Mac OS X Lion Notes: iOS Scroll Bars, Any Corner Resizing, Dock Changes

[muncyweb]

And should we remove navigation systems from their cars? People should be able to use maps. Should cell phone remove address books? People used to remember all of their friends' telephone numbers. It is called convenience.

GL

You've proved my point perfectly. People DID remember phone numbers. Convenience is great so long as it doesn't make a society lazy. If you would argue that that is never the case today, you would be poorly mistaken. Read a copy of the Federalist Papers. Our linguistics and intelligence in many areas are hardly improving. We should simply be cautious in our dependence on such conveniences.

 

[tivoli2]

Again, you do not need to see your running applications at all times. So keep it simple and clean, stupid.

I really dig being told what I don't need to see.

Frankly, indicators of what's running are very handy for many reasons (and no, I'm not going to list them for you). Indicator lights are about as simple and (as they're designed now) unobtrusive as you can get. I'm running a desktop computer, not a mobile device, where that might make more sense.

 

[Lord Bodak]

And this leads to why "multitasking" was absent from iOS so long: most programs grossly abuse multitasking ability, being fully present/on/running when only a tiny task is really needed most of the time.

Sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's not. For iOS, Apple decided that the solution to the problem is to prevent true multitasking from happening. To an extent, this makes sense on a system with limited resources, like a phone or even the iPad. The concern here is that Apple is going to take that limitation to OS X instead of letting the developers of the applications decide what they want their applications to do.

 

[hayesk]

Again, why do the "common" users care ? I thought people here that were for this change said the lights weren't even noticed or used ? Why would they suddenly notice even more useful lights ?

You people aren't even making sense anymore.

As for Apple taking over managing your computer, if you're fine with it, that's your perogative. I'm not. I manage my own or I leave. They should force this upon the user, it should be an option and I bet it will be. This is just the surface and what people are imagining from screenshots. Apple has yet to make any announcements about these "feature removals".

I'll bet there will be more than one third party that will offer a status display utility that shows you what state all of your apps are in. For people who are more interested in what their computers are doing than what they are actually trying to do with their computers, there will utilities for them. The rest of us will just click on the app icons when we need them, and perform the tasks that we bought the computer to do in the first place.

At my company we publish fairly complex software (several background processes and a user app for display and configuration) that is used by a wide range of computer users. The ones who write tech support for help the most are those that are running the geeky system maintenance utilities, growl, CPU display menu extras, reinstalling their OS every couple of months for no reason (they think it is "cleaning their system"), repairing their permissions every week, etc. The ones who just install apps and use them have the least trouble.

 

[chugg]

I'm not inclined to agree with this because just on this forum alone people complain that they wish Apple would implement features from Windows 7 even though Windows is several steps backwards, IMO.

I wasn't aware that Windows could run apps "windowless", I know you can minimize the window, I've never known that you could close the window and the app still runs. How is that possible?

Uhh, the system tray has been in Windows for YEARS. I can't even remember when Outlook *didn't* close to the tray.

It's funny you call Windows several steps backwards without even knowing the basics of the OS.

 

[muncyweb]

I completely understand the concern over being able to see which programs are running - on first read I was a bit surprised myself. But after thinking about it, this makes complete sense. Especially now that we are seeing computers move to total Flash based storage. I see this as part of a transition into a platform where all of your apps are not always "running", but are always ready to run instantly. There will be no need to "launch" an app, and thus no need to "close" one. You simply use it when you need it.

Flash storage or not, I still would like to know when my 120MB Photoshop file and the Photoshop application is eating up my memory. Computers are smart enough to manage certain things, but their resources are hardly unlimited. Human intelligence is needed to know which apps take priority for the project(s) you are working on at the time.

 

[Eidorian]

And should we remove navigation systems from their cars? People should be able to use maps. Should cell phone remove address books? People used to remember all of their friends' telephone numbers. It is called convenience.

GL

You've proved my point perfectly. People DID remember phone numbers. Convenience is great so long as it doesn't make a society lazy. If you would argue that that is never the case today, you would be poorly mistaken. Read a copy of the Federalist Papers. Our linguistics and intelligence in many areas are hardly improving. We should simply be cautious in our dependence on such conveniences.

While I do love technology, I loathe becoming too dependent on it.

 

[Philotech]

Agreed. Apple should stop designing anything that requires intelligence. They should cater more toward a modern American publicly schooled audience instead.

Minds like that would make us return to card-programming huge machines in basements. Minds that are trying to stop any change because they are masters of what is and fear they might not be the same masters of what is about to come.

