Lion Is Out

The new mail app is very similar to the iOS mail app. That's the direction Apple's going towards in Lion.

 

Your opinion on this is in the extreme minority, not that there's anything wrong with that. What exactly is it about the new Mail that you dislike so much compared to the old Mail? I recall reading the responses from Lion beta testers and developers in AppleSeed discussions I didn't come across any negatives, they were overwhelmingly positive.

But in any case, you can make the new Mail look and behave like the old one, which defeats the purpose on all the improvements they've made but at least you have the option.

 

So... Any issues yet?

 

You mean, besides the Adobe hardware acceleration fiasco? Expect higher CPU usage and higher temperatures while playing YouTube videos than you had in Snow Leopard.

 

Yes. "Lion" sounds so much less elegant than "Snow Leopard."

 

So one can have multiple accounts in the new mail?

Now, I haven't run that much flash (see the other thread) but the computer did feel more snappier after the lion update, though the shutdown time is now at par with windows, but maybe it will improve as the system becomes better adapted to Lion.

 

I didnt dismiss it because its different, I dismissed it because I wouldnt like it and it would only irritate me. It makes sense, to me at least, to scroll that way on a cell phone or tablet, not on a laptop/desktop.

 

I change my scrolling back to the "old way". I don't use am iPad or iPhone, so it just feels more comfortable this way.

 

? You could have multiple accounts in the old Mail too.

I like the new Mail. I might use it over Sparrow for a while until I get bored of it, then switch back and forth.

As an aside, I find it amusing that it took like 3 years for email clients (all email clients) to finally fully support gmail IMAP out of the box, the way it should be, instead of trying to impose their own folder hierarchy on it. (actually Outlook still tries I think). I remember google even had to have a huge help file of settings to change for EACH client...and even then you still had to delete all the random tags that would get created by the client before you fixed everything.

 

The system does feel more responsive. Startup time remain around the same ~10 seconds (Sandforce SSD). Shutdown time improved, it's almost instant. When SL was on it it used to take 2-3 seconds to shutdown. I have a clean install, not upgrade. I have not once in my 20+ years of computing life performed an upgrade (instead of a clean) installation and I'm not going to start now and never will as long as there's a choice.

 

I am liking the upgrade so far. I haven't use the new Mail program just because I don't like having a dedicated Mail program. I have one main e-mail account through Gmail and I like Google's web interface. I have been using it since the beta days and I will continue to use it. I don't even have Gmail setup for my iPad since I can just go through Safari. I use a Mail app only on my Droid X but that is because it doesn't actually download e-mails to read them and it is built right into Android. I guess I would use the Mail app if I had an iPhone.

The scrolling seems a lot more fluid and responsive and I like the natural direction since I used an iPad for a year before buying my MPB. I am really digging the fullscreen programs and being able to switch between different desktops. I was at work today and had MATLAB, Keynote, Word, and Safari all going at once. Safari was in fullscreen mode and I moved each program to its own respective desktop. It was easy switching back and forth between programs and I did not notice any slowdown whatsoever. I also like the back and forward navigation in Safari. I also really like the instant program resume feature. I can actually save a file, fully close Word, and it brings things right back to where I left off (unless I actually close out that document after saving).

There are some things I don't like though. I am not used to the lack of a scroll bar. I am used to it on my Droid X and iPad simply because they normally don't involve a lot of scrolling but the right side of open programs on my MBP seems a little empty. Easily switching between different desktops/fullscreen apps also comes with a con for me: I can no longer use three finger left and right swiping to navigate in Finder. Before I could go back through different folders but swiping to the left with three fingers (just as I could go back in Safari the same way). Two finger swiping doesn't do anything but scroll. So I am missing that feature but I would rather use three fingers to swipe between desktops/fullscreen apps.

I am still thinking about performing a clean install of Lion but I don't see a reason to do that now since the system is running just as fast (boot and program load times are actually cut down a little) as when SL was clean installed on my MBP.

 

You can still do back/forward gesture in the finder. Yeah I wasn't having at first myself not being able to back/forward in the finder. Took me a few minutes to figure out. You have to disable 3 finger drag from the point&click tab, then in the more gestures tab, change it to swipe with two or three fingers. You'll then get back/forward back in the finder, but you'll have to swipe with 3 fingers.

