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John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

371 points by thisisblurry 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
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euroclydon 15y ago
I'm disappointed in the answer to the following questions: Can I tile two windows without 17 clicks and mouse movements? Fortunately for the creator of Cinch, it seems the answer is no. Can I archive a gmail message? No?
- cstuder 15y ago
  About GMail archiving: Really not? (I haven't read trough this massive review yet.) At least on iOS it is possible to convince the delete button to archive. (By setting the trash folder to 'All mail', if I remember correctly.) I would imagine that Apple Mail should be at least as configurable as its iOS counterpart.
  - ugh 15y ago
    iOS supports archiving perfectly fine. No need for any tricks. Lion kinda does. You can archive but doing that will actually create an “Archive” folder and moves the mail there. That’s not the expected behavior when using Gmail. (The expected behavior would be to move the mail to the “All Messages” folder, or, in Gmail lingo, to remove all labels from the message. iOS does that, Lion doesn’t.)
    - nirvdrum 15y ago
      Archiving is handled through IMAP delete by default. Check your GMail settings and go to the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab. Most likely your setting for "When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted" is "Archive the message (default)."
      - ugh 15y ago
        But I want to be able to delete mails (anywhere). I don’t want to repurpose the delete button, no way.
        kissickas 15y ago
        Move the mail to the trash folder. Sorry, not a 1-button solution, but it works.
  - euroclydon 15y ago
    Yeah... And then you delete how?
    - cstuder 15y ago
      Umm, the point of GMail is to never delete anything anymore. I love being able to search through my years of old mail.
      - euroclydon 15y ago
        That was the point of gmail... five years ago. And then they added delete, because there are some message which never again need to see the light of day.
    - kristofferR 15y ago
      Move it to the folder Thrash
- justinchen 15y ago
  I use Divvy for Mac for arranging windows. I love it. http://mizage.com/divvy/#divvyMac http://mizage.com/divvy/#divvyMac
  - jasonfried 15y ago
    I'm a fan of SizeUp. http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
    - cake 15y ago
      SizeUp is great if you have multiple monitors too, you can send a window from one screen to another in one keystroke.
      - HaloZero 15y ago
        except Adobe Air apps (stupid hipchat)
    - aaronbrethorst 15y ago
      SizeUp is awesome. Easy window management without having to touch the mouse? Yes please!
  - trebor 15y ago
    I use Moom. It's inexpensive and you just hover your mouse above the maximize icon. http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/
  - stevenbedrick 15y ago
    Yup, the fifteen bucks I spent on Divvy were definitely worth it.
  - oflannabhra 15y ago
    I just purchased this. One feature I'm really looking for is the ability to launch multiple apps in a specific configuration. The best solution I've found so far is using Applescript. I realize I might just be overlooking already implemented features. Anyone have a recommendation?
- nzoschke 15y ago
  What do you use tiling for? If anything Apple is moving even farther away from tiling with the full-screen changes in Lion.
  - euroclydon 15y ago
    I use tiling when I want two Windows to each occupy half of the screen. Let me ask you a question: What on God's green earth does the little green plus button do in OSX? I just pressed it three times on Chrome and here's what happened: 1) The windows was occupying the entire screen (thank you Cinch) and when I clicked the green plus, the window changed to roughly 600x800. 2) Window changed to to 600x1100. 3) Window didn't change any more. WTF?
    - ugh 15y ago
      The green button tries to remove all scroll bars and it will also shrink the window down to where there are just no scroll bars (i.e. shrinking it one more pixel would activate the scrollbars).
    - nzoschke 15y ago
      It fits the window to the size of the content. Or something. Can't deny it's confusing and I never use it myself I'll have to give cinch a try, I've just gotten used to really janky window layouts in OS X.
    - cubicle67 15y ago
      sizes the window to best fit the content (in theory). I think it's up to the application to specify that size though. Works very well in Safari, but always seems to go to full screen for Firefox. Chrome's working sort of as expected here alternating between best fit and some stupid tiny size it seems to have concocted.
    - rahoulb 15y ago
      In old MacOS it was called "zoom", not "maximize" and the application developer was supposed to swap between the "ideal small size window" and the "ideal large size window". In this age of cross-platform apps, and people who are used to "maximize" instead of "zoom" it is a concept that has been long forgotten
- Sidnicious 15y ago
  It has always been possible to archive a message by moving it to the "All Mail" mailbox, right?
- giostyle 15y ago
  Flexiglass is the best: http://www.nulana.com/flexiglass http://www.nulana.com/flexiglass
- lloeki 15y ago
  Window Magnet is really nice and complete while still sticking to Less is More. Shame it's so unknown.
- mml 15y ago
  Yes, you can archive Gmail messages now (and in ios5)
albedoa 15y ago
As someone who has never used OS X as his primary operating system, I am confused about what is being shown off as new in the Window Resizing section [1]. Were you not able to resize windows from all of those eight points before Lion? 1. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/4#window-resizing http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.a...
- asolove 15y ago
  No, this has been one of the fundamental UI differences between Mac OS (from farther back than OS X) and Windows/Linux. Mac windows can only be resized from the bottom-right, with those other points being used to drag the window around.
  - SkyMarshal 15y ago
    I haven't owned an Apple since my old IIgs, but from playing around with friends' and Apple Store Macs, I always wondered if there was just a non-obvious way for powerusers to maximize Mac windows for an alt-Tab type window switching workflow. Now I know there wasn't. Was this ever a pain point for powerusers, especially on laptops, or did you just get used to it?
    - ralfd 15y ago
      As a power user I never maximized windows (also not convinced about the new full screen mode) but just stacked a gazillion open programs/windows, that I can bring them with a click to the foreground. I also have always Skype/Adium or a terminal/twitter/netnewswire window at the side of the screen open.
    - sanderjd 15y ago
      Absolutely. My typical workflow is a mixture of full-screen windows and windows that are tiled left-right or top-bottom. For what feels like forever, I have managed this manually (and tediously), but then I found Moom - http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/ - and it made my life easy.
    - 15y ago
mweibel 15y ago
Seems like arstechnica is a little bit overloaded by the number of requests (or am I the only one getting errors sometimes?)
- petekp 15y ago
  You're not alone :)
- kahawe 15y ago
  I just got: "Our servers melted!" "Our servers are misbehaving"
jsdalton 15y ago
Since the article didn't mention it, I'll ask here. Anyone know the versions of Python, Ruby, Apache, PHP, etc. that come installed with OS X Lion?
- dochtman 15y ago
  Pretty sure Python is 2.7 (but don't remember sources).
- nzoschke 15y ago
  $ /usr/bin/python -V Python 2.7.1 $ /usr/bin/ruby --version ruby 1.8.7 (2010-01-10 patchlevel 249) [universal-darwin11.0] $ /usr/bin/php --version PHP 5.3.6 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Jun 16 2011 22:26:57) Copyright (c) 1997-2011 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2011 Zend Technologies $ /usr/sbin/httpd -V Server version: Apache/2.2.19 (Unix) Server built: Jun 16 2011 22:09:54 Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:28 Server loaded: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.10 Compiled using: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.10 Architecture: 64-bit Server MPM: Prefork threaded: no forked: yes (variable process count) Server compiled with.... -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/prefork" -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE -D APR_HAS_MMAP -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled) -D APR_USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZE -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr" -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/bin/suexec" -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="/private/var/run/httpd.pid" -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status" -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="/private/var/run/accept.lock" -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log" -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/mime.types" -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf" $ perl -v | head -2 This is perl 5, version 12, subversion 3 (v5.12.3) built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
  - ikilledkojack 15y ago
    Would you be kind enough to show the output of `perl -v | head -2` ?
    - 15y ago
artaxerxes 15y ago
Having listened to Siracusa's 5by5 podcast, Hypercritical, I am reading this with the voice of Squidworth from Spongebob Squarepants.
