Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?

Bob Jacobson wrote:

Unfortunately, although the author had no control over who read his article and with what care, or where it might be reprinted in abridged form, he gave a basically carte blanche recommendation to upgrade to Lion, reprinted widely (without his one-paragraph disclaimer). His only warning was to check out your PPC apps to see if they will run, which obviously they wouldn't, a condition already known and acknowleged by Apple.

Honestly, I think you are a bit unfair against the author. He first warned that the "standard caveats apply about software and hardware compatibility". Then he warned about all application compatibility generally speaking and only at the end he specified the PPC applications. That as we know they are gone.

Technically he did a good job. He even complained about the lack of moving into ZFS which is superior to HFS+. It is a little bit upsetting that you treat the guy as a marketing junky, since he is not.

It is understandable that you are still disappointed to say an understatement that after installing Lion your motherboard was fried, but let's be honest (again) about it: that has not been a common problem, as it couldn't be. It's hard that any OS can fry any hardware. The Operative System is just a program like another. In your case, probably due to a messed up installation (not your fault. I don't like to overwrite the old OS version with a new one either) the CPU was constantly at high usage and that accelerated an HW problem that was present already. If you were running for few days some video conversions in Snow Leopard very likely you would have had pretty much the same HW fault.

Regarding doing an update, Ars informed about the nastiest issue Lion is(was?) causing: the kernel panics due to NVIDIA drivers in MBP2010. And obviously reported about the update 10.7.1, asking to the readers if that fixed their issues. What else a technical site should do? Go out and spread the word that Lion is like Vista when it is not?

Vista couldn't run fine in old HW, if it could run at all. I've shown you how Lion (virtual memory apart. I am in a long thread about it as well) works just fine and even better than Snow Leopard in my 2006 white MacBook. Now that I have the new Seagate Momentus XT because my previous WD Blue Scorpio died (Lion fault? I actually doubt it), the performances at boot and login time are even unbelievable. Even booting from my USB backup disk they were not that bad for my system. Faster than SL for sure.

Said that, I never denied that the upgrade process is either a little broken or incomplete the least. It had to warn about potentially dangerous applications (like some antivirus or anti malware programs starting at boot time, for example), while it just reported (and moved out) GlimmerBlocker because it uses Java. Still, doing a fresh clean installation I am pretty sure that Lion as it is now would work about fine in any supported system. Othrwise one would be better to go through and uninstall the old junk coming from the years, often things that we didn't even rememeber they were installed.

Leslie Bell wrote:

And the topics after every release DO NOT read the same. The major changes this OS has introduced are UNWELCOME to the MAJORITY of previous Mac COMPUTER users. Lion is the debacle of FCX, only OS-global.

Huh? Count me out, please. The majority of previous Mac users are enjoying the new OS. They just don't bother to come here looking for people complaining.

Dr.Head wrote:

I suspect this forum is a small percentage of users who have problems.

True. And it's even a much smaller percentage of users who don't feel to have any problem with Lion. People that enjoy a product don't usually jump in a forum to say how good it is. Who has issues does it.

I'm here because I heard about the ruckus in the forums about Lion. I thought it would be the common problems (which a lot are), so I came here to see if I could help. While some of Lion's changes have irked me, on average it's been a lot more good than a bad upgrade*.

And honestly, "point cred" stops the minute someone starts making ad hominem attacks about "newbies" and saying a superior product is equivalent to "Vista." These sorts of outrageous claims do you and no one any favors. If you had a bad experience by all means please share it. Some people have encountered it, and might be able to help you resolve it. In short this is a discussion forum, not a "flame, rant and don't listen to anyone" forum. Discussions, last I checked involved information exchange -- that requires people listening to each other. I've seen this behavior on countless forums, but I'm a bit surprised to see adults carrying on like children here. It saddens me that less and less people these days understand the purpose to use and their responsibilities in forums.

When you start drawing conclusions about the fitness for release of an OS based on one sample point (your botched install {citing you didn't make a backup and your life is ruined} or the fact that you didn't do anything to check for app compatibility) you lose credibility with any discerning reader. A lot of people here have years of experience with this OS, and can point out where you went wrong. Instead of getting insulted that they're pointing out where you went wrong and rationalizing why you're not responsible for your situation, you could listen to what they're telling you. Which is usually: "you should have done this," or "Try that." Listen to them, they're not trying to put you down, they're trying to help you not make the same mistake.

Now if you found a genuine bug, and yes they are out there in Lion, just like any piece of software, by all means point it out. If you've found that the Features don't fit you or your workflow: fine speak up -- it will help people in similar setups avoid those things. Just please, keep it rational. We know you're upset, but that's no reason to toss out reason.

*Say what you want about the changes. Here's my take: Launchpad? bad -- really bad, a half cook idea! the worst laucher I've seen, yes it's just that bad! Mission Control? meh, probably not a flexible out of the box. Address book changes? Looks nice but decreased some functionality. Finder enhancements? Actually pretty good -- but some things are different and you might not realize you cna still do things just a bit different or that you have to adjust the system prefs. Inline Dictionary pop-up? My favorite feature (odd that it doesn't work within this text area). Visual changes? great unless (as someone pointed out) you are VNCing to your machine at screen lock (in that case you might want to find the offending plist which defines the image source and replace it with a grey pixel image.). Locking Apple Apps to the Aplications folder? Stupid, but defeatable. Resume on Launch/boot? Awesome (if you don't suffer from plist corruption). Autosave? There should be an option to manually save globally or exclude apps from using this feature. Finder Toolbar additons? Great, more choices. Mail's/Safari's HTML preview? A big timesaver. Additional Finder Views? They've already come in handy, but not that big of a deal. NTFS/Windows 7 filesharing bug? Lame! How'd they miss this one?

