text:
Back to the Mac: OS X 10.7 Lion Reviewby Andrew Cunningham, Kristian Vättö & Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/20/2011 8:30 AM EST
106 Comments
Back to Article
quiksilvr - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link$29 is indeed a solid improvement. However, given the Mac Store now being out there, their desktop OS should follow the formula of their mobile OS: Free to upgrade. These features are nice but I can't help shake the feeling that these are Service Packs (because they are). And with their "app" store available on the OS and the means of most of their cash inflow, it makes more sense to make this a free upgrade for everyone instead of a $29 upgrade. Reply
xype - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkService packs? Are you serious? Read up on the changes and try to come up with one service pack that changed as much.
Some people… Reply
danielkza - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkXP SP3 would be a good candidate, but yes, 10.7 is a bit beyond what one could reasonably call a Service Pack. Reply
Taft12 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkYou're thinking of XP SP2, and if you have to go back 7 years to come up with a comparable "service pack", it's certainly fair to say OSX 10.7 is more than a service pack. Reply
AfroPhysics - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkI fail to see how the age of the service pack matters. Xype asked for an example and qualified nothing. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkAre we really going through the tired argument that every 10.x update to OS X is just a service pack and should be free? Then at what point should Apple try to recoup costs for OS development, because even if individual point updates are evolutionary, going from the original 10.0 to 10.7 has got to be a major change in anyones eyes. And the same questions could be raised about Windows NT 6.1 aka Windows 7 where the server version is bluntly labeled Windows 2008 R2 and Windows NT 6.0 aka Vista/2008 or Windows NT 5.1 aka XP and Windows NT 5.0 aka 2000.
Besides, even if you discount the user facing changes, Lion has seem some major security infrastructure changes. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit kernel have been rewritten with full NX-bit and ALSR support as in place in Windows Vista/7 addressing the major security complaint Charlie Miller had with OS X. Application sandboxing frameworks are now available and soon to be mandatory for Lion apps in the Mac App Store which I believe is a security feature that even Windows isn't pushing yet. With the dropping of the Core Duo, the Lion has also be rewritten to make more use of SSSE3 instead of just SSE3 as pointed out by the Hackintosh community. Lion isn't just Snow Leopard with a few features added on top, but the entire OS has seem updates at a low level even if the user might not necessary see all the differences. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkAnd about the App Store being a major source of income for Apple, Apple has consistently said they aim to run their stores as a break even venture.
I'm not clear if the iTunes Store in the graphic in the above link includes the App Store, but at the very least as an example of Apple's digital store, the revenue stream really hasn't increased in the last 2 years. Apple's sales growth is clearly from their hardware, iPhone, iPad, and even Mac. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link$1,634,000,000 in revenue from Other Music Related Products and Services (3)
(3) Includes sales from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore in addition to sales of iPod services and Apple-branded and third-party iPod accessories
I'd say their goal of a break even venture is not an accurate description of their stores. Hence the creation of the MAC Store. It sounds like a nice thought, but Apple is in business to make money and it seems their VERY good at it. Perhaps their projection analysis was a bit off.
Hey, this is good news for the investors and I understand that they are a business. Lets not be too naive and just don't drink the cool-aid. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkPerhaps my finance terms are wrong, but I'd hope the Apps Store is taking in revenue. But if Apple should be offering some of their other products like OS X updates for free, shouldn't we be concerned with whether the App Store is making major profits, such that there is money to spare to pay for OS development? Reply
solipsism - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkRevenue ≠ Profit
They've paid billions to both developers, and music and video cotent owners. They've also spent money on the infrastructure to support their stores. I'm sure they're making a profit as all good for-profit companies should, but it's not the cash cow you've attempted to present here. Reply
ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkWell, since Apple retains 30% of the App price, I'm not sure if that figure above is talking about the total amount that customers have spent buying songs and apps, or if that's Apple's revenue (ie: 30% cut) of the pie. Reply
PreOmegaZero - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkMicrosoft names the OS versions as such (6.0 vs 6.1) because changing it to 7.0 (like they admit they should have done) broke many older apps/installers that did OS version detection.
So the version numbering is simply from a compatibility standpoint. Reply
darwinosx - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkThese aren't service packs. Its a silly comment which tells us you either don't know what a service pack (which is a Microsoft term for Microsoft software) actually contains or you didn't read this review. Reply
Belard - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkService packs? Apple uses actual version numbers, but in the past few years - they've only been patching Snow Leopard.
The difference in XP SP1 / SP2 / SP3 is bug fixes, security patches and a few things here and there, but feature wise, no difference. XP-Home/Pro are visually different than XP-MCE (Which is XP Pro with a nice visual face lift but with VPN ripped out).
