OS X Lion's Resume Feature: A Cautionary Tale

[MacRumors]

One of the big new features in the upcoming OS X Lion is auto-resume for all applications. The feature comes from iOS where the distinction between open and closed apps is blurred, as every app will resume right where you left off.

From Apple's OS X description of the Resume feature:

Now apps you close will reopen right where you left off, so you never have to start from scratch again. And when you install software updates, you no longer need to save your work, close your apps, and spend valuable time setting everything up again. With Resume, you can restart your Mac and return to what you were doing — with all your apps in the exact places you left them.

Jeremy Laurenson, however, writes about a potentially embarrassing situation he ran into while running OS X Lion. Laurenson reports that he and his wife had been watching his wife's delivery in Quicktime Player and later quit the application. In OS X Lion, this saved the state of the video and windows, leaving him a surprise when he later launched a movie for a colleague:

Imagine my surprise (and luckily nothing crazy was on screen) when I double-clicked to open a different video file to show a colleague and the ole “delivery video” popped right up as well.

Laurenson sees this causing "all kinds of issues" as people adjust to the new system.

Update: Alternatively, you can apparently turn this feature off in Lion as a global setting, but not per app.

Article Link: OS X Lion's Resume Feature: A Cautionary Tale

 

[Warbrain]

I've been surprised by what's opened up after quitting an app before during this beta. It's definitely something to get used to.

 

[arn]

obviously, swap "birth video" with "porn", and you see the possible large scale implications.

arn

 

[42streetsdown]

i can see this being a pain in some cases. i guess we'll just have to get used to closing windows before quitting apps

 

[levitynyc]

There goes all my porn watching activities.

 

[Insolence]

For me its more of a nuisance than anything else. I do Apple > Q a lot, and now I need to do Apple > W AND Apple > Q whenever I want to Quit an Applications + all Windows.

Sure it helps with Recovering Preview and TextEdit Documents, but apart from that when Launching QuickTime its just a nuisance.

They should setup some sort of System Preferences Panel for this, have it configured on a Per-Application Basis.....

 

[reiggin]

I think it's more of a cautionary tale of why you don't video your wife's freaking delivery. #notentertaining

 

[42streetsdown]

For me its more of a nuisance than anything else. I do Apple > Q a lot, and now I need to do Apple > W AND Apple > Q whenever I want to Quit an Applications + all Windows.

Sure it helps with Recovering Preview and TextEdit Documents, but apart from that when Launching QuickTime its just a nuisance.

They should setup some sort of System Preferences Panel for this, have it configured on a Per-Application Basis.....

i wonder, is there an option to shut it off on a per application basis? or is this gonna have to be a 10.7.1 feature?

 

[haruhiko]

Luckily he didn't videotape the process of creating the baby.

 

[TEG]

This tells me that resume needs to become an optional feature. hopefully without the need for 3rd party software.

 

[jackc]

Maybe there should be a dialog box asking if you want to resume or restart an app, if that wouldn't be too much of a nuisance.

 

[MattInOz]

When will people learn if you use a computer for both personnel stuff and work stuff to create two user accounts (and a dedicated Admin account).

 

[ridley182]

Eh, I guess this could bother some users but to be honest, the benefits of Resume >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any annoyances I might have.

 

[richard.mac]

obviously, swap "birth video" with "porn", and you see the possible large scale implications.

arn

Luckily he didn't videotape the process of creating the baby.

rofl

you can turn off resume for all apps in the General preferences (unfortunately not a per app basis) or quit and discard windows (command+option+Q).. but i am just so used to quitting with command+Q.

i also found out a little trick in Lion; an applications saved state is stored in Saved Application State in the user library and locking a folder for one of the applications will keep its state from changing. so, lock it as a clean slate and the app will always launch as a clean slate.

 

[applefanDrew]

I think Apple doesn't want users "quitting" apps anymore. Like in iOS. Just hit the red x in the top left corner. When the system needs memory, it "quits" the app. Just another way that the line between a running and non running app is blurred by Apple.

Users shouldn't have to worry with "quitting" and "starting" apps. Just use. The system takes care of when to close an app and when to keep it in RAM. As long as people adjust and just use the red x, it won't be a problem.

 

[coolfactor]

Maybe there should be a dialog box asking if you want to resume or restart an app, if that wouldn't be too much of a nuisance.

Yah, way too much of a nuisance! I hate dialogs that pop up like "Are you sure you want to quit?" YES, THAT'S WHY I ISSUED THE COMMAND!

 

[beg_ne]

Resume is handy in 99% of cases. Quicktime is definitely one app that does not need it though. Especially since it always starts playing automatically.

Perhaps submitting a bug report is in order?

 

[reiggin]

Microsoft's retaliatory marketing campaign: "I wish I knew how to quit you!"

 

[admanimal]

For me its more of a nuisance than anything else. I do Apple > Q a lot, and now I need to do Apple > W AND Apple > Q whenever I want to Quit an Applications + all Windows.

I think Apple's point in doing things this way is that you should only have to worry about opening/closing documents, not applications. Document-based applications should use little, if any, resources when there are no documents opened anyway.

 

[alust2013]

Yeah, a lot more people are going to get caught watching porn inadvertently. I can't see that ending well.

 

[mhobb]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8B117)

I thought this story was headed towards he left a porn window open and quit and his wife re-opened it and found a surprise. There should be a way to disable resume for this reason alone, lol.

 

[haruhiko]

Yeah, a lot more people are going to get caught watching porn inadvertently. I can't see that ending well.

The whole theme of "Back to the Mac" is to bring iOS features back to the Mac OS X, including "no porn"....

 

[derekamoss]

just close the window before you quit the app.

 

[fpsBeaTt]

The solution is obvious, and one that many applications (especially firewalls) use; add an exception list.

 

[seamer]

Is resume enabled by default?

I can see problems in not knowing the three+ finger salute when you have a buggy app/system process resuming in a craptastic state.