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Booting OS X Lion GM: No Welcome Video, New Introduction to Scrolling
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The video was a nice touch. I wish they'd leave it in. Who knows, they might still add it.
I must admit, though, you can see that Apple has it together by releasing this over the web and charging 30 bucks for it. Low price, no lineups, just download it right off the Mac App Store. That's pretty progressive thinking.
I must admit, though, you can see that Apple has it together by releasing this over the web and charging 30 bucks for it. Low price, no lineups, just download it right off the Mac App Store. That's pretty progressive thinking.
If your going to be that picky, then I'll be too.
He didn't say "star wars intro style" as in "the mac os x video is in the style of the star wars intro", he said "star wars style intro" as in "the mac os x intro video is in a style similar to star wars".
Stars, flying through space, going into hyperspace in the end, certainly have similarities with Star Wars.
Whatever, it's fun to nitpick, isn't it?
I'll miss going to the store on the launch day, listening to employees who really know nothing about the new OS try to demo it. And the free t-shirt. they won't have to give those out anymore either.
And I can say this because I used to be an employee. And no, we really didn't get any training other than what was on apple.com ahead of release.
Cult of Mac did a story about the new "recovery" partition (that recovers nothing without redownloading Lion from Apple a long with phoning home your computer's serial number).*
http://www.cultofmac.com/this-is-ho...n-without-a-dvd-or-usb-stick-bad-ideas/100081
* It will recover from a Time Machine backup without redownloading Lion.
http://www.cultofmac.com/this-is-ho...n-without-a-dvd-or-usb-stick-bad-ideas/100081
* It will recover from a Time Machine backup without redownloading Lion.
Here's another thing that I notice since I have Lion GM on my 27" iMac i5: The machine is LOUDER than it was on Snow Leopard, Lion fires up the system's cooling fans exactly as much as Windows 7 does it on that machine. And that really is becoming a show-stopping issue for me and will probably cause me to downgrade back to Snow Leopard. I even have a JSCO noiseless mouse attached to my Mac, so I certainly won't tolerate a system whose cooling fans are constantly running (they NEVER did that on Snow Leopard).
Other than that, software that opens multiple network connections (for example Firefox, Kindle, Pulp) is VERY prone to crashing on Lion. The same programs worked flawlessly on Snow Leopard, but on Lion, they crash very frequently.
Also, applications sometimes take a couple of seconds before they even begin to launch -- their icons are jumping in the dock for several seconds before there even is hard disk activity.
And yes, this is not an upgrade installation, it's an installation on a freshly formatted hard disk.
On another note, I find Launchpad and Mission Control rather useless. I don't have a touch device, so whatever might make Launchpad interesting is not connected to my system and Launchpad makes my iMac look like a ridiculously huge iPad and with a regular mouse and keyboard, Launchpad does not do ANYTHING for you to make things more efficient. If you have a touch input device, Launchpad might be nice to play with, but even then it's not much more than a toy app to launch other applications.
I'm not necessarily sold on Mission Control either and use it about as much as I have used that 3D-view on open windows that Windows Vista had.
Lion's Finder looks uglier than Snow Leopard's and behaves more chaotic. There, I said it. If this new Finder is not a step backwards, then it's definitely a step in the wrong direction.
We have a new animation for Dashboard; it now rolls in from the left instead of "falling down". And it no longer hovers on top of the desktop but has its own background now. I'm not sure if that is an improvement either.
Scrollbars and scrolling... Well, scrollbars are still there, but they too have become uglier than before. But the first thing you notice about scrolling with the mouse is... That the window scrolls in the wrong direction! Lion is trying to behave like a touch interface system; you have to configure the "old" behavior System Preferences if you want to have the scroll behavior that you've had for the last thirty years.
What else is new? A recovery partition that can be used to repair or restore a broken installation. It's basically an installation DVD that's pre-installed on a separate partition. That's quite useful, but, of course, it won't be of any help when you experience a major hard disk failure - then you NEED a real installation DVD.
