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Mac OS X Lion Almost Ready?
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It actually is a plus. What I should have said is that Lion is at least just as powerful as Snow Leopard. But much easier to use, cleaner, simpler and more refined. They did this in part by implementing things they learned from iOS into OS X.
Here's the deal.
There should not be ANY iOS or iOS-ish features in a regular desktop or laptop OS. The reality is, Android sucks as a basic computer OS. Chrome sucks as a basic computer OS. WebOS, though an amazing OS, will suck as a basic computer OS. Legendary battery life, piss poor productivity. Leave the slate OS's on slates as complementary to full computers. Apple has more pressing things to fix, like:
- SATA 3 full compatibility for Sandy Bridge
- Graphics issues
- Heating issues
- Battery life issues
- EFI issues
- General boot performance
- Permissions screwing themselves up especially Java
- Bootcamp support for more than just Windows 7
- Folder thumbnails without having to manually create them
- mdworker CPU issue
Scroll through desktops - what the hell for? The only thing that should be on your desktop is your HD and maybe a few quick access folders. Everything else should be organized and/or docked. If you're organizing open apps that's what Spaces is for. Mission Control I'll give a pass, because it seems to be a natural evolution of Exposé and a step in the right direction.
Scrolling content - Magic Mouse acts the same damn way as a trackpad except for the double finger nonsense that I don't use. But I can scroll through stuff same way as with a trackpad. Fail to see any compelling feature here.
The purpose of a new(er) version of an OS like this is to fix issues. Not cater to the common folk. Anyone who wants an iOS experience can BUY AN IOS DEVICE.
I don't think you quite understand what Apple is doing here. Apple is not taking iOS and replacing Mac OS X with it. WebOS will suck as a computer OS? Who the hell cares? That's not what Apple is doing. All Apple is doing is taking elements from iOS and putting them into Mac OS X. How is LaunchPad a bad thing to have? How is resume a bad thing to have? How are full-screen apps a bad thing to have?
You have some lemon 2011 MacBook Pro's then you suddenly assume that that means that EVERYONE else is having issues which is why I'm not even going to bother responding to your second list that is irrelevant in a discussion about software for the most part. You also assume that the 2010 machines were perfect because YOU didn't have any issues with them when there were in fact issues in relation to heating, freezing and other anomalies. Try looking outside of your box for a moment.
*sigh*
Spaces IS scrolling through your desktops in Lion. It's part of Mission Control.
No. The purpose of a new OS is to have compelling features that people want AND to fix bugs. If you want a new OS that just fixes bugs then you should learn what point updates are. If you can't find anything compelling in this list of features then you are a lost cause.
Oh and by the way... here's a secret... Mac OS X can still do everything it was doing before.
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so, for full screen mode is there a setting somewhere in system preferences where we can force the menubar to always stay visible?
so, for full screen mode is there a setting somewhere in system preferences where we can force the menubar to always stay visible?
As I said earlier to all the Naysayers... You really have to use it to understand it. Yes the brought features of iOS over. They still would have come up with them even if there was no iOS and implemented them. You are not getting a dumbed down version of OS X. You are getting a much more powerful version of OS X with all the additions and server, but they are making the front end easier to understand for the people who have never used it. For those who have used it for a while, they won't even notice the stuff they put in for people who are just beginning to use it but they will find a lot of refinements that make Lion better than Snow Leopard.
Mac OS X Lion is of course at least as powerful as Snow Leopard. It brings many of the features of iOS to the desktop. Some of them work very well, some do not. Take Resume for example. Have a look at the Appleseed forums to see what is going on there and how bad Resume works for us beta testers.
Other features, like Launchpad could be meaningful if implemented better, but I am not so sure that this will happen. For me the best features of Lion are:
- Much improved Mail.app
- Safari 5.1
- Spotlight searches with preview
- Lion Server will be integrated
- Versions
The biggest issues of Lion are:
- Launchpad is just bad implemented
- Resume poses some security issues
- Resume cannot be deactivated completely (only with a hack)
- The new Finder isn't really better.
- Mission Control lost functionality compared to Exposè and Spaces. I am not sure I like it anymore
I haven't used the developer build so I cannot comment on whether it's ready or not
My questions are price and method of delivery. Seeing as snow leopard was $29 I am assuming somewhere around that price point which brings me to my second question of method of delivery. Given apples push to online distribution I am betting the update will be exclusively sold through the Mac AppStore. Just a hunch though
My guess $49, Mac App Store to buy.
Oh. And no way is it ready to ship yet. Ahem. I've heard. cough.
Not really, full screen mode is amazing especially in apps like Safari. So that's basically nonsense that iOS features are a no-go on a desktop OS.
As far as I know, all new Apple macs do support SATA3.
Graphics issues, you mean gaming issues, are much less important than you think. Not many people buy macs to play games and we all know that. As an avid gamer, I also do want Apple to get their graphics on par with Win7, but that's just me being selfish, and that's not the most pressing issue for the general apple buyer.
Battery life issues? Isn't that a hardware issue?
EFI issues? What EFI issues? And EFI is not about the OS. It's EFI.
General boot performance? How fast do you want your mac to boot? Mine boots under 15 seconds with SSD.
The permissions screwing themselves is not an issue. Apple said this over and over that it's irrelevant if Disk Utility keeps giving you permission errors. Those errors don't cause anything "real". Just because you want to see a clear screen when you repair permissions doesn't make it a pressing thing.
