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Author Topic: Mac OS Lion opinions  (Read 14515 times)

hpearce

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Mac OS Lion opinions
« on: July 24, 2011, 08:00 AM »
I installed Lion the first day available and am still waiting for articles on it thru my RSS feeds ... surprisingly, I have gotten just 1 so far.

I am giving the natural scroll gesture feature a try, at least for the moment , where scroll-down = gesture-up.

I do not like the fact that scroll bars are missing until u start a gesture to begin with.

The new ability to change the window size from the sides as in windows seems a good feature, but in max mode it can sometimes interfere with the scrollbar use.. in windows, you are not able to easily change the window size when maximized.

Other than those three things... I guess I am basically satisfied so far .
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Eóin

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2011, 09:03 AM »
I don't know anything about it myself, but since you mention you're short on reviews/articles here is one you may not have come across - The Register - Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part One.

hpearce

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2011, 09:20 AM »
The link mentions the fact that the install APP self-deletes after install with no prior mention AFAIK that this is what would happen.  I should add that to my disappointments too.

Luckily I cloned my drive after the download but before the install so I had a backup.  :D

I found a post on how to burn it to DVD, which I did using one of the files within the APP install "file". I also copied it back to my primary boot drive so that the next time I clone, I will have it on my hard drive too.
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Deozaan

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2011, 05:11 PM »
The link mentions the fact that the install APP self-deletes after install with no prior mention AFAIK that this is what would happen.  I should add that to my disappointments too.

 :o :huh:

Imagine if Microsoft made the installation DVD self-destruct after installing Windows... Seriously Apple, what the smurf is that all about?

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2011, 05:57 PM »
There are 2 words that never occur in the same sentence in Cupertino: backward compatibility.

http://www.pcworld.c...n_mac_os_x_lion.html

Known issues in Lion affect Adobe software such as Acrobat, Adobe Drive, Contribute, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flash Player, Lightroom, LiveCycle, Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

I wonder if Apple is purposefully trying to sabotage Adobe...

Adobe doesn't suggest any deliberate attempt by Apple to cripple Adobe products on Lion

But I'm sure a lot of people are thinking the same thing.

I won't be upgrading for a while. Once I start Mac development again, then I'll look at it. However, for now, it just doesn't make sense.
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Eóin

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2011, 06:49 PM »
Well I didn't want to turn this into an anti-apple rant thread ;) but while you brought up backwards compatibility this quote from the article I linked seems extraordinary to me-

The day of arrival was never a disappointment. The drama of it all – breaking open the wholly unnecessary white box, wasting half a day on the installation, playing with animated onscreen bits that pop up or slide about, copying files from drive to drive simply to watch the new progress bars – was worth the trouble of half my old software not working properly any more.

This is why Apple will never move into the corporate world, businesses need an OS which can run applications from 10 years ago, if not 15 years. But I digress, of course with Macs "everything just works".

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2011, 07:27 PM »
Well I didn't want to turn this into an anti-apple rant thread ;) but while you brought up backwards compatibility this quote from the article I linked seems extraordinary to me-

It's kind of hard not to rant a little bit when they consistently miss some major things, like backwards compatibility. (I think you're right about it being hard for Apple to ever make it into the Enterprise market.) (I'm not trying to be anti-Apple here -- but they kind of ask for it with stunts like this.)

For anyone that's ever used different SDKs/APIs, you invariably come across something like:

MethodName  - blah blah
MethodName2 - blah blah

It might not be the prettiest way to keep things backward compatible, but it works. And it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Except if you're in Cupertino. :P

Right now my Mac is only used for browser testing, so I have no motivation to upgrade the OS.

I remember when Vista was in beta - I had a few people email me about my software UI breaking. I replied that Vista was still early beta, and that those sorts of things happen. When it reached RTM, well, lo and behold, all those problems went away and it worked perfectly with zero code changes. (Quite a few of my customers are developers.)