- guywithabike 15y ago
  Dan's been trying to get the rights to do a dramatic reading for at least a few parts of it. (Ars said no to him reading the whole thing, understandably.) This week's episode should be awesome.
sp332 15y ago
You can buy this review as an ebook on Amazon, for the same price as a month's subscription to Ars Technica ($5) http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-10-7-Lion-ebook/dp/B005DHYPR4 http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-10-7-Lion-ebook/dp/B005DHYPR4 Downvotes? Did I copy-and-paste an affiliate link or something?
- danielparks 15y ago
  I wanted the EPUB version, so I bought an Ars Subscription for $5 (it auto-renews, though). You can also get MOBI and PDF versions with the subscription. Interestingly, I was offered a 1 year subscription to Wired, or a $10 refund (which requires printing something and mailing it in). Does anybody know if I can send that in and get my EPUB for an effective -$5? It's not really worth the time, but it's amusing. BTW: Gruber had an Amazon affiliate link for Siracusa, which was almost enough to make me get the Kindle version: http://amzn.to/oJtmGd http://amzn.to/oJtmGd
cubicle67 15y ago
Love the (lack of) scrollbars. My perfect OS would have no visible window chrome at all, no edges, no title bar, no buttons, nothing other than my work. The other bits would fade in as needed, then disappear again. not sure how exactly though...
- snippyhollow 15y ago
  It seems like your perfect WM is a tiling one. :)
  - __rkaup__ 15y ago
    Like Xmonad.
    - w1ntermute 15y ago
      As an XMonad user, I can attest to the fact that it is indeed nirvana.
  - cubicle67 15y ago
    actually, no. My window management is like my desk - loads of crap everywhere, but I know where everything is and can get it it quickly (most of the time...) Ever used Quicktime X? That's what I want :)
- tintin 15y ago
  But I like the Ubuntu scrollbars better. There is at least a small line showing there is more content. The reviewer is also surprised to see he is "missing" some programs (scrollbar is missing). I think this is a bad UI decision.
  - cubicle67 15y ago
    yeah, I like what Ubuntu have done too. Same idea, different solution (probably better, imho) I thought about the "bad ui" thing, and I can see where this coulf be confusing, but tonight (it's almost midnight here) I'm being selfish and voting for no scrollbars just because that's what I like. Of course I'll have to reconsider this later when my father-in-law rings me up saying almost all his documents has gone.
deleted 15y ago
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RexRollman 15y ago
From page 13 of the review: "With ZFS out of the picture, Brtfs presumably eliminated due to its licensing, and future development of ReiserFS uncertain, its hard to see where Apple will get the modern file system that it so desperately needs other than by creating one itself." There is one BSD licensed option I can think of: HammerFS. However, considering the fact that the creator of BFS is an Apple employee, I could totally envision them creating their own from scratch.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > However, considering the fact that the creator of BFS is an Apple employee, I could totally envision them creating their own from scratch. Dominic has been working at Apple since 2002. I'm guessing if they wanted a new filesystem they'd have tapped him quite a long time ago.
  - BrianBerk 15y ago
    They didn't want to make a new file system for a while, when they were going after ZFS, but that has fallen through. And anyway, all he saying is that they definitely could make their own, which is true.
    - masklinn 15y ago
      Apple's interest in ZFS started in 2006. He'd already been at Apple for 4 years by then.
      - RexRollman 15y ago
        True but they probably had other fish to fry when he started. As I recall, he worked a lot on Mac OS X's expanding use of metadata search and extended file attributes.
asolove 15y ago
I would love to see serious developer tools integrate the new file/state APIs creatively. - Will it be possible to populate the list of previous file versions from another source, like a git or svn repo? - Could the application state API include a shell intelligently reopening itself and launching the development environment that was running before a restart? - Can applications read old versions of files edited in another application? E.g. could I tell Chrome to view a page in one tab, and in the next tab view the version of that page from a week ago to compare differences?
smhinsey 15y ago
Is there a version of Firefox that plays nicely with the new full screen app features? 5.0.1 kind of falls apart with it, but I just can't give up TreeStyle Tabs to make the leap to Chrome, which is a good citizen.
natesm 15y ago
On resuming application state: >So, how's that "geek panic" now? Still there, huh? Well, let me try to reassure you. As a committed user of a great Mac text editor that, years ago, implemented its own version of almost all the document management features described so far, I can tell you that you get used to it very quickly. Spoiled by it, in fact. Ruined by it, some would say. Yes, it's a very different model from the one we're all used to. But it's also a better model—not just for novices, but for geeks too. This works fine with text editors (although I'd argue that if invoked via the equivalent of "mvim" or "mate" they should discard this), but it absolutely falls apart with media creation applications. Photoshop and Illustrator files can be big, and they can take a long time to open. Just so that you can close it immediately and open a different one. Logic Pro currently does this, and it isn't nice or better. It's annoying. Then there's the privacy concerns. If a designer is working with multiple clients, the last thing he or she wants is a different client's work showing up when he or she is showing something to a client.
- ddagradi 15y ago
  Don't worry - Adobe won't be updating the Creative Suite with these features until at least the next release cycle. I imagine that, as you said, "Resume" will not be supported for performance reasons alone.
- YooLi 15y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. You mean that when you are working on something, you just shut down the application to close all your open files? BTW, the apps need to be updated to take advantage of resuming application state, so application authors can choose to not support it if it doesn't make sense (giant Photoshop files, etc.).
  - natesm 15y ago
    I casually dabble in making music with Logic. When you open it (in Snow Leopard), it opens the last opened project. Logic is a pretty complex application, and there are a lot of different synths and filters. The synths take a lot of memory, since they have a large number (presumably) lossless audio samples in them (think every key on a piano, times X for X number of different strike velocities). Therefore, Logic only loads the synths that are needed for files that you have open. It actually recommends with an alert box that you close your current file before opening another one. When you open a file, it loads all of the synths for that file - this can take a long time. The result is, when you open Logic, if the last file that you had opened isn't the one you want to work on now, you have to wait for that file to load, then close it, then open the file you actually want and wait for that one to load. This probably won't be a problem for Adobe users, because Adobe is really bad at making native-feeling Mac OS software, so this probably won't be supported. But for Apple's document-based media applications (Final Cut and Logic, Aperture is different because of its nature), this is a bigger issue (Final Cut has some... bigger issues right now though). The other issue is the privacy one. I used graphic designers working for competing clients as an example, but really, it could apply to anyone that values their privacy. Personally, I like my browser being a blank slate each time I start it back up. A final issue that I can think of is with applications that tend to be opened by files (the user clicks on a file in Finder, not on the application). QuickTime and Preview are good examples. If I open a picture in Preview by double clicking it in Finder, typically I don't also want to see the last picture I viewed as well. I quit Preview when I was done looking at that picture for a reason - I was done with it.
kahawe 15y ago
One thing that continuously strikes me is Apple's ability to invest great level of detail when they want to. Take the FileVault recovery key, for example. For something so crucial like file encryption, not only do they offer you a quick solution but a practical and more "human usable" one; they offer to store it for you. And then they go the extra mile with those security questions! http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/07/04/lion/file-vault-apple-recovery-key.png http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/07/04/lion/file-vault-app... Remember how typical security questions are "What was your mother's maiden name" or name of your pet? Typically those questions are considerably very unsafe since they are very easy to find out in an innocent conversation. Compare that to questions like childhood phone number, first teacher in school etc. - they are considerably "safer".
- iaskwhy 15y ago
