The Lion Rawrs

Ok, so i've updated to Lion OS X for a few days now... There are indeed some things abt lion which irks me... i turned off the natural scroll feature right away for one, but realised it still exists in some places like scrolling ard launch pad and in the google map of iphoto... i can get used to the naturally scrolling alright... but it feels extremely weird when i'm using the mouse... and since i switch btw xp and mac for games, i figured i could use 1 less item to get used to during the frequent switches.

here's some info on how to make lion act like snow leopard... http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/25/making-lion-act-more-like-snow-leopard/

granted, there are some nice features introduced in lion, but there are some i'd rather not have.

read some of the comments abt launchpad and other changes introduced. i can't help but agree that the current launchpad is quite a failure. with some changes it could become a lot better and more useful... but right now i'm not using launchpad... at all. You cannot remove unwanted icons from launchpad... removing = uninstalling, like in the iPhone, only that this feature in the mac seems just... weird to me. Somehow my parallels didn’t uninstall properly and i've not gone around to properly correcting that problem, so i have PAGES of useless parallels windows program icons on the launchpad which i cannot remove. I end up dumping them into two folders to make the pad neater... however i still find scrolling ard the pad troublesome. arranging the icons and folders in launchpad is just abt as troublesome as on the iPhone... so much so that i just arranged those programs that i would use, but a lot less often (such that i tend to forget to program name and cannot call it up with alfred) in folder and put them on the 1st page... i had hoped for launchpad to be something like an icon palette for us to arrange and customise... but sadly it offers a lot less flexibility than than. Considering that launchpad was one of the highlights in Lion, i was quite disappointed. You can't even change the background shown in launchpad... can only hope that they give us more freedom with it in later changes... right now i'm not liking/using it at all. oh yes, in installing lion, somehow some of the basic programs like chess got duplicated/reinstalled, and i ended up with two Chess icons, and unable to delete them. If i have the patience next time, i might arrange those more useful programs nicely on the 1st page... but i think i'll pretty much stick to using the dock and alfred ><

Mission control is another highlight in Lion (ask me wat's new in Lion before it came out, and mission control + launchpad is the 1st thing i'll remember, so i was really quite disappointed with launchpad). The comment from heavy uses of spaces is that mission control makes things overly complicated/troublesome... like it takes a lot more steps than previously to change a window/program from one desktop to another. Personally, i don't use spaces at all, so this isnt a problem for me. I do appreciate the more organised look of mission control. at least i know which window is in which browser/app. HOWEVER, if you open several windows in the same app, the 2nd and subsequent windows will be partially blocked by the 1st window. (ok, i just look at my mission control, i can barely see the 3rd window, and since it blends with my white timetable desktop pic, i didn’t even see the 3rd window at the beginning and was wondering why it showed i have two windows when i shd have 3... this is bad ><) 

There are some much appreciated changes tho, for one you can finally resize windows from every corner. And there's the useful resizing options that lets you pick exactly how and where you want that window to be. For eg. you can get a webpage to take up the left 1/3 of the screen, and get a pdf file/another window to show on the right 2/3 of the screen. Bad thing tho, when resizing stuff like browsers is that your tool bars etc are just CUT OFF and become UNACCESSIBLE unless you resize the window. Scrolling only changes the view of the page, not the toolbar (like if i make my firefox 1/3 on the left, i can't even access the address bar!) yet another brilliant idea made dumb due to some overlooked detail.

somehow the small things they left felt like the new OS was done in a rush... in a totally 'un-apple' fashion (from my short experience and impression of using a mac)...

hmmm... shortcuts... while the spreading of fingers to show desktop, pinching to show launchpad thing is a great idea, its not very effective.... somehow the success rate is maybe 50-70%? the OS fails to recognise those motions properly... or maybe the action isnt as easy to execute as just swiping up/down with four fingers, so the variety of finger actions that occur makes the shortcut inaccurate.


heh. seems like all i have is bad new abt Lion... i guess its partly because i've not really start WORK on my mac, so those stuff like auto save, versions etc have not been tested. there's only 1 mac in the household so i've not tried airplay (nothing to send over too!)... i don't use facetime, i don't use their mail since i mostly check my emails from my itoy (maybe i shd try the mail function tho).... there's probably loads of stuff working nicely in the background, and loads more that i've not tried so all i notice are the stuff that sticks out like a sore thumb (hence the less than cheerful post).

so that's all i have for now... to end off, i'll link you this video of how friendly and carefree the Apple store service staff in the US are. Its really hilarious, go watch it :)