Oh, the Java VM is only downloaded and installed when an application requires Java; Java is no longer a part of the default installation. (And since there is no "customize" button in Lion's installer, you cannot force its installation either.)
Rosetta is gone. If you still have PowerPC applications, you should not consider upgrading to Lion - you cannot run those legacy applications on Lion. Just like you cannot run Lion on 32-Bit Intel or old PowerPC processors.
The two most significant changes in the new version of Mac OS X are probably these:
1. It's a major architectural change. Lion requires a 64-Bit Intel CPU to run, all other systems are left out in the cold.
2. It's the first version of Mac OS X that is exclusively sold via digital distribution through Apple's own Mac AppStore. This forces Apple's customers to use the Mac AppStore even if there is no other incentive to visit the store.
If you're looking for killer features, though, Lion will disappoint you. There are none. Despite everything Apple's marketing department is telling you, Lion is only an evolutionary release, not a revolutionary one.
The upgrade will only cost around 24 Euros, which isn't much. But then again, you don't get much in return either. From what I've seen in the last two days, Lion is basically a glorified Service Pack for Snow Leopard, and Snow Leopard itself was just a glorified Service Pack for Leopard. And both those "Service Packs" did not bring many new features but broke compatibility with older hardware instead: Snow Leopard killed the support for PowerPC, Lion kills the support for 32-Bit Intel Macs and even removes the system's capability to run PowerPC-software.
There is some good news for those who have been worrying about it: Yes, Microsoft Office 2008 does run on Lion, and YES, even its installer works flawlessly on Lion. Some people have posted on the net that Office 2008 can only be installed on Snow Leopard - that is WRONG. I've tested it myself and there were zero problems with the installation on Lion.
But this is probably even more important for some: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Flash CS3 can also be installed worry-free on Lion! This was a real problem with the dot zero release of Snow Leopard and took Apple at least two point releases to fix it. Well, Photoshop CS3 can be painfully installed and run on Lion.
Other than that, software that opens multiple network connections (for example Firefox, Kindle, Pulp) is VERY prone to crashing on Lion. The same programs worked flawlessly on Snow Leopard, but on Lion, they crash very frequently.
Also, applications sometimes take a couple of seconds before they even begin to launch -- their icons are jumping in the dock for several seconds before there even is hard disk activity.
And yes, this is not an upgrade installation, it's an installation on a freshly formatted hard disk.
On another note, I find Launchpad and Mission Control rather useless. I don't have a touch device, so whatever might make Launchpad interesting is not connected to my system and Launchpad makes my iMac look like a ridiculously huge iPad and with a regular mouse and keyboard, Launchpad does not do ANYTHING for you to make things more efficient. If you have a touch input device, Launchpad might be nice to play with, but even then it's not much more than a toy app to launch other applications.
I'm not necessarily sold on Mission Control either and use it about as much as I have used that 3D-view on open windows that Windows Vista had.
Lion's Finder looks uglier than Snow Leopard's and behaves more chaotic. There, I said it. If this new Finder is not a step backwards, then it's definitely a step in the wrong direction.
We have a new animation for Dashboard; it now rolls in from the left instead of "falling down". And it no longer hovers on top of the desktop but has its own background now. I'm not sure if that is an improvement either.
Scrollbars and scrolling... Well, scrollbars are still there, but they too have become uglier than before. But the first thing you notice about scrolling with the mouse is... That the window scrolls in the wrong direction! Lion is trying to behave like a touch interface system; you have to configure the "old" behavior System Preferences if you want to have the scroll behavior that you've had for the last thirty years.
What else is new? A recovery partition that can be used to repair or restore a broken installation. It's basically an installation DVD that's pre-installed on a separate partition. That's quite useful, but, of course, it won't be of any help when you experience a major hard disk failure - then you NEED a real installation DVD.
