Posts Tagged
os x
Apple released their large overhaul to their Mac operating system with Mac OS X Snow Leopard in June of 2009. This update seemed fairly basic to the naked eye as there weren’t many end-user feature updates, but under the hood the OS took strides in performance, efficiency and memory consumption. It was essentially laying the groundwork for the future. While I think Mac OS X users were happy with this update, I can say from personal experience that there was certainly some anticipation for what was next.
Mac OS X Lion launched barely two months ago and I was quick to give this new operating system a try. Developers had been working with versions of the operating system for some time prior and were talking about some of the features that were being played with by the Apple team. It appeared that this would be that major update that we’d been waiting for, bringing along with it many new end-user features.
I’m the type of person that is always looking for ways to be more efficient with my work. This is essentially a never ending journey, but the quest always continues on nonetheless. I grabbed a copy of Lion soon after it was released, anxious to see how the new features I had read about could possibly improve my productivity and efficiency.
Now that Lion has been out for a while, many of us have downloaded it on our primary computers and are now using the operating system full-time. As far as stability goes, the reports that we’re receiving are a bit scattered.
For my part, Lion roars along nicely. I upgraded the day it launched and apart from an initial slowdown while Spotlight finished indexing, I can’t say that I’ve run into a single major issue that couldn’t be addressed in a few minutes or less (even on my ancient 2007 MacBook).
However, I’ve heard several people, including some of our own writers, describe OS X Lion as an “extremely buggy” and all around unstable release. Given the variety of different Mac setups that exist, there are bound to be some pretty disparate experiences from users. Today we want to know what you think. Is Lion solid as a rock or one big, buggy mess?
Cast your vote in the poll and then leave a comment below telling us about some of the persistent problems you’ve run into and what machine you’re running.
Along with a ton of great new features, OS X Lion brings about at least one fairly controversial change: the default behavior for scrolling has been reversed. It used to the case that if you wanted to scroll down the page, you made a downward swiping gesture, and of course the reverse of that for going back up.
However, the iPhone changed things up a bit. With the direct interaction model, it felt more natural to move the page instead of the scroll position, so to scroll down on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you swipe up.
When you’re directly interacting with a touchscreen, this scrolling model is incredibly intuitive. You reach out and touch the page and move it freely in any direction that you please. Your brain immediately understands what’s happening and there is zero adjustment period.
With Lion, OS X has picked up this system. Now the scroll gesture acts as if you’re reaching out and touching the screen: swipe up to scroll down. Now instead of moving the scroll bars, you must imagine that you’re tossing the page.
For some, the new system immediately made sense and required very little adjustment time. However, many users are complaining that the indirect nature of a mouse or trackpad is in conflict with the direct model of scrolling. Our brains are already so set on the way things have been for years that it’s difficult to reprogram them, especially since there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need to do so.
Today we want to know what you think. Do you like natural scrolling in Lion? Or do you wish Apple would subscribe to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” theory? Have you decided whether or not to adjust to the new system or revert back to the old way? Vote in the poll above and leave your thoughts in the comments below.
It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for, OS X Lion is finally available for public download in the Mac App Store.
Apple tossed in a few surprises for the day as well with some welcome hardware updates. Let’s very briefly take a look at what’s going on just to keep you up to date around the Mac user water cooler.
At this point, you probably know all about the newest update to Apple’s legendary operating system: OS X Lion. It has over 250 new features, including new gestures, full-screen apps, Mission Control, Launchpad and all kinds of other goodies that I just can’t wait to get my hands on.
The demos at WWDC had us all drooling over this new toy and we learned that it will hit the Mac App Store in July for a mere $29.99! This marks a serious shift in the way that Apple does business. Never before have they released a major operating system update as a download-only product. At over 4GB, many are nervous about the logistics of this affair. It’s easy to imagine Apple forums filling up on launch day with stories from frustrated users.
Today we want to know whether or not you will purchase and download Lion right away. Will you hit the Mac App Store as soon as possible on launch day or wait a while to see how things work out for early adopters before jumping on the bandwagon? Vote in the poll and leave a comment below with your thoughts.