Mind you, all that backwards compatibility in the Windows world comes at a price. Macs have it better there because they simply drop support for some things and move on without that baggage. Good and bad there. Basically, it comes down to whether or not you're willing to accept having everything break completely with a major upgrade, or whether you want to endure small, occasional hiccups. Neither is particularly pleasant.

I've heard good things about Windows 8. I kind of wonder if there will be any breakage there though. I rather doubt it, but we'll see.

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Deozaan

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2011, 07:29 PM »
this quote from the article I linked seems extraordinary to me-

The day of arrival was never a disappointment. The drama of it all – breaking open the wholly unnecessary white box, wasting half a day on the installation, playing with animated onscreen bits that pop up or slide about, copying files from drive to drive simply to watch the new progress bars – was worth the trouble of half my old software not working properly any more.

:o :huh:

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2011, 07:31 PM »
Y'know... It just occurred to me... I never hear about breakage on Linux upgrades...  :o
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

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Carol Haynes

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2011, 07:32 PM »
There are 2 words that never occur in the same sentence in Cupertino: backward compatibility.

http://www.pcworld.c...n_mac_os_x_lion.html

Known issues in Lion affect Adobe software such as Acrobat, Adobe Drive, Contribute, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flash Player, Lightroom, LiveCycle, Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

I wonder if Apple is purposefully trying to sabotage Adobe...

Adobe doesn't suggest any deliberate attempt by Apple to cripple Adobe products on Lion

But I'm sure a lot of people are thinking the same thing.

I won't be upgrading for a while. Once I start Mac development again, then I'll look at it. However, for now, it just doesn't make sense.

Beats me why Adobe don't simply tell Apple to sort out the compatibility issues or they will withdraw from producing future Adobe products for the Mac and start porting to Linux. Now that would certainly provoke a response - especially after the mobile Flash debacle!

Strikes me Apple need Adobe far more than Adobe need Apple given that Adobe produce one of the main software ranges used by the majority of corporate Apple products.

Interestingly it also seems to be affecting third party audio studio products too - now if they joined forces with Adobe there could be some serious fireworks!

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2011, 07:47 PM »
Beats me why Adobe don't simply tell Apple to sort out the compatibility issues or they will withdraw from producing future Adobe products for the Mac and start porting to Linux. Now that would certainly provoke a response - especially after the mobile Flash debacle!

Strikes me Apple need Adobe far more than Adobe need Apple given that Adobe produce one of the main software ranges used by the majority of corporate Apple products.

Interestingly it also seems to be affecting third party audio studio products too - now if they joined forces with Adobe there could be some serious fireworks!
-Carol Haynes (July 24, 2011, 07:32 PM)

It makes me wonder how user allegiances would shift. Who would they love more? Would they rather move from Mac to Windows? Or move from Photoshop to the GIMP or something else?

Photoshop is generally more responsive on a Mac, so that's a definite plus there. However, the Windows paradigm is easier to work with than the Mac paradigm. It's a trade-off. I find I'm much more productive in Photoshop on Windows. Windows just seems cleaner to me. (It's mostly got to do with arranging windows in Windows is much easier than on a Mac.)

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Lashiec

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2011, 07:54 PM »
As John Siracusa has already published his massive review on Ars Technica, I'd say no other review is necessary.

There are 2 words that never occur in the same sentence in Cupertino: backward compatibility.

http://www.pcworld.c...n_mac_os_x_lion.html

OMG! A new version of an operating system doesn't have complete support for partially outdated software! I have never saw that issue in any other system.

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2011, 08:45 PM »
As John Siracusa has already published his massive review on Ars Technica, I'd say no other review is necessary.

There are 2 words that never occur in the same sentence in Cupertino: backward compatibility.

http://www.pcworld.c...n_mac_os_x_lion.html

OMG! A new version of an operating system doesn't have complete support for partially outdated software! I have never saw that issue in any other system.

