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Lion without gestures - worth it?

Mad Mac Maniac

Mad Mac Maniac

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2007
4,807
2,110
A little bit of here and a little bit of there.
I have a 2007 mb which obviously doesn't have a multitouch trackpad.

For those of you trying Lion, how usable is the OS without being able to use all the nifty gestures? I know most (all?) are capable through an app, but still that would seem to take away from the ease of use.

I also have some performance concerns. There seems to be a lot of opinions on whether Lion is faster or slower than SL... so I wonder how my ol' mb could handle. It can be pretty suggish at times with SL.

I know it's only $30, so I would probably go ahead and purchase eventually (after some performance issues are fixed), but part of me just wants to wait till my next mac purchase. I'm planning on getting a mbp next year after the refresh.
 
It does run very nicely on my old MBP (2007 I think). I use my magic mouse with it and that fixes most of the problems; I'm considering getting the touch pad for it and leaving the mouse to the 2011 MBP. Besides, buying the $69 touch pad is MUCH cheaper then a new laptop. :D
 
I will only be using my trusty Logitech mouse with Lion. I assume one would not miss to much as you can setup hot corners and keyboard shortcuts. I mostly use quicksilver for most stuff in any case. This on my imac.
 
Yes

Been using it on the iMac for a while now.

Trust me, if Apple had only introduced Resume as the only feature with that awesome wallpaper, I would have bought that too.

Please try to understand, you people pay so much for a good software. For eg- $25 for iPhoto or $75 for aperture or $100 for MS office. Some people also buy email clients for $10-$15.

This is a great operating system with so many features. Mail.app is a crazy addition to the OSX league. Gestures, MissionControl(I'm liking it now), the awesome UI tweaks, resume, versions, etc. Apple spends millions of dollars on R&D, production and release. For $29, this is an absolute steal.
 
I guess I don't understand the big deal about gestures. It's just another way of moving around the screen. What about all the other 249 new features? I would have put gestures down around number 20 as far as features that would cause me to purchase Lion. I use gestures now on my iPad and if I didn't have them it would be no big deal. Certainly not enough to cause me not to upgrade to Lion. I'm thinking my number 1 new feature will be the new Mail app.
 
This is a really interesting topic. I'm actually not too sure if I'd be so excited about Lion if it didn't improve upon gestures. Don't get me wrong, I'd still upgrade given the other features.

I think to directly answer the question posed though: Yes.

It's worth it simply beacuse it's so damn cheap lol Features like AirDrop and the new Mission Control are worth $29 on their own. I know I sound crazy but if you haven't tried it, you must!
 
I used to hate Windows with it's £100+ price tag.

Lion for £20 is great. I'd upgrade at that price even if it was worse than SL :) especially as I pay once to get it on both my Mac Pro and my MBP.
 
I currently use Snow Leopard alog with the free gesture manager BetterTouchTool.

Only thing that I'd like to say is that without the multitouch gestures and BetterTouchTool I would hate my MacBook. Can't imagine dealing with a computer without gestures. So much time wasted there.
 
Multitouch gestures are great, and I'm excited to use the enhanced gestures in Lion. But honestly, I'm just as excited about versions and resume as any other feature, so I'd upgrade either way.
 
ds1234 said:
Went out and bought a Magic Trackpad in preparation for Lion
Click to expand...

That's what I'm thinking of doing for my iMac. I guess I'm just not sure how important the Lion Multi_Touch Gestures are going to be for me. As far as my mouse goes, I currently have a wireless Logitech Performance Mouse MX (which I like a lot) and I doubt the trackpad will be able to take its place. Does anyone here use their trackpad in place of a mouse? Because for me, with my wireless Logitech, I think I would only use a trackpad for gestures.
 
