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The official Lion thread™ (Page 8)
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Ham Sandwich
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Aug 6, 2011, 08:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
There's a pretty large gulf between rumors and promises.
Not really. So what? If people get either of them wrong, then someone should tell them.

Originally Posted by TETENAL View Post
All system cursor with the exception of the spinning pizza are updated to high resolution. You might see old custom cursors provided by the application itself.
Try enlarging the text cursor in Firefox. Pixelated... but not in Safari.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 7, 2011, 03:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
Everyone at MacRumors! They've all been ambitious to have Finder tabs since like 2004, and I know that there were screenshots (similar to the one below, but more like taking a picture of a monitor) that actually showed Leopard having tabs.
You don't realize that wishful thinking is not rumor-mongering?

A bunch of geeks designing their idea of what complexities should be added to devices/software are generally not what Apple is working on.

Apparently, nobody outside the MacRumors forums ever took notice.

And why should anybody bother telling them? I don't walk into a roomful of teenagers and tell them that the photoshopped beauties they're jacking off to have as little connection to reality as a Pokemon.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 7, 2011, 03:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
Try enlarging the text cursor in Firefox. Pixelated... but not in Safari.
Did you notice that TETENAL said "SYSTEM cursor"?

You have discovered one of a thousand reasons Firefox gets on my nerves. I really prefer using applications actually written for Macintosh.

It cuts down on tons of "WTF? Why isn't this working?" bullshit.
     
Don Pickett
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Aug 7, 2011, 03:03 PM
 
Okay, I give up. How do I set default views per window? I want some to open in column and some in list, and I can't find anything other than a global setting.
The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Aug 8, 2011, 12:16 PM
 
Another Finder bug: anyone here other than me still prefer multi-column view?
About 5% of the time when I open a new window, I get these ridiculously spaced columns... but if I close that window and open a new one, usually that goes away. What gives? Yet another problem that never occurred in 10.6.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Did you notice that TETENAL said "SYSTEM cursor"?
He said ALL SYSTEM CURSORs. Did you notice that? (Don't give me infractions.)

And the pointing cursor also sometimes has the same problem, but not in Firefox.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
You have discovered one of a thousand reasons Firefox gets on my nerves. I really prefer using applications actually written for Macintosh.

It cuts down on tons of "WTF? Why isn't this working?" bullshit.

[1] Until Safari gets extensions (for AdBlock Plus) and themes, I won't be switching.

[2] Rarely has creating a new Firefox profile not fixed even the most stubborn problems.... although keyboard command page-back and page-forward browsing on YouTube videos is 50/50.


Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
You don't realize that wishful thinking is not rumor-mongering?

A bunch of geeks designing their idea of what complexities should be added to devices/software are generally not what Apple is working on.

Apparently, nobody outside the MacRumors forums ever took notice.

And why should anybody bother telling them? I don't walk into a roomful of teenagers and tell them that the photoshopped beauties they're jacking off to have as little connection to reality as a Pokemon.
What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with Photoshop or Pokemon.
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Aug 8, 2011 at 03:41 PM. )
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 8, 2011, 03:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
He said ALL SYSTEM CURSORs. Did you notice that? (Don't give me infractions.)
So, another five seconds of thought (and yes, I realize, a very slight abstraction and recombination of two snippets of information given):

If TETENAL says "All system cursor with the exception of the spinning pizza are updated to high resolution. You might see old custom cursors provided by the application itself."

and I point out that he explicitly mentioned SYSTEM cursors, as opposed to (for the third time) "old custom cursors provided by the application itself", then…maybe I need to spell it out:

The reason the enlarged cursor is pixellated in Firefox is probably because the Firefox developers FÜCKED UP by not using the standard cursors supplied by the system.

Get it?
Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
[1] Until Safari gets extensions (for AdBlock Plus) and themes, I won't be switching.
Safari has supported extensions since June 2010.
https://extensions.apple.com/
(Yes, including AdBlock.)

Duh.

Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with Photoshop or Pokemon.
Exactly.
And MacRumors forum threads have nothing to do with what Apple is planning to do.

