Have had Lion for 24 hours now, here's a review

I bought my macbook pro 13 late 2010, which meant it came with snow leopard. I very much enjoyed snow leopard, as it was miles faster than my old dell with windows 7 (due to OS and faster processor, plus more RAM, but thats not the point...). When I heard Lion was to be released, I got even more excited. As the release date approached, I debated whether or not to purchase Lion, as it didn't add too many features that I'd personally need. However, I figured that Lion is the future, and I'd probably eventually wind up buying it, so I got it. I've had it for about 24 hours now, and, while it may not be enough time for some to judge, I would like to share my thoughts and get feedback from others.

Pros.
Upgrade was painless. It was really neat having 100% of my files, apps (including office 2011 and photoshop cs5) be transferred to the new OS
without me having to re-enter serial numbers and the like. Very nice.

I then decided that, because i enjoy speed, that i'd do a clean install, which was also painless. I burned the Lion .dmg image before doing the upgrade to a DVD, because I knew my eventual goal would be to do a clean install, since Windows has taught me that.

It seems to be just as fast (although may be a little slower, but i'm sure that has to do with it caching and "learning" which programs I use most) as SL when booting, and doing other things. As the week goes by, and the cache builds, I will later comment on speed comparisons.

The new system profiler shows more information about the computer when expanded, which I enjoyed.

Internet worked, as did everything else.

Mail is improved. Layout is more organized.


Cons

The gestures are a bit awkward. Whether or not its just because I'm coming from SL, a lot has been changed. Natural scrolling seems like a pain, i'm too conditioned to normal scrolling. The gesture to see the desktop has changed, and by default, swiping 3 fingers to the left to go back is not functioning by default, you have to change that gesture to "two or three fingers" to get it to work. Double tap to hold a click is no longer a gesture. I used that a lot. All in all, I'm not a fan of the new gestures, and 100% prefer the ones in SL, and wish they were all present in lion.

Some of the text Apple chose to use is odd. For example, in the system preferences, the "show all" button appears greyed out, as do the navigation buttons in Finder. I'm much more used to having Black text on Grey button rather than Darker grey text on lighter grey button.

There aren't many new features that I can use to make me more productive. But I knew that going into buying it

Calendar and Address book have been destroyed. I'm not a fan at all of trying to make a computer program look "realistic." It looks tacky, childish, and sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the GUI that i enjoy. This also goes for programs like quicktime that use a black window border. Either it's my OCD or personal preference, but i want consistency in my GUI.

After doing the clean install (note, when i did just the upgrade, i had no issue), my facebook no longer worked because i chose to have the option of having to authorize devices on my account. Not a huge deal, but be warned.




This is a little review of what i like and doing like about Lion. maybe as i get more used to the gestures and other features, I will enjoy it more. Havent tried other touted features like versions. But right now, I'm not entirely convinced my $30 was well spent. If you have any questions, or want me to talk about other parts of Lion, let me know!!!

 

BetterTouchTool.

Install it and customize your gestures to your preferences.

 

I'm not a fan of Lion personally, considering switching back to Snow Leopard.
The new features are nice, but some of them shouldn't be on by default.

When you close an application, it just hides itself rather than really closing. This is nice on iOS, not on a desktop operating system. Why? Well, when I'm updating an app, the process is not killed the update manager tells me the app is still running. What happens if you are not an advanced user? You'll have to call tech support?

AutoCorrect. This is nice in a text editing software, but not everywhere. I'm having a bilingual use of my computer but OS X can't understand that, so if I'm using French it just messes every word I write -_-.

 

why not just turn off this options you do not like on?

 

Can Lion's touchpad be configured to act exactly the same way as in Snow Leopard, leaving the new features to the new gestures?

 

Lion may not be "perfect" to some but what's most celebrated besides Mail is the speed improvements. Lion is probably indexing your drive which will slow the system a bit until it's done. It should be painfully obvious that launching apps and overall performance is faster. There was much more done under the hood where it counts rather than just eye-candy. PS, Spotlight ROCKS!! Live previews in the search results is worth the price of admission.

