Mac OS X.7 "Lion" preview

http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

by requinot59 • 16 years ago

107 132 16 years ago

jcw• 16 years ago

It's obvious how much the design of the iPad/iPhone OS has informed this. It's very 'app' centric, which is funny to me because the public's perception of what an 'app' is is pretty weird.

You'd have a hard time describing what a program or an application is to someone, but if you said the word 'app' they'd immediately know what you are talking about, because apps are these little icons that live on their phone.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone looking at Launchpad for the first time would be surprised that their macbook "has apps now", even though they are looking at the same applications that have already been on their mac for months.

'App' is definitely a better term than 'application' or 'program' from a UI perspective if more people can so easily understand it, but I don't understand why or how this happened. They're the same thing! It's strange.

cwbrandsma• 16 years ago

Yes, but how applicable is that when you have 22 inch, dual monitors? For a 15 inch mac book laptop screen it will work tho.

zdw• 16 years ago

You'd be surprised at how many people didn't know there were programs other than Internet Explorer and Word, and maybe in an office, Outlook, Excel and QuickBooks.

Apple has done the job of making independent app developers into (pardon the phrase) rockstars.

dangrover2• 16 years ago

I wrote a post about this a while back: http://dangrover.com/2010/05/29/indie-developers-and-crossin...

  When I speak of the triumph of the app, I don't mean it as a synonym for
  "program." That definition has become archaic.
  
   I'm talking about "the app" as the unit of software in popular perception.
  It is the monad. It is the atom. It is the cell. It is the brick.
  
   Software is abstract. An app is concrete.
  
   Apps obey basic laws. You can install or uninstall their functionality
  completely. Apps are indivisible. Apps do not come with other apps, they
  stand alone. Apps do not touch other apps' data without being allowed.
  
   In short, the term "app" could best be defined, more broadly, as the
  finest, most granular level of control over the computing experience that
  most users can consistently and comfortably exercise.

moultano• 16 years ago

It's amazing how far desktop machines have been from dragging and dropping icons to install/uninstall software. OSX was the closest to this I think, and hopefully they'll get closer? I tend to just assume now that the longer I have a desktop machine, the more miscellaneous bits of old programs will be scattered throughout the system.

padmanabhan01• 16 years ago

//'App' is definitely a better term than 'application' or 'program' from a UI perspective if more people can so easily understand it, but I don't understand why or how this happened. They're the same thing! It's strange

I think it's a change in perspective. A 'program' is how a programmer would describe what he codes. An app, is what it should look like to someone who is interested in just using it.

Since those using "an app" should outnumber those who wrote "the program", it is better if it's called an app. It's like how the term 'bacon' is better suited than 'pig's belly'.

wmf3• 16 years ago

John Scalzi really nailed it a few months back: "So the new hotness is a screen on which icons are used to access the programs they represent? Just like the Macintosh in 1984?" http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/07/23/todays-cane-shaking-on...

I am also reminded of Homer Simpson's "they have the Internet on computers now?"

cletus• 16 years ago

Back in my university days one of my lecturers told me that if you're in the computer industry for long enough you will see the same patterns repeat themselves.

The computer industry started with mainframes and time-slicing. We then moved to personal computers. Recent years have seen the rise of cloud computing, which is analagous to... mainframes and time-slicing.

Web browsers and mobile devices are used in a way very similar to how thin clients and terminals were once used.

Part of it is that technology changes the value proposition of many approaches. We now have more computing power on a desktop PC than most reasonable people will ever need. Microsoft has never recovered from this lack of built-in obsolescence to churn old versions of Windows.

But part of it is that the grass is always greener and people are constantly chasing the next big thing that will make everything better. You see this in programming too. C++ is the ultimate proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Apart from the rise of garbage collection, very few things have made real productivity differences in programming in the last 10-20 years.