Quicklook enhancements? Actually enhancments. App folder requiring admin authentication to move apps? Lame. Hiding my Library? wha--? That doesn't make sense! removing Mail's "bounce" feature? Hey! That's not cool! Performance? Much snappier on my machine (but some people are having issues) -- I swear boot up is a lot faster now. Any Edge Window Resizing? It's about time!

Here's my take on dumbing down of things from my review: "All these omissions, meant to make it easier for novices to navigate, organize and use the Finder, Dock, Launchpad also hobble advanced and expert users. While I know real experts use the Terminal for real speed, this is an article from the perspective of someone that wants things speedy and accessible to less advanced users."

But almost all of the dumbing down of the OS you can change back, BTW.

The issue EVERYONE is going to have to deal with

is the fact that Apple, as well as Microsloth and Google,

are moving to a "unified" interface on all devices. The

goal is if someone has a computer and then gets a

smartphone with an OS from the same company, that

person does not have to learn anything new. The reverse

is also true. This WILL be the future and there will be no

stopping it. There will be minor annoyances, new things

to learn at first, and yes there will be major bungles and pain.

Who knows, years from now you may wake your "device"

and have three buttons popup: Communicate, Create, Entertain!

Actually, it will more likely end up being voice commands

Dr.Head wrote:

I suspect this forum is a small percentage of users who have problems.

True. And it's even a much smaller percentage of users who don't feel to have any problem with Lion. People that enjoy a product don't usually jump in a forum to say how good it is. Who has issues does it.

Could be. Could also be that most Apple users, especially the new ones drawn to Apple by Lion's "simplicity," don't even know that the Forums exist. I count at least a dozen forums dealing with the issues raised here or similar ones. As others have remarked, never before has there been so much action on the Forums following an OS upgrade, not even to OS X from OS 9. You can't honestly claim that people don't jump into a forum to praise a product. It happens plenty, when it's merited. Hey, you and others here have jumped to Lion's defense, loudly and often.

You're drawing the wrong conclusions.

Separately, Michelasso, I appreciate your remarks about the Ars Technica article, but if you read the responding comments, you'll discover very few readers vibed with the author's approach. He was simply too elaborate about where he believed Lion would shine, and too shallow about where it might not. The real problem doing was a 19-page review the day of the product's release, before it was tested where it counts, by the public. I never saw him go back and acknowledge that a lot of people subsequently were unhappy. That speaks volumes.

My indie shop, Apple-certified since the 1980s, confirmed that Lion was producing a lot of issues, even on their own machines. I know them, they do not lie.

The issue EVERYONE is going to have to deal with

is the fact that Apple, as well as Microsloth and Google,

are moving to a "unified" interface on all devices. The

goal is if someone has a computer and then gets a

smartphone with an OS from the same company, that

person does not have to learn anything new. The reverse

is also true. This WILL be the future and there will be no

stopping it. There will be minor annoyances, new things

to learn at first, and yes there will be major bungles and pain.

Who knows, years from now you may wake your "device"

and have three buttons popup: Communicate, Create, Entertain!

Actually, it will more likely end up being voice commands.

You've been watching too much Discovery Channel or maybe old Star Treks on Syfy. The standout capability of new tech is personalization and customization. Apple's exploiting a momentary opening, as the PC is going down due to inherent software limitations, to offer its own "better-than-Microsoft" all or nothing solution. Apple is simple as the PC was not. Just follow the rules.

It won't work. It didn't work for MSFT and the PC makers and it won't work for Apple. It's a dead-end strategy.

Yes, it is likely true that this is the long term goal, unify all devices to synchronize with each other and with various software products. However, this does not preclude a “pro” version with options and controls for a customizable configuration.

You will have as many different opinions on what a customizable

"pro" version would be as you have posters in this thread and

no one would be in total agreement on anything and end up

with an even bigger mess. Sure, you'll get agreement on

Snow Leopard to some extent, but that is what everyone is

"accustom to" at this point in time.

Michelasso, we're both Apple fans and we both want Apple to succeed: success for its customers as well as its bottomline. Lion is all that comes between us. It's momentary. Let's see what comes next.

I can’t imagine much to squabble over if you have options to turn things off or on, choose different versions of Apple software and have more control in preferences. I think that would satisfy most of the power (workflow) users posting in this forum.

A “pro” version and an iOS hybrid version, or a combination of both into one OS doesn’t much matter as long as the end user has the above choices.

Bob Jacobson wrote:

My indie shop, Apple-certified since the 1980s, confirmed that Lion was producing a lot of issues, even on their own machines. I know them, they do not lie.

Well, that's easy to believe. The NVIDIA and WiFi problems really hammered the Lion in the balls. I never denied that Lion is buggy. I think no one did in this discussion. To be honest I could touch a Mac with the LIon Developer Preview 4 installed and I thought "Apple is not going to deliver this piece of junk, is it"? The GUI just felt broken. And it still does now to some extent. Not enough for me to downgrade, tho. I love too much the full screen apps to go back to the past.

The source of my disappointment and decision to go back to Snow has nothing to do with glitches. I simply find the "improvements" in Lion to be steps backward. I do mostly graphic design and word processing, and am constantly irritated by having to make extra steps to do simple things. I think Apple is trying to make the computer more like the web, which I think is a mistake.

The source of my disappointment and decision to go back to Snow has nothing to do with glitches. I simply find the "improvements" in Lion to be steps backward.

Exactly!

Listen to Ronda and then go for it. Nobody I know has had a hiccup with it. Just make sure you are all backed up first. A few people are having problems but seem to be isolated to poor maintenance, not reading up on which apps will no longer work with PPC going by the way side, or else just the same ones who carry on with every update because of change from their comfort zone. But this is the future and I find it a great step forward and highly reccommend it.

Good Luck