmm...
Just have Apple build in all that functionality over time, say by 10.5.6 or so, and charge $129.00
SJ wouldn't have it any other way.
....next

[griffman]

Oh but if they only would. Many of the things I list have remained unchanged since the days of the 10.0 Public Beta, so it seems unlikely we'll ever see options for controlling them -- at any price.
-rob.

[Daren_Mitchell]

Those are great, if not a bit nostalgic, recommendations.
I agree with the previous poster: Make them 'updates' to 10.5.x and leave it at that.
Or, if there's intrepid programmer(s) out there, perhaps they can mod the system as you suggest with a system pref pane...
TGIF!

[jmincey]

Many good ideas here, Rob, but allowing an OS to be customized to the specific UI needs of the user should not be considered a chargeable "extra." I would not consider this a bonus to OS X; rather I consider it a shortcoming of the current OS X that it lacks these abilities. And I would not want to pay extra merely because Apple redresses a shortcoming by providing at long last something as fundamental as more UI flexibility and user-customizable options.

[Paul_Olson]

I am far from a programmer, but most of these proposed features shouldn't be much harder to implement than an "on" and "off" toggle. Why were some great elements of flexibility in 10.4 and its predecessors abandoned in 10.5? C'mon, Apple, you have been the champions of a fun, flexible, configurable user interface. Lighten up and loosen up.

[ScoutX]

Yeah. What Jeff said...
If Apple did add those options for $100 extra, I'd be looking for Tinker Tool - Choice /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[Ventzi_Zhechev]

Frankly, if anybody has enough time on there hands to do that much customisation, then they are payed too much for their job!
And such people most definitely will have the time to install a Linux and make it look like their vision of Mac OS X.
But for the rest of the people the ones that have to spend their time to work earning money I believe Apple's designers are doing a very respectable job at no extra cost.

[daneb]

I have to agree with the above statements on pricing. The ability for a lot of this stuff is already there. It's just being able to tweak it with a GUI, much like TinkerTool. If it's not there, it could, and should be added over the next few updates to Leopard.

[Guntis]

Exactly as jmincey said! This should be part of OS X!

[griffman]

Clearly you're younger than I (even though my eyes are 20/20) and you have no trouble at all with the font size choices in the Finder, Mail, iTunes, and iPhoto's sidebar. To me, they're all too small, and letting me change them would take almost no effort on Apple's part, and almost no time for my part.
Just because you don't want options, why does that mean that nobody wants options? This is a one-way street: if Apple offered the ability to customize, those who liked the defaults wouldn't have to set them. But if the options aren't there, then we're stuck with what Apple gives us.
-rob.

[alansky]

Surely a bonafide MacWorld editor can come up with something more newsworthy than this!

[jmincey]

Not everything is about news. Some things are about analysis or opinion or other editorial content. What publication (print or web) features nothing but articles of interest to you?
On another point (of a previous poster, Ventzi_Zhechev), there is a difference between (1) endlessly fiddling with UI options and (2) setting a few configurable options and then leaving them in place. This idea that Apple's implementation of UI flexibility would require a large time commitment from the end user is mistaken.
Besides which, you can always just accept the default values if you don't want to customize your particular computer. What's it to you if Apple implements options for those who would find them useful?

[griffman]

This wasn't news, as clearly denoted by the fact that it's posted in Editor's Notes, not News.
-rob.