Unannounced features?

[Nautilus007]

What are the chances that when lion is finally released there will be some cool meaningful features that wern't announced or incorporated in to the dev builds. The reason i ask is because it really doesnt seem like for an OS version Lion is that much of a change from SL.

A lot of the features have already been acheived by third party programs. Anyone agree?

 

[mrapplegate]

There are many threads with the basic argument that Lion does not offer any changes from SL. Simply put if you like the new features upgrade when the time comes. If not, don't upgrade.

 

[baryon]

I doubt there would be any unannounced features. Snow Leopard didn't really have any. Any major things would require developers to know about it to be able to upgrade their apps, so Apple could not just change such major things at the last minute. Devs need to be informed in advance.

I think that Lion has loads of features that make it much better than Snow Leopard, some are more fundamental and more advertised changes, such as Mission Control, Resume, Auto Save, Versions, and all that. However, I think that the little things (see "All the little things" thread) are way more interesting. Things like being able to enlarge windows proportionally while pressing Shift, grouping selected files into a folder with a keystroke, new and better ways to organize files, disappearing scrollbars, reverse scrolling, year view in iCal, and loads more stuff make the overall Lion experience much better than Snow Leopard.

I also think that the new multi touch stuff in Lion will really change the way you use your computer. Swiping through spaces vs. using the arrow keys might make you use spaces in a very different way. Maybe you'll end up moving windows around a lot less or a lot more, either way, it's a big change.

It's true that Leopard had Time Machine, Stacks and Spaces, three fundamental and big features that really make it a worthy upgrade, in addition to lots of smaller things including a new dock. But I don't think it's possible to come up with such amounts of new and useful things every few years.

That being said, I have not tried Lion and I think it is quite possible that Lion - with its small-to-medium-sized features - will bring more change to your life inside the computer than Leopard did.

 

[Blakeasd]

There were unannounced features with Leopard. There won't be any under the hood changes at WWDC otherwise myself and how developers would have to update are apps again way too close to Lion release. You might see new features that have to do with UI.

 

[rorschach]

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/2...er-ever-with-5-99-billion-profit-for-q2-2011/

- Lion scheduled to ship this Summer. Look forward to showing more features at WWDC.

I doubt there would be any unannounced features. Snow Leopard didn't really have any. Any major things would require developers to know about it to be able to upgrade their apps, so Apple could not just change such major things at the last minute. Devs need to be informed in advance.

I think that Lion has loads of features that make it much better than Snow Leopard, some are more fundamental and more advertised changes, such as Mission Control, Resume, Auto Save, Versions, and all that. However, I think that the little things (see "All the little things" thread) are way more interesting. Things like being able to enlarge windows proportionally while pressing Shift, grouping selected files into a folder with a keystroke, new and better ways to organize files, disappearing scrollbars, reverse scrolling, year view in iCal, and loads more stuff make the overall Lion experience much better than Snow Leopard.

I also think that the new multi touch stuff in Lion will really change the way you use your computer. Swiping through spaces vs. using the arrow keys might make you use spaces in a very different way. Maybe you'll end up moving windows around a lot less or a lot more, either way, it's a big change.

It's true that Leopard had Time Machine, Stacks and Spaces, three fundamental and big features that really make it a worthy upgrade, in addition to lots of smaller things including a new dock. But I don't think it's possible to come up with such amounts of new and useful things every few years.

That being said, I have not tried Lion and I think it is quite possible that Lion - with its small-to-medium-sized features - will bring more change to your life inside the computer than Leopard did.

 

[Cougarcat]

There will probably be some new features related to Mobile Me, but other than that, no.

The UI will not change, they've already updated it.

 

[KirkL]

I doubt there will be new/major features because part of the goal of developer previews is to get an idea of what the bugs are...if they don't let the developers play with the new features, they won't get a good sense of the bugs.

 

[mrblack927]

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/2...er-ever-with-5-99-billion-profit-for-q2-2011/

- Lion scheduled to ship this Summer. Look forward to showing more features at WWDC.

Right. They will show more features that weren't shown at the first Lion press event. Remember, "officially" the ones shown in october are the only publicly announced features. The other new features we see in the Lion DP are protected by NDA and no one should know about them yet. They can show off those developer features at WWDC and (rightfully) call them "new reveals" because that will be the first time they are revealed to the public.

I don't expect any significant changes from what we see in the current Lion builds. It seems like they are just working on refinements and bugfixes now.

 

[maflynn]

The odds of apple adding a feature now to Lion are slim. Any major features that sneak into an operating system upgrade at this late point in the life cycle will not have sufficient time for testing.

I believe what people see with the developer preview will be largely what the consumer will get later this summer.

 

[dethmaShine]

What are the chances that when lion is finally released there will be some cool meaningful features that wern't announced or incorporated in to the dev builds. The reason i ask is because it really doesnt seem like for an OS version Lion is that much of a change from SL.

A lot of the features have already been acheived by third party programs. Anyone agree?

In my opinion, there will be 4-5 big features in lion which are still unannounced. I don't know if that's true. But I can certainly count on that.

 

[Cougarcat]

In my opinion, there will be 4-5 big features in lion which are still unannounced. I don't know if that's true. But I can certainly count on that.

Expect disappointment and you won't be disappointed.

Right. They will show more features that weren't shown at the first Lion press event. Remember, "officially" the ones shown in october are the only publicly announced features.

...And the ones on Apple's site. It pretty much covers everything that's in the developer preview.

 

[NameUndecided]

New additions that I'm expecting and looking forward to and only really sort of halfway count as "unannounced features": fullscreen enabled and otherwise Lion-optimized iTunes and iWork and whatever other Apple programs I'm not thinking of.
On iWork -- probably a release of the long-delayed iWork 11 a couple of months before Lion, with a downloadable update given for Lion users when that's released.