Oh, the Java VM is only downloaded and installed when an application requires Java; Java is no longer a part of the default installation. (And since there is no "customize" button in Lion's installer, you cannot force its installation either.)
Rosetta is gone. If you still have PowerPC applications, you should not consider upgrading to Lion - you cannot run those legacy applications on Lion. Just like you cannot run Lion on 32-Bit Intel or old PowerPC processors.
The two most significant changes in the new version of Mac OS X are probably these:
1. It's a major architectural change. Lion requires a 64-Bit Intel CPU to run, all other systems are left out in the cold.
2. It's the first version of Mac OS X that is exclusively sold via digital distribution through Apple's own Mac AppStore. This forces Apple's customers to use the Mac AppStore even if there is no other incentive to visit the store.
If you're looking for killer features, though, Lion will disappoint you. There are none. Despite everything Apple's marketing department is telling you, Lion is only an evolutionary release, not a revolutionary one.
The upgrade will only cost around 24 Euros, which isn't much. But then again, you don't get much in return either. From what I've seen in the last two days, Lion is basically a glorified Service Pack for Snow Leopard, and Snow Leopard itself was just a glorified Service Pack for Leopard. And both those "Service Packs" did not bring many new features but broke compatibility with older hardware instead: Snow Leopard killed the support for PowerPC, Lion kills the support for 32-Bit Intel Macs and even removes the system's capability to run PowerPC-software.
There is some good news for those who have been worrying about it: Yes, Microsoft Office 2008 does run on Lion, and YES, even its installer works flawlessly on Lion. Some people have posted on the net that Office 2008 can only be installed on Snow Leopard - that is WRONG. I've tested it myself and there were zero problems with the installation on Lion.
But this is probably even more important for some: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Flash CS3 can also be installed worry-free on Lion! This was a real problem with the dot zero release of Snow Leopard and took Apple at least two point releases to fix it. Well, Photoshop CS3 can be painfully installed and run on Lion.
^ You sound like a Windows user.
Lion isn't any louder on my MacBook Pro or iMac.
I much prefer finder in Lion. "All my Files." is really cool. The "More info..." in about "About This Mac" is clearly better.
Wheel scrolling is arbitrary, just because you are used to the old day doesn't make the new way any more "wrong." It took me less than a day to get used to the "natural" direction scrolling.
The autocorrect feature in Safari, awesome. http links in iChat popping out instead of needing to open a new page/tab in safari, cool. safari being noticeable faster, very nice. Mail.app. Browsing versions, need I say more?
Lion is easily a bigger upgrade than Leopard or Snow Leopard was to Tiger. I just don't think you have used it long enough.
Lion isn't any louder on my MacBook Pro or iMac.
I much prefer finder in Lion. "All my Files." is really cool. The "More info..." in about "About This Mac" is clearly better.
Wheel scrolling is arbitrary, just because you are used to the old day doesn't make the new way any more "wrong." It took me less than a day to get used to the "natural" direction scrolling.
The autocorrect feature in Safari, awesome. http links in iChat popping out instead of needing to open a new page/tab in safari, cool. safari being noticeable faster, very nice. Mail.app. Browsing versions, need I say more?
Lion is easily a bigger upgrade than Leopard or Snow Leopard was to Tiger. I just don't think you have used it long enough.
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I really don't like the phoning home business. Wonder if it phones home when you use the install image file?
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Just to let others know, I got it to install by modifying minmem in OSInstall.mpkg on the install image. Runs the same as SL near as I can tell... in fact the only obvious difference is Mission Control which is just a busier / uglier / less elegant Expose. That and install-on-demand Java doesn't seem to be working.
What applications have you tried? I've just loaded up Photoshop and for some reason it requires Java - it downloaded and installed without any problems.
When I was reading Winni's post I couldn't help but burst out in tears knowing that one day he (and I maintain it is a he because no woman would ever whine about such trivial matters as a fan starting up or having a special 'mouse' so he doesn't have to hear the click) might get married and have kids - and vote too!
