OS X Lion Rocks! what ya think?

Had the chance to actually try the beta version of lion. I say wow! am amaze of how smooth and fast it is considering its still in beta version.

It takes a mac experience to a whole new level!

Anyone tried it?

 

I just installed it today on a second partition and I have to say that I'm still a little confused about launch pad and mission control or whatever. And I don't know if its just my mind playing tricks on me or not but I think they mirrored scrolling, it doesn't seem to scroll the same as SL

 

i kinda notice it too.

 

Please explain.

 

Well, instead of scrolling on the trackpad like you do on Snow Leopard (swipe down = scroll down), they've reversed the scrolling in Lion, so that it resembles iOS instead (swipe up = scroll down).

You can turn this off in System Preferences, but it's enabled by default at the moment.

 

I've had Lion for 2 days now and I've been very impressed by it.

First, it seems very slick and polished to the point that it feels very close to final release quality. I have installed on a separate partition on my iMac and compared to SL it seems more responsive.

A few things that have so far stood out for me; the new background and animation for when entering or exiting the dashboard are great. Full Screen is finally here and it's very well done. Love the new look of Mail and iCal although it's still disappointing that you can't have received or read receipts.

Face Time is good, I think they should finally put iChat to rest IMO. The new scroll bars are grey and a lot less distracting than they currently are. Launch Pad is cool and I can totally see it as very useful for me personally.

Spotlight previews are awesome but they seem to be somewhat resource intensive, at least when I played around with them.

Mission control is soo much better than how Expose currently displays All Windows, it's fantastic.

The one thing I didn't try but I'm excited to is AirDrop. Reading about it gives me the impression that it's quite a bit better than DropBox if you have multiple macs in the house.

Still having issues installing some third party hardware drivers (eg. my Logitech MX110 mouse), it says the OS isn't supported. Obviously once Lion is released this will be rectified.

All in all, I have to say Lion is looking like an awesome OS, and a pretty good upgrade from SL.

I think I know what they mean. When I first fired up Safari in Lion (on my iMac) the scrolling was defaulted to how it's set for touchpads where it's reversed (scrolling down will move the page down instead of up - like how it would act when your fingers are used instead of a mouse). Anyhow in preferences you can make the setting normal for mouse use. It was confusing at first.

 

Does it run faster than Snow Leopard. If it did, that would really be great. I rarely appreciate the new features in a new OS, but coming from Windows every OS seems to need more and more resources for things I do not use.

 

Ya, the default scrolling is the same as the iPhone and iPad (iOS) scrolling. They seem to be integrating a lot of iOS aspects into OSX.
But you can just change it back. No matter!

 

yeah that opposite scrolling sounds super weird. Would definitely turn that back. Damn I want Lion to release... all these sweet features!!

 

i think it runs faster and smoother than SL. So far its stable but with some minor bugs.

 

the hidden scroll bars drive me nuts... often you can have something that has a ton more content, but you have no idea you can scroll down cuz it looks like oyu cannot with no scrollbar or anything... even in Finder.

 

Perhaps more of the OS has been ported to 64-bit. The 64-bit execution environment adds a number of IPC improvements compared to the 32-bit execution environment.

 

Has the modifications to how multitasking works been noticeable to anyone? I'm curious about how a approach to multitasking usually done in mobile OS's is working on the desktop.

 

didn't think about that. Makes sense so I'm so used to looking to see if there's more content via a scroll bar but to not see it until you're actually scrolling would take some getting used to.

 

if anyone has a chance, can you fire up magnifier with Black-on-White enabled and report back how clear the font is when zoomed in? say so that everything looks like 20pt font on the screen?

 

I'm not seeing that on my copy of 10.7, in Safari and Finder the bar is always there... Which build are you running?