More Duh.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Aug 8, 2011, 05:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
So, another five seconds of thought (and yes, I realize, a very slight abstraction and recombination of two snippets of information given):

If TETENAL says "All system cursor with the exception of the spinning pizza are updated to high resolution. You might see old custom cursors provided by the application itself."

and I point out that he explicitly mentioned SYSTEM cursors, as opposed to (for the third time) "old custom cursors provided by the application itself", then…maybe I need to spell it out:

The reason the enlarged cursor is pixellated in Firefox is probably because the Firefox developers FÜCKED UP by not using the standard cursors supplied by the system.

Get it?
I've "got it" and I've "had it" since the beginning of this argument, and I've already mentioned this point to him. Why are you arguing that what you're saying is what I'm saying, because we're basically saying the same thing.


Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Safari has supported extensions since June 2010.
https://extensions.apple.com/
(Yes, including AdBlock.)
I've been searching for a month to find this Adblock Plus program for Safari and haven't found it.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
And MacRumors forum threads have nothing to do with what Apple is planning to do.


Meanwhile, I was just answering the question of where I found the news item. I'm extremely certain that there was another news item with a different screenshot out there, probably gone now, but I just can't find the tabbed Finder anywhere.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 8, 2011, 05:48 PM
 
Curious: what does the Safari AdBlock extension not do that you need (the one in the first spot under "Popular")?
     
Ham Sandwich
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Aug 8, 2011, 06:14 PM
 
This will now be the second time that I write my reply since my first reply got erased...

this site has some really ridiculously severe server problems, just like MacRumors... I just tried browsing the site for the past 30 minutes while logged in and couldn't do it, my browser (BOTH Firefox AND Safari) just sat there, processing away, stuck on "Waiting for forums.macnn.com..." and I have to wait 5-10 seconds to load each page on this site anyways. I highly doubt that this is a problem with Firefox. I just got the following error message when trying to submit my reply:


Database error The MacNN Forums database has encountered a problem.

Please try the following:
• Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
• Open the forums.macnn.com home page, then try to open another page.
• Click the Back button to try another link.
The forums.macnn.com forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.  
We apologise for any inconvenience.

And I had the same problem when posting my previous reply.

What's going on????


And another thing: As far as MacRumors being so different than actual news, this arguing back and forth over a whole bunch of unimportant specifics is just like the kind of nonsense that goes on over there. And both sites have had long-term, unfixed server problems. So, no, there's really no difference between news and rumors as far as the systemmatics are concerned.

So, Adblock Plus on Firefox allows me to block, basically, everything that I want, including entire domains, specific images, specific audio files, any files with certain extensions, and so on. And the Safari Adblock doesn't do that (last time I checked, a month ago) and I did not a more similar program.
     
jcadam
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Aug 8, 2011, 09:06 PM
 
I still haven't downloaded Lion.... I'm scared to screw up my dev environment right now :/
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Aug 9, 2011, 10:22 AM
 
     
amazing
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Aug 9, 2011, 11:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post

Catch 22: here's a quote from Lion Recovery Disk Assistant:

"Note: In order to create an external Lion Recovery using the Lion Recovery Assistant, the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD."

Given the many scenarios under which you won't have an existing Recovery HD (including the installer telling you it couldn't create one in the first place) there's a huge gap here.
     
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Aug 9, 2011, 11:16 AM
 
I think that's just unclear wording on Apple's part, I'm sure that they just wanted to clarify that Recovery on the new Macbook Airs (or any Mac shipped with 10.7 on install) will work only on those machines.
     
amazing
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Aug 9, 2011, 12:00 PM
 
Well, the lack of included recovery USB sticks in the MBAs is coming back to plague Apple:

Missing Lion Install Disks Cause Frustrated MacBook Air Users To Struggle With System Restores | Cult of Mac
     
CharlesS
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Aug 9, 2011, 06:28 PM
 
Well, that's the problem with USB sticks — they're expensive. So naturally a profit-oriented company like Apple's going to avoid including them if they can get away with it.

Of course, that's a pretty big "if".

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Buck_W
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Aug 11, 2011, 09:15 AM
 
I may have missed this in an earlier post. . . Since installing Lion, is there a reason why a window containing an advertisement for Apple (it also appears to show that Airport is joining my wireless network) continues to pop up every time I restart my computer?