Massive? Would you care to understate that a little bit more? :P JEEZ! It's, well, hyper-detailed, like this:

Table of Contents
Installation
Reconsidering fundamentals
Lion's new look
Scroll bars
Window resizing
Animation
Here's to the crazy ones
Window management
Application management
Document model
Process model
The pitch
The reality
Internals
Security
Sandboxing
Privilege separation
Automatic Reference Counting
Enter (and exit) garbage collection
Cocoa memory management
Enter ARC
ARC versus garbage collection
ARC versus the world
The state of the file system
What's wrong with HFS+
File system changes in Lion
File system future
Document revisions
Resolution independence
Applications
The Finder
Mail
Safari
Grab bag
System Preferences
Auto-correction
Mobile Time Machine
Lock screen
Emoji
Terminal
About This Mac
Recommendations
Conclusion

It needs a table of contents for christmas sakes!

I did forget about this though:

http://arstechnica.c...rs/4#window-resizing

THAT is the single feature that would make me consider upgrading. I've found that to be the single most irritating thing about the Mac. It makes it very hard to work with when you can't easily resize anything. I just can't figure out why it took them so long to get such a fundamental feature into the OS.

It's so utterly insane. This is touted as a "feature"? The most basic of things you'd NEVER think of in the Windows or Linux or Solaris or any other world? Is a FEATURE? Worthy of mention in a major review? It's simply BIZARRE!

Mail has become more capable, as well. Simple rich text editing capabilities have finally been added.

Ummm... I don't use Mail on my Mac, but it's no wonder! It JUST got RTE? Stunning. Simply stunning. I really had no idea that OSX was that far behind the curve. Outlook Express had that, what? Like 15 years ago? Man... I really don't know much about my Mac. Then again, seems like there's not much TO know... :(

Another thing that's irked me on my Mac is Finder... Need I say more? No? Well the article goes on at length:

http://arstechnica.c...x-10-7.ars/15#finder

The Finder's destructive mix of browser and spatial behaviors remains in Lion. The tradition of subtly changing the rules that govern when, where, and how view state changes are applied and honored also continues. Just in case anyone thought they had finally figured out how the Snow Leopard Finder decides what view to show when displaying the contents of a folder in a particular window, Lion changes the rules again.

The controls at the top of the view options palette now include a mysterious sub-checkbox labelled "Browse in view," where view is the window's current view style. This appears to govern the view used when opening sub-folders from a window where the toolbar is visible, but a little experimentation will reveal that the setting is overridden by any "Always open in view" setting of a sub-folder. The end result is the same as it has ever been: an inscrutable system that users quickly give up any hope of understanding, resigning themselves to manually correcting view styles as needed during every interaction with the Finder.

Well... So much for that.

He details some improvements, but overall, it sounds like Finder is still a complete disaster to use. (My pet peeve is how Finder crashes and forces a reboot before you can do anything. Not good behaviour for a file browser.)

He also goes on at length about HFS+:

http://arstechnica.c...7.ars/12#file-system

It's a long read. The sound byte from there is, "HPS+ still sucks, so deal with it."


At the end of the day, the review is simply insanely detailed. However, a lot of the focus is on things that I would normally take for granted. Basic usability like window resizing... Jeez... This is news? Here's another example: Preferences

http://arstechnica.c...7#system-preferences

System Preferences have been shuffled, consolidated, and renamed in every major releases of Mac OS X. Lion doesn't disappoint.

The preference formerly known as Appearance is now called General, and it includes a checkbox to globally disable application state restoration. The Exposé & Spaces preference is now called Mission Control. Security becomes Security & Privacy. Accounts is now Users & Groups—a welcome change because, in my experience, most people don't know what an "account" is. Universal Access moves to the top row. And on and on. Dance, icons, dance!

That is really annoying. Apple UIs are like a desert - constantly and unpredictably shifting under your feet. Can't they just leave it alone? Or attempt to get it right? For once?

