From reading all of peoples' issues, I wish Apple would list things they intended to happen. Maybe some things needed to be swapped (like if you have an application downloaded, maybe Lion works 100% with something else), or maybe certain features that seem buggy were intended, with the original application/features. They can't know about everyone's particular connection or what they are using in lieu of Safari, etc. But maybe some features, like having to reselect wifi when your MBP wake up was intentional, just as an example. Instead of bashing it, keep in mind that many of the issues that seem to be posted here are because the users use alternatives that Apple might see as unnecessary and intend to play with. Just food for thought, but I'm bias because I didn't customize my Mac, or download anything new until after Lion (I only had it for a couple of weeks prior). Anybody agree?
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Maybe it's not Lion
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people are not running into problems with Snow Leopard and they are with Lion.
Also from the depth and breadth of threads here, its quite evident that we're not talking about stuff that is peculiar or arcane but rather normal usage.
That depends on your definition of problem. People are running into "problems" and posting threads on here because things work differently in Lion than they do in Snow Leopard sometimes. About half the threads I see in the Lion forum are about how to get application x to go back to the way it worked in Snow Leopard. Many of those threads include mission control and wanting it to work like spaces or expose in snow leopard, which, quite frankly, aren't going to happen. Some people perceive the way things work in Lion as a "bug" when in reality that was it's intended function. Changes are not all bad, people need to give themselves time to adapt to Lion before they run to the forums and post a new thread.
- Yeah, having you windows cover each other in Mission Control so that you can't drag them to a new Space is a feature. Yes, there is App Expose, but that takes you out of Mission Control and now you can't drag your windows to a new Space. Yes, this a great feature.
- Not having a little month calendar that lets you quickly glance at the month is a feature.
- Not being able to drag windows between Spaces in a dual monitor set up is a feature.
- Not being able to see your groups, lists and individual contacts at the same time in Address Book is a great feature. I think it is great that we but an arbitrary 2 column limit on information display because my quad core computer could never handle that much information.
- Full screen graying out my second monitor is somehow a feature also.
- No skip all files command in Finder is also great. There is nothing better than copying 9 gigs of data to replace thirty 2 Mb files instead of having to code Finder with the basic smarts to do what it has done for years is definitely a feature.
- And I love how "Save As" is now "Duplicate" so that I get to close an extra window for no good reason.
These are not bugs nor features, they are lazy programming. Apple used to make simple looking programs that were actually very powerful if you needed them to be. Now they just make simple programs.
Apple is notorious for implementing solutions for problems that don't exist.
We're not stupid and don't need weeks to "adapt" to a change that's obviously inferior. Within 5 seconds a person can see that MC as a whole provides much less functionality than it's individual counterparts did under Snow Leopard.
This.
Never had to back down an OS before due to system wide, business critical issues; until Lion.
It's going to be a long time before I make that mistake again.
My definition of problems is that it works in 10.6 and fails to work in 10.7.
Clearly Lion does some things different but more often then not, people are have actual problems. I hear the "your doing it wrong" argument enough times but that just doesn't cut it. Take how Lion changed AFP which broke many NAS products as an example.
Apple loves to use the term it just works and for many of their products its true. We cannot say the same with Lion.
But, if a great number of people are NOT having problems, then Apple hasn't gotten it wrong. It just looks as though the people having the most problems aren't just running with what their Mac came with or is preferred.
Maybe it's not Lion, maybe it's the fact that people don't clean install it, damn it people you should never install one OS over the other!
There are just a lot of annoyances bundled in the Lion package, I won't even mention them as they are more than apparent and widespread throughout the forums. The WiFi reselecting one is particularly disturbing since I live at a place with like 30 other WiFi channels (and also means hiding SSID will be even more hassle for example).
Personally, I like this. 90% of the time I run "Save As", I want to work on both files, or at least have one open for reference. Granted, most of the time I use Save As, I'm running Photoshop.
Really?
Apple didn't intend for Lion to be clean installed. You do understand that, right?
