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

[cmaier]

i'm looking forward to Lion, but i sure hope that they add a lot more than this. they really need to make some serious changes to UI

Why?

 

[SandynJosh]

I like being able to resize windows only from the bottom-right corner : the text in the window doesn't move when done that way.

Then, only use that corner. Sheesh!

 

[Fraaaa]

I really don't think the OS is gonna take away the command+q from the user.

In any case there's Activity Monitor, just get to it and force quit an app if you really want.

We don't know much about how state saving works exactly, yet.

In fact has been used during the keynote when mission control was presented to close Pages.

 

[SandynJosh]

Unimpressed with Lion so far. I know it's still over a year away, but... there's no "Wow" factor about it so far.
Fail.

Ummm...nine months away.

There is a "WOW" factor with Lion, in that I see an abundance of idiots gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair over the tinniest changes in OSX to include features from iOS. "WOW!!!" Twenty one pages of angst!!

 

[Fraaaa]

I agree with all you guys - that was stupid move by Hope they would do that optional, too.

From Apple site on Lion:

Mission Control is a powerful and handy new feature that provides you with a comprehensive view of what’s running on your Mac. It gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything — including Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard and full-screen apps — all in one place. With a simple swipe gesture, your desktop zooms out to Mission Control.

As said before, stop bitching about it. You people cry for nothing.

If you don't want ANY innovation go back to Windows 95. Seriously.

 

[KnightWRX]

If you don't want ANY innovation go back to Windows 95. Seriously.

That's the point, removing features without providing alternatives is hardly innovation. It's dumbing down and taking steps backwards. I don't think anyone upset over this rumor if it proves true is against innovation, just against bad ideas that remove functionality.

 

[Fraaaa]

From Apple site on Lion:

Mission Control is a powerful and handy new feature that provides you with a comprehensive view of what’s running on your Mac. It gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything — including Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard and full-screen apps — all in one place. With a simple swipe gesture, your desktop zooms out to Mission Control.

As said before, stop bitching about it. You people cry for nothing.

If you don't want ANY innovation go back to Windows 95. Seriously.

That's the point, removing features without providing alternatives is hardly innovation. It's dumbing down and taking steps backwards. I don't think anyone upset over this rumor if it proves true is against innovation, just against bad ideas that remove functionality.

Removed feature: running app light.
Provided alternative: mission control.

Mission control: a new feature that provides a view of what's running on your Mac with a simple swipe gesture.

And on top of this I'll add more:

current OSX: go down with the mouse on the dock to show the dock if hiding and/or click on the app that you want to close.

Lion: three finger swipe down shows all the app running, click on the app that you want close.

So: cursor down to show dock from hiding vs three finger swipes. How this is complicated?

This is as comfortable as the two finger swiping to scroll, and thanks to this feature I won't be needing to get to my favourite button on the Mac: F3.

 

[iBug2]

Removed feature: running app light.
Provided alternative: mission control.

Mission control: a new feature that provides a view of what's running on your Mac with a simple swipe gesture.

And on top of this I'll add more:

current OSX: go down with the mouse on the dock to show the dock if hiding and/or click on the app that you want to close.

Lion: three finger swipe down shows all the app running, click on the app that you want close.

So: cursor down to show dock from hiding vs three finger swipes. How this is complicated?

This is as comfortable as the two finger swiping to scroll, and thanks to this feature I won't be needing to get to my favourite button on the Mac: F3.

All that is fine except that they easily could have left the dock app lights be. If they are removing all indications of whether an app is on or off, that's a design decision. But if you can check if an app is on by some method but can't by another method, it's inconsistent imho.

But I agree that shutting down apps from mission control seems faster than doing it from the dock. After all, mission control is an interface designed to cover the entire screen with only the apps running, giving you a much better view of what is running. Dock is way too crowded. It's like they made a special section of the dock, where each running application "slides", and you can see them grouped up together.

It's great innovation nevertheless, but I'd still prefer the dock to keep the lights just for consistency.

 

[jncoanalog]

Ah yeah...some of you need to go read some of Jef Raskin's work on the original plan for the Macintosh. The computer for the rest of us.

Jef wanted to build a computer as easy to use as a toaster. Steve Jobs took this plan and pushed it forward.

I imagine that it kills Jobs that we still have file systems, utilities to defrag disks, command lines (Terminal), software "installation", memory to manage, Activity Monitor, etc.

Apple wants to make killer machines and software that allow people to do great work. Things that allow people to create and consume information and media.

