Your Thoughts on MacOS Lion

Nonsense.

 

Nice thought. Steve's logic only went so far. Maybe what you want could be done. But.... from my own experience with Windows, it seems like a touch oriented UI needs to be built for that purpose from the ground up. And that's why Apple absolutely owns the tablet market with iOS.

I think HP bought Palm for that very reason - they needed a touch oriented OS to be able to sell tablets, and modifying Windows is not an option.

 

Granted OSX and Windows don't suit touch controls very well at all in their current state, but iOS is too far in the other direction, it's too simple. I mean, it's on a phone, that says it all. What we need is a perfect combination of both.

 

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I can see why they're mixing them though. With the 10's of millions of iDevices out there, it's something people know and are comfortable with. When it comes time to upgrade their computer, iDevice users may look at Lion and not be as overwhelmed in learning something other than Windows.

On the other hand they seem to be creating some strife among Mac user with this upgrade, though I doubt any Apple user would go to Windows because of it.

And now with the new Macs coming out, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm still not sure if this is a brilliant move, or a fail of epic proportions.

 

Lion sounds pretty interesting, but what I have been trying to work out is this: will the Mac app store be the only portal through which to purchase software for your Mac?
If it is just an integrated version of their current 'downloads' store then that is very cool, but if all software has to come trough the store then that is not so cool.

 

I don't think that's very likely. It'd probably see Mac sales drop a little and I imagine piracy would increase.

 

You're STUPID. The Macbook Air runs the FULL MAC OS (Leopard), not some washed out smartphone version like a netbook. That's like comparing a "7-series BMW" to a "Ford Escort."

Go online and leave a link for a "netbook" that you can find comparable to the specs of the Macbook Air.

If you come to a "nerdy" gaming site, please bring the "nerd" part with you. It is a shame to experience such ignorance from "non-mac" users.

 

That's the point. They've taken the benefits from iOS and put them into OS X: the App store, multi-touch gestures, app resuming, full screen apps, and other things that are, in fact, far better user experiences and technical benefits in iOS than their equivalents in OS X. Lion makes a lot of sense to me in this way. It's not as if they've ported iOS in it's entirety.

Yeah. but they're still left running in the background. The difference in having apps that can resume makes for a substantially more efficient system that run will run quicker for the end user.

Arstechnica reviewed the Air and said the full size keyboard and large trackpad take it a million miles away from a netbook experience.

 

Oh, that's yours? Sorry, I thought maybe you just pulled it from Google or something.

I just would suggest using the Clone Stamp tool to cover up unwanted text instead of a shape; makes it look more uniform and a little more difficult to spot.

Yeesh, sorry to offend, brother. I frankly had no idea that the website was reserved just for "nerds," as you say.

Before I start, let me remind you that I was referring to the 11.6" MacBook Air in my comparison. On to the challenge: although the Air touts an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which does outrank many netbooks, here's an ASUS Eee PC that features a dual-core Atom N550 which can have 2GB DDR3 RAM and features a hard drive that's twice the size of the 11.6" Air's capacity. Runs a very workable Windows 7. And it's less than $400. Shaved off half the Air's asking price for similar specifications.

Now before you go on another screaming rampage, my point is that if I'm going to drop a thousand on a laptop, I would go for a system that will fit the price tag a little better, like the new Dell XPS line with Intel Core i5 standard and 6GB RAM minimum for less than $900 starting price. It runs a Windows 7 OS rather than Mac OSX, which I would prefer because I always have used PC's. I enjoy using Macs, and I appreciate their user-friendliness, but PC's my preference. When I want to get a Mac (looking into computer graphics as a possible college major), I'm not going to buy an Air that features netbook specs to get OSX. I'll save up for a Pro instead so that my needs will be filled.

But if you're on the straight and narrow Apple-wise, go ahead and get what you want. I won't judge. I just don't see myself laying down $1000 to get netbook specifications.

Well, I don't think too much about the trackpad and keyboard when I'm thinking about a laptop. I'm gonna hook up a mouse anyways, and any keyboard works for me as long as it doesn't stick. I was talking more internal specs than anything else.

 

Exactly.

People (mostly Windows-centric folk) always complain about Macs being "closed", but Macs haven't really been that way since they've gone OS X, as it uses UNIX as it's base. Fact is that if something is written in UNIX, it'll run on a Mac with the appropriate tweaks. Is it as open as Linux? No. But then again neither is Windows, which seems to be ignored by those railing against OS X.

Furthermore, it's not as if the other avenues of getting OS X applications will be closed to the end user; simply put the Mac App Store is just another more official, Apple supported centralized avenue for getting apps. And lest we forget, MS has a friggin' centralized store for Windows applications too. It's just not as...elegant as Apple's solution.

 

It's more than that (what I bolded). Apple's laptops are typically better constructed, have longer battery life, etc. than most PC based laptops. And these are things that matter to quite a great deal of possible consumers for laptops. Windows PC centric folk scoff at this being "aesthetics", but the fact is that the aluminum construction, long lasting battery, trackpad, keyboard comfort, etc. DO matter.

That's what Apple is trying to do with Lion. Lion is still a full fledged OS X, it's just taking some ideas from iOS. It isn't iOS on a Mac. It's OS X, full fledged, with some of the great stuff from iOS added into the mix. I don't understand why some are confusing this fact.

Um...since when is Atom, even dual core, "comparable" in speed, etc. to Core 2 Duos?

 

As for how I feel about Lion...I welcome it, but it's more of a side add than a major new upgrade. It's adding some iOS style features onto what is already a pretty spiffy OS.

