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Mac OS X Lion Notes: iOS Scroll Bars, Any Corner Resizing, Dock Changes
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To expand on what you wrote --
OS X has true multitasking where every open app eats up real RAM. iOS, OTOH, essentially has marketing dept. multitasking. It will save where you left off but a user can still only have one iApp running at a time. There is no need for memory management w/ iApps.
OTOH a user who can't afford to load up their machine w/ 24GB of RAM -- or doesn't have a machine that will support that much RAM -- might have to decide to shut down a few apps when starting up Final Cut or CS5. I know I do. Personally I use the dock to launch and shut down, so this is more than a huge inconvenience, it's a "Human Factors" blunder.
The puzzling thing here is that it's not like these indicator lights require heavy coding. It's clearly a power play on Apple's part to heard us users into their box of thinking -- quite the opposite from asking users to Think Different. Hmm.
So if it isn't innovative, Apple can't put it in their product? Or is it that everyone noticing the feature has to list everyone who may have implemented it prior to Apple before noting that Apple has it too.
Hmmm.. people really need to see what apps are running.
People don't need the system slowing down people there's 1000s apps running at once.
Additionally, I don't need OSX to manage what applications are open - I certainly don't need OSX closing apps not me automatically for resource management purposes. I dislike the task management in IOS 4 - where I DO have to worry about what apps are running - despite what SJ thinks - I'm constantly having to go into there are closing apps otherwise games start running slowly.
IMO, its not really a problem... however, just IMO, not yours. What is a the problem - *How* will OSX know that an app isn't used anymore? This doesn't happen by some magic... An app may be chilling out in the background for a reason...
Apple had better handle this right otherwise - otherwise OSX will be an unusable mess.
I expect applications to take advantage of the auto save feature will have to be coded to do so - 'legacy' applications ( i.e., pre 10.7 ) will not support this and will be managed in the same way as OSX10.7 specific apps.
People don't need the system slowing down people there's 1000s apps running at once.
Additionally, I don't need OSX to manage what applications are open - I certainly don't need OSX closing apps not me automatically for resource management purposes. I dislike the task management in IOS 4 - where I DO have to worry about what apps are running - despite what SJ thinks - I'm constantly having to go into there are closing apps otherwise games start running slowly.
IMO, its not really a problem... however, just IMO, not yours. What is a the problem - *How* will OSX know that an app isn't used anymore? This doesn't happen by some magic... An app may be chilling out in the background for a reason...
Apple had better handle this right otherwise - otherwise OSX will be an unusable mess.
I expect applications to take advantage of the auto save feature will have to be coded to do so - 'legacy' applications ( i.e., pre 10.7 ) will not support this and will be managed in the same way as OSX10.7 specific apps.
App behavior / "Running" apps / Dock dots
That's a misconception of the whole idea. Of course you can't and Apple won't take the current application management system and just get rid of the blue dots.
The concept is that I as a user shouldn't need to care whether an app is "running" (what does that even mean?) or not. Right now, it does make a difference because the App opens a lot faster if it is "running", can do certain things (receive e-mails) only as long as it is "running" and retains certain settings only as long as it is "running". If Apple does away with that, why should I need to care, and consequently, why should I need to know if an app is running. See FaceTime: I can receive calls (via push notification) even if it's not running. Same will apply for Mail. I will get the badge and, if I wish, probably some sort of Growl (or Growl-like) notification, and then I click on the Mail App icon. Should I care if it was "running" before? What does "running" or "not running" even mean if I get the notification and can switch to Mail instantly?
OS X will take care of everything in the background. I.e. switching away from Mail will keep it "running" in the traditional sense for a while (Phase 1). After a while, most of the program code will be swapped out (just as it is today; Phase 2). After an even longer while, its state will be saved, Swap will be cleared and the processor threads will be stopped (Phase 3). All will occur transparently, if supported by the app. Of course, switching back to Mail will be very fast in Phase 1, a lot slower in Phase 2, and even slower in Phase 3 (but in return, all the way during Phase 3 the other apps will have been more responsive, so it's a trade-off, similar to Phase 2).
CMD-TAB will probably show (1) all open documents and (2) the most recently used apps, regardless of which state they are in. Same will apply to Mission Control.