Joel Spolsky[1] covered this:

> A lot of us thought in the 1990s that the big battle would be between procedural and object oriented programming, and we thought that object oriented programming would provide a big boost in programmer productivity. I thought that, too. Some people still think that. It turns out we were wrong. Object oriented programming is handy dandy, but it's not really the productivity booster that was promised. The real significant productivity advance we've had in programming has been from languages which manage memory for you automatically. It can be with reference counting or garbage collection; it can be Java, Lisp, Visual Basic (even 1.0), Smalltalk, or any of a number of scripting languages. If your programming language allows you to grab a chunk of memory without thinking about how it's going to be released when you're done with it, you're using a managed-memory language, and you are going to be much more efficient than someone using a language in which you have to explicitly manage memory. Whenever you hear someone bragging about how productive their language is, they're probably getting most of that productivity from the automated memory management, even if they misattribute it.

  [1] : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

philfreo• 16 years ago

I think the perception different between "app" and "application" can mostly be credited to Apple's (successful) marketing.

netcan• 16 years ago

In a lot of ways I think the web has informed this. You could describe this as the desktop fighting back.

Obviously many of the web genes have come via the ipad/iphone.

lukasb• 16 years ago

Exactly. They needed Launchpad because (1) the App Store means that people will have more apps than can comfortably fit on the Dock and (2) average users aren't comfortable finding the Applications folder.

ollysb• 16 years ago

I wonder if they'll start shipping keyboards with a big button at the bottom ;)

ugh2• 16 years ago

I really hope that the Launchpad is the only way to access your applications, i.e. that the old Applications folder is hidden and that the OS, not the user or app developer manages its content.

I just despise that phony two-level way of organizing your applications that is so prevalent on Windows, i.e. their applications folder(s) and the Start Menu.

If the old Applications folder continues to be accessible I really hope that there is, unlike in the Windows Start Menu, a 1:1 mapping, i.e. folders created in the Launchpad are also created in the Applications folder and applications deleted in the Launchpad are also deleted in the Applications folder.

derefr• 16 years ago

I'm having a hard time imagining how this whole thing works with a multi-user Mac. Right now, every user account has one iTunes account associated with it, such that different users own different iOS App Store apps. Does that mean that the Mac App Store will only install apps per-user? It didn't seem to suggest that (they said that the app licenses are "per computer", though they also called them "personal.")

protomyth2• 16 years ago

I would bet it still installs stuff in /Applications and just has a per user preference for showing the arrangement of the apps in launch pad.

ugh2• 16 years ago

Oh, haven’t thought of that. It sounds as though apps are installed for all users, just as before.

I’m not sure whether I’m a fan of keeping both prominent file system access around and adding the Launchpad which would then presumably store all its folders and arrangements in a preference file and not in the filesystem. That’s just so damn inelegant!

What I would like, though, is if they gave developers who don’t want or can distribute their app through the App Store some way to easily hook up with the way the real App Store is doing things, i.e. you download a file, open it and the app is installed. You don’t have to run an installer or drag the App to your folder. That would be nice but I’m not expecting it.

MaysonL2• 16 years ago

Apps will, according to the keynote, be licensed like iOS apps, for all your personal computers.

kellishaver3• 16 years ago

This looks horrible. I don't want my Macbook to be an ipad. If I wanted an iPad, I'd buy an iPad.

(Actually, I do want an iPad, but that still doesn't mean I want anything near a similar UI on my Macbook.)

siglesias• 16 years ago

A little innovation never hurt anybody!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av1JPq0Qmy4

kellishaver3• 16 years ago

I'm all for innovation, and I don't mind change. I just don't particularly think this is a good one.

jsz03• 16 years ago

I think that's part of the reason they've kept all this features separate. From the demo it appears if you don't want to use them you don't have to.

kellishaver3• 16 years ago

I must have overlooked that bit. That's good to know. I'm sure some of the features will be useful in some instances, but I would hate to have them as my only options.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

I expect this is a precursor to touch-screen iMacs and MacBooks.

