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My Beta Review of Lion

C

chris2k5

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 30, 2010
687
0
I have the DP4 of Lion so here is my take:

What I Like:
Animations and transitions - very nice and I like how there is the bouncing effect. Looks pretty polished.

Full Screen - I can see myself using this option a lot. Good use of my MBA 11's smaller real estate.

What I Don't Buy:
The Gestures - They changed the scrolling and the gestures I am used to. Scrolling is confusing now but I am getting used to it. I hate how they got rid of 4 fingers down for Expose (now Mission Control) and 4 fingers up to move everything out of the way.

Mission Control - Expose was not broken, I don't get why they fixed it. Mission Control is too cluttered for me and too complex compared to Expose which was amazing.

Launch Pad - Eh its just eye candy for me. I haven't used it. The dock has all the apps I use...and its always visible anyway so whats the point of Launch Pad?

I'll add more soon!
 
At this point I would say Lion is pretty polished and past the beta stage for the most part.
 
rmbrown09 said:
That's a hardware technical difficulty. When the OS installs it run great, like a finished polished OS.

No more major glaring bugs. It looks more like a .0 release than a beta.
Click to expand...

If it was a hardware issue, then it couldn't be fixed without replacing hardware. The issue is clearly in the OS installer and that is part of the OS, which means there is a major bug.
 
Shame they got rid of drag-lock for the "Tap to click" settings.

Now I can't drag and move files without clicking the trackpad button.
 
I now use DP4 as my main OS, the first Preview was unusable day to day, this release is solid enough that any bugs can be resolved with technique and fiddles as oppose to reboots. An example is the Safari, when in full screen can loose it's address bar and tabs showing just a grey band, switch from fullscreen to normal then back to fullscreen and the issue is resolved.
 
Chundles said:
Shame they got rid of drag-lock for the "Tap to click" settings.

Now I can't drag and move files without clicking the trackpad button.
Click to expand...

You can restore tap-to-click drag lock under Universal Access> Mouse & Trackpad> Trackpad Options.

Phew.
 
C64 said:
solution:
Click to expand...

Tried it. There is no regular Expose. You can swipe four fingers down for mission control, but you cannot get rid of it by moving the fingers back up. You have to go back down again.
 
Psilocybin said:
you can 3 finger drag icons
Click to expand...

Yes but you can't three finger drag a box around multiple icons.

Oh thank the gods to the poster who showed me the Universal Access options. No more noisy annoying button clicking. So much better.
 
Can you change the settings so that gestures work like this:
  • 3 Finger Swipe: Navigate Back/Forward
  • 4 Finger Swipe left right: Previous/Next Space
  • 4 Finger up (or down?): Mission Control
  • 2 Fingers: Scrolling ONLY
I don't see the point of 3 and 4-finger gestures being the same... And how do you navigate in Finder, can you still go back and forward like in Safari with two fingers, or is that gone entirely?
 
I'm not sure how I feel about it as a whole just yet. Some good. Some bad.


--I'm not a fan of mission control as is.

It needs to have a way of displaying minimized windows.

The way it treats hidden and minimized windows in general needs to be reworked. If I have a hidden application, and I select its icon in the dock while in mission control, the app shouldn't be unhidden in the background. It should be unhidden in the foreground.

"Peek" is near useless and reminds me of microsoft's attempt at adding in expose like features. It should do a view all application windows of that application instead of peeking.

There are many bugs with it. Windows not restoring correctly. Only the icons showing up. Little lockups graphically where it looks like you're in mission control but are not. Etc. Occurring randomly of course.

I do like the large application icon on groups of windows though. Makes it easy to find when you have windows that look similar once they're shrunk.

--The gestures are changed which is annoying when you've been used to doing something a certain way. But at least there are ways around this.

No alt-tab gesture? :(

(And why didn't the old alt-tab gesture work so that when I clicked/tapped anywhere after performing the gesture, it brought the selected app up? Instead of having to actually click/tap the icon I want to bring to the fore?)

--I don't really get the point of launchpad. Alfred/Quicksilver are much better approaches to application launching, as is the grid view of the applications folder on the dock.

--I love the smart zoom in Safari.

--New mail is kind of nice. I like the conversational view.

--Full screen apps is ok I guess. I know many windows switchers that will be happy for this. I use it for Mail and Terminal (with tabs).

--I haven't really played around much with the auto-versioning thing, as the apps I use will need to be updated, but I like the idea of it.

--There are some nice Finder organizational changes that I like. However, since Finder lacks many features I want in a file browser, it doesn't really do much good for me until these features get pushed into Path Finder or similar.
 
I'm usually the first one all over anything new with regard to the OS, but I have to say that so far from DP4, I think Lion if a real mess. I just don't like it. I'll keep it on a second drive and see how it goes, but I think I'll stay with a stable Snow Leopard out of necessity to have stuff work. Lion seems to have broken some crucial things in my workflow, and even though I know some if not most of them will eventually get updated, I just don't see it. I never thought I'd say this, but the Windows 8 demo is looking far more Mac like than Lion. Time will tell I suppose...... :(
 
xgman said:
Lion seems to have broken some crucial things in my workflow
Click to expand...
Like what?

xgman said:
I never thought I'd say this, but the Windows 8 demo is looking far more Mac like than Lion. Time will tell I suppose...... :(
Click to expand...
How can a shell with a touch UI and some random widgets and animations be more Mac-like than a more refined Snow Leopard?
 
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