Lion-- things to know

[David Polich]

I played around with Lion extensively over at the Apple Store yesterday.
Decided this is the first Apple OS I truly dislike.

Major complaint - how on earth does anyone deal with how scrollbars work in Lion? This is the worst re-do of a working feature that I have ever seen. It
really makes no sense whatsoever to me.

"Restore to last known state" - well at least you can disable it. It
should be disabled by default.

Launchpad - okay, it's really just an enlarged version of the dock. I doubt
I'd ever use it. Ditto for Mission Control. I'm just not a multiple views
kind of guy, I guess.

Windows that "grow out of nowhere" - is there some way to disable this gimmick?

Gestures - well now I have to memorize a bunch of movements not to do -

I can see the reasoning behind Lion - it's really for the i-Pad. From what
I've seen, it's not something I want on my Mac Pro.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I got their gesture right heeya!

[tcastle]

David... Let me see if I've got this right; You play around with Lion for a few minutes at a store and decide it's the worst ever...? Hahahaha.

Why not stick with pencil and paper if changes in the technology you use are a problem for you?

I've been using Lion for a month, every day, all the time and I love it! Especially the scrolling! Especially the gestures!

You're gonna be using Lion one of these days, why not just get with it?

[mikehalloran]

> how on earth does anyone deal with how scrollbars work in Lion?<

Really nicely - ignore them and use a scroll wheel, Magic Mouse or the new track pad. Once you get the hang of it, you will see that it is a major improvement.

>From what I've seen, it's not something I want on my Mac Pro.<

Too bad for you.

[David Polich]

David... Let me see if I've got this right; You play around with Lion for a few minutes at a store and decide it's the worst ever...? Hahahaha.

Why not stick with pencil and paper if changes in the technology you use are a problem for you?

I've been using Lion for a month, every day, all the time and I love it! Especially the scrolling! Especially the gestures!

You're gonna be using Lion one of these days, why not just get with it?

Yeah, you know, at least pencil and paper doesn't require a new OS update.

Yes, I don't like Lion. That's all I'm saying. Maybe it's the greatest thing
since the invention of the wheel, but I'm just not feeling any love for it,
sorry. Then again, I've never thought any OS update, Mac or Windows, was something to get excited about. A good song, a great musical performance -
that's what I save my enthusiasm for.

I stuck with Tiger until I finally bought my Mac Pro last year, which came
with SL. If it had come with Tiger, I would have been just as happy. I've
never bothered with Spaces, Time Machine, Expose, or even using Consolidated
Windows. Believe it or not there are other people like me (yeah, we're old
geezers) who see all this stuff as rinky-dink gimmickry. We're not into
playing video games or doing video game moves when we're working.

Anyway, I'm sticking with SL as long as I can, until it's no longer feasible.

[tcastle]

Anyway, I'm sticking with SL as long as I can, until it's no longer feasible.

...because you've given Lion a thorough trial and based on that rigorous investigation, decided it's not for you.

Well, at least you didn't make a snap judgment! I have to give you that much...

[James Steele]

...because you've given Lion a thorough trial and based on that rigorous investigation, decided it's not for you.

Well, at least you didn't make a snap judgment! I have to give you that much...

You obviously left out the [SARCASM] tag. There's really no need for that kind of tone. Thanks.

[David Polich]

Anyway, I'm sticking with SL as long as I can, until it's no longer feasible.

...because you've given Lion a thorough trial and based on that rigorous investigation, decided it's not for you.

Well, at least you didn't make a snap judgment! I have to give you that much...

Hmmm - I think I've struck a nerve...daring to say that I don't like
the latest offering from the all-powerful, all-knowing Apple. Like I'm
somehow obligated to believe it's better because...well, it's from Apple,
how could it not be better.

Saying forget about trying to use the scroll bars in the old way - use the
Magic TrackPad thingie, or the Magic Mouse - that doesn't excuse the lame
way the scroll bars work in Lion. They weren't broken - I gotta wonder what
"genius" thought they needing "fixing". I mean, c'mon.

How about "Save As"? It's gone in Lion. Now you have to duplicate your file
and save that. What kind of improvement is that?

When you have multiple applications open, and you open yet another one, you
don't see the most recently launched app's window on top.

But there's much much more. I have a lot of PPC Apps that work in SL 10.6.8.
Apps that would cost me plenty to replace - Microsoft Office, Macromedia Flash 8, Macromedia Fireworx 8, Adobe Illustrator 10, Toast 8, Dragon Burn - not to mention the plug-ins that don't officially work in Lion (like UAD). If I move to Lion I instantly have to spend nearly $1800 to replace my apps, which I use extensively and which are currently working just fine
in SL.

Search the Apple forums, you'll see I'm not the only one complaining about
Lion's new "features".

[James Steele]

I've never been so on-the-fence about an new Apple OS before. Like has been stated, we may not have a choice, but I know for my pokey older machine, it will be probably best to stay with Snow Leopard until I can get a new machine. Everything is WORKING. I'm usually an early adopter, but I'm going to hold off I think.

[SixStringGeek]

I played around with Lion extensively over at the Apple Store yesterday.
Decided this is the first Apple OS I truly dislike.

Major complaint - how on earth does anyone deal with how scrollbars work in Lion? This is the worst re-do of a working feature that I have ever seen. It
really makes no sense whatsoever to me.

