Quitting is often the best way to free up memory from the larger applications, or apps like iphoto or firefox which seem to consume more and more memory the longer they're running.
While technically true, your statement is obsolete. With iOS "multitasking", Apple figured out an efficient way (i.e. low memory footprint) to suspend background apps that is indistinguishable from "still running" to the user. (Presumably apps that are actually busy "doing something", such as running a calculation or performing a user-requested task, wouldn't be thusly suspended until their task is complete.) If the user selects such an app, it rapidly comes back to life and fills the required memory space while other apps, now not in focus, become suspended. With very little actual RAM, my iPhone is currently "running" 35 apps. It doesn't matter that they aren't "running" in the same sense that "multitasking" used to imply. All that matters is they behave the same way when I return to them.
Apple has simply brought the same technique into Mac OS X.
Apple has simply brought the same technique into Mac OS X.
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open. But then I go into multitasking, quit all running programs, and lo and behold my phone is as speedy as ever. I've also had apps 'doing things' in the background (I'm not sure what), but I'll pull out the phone an hour later and the battery is almost dead (yes, there is one app that does this - not sure why).
So while the concept is nice, there are apps that don't behave well in the background and/or iOS isn't managing itself as well as it should such that 'not needing to quit apps' is a nice theory for iOS, but it has it's troubles.
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open. But then I go into multitasking, quit all running programs, and lo and behold my phone is as speedy as ever. I've also had apps 'doing things' in the background (I'm not sure what), but I'll pull out the phone an hour later and the battery is almost dead (yes, there is one app that does this - not sure why).
So while the concept is nice, there are apps that don't behave well in the background and/or iOS isn't managing itself as well as it should such that 'not needing to quit apps' is a nice theory for iOS, but it has it's troubles.
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
This shouldn't be the case. I do not have this issue. You must be running applications that specifically ask for the processor to FULLY run them in the background. I would try to figure out what these programs are.
I'm not sure how you want to see this ability in the user interface but Mail does have direct access to calendar and the address book. There is an address book icon at the top of any message window. There is a To Do button that creates new calendar events.
You can control click any name, date, or phone number and pull up a dialog window for address book and calendar.
Sure, Mail has underpinnings to the iCal and Contacts frameworks, but you can?t use a SINGLE APP to control them all like you can in Outlook. This is one area that Outlook completely kills Mail.
To restate, I want a sidebar or icons to switch between Contacts and iCal views in Mail, not just the ability to add an iCal event from some parsed data in an email or add an email address to a message from my contacts.
This sounds great to me! The OS handles all kinds of nonsense for you (iOS-style) so you can just to get to work. Meanwhile (not iOS-style) there’s tons of flexibility for developers to do things in different ways, old or new alike. And users too can keep using their Mac the same old ways—quitting apps and ignoring document versioning—if they don’t like to learn new tricks.
In short, Apple’s using iOS to make the Mac better, but not trying to make the Mac BE iOS. Touch devices are not conventional computers, and vice versa. I might have feared Apple would blur the distinction, or let OS X stagnate since iOS sells better. But they haven’t. I’m actually surprised such big changes are starting so soon, but I’m not complaining.
Long live the “trucks!”
EDIT: What is “$HOME”? Is that ~ or root? I was about to post that I like to poke around in both Libraries... but as I think about I realize I haven’t needed to do that in a long time! I guess that’s a factor of how far OS X has come. Still, I occasionally do obscure stuff like mess with game .inis. (Luckily, Finder can locate hidden files anyway. Find > File Visibility > Invisible Items.)
Macrumours is reporting that Lion will generously enabled OpenGL 3.2 on these new DX11 capable MacBook Pros. \
I'd be interested to know the minimum system requirements of Lion. Will it drop support for first-gen Core Duos and go 64-bit kernel only, which I'm kind of expecting? In such a case will Merom Core 2 Duos (late 2006/2007 era) models which don't currently support the 64-bit kernel in Snow Leopard still be supported? Otherwise, that's killing off a lot of the installed base.
I'd also be interested to see if Rosetta is still available as an optional install. Hopefully it is. There are a number of older games, primarily Starcraft, that would be a tragedy to lose. I'd hardly think Apple's recommended solution would be to Boot Camp Windows.
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open.
Really? I've never noticed that on my iPhone 4. I believe you though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnmcboston
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
Probably, given that the bigger machines that it runs on will have more resources available than an iPhone does. My hunch is that it will do just fine.
Application Persistence sounds like a nightmare not a feature! What happens when a piece of bad code goes crazy and you have no quit option and a reboot just opens it back up for you?