Depends on your specifications. The Lion's ram requirements are 2gb. I am sure by now you have or have upgrade to 2gb, however that is the BARE minimum which means it will not run great. I doubt slower but not any faster. Besides I whole heartedly believe that Snow Leopard is nicer looking in terms of colors. Also, Mission control is very bad if you are JUST an expose user. Limited screen visibility and no option to go back to regular expose. I would definitely stick to Snow Leopard. If you want to get Lion so bad I would pirate it to test it out for yourself. That is how bad this release is.
 
labaom said:
Depends on your specifications. The Lion's ram requirements are 2gb. I am sure by now you have or have upgrade to 2gb, however that is the BARE minimum which means it will not run great. I doubt slower but not any faster.
Click to expand...

I have 4GB of ram so I should be OK :)


Besides I whole heartedly believe that Snow Leopard is nicer looking in terms of colors. Also, Mission control is very bad if you are JUST an expose user. Limited screen visibility and no option to go back to regular expose. I would definitely stick to Snow Leopard. If you want to get Lion so bad I would pirate it to test it out for yourself. That is how bad this release is.
Click to expand...

Really? So maybe I should just stay with Snow Leopard :confused:
 
I am trying it out right now, and let me tell you the new gestures are amazing and all the new features I've tried out so far are making Lion a day one purchase for me. It is amazing
 
I agree with you. One of the big benefits in Lion is the gestures that are built right into the OS. (You can call it the iOS experience)

Without a multi-touch trackpad or a magic trackpad, you lose much of the new functions (like Launchpad, Mission Control and Safari).

Of course there are the core OS changes as well, like more 0x86_64 code. Some apps like Finder.app are in 64-bit only. Kernel will start in 64-bit by default, but 32-bit kernel is still there. But most users aren't going to notice any difference there.

In fact, the lost of Rosetta and most of your 32-bit kext's will stop working are likely to turn people off.
 
Last edited:
wolfpackfan said:
I guess I don't understand the big deal about gestures. It's just another way of moving around the screen. What about all the other 249 new features? I would have put gestures down around number 20 as far as features that would cause me to purchase Lion. I use gestures now on my iPad and if I didn't have them it would be no big deal. Certainly not enough to cause me not to upgrade to Lion. I'm thinking my number 1 new feature will be the new Mail app.
Click to expand...

If evolution was based upon your decisions, we'd still be living in caves.
 
Dale Sorel said:
I have 4GB of ram so I should be OK :)




Really? So maybe I should just stay with Snow Leopard :confused:
Click to expand...

I mean I would test it out for yourself. But if you like Expose you currently have in Leopard, you will hate Lion Mission Control because the spaces part of Mission Control takes up screen. I would rather have just Expose. And the option not to be able to go back is really bad. The UI you can decide your self. I always thought OSX to be colorful. If a wanted a grey operating system I would go back to Windows 98.
 
What a lot of fuss! The price has been revealed, and it's £20.99 - just buy it and try it, hardly a lot of money!

FWIW, having tried DP4, it is mind blowingly good!
 
tkermit said:
What are you talking about? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I think I understand. I use a Mac Pro with a Wacom tablet + mouse. There's no room for another input device nor do I really want a trackpad for my tower. That said most of the new features are gesture add-ons that are "neat" but hardly necessary.
 
Dale Sorel said:
I currently have a wireless Logitech Performance Mouse MX (which I like a lot) and I doubt the trackpad will be able to take its place. Does anyone here use their trackpad in place of a mouse
Click to expand...

I bought the track pad for my Mac Pro when it first came out. I hated the Magic Mouse I had and thought anything would be better.

For three months I used the trackpad exclusively and got to like it a lot. I hate trackpads on laptops but because of the larger size it was much easier to use.

In the end I started to get pains in my hand. You have to keep your hand hovering over it and it hurts after a while.

In the end I put it to one side and bought the same mouse as you. I love this mouse and never really missed the trackpad.

Since reading about Lion I put some new batteries in the trackpad and have been loving it again.

Now though I use both at the same time. For Photoshop and Cinema 4D I prefer the mouse, for most other things the trackpad is better.

I never liked the physical click on it and always have it set to tap for click.

I am looking forward to using it on Lion.
 
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