If that's the case then we all are too conditioned as the old way is all anyone has ever used. The new way is called "Natural" scrolling, the old way is reversed. Give yourself a week of the natural scrolling and you'll find it hard to go back to the old reversed way. Give it a chance, don't dismiss it just because it "seems" wrong.

It is in fact available, Apple has added new gestures to Lion so rather than confuse the customer by cramming all into one place they moved some of the old gestures to System Preferences-Universal Access-Mouse&Gestures-Trackpad Options. You can choose tap and drag there instead of using 3 fingers.

Well that's personal preference and TBH, it's nitpicking IMO. I'm a power user and I never noticed that. To this day I haven't gotten used to Windows 7's white text against the aero transparency. It gives me a headache.

Thankfully there's more to Lion than meets the eye. There were quite a few under the hood changes to better the system. One nice unadvertised feature is 3 finger tap on individual text. Brings up a mini dictionary thesaurus just for that one word. Check the bottom of this post for the example.

My only question is why did you upgrade to Lion if you didn't feel it could do much more for you?

I would say get over it. The main thing is that they are functional and there are lot of improvements in both programs which at the end of the day are more important as far increasing production to the end user.

Honestly, if you can't see even $30 at this point, you'll never see it tomorrow, next week or next year.

Being a power user I checked out every function available in Lion to see if it would increase my workflow and it exceeded my expectations and eye candy and on-screen visuals were not even on the list of importance. It's always the little things that nobody takes time to check out, but rather they spend more time judging the system on what they see when they first turn it on. Is it perfect? Nope, nothing is but Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want Windows 8 to even come close.

 

I agree and I'm hopeful that Apple will add an option to go back to the old look in one of the next point releases (this is what happened when people complained about the translucent menu bar in Leopard).

It certainly wouldn't hurt to politely tell Apple that the new iCal look is bad though.

 

Hm. I like the new iCal look. Matches the one on the iPad perfectly.

I'd also like to point out - we take the whole easy upgrade process for granted (i.e. download, click on dock, you're done within 5 minutes from the time you launch app store to the time you boot up Lion). No serial #s, no activation issues.

In contrast, just the other day, I reinstalled Parallels to access my Windows partition. Just THAT minor change made Windows activation go crazy. I had to not only reactivate my completely legit copy of Windows, but it wouldn't even do it online due to a "hardware change." And let's face it--virtual machines have been around long enough that there is no excuse for the OS not to recognize the difference between that and a reinstallation on a new machine. I had to go through some incredibly long tedious 10-minute phone call just to reactivate a product that had been activated ages ago.

Then I had to reactivate Office 2010.....

Now to be fair, Apple probably wouldn't really go out of its way to add support for Windows programs accessing the OSX side either, so it may be too much to ask Microsoft to make their activation system cater to a program like Parallels. On the other hand, their activation system is just painful and probably completely ineffectual. For example, in the phone activation process, the disembodied voice actually asked me how many machines I had installed Windows on. So I only had one machine with Windows. But what if I had 10 but still answered 1? Or what if I had only 1 and answered 5? ... ...

Well, this turned into a rant about Windows activation, but anyway....

 

The security improvements in Lion are well worth the $30 asking price, let alone everything else.

 

Hi, thanks for the quick high level overview/review.

Not sure if this will fix your issue with calendar appearance...
Change iCal Leather Interface Back to Aluminum in OS X Lion


I just installed lion a few hours ago. Have not spent a lot of time with it yet but so far I like it. I've disabled the natural scrolling just because I switch frequently between OS X and Windows7 and while scrolling two different ways isn't impossible to learn, it does make it a bit awkward.

I give Lion a 5 out of 5.

*I did an upgrade vs a clean install. Although I did make a bootable USB flash from the Lion installer's dmg image prior to upgrading (incase I need it again for some reason)

 

Security features are always welcomed, but i'm not too sure why they couldn't also add them into SL. However, I do understand that, from a business perspective, in order to make money, they need to make their new product look good compared to whats out there.