I kind agree that changing it for long time users is nuts. But the idea now is instead of your fingers swiping the "thumb on the scroll bar control" you are instead dragging the page. Scroll bars are kind of headed for the scrap heap in the new world order. They are just visual cues now.

Anyhow, there is a preference you'll find in the preferences app to use "classic scroll behavior" or something - definitely first thing you want to set.

...
I can see the reasoning behind Lion - it's really for the i-Pad. From what
I've seen, it's not something I want on my Mac Pro.

They're going to keep merging I expect.

[Frodo]

There's nothing wrong with iOS compatibility. But things like the loss of "Save As" in Lion hits at the heart of many DAW users. As iOS grows in popularity, there are things with it which have been sacrificed in the name of expedience--- at the expense of convenience with only indirect solutions on the table. Selecting a blob of text to edit in iOS it is not really faster. I might even be slower, but I'm still getting hung on what I've been used to where it was easier and faster and not simply because I was used to the old way. It goes beyond being used to doing something a certain way. A most beloved feature has been entirely eradicated.

"Save As". I can't say we hardly knew you because you were a dear friend who'll be sorely missed.

One thing I've been wondering about: the practice of doing Combo Updates may be a thing of the past in terms of availability, but Magic Dave once spoke of its necessity where DP was concerned as opposed to just doing a regular Software Update for OSX. I know that not everyone has had trouble with SUs, but Combo Updates have saved my patudi way too many times to just write them off so easily.

We shall see with 10.7.1, I suppose.

[FutureLegends]

My take on some of the things discussed:

Scroll Bars: It's been so long since I used them to actually scroll. Now they only appear when I scroll to give me visual cue of where on the page I am. The only thing I've used them for in years. It's a good thing they're not wasting screen real estate anymore. On the rare occasion (in really long documents) where it's faster to grab the thing in the scrollbar, guess what? You can still do that.

Save As: Still available in DP7.24 in Lion. I believe this is up to the developer. If they wanna support the new 'versions' function or not.

Combo Updates: I have always been fine with the normal updates.

PPC Apps: Not a problem for me as I didn't use any already. Been wanting to buy VocAlign for a couple of years but have not because it was PPC only. Now I got a mail from them stating they are soon to release an Intel version (!). I do understand the problem of costly updates though if you have lots of apps needing updating. This, however, is less of a problem if you are continually updating your system, there will just be a few items every time instead of all at once like can happen if you take a huge leap.

Scrolling: The new way of scrolling feels totally natural when using a touchpad (on a MacBook or with the Magic Trackpad). Less so when using the scrollwheel on a mouse. I wish you could choose the preference independently between mouse and trackpad though. Also in DP faders and knobs move the wrong way now. I guess this is easily addressed with an update to DP.

Overall, the difference isn't that huge unless you want it to be. Most changes are very ignorable if you really don't wanna embrace them. But there's enough nice little new details that I like that going back to SL wouldn't feel good. And when iCloud becomes available that will be huge for me.

[David Polich]

Just because I don't care for Lion doesn't mean I won't deal with it when
the time comes. It's already at version 7.1, I've never seen an Apple OS that
worked well until around version .4 or .5 anyway. And that could be some months away.

Apple has broken things often enough in the past (Quicktime comes to mind)
that I really do believe they sometimes develop gimmicks,
often in an effort to require users to buy some new hardware (like the Magic Trackpad) and then let the users be the unpaid beta testers. And it is beyond me and always will be, why Apple chooses to do things like reverse the
scrolling behavior which is by every measure counter-intuitive. And yet
they keep Spotlight, which continues to suck, in the latest OS.

Perhaps by the time 7.5 rolls around there will be more changes that allow
users to enable more "legacy" features if they want, and disable the really
annoying ones.

[mikehalloran]

>Apple has broken things often enough in the past (Quicktime comes to mind)
that I really do believe they sometimes develop gimmicks,<

I updated an iMac that I take care of to Lion and was going through the Utilities folder where I saw QuickTime 7.7. It wasn't lined out so I opened it - and it worked. QT 10 is still in the Applications folder and it worked also (but who needs it?).

Since 10 does not do what I used to do in 7 Pro, I am now trying to figure out how to get QT 7 onto my Lion drive - the installer won't work. I hope I don't have to build a system in 10.5 and upgrade through just to get this done.

[bayswater]

>Apple has broken things often enough in the past (Quicktime comes to mind)
that I really do believe they sometimes develop gimmicks,<

I updated an iMac that I take care of to Lion and was going through the Utilities folder where I saw QuickTime 7.7. It wasn't lined out so I opened it - and it worked. QT 10 is still in the Applications folder and it worked also (but who needs it?).

Since 10 does not do what I used to do in 7 Pro, I am now trying to figure out how to get QT 7 onto my Lion drive - the installer won't work. I hope I don't have to build a system in 10.5 and upgrade through just to get this done.

QT 7.6.6 can be downloaded from the Apple support site, and it runs fine in Lion. If you have ever bought a licence for QT 7 Pro it can be applied, assuming you are not keeping it active on another Mac. I've done this as part of a move to a new MBP for non audio use. Note that for some reason, after entering your reg code, you have to quit and relaunch QT 7 to get the pro features working. again.