Apple Seeds First Developer Beta of OS X 10.7.4

[star-affinity]

Originally Posted by wikus

I'm still running OS X 10.6.8 only because of Expose as it was done right the first time. I've tried Lion and Mountain Lion and both fail miserably due to the fact that multiple windows within a single application show up grouped and Apple has YET to provide users the option in System Preferences to 'ungroup' them. The problems with Mission Control are as follows;

Forced Grouping of Window Applications:
- Needlessly grouped. If many windows are stacked, it is difficult to multitask or find a specific document.

- Fanning out the grouped windows only works with a trackpad and only reveals a few extra pixels of the windows behind the top-most window.

- Specifically showing only single application windows requires an extra click but does not make dragging and dropping objects from other documents or applications possible.

The Dashboard and Spaces Thumbnails:
- No reason to show any thumbnails if only one desktop is present and dashboard is not used as it takes up space.

- Needs an option to disable extra desktops as many people dont use ‘spaces’

The Grey Border:
- No reason to squeeze the desktop background into a smaller image while adding a grey tiled pattern. This constrains all thumbnails of open windows into a smaller area thereby making the thumbnails smaller.

- The grey border is redundant and only adds more need for processing power to animate the entire process of Mission Control activation. Wallpaper should be fullscreen, just as it was in Snow Leopard’s Expose with a vignette.

Click on the image to see which area I'm pointing out;

Image

Valid criticism for sure, but did know that you can "zoom" a window that you're pointing at in Mission Control by pressing space?

Also, fanning out grouped windows doesn't require a trackpad, it also works with a scroll-wheel.

[macpeach55]

Originally Posted by wikus

I'm still running OS X 10.6.8 only because of Expose as it was done right the first time. I've tried Lion and Mountain Lion and both fail miserably due to the fact that multiple windows within a single application show up grouped and Apple has YET to provide users the option in System Preferences to 'ungroup' them. The problems with Mission Control are as follows;


- Needs an option to disable extra desktops as many people dont use ‘spaces’


Image

If you open up mission control and hover the pointer over any Desktop other than Desktop 1 the "X" shows allowing you to close that Desktop

[AdeFowler]

I have no major problems with Lion, but window management seems broken. For example, I just switched to Mail, and Messages app was in front but inactive. Pages documents often open in the wrong 'space'. The Finder often fails to display open windows, although they're listed when I control click the Finder icon. Just frustrating.

[milo]

Originally Posted by baryon

I think Leopard was the most stable and perfectly feature-balanced OS that Apple ever made. Since then, it's mostly been badly executed cool ideas along with simply stupid ideas, with the removal of good ideas.

I'd say Snow Leopard, it took the already decent Leopard and made some great refinements and improvements, beyond that I agree with you.

For me SL was a must have if only for the ability to run Logic in 64 bit.

[balk]

Originally Posted by star-affinity

Valid criticism for sure, but did know that you can "zoom" a window that you're pointing at in Mission Control by pressing space?

Also, fanning out grouped windows doesn't require a trackpad, it also works with a scroll-wheel.

wow, I did not know that. Nice
by the way, I love the three finger swipe up for Mission control and three finger down for App Expose.

[wikus]

Originally Posted by star-affinity

Valid criticism for sure, but did know that you can "zoom" a window that you're pointing at in Mission Control by pressing space?

Also, fanning out grouped windows doesn't require a trackpad, it also works with a scroll-wheel.

I'd imagine doing so would drop/cancel whatever objects your dragging/dropping with your mouse. I often drag an object, hit the top right corner of my screen (hot spot) thereby activating *All Windows* Expose which gives me direct access to any open document, I hover over the desired window for a split second and it goes to this window where I can drop my object that ive held down on left click the entire time. This whole process takes *zero* clicks to do, just a simple swipe to activate Expose from the hot corner.

This whole debacle could be *easily* solved if Apple pulled its head out of its a$$ and eased up on not giving users options. By this I mean, it'd be a simple checkmark field in System Preferences to let the user customize Mission Control to their liking, or AT LEAST give the option to turn off grouping.

[nangariel]

Has anyone noticed any improvements regarding wifi connection issues?

[font9a]

Originally Posted by AnonMac50

About time!!

Apple rules! 1/3 stops!

[Kilamite]

My biggest irritation with Lion is hiding an application.

In all previous OS X versions, hiding an application would put it to the end of the application switcher (CMD+TAB). Now, it doesn't. Interrupts workflow when you have say 6 applications open, and you want to hide 3 and work with just 3. You hide 3, but you then need to CMD+TAB 4 times to get to the next non-hidden application.

No idea why Apple did that, or if it is a bug. I filed a bug report back in August and a day before 10.7.3 came out, I got an email saying my bug report was being closed. I assumed 10.7.3 was going to sort that.

Anyone using this seed of 10.7.4 confirm that anything has changed?

[potatis]

will Lion only reach 10.7.5 or be updated alongside 10.8?

