Type it like you think it.

I didn’t expect OSX would improve that much as Apple has done with OSX Lion. It’s amazing work. However, two new features that they put a lot of emphasis on I think are suboptimal. Namely Mission Control and Launchpad.

Mission Control. It basically takes Dashboard, Exposé and Spaces, which were available on the previous OSX versions, and mashes them up into one. Unfortunately Exposé and Spaces never worked for me, and so Mission Control won’t either. To switch between apps I use Cmd-Tab, that’s all I need, works fastest. If I’d use Exposé, right now for example, I see 20 tiny windows, which is too much and too time consuming for me to scan. It distracts from what I’m thinking the moment I use it.

Launchpad. I’m used to that with my iPad, and I find it annoying. I have 5 pages full with icons. On my PC / Mac there’ll be even more icons to scan. If I’m looking for an app I know is called for example “Evernote” it takes me quite a long time to find it. There’s just too much to scan. Sure, you can now categorize them like you can on an iPhone, but then you need to think about how to categorize, what categorization makes sense, and often an app can fall into multiple categories, or none at all. Better not waste time on that. It should just work, right?

So here’s how I work and what I’d like to see build into the iPhone, iPad and PCs: I have a clean desktop, no icons anywhere. If I want to start say “Evernote” I type Cmd-space E V and that’s it. Start Chrome? Type Cmd-space C. Start Firefox? Type Cmd-space F. Start Tweetie? Type Cmd-space T. When I want to start an app, I know the name of the app. I don’t want to search for it browsing through a bunch of pages on Launchpad. I want to type what I think. I use Quicksilver to achieve that. Always Cmd-space, type the first letters of the name of the app, and there it is. Always within a second.

It actually happens without any conscious thinking. This way you can start or switch to any app blind folded and way faster than you could with Launchpad or Mission Control.

On an iPhone or iPad I’d like for example to double press the Home button which would bring up recently used apps at the top and the keyboard at the bottom where I can touch 1 or 2 characters which would then show the app I’m looking for.

Update: Switched from Quicksilver to Alfred, just perfect.