 

[flottenheimer]

While they're at it, they should move the dock to the left side of the screen as default.

With so much time being spent on surfing and mailing these days, I find vertical screen-real-estate being worth more and more. I am more than willing to sacrifice a few horisontal pixels for a better surfing/mailing experience.

(I know the dock can auto hide, but I somehow find that annoying).

 

[hayesk]

Sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's not. For iOS, Apple decided that the solution to the problem is to prevent true multitasking from happening. To an extent, this makes sense on a system with limited resources, like a phone or even the iPad. The concern here is that Apple is going to take that limitation to OS X instead of letting the developers of the applications decide what they want their applications to do.

That's a false concern. There's no evidence whatsoever that Apple will not let apps run and do their own processing in the background. There is only evidence that Apple is bringing the "autosave/pick up where you left off" capability to apps - which basically amounts to a few more notifications from the OS that developers can optionally take advantage of. This will only make your Mac run more efficiently.

I think you are reading a bit much from a lack of a "actively running" indicator in the dock.

 

[Lord Bodak]

Thanks, but that didn't answer my question. The poster I was responding to said in Microsoft Windows your apps can run without the window open. I know you can minimize, but I didn't know that it can work the same way as Mac by just closing the window and the app remains running? I was asking how was that possible is Windows?

Many Windows apps do it, usually by using an icon in the tray as a reminder to the user that it's running and to give you access to it (things like instant messaging programs). It's possible on Windows, it's just not the default behavior. On OS X, it's possible to have the app close when you close its last window, but it's not the default behavior.

 

[Philotech]

Wow, nice jump to a false conclusion. When Mail polls every five minutes (or whatever you set it to), it puts an NSTask in the run loop that says "run the check in 5 minutes from now". There's no reason the OS can not detect this and completely suspend the app for five minutes until it's time to come alive and check for mail again. The question is, why do you want mail running a run loop for five minutes for no reason whatsoever.

Or even better, NSTask or some other daemon could check for mail itself and if there is new mail put a badge on the dock icon (or provide a Growl-notification or whatever). Mail would only be suspended when the user clicks the icon.

 

[sigamy]

You nailed it. This is where I see Apple going. QuickView was the start. Do you remember seeing/using that feature for the first few times? It was amazing to see a Word doc without Word being open.

Apps will be opened/closed seamlessly. Your files will be saved, state will be saved. All things that an "operating system" should be doing for us.

It's 2010/2011 and you all want to "know which apps are running so you can close them when you want to do some heavy gaming or Photoshop". Do you see this is nuts! This is what the computer should be doing for you...

Lion is becoming more "just-do" OS. Don't worry about stuff like how much RAM is used, which apps are open, which ones are closed, etc. The apps resume feature will be amazing. No more waiting for something to load (I'm looking at Word bounce like 10 times before I can actually work). Lion won't differentiate what is "running" and what isn't. It'll likely save the app's state in a cache file, which can be used later on instead of reloading. It's much better because you don't have to fully quit the app whenever you close it. It's just saved somewhere on the HD (SSD is the future, but Apple's proprietary kind not the traditional SSD). That'll take some space, but if Apple cleans up code then there will be extra space gained from that.

Imagine you accidentally quit Pages or iPhoto. Instead of re-launching and waiting for it to load again, you can just go back to where you left off. That's super convenient and saves so much time. We're finally moving away form worrying about hardware resources to software resources. Apple is taking some risks but I think it'll all work out.

 

[muncyweb]

Minds like that would make us return to card-programming huge machines in basements. Minds that are trying to stop any change because they are masters of what is and fear they might not be the same masters of what is about to come.

I'm a web designer and have been using Apple's products since the Lisa 2. I hardly fear being able to master "what is about to come", especially if you won't even have to think while using it..lol.

 

[blackpond]

Flash storage or not, I still would like to know when my 120MB Photoshop file and the Photoshop application is eating up my memory. Computers are smart enough to manage certain things, but their resources are hardly unlimited. Human intelligence is needed to know which apps take priority for the project(s) you are working on at the time.

With the OS options we have today I completely agree. But I believe if executed properly, a revised OS could handle this just as well if not better than the user is able to.

 

[GroundLoop]

Nice of them to provide the option right ?

Yes. In previous versions of Mac OS though, the user was forced to manage the memory pool for each of the applications. When that went away, the power user was very upset. Now those same users, wouldn't want to deal with the headache of memory management.

If Apple starts taking over process management, and they do it well (or well enough and keep tweaking it over time), the power users of today (which I am one) will wonder why we wanted to deal with the headache of process management.