My clean installed MP Lion is as crappy as my upgraded MBP one is. The stupid iOS features, the screwed up Spaces replacement, the ugly mono-color icons and the totally lame hidden user Library are the same on each of my computers.
I look for solutions to Lion's "features" daily on the Net. As it gets working more like SL it gets better. Except for FileVault 2 Lion is still not as enjoyable to use as Snow Leopard.
People who think we should drop to our knees and embrace the Apple New World Order are living in some kind of a dream world.
Ever notice that most of the belly-aching about OS X (even SL) was, and is, coming from tech sites? Lion seems perfectly fine out there in the world - no real complaints, but on Apple-centric tech sites, things are for some reason very grim, the OS is barely usable and folks are threatening to downgrade to SL.
Consider the source.
That's not true or the point. There are several major flaws in Lion that are actually a hindrance to the work. And even if that was true, I really don't want to be stuck using only what Apple decides is best for me and my computer. In fact, the only Apple program I use on a regular basis is iTunes, simply because I haven't come across a better program that will give me access to the app store and let me sync my iPods easily. Office beats the crap out of iWork (except for maybe Keynote, which I don't use often anyway) Outlook is way better than Mail, and Firefox and Chrome are both better than safari. VLC is better than the media players it comes with, and I can't remember the last time I used iChat instead of Skype. I think that covers most of the bases. I apologize for the rant, but I just can't buy that everything that comes out of Apple is the absolute best, as is clearly the case with Lion, from my perspective.
I don't usually criticize Apple products, I'd even consider myself to be quite a fanboy for all the stuff I got with an Apple logo on it. And I absolutely love every Apple gadget there is around the house.
So I knew I would love lion. And I did, first week I thought it was great to use. All the great features like mission control, autosave, full screen apps, etc. made up for the little annoyances a .0 release seems to always include.
Today, I am honestly considering going back to Snow Leopard. I know I will miss the new features dearly, but there are some "features" I could very well live without (on both my MBP and MBA).
"Features" I simply do not want included are:
- immensely increased boot and shutdown times
- very, very slow app store
- sometimes unresponsive iTunes
- Wi-Fi signal loss after wake up
- Safari ball of doom parties (and I enjoy those a lot lately, and it's not necessarily flash related)
- random software crashes
- aforementioned mission control window management issues
- Time Machine "hickups" using a Time Capsule
This just makes me realize how much Lion feels like the "good ol'" Windows days, when I wasted more time on my OS than on productivity. I think tomorrow will be the day I go back to SL. I'll miss Lion's (real) features. But I will embrace Snow Leopard's stability.
So I knew I would love lion. And I did, first week I thought it was great to use. All the great features like mission control, autosave, full screen apps, etc. made up for the little annoyances a .0 release seems to always include.
Today, I am honestly considering going back to Snow Leopard. I know I will miss the new features dearly, but there are some "features" I could very well live without (on both my MBP and MBA).
"Features" I simply do not want included are:
- immensely increased boot and shutdown times
- very, very slow app store
- sometimes unresponsive iTunes
- Wi-Fi signal loss after wake up
- Safari ball of doom parties (and I enjoy those a lot lately, and it's not necessarily flash related)
- random software crashes
- aforementioned mission control window management issues
- Time Machine "hickups" using a Time Capsule
This just makes me realize how much Lion feels like the "good ol'" Windows days, when I wasted more time on my OS than on productivity. I think tomorrow will be the day I go back to SL. I'll miss Lion's (real) features. But I will embrace Snow Leopard's stability.
You made a very good point. For some people, if not most, the Mac ecosystem is an amazingly devised suite of interactive applications. You can send iPhotos through Mail, look up Google Maps locations from Contacts and zip most of those things back and forth between iPhones, iPads and Macs.
On the other hand Mac OS is just an operating system for others. They would rather use MS Office, one of the Adobe Creative Suites or Firefox. Even though those programs are not as integrated in the Mac ecosystem they offer superior performance compared to both the regular Mac and the Mac Pro(sumer) apps.
