OS X Lion is out of the cage

[Bear Bibeault]

Apple released OS X Lion today.

I'm waiting until I find out more about any compatibility problems or Java issues. I'm in the middle of some projects that I cannot afford to have issues with right now.

To my question (on another forum) regarding whether Java was included in Lion, it was reported:

Java did not, when I tried to launch an app that required it I was asked if I wanted to install Java. Which went well.

So it looks like all might be good.

I'm trying to find more about versions and so on.

[Gregg Bolinger]

I'm still trying to get used to scrolling the content instead of the moving the scroll bars. In other words, what they call "natural" is backwards from what it has always been. Although, it is in line with scrolling in iOS.

[Bear Bibeault]

I'm so used to it from iOS that I think I wpn't have any trouble adapting. But I hear there's a setting to reverse the scrolling for people that find the direction unnatural.

[Bear Bibeault]

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421

Java 1.6 for Lion as a separate download.

[Gregg Bolinger]

I had that bookmarked just in case. But I went ahead and just opened IntelliJ and it prompted me to install Java. Once that was done, IDEA launched and all was good. SDK was set properly. Project I was working on today runs just fine. Seamless. YMMV.

[Bear Bibeault]

Cool. Have you tried Tomcat yet? If IntelliJ and Tomcat run, I should be fine.

I wish I had a spare machine I could try this out on, but both my laptops are dedicated to different projects that are in critical phases at the moment.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Bear Bibeault wrote:Cool. Have you tried Tomcat yet? If IntelliJ and Tomcat run, I should be fine.

I haven't tried it by itself. It launches from Grails just fine.

[Bear Bibeault]

That should be good enough proof. I may do a backup and give it a shot this weekend.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Bear Bibeault wrote:That should be good enough proof. I may do a backup and give it a shot this weekend.

What are you backing up? I thought Time Machine took care of all backups. This statement implies some other backup I don't know about (and am therefore not doing) is important.

[Bear Bibeault]

Nope I'm just talking about a Time Machine backup. I'll just be making sure I have a fully up-to-date one before I try to install.

[Scott Selikoff]

I wrote Apple OS X Lion Review this morning highlighting some of the differences. It's a bit of a mixed bag and if you are fond of Office 2004, as I am, you will certainly be disappointed.

So far I haven't had any issues with Java although I have done a full exercise of it. Starting Eclipse triggered Lion to automatically install Java and the IDE loaded, but I am using Ganymede/3.4 which is hardly the latest version. I'll post if I encounter any development issues.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Scott Selikoff wrote:I wrote Apple OS X Lion Review this morning highlighting some of the differences. It's a bit of a mixed bag and if you are fond of Office 2004, as I am, you will certainly be disappointed.

Hm, I'm not sure it is fair to put the removal of Rosetta as a con. I mean, I understand it is your opinion, but come on. Office 2004?

I'm not experiencing any slowness with my UI. I have noticed a lot more animated transitions in Lion than were in Snow Leopard. They are subtle but nice.

I'm mixed on LaunchPad. While it is neat, I rarely, if ever, need to go to my full list of Applications. I always use Spotlight. I've got several Blizzard update files from WoW that I'll need to group together to trim down the number of visible icons but again, doubt I'll really use LP that much.

The 2 things I'm really digging on are the new Mail.app and Mission Control.

[Scott Selikoff]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:Hm, I'm not sure it is fair to put the removal of Rosetta as a con. I mean, I understand it is your opinion, but come on. Office 2004?

I had installed the new version on my laptop but my wife continued to run 2004 and *hates* the new version. I'm found of the 2004, pre-ribbon version and think it was the best. Also, there were some serious issues in the 2008 version where they removed support for vba/macros or something. I remember the community was in an uproar. From Wikipedia, "Office 2008 for Mac lacks feature parity with the Windows version. The lack of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support in Excel makes it impossible to use macros programmed in VBA. Microsoft's response is that adding VBA support in Xcode would have resulted in an additional two years added to the development cycle of Office 2008". In short, there were many good reasons not to upgrade.

My computer performance has improved since Sportlight finished, but it took a few hours. The thing was hot as an iron though and slow as a snail for the first 4-5 hours. Then I ran Time Machine and the thing really got hot. All better now.