I think Apple charges like $50 for a 5 user license upgrade... much better than the lame Win7 (Vista and XP) charging $100 for an upgrade disk which is messy when it comes to a clean install. Reply
anactoraaron - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - link"much better than the lame Win7 (Vista and XP) charging $100 for an upgrade disk which is messy when it comes to a clean install."
You have no clue about which you speak. Win7 upgrades/clean installs are simple for even the simplest minds-present party excluded apparently. Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkAn improvement? Uhh, you are aware that Snow Leopard ALSO sold for $29?
The more interesting points you should be making are that:
- $29 gets you the right to install the OS on EVERY mac you own. It's right there in the TOS. For most people this won't matter much, but for those with a desktop machine, a laptop and a HTPC, it's rather cool.
- and you get the right to virtualize two instances, if you care
- and note the conspicuous absence of any sort of DRM covering the OS, not to mention the home/home mini/pro/ real pro/enterprise/super singing & dancing version crap that MS offers up.
(And, BTW, you get the Dev Tools for free. They were $5 in SL, but I think they've dropped to $0 with Lion.
As far as I know, Dev Studio is not free, not close.) Reply
ATimson - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkAssuming that by "Dev Studio" you mean "Microsoft Visual Studio", yes, they have a fully-functional free version. Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkHow come when I go to
I see a bunch of different prices, from $3,800 to $400, but no $0?
I'm not being pissy, I really want to understand what is going on here. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkHow can you buy something that's free?
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/produc... Reply
kosmatos - Monday, November 04, 2013 - linkIt's 2013 now, and you were spot on, quicksilvr. Reply
mrcaffeinex - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI purchased a MacBook Pro when Leopard was due to come out. Apple mailed me a free upgrade DVD about a month after I purchased the MacBook. When Snow Leopard came out I purchased the upgrade DVD for something in the neighborhood of $30 if I remember correctly. I've done clean installations from all of the media and never run into an activation/registration problem.
On the flip side, I paid $149 for Windows XP, another $149 for XP 64-bit (if only there had been driver support back in the day...), $199 for Vista and another $149 for 7. Granted these were over a slightly longer time period. Still, I can't help but think that some of the initial investment cost of the Mac has been offset by not having to spend significantly more on software upgrades to get the features or functionality that I enjoy having at my disposal.
Factor in the inconvenience of having several iterations of Windows that were more or less junk, but still cost the same and it slides the scale further in favor of OS X in my experience. Now I can also get what is essentially a household upgrade in Lion for approximately $30 if I decide it is worthwhile.
Don't take this as an attack on Microsoft and their Windows operating system, though. It is still an integral part of my computing experience every day and I really enjoy Windows 7 (in fact, it runs better on my MacBook than on most notebooks I've worked on). I just wish they would adopt a strategy that would make upgrading Windows more affordable for the do-it-yourself PC enthusiast. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkThe amount of money Apple made on your purchase of their hardware more than covers the cost of the OS. Microsoft does not sell their own brand of computers. You can purchase a PC laptop for hundreds less than you can purhcase an Apple MAC.
Think McFly, think! Reply
xype - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkI love it how PC people have such a sweet feeling of entitlement.
Have you ever had/bought/found a product that you were simply content with paying a premium for because it just worked well for you? Have you ever overtipped a waiter because the service was really good?
You know, some people don't have a problem rewarding either individuals or, yes, teh ebil corburayshns, for work/services well done. Reply
GotThumbs - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link??? "feeling of entitlement" ???
Not sure what you mean, but I do work hard for my money and do have a choice of where I spend it and how much I'm willing to pay for a product or service. There is a HUGE difference between tipping a waiter for working hard to provide you the best experience, than a company who sells consumers the same technology I can get elsewhere for less and be just as satisfied with my purchase. I'm not a 'Scrooge', but I'm also not a fool. Meaning: A fool and his money are quickly parted.
I build my own systems so I not just satisfied with what is put out by the large PC sellers either. Most readers here are not satisfied with being 'spoon fed' what we should be satisfied with.
If you or anyone else wish to purchase apple products, your free to do so. Just don't expect me to give you a pat on the back for it. Reply
steven75 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkYou seem to have missed the entire point that Microsoft OS upgrades are *hundreds of dollars* per copy and Mac OSX upgrades are $30 for multiple copies. Reply
wicko - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - linkUmm, currently it is roughly 100$ for Home Premium (I paid 125 when I preordered Win7 Pro Upgrade edition), less at some retailers.
Not to mention, you glossed over the fact that there does exist a "mac tax", which you would have paid on every mac you own, offsetting the total cost.
Say I spend 2400 on 3 PCs (including OS) and you spend 3000 on 3 Macs. Performance is identical. It will cost me 300 to upgrade each one to Win7. It will cost you 30$ to upgrade all of your Macs. 2700 vs 3030, Interesting. I will have to go through another version of Win7 in order to catch up with you in cost. And I'm being generous with respect to the difference in price before upgrades.