I'm experiencing a couple of other issues as well:

* Even though I've unchecked: 'Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps', windows continue re-opening

* Documents I've added to the left column of my Finder window keep disappearing after every restart.

* Some of the document/folder/app icons in that Finder left column are mixed up (i.e. the document has a folder icon, etc.)
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turtle777
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Aug 11, 2011, 09:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by Buck_W View Post
I may have missed this in an earlier post. . . Since installing Lion, is there a reason why a window containing an advertisement for Apple (it also appears to show that Airport is joining my wireless network) continues to pop up every time I restart my computer?


I have never seen that.

Could you take a screenshot (CMD+SHFT + 3) and post it?

-t
     
Atheist
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Aug 11, 2011, 10:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
Well, the lack of included recovery USB sticks in the MBAs is coming back to plague Apple:

Missing Lion Install Disks Cause Frustrated MacBook Air Users To Struggle With System Restores | Cult of Mac
On a slightly related note. With this handy guide, I was able to turn my Apple-supplied USB stick (Oct 2010 MBA) into an Reinstall Drive for Lion.
     
exca1ibur
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Aug 11, 2011, 10:37 AM
 
Wait a sec... so the USB sticks they sent aren't bootable installs of Lion?
     
Atheist
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Aug 11, 2011, 10:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
Wait a sec... so the USB sticks they sent aren't bootable installs of Lion?
I would hope the USB stick includes the full OS but I wouldn't be surprised if it only contained the Recovery Partition and required a download of the OS.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 11, 2011, 06:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
Wait a sec... so the USB sticks they sent aren't bootable installs of Lion?
Of course they will be — we won't know for sure, though, until they actually start shipping.

He was talking about the late 2010 Air install drive.
     
CharlesS
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Aug 11, 2011, 08:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Atheist View Post
On a slightly related note. With this handy guide, I was able to turn my Apple-supplied USB stick (Oct 2010 MBA) into an Reinstall Drive for Lion.
Why on earth would you mangle your original install disc that way? Just get a 4 GB USB stick at the store and image InstallESD.dmg onto that.

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Atheist
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Aug 11, 2011, 09:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
Why on earth would you mangle your original install disc that way? Just get a 4 GB USB stick at the store and image InstallESD.dmg onto that.
Had no use for it. Not like I'm ever going to put Snow Leopard on the MBA.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 12, 2011, 01:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by Atheist View Post
Had no use for it. Not like I'm ever going to put Snow Leopard on the MBA.
…or sell the MBA and include the original licensed software…
     
CharlesS
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Aug 12, 2011, 05:15 AM
 
... including iLife and any other bundled software it may have came with, which won't be in the Lion installer...

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Aug 12, 2011, 09:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
…or sell the MBA and include the original licensed software…
Never occurred to me since I've never sold a computer before. I keep them till they die, are stolen or I give it to a family member.

Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
... including iLife and any other bundled software it may have came with, which won't be in the Lion installer...
I saved the iLife install package before I wiped the USB stick.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Aug 13, 2011, 08:31 AM
 
Adding text annotations in Preview is now like 40x more ridiculous.

If I add text then decide that I want it to be outlined, no problem in 10.6, I can do that right from the Inspector window.

Now the Inspector window in 10.7 is absolutely useless! All it does is tell you, ah, you added text to your picture! You can't edit from it anymore, and if you want to change your text to have a drop shadow, then as far as I can tell, you have to create a whole new text line, reposition it all over again, and then you have no ability to control the outline thickness or one of either the fill or border color.


And one more thing with Preview:
I can no longer export files to .gif!!

This is a big deal if I have an image with just a few colors and the file size in .gif is half that of the .jpg equivalent (and when .jpg rendering is attrocious at those file sizes).

So, anyone know of a decent alternative to Preview that's free that will do all of these?

My impression of Preview is that it's at least 6 steps backwards compared to 10.6.
     
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Aug 13, 2011, 08:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by Andrej View Post
And one more thing with Preview:
I can no longer export files to .gif!!

