Snow Leopard VS. Lion

I find Lion over faster on my 2007 iMac. Faster booting and the same or faster shut down.

Van, I just got a 2007 Macbook finally (Yes I am late to the Intel Mac notebook party) but have not installed Lion yet as I am waiting for the AC Adapter before I try to install! Friend forgot to ship it with the Macbook!

Will post back after Lion is installed. I believe it's the same exact specs as yours Van.

It's sure snappy with 10.6.8 on it.

dtravis7 said:

Van, I just got a 2007 Macbook finally (Yes I am late to the Intel Mac notebook party) but have not installed Lion yet as I am waiting for the AC Adapter before I try to install! Friend forgot to ship it with the Macbook!

Will post back after Lion is installed. I believe it's the same exact specs as yours Van.

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Welcome to the mobile Intel Mac club!

Mine's an early 08 MB so the specs are probably similar (I've done upgrades though). Let me know how Lion runs on it - me and chscag seem to notice slight slowdowns with Lion on our 08 MBs so it would be interesting to see how it works on yours.

we can debate the pros and cons of lion till the cow comes home. The fact of the matter is the osx is here to stay, either you make an afford to use it or forever stagnant in the old ways.

J.Fo said:

Don't go into Mission Control before you do the four-fingered downward swipe. If you swipe down first, you'll see all the windows currently open for the selected app.

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That will show me the windows from one app, not multiple as I pointed out was the problem.

When in Mission Control, try swiping left and right – two fingers on a Magic Mouse, four on a Magic Trackpad. You'll switch between the currently selected spaces (and any full screen apps you have open). This should make it easier to drag and drop windows into different spaces without having to switch back and forth between them.

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That is switching back and forth between spaces in Mission Control, and it is what I meant by switching between them. In Snow Leopard, from the Spaces view I could drag any window from any space to any other space.

robduckyworth said:

i never did release my video review of Windows 8... haha.

I actually rather liked it. about time they changed it up a bit. though basically attaching a front end to Windows 7 probably wasnt the most tactile way they could have done it...

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I would be very interested in seeing this.

ycl1688 said:

we can debate the pros and cons of lion till the cow comes home. The fact of the matter is the osx is here to stay, either you make an afford to use it or forever stagnant in the old ways.

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I think everyone here who's posted about Lion clearly has made an honest effort to use it (and in fact I still am - that Lion partition isn't going anywhere). The problem is how much effort using it continues to take.

Discerptor said:

I think everyone here who's posted about Lion clearly has made an honest effort to use it (and in act I still am - that Lion partition isn't going anywhere). The problem is how much effort using it continues to take.

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This. I held my tongue for a considerable amount of time before I started publicly airing my concerns about Lion.

It's my hope that these concerns don't fall on deaf ears at Apple and we'll see some tweaks and tuning in 10.7.3 and beyond.

Discerptor said:

Have several windows open in a few applications and want to see them all at once (say, Photoshop and InDesign)? Sorry, you can't do that in Lion because Mission Control chooses to immediately obscure any window with other windows from the same application with its window-grouping mess.

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I missed this earlier but I couldn't agree more. I don't have many windows open at once but when I do, having them grouped together does me no good especially if I'm not plugged into my external monitor (and am thus limited to a 13" screen). Here's a perfect example of this:



Someone, somewhere, thought that this was reasonable. How am I supposed to get to that last Vim window way in the back? Now, this isn't a huge problem for me since most of the applications I use are MDI/TDI apps but the few times that I need multiple windows, I find myself having to contend with this.

On the whole, I like Lion (or at worst, I don't dislike it). I still despise the "scrollbars", I don't like the removal of "Save As" (yes, I know I can export but why make the change?) and I can't play StarCraft anymore (that's pretty minor, haha) but I have little else to seriously complain about. Many of the features are of no use to me (Launchpad) and this is why I've come to think of Lion as akin to SL - an evolution of an already fine product. There are two things wrong with this thinking though: they've gone backwards in some respects and for OS X to remain competitive in an operating system ecosystem where the dominant player is taking risks (Windows 8), Apple needs to step up.

Perhaps then the best way to explain my feelings is to say that I'm ambivalent but content. How's that for indecisiveness?

What is meant by future "proofing" a machine mean, and why would Lion give more advantage than Snow Leopard at doing so...

...searching for proofing while I await your response.

kamerdoc23 said:

What is meant by future "proofing" a machine mean, and why would Lion give more advantage than Snow Leopard at doing so...

...searching for proofing while I await your response.

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For those that look at the technologies in Lion as being the "future", it simply means that getting both you and your computer up-to-date with the latest will ensure that you are ready for the future. In other words, 10.6 is the past, 10.7 is current and the statement assumes that the future 10.8 will more closely resemble 10.7 than 10.6.

ycl1688 said:

we can debate the pros and cons of lion till the cow comes home. The fact of the matter is the osx is here to stay, either you make an afford to use it or forever stagnant in the old ways.

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Worth repeating.

vansmith said:

I still despise the "scrollbars"

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OK, I really would like the details on this one... Why despise the (lack of) scroll bars? I think that it's one of the most obvious improvements to an OS in years. I can't believe that they didn't do it a long time ago.