But, you know, you can install it on as many Macs as you'd like, so go nuts. Just don't pretend you're somehow spending less than those who buy Windows licenses. Reply
anactoraaron - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - linkSure, but let's compare apples to apples (pun intended). If Microsoft were to charge $150 for what little differences there are from 10.6 and 10.6 + hybrid iOS called 10.7 windows discs would never sell (who the hell buys MS discs retail that reads AT anyway?? Newegg has always sold oem discs MUCH cheaper-wait apple person NM). But to sit there and tell me that there isn't any major changes from XP to 7... that's just ridiculous. Reply
xyn081s - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkI think you're the one who missed the point. Even with all these Win licenses, it'll still be cheaper than a Mac. Plus, you can get the Family pack, 3 licenses for $150... Reply
ex2bot - Friday, August 05, 2011 - linkI know this comment was a few days ago, but I had a laugh at your comment, so I just had to open my digital mouth and reply:
"2400 for 3 PCS ($800 ea.) and $3000 for your [POS] Mac".
If you paid $40,000 for three Chevy Malibus and I paid $80,000 for my one souped-up Corvette" I would have gotten RIPPED OFF! (No, actually I would have received A LOT OF TICKETS!!)
A better comparison is
$800 PC vs. $1400 iMac . Not 800 vs. 3000. * Incidentally, you can sell your used Mac for a lot more than the technically equiv. PC. I've used that to upgrade my Macs several times.
Mac Fanbot
* Think an $800 PC = Mac Pro? The Mac Pros have Xeon processors. You know better than I that Xeons are $400 or $500 each. The cheapest Mac Pro has *dual* E5620s @ 2.66. You can't build a octo-core Xeon machine for $800. And you've got to have a motherboard and a, what, case? Power supply? And a few other parts, right? Reply
nafhan - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkSo, you bought four copies of Windows for a single computer? You may be the only person to have done this... A more typical experience over that time period is: Windows XP "free" with new PC, and $100 to upgrade to Windows 7.
With the amount of money you spent on OS licenses, you could have purchased both a Win XP computer (OS included) and a Windows 7 box (OS included) outright. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkApple has recognized the money maker it has with its App Store (Or can we now call this an application store). I'm not a mac user and most likely never will be, but I have to say their business model works very well for squeezing income from every corner of their empire. The IOS app store has been a huge money maker (30% of every purchase adds up quickly) and now Apple is moving the same business model to its computers. Apple does have a tendancey to repackage and sell its products in various versions, but with the same underlying technology (develop once, repackage multiple times). True to form, all the apple fans will swarm around and gladly deposit their coin into the machine. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkRealistically, They should give away their OS to invite more users, who will then shop their true money maker....the app store. Kinda like a drug dealer would give the first taste for free. :-) Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkApple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer has already said they operate the App Store as a break even venture, ie. their 30% cut basically goes directly to operating expenses. Unless you believe their CFO is actually lying to investors at shareholder meetings in which case you should report this and your evidence to the SEC. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link$1,634,000,000 in revenue from Other Music Related Products and Services (3)
(3) Includes sales from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore in addition to sales of iPod services and Apple-branded and third-party iPod accessories
Lets not be too naive. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkThe App Store no doubt generates revenue for Apple, but how much profit do they actually make? Reply
steven75 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkPlease educate yourself. As much as you might think it, yuo aren't smarter than the SEC. Reply
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI think ALL investors are looking for profits, and if Apple happens to turn a profit through their iTunes store (whoops), do you really think the investors will be angry about the white lie? Reply
Taft12 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkAccountants can paint a revenue picture to look any way they want it to. Look no further than "Hollywood Accounting" in the movie industry. Don't take that break even comment at face value. Reply
parlour - Monday, July 25, 2011 - linkI would call up the SEC and tell them about your great insight. If what you are saying is true Apple is in deep, deep trouble.
In reality it would be stupid for Apple's CFO to lie about something like that, not worth the trouble at all. Reply
Puppies04 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link$1,634,000,000 just to break even! Sheesh that is some massive overhead. Reply
parlour - Monday, July 25, 2011 - linkThe revenue includes all the money that is payed to developers, music labels and media companies. Apple keeps no more than 30% (probably quite a bit less) of it. Reply
bwmccann - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkJust started playing it a month ago and my entire family is hooked! Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI don't suppose you could compare OpenCL performance between Snow Leopard, Lion, and Windows 7? Given the increasing emphasis Apple is putting in OpenCL and the requirement for it in Final Cut Pro X and no doubt future iLife and pro apps, it'll be good to see how their latest implementation stacks up in performance rather than just feature-set (Lion bumps things to OpenCL 1.1 from 1.0 in Snow Leopard.) Reply
jensend - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkThe claim that GPL3 "prohibits inclusion in retail products" is an outright lie. It's not just an inaccuracy- there's no way anybody who was even slightly informed about these things would think that; the ability to sell the software is one of the basic freedoms the GPL has always been about protecting.
