OS X Lion: Macs' beginner-friendly days are over

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/90832-os-x-lion-macs-are-no-longer-beginner-friendly

by primatage • 15 years ago

23 47 15 years ago

glhaynes• 15 years ago

New users and non-techies aren’t the only groups negatively affected by Lion’s changes, either. Seasoned Apple users have spent the last two days filling the internet with blog posts and Twitter updates noting their frustrations. Whether it’s the gestures, scrolling, full-screen apps, Mission Control, Versions, or Resume — people are having more than their fair share of trouble adjusting.

Every release of anything is followed by weeks of people complaining about anything that's changed, whether it's changed for better or worse. From my perspective at least, the Lion-likers appear to outnumber the Lion-dislikers by a wide spread.

Caballera2• 15 years ago

I agree, it was the same after Snow Leopard. It was the same with Windows 7, although maybe less so since Vista was sooo horrible and a lot of people were happy for the change.

DrJokepu• 15 years ago

Ironically, most complaints about Vista also fell in the "people complaining about change" category. There were a few annoying things about Vista (UAC was a bit more annoying than it should've been) but it wasn't that bad.

cmelbye2• 15 years ago

I'm not sure how he came to the conclusion that Lion isn't beginner-friendly anymore. The only reason it took him 20 minutes to get acclimated is because he's most likely been using advanced features of OS X (that were slightly changed in Lion) for years and it took him a little while to rewrite his muscle memory.

I installed Lion on both of my parent's computers a few weeks ago. The only things they noticed that was changed was the vastly improved Mail UI, which they both picked up almost instantly, and the scrolling.

I simply warned them that scrolling had been reversed, they noted that "it finally makes sense because the stuff that's moving goes in the right direction now," and they continued using the computer normally.

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

First, I haven't used Lion yet. But from listening to Engadget it sounds as if they have made some rather confusing changes.

For example, they point out that application-wide gestures are two finger and system-wide gestures are three finger. This strongly assumes that people know the difference. Based on convos I've had people don't. "Which version of Office are you using?" "XP". "Office XP?" "Umm, Windows XP?". "OK, that's the version of Windows. What is the version of Office?" "The whole computer is XP". They were using Office 2003.

astral3036• 15 years ago

However, that's a difference that can be picked up experimentally and can start making sense: "two fingers keep me in the browser, three fingers throw me out of the browser and go somewhere else." You don't get punished by using the wrong gesture (unless it's a web page in Safari that doesn't support back and forward movement): if you use three fingers in one direction, three fingers in the other direction will get you back.

Your contrast of versions of Windows and Office is an apples and oranges comparison. People don't know that difference because it doesn't matter and there is no reason to even discover that difference.

orofino• 15 years ago

This assumes the users have somehow discovered the gestures. Based on you're own example, I'd say that they won't. You can use the OS just fine without ever bumping into a gesture.

cmelbye2• 15 years ago

Luckily Apple has included a nicely organized touchpad settings page with videos of all of the gestures (just like Snow Leopard had). If someone wants to learn the gestures and finds that they aren't simply intuitive (which I personally believe they are), they can simply watch the videos and see how to do them.

stevenp• 15 years ago

I couldn't disagree more. I just gave my father (who has an iPhone) his first Mac and he had no idea where to find applications until I showed him the Launchpad. It's a feature I would never use, but it's accessible with a single button press or click and looks and feels just like the familiar iOS interface.

Apple is doing something smart here. My guess is that more people have iPhones than Macs and they're betting that switchers will understand these new features and turn into across-the-board Apple fans.

Udo• 15 years ago

Exactly. I also don't agree with the author's assertion that advanced features are now no longer optional. Mom&Dad-style users are still not forced to use Mission Control just as they weren't forced to use Expose on Snow Leopard. Applications more or less behave the same way, except for saving stuff which incidentally is the one area were unsophisticated users tended to screw up immensely.

