Two Weeks With Lion
Lion reviews and impressions abound online. Having used it for two weeks, here are my thoughts:
Likes:
- It feels faster than Snow Leopard.
- The square, recessed UI buttons
- The new System Profiler
- being able to put a screen-sharing window on a separate Space
- the new version of Safari (it’s blazing fast.)
- when logging into a secure wi-fi network, Lion immediately pulls up an authentication page – unlike the kludgy method I was accustomed to in Snow Leopard.
- Lion feels stable. No crashes or general weirdness to report.
- Auto-Save and Versioning.
- Lion’s built-in recovery disk install. About time, IMHO.
- An improved Mail.app – finally a 3-paned interface, with nice conversation tracking features!
- Having a button to access Preview from QuickLook (super handy!)
Speed Bumps:
- I had to upgrade my copy of Easy Grade Pro. The version I was using previously was a Rosetta-based app. I wasn’t happy about having to shell out for the new version, but it’s one of my most frequently used apps.
- Weird Sketchbook Pro lags in Lion – which have since been fixed with the latest patch
- Natural scrolling. I gave it a few days and, believe it or not, now I actually prefer it over what I had been used to for so many years.
Dislikes:
- The lack of proper multi-monitor support in Mission Control. (I prefer the old method of Spaces and Expose.)
- Dashboard. Why is it still here?
- Launchpad. Absolutely useless eyecandy for Power Users.
- Gesture navigation (inconsistent at best, confusing at worst.)
Bottom line. The “new” features in Lion are questionable at best and a regression from Snow Leopard at worst. I’d give it 3 out of 5 Bob Weiners. If you’ve recently upgraded to Lion, what’s your experience like, two weeks in?
-Krishna
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
qka
August 9, 2011 at 8:57 pmI haven’t upgraded to Lion, but I’m a big fan of Dashboard as it exists in Snow Leopard and earlier.
Kevin Rubin
August 9, 2011 at 9:30 pmI agree with you on the natural scrolling. The weekend before last I decided to try it out all weekend, instead of just a few minutes. I like it now that I’ve been using it. I flick my finger on the Magic Mouse in the direction I want my content to go.
Unfortunately, at work I use Windows 7… I was totally confused the last two weeks between work and home… I found a utility that’ll do it in Windows 7, but the scrolling isn’t as smooth in any application (the normal direction scrolling wasn’t either) so instead of seeing text move in the direction, it just jumps a few lines to the new position. But since it’s the opposite of normal, there’s little visual feedback to show which way it went..
The autosaving is wicked cool…
Krishna
August 11, 2011 at 2:03 pmI’ve found auto-saving and Versions to be super valuable – I feel like these two features make the upgrade to Lion completely worth it.