http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

I'm looking forward to the Launchpad and fullscreen native apps the most I think. iPhoto will really benefit from it and I can see a few others too. Auto Save and Versions could be interesting depending on how they implement it.

Some major features:

Mac App Store (already out..)
Launchpad - application launcher taking a cue from iPad, except for the desktop
Full-screen apps
Mission Control - Expose on steroids for better organization of everything running on your machine
New Gestures/Animations
Auto Save
Versions - Time Machine versioning at the file level
Resume - basically "save all open tabs" at the OS level
Mail 5

6/5/2011 9:20:29 PM

so since im new to mac ownership within the current OS lifespan, will i automatically update to Lion when it releases similarly to how iOS updates versions, or do i need to buy the new OS like how you have to buy Vista when you want to upgrade from XP or whatever that other one was.

6/6/2011 9:41:34 AM

I don't think apple has ever released an update (sans iOS) for free. Even their proverbial service packs will set you back $30.



(To clarify-they don't have service packs, but some of their OS updates are so minute it would fool you.)

[Edited on June 6, 2011 at 10:16 AM. Reason : .]

6/6/2011 10:16:14 AM

if you had tiger, the upgrade to leopard was like $100 IIRC.

the upgrade from leopard to snow leopard was $30, the former being a much more significant change in the OS than the latter.

I imagine Lion will be more like Leopard in that respect.

6/6/2011 10:30:22 AM

10.0/10.1 was $129 as were 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5

10.6 (Snow Leopard) was $29 because it was mostly an under the hood upgrade for developers, and something like that is hard to sell consumers at $129.

iOS updates are free (except for iPod Touches) because (according to Apple) they recognize revenue from iPhone sales over time and via some magic accounting can bill for feature upgrades in that revenue per some obscure reading of SOX.

Given that computer revenue is not recognized that way, and the history, it is unlikely that Lion will be free, and will most likely be $129.

6/6/2011 12:39:22 PM

makes sense. good to know.

im in the market for a new Air for law school in the fall, so it sounds like ill just wait until august so that hopefully it comes with Lion. my macbook can hang out in snow leopard until i get around to upgrading because i use it more recreationally.

6/6/2011 12:51:09 PM

We should known lot more in the next hour, but I'd read rumors they are aiming at aggressive pricing for Lion if downloaded in the App Store. Like how Aperture is $199.99 for a boxed copy, but $79.99 in the App Store.

They also had the "Up-to-date" program with Snow Leopard where if you bought your computer within 3 months if Snow Leopard's release, the upgrade was $10 instead of $30. Not really worth it if you can wait, obviously, but something they offered.

6/6/2011 1:10:35 PM

30 bucks, only in the app store, but i imagine there will be some retail store solution for those without snow leopard.

6/6/2011 1:42:47 PM

So wait, I have to reboot OS X when I get a 2 MB font update, but to upgrade the entire OS, it doesn't need to reboot? That's odd.

6/6/2011 3:19:46 PM

that might be a problem they are trying to fix

6/6/2011 6:24:44 PM

^^ $30 theme is all I'm seeing here, conveniently paired with a feature of the underlying filesystem that now has an actual interface (versioning) and updating hibernation. NOW AVAILABLE IN OUR STORE. DOWNLOAD OUR STORE. BUY OTHER STUFF. PLEASE.

Or, you know, we'll just leave all those security holes unpatched like we did on the intel changeover....

6/6/2011 7:00:14 PM

yeah, not too sold on this

FULL SCREEN APPS! who cares about that

6/6/2011 7:19:17 PM

^ a lot of people, most likely. i am looking forward to it myself.

^^ there are a for more features in the OP and that list isn't exclusive.

Lion isn't meant to be a next-gen OS; if that was what you expected then i can see being disappointed. $30 is cheap for what i will be getting out of it. mission control with advanced gestures will be awesome, on top of the other additions.

6/6/2011 7:32:27 PM

Anybody running the beta? I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get three finger scrolling to go to the top/bottom of the page in FireFox (like it does by default in Snow Leopard)

For some reason it looks like it's hard coded into the OS that two finger scrolling and three finger scrolling are the same thing. I can't even get tools like BetterTouchTool to recognize the difference. For an OS that was bragging about having more control with Trackpad gestures, it seems like that's a pretty big thing to screw up.

6/13/2011 8:27:53 PM

i'm not sure i really understand the excitement over full screen apps.

maybe it's just my specific workflow.

'do not want' is how i feel about it.