roadnottaken2• 16 years ago

I don't see how this will ever fly... your arm will get so tired!

bas• 16 years ago

The keynote video is worth watching, especially the part where they explain why they would never want to do this.

protomyth2• 16 years ago

Looking at it, am I wrong in thinking that I should remove all the apps I can from my dock? It seems like launch pad takes over the app selection part and the dock will then have only the running apps.

scott_s2• 16 years ago

I do that anyway. Apple+spacebar is how I open an application that's not already open.

gurraman5• 16 years ago

I've also hidden my dock. I use it to empty the trash and that's pretty much it.

zackattack• 16 years ago

>Apple+spacebar

How?

csomar• 16 years ago

So that's what the edition is all about? Order software icons and you get a new major version of an operating system?

Comparing XP to Windows 7, there are really awesome reasons why I should make the switch. Improved performance, graphics, the pin bar, windows search, easy network management and a plethora of other useless/useful features.

slantyyz• 16 years ago

Yeah, I came out quite underwhelmed too.

I really like Mission Control, but I want to hear about a finder that's finally good (tried the alternatives, didn't like any of them) or resolution independence.

None of these features had the whiz-bang appeal of past innovations like Time Machine, etc.

larrywright• 16 years ago

This is only what they have announced thus far, I'd bet there is more to come.

meese_• 16 years ago

I'd bet the likelihood of Apple finally finishing resolution independence is much higher now, considering how fine the resolutions of the new Macbook Airs are (which, as Jobs said, are probably going to become their most popular computer in the near future).

jsz03• 16 years ago

Comparing XP to Windows 7 is like comparing OSX 10.1 to OSX 10.6

GHFigs• 16 years ago

No, this is characterized as a "sneak peak". The main objective seems to have been to get the Mac App Store rolling. There is plenty of time (and at least one regularly scheduled press event) between now and next summer for Apple to pace the revelations.

There is a precedent for this in Leopard, where a significant UI overhaul and some other features were actually announced and demoed many months after the initial showing.

(Also: it's amusing that you skipped Vista.)

dgreensp• 16 years ago

I wonder how this simple interface -- which looks awesome! -- integrates with the complexity of Mac OS X, both the good (unixy bottom layers) and bad (long start-up time, error-prone interactions between drivers, network services, etc.). In other words, is it an iPad with the start-up time of a Mac, that sometimes pegs my CPU collecting file-system metadata? Or a Mac with less BSD and more iOS? Hopefully neither.

Another question -- is there a "low end" in Apple's world? Are they building an ecosystem that cheap PCs won't be able to participate in? What about old Macs? It would be ironic if my parents had to buy a fancy new 64-bit Mac in order to have a more iPad-like experience when they share photos with me.

sigzero• 16 years ago

I have no idea if I like this or not. I am guessing it will be a "feel" thing when it comes out.

Qz2• 16 years ago

I'm not 100% on board with the direction they're taking this, but at least they're taking it in a direction.

roadnottaken2• 16 years ago

What?

Qz2• 16 years ago

To elaborate -- mainstream computer UIs have been mostly stagnant for years, with small innovations here and there. 10.7 seems like a bold step in a new direction. I dislike the idea that the iPad is some kind of magical UX unicorn that they want to spread all over their devices, but at least it's something new.

potatolicious2• 16 years ago

Five bucks says Apple moves towards touchscreens on even their mainstream laptops/desktops. The Springboard on OSX, and the completely iOS-esque UI on the new iLife suite... it all sets the stage.

astrange2• 16 years ago

Did you read the transcript of the event? Touchscreen laptops were specifically called out as a bad idea in the current form, because your arm gets tired touching a vertical surface.

mtinkerhess• 16 years ago

Apple always disses a feature its competitors have, until they start offering it and suddenly act like they invented it. I'm sure plenty of people would love to have a touch screen on their MacBook.

boltofblue3• 16 years ago

Did you hear that Steve Jobs once say a desktop App Store was a bad idea?

