Truly Bare Bone Interface and Dysfunctional
I currently have OED, Oxford American Dictionary, and Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, (in addition to many other well known well-thought of dictionaries) and in the past I used the SOED in print and in software form on my PC (I do advise to several non-English speaking countries education departments on their resource acquisitions). I just installed the SOED on my iMac and played with it an hour or two on a request to evaluate it.
It is a bare bone interface and offers no possibility of adjusting font size, font color, or any other display or configurations. This is a s major handicap for a reference on any screen: you are denied changing the interface to your comfort — or utility — level. That takes it off from my list right away at any price. Even the least expensive reference apps do have that basic feature.
Second point to loudly complain about this Mac app is, it has a uniformly small font, ( I mean real small 8 or 6 point fonts) and click areas to move your cursor and click on them, and those areas are not sensitive (easily overlapping) and that causes many interjections such as "Da…n!" or the other popular release of exclamation you would use in situations like that!. I think the current marketer of this dictionary avoided spending any money to make suitable for Mac use (or any other use).
Philologist about Shorter Oxford English Dict