Why does everyone hate Lion?

[///M5]

My only complaint about Lion, or OS X for that matter, is how useless the Dock is compared to Win7 taskbar.

Switching windows in Lion is a PAI especially windows that belong to the same app.

I really like Windows 7 taskbar and find myself much more productive using that

 

[McGiord]

No hate on my side; just two problems which really bother me: frequent beach ball (iMac 27" 2010, 2.9GHz with 12GB) and a screen which turn black by itself while I'm working. No screensaver or energy setting from what I can see.

Ah, and on a side note my dual screen setup becomes meaningless when using full screen. Not a critical one as I just don't have to use full screen. Fine with that.

Beside that: it just need some time to get mature.

That might be a hardware issue with the graphics card.

 

[McGiord]

My only complaint about Lion, or OS X for that matter, is how useless the Dock is compared to Win7 taskbar.

Switching windows in Lion is a PAI especially windows that belong to the same app.

I really like Windows 7 taskbar and find myself much more productive using that

Try this:
http://softbend.free.fr/himmelbar/download.html

Another one available at the AppStore is Xmenu.

Remember that not only for iOS: "There is an App for That! "
*******************************************************
And for switching windows within the same App, you have the following ways:
(1) PRESS command and the '`' keys : [⌘] + [`]
(2) App Exposé
(3) Any other configurable way to do this

 

[Martyimac]

I never understood how people can consider Lion to be "Apple's Vista" simply because they added more multi-touch features, and iOS scrollbars.

I honestly think (no offense) people making that comparison have not used Vista enough. When Vista first came out it was impossible to transfer large amounts of data from one drive to another due to a volume shadow copy issue (fixed in SP1) and networking was near broken. Lion didn't have those types of issues.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing you for your opinion, that is not my intent (I'm talking in general here), but I think Lion gets more hate than it deserves. I have yet to know a single person in real life that has issues with Lion.

First off, no offense taken Pandora, we are both offering opinions here. But I will point out that in my post, I have/did use Vista enough to make that comparison. I stayed with Vista until the day Windows 7 came public, and haven't looked back. I suspect both of us may be looking at the issues from a different perspective, and that is okay.

And since you don't know me in real life then you are correct in saying you don't know anyone that has issues in Lion. But if my online presence is enough to say you "know me", then you know at least one person now who does have issues.
You probably know the majority issues like Mission control, reopening windows or previous documents when restarting a program, scroll bar defaults, etc. I have those, but am also having issues with Lion seeming to set permissions on files that don't allow me to modify them after I have previously worked on them. At that point I have to go in and re-give myself permission to edit the files.!?!?! And of course there are issues with Outlook not syncing with address book properly like it used to under Snow Leopard. Not necessarily MSofts fault since it worked fine under SL. Graphic glitches when watching online videos, and probably more I can't think of off the top of my head. And I won't even talk about iCloud since that is not the topic of this thread. But since we are on release 10.7.2 and things aren't any better, yes I blame Apple for breaking what wasn't broken.

So we will just have to agree to disagree. I stand by my comment that I cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone go with a Lion machine. Go Snow Leopard or don't go at all.

 

[Darby67]

As for "bugs"...

Some of these may be bugs but I would think there would be people; not a few but large percentage of Lion users, or at least Lion MBA users. Have you attempted doing a clean install of Lion? What exactly have you tried? Some things sound like permission issues others may not be, but I would suggest that 4MB should be fine but you seem to encountering rather unusual behavior.

You know, I've got five Macs here (not iPhones, iPads, iPods or any of that other "iLifestyle" stuff some people seem to classify as Macintoshes - these are proper machines). I've been a Mac owner and user for almost 20 years (1992). I'm starting to wonder how much you guys who claim to have had no problems with Lion actually use or explore your machines.

This is nothing more than chest beating, and really not worth adventuring into.

 

[KnightWRX]

I'm starting to wonder how much you guys who claim to have had no problems with Lion actually use or explore your machines.

The MacBook Air running Lion is currently my only machine (I never use more than 1 computer, it's frankly a nuisance keeping stuff in sync). I use it daily as my hobby is programming and my job is Unix systems administration.

As to how far I've "explored", let's just say Unix being my job, OS X really takes a beating in my hands.

I've found almost half a dozen glitches in only a few days' use. And I haven't even started to get stuck into this new OS yet.

And again, some of those "glitches" look to be your installation/hardware that is the problem. I've had none of the beachball issues you say you've had (aside from the Finder network copies which have always been like that) and my trackpad is as flawless under Lion as it was under Snow Leopard, albeit with much more gestures making it much more usable.