Touch Screen would work fine on an Air, at least.

potatolicious2• 16 years ago

I was thinking more specifically about the iMac - there was a recent patent application with an iMac that had the ability to lower and tilt up to become flatter (think drafting table).

I thought it was just one of those crazy things that companies patent anyway - but with the iOS-ification of OSX this looks to be more and more likely.

I doubt they'd do this with the laptops - that just seems to close the gap too much between the iPad and the MacBook Air, honestly.

jonknee• 16 years ago

What Steve Jobs says and what Steve Jobs does are two separate things. While I don't think touchscreen laptops are coming anytime soon, the fact that Jobs called them out isn't evidence to me that Apple won't make one. There are a long list of things he claims he wasn't interested in that he really was (video on the iPod, making a cell phone, making a tablet, a book store, etc etc).

generalk• 16 years ago

I'm seriously underwhelmed here. There's four new features on that page:

The Mac App Store

Maybe this is a naive point of view, but I can't see the value proposition for third-party devs to have their software in this store. Maybe I'm wrong and it'll be huge.

Launchpad

A touch interface for a screen that isn't touchable. Anyone I know that doesn't use Quicksilver or Spotlight uses an application stack in the dock. Nifty eye-candy feature, but I'm not seeing the usability gains.

Full Screen Apps

Not bad, but there are very few applications I want to run fullscreen at all, and even fewer I want to run fullscreen all the time.

Mission Control

Exposé, except there's a spaces overview at the top. A minor feature bump. Oh, and you can access the dashboard with it.

I understand this is a preview intended to excite people who aren't geeks, but still, it just seems so anticlimactic.

armandososa3• 16 years ago

And the Mac AppStore is not even a Lion's exclusive feature.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

The "full screen apps" thing is a minor enhancement imo. Everything that was interested in full-screen already has it baked in; I never full-screened Firefox and thought "This isn't full-screeny enough; I wish OS X had native support for full-screening so that my fullscreen mode was more full-screeny."

msbarnett• 16 years ago

One thing I like is that the full-screen feature bakes in a better approach to virtual desktops; instead of futzing about selecting an empty desktop and getting the app I want to full-screen onto that desktop and then finally full-screening it, the act of full-screening creates a vitural desktop that I can jump out of at any time.

Subtle by nice.

jsz03• 16 years ago

The interesting thing about this feature is it makes full screen applications first class citizens in a way I'm not sure we've seen before on a desktop OS. I'm thinking you're probably right that for existing applications it's a minor feature but it may drive more applications to offer a full screen mode which is a good thing in my opinion. Being able to quickly switch between full screen apps probably lends this feature to being used as a type of heavy duty widget. If you check Facebook constantly maybe you'd want to always have the Facebook app running a gesture away from your full screen Twitter app.

MaysonL2• 16 years ago

The ability to switch between full screen apps will be quite useful sometimes.

pluies• 16 years ago

> The Mac App Store

I think you're dead wrong on that one. Having a single, official, centralized place where users (and not only some of them, basically all OS X users) can find, rate and buy your product is a blessing for developers, especially smaller shops. I expect we'll see some of the "success stories" that happened on the iP* platform through the AppStore, because it gives considerable exposure to people that would otherwise probably struggle to get it. That part is probably worth the 30% cut — not so much for big brands like Adobe though. If it also provides updates for all software, as the App Store does, it's an awesome feature. I'd say it's basically the equivalent of a Linux repo, with built-in sales.

> Launchpad

I'm not sure about that one either. We'll see.

> Full Screen Apps

I'd tend to agree. Most app I would want to run fullscreen already have the possibility to do so (Aperture, web browsers, and that's basically all I can think of right now).