6/13/2011 10:55:52 PM

^ Yeah, that kind of echo's my sentiment too. One of the things I always hated about using windows was how almost every app wanted to be full screen (and MDIs are the worst). I can see where a full screen interface might be useful, but it definitely seems like something that isn't really needed in the modern age of high resolution displays.

6/13/2011 11:30:25 PM

I use full screen when doing iphoto stuff. Very nice to see the photo at its biggest possible size

6/13/2011 11:52:12 PM

Quote :

"i imagine there will be some retail store solution for those without snow leopard."

Get Snow Leopard
Install App Store
Download Lion

(If you don't have a 64-bit Mac or would like to ever run those old PPC apps again you're SOL)

6/14/2011 2:39:45 AM

Quote :

"i'm not sure i really understand the excitement over full screen apps. maybe it's just my specific workflow. 'do not want' is how i feel about it."

So far the only use I've had from it is making my RDP session full screen and then placing it on another virtual desktop. Then I can four finger swipe (default was three finger swipe) over to my windows box any time I want to use it. But yeah, for regular apps, I really don't see the appeal in full screening them.

6/14/2011 6:57:38 AM

Been downloading since about 8:30am.



This is so much better than having to drive all the way to the store to pick up physical media.

7/20/2011 3:21:17 PM

so i got grandfathered in to a free copy for the MacBook Air I picked up for law school. i have a code to redeem in the app store for a free copy.

will still have to pay for the version for my MacBook (unless i torrent it)

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 3:24 PM. Reason : .]

7/20/2011 3:23:16 PM

Unless they put a limitation in the redemption code, you can install it on as many macs as you own, as long as you use the same Apple id.

7/20/2011 3:31:46 PM

guess i know what i will be downloading when i get home from work

7/20/2011 3:35:36 PM

yeah thats what im going to have to check when i get home

seems like that would be the case. just saying, worst case.

7/20/2011 3:36:59 PM

FYI I had to buy a separate copy for my MacBook after all. They thought of EVERYTHING!!!11

7/20/2011 7:01:14 PM

I have it on my iMac and macbook pro... $30 for all my computers.

7/20/2011 8:35:35 PM

^^ as long as all your machines are authorized for the same app store account, you can install one "license" on as many machines as you like. you're installing it wrong
just saw that you qualified for a free copy... did you dl/register it with the same app store id?

downloading now..

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 8:38 PM. Reason : ]

7/20/2011 8:37:57 PM

blah

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 8:40 PM. Reason : ]

7/20/2011 8:39:45 PM

Just a little over a day left and my download will be complete.

7/20/2011 9:41:23 PM

Mine downloaded in an hour, it actually was way better than driving to the store to get a disc

7/20/2011 9:51:23 PM

I don't get it. I have slow internet, but not that slow. A download this size shouldn't take more than 3 hours on my connection. It's been 13 hours now, and it's not even halfway complete.

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 9:53 PM. Reason : Wonder if I should stop it and start over.]

7/20/2011 9:53:18 PM

mine's going to end up being done within a couple of hours on roadrunner standard. i wonder if it's where you are/what apple server you're hitting against?

7/20/2011 10:04:51 PM

no, i meant they wouldn't let me install the free copy on my other machine. it knew the difference.

7/20/2011 10:23:40 PM

Quote :

"Just a little over a day left and my download will be complete"

something's up with your connection. Mine pulled it down in 25-ish minutes. Pretty much maxed out my connection (I get similar download times on usenet for similar file size).

Ok, it seems to have deleted one of my folders. I kept a backups folder in "Library" and now it's gone. Doing a search doesn't bring it or any of the files back up and I didn't gain any space so it's like it's hidden somewhere. Glad I backed up beforehand.

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 11:08 PM. Reason : .]

7/20/2011 11:05:51 PM

installed;
the new look for window trim is interesting; has a soft grain look to it. i'm digging the inverted scrolling. it makes me want to get a "magic" trackpad for the scrolling + gestures. hopefully i'll have some time tomorrow to really play around with the new pieces.

7/20/2011 11:48:23 PM

I used the beta for a while and liked the features, but it was so damn buggy.

I was pleasantly surprised when I installed Lion today. I found one bug, but it's a cosmetic item that doesn't really affect anything.

Unfortunately my 2007 MBP is not capable of utilizing the multi-touch features of Lion as the trackpad simply can't do anything more than two finger scrolling and tapping. But that doesn't really bother me. Even new PC laptops don't have trackpads that can match the smooth and seamless use of my outdated trackpad. It's still the bes trackpad I have ever used.

