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I bailed on Lion

I've been with OSX since the beginning. Each iteration a step forward. This one is not...

- Mission control is a fail - expose was much easier to understand and use

- Launch pad is a fail - much easier to use the application folder in the dock as list (yes, like Windows does)

- UI graphics are sketchy, they're slow and add nothing to the overall experience

- Versions is a step back - it assumes I want to save everything I ever create when in fact, it's the opposite (I like to save the drafts that mean something to me), so now I have to close windows one at a time and discard each window (vs. just closing the app and being asked if I want to discard)

- Safari keeps all these windows open - I often surf with a large number of windows open, closing is the easiest way to rid myself of them... but now Lion thinks it knows how to work better than me, so it just keeps re-opening them - forcing me (not the application) to close each one

- It's not stable ... for the first time ever, I can't believe I'm saying this about my Mac - I don't trust it, when waking from sleep it takes forever, I login and can be logged right back out (no disernable reason); my Wi-Fi connection drops for minutes at a time; mission control can't display things in a consistent manner



At end of day, I reverted back to Snow Leopard. It's the right thing for me to do. They (glitchy) eye candy and "I know better than you what you want to save, open, and display" attitude of Lion is just intrusive. It's a step backward.


And reverting back to Snow Leopard - what a pain. Not sure how others are doing it, but I couldn't install from the Snow Leopard in Lion; I had to backup all files, start up with the Snow Leopard Disk, erase my hard drive, then reinstall Snow Leopard. And I got the pay $29.99 for that experience. Just not what I had in mind when I saw the improvements.


Anyone else step back into Snow Leopard? After a week of Lion, was a pretty easy decision for me.

Posted on Aug 5, 2011 3:19 PM

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769 replies

Aug 5, 2011 3:46 PM in response to Peter Coleman

i am with you 100%. Lion is horrible. I downloaded it, and only after downloading it did i realize that they dropped support for PPC applications, Front Row, murdered my beloved Spaces...all in all this "New and Amazing OS" ....is crap. I have never seen such backward movement in an Apple product. I have only owned Apple computers all my life, since 1984 when the first Apple came into my life. Snow L was a GREAT OS and was the best update by far, I figured they could only improve on it but SOMEHOW they made it worse. I think the biggest problem though is the dropping of support for Rosetta. what a let down and a huge and expensive problem for many people who can no longer use PPC applications that may have cost them thousands of dollars (adobe PS) I even went as far as to write a long letter to them about it. but alas I have come to realize that Apple has become what i have always hated...Microsoft. I have not gone back to SL just because it was a big move for me to Lion. I did a huge clean up of my hard drive, saved only what i needed, completely erased my HD and reinstalled SL, then i installed Lion on a brand new clean HD. I can't even begin to tell you how much i DO NOT want to go through that process again. at least not yet.

Aug 5, 2011 4:41 PM in response to Peter Coleman

I'm the biggest Apple supporter you can find... even my initials are MAC, but Lion is just outrageously bad for me right now. It's so unstable to the point my Finder crashing and me losing photos from a recent photo shoot I did for work. Utter crap!


So with Apple moving forward and changing for the sake of changing, I'm moving back to Snow Leopard, where things were right. It's safe and sound back there. My files will be secure and my workflow won't consist of troubleshooting every day.


Sorry Apple. OS X Lion may just be your version of Windows Vista...

Aug 5, 2011 5:25 PM in response to Marcus Cyganiak

Oh, please it is not anything like Vista and Vista gets too much of a bad rap. The major problem with Vista was OS bloat, it was slow to load, slow to run, even slow to close. On my two machines Lion loads quickly, runs faster than SL, and shuts down quickly.


And I like Mission Control much better than Spaces and Expose.

Launchpad is fine with me but the nice thing for everyone is you can choose to not use it.

I like the new mail.

I even like autorestore but you can also have some control over that. Send Apple feedback and maybe there add more in future iterations.


I've had no stability issues and I'm running older machines. I do have more than the recommended RAM in each machine.

