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

[milo]

Great overview from Siracusa.

Reading that, my biggest disappointment is the lack of an updated filesystem that's more robust. I've had the exact worst case scenario that he describes on 10.6 and 10.7 will do nothing to improve the situation - files got corrupted on disk and the backup just made copies of the corrupted ones. And no way to discover it until much later when I went back to access those files.

Apple really needs to make some improvements to that, shame the ZFS thing never happened.

 

[John.B]

John Siracusa - Ars Technica (a staggeringly long review)

Show me the Siracusa review that isn't "staggeringly long" (and thorough)! LOL! That dude rocks.

Apple really needs to make some improvements to that, shame the ZFS thing never happened.

Wasn't Don Brady working on a port for Lion? Anyone know the status of that work?

 

[AAPLaday]

It's a MacRumors tradition!

Ah nice! I wasn't a Mac user when Leopard made its debut. Didn't switch till January 2008. Must have missed the SL one

 

[Swift]

I can't stand anything Gizmodo. I haven't read an article on there since they paid a photographer -- paparazzi style -- to get pictures of Steve Jobs' house. I wish they'd go under.

That reviewer used to be much more favorable to Apple. Now that he's with Giz, you see his editorial line has had to adjust.

My only problem is with Safari crashes. Firefox and Chrome work, but Safari hangs, can't load a page, and then vanishes.

 

[DSybrowsky]

PS Elements 9 Compatibility

I realize this may not be the best area (strictly speaking) to ask such a question but since Lion is new today and all does anyone out there have any ideas if there are any compatibility issues with PSE 9 and OS X Lion?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[wovel]

Loving it so far, but I did have to calculate something quickly a few minutes ago, and realized I couldn't do it in spotlight anymore. Anyone else seeing this?

Works for me:

 

[John.B]

No i want a BOXED copy, from a store, on a disk that wont degrade overtime if i leave it in sunlight.

I prefer physical media to downloads, when the aliens invade and power goes out and the internets crash, ill still be able to play starcraft in offline mode on my macbook pro powered from a lemon battery

Dan Frakes' instructions for making a bootable Lion jump drive from a downloaded Mac App Store Lion installer are up at Macworld.

 

[tbrinkma]

Given at WWDC they said pretty clearly that Lion would be MAS-only, it could have been a last-minute change of mind to decide to offer USB keys.

Actually, at WWDC they said pretty clearly that it would be available for download, only on the Mac App Store. Quite a few people took that to mean it would be available for download only, on the Mac App Store.

The location of a comma can make quite a difference, no?

 

[acidblue]

I just got an error message after downloading and starting the install process: "Cannot install. Your hard drive is damaged." !! It's only a year old and I've never had any issue. Attempting restart...

1. Using Disk utility to verify. It stopped and says repair it, but Repair button is greyed out .

Go here: support.apple.com/kb/ts1417

See the part about "Try Disk Utility". You can then repair your disk from there. The issue is that you can't be running on the startup disk that you are attempting to repair.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Lion is empty and just dumbs down the OS for the average user.

If by "dumbs down" you mean doesn't force users to drill down into folders and other such things that last decade's OSes required sure. I'm aging myself but I remember when DOS geeks made fun of the original Apple GUI because it "dumbed down" the OS. Of course, Apple's mission has always been to make a computer "for the rest of us." Most people want a computer that is less complex and easier to understand.

 

[Icy1007]

Gizmodo is just butt-hurt over the whole iPhone 4 debacle. Theirs is the only bad "review".

 

[kycophpd]

No i want a BOXED copy, from a store, on a disk that wont degrade overtime if i leave it in sunlight.

I prefer physical media to downloads, when the aliens invade and power goes out and the internets crash, ill still be able to play starcraft in offline mode on my macbook pro powered from a lemon battery

I will send you $2 if you provide me a Paypal account so you can buy about 10 DVD's to install the .dmg file on if it will stop your complaining about it.

 

[hayesk]

Instead of Apple bragging about full screen apps, a feature that I actually find a step backwards because I need access to menus, dock, etc. what Apple really needs to do FIRST is to fix the problem of the green button when expanding it to full screen.

That is about as effing retarded as the single button mouse. Half the time when pressing it, it only expands somewhat and other times the windows expands but shifts over completely out of place requiring the user to actually drag the window back to a comfortable space.

Green button should do exactly as one would assume; expand to the maximum area, basically, full screen without hiding the dock or menu.

It seems like you don't understand what the green button is supposed to do at all. It is not the Windows maximize button - it is the zoom button. It's supposed to resize the window just large enough to show all of the content inside, as long as it fits on the screen, in any one dimension. So if you have really short and wide content, the window should resize to be the whole screen width, but only tall enough to show the content.

Clicking the green button again should take you back to the size it was before.

If you manually resize the window, the state is reset, and the next click will zoom.

The problem here is that it's up to the app to implement the correct behaviour. Even Apple does it wrong in some apps (e.g. iTunes), and many developers mistakenly think it's a maximize button so they resized the window to be full screen, rather than just as big as it needs to be.

 

[kycophpd]

Gizmodo is just butt-hurt over the whole iPhone 4 debacle. Theirs is the only bad "review".