It is true that Apple refuses to use GPL3 software. The only reason I can think of for this is that the GPL3 says that if you distribute software under the GPL3 you implicitly grant patent licenses to everybody for any patents you may have which cover the software. Apple's wish to use its portfolio of obvious and non-innovative patents as a weapon to destroy its competitors conflicts with this. Reply
Confusador - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkCame here to say this and you've got it covered. This is an unusual case of blatantly false information on AT, you guys are usually much better informed than this. Reply
batmang - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI'm a little surprised that Anand didn't include any gaming benchmarks in this OS review just for simple comparison. Overall though, fantastic review and I'll certainly be upgrading to Lion in a week or so. I'm waiting to see if any oddball bugs arise before taking the plunge. Thanks for the review Anand. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI think he was going to but didn't have time (we wanted to get this out right when Lion went live). I don't know about his plans but maybe he will update this with GPU performance or do a separate article about that. Reply
Gigantopithecus - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link"Business customers can get Lion for $29.99 per copy in units of 20 or more, and educational institutions can buy it along with the latest iLife and iWork upgrades for $39 in quantities of 25 or higher. Especially when compared to Microsoft's complicated and expensive Windows licensing, these simple, low and clearly defined upgrade prices are extremely welcome."
I can't speak for business customers, but pricing for higher ed institutions is extremely variable for MS software.
To wit, at the University of Wisconsin, our tech store offers zero discounts compared to retail on all Apple software, whereas both W7 Pro & Enterprise are $10 for one license and $25 for a fiver. At the University of Michigan, Apple OS software is similarly sold at retail with no discount, while W7 Pro is $19. Michigan State offers no discounts on both OS X and W7 vs retail. Indiana University sells OS X for retail & W7 for $20.
I'm not familiar with direct-from-Apple educational pricing, but if you go to actual universities' actual computer stores, MS software is sold at enormous discounts at 3 of the 4 Big Ten campuses I'm familiar with. Saying Apple offers lower OS pricing than MS to higher ed customers is flat out inaccurate. Reply
mrd0 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkSame at Washburn University's School of Law...I purchased the full enterprise Office 7 and then 10 for $9.95, and Windows 7 for $29.95. Apple software is not discounted. Reply
SmCaudata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkMinnesota is Free to download or the cost of printed media ($8). This was when I was there at least.
At Colorado both Windows and Office are also free to download. Before that (last year) they participated in the $29 usage option for office.
The fact is Windows/Office is really only expensive if you are building your own computers and installing your own OS. Even then you can get it rather cheap and the money you save more than makes up for the extra $50 Windows 7 runs over this. Also this only updates on SnowLeopard. If you didn't have that upgrade it will cost you more. Win7 upgrades back to XP, correct? Reply
steven75 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link"The fact is Windows/Office is really only expensive if you are building your own computers and installing your own OS"
You seem to be implying that Office comes free with a pre-built computer when it in fact doesn't ever. Reply
anactoraaron - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - linkwrong. I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but when office 2010 came out my local office depot (and likely every office depot) had at least one pc with the full version of office 2010 on it. It was some kind of promotion they ran for about 2 weeks. Reply
tipoo - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkApart from the new animations in Safari, is performance improved any? Any word of it getting GPU acceleration? Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkMy experience was that it ran the IE Paintball demo 25% faster, and the end result showed no visual artifacts. So, an improvement on 5.0, but still nothing like the HW acceleration performance of IE.
On the other hand, I've yet to encounter a site (apart from the IE demos) where this actually matters... Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkOh, it also, if you care, has elementary support for MathML. To be honest, however, the support is REALLY limited. The typography looks like crap, and anything even slightly fancy looks even worse --- eg long bars over symbols, large surds, etc. Reply
tipoo - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkThanks. Yeah, its GPU acceleration doesn't seem as expansive still as other browsers, judging by canned benchmarks I've run it through. IE9 and FF5 are still far ahead in GPU acceleration, Chrome and Opera are getting there, Safari 5.1 is still last. Reply
EnzoFX - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI think it's pretty unfair to compare Windows full-screening to Lion's. Full screening in Windows is not a feature at all IMO, it is the equivalent of dragging the window size out to the size of the screen. You do not gain any functionality whatsoever (usually just a lot of empty space, which was never in Apple's radar before). This kind of full-screen functionality has been present in OS X long before Lion, though it was often more manual, having to drag the window size out.
But as you say, Apple has added functionality and it's become it's own separate feature. I think the comparison is pointless. Reply
SmCaudata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkTrue full-screen in Windows only happens with games, certain video players, and select other apps. I personally so no use for full-screen for most computer applications.
Also, the comparison is valid because even in those areas where Windows does use full-screen, the other display still works. I can have a full-screen movie on one monitor while I do whatever I want on the other.