> Mission Control

Agreed.

fragmede2• 16 years ago

> The Mac App Store

You skipped over an important aspect of the current iPhone app store - updates. A unified update experience for 'all' our apps should be a pretty easy sell. (Not that there aren't already frameworks that do this like Google's Update Engine - http://code.google.com/p/update-engine/ )

captaincrowbar• 16 years ago

Concerning the full screen feature: Notice that the lowest end of the Mac laptop lineup is now 11 inches (only slightly bigger than an iPad!) instead of 13. The smaller your screen gets, the more apps you will want to run full screen.

riobard• 16 years ago

The 11" MBA has a screen solution of 1366x768, wider than the 13" MBP at 1280x800.

philwelch• 16 years ago

At least full screen apps will satisfy Windows users who complain that Macs can't "maximize" a window.

Actually, I think it's a nice productivity boost myself. Of course, the app I most want to fullscreen is Terminal.

albemuth• 16 years ago

is there any reason not to use iTerm?

newtonapple• 16 years ago

You can simply map the menu item "Zoom" under "Window" to your preferred keyboard shortcut. I use Cmd-Enter. It'll even toggle between "fullscreen" and normal screen. It's not true fullscreen, but close enough.

tvon2• 16 years ago

I love the idea of the Mac App store, however I'm not sure some indie devs will like taking a 30% hit. For example, would TextMate want to be here?

Also, it's not like CS5 is going to show up in the Mac App Store.

boltofblue3• 16 years ago

Apple cannot stop Indie devs from releasing apps in the normal fashion.

Unlike with iPhones, where iTunes is the only installation point.

If I was an indie developer, I'd say 30% would be worth the extra exposure.

risotto• 16 years ago

Bump your price up to cover Apple's cut.

And shut down your servers / payment processor / update system, and enjoy your new found time to work on TextMate2 instead of maintaining infrastructure for TextMate 1.

TextMate is a great case study. It'd be very high up on the Top Grossing list, and therefore massively visible to many new eyeballs that are not Ruby on Rails hackers. I'd wager that it'd move a lot of new licenses if it was in the App Store.

didip• 16 years ago

> The Mac App Store

Think of apt-get that also includes commercial software. Convenience is king for consumers. And for software makers, they gain one more distribution channel besides Google.

2arrs2ells• 16 years ago

Am I the only former Performa owner on HN?

Launchpad = Launcher (with a bit of a facelift)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tg.online/apple_cps/applemenu/i...

chc2• 16 years ago

And much like Launcher was a clunky version of a pinned folder, I'm not sure I see the utility of the Launchpad over keeping a folder of all your apps in the Dock.

jasonlotito2• 16 years ago

I'm willing to bet that they went with what was ready to demo, rather than what they have planned. The stuff they've displayed seem fairly simple all things considered. However, I think they have a problem, what with twenty ways of doing things. Expose, Mission Control, the Launch Pad, the Doc, App folder, Spotlight, Spaces.

However...

Mac App Store will be huge. Their is every reason to think this.

Touch interfaces: it's not so much touch as reacting to touch inputs. This is already accomplished in an abstract way with a mouse. Left and right click, moving around, scrolling the mouse wheel. This is a continuation on what's been happening already. Personally, I think this will be really nice for apps. I already use touch features for navigation where I can, and it's frustrating when an app doesn't support it.

arn• 16 years ago

I think this is a very narrow view of it all. At the risk of sounding like someone who has drunk too much of the Apple kool aid, here's the big picture potential of all of this together...

If apple makes this a cohesive environment. Download, Launch apps, and full screen modes, then we are looking at the next step past the window/mouse GUI -- at least for the masses.

iOS and the iPad has been successful in part because of how simple it is to use. Touch metaphors make a lot of sense to non computer people. Not sure if it necessary makes as much sense abstracted to a trackpad interface but certainly one window at a time is much easier for novices to understand.

Think of the mom test where I want to talk my mom through installing an app. It's crazy how hard it can be with freely floating windows and disk images and downloading off the internet. App store and launched interface? I think this could be very big.

