OS X Lion Announcement
So I’ve been asked what I thought of Lion or rather the announcement of Lion (since I am not betaing it), so I’ve looked at the announced features that I found interesting and how they may positively and/or negatively be implemented and their added benefit or lack thereof. Without further ado:
- Airdrop: send files wirelessly to anyone around you… The security guy in me is thinking: “yet another way for your computer to be compromised”. It seems to be an interesting feature… I’ve messed around with AFP to share files and I can understand the appeal on a LAN especially with the P2P and the TLS encryption BUT… YET ANOTHER WAY FOR YOUR COMPUTER TO BE COMPROMISED…
- Auto-Save: Really cool feature… I am guessing it’s incremental saves (kinda like dropbox/SVN/CVS) but locally… I would be better if it could be Auto-saved to another location… Like an Airport or something…
- Electronic Distribution: I actually don’t like that feature… I like clean installs… I understand the mass-appeal of in-place install, the environment conscious way to deliver software (no CDs, DVDs, storage or transportation) but I want to be able to install on a clean SLATE! On the other hand, it allows them to lower the price to $30 for multiple installs…
- Facetime: still not compelling, <Skype.
- FileVault 2: This feature I want to see differently implemented… FileVault (1st I guess) just encrypted your file system… It wasn’t a whole disk encryption solution so it was “enough” but not top of the line encryption… Now it seems to be announced as whole disk + you can crypt external drives… It is a huge feature for enterprise adoption…
- Finder: It will probably be better, but not best of breed for local search… I guess I have to see that one to gauge it
- Full screen: like a friend of mine said: “1 large step toward turning your computer into an iPad”. The idea that when you use an app, your whole device becomes a new app-device is a metaphor that starts with using your whole screen real estate and immersing you into the application => Full screen… It may work, it may not, I like full screening and missed “maximized” (the Windows version). Moreover, since 75% of Macs sold are laptops, maximizing your screen real estate is capital.
- Launchpad: aka the iPad home screen… I am not sure I like it… I mean right now I don’t keep anything on my desktop… I like it clean! I use search and my dock so I don’t need anything on my DESKTOP… But I can understand the reasoning behind it… The more Mac OS looks like iOS, the easier it is to people to adopt a Mac and learn how to use it…
- Mac App Store: cf. Electronic distribution… The interesting thing is the automatic updating + it’s a huge cash cow for Apple…
- Mission Control: This is a bunch of baloney… It’s basically Spaces+Expose mixed together and controlled via gestures… It’s certainly cool but not ground breaking.
- Resume: this is what I find uber-cool + useful… It will change the way we interact with our computers… The fact that they will be instant-on (when coupled with strip SSDs) combined with this feature dramatically changes our relationship with our data/apps/services… Then of course, people never turn off their Macs… So maybe this feature should be sold to M$…
- Security: Adress Space Layout Randomization + Application Sandboxing… Kinda cool, especially the ASLR, it makes (theoretically) buffer overflows a bit more complicated because memory addressing is not linear/predictable… Trust me this is good…
In conclusion, Lion seems to be solid but I am more excited about W8… Yeah I said it… MS went further in their visual metaphor, the titles are sexy and while I know that OS X will kick Windoze’s butt forever, I get the feeling that Apple has it’s Windows… It’s API/Ecosystem that’s stable enough and liked enough that they can’t radically change it because they fear alienating their user base and partners… The incremental UI changes are great, the features improvements are terrific but it’s Lion is still a little bit better than Snow Leopard which is just an “optimized” Leopard…
