It is expensive, but it’s the same pretty price as the Magic Mouse they ship with the iMac (when purchased separately). At one point they sold the USB keyboard and mouse with the BT versions seperately but later make them standard issue.
With the number of users accustomed to trackpads these days from the exceedingly high number of notebook users (at least in areas where Apple plays) I think it’s likely will update their iMac line to include the Magic Trackpad over the Magic Mouse, especially if future software makes their systems more usable for it.
I also think it’s also possible they will offer a one or the other option for the same price, like they do with the English/Spanish keyboards.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
The Magic Pad is expensive though and not bundled with the computers for free. If it would make it affordable, I think they should make a new keyboard/trackpad hybrid like this:
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
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 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 ...
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.
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.
Comments
It is expensive, but it’s the same pretty price as the Magic Mouse they ship with the iMac (when purchased separately). At one point they sold the USB keyboard and mouse with the BT versions seperately but later make them standard issue.
With the number of users accustomed to trackpads these days from the exceedingly high number of notebook users (at least in areas where Apple plays) I think it’s likely will update their iMac line to include the Magic Trackpad over the Magic Mouse, especially if future software makes their systems more usable for it.
I also think it’s also possible they will offer a one or the other option for the same price, like they do with the English/Spanish keyboards.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[*]Recompiled kernel for faster execution
Everything else I knew, but do you have a source for this? I could not find anything.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
Please watch your language! I'm not going to delete it as so many have already quoted it. But please don't do it again.
Thanks Melgross!
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.
Always enjoy your positive comments Quadra!
The Magic Pad is expensive though and not bundled with the computers for free. If it would make it affordable, I think they should make a new keyboard/trackpad hybrid like this:
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
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
Troll.
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.
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.
Worrying.
I've been getting that warning on just about everything. However, it comes and goes.
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 ...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/02/27...nt-for-my-mac/
That couldn't possibly be less relevant to reality, but whatever. No one cares.
Thanks for your polite response.