Lion Reviews Are Out: 'Great Value', 'Shakes Things Up', 'Very Few Bugs'

[Cormac]

Lion Reviews Are Out:

There are, however, downsides to anything this new and major. In my view, the biggest of these is that switching to Lion will require a major adjustment even for veteran Mac users, though it will be easier for those who use iPhones or iPads.

That was from Walt Mossberg - All Things Digital @ Wall Street Journal. Which only confirms my opinion that the semi-merging of the iOS and the Mac OS X is a disaster and contributes to the dumbing down for OS X.

Btw, is Launchpad something that you can turn off or not?

 

[munkery]

Mission Control works great if you set it up as a hot corner.

 

[Yendog]

You know u can put the scrolling back how it was under the mouse system preferences?

 

[Sambo110]

That was from Walt Mossberg - All Things Digital @ Wall Street Journal. Which only confirms my opinion that the semi-merging of the iOS and the Mac OS X is a disaster and contributes to the dumbing down for OS X.

Btw, is Launchpad something that you can turn off or not?

Why would you even want to "turn it off"? It's an app in your dock, just drag it out of your dock and never use it. Simple.

 

[Ass]

As if anyone expected Walt Mossberg or David Pogue to give anything less than an absolutely positive review.

 

[JT314]

Awesome

Nice improvement, but I have a question that maybe I missed? Once I download it on one computer, can I just pull it off the app store again on my other computer, or do I have to buy it individually for each computer?

 

[Mugwumper]

No problems yet . . .

How friendly is this with the older white MacBooks? how to find out?

So far, so good on a 2009 (2.6GHz Core2Duo with 4GB RAM) - I installed it on this machine to play with it before putting it on a 2010 27" iMac.

The obvious things are that the trackpad isn't MultiTouch, so you just can't do some of the new things. As an alternative, switching between desktops can be done with control-arrow (left or right) on the keyboard - to me, this is a big letdown after Spaces/Hyperspaces. I may not switch on the iMac for this very reason.

Haven't had any issues with apps not working - but also haven't spent a lot of time checking.

 

[iLilana]

Nice improvement, but I have a question that maybe I missed? Once I download it on one computer, can I just pull it off the app store again on my other computer, or do I have to buy it individually for each computer?

no however

*******before you install*****


you should really read the macworld article how to make a boot disk. however I think if you copy the "install os x lion.app" to another drive. Some even go further to make a boot disk but I don't think you need it. Just have the app on an external drive then copy it to the applications folder of the mac you want to install it on.

reason being as many of us found out the hard way... the installer deletes the app and the contents of the app (which happens to include the actual disk image "installeds.dmg") and you end up having to download another 4 gigs of data. That can suck when you have data caps etc. If you want to download just login to appstore with your id u used for the other machine and go into "purchased". also apple is selling thumb drives you can install from.

 

[sebastiannz]

very cool

I've been looking forward to lion for a while and am really enjoying it so far.

Installation was easy. It didn't take long to download and installation worked without any errors or hitches. I almost put the laptop to sleep in the middle of the install so I could get to work on time, but thought better of it and let the install complete

Mission control is way better than spaces and expose in my opinion.

Full screen is much much cooler than I thought it would be. When I watched the promotional videos I thought it looked gimmicky, especially the Apple people's overuse of the word 'beautiful'. However, after using it, and getting used to swiping between apps, it is pretty cool, and much nicer than using the dock. I still don't think it is 'beautiful' although I admit apps look nicer full screen

The new Apple Mail is a good upgrade. I still have the side bar, but with the extra space I now don't need to scroll across to see a whole email on a 13" MBP.

Getting used to the iOS scrolling and the lack of a desktop swipe took a while, but now I'm pretty adjusted to it.

I'm not totally sold on launchpad. It seems duplicative to have both launchpad and a dock. I do think it's better way of launching apps than the old applications folder.

For 39 bucks NZ I'm very satisfied.

PS: scrolling between tabs in Safari now makes it my favorite browser over Chrome...just. I still think Safari is too colorless.

 

[Terek]

How do you normally delete applications?

Drag them to the trash.

Only the LaunchPad icon is deleted, the actual application is still installed.


I do agree that LaunchPad is probably something I'll never use... I've gotten used to Spotlight for launching apps.

As mentioned in the original text I tried that and it failed. Icons can't be removed.

The only method is to use the white cross for apps purchased in the App Store – but this will delete the app as well.

 

[Michael383]

I've installed Lion on my two Macs and haven't had any problems. I like the new features.

 

[BeamWalker]

Everyone thinking I am mad comparing Lion with Windows Me should try for 6 hours to get connected to a normal freebsd based NAS that was used without any problems with SL before and still works fine with all my linux und even my windows machines. With SMB not supported, AFP having another version and refusing to deal with my "older" one and NFS constantly crashing the system you'll loose your temper very quickly.

I switched backed to the scrolling I know by the way. I have no Lion computers at work (fortunately) and I have little interest to use both ways of scrolling since I fear it would just confuse me all the time. I really want my normal Exposé back. The fact that minimized Windows don't show up in mission control drives me crazy.

 

[Tivoli]

Safari pdf bug

Although Safari should still have "Inline PDF Viewing" as stated on there Safari info pages it doesn't work anymore. I sure hope this bug gets repaired soon.

I also hope there will be someone who can make a better looking UI for iCal and Addressbook. They look so USA old world replica. It gives me the shivers. Nice for people who want to live in a cardboard copy of the Forum Romanum. Qua design it is completely out of line with the rest of the Lion's UI.