Apple wants the "computer" to disappear, to get out of the way. This has been the Mac's vision from the beginning. We are getting closer and closer. I honestly, find it hard to believe this many of you have a problem with it.

Do you really think Apple wants to prevent you from getting work done? From being productive and creative?

I see a similar path to that of iMovie. Many (most) iMovie loyalists and power users hated (hate) iMovie '08 - '11. I was an iMovie power user and while I still do miss some 3rd party plugins, I use and enjoy the new iMovie. I can get stuff done even faster. I can create beautiful movies and slide shows with no effort wasted on the "how". I just spend time on the "what". That is a beautiful thing.

I don't need to know about engine timing, gear ratios, fuel mixtures and air intake to enjoy a nice country back road in my sports car. I get to enjoy the ride...

you, my friend, are a wise man (or woman?)! LOL

i totally agree they want "the computer to disappear" and i surelly hope they achieve it quickly... i think of the future macs "disappearing" as much as the quicktime X interface does when you don't need it, or the scroll bars in iOS for example. Imagine having just the screen floating in front of your eyes and the keyboard/trackpad sitting in the table

 

[Fraaaa]

All that is fine except that they easily could have left the dock app lights be. If they are removing all indications of whether an app is on or off, that's a design decision.

I agree, it doesn't cost anything to leave that be: however, in my opinion Apple wants you to integrate with mission control and having both the lights and mission control wouldn't be consistent too.

The fact is that we are affectionated to those lights, and we'll miss them, but I bet not for long. When people tend to be used on something they scream scandal when that is removed off them, this is silly and happens all the time.

 

[zkhrhm]

All that is fine except that they easily could have left the dock app lights be. If they are removing all indications of whether an app is on or off, that's a design decision. But if you can check if an app is on by some method but can't by another method, it's inconsistent imho.

But I agree that shutting down apps from mission control seems faster than doing it from the dock. After all, mission control is an interface designed to cover the entire screen with only the apps running, giving you a much better view of what is running. Dock is way too crowded. It's like they made a special section of the dock, where each running application "slides", and you can see them grouped up together.

It's great innovation nevertheless, but I'd still prefer the dock to keep the lights just for consistency.

Consistency with what? Now you're really stretching.

 

[KnightWRX]

Removed feature: running app light.
Provided alternative: mission control.

Mission control requires keystroke to see which apps are running. It's not an alternative to the dock lights.

 

[Fraaaa]

Mission control requires keystroke to see which apps are running. It's not an alternative to the dock lights.

I will agree to that if you don't have an hiding dock; however, it still an alternative, as also cmd-tab and task manager. Some are more comfortable than other, that's all.

 

[krzyglue]

Nope it's not. Not swapping in RAM, but swapping in the proprietary SSD (MBA one) that Apple will put in future Macs. It's like a stick of RAM remember? SSD will essentially become "RAM". Or rather, when you exit the app it will save it's current state to a cache file of some sort onto the SSD or HD. Then when it is opened again, it will start from that cache. Before, you wanted to minimize swapping because flash was expensive as heck. Now, prices are dropping but Apple's proprietary SSD is even cheaper due to lack of certain components found in traditional SSDs. I think Apple will have their special SSD that is currently in the MBAs in all the Macs. Transfer speeds will be as fast as RAM and most of your data will be stored in the cloud in iDisk or something similar to that.

I hope you know that any SSD (even the Intel or the Sandforce ones) pale in comparison to modern high-speed RAM when it comes to random read/writes.

FYI what you described is exactly what swap space is: moving portions of what should be written to RAM onto the hard drive- it's really slow, even with an SSD.

 

[iBug2]

Consistency with what? Now you're really stretching.

Consistency in design philosophy. Either Apple doesn't want us to know whether an app is open or not, or they do.

In Lion, we can still see which apps are "open" by looking at mission control, but not by looking at dock.

That's inconsistent.

 

[iBug2]

Mission control requires keystroke to see which apps are running. It's not an alternative to the dock lights.

Yes but in terms of milliseconds it's still a faster way to see which apps are running. Among dozens of dock icons, until you can realize which ones are lit up, you can tap a key and have only those ones pop up on your screen.

Even right now it's faster to see which apps are running by hitting command+tab, compared to looking at dock.

 

[Fraaaa]

Ah yeah...some of you need to go read some of Jef Raskin's work on the original plan for the Macintosh. The computer for the rest of us.

Jef Raskin on "Intuitive interfaces".