[haravikk]

Annoyingly the main problem I have with Lion are the implementation of various features, rather than the performance, and Mountain Lion shows no intention toward fixing Fullscreen (no multiple monitor support), Mission Control (can't expand window groups/no fast-switch to application view), no real improvement to LaunchPad (could be good, but is currently mostly pointless outside of iOS).

There's a ton more, which is annoying, and means that while Mountain Lion may reclaim performance with its new graphics stuff, it's shaping up to being what Lion was to Snow Leopard; more touch-oriented features that could be good for laptop and desktop users, but without expanding on them enough.

I hate to say it, but despite initial enthusiasm, Mountain Lion is probably the OS X version I'm looking forward to the least now, as we seem to have a trend of shiny new UI features and developer capabilities from iOS, but without the level of polish that makes any of them truly useful to laptop or desktop users.

[MacFanJeff]

Lion still has VERY serious issues that have been well documented, yet remain unresolved still. If you read any of the tech journals or listen to podcasts like MacBreak or MacCast, then you know what I mean. One bug I am hoping may finally get fixed is the Firewire not working in Lion. Most devices simply are no longer working at all that many still use that have only a Firewire interface.

----------

Originally Posted by potatis

will Lion only reach 10.7.5 or be updated alongside 10.8?

Who knows with their now yearly upgrade cycle. I always liked knowing you would get to at least a ".8" version of whatever OS was current, but now it is unknown what is going to happen. There are still many very well documented bugs in Lion and it is far from being fixed. One can only hope they either continue to patch the OS after the new one come out or at least take care of those issues when it does as part of the new OS.

[milo]

Originally Posted by haravikk

I hate to say it, but despite initial enthusiasm, Mountain Lion is probably the OS X version I'm looking forward to the least now, as we seem to have a trend of shiny new UI features and developer capabilities from iOS, but without the level of polish that makes any of them truly useful to laptop or desktop users.

So far it looks like the opposite - ML has relatively few "shiny new features", most of the emphasis has been on polishing the stuff that went into 10.7. As much as apple tries to avoid the comparison, it's a lot like 10.5 and 10.6 - this is really just Snow Lion.

[pmz]

Originally Posted by Kariya

Using an AMD 6750.

Oh that sounds marvellous. Using the same and have been hoping for better performance from Apple at some point.

Can't got without iStat though, so I'll haveto wait.

[shongohan]

I have check this version and seem that now my system dnt hung 1/2 times when booting but BAD NEWS
when restart the first time the system seem broken!
then I use repair system and correct permissions
after that entering in safe mode and finally after reboot I can boot
butt hang in finder the first time.... restart and then OK...
now I only feel fear about that finder problem but at least can arrive to that point!

macmini early 2009, 4gb ram, 9400m

I have a macpro 2006 but still with 10.6.8 because I feel fear

[guneves]

Originally Posted by thejadedmonkey

It's a PPC installer, but the game is Intel... I installed the game on my G4 Mac mini, patched it, and the menus are all black. It seems to be a common problem, that no one's been able to solve.

My best guess is that the game is being drawn in 16bit color depth, but needs 32bit color depth, which OS X doesn't want to give it... and I don't know how to force it to.

Yep, the problem is not 32/64bit, it is the lack of Rosetta(PPC emulation). The bizarr thing is that the game is Universal(Intel/PPC) while the Installer is NOT(only PPC)! I still have my updated version at my SnowLeopard partition (external drive) and I just copied the whole WarcraftIII folder to my CLEAN Lion install and it runs perfect! Also, only the updated version is really Universal.

I am not sure if this is related but my username/password for this new install is exactly the same as I have in my SL. You may want to try and set the whole folder/files for read/write permission (chmod 775) and also fix permissions (Disk Utility).

It is just stupid that you need a Mac (or virtual machine, or hackintosh) with an OSX prior to Lion to install it.

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by milo

So far it looks like the opposite - ML has relatively few "shiny new features", most of the emphasis has been on polishing the stuff that went into 10.7. As much as apple tries to avoid the comparison, it's a lot like 10.5 and 10.6 - this is really just Snow Lion.

Except you can't polish a turd

Honestly, in all my years using OS X and developing, Lion and Mountain Lion are the biggest disappointments to power users and professionals. I don't care that Apple is implementing iOS/consumer features into their desktop systems, but does it need to be done at the price of improved OpenGL support, a better file system over HFS+, R.I. or "Retina" resolution, USB 3.0 implementation, a dedicated desktop display line instead of one stripped down 27" iMac LED LCD panel (gone are the days of three displays with a top notch 30" model), better legacy support, or even Blu-Ray support? (I've had a Blu-Ray burner in my Mac Pro's for a while now, mostly for data backup/redundancy and HD film creation, thankfully you can now watch Blu-Ray's in OS X with "Mac Blu-ray Player" - highly recommend, have it on my current gen Mini w/ an external LG BD as my media center)

I get that the money is in the consumer market, but at what cost to those who use OS X for their profession? Why can't Apple focus on consumer and professional elements to OS X? I can't imagine that engineers are overwhelmed with "Game Center" and "AirPlay" that focus on actual IMPROVEMENTS is impeded or even neglected.