This is a big deal if I have an image with just a few colors and the file size in .gif is half that of the .jpg equivalent (and when .jpg rendering is attrocious at those file sizes).
Use PNG. GIF is (almost) dead.

-t
     
Ham Sandwich
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Aug 13, 2011, 08:31 PM
 
When Apple offers .apng then I'll consider png an acceptable replacement, but gif is still widely compatible for animations.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 13, 2011, 08:44 PM
 
When did Preview export to animated .GIF?
     
turtle777
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Aug 13, 2011, 09:33 PM
 
It didn't. He's mixing two things.

-t
     
CharlesS
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Aug 13, 2011, 09:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
When did Preview export to animated .GIF?
It doesn't have to. If he's using a program that takes a bunch of individual frames and turns them into an animated GIF, then using Preview to convert the individual frames to GIF could be useful.

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turtle777
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Aug 13, 2011, 09:55 PM
 
The GIF animator will be able to convert any format to GIF.

-t
     
Thorzdad
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Aug 16, 2011, 08:41 PM
 
The 10.7.1 update is available now.
And a special drop of love for MacBookAir and 2011 Mac Mini owners.
     
turtle777
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Aug 16, 2011, 09:41 PM
 
Only 26MB, really a small update.

-t
     
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:54 AM
 
I wonder why it doesn't show in the MAS updates. I did buy it there. :/
     
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Aug 17, 2011, 03:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS View Post
Well, that's the problem with USB sticks — they're expensive. So naturally a profit-oriented company like Apple's going to avoid including them if they can get away with it.

Of course, that's a pretty big "if".
You're the same guy who argued at length about 2 years ago that Apple wouldn't adopt USB sticks for software. That optical was here to stay. I was the one arguing that Apple would move to USB sticks. The MB Air was the big tip off back then. It was obvious they would phase out optical. MB Pros are next to lose their optical drives.

Well, now this software is cheaper, offered on USB sticks, where optical media has been terminated.
     
Kees
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Aug 17, 2011, 05:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Open Picture
Command 1
Open Picture
Command 1
Open Picture
Command 1
Open Picture
Command 1
Open Picture
Command 1

I mean, it resets for every freaking picture. In the time I've been in OS X (almost 10 years?) I can count the amount of the times I've used the Select Tool on one hand.

Speaking of one hand, if I'm just casually browsing some photos I usually don't even have my left hand on the keyboard.

Edit: Thanks for the info, however.
If you depress the spacebar, it "boomerangs" to the move tool, let go and it goes back to select. This is true for almost every image manipulation/drafting app, btw.
     
CharlesS
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Aug 17, 2011, 05:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by freudling View Post
You're the same guy who argued at length about 2 years ago that Apple wouldn't adopt USB sticks for software. That optical was here to stay. I was the one arguing that Apple would move to USB sticks. The MB Air was the big tip off back then. It was obvious they would phase out optical. MB Pros are next to lose their optical drives.

Well, now this software is cheaper, offered on USB sticks, where optical media has been terminated.
Are we really going to do this? I remember that conversation — what I pointed out two years ago was that USB sticks were still an order of magnitude more expensive than optical media, and that this was the reason why neither Apple nor pretty much anyone else sold software on USB sticks. You responded with some BS argument claiming that the USB sticks weren't that much more expensive, which was based on a ridiculous $1 per disc shipping cost you made up which caused the shipping to dominate everything else in the equation. Even in consumer land, it doesn't cost anything near $100 to ship a 100-pack of CD/DVD media — and it didn't two years ago, either.

What's happening now is that Apple's found something even cheaper than optical media: no media at all. The production costs, shipping costs, packaging, you name it — all goes to zero. The new MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros don't even come with a boot disk of any kind. At all. Yes, they are offering an optional USB installer for Lion. They're also heavily downplaying it, and charging twice as much for it as for the downloadable version. They're also charging twice as much for it as what Snow Leopard, which shipped on a DVD, cost.

