Forget the Leopard Bells and Whistles, Just Give Me an Uninstaller

Latterly, I’ve been looking at alternatives to iPhoto, and there are a large number. But since none have satisfied, I won’t name names—except for Apple’s Aperture. If I write too much about my needs and why no apps have fulfilled them, I’ll be too far off track. Maybe I’ll save that for another article when I do find one that meets my needs. On that note, any developers who think they might have something, shoot me an email at chrish at the Apple Matters domain.

Now, back to the problem at hand. In a month or so, Apple will release Leopard, the whizz-bang-Vista-thumping new operating system. We’ll all be ooo-ing and ahhh-ing and saying it’s the best thing to hit planet Earth since the sun’s first rays. “Vista who?” we’ll say. We’ll scoff arrogantly at our poor cousins in the Windows world with their oh-so-2005 Vista OS.

However, unless it’s Steve’s big secret, there is one area where Vista will make OS X look oh-so-1994. And that’s uninstalling applications.

We Mac users like to brag about the simplicity of installing applications: simply drag and drop to the Applications folder. (Not that this is worth bragging about since most Apple applications use an installer…)

But when it comes to uninstalling, it’s not just a simple case of drag and drop to the trash. Well, it is, say some of the more zealous Mac users when talking to their poor cousins in the Windows world.

Now, the last time I used Windows’ uninstaller I can’t say it was a pretty experience, as often it doesn’t have a clue which files you should and shouldn’t remove, but at least it tries.

On OS X, where things are much simpler, with no DLLs, no registry, and few necessary third-party device drivers, uninstalling with an uninstaller should be a doddle.

And if you’ve ever run AppZapper or CleanUp, you’ll know that’s almost true. Often they identify only three files that need to be removed: the application, its preference file, and a folder in the Application Support folder. Some applications, though, burrow a bit deeper and have bits missed by these uninstallers.

Aperture, I discovered, is one of these. (It’s a shame that whoever develops Aperture doesn’t talk to Apple… ) It only seems to go a smidge deeper, but it’s enough to rankle me again about the absence of an uninstaller in OS X as I had to manually hunt for other files to delete. This also makes me a little nervous about what else might get left behind.

The accompanying image for this article may seem a bit odd, but it is what appears in my screensaver preferences after deleting Aperture. And just to be sure, I even rebooted my Mac. It didn’t take much hunting around until I found the Aperture library that still existed and deleted it. As I said, it’s annoying that the user has to do that.

I had tried to make the process one-step by using AppZapper, which identified several files to remove; however, the Aperture library was not one of them.

It’s possible, even probable, that the screensaver preference has it built-in to look for the Aperture library. Okay then, but let’s not put the blame on AppZapper for not finding the Aperture library. Application uninstalling should be a part of an operating system.

In Googling for “How do I uninstall Aperture,” I uncovered another uninstaller application called Yank, which uses specific uninstallers for each application. It is an interesting approach, and although not getting favorable reviews on MacUpdate, it is one to watch; unlike an AppZapper which is reliant on a search of your hard disk, Yank should be much more accurate.

But, of course, the question still remains: Why?! Why doesn’t Apple provide this feature itself? Why should Joe Average User be expected to root around his/her system looking for preference files, caches, and other miscellaneous files just to remove an application?

It’s bad practice to encourage users to delete files they know nothing about. Next they’ll be hunting around the system folders to see where they can save space. And don’t think they can’t do any harm because they’re not an administrator. If it’s their Mac, they’ll be its administrator. And just to prove a point, in a fit of masochism—and absolute faith in SuperDuper—I did exactly that and deleted my system keychain from the main Library folder. All it took was the administrator password. (I then restored it from the trash.) There are probably much worse files to delete than that, but it does show how easy it is. So, Apple, let’s not encourage users to delete files they know nothing about.

This is one time when I don’t think it’s the responsibility of third-party developers to come up with a solution. Uninstalling applications should be a function of the operating system. So come on Apple, you conceded on the two-button mouse, Intel processors, and Windows on Macs, now it’s time to bring OS X all the way into the 21st century and provide an application uninstaller. (And one that gets all files and shows Windows how easy it should be.)