Inside Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: New Dock, Finder & Desktop - Page 3

I agree but would have said it differently. I don't want an iPhone, I want a Mac.

I think that whilst the majority of apps don't need it, the 10% that do need it need it to work well, consistently, quickly and easily for everyone. And please try not to put your own usage requirements forward as equal to everyones, I for one have 7 calendars including shared ones from friends/family and I use it *a lot*, when I "diary bash" every couple of months or so to set my schedule I need to see as much detail as possible to check when I can and can't arrange things, and a full screen calendar on a large screen is great. I've tried it on Lion, and I love it.

Also, you work with young students in a University. So that's a whole load of people who have likely grown up using computers, and who most likely need to use their computers more often, and for more complex tasks, than a lot of other people. If you think these people are bad at actually learning to use them properly, go see my Mum. These are the people who need the most help, and if adding stuff like full screen and gestures allows them to feel they can use the computer better, I am all for it. Unless they start taking away your keyboard and shortcuts, I can't see any issue.

The NDA is just a form of legal "insurance" such that if they really wanted they could get legal on someone's ass. The fact that any complete stranger can lay down £60 like I did yesterday and join the developer program *purely for the purpose of playing with Lion* suggests that keeping things a secret isn't the primary motive here...

Resume, Versions, and Autosave - I can wait to use those features!

So i take it, Lion Is yet again just another service pack like snow leopard, Just hope it costs the same?

Thanks, I see. I have used Firefox for as long as I can remember, still do on my Windows PC and now on my Mac. I think Firefox is great - nice UI, and has lots of free add-ons, such as those that can block those annoying animated ads. Looks like I'll have to switch back and forth between Safari (on my Mac) / Internet Explorer (on my PC) and Firefox (on both) from now on.\

Well, that's one view, perhaps you would like to let us know how you reached that conclusion?

Well, seeing as nobody answered my first post and enlightened me as to what groundbreaking new features this has over previous version's, I take it it's just whats being discussed here IE:UI tweaks, which is all they are, and timemachine being used for tracking changes to documents.

So if you can give me a damn could reason why i should spend money to upgrade to lion and not stay on snow leopard untill lion is succeeded, Then please enlighten me as to what makes lion stand out and so different from snow leopard.

You really believe that? This is Apple...the company that charges for iPod Touch OS updates, wifi upgrades, and facetime software ... all of which should come with OSX/iOS.

No doubt Apple will SELL the magic trackpad, but I seriously doubt they will include it with a desktop.

Didn't we have full-screen apps in 1985???

double post

Is that what Apple is supposed to say internally, and just forget about UI innovation?

This what the idiots at Microsoft said, and now they have millions upon millions who never go past 3 icons on the desktop.

I will be glad to pay for these operating system features:

1. Inclusion of OS X Server tools.
2. Recompiled kernel for faster execution
3. Auto-save & versioning built in at the OS level
4. Faster & more secure use of solid state drives
5. Full disk encryption

They won't interest most users. So I don't begrudge Apple adding UI sugar and refinements to make the "lambs" rush to upgrade to Lion as well. Some of the most egregious UI metaphors look like they'll be cleaned up too, so I can appreciate the tweaks and changes coming to the user interface.

That couldn't possibly be less relevant to reality, but whatever. No one cares.

Lion is positively the best thing to happen to OSX since Tiger and it will change the usability landscape.

I don't care how many of you geeks can control your whole Mac from 10 buttons on the keyboard, that's dumb! I can do that too, but id rather use a magic trackpad all day because its fun! Have a little fun with the frigging machine for once!

What I love about the back to the Mac from iOS concept is that millions of people who never got past the dock or desktop, who now have iPhones and iPads, will be using their Macs, in the future, in fearless ways, they never did before.

We had auto-resume, but except for a few that didn't follow the user interface guidelines, full screen apps didn't hide the menu bar.

Hi thanks for that breakdown, 2-5 scream service pack 3, the server tools could of been a free or' $5 for yer time for appleising opensource seperate piece of software' for those that want em.

I know OS X is ahead of the game, But really come on this is nothing to get excited about, Unless there's something that hasnt been revealed yet.

To actually have fun on a Mac for those types is to see how many commands they can execute on the keyboard with just their thumb and pinky while not looking.

