
Lukas Mathis on Mac OS X Lion - earcar
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/10/24/lion/
======
scott_s
I'm surprised that I haven't read anyone that has connected the dots on the
app store for Mac and the emphasis on the Macbook Air. The app store solves
the problem for how does one get shrink-wrapped applications onto a Mac with
no optical drive? In the future, they may remove optical drives from their
laptops entirely.

~~~
thought_alarm
I think you're reading a little too much into it. Steam solved this "problem"
long ago.

Optical drives may eventually become less common. I admit mine rarely gets
much use, but I still fancy throwing a DVD in there once and a while.

But that does present an interesting problem if you're, say, Microsoft. How do
you sell Word to someone who doesn't have an optical drive? Would Microsoft or
Adobe or anyone else who sells big-ticket shrink-wrapped software turn to the
App Store to solve that problem? Not in a million years.

~~~
ugh
You can already buy Office or CS online and download it. My local electronics
store even sells cheap Office licenses with nothing but the key. Microsoft or
Adobe don’t need the App Store.

~~~
thought_alarm
Well that's exactly my point.

The Mac App Store isn't the game changer some people seem to think (or fear)
it is. It could very well be a boon to small developers, or it could have no
impact at all, but it doesn't change anything.

~~~
scott_s
I don't think it's an enormous change, but it makes it easier for Apple to
drop optical drives from _all_ of their laptops. They could do it for the Air
previously because it was marketed as a laptop with extra stuff removed - but
they could not remove the optical drive in normal Macbooks partly because of
this problem.

The other common use case for the optical drive are DVDs and music CDs.
Streaming content is making those less necessary.

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stcredzero
Whenever and wherever there is some pain, there is an opportunity. The
universal pain of the tech-savvy and the constant help they have to give to
relatives and friends is simply huge. Neither has OS X made this go away,
though much of it has been outsourced in the form of the Genius Bar. It's much
the same in the workplace, if not more so! What the majority of the population
wants is _curated computing_. What IT departments try to provide as had as
they might is _curated computing_. It's also a fact that they're hindered by
the open architecture of today's typical computer. (Why do you think
enterprise IT tries so hard to lock everything down?)

There is still a huge amount of pain and therefore there's tremendous
opportunity.

My prediction is that under Lion, end-user computing is going to run locked-
down under a hypervisor, and only devs/power users will be running as we do
today.

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mortenjorck
Spot-on criticism of the App Store.

The App Store is peerless as far as purchasing and installing go, but it's
nearly useless for discovery unless you're looking for something on the order
Angry Birds or Facebook. Calling the Mac version "the best place to find apps"
wouldn't ring so hollow if the same were remotely true on iOS.

~~~
risotto
Useless is a bit harsh. It is, after all, a big web app that is nothing but
fresh screenshots and reviews of apps. Somehow my friends and I manage to find
tons of awesome apps all the time.

Google can be pretty awful to find software on. Search for "os x audio
recorder" on it and you get one or two direct links to modern software, and
the rest are really old or link jacked pages.

A search for "audio recorder" on the App Store is a remarkably different
experience. The top hits are well written and well-reviewed apps.

So what is better for "discovery"?

~~~
mortenjorck
Fair enough. Unfortunately, there really isn't a reliably good central place
for discovery. Most of the good iOS finds I've made were from blogs, forums,
or Twitter.

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tensor
I must say, the deprecating of Java does concern me. I do agree that Apple has
been somewhat slow to update their version of Java. It's also strange that
they default to 1.5 instead of 1.6. In principle, having Oracle maintain the
JVM sounds ok.

However, I understand that the Apple Java makes use of hidden API's in order
to provide the level of integration that it does. That integration always
impressed me and was one of the many things that originally sold me on using
Macs for development. Will Apple work with Oracle to achieve the same level of
integration? Or is this really a sneaky way of trying to kill Java on Mac?

I miss the Apple that loved Next, used Java internally, among other languages,
and spent a lot of time trying to make technical users happy with things like
X11 support and Apple integrated Java. These things are what brought me to the
platform.

~~~
jfb
The Cocoa/Java bridge has been deprecated for ages; other than that, I can't
think of any other secret sauce that Apple spreads on their JVM (of course, if
there were hidden APIs, and if the Apple JVM used them, and if Apple wanted
them to stay secret, I wouldn't be able to say). Regardless, it's not like
Java on OS X is going to disappear; if nothing else, Apple's internal usage of
Java and their desire to eat their own dog food guarantees as much.

This warning comes with considerably more heads-up than most such developer
related warnings from Apple, so by the time 10.7 ships, I would imagine that
an open JDK/JRE will be readily available.

~~~
tensor
I'm no expert on the matter, but from what I hear the APIs involve bridges to
the graphics or windowing system. I do hope that a solid open JDK is built.

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pluies
Interesting writeup. I think calling both the installation process and the
window management system "broken" is a bit of an overstatement, but he's very
right about de-emphasizing the Finder.

Lukas' blog in general is awesome — thought-provoking and mind-opening. If you
have the smallest interest in design (as in "how thing work" in general, not
only "how things look"), it's definitely worth a read.