I'm not quite sure why they would have different preferences for the trackpad located in two different locations. seems a little counter productive to the "simplicity" of the OS to have the user hunt for it.

Part of the reason some people (such as I) purchase an Apple computer is for aesthetics. If I'm going to depend on my computer for quite a few years of my life, I want it to be enjoyable. Same reason people buy luxury cars. It's the same as any other ordinary car on the road, getting you from A to B, but if I were to be driving a lot, I want to make sure I enjoy it. Not trying to argue, just stating my reasoning a little bit clearer.

Yes, I completely agree. The upgrade process was magical. No hassle whatsoever.

 

Well I did mention that with so many new gestures rather than putting them all in System Preferences and confusing the customer....(people do get confused right in this forum.. ), they just placed the legacy gestures in Universal Access. I'm not knocking you but honestly, I figured it out on my own because I "use" my computer.
You have to give people credit for figuring things out for themselves. Not everyone needs to frequent an online forum to figure things out. Part of the fun of having a computer is discovering things on your own. Also look at it this way, anyone that is so interested in using all the gestures will certainly figure their way around OS X and find them all.

At any rate I did solve your concern and gave you the path to make it work your way. You didn't acknowledge it but rather you came back with a rebuttal.

While I agree with you to an extent, that's pretty far fetched in your case about buying a computer. I've been using Macs for over 14 years now and never once did I buy one because of how they looked. That just comes with the territory. Maybe today's kids like them for that reason but to each his own. Thing is, I highly doubt someone will say, "Oh I love that Macbook, I want it.......Wait...what's that leather-looking crap on the top bar of the calendar??? Oh that's ugly. Dealbreaker. Now I don't want a Mac".

You have to understand that a large amount of Apple's customers running Macs and Windows machines have an iPhone or iPad. They want to create a more familiar environment between their handhelds and their computers which makes sense. They didn't add a faux leather calendar just for the sake of. It's what's on the iPad. It makes no sense for Apple's computers and handhelds to have 2 completely different UI environments.
When people buy due to aesthetics it's usually the exterior of the product and in the case of computers maybe the overall UI but I highly doubt people are picking apart how the calendar and address book look as part of their buying decision. Don't take this the wrong way because you are entitled to how you feel but IMO, it's petty. I would figure the calendar and address book functions would be more important in buying a computer. Despite how you feel about iCal and Address book they have some amazing features in Lion.

 

For the most part, yes. Install BetterTouchTool and profit.

 

I know people have to figure things out for themselves, but when they are not located in an area that would be obvious, it makes it a bit difficult. This also doesn't leave out the fact that other preferences are hidden elsewhere that aren't obvious to everyone. It's a little weird to see that moved when it was just fine before in SL. But thanks for sharing with me where it is.

While I doubt anyone would also give up buying a mac for those reasons, in my situation, coming from SL, uniformity in the GUI has been lost. It was perfectly fine before, all Apple had to do was add new features to the aluminum interface, not add new features and an ugly interface. Call me petty all you want, but I'm clearly not the only one who feels the same way. There are numerous articles written about how its unattractive, and as another user has pointed out, how to "fix" it. And like I said, if features greatly outweighed looks, as you suggest, why are BMWs so popular? You can get a much better deal on other cars that have the same features.

Well, it actually does make sense. You interact with them in different ways. I see the iPad as more of a toy, in which cutesy stuff may make sense. But I see a computer as more industrial, productive, where real work gets done. I don't need some fisher-price calendar. It simply looks unprofessional.

Although I'd rather have things native rather than installing a 3rd party program, I will be installing this. Native scrolling is counter-intuitive in tings like google maps (zoom in by scrolling down? no thanks). Plus, I've heard great things about it.

 

If you're annoyed that Apple put gestures in some hidden area then maybe you should play with Windows 7 a bit and see how complicated the Control Panel is. They made it progressively worse from Vista to 7. Imagine a new user buying a Windows 7 computer? The Control Panel is a living nightmare in terms of ease of use. To some of the armchair geeks on this forum, it's as easy as pressing the power button. Your BMW example doesn't match up to your your iCal concerns. It's like someone saying, "What? this BMW doesn't have the same carpet in the trunk as last years model. I don't want it!!" I never actually said YOU were petty, but more of the situation is. Your choosing form over function. Even BMW purchasers will choose function as well as form.