Quit is still there (as is Force Quit, aka Unix kill) it just won't be necessary.
Sure, Mail has underpinnings to the iCal and Contacts frameworks, but you can?t use a SINGLE APP to control them all like you can in Outlook. This is one area that Outlook completely kills Mail.
To restate, I want a sidebar or icons to switch between Contacts and iCal views in Mail, not just the ability to add an iCal event from some parsed data in an email or add an email address to a message from my contacts.
Well, if you're going to switch views from Mail/Contacts/iCal, why not just switch apps?
One of the tenants of the Unix approach to software is small, single purpose applications which do one thing, and do it well. You're asking for a kitchen sink approach. Now i can see how you might perceive that as convenient, but the problem with bloatware is that after a while, it doesn't do anything well. Wouldn't it be just as good to have icons to open/switch-to Address Book or iCal? To my mind, that gives you the features you're asking for, without getting into bloatware.
Frankly, i've never really liked Mail.app. For one thing, it's always been buggy. And the UI has never really been stellar, in my opinion. Unfortunately, Jobs & Company decided to go with NeXT's mail application, not Claris eMailer, way back when. There has never been a better mail client on the Mac than Claris eMailer.
For those of you out there too young to remember, the lead developer of Claris eMailer went to work for M$ and created Outlook.
Well, if you're going to switch views from Mail/Contacts/iCal, why not just switch apps?
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
Can I cut and paste files in Finder? I never understood why I can't do that. Unless I'm doing it wrong.
I don't understand what you're asking for? Do you want to append one file to another?
If so, one could write a shell script to do that, and either wrap it in a AppleScript app (i.e. you just drop the file icons onto the app icon), or use Automator to create a Finder service (i.e. access via a pop-up menu) to do that. Problem would be knowing which file to append to which, however. \
I don't understand what you're asking for? Do you want to append one file to another?
If so, one could write a shell script to do that, and either wrap it in a AppleScript app (i.e. you just drop the file icons onto the app icon), or use Automator to create a Finder service (i.e. access via a pop-up menu) to do that. Problem would be knowing which file to append to which, however. \
He?s talking about simply cutting a file or folder and then pasting it in another place. All you can do with Mac OS X is copy that file, paste it in another location and then delete the original -or- emulate a cut and paste event with a drag-and-drop of the pointing device, but that isn?t as fast as doing a cut and paste.
By the way, even if these folders become invisible in the Finder, one can still get to them by Go -> Go to Folder. I use that to get to hidden system folders all the time. Well, not all the time! Or one could create an alias to the folder. Or simply make the folder visible.
Great Features! Applications Persistence sounds fantastic. It will take exactly one day to wonder why it was never thus before. I have always preferred the Windows way of quitting apps and this is basically it, only better.
Not so sure about apps preserving state. Often I find it annoying when I open Safari and several windows / tabs load. If I quit with many tabs going it's usually because I am done. I don't want them back again. It just means having to close windows before quitting. Which in terms of apps generally makes the experience more like Windows - the red button top left will see a usage spike ;-)
Application Persistence does sound fantastic. All the time saved between starting up and waiting for the application to load, look for the last file, etc.... great stuff.
Also, I'm intrigued with AirDrop. The current way to get to another computer's Drop Box can be inconsistent and annoying.
He?s talking about simply cutting a file or folder and then pasting it in another place. All you can do with Mac OS X is copy that file, paste it in another location and then delete the original -or- emulate a cut and paste event with a drag-and-drop of the pointing device, but that isn?t as fast as doing a cut and paste.
I've been using Mac since the very beginning and only recently discovered I could do this. What a time saver. Sometimes it pays to come late to the party.
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
I've been using Mac since the very beginning and only recently discovered I could do this. What a time saver. Sometimes it pays to come late to the party.
Which this are you referring? Copy and paste of a file/folder?
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
It seems like you're just real finicky in your preferences. There's not much difference in use between the two set ups. You're either clicking an calendar icon in Outlook or clicking the iCal icon in the doc. Is that really that different?
Personally, I like the Mac way because I can bypass switching altogether by having Mail, Address Book and iCal all open and showing on the screen at the same time with no overlap. This way there is pretty much NO switching between apps or views since I can see them all at the same time. Seems like the best solution to me. Even better, I have them designated to their own 'space' in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Try it out.
Comments
Quitting is often the best way to free up memory from the larger applications, or apps like iphoto or firefox which seem to consume more and more memory the longer they're running.