  Being picky about the childhood phone number: does anyone even remember that? Since I have the iPhone I can only memorise something like three or four phone numbers.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    Yes, but it's also still my parent's phone number. I know it better than my social security number.
  - kahawe 15y ago
    Well, maybe that point just got me all excited because I had to work on exactly that dilemma of bad security questions a few years ago for a big identity management installation and we would end up with exactly those kind of a bit more personal/specific questions like who was your first manager, lyrics to favorite song, most significant politician... In my case, being European and only moved from my parents' house once in my life so far - yes, I do remember my (old) home phone number better than the one my mom switched to now. Either way, it is a surprisingly difficult topic and very dependent on the organization and people.
    - iaskwhy 15y ago
Troll_Whisperer 15y ago
Tigers are bigger than lions.
- Troll_Whisperer 15y ago
  Downmodding me doesn't make it any less true. Tigers are bigger than lions, despite whatever misconceptions the writer of the article may hold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion
  - bobbles 15y ago
    I'm sure people are downvoting you purely because it has nothing to do with the discussion.
    - Troll_Whisperer 15y ago
      It's related to the article: Lion's just another big cat name, right? Within seconds, we were on to the next slide, where Jobs was pitching the new release's message: not "king of the jungle" or "the biggest big cat," but the "back to the Mac" theme underlying the entire event. I don't miss the karma. However, it was interesting to see this petty, gang-like downmodding behaviour from HN. More interesting still was that I provoked it merely by acting upon a desire that any nerd should be able to love-- a desire for correctness.
dmauro 15y ago
"Lion adds Emoji support to Mac OS X. So that happened." :D
bengl3rt 15y ago
Siracusa strikes me as a power user type so I'm extremely surprised that he neglected to mention how patently awful and useless Mission Control is on multiple monitors. Whereas in the Spaces view in Snow Leopard I could move a window to a different space AND a different monitor with a quick drag, Mission Control doesn't allow this - I have to first move the window to the correct "Desktop", then exit MC and drag it to the correct monitor. Full Screen Apps are similarly useless on multiple monitors - regardless of which monitor the window originates on, clicking the full screen button returns it to whatever display is designated "primary". Even worse, while you're in full screen on one display, the others become useless as it blocks them out with Apple's new favorite canvas texture. Why? At first I thought all this was intentional and that Apple was leaving multi-monitor users in the dust to focus on Macs that are very close to iOS devices (11" Macbook Air comes to mind), but today they also announced a new Cinema Display that lets you daisy chain two monitors off a single Thunderbolt port. Clearly it's still a mode of operation they intend to support for some time - so why have they crippled it so horribly in this release?
- cubicle67 15y ago
  wasn't ready in time and will be fixed for 10.7.1?
  - bengl3rt 15y ago
    I really hope so...
  - tolmasky 15y ago
    Don't know why you're getting down voted, seems to me this is the obvious reason (if not 10.7.1 then 10.7.x). These are clearly bugs, and I agree, they make these features kind of useless for me on my main setup. Prior to Lion I already used a "poor man's fullscreen" by manually making the windows these sizes on each screen. Was hoping this would make things better but instead made it infinitely worse.
- pkamb 15y ago
  Windows is just as bad. Windows 7 doesn't ship with multiple taskbars for your secondary monitors. Seriously? What's worse is that the developers actually making these features are probably using more than one monitor. And hitting those productivity gaps every day.
rams 15y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so - Preparing for John Siracusa's Review of OS X Lion
- elmindreda 15y ago
  "This video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
blahedo 15y ago
ARGH. I'm still bitter over the introduction of Spaces in the first place—a crappy implementation of virtual desktops that nevertheless drove all the third-party versions out of business—and now they cripple their already-weak version further? Over and over in this review I'm seeing Steve Jobs's message come through loud and clear: "You should be on an iPad. We're going to make Macs as much like iPads as we can, even when this makes no sense and observably degrades productivity and user experience. If you're still somehow holding on to your non-iPad existence, we don't give a shit."
- ugh 15y ago
  Spaces is now implemented in a way people might actually be willing to use. That's what Apple typically does.
- ethank 15y ago
  A bit hyperbolic don't you think? Have you used Lion yet?
- etherael 15y ago
  What changed in spaces? I really can't stand stock spaces in snow leopard and am currently using hyperspaces to get reliable hotkey switching in spaces, if something breaks this I would like to know so I can not upgrade.
  - blahedo 15y ago
    According to the review, Spaces can no longer be laid out spatially, only in a line. Separately: I've used Keyremap4Macbook to get my desired hotkey-switching behaviour in Spaces.
eykanal 15y ago
The one point (OK, one of the points) which I think will be VERY confusing to the power user is that the "Automatic Termination" function will remove programs from the application switcher. Given that they're still existing as a process, what's the point of this? The whole point is that launching and quitting apps should be transparent. Why remove it from the application switcher - which will now be the only way to see what apps are running, given that the little doc light gems are gone by default - thereby making the user click on it to restore it? There's no benefit, and it's a jarring concept ("Hey, where'd my app go? I didn't quit it!") I don't see the point.
- deleted 15y ago
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  - deleted 15y ago
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- chc 15y ago
  I've been running Lion for a while and I have the lights under open apps without doing anything special. Does yours not?
  - glhaynes 15y ago
    I think they're off by default for new installs but on for upgrades from Snow Leopard. My upgraded-today Mac had them on by default. Either way, you can switch it in System Preferences > Dock > Show indicator lights for open applications.
- sharninder 15y ago
  I've observed my parents, wife and sister using OS X and they've NEVER ever quit an application "the Mac way". They just click the red cross and think that quits the application as it does on windows. The only person who gets upset about their behavior above is me and with this change, even I don't need to bother. I think it's a change for the better. The policy for automatic termination is VERY conservative so I doubt an application will be terminated when you really don't want it to.
prakashk 15y ago
Don't forget to prep yourself properly before reading the review :) Preparing for John Siracusa's Review of OS X Lion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so
callahad 15y ago
Woah. I actually reported an erratum and John responded within 10 minutes for clarification and subsequently updated the article. (Previously, page 18 stated that "The old lock screen didn't allow account switching." Turns out it has, since at least Panther back in 2004.)
- Perceval 15y ago
  I've emailed John before to ask him about language issues on OS X – I think this was back around the time that Apple decided they weren't going to roll their own Java runtime anymore. He responded back promptly and pointed me toward some reading material he thought was insightful. Not only are his reviews and articles awesome, he seems like a really decent, chill guy.
  - statictype 15y ago
    He does an interesting podcast here: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical http://5by5.tv/hypercritical
  - watmough 15y ago
    Totally agree with your last sentence. This is an EPIC review, and drove me to clear some diskspace and buy and install Lion. I like it so far, some nice touches, but there really are some serious usability issues, including discoverability, with Mission Control. Very unlike Apple, at least for the last few releases of OS X.
scott_s 15y ago
I'm surprised he did not point out that the document saving model is just revision control for the masses. If you have a mental model for cvs or subversion, it's just like having that automated for your documents.
snorkel 15y ago
"Terminal also—finally—supports 256 text colors with its new xterm-256color terminal type." Woohoo! Finally a true MediumAquamarine comment-face in emacs in mac term.
- hesdeadjim 15y ago
  Agreed, about time! Having to hack the terminal's prefpane to make my terminal colors work has been a total headache every time I upgrade or switch machines.
  - binarycrusader 15y ago
    iTerm2 remains a better program in my opinion. Try it sometime! (and it's free!)
    - sepposade 15y ago
      Tried most of the non-Apple Terminal alternatives, but personally I have always kept returning to Terminal because there is something about its finishing touches that add up.
- sigjuice 15y ago
  Does the new Terminal.app support xterm mouse reporting?
mmuro 15y ago