I really fail to see how Apple's implementation has "added functionality" that didn't exist in other OSes before. The article talks about using gestures instead of minimization... isn't that what Alt+Tab and Win+tab already did?
There are certain things that Apple does do well. Their dock was something that MS obviously took inspiration from for W7. This implementation of full-screen seemed pretty limited IMO. Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkI suspect that the multi-screen hiccups with full-screen are purely temporary.
We have seen problems like this before --- for example when multi-user GUI support (the rotating cube thing, to allow new users to log in to a mac) was first added, it didn't take long to discover that various iLife apps didn't behave properly. (I forget the details, but I think both iTunes and iPhoto wouldn't launch for the new user.)
It's one of the drawbacks of Apple being so secretive, even internally, that you get these sorts of crossed signals. But the issues usually get fixed, and if they are very visible, they usually get fixed soon.
I'd say, right now, the appropriate response is to assume this is a screwup, not go into conspiracy theory mode about how this is a plot by Apple to eventually remove multi-screen support. Reply
Uritziel - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkLOL. As if a company spearheading Thunderbolt would aim to remove multi-screen support. Reply
khimera2000 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkthat's pretty neat. It looks like it adds in a bunch of interesting features. The one trend I do see it that both mac and M$ are driving components from there mobile platforms into there desktops. I don't mind if they do this, but I still want a different feel between devices.
As for the complaints and shouts of if its a service pack that should be free, or if its an update worth 30 bucks. On this subject I think that there is no comparison, M$ has a setup that benefits its use of massive volume licencing, but the option to pay for service packs makes sense for a company that does not dominate 90% of the market, but want to maintain more talent to add more features. I know that some people might take offense to this, but its my opinion so screw you.
Still confused on the full screen thing, I can move between applications easily, with all of them in full screen, its called ALT+TAB, or Win+Tab, or CTRL+TAB (when you want to cycle through your web browser only. so the entire portion where he says its a advantage over win (this feature) makes me confused, then again i'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, so i could be missing things. I'm hoping that the full screen feature pans out. I am considering getting one, but not till they leave the OSX family. (still hate the way it came to be >.<)
the movement away from CD is great, here's hoping that there are plans in the works for all software to be distributed like this, because... I cant remember the last time i walked into a store and asked myself what program do i need...
Over all it was a interesting read. Reply
chenedwa - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkI just installed Lion on my circa 2009 MBP 2.53GHz C2D. I then tried to download the latest Parallels update via WiFi using Firefox 8 beta and was getting phenominal transfer speeds of more than 900kB/sec for the 203MB download! Wow! Reply
Uritziel - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkNone of that sounds wow worthy... Reply
Uritziel - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkOr applicable to the article... Reply
ThreeDee912 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkAbout future support for the white MacBooks, it appears that Apple has silently discontinued them. They're nowhere to be found on the Apple Store website.
Engadget also reported that they received word from Apple that they really were discontinued:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/20/the-macbook-dro... Reply
secretmanofagent - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link"Also missing is the button in the upper right-hand corner that would invoke icon-only view - those of you who use it will have to become acquainted with Alt+Command+T, a keyboard shortcut that toggles this change."
Should be Command-Option-T. Reply
SmCaudata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkSo with my early 2008 Mac Book I already took a hit to batter life with Snow Leopard. In fact, I just got a new battery and after a couple of months the health reads at 80%. I have seen other's with this issue but the posts often get deleted on the main apple forums. Now I would take another hit to upgrade to Lion?
I really liked my MacBook Pro when I got it, but this blatant disregard for current customers in a push to get people to upgrade is ridiculous. My laptop has plenty of power for laptop tasks. I don't need to upgrade hardware for performance reasons.
Remember how much crap Microsoft took for making Vista a system hog on older systems? Do you think that Apple will ever see anywhere near the rage? Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkThen don't upgrade.
What are you so angry about? Your mac will work just like it used to. Apple will continue to provide security and other updates for at least three years. You'll get iTunes and Safari updates. What's the problem?
If you find you HAVE to have some Lion feature, sell your MacBook on eBay --- you'll get a surprisingly good price. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkThe 64 bit support isn't entirely an Apple issue. It is Intel that treats 64 bit as a feature to be hacked out of CPUs on a whim to make them "cheaper." It just bugs me the way its been handled by everyone but AMD. 64bit sure looks like the future, but here we are dragging our heels on support.
Anyway, does OSX support SMT? I thought that it didn't, but I see the latest specs of hardware with the 2/4 core/thread configuration. Reply
tipoo - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkEhh? SMT is a processor feature, OSX will use as many cores (real or virtual) as you can throw at it. Reply
rs2 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkOkay, it makes sense on a touch device where your finger is actually making contact with the thing you are scrolling. But a mouse cursor is *not* a finger. It is not an analog for a finger. It is a different input paradigm entirely, and trying to make it behave as if the mouse cursor is your finger by making scrolling go backwards is stupid.
