Davbeck

Mac OS Lion is scheduled to release this July and so I thought I might share some of my thoughts about the next operating system by Apple. I haven’t had the chance to use the beta yet, so this is coming from screenshots, videos, programming documents and a general sense of Apple’s style.

What is it?

Mac OS X Lion, or simply Lion, is the next version of the operating system for Macs. The current version is Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but don’t expect Apple to refer to Lion as 10.7; right as Microsoft has decided to go to numbering for OS names, Apple has decided to leave it behind. Apple releases a new version of OS X about every 2 years.

What will it cost?

Traditionally, OS X has cost $129. With Snow Leopard, they dropped that down to an incredible $29 (Windows consistently sells for $200). At the time, this was because Snow Leopard was a somewhat minor performance update to Leopard (I see what they did there). However, Apple has announced that they will keep the $29 price tag for Lion.

Snow Leopard also had a family pack for $50 that let you install on up to 5 computers. That won’t be happening for Lion, mostly because of the following.

How do I get it?

When Lion is released, it will only be available by downloading from the Mac App Store, emphasis on the only. You will not be able to buy a DVD. You will not be able to buy a box. You will have to download it. Even volume license customers will have to download it, although they are given the option to copy it to disc so they only have to download it once. That leaves a lot of questions to be answered, I know. I don’t have those answers, but I bet Apple knows exactly what they are doing.

Will I buy it when it comes out? Should I?

Personally, I will buy it the day it comes out. I do not recommend you do the same. The reason is that every release of OS X has been followed 2 weeks later by a maintenance release to fix a bunch of bugs. Also, waiting a few weeks will let you know if your software will be compatible or not. When Snow Leopard released, there was a pretty good size list of software that was not compatible, some of which you eventually ended up paying for an update that was. This isn’t nearly as big of an issue on Mac as Windows, but if you wait a few weeks, the smart people at the genius store will know exactly how to fix your problem because they will have seen it a few times.

That being said, you should upgrade within 2 months. Let me repeat that, you should upgrade very soon after Lion is released. It’s $30 and has some cool new features, but more importantly, it won’t be long before software becomes Lion only. There are a lot of very interesting new features for developers in Lion, and they are only going to wait so long. Upgrade. Upgrade. Upgrade.

What are some of these neat features you keep talking about?

Lion is one of the biggest updates to the OS yet. There are some long awaited UI improvements, better security features, but mostly it is a merger of features from iOS.

Spaces was first introduced in Leopard. They are a very nice feature if you have never used them (see system preferences) but they had some funky behavior sometimes, especially with some, let’s say special, software. Also, full screen has played with on the mac, but never really taken advantage of or easy. Both have been revitalized. Moving fullscreen in apps give them their own space and you can move between spaces with a swipe on a trackpad.

Another big feature is autosave. This requires some work on the developers side, but once implemented will mean that you never have to worry about losing a document you have been working on for hours. It means that you don’t have to deal with annoying alert dialogs. This also extends further beyond documents. Now you can hit restart and when you turn your computer back on all of your apps and windows will be exactly where you left them, even down to highlighted text.

Will I like it?

Possibly not. I will tell you this much, if you are on a desktop, you will want one of Apple’s Magic Trackpads. Everything in Lion is multitouch now. If you have a distaste for the track pad, you may have to adjust a little.

Also, Lion is going towards more usable, less bare bones. For instance, file saving is done automatically. The Library folder is hidden by default. You won’t install software like you used to; for the most part it will be downloaded and automatically installed from the App Store.

In short, if you tend to have trouble going with change, Lion will take some time to warm up to.