With the concept above, there are of course some issues remaining, in particular with apps that are not document-centric (such as Calendar, Address Book etc). How can be made sure that even if the "document" (ie the calendar view of a week) is closed the app remains accessible through Mission Control, even if it hasn't been used for a while.
This is a considerable usability degradation. I often use the lights under active apps to determine whether or not a need to launch or can just switch.
But it appears that Apple has retained the ugly and pointless 3D effect of the dock.
That's a misconception of the whole idea. Of course you can't and Apple won't take the current application management system and just get rid of the blue dots.
The concept is that I as a user shouldn't need to care whether an app is "running" (what does that even mean?) or not. Right now, it does make a difference because the App opens a lot faster if it is "running", can do certain things (receive e-mails) only as long as it is "running" and retains certain settings only as long as it is "running". If Apple does away with that, why should I need to care, and consequently, why should I need to know if an app is running. See FaceTime: I can receive calls (via push notification) even if it's not running. Same will apply for Mail. I will get the badge and, if I wish, probably some sort of Growl (or Growl-like) notification, and then I click on the Mail App icon. Should I care if it was "running" before? What does "running" or "not running" even mean if I get the notification and can switch to Mail instantly?
OS X will take care of everything in the background. I.e. switching away from Mail will keep it "running" in the traditional sense for a while (Phase 1). After a while, most of the program code will be swapped out (just as it is today; Phase 2). After an even longer while, its state will be saved, Swap will be cleared and the processor threads will be stopped (Phase 3). All will occur transparently, if supported by the app. Of course, switching back to Mail will be very fast in Phase 1, a lot slower in Phase 2, and even slower in Phase 3 (but in return, all the way during Phase 3 the other apps will have been more responsive, so it's a trade-off, similar to Phase 2).
CMD-TAB will probably show (1) all open documents and (2) the most recently used apps, regardless of which state they are in. Same will apply to Mission Control.
With the concept above, there are of course some issues remaining, in particular with apps that are not document-centric (such as Calendar, Address Book etc). How can be made sure that even if the "document" (ie the calendar view of a week) is closed the app remains accessible through Mission Control, even if it hasn't been used for a while.
No. You will be receiving mail regardless of Mail "running" or not. See FaceTime: People can call you even if FaceTime is not "running". There might be a switch to turn on or off receiving mail (or more likely: receiving notifications for incoming mail), but I doubt it. Using apps in full-screen mode probably will turn notifications off.
My Hopes
This may be straying from the topic a little, but... If we are going to have a mac store, and iOS features are coming to the mac. Then hopefully we will have the privilege of running both iOS and traditional mac apps on the mac. I have a lot of apps on my iphone and ipad, that I would love to be able to also have on my mac. With the ability to auto-sync the data between my mac and ipad (as soon as I connect it to my mac) - so I can have my information everywhere in one app. never mind all these little programs to sync my ToDo with my iCal, and having to keep syncing my pages docs, my bookstore docs with my e-reader on my mac, etc....
With my iphone/ipad, the only thing I need my mac for now is heavy photo/video editing, burning DVD's for permanent backup or creating digital memories for people, and running pro-presentor.
I know other people use it for more, but I am not running heavy databases. Most of my stuff can be accomplished with Bento (for now - but upgrading to filemaker, and filemaker is already available on the iOS in the form of FMTouch).
This may be straying from the topic a little, but... If we are going to have a mac store, and iOS features are coming to the mac. Then hopefully we will have the privilege of running both iOS and traditional mac apps on the mac. I have a lot of apps on my iphone and ipad, that I would love to be able to also have on my mac. With the ability to auto-sync the data between my mac and ipad (as soon as I connect it to my mac) - so I can have my information everywhere in one app. never mind all these little programs to sync my ToDo with my iCal, and having to keep syncing my pages docs, my bookstore docs with my e-reader on my mac, etc....
With my iphone/ipad, the only thing I need my mac for now is heavy photo/video editing, burning DVD's for permanent backup or creating digital memories for people, and running pro-presentor.
I know other people use it for more, but I am not running heavy databases. Most of my stuff can be accomplished with Bento (for now - but upgrading to filemaker, and filemaker is already available on the iOS in the form of FMTouch).