Now that said this sort of interface simplification has been tried for years... So we will see if it sticks this time.

elblanco4• 16 years ago

It's not entirely dissimilar to the package management stuff found in lots of Linux distros -- or perhaps even Valve's Steam. Except Apple can wrap a payment system around it and monetize it.

If they provide the same kind of value through it like Steam has for gamers, it'll be big.

boltofblue3• 16 years ago

Lion is a year away. I think we can guess the next iteration of the Air will have touch screens :)

Also, there are probably a hundred other details to Lion they aren't sharing just yet. They are just giving us some glitter to drool over.

loewenskind2• 16 years ago

Touch screens on a laptop or computer are a stupid idea and Steve explained why right in the speech.

They don't need a touch screen they already have a fantastic horizontal touch space on the device: the trackpad. Personally I would look to see trackpads getting more and more functionality.

brudgers• 16 years ago

The Mac App Store is a sort of "minimum viable upgrade." It's the lowest hanging fruit for something worthy of a Mac event (i.e. compare this to Snow Leopard which just started shipping one day).

For me, it's sort of hard to see many iOS apps being particularly a big game changer on a desktop or laptop (so long as Macs continue to ship with Flash). There are simply a lot of existing alternatives for location based services, social networking, etc.

Part of me suspects that it's a response to Phone 7. What I mean is that it extends the "Apple technology stack" from phone to desktop somewhat like Microsoft does - of course the "Apple technology stack" doesn't extend up into enterprise and down into embedded devices so the analogy may be a bit weak depending on the terms one uses.

rimantas• 16 years ago

  I'm seriously underwhelmed here.

I am not. First of all, these four features wouldn't warrant a new version (and one of them comes to 10.6).

What I am excited about is that Apple looks heading to truly "it just works" model for Mac.

I did not see anybody so far in comments mentioning thing that Jobs presented as things they have learned from iOS: instant-on, no explicit save, apps preserving state on closing. I think that's what Lion is going to be, allowing to combine power of full-fledged Macs with the user experience of iP*s.

iloveyouocean• 16 years ago

Launchpad < command + space - type app name

I feel like the Launchpad was obsolete with the advent of Spotlight.

hellweaver666• 16 years ago

You have to remember, different people think in different ways. I'm a search focused user, and use Spotlight extensively, however my wife much prefers to navigate around the operating system in a more visual manner.

51Cards• 16 years ago

Just makes me smile how "Full-screen apps." is a marketing 'feature' in this day and age of supposedly mature OS's.

global_hero• 16 years ago

that's a feature that ms-dos had!

armandososa3• 16 years ago

So they have:

1.A control in the lower left corner on the screen that let's you access your apps.

2.A screen full of shortcuts.

3.A maximize button that works as expected.

It's Windows 95!

-- wait a minute! where's my task bar?

elblanco4• 16 years ago

Except without the crashes...and more transitions between stuff.

I wish they'd let me resize windows from any corner.

borism• 16 years ago

Windows 98 with GPU card

armandososa3• 16 years ago

    I wish they'd let me resize windows from any corner.

Wait for OSX Thundercat

gurraman5• 16 years ago

In every new release I'm still stubbornly hoping for a few new features.

1. A new window management model. Cascaded windows don't do it for me.

2. 256 colors in Terminal.app.

256 colours will never happen. I'm stuck with either urxvt or settling for the SIMBL terminal colours plugin.

A new model for managing windows wouldn't be too far fetched though and I was really holding my thumbs during the talk. I shone up when they started talking about full screen applications but it fell kind of flat. Please Apple, if you're going to force me to work in 8 colours, at-least add a means to tile windows and navigate between them with sensible, configurable keyboard shortcuts! :)

stuaxo• 16 years ago

Wow, if I could only have sloppy focus I would be happy to take the dust off my mac mini.

wtallis• 16 years ago

If command line work is such a large portion of what you do with your mac, why aren't you using X11?

gurraman5• 16 years ago

Because I don't like how X11.app behaves when tabbing in and out of it. And there are a few bugs in the version of X11 supplied by Apple.