Maybe again : you should have the machine checked out by a professional. Some of your issues don't sound like lion issues at all.

----------

Vista got bad press simply because of the bugs and lack of new driver support.

No, Vista got bad press because of Microsoft's "Vista Capable" program, the poor Intel GPUs that were accepted under that program and the fact that those computers labeled as certified and having that poor hardware couldn't run the Aero GUI, only the stripped Home Premium version of Vista.

That is what was the major complaint that people refer to when they refer to woes of Vista.

Apple has done no such thing, Lion is far from a "Vista". If anything, it's an "Apple Lion". They changed so much stuff, removed so much back compatibility and a lot of the changes had to do with the UI, things that people don't like when you change because you're going to break workflows no matter how you do it.

Lion is just too big of a change it seems for some users who just don't want to relearn how to do things in a new way that might or might not be better in the end or don't want to have to reinvest in applications to upgrade their old software (that is probably EOL'ed and not receiving updates from vendors and could be big security risks in and of themselves).

 

[Joos24]

Well, you may not "know" us here and consider MR not to be "real life" but we do exist.

Yeah, all 20 of ya.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

That might be a hardware issue with the graphics card.

Possible, but the behavior is in way that as soon I press a key the screen comes back. So my guess goes more in an unconscious activation of a black screensaver somehow in the software. What drives me nuts is that it happen while I'm actively working. So for sure no reason for the Mac to hide the screen.

Would you have an idea where I could check for HW issue; any log file to be checked ? Bootup info indicated no error when I checked last time.

 

[McGiord]

Possible, but the behavior is in way that as soon I press a key the screen comes back. So my guess goes more in an unconscious activation of a black screensaver somehow in the software. What drives me nuts is that it happen while I'm actively working. So for sure no reason for the Mac to hide the screen.

Would you have an idea where I could check for HW issue; any log file to be checked ? Bootup info indicated to error when I checked last time.

First maybe is a good idea to create another user and boot with it, and see if the problem goes away, if it does, it might be a software issue instead.

Check in the Console for the log of events.
/Applications/Utilities/Console

Run the Apple Hardware Test and check that everything is running fine.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1883

 

[chrono1081]

First off, no offense taken Pandora, we are both offering opinions here. But I will point out that in my post, I have/did use Vista enough to make that comparison. I stayed with Vista until the day Windows 7 came public, and haven't looked back. I suspect both of us may be looking at the issues from a different perspective, and that is okay.

And since you don't know me in real life then you are correct in saying you don't know anyone that has issues in Lion. But if my online presence is enough to say you "know me", then you know at least one person now who does have issues.
You probably know the majority issues like Mission control, reopening windows or previous documents when restarting a program, scroll bar defaults, etc. I have those, but am also having issues with Lion seeming to set permissions on files that don't allow me to modify them after I have previously worked on them. At that point I have to go in and re-give myself permission to edit the files.!?!?! And of course there are issues with Outlook not syncing with address book properly like it used to under Snow Leopard. Not necessarily MSofts fault since it worked fine under SL. Graphic glitches when watching online videos, and probably more I can't think of off the top of my head. And I won't even talk about iCloud since that is not the topic of this thread. But since we are on release 10.7.2 and things aren't any better, yes I blame Apple for breaking what wasn't broken.

So we will just have to agree to disagree. I stand by my comment that I cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone go with a Lion machine. Go Snow Leopard or don't go at all.

Sorry I shouldn't have quoted your post. I was afraid it would get taken out of context which it was (and understandably so).

I didn't mean to imply that you had no issues or that you had no experience with Vista. I was talking about people in general. I completely understand how it looks like I meant you since I quoted your post but I assure you that was not my intent.

Lion in no way stacks up to as bad as Vista was. We had direct support from Microsoft when testing Vista machines for compatibility work (since it was assumed we would have to upgrade eventually) and Microsoft couldn't even solve their own Vista issues. It worked for some home users but it was a nightmare for enterprise, especially the volume shadow copy error I mentioned.

As for the issues you mentioned they do not sound normal at all. I have a Lion drive on the Mac Pro in my sig, and Lion is on my air and I've never run in to anything you mentioned. My parents, sister, brother in law, and a few friends of mine all have Lion too and no one has mentioned anything like what you have.

I'm sure you have already tried this but incase you haven't, try resetting the PRAM. I had weird issues after immediately installing Lion on my Air and a PRAM reset fixed them completely.

 

[Martyimac]

Sorry I shouldn't have quoted your post. I was afraid it would get taken out of context which it was (and understandably so).

