Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?

Bob Jacobson wrote:

Take Lion's treatment of Search in Apple Mail. In both the "classic" and the "new" formats, the search function is truncated. I can search ALL mail or I can search by Folder, but I can't search by various other combinations. Nor can I search by TO or FROM. In short, the Search function is rendered not so useful. Why did that have to happen? What's the solution?

Actually, yes, you can do everything you mention, and more, when searching mail. For example, if I want to find emails from my brother, who was a free-lance journalist in Iraq during the major part of the war, I can search for all messages From: him, in Year: 2004, with the work Iraq in the body. Search in Mail is much, much more powerful than it was in 10.6. Give it a try and I think you'll find it has not been "dumbed down."

Give it a try and I think you'll find it has not been "dumbed down."

The Bounce function has been removed. Sad, as Bounce has massively reduced my spam.

I also went back to Snow Leopard (because the Bounce function has been removed from Apple Mail).

1. Install worked fine, except that two out of three reboots so far have been kernel panics.

2. It killed my VOLUME LOGIC plugin. (Dated and old software true, but now my iTunes once again sounds tinny and annoying. I can't believe Apple hasn't fixed this after how many years?)

3. Negated my Kensington trackball. The Magic Mouse is neither, and so I'm trying the Magic Trackpad. Truth be told, it's fairly awesome. Another truth be told: Lion is basically a way to force iMac users to buy it. Magic indeed...

4. Time Machine is unusable now. The more it backs up, the more it needs to backup. Was I supposed to throw out my old backups and start fresh? And if that's a yes, why doesn't this amazing OS with 8000 features warn me of such?

5. Mission Control? Feels more like W in front of the MIssion Accomplished banner. Can't even deal with this one yet. See you in a bit.

6. Mail's new iOS look was designed by a pinhead. "Lookie! You can read the first lines of your email without opening." Not without young eyes you can't. Reverted to old look.

7. There may be something to be said about grey icons, but what would be better is a 'trick' to turn some or all of them back to color. I recommend a one by one choice, because hey, maybe it would be cool to keep a few buttons in Mail colored and the rest grey.

8. Okay. The one cool thing about Mission Control is that the system preference has been married to Expose and Spaces. Instead of using one to control the other, everything is in the same spot. BRILLIANT. The rest is terrible.

I am completely angry about perfectly good functionality (Bounce message) being removed with no explanation or alternative.

I recommend it 100% As one should every time there is an upgrade, make sure you do a back up. Make sure you have read about Lion and what you need to do BEFORE you download Lion and make sure your system has the minimum requirements for Lion. Apple has been very clear about what programs will and will not work with Lion. I would also suggest going into your individual programs and making sure there isn't an update that is needed to have that program work. For instance, Microsoft sent out an update for Mac Office 2011 which needs to be installed prior to it being able to work correctly in Lion. Read up as much as you can about what you need to do to your computer BEFORE you download Lion. Apple had over 1 million downloads of Lion on day 1, so there are many, many people using Lion.

But if you install Server, don't expect AirDrop to work. At all.

One minute I'm up and next I'm down on Lion. My wallpaper seems to get changed automatically when I restart even though I don't have that option selected in System Preferences. I can't get a Finder window to open but I can see them during the animations of switching between desktops. Lion worked great for two days and you'll LOVE the added and more natural gestures. But there ARE some serious issues that some of us are having AFTER Lion worked great for a period of time - 2 days or 2 months. These issues shouldn't be downplayed simply because the support community is full of problems. They may be easily resolved issues but I am yet to find the answer to my problems. Having said that, again, there are some great things about Lion and if you zig-zag your way into a Lion installation that works great for you, good for you. Some of us did the same - or thought we did until.... That's the biggest problem... I now go to bed dreading what new problem tomorrow will bring like I did when I was using Windows. That's sad for Apple. But I hope for a fix still.

dungroyd wrote:

No problems at all and it's an improvement, except the really cheesy leather look interface for iCal, I am using Busycal instead so I don't have to look at that dreadful design. What were they thinking of. Everything else is very nice.

OMG, I just looked at it. It's horribad. What on Earth were they thinking??? 😮

I agree, only problems show up on the board. But from past experience and being a Mac addict for over 15 years, I can say that it's best to wait for the 3rd or 4th build before upgrading. As a rule, I never early adopt with Mac, especially the new OS as it's too systemically important to the overall function, experience, and fluidity of both the hardware and all the software, Mac or otherwise. Best to give it a few months, then take the plunge. By that time, the major issues are resolved by build 3 or 4.

Lame Question. Do your own research and make your own informed decision.

Lame reply. This is a community. People should questions like this.

Installed on 3 machines here. a 2010 macbook pro. a 2009 mac mini and a 2010 macbook.

No problems whatsoever with the exception of some initial sluggishness while spotlight generated it index and timemachine did it's thing.

I did take the following steps on all three computers.

1. Ran applejack.

2. Ran Lion Cache Cleaner.

3. Installed Lion.

4. Ran software update (apple)

5. Ran update checks on all apps/utilities to check for lion updates.

6. Ran applejack and Lion cach cleaner again. (probably overkill but doesn't hurt).

Note that with the two laptops I found Lion was acting quirky until I restarted them at least once.

48 hours later all 3 machines are running smoothly.

Edit: Oh and I also checked the roar website for Lion application compatibility to ensure all the apps I feel are critical to work were comptabile -- and if not I checked the company websites to make sure they had updates on the way.

Agree iCal looks horrible but there is a way of changing it and Address book.

http://macnix.blogspot.com/2011/07/change-mac-os-x-107-lion-ical-skin-to.html

I agree that I'm not a big fan of the new look for iCal, but I can live with it. I'm certainly not going to accuse Steve Jobs of killing kittens just because I don't particularly like the look of iCal, though.

Peter Stubbs wrote:

Agree iCal looks horrible but there is a way of changing it and Address book.

http://macnix.blogspot.com/2011/07/change-mac-os-x-107-lion-ical-skin-to.html

I just opened Address Book because of your post! I actually kind of like it. But the leather iCal look has got to go! 😝