Most Mac software is packaged and distributed in drive images. It's a great idea, in theory. You download the .dmg, mount it on your desktop, drag the software to your hard drive, eject and throw away the dmg.

Mac veterans are familiar with the process, but it still seems to confuse a lot of newbies. They usually run the software straight from the drive image, and then complain because they have question marks in the dock, or they have to keep mounting the image just to run the app.

Some software tries to communicate the act of dragging the app to your Applications folder, others better than some. But that fact alone almost speaks to the un-intuitiveness of the process. Could packaging software in zip files be better?


Zip files still auto-decompress and clean up after themselves. If the "safe" file opening option is turned off in Safari, it's just a double click to extract. The apps then run off the desktop, and it becomes more obvious where the app "lives" and it can be then copied over to /Applications.

The only thing drive images have over zips then is that they can be decorated on the inside, and special instructions can be given in lieu of a readme file that doesn't get read anyways. For instance, Growl's drive image (to the left).

It still seems like zips may be a better choice though with little downside and a possible advantage for switchers. I just hate it when people do both, e.g. pack software in a drive image and then zip the .dmg. Ugh.