I didn't mean to imply that you had no issues or that you had no experience with Vista. I was talking about people in general. I completely understand how it looks like I meant you since I quoted your post but I assure you that was not my intent.

Lion in no way stacks up to as bad as Vista was. We had direct support from Microsoft when testing Vista machines for compatibility work (since it was assumed we would have to upgrade eventually) and Microsoft couldn't even solve their own Vista issues. It worked for some home users but it was a nightmare for enterprise, especially the volume shadow copy error I mentioned.

As for the issues you mentioned they do not sound normal at all. I have a Lion drive on the Mac Pro in my sig, and Lion is on my air and I've never run in to anything you mentioned. My parents, sister, brother in law, and a few friends of mine all have Lion too and no one has mentioned anything like what you have.

I'm sure you have already tried this but incase you haven't, try resetting the PRAM. I had weird issues after immediately installing Lion on my Air and a PRAM reset fixed them completely.

I will give the PRAM reset a try, as soon as I get a wired Keyboard.
And as I said, no offense taken at all.

Happy New Year.

 

[jameslmoser]

Lion is just too big of a change it seems for some users who just don't want to relearn how to do things in a new way that might or might not be better in the end or don't want to have to reinvest in applications to upgrade their old software (that is probably EOL'ed and not receiving updates from vendors and could be big security risks in and of themselves).

I love change when it makes sense and is better. Lion is a change for the worse because of less user control and less options.

Spaces and Expose worked great, and I could use them together or not. Now I can't. Thats an option taken away, and that is not better.

I used to be able to move windows from any monitor or desktop from within spaces, now I can't.

I used to be able to run some old PPC apps. Now I can't. (Perhaps at some point it can be argued that its time is up and Apple should remove it, but when current versions of MS Office have some PPC components, and Intuit's Quicken, and countless other apps and plugins still rely on it, its too soon).

When every OS including Mac OS Snow Leopard has full screen apps that allowed you to have a full sreen app on each monitor, now you can't (at least if the developers used Lion's full screen api), thats another option taken away (and a rather stupid idea).

These are not different ways of doing things that we just have to learn, these are things we use to do and now we can not. There are plenty more to list, but I already repeated what we have been saying in countless threads since Lion was released.

 

[Joos24]

I will give the PRAM reset a try, as soon as I get a wired Keyboard.
And as I said, no offense taken at all.

Happy New Year.

You don't need a wired keyboard to reset PRAM. The wireless keyboard works just fine. It's most effective when you shut down rather than restart.

 

[Gomff]

That makes absolutely no sense at all. How can people be losing their work if it's being saved in Versions? Why would you want to turn off something that saves your work. Do you understand how Versions works?

First way (asccording to the reviews on the app store) is that people have opened an image up, made a few edits and not liked them, so they've closed the image, thinking that because theye didn't save, no change was made to the original image, but Autosave has made the chaneg and the versioning doesn't seem to lend itself to images.

Second is file corruption of images when Pixelmator crashes, rendering the entire image and versions inaccessible.

Again, this is based on the reports on the app store.

 

[KnightWRX]

I love change when it makes sense and is better. Lion is a change for the worse because of less user control and less options.

Spaces and Expose worked great, and I could use them together or not. Now I can't. Thats an option taken away, and that is not better.

And I personally love the changes Lion brought about, especially in Spaces and Expose.

Spaces is now great with different backgrounds giving you a visual cue to what space you are on. I find that the trackpad gestures for moving to each spaces to be much better than the old cmd-number or cmd-arrow and use it often (4 finger swipes).

I finally got to use Expose. Before it was a big mess. Now that I first choose an application (either through cmd-tab, through the dock or through MC) and then finally Expose is useful showing me only windows from that application.

I used to be able to move windows from any monitor or desktop from within spaces, now I can't.

You can, there's a bug preventing moving them from a monitor to another, but not from a desktop to another. And frankly, you don't need to be "within" Spaces to move windows, just drag them to whatever monitor you want them on.

I never actually used the Spaces app before in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Talk about a useless thing.

I used to be able to run some old PPC apps. Now I can't. (Perhaps at some point it can be argued that its time is up and Apple should remove it, but when current versions of MS Office have some PPC components, and Intuit's Quicken, and countless other apps and plugins still rely on it, its too soon).

It is that time. It's been 5 years since the transition, I don't see why Apple needs to invest in PPC any further at this point. It's over. Current versions of the software you listed don't have PPC components at all, Quicken Essentials is 100% Intel, so is Office 2011 for Mac. You're talking about the previous versions of these packages.

