Loving it so far. Apple's changes with OS X have almost all been the kinds of changes I've been looking for in an OS. It works exactly the way my mind wants it to. Even the changes to Spaces to form part of Mission Control match up with my work flow slightly better - once I disabled Mission Control's automatic rearrangement feature anyway.
The best features so far are, for me, Safari 5.1 (Safari is usable again! And Fullscreen Safari is a delight - this is how browsers should work. They've even adopted a behaviour I designed - independently - years ago where vertical real estate is preserved without losing information by placing the Page Title in the Address Bar) and the death of scrollbars.
Let me be clear about this. I hate scrollbars. I always have. I always used to resize windows and hide elements and collapse lists etc. just to be rid of them as much as possible - especially in sidebars. To me, they've always been unnecessary visual clutter, clogging up screen real estate providing me with information I don't need most of the time. The Lion behaviour is perfect. They're only there when they have some information to share and they share it without chewing up precious pixels.
Thanks -- if I could rely on all my machines following that pattern, I'd switch. The thing is, I still use some older machines too (and I need to keep 2004 word functionality, stupid American Chemical Society!)
How close to Word 2004 formatted docs can you get with, say LibreOffice?
Worst case, Word 2011 can save to Word 97-2004 format.
Not upgrading one of the older ones probably is the cheapest solution.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth \
Given that others seem to be getting their downloads at much higher speeds, maybe it isn't Apple's (and/or their various conduits like Akamai) issue.
Thanks -- if I could rely on all my machines following that pattern, I'd switch. The thing is, I still use some older machines too (and I need to keep 2004 word functionality, stupid American Chemical Society!)
Aren't more modern versions of Office (and, heck, I'm sure Pages does it) capable of saving files that are compatible with that?
I have some old MS Word documents that MS Word 2011 will not open, but MS Word 2004 will. MS Word 2011's failure in that regard is very troubling.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth \
All you have to do is imagine the sheer amount of people that are sucking Lion down off Apple's servers. They can either throttle or crash their network. Which would you prefer?
Are you saying I can create a bootable drive using the files in the recovery disk? That's what I'm hoping, but I haven't found anywhere on the net to confirm this. I will play around with it tonight as I only brought my MBP to work to utilize our bandwith...so I haven't had a chance to explore LION...
No. Are you saying that after you did the install with the 4GB Lion installer that you didn't back up, it was fully deleted? You'd think there would have been some warning before Apple did that to your new software property wouldn't you? Surprise surprise.
I GAVE YOU THE LINK TO DIRECTIONS HOW TO DO IT from what you downloaded:
Sorry if you have to download it again. But really, numerous How To articles about how to make an install DVD or Flash Drive have been published on the Internet for the past 3 weeks or more.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth \
I was getting about 3.5 megabytes per second. Sounds like your internet connection has an issue.
Note: I have no idea why there are *'s after most paragraphs. The curse of typing this out on an iPad via a free text editor before pasting here I guess. Also, I'm too lazy to correct this, so fuck it.
Ok, onto the story...
Three hour download, twenty five minute install (holy hell!! That was a nice surprise).
At first I had a minor issue with Mail not sending/receiving and web pages not loading, but a simple DNS refresh cleared that up.
I have to admit, when I first saw the Lion previews I thought it looked cluttered, just like I thought iOS 4 looked when Apple first showed it off. Like I can't imagine going back to iOS 3, I can't imagine going back to Snow Leopard after two hours of using Lion. In my books Apple knocked this one out of the park.