 

[munkery]

Good article about the security of OS X Lion.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/21/mac_os_x_lion_security/

 

[BeamWalker]

I also hope there will be someone who can make a better looking UI for iCal and Addressbook. They look so USA old world replica. It gives me the shivers. Nice for people who want to live in a cardboard copy of the Forum Romanum. Qua design it is completely out of line with the rest of the Lion's UI.

Somebody already thought of that. Link

 

[jmbeatty24]

mission control = fail... give an option for old spaces please apple

that's funny, i always thought spaces was far and away the worst part of osx, i finally turned it off and i've been so excited since last september when i heard they were going to "fix" it.

that being said, the changes people are railing against most were progress from a logical the windows being grouped by application is far more organized than the "throw everything up on the wall" approach used in expose, even if the gesture to spread out windows in the various apps takes some getting used to. and the "inverted" scrolling (which takes like one minute to change) makes more sense in that if you were to try to see the bottom of a physical paper you were reading, you would push it down, not pull it up. of course i was used to the other way, so i did take the minute to change it in settings.

oh and luckyluke, how about taking a couple days to overcome the human tendency to resist all change before we throw around the "v-word". some things you can't take back.

 

[Tivoli]

Somebody already thought of that. Link

Thanks for the link.

Now Apple only has to fix the pdf's in Safari and I am all O.K.

 

[zacman]

If even Mossberg finds "a few bugs" then there will be tons of bugs. No wonder for a .0 Apple release. And they still haven't even fixed all the bugs in Slow Leopard.

And it looks like Lion is a great OS for iOS users that use their Mac as a toy. Sadly Apple has decided to abandon all their Pro products.

 

[mkjj]

iMac White 24inch.

Internet connection has failed after the restart!

No matter what I try, can't get it to connect through ethernet or Wf-Fi

Good job I only loaded on one of machine to start

 

[macsmurf]

Regarding full screen terminal: Green text on black?

Erm. Yes.

JEEZ people love to complain about things. Half of the complaints here are the most pettiest asinine little things, or things where clearly the user is doing it incorrectly.

The same people who are wanting to downgrade to Snow Leopard are the same people who posted what a "rip off" Snow Leopard was because it really didn't have any new features.

I just can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading. Wow.

You wouldn't believe the amount of abuse Leopard got on this forum because Apple decreased the opacity of the top bar slighly. You would have thought the entire OS had stopped working.

 

[Mission Control]

its great

 

[Adey]

It really seems that they're trying to make my iMac into a really big iPad. I guess time will tell.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. As long as there's power under the hood and I can still create amazing things in Photoshop, C4D, Final Cut (when it's finished), Motion etc. I'm happy to navigate my Mac easier.

I have a Wacom pen/mouse and Apple trackpad on the Mac Pros and (because I only have Lion on my MBP for now) I can envisage a day where I'm spending 70% of the day using the Wacom (instead of almost 100% as I do now) and 30% of the time gripping, flicking and sliding my way through windows as I browse/check email/research. That 30% of my time is going to be much quicker, easier and more relaxed and for £20 that's no bad thing.

In fact, what I'd really like (let the backlash begin) is just one desktop area on my Mac that is "iOS" and runs some form of iOS in a Rosetta kind of way. iBooks, eBay, Reference apps etc. would work on my Mac and perhaps I could even play some of my iPad games on my Mac using the trackpad/keyboard...? Hey, stick an accelerometer in my trackpad and I'm laughing!

What I've always liked about Macs is that they're very powerful under the hood but deceptively simple in their GUI. Remember Apple vs. MicroSoft in the days before MS had windows...? So yeah, make the Mac fun and funky to use - just don't lose the power deep down. That's what Apple are doing, I think - they're making death ray lasers which look deceptively like kids toys.

 

[FloridaJo]

Gizmodo Still Sour over Raid

Obviously Gizmodo is still sour over the raid of one of it's reporter's house after it stole the iPhone prototype.
Too bad for Gizmodo. It's unbiased reporting is as obvious as a Lion in an aviary.

 

[macsmurf]

Everyone thinking I am mad comparing Lion with Windows Me should try for 6 hours to get connected to a normal freebsd based NAS that was used without any problems with SL before and still works fine with all my linux und even my windows machines. With SMB not supported, AFP having another version and refusing to deal with my "older" one and NFS constantly crashing the system you'll loose your temper very quickly.

Your NAS software is outdated. It needs an update. This has nothing to do with Apple. How many times should I repeat it?

 

[iBug2]

Seriously, threads about Lion turned out to be the ones filled with the dumbest arguments ever seen in this forum.

What do people mean when they say "this dumbs down Mac OS"?

Lion doesn't really remove many features of SL. Yes Expose is gone and yes Mission Control does not totally replace it due to not showing every single window and yes I hate it as well, but I wouldn't call that dumbing down the OS.

Any argument about Launchpad is basically irrelevant and must be deleted immediately because it's an APP!!! which you don't have to use. This is as irrelevant as arguing against the chess app or the calculator app.

Any argument saying that OS X is turning into iOS must be similarly deleted/ignored because it can never happen. As long as you keep using your Mac with a mouse or touchpad, OS X can never turn into iOS due to iOS GUI being designed for touch. Lion GUI is 99% the same as SL GUI. So Lion looks like iOS almost as much as SL or Leopard UI did.

Resume can be shut off, you don't have to use the new Dashboard as a space, you can make Library folder visible again etc. Most things which you don't like about Lion can be changed to function exactly as they do as in SL. And keep using the stuff you like as they are. Simple as that.

The stuff I don't like about Lion are simply performance related which always happen with the .0 releases. Things will get snappier and smoother in time exactly as they did with Leopard or SL.