No worries, all good. But you still ignored the fact that I solved your issue.

 

Yes, I know its poorly laid out. But coming from Apple, I expected it to be better. Why would someone put a Trackpad preference in Universal Access, and not Trackpad? Not seeing any logic there.

My point with the BMW reference was that, to some people, looks are important (BMW), which is why they pay extra for a BMW rather than, say, a a Chevrolet. Both cars, go when you press the gas pedal, both have brakes, a cd player/mp3, seatbelts, all the same things in common. Its the looks, mainly, that separate them in terms of mechanical function. Not sure how the carpet statement relates to what i've said.

I've acknowledged it in 2 separate responses. I guess this post counts as the third time

First time...

Second time...

Lion seems okay, but I much prefer SL. I upgraded because I knew that eventually, SL will be obsolete, and I want to have a supported OS. If i'm eventually going to get Lion, for the same price, might as well get it now and learn it. Natural scrolling may eventually seem like second nature to me, but it will be awkward when using things like google maps where zooming in and out will be reversed, as well as other flash apps that are built around normal scrolling. I may make it seem like Lion is bad, but I'm not saying that. There are a ton of good things about it, but the little things are also important to me.

 

Thinking up worse examples doesn't excuse anything.

Trouble is that Apple objectively didn't choose function over form in iCal and in Address Book. Lion's iCal might look like a real calendar, but if you try to interact with it like one you'll be disappointed.

Apple manages to make the programs peculiar mixes of physical objects and standard OS X paradigms with little success. This is particular noticeable in Address Book, where the look causes artificial limitations and for the most part is just there to look pretty (exemplified by the red bookmark with absolutely no function).

John Siracusa writes about this in his review, so there's no need for me to go on further when he's much better at explaining it than I am:
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review

 

Although I don't personally know the truth to why they did this but I have mentioned before with so many new gestures they may have not wanted to confuse the customer by putting all of them there. Your point is well taken. All trackpad gestures should be in the trackpad preference.

Yeah, I wasn't completely clear with my point. I was equating your concern about the way the calendar in Lion looks to the carpet in the BMW. No matter how ugly they are you're not going to see either one of them constantly in normal use. You open the trunk of your car for a quick minute as you open iCal and put in a new calendar. Neither one of them are in your face all day to make such a difference.
I will ask you this, did it ever occur to you that for every one person on the web that posts that they hate look of iCal and Addressbook that there are 10 more people that actually like it?

Sorry, I see that now.

Truth be told, the rest of the PC industry will pick up this scrolling behavior over time. The past has shown this to be true. Almost every decision Apple has made that didn't make sense ended up being implemented in new versions of Windows or PC's.

 

Never had a single lockup or freeze from Tiger all the way through Snow Leopard. I've had TWO already with Lion. I think there's too much "wonky" stuff going on in the background. Not real impressed that Apple chose to make people PAY for this "upgrade".

If I want an iPad, I'll buy an iPad. I expect a Macbook Pro to be a Macbook Pro.

 

That is the price you pay for being an early adopter. We are also getting to a point where operating systems are becoming more complex. There are a lot more features in SL and Lion over what Tiger offered hence there is more room for bugs to creep in. That is just the way technology works. Things become increasingly complex almost at an exponential rate with the amount of features that are added. Mix in consumer demand and how everyone wants everything right this very second and developers have it hard. Many new products receive patches in their first few months of operation. I have yet to come across a solid set of software or hardware while being an early adopter to said technology. OS X Lion hasn't been perfect but neither was Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME was so bad I reverted back to 98 SE, XP, Vista (which was so bad I went back to XP), and even when installing and running 7. That is just the way things go if you buy and install an OS the first week it is out. You have to deal with all of these initial bugs that were missed when the OS was being programmed.