------
moron4hire
LaunchPad: a no-hierarchy version of the Windows Start Menu. Desktops get too
many programs installed to be able to find them reasonably in such a thing. We
learned that _fifteen years ago_ on Windows. Even my phone is starting to get
unreasonable to manage with the number of programs installed. Windows Vista
and 7 have the ability to search the start menu because of it.

The App Store: I love the ability to browse packages on my Ubuntu and PC-BSD
systems and install them with no hassle. I wish this existed on Windows (MS
toys with it every once in a while, with the Web Platform Install Kit and the
Visual Studio Plugins site). But it sounds like Apple is going to lock it
down. They could have their cake and eat it too if they would make the
application repository configurable, with the default pointing to Apple's
servers, and the config item roughly hidden in an obscure setting somewhere.
But Apple continues to assert that you don't own your computer, you rent it
from them.

Full-screen apps: welcome to 1990. From experience, I loathe default-full-
screen programs. I like to have the option available, and I think we've come
to a consensus that that should be through the F11 key, but starting a
program, waiting, and having it take over the entire screen is going to be a
pain in the ass. It also basically torpedoes a lot of Apple dogma from
previous years with no true ability to fully maximize program windows.

Ironically, these updates serve to make OS X even less differentiated than
other Windows and KDE- or Gnome-based Linux distros than ever before.

~~~
GHFigs
_a no-hierarchy version of the Windows Start Menu_

Nonsense. LaunchPad does in fact have hierarchy in the form of user-created
folders and pagination. Even if it didn't, comparisons to the Start Menu are
odious. The main reason the Start Menu sucks is not "too many programs", but
that it relies on notoriously unusable submenus[1]. And then it insists on
nesting them. And then most of the items in the Start Menu are not actually
applications. Even Windows 95 shipped with at least two ways of avoiding the
use of the Start Menu as a launcher, and subsequent versions added at least
two more. Search works well, but search has its own problems. For instance,
you can't search with a mouse.

[1]:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law>

 _Windows Vista and 7 have the ability to search the start menu because of
it._

Mac OS X likewise has the ability to launch applications from the system wide
search. (As does iOS, for that matter.) Why does this somehow stop counting if
they add an additional feature?

 _I loathe default-full-screen programs. I like to have the option available_

That's what this is: an option. There is no indication that any application
now launches full screen by default, or any reason that couldn't do that now
if they chose to.

 _It also basically torpedoes a lot of Apple dogma from previous years with no
true ability to fully maximize program windows._

Not really. Full screen mode still does not replicate "maximize" behavior.
Even on Windows the two are distinct. Microsoft Word, for example, has a
separate full screen mode which behaves differently than simply maximizing the
window.

------
warmfuzzykitten
Overlapping Windows is a non-issue. Windows and full-screen intermingle with
the new Mission Control.

Windows and Linux get Java from Oracle; why not OS X?

------
avk
I prefer SizeUp to Divvy for OS X Window management:
<http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>

------
hackermom
That's a lot of blah blah claiming to be about Lion, when it's really not so
much about Lion at all. So far, these details are to the most part just about
_new applications_ for Lion - and you can be sure that at least one of these
will be available for Snow Leopard later on.

Maybe people should hold back on their second-guessing regarding Lion until we
actually get some technical and substantial details to hold on to, but I guess
as long as there are fools, there will be wolf calls...

~~~
ugh
Apple listens. They don't always react but they do listen. The time to
complain is now. And besides, this is a very even-handed text about things
Apple itself announced under the heading of Mac OS X Lion.

~~~
hackermom
But there's nothing substantial to complain about yet... What's been shown so
far are applications; and the use of these is optional, not mandatory.

~~~
ugh
Huh? That shouldn't stop you from complaining! Technically you don't ever have
to use anything but Terminal, that doesn't mean you shouldn't complain when
new features are confusing or not quite coherent. Oh, and it would suck very
much if the better app management would only availible for App Store apps.
That's a complaint Apple should hear!

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jpdbaugh
It looks like I will finally have enough motivation to finally switch to
Ubuntu. I just don't know if I can handle not having full control over my
machine.

~~~
ugh
At the moment it looks like you will have no more or less control than on Snow
Leopard.

~~~
jpdbaugh
Yes, however I think the changes being made are definitely putting Mac OS on
track to become a lot of more like iOS in future iterations.

~~~
jpdbaugh
Buying Lion with the proposed changes is voting with your dollar that you want
more of those changes in future iterations. Not buying it and switching to
something else says that you don't like the product. I use Snow Leopard right
now but I think brand loyalty is stupid. I don't owe anything to Apple to keep
using their product if I don't like the direction it is going in.

~~~
mturmon
Come on, this is a simple software purchase, $100 or so. It's not a moral
choice of any significance whatsoever, and laying the moral dimension onto it
is not productive or helpful.

~~~
zppx
Well, that same decision from some users in 1995 made Microsoft what it was in
the later 90's and early 00's.

EDIT: And still is in the corporate market.