All the glitchiness of the graphics from the beta is gone and fullscreen Chrome works great (I seem to recall it being a bit glitchy).

I'm still curious as to whether MSN 8 for Mac will work. I could not get it to function properly in the betas.

7/21/2011 12:51:56 AM

^I'd like full screen for chrome a lot more if you could actually exit back out using esc instead of option-shift-f or whatever it is. I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out what was up with it before googling it to see what was up.

7/21/2011 9:11:46 AM

After reading this guide I'm wary to upgrade but I'll give it a shot anyway:

http://gizmodo.com/5822946/the-os-x-lion-survival-guide

The full screen mode sounds like it sucks. It inhibits your ability to do anything else.

7/21/2011 9:39:52 AM

yeah, i'm a hold off, there are some software incompatibilities for me.

check yo shit here: http://roaringapps.com/apps:table

7/21/2011 10:49:52 AM

I'm going to go ahead and do it. It's not like I do any real work on OSX anyway.

7/21/2011 10:53:56 AM

Dammit this is lame. Everything is screwed up. They completely ditched 3 finger up/down. Can't figure out how to get it back in FF.

-so wait. Let me get this straight. I have to download 3rd party software now to use multi-finger gestures I could use natively before Lion? Are you kidding me?

Quote :

"Anybody running the beta? I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get three finger scrolling to go to the top/bottom of the page in FireFox (like it does by default in Snow Leopard) "

Haha I've been googling this and this thread comes up as the 3rd/4th result in google.

[Edited on July 21, 2011 at 2:22 PM. Reason : s]

7/21/2011 1:54:46 PM

dang gizmodo is coming down hard on lion. Is it really that bad?

Quote :

"Reclaim Three-Fingered Back and Forward Navigation Right now, gesture-based Back and Forward is broken if you use Lion's default two-finger gesture to page back and forth. To get it working, you have to switch the "Swipe between pages" gesture to either three fingers or two/three fingers. You'll find that option under More Gestures in the Trackpad section of System Preferences."

They have an entire survival guide for all the stuff it broke.

[Edited on July 21, 2011 at 2:34 PM. Reason : .]

7/21/2011 2:33:47 PM

Grr so much broken.

Also by default HDD space/status has been taken away from finder.

Also Macintosh HDD and Home have been deleted from the finder window and I can't figure out how to get them back. Now all finder shows is user/music/apps/desktop etc. No actual home or harddrive.

-Ok I guess if you open terminal and manually navigate to the root directory and open it then you can create a shortcut in finder to it.

[Edited on July 21, 2011 at 2:40 PM. Reason : s]

7/21/2011 2:39:07 PM

^ there was an option in Finder Preferences to choose what it shows. It's renamed to username MacBook Pro or whatever but it's essentially the same thing. That tripped me up too. I'd still really love to know wtf happened to my backup folder. 20+gb of files just gone without any freed up space.

7/21/2011 3:11:49 PM

This mission control thing is dumb. Every time I use it the window groups are in different areas so you have to search for them. They change position based upon the last window you had open. That's silly.

7/21/2011 3:30:32 PM

i'm missing the old expose

7/21/2011 4:12:28 PM

I like the new Safari so far, esp the way they have zooming/scrolling on webpages.

7/21/2011 4:17:51 PM

Swiping between spaces is also pretty awesome. I've been doing this to switch apps on the iPad for a while, so it's very natural.

I've had a wonky glitch with mission control and Parallels that i can't reproduce.

And Safari does seem to beach ball for fractions of a second now, which it did do before.

The global calendar syncing is nice, I have no issues with the new iCal.

The new gesture support is great. I haven't had any issues with the scrolling. I thought I would, but it too feels fairly natural.

Definitely has been worth the $30 so far.

The apps resuming their state after a reboot is pretty bad-ass too. I can see this getting some people in trouble, so i have to keep this behavior in mind, but overall it's a definite plus.

[Edited on July 21, 2011 at 5:00 PM. Reason : ]

7/21/2011 4:58:12 PM

Quote :

"I've had a wonky glitch with mission control and Parallels that i can't reproduce."

What specifically? I've been using parallels all day and haven't noticed anything.

7/21/2011 5:03:58 PM

Quote :

"Swiping between spaces is also pretty awesome."

This. I've always kinda hated spaces because there was no really seamless way to use them imo. Started a couple last night with Lion and I love it.

7/21/2011 5:22:23 PM