What's better about Lion compared to Snow Leopard?

[Gomff]

I imaged my system onto another drive and updated to Lion to see what the fuss was all about but after catching myself organizing apps in Launchpad (WHY?) I realized that for me it was all about playing with the new shiny. Lion uses more RAM, obsoleted a few of my apps (Logic Pro 8 being the most significant) and my system runs hotter.

Then I asked myself....What's better in Lion? Mail? Some animations? Is that it? Now I'm back in Snow Leopard with everything working fine.

What does everyone else think? I have no axe to grind....I bought and installed Lion so if anything I want to think that I haven't wasted money but that's kind of how it feels right now.

 

[aristobrat]

If you don't get many replies, it's because you just started thread #59 on this topic. I think most folks have already said their peace in the other 58.

 

[Gomff]

I don't want to duplicate threads....I couldn't see anything listing what's actually better in Lion...Granted there are plenty pointing out what's worse, but that wasn't my question.

I'm not saying there aren't any, I just didn't see one.

"said their piece in the other 58".

 

[stuartmack1974]

£20 has got you a mail that generally works and a pretty iPad desktop. Wicked.

 

[keaide]

I think it depends if you use Lion on a Desktop machine or a Notebook. Lion is made for Notebooks (no surprise here since Apple said that 70% of the Mac devices they sell are Notebooks).

Lion rocks on a Macbook Air. Most of the advertised new gimmicks are just made for the smaller screen and the gorgeous trackpad. I just love full-screen apps, Launchpad, Mission Control and the iOS-feel of the gestures there. On an iMac... you'd probably be fine with SL.

@aristobrat: I didn't reply to the other 58 threads, so don't get mad at me. BTW: I stopped to count the "iPhoto sucks" and "Safari vs. other browser" threads...

 

[aristobrat]

Ergh, true, I didn't catch the spin the OP put on this thread. Sorry! :/

Here's my list:

My 2010 Air runs faster/cooler.
Safari is fast enough to make a Switcher out of me (I've been using FF since it came out).
Love the Magic Mouse two finger swipe to switch between spaces.
I love the look of the new Mail app, I'm faster using it.
I love using Aperture in full-screen. I get more done, quicker.
Stupid as it sounds, it's about time we can resize windows from any corner!
Now that iChat supports Yahoo, I don't have to use Adium anymore.
I like the idea of the recovery partition, and how it's more useful, like containing Safari to google for help.
At work, my Mac is a member of Active Directory. Love the look of the new login screen.
I like how my work Mac can now access Active Directory DFSs.
I like Resuming my apps when rebooting. Definitely saves me time.
Drag 'n Drop from Spotlight makes it easy for me to find and send stuff via Lotus Notes at work (vs. having to "Open in Finder" and do it there).
I like how I locked down my file sharing of my Mac to my roommates Apple IDs, which they don't forget, unlike the SMB accounts I had for them.

I don't like that Dashboard is a separate space. I liked how it used to "hover" over whatever you were doing.
And I miss the Expose "Show All Windows" command.

 

[eobet]

So far only one thing:

Mission Control (finally an icon attached to the preview windows... why did that take so long?)

Almost everything else is horrible, though.

EDIT: I take that back... the new document paradigm that gets rid of explicit saves is brilliant (probably the biggest leap forward in personal computing since the introduction of the pointer), but it will probably be YEARS until Adobe Creative Suite uses it, but that's not Apple's fault.

 

[aristobrat]

£20 has got you a mail that generally works and a pretty iPad desktop. Wicked.

Which is a lot more than the £20 Leopard to SL got you.

 

[Gomff]

I use a 30" cinema display so Launchpad and the full screen features just don't really matter that much to me. I can see the appeal maybe with a laptop.

I have a "magic" trackpad which sits in the drawer since about 2 days after I bought it. I do 3d graphics and a mouse is just far more precise and direct in comparison. For navigating around Spaces I use keyboard shortcuts. The gestures thing is just not a big deal for me at all and to be honest, it feels like something that's been oversold.....I can't see how a gesture trumps a keyboard shortcut.

I don't find versions to be intuitive but even worse is the inability to switch it off in apps that support it. I can overlook for the most part features that are optional but versioning is counter intuitive to me and I don't want it to be part of my future.

The resume apps feature I'm a a bit Meh about, since none of my apps take that long to load and I pretty much always sleep my machine anyway, so anything I was doing is still there when I wake the machine.