I skipped about four pages from the middle of this review because it was just way too technical. I know he's an engineer and wants to cover these things, but I'm not interested in seeing so much coverage for something that very few people will get. It's not so much a review as it is an overview.
- ugh 15y ago
  That's alright, the review even advises you to skip a few pages if you are not interested in technical details. The technical details are definitly part of Siracusa's reviews and have been for well over a decade. It would be wrong to leave them out. Many readers expect them.
- mixmastamyk 15y ago
  You might consider getting a review from a more mainstream source then; ars and js are where they dig into the nuts and bolts.
- Maci 15y ago
  You must be new to Siracusa. Geek Porn at it's finest really. :) "If this is your first time reading an Ars Technica review of Mac OS X and you've made it this far, be warned: this section will be even more esoteric than the ones you've already read. If you just want to see more screenshots of new or changed applications, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. We nerds won't think any less of you." - (Second Paragraph, Page 9)
- lambda 15y ago
  This is Hacker News, where it is generally understood that most people will have a fairly technical background (it's not called "Hacker News" for nothing). And the review is on Ars Technica, which also targets a technical audience. John Siracusa's reviews of new versions of Mac OS X are famous, as they provide all of the technical details that most other reviewers don't. I understand that's not what you are looking for, but that's what the target audience of Hacker News and Ars Technica wants, and I certainly appreciate it.
  - 15y ago
kayoone 15y ago
I dont really like the direction OSX is going tbh. Its clear that its going more and more into the iOS direction, consumer orientated, easy to use for average users but not very efficient for power users. Multiple Monitor workflow is even more awkward then before for example.
mixmastamyk 15y ago
I look forward to JS's reviews... so detailed and well-written. I always read them thoroughly even though I haven't had a Mac on my desk since the old beloved IIci at work.
ldar15 15y ago
"It chose to attack the lowest-hanging fruit first, the one thing about Apple's development environment most likely to stand out as primitive and backwards to programmers coming from other platforms or even fresh out of school: manual memory management." ARC works great until you have cyclic references. Then you "just" have to add "Zeroing Weak References". Ok. Where? How do I know when I have to add them? The problem with reference counted memory management is NOT having to type [x retain]. Its having to KNOW where NOT to type it. ARC doesn't solve this at all. It just allows an entire generation of programmers to stop thinking about it altogether. That's going to end well.
- sid0 15y ago
  There are other forms of memory management than manual and refcounted.
- astrange 15y ago
  You can find retain cycles using the abandoned memory and ARC debugging tools in Instruments.
  - buff-a 15y ago
    I can. You can. I bet most can't, and even if they could, still wouldn't know the right place to break the cycle. If you break the cycle in the wrong place then things go bye-bye when you still need them. I've had this very discussion on here. Hell, at a games company that developed AAA titles, I had to demonstrate to a non-junior programmer that C++ references can be null. To the majority of programmers, memory management is incomprehensible voodoo. And they're all making iPhone apps. o_O
unwantedLetters 15y ago
I am in India, and have a connection that is 256Kbps. This is sufficient for most things, but I cannot get Lion from Apple. I don't mind waiting for 40 hours for ~4GB to download, but the likelihood that a connection in India is sustained for more than 10-15 minutes is rather low. The problem here isn't with the speed (it is with that as well), but with the reliability of the connection. Even at 8MBPS, this download will still take about an hour and it's rare that the connection won't be randomly dropped during that hour. Why can't Apple download these things smartly like BitTorrent? Why this behemoth of a download? Why not break it up into smaller pieces of ~10-20MB each, with a checksum for all these pieces so that WHEN (in India it's WHEN, not if) the connection gets dropped, you're only effectively losing 10-20 MB of downloaded data, not losing an entire GB or more of downloaded material. To me, it almost seems silly not to do this. Is Apple really this ignorant of flaky internet connections?
- skeletonjelly 15y ago
  Can you not find a less than legit copy and put in your key? I'm unfamiliar with the process by any standard.
  - astrange 15y ago
    There is no serial or copy protection on Mac OS X.
- pablasso 15y ago
  I have a faulty router that just this morning rebooted itself several times while Lion was downloading. Everytime the connection was lost it just resumed. Why don't you try leaving it some hours and see how it goes?
  - unwantedLetters 15y ago
    To be very honest, I have a 3G connection with a limit of about 1.25 GB per month. Since I wanted Lion as quick as possible, I downloaded 1 GB of material using the 3G connection (took me a very, very short time - relatively). When I tried to resume the download from the App Store using my normal internet connection it didn't, and I lost about 1GB of stuff. That's why I posted the earlier message. In the interest of full disclosure, it was probably because the Mac App Store needed to re-authenticate me (I changed IPs remember), clicking resume resulted in me not being able to start the download, and the App Store just decided that the 1GB downloaded was useless. The point about flaky internet connections, and "chunk"ed downloads still stands. I don't expect to be able to get through this download, and even my current issue would have been more gracefully handled with a smaller download size since only 1 chunk of data would have been lost. Note: Interestingly, my 3G connection is more reliable than my broadband with respect to reliability. Even more interestingly, the provider is the same in both cases.
enterneo 15y ago
I am not able to understand how a 3.7GB install image can later fit into a 650MB recovery HD partition (and if it somehow could through some compression magic, then why not compress it even before to only give me 650MB to download from the app store)?
- alexmchale 15y ago
  My total guess would be that the 650MB image just provides you a mechanism to download Lion again. Or perhaps it's a machine-specific rev? My instinct says the former.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Yup, your guess is right. Lion will be downloaded again if you install from the recovery partition.
- astrange 15y ago
  The recovery partition doesn't need to contain the entire OS.
  - enterneo 15y ago
    but there is also an option to install Lion from that recovery HD partition.
mo1stt 15y ago
I dont really like the direction OSX is going tbh. Its clear that its going more and more into the iOS direction, consumer orientated, easy to use for average users but not very efficient for power users. Multiple Monitor workflow is even more awkward then before for example.
ojosilva 15y ago
I saw "John Siracusa" and said to myself Damn, wasn't that the RoseDB ORM author from CPAN? http://metacpan.org/author/JSIRACUSA http://metacpan.org/author/JSIRACUSA Yup. I had no this idea he was a tech writer/editor for Ars Technica. I really like his (Perl) work. The article has great insight too.
sukuriant 15y ago
When I read the section on dropping support for PowerPC-application support altogether on this version of Mac OS X, I couldn't help but think of the video of someone upgrading from Windows 1.0 all the way to Windows 7, and many of the features/applications still working. Why did Mac throw out a feature they had working? Couldn't they have retained it, just not upgraded it anymore? (Or given it to the community?) Full Disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee. These views are my own, but I am supporting our product.
- watmough 15y ago
  I can think of a few reasons. One is that Apple want to minimize cruft and crap bloating the install. I think my fresh install weighed in about 6 GB or so. Very nice, just 20% of a 30 GB drive. Another is that software still built with old tools and compilers will still be using old deprecated toolkits, more cruft to keep running, and likely will be unsupported, potentially creating a crappy user experience. It is really neat that really old stuff still runs on Windows, but why are people still running crappy old 16-bit software?
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    Ooooold games (DOS days) Business software
    - watmough 15y ago
      Well, that's just another app. I haven't actually tried, but I bet old crusty copies of Lotus 1-2-3 in which I've actually done development, would probably run just fine under DosBox on any Intel platform. There's very little reason to cruft up the OS for everyone, for that stuff.
speleding 15y ago
The author gripes about the the scrolling direction of the mouse being matched to the scrolling direction of the trackpad. And then says: >Unfortunately, the settings are linked; you can't have >different values for each kind of input device. This turns out not to be true, you can indeed making scrolling different on the mouse and the trackpad. The trick is that link is only one way: changing it for the mouse changes it for the trackpad, but not vice versa. So by changing them in the right order you can make them do what you want. Confusing, but at least you can get it to work.

