Welcome to Lion

Snow Leopard was my absolutely favourite OS from Apple, and well… favourite over any competitor too. Microsoft wasn’t even close to being as cool (in my eyes)! Thus when Lion was announced I was immediately pumped for the release!

I previously wrote my initial opinion about Lion, and now I wish to give my view on it after using it for the past week.

The Awesome

Boot Up

Lion has vastly improved boot up and shut down times, and the entire system feels smoother. This is however, based on the fact that I also just upgraded to 8gig of RAM about four days after installing Lion. While using Snow Leopard I occasionally maxed out my previous four gig of RAM, but it was not too bad. Lion does chew a lot more RAM and I was forced to upgrade.

Mail, iCal, Safari

Views on the new Mail interface really differs depending on the individual asked. I personally enjoy it and feel it was a nice upgrade. The full screen is nice (to an extent… read below). The three column layout is nice and you can easily read your entire message without opening any additional windows. If you prefer the older interface, I did read that there is an option in the preferences to revert back to the original design.

iCal got a charming new look, and minor fixes to usability. Personally I feel like it lacks easier integration with apps such as Mail… Not much else has changed with it though. Still no column on the side to choose a specific  month, and you are instead forced to click “year” and then choose the desired month through an unfriendly grid view. Oh, also I am going to mention that my iPhone is not syncing correctly to iCal, however this was also an issue in Snow Leopard and I need to find a cure fast!

Safari is the most amazing browser ever! Simply put, I quite like it! The new reading list is already being ambushed by a steady tide of website articles I wish to read later. The reading list nicely keeps these sites off my favourites bar allowing better organization along the top bar. I personally feel like speed performance has also increased, and runs smoothly in full screen mode. For the developers out there, I do like the new features (at least I think they are new!) such as the Audit tab in the Inspection window. The sidebar fades out of view when not in use and leaves a very clean interface.

Compatibility

I am very glad that all my applications so far have had no compatibility issues. I have heard that 1Password is not working, however that is the only application I have heard that is not working. This was quite nice especially after the problems found when previously upgrading to Snow Leopard.

The Pains

Mission Control

Being the ridiculous Mac happy guy I am, it pains me to say that Apple took a serious step backwards with Mission Control. Sure, it displays all the spaces, the current desktop, and the dashboard, but everything is too small! You can no longer drag running applications from space to space, and the linear line of spaces is much harder and slower to navigate through compared to the original spaces grid view. Spaces are too far to scroll through, especially when you are working on space 1 and have to get to space 6! After a week of use, I still greatly miss the simplicity of the original spaces.

Lastly, full screen apps take up a space of their own…. which you might think would be awesome! That is, until you realize that the dock doesn’t even display, forcing you to switch to another space just to check your dock. If you are in Mail full screen and wish to drag an image from your desktop to your current email draft, forget about it! You have to click “insert image” and find your way through a frustrating interface that seems to only read off of iPhoto!

Launch Pad

I was never really excited for launchpad. It was over glorified and added unnecessary code to a previous clean OS. I prefer to jump up to spotlight and type in the application that I am needing instead of scrolling through four pages of application thumbnails. I understand that Apple is trying to bring in an iPhone/iPad feel to it’s desktop platform, but this just does not help my workflow whatsoever. Perhaps, those struggling with the idea of using a computer and understanding finder windows (which are fairly straight foreword) will appreciate this feature? I’m not too sure though…

Wrap Up

Over all, I really miss Snow Leopard and might actually consider going back to it if updates are not made. I no longer use full screen apps due to the limited access to simple things such as the previously mentioned dragging images from desktop to an open email… or viewing your dock to jump to an app. I don’t use launch pad. I despise the new mission control. I am quite disappointed actually. The only reason I continue to use it is due to the speed upgrades in boot and shut down, and the updated applications.

I would have preferred a  $30 upgrade in applications and continued to use Snow Leopard… the whole workflow was smoother, and faster.

~RoTP Team