Lion GM

Really felt the need to share this...

Just installed Lion GM on my Macbook Pro and iMac and the built in Mail, Calendar and Address book just worked with my Exchange 2010 server!

So happy

 

Also installed the GM. Very satisfied. Safari is now also noticeably faster than in Snow Leopard, together with the multitouch gestures for back and forward paging. I feel no need for me to use Chrome or Firefox anymore.

 

Hi Mackan,

I heard many people said safari now eat RAM alot. Can you give it a check? Many, many people seem to have problems with Lion GM, some said its slower for animation, others said 4GB RAm is not enough...Hope Lion GM is not the final release.

 

Well I've got 4GB RAM in my 2010 i7 imac and i've been running InDesign CS5, Photoshop CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Firefox, Safari and Mail at the same time and it's been fluid and as quick as Snow Leopard if not quicker.

 

I don't see anything unusual with regards to RAM usage (Safari process pretty constant at around 100 MB RAM usage). Could consume more due to more caching though. The process Safari Web Content can grow quite big sometimes (100 MB - 280 MB observed for my normal surfing).

I have no complaints for the Lion GM so far. I own a MacBook Pro 2010 13'', 4 GB RAM and everything is smooth.

 

What does GM stand for?

 

GM = Golden Master. For windows users, it's Apple's equivalent to RC (Release Candidate), RTM (Release to Manufacturing) or somewhere in between.

From what I've been reading, barring any last minute show-stopper bugs, the GM will be 10.7.0 with a possibly different final build number (current GM build is 11A511).

 

Ok so how do we get GM?

 

You have to be a developer to get the GM in the legit manner. Don't trip at this point. If all rumors are correct this time next week you'll be able to buy Lion Retail and enjoy all of it's glory. It's really quite a great OS. MS has a lot of work to do to even come half as close this time around.

 

You can buy an Apple developer membership (I think it's $99) which allows you to get it, or you can be selected by Apple to test it (not sure how they selected me, it might be totally random).... Or you could wait a few days/weeks and get it for $29 from the App Store.

 

Agreed. Lion has fully replaced SL for me, it beats it in every regard, and this is coming from someone who loved SL.

 

Quotes like this have me excited. Hoping for a release sometime next week... the sooner, the better!

 

what is gm and where do u get it?

 

confident you are in Apple, but it isn't the be all and end all... MS still has better applications for accessibility, and despise extra cost it is a far better choice in this regard.

Unless Apple improved it in Lion, but when I viewed a earlier bata a few months ago the answer was no. All being said I still like my mac... not no unless apple has made improvement in accessibility... not sure I'll bother upgrading, but I haven't really done a lot of research on Lion's advantages.

 

I could easily make an attempt to address your statement of concern had you at least listed what applications are better on Windows in regards to accessibility.
This has nothing to do with confidence, I'm running the GM and I can tell you that MS is far from being able to catch up with Lion, especially if what has been shown in Windows 8 so far is any indication of the future of Windows. Also I'm talking about for the end user Lion will be a huge step far ahead of Windows due to Apple's ecosystem. Sorry, but Windows Phone 7 ain't making it. Hardly anyone has one so MS's attempt to bring the tiles into W8 is waste of time. It's not like the majority of their users will have a WP7 phone.

Also I find statements like yours that I highlighted along with the rest of your post quite disturbing. You really sound more like a Windows user trying to soften the blow to avoid being called a Windows FB my saying you have a Mac and like it. Why have a Mac when MS Windows offers better as you stated?

 

in the aspect of accessability for disabled persons im afraid windows IS killing OSX there. Using webcam and head movements as your mouse is seamless enough now as is many speach, touch and augmented peripherals and software. as the mother of a disabled girl Apple has never even looked at those aspects for some users. at strictly an OS level, 7 has better tools for disabled persons integrated as well as part of the Kinect API in the SP1 to really help with that.

I make no comment on other ease of accessability as Yuio was not specific enough as to what aspects IMO.

many people use both platforms by choice or by necessity

 

You made a valid point there but disabled persons are not the only people that have specific needs for computing and OS X addresses a lot more than Windows ever has in terms of overall productivity and ease of use. Having better accessibility tools doesn't make for an overall better user experience.

You're right about your last line that I highlighted but you were missing the point. When people come here and put down OS X just because someone's opinion was Pro-OS X and then point out why Windows is better and then go on and say they use the very platform they the argued against doesn't make sense.

 

I heard Google.com is this really nice search function anyone with inquires can use.