1) At first I was pissed that Spaces was gone. I lived and breathed Spaces. Then I took a closer look at Mission Control and what it actually did. Drag and drop extra desktops (you don't need to set up a predefined amount of spaces, they're there when you want them and you can delete them when you don't) full view of all your open apps, including fullscreen... Mission Control is my new favorite thing in a desktop OS; the fact that I can control my entire desktop experience with a double tap as opposed to a combo of F8/F9/Ctrl+right or left arrow is amazing.*
2) The iOS touch style scrolling took about half an hour to get used to. I kept the mindset that my magic mouse was my iPad and eventually it all clicked.*
3) Full screen apps is a thing of beauty. 'Nuff said.*
4) The new Mail app is taking a bit of getting used to. I've never been a fan of grouped emails, but the more I stick with it, the more Apples version is making sense. I've tried grouped messages with Outlook and iOS and I just can't get it. Now, however, it seems to be working.*
5) Launchpad is kinda neat. I still find myself using the Dock just as much as usual, but the fact that I have a fully customized Application folder with one click that looks likes my iPad home screen is kind of neat (and familiar, which is what Apple was shooting for considering the amount of people out there who have iDevices and no Mac, but who are considering a Mac based on the iDevice experience).*
Some minor gripes:
1) iCal. Great new features. Fucking UGLY interface. I was hoping that faux leather look that showed up in screenshots in April was a 4/1 joke. Nope. Ugly. This needs to be fixed.*
2) The update to Pages is confusing me. I opened shit I was working on before the upgrade, and I can't do anything with it. It's locked in some way I haven't figured out yet.*
A nice surprise:
Autocorrect. Nice to see. Although I'm sure my emails will now look as fucked up as the SMS messages I send when drunk. Then again, sending emails and SMS messages when drunk is never a good idea.*
I have installed it on my mbp... I could not even imagine it would go so wrong.
1. Boot time changed from unmeasurable (3 dots on "boot wheel") to 24 seconds counted from when EFI ends until background shows up. Cleaned up everything, rebooted few times, no change to that.
Hmm - I definitely am not seeing that!
Quote:
2. can't move applications how I want. like chess to games folder, unused small software to utilities folder. OS just refuse to move or delete.
Not seeing that either...
Quote:
3. some of my applications are now not usable saying can't open powerpc applications. well, they are not
How long have you had them? Migrated them from a Power PC Mac? Screw up using a program like ONYX and deleted the Intel instead of PPC side of a universal app? Sounds like they only had the PPC code in them. Apple did you a favor - re-install them and I'll bet they speed up significantly!
Quote:
4. forced no scrollbars, looks nice indeed, but apps like vnc are unusable without fullscreen
Actually you can turn them back on in the General systems preference pane. I already did. Annoying, but not fatal and easily reverted. Don't miss the arrows - can't tell you the last time I clicked on a scroll bar or scroll arrow, but I do like the visual indicator of where I am.
Quote:
PS: I was charged twice for lion update on same account.
File a claim with iTunes support - if they are refunding people for Final Cut X, you should get a bogus double charge reversed easily. Just be sure to ask them to reverse it and not just complain on the Internet
> Lion is an upgrade and can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs.
How does this work? After upgrading your first Mac do you have copy a 3+ Gb file to your other Mac(s)?
Yes. By default when downloaded by the App Store it will put the Lion installer in your Applications folder and auto-start it.
Do not run it from the Applications folder if you wish to re-use it! Quit the auto running of the Lion installer, copy the file somewhere else or just move it out of the applications folder - then run it. That way it will be around after the install is complete.
Since most people are probably upgrading one machine deleting the installer after install probably makes since for most people. Luckily if you have multiple Mac's it's easy to save the installer file to do so.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth \
It's your ISP throttling you probably. I downloaded Lion this morning (10:00 AM EST) in about 45 minutes, and xCode this evening (~6:30PM EST) at about the same speed. In the morning you could probably argue I was "ahead of the curve" - but not tonight. Don't assume every issue is Apple's or their content delivery network providers...
I've just gotten home after a trip to the Apple Store to download Lion. I only have wireless (3G) broadband with a meager bandwidth cap and the Lion download is a bit too much for the cap to handle so I was hoping the store could do it. When I explained my situation the concierge immediately said it was ok, just pull up a chair at one of the tables, hop on the in-store wifi and download it.
It took an hour to download and that was first thing in the morning while it was quiet, so not super fast but for the size of the download I was happy with an hour. After the download had finished I closed the lid and brought it home to run the installer (which is still running now).
The staff mentioned that sometime soon they will have some kind of ethernet solution set up so that it will be a bit faster in future. Overall, great Apple store experience. The staff were all great and the free access to grab the download is just what was needed for the situation.
Comments
Interface is extremely bland though.
Why?
What, because of the greyscale, removal of useless scroll bars, and... what?
I fell in love with the new Spotlight the moment I used it in DP1. Not too happy about how sorting files in Finder looks, though. At all.
Why?
What, because of the greyscale, removal of useless scroll bars, and... what?
Greyscale. I like the removal of scrollbars. I like the animations, everything is responsive. Safari is nice. However, the greyscale rather sucks.
I like the new system info under "about this mac." The revised dashboard is rather nice.