While technically true, your statement is obsolete. With iOS "multitasking", Apple figured out an efficient way (i.e. low memory footprint) to suspend background apps that is indistinguishable from "still running" to the user. (Presumably apps that are actually busy "doing something", such as running a calculation or performing a user-requested task, wouldn't be thusly suspended until their task is complete.) If the user selects such an app, it rapidly comes back to life and fills the required memory space while other apps, now not in focus, become suspended. With very little actual RAM, my iPhone is currently "running" 35 apps. It doesn't matter that they aren't "running" in the same sense that "multitasking" used to imply. All that matters is they behave the same way when I return to them.
Apple has simply brought the same technique into Mac OS X.
Thompson
Apple has simply brought the same technique into Mac OS X.
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open. But then I go into multitasking, quit all running programs, and lo and behold my phone is as speedy as ever. I've also had apps 'doing things' in the background (I'm not sure what), but I'll pull out the phone an hour later and the battery is almost dead (yes, there is one app that does this - not sure why).
So while the concept is nice, there are apps that don't behave well in the background and/or iOS isn't managing itself as well as it should such that 'not needing to quit apps' is a nice theory for iOS, but it has it's troubles.
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open. But then I go into multitasking, quit all running programs, and lo and behold my phone is as speedy as ever. I've also had apps 'doing things' in the background (I'm not sure what), but I'll pull out the phone an hour later and the battery is almost dead (yes, there is one app that does this - not sure why).
So while the concept is nice, there are apps that don't behave well in the background and/or iOS isn't managing itself as well as it should such that 'not needing to quit apps' is a nice theory for iOS, but it has it's troubles.
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
This shouldn't be the case. I do not have this issue. You must be running applications that specifically ask for the processor to FULLY run them in the background. I would try to figure out what these programs are.
I'm not sure how you want to see this ability in the user interface but Mail does have direct access to calendar and the address book. There is an address book icon at the top of any message window. There is a To Do button that creates new calendar events.
You can control click any name, date, or phone number and pull up a dialog window for address book and calendar.
Sure, Mail has underpinnings to the iCal and Contacts frameworks, but you can?t use a SINGLE APP to control them all like you can in Outlook. This is one area that Outlook completely kills Mail.
To restate, I want a sidebar or icons to switch between Contacts and iCal views in Mail, not just the ability to add an iCal event from some parsed data in an email or add an email address to a message from my contacts.
In short, Apple’s using iOS to make the Mac better, but not trying to make the Mac BE iOS. Touch devices are not conventional computers, and vice versa. I might have feared Apple would blur the distinction, or let OS X stagnate since iOS sells better. But they haven’t. I’m actually surprised such big changes are starting so soon, but I’m not complaining.
Long live the “trucks!”
EDIT: What is “$HOME”? Is that ~ or root? I was about to post that I like to poke around in both Libraries... but as I think about I realize I haven’t needed to do that in a long time! I guess that’s a factor of how far OS X has come. Still, I occasionally do obscure stuff like mess with game .inis. (Luckily, Finder can locate hidden files anyway. Find > File Visibility > Invisible Items.)
Macrumours is reporting that Lion will generously enabled OpenGL 3.2 on these new DX11 capable MacBook Pros.
I'd be interested to know the minimum system requirements of Lion. Will it drop support for first-gen Core Duos and go 64-bit kernel only, which I'm kind of expecting? In such a case will Merom Core 2 Duos (late 2006/2007 era) models which don't currently support the 64-bit kernel in Snow Leopard still be supported? Otherwise, that's killing off a lot of the installed base.
I'd also be interested to see if Rosetta is still available as an optional install. Hopefully it is. There are a number of older games, primarily Starcraft, that would be a tragedy to lose. I'd hardly think Apple's recommended solution would be to Boot Camp Windows.
3.2???? WTF Apple, this is 2011, not 2008!
I want 4.1 support, and I want it now.
In a perfect world maybe - but it doesn't work well in iOS... There are times my phone is running so sluggish it takes 10 seconds for an app do open.
Really? I've never noticed that on my iPhone 4. I believe you though.
Will 10.7 be able to do a better job of such things???
Probably, given that the bigger machines that it runs on will have more resources available than an iPhone does. My hunch is that it will do just fine.
Thompson
Application Persistence sounds like a nightmare not a feature! What happens when a piece of bad code goes crazy and you have no quit option and a reboot just opens it back up for you?
Quit is still there (as is Force Quit, aka Unix kill) it just won't be necessary.
And there's also safe boot.
Can I cut and paste files in Finder? I never understood why I can't do that. Unless I'm doing it wrong.
Cut and paste in Finder is called Move. Select your files and drag to new location with Command key pressed.