Another example is iTunes. I've configured everyone's iTunes in my house to point at a shared folder (to avoid copying the lions share of 4GB of music for every login). The main problem with that is that whomever has it open has it locked. So if I want it open on my account, I have to switch to anyone else who may have it open and shut it down on theirs.
It would help to have an indicator of whether or not it was running when I switched to their account.
iOS Scrollbars
I noticed that in the demo that some scroll bars were gone and I saw a faint black line disappear. I think this is a good thing if you can still put your cursor to the side of the window and have it show up. For instance, my old Mighty Mouse is broken a bit. The scroll ball doesn't work. So we have to drag the bar up and down. If it does that in Lion, then that's great. If not, well... that kinda sucks. Luckily I don't use that mouse anyway.
I noticed that in the demo that some scroll bars were gone and I saw a faint black line disappear. I think this is a good thing if you can still put your cursor to the side of the window and have it show up. For instance, my old Mighty Mouse is broken a bit. The scroll ball doesn't work. So we have to drag the bar up and down. If it does that in Lion, then that's great. If not, well... that kinda sucks. Luckily I don't use that mouse anyway.
Wow - resizable windows, "full-screen" mode - hardly innovative - in fact it was do or die for apple - essential to keep up with microsoft.
Prior to windows 7 being released OS X was so far ahead in many ways (speed, the dock, ease of software installation, sexier looking machines,less virus threat (but changing rapidly), snob value, iLife for free, less need to be a geek that can tinker with the registry just to get your windows software to work etc) that people were willing to overlook the things that windows did much better - like MUCH better picture browsing built into the OS (using preview to open one picture at a time is just PAINFUL), full screen mode (present since at least win95 - 15 years - in windows) and windows resizeable from anywhere (NB in windows it is still better - resize from anywhere on the side or bottom as well), and not to mention the immense base of software available for windows - much of it for free - that is often just not available for the mac.
With windows 7 the Mac no longer had the speed advantage and the geek factor previously needed for PC was also reduced, the windows 7 system was more resistant to virus attacks, and compatibility was made better both with earlier windows and hardware. At the same time Macs became cheaper and hence less exclusive so snob value fell somewhat. Increased market share and cheaper Macs, and increasing use of Java as a means of virus attacks meant that Macs started being targeted by virus writers more and more. At the same time HP, Sony, and Dell started embracing the style factor that apple had been harnessing for years.
So Apple just had to try and fix up the burning sores for those of us that had moved from PC - full screen windows and easily re-sizeable windows. That was just to catch up. The Mac app store and IOS type interface was essential to try to get ahead again - by trying to leverage some of the euphoria about the IOS systems.
Prior to windows 7 being released OS X was so far ahead in many ways (speed, the dock, ease of software installation, sexier looking machines,less virus threat (but changing rapidly), snob value, iLife for free, less need to be a geek that can tinker with the registry just to get your windows software to work etc) that people were willing to overlook the things that windows did much better - like MUCH better picture browsing built into the OS (using preview to open one picture at a time is just PAINFUL), full screen mode (present since at least win95 - 15 years - in windows) and windows resizeable from anywhere (NB in windows it is still better - resize from anywhere on the side or bottom as well), and not to mention the immense base of software available for windows - much of it for free - that is often just not available for the mac.
With windows 7 the Mac no longer had the speed advantage and the geek factor previously needed for PC was also reduced, the windows 7 system was more resistant to virus attacks, and compatibility was made better both with earlier windows and hardware. At the same time Macs became cheaper and hence less exclusive so snob value fell somewhat. Increased market share and cheaper Macs, and increasing use of Java as a means of virus attacks meant that Macs started being targeted by virus writers more and more. At the same time HP, Sony, and Dell started embracing the style factor that apple had been harnessing for years.
So Apple just had to try and fix up the burning sores for those of us that had moved from PC - full screen windows and easily re-sizeable windows. That was just to catch up. The Mac app store and IOS type interface was essential to try to get ahead again - by trying to leverage some of the euphoria about the IOS systems.
Blue Dots / Lights
Very rarely do I look at my dock. I never noticed them until you all pointed it out today. Even with having 5-7 applications open at once, I never had to worry about my system. The only degradation I seen was when I had Parallels and Windows installed and ran them. My 2008 macbook is only capable of 2gb of Ram and Parallels and Windows took up 160gb on the hard-drive just for the 3 applications I have that have no good mac equivalent yet (or at least not an equivalent for the type of features I use).