That said, I would DEFINITELY have wanted this for Apple TV (an Apple TV centric App Store). But I also wanted Apple TV to be more powerful than the iPhone/touch/pad devices. If you look at what Google is doing with Google TV, and in particular what Sony is doing with it, I think Apple could do much, much more than what they're currently doing with Apple TV, and do it much, much better than Google (and Sony) can ever think of doing.

Think Apple TV with a multicore ARM CPU, multicore Power VR SGX GPU, 200GB HDD, and a new Apple Remote based off of the Magic Trackpad with built in accelerometers and gyroscope (to better mimic the control of the touchscreens on iPhone with less cost) tied into the App Store but with it's own exclusive true HD apps. For the gamers among us, it would mean really big possibilities.

 

No prob. Just wanted to point out that netbooks aren't generally associated by their specs, but by their diminutive size, which separates the Air from being considered a netbook.

 

Will also appear as a revolutionary feature in Windows 8, I assume.

 

Pardon if this is a rather long post and not totally focused on Lion, but instead on what that next version of OSX means in the long term.

Every time, it seems, that Apple comes out with a device which re-thinks the user experience that best serves the needs of the average consumer, the same criticism gets voiced over and over again.

For example: "iPad is a failure, it doesn't have multi-tasking, it doesn't have OSX, it doesn't have a file hierarchy..."
Now that it has proven itself as one of the fastest-selling consumer electronic devices in written history (I don't recall where I read that from, apologies) and the competition hasn't matched the experience by a long shot, we've hopefully learned something about the computing needs of the average user.

No matter what the nay-sayers complain, the fact is iPad is in many ways a remarkable device: it's essentially a computer that you can give to a grandma, and she'll be able to use it without being intimidated by the UI or confused by usability conventions that stem from decades of IT history.

Even if it can be argued that OSX is more intuitive to use than its competitors, it is nowhere near the instant usability of iOS. While OSX is intuitive to people who have already learned to use computers, it has taken years of conditioning to get to that point.

It's important to recognize that current operating systems are what they are because of the problems they have been designed to solve. They are built on a history of needing to support any hardware, to manage files, to enable multi-tasking with a mouse-controlled UI and after that, to tackle the problem field of multimedia playback.

Perhaps most important to this discussion is how much our current expectation on what a computer desktop should look like is influenced by the prevalence of the mouse as the default controller, and how the mouse-operated windows have become our standard UI paradigm.

Let's face it, all of us who are adept at using modern computers have probably a decade or more of experience with different graphical user interfaces, but they have all been designed to be operated with a mouse. The thought of a user interface built from ground-up to accommodate a different input method feels alien, despite iOS already proving it can be done - it has simply not been implemented in traditional computers.

As a side-note, imagine how computers would look right now if light pen had become the default controller (particularly interesting is the linked video!): Here's an article about a light pen interface from 1962

Aside from the UI paradigm, we have been tuned to operate computers on their own terms: multi-tasking, user permissions, file hierarchies, hard drive partitions, device drivers, IP addresses... the list goes on.

All of the above are irrelevant and time-consuming diversions for the user who simply concerns himself with the basic use cases of a modern computer. Usually this consists of communicating online, browsing the web or playing back music and video. Occasionally it may involve media creation (photo or video editing & publishing), and only a small fraction of users care about tweaking or tuning the computer itself, or programming for that matter. Again, iPad & iOS have proven that these common use cases are intuitively met by a touch interface.

Why, then, shouldn't there exist an operating system for computers which has been designed from ground up to only meet specific use cases optimally? Essentially (on the UI level) the operating system shouldn't be anything more than the root UI which allows the user to pick what they want to do, and then load the app which matches that request. Beyond that, it's the responsibility of the full-screen app to be intuitive for the tasks it has been designed for.

A computer like this wouldn't have a desktop cluttered with various document and program icons, windows that need exposé-like solutions for switching between, bloated "downloads"-folders or overgrown file hierarchies. Documents would be found under the apps which created them, installer packages would be unnecessary with all apps always available from an online source. Perhaps most of all, attention would be undivided from the task at hand: no bouncing dock icons, no chat windows, no multiple browser windows to divert you from accomplishing whatever you set out to do. A fully modal interface does have its benefits.

The above is of course the extreme example. A modal Mac would certainly make similar compromises as iOS is doing right now: allowing parallel actions such as background music, global notifications etc. In fact, with the computing resources available on Macs vs. current iOS devices, switching between tasks would be near-instantaneous regardless of whether the app is merely suspended or needs to be started up.

Do I feel such a Mac would be better for my daily personal computing than a current Snow Leopard device? Yes, absolutely. After using an iPad for a significant amount of time, it has already replaced a Macbook as the primary device for browsing the web, reading and writing emails and playing video and music. Frankly, I use it more for games than any of the current game consoles.

Would I use such a computer at work? That's a tougher question, and depends on how well the work-related use cases are met, even parallel ones.

All in all, it's clear that computing is finally becoming more and more casual, and one of the cornerstones for this change is the move away from primarily mouse-controlled interfaces. Touch surfaces force developers to think of usability from a new perspective, where the lessons learned on iPhone and iPad development are relevant.

I personally can't think of many companies aside from Apple that would have the heritage of UI design, control over hardware, and emphasis on usability to drive such a change successfully. The migration to casual computing may not be to everyone's liking, but I can't wait to see how this industry matures from an engineering mentality to one where usability has the highest priority.

 

I wish my computer had a light pen... and foot pedals.

I think the old people I know are stupider than the old people you know.

 

I don't like the idea of documents being found under the app that created them. Way, way too many files going around which are designed for use with multiple apps. File heirarchies aren't a solution to a problem caused by computers, because the same goes for paper documents too. Organizing files is simply tidier and easier to browse through.

 

Wonderfully insightful as usual Frand.