I'd argue the opposite, that it's actually advanced users who are getting handed the fuzzy end of the lollipop here. The egregious autocorrection feature, pointless fullscreen function on multiscreen setups, disempowering and potentially wasteful versioning behavior - these are things that geeks like us don't particularly like. Even with these valid nerd rage issues though I'm quite happy with Lion...

ThomPete• 15 years ago

Wait a minute....

You cannot take the opinion from regular users of a system and apply it to new users of a system.

New users will simply adjust unless something is completely off.

So nice headline but it has no actual argument to back it up.

davidedicillo• 15 years ago

It's obvious that writing another good review about Lion wouldn't have generated enough page views.

Caballera2• 15 years ago

Yeah really, I stopped reading "adapting to “natural scrolling” is difficult due to years of muscle memory." I'm sorry but I've had no problems using 'natural scrolling', doesn't it take a few days to get use to yes, but it's possible to get use to it. If for whatever reason you cannot get use to it, you can always change your settings to the 'old' scrolling style.

If anything, I'm disappointed that Lion wasn't even more of a change, but I guess for me it would have been change for the sake of change, as Lion, just like Snow Leopard works great for me.

Additionally, others I personal know that have switched to Lion, no one has any problems with it and everyone likes it. Granted we're all a bunch of geeks working Tech Support and use Windows as well.

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

I've tried, but I just can't get used to Lion's "natural" scrolling. I think a better transition would be to leave mouse scrolling alone, but reverse the scrolling direction for MacBook trackpads and the "Magic Trackpad" device.

alanfalcon• 15 years ago

I'm just curious, are you using Apple's Magic Mouse, or a mouse with a traditional scroll wheel?

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

Traditional scroll wheel. I love the Magic Mouse, but its flaky right click is a deal breaker..

Derbasti3• 15 years ago

I agree, but that is why it is configurable. Actually, I guess I could get used to it--but that would make switching OSes so much more painful it is just not worth the effort.

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

btw, you can test drive Lion's new scrolling behavior on Leopard and Snow Leopard with the free app "Scroll Reverser":

http://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

astral3036• 15 years ago

They switched from Windows XP earlier this year, and it’s taken them this long to learn how to _quit_ an app, as opposed to simply closing its windows.

That's exactly why Lion is more beginner friendly. They don't need to know how to quit an app anymore. Why would you ever care to quit an app? That's a legacy concept that's so ingrained in the author's memory that he can't comprehend not knowing it. Think, instead, of all the time his parents wasted trying to understand this quitting apps thing.

My girlfriend was using my iPhone and kept asking me "how do I quit the browser now." She was used to a PocketPC/WM phone, where if you don't manage your open apps, your phone crawls. I had to keep saying: "don't worry about it, just lock the phone. There is no closing."

10 years from now we will look back on quitting apps and saving files as relics of the ancient times, like floppy disks and parallel ports.

bjtitus2• 15 years ago

Why are you talking about not having to quit apps? Lion still has the concept of quitting apps versus closing windows. Are you just talking about iOS or am I missing something?

I actually think the handling of background apps running state handling would be one of the best things to port from iOS to Mac. There are obvious large hurdles, though.

--EDIT-- I guess you're talking about resume but the issue is having apps still running after all windows are closed. I see people who leave all office applications open just because they were working on a document, spreadsheet, and slideshow in the last week. Apple needs to encourage more developers to focus on quick launch times and quitting applications like the App Store does when windows are closed.

astral3036• 15 years ago

Lion still has the concept (as does iOS), except it's rendered effectively useless by the new Automatic Termination feature and the correspoding quick state restore, which is very close to what iOS does. Also, Lion hides the 'open app' indicator by default for new installs, so beginner users have even fewer hints at the concept of quitting an app.

kyleslattery• 15 years ago

Lion actually adds some APIs so developers can make their apps work like iOS apps. If the developer allows, the OS can kill their app at any time when it's in the background. More info here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.a...

schrototo2• 15 years ago

There are new APIs in Lion that enable the system to automatically quit applications if they're not needed at the moment. Pretty much like iOS.

flamingbuffalo• 15 years ago

according to the siracusa review, lion works more like iOS, in that the OS can reclaim resources from 'open' apps, and sometimes leaves processes open for a short time after they are closed. I think this is what was meant about not quitting apps, the concept is still there, but not really needed like it was previously.

gmac• 15 years ago

Pure BS. Pretty much everything here is either a non-issue, or something that actually undermines the argument.