 

but is that at the application or OS level?
since we can all only apply personal experience here everything becomes subjective. for myself I am fairly OS agnostic as I primarily deal with file management and applications, does OSX make my Photoshop, Lightroom, e-mail or my web browser better .... no.

does it make file management of huge quantities of files better ... yes and no
( I started out on Compugraphic's/DOS/and MacOS ( Mac Classic) so I still tend to prefer a good file tree. but it does keep track of most files in a home folder extremely well but not as much on mixed networks IMO.


from an OS point of view I actually find them equally as productive the changes are at application and hardware levels for me. both do the same thing, just in some things a little differently

 

Well the thread is about Superfetch so I'm only speaking about the OS level. Sure Windows has more games and some corporate environments create proprietary software that happens to be Windows only but that still wouldn't make for a better computing experience.

Right, everything is subjective, but there are people that come here and just try and trash OS X with nothing but praise for Windows and will put down other's (mine especially) positive opinions about OS X. Let me say this, I can't speak for everybody but every now and then I surf to the Windows forum and I never see people from the Mac forum starting troll posts against Windows. The complete opposite happens on the Mac forum almost weekly from Windows trollers against Mac.
Just seems that people from the Windows forum wish Apple, their OS and their customers would just go away so MS can have it all. They seem threatened because they can't stand that people on the Mac forum actually love OS X and use it instead of Windows and have no need for Windows.

Now in terms of out-of-the-box usability strictly from the OS level, OS X wins hands down. This is not subjective it's a fact, at least for the work that I do. Fresh install of OS X and I can access my corporate Exchange email without any version of Office installed. Same goes for reading Office docs, requires no dependency on Office. Same goes for PDF's, requires no dependency on Adobe. There's a lot of big things that OS X does better, yet others can't handle it when people point it out.

 

agreed, for me on OS-X I need to create PDF Files, connect to a domain controller and storage array ( not the easiest in OSX actually ) and spend more time in photoshop and FCP Studio. as well as do alot of work with office documents and time management software, as well as outlook on the exchange server.

on my windows side I again hook to the domain and storage array, Photoshop, Illistrator, Premier, Avid Studio, 3DsMAX, A-CAD 11 and Civ3D. and use outlook with an exchange server plus plugins to share project folders and calendars without the exchange server for outside clients. making me much more application dependant than OS

for me neither OS gives me 1/4 of what I need out of the box. and just to be a nuiscance, you dont need adobe for PDF's I prefer an appication called foxit on the PC side Acrobat reader is too bloated

 

the program for Winodows is called Zoomtext. if you have a windows machine then go ahead and download it (there is a free trial) . you make it seem like I'm a windows fan boy etc. but that's not the truth. the truth with 3rd party support Windows IS a BETTER platform in the case of accessibility.
Don't get me wrong, Windows has some big issues, and Apple does a lot of stuff better, but not EVERYTHING. perhaps it is time for Apple users to get there heads out of the sand (or for that matter most people in the western world).

if you can prove me wrong great, because I'd like to be rid of windows, in the meant time. my claims stands based on experience.

PS posted from my Macbook Pro 15 from 2010.

 

For those running MacOS X connected to a windows server, SMB seems much much faster.

Almost instant connection to a windows share and querying a directory with 10000 sub directories takes no time. Snow leopard was annoying slow.

 

First of all, that's a piece of software that you install on Windows. If we're going to argue about software then I'm sure I can just as easily find plenty of accessibility tools for OS X. But that wasn't your argument that I understood. You said Windows itself had better Applications for accessibility. Weren't we talking about OS strength's earlier? This isn't about 3rd party apps, you've proved nothing but shown what you can BUY to make Windows "better".
But since I did check out Zoomtext as your requested, I found out that part of that software has always been in OS X (in regards to the part that speaks texts over anything you mouse over, including reading full documents) the other part of it is in Lion in regards to zooming text and maintaining full resolution of text. This can't be done in Windows 7. If it can be done on the OS level alone, show me how? I've never seen it. For example I just took a screenshot of your post in standard text and the high-res zoom feature in Lion. Same as what I just saw in Zoomtext.

 

dont need zoomtext .... magnifier works just fine under accessories, ease of access its there with narrator, speach recognition and on screen keyboard. my disabled daughter uses it daily.

large storage arrays for media creators and some other enterprise units only support NFS or NFSv4.1 which strangely as a true Unix protocol OSX SL and Lion are pretty slow on. SMB seems to be hit and miss depending on what kind of server I tie into, our Server 08 file server is very fast, but one of our Xserve units is pretty slow, but we cant figure out if its server side or client side.


but back to the ease of access .... for me personally I wish Apple would borrow a page from microsoft and implement a much better multiscreen ability ( 3-6 screens as dual screen is not too bad once you add third party tools )

 

Magnifier? That's also in OS X and has been in OS X. That's not even in the same league as the Zoomtext software and the Zoom of Text feature in Lion. There's no resolution loss when Lion zooms text. What's available in W7 currently loses resolution when you zoom up text.