Sure, Mail has underpinnings to the iCal and Contacts frameworks, but you can?t use a SINGLE APP to control them all like you can in Outlook. This is one area that Outlook completely kills Mail.
To restate, I want a sidebar or icons to switch between Contacts and iCal views in Mail, not just the ability to add an iCal event from some parsed data in an email or add an email address to a message from my contacts.
Well, if you're going to switch views from Mail/Contacts/iCal, why not just switch apps?
One of the tenants of the Unix approach to software is small, single purpose applications which do one thing, and do it well. You're asking for a kitchen sink approach. Now i can see how you might perceive that as convenient, but the problem with bloatware is that after a while, it doesn't do anything well. Wouldn't it be just as good to have icons to open/switch-to Address Book or iCal? To my mind, that gives you the features you're asking for, without getting into bloatware.
Frankly, i've never really liked Mail.app. For one thing, it's always been buggy. And the UI has never really been stellar, in my opinion. Unfortunately, Jobs & Company decided to go with NeXT's mail application, not Claris eMailer, way back when. There has never been a better mail client on the Mac than Claris eMailer.
For those of you out there too young to remember, the lead developer of Claris eMailer went to work for M$ and created Outlook.
Well, if you're going to switch views from Mail/Contacts/iCal, why not just switch apps?
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
And for those advocating the latter, I switch context/application fairly (i.e. a whole lot) more on my MBP than on a phone.
Can I cut and paste files in Finder? I never understood why I can't do that. Unless I'm doing it wrong.
I don't understand what you're asking for? Do you want to append one file to another?
If so, one could write a shell script to do that, and either wrap it in a AppleScript app (i.e. you just drop the file icons onto the app icon), or use Automator to create a Finder service (i.e. access via a pop-up menu) to do that. Problem would be knowing which file to append to which, however.
I don't understand what you're asking for? Do you want to append one file to another?
If so, one could write a shell script to do that, and either wrap it in a AppleScript app (i.e. you just drop the file icons onto the app icon), or use Automator to create a Finder service (i.e. access via a pop-up menu) to do that. Problem would be knowing which file to append to which, however.
He?s talking about simply cutting a file or folder and then pasting it in another place. All you can do with Mac OS X is copy that file, paste it in another location and then delete the original -or- emulate a cut and paste event with a drag-and-drop of the pointing device, but that isn?t as fast as doing a cut and paste.
What is ?$HOME?? Is that ~ or root?
~
By the way, even if these folders become invisible in the Finder, one can still get to them by Go -> Go to Folder. I use that to get to hidden system folders all the time. Well, not all the time! Or one could create an alias to the folder. Or simply make the folder visible.
Great Features! Applications Persistence sounds fantastic. It will take exactly one day to wonder why it was never thus before. I have always preferred the Windows way of quitting apps and this is basically it, only better.
Not so sure about apps preserving state. Often I find it annoying when I open Safari and several windows / tabs load. If I quit with many tabs going it's usually because I am done. I don't want them back again. It just means having to close windows before quitting. Which in terms of apps generally makes the experience more like Windows - the red button top left will see a usage spike ;-)
Application Persistence does sound fantastic. All the time saved between starting up and waiting for the application to load, look for the last file, etc.... great stuff.
Also, I'm intrigued with AirDrop. The current way to get to another computer's Drop Box can be inconsistent and annoying.
He?s talking about simply cutting a file or folder and then pasting it in another place. All you can do with Mac OS X is copy that file, paste it in another location and then delete the original -or- emulate a cut and paste event with a drag-and-drop of the pointing device, but that isn?t as fast as doing a cut and paste.
I've been using Mac since the very beginning and only recently discovered I could do this. What a time saver. Sometimes it pays to come late to the party.
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
Stupid. Just switch apps.
I've been using Mac since the very beginning and only recently discovered I could do this. What a time saver. Sometimes it pays to come late to the party.
Which this are you referring? Copy and paste of a file/folder?
Because I don?t want to switch apps. I want to switch a panel view, nothing more, but still have the side panel available to see all these things and more. This is very efficient in comparison.
It seems like you're just real finicky in your preferences. There's not much difference in use between the two set ups. You're either clicking an calendar icon in Outlook or clicking the iCal icon in the doc. Is that really that different?
Personally, I like the Mac way because I can bypass switching altogether by having Mail, Address Book and iCal all open and showing on the screen at the same time with no overlap. This way there is pretty much NO switching between apps or views since I can see them all at the same time. Seems like the best solution to me. Even better, I have them designated to their own 'space' in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Try it out.