 

[derekamoss]

There very well may be unannounced features. Apple does not normally beta test their software. The new features in the Lion developer preview are just that; a preview for things that developers need to be ready for. Any features that don't change underlying framework don't need to be in the developer preview. We don't get to beta test a new iTunes before it is released because it does not affect developers. They just release it with in-company testing.

 

[mrblack927]

...And the ones on Apple's site. It pretty much covers everything that's in the developer preview.

There's a 28 page thread full of features that aren't on Apple's site.

 

[Cougarcat]

There's a 28 page thread full of features that aren't on Apple's site.

Those are all "little things." Alll the major marketable features (things they would bother to show in a Keynote) are accounted for on Apple's site.

 

[3282868]

There very well may be unannounced features. Apple does not normally beta test their software.

Yes, they do. Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard had steady bi-weekly beta's for developers. In fact, I have about 20 still from Leopard and Snow Leopard (some features in the beta's never made it to GM, such as "Answering Machine" in iChat in Snow Leopard beta's).

This is the first time developers have seen very few releases, and the first time updates are through the app store and software update (past OS X beta's required a clean install as you could not upgrade from the previous beta). As well, entry level OS X developer pricing was $499, Apple lowered it to $99 for Lion.

A lot of us do not like these changes as non-developers are getting Lion and mucking up bug reports and Apple has only released two major Lion previews (with many bugs). If they expect developers and companies to get their app's Lion ready, Apple needs to go back to releasing steady beta's with more bug fixes.

 

[derekamoss]

Yes, they do. Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard had steady bi-weekly beta's for developers. In fact, I have about 20 still from Leopard and Snow Leopard (some features in the beta's never made it to GM, such as "Answering Machine" in iChat in Snow Leopard beta's).

This is the first time developers have seen very few releases, and the first time updates are through the app store and software update (past OS X beta's required a clean install as you could not upgrade from the previous beta). As well, entry level OS X developer pricing was $499, Apple lowered it to $99 for Lion.

A lot of us do not like these changes as non-developers are getting Lion and mucking up bug reports and Apple has only released two major Lion previews (with many bugs). If they expect developers and companies to get their app's Lion ready, Apple needs to go back to releasing steady beta's with more bug fixes.

All they did was change the terminology of what they were releasing from beta to developer preview because its more in line with what we are actually getting. As for frequency, I don't know why, it could very well be that they are holding back certain features and it doesn't make sense to keep putting out multiple copies when they aren't adding new features specifically because they want to keep them secret. Instead they just release what we as developers need to see which is the base OS with all the APIs built in. It take's more time to fix problems with the API's then it does to fix problems with programs utilizing the API's.

 

[baryon]

Although a GUI change would not affect developers (changes such as removing Aqua elements and making them more matte or something), I don't think Apple will change the GUI more. They squared off the buttons, which they would not have done if they weren't sticking with the current look.

UNLESS they have a few different GUI candidates, and they just stuck one in for now and they might swap it out for another one later.

But chances are the current preview is pretty much what the final version will be like, without some of the bugs, and with new bugs.

 

[maflynn]

Although a GUI change would not affect developers (changes such as removing Aqua elements and making them more matte or something), I don't think Apple will change the GUI more. They squared off the buttons, which they would not have done if they weren't sticking with the current look.

But would enhancing the UI be considered an unannounced feature?

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

There's a 28 page thread full of features that aren't on Apple's site.

Do not forget wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion#New_or_changed_features

 

[mrblack927]

Do not forget wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion#New_or_changed_features

Thanks! That's a good find. I think going though the highlights on that list could easily fill a keynote.

 

[3282868]

All they did was change the terminology of what they were releasing from beta to developer preview because its more in line with what we are actually getting. As for frequency, I don't know why, it could very well be that they are holding back certain features and it doesn't make sense to keep putting out multiple copies when they aren't adding new features specifically because they want to keep them secret. Instead they just release what we as developers need to see which is the base OS with all the APIs built in. It take's more time to fix problems with the API's then it does to fix problems with programs utilizing the API's.

True dat. Although I did prefer more beta releases as there were either new features or major improvements. There were some innovative features in the Leopard and SL betas I wish made it to the GM build. I still loved "Answering Machine" in iChat. The feature allowed you to leave a video away message and your friend could leave a video response, which you could access remotely. There were talks of Apple integrating this into home communications such as VoIP and mobile lines. Would have been great for the deaf and a great way to integrate home communications. I believe it got scrapped due to the imminent iPhone release and Apple's laid out 5 year roadmap with iOS and video conferencing.

 

[derekamoss]

True dat. Although I did prefer more beta releases as there were either new features or major improvements. There were some innovative features in the Leopard and SL betas I wish made it to the GM build. I still loved "Answering Machine" in iChat. The feature allowed you to leave a video away message and your friend could leave a video response, which you could access remotely. There were talks of Apple integrating this into home communications such as VoIP and mobile lines. Would have been great for the deaf and a great way to integrate home communications. I believe it got scrapped due to the imminent iPhone release and Apple's laid out 5 year roadmap with iOS and video conferencing.

That alone might be why they are doing things the way they are now. They don't want to pull new features out of builds that we have in our hands and have us complaining about it. Much easier to just never show us it in the first place.

 

[Burgess07]

That alone might be why they are doing things the way they are now. They don't want to pull new features out of builds that we have in our hands and have us complaining about it. Much easier to just never show us it in the first place.

Well shame on Apple for not giving us the opportunity to play with new features