Aug 5, 2011 6:46 PM in response to Marcus Cyganiak

What is important to understand is that these same messages about how awful the latest version of Mac OS X is appear each and every time there's a new upgrade. That is not to minimize your problems, but your experience is not normal. Just as the awful experiences people had with Snow Leopard were not normal, and the awful experiences people had with Leopard were not normal, etc. When you don't understand your problem, it is tempting to blame it on the upgrade you just installed. However, in many cases, it's not the upgrade... it's the process of installing any upgrade, which makes very significant changes, writing thousands of files, and stresses a marginal system past its breaking point.


So, rather than wait for Apple to fix problems that may very likely not be Apple's to fix, start doing some troubleshooting. For help figuring out what to try, start your own thread with details about what problems you're having.


Good luck!

Aug 5, 2011 7:30 PM in response to Peter Coleman

Peter Coleman wrote:


- Mission control is a fail - expose was much easier to understand and use


No. That's wrong.


- Launch pad is a fail - much easier to use the application folder in the dock as list (yes, like Windows does)


Nope. That's wrong too.


- UI graphics are sketchy, they're slow and add nothing to the overall experience


Nope. Wrong again.


- Versions is a step back - it assumes I want to save everything I ever create when in fact, it's the opposite (I like to save the drafts that mean something to me), so now I have to close windows one at a time and discard each window (vs. just closing the app and being asked if I want to discard)

I'm sensing a trend here. Wrong. Versions never kicks in until you save something. Just hold down the option key to "Quit and Discard Windows".


- Safari keeps all these windows open - I often surf with a large number of windows open, closing is the easiest way to rid myself of them... but now Lion thinks it knows how to work better than me, so it just keeps re-opening them - forcing me (not the application) to close each one

Well, that part is true. That is, until you turn that setting off in the preferences.


- It's not stable ... for the first time ever, I can't believe I'm saying this about my Mac - I don't trust it, when waking from sleep it takes forever, I login and can be logged right back out (no disernable reason); my Wi-Fi connection drops for minutes at a time; mission control can't display things in a consistent manner

Obviously you had some kind of misconfiguration. Had you stayed with Lion, people would have helped you identify and fix the problem.


At end of day, I reverted back to Snow Leopard. It's the right thing for me to do.

I won't argue with that. Some people can't handle change.


Pretty much everything you've complained about here is a new feature or just something you don't like. It is perfectly OK not to like something, but that doesn't mean it is "wrong" or "a fail". It just means you didn't like it. If I do like those Lion features, am I wrong to call you wrong for not liking them? I don't like Windows or Linux. But 9 out of 10 computer users say Windows totally rocks. Linux users will smugly call me a "fanboi" and go back to editing their DHCP config files with emacs. Who is wrong there? Anyone who is thinking about Lion can go into an Apple Store or any other computer store and play around with it. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Aug 5, 2011 7:58 PM in response to Peter Coleman

I really hated Lion at first too, went back to SL, then installed Lion on a separate HD and started playing with it, then found I could change most things I didn't like eg iCal and Address Book skins, startup screen, settings for Mail (I much prefer the layout of the original, it just seems so much cleaner and clearer) etc etc.


Only thing the jury is still out on is auto save, but most of the apps I use don't support it so it is not a big issue at present.


So now Lion is my main system. It has not crashed or even hiccupped once. Been very stable, fast and very few bugs. I have a 2008 Mac Pro, so I presume Lion has been well tested on this machine, since the developer community seems to be the main beta testers these days, and this is the type of machine many would still have.


As to Mission Control, I love it, and will use it. I have never bothered with spaces as it just seemed like something that I didn't need, but Mission Control pulls everything together for me, and makes me WANT to use it.


Launch Pad I find easier to flip into than trying to find things in the Apps folder. I have never liked trying to access things in the Apps folder sincee they changed from the old double click to on the folder itself in the dock, as I have lots of Apps, and in Grid view I would have to scroll to find them (didn't find list any easier. I find in LP it is easier to just grab and flip through the window with the mouse. If I had a touch pad it would be a no brainer. Thinking of getting one. What it does need is some was of rearranging icons though, other than manually, but I expect that will come. At present deleted apps just dissappear from the current screen and later ones on the next screen don't flow back to fill their place.


I really love how quick it logs in now, the apps I have set to open at startup log in in half the time.