371 points by thisisblurry 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

I'm disappointed in the answer to the following questions: Can I tile two windows without 17 clicks and mouse movements? Fortunately for the creator of Cinch, it seems the answer is no. Can I archive a gmail message? No?

cstuder 15y ago
About GMail archiving: Really not? (I haven't read trough this massive review yet.) At least on iOS it is possible to convince the delete button to archive. (By setting the trash folder to 'All mail', if I remember correctly.) I would imagine that Apple Mail should be at least as configurable as its iOS counterpart.
- ugh 15y ago
  iOS supports archiving perfectly fine. No need for any tricks. Lion kinda does. You can archive but doing that will actually create an “Archive” folder and moves the mail there. That’s not the expected behavior when using Gmail. (The expected behavior would be to move the mail to the “All Messages” folder, or, in Gmail lingo, to remove all labels from the message. iOS does that, Lion doesn’t.)
  - nirvdrum 15y ago
    Archiving is handled through IMAP delete by default. Check your GMail settings and go to the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab. Most likely your setting for "When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted" is "Archive the message (default)."
    - ugh 15y ago
      But I want to be able to delete mails (anywhere). I don’t want to repurpose the delete button, no way.
      - kissickas 15y ago
        Move the mail to the trash folder. Sorry, not a 1-button solution, but it works.
- euroclydon 15y ago
  Yeah... And then you delete how?
  - cstuder 15y ago
    Umm, the point of GMail is to never delete anything anymore. I love being able to search through my years of old mail.
    - euroclydon 15y ago
      That was the point of gmail... five years ago. And then they added delete, because there are some message which never again need to see the light of day.
  - kristofferR 15y ago
    Move it to the folder Thrash
justinchen 15y ago
I use Divvy for Mac for arranging windows. I love it. http://mizage.com/divvy/#divvyMac http://mizage.com/divvy/#divvyMac
- jasonfried 15y ago
  I'm a fan of SizeUp. http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
  - cake 15y ago
    SizeUp is great if you have multiple monitors too, you can send a window from one screen to another in one keystroke.
    - HaloZero 15y ago
      except Adobe Air apps (stupid hipchat)
  - aaronbrethorst 15y ago
    SizeUp is awesome. Easy window management without having to touch the mouse? Yes please!
- trebor 15y ago
  I use Moom. It's inexpensive and you just hover your mouse above the maximize icon. http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/
- stevenbedrick 15y ago
  Yup, the fifteen bucks I spent on Divvy were definitely worth it.
- oflannabhra 15y ago
  I just purchased this. One feature I'm really looking for is the ability to launch multiple apps in a specific configuration. The best solution I've found so far is using Applescript. I realize I might just be overlooking already implemented features. Anyone have a recommendation?
nzoschke 15y ago
What do you use tiling for? If anything Apple is moving even farther away from tiling with the full-screen changes in Lion.
- euroclydon 15y ago
  I use tiling when I want two Windows to each occupy half of the screen. Let me ask you a question: What on God's green earth does the little green plus button do in OSX? I just pressed it three times on Chrome and here's what happened: 1) The windows was occupying the entire screen (thank you Cinch) and when I clicked the green plus, the window changed to roughly 600x800. 2) Window changed to to 600x1100. 3) Window didn't change any more. WTF?
  - ugh 15y ago
    The green button tries to remove all scroll bars and it will also shrink the window down to where there are just no scroll bars (i.e. shrinking it one more pixel would activate the scrollbars).
  - nzoschke 15y ago
    It fits the window to the size of the content. Or something. Can't deny it's confusing and I never use it myself I'll have to give cinch a try, I've just gotten used to really janky window layouts in OS X.
  - cubicle67 15y ago
    sizes the window to best fit the content (in theory). I think it's up to the application to specify that size though. Works very well in Safari, but always seems to go to full screen for Firefox. Chrome's working sort of as expected here alternating between best fit and some stupid tiny size it seems to have concocted.
  - rahoulb 15y ago
    In old MacOS it was called "zoom", not "maximize" and the application developer was supposed to swap between the "ideal small size window" and the "ideal large size window". In this age of cross-platform apps, and people who are used to "maximize" instead of "zoom" it is a concept that has been long forgotten
Sidnicious 15y ago
It has always been possible to archive a message by moving it to the "All Mail" mailbox, right?
giostyle 15y ago
Flexiglass is the best: http://www.nulana.com/flexiglass http://www.nulana.com/flexiglass
lloeki 15y ago
Window Magnet is really nice and complete while still sticking to Less is More. Shame it's so unknown.
mml 15y ago
Yes, you can archive Gmail messages now (and in ios5)

albedoa 15y ago

As someone who has never used OS X as his primary operating system, I am confused about what is being shown off as new in the Window Resizing section [1]. Were you not able to resize windows from all of those eight points before Lion? 1. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/4#window-resizing http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.a...

asolove 15y ago
No, this has been one of the fundamental UI differences between Mac OS (from farther back than OS X) and Windows/Linux. Mac windows can only be resized from the bottom-right, with those other points being used to drag the window around.
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  I haven't owned an Apple since my old IIgs, but from playing around with friends' and Apple Store Macs, I always wondered if there was just a non-obvious way for powerusers to maximize Mac windows for an alt-Tab type window switching workflow. Now I know there wasn't. Was this ever a pain point for powerusers, especially on laptops, or did you just get used to it?
  - ralfd 15y ago
    As a power user I never maximized windows (also not convinced about the new full screen mode) but just stacked a gazillion open programs/windows, that I can bring them with a click to the foreground. I also have always Skype/Adium or a terminal/twitter/netnewswire window at the side of the screen open.
  - sanderjd 15y ago
    Absolutely. My typical workflow is a mixture of full-screen windows and windows that are tiled left-right or top-bottom. For what feels like forever, I have managed this manually (and tediously), but then I found Moom - http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/ - and it made my life easy.
  - 15y ago

mweibel 15y ago

Seems like arstechnica is a little bit overloaded by the number of requests (or am I the only one getting errors sometimes?)

petekp 15y ago
You're not alone :)
kahawe 15y ago
I just got: "Our servers melted!" "Our servers are misbehaving"

jsdalton 15y ago

Since the article didn't mention it, I'll ask here. Anyone know the versions of Python, Ruby, Apache, PHP, etc. that come installed with OS X Lion?

dochtman 15y ago
Pretty sure Python is 2.7 (but don't remember sources).
nzoschke 15y ago
$ /usr/bin/python -V Python 2.7.1 $ /usr/bin/ruby --version ruby 1.8.7 (2010-01-10 patchlevel 249) [universal-darwin11.0] $ /usr/bin/php --version PHP 5.3.6 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Jun 16 2011 22:26:57) Copyright (c) 1997-2011 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2011 Zend Technologies $ /usr/sbin/httpd -V Server version: Apache/2.2.19 (Unix) Server built: Jun 16 2011 22:09:54 Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:28 Server loaded: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.10 Compiled using: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.10 Architecture: 64-bit Server MPM: Prefork threaded: no forked: yes (variable process count) Server compiled with.... -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/prefork" -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE -D APR_HAS_MMAP -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled) -D APR_USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZE -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr" -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/bin/suexec" -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="/private/var/run/httpd.pid" -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status" -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="/private/var/run/accept.lock" -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log" -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/mime.types" -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf" $ perl -v | head -2 This is perl 5, version 12, subversion 3 (v5.12.3) built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
- ikilledkojack 15y ago
  Would you be kind enough to show the output of `perl -v | head -2` ?
  - 15y ago

artaxerxes 15y ago

Having listened to Siracusa's 5by5 podcast, Hypercritical, I am reading this with the voice of Squidworth from Spongebob Squarepants.