 

its not on a machine I currently have access to for a few days... so I cannot double check right now, but I know I was seeing it in Finder for sure, on the left side with the shortcuts, i could make the window small, or have tons of shortcuts over there where it has to scroll, and have no clue it could scroll without mousing over the scroll bar area, or trying to scroll. I think i noticed it somewhere else too, but I don't recall right now until i can check again. I have plenty of space on my new machine so I might just make a partition and install it here tomorrow too... though I don't have a DVD to burn the image to again... was there a way to put the image on a USB drive to install from? I might just wait until I get back home Sunday.

 

Yeah, try it again when you get the chance. I'm definitely not seeing what you're experiencing on my end; the scroll bar is always present when needed. I even just tried what you described, I made the finder window smaller and as soon as the window is small enough to allow scrolling, even with just the favourite items and shortcuts on the left, the scroll bar appears. Enlarge the window again and the bar disappears (where no scrolling is required obviously). It works great.

FWIW my build of 10.7 is 11A390.

 

There's an option in System Preferences that allows you to always show the scrollbar. I personally like it without the bar.

 

i'll look for that, thanks! I found the one to stop the stupid reverse scrolling, but didn't see the scrollbar one

 

Hopefully it's in all builds as I know there are different builds out there but it should be in System Preferences-Appearance. The mid section says "Show Scroll Bars" and you have options for "Automatically based on Input Device", "When Scrolling" or "Always".

 

I never noticed that. On my install it defaulted to the setting "Automatically based on input device".

 

I am assuming that they will continue to develop and improve Grand Central Dispatch in Lion as well? I would think that continuously improving and developing GCD should help with any slowdowns that accompany new version releases?

 

TBH I think its far to early to tell anything with Lion, the version they released is only so developers can play with the basic functionality of the OS... thats about it.

 

Can someone list down some of the bugs? Since almost all reviews are extremely positive, is it okay for me to install this over Snow Leopard for daily use?

 

Although it's a relatively stable build for a beta, it's not stable enough for everyday use and why would you do this? It's a beta OS for testing and developing software. If you want to try it out then partition your hard drive and install it that way.

 

^^^
Agree. Although I have to say in my experience so far (week's worth of use as my sole OS) it's been rock solid and definitely suitable for everyday use. It's shockingly good for a beta. I had an issue with my Canon MX870's scanner not working through Apple's own Image Capture (over wifi) in SL but it works with Canon's own scanning software; under 10.7 wireless scanning works great under both.

 

Scroll bars hide easy.. by default i was able to reproduce it. Just make the finder window really small, and yes the scroll bar is there while you resize, but when you let go... it goes away, and you can position it so it looks like theres no content to scroll in to. Turning the scrollbars to Always Show in System preferences fixed that though... a bit ugly, but works.

The other thing i find annoying on Lion is you don't know what apps are running.. there is no longer an indicator on the dock if the app is running or not. I don't see how that is really an improvement.

 

^^
Under Preferences > Dock, you can turn ON "Show indicator lights for open apps".

Still strange that your scroll bar isn't acting right. Mine is set to "Automatically based on inout device" but I'm using a mouse (iMac), maybe on a MBP/touchpad it behaves differently?

 

with teh touch pad.. yes the scroll bar always completely vanishes when not scrolling, no matter if theres more content or not.... really annoying... I should have looked for the show indicator light option

Even if I hate the defaults, at least theres options to change them... but knowing Apple, by the time 10.8 comes out, they'll expect people are used to the "new way" and remove the options.

 

I really like the Lion as well. One of things that I really like is how responsive the touchpad click is. I ALWAYS found it annoying in SL and Tiger that the sensitivity to a touchpad click (not pressing the button, just tapping finger) wasn't as great as I was used to. Now it's just like my old Thinkpad.

Mission control is much better than expose, definitely see myself using that.

Also the method of transitioning between spaces is amazing. Just swipe to the left or right to go to a new space...very cool and useful.

 

I see apple bringing these closer and closer together until they are basically (note I said BASICALLY) one platform, for ease of use across apple product lines.

 

It supports unflashed PC video cards in my MP so I am getting it for sure.