I'm gonna miss the old-style Dashboard. works just fine with the old Mighty Mouse. Click the 3rd button and it's there. Click again and it's gone.

Same with Expose. Click the 4th or 5th button et voila. Click on the window you want and you're done. Could not be simpler. Those are the main reasons I didn't get a Magic Mouse.


Oh well, guess I'm gonna have to catch up or be left behind. \

I like cheap (or free) as much as anyone, but it's silly to claim that OS level versioning and full disk encryption are trivial.

Should check out the magic track pad. It can do expose with a 4 finger swipe up or down and does the alt-tab equivalent with 4 finger swipe left or right. Sorry though as far as I know it doesnt do dashboard, but I never use it so dont know if it can be set to make it appear/disappear.

I agree, but then i wouldnt tout them as an amazing new feature when linux and other unix users have had this pleasure for some years.

Expensive? $65 is expensive? You can buy a trackpad for about what it costs to fill your tank with gas or take the wife out to dinner.

This.

Very well stated.

Lion opens up an entire world of usability. It's bringing the ease of use of iOS, but puts the power of Mac hardware behind it. Apple's got the right idea for next-gen computing. No one else is currently pulling this off effectively. They're stumbling over ChromeOS, Windows unoptimized shoe-horning onto bad devices, vapourware from RIM, etc.

Apple's got it all figured out by keeping things simple and concentrating on the User Experience. The stage is already set with the iOS ecosystem plus the Mac App Store. This summer will be quite a time to be a Mac user and Apple fan in general.

OK, I won't knock it until I've tried it, but frankly it does not sound simpler than just pressing a button.

So far I am not a fan of the iOS-zation of MacOS. I'm all for multi-touch (love iPhone and iPad), but does its implementation have to come at the expense of the tried-and-tested input methods?

Oh, and I fear more bloat, too.

Everything else I knew, but do you have a source for this? I could not find anything.

Why does it have to have "Groundbreaking" features? OK, so a lot of the features that are new to Lion are not new to the computing world, but let's face it my Mum doesn't use VME and has never been able to use features such as file versioning before.

Versions works great, and I defy anyone to say it's been done in a easier to use way on a desktop OS. It's just to *obvious* that I can;t see why it wasn't done before. This is not a UI tweak, and it's got nothing to do with Time Machine, no backups are required in order to enable Versions.

Auto save is perhaps a little less innovative, but welcome just the same, and nothing to do with UI tweaking. Taking this with the ability to resume windows on a restart in the same positions they were before is great, and will mean no more holding off installing patches until you are done for the day, you can do it in a tea break without having to lose your flow

Disk encryption shares nothing with the old filevault except the name. This has been implemented really well. I have whole disk encryption on my work Windows PC, it's a horrible blue dos prompt and a user ID/password that is in no way integrated into the OS. The new filevault boots into a standard Mac OS X login prompt and allows you to authenticate the unencryption via standard OS based admin users and passwords. So much better, tightly integrated, and unobtrusive.

Of course there are many UI tweaks, and they are all welcome, but whilst they are getting top billing by Apple (Launchpad, Mission Control etc), it doesn't mean that they are the only important things. Any edge resizing, removal of scroll bars, rounded corners etc, all minor but very welcome.

Having a full range of server tools for free is a major thing. OK, the tools may not be that new, but they are new the the desktop OS. And if you really think they are worth $5 only for "wrapping a gui around open source" then you have clearly only a rudimentary knowledge of this sort of thing

Also, there are many lesser features that won't get any billing, much less feature - things like TRIM, and improvements to all the "minor" apps like iChat, system info and so on. No doubt there will be more to find out as we all start using it, and each release will have new stuff, as always.

I'm just putting in what I see as worthwhile features for me. There have been past attempts and 3rd party alternatives to all of but one of these. Still, they are features which require end user re-training, ditch backwards compatibility, and apply at such a low level that the danger of something going wrong is high. These are things that should be in an OS upgrade.

The open source tools I use by the way, aren't the ones bundled in the OS. There are Mac OS X package managers which do a far better job of keeping things up to date. But I let Apple take care of it's tools, and I never install over them just for my development. Keep the streams separate.

I won't quibble over the price though. I agree that it's going to feel "too high" even though we don't know what it is yet. I will probably be annoyed and resolve not to buy it, but eventually it comes down to paying the doorman to dance in Apple's ballroom.