 

you are right. my daughters must be a different app renamed to magnifier as it has no resolution loss but is not Zoomtext

 

perhaps it's been improved in Lion, but in SN Zoomtext is immensely superior.

The key feature I'm explicitly concerned about is font clarity. when I zoom in (in SN), the font will scale a bit, but WILL become more and more blurry as you zoom in. in Windows + Zoomtext won't blur. if you can find a tool for mac that will replace the same font quality let me know.

so I only have a mac now so I can't make a fair judgement based on your screen shots. Also what zoom are you using? the pinching thing or holding crtl + 2 finger scroll? because the ctrl one is the only one that works on all apps. remember, I did say, this is my SN experience, and if Lion is better it will be absolutely a no brainer upgrade... infact it would the nail in windows' coffin so to speak for me personally. I've just heard nothing from anyone including Apple on the subject if it has improved.

I wish be proven wrong. believe me... I've been itching to buy a 27inch iMac... to add to my Macbook Pro 15, iPhone 4, ipod... I wlll now be doing some more research...

the SN Magnifier isn't in the same league... perhaps in Lion it's better.

 

I just went on YouTube and checked out Zoomtext from the manufacturer's of the product. The Zooming of the text was no better than what can be done in Lion.
Sorry pal but it seems like you're trying to defy what I've already proven. I have in fact proven to you a feature built into Lion which you claimed could only be done in Windows using 3rd party software. TBH, it sounds more like you've been hoping I can't prove you wrong. I did.

 

Well Apple made's pretty aggressive claims on there website out SN's magnifier (which I know were not true before I purchased ).

IF Lion is better that I will accept what your saying but if it's the same as SN then I'm sorry you are dead wrong. I know back in March Lion's magnifier was no better than SN. I will be search this video...

 

R U honestly serious with what you are saying to me??? I'm telling you I'm currently running the Lion GM on separate partition. Also I have Snow Leopard a separate partition. The text zooming is not just a nominal difference, it's a 180 difference. I think anyone can easily see the difference in the pics I posted earlier, but somehow you discounted them. Why doesn't that surprise me? You're purposely trying to ignore it and you're somewhat trying to call me a liar because you just refuse to believe the fact that Lion doesn't need any additional 3rd party software as Windows does to zoom in extreme large text with no loss in resolution. You were in fact proven wrong and you can't deal with it.
No worries man, I see where you're going at. Just as I suspected earlier. My bad for carrying on a discussion with someone like you. I won't be back, you're not worth it.

 

Yes and if you asked any Apple employee or fan, they would have said SN's accessibility was perfect. perhaps you don't understand that I've heard this all before, from linux guys who say it's perfect, from Apple guys,

"I think anyone can easily see the difference in the pics I posted earlier,"

oh, and because I'm tired of this attitude from most people in general... has it ever occurred to you that I don't 'casually' use zoom? or is it to far of a stretch that an image isn't scaleable... and perhaps I'm try to verify an image I'm already magnify to 4x power...

but your right this has gained us nothing... 30$ is nothing anyway, I guess that's the only way I'll know either way.

 

So is there a reason Lion is a "must" upgrade?

I see article's like this and wonder:
Mac OS X Lion: This Is Not the Future We Were Hoping For

I'm still getting use to SL so I'm in no hurry. Thinking along the lines of the Windows 7 upgrade, when Windows 7 was released we had to upgrade for TRIM support. This is just an example because I know the last set of patches for SL included TRIM support so I'm wondering if there is anything else I should be aware of. Thanks.

 

same thing people asked about Snow Leopard... and Leopard... and Tiger... etc...

wait til its actually out and has a lot of reviews, just not 1 or two peoples opinions of what they want and what they aren't getting.

 

at least they are not charging completely unreasonable money for that.
Lion got some cool features so why not upgrade. What i cant understand however is why the bundle is so huge? It feels like they re-write all the code which i believe they didnt

 

The size is probably due to the fact that the download functions as a stand-alone installation, with all features for all appropriate Mac models.