Thanks to people like him, I used to be enthusiastic about coming to Macrumors and talking about the latest gossip about a soon to be released Apple product but now thanks to the forum being dominated by people like Winni I can't help but shudder every time I see 'macrumors.com' come up on the Macsurfer news aggrigator.
I find it amazing how there are people here who get punished over a strongly worded post to a forum but when complete and utter morons vomit their ignorance onto the forum there are no consequences.
I can't describe the many things wrong with this paragraph.
Assuming Him is Winni, wouldn't that paragraph contradict itself? If not, who's him!?
There's nothing wrong with a "strongly worded post" or "vomiting ignorance". There is something however, wrong with FUD.
Still not sure if this post contains subtle irony.
You obviously spent a lot of time writing these, so none should treat you like a troll. I will try to answer to your points one by one.
It's your right to be disturbed by noise, I sometimes get disturbed too. But I honestly haven't notice increased fan activity in Lion GM in comparison with SL. I'll need to work more with it though in order to be able to say that for sure. We all need to work more with Lion to have a solid opinion.
I haven't notice any problems at all with the latest Firefox (v.5). Other than that, this cannot be characterized as a Lion problem so easily. Some apps may need a minor update in order to work flawlessly with a new OS (or a majorly upgraded one if you prefer). And I think we'll see plenty of updates soon, even for apps we think they work perfect with Lion.
Same as above. Some apps definitely need a minor update to co-op perfectly with Lion. That's natural and I expect them to get updated. And they will as always.
I wouldn't call them useless but we all need some time to get used to. Maybe they are worst than SL, maybe they'll prove better. I think Apple is trying to reduce effort to launch an application (something that Windows are ages behind btw). First there was spotlight, where you need to type a few letters. Now it's launchpad where hopefully you need just 1 click. The point is not to make your iMac look like a silly giant iPad. Point is to make it as easy as an iPad to use.
I kinda like mission control especially for the fact that you are not now locked on a specific number of desktops but you dynamically make as many as you need. I also like the fact that we now have a bird-eye view of what's happening on the machine. Again, I think we need to work more with it, in order to judge if it's actually better or worst than the SL.
The big step of Mac OS X in comparison with all other OSes is that the user needs finder almost for nothing anymore. Lion's finder has a few changes, the "all my files" is not a great option for me, just like Windows Vista/7 have a merging view of files located in different folders. I personally dislike that but I don't use much of the finder anyway, thanks to launchpad, mission control and spotlight. I do like though the fact that they have added the "group in folder" option when selecting multiple files.
This can be configured so that Dashboard returns to it's previous mode. I prefer it that way though.
You have actually yourself replied to your note. Using a trackpad, the new scrolling system feels way more natural. On the other hand you can always configure it back to the old mode. I personally use the new scroll on my mb air taking advantage of the great trackpad it has, while using the old scrolling mode on my iMac. Everyone is happy.
Agree, that's why there are so many guides to create your own install dvd/usb using Lion's image file. Is there really any reason to whine for something that's already solved ?
And thank God for that. Apple spent too much time falling back in Java versions because they wanted to maintain java themselves. That was a real problem, exclusive to the Mac platform. FINALLY, now Mac will follow all the other platforms and download Java for the source itself. And that's Oracle. That's good news, not bad. And, actually, you can "force" downloading Java by opening java-preferences.app right after you install Lion, before you really need it.
This will bother some people, I agree. It bothers me too since I cannot play Diablo 2 anymore. But there are workarounds for it. In a final thought, for how long can we demand from apple to support a deprecated platform ? Now, as far as it concerned the 32-bit cpu, I believe people with such old machines will be better with SL anyway, which is going to be supported for long time.
I wouldn't call "cold" the SL.
I'll totally agree to that. It's a turn that apple makes, and we'll have to live with it. On the other hand, I like the fact that I don't have to wait for 2 weeks in order the new Mac OS arrive at my country.
