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
-Renegade
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.
-Lashiec
Massive? Would you care to understate that a little bit more?
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-resizingTHAT 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#finderThe 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-systemIt'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-preferencesSystem 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...