[milo]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

...Lion and Mountain Lion are the biggest disappointments to power users and professionals.

It's a bit premature to pass judgement on ML considering they've only released two betas and it's months from release. For the most part I agree with your wishlist but half of those things are hardware as opposed to the OS. And some of those things may be supported with the ML release if not sooner (USB3 for example).

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by milo

It's a bit premature to pass judgement on ML considering they've only released two betas and it's months from release. For the most part I agree with your wishlist but half of those things are hardware as opposed to the OS. And some of those things may be supported with the ML release if not sooner (USB3 for example).

True. I'm on the 2nd DP of ML and based on what Apple has stated and what I have seen, it's not going to be much in the way of what our segment has needed from Apple for a long time.

Since Apple produces the hardware and software components (or rather designs), it's a pretty fair judgment to assess future hardware releases based on past trends/history and (in the instance of ML) future OS releases. As Apple killed their dedicated display line and only released a 24" then 27" iMac LED LCD panel display (for notebooks, the cables don't reach Mac Pro's without extenders), I'd be a betting man that Apple will not release a dedicated display line again. If anything, they may update their iMac line with "Retina" displays, and by consequence their one notebook display. As for USB 3.0, I have that in my Mac Pro from CalDigit, but as Apple is pushing "Thunderbolt" I doubt we'll see USB implementation in Apple hardware. Heck, they chose a mini-displayport connection as it has a smaller footprint than USB connections. I'm sure when the time comes in a few years, iDevices will use "Thunderbolt" connections instead of USB.

[Spinnetti]

Originally Posted by kyjaotkb

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

Hope it fixes the MBA (2011) wifi bug where, in spite of various updates, half of the time the MBA won't connect to the Netgear repeater upon wakeup from sleep.
We have 2 MBA at home and the issue occurs with both - and not with iPhones, Windows PCs, Viera TV... It's getting me crazy!

I've had that with an imac since 2006, acknowledged by Apple devs, and still not fixed... when the machine wakes from sleep, it thinks it doesnt even have the wireless hardware. Restart doesn't even work. Have to unplug the machine, wait a while and reboot. As a consequence, ahve to leave it running all the time or shut it down... sux.

[Spinnetti]

Originally Posted by NoIdeasOriginal

It's crazy that people are still experiencing issues with OS X Lion considering it has been out for nearly a year.

Seriously? You've used windows right? I've found 1/2 dozen open bugs in Excel for chrissake, and they never got fixed in 10 years.

[C. Alan]

I only installed Lion a few months ago, and my system dual boots Lion and SL. I got Lion primarily to use Xcode 4.3 on. I have to say, I am not impressed with it. IMO, including rosetta in Lioin would have gone a long way to getting more people to adopt it, as that is the prime reason I don't use it as my prime OS.

[gatortpk]

Originally Posted by kemo

Im really pleased to still stay on SL, but the iCloud support is the only missing piece of puzzle. Once and hopefully they release 10.6.9 with iCloud support I would be really happy.

That would actually be pretty cool, Mac OS X 10.6.9 supporting iCloud. However that is so incredibly unlikely. First, Apple likes everyone to use the latest version of their OS (for uniformity and less OS X versions to support). And second, Apple has never released a incremental update after the major OS X update in the past.

(Except for Mac OS X 10.4.11, it came out just after Mac OS X 10.5 and a day before 10.5.1, and 10.4.11 was just a small update.
Mac OS X 10.5 was released on October 26, 2007
Mac OS X 10.4.11 was released on November 14, 2007
Mac OS X 10.5.1 was released on November 15, 2007)

[milo]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

As for USB 3.0, I have that in my Mac Pro from CalDigit, but as Apple is pushing "Thunderbolt" I doubt we'll see USB implementation in Apple hardware.

For the most part, Apple takes intel reference motherboards and sticks pretty close to those designs. Up until recently, intel didn't include USB3. Now that they've finally put that in, Apple has it included without having to do any work. It's possible they could go to the extra effort of downgrading it but that seems really unlikely, since they have to include USB ports anyway they might as well ship them with the newer version.

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by milo

For the most part, Apple takes intel reference motherboards and sticks pretty close to those designs. Up until recently, intel didn't include USB3. Now that they've finally put that in, Apple has it included without having to do any work. It's possible they could go to the extra effort of downgrading it but that seems really unlikely, since they have to include USB ports anyway they might as well ship them with the newer version.

Ah, very true. Forgot that Ivy Bridge (or Sandy Bridge, I can't keep up any more lol) has included USB3. By that logic it would make sense, they'd have to include it. Technically, you only need one "Thunderbolt" port which you can chain to other devices (is there a limit on the amount of attached devices with "Thunderbolt" as it is implemented now?).