John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review • Hacker News Board

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#171

Post by blahedo » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 3:15 AM UTC

etherael wrote: post #153

blahedo wrote: post #67

ARGH. I'm still bitter over the introduction of Spaces in the first place—a crappy implementation of virtual desktops that nevertheless drove all the third-party versions out of business—and now they cripple their already-weak version further? Over and over in this review I'm seeing Steve Jobs's message come through loud and clear: "You should be on an iPad. We're going to make Macs as much like iPads as we can, even…

What changed in spaces? I really can't stand stock spaces in snow leopard and am currently using hyperspaces to get reliable hotkey switching in spaces, if something breaks this I would like to know so I can not upgrade.

According to the review, Spaces can no longer be laid out spatially, only in a line.

Separately: I've used Keyremap4Macbook to get my desired hotkey-switching behaviour in Spaces.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#172

Post by LogicX » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 3:28 AM UTC

eftpotrm wrote: post #62

kahawe wrote: post #37

One thing that continuously strikes me is Apple's ability to invest great level of detail when they want to. Take the FileVault recovery key, for example. For something so crucial like file encryption, not only do they offer you a quick solution but a practical and more "human usable" one; they offer to store it for you. And then they go the extra mile with those security questions! http://static.arstechnica.net/2011…

Childhood phone numbers - if your parents still live in your childhood home and haven't changed phone number (not that unusual) then it's just their phone number. First teacher - actually I can't remember mine (I was only there for a single term) but, again, I know enough people who have contacts they've had since very early school days, so will share that answer. Honestly, I'm yet to come across a 'security' questio…

We spent some time working on this for the security survey at SocialSci during signup -- since we don't associate your email to your account; its the only way for our participants to recover their password.

We did a lot of research and came up with a list of 20 security questions, tiered by quality and applicability. We present users the questions, and allow them to skip to a more desirable one.

Some highlights: Who taught you how to drive? How do you like your eggs prepared? What was your first brand of cell phone? (a cell phone is required to have gotten this far) How quickly after you were eligible did you get your drivers license? What time of day were you born? What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?

Many of these questions are multiple choice, not fill-in-the-blank. We found that users are far more likely to recall what they would've chosen from the available choices vs what arbitrary text they entered into a field.

There are limits on recovery attempts; and limits on how much we tell you about what/how many you got wrong.

We require you to fill out 5 of these.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#173

Post by enterneo » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 3:35 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #168

enterneo wrote: post #162

I am not able to understand how a 3.7GB install image can later fit into a 650MB recovery HD partition (and if it somehow could through some compression magic, then why not compress it even before to only give me 650MB to download from the app store)?

The recovery partition doesn't need to contain the entire OS.

but there is also an option to install Lion from that recovery HD partition.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#174

Post by ugh » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 3:38 AM UTC

pkamb wrote: post #84

SkyMarshal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't owned an Apple since my old IIgs, but from playing around with friends' and Apple Store Macs, I always wondered if there was just a non-obvious way for powerusers to maximize Mac windows for an alt-Tab type window switching workflow. Now I know there wasn't. Was this ever a pain point for powerusers, especially on laptops, or did you just get used to it?

OS X has always had its own window management protocols, different from full-screen alt-tab but arguably just as good. In Leopard it was all-windows-Expose, activated via mouse flicks to the screen hotcorners. It was great, really natural. Unfortunately they crippled the feature in Snow Leapard (grid based rather than spatial layout) and did away with it entirely in Lion in favor of Mission Control.

What?! Exposé is still there. It’s just not called Exposé.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#175

Post by nvarsj » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:07 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #55

asolove wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this has been one of the fundamental UI differences between Mac OS (from farther back than OS X) and Windows/Linux. Mac windows can only be resized from the bottom-right, with those other points being used to drag the window around.

I haven't owned an Apple since my old IIgs, but from playing around with friends' and Apple Store Macs, I always wondered if there was just a non-obvious way for powerusers to maximize Mac windows for an alt-Tab type window switching workflow. Now I know there wasn't. Was this ever a pain point for powerusers, especially on laptops, or did you just get used to it?

Yes, it is pretty awful. Even worse if you frequently disconnect/reconnect external monitors. My main sore point with OS X.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#176

Post by chaitanya » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:17 AM UTC

unwantedLetters wrote: post #148

I am in India, and have a connection that is 256Kbps. This is sufficient for most things, but I cannot get Lion from Apple. I don't mind waiting for 40 hours for ~4GB to download, but the likelihood that a connection in India is sustained for more than 10-15 minutes is rather low. The problem here isn't with the speed (it is with that as well), but with the reliability of the connection. Even at 8MBPS, this download…

FWIW, I have found that Airtel's DSL is quite reliable (and fast).

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#177

Post by spullara » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:24 AM UTC

mmuro wrote: post #165

lambda wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Hacker News, where it is generally understood that most people will have a fairly technical background (it's not called "Hacker News" for nothing). And the review is on Ars Technica, which also targets a technical audience. John Siracusa's reviews of new versions of Mac OS X are famous, as they provide all of the technical details that most other reviewers don't. I understand that's not what you are looking f…

That's fine. My main point being the entire "Internals" section of the review could have been skipped and no one would have thought any less of it.

This is an opinion not shared with many readers of Ars or HN is my guess.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

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Post by lovskogen » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:25 AM UTC

thristian wrote: post #166

rwmj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony being that GNOME 3 has slavishly copied (badly) various Mac OS X "features", one being the inability to resize windows from all sides. And less than a year later, Mac OS X changes to allow resizing from all sides.

The difference is that GNOME 3 still allows you to resize from any point inside the window with Alt-middle-drag. No matter how big your resize border is, it's smaller and more fiddly than 'the entire window'.

But ALT + Middle drag isn't discoverable.

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

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Post by cpr » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:26 AM UTC

cubicle67 wrote: post #16

Love the (lack of) scrollbars. My perfect OS would have no visible window chrome at all, no edges, no title bar, no buttons, nothing other than my work. The other bits would fade in as needed, then disappear again. not sure how exactly though...

You could run all your apps in Lion in full-screen mode and move among them with swipes...

Re: John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

#180

Post by mo1stt » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 4:28 AM UTC

I dont really like the direction OSX is going tbh. Its clear that its going more and more into the iOS direction, consumer orientated, easy to use for average users but not very efficient for power users. Multiple Monitor workflow is even more awkward then before for example.