For example, "it's taken them [my parents] this long to learn how to quit an app, as opposed to simply closing its windows". Well, my parents have been on Mac a few years now, and they still haven't learned it. Now they don't have to. Great!

Plus there are other changes that will help beginners. Both my parents have been flummoxed after accidentally clicking the top-right lozenge in an app window: "where did all the buttons go?!". That lozenge is history. Great!

Etc.

Derbasti3• 15 years ago

Plus, Lion makes quitting apps virtually meaningless.

Derbasti3• 15 years ago

Funny, I feel exactly the opposite way. New users won't care one bit about the scrolling direction. They won't care about mostly-invisible scrollbars and they probably won't even discover multitouch gestures.

They will however find the App Store, they will see the Mission Control Dock icon and they will recognize the window resizing controls. They will also find use for the ubiquitous autocorrect and full screen apps.

All things told, Lion is a departure from Microsoft Windows paradigms, and thus will give switchers a somewhat harder time. But in general, I think it is a lot cleaner and more discoverable than its predecessors.

schleyfox• 15 years ago

"The old way, the Snow Leopard way, was that advanced features were purely optional. If you wanted multiple desktops, you activated Spaces. If you wanted to put the UI to work for multi-tasking, you used Expose. It was great for people who wanted more from their Macs, and it worked out perfectly for newer users who needed to ease into it all"

I think this was the point. Much of the effort in Lion seems to be around exposing useful, but esoteric features, that were present in previous versions. My perspective is that Apple wants everyone to be able to get more from their Macs, not just the elite power user set. Mission Control and full screen apps really make the case for virtual desktops. Spaces were basically lifted whole from Linux desktops, but they now actually feel well integrated into the Mac experience.

Just because someone is not an advanced user, it doesn't mean that they should not get advanced features.

schrototo2• 15 years ago

> and it’s taken them this long to learn how to quit an app, as opposed to simply closing its windows.

Well that's the whole point: they shouldn't need to know the difference. The system should take care of that and beginning with Lion it will.

> As another example, let’s say someone who’s never used Expose or Spaces accidentally activates Lion’s new full-screen feature in Safari. Apps that go full-screen create a new Space to live in, and, obviously, they fill the entire screen. I don’t know about your parents, but the phrase “how do I get out of this” rings in my head just thinking about it. So does the needlessly lengthy phone call that would follow.

So you tell them "swipe left or right with three fingers" and then they'll know. Software doesn't need to be immediately and completely obvious to everyone in every situation. What's important is that basic concepts are universally applicable once they're learned.

And keep in mind that discoverability does not mean every possible action needs to be visible at first sight. Swiping should become immediately clear once you fool around with the trackpad; the feedback is obvious, immediate and pleasant.

> Use another app, and the same gesture could mean something completely different.

I don't think the slight differences in the minutiae of swiping gestures (one finger, two fingers, three fingers,...) is that big of a deal. There is (or should be!) immediate feedback and the actions are always (or should always be!) nondestructive. It should not take long for anyone to figure things out.

Granted, there is always the problem of especially older people being less... "playful" in how they approach new technology. Most often that stems from a fear of breaking things. Which is exactly why it's so great that we're finally on the right track with the latest trends towards "care-free" computing environments: autosave, unlimited undo, auto resume, automatic backup and synchronization etc.

astral3036• 15 years ago

Computers are cruel beings. You do one little thing wrong and all your work is gone. After being punished so much, it's no wonder older people are less playful (or many people who we call 'non-tech-savvy' or 'computer illiterate'): they don't want to get burned again.