It's good that they put in an option to disable the nonsense that is "natural" scrolling. Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkNot at all. The issue is simple : what is the metaphor?
When I move my finger, am I moving
- the window container? OR
- the content?
Claiming that one is more "natural" than the other is as stupid as claiming that English is more natural than Chinese. It's simply that you are used to one and, like a good American, you simply cannot imagine that the world could possibly be different --- after all, Jesus spoke English. Reply
rs2 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkNot at all. There is no "finger" when using a mouse. Touch and mouse-driven are distinct input paradigms. If a touch-based interface ever scrolled content in the opposite direction that the user moved their finger, then people would say that it was broken. And rightly so. Moving content in the same direction as the touch is the intuitive operating mode of a touch interface.
And similarly, moving content in the opposite direction of the scroll (or more accurately, moving the scrollbar in the same direction of the scroll) is the intuitive operating mode for a mouse-driven interface. By your logic scrollbars themselves should also be inverted.
As a side-note, a direct analog to touch style scrolling does exist in the mouse-driven paradigm, it is the drag operation. It is available in some things like Adobe PDF documents, and also work on any scrollbar. In this operation you choose an anchor-point, and then that anchor point moves in the same direction that you move, and it all makes sense. The problem with scrolling is that it has no anchor point, it is a distinct operation from a drag operation, and by conflating the two Apple has broken their interface. At least until they start incorporating touch into every computer they sell.
Mouse-driven and touch interfaces are not the same thing, and just because a metaphor makes sense in one does not mean that it also makes sense in the other. Reply
Uritziel - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkAgreed. Reply
CharonPDX - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - linkOn page 23 "Performance: Similar to Snow Leopard", you have a couple bar graphs comparing Snow Leopard to Lion performance. Unfortunately, you use a generic "compared to before as 1.0" metric, with no indication on a per-test basis whether higher or lower is better. In the Core 2 Duo graph, you talk about boot time skyrocketing, and the boot time graph for Lion shows Lion as "about 1.4" of Snow Leopard, yet you also talk about iPhoto having a "greater than 10% increase in performance", where the graph shows "about 1.1" of Snow Leopard. So in one line in the graph, higher is worse, in the other line, higher is better.
You either need a per-test identifier (Higher is better / Lower is better) or you need to to standardize them all (so 'benchmark' ones would stand as-is, while 'timing' ones would use the inverse, so that both would be 'higher is better', or example.) Reply
Deaffy - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkDid anyone check to see whether Apple has included a UI element to enable IPv6 privacy extensions for statelest address autoconfiguration?
And did DHCPv6 to get IPv6 addresses from your ISP's cable via IPv6 finally make it's entry? Reply
Deaffy - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkOh yeah, and maybe the ability to query a name server via IPv6? Reply
kevith - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkthey are more and more returning to the Linux it came from. Who knows, they might even go bact to open source:-) Reply
Omid.M - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkAnand/Andrew/Christian,
If you right click on a YouTube video, does it say the rendering AND decoding is "accelerated" ? I thought Lion was supposed to bring that.
If this is now the case, it'd be enough reason for me to buy Lion and a new MBP 15". I can't stand the fans on my 2008 MBP 15 going nuts every time I watch a 30 second YouTube clip. The laptop gets unreasonably hot right now.
P.S. I'm not a fan of the way buttons appear on the upper borders of windows. There's no typical button "design" to signify that the text is clickable, at least not from the screen shots I saw in the article. Reply
Omid.M - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkI guess it's disabled:
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/21/adobe-suggests... Reply
ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkNot seeing them :( Reply
LeTiger - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkEver fix the 17in Sata 3 bugs????
Such a shame to belligerently cripple their flagship laptop... Reply
Conficio - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link"There is one huge limitation though: running apps in full screen in multi-monitor setup is unusable."
As full screen apps are essentially spaces, there is a huge need (and there was for a long time) to be able to manage spaces per screen. All that would be solved if I coul switch between the spaces in a single screen only or move around entire spaces from one screen to another. That would solve this issue and allow a more task oriented kind of work, where you open a space for every task (or project in a multi tasking sense) you are working on and you can open the various apps you need to work on that project. But then that is the opposite of opening all past docs in an app (?) Reply
Conficio - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link"If you were able to include the location in the Quick Add, Quick Add would actually provide a great overall solution for adding new events, but now you need to add the location separately, which kind of defeats the purpose."
This concept is as ripe as a green banana. I want to be able to mark the text in an e-mail in order to create an event (with link back to the original e-mail). That way I can work with the lazy people that send invitations in any other format than calendar.
