Lion, it's pretty damn good.

[The JTizzle]

Been posting here over the last 24 hours of my Lion use and seen a lot of negative based comments about Apples newest OS and figured I would share some of the good stuff as well

1. It's fuxing fast! Everything is silky smooth and feels like its been put into fast forward compared to SL.

2. Safari is a real browser. So far every gripe I had with Safari is fixed. Gifs play correctly and at full speed, sites pop in with great speed, reading list is great and I love the new download manager.

3. Mission Control is great once you adjust to it. At first I didn't get it. I wanted my old expose back. But after getting the gestures down on my track pad and mouse I love it. It's so nice to have everything right there, just make sure you enable the app window expose gesture if you have a pad, its off by default I believe. I made a post earlier asking if you could reorder the desktops but it seems to me it works like your iOS device, and the most recent used apps appears closest to the left and the less use stuff moves down the list to the right, works well once you realize whats happening and you treat it like swiping on a iPad with dev gestures turned on.

4. Full screen. I want more apps to support it! I never thought I would use this feature but it does make apps so nice to work in and swapping between them with a simple gesture works great. When you swipe over to an app that isn't full screen enabled yet, like iTunes, you really notice it and the app almost feels old and out dated.

5. Auto Correct. Best thing ever. I'm dyslexic and this is key for me. It seems to work better than the iOS version and I hope the iOS gets updated to it in iOS 5.

6. Auto resume windows. I'm still surprised every time I open up safari and I'm right back were I left off, so nice.

7. New finder. Not a ton has changed but the new look, AirDrop and the All My files works very well and it's nice to have a consistent new GUI.

This is just a few things I want to report out on. If you excited for Lion and want to be ready for it when it goes live I recommend you have a Magic Track Pad, it works ok with the Magic Mouse, but you really get the experience with the pad and gain almost double as many gestures to use with the OS.

 

[Lord Appleseed]

Finally a positive thread on Lion.
I agree with most things you said, even though I turned off auto correction simply because too often it changes my typos to completely different words.

 

[CyBeRino]

4. Full screen. I want more apps to support it! I never thought I would use this feature but it does make apps so nice to work in and swapping between them with a simple gesture works great. When you swipe over to an app that isn't full screen enabled yet, like iTunes, you really notice it and the app almost feels old and out dated.

Try that again with a second screen connected.

(iTunes 10.5 is full-screen-enabled, btw.)

 

[The JTizzle]

Yah I expect Apple to change that for multi screen users, But I just found I didn't need the second display once I went with a 27 inch screen, and I figured the 10.5 beta was FS, just haven't logged in and downloaded it yet, might do that today.

 

[HelveticaNeue]

I agree with you on all counts. I was a little afraid I might regret downloading the GM, but I have found the polish and performance of Lion superlative so far in my use.

I didn't think I would use the full-screen apps, but there is something alluring about them ... they feel so immersive. Safari and Mail now feel teeny when not in full-screen.

I love all the little things: the animation, pop-overs and prompt boxes. I actually smiled in TextEdit when I clicked on the colour selector and watched it pop out with a delightful iOS bounce. Time Machine and Versions look amazing.

I want to update my second Mac at work, but I will wait until Lion is released so I can download it from the App Store. Apple certainly deserves it's $30.

 

[freedevil]

I don't see Airdrop in my Finder preferences. How do you have airdrop access? Lion GM

 

[Chundles]

So far, so good. After a very rocky start that may or may not have been my own fault Lion and I are getting along famously.

Mine's my own legit dev version so no qualms about having it installed.

My only remaining doubt is to whether I should plug the time machine drive in and let it back all this up.

Hmmmm.....

 

[netnothing]

2. Safari is a real browser. So far every gripe I had with Safari is fixed. Gifs play correctly and at full speed, sites pop in with great speed, reading list is great and I love the new download manager.

Has Apple finally joined 2008 and allowed you to search directly from the url bar? Or do they still insist on giving you a dedicated search box?