Mission Control is nice, but its not that much different from Expose, so I'm almost on the fence on it.

[Maneesh Godbole]

How does one shift to Lion exactly? It is paid right? Possible to pay via PayPal/debit to my bank account?
Does it offer a choice between upgrade/choice?

I have read the Java thread and am not sure if I am clear about it.
If I continue with Snow Leopard, will I be able to use Java7? I understand Apple will no longer provide the "Macified" java. Can I install Java 7 on Snow Leopard like any other lib?

[Gregg Bolinger]

You have to purchase it through the App Store.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:If I continue with Snow Leopard, will I be able to use Java7? I understand Apple will no longer provide the "Macified" java. Can I install Java 7 on Snow Leopard like any other lib?

Java 7 for OS X is far from finished. Follow the link to the OpenJDK OS X port in the other discussion to read up on its status. I'm not sure if what they have right now is usable, but I wouldn't expect a final release this year. I haven't seen any indication on how it's going to be distributed and installed once it's done.

[Michael Matola]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:I'm still trying to get used to scrolling the content instead of the moving the scroll bars. In other words, what they call "natural" is backwards from what it has always been. Although, it is in line with scrolling in iOS.

I remember reading some stuff awhile ago about the early days of GUI development -- that there was debate about what "up and down" and "left and right" should mean when using a "window" to scroll through data. Apparently the metaphor that won -- and what we've used, largely, for all these years -- is that the scroll bar is moving the window across (stationary) data. Think of looking at an object through binoculars or something like that. That's why when you pull a (classic) scroll bar "down," the data moves "up."

So in the past few years it looks like some mobile/touch devices have reversed that convention -- you now grab and move the data (instead of the window/container), thus redefining up/down and left/right. Interesting that Lion switches things around.

[marc weber]

Upgraded my MacBook Pro to Lion. What's not to love?

Yes, the "reverse" scrolling takes a little getting used to, but I think I'm going to like it (especially since I use the MBP's trackpad instead of a mouse, so it "feels" like iOS).

I also like Launchpad. I used to keep my Applications folder in the dock; and this is much better, since it allows me to organize apps into "folders" without changing their actual location.

[Mark Spritzler]

I am still afraid to update. I had a class last week and a class this week to teach and I have my way of teaching in regards to SPaces and other Mac stuff that I don't wnat to spend time in class trying to figure out how to reproduce it.

But I am installing when I get back at the end of the week.

Mark

[Bear Bibeault]

Until Mission Control, I never really took much notices of Spaces. In two days, I've become an avid user of them as they're only an intuitive gesture away and so much more natural (to me at a least) to use.

I think you'll like it once you get to a stable point.

[Pat Farrell]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:Hm, I'm not sure it is fair to put the removal of Rosetta as a con. I mean, I understand it is your opinion, but come on.

Adobe has a long post of incompatibilities with their software. Apparently they have a non-trivial amount of code that required Rosetta as they didn't bother to update/revise the code for the Intel platform. I'm sure this is a problem for users of those Adobe packages, but I have a hard time seeing it as an Apple or Lion problem. Sometimes you gotta stop supporting the old crock legacy code.

[Adam Koblentz]

Bear Bibeault wrote:Cool. Have you tried Tomcat yet? If IntelliJ and Tomcat run, I should be fine.

I wish I had a spare machine I could try this out on, but both my laptops are dedicated to different projects that are in critical phases at the moment.

Hey Bear, how have you been?

You can now legally and without violating the TOS run lion inside a VM. Give it a go? I'm doing some compatibility testing that way right now.

[Bear Bibeault]

I updated both my machines to Lion over the weekend. Smooth and easy.

[Adam Koblentz]

Bear Bibeault wrote:I updated both my machines to Lion over the weekend. Smooth and easy.

Really happy it worked for you. I usually just use migration assistant or upgrade in place, but this time I want to do a clean install... Way too many old environments from macports and darwinports and community x11, blah.

So, I ordered a decked out 11" mba (it's on its way!) and I want to just migrate over my itunes stuff so my ios devices will continue to sync like nothing happened.