guywithabike 15y ago
Dan's been trying to get the rights to do a dramatic reading for at least a few parts of it. (Ars said no to him reading the whole thing, understandably.) This week's episode should be awesome.

sp332 15y ago

You can buy this review as an ebook on Amazon, for the same price as a month's subscription to Ars Technica ($5) http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-10-7-Lion-ebook/dp/B005DHYPR4 http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-10-7-Lion-ebook/dp/B005DHYPR4 Downvotes? Did I copy-and-paste an affiliate link or something?

danielparks 15y ago
I wanted the EPUB version, so I bought an Ars Subscription for $5 (it auto-renews, though). You can also get MOBI and PDF versions with the subscription. Interestingly, I was offered a 1 year subscription to Wired, or a $10 refund (which requires printing something and mailing it in). Does anybody know if I can send that in and get my EPUB for an effective -$5? It's not really worth the time, but it's amusing. BTW: Gruber had an Amazon affiliate link for Siracusa, which was almost enough to make me get the Kindle version: http://amzn.to/oJtmGd http://amzn.to/oJtmGd

cubicle67 15y ago

Love the (lack of) scrollbars. My perfect OS would have no visible window chrome at all, no edges, no title bar, no buttons, nothing other than my work. The other bits would fade in as needed, then disappear again. not sure how exactly though...

snippyhollow 15y ago
It seems like your perfect WM is a tiling one. :)
- __rkaup__ 15y ago
  Like Xmonad.
  - w1ntermute 15y ago
    As an XMonad user, I can attest to the fact that it is indeed nirvana.
- cubicle67 15y ago
  actually, no. My window management is like my desk - loads of crap everywhere, but I know where everything is and can get it it quickly (most of the time...) Ever used Quicktime X? That's what I want :)
tintin 15y ago
But I like the Ubuntu scrollbars better. There is at least a small line showing there is more content. The reviewer is also surprised to see he is "missing" some programs (scrollbar is missing). I think this is a bad UI decision.
- cubicle67 15y ago
  yeah, I like what Ubuntu have done too. Same idea, different solution (probably better, imho) I thought about the "bad ui" thing, and I can see where this coulf be confusing, but tonight (it's almost midnight here) I'm being selfish and voting for no scrollbars just because that's what I like. Of course I'll have to reconsider this later when my father-in-law rings me up saying almost all his documents has gone.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

RexRollman 15y ago

From page 13 of the review: "With ZFS out of the picture, Brtfs presumably eliminated due to its licensing, and future development of ReiserFS uncertain, its hard to see where Apple will get the modern file system that it so desperately needs other than by creating one itself." There is one BSD licensed option I can think of: HammerFS. However, considering the fact that the creator of BFS is an Apple employee, I could totally envision them creating their own from scratch.

masklinn 15y ago
> However, considering the fact that the creator of BFS is an Apple employee, I could totally envision them creating their own from scratch. Dominic has been working at Apple since 2002. I'm guessing if they wanted a new filesystem they'd have tapped him quite a long time ago.
- BrianBerk 15y ago
  They didn't want to make a new file system for a while, when they were going after ZFS, but that has fallen through. And anyway, all he saying is that they definitely could make their own, which is true.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    Apple's interest in ZFS started in 2006. He'd already been at Apple for 4 years by then.
    - RexRollman 15y ago
      True but they probably had other fish to fry when he started. As I recall, he worked a lot on Mac OS X's expanding use of metadata search and extended file attributes.

asolove 15y ago

I would love to see serious developer tools integrate the new file/state APIs creatively. - Will it be possible to populate the list of previous file versions from another source, like a git or svn repo? - Could the application state API include a shell intelligently reopening itself and launching the development environment that was running before a restart? - Can applications read old versions of files edited in another application? E.g. could I tell Chrome to view a page in one tab, and in the next tab view the version of that page from a week ago to compare differences?

smhinsey 15y ago

Is there a version of Firefox that plays nicely with the new full screen app features? 5.0.1 kind of falls apart with it, but I just can't give up TreeStyle Tabs to make the leap to Chrome, which is a good citizen.

natesm 15y ago

On resuming application state: >So, how's that "geek panic" now? Still there, huh? Well, let me try to reassure you. As a committed user of a great Mac text editor that, years ago, implemented its own version of almost all the document management features described so far, I can tell you that you get used to it very quickly. Spoiled by it, in fact. Ruined by it, some would say. Yes, it's a very different model from the one we're all used to. But it's also a better model—not just for novices, but for geeks too. This works fine with text editors (although I'd argue that if invoked via the equivalent of "mvim" or "mate" they should discard this), but it absolutely falls apart with media creation applications. Photoshop and Illustrator files can be big, and they can take a long time to open. Just so that you can close it immediately and open a different one. Logic Pro currently does this, and it isn't nice or better. It's annoying. Then there's the privacy concerns. If a designer is working with multiple clients, the last thing he or she wants is a different client's work showing up when he or she is showing something to a client.

ddagradi 15y ago
Don't worry - Adobe won't be updating the Creative Suite with these features until at least the next release cycle. I imagine that, as you said, "Resume" will not be supported for performance reasons alone.
YooLi 15y ago
I'm not sure I follow. You mean that when you are working on something, you just shut down the application to close all your open files? BTW, the apps need to be updated to take advantage of resuming application state, so application authors can choose to not support it if it doesn't make sense (giant Photoshop files, etc.).
- natesm 15y ago
  I casually dabble in making music with Logic. When you open it (in Snow Leopard), it opens the last opened project. Logic is a pretty complex application, and there are a lot of different synths and filters. The synths take a lot of memory, since they have a large number (presumably) lossless audio samples in them (think every key on a piano, times X for X number of different strike velocities). Therefore, Logic only loads the synths that are needed for files that you have open. It actually recommends with an alert box that you close your current file before opening another one. When you open a file, it loads all of the synths for that file - this can take a long time. The result is, when you open Logic, if the last file that you had opened isn't the one you want to work on now, you have to wait for that file to load, then close it, then open the file you actually want and wait for that one to load. This probably won't be a problem for Adobe users, because Adobe is really bad at making native-feeling Mac OS software, so this probably won't be supported. But for Apple's document-based media applications (Final Cut and Logic, Aperture is different because of its nature), this is a bigger issue (Final Cut has some... bigger issues right now though). The other issue is the privacy one. I used graphic designers working for competing clients as an example, but really, it could apply to anyone that values their privacy. Personally, I like my browser being a blank slate each time I start it back up. A final issue that I can think of is with applications that tend to be opened by files (the user clicks on a file in Finder, not on the application). QuickTime and Preview are good examples. If I open a picture in Preview by double clicking it in Finder, typically I don't also want to see the last picture I viewed as well. I quit Preview when I was done looking at that picture for a reason - I was done with it.

kahawe 15y ago

One thing that continuously strikes me is Apple's ability to invest great level of detail when they want to. Take the FileVault recovery key, for example. For something so crucial like file encryption, not only do they offer you a quick solution but a practical and more "human usable" one; they offer to store it for you. And then they go the extra mile with those security questions! http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/07/04/lion/file-vault-apple-recovery-key.png http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/07/04/lion/file-vault-app... Remember how typical security questions are "What was your mother's maiden name" or name of your pet? Typically those questions are considerably very unsafe since they are very easy to find out in an innocent conversation. Compare that to questions like childhood phone number, first teacher in school etc. - they are considerably "safer".

iaskwhy 15y ago
Being picky about the childhood phone number: does anyone even remember that? Since I have the iPhone I can only memorise something like three or four phone numbers.
- scott_s 15y ago
  Yes, but it's also still my parent's phone number. I know it better than my social security number.
- kahawe 15y ago
  Well, maybe that point just got me all excited because I had to work on exactly that dilemma of bad security questions a few years ago for a big identity management installation and we would end up with exactly those kind of a bit more personal/specific questions like who was your first manager, lyrics to favorite song, most significant politician... In my case, being European and only moved from my parents' house once in my life so far - yes, I do remember my (old) home phone number better than the one my mom switched to now. Either way, it is a surprisingly difficult topic and very dependent on the organization and people.
  - iaskwhy 15y ago

Troll_Whisperer 15y ago

Tigers are bigger than lions.

