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Gizmodo: negative review of Lion... thoughts?

By trying to please everyone, the OS X team has produced an incongruent user interface pastiche that won't satisfy the consumers seeking simplicity nor the professional users in search of OCD control.
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Cringe factor.
 
Absolute bull. There is no valid correlation between the crap that was Vista and the slightly modified version of Snow Leopard known as Lion. It's not a huge upgrade (and the price reflects that), but it's not universally hated nor is it a disaster by any means.

jW
 
Shocking, especially given the love fest that is Apple and Gizmodo's relationship.

This certainly isn't going to get them re-invited to keynotes though...
 
Personally, I don't care what reviews say - I'm capable of making my own mind up!

For me, Lion gets a thumbs up for the following: Full Disk Encryption, Performance (it's noticeably quicker on both my iMac and MBA), Gestures, Safari, Mission Control (I prefer it to Exposé / Spaces), Mail and (on my MBA) full screen apps and launcher

It gets a thumbs down for that god awful calendar view

It gets a meh for dropping Rosetta (I only had a couple of very infrequently rosetta apps that I won't miss)


Overall I think it's a solid update that hasn't broken any of my essential apps and adds some badly needed functionality (such as Full Disk Encryption)
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I'm not surprised. All you need to do is look at Marcrumors to see how poorly Lion is doing, even among fanboys.
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I can consider myself a hugh OS X fan (even from OS9). And yes, Lion is the worst OS X version ever concerning GUI performance. It is so bad I wend back to SL. The difference between those two is striking/shocking. Really...
 
I'd be interested to find out how long Gizmodo had tested the OS for before reviewing it. The GM has only been available 6 days right? Is that enough time to completely come to grips with all of the new GUI features? There's ALOT of new stuff in there for people to learn and figure out how to use in a way that works for them.

I've had it 3 days and am still on the fence. I've found it very unstable but do like a lot of the new interface features (Launcepad aside, I think Gizmodo nailed that)

I can see where Gizmodo are coming from in one sense, but at the same time I'd like to see how they feel about it in 6 months after some substantial real-life usage and a few software updates
 
Mal said:
Absolute bull. There is no valid correlation between the crap that was Vista and the slightly modified version of Snow Leopard known as Lion. It's not a huge upgrade (and the price reflects that), but it's not universally hated nor is it a disaster by any means.

jW
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I am starting to think that the masses began to hate Vista because we told them to hate it.
 
Mal said:
Absolute bull. There is no valid correlation between the crap that was Vista and the slightly modified version of Snow Leopard known as Lion. It's not a huge upgrade (and the price reflects that), but it's not universally hated nor is it a disaster by any means.

jW
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Yeah, but on a descently spec'd computer with proper driver support (what many older computers lacked) Vista ran quite well, too. I remember using it on my MBP, and I could only find a single complaint with the OS itself -although Apple Windows drivers, like always, sucked.
 
I wouldn't call myself a fanboy, but I am an all Apple guy and will stay such for the foreseeable future. However, if I am being honest, I pretty much have to agree with just about every word of that article. I am not happy about that, but I can't deny it makes sense at least to me. I do get the feeling after using Lion for some months now that Apple is a bit lost. In between worlds of OSX and IOS, in a bad way. The good news is that most of these problems can be sorted out eventually, but still....... I fear that Lion has become Apple's Vista.
 
tkermit said:
Isn't that the guy who stole the iPhone prototype?
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Didn't steal it but was heavily involved in the investigation.

Ever since the 'iPhone 4 gate' episode Gizmodo has been off my reading list, the stories it put out after the investigation were laughable and without a doubt obviously anti-apple.

Like others, I'll make my mind up on Lion. If (IF) it's poop i'll go back to 10.6 after all it's only £25ish
 
Best OS I've used so far, I don't give a damn what the completely unprofessional people at Giz say honestly (you can tell when they have their panties in a bunch on a given day because their posts just turn into rants).

All I can say is Lion will be the most successful version of OSX thus far, regardless of whatever bitching the critics do.
 
tkermit said:
Isn't that the guy who stole the iPhone prototype?
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EXACTLY. Does it surprise anyone that his would be a negative review? I'm running the GM on a PRODUCTION database development machine and it is rock solid for me. No problems with any of the software I use except for LogMeIn using the junky/clunky JRM that Lion installed. Other than that, no complaints.
 
Photo Booth does the 'gimmicky' interface the right way by only employing it in full-screen view. iCal and Address Book are abominations however.
 
NT1440 said:
All I can say is Lion will be the most successful version of OSX thus far, regardless of whatever bitching the critics do.
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I completely agree with this, I doubt anyone wouldn't. OS X's user base has grown significantly since 10.5 or even 10.6 came out. I suppose the real question will be how well Lion is accepted 3 or 6 months after release.

I have not tried Lion at all and I'm saving my first experience to it until I walk in an Apple store after the public release. I switched to Apple in 2006 and in my experience they've often released products which have been scolded before and during the initial release but have since changed industries and the way we interact with technology. The original iPhone is a good example, one which I still use now (hey, it still works!).
 
It may be successful but it does have major kinks as mentioned in the article. In the end if you are an apple fan or a mac user you will upgrade to Lion at some point. The review doesn't complain about performance even though that is a major issue if you have less than 4gb ram compared to SL. Mission control is a hit and a miss along with the other obvious ical etc.
 
Also I don't see what the author is getting at with Windows 8: while the touch interface looks fantastic (since it's essentially WP7 tablet edition) there doesn't appear to be ANY attempt to integrate that with the old mouse/desktop/windowed app experience. As seen in the video demo linked to in the Lion review Windows 8 seems to run along side Windows 7 much like early OSX could host Mac Classic in a virtual machine.
 
It seems like people are slamming it just because it dares to criticize Apple. I haven't used Lion, and I don't know how much I'd agree with the article, but it seems to make some intelligent points.
 
jackc said:
It seems like people are slamming it just because it dares to criticize Apple. I haven't used Lion, and I don't know how much I'd agree with the article, but it seems to make some intelligent points.
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I'm always amazed at how many people instantly think that anyone really wouldn't "dare" to criticize apple. It's a ****ing company.

One note on Lion, I've gotta say I'm disappointed at Apple's lack of thought regarding multiple monitors.

Edit: This guy spent an entire section bitching about the look of iCal and photo booth. Not that the UI has usability issues, but that those under 18 wouldn't understand a calendar with a leather look. Come on.
 
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