Lion, Apple’s new upgrade for its OS X operating system, brings with it some rather significant changes—mainly with how we use it.
Natural scrolling
Two full days of use and I’m beginning to come around to the new-school, natural scrolling thing in Lion. The scrolling is what everyone initially seems to be focused on and is therefore what I’ll talk about first. For years we’ve all been trained to scroll in a particular way; swipe with two fingers down to go down the page and swipe up to go back up (it took me four goes to get this sentence right).
Apple have been rather cheeky with the way they have named it natural scrolling because it initially feels quite unnatural. Unnatural, that is, for a non-touch screen device like a laptop or desktop where the interface and display are separate. As I mentioned, I’m coming around to the new method and I’ve done so by imagining that I’m moving a physical piece of paper across a physical desktop (“move the paper, MonsieurMaori… the paper… the paper”). This seems to be working! It gets a bit more difficult when scrolling up and down in my most-used app—my web browser. I find I’m pausing for half a second before I scroll—even now in my word processor as I write.
Where natural scrolling works well is in the Launchpad, that’s the new apps view that displays all of your computer’s apps in the same manner as on your iPhone. It feels right, even on a laptop, to be scrolling your apps left and right.
From a Mac-only perspective, I can handle this big interface change and I’m sure I’ll master it within a week. My concern with it though is the lock-in it’s going to create with skill sets. Windows-only users are going to be scrolling one way whilst Mac-only users are scrolling the other way (yes, I’m aware you can change this in the system preferences, but it won’t take long for it to catch on). It’s going to be more difficult for users to make the switch between the two operating systems. This raises another concern—people like me who work on both Macs and Windows daily—we’re going to be scrolling like idiots, not knowing which way is up or down.
$31.99
It costs $31.99. Last time when we upgraded I think I paid $80 and before that it was more like $100. I should disclaim that I was given a copy by Apple—but that’s how it happens when you write about the stuff… I bought a copy for my other MBP anyway.
Digital delivery
No more trips to Apple stores… actually I was in the Chadstone Apple store last week, merely so I could check-in on Foursquare. Chadstone is in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs and is/was the southern hemisphere’s largest shopping centre—it’s a retail hell-hole, heaving with children and their parents. The Apple store was jammed packed with staff and customers—my guess is about 100 people were crammed in there. I should have taken a photo because the whole scene was absurd. That experience reinforced why I like shopping online. On top of this, I noticed that a lot more of my non-tech friends are keen to upgrade, or at least approaching me for advice on whether or not they should. I think they like the digital distribution too—they’re all busy people.
Easy install
Installation is a breeze. Once you’ve downloaded the 3.5GB update—20 minutes on my pre-NBN, ADSL2+ connection, the install takes around half an hour. I guess this depends on your computer’s specs and how much crap you have on it. It really was a matter of set it and forget it. Once you’re in, there isn’t much you have to do. There are visual prompts about the changes to the interface, namely the natural scrolling and you’re offered info on how to change it. Only a few apps stopped working and the key ones had updates that fixed all of that. Otherwise, it was all really painless.
Resume
I’m having less success/enjoyment from the new resume feature. Resume attempts to open an application back to the way it was when you last closed it. For example, if you have files A and B open when you quit a given app, when you open file C (from the Finder) files A and B open as well. Perhaps I’ll come around to this, but since I’ve been using computers for most of my life without this feature, I’m going to need some time. Also, there’s potential for a lot of embarrassment here—check the last saved state of your apps before you give that next presentation!
I must say one thing in defence of resume—it rescued this post! Half way through I managed to crash OS X… actually that’s unfair; I managed to stop my keyboard from working at all so I hit the power button for three seconds to restart. Once I was back in, I opened up my word processor and hey presto—there was my unsaved, half-written post. OK, I’m unsure if this is a result of resume and/or the new autosave feature. But given that I haven’t actually saved the file to my computer yet, it must be a combination of the two.
Speed
RACK IT UP. I hope I’m not alone here, but this OS has sped shit up for me no end. My MBP isn’t very fast; it’s a 15” 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM and is the first of the unibody MBP’s from late 2008. So maybe the upgrade just cleared out the cobwebs, much like getting laid after a bit of a love-drought; y’know, you’ve just got a bit more of a pep in your step. The most memory-intensive apps that I use daily are Photoshop and my web browser, Rockmelt. Photoshop because it requires a lot of resources and Rockmelt because I usually have a lot of tabs open—current tab count is 29. Photoshop just opens. In fact, it opens to a state where it is usable in 22 seconds; no more Initializing type tool message. Previously it took about 90 seconds to get there. Rockmelt still takes a little while to finish opening up, but this is mainly because all of the web pages need to load. The app would normally become unresponsive as it loaded up the tabs, but now I can start using tabs as they load. Opening Firefox 6.0 beta takes 5 seconds (I’ve only got 4 tabs open in it). That’s significantly faster.
Whether these speed enhancements are a result of the operating system being faster, or just from having my pipes cleaned out; the fact is my computer runs faster and I’m swearing at it much less.
Mail
I haven’t used Mail for years now. And even when I did, I relied more on my Gmail web client (I mean the browser, fool). Gmail’s advanced features, such a conversations (which have ended up in Mail) and its powerful search showed Mail for the lacking app that it was. Many Mail users will disagree with me there, I know a lot of folks use it happily, but it really wasn’t capable of what the Gmail web client could do. A lot of my previous issues with Mail seem to have been addressed with really good changes to the interface. Overall it’s a lot cleaner in appearance—in line with iOS’ Mail app on the iPad. Conversations are easier to deal with too. A really big improvement is with the search tool. Type in a search term and relevant results come straight up! I can’t say how much of an improvement this is over Snow Leopard because I haven’t used Mail for so long, but I’m impressed with it (I have 50k emails, so the search is rather important).
AirDrop
This is simple file transfer between two Macs on the same Wifi network (so long as those Macs are new enough). It really is simple; you drag a file into the other person’s Mac and it transfers. You might think this is a very old concept, but in my experience, it has never worked seamlessly and was always network dependant. The issue would worsen when transferring between Windows and Mac machines (despite Apple’s claims). I am good with computers, but I’m not technical enough to diagnose a lot of issues (and often CBF anyway). I transfer files between my PCs often and normally I just email them to myself… I KNOW… I can imagine some of my more tech-minded friends head-desking right now.
Fullscreen
Nope, Apple didn't invent it. But Apple has made it core to its operating system. Native apps have the fullscreen capability, some third party apps do too, such as Rockmelt browser. Expect a raft of software developers to enable this feature in their apps too. Fullscreen is a nice way to work—it removes distraction (which is ironic when you're using a web browser most of the time—and it maximises screen real estate. There's not much else to say other than I like it.
If it’s not evident, I’m mostly happy with Lion so far. I haven’t discussed all of its new features here, just the ones that have stood out by making my life easier. As far as the scrolling issue goes, give it a few months, perhaps a year and folks will be wondering what all the fuss was about. Any big changes Apple makes to its products tend to stir shit up, then the dust settles and we focus on the next big thing. Lion; I approve.