Troll_Whisperer 15y ago
Downmodding me doesn't make it any less true. Tigers are bigger than lions, despite whatever misconceptions the writer of the article may hold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion
- bobbles 15y ago
  I'm sure people are downvoting you purely because it has nothing to do with the discussion.
  - Troll_Whisperer 15y ago
    It's related to the article: Lion's just another big cat name, right? Within seconds, we were on to the next slide, where Jobs was pitching the new release's message: not "king of the jungle" or "the biggest big cat," but the "back to the Mac" theme underlying the entire event. I don't miss the karma. However, it was interesting to see this petty, gang-like downmodding behaviour from HN. More interesting still was that I provoked it merely by acting upon a desire that any nerd should be able to love-- a desire for correctness.

dmauro 15y ago

"Lion adds Emoji support to Mac OS X. So that happened." :D

bengl3rt 15y ago

Siracusa strikes me as a power user type so I'm extremely surprised that he neglected to mention how patently awful and useless Mission Control is on multiple monitors. Whereas in the Spaces view in Snow Leopard I could move a window to a different space AND a different monitor with a quick drag, Mission Control doesn't allow this - I have to first move the window to the correct "Desktop", then exit MC and drag it to the correct monitor. Full Screen Apps are similarly useless on multiple monitors - regardless of which monitor the window originates on, clicking the full screen button returns it to whatever display is designated "primary". Even worse, while you're in full screen on one display, the others become useless as it blocks them out with Apple's new favorite canvas texture. Why? At first I thought all this was intentional and that Apple was leaving multi-monitor users in the dust to focus on Macs that are very close to iOS devices (11" Macbook Air comes to mind), but today they also announced a new Cinema Display that lets you daisy chain two monitors off a single Thunderbolt port. Clearly it's still a mode of operation they intend to support for some time - so why have they crippled it so horribly in this release?

cubicle67 15y ago
wasn't ready in time and will be fixed for 10.7.1?
- bengl3rt 15y ago
  I really hope so...
- tolmasky 15y ago
  Don't know why you're getting down voted, seems to me this is the obvious reason (if not 10.7.1 then 10.7.x). These are clearly bugs, and I agree, they make these features kind of useless for me on my main setup. Prior to Lion I already used a "poor man's fullscreen" by manually making the windows these sizes on each screen. Was hoping this would make things better but instead made it infinitely worse.
pkamb 15y ago
Windows is just as bad. Windows 7 doesn't ship with multiple taskbars for your secondary monitors. Seriously? What's worse is that the developers actually making these features are probably using more than one monitor. And hitting those productivity gaps every day.

rams 15y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so - Preparing for John Siracusa's Review of OS X Lion

elmindreda 15y ago
"This video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

blahedo 15y ago

ARGH. I'm still bitter over the introduction of Spaces in the first place—a crappy implementation of virtual desktops that nevertheless drove all the third-party versions out of business—and now they cripple their already-weak version further? Over and over in this review I'm seeing Steve Jobs's message come through loud and clear: "You should be on an iPad. We're going to make Macs as much like iPads as we can, even when this makes no sense and observably degrades productivity and user experience. If you're still somehow holding on to your non-iPad existence, we don't give a shit."

ugh 15y ago
Spaces is now implemented in a way people might actually be willing to use. That's what Apple typically does.
ethank 15y ago
A bit hyperbolic don't you think? Have you used Lion yet?
etherael 15y ago
What changed in spaces? I really can't stand stock spaces in snow leopard and am currently using hyperspaces to get reliable hotkey switching in spaces, if something breaks this I would like to know so I can not upgrade.
- blahedo 15y ago
  According to the review, Spaces can no longer be laid out spatially, only in a line. Separately: I've used Keyremap4Macbook to get my desired hotkey-switching behaviour in Spaces.

eykanal 15y ago

The one point (OK, one of the points) which I think will be VERY confusing to the power user is that the "Automatic Termination" function will remove programs from the application switcher. Given that they're still existing as a process, what's the point of this? The whole point is that launching and quitting apps should be transparent. Why remove it from the application switcher - which will now be the only way to see what apps are running, given that the little doc light gems are gone by default - thereby making the user click on it to restore it? There's no benefit, and it's a jarring concept ("Hey, where'd my app go? I didn't quit it!") I don't see the point.

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chc 15y ago
I've been running Lion for a while and I have the lights under open apps without doing anything special. Does yours not?
- glhaynes 15y ago
  I think they're off by default for new installs but on for upgrades from Snow Leopard. My upgraded-today Mac had them on by default. Either way, you can switch it in System Preferences > Dock > Show indicator lights for open applications.
sharninder 15y ago
I've observed my parents, wife and sister using OS X and they've NEVER ever quit an application "the Mac way". They just click the red cross and think that quits the application as it does on windows. The only person who gets upset about their behavior above is me and with this change, even I don't need to bother. I think it's a change for the better. The policy for automatic termination is VERY conservative so I doubt an application will be terminated when you really don't want it to.

prakashk 15y ago

Don't forget to prep yourself properly before reading the review :) Preparing for John Siracusa's Review of OS X Lion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOG25fM8so

callahad 15y ago

Woah. I actually reported an erratum and John responded within 10 minutes for clarification and subsequently updated the article. (Previously, page 18 stated that "The old lock screen didn't allow account switching." Turns out it has, since at least Panther back in 2004.)

Perceval 15y ago
I've emailed John before to ask him about language issues on OS X – I think this was back around the time that Apple decided they weren't going to roll their own Java runtime anymore. He responded back promptly and pointed me toward some reading material he thought was insightful. Not only are his reviews and articles awesome, he seems like a really decent, chill guy.
- statictype 15y ago
  He does an interesting podcast here: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical http://5by5.tv/hypercritical
- watmough 15y ago
  Totally agree with your last sentence. This is an EPIC review, and drove me to clear some diskspace and buy and install Lion. I like it so far, some nice touches, but there really are some serious usability issues, including discoverability, with Mission Control. Very unlike Apple, at least for the last few releases of OS X.

scott_s 15y ago

I'm surprised he did not point out that the document saving model is just revision control for the masses. If you have a mental model for cvs or subversion, it's just like having that automated for your documents.

snorkel 15y ago

"Terminal also—finally—supports 256 text colors with its new xterm-256color terminal type." Woohoo! Finally a true MediumAquamarine comment-face in emacs in mac term.

hesdeadjim 15y ago
Agreed, about time! Having to hack the terminal's prefpane to make my terminal colors work has been a total headache every time I upgrade or switch machines.
- binarycrusader 15y ago
  iTerm2 remains a better program in my opinion. Try it sometime! (and it's free!)
  - sepposade 15y ago
    Tried most of the non-Apple Terminal alternatives, but personally I have always kept returning to Terminal because there is something about its finishing touches that add up.
sigjuice 15y ago
Does the new Terminal.app support xterm mouse reporting?