Byt the way go even one more step Appple, and scan all e-mail for addresses, contact info and events and highlight those and with a single click allow me to add the info to my address book or calendar (and with an option send to others in a iCal or vCard format). That would be real progress! Reply
teryan2006 - Saturday, July 23, 2011 - linkumm… I've been doing what you describe, highlighting text in Mail in order to create an event since 10.5. (screenshot: http://cl.ly/25402N2W2E0n281W0r09 )
Same thing with the email address and contact info. They've been in Mail ever since they added data detectors. http://cl.ly/3V2q0D1z1x1M1X2q0v1v
If you hover near an email address, time, date, street address, there's a dropdown button that shows up. New in 10.7 is QuickLook style preview for URL in a message
Did you disabled data detectors? Maybe that's why you're not seeing these things? Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link"I don't find any use for Launchpad. It's one of the less successful iOS imports - it doesn't fit in, nor does it bring anything truly new,"
I think this was a foolish comment. The first sentence is fine, the second is not.
Not every feature in an OS upgrade is targeted at the same collection of users --- I, for example, couldn't care less about full disk encryption.
I know for a fact that naive users (precisely the people who don't understand the file system, a class you seem to accept does exist) are completely unfamiliar with the Applications folder. For THIS sort of user, Launchpad is exactly what they need --- an easily understood way to run programs they don't frequently run.
As for you and I, we can just ignore it --- just I like ignore Japanese input methods, or LDAP support, or a hundred other aspects of my mac that aren't relevant to my particular situation. Reply
name99 - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkTo follow up on what I said, comparing Launchpad with a Stacks view of the Application folder kinda misses the point. The sort of naive user we're discussing doesn't understand that he may have apps sitting on the desktop, or in the Downloads folder, or in the Utilities folder of /Applications.
The Stacks view you describe is limited precisely because it is based on PLACE, not on on TYPE, whereas what users almost always want is based on TYPE.
The fact that it does not honor your pre-existing folder structure is, I would say, in Apple's eyes a temporary issue. Consider iTunes. iTunes doesn't create playlists based on how you grouped songs in the file system --- it assumes that your songs are stored in some bag in the file system somewhere that you will never look at, and imposes its own structure on that content. Launchpad is a vastly simplified version of that same idea, and part of the constant theme throughout Apple's past five+ years of UI work --- arrange content using appropriate metaphors in a high level app, NOT using a limited set of constructs at the file system level. Reply
hanssonrickard - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkFor example, then macbook pro 15" 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo from early 2008 does NOT support AirDrop.
Here is compatiblitly list for it and maybe the article shouldbe updated with some kind of note that not all macs will support airdrop.
Info from "http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4783"
Macs that support AirDrop in OS X Lion
The following list shows the earliest of each Mac model type that is supported. If your Mac is the same, or newer than the model listed, then it supports AirDrop.
MacBookPro (Late 2008 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 or newer)
iMac (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)
------ Reply
makruger - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkToo bad it won't run on normal PC hardware without becoming an iHack Reply
Sapan - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - linkDoes anyone know for sure if OSX Lion enables TRIM Support for 3rd Party SSDs?
I know 10.6.8 enabled TRIM for Apple SSDs.
Could you provide some background/link to how you got that info please? Reply
VMFnet - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkI just installed Lion on a OCZ Vertex2 SSD and it still doesn't support TRIM. I guess support for this feature is limited to stock Apple SSDs only. Reply
Sapan - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkThanks for the reply. It is a shame that there still is no TRIM support.
In the mean time I would recommend checking out a 3rd party program called TRIM Enabler:
Though the program is designed for Snow Leopard it works for Lion, but they are making a new version for Lion. Reply
mdlam - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkI love how these diehard Apple fans are trying to resolve their discomforting feelings of exorbitant expenditure to Apple by
A: Unreasonably denigrating other competitive alternatives.
B: Exaggerating the usefulness of certain proprietary tools.
C: Empathizing with the company's goals/missions/values
All to resolve the realization that they are paying more money than what they are getting, which is...
A totally outdated OS made to look streamline
A pretty cool looking computer that uses tunnel fans (which are extremely loud) and likes to overheat.
I used Snow Leopard on my Mac Mini for about 2 months and hated it. I think people force themselves to like OSX just because their laptop looks cool.
Horrible graphics speeds. Their BEST video card that you can fit into a their $4500 Mac Pro, is a ATI 6500 series, which is like a 100 dollar card, and offers pathetic performance for gaming--I had a 6950 2gb and that was barely enough. You can argue that Mac pro's should be used for graphics design and other things and not gaming. If that's the case I don't see why they don't put a FireGL or other designer cards in. In any case, who buys a $4500 computer that comes with a bullcrap video card? Some people are IDIOTS. Reply
mdlam - Friday, July 22, 2011 - linkEdit: A $170 dollar video card, 6870 1gb...Which is a complete piece of garbage card that is 30% slower than the 5970 1gb. Guess how much the upgrade is? $200.
