Third-party OS X drivers: Just Say No

Without a doubt, the worst part of using a Mac is dealing with the mess that is third-party hardware drivers. Using hardware under OS X is either completely painless, or a nightmare.

The best scenario is that the hardware is supported out of the box. This happens most of the time, and it’s extremely pleasant. You plug the hardware in, and it works. Gravy.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have braindead third-party drivers. Every single device which has required third-party drivers has been a nightmare for me to use. Example: the Canon LiDE 25 scanner I just bought. It’s drivers install, then immediately delete themselves. Then ask you to reboot. What the hell? You’re left with mysteriously non-functioning hardware. And don’t even get me started on their scanning tool. Feast your eyes on this:

The worst OS X app UI ever?The scan dialog

Yeah. Nevermind that Image Capture is already installed, works fine, and doesn’t make my eyes bleed.

2008/07/04
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It looks like they basically made an OS X port of their Windows scanning gui.

The second part of your post is actually true for all printer/scanner drivers I have come across on windows. They almost always have a Win 3.1 looking toolboxe (that lives in the system tray of course) and does the exact same thing that the windows printer preferences dialog does…. except it looks 10 times worse and nags you to buy printer ink. (I don’t actually use OS X but I feel your pain nonetheless )

Stou
2008/07/30

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2008/09/14

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