_Stormin said:

OK, I really would like the details on this one... Why despise the (lack of) scroll bars? I think that it's one of the most obvious improvements to an OS in years. I can't believe that they didn't do it a long time ago.

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The ScrollBars are not gone from Lion. There are 3 settings in fact. On all the time, On when there is a mouse and until you scroll.

Check System Preferences, General.

_Stormin said:

OK, I really would like the details on this one... Why despise the (lack of) scroll bars? I think that it's one of the most obvious improvements to an OS in years. I can't believe that they didn't do it a long time ago.

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It was a terrible design decision and thankfully Apple gave us the opportunity to correct it with a simple setting change.

Without easily accessible scrollbars, it's harder to traverse a long document. I know you can click and drag it but not only is it smaller, you have find the thing by scrolling which is difficult given the size and semi-transparency. Having no scrollbar has absolutely no benefit other than saving a few pixels which hasn't really been a problem for 25+ years. I'm interested to know why you think it's an "obvious improvement."

vansmith said:

It was a terrible design decision and thankfully Apple gave us the opportunity to correct it with a simple setting change.

Without easily accessible scrollbars, it's harder to traverse a long document. I know you can click and drag it but not only is it smaller, you have find the thing by scrolling which is difficult given the size and semi-transparency. Having no scrollbar has absolutely no benefit other than saving a few pixels which hasn't really been a problem for 25+ years. I'm interested to know why you think it's an "obvious improvement."

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I am just worried that 10.8 might not have the toggle. Time will tell. I agree with what Schweb said, What is good for the iPad and IOS is not good for a desktop computer. If the Scroll bars were always gone with no way to get them back, I could not use 10.7 as I use Mice for certain tasks and need to be able to drag the bar.

dtravis7 said:

I am just worried that 10.8 might not have the toggle. Time will tell. I agree with what Schweb said, What is good for the iPad and IOS is not good for a desktop computer. If the Scroll bars were always gone with no way to get them back, I could not use 10.7 as I use Mice for certain tasks and need to be able to drag the bar.

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Couldn't agree more. Working on documents necessitates access to an easily usable scrollbar. This is why I hope MS doesn't adopt them when they get around to adding the Lion improvements they promised months ago.

"I think everyone here who's posted about Lion clearly has made an honest effort to use it (and in fact I still am - that Lion partition isn't going anywhere). The problem is how much effort using it continues to take. "
google on lion for more internet help, grab a manual or book.

vansmith said:

It was a terrible design decision and thankfully Apple gave us the opportunity to correct it with a simple setting change.

Without easily accessible scrollbars, it's harder to traverse a long document. I know you can click and drag it but not only is it smaller, you have find the thing by scrolling which is difficult given the size and semi-transparency. Having no scrollbar has absolutely no benefit other than saving a few pixels which hasn't really been a problem for 25+ years. I'm interested to know why you think it's an "obvious improvement."

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Because from an aesthetic point of view, them being there when they are needed and then gone when they aren't, is really quite enjoyable. Since mice have had a click wheel, they haven't been "necessary" but something that could have been an option.

I can see why having them there during content creation could be handy, but when consuming that content it's nice just have the text/pictures/etc...

_Stormin said:

Since mice have had a click wheel, they haven't been "necessary" but something that could have been an option.

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What about notebook users who don't use a mouse? Sure, you can use a two finger gesture but that is nowhere near as efficient as using a scrollbar (this is more obvious on longer documents). I did an informal unscientific experiment to test this. I scrolled through an 84 page PDF and these are the results:

- Two finger scroll: 29.0 seconds
- Scroll wheel: 14.0 seconds
- Scrollbar: 1.0 second

_Stormin said:

I can see why having them there during content creation could be handy, but when consuming that content it's nice just have the text/pictures/etc...

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Having scrollbars doesn't take away from this though. Not only does enabling scrollbars simply push content "in" but it takes up such little space. For instance, my Chrome window right now is 1350px wide and the scrollbar takes up 15px. That's 1.1% of the width of the window which is hardly what I would call lost space (which as mentioned above, isn't really lost at all).

Discerptor said:

It's as if the entire OS market is trying to push me towards obscure Linux distros. >.>

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dtravis7 said:

Even some of the more popular Linux distros like Ubuntu are doing things I am not happy with.

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Install Linux Mint & then use a theme like MacBuntu to make it look exactly like OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (& even work almost the same)...

ycl1688 said:

"I think everyone here who's posted about Lion clearly has made an honest effort to use it (and in fact I still am - that Lion partition isn't going anywhere). The problem is how much effort using it continues to take. "
google on lion for more internet help, grab a manual or book.

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I have, for months. Lion is just objectively deficient compared to Snow Leopard in key areas. No amount of help will change that.

Ctrl-Opt-Del said:

Install Linux Mint & then use a theme like MacBuntu to make it look exactly like OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (& even work almost the same)...

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Mint is one I haven't tried yet. I'm conflicted on whether to try it or Arch next.

@vansmith - Everyone is entitled to their own opinion I guess. I like them gone, and if they make the option available in Windows 8 they will disappear from my Windows machine too (I use a touchpad on it as well).

I do have to laugh about the "unscientific test." I'm not debating that a scroll bar can be faster, and I use only a trackpad on all of my Macs. I guess I'm just not in that much of a hurry.