Post is based off of cognitive dissonance theory Reply
parlour - Monday, July 25, 2011 - linkMacs don't seem to be the right choice for you. That's alright. Just don't claim that everyone else has the same needs as you. Reply
sjinsjca - Saturday, July 23, 2011 - linkThe test with the SSD is intriguing but there's a possibility that the FileVault performance hit might be less in the case of a conventional hard disk.
Reason: hard disks are slower than SSDs, so there would be more idle states in which the OS could be performing encryption/decryption tasks.
Worth a spot-check. Reply
EnerJi - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - linkThat's a great point. I'd also love to know if the performance impact decreases with an HDD. Reply
johnmacward - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - linkWhat annoys me is the fact that the recovery partition doesn't keep a copy of the Lion installer for instant re-installation - and with a bit of Apple magic even a copy that updates as the OS updates.
A download each time is a possibly expensive prospect considering we all have data caps of some kind.
It also turns a reinstall into a shockingly long 4 hour job which is a major pain. Reply
luca108 - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - linkSmall detail, but in the review you said you could only launch Launchpad by clicking the dock icon or using spotlight, but you can also set it as a hot corner. This is what I personally do... top left corner set for Launchpad and I can quickly get in and out of it to find my apps and utilities.
I'm not suggesting it's quicker than using an apps stack on the dock... actually, its the exact same. But it definitely is faster than clicking the Launchpad dock icon or using spotlight to launch it. Reply
Thrakazog - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - linkDoes anyone know if Lion extended trim support to 3rd party SSD's, instead of only the ones apple provides ? Reply
grahamperrin - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - linkPrimarily FAO the AnandTech reviewers
Thank you for a very timely and useful review of FileVault 2.
The following microblog conversation links to an overview (work in progress) with some unanswered questions. Comments will be greatly appreciated.
— OpenID enabled, I will welcome contributions in the Identi.ca area. Reply
nardreiko - Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - linkAnd it is a big problem!
The removal of Expose and Rosetta are big reasons not to "upgrade" for me both now and for the foreseeable future.
A lot of other things are clunky or ugly or annoying (like the inability to control scrolling speed in System Preferences) ... but those are minor reasons not to "upgrade".
This was a tough review to do, and I love Anandtech, but I think you guys skimmed over some very important negatives. I don't know a single person who is not an Apple employee or stock owner who claims to really like Lion ... come to think of it I haven't yet met an employee who really likes it, so it is pretty much stock owners who are saying it is an upgrade-without-quotation-marks. Although a lot of employees do genuine like the full-screen mode. Reply
tomeg - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - linknardreiko said:
"I don't know a single person who is not an Apple employee or stock owner who claims to really like Lion ... come to think of it I haven't yet met an employee who really likes it, so it is pretty much stock owners who are saying it is an upgrade-without-quotation-marks. Although a lot of employees do genuine like the full-screen mode."
tomeg replies:
I have a circle of nearly 200 fellow Mac users—real, (mostly) unbiased, not-at-all picky or ego-inflated (I'm not suggesting that you are), everyday-if-not-hour-intensive Mac users—and our experience has been 95% positive or enthusiastic. Some are disappointed with the loss of or change to this or that, as am I, and we have to adjust, go As The Mac OS Turns, but not one isn't glad they upgraded. Any OS must continue to be evolutionary or die. Some things go, others stay, but the overall progress is forward. I will take Lion over Windows 7 hands down this or any day. Windows has its features and (of course) fans but I'm not buying, now or ever, unless something goes massively wrong with current OS development. Reply
bjoff - Sunday, September 04, 2011 - linkThanks for an enlightening test! One thing I wish you had tested was the time to wake from sleep. On my macbook air (with very similar specs to your setup), it seems that waking from sleep takes a couple of seconds more with FileVault enabled. This is pretty significant when you are used to the very quick waking of Apple products... Reply
raygos - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - linkThe reviewer complains that Resume can be annoying for the likes of him/her when a clean slate is desired. He/she writes: "I found myself pressing command-W a bunch of times to close windows before I'd press command-Q to quit the program." There is, of course, the shortcut command-option-W to close all open windows in the active application. For mousers, press option while clicking the red "close window" button does the same thing. Gotta save those clicks! Reply
dtalari - Friday, October 28, 2011 - linkI am a work-study at a college and we recently bought a bunch of IMACS to make an IMAC Labs for all the students. We also have a few for the staff. We had Snow Leopard installed initially and we were able to connect perfectly fine to all of the servers within our network,however since our implementation of lion the servers don't show up under the shared tab in the finder automatically like before. The computers on the network show up but not the servers. Anyone have any ideas as to why? I figured it has something to do with samba not being implemented as it was in Snow Leopard? Is there any easy way to change a setting? Or do I have to manually add each server to each computer?
Thanks Reply