mmuro 15y ago

I skipped about four pages from the middle of this review because it was just way too technical. I know he's an engineer and wants to cover these things, but I'm not interested in seeing so much coverage for something that very few people will get. It's not so much a review as it is an overview.

ugh 15y ago
That's alright, the review even advises you to skip a few pages if you are not interested in technical details. The technical details are definitly part of Siracusa's reviews and have been for well over a decade. It would be wrong to leave them out. Many readers expect them.
mixmastamyk 15y ago
You might consider getting a review from a more mainstream source then; ars and js are where they dig into the nuts and bolts.
Maci 15y ago
You must be new to Siracusa. Geek Porn at it's finest really. :) "If this is your first time reading an Ars Technica review of Mac OS X and you've made it this far, be warned: this section will be even more esoteric than the ones you've already read. If you just want to see more screenshots of new or changed applications, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. We nerds won't think any less of you." - (Second Paragraph, Page 9)
lambda 15y ago
This is Hacker News, where it is generally understood that most people will have a fairly technical background (it's not called "Hacker News" for nothing). And the review is on Ars Technica, which also targets a technical audience. John Siracusa's reviews of new versions of Mac OS X are famous, as they provide all of the technical details that most other reviewers don't. I understand that's not what you are looking for, but that's what the target audience of Hacker News and Ars Technica wants, and I certainly appreciate it.
- 15y ago

kayoone 15y ago

I dont really like the direction OSX is going tbh. Its clear that its going more and more into the iOS direction, consumer orientated, easy to use for average users but not very efficient for power users. Multiple Monitor workflow is even more awkward then before for example.

mixmastamyk 15y ago

I look forward to JS's reviews... so detailed and well-written. I always read them thoroughly even though I haven't had a Mac on my desk since the old beloved IIci at work.

ldar15 15y ago

"It chose to attack the lowest-hanging fruit first, the one thing about Apple's development environment most likely to stand out as primitive and backwards to programmers coming from other platforms or even fresh out of school: manual memory management." ARC works great until you have cyclic references. Then you "just" have to add "Zeroing Weak References". Ok. Where? How do I know when I have to add them? The problem with reference counted memory management is NOT having to type [x retain]. Its having to KNOW where NOT to type it. ARC doesn't solve this at all. It just allows an entire generation of programmers to stop thinking about it altogether. That's going to end well.

sid0 15y ago
There are other forms of memory management than manual and refcounted.
astrange 15y ago
You can find retain cycles using the abandoned memory and ARC debugging tools in Instruments.
- buff-a 15y ago
  I can. You can. I bet most can't, and even if they could, still wouldn't know the right place to break the cycle. If you break the cycle in the wrong place then things go bye-bye when you still need them. I've had this very discussion on here. Hell, at a games company that developed AAA titles, I had to demonstrate to a non-junior programmer that C++ references can be null. To the majority of programmers, memory management is incomprehensible voodoo. And they're all making iPhone apps. o_O

unwantedLetters 15y ago

I am in India, and have a connection that is 256Kbps. This is sufficient for most things, but I cannot get Lion from Apple. I don't mind waiting for 40 hours for ~4GB to download, but the likelihood that a connection in India is sustained for more than 10-15 minutes is rather low. The problem here isn't with the speed (it is with that as well), but with the reliability of the connection. Even at 8MBPS, this download will still take about an hour and it's rare that the connection won't be randomly dropped during that hour. Why can't Apple download these things smartly like BitTorrent? Why this behemoth of a download? Why not break it up into smaller pieces of ~10-20MB each, with a checksum for all these pieces so that WHEN (in India it's WHEN, not if) the connection gets dropped, you're only effectively losing 10-20 MB of downloaded data, not losing an entire GB or more of downloaded material. To me, it almost seems silly not to do this. Is Apple really this ignorant of flaky internet connections?

skeletonjelly 15y ago
Can you not find a less than legit copy and put in your key? I'm unfamiliar with the process by any standard.
- astrange 15y ago
  There is no serial or copy protection on Mac OS X.
pablasso 15y ago
I have a faulty router that just this morning rebooted itself several times while Lion was downloading. Everytime the connection was lost it just resumed. Why don't you try leaving it some hours and see how it goes?
- unwantedLetters 15y ago
  To be very honest, I have a 3G connection with a limit of about 1.25 GB per month. Since I wanted Lion as quick as possible, I downloaded 1 GB of material using the 3G connection (took me a very, very short time - relatively). When I tried to resume the download from the App Store using my normal internet connection it didn't, and I lost about 1GB of stuff. That's why I posted the earlier message. In the interest of full disclosure, it was probably because the Mac App Store needed to re-authenticate me (I changed IPs remember), clicking resume resulted in me not being able to start the download, and the App Store just decided that the 1GB downloaded was useless. The point about flaky internet connections, and "chunk"ed downloads still stands. I don't expect to be able to get through this download, and even my current issue would have been more gracefully handled with a smaller download size since only 1 chunk of data would have been lost. Note: Interestingly, my 3G connection is more reliable than my broadband with respect to reliability. Even more interestingly, the provider is the same in both cases.

enterneo 15y ago

I am not able to understand how a 3.7GB install image can later fit into a 650MB recovery HD partition (and if it somehow could through some compression magic, then why not compress it even before to only give me 650MB to download from the app store)?

alexmchale 15y ago
My total guess would be that the 650MB image just provides you a mechanism to download Lion again. Or perhaps it's a machine-specific rev? My instinct says the former.
- ugh 15y ago
  Yup, your guess is right. Lion will be downloaded again if you install from the recovery partition.
astrange 15y ago
The recovery partition doesn't need to contain the entire OS.
- enterneo 15y ago
  but there is also an option to install Lion from that recovery HD partition.

mo1stt 15y ago

ojosilva 15y ago

I saw "John Siracusa" and said to myself Damn, wasn't that the RoseDB ORM author from CPAN? http://metacpan.org/author/JSIRACUSA http://metacpan.org/author/JSIRACUSA Yup. I had no this idea he was a tech writer/editor for Ars Technica. I really like his (Perl) work. The article has great insight too.

sukuriant 15y ago

When I read the section on dropping support for PowerPC-application support altogether on this version of Mac OS X, I couldn't help but think of the video of someone upgrading from Windows 1.0 all the way to Windows 7, and many of the features/applications still working. Why did Mac throw out a feature they had working? Couldn't they have retained it, just not upgraded it anymore? (Or given it to the community?) Full Disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee. These views are my own, but I am supporting our product.

watmough 15y ago
I can think of a few reasons. One is that Apple want to minimize cruft and crap bloating the install. I think my fresh install weighed in about 6 GB or so. Very nice, just 20% of a 30 GB drive. Another is that software still built with old tools and compilers will still be using old deprecated toolkits, more cruft to keep running, and likely will be unsupported, potentially creating a crappy user experience. It is really neat that really old stuff still runs on Windows, but why are people still running crappy old 16-bit software?
- sukuriant 15y ago
  Ooooold games (DOS days) Business software
  - watmough 15y ago
    Well, that's just another app. I haven't actually tried, but I bet old crusty copies of Lotus 1-2-3 in which I've actually done development, would probably run just fine under DosBox on any Intel platform. There's very little reason to cruft up the OS for everyone, for that stuff.

speleding 15y ago

The author gripes about the the scrolling direction of the mouse being matched to the scrolling direction of the trackpad. And then says: >Unfortunately, the settings are linked; you can't have >different values for each kind of input device. This turns out not to be true, you can indeed making scrolling different on the mouse and the trackpad. The trick is that link is only one way: changing it for the mouse changes it for the trackpad, but not vice versa. So by changing them in the right order you can make them do what you want. Confusing, but at least you can get it to work.