Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?

It's always a good idea—for early adopters most especially—to do a little preparation before installing an entirely new version of OS X. The fact that Lion doesn't support legacy apps has been all over the internet for months. That said, one solution for those who need to keep running PowerPC apps would be to create a separate Lion partition on your startup drive. That way, Lion is no longer an all or nothing proposition. You can start up in Lion to begin exploring and getting used to the new operating system while still having easy access to your older apps when you want to get some work done.

I can't resist pointing out that Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop Elements 4 are both really old applications. It is not realistic to assume that a brand new, cutting-edge operating system is going to support software that is six years old. That's an eternity in computer time.

Different strokes for different folks. My only concern is that heavy users might build up tension in the back of the hand the way users of laptop trackpads sometimes do. I much prefer using a mouse with my laptop when I'm doing serious work. But I love my iPhone, so I'm looking forward to giving the Magic Trackpad a try.

That depends. If you like Snow Leopard, you might want to look into Lion before buying.

They changed a lot of stuff. New Gestures are hard to use and adjust to, Mission Control is sorta really worthless and the changes to Expose make it even more useless.

They really made the push to make it more like iOS. I feel rather ripped off because of it.

I was going to upgrade, but found out that Pro Tools 9 doesn't work. I need it for my school and future career... So I probably won't upgrade as I don't want to mass up anything.

So you'd rather pay 30 bucks for a new version of OS X that's just like the old verson? 😁

yes putnik I think you are spot on. there is sure to be a 10.7.1 shortly, and all the craziness on this forum may stop...maybe.

Thank you for the link to check for PowerPC apps. That was really helpful.

LIKES:

New Andromeda wallpaper — cool!

Full screen apps — was sceptical at first, but yes, they're good news.

Airdrop — theoretically, when I upgrade to a new machine and pass this one down to the wife and kids, it'll be useful. Right now they're on 10.3.9 and transferring anything through com-2-com wifi is slow and drops regularly. Bluetooth is slow but usable (if I can remember where the Bt USB dongel is for the old mac...)

Parallels — after initial problems getting it up running, Win 7 seems to run faster than it did under SL. It could be just a trick of the light, further testing will be proof of the pudding, but so far, seems better.

Dictionary - like the new display.

DISLIKES:

I've no idea what the other 240 some-thing 😕 other "improvements" are, but frankly...

Mission Control - waste of time for power users; the old 4-finger swipe app switcher was far more efficient.

LauchPad - Oh, please. I know its a sop to attract new iPad-but-not-yet-Mac users, but for old Mac hands, a waste of time. I also doubt it'll bring in that much in the way of a new customer base until they make iPad apps run on Lion. Then you'll see something...

Mail - I was really looking forward to this after watching the Keynote, but in practice it's visually confusing and nowhere near as clean, neat and efficient as the old display.

Finder - hate the new left-panel display. Not as clear as the old one.

Front Page - has been binned. I only recently bought an Apple Remote. What can I use it for now?

App Store - this rankled right from 10.6.6: the cheek of putting an Apple sales rep' right on your desktop and claiming its a "user benefit". 😠

Safari - very buggy so far. Keeps dropping my wifi connection, stalling, cutting and pasting seems to spin the beach ball for no reason, freezing pages that are sort of out-of-focus...will almost certainly end up going back to Firefox (I always do after about 3 days of every new Safari release anyway...).

Airport - why rename it 'wi-fi'...petty but annoying, I know!

Overall, it seems to me that Apple has sacrificed its current user base to attract a new one with lots of gimmicks. Does it make the machine better, more powerful, more intuitive to use? I don't think so.

Regarding the comments above that point out there is an 'adjustment' period, I say 'fair play', but it's worth noting that when I upgraded to Tiger and later Leopard and Snow Leopard, I was instantly wowed and wondered how I'd ever managed before. Not so this time, I'm afraid.

In any case, I'm stuck with Lion — I'm not interested in 'retro', this is the way Mac OS is going. Hopefully it'll get less annoying and they'll iron out the poorer parts in the updates. It does seem to me that I'll be keeping an eye on Linux and other possible competitors for the future though, and that my oft-spoken 'I use Mac because it just works' parrotting may trip off the tongue a little less readily from now on.

Would I recommend Lion? Yes, if you intend on continuing to use a Mac for anything longer than the life of your current machine. Do I like it? Not so much. Not yet anways...

Some very strong words. I am amazed at what you said about Safari, that it is buggy. I have not encountered any problems with it in OS X Lion, in actual fact, it has been better. I am using an 11 inch 128GB SSD MacBook Air, and it has been working absolutely flawlessly. I do think Launchpad isn't great, and is a little bit far-fetched for Mac Users. I find that I haven't actually used it much, my dock suits me fine. Also Mission Control I have no problem with, excpet that of the new "desktops." Too gimicky. Also I find Mail quite good with Conversations and the abiltiy to always have a full-size email open. Overall, I have not had any glitches or bugs profoundly visible in OS X Lion. It has slowed down the startup time of the MacBook Airs though 😟

Overall, for me, Lion has been a sucess.

Alexander

Softwater, I'm curious about why someone whose home computers are still running 10.3.9 (which is truly ancient) decided to install a brand new, radically different version of OS X on the very first day of its release? Why the rush?

I called Apple and rolled back to Snow Leopard 10.6

VMWare fusion wont work, Fotomagico wont work, iSilo wont work, Epson printer software wont work.......I wasn't interested in finding out what else wouldn't work on my MacBook Pro. Wish I had some way to recap my $29.99 i wasted.

I was used to use "Today" in Finder. I come half way with Finder cmd > F but not what i was used in Snow Leopard. Very silly that Apple changes habits in Mac using so often. A download is almost unfindable !! because updates for non-Apple software are obviously necessary ! For example Logitec has an update for their products ready for X Lion. Does Apple read this .. ?

Yes, love Lion! It's fast, reliable very convenient. One of the best first OS (.0) I have ever seen!

I have been using it for one day on my 27 inch iMac and my 17 inch MPB.

I am not amused.

So many things changed, broken or missing.

Finder sorting is simply broken. Command control 1 and you can't change your sort direction. ARGH!

There is no need to be on the bleeding edge. None at all.

OH, and it completely broke my xCode app too.

Message was edited by: Alex Zavatone

Message was edited by: Alex Zavatone

I hope you give it a bit more time to get used to the "new way".

I know, for example, you can easily go back to the old ways in scrolling, mail layout, unhiding the library (if you must) etc; to eliminate a few of the things you find annoying. But persevere and they will become familiar.

Safari I find stable enough but there is room for improvement to refresh rates. The Block Cookies feature and Private viewing mode do not appear to work, the history is still available. So together with the Resume function, there are definite security/privacy issues. I hope these get fixed quickly.

I found my Firewall is OFF after the installation. This may be because of the Migration Assistant needing it off? If this applies to everybody, there should be some publicity about turning it on again.