What else do you want Bootcamp to support? Linux? Which Linux for example? This might definitely be a nice addition though but it might take work to get it done one by one for each different Linux kernel.
Also I'm not aware of any mdworker CPU issue. I haven't seen mdworker use too much CPU except when it's indexing.
The new finder not being better isn't an issue. If it was worse, then it'd be an issue. But I agree that there should be a way to deactivate Resume "legally".
How is launchpad badly implemented? I don't think I'll ever use it but I don't see anything wrong with it, I just think it's not necessary to access to apps in a fast manner. Command+space and typing apps name is generally fastest if you know the name.
I personally like Launchpad, It has replaced me using Stacks for applications, although it took a while for me to get used to.. I also like the Resume feature, but I agree with you that it could pose some security issues..
As far as performance goes there seems to be no improvements as far as I can tell, the animation are much better..
Launchpad should behave like a normal desktop computer application. Simple things like context menus that enable creating, moving, renaming and deleting folders or apps should be present. Apple made Launchpad exactly the same as on the iPad. Try organizing 100 apps with it, just by dragging apps and moving between pages. On the iPad there might not be any better way to do it, but on a real computer I refuse to do that when I have a mouse and a keyboard! I filed that to Apple as an Enhancement Request but the answer I got doesn't give me any hope: "Works as intended"....
For me the Finder has gotten worse. I prefer having all my devices on the top left, exactly as it is on Snow Leopard. On Lion I can't do that anymore.
Oh yeah, that one's a real nuisance. Old iMac freezes sometimes, I re-start, pulls up 5-6 Applications all together.... Ouch.
Launchpad has given me some issues personally. There's no choice. I tried to remove a few Applications from Launchpad so I'd only have specific ones that I want, and I ended up having to re-download the completely because I'd just removed them. And not to the Trash, they were just gone entirely.
I'm not finding a lot of use in Launchpad. I stuff everything I need into my trusty Dock I've used for years and I just pick stuff out of the line-up there. I'd willingly use Launchpad as Quick-Access for some specific Applications, but windows and windows of Applications which then have to be sorted into Folders and then the Application has to be launched? Bleh.
Maybe they're planning to replace Finder with Launchpad in the next OS, or just slowly merge the two together. Who knows.
For all of you who say Lion isn't anywhere near ready. Lion in it's current, as issued to external developers may not be ready. What you have to understand is Apple is a very large company.
Their OS team is made up of thousands of internal developers and beta testers.
For every application within the OS (Mail, Safari, iWork suite, iLife suite, Dictionary, etc) they have teams of developers and beta testers.
They even have teams that test third party software to make sure it's compatible with the OS.
With that being said, all of these bugs that people are barking about, Apple have already known about them because the OS build they're using is current as of that day, which I could assure you is many many build numbers ahead from what is out there to external developers.
Lion may very well be ready. Only Apple and perhaps a select few outside of Apple know for certain.
Their OS team is made up of thousands of internal developers and beta testers.
For every application within the OS (Mail, Safari, iWork suite, iLife suite, Dictionary, etc) they have teams of developers and beta testers.
They even have teams that test third party software to make sure it's compatible with the OS.
With that being said, all of these bugs that people are barking about, Apple have already known about them because the OS build they're using is current as of that day, which I could assure you is many many build numbers ahead from what is out there to external developers.
Lion may very well be ready. Only Apple and perhaps a select few outside of Apple know for certain.
Not sure about "thousands of internal developers and beta testers." I've never seen figures suggesting that. Apple's priorities seem to be leaning more toward iOS and less to Mac OS X these days.
Judging from the luke warm response to Lion from developers and others, I'd say the Mac development team is feeling the effects of the departure of Bertrand Serlet. Which isn't a knock against Craig Federighi.
I highly doubt that. Serlet only just left at the end of March, at which time Lion was already quite far along.
Working for Apple and testing Mac OS 10.0 prior to launch, I can asses they do. I worked for a few different teams and the last team I worked for easily had over a 100 employees. This was the team that would test third party software with the OS. Apple has their own software library with literally every single piece of software ever developed for the Macintosh platform. When I first went in there I was like
and lol
Every time I hear this tirade about us all being relegated to, "dumb terminals" in another decade I have to just stop and laugh.
You do realize the whole movement for disconnection of data from the user's local machine to the cloud, coupled with basic interface technologies for the enduser, has been just about a 20 year push? This is not something that came out of the woodwork over the past 5 years and certainly not even close to being a new age concept.
What you fail to realize is there will always be workstation class machines. Will Apple split their desktop operating system into two separate kernels/codebases? One with an iOS like interface for grandma who likes to read her email and browse the web - and one for developers who need an OS X like platform to develop their applications? Unlikely! There is more of a chance of them going full iOS on the desktop and allowing their developer tools to run on another *IX based or even Windows system <---- STILL unlikely.
Everything will be baked into the operating system on a license basis in the future. You will pay for the dumbed down interface, more for the advanced user interface or for both. There will be no separate versions just a switch mechanism based upon what license you hold. There is abundant proof that it is not profitable to develop and sell two desktop class operating systems with different kernels/codebases. Please look at both Apple and Microsoft's history for the definitive proof on that. Before someone mentions iOS. iOS is OS X/BSD with a different look, minus 99% of the features of full OS X and on an ARM processor. It does NOT have a different core and can most certainly not be considered a completely different operating system - it's a branch.
That's my take on it as a developer for the past 15 years.