Over all, I am now very happy with it. There are little things I would like back like the object paths in Spotlight Search, when you hover your curser over a search item. I know now you can press command option to show them, but how are most people going to know that?? The only reason I ever use search is to locate something on my HD.

Aug 5, 2011 8:37 PM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas A Reed wrote:


What is important to understand is that these same messages about how awful the latest version of Mac OS X is appear each and every time there's a new upgrade. That is not to minimize your problems, but your experience is not normal. Just as the awful experiences people had with Snow Leopard were not normal, and the awful experiences people had with Leopard were not normal, etc. When you don't understand your problem, it is tempting to blame it on the upgrade you just installed. However, in many cases, it's not the upgrade... it's the process of installing any upgrade, which makes very significant changes, writing thousands of files, and stresses a marginal system past its breaking point.


So, rather than wait for Apple to fix problems that may very likely not be Apple's to fix, start doing some troubleshooting. For help figuring out what to try, start your own thread with details about what problems you're having.


Good luck!

I agree with the fact each upgrade does pose problems. However, I'll stand by the fact this upgrade doesn't make my Mac more intuitive. It seems to assume the worst in us - e.g. we don't know how to save documents, we want our windows to maintain where we were, etc. Additionally, the hiccups in each upgrade I've done have been there, as well as the learning curve. What's different here: I'm actually seeing poorer performance overall, as well as, a wide scale instability in the O/S. Have never had that in any other iteration of OSX. And that's just a shame, because trust me: I was as excited as everyone else for Lion. I didn't pay $29.99 + Tax to be disappointed, I actually simply wanted some cool and fun improvements - not instability.

Aug 5, 2011 9:11 PM in response to Peter Coleman

MacBook Pro 13" late 2010. Was delighted with Snow Leopard -- fast, trouble-free. Lion gives me about 2/3 the battery life and the hottest lap since my Toshiba. The machine is slow to start up and for the first time since I've owned a Mac, it siezes up and I have to hard-shutdown with the power button. Huh?


The iOS-type swiping features are kind of cool but unnecessary. I had just discovered Front Row and was getting to like it about a week before I downloaded Lion. Oh well. Is there any other way to access that cool movie trailer feature?


I came onto this post hoping to learn how to uninstall Lion and revert to Snow Leopard. I would go back to Snow Leopard and just forget the thirty bucks if it was at all easy to do. After reading what an ordeal it is, I see that is not for me. I feel stuck, a bit lost, and yanked around by Apple. The Vista analogy is entirely appropriate. Does anyone think Apple cares?


Note: I use Outlook for e-mail, and that's the application where the Mac usually siezes up. I truly believe Apple wants you to use its Mail application, not Outlook. I wonder if the Office for Mac insurgent team in Cupertino have noticed it yet, and more imprtant, if they have any pull at all behind enemy lines.

Aug 6, 2011 2:33 AM in response to Peter Coleman

I have three Macs, all with Lion on at this point.

They are early 2009 iMac, 2010 MacMini,

2011 13"MBP i7.


If I had only owned one of these computers this is what

I would be saying now:


My iMac:

"Yawwwwwnnnnnnn! This is really an underwhelming update."


My MBP:

"This is the greatest thing since sliced bread!!!!!"


My MacMini:

"@$$##*)^)%$*#!!!!!!!! This is an unmittigated disaster.

Worst possible OSX ever made. Cannot get display to

come on without jumping through hoops. When it does

work and I watch a movie that has a Dolby or DTS track,

stereo and even systems sounds go away unless I reboot.

Now all my iTunes purchased HD movies have been rendered

totally unwatchable because they stall every few minutes

for seconds at a time. None of this happened on Snow Leopard!!!!"

Aug 6, 2011 4:34 AM in response to Peter Coleman

What's different here: I'm actually seeing poorer performance overall, as well as, a wide scale instability in the O/S.


And, as I said, that is not normal. Try some troubleshooting, as I suggested. If you're not interested in doing any troubleshooting when problems arise, either pay someone else to do it for you or stop using computers and go back to pencil and paper.


As to all the features you don't like, those were well-publicized beforehand. If you didn't want them, why did you upgrade?

I bailed on Lion

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