It's not too soon. If Apple doesn't cut support, vendors get lazy. It's too bad that some vendors can't read the writing on the wall and leave their users stranded. That's not Apple's problem.

When every OS including Mac OS Snow Leopard has full screen apps that allowed you to have a full sreen app on each monitor, now you can't (at least if the developers used Lion's full screen api), thats another option taken away (and a rather stupid idea).

Yes you can, as long as the app vendor does full screen the old way (you still can, there's no obligation to use Lion's fullscreen mode). Ask your vendor to change their fullscreen support from Lion's native API to the old way of doing it. If these vendors aren't doing it, it's because they have reasons.

And frankly, that's a small issue. Before, we didn't even have full screen apps as Spaces, so if you don't like the feature, don't use it. There are plenty of things in Lion I don't like. I have turned them off and just don't use them.

These are not different ways of doing things that we just have to learn, these are things we use to do and now we can not. There are plenty more to list, but I already repeated what we have been saying in countless threads since Lion was released.

No, these are things that you used to be able to do one way and now you need to learn how to do in a new way.

 

[Joos24]

First way (asccording to the reviews on the app store) is that people have opened an image up, made a few edits and not liked them, so they've closed the image, thinking that because theye didn't save, no change was made to the original image, but Autosave has made the chaneg and the versioning doesn't seem to lend itself to images.

Second is file corruption of images when Pixelmator crashes, rendering the entire image and versions inaccessible.

Again, this is based on the reports on the app store.

Okay, firstly "those people" on the App Store don't know enough about Versions and how it works. Other than some fluke which would be completely out of the ordinary there's really no way of losing one's work due to Versions. There's a Time Machine-like feature in Versions that allows the user to go back in time to the original document/photo before editing and it doesn't require an external hard drive so it's completely ridiculous for multiple people to say they've lost their work in Pixelmator due to it's compatibility with Versions.

Lastly, you can't use the excuse of crashing as a reason to blame Pixelmator. Any app can crash and anyone can lose their work, but once again that's exactly why Apple created Versions, if an app crashes or a restart is required or a power failure happens then Versions will save the most recent work in progress. Not trying to jump at you persay, but if people here don't know how Versions works they should do their homework before posting.

 

[Martyimac]

You don't need a wired keyboard to reset PRAM. The wireless keyboard works just fine. It's most effective when you shut down rather than restart.

Maybe if I used an Apple branded kb, but not with my keyboard. Will have to get a cheap wired kb.
Thanks anyway.

 

[Joos24]

When every OS including Mac OS Snow Leopard has full screen apps that allowed you to have a full sreen app on each monitor, now you can't (at least if the developers used Lion's full screen api), thats another option taken away (and a rather stupid idea).

Are you absolutely sure you've been using the Mac OS before Lion? I don't think so. Lion's full screen feature has never ever been implemented on any version of OS X before 10.7. Every current app (even optimized Lion apps) still maximize the same way when you hit the green button. They will either maximize hovering over the Dock or they will just change in size. You can still do this in Lion on multiple screens.

You're trying hard dude, but you keep losing here.

 

[jameslmoser]

Are you absolutely sure you've been using the Mac OS before Lion? I don't think so. Lion's full screen feature has never ever been implemented on any version of OS X before 10.7. Every current app (even optimized Lion apps) still maximize the same way when you hit the green button. They will either maximize hovering over the Dock or they will just change in size. You can still do this in Lion on multiple screens.

You're trying hard dude, but you keep losing here.

You most certainly could do full screen, even though Apple insisted until Lion it wasn't necessary.

Almost every browser (except Safari), has full screen viewing in Snow Leopard. iPhoto even has full screen mode on Snow Leopard. VLC and countless other media players have full screen. VMware and parallels both have it. There are many, many, more.

Its not some new magical idea Apple created with Lion. Not only did they not improve on it, they made it worse.

----------

No, these are things that you used to be able to do one way and now you need to learn how to do in a new way.

Sorry, but no. Even if I'm suppose to be able to but there is a bug preventing it, I CAN'T DO IT. You can not enter mission control and pull an app from another desktop into your current one. I could do that with spaces. I used to organize my workspaces in a grid, now I can't. Mission control does not let you do everything you could with Spaces and Expose... you can't use one and not the other... there is nothing to argue about there, you simply CAN'T do it.

 

[Joos24]

First way (asccording to the reviews on the app store) is that people have opened an image up, made a few edits and not liked them, so they've closed the image, thinking that because theye didn't save, no change was made to the original image, but Autosave has made the chaneg and the versioning doesn't seem to lend itself to images.