An operating system should be able to accommodate both types of users.
Uhhh, it's Lion. Definitely Lion.
Snow Leopard was and is working fine. Lion didn't work even after a clean install.
A clean install, by the way, that should not be necessary, and isn't even supposed to be done, according to Apple.
There is something wrong with Lion. Not for everyone, but for a significant minority. If an OS doesn't work for a significant minority of users, its broken.
I got my money back from Apple. Just showed up in my bank account this morning.
for getting my money back.
for wasting so much time trying to get this broken OS to work.
Snow Leopard was and is working fine. Lion didn't work even after a clean install.
A clean install, by the way, that should not be necessary, and isn't even supposed to be done, according to Apple.
There is something wrong with Lion. Not for everyone, but for a significant minority. If an OS doesn't work for a significant minority of users, its broken.
I got my money back from Apple. Just showed up in my bank account this morning.
for getting my money back. for wasting so much time trying to get this broken OS to work.
This again? To hear some people say it, you'd think they practically live in the Library directory. And you do realize it is completely trivial to show it again, right?
1. You can use the Terminal to navigate it.
2. You can use Finder's Go menu (either by typing it in manually, or holding Option to show it on the menu)
3. You can type chflags nohidden ~/Library
But I'm sure you already knew that and, if you really care, you already made it visible. You just want to complain about a non-issue.
The only thing worse is repetitively complaining about a complaint about a non-issue ....
If it were intentional, then why does mine automatically reconnect every time, without reselecting anything after waking up from sleep? Just as any other Apple device does: iPhone, iPods, iPad, Apple TV...
Other issues people have are of course absolutely intentional by Apple.
Whenever people are confronted with change, there is an obvious question:
Is it for the better or the worse?
Or put differently: Does Apple's intended benefit outweigh the drawbacks?
Everyone of course comes to his or her own conclusions.
And some voice them publicly.
Personally, I am not yet decided on Mission Control / Expose.
Hiding the library folder for the less tech-savvy isn't too bad an idea... so yes, maybe.
Making address book look more similar to the iPad version whilst getting rid of the simple and useful 3-column layout? Hell, no!
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I sympathize with those that have stuff that broke under Lion.
But jeez, it's not exactly tough to stick with SL. Even the biggest Lion apologist isn't gonna claim it's some revolutionary step forward, and most of the new features I like have been or could be implemented by other developers.
I agree with the OP that there's a difference between carping about losing features vs. bugs. But I believe most everybody can run SL now, so you have an alternative, and you're not missing that much (and I LIKE Lion sorta).
The interesting point will come with new Apple hardware that will ONLY run Lion. That may put some folks in a real bind.
But jeez, it's not exactly tough to stick with SL. Even the biggest Lion apologist isn't gonna claim it's some revolutionary step forward, and most of the new features I like have been or could be implemented by other developers.
I agree with the OP that there's a difference between carping about losing features vs. bugs. But I believe most everybody can run SL now, so you have an alternative, and you're not missing that much (and I LIKE Lion sorta).
The interesting point will come with new Apple hardware that will ONLY run Lion. That may put some folks in a real bind.
Well you say that but both my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro have been running, well.. perfectly.
Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign: All fine
Mail, Safari, iCal, Address book: Fine.
I haven't actually come across something that doesn't work yet!
You People do realize Lion just came out don't you? SL has been out for almost 2 years. Yes some things that people are not liking are part of the new design, but most of the problems will be fixed with time. If you need your machines to be perfect for your mission critical tasks, you should not have upgraded as soon as it came out.
Yes I am having some issues, but they are all bugs. I like (for the most part) the way that lion works. Expect for the external monitor silliness. Why don't they just make your external monitor show up as a space?
Yes I am having some issues, but they are all bugs. I like (for the most part) the way that lion works. Expect for the external monitor silliness. Why don't they just make your external monitor show up as a space?