I also don't see what the big deal is with having app that look similar to their iOS counterparts. After all, Safari on the iPhone and iPad looked a lot like the Snow Leopard version. "If I want a Mac, I'll buy a Mac. I expect an iPhone to be an iPhone." I am sorry but that mentality doesn't really fly especially with Apple trying to unify things. Why not have iCal look more like what is on the iPad if it turns out to be more functional? Why not have the iPod app on the iPad look more like iTunes?

All of the aesthetics regarding that are nitpicking. Meh, I don't like the way that looks. It is too similar to the iPad, meh, meh, meh. I can fully understand not liking the way something looks but just because it borrows functionality from one device does not make it that device. The iPad and iPhone borrow a lot from Mac OS X Snow Leopard but that didn't make those devices a Mac just as Lion borrows a lot from iOS but that doesn't make it iOS.

 

What you see as nitpicking, which you have the right to think, is seen as a glaring mishap in another's eyes. Computers, whether it be windows, mac, or linux, all do the same things that the average consumer needs to do: word processing, web browsing, photo editing, email, keep track of appointments and contacts, various forms of communication, etc... What separates these systems is the GUI. I'd aruge that aesthetics are extremely important, and may also play a role subconsciously. The way a product is presented, and its image, is vital to its success; in fact, there's a whole industry attributed to this. It's called marketing.

But you are right about being an early adopter; its good in that you experience it first, but bad in that you experience it first. You have the "here and now" without the track record.

I personally haven't had a lockup, but I don't doubt that its happening to you, as well as others. These new features add complexity. This is why I loved Snow Leopard. It took what was already successful, and trimmed the fat, making it much more efficient. Simple idea, hard work, and it really showed.

Ah, I see. I guess the amount it bothers you is proportional to the amount you use it. I happen to use iCal a lot, whether it be to add an event, or check what i'm doing either today or some other day.

I love Ars Technica. Such a good source for information, and really indepth. He explains well what I'm thinking.



Also, how do I quote someone and have it reference their name and the post, as I see others doing?

 

Make sure the users name is after the QUOTE= symbol.

Quote my reply and you'll see how it's done.

 

I use my Macs all for my business so I'm using iCal all day and every day setting up appointments. Personally the new look is just fine. Does the new faux leather look bother you that much where it's going to hamper your productivity? It's only a bar at the top of the calendar. It's not that big of deal, at least to me. Come back when iCal isn't fulfilling your needs based on lack of features, rather than lack of prettiness.

Don't take this the wrong way but it really bothers me when others say that people buy Macs because of the way they look and they are generally less inclined to make an informed decision based on features available. Sadly based on your posts you resemble this type of customer.

 

I used Lion for a couple of days, made some notes on the new features, and finally switched back to its predecessor, Snow Leopard. While Lion has a few significant improvements, I believe that too many of the new features were poorly implemented to make Lion worth the upgrade. Here were my main points:

Pros:
- The upgrade process from SL to Lion was easy and reasonably short. Lion booted and operated without any issues. Based on my own experiences with multiple Windows and Linux distro upgrades, this is a plus.

- The price is very modest, even for an evolutionary OS release.

- AirDrop has many broad real-world applications.

- The new save/resume system in Lion is very powerful and unmatched by competing operating systems.

- The changes to Mail are an improvement and largely welcome.

- Apple finally included security features such as ASLR. These are a must when their OS is becoming a higher-profile target for malware.

Cons:
- Multitouch gestures: The drastic changes in multitouch behavour of Lion (compared to SL) are inconsistent with past versions of Mac OS X and completely without excuse from a design perspective. Given that one of the Mac's main strengths is the touchpad, this inconsistency is not insignificant.

- PowerPC support: Apple really dropped the ball here by turning its back on legacy support for its own technology. Once again, an inconsistent approach to designing Lion.

Somehow Apple thought that combining iOS features into Mac OS X would be great, even though the two OSs are designed for different hardware and different application usage scenarios.
- Launchpad: a feature of iOS, it is completely redundant and if the user can get the same functionality by going to the dock and opening the Applications folder in grid mode. Launchpad is utterly useless for any Mac OS X user.