But I'm pretty sure most of what's being talked about for Lion ARE either features that couldn't reliably go into a Software Update upgrade, or else it's the interface sugar being added to get users to swallow the bitter pill of a full OS upgrade. (Not strictly necessary, but gives the feeling they see a worthwhile improvement).

not sold at all on this one, i guess it all comes down to price, this really needs to be same price as snowy or less to be a worthwhile upgrade.

what amazes me though is the amount of time its taken for apple to get this ready?

Seems like apple is running out of ideas.

heres looking forward to service pack 4 in 18 months

Thanks Melgross!

Always enjoy your positive comments Quadra! I'm looking fwd to Lion, too. I love the touch gestures on my iP4 and got the Apple thin wireless keyboard, magic mouse and magic trackpad within days of them coming out. All took a little time to get used too...I mean by that a few hours. But now I love them all. Especially the track pad. I like the fact that you don't have to click so much. You just touch down on the pad and it acts like a click. If you have an iMac I really recommend the magic pad. You won't be disappointed.

That kinda made me chuckle a bit. Mac's are expensive by nature, we buy them because of the quality and we pay a premium for that... besides.. they are "pretty" too.. lol

Troll.

I like most of the improvements.. -But have a huge issue with gesture based browser functions being a default in Safari. Swiping left and right to move forward and backward in your browsing history completely undermines horizontal website design (many great examples). When gesturing and scrolling through a horizontal website people would almost always accidentally scroll right off their current page and cause their browser to take them someplace else.

This type of implementation is as restricting to web design as the Qwerty keyboard is to efficient typing, and to be implementing it as a default in 2011 is ridiculous!

** I should add that I'm aware there are currently similar implementations of this effect, but that it has been re-implemented in Lion to be activated by scrolling with just one finger.

Creative professionals, programmers, and other experts absolutely need to be exposed to files and folders. The average user does not, and it confuses them. The 1980s office productivity metaphor made sense back when desktop publishing was the new wave of personal computing. Times change.

Complain all you want. Post away, help build traffic to AppleInsider.com. I'm sure they'll appreciate every hit, every minute spent on their site. Knock yourselves out. Apple is doing the right thing by reducing complexity for the average user, and there is no going back.

A year or two after Lion is released, Microsoft will start the copy machines and attempt to simplify Windows. It will take them 2 or 3 tries over 10 years, and by that time Windows will be the legacy OS that nobody uses unless their corporate IT department forces it on them. A profitable market, for sure, but a shrinking one. A captive market. Locked in the way Microsoft likes them.

Meanwhile, Mac consumer and business market share will expand rapidly. Computing, for the masses, will be easier and more fun. And Finder won't be missed. Sure, there will be an "expert mode" with low-level file system access in the UI. But the less there is between users and their apps + data, the better.

I've been getting that warning on just about everything. However, it comes and goes.

One finger left-right swipe on Magic Mouse scrolls a page left and right.

Two finger left-right swipe on Magic Trackpad and MacBook trackpad scrolls a page left and right.

Oh, and by the way, some of the sites on that page require clicking left and right arrows to navigate horizontally.
How 1998-ish.

Glad I didn't design any of them then \

I'm aware of the current gestures, but they act entirely different in the Lion version of Safari when you reach the 'edge' of a page.

I have two questions. . .

1.) Can you change the background of the new dashboard, cause that thing they've got up there looks like it's gonna make me cross-eyed! Let alone my sadness of taking away the cool ripple animation . Let me change the Background, and I'll be a LITTLE more happy.

2.) Can you drag windows from one space to another? Looks like it would be much more difficult with such smaller screen real-estate to deal with. Then again, I am used to only working with 4 spaces.

I thought the whole point of the dashboard was to be able to call up tiny apps while still seeing the desktop...

Things like using the calculator widget to add up some figures in an email, the conversion widget to figure out how much something costs on Ebay international or measurements in a non-metric recipe, the translation widget to translate a phrase or the sticky note widget to jot down something you see on a website all lose some usability if you can't call them up without the the desktop being pushed out of the way.... I hope they at least keep the option of retaining the Tiger/Snow Leopard dashboard! This seems like a very counter-intuitive move by Apple.

Jean-Louis Gassée talks up his wishes for Mac and even mentions AppleInsider.

http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/02/27...nt-for-my-mac/