Once I uninstalled Parallels and Windows, my system went back to running like it was brand new again. Just now I have to suffer with a very slow Lenovo for the few times i need my Windows apps.
And my system is already set up - I am not going through the hassle of reconfiguring, formatting the hard drive and starting over on everything to load bootcamp.
Very rarely do I look at my dock. I never noticed them until you all pointed it out today.
Even with having 5-7 applications open at once, I never had to worry about my system. The only degradation I seen was when I had Parallels and Windows installed and ran them. My 2008 macbook is only capable of 2gb of Ram and Parallels and Windows took up 160gb on the hard-drive just for the 3 applications I have that have no good mac equivalent yet (or at least not an equivalent for the type of features I use).Once I uninstalled Parallels and Windows, my system went back to running like it was brand new again. Just now I have to suffer with a very slow Lenovo for the few times i need my Windows apps.
And my system is already set up - I am not going through the hassle of reconfiguring, formatting the hard drive and starting over on everything to load bootcamp.
That's just plain false. As a user, I very much need to care whether an app is running. I want tasks to run in certain cases and not in others. That should not be up to some logic in the system, unless I can define very strict business logic myself, which is counter intuitive to just simply managing the apps myself.
Again, for those just tuning in : Running Skype/Transmission/MSN at work is a sure fire way to get my machine tagged by network security. I need to make sure those apps are stopped. The Blue Lights™ are there to tell me what to stop before plugging in the Ethernet cable. Having to do keystroke or mouse gestures is a step back in usability to this.
When Tethering on my iPhone with limited data plan, I want to make sure apps that use network bandwidth periodically but that I don't need at the moment are shutdown to prevent unnecessary billing from my phone company.
I'm not saying Apple won't come up with something different and more intuitive, but in the context of this rumor, they didn't.
How does the little dot tell you anything about the situation? Apps like torrent apps (Transmission, e.g.) already give you information through their labels.
That being said, if Apple goes through this (and I can see them pulling back, but warning folks that iw will happen in 10.8) it surely indicates the arrival of persistent push notification for all apps.
I could see this working well if i had 64gb of ram in my MBP. What are they going to do about the amount of memory its going to use?
It wouldnt make it much faster because the program will have to loaded off the hard disk back into RAM, same as when launching the program from fresh. The only advantage is that all the windows and things you had opened previously will be in the same place.
And push notification is just a crude hack for systems that don't support preemptive multi-tasking.
Why are we going back to 80s computing ?
Why are people even welcoming this ?
10.8 spoilers!!
This is excellent. This means we know now about a future feature of 10.8, when Apple restores the state of running apps in the Dock. It is so unlike Apple to reveal key UI features 2 releases ahead like this...
This is excellent. This means we know now about a future feature of 10.8, when Apple restores the state of running apps in the Dock. It is so unlike Apple to reveal key UI features 2 releases ahead like this...
...some without restricting you grabbing a corner - resize by grabbing anywhere on the window border.
I won't miss the blue lights for one simple reason. Until I read this thread I didn't even know they existed lol. Can't believe I've never noticed that.
Mind you, my dock is set to auto-hide and I rarely ever actually look at it. Always Command+Tab to check running apps.
Mind you, my dock is set to auto-hide and I rarely ever actually look at it. Always Command+Tab to check running apps.
"Do or Die"? You really believe that?
Besides, this was just a "sneak peek". IF you know anything about Apple's past, you will know that there are tons they havent shown us yet.
But Apple like consistency in design (Well, sort of. *cough* iTunes)
So they won't release things like the scrollbars for Snow Leopard.
Also, if you *really* want this sort of minor update, why don't you download ThemePark and edit the graphics yourself? Make the buttons and scrollbar background transparent and the actual blue bar grey and a bit smaller.
Then bam! You have it, just it always displays.
[I might release this after my final year exams are over, 10th Nov. If it works.]
Push notification isn't a substitute for multi-tasking, where apps *need* to be running in the background.
Additionally, existing apps will need to be re-written in order to take advantage of this - so before they are, there will still need to be a visual indicator.