- Full-screen mode: this is a feature when it is implemented at the application level? I don't think so. Developers have to code this into the application; Lion cannot full-screen applications unless they've been explicitly designed for that capability. Lion enables the capability of a feature and calls it a feature, but it doesn't actually have the feature.

Mixed:
- Mission Control: on one hand, MC merely combines existing OS X features and presents itself as something new. On the other hand, it works well for all users by introducing an easy tool for managing virtual desktops.

 

They did do a great job on the upgrade!

only a couple things changed... and a lot was added... can you be more specific? i didn't notice an issue here...

yeah.. I don't think it would have been hard at all for them... the Snow Leopard version probably would work easy... but they want to kill it on purpose. Just like they killed off 10.5 support in Xcode 4 and made Lion only run Xcode4+ ... its an artificial limitation since I've already found a way to get Xcode3 installed on Lion and it works fine.

the no scroll bars is the one i think is stupid. its one thing when its a touch screen you are constantly touching... but its so easy to have windows set where it look alike you cannot scroll.. that there is no more there, but really you could, and you don't know unless you try. Who thought that was a good idea? Had to turn them back on right away.

That what I thought at first... but I spent a couple hours doing major organization on Launchpad to use it to launch all my apps and have them all categorized and everything and i actually like it a lot. Just gesture to see it and click the app I want... much easier than pop ups on the dock. THey just need to make it easier to organize Launchpad.

thats very nitpicking... Fullscreen is not new, Mac OS X has been able to do fullscreen stuff since 10.0. What they mean is their support to make it easy in programs to use fullscreen in a consistent way... maybe they just are not explaining this clearly.

I find mission control useless. Its worse than Expose because it hides so many windows you cannot see well. I disable Dashboard and do not use spaces, and I hate fullscreen apps, so it does nothing for me except what Expose did in 10.6 and it does it worse. I use the new four finger app expose gesture a lot now though, but I really wish I could switch mission control for 10.6's expose.

 

Seems like the features that people complain most about (scrollbars, natural scrolling) can be easily turned off though. Having options is a good thing!

 

Computers, no matter who makes them, serve to meet the consumer's needs. While some have very specific needs where the mainstream laptop won't meet his or her needs, the average user pushed a computer to well below its full potential (no study being done here, just a general observation). While I did go from buying a Dell (which broke) to an Apple, looks were not the only quality that factored into my decision. I could have gotten a comparable Asus for $400 less. The security, build quality, aesthetics of both the hardware and software, size of computer, touchpad w/ gestures, long battery life, and reliability all played a role in this choice. Having all of these features in 1 machine was important to me. I have also come to enjoy the other little things, like backlight keyboard, magsafe, etc, and appreciate them a lot more than some people because I came from a cheap Dell to this machine. To some, what I've listed isn't worth $400, but I need this to last throughout college. I wish I would have gotten one sooner, and saved me the purchase of that first laptop. However, my reasons for buying a laptop should not, and do not, detract from my opinion of Lion as an OS.

-I need someone else with Lion to try AirDrop. Sounds really neat, but most of the people I know have a Windows.

-I'm not too much a fan of Resume. I know its really useful for others, and am glad they included it, but I don't really need to have my applications saved at the state they are in. Its also really frustrating that, when I shut down, the "open windows when turned on" is always checked, and wish it wasn't by default.

-I agree, multitouch was perfect for me in SL. There's not one new gesture they added that I find useful.

-Agree again. when I upgraded from SL, I wondered the redundancy of the application grid list on the dock and launchpad. Still confuses me.

-Full screen = never thought of it like that. Tried it in Firefox, but full screen doesn't exist. Weird.

 

It sounds to me like Mission Control is a step back from Expose for managing multiple windows from the same application...and you can't turn it off or choose to use Expose instead once you upgrade. I regularly work with a half-dozen browser and Microsoft Word windows open. Two programs, 6+ windows. The last thing I want is to have them stacked by application instead of set out individually when I try to switch between them.