-Kevin

 

[cjjr72984]

Been posting here over the last 24 hours of my Lion use and seen a lot of negative based comments about Apples newest OS and figured I would share some of the good stuff as well

1. It's fuxing fast! Everything is silky smooth and feels like its been put into fast forward compared to SL.

2. Safari is a real browser. So far every gripe I had with Safari is fixed. Gifs play correctly and at full speed, sites pop in with great speed, reading list is great and I love the new download manager.

3. Mission Control is great once you adjust to it. At first I didn't get it. I wanted my old expose back. But after getting the gestures down on my track pad and mouse I love it. It's so nice to have everything right there, just make sure you enable the app window expose gesture if you have a pad, its off by default I believe. I made a post earlier asking if you could reorder the desktops but it seems to me it works like your iOS device, and the most recent used apps appears closest to the left and the less use stuff moves down the list to the right, works well once you realize whats happening and you treat it like swiping on a iPad with dev gestures turned on.

4. Full screen. I want more apps to support it! I never thought I would use this feature but it does make apps so nice to work in and swapping between them with a simple gesture works great. When you swipe over to an app that isn't full screen enabled yet, like iTunes, you really notice it and the app almost feels old and out dated.

5. Auto Correct. Best thing ever. I'm dyslexic and this is key for me. It seems to work better than the iOS version and I hope the iOS gets updated to it in iOS 5.

6. Auto resume windows. I'm still surprised every time I open up safari and I'm right back were I left off, so nice.

7. New finder. Not a ton has changed but the new look, AirDrop and the All My files works very well and it's nice to have a consistent new GUI.

This is just a few things I want to report out on. If you excited for Lion and want to be ready for it when it goes live I recommend you have a Magic Track Pad, it works ok with the Magic Mouse, but you really get the experience with the pad and gain almost double as many gestures to use with the OS.

I agree with you on all counts. I was a little afraid I might regret downloading the GM, but I have found the polish and performance of Lion superlative so far in my use.

I didn't think I would use the full-screen apps, but there is something alluring about them ... they feel so immersive. Safari and Mail now feel teeny when not in full-screen.

I love all the little things: the animation, pop-overs and prompt boxes. I actually smiled in TextEdit when I clicked on the colour selector and watched it pop out with a delightful iOS bounce. Time Machine and Versions look amazing.

I want to update my second Mac at work, but I will wait until Lion is released so I can download it from the App Store. Apple certainly deserves it's $30.

Agree with both of these posts. Was a little worried about getting the GM, but now that I've used it since yesterday I can say w/out a doubt Lion is better than SL.

Only thing I just couldn't do was the reversed scrolling. I tried to like it, but I couldn't lol.

 

[Chundles]

Agree with both of these posts. Was a little worried about getting the GM, but now that I've used it since yesterday I can say w/out a doubt Lion is better than SL.

Only thing I just couldn't do was the reversed scrolling. I tried to like it, but I couldn't lol.

I'm giving it a week like Craig Federighi asked in his presentation, I agree it makes sense but I'm not sold that it feels any more or less "correct" than before.

 

[The JTizzle]

Has Apple finally joined 2008 and allowed you to search directly from the url bar? Or do they still insist on giving you a dedicated search box?

-Kevin

I could do that in SL, can still do it in Lion, but there is also a bar on the right for your search engine.

So far, so good. After a very rocky start that may or may not have been my own fault Lion and I are getting along famously.

Mine's my own legit dev version so no qualms about having it installed.

My only remaining doubt is to whether I should plug the time machine drive in and let it back all this up.

Hmmmm.....

My Time Capsule wasn't to bad, maybe 8 gigs total to backup.

I don't see Airdrop in my Finder preferences. How do you have airdrop access? Lion GM

Do you have an older Mac?

Oh, and the best thing, they fixed the damn new mail sound bug finally!

 

[netnothing]

I could do that in SL, can still do it in Lion, but there is also a bar on the right for your search engine.

Really, you can type a phrase like "homes for sale in boston" directly in the URL bar in Safari and it will take you to a Google search page?

OR do you get the stupid Safari can’t find the server. page and you have to click to use the search box on that page?

Oh, and the best thing, they fixed the damn new mail sound bug finally!

You mean the IMAP new mail sound that never actually works.....when you have IMAP IDLE on?.......hallelujah!