GL

 

[Lord Bodak]

That's a false concern. There's no evidence whatsoever that Apple will not let apps run and do their own processing in the background. There is only evidence that Apple is bringing the "autosave/pick up where you left off" capability to apps - which basically amounts to a few more notifications from the OS that developers can optionally take advantage of. This will only make your Mac run more efficiently.

I think you are reading a bit much from a lack of a "actively running" indicator in the dock.

The discussion has gone past the dock indicators. We were discussing the idea that the OS is going to suspend anything running in the background to get it out of RAM, therefore saying that you don't "need" to know what's running because everything will return to its last state whether it was running or not.

If the OS starts auto-suspending tasks (which seems to be a popular theory here), how will the OS know that certain tasks can't be suspended automatically because they're doing things in the background?

If Apple really is going this way, the key piece needs to be-- software must explicitly be programmed to tell the OS what criteria needs to be met for it can be auto-suspended, and anything that doesn't tell the OS this information is left alone to work normally.

 

[Philotech]

sleep(); usleep(); on the polling process. No need to eat cycles when you don't have to.

Finally. We're getting close.
See, you Sleep and Unsleep an app. So an app sleeping, is it running or not? Does it matter if it's running or not? And a multi-threaded app, is it running when it has 10 out of 10 threads, 5/10, 1/10 or one deamon which, technically, is a system daemon and belongs to the OS? Is it running when the daemon runs and the app's memory is paged out? Or if its state-related memory is saved in a separate file and the program code is only in the .app bundle files?
When would you remove the dot? Does it matter when you remove it? If paging in or loading from the bundle is not noticeable different? And why should I care as a user?

 

[GroundLoop]

While I do love technology, I loathe becoming too dependent on it.

Yeah. Looking forward to a Zion-like machine that runs our planet that no one is capable of repairing or modifying.

GL

 

[moderately]

and then they change it to microsoft? i am scared of 10.7. maybe it's time to switch to some other platform.

You won't have to

 

[Eidorian]

Yeah. Looking forward to a Zion-like machine that runs our planet that no one is capable of repairing or modifying.

GL

Certain grimdark futures did come to mind. I don't expect every person to be capable enough to handle every process behind what they use but ceding nearly all of your natural abilities to technology because of laziness is a great waste of humanity.

 

[GroundLoop]

Certain grimdark futures did come to mind. I don't expect every person to be capable enough to handle every process behind what they use but ceding nearly all of your natural abilities to technology because of laziness is a great waste of humanity.

Understand the viewpoint, but I wouldn't exactly call it laziness. I call it freeing ourselves from tasks that are outside of our area of expertise to concentrate on higher order issues within our skillset.

There will always be individuals that specialize in the tasks that most others take for granted.

GL

 

[Jon the Heretic]

Fraid not

Exactly. Jon the Heretic proving himself wrong and proving that it is totally irrelevant if an app is technically running or not as long as it's back again when it's needed.

Afraid not. The multitasking bar/switching tray does show all recent items but in that list are ALL of the apps which are using multitasking services (actively using system resources). If you hold down you can Cancel that app and free up memory and CPU resources (Quit the app)--it stops using the multitasking services. Otherwise, apps are auto removed once you start to run out of memory.

So yes, iOS does show which apps are 'running' (actively consuming system resources)---and you can CANCEL them! But like the Dock it shows those and some recent apps that aren't consuming resources as well for relaunching purposes (probably because either they don't need of the services or haven't been rewritten to support multitasking yet).

 

[muncyweb]

With the OS options we have today I completely agree. But I believe if executed properly, a revised OS could handle this just as well if not better than the user is able to.

Using my example of the 120MB Photoshop file, I would be quite curious as to how this would be accomplished aside from either a warning box telling you that you're running out of memory, allowing you to then make a choice of what you want to quit or close (sounds like a revisit to OS 9). Or perhaps utilizing the sheer speed of opening documents on the flash storage device to constantly open and close them when needed. But to do this, you would need to be able to open documents at the same speed as already having them opened up in RAM. Or maybe in the future we could have every document on our computer opened in RAM all the time? That would be wild. That method would seem a bit wasteful of resources.

 

[Eidorian]

Understand the viewpoint, but I wouldn't exactly call it laziness. I call it freeing ourselves from tasks that are outside of our area of expertise to concentrate on higher order issues within our skillset.

There will always be individuals that specialize in the tasks that most others take for granted.

GL

I appreciate your input on the issue. Regretfully, I wish more people did use the additional freedom more wisely.