What would have been REALLY useful is some method with tabs or buttons to switch between them without going to a separate screen. Something functionally equivalent to Windows' Taskbar. Switching from window to window in Windows is a one-step process (click the name of the file you want at the bottom of the screen). Switching from window to window in Expose in Snow Leopard is two-step (call up Expose, choose the right window). With stacked windows in Mission Control, it almost sounds like OSX Lion has made switching from one Word document to another when you have several open a three-step process (call up MC, find the right file in the stack, click on it).

 

you can still set up single app expose under trackpad gestures.... so I can easily use 4 fingers down to do the old fashioned expose that shows all windows of the current app only... it works decently. Mission Control works the same as old Expose, but if you have more than 3 or 4 windows open in the app its harder to see them. You can two finger scroll over a group of windows of an app and see them a bit better, but still cannot see even close to as many windows as Expose can.

Single App Expose works fine... or you can still like always right click the app in the dock and select the window you want. Not much different than grouped programs on the Windows taskbar.

 

That blanket statement would be incorrect because I have found launchpad to be quite useful especially if I want to launch applications without having to really navigate out of a program. I can be in Excel on fullscreen mode and launch Word without having to exit fullscreen mode, go down to the dock, and scroll through my programs. I can simply bring it up with a four finger pinch and call it a day. So your statement of "Launchpad is utterly useless for any Mac OS X user" is incorrect since I find it to be quite useful. You may not like it and that is fine but don't try to make blanket statements about the Mac OS X population as a whole.

I also feel that Mission Control is an upgrade especially since I can easily create new desktops that run single programs in full screen mode. Switching between them is rather easy. This comes in handy whenever I have a csv file in Excel that I pretty much need to be in fullscreen mode fore, a Word document open, and running MATLAB code analyzing the data produced by Excel and later importing that into Word for a written report.

Now, the feature I don't like is Apple taking away two finger swiping for backward and forward navigation in Finder. I really liked that feature in SL and I continue to swipe in vein while running Lion and even Windows 7 just hoping that Finder/Windows Explorer goes back. Taking away legacy support of PowerPC programs also kind of hurt me as I had Mac mp3 gain installed on my system. The PowerPC version was the only one that fully worked as the Intel release was buggy at best. Now the Intel release doesn't work because the underlying code is still for the PowerPC version. I can understand why Apple stopped supporting PowerPC programs since they started transitioning to Intel 5 years ago (which might as well be 100 technology years) but there are still many people rocking PowerPC Macs and some programs never made it over to the Intel platform. Then again, I have issues running programs built for Windows 95, 98, and even some XP programs under Windows 7.

 

But at work, I set my taskbar to never group windows I actually found the auto-grouping on the Windows taskbar truly infuriating until I figured out how to disable it. Now, I keep it double the normal height so that I can have two rows of buttons, so each one remains wide enough to read the file name.

 

Fullscreen apps are primarily a developer feature. It's a user-feature for the apps that have coded it in. There are MANY developer features in each OS release. These features have benefits for end users, but it takes time for developers to implement them.

You can't really blame them for not doing everything. I'm sure most relevant apps will have the code incorporated shortly. Firefox comes to mind.

In the meantime, enjoy fullscreen safari, itunes, iphoto, imovie, etc.

 

Not sure if you figured this out yet (did not read every post yet) but you can go into trackpad option and disable the scroll feature (cant remember what it is called) to change how you scroll down (so it is like all other systems and tiger...not like a smart phone).

I also found this annoying (have no issues doing that kind of scrolling on a touch screen phone.. but with a trackpad it is awkward so I disabled it)

Just what I found out after my 5min of usage on lion...

Also, I learned that when you do an upgrade it will run hot for about an hour while it indexes all your files.. after that it will run as cool as before (had the fans running at full blast and thought something was wrong until I saw the magnifying glass in the upper right was indicating it was caching so I figured I would leave it alone and see what happened)


D.

 

seems like lion is the vista of mac os. obviously thats not a good thing.

