Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - the death knell of the Mac as we know it

http://www.viewshound.com/technology/2011/6/mac-os-x-107-lion-the-death-knell-of-the-mac-as-we?utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=post&utm_source=HackerNews

by ianhowlett • 15 years ago

5 6 15 years ago

viewshound.com

msz2• 15 years ago

"I predict that Mac OS X 10.8 or 11 – whichever number they choose – will also remove this, and all Apple devices will only ship with touch screens." - this does not make sense.

There was a quite recent keynote where Steve said this precise solution is impossible for usability reasons, and won't be implemented. You can't comfortably operate a vertically aligned touchscreen. That's why they went with huge trackpads.

olsonjeffery• 15 years ago

> Steve said this precise solution is impossible for usability reasons, and won't be implemented.

Just like third-party native apps, "multitasking", notifications, "the large screen iphone form-factor", etc, etc ad nauseum. Experience tells us: when Jobs says "we won't be doing that," it often means: "we're actively researching a way to do exactly that."

Additionally, there's a lot of momentum headed in this direction, already: recent Windows 8 demos show a heavily touch-influenced design (almost to the point of perhaps implying that touchscreens will be required, but who knows.. microsoft tends to scale back their ambitions when it comes to actual releases). Also, GNOME 3's UX centerpiece (gnome-shell) is, while not-at-all there yet, heavily built around the design concept of integrating touchscreen capabilities into the core workflow. Ditto for Ubuntu's Unity, which has already integrated gestures on touchscreen capable interfaces/trackpads (something they've been chasing down since, oh, 10.04).

With the above in mind, the tl;dr from this article (OSX goes mandatory touchscreen at some point in the future) is not that crazy to imagine.

msz2• 15 years ago

Optional touch-based interface is possible. A mandatory and exclusive one - highly unlikely.

And if we're to bring about the Experience, it also tells us that Apple doesn't really care about any surrounding momentum. They set the trends.

tobylane• 15 years ago

You can't go one step without falling down the slope? When was there ever a slippery slope? Sufficient research and consumner use of touch screens came up with some interesting features also controllable by a mouse (which optionally can be a touchpad/trackpad), so we were all allowed to benefit.

We went into space. Why didn't we move off the planet? But we did get Velcro.

ianhowlett• 15 years ago

I moved from Windows to Mac about 3 years ago and I still miss an easy way to maximise a window to full screen. I prefer to see only one thing at a time, I find it much less distracting. Full screen mode, if done right, would be great for me. At least the choice of full screen or how it is now would be good.

hkuo• 15 years ago

I use an app called Divvy. I don't think I could ever go back to life without it.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - the death knell of the Mac as we know it

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