I performed a deliberate experiment some years ago using one of the early Apple Macintosh computers. I loaded a children’s program, The Manhole, where user interaction is strictly (and cleverly) limited to "clicking" on various places on an image. Clicking consists of moving the cursor to some location on the screen by moving the mouse on a surface and momentarily pressing the only button on the mouse. Clicking on certain places yields a new screen. This cold description does not express the delight most people find in running The Manhole program, but that is not relevant here.

My subject was an intelligent, computer-literate, university-trained teacher visiting from Finland who had not seen a mouse or any advertising or literature about it. With the program running, I pointed to the mouse, said it was "a mouse", and that one used it to operate the program. Her first act was to lift the mouse and move it about in the air. She discovered the ball on the bottom, held the mouse upside down, and proceeded to turn the ball. However, in this position the ball is not riding on the position pick-offs and it does nothing. After shaking it, and making a number of other attempts at finding a way to use it, she gave up and asked me how it worked. She had never seen anything where you moved the whole object rather than some part of it (like the joysticks she had previously used with computers): it was not intuitive. She also did not intuit that the large raised area on top was a button.

A keystroke? How quaint!
"Hello computer"

Thanks for the reading

 

[KnightWRX]

I will agree to that if you don't have an hiding dock; however, it still an alternative, as also cmd-tab and task manager. Some are more comfortable than other, that's all.

No, it's not an alternative. It doesn't provide a quick visual cue about which apps are running. We already have CMD-TAB, Activity Monitor, we already have Mission control for cripe's sake. It's just called Expose and Spaces today.

An alternative would not require input. As it stands, removing the dock lights is removing features without providing any new visual cues. It's not innovation at all.

Look, I use Spaces a lot and I welcome Mission control. But you're not selling me on it being an alternative to the dock lights.

 

[calderone]

Mission control requires keystroke to see which apps are running. It's not an alternative to the dock lights.

I didn't read the whole thread. But aren't you all just assuming the dock lights are not coming back?

Maybe they are just working on new dock lights and didn't include them (or any) here?

 

[KnightWRX]

I didn't read the whole thread. But aren't you all just assuming the dock lights are not coming back?

Maybe they are just working on new dock lights and didn't include them (or any) here?

Seriously ? I think this is what is happening, because just removing the lights with no obvious alternative makes no sense. And you know what ? I'll go even farther. iTunes gives us a clue to what the new dock lights are.

You know those maligned black and white icons ? Those are the new dock lights. Later Lion builds will show the dock full of black and white icons and they will colorize when you launch an app. Colored icons = running app.

 

[Fraaaa]

No, it's not an alternative. It doesn't provide a quick visual cue about which apps are running. We already have CMD-TAB, Activity Monitor, we already have Mission control for cripe's sake. It's just called Expose and Spaces today.

An alternative would not require input. As it stands, removing the dock lights is removing features without providing any new visual cues. It's not innovation at all.

Look, I use Spaces a lot and I welcome Mission control. But you're not selling me on it being an alternative to the dock lights.

alternative |ôlˈtərnətiv|
adjective [ attrib. ]
(of one or more things) available as another possibility:
• (of two things) mutually exclusive;
• of or relating to behavior that is considered unconventional and is often seen as a challenge to traditional norms.

noun
one of two or more available possibilities.



By definition is an alternative.
If you don't accept it as an alternative is going to be a completly different argument.

 

[fel10]

"Lion" feels more like a downgrade than an upgrade. Why fix something that isn't broken???

 

[Fraaaa]

Seriously ? I think this is what is happening, because just removing the lights with no obvious alternative makes no sense. And you know what ? I'll go even farther. iTunes gives us a clue to what the new dock lights are.

You know those maligned black and white icons ? Those are the new dock lights. Later Lion builds will show the dock full of black and white icons and they will colorize when you launch an app. Colored icons = running app.

You are being drastic now. Beside you still can stick to Snow Leopard.
People have been living with Leopard too.

 

[celticpride678]

You know those maligned black and white icons ? Those are the new dock lights. Later Lion builds will show the dock full of black and white icons and they will colorize when you launch an app. Colored icons = running app.

That would actually be kind of interesting...

 

[heisetax]

I never knew the light was there

I agree - maybe they're trying to come up with a better notification system because the little light at the bottom can be difficult to notice especially for new comers to the Mac platform.

I've used Mac OS X since the first beta version came out. So time using OS X doesn't seem to be the problem. I have my dock appear only when I am to the left margin of my multiple screen setup. It is on a screen that is not always on. For this reason & that I use DragStrip to launch my programs I didn't even know about the light showing a running program existed.