Again, I agree. But evolution is also a good thing, isn't it ?
That's the destiny of old deprecated hardware from the beginning of computers. And since it's not a major release, people can always stay with the more mature SL. Apple will not put a gun in your head and say "upgrade or else...". Just like MS did with XP -> Vista. At least for specific customers that they admitted they "had to" upgrade (these are not my words, they are taken from MS forums).
It's your right to be disturbed by noise, I sometimes get disturbed too. But I honestly haven't notice increased fan activity in Lion GM in comparison with SL. I'll need to work more with it though in order to be able to say that for sure. We all need to work more with Lion to have a solid opinion.
I haven't notice any problems at all with the latest Firefox (v.5). Other than that, this cannot be characterized as a Lion problem so easily. Some apps may need a minor update in order to work flawlessly with a new OS (or a majorly upgraded one if you prefer). And I think we'll see plenty of updates soon, even for apps we think they work perfect with Lion.
Same as above. Some apps definitely need a minor update to co-op perfectly with Lion. That's natural and I expect them to get updated. And they will as always.
I wouldn't call them useless but we all need some time to get used to. Maybe they are worst than SL, maybe they'll prove better. I think Apple is trying to reduce effort to launch an application (something that Windows are ages behind btw). First there was spotlight, where you need to type a few letters. Now it's launchpad where hopefully you need just 1 click. The point is not to make your iMac look like a silly giant iPad. Point is to make it as easy as an iPad to use.
I kinda like mission control especially for the fact that you are not now locked on a specific number of desktops but you dynamically make as many as you need. I also like the fact that we now have a bird-eye view of what's happening on the machine. Again, I think we need to work more with it, in order to judge if it's actually better or worst than the SL.
The big step of Mac OS X in comparison with all other OSes is that the user needs finder almost for nothing anymore. Lion's finder has a few changes, the "all my files" is not a great option for me, just like Windows Vista/7 have a merging view of files located in different folders. I personally dislike that but I don't use much of the finder anyway, thanks to launchpad, mission control and spotlight. I do like though the fact that they have added the "group in folder" option when selecting multiple files.
This can be configured so that Dashboard returns to it's previous mode. I prefer it that way though.
You have actually yourself replied to your note. Using a trackpad, the new scrolling system feels way more natural. On the other hand you can always configure it back to the old mode. I personally use the new scroll on my mb air taking advantage of the great trackpad it has, while using the old scrolling mode on my iMac. Everyone is happy.
Agree, that's why there are so many guides to create your own install dvd/usb using Lion's image file. Is there really any reason to whine for something that's already solved ?
And thank God for that. Apple spent too much time falling back in Java versions because they wanted to maintain java themselves. That was a real problem, exclusive to the Mac platform. FINALLY, now Mac will follow all the other platforms and download Java for the source itself. And that's Oracle. That's good news, not bad. And, actually, you can "force" downloading Java by opening java-preferences.app right after you install Lion, before you really need it.
This will bother some people, I agree. It bothers me too since I cannot play Diablo 2 anymore. But there are workarounds for it. In a final thought, for how long can we demand from apple to support a deprecated platform ? Now, as far as it concerned the 32-bit cpu, I believe people with such old machines will be better with SL anyway, which is going to be supported for long time.
I wouldn't call "cold" the SL.
I'll totally agree to that. It's a turn that apple makes, and we'll have to live with it. On the other hand, I like the fact that I don't have to wait for 2 weeks in order the new Mac OS arrive at my country.
Again, I agree. But evolution is also a good thing, isn't it ?
That's the destiny of old deprecated hardware from the beginning of computers. And since it's not a major release, people can always stay with the more mature SL. Apple will not put a gun in your head and say "upgrade or else...". Just like MS did with XP -> Vista. At least for specific customers that they admitted they "had to" upgrade (these are not my words, they are taken from MS forums).
Lots of people who can't think different.
(I apologize in advance to everyone that doesn't get sarcasm)