I have Arch Linux installed on a VirtualBox instance, but then it's the hassle of moving files between computers.

I'll come up with something that works for me eventually, but right now Terminal.app is the best option.

prashantv• 16 years ago

I've been waiting for 256 colour support for so long. I've given up now though, and configured iTerm2 instead. iTerm2 also lets me use my mouse in vim over ssh, which is a nice bonus.

gurraman5• 16 years ago

iTerm2. Interesting. iTerm(1) was really slow. I'll check the sequel out. Thank you for the tip!

makecheck• 16 years ago

256-color xterms work in MacTelnet (which I wrote). Despite its name, MacTelnet can be used to replace Terminal on Mac OS X.

bobabooey• 16 years ago

Frankly, I'd be _extremely_ happy if they just changed the damned Finder so that I can right-click a folder and create a new folder within it instead of placing it alphabetically so that I have to go find it and drag the new folder into the folder I want it in.

alphabeat• 16 years ago

No ZFS :( This would have made me move.

gbrindisi• 16 years ago

I still have not figured out what is the actual legal situation of ZFS. Who can use it and at what conditions? Also is now Oracle the "owner"? So confused. I'll dig.

chc2• 16 years ago

Whether ZFS was announced at this event has no bearing on whether it's in Lion or not. As you might deduce from the set of features they did cover, this was for the media and public. ZFS is completely uninteresting to them. I guarantee you there will be a ton of back-end changes, but they will never be announced at something like this. We'll see more of that kind of thing at WWDC next year.

But despite all that, dollars to doughnuts ZFS won't be in there. But because of ownership issues, not because it wasn't announced today.

kevinelliott3• 16 years ago

Lion looks lackluster. As an app developer, I'm excited for the Mac App Store (and eventual Apple TV App Store) but the rest of the OS does not seem like a major leap, as they are claiming it to be.

Snow Leopard offered more than this coming from Leopard.

_djo_• 16 years ago

Bear in mind that this is only a very early media preview of OS X Lion and that Apple does not traditionally reveal all the juicy details of its new OS X releases this far in advance.

So there's no doubt more to come. For instance, Jobs hinted at some new features and APIs coming across from iOS to enable things like instant-on, the automatic and implicit saving of files and state-preservation on quit, none of which was described in any detail.

So I highly doubt that what we saw yesterday was the sum total of the innovations and updates that Apple is planning for Lion.

kevinelliott3• 16 years ago

Of course it doesn't, but it didn't really warrant a preview either.

gaius• 16 years ago

The even releases are more about new features for developers, the odd releases are more about rolling those features out to everyone.

kevinelliott3• 16 years ago

Hmm, that's odd, because that's how they billed Snow Leopard.

elblanco4• 16 years ago

Regarding full-screen apps, I'd like to bring this old thread back up http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1721650

elai• 16 years ago

This shows an eventual long term direction of the iOS and OSX desktop/tablet/phone interface and business model merge.

icco• 16 years ago

Is anyone else incredibly amused that they are using the old version of the MacBook Air in their promos?

parka• 16 years ago

The Mac App Store - I guess Dashboard apps will be going away?

Launchpad - I firmly believe technology is to help save time. Launchpad doesn't do that. There's already an app called Quicksilver that will get your app opened, without you having to move the mouse or even swipe

Full-screen apps - Great. But have an option not to go fullscreen as well. Not all apps need 1080p equivalent resolutions to work.

Mission Control - Can't say anything much without using this. But meanwhile the CMD+Tab has been serving me very well.

----------------------------------

Voice recognition/Voice command, that's what I would like to see. The ability to launch apps or menu commands just by saying their name.

rsbrown• 16 years ago

I hope the Mac App Store is not "just like shopping the App Store on iPad", because I've found the organizational approach of the iPad App Store to be very frustrating.

f7u12• 16 years ago

2011, year of the Linux desktop

Mac OS X.7 "Lion" preview

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