Natural scrolling was turned off immediately.
How does this work? After upgrading your first Mac do you have copy a 3+ Gb file to your other Mac(s)?
The best features so far are, for me, Safari 5.1 (Safari is usable again! And Fullscreen Safari is a delight - this is how browsers should work. They've even adopted a behaviour I designed - independently - years ago where vertical real estate is preserved without losing information by placing the Page Title in the Address Bar) and the death of scrollbars.
Let me be clear about this. I hate scrollbars. I always have. I always used to resize windows and hide elements and collapse lists etc. just to be rid of them as much as possible - especially in sidebars. To me, they've always been unnecessary visual clutter, clogging up screen real estate providing me with information I don't need most of the time. The Lion behaviour is perfect. They're only there when they have some information to share and they share it without chewing up precious pixels.
It's like Apple built a Mac OS X just for me
Thanks -- if I could rely on all my machines following that pattern, I'd switch. The thing is, I still use some older machines too (and I need to keep 2004 word functionality, stupid American Chemical Society!)
How close to Word 2004 formatted docs can you get with, say LibreOffice?
Worst case, Word 2011 can save to Word 97-2004 format.
Not upgrading one of the older ones probably is the cheapest solution.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth
Given that others seem to be getting their downloads at much higher speeds, maybe it isn't Apple's (and/or their various conduits like Akamai) issue.
I want to update to Lion but I fear having my hard drive wiped
Do a full backup first. That should go without saying.
or having programs I use for work becoming incompatible, such as Office 2011.
Office 2011 seems to work just fine. Previous reports asserted that 2008 but not earlier, worked.
Any reported compatibility or installation issues to report? I am on a Macbook unibody 13"
Gargle is your friend. Really.
Originally Posted by iCarbon
Thanks -- if I could rely on all my machines following that pattern, I'd switch. The thing is, I still use some older machines too (and I need to keep 2004 word functionality, stupid American Chemical Society!)
Aren't more modern versions of Office (and, heck, I'm sure Pages does it) capable of saving files that are compatible with that?
I have some old MS Word documents that MS Word 2011 will not open, but MS Word 2004 will. MS Word 2011's failure in that regard is very troubling.
Two finger sliding for 'back' and 'forward' in safari is also fairly lovely. Now if Amazon would just update the kindle app to support full screen.
I have some old MS Word documents that MS Word 2011 will not open, but MS Word 2004 will. MS Word 2011's failure in that regard is very troubling.
So open them in aught four, save them as an aught four file, then open that file in '11 and save it as an '11 file.
Or just get pages and have only one file that works everywhere.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth
All you have to do is imagine the sheer amount of people that are sucking Lion down off Apple's servers. They can either throttle or crash their network. Which would you prefer?
Really, really liking this so far. The new multitouch gestures are sweet. I think this is going to push me over the edge to get a new 15" Pro though.
Are you saying I can create a bootable drive using the files in the recovery disk? That's what I'm hoping, but I haven't found anywhere on the net to confirm this. I will play around with it tonight as I only brought my MBP to work to utilize our bandwith...so I haven't had a chance to explore LION...
No. Are you saying that after you did the install with the 4GB Lion installer that you didn't back up, it was fully deleted? You'd think there would have been some warning before Apple did that to your new software property wouldn't you? Surprise surprise.
I GAVE YOU THE LINK TO DIRECTIONS HOW TO DO IT from what you downloaded:
How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive.
Sorry if you have to download it again. But really, numerous How To articles about how to make an install DVD or Flash Drive have been published on the Internet for the past 3 weeks or more.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth
I was getting about 3.5 megabytes per second. Sounds like your internet connection has an issue.
Ok, onto the story...
Three hour download, twenty five minute install (holy hell!! That was a nice surprise).
At first I had a minor issue with Mail not sending/receiving and web pages not loading, but a simple DNS refresh cleared that up.
I have to admit, when I first saw the Lion previews I thought it looked cluttered, just like I thought iOS 4 looked when Apple first showed it off. Like I can't imagine going back to iOS 3, I can't imagine going back to Snow Leopard after two hours of using Lion. In my books Apple knocked this one out of the park.