 

Way too early to tell. There's a handful of people complaining vocally on the internet, but that's always the case after something new or different comes out. A good chunk of those complaints (even the majority maybe) are features that can be easily turned off or reconfigured back to Snow Leopard behavior, so it's not as "horrible" a switch as many people make it out to be. You see a lot of complaints about "default" behavior, but you can change the default behavior for lots of things (e.g., auto-hide scrollbars, natural scroll, trackpad gestures, etc.). If it turns out that people are unwilling to change those settings for some reason, then maybe these "default" settings will be a problem in the long run.

But when introducing new features that you want to start a trend with, generally it's better to have them on by default so people know they're there, rather than keeping them hidden in some control panel somewhere. If Apple included the 3 features above but had them off by default, a good number of users wouldn't even know those features were added.

Anyway, probably won't be able to tell if Lion is a success or a flop until at least two quarters in.

EDIT: Plus, you may even end up liking the new features. Reading about them in a blog or on a forum doesn't really tell you anything except whether the author of that post liked them. There's nothing like trying it out yourself, and then turning the features you don't like off.

 

how so? seems like a smoother roll out than Snow Leopard so far... and over a million sales in the first 24 hours.

 

This is one of the best and most informative posts you've ever written, at least IMO.

 

I've used Mission Control a bit more and it seems to me to be an improvement. It introduces Spaces to the masses in a well-integrated manner and if overlapping windows bother you, they can always be moved to their own desktop.

Still, I can see why some people wouldn't like it compared to the simplicity of Expose.

 

Now now, let's not say mean and hurtful things we'll regret later.

 

it seems like its halfway between snow leopard and there next big os. kinda like vista was with xp and 7 because there are no new major improvements. luckily for lion it does not seem as buggy as vista. so obviously comparing it to vista is a stretch but im just throwing it out there.

 

If its too early to tell and "a stretch" why are you using that comparison? Every OS release has some type of issues and the people complaining will always be much louder than the ones who haven't had any negative experiences. Calling it the Vista of Mac OS X would be an insult to OS X. You can't properly make that judgement, and definitely shouldn't be throwing it out there, until you have actually had first hand experience with OS X Lion for a much longer period of time. It doesn't matter if you love it or hate it, a proper assessment cannot be made this early in the game.

 

Vista was buggy when released, causing BSODs among other errors. Lion, what what I'm seeing, isn't doing that (at least as much).

I have also noticed two little things that bother me with Lion. Resume is always checked when I shut down, and even if I uncheck it, the next time I go to shut down, it is checked again. I want a fresh boot if i'm going to be shutting down; otherwise, i'd put it to sleep.

Also, The fine adjustments to brightness and volume (in SL, it was option+shift+volume/brightness up/down) no longer works. While it may seem small, it is immensly helpful when I have my headphones plugged into the computer. The fine adjustments allow me to get just the right volume.

 

Don't we have keys that do the brightness and volume?

PS I guess you are on an old mac?

 

Yes, but he's talking about what happens if you use modifier keys with them. The small increments don't work in Lion for some reason.

 

But why would one use such a long way of doing things if there are already dedicated keys for that purpose?

 

I don't think you understand.

Pressing one of the dedicated volume buttons and the Option and Shift keys turned the volume up or down in much smaller increments than had you just pressed the buttons without any modifier keys. The same was true for the brightness buttons.

With Lion Apple removed this extra functionality.

 

I downloaded it the first day thinking it would be an improvement.

WRONG. It sucks. I've had more crashed, slowdowns, and general wonkiness than I've ever had. (I've had none in over ten years). I hadn't seen a beach ball in a long time. Now it's my friend.

They should had left well enough alone, and not tried to turn my MBP into a freaking IPAD!!!!! Bad on ya, Apple.

 

The startup and even shutdown sometimes is slower than SL but I haven't had any crash issues.

 

I've been playing around with Lion for 2 days now.. never used SL before, never been in the the mac world. I gotta say im loving it compared to windows... still digging it in, i guess its so simple to use that i get confused lol

Not encountered to any bugs with lion what so ever... so far, good

 

Just pray that you don't have any problems like troubleshooting wifi like I had to where simply turning it on and off wouldn't work.