-Kevin

 

[Phil A.]

Try that again with a second screen connected.

(iTunes 10.5 is full-screen-enabled, btw.)

The second screen can be used for inspectors, etc, so it's not completely useless. You can try this in Mail on the GM: go to full screen, compose a new mail then click photo browser to show the inspector. You can drag the inspector onto the second screen. I can see this being really useful once more apps are updated to support full screen

 

[The JTizzle]

Yah I get a google search result page but its got a tag from my ISP, so it might be a bonus of using them, and yes that sound in main now works!

 

[netnothing]

Yah I get a google search result page but its got a tag from my ISP, so it might be a bonus of using them, and yes that sound in main now works!

That's probably it then. For example, I don't use Comcast's DNS helper service so I get the error page.

-Kevin

 

[Chundles]

My Time Capsule wasn't to bad, maybe 8 gigs total to backup.

615GB.

I always start fresh with my backups once I'm happy with the set up.

This may take some time....

 

[PowerGamerX]

I'm fine with mission control, but, I hate how I can only either choose to swipe between pages or swipe between spaces with a magic mouse (with 2 fingers). I do the single finger swipe sometimes by accident and it doesn't work with chrome so that's fairly useless to me. Right now I just go through mission control (and I like MC much more than I ever did the old Expose).

I will happily pay 30 dollars for this though. It's a steal at that price.

 

[cjjr72984]

Do any of you guys that have the GM know how to swipe easily between photos on iPhoto??

On SL it was three fingers left or right. Now, when I use two fingers left or right it does nothing (unless I'm in full screen mode and it switches between apps).

 

[Cynicalone]

I don't see Airdrop in my Finder preferences. How do you have airdrop access? Lion GM

It only shows up when you have two Macs running Lion on the same wi-fi network.

 

[NT1440]

Has Apple finally joined 2008 and allowed you to search directly from the url bar? Or do they still insist on giving you a dedicated search box?

-Kevin

The "smart bar" has been a feature that you can turn on or off since SL. Also, search in the url bar is really ****ing annoying.

 

[HelveticaNeue]

Do any of you guys that have the GM know how to swipe easily between photos on iPhoto??

On SL it was three fingers left or right. Now, when I use two fingers left or right it does nothing (unless I'm in full screen mode and it switches between apps).

I can swipe between photos in iPhoto just like on SL. Go to Trackpad in System Preferences, More Gestures tab, and change "Swipe Between Pages" to Swipe with Two or Three fingers. This will also allow you to swipe back/forward in the Finder and other apps again with a three finger swipe. I think Swipe Between Full Screen Apps will automatically change to a four finger swipe when you do this. If not, change it manually.

 

[JonHimself]

Now that I'm actually used to using full screen apps (Safari, Mail and iTunes.. at least for now, maybe I'll see the benefit with others), I really wish there was a way to automagically fix certain apps to certain full-screen positions - a lot like how Spaces used to work where you could, as an example, always have iTunes open in Space 3. There are times where I'll quit an app, or have to relaunch an app, and don't like that if I want to them to go back in the preferred order I have to quit an re-launch them in the right order... with three apps it's not a terrible problem, but if I had 5 or 6, it might get annoying.
By now means is this a make or break thing, so far it's been really good and I'm really happy with what they've done.

 

[ECUpirate44]

Has Apple finally joined 2008 and allowed you to search directly from the url bar? Or do they still insist on giving you a dedicated search box?

-Kevin

+1 safari is a joke. The only time I use it is when I'm on battery and I know I'll be away from my charger. I think safari manages resources more efficiently than chrome.

 

[Cynicalone]

I would say it is pretty stable as well. Other than Adobe Flash crashing in Safari I have seen no real bugs.

Apple has done a fine job of tweaking the memory usage since DP 4.

I have a ton of apps open running full screen on my poor little MacBook Air and it is running just fine. Very fast and responsive.

Right now with 9 apps open...

 

[CyBeRino]

It only shows up when you have two Macs running Lion on the same wi-fi network.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't use your wifi network. It only shows up if you have hardware that supports it.