I've got a full TM backup of my macbook and my itunes library lives in a separate folder on the same external drive.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Bear Bibeault]

I can't think of any reason that you should not be able to just restore the iTunes library.

I keep mine on a Dropbox share so that I always have my music synched on all machines.

[Adam Koblentz]

Bear Bibeault wrote:I can't think of any reason that you should not be able to just restore the iTunes library.

I keep mine on a Dropbox share so that I always have my music synched on all machines.

I guess my concern is the device backups, and the app data.

Oh, aren't you on google plus yet?

[Bear Bibeault]

No.

[marc weber]

Pat Farrell wrote:... Adobe ...

Enough said.

[Scott Selikoff]

After two weeks, I wrote a follow-up review of OS X Lion. I'm generally more pleased with the operating system now that I have had a chance to work with. The full-screen mode is *awesome*. I was comparing an 11" MacBook Air in full screen mode to a 13" MacBook Air in windowed mode, and the application size was generally the same. In other words, it makes me quite tempted to pick up the 11" since it's got a lot more screen real estate.

I still don't agree with the changing of the scroll direction. I guess Apple is setting the foundation for a touch screen computer.

[Bear Bibeault]

Scott Selikoff wrote:I still don't agree with the changing of the scroll direction.

You don't have to -- it's an easily changed setting.

I forced myself to live with it for a day, and ended up never going back. It's now completely natural.

I never used Spaces before Lion. Now with the addition of Mission Control, and the butt-simple gestures, it's a staple. And I love the 2-finger "back" in Safari. I used only a handful of the available gestures prior to Lion; now I find myself using a whole bunch of them.

My one gripe with Lion is the loss of the control-2-finger zoom on my (older) home laptop*. It works fine on my (newer) office laptop.



















* Soon to be no longer a problem -- I ordered a new MacBook Pro earlier today. I had the old one for about 4 years; figured I deserved an update.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Bear Bibeault wrote:* Soon to be no longer a problem -- I ordered a new MacBook Pro earlier today. I had the old one for about 4 years; figured I deserved an update.

Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

[Bear Bibeault]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

Sweet!

Those are such nice machines!

[Scott Selikoff]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

One of us! One of us!

[Gregg Bolinger]

Scott Selikoff wrote:

Gregg Bolinger wrote:Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

One of us! One of us!

Well, I also have a MBP so I didn't just now convert. But yes, I am one of you!

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:

Bear Bibeault wrote:* Soon to be no longer a problem -- I ordered a new MacBook Pro earlier today. I had the old one for about 4 years; figured I deserved an update.

Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

Congrats, finest machine.

[Pat Farrell]

Bear Bibeault wrote:I ordered a new MacBook Pro earlier today. I had the old one for about 4 years; figured I deserved an update.

Four years on the same computer for a hardcore developer? Wow, that is really daring the gods of Moore's law to smite you. I hate waiting for builds, so I tend to get current hardware every couple of years.

[marc weber]

Gregg Bolinger wrote:

Bear Bibeault wrote:* Soon to be no longer a problem -- I ordered a new MacBook Pro earlier today. I had the old one for about 4 years; figured I deserved an update.

Congrats! I bought a 27" iMac 2 days ago.

...and I bought a new 21.5" iMac a couple of weeks ago. My old 17" G5 iMac finally died after 6 years. I was mainly using my MacBook Pro anyway, but it's nice to have a cool desktop again too. I wanted a 27" with an i7, but my checking account talked me down (with the understanding that my next upgrade will be sooner than 6 years).

BTW, my deceased iMac wouldn't even boot completely, so I set up the new iMac from my backup on Time Capsule. (Whew...!) Lesson learned: Know your Time Capsule data password (not just the network passwords). If you're relying on Keychain, and your machine dies, then you will be locked out of your backup.

[Scott Selikoff]

marc weber wrote:My old 17" G5 iMac finally died after 6 years.

6 years? Pfft. You should try The Twenty Year Server Plan!

[marc weber]

Meanwhile, the "reversed" scrolling took longer to get used to than I expected, but I like it.

And for trackpad users who want the old drag gestures, this not under System Preferences > Trackpad. Instead, it is under System Preferences > Universal Access > Mouse & Trackpad > Trackpad Options.