Much of the review highlights annoyances. There are few things that I'd say are really worth much of a mention at all, except if you're being hyper-detailed, like the review is, or if you're a fanboi. Not many of the topics would ever make it into a review of any other OS. File system? Who cares? The command line is worth mentioning? Seems almost desperate for something to talk about... Especially as it's transparency and 256 text colors that are new.

Still, the window resizing thing though does have me thinking about whether or not I should upgrade. That really would make my Mac much friendlier and easier to use. Right now my Mac is little more than a $2,500 paper-weight that takes up far too much space. Lion sounds like it might make it tolerable now.

Thanks for posting that review though -- it was most certainly detailed! Almost too much detail! :)

To upgrade or not? Hmmm... I very well just may do that...
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

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Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2011, 08:55 PM »
OMG! A new version of an operating system doesn't have complete support for partially outdated software! I have never saw that issue in any other system.

It's not like the software is outdated though.

We're talking about CS 5 and CS 5.5. They're pretty new. CS 5 came out a little over a year ago. It's most certainly not legacy software by any means.

I did a quick search for Office 2000 on Windows 7, and it looks like it runs. They're 10 years apart but they still work together.

There's a very big disconnect between what MS does and what Apple does.
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app103

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2011, 09:45 PM »
Y'know... It just occurred to me... I never hear about breakage on Linux upgrades...  :o

Ummm...it happens. It was the reason why I removed Ubuntu from my system and went for a fresh install. Too much broken stuff. Every upgrade broke more.

steeladept

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2011, 10:10 PM »
Y'know... It just occurred to me... I never hear about breakage on Linux upgrades...  :o

I have, in fact, my Linux Mint distro just broke the other day.  There was a work around and everything came back, but it does break.  There is just more savvy people out there that can tell you how to work around it.  Basically, the update in Linux Mint wiped the file that told Linux where to boot.  You have to copy some stuff from the live CD, update some conf files, and wala - it works again.  Still, without a second machine to look that up, I would have been SCREWED! 

Okay, not really, but I thought I was.  Turned out I could boot to the live CD, find the info, follow it, then been good again - but that might not always be the case.  Hence even on Linux - Follow a solid backup procedure!!!

Renegade

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #16 on: July 24, 2011, 10:35 PM »
Y'know... It just occurred to me... I never hear about breakage on Linux upgrades...  :o

Ummm...it happens. It was the reason why I removed Ubuntu from my system and went for a fresh install. Too much broken stuff. Every upgrade broke more.

Maybe as steeladept points out, it's just that Linux users are better equipped to deal with it, and don't make such a big deal out of a few breaks here and there.

I suppose that when you pay a large premium for something like a Mac, you just expect more, and hence, have a higher disappointment factor when things go wrong. Unless you're a fanboi, and can find the silver lining in the burning ruins. :P
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Carol Haynes

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Re: Mac OS Lion opinions
« Reply #17 on: July 25, 2011, 06:48 AM »
OMG! A new version of an operating system doesn't have complete support for partially outdated software! I have never saw that issue in any other system.

Fair enough if it was outdated software.

Breaking the recent/current versions of the incredibly expensive premier applications on your platform is just plain stupid. Their biggest market in the workplace is professional audio and image/design. Why the heck would they not ensure that a new OS at least works with those apps.

At worst Apple should have liaised with Adobe to make sure a patch was ready for Creative Suite 5.5 (the current version) BEFORE they release a new OS in the wild - or clearly label it a beta version. (From past experience everyone should know that Apple only ever seem to test new operating systems on the latest hardware in their development centre and every release turns out to be a fairly bug ridden beta until the kinks get ironed out - even worse than Windows which at least has extended free public betas and release candidates of all its products).

Releasing an OS that is guaranteed to annoy your corporate users is just plain stupid - and worse stupidly arrogant.

"Apple - It Just Works" - as I said stupidly arrogant.