1) At first I was pissed that Spaces was gone. I lived and breathed Spaces. Then I took a closer look at Mission Control and what it actually did. Drag and drop extra desktops (you don't need to set up a predefined amount of spaces, they're there when you want them and you can delete them when you don't) full view of all your open apps, including fullscreen... Mission Control is my new favorite thing in a desktop OS; the fact that I can control my entire desktop experience with a double tap as opposed to a combo of F8/F9/Ctrl+right or left arrow is amazing.*
2) The iOS touch style scrolling took about half an hour to get used to. I kept the mindset that my magic mouse was my iPad and eventually it all clicked.*
3) Full screen apps is a thing of beauty. 'Nuff said.*
4) The new Mail app is taking a bit of getting used to. I've never been a fan of grouped emails, but the more I stick with it, the more Apples version is making sense. I've tried grouped messages with Outlook and iOS and I just can't get it. Now, however, it seems to be working.*
5) Launchpad is kinda neat. I still find myself using the Dock just as much as usual, but the fact that I have a fully customized Application folder with one click that looks likes my iPad home screen is kind of neat (and familiar, which is what Apple was shooting for considering the amount of people out there who have iDevices and no Mac, but who are considering a Mac based on the iDevice experience).*
Some minor gripes:
1) iCal. Great new features. Fucking UGLY interface. I was hoping that faux leather look that showed up in screenshots in April was a 4/1 joke. Nope. Ugly. This needs to be fixed.*
2) The update to Pages is confusing me. I opened shit I was working on before the upgrade, and I can't do anything with it. It's locked in some way I haven't figured out yet.*
A nice surprise:
Autocorrect. Nice to see. Although I'm sure my emails will now look as fucked up as the SMS messages I send when drunk. Then again, sending emails and SMS messages when drunk is never a good idea.*
I have installed it on my mbp... I could not even imagine it would go so wrong.
1. Boot time changed from unmeasurable (3 dots on "boot wheel") to 24 seconds counted from when EFI ends until background shows up. Cleaned up everything, rebooted few times, no change to that.
Hmm - I definitely am not seeing that!
2. can't move applications how I want. like chess to games folder, unused small software to utilities folder. OS just refuse to move or delete.
Not seeing that either...
3. some of my applications are now not usable saying can't open powerpc applications. well, they are not
How long have you had them? Migrated them from a Power PC Mac? Screw up using a program like ONYX and deleted the Intel instead of PPC side of a universal app? Sounds like they only had the PPC code in them. Apple did you a favor - re-install them and I'll bet they speed up significantly!
4. forced no scrollbars, looks nice indeed, but apps like vnc are unusable without fullscreen
Actually you can turn them back on in the General systems preference pane. I already did. Annoying, but not fatal and easily reverted. Don't miss the arrows - can't tell you the last time I clicked on a scroll bar or scroll arrow, but I do like the visual indicator of where I am.
PS: I was charged twice for lion update on same account.
File a claim with iTunes support - if they are refunding people for Final Cut X, you should get a bogus double charge reversed easily. Just be sure to ask them to reverse it and not just complain on the Internet
> Lion is an upgrade and can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs.
How does this work? After upgrading your first Mac do you have copy a 3+ Gb file to your other Mac(s)?
Yes. By default when downloaded by the App Store it will put the Lion installer in your Applications folder and auto-start it.
Do not run it from the Applications folder if you wish to re-use it! Quit the auto running of the Lion installer, copy the file somewhere else or just move it out of the applications folder - then run it. That way it will be around after the install is complete.
Since most people are probably upgrading one machine deleting the installer after install probably makes since for most people. Luckily if you have multiple Mac's it's easy to save the installer file to do so.
I've been downloading for 2 hours and it's done 1GB. This is slightly faster than dial-up speeds on a 10Mbit ADSL connection. If Apple are going to distribute their software as download-only they need to invest in a lot more bandwidth
It's your ISP throttling you probably. I downloaded Lion this morning (10:00 AM EST) in about 45 minutes, and xCode this evening (~6:30PM EST) at about the same speed. In the morning you could probably argue I was "ahead of the curve" - but not tonight. Don't assume every issue is Apple's or their content delivery network providers...
It took an hour to download and that was first thing in the morning while it was quiet, so not super fast but for the size of the download I was happy with an hour. After the download had finished I closed the lid and brought it home to run the installer (which is still running now).
The staff mentioned that sometime soon they will have some kind of ethernet solution set up so that it will be a bit faster in future. Overall, great Apple store experience. The staff were all great and the free access to grab the download is just what was needed for the situation.