Thursday, July 28, 2011

Lion 10.7 should You ?

So uncle Steve says we have to work with a different workflow, we have to use gestures and we will invent a few new names and yee all shall follow.
So what is OK and what is just plain stupid, and what is just brilliant.
No question they want to get the iOS and OSX similar, so they made a few changes.

Stupids
So some smarty pants decided that when you quit something next time you open it the last 50 things you had open will still be there. Example: I had 20 PDFs open and were printing them, I quit preview and the next time I opened preview the 20 PDFs appeared again, QUIT means QUIT apple, I am in charge, not some smarmy exec in cupertino. Safari : if you have ten tabs open it used to annoyingly say "are you sure you want to close all them tabs when you quit", and you knew that quitting meant just that,. Now when you open safrai all ten tabs are still open, just like all 20 PDFs - so now you have to slow your workflow and use the bloody mouse to get rid of tabs or windows by clicking endless x's or red dots in the corner ITS LIKE A BAD WINDOWS dream. Turn this off real fast in system prefs/general.
Scrolling in the same direction the new thing is, to move down a page you move two fingers up (that just doesnt feel right, very un-apple like). I never found it an issue changing between two fingered scrolling on the air and using the finger on ipad/iphone, however Steve found it an issue. Turn that off immediately.
Mission Control: maybe this was launched (excuse the pun Barb) so that people who never used hot corners now get an app to clog up their dock and do exactly what hot corners did, but we do have a gesture for it now. My suggestion, learn the gesture, keep your hot corners and send mission control out of your dock FOREVER.
The four fingered swipe used to bring up the floating opaque window with all the apps that are open, command/tab still works for that, but i loved showing that off during presentations especially when you had hidden the app and brought it forward when needed. Steve felt that wasnt used much and basically put spaces into the swipe process and gave apple apps a full screen mode. Not bad, but how about a gesture for the command/tab thing.
Some absolute egg at apple decided that the four fingered swipe takes you to a page that has dashboard/widgets WTF... Turn that off immediately (disable dashboard) or you will be banished to a place when MC Hammer plays endlessly and you will be told that you cant touch this or any other mac again.
The last clanger is auto correct in typing. I'm an average typist but i automatically hit the space bar after every word i type. It is just not going to work, check out these clangers on the iphone and tell me you want this on your laptop when you are in workflow mode. Dumb IDEA.

OK
So the full screen mode is pretty handy and i reckon it will be brilliant for the attached monitor, will have a crack at that next week when back at work. Its really spaces but with a 4 fingered swipe, OK steve I will give it a go. I wouldnt mind finding out how to keep my favourites bar in safari when in full screen without having to scroll up. and i'm not sold on losing my menu bar at the top of the mac it is only millimeters wide.. the jury is still out.
I was happy with the buy and download and install thing, but how do we install a mac thats had a hard drive meltdown without a dvd. I know you have a plan but bloody hell, its a fidget, my air shipped with a usb drive with the system on it, sell them as an extra option, would keep a few muppets happy.
Notes in mail. I know you are trying and it's cute but notes in mail, really! (it's so 10.3.9) thanks but i was able to quickly get rid of that notes icon and i'm feeling good about that. The world uses evernote now Steve, in fact you should have put a send to evernote tab in mail/everything.
Launchpad- i dont get this one, why have an app in the dock for it, learn the gesture if you want this or get quicksilver and open apps you hardly ever use in seconds - this one is for beginners and although i still have the gestures activated its a never use unless you have forgotten what apps you have or you are looking for something to delete to get more space.
Brilliant
Safari the back to previous page is awesome (three fingered swipe), shame you have to scroll in an unnatural direction but its awesome. The downloads window is tidied up, nice steve.
Mail, the changes are great particularly the threaded mail with the messages all in one, smart and very cool.
Its a solid upgrade, runs at good speed and is a nice interface. Apple didn't get to where its at with one giant leap, great things evolve, look at Manchester United. look at the first ipod with the huge firewire cable and compare it to the ipad2. Its another small step for man, and thats all.
What can we glean from this OS to get some predictions for the future?
Steve wants us to scroll in the same directions as a book: Hint - the touch screen laptop thingie will be the predominant navigator. ie the touch screen laptop is close.
Steve said no DVD with Lion: Hint - why do we need the CD drive anyway? nobody wants to see slim shady no more the CD/DVD is chopped liver.

Please tell me the features you like/love/don't get....

3 comments:

Podgorani said...

how to get the library folder back...
a must do

http://www.macgurulounge.com/library-folder-mac-os-lion/

Podgorani said...

oh my god dont open ical or address book - its a crime against fashion - it looks like someone in apple has joined the hippie movement and has smoked too much weed. go here immediately and download the skin changers http://macnix.blogspot.com/2011/07/change-mac-os-x-107-lion-ical-and.html

GimliNZ said...

So after a few months use - how do you find it now Podgo?
I don't like full screen when using multiple monitors - you effectively lose a monitor! Have been caught out with auto-correct a few times, initially thought it was just some bad typing on my part.
Safari can get quite slow quite quickly when using multi-process windows - you need to enable the 'Debug' menu (different than the Develop menu) to turn this off!
Wireless still seems a bit flaky at times - doesn't always auto-connect, but seems to have got better with last update!!
I seem to get a few beach-balls/hang-time which usually take a good few minutes to clear, but that could just be down to my set-up (not a lot of free space at the moment)!
I have got used to the new 'spaces' and now have commonly used apps (Safari, Chrome, Mail, iTunes, ARD) always open in a specific space which I like.

Overall I would give it a 6.5/10 with that increasing as more updates come along!