Second is file corruption of images when Pixelmator crashes, rendering the entire image and versions inaccessible.

Again, this is based on the reports on the app store.

Are you referring to the reviews on the Mac App Store? Here's a screenshot. The average rating is 4.5 stars out of 5. I checked the first 3 pages and none of them mentioned anything about Versions. Furthermore the biggest complaints (and there weren't many) were sluggishness or lack of being as great as Photoshop.

Where are these reviews you read and how many of them did you actually see with the complaints you listed?

 

[chrono1081]

Maybe if I used an Apple branded kb, but not with my keyboard. Will have to get a cheap wired kb.
Thanks anyway.

Yea you can't reset PRAM (as far as I know) with a non-Apple wireless keyboard. At least it doesn't work with my Logitech.

You can always do the "buy and return" at your local Best Buy

 

[Gomff]

Okay, firstly "those people" on the App Store don't know enough about Versions and how it works. Other than some fluke which would be completely out of the ordinary there's really no way of losing one's work due to Versions. There's a Time Machine-like feature in Versions that allows the user to go back in time to the original document/photo before editing and it doesn't require an external hard drive so it's completely ridiculous for multiple people to say they've lost their work in Pixelmator due to it's compatibility with Versions.

Lastly, you can't use the excuse of crashing as a reason to blame Pixelmator. Any app can crash and anyone can lose their work, but once again that's exactly why Apple created Versions, if an app crashes or a restart is required or a power failure happens then Versions will save the most recent work in progress. Not trying to jump at you persay, but if people here don't know how Versions works they should do their homework before posting.

All I can say in response is that there seem to be quite a few people unhappy about the changes in 2.0 re: versions who seem to have lost work....Why would they all lie? I dont' think there's a conspiracy here. Blaming them for "not getting" getting versions rather than the software developer for changing things without giving their customers the option to work how they want to seems a little weird but whatever, people will vote with their wallets I guess.

Judging by the ratings for pixelmator since version 2, I'd say versions and autosave hasn't done the developer any favours.

 

[Gomff]

Are you referring to the reviews on the Mac App Store? Here's a screenshot. The average rating is 4.5 stars out of 5. I checked the first 3 pages and none of them mentioned anything about Versions. Furthermore the biggest complaints (and there weren't many) were sluggishness or lack of being as great as Photoshop.

Where are these reviews you read and how many of them did you actually see with the complaints you listed?

For someone who claims not to be jumping on me, you sure seem to be well, jumping on me.

If you look at the reviews for pixelmator, you can clearly see five negative reviews directly beneath the main rating. All of them mention the autosave feature (screenshot attached).

I guess we see what we want to see

 

[KnightWRX]

Sorry, but no. Even if I'm suppose to be able to but there is a bug preventing it, I CAN'T DO IT. You can not enter mission control and pull an app from another desktop into your current one.

Uh ? Works fine here. Select the desktop with the app, and then drag it to another desktop.

A new way to do things! That's basically what Lion is like I stated previously. What you see as "bugs" are actually just unimplemented features that might never get implemented.

Mission Control is head aboves the old Spaces. If you've ever used Virtual Desktops before Apple's Spaces, you'd know how crap Spaces actually was. It's too bad you've now gotta break all those habits you picked up. I frankly never liked Spaces before Lion, compared to things like Enlightenment's implement or KDE's implementation.

I always used Spaces using cmd-arrow/cmd-number and dragging windows to edges to switch spaces for them before. The "app" was just awful to me.

----------

All I can say in response is that there seem to be quite a few people unhappy about the changes in 2.0 re: versions who seem to have lost work....Why would they all lie?

I'm sure they're not lying, but again, they probably haven't "lost" the work either. They just think they did. Not knowing how to revert to a previous version doesn't mean the work is lost, it just means you don't know how it works to get it back.

 

[iFanboy]

With every OS people experience "issues".

People whined about Leopard adversely changing things for them that worked in Tiger, then Snow Leopard adversely changing things for them that worked in Leopard, and now Lion adversely changing things for them that worked in Snow Leopard, and around and around we go.

Personally, I have only ever owned 1 mac. My 2009 Macbook Pro unibody that came with Leopard (never used Tiger).

I have upgraded all the way to Lion with NO issues at all. None. Nothing ever broke, and nothing ever destroyed my way of using my computer.

Lion?

I don't like the mandatory tick box when I shut down, and Launchpad and Mission Control are ignored. Errrrr, that's it?

Everything else works as it should.