Imagine you're working on a painting, and you have a cup of hot coffee sitting right next to it. You know that it's dangerous to keep that cup of coffee there and that a wrong flick of the wrist can ruin your work. So you get up and move that cup of coffee far away.

Compare this to computers: there are all sorts of cups of coffee right within your "clumsiness distance," except these cups are hard to see at first. So if you accidentally ruin your work with a spill, the geeks will come yelling: "you should not have hit that cup off coffee!" "You should've known it was there!"

Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Well, this describes years and years and years of web mail systems where you could accidentally close your window mid-e-mail and lose your work. GMail was the first e-mail provider to offer autosave as late as 2005, and, while I have no hard data to confirm, it was at least several years until Yahoo or Hotmail had that (and my paid e-mail provider Fastmail didn't have it until '09 or something like that).

Tichy2• 15 years ago

"So you tell them "swipe left or right with three fingers" and then they'll know"

I hope this is not the only way to get out of full screen mode? I think it would have been the last thing I tried. And there are a lot of things you can try - "three finger swipe" is completely arbitrary, after all.

I've been using a Mac for two years now, but I never learned any gestures and I would be screwed if they became mandatory. I guess I am still stuck in the "basic Windows switcher mode".

ugh3• 15 years ago

You can press ESC (which, I think, is universally the standard command for exiting full screen mode), you can mouse up to the menu bar and click the full screen button or you can use the shortcut that gets you into full screen mode to exit it again.

I wouldn’t bother with gestures. I would tell my parents to press ESC. They know that button and they should already be aware that it is often used to exit full screen modes.

wynand• 15 years ago

New Mac user here (I've had mine for less than 12 hours now). Caveats upfront: I'm a long-time Ubuntu user and I'm a programmer, so I'm not exactly a parental-class user.

The most confusing thing for me was to get my Mac onto our university WPA2 enterprise network. It is actually impossible to configure Mac OS 10.7 for this (at least via a GUI). After an hour, I realized I could use the .mobileconfig file for the iPad/iPhone (on our network) to set up a profile for my Mac and then things went smoothly. This was annoying to be sure and I'm not sure what benefit derives from this removed functionality (since 10.6 can do this).

But other than that, I've had a blast of a day. Everything else has been fairly discoverable and I figured out the gestures very quickly. In contrast to some of the complaints, I like the reversed scrolling and I like the way that Mission Control works.

I'm certain that if I were to give this machine to my parents, they would be fine. Perhaps I would disable Mission Control but otherwise I cannot foresee stumbling blocks.

2nd_planet• 15 years ago

I think Lion is beginner friendly, but I think they are going in the entirely wrong direction with the "iOS inspiration" thing. But it doesn't matter for me—I live in the world of the command-line and keyboard shortcuts.

shinratdr• 15 years ago

Alternate headline:

OS X Lion: There is still plenty of BS click-bait to be mined from this topic.

ugh3• 15 years ago

Lion doesn’t have any forced complexity. I just installed Lion on my parents iMac and they didn’t even notice (except for the new Mail app which they have no problem with).

You don’t ever need to use Mission Control, you don’t ever need to use full screen mode, you don’t ever need to use Launchpad.

(I reversed the scrolling direction and set it up to always display scrollbars. That’s it.)

pnathan2• 15 years ago

So you can keep the old scrolling direction from SL?

:-)

ugh3• 15 years ago

I use reversed scrolling and also hide the scrollbars. I just think my parents aren’t ready for that. I’m not using their iMac and I’m hundreds of miles away from it for most of the time.

jam• 15 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with the author, but Apple doesn't really need to make easy-to-use desktop operating systems any more. That's what the iPad is for.

OS X Lion: Macs' beginner-friendly days are over

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