Not true, you forgot about the one liners from the few PC lovers that hang around on the forums here for some reason.

 

[Tivoli]

how to get PDF in Safari

I like Lion so far. It takes a bit of adjusting but most of it is nice or refreshing.

But not being able to read a pdf with Safari is a BIG BIG handicap. All my online newspapers work with pdf.
Is there a way to get this back in Safari?

 

[myrtlebee]

I can't stand anything Gizmodo. I haven't read an article on there since they paid a photographer -- paparazzi style -- to get pictures of Steve Jobs' house. I wish they'd go under.

I agree. I also don't understand their "failure of the physical metaphor" section- just like I don't understand people who dislike the new address book and especially iCal. These are huge UI visual improvements that, sure, add a bit of whimsical flair, but what's the harm there? I am finding iCal to be much more of a pleasure to use. Calendars are not the most exciting things in the world- a grid is a grid, but Lion even makes that pleasant. Didn't think I'd like the visual direction of Lion, instead I'm loving it.

 

[The Economist]

I was skeptical about Lion, but I have to say that I actually like it and I find it comfortable; however, I still don't really get how spaces work now, I can't seem to drag apps from one space to another or re-arrange the spaces. Surely there's something I'm doing wrong.

Also, I can't upgrade my iWork suite, it doesn't detect any new updates available, I've tried creating a new folder named "iWork" but I still can't upload the latest version of the iWork apps.

The most retarded thing? Key repeat doesn't work everywhere. Try it on Safari.

 

[rwilliams]

I like Lion a lot however, we are seeing the same bugs we reported multiple times during the Developer Trial. AD binding still doesn't work correctly

I had to unbind my work iMac from our domain, bind it again, and then reboot for me to be able to log in with my domain account. Even after the reboot, the red dot and the "network logins unavailable" (or something to that effect) message appeared at first, but then the dot turned yellow. After it turned yellow, I was able to log in with my AD account.

I was skeptical about Lion, but I have to say that I actually like it and I find it comfortable; however, I still don't really get how spaces work now, I can't seem to drag apps from one space to another or re-arrange the spaces. Surely there's something I'm doing wrong.

To drag apps from one space to another, activate Mission Control so that you see the "thumbnails" of your open apps. Then click on the app you want to move and drag it to its new space. I don't think you can rearrange the spaces, but in the Mission Control preferences, you can choose whether to have the spaces laid out in order (1,2,3, etc.) or in the order of the most recently used space.

 

[tony17837]

what's your problem with the fonts?

Thanks for asking. here's a screen shot. I can't code on my mac with out significant eye pain. I'm open to any solution.

 

[scoobydoo99]

You might save your $29 for something else.

Like what? Can't even get a nice pair of socks for 29 bucks.

 

[DesignerOnMac]

I WANT THAT LION.

I'm being dead serious, it's badass!

It is not available anymore, but you might want to try this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lion-large-soft...ed_Animals&hash=item483d7eada3#ht_1274wt_1066

 

[MacThor]

Are these reviews a joke? I've been running the GM since it came out, and it's buggy and not really any better. Spaces is ruined, not improved. You can't even drag full screen apps around to change the space. I almost downgraded to Snow Leopard. A steal at $29 is a complete lie, it's not a steal if it's free. After a couple updates I'd say it's wort upgrading from Snow Leopard at no cost. The new mail, the idea of full screen apps (but not how these are implemented), and the disappearing scroll bar are nice, but that's not worth $29.

And I love the Mac OS. These reviews are just too outrageous for me to understand. I was very disappointed because I was looking forward to Lion, and so was a friend of mine who already has downgraded back to Snow Leopard.

Luckily it's gotten a little better since I downgraded to iTunes 10.4 today. 10.5 Beta 3 is unusable there are so many bugs. Firefox has a lot of bugs in Lion, but that's not Apple's fault.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I am running the developer edition since day "1" on a Lion partition, and after the GM , a clean install on my AIR (SSD, 2GB memory), and runs everything I had before with no issues (MS Office, Java compiler, PhotoShop , Xcode, and some other development tools). External monitor, etc, runs really nice.

Regards,

 

[wovel]

Thanks for asking. here's a screen shot. I can't code on my mac with out significant eye pain. I'm open to any solution.

You might actually need an optometrist, not a better font.


Edited so I can be less of jerk You could try Inconsolata, make sure you turn on antialiasing (its ok to use that in 2011) and it looks great at any size. Most people do not feel compelled to code in fixed width fonts anymore..

 

[kjs862]

The old spaces implementation was much better.

 

[The Economist]

To drag apps from one space to another, activate Mission Control so that you see the "thumbnails" of your open apps. Then click on the app you want to move and drag it to its new space. I don't think you can rearrange the spaces, but in the Mission Control preferences, you can choose whether to have the spaces laid out in order (1,2,3, etc.) or in the order of the most recently used space.

I see, I tried it and it does what I asked, thanks. It is a disconcerting way to move apps between spaces but…oh well.

The old spaces implementation was much better.

While I too prefer how spaces used to work, I really like the unification between Spaces and Exposé.