This gives a nice little bonus when doing back/forward in Safari - when swiping with 2 fingers, you can "peek" what page it is when doing back or forward. When swiping with 3 fingers, it instantly goes back/forward like it always was.

For the most part I'm loving Lion.

PS, to get dragging back, you have to go to universal access and enable it in trackpad options. Since you upgraded you might not have "lost" the single finger drag since that's how SL was.

 

darn... well, hopefully those fixes show up fast.

lol! Not much of a problem. Sounds more powerful to me.

 

now that's I've had a chance to play with it a couple days... sofar I like. the new safari is good and quick, iike some of the new gestures... (some are useless). seem quicker on my Aglility 2 90GB SSD and some of the bells and whistles are pretty handy, still loots to learn, but sofa 30$ well spent.

 

Questions:

1. Once I buy Lion once, can I install it on other Mac"s? Or is it just for one DL.

2. Will all my Data/Music/Programs/Files be on my Mac post-Lion? Or will it be like a brand new Mac? Thanks.

 

Not a big fan of the "bouncy bounce" in Safari, when you scroll to the top or bottom, and it does a goofy little bounce thing when it tops or bottoms out. What's the point of that, except maybe to make it like an iPad?

 

Suppose to be good for up to five systems attached to your apple id. Then again I don't know what's to stop you from putting it on a usb stick/dvd and installing it anywhere you want.

It's everywhere not just safari, I don't like it either.

 

Just a quick (noob) question... how does the upgrade work? You download Lion then install it, but do you burn it on a DVD?

 

You don't have to burn it on DVD but I did and clean installed from the created Bootable Lion DVD. That way I don't have to re-download Lion again if I needed to, although you can re-download as many times as you want.

 

the normal 10.6 to 10.7 upgrade way... you buy the installer app, and run it... it takes care of everything and does an upgrade, no disks or anything needed.

 

what would you recommend, since my mac is about to arrive with snow leopard most likely... for me to upgrade to lion? (yes im a complete mac noob)

 

Oh, Thank you

 

Either way is fine, I just wanted to clean-house so to speak because my SL partition was filling up with crap that I no longer needed and so a clean install was more appropriate for me.

The easier way is the upgrade (no disk) method as doh123 suggested.

 

I see... thanks guys

 

No problem. Just remember, you can always clean install in the future. Unlike Windows, where you have to be careful which version/key combination you purchase whether it's Upgrade, OEM or full retail, with OSX you can always either do an Upgrade or a full clean install from the same installer. It's totally your choice.

 

Hm...is it so easy as that though? The installer is automatically deleted after Lion is installed, and you can't redownload it from the App store while you have Lion already installed as far as I know. If you didn't burn a copy of the installer when you first downloaded it, wouldn't you have to reinstall snow leopard first, then redownload lion, then burn it, then clean install it?

That's a whole lot of wasted time. :/

 

only if your hard drive totally fails and has to be replaced, otherwise there is a recovery partition on your hard drive you can boot from. If you have nothing except your SL disc and a new blank hard drive... yeah you'd probably need to do SL install then do the Lion upgrade from the App Store again.

 

So what does the "customize" option on the installer allow? I've done an upgrade on 1 machine, and a clean install on another, and both times the "Customize" icon was greyed out

 

"where you have to be careful which version/key combination you purchase whether it's Upgrade, OEM or full retail,"

You can backup your activation and restore.

 

just a warning, when you receive and if it is indeed SL, you have to register your machine in your apple account, them you proceed to register the machine in the up to date page.

Im still waiting for my code for the lion download

 

Doesn't the system validate the serial right away or are you waiting for the email?

 

waiting a mail, it wont validate automatically, you have to upload a copy of the receipt.

 

for anyone who uses Optical Audio Out surround sound and is having problems (anyone using optical for DTS/AC3 pass-thru already knows what I'm talking about), this will probably work for you:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15688387#15688387

 

Looks like mine is coming with Lion. I had a live chat with an "apple expert", and asked if i were to buy my mac today (which i did) would it come with Lion. He now told me yes hopefully it does, but anyways i'll be prepared if its still with SL.

 

glad to hear it, hope my code arrives next week