 

See but that's just it. Apple doesn't necessarily need to tell the customer everything they do under the hood, especially when the average end user wouldn't understand it. Heck many geeks here don't know anything about coding. More is generally done to the Mac OS but there's no reason for Apple to tell it to the customer. From just running the GM I can tell you with confidence that it runs much faster than Snow Leopard. App launching is really fast, even with iWork that's still old and slow to load, it loads much faster in Lion.

Skype in Snow Leopard usually takes 6-8 bounces before the splash screen. In Lion it's 2-3 bounces on first launch. MS Office in Lion opens 1-2 bounces on first launch and many times it's just one bounce. I do not have an SSD in my 15" MBP but it feels like it.
That type of performance isn't due to new features, it's due to enhanced under the hood performance.

And as SP Forsythe mentioned the larger size also attributes to drivers needed for all Mac across the board. TBH, 4GB isn't big for a full OS install. Snow Leopard was 7GB.

 

I have no complaints about speed with SL if that is the main benefactor of Lion. I'll eventually upgrade but I don't think I'll do it day one.

 

Speed is not the main benefactor of Lion. Not trying to sound harsh but you really didn't read my post. I was responding to a poster earlier that was questioning why Lion's footprint seemed large. I was explaining that there are under the hood enhancements as well as UI enhancements. Part of the under the hood stuff included a faster and more responsive system. I never said Snow Leopard was slow.
Seeing that Apple has posted the feature set of Lion on the website for quite a while now and speed isn't something you really care about maybe Lion isn't for you at all and you shouldn't bother upgrading. You can stay on SL just fine.

 

I just hope Canon and 1Password push out, bug free, updates and drivers when Lion comes out. As much as Lion GM was a runaway success in my view compared to any OS, Canon's drivers for my MFD are a hit and miss in their current state and 1Password is still buggy for me compared to running it under SL; two things that are critical to my work right now.

 

You may have to wait it out for those developers to upgrade their drivers before investing into Lion. IMO, it's just plain lazy for any Mac developers to have not updated their drivers by now.

 

I didn't think you were implying SL was slow and based on your previous comments is how I came to the conclusion speed was the biggest benefactor.

If speed is not the biggest benefactor of "That type of performance isn't due to new features, it's due to enhanced under the hood performance." I would like to hear what else you mean by this.

and finally... "I have no complaints about speed" does not mean I don't care about it, it means my system is running fast as is and I'm not willing to put up with the bugs dealing with bleeding edge OS's if speed is the biggest benefactor.

Hope this clears things up better than my previous post.

 

if apps are indeed launching and working faster under lion os i am really wondering why apple isnt promoting it. I am pretty sure there are a lot of min maxers who would insta buy lion even if it made your mac do things 2-3% faster.

 

if it really ends up being only 29 dollars i will be seriously happy. that is a heck of alot better then what I pay for windows upgrades

 

a bit cheaper than windows upgrades if you went with the family pack. $120 for 3 copies. the 100/copy is kind of dumb IMO but hey not much of a suprise

if you have quite a few machines why not go the technet pro route and get 5 licence keys for every microsoft product. 5 win 7 Home, 5 win 7 Pro, 5 Ultimate, 5 office 2010, 5 office for mac, etc etc etc for around 300/yr?

if you only need 1 or 2 of most things I think standard is about 150 once you've got the keys they DONT expire

 

It's not only 29, it's 29 for all machines that use your account

 

I cant see them doing that? our Apple rep for work said $29/station.
I cant quite see them enforcing it too well but I would not be suprised if the EULA states one copy per computer.

 

Apple - OS X Lion - Over 250 new features. Read about all of them.

if the link doesn't seem to work, look on that page under Electronic Distribution

 

^ yup meaning 5 max right?

 

Well my point was (and I should've gone a bit further I'll admit) that many people (especially on Macrumors) are focusing only on the new features or the enhancements to existing features of Lion and some people think that's all Apple did. There's so much more to it and Mac developers will probably see the benefits even more due to the under the hood stuff.

So when the other poster was asking why is Lion's footprint so large (which it's not, don't know why he would think that) I responded letting him know that there's more to it that's done under the hood than what you see in terms of the UI. Speed is definitely a plus and a benefit. For me, if I can have a faster experience to get work done more efficiently I would upgrade just for that alone. If you're just a web surfer I can understand that speed is not a big deal but I do a lot of document creation and editing for my business so I need the fastest experience and the Lion GM alone has proven it's what I've been looking for without going into an SSD.
Snow Leopard is a great OS and IMO on it's worst day it's still many steps ahead of Windows 7 on it's best day, but I'm ready to say goodbye to SL and move on to Lion.