At this juncture, they of course have to stop distributing the OS on DVDs as a matter of necessity, since several of their actual consumer-targeted machines don't even have optical drives at all anymore. When we had that argument two years ago, the consumer laptop was still the white MacBook, and the MBA was designed to be an auxiliary computer which you would use in tandem with a more full-featured machine, and was configured as such, and all the standalone Macs were equipped with optical drives, so it would have been idiotic from a financial standpoint to use USB sticks at that time. They're still too expensive (relatively speaking) to be practical, which is why Apple has to move to something else entirely — in this case digital downloads.

We'll probably get to a point where flash drives are practical for this sort of thing — with SSDs becoming more and more popular, the price of flash media has to start going down before too long. We're not there yet, though, and in the end it may not matter, if the digital download method turns out to be successful.
( Last edited by CharlesS; Aug 17, 2011 at 05:38 AM. )

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badidea
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Aug 17, 2011, 05:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Only 26MB, really a small update.

-t
I remember times when the entire Mac OS was 5x smaller than this update...
***
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 17, 2011, 07:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by freudling View Post
You're the same guy who argued at length about 2 years ago that Apple wouldn't adopt USB sticks for software. That optical was here to stay. I was the one arguing that Apple would move to USB sticks.
Well, that didn't happen, did it?

Apple only offers a single software title on USB stick.

In the meantime, only a single software title is still available on optical media - Logic.
     
amazing
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Aug 17, 2011, 11:44 AM
 
I bought Snow Leopard for $20, free freight. The Lion USB drive is way too expensive, no way will it ever be simpler than including a DVD would have been.

On top of that, AFAIK the USB Lion drive won't boot or install on a new MBA, which is where you would need a USB installer. Anybody with a new MBA will have to wait until the appropriate OS build for the new MBA models is available on Apple's USB.

Installing Lion is ridiculously complicated compared to what used to be:
1. Sometimes the Recovery Partition installs, sometimes it doesn't,
2. not to mention the download time,
3. after the long download, and you do the install, to add insult to injury, Apple deletes the installer that you paid for,
4. unless thru some arcane voodoo knowledge, you knew that you had to back it up before the install,
5. and knew the equally arcane method of creating your own backup DVD or USB stick,
6. if you messed up any of the above, you have to re-download (and not to mention the download time)
7. or you can hope that you can boot to the recovery partition, which will re-download for you
8. how are you going to explain this to your mom over the phone when she calls in a panic?
9. and if you want to install a vanilla Lion to an external drive, that's going to install yet another recovery partition to your internal HD, because the original recovery partition is linked only to your original install of Lion on your original HD
10. if you're stuck on a trip without the arcane voodoo DVD or USB stick, are you gonna have time for downloading,
11. and I'm sure I've forgotten a whole bunch more if's, and's or but's.

Where'd the simplicity go?
Can you imagine troubleshooting this with your aging relatives or clients over the phone?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 17, 2011, 11:57 AM
 
1. When does the recovery partition NOT install???
3. Apple frees up 3 GB of wasted space that you paid for (depends on your viewpoint).
4-8. Talking somebody through a re-download of Lion should not take any more effort than it took for any previous version. I wouldn't do either on the phone.
9. Really? Where did you get this info?

When was the last time you had to re-install your system? I can't remember, for any of my (four) machines.

Not counting formatting the disk and installing Lion on the test-bed MacBook.
     
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Aug 17, 2011, 11:57 AM
 
Sounds far from optimal. I think Apple is preparing for the day when all OS updates, even major milestones will happen OTA and differential installs, just like with iOS 5. It certainly takes power away from the user, and right now with a dodgy install process coupled with sometimes unreliable network connections, problems will definitely occur for some.

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Aug 17, 2011, 11:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
I bought Snow Leopard for $20, free freight. The Lion USB drive is way too expensive, no way will it ever be simpler than including a DVD would have been.

On top of that, AFAIK the USB Lion drive won't boot or install on a new MBA, which is where you would need a USB installer. Anybody with a new MBA will have to wait until the appropriate OS build for the new MBA models is available on Apple's USB.

Installing Lion is ridiculously complicated compared to what used to be:
1. Sometimes the Recovery Partition installs, sometimes it doesn't,
2. not to mention the download time,
3. after the long download, and you do the install, to add insult to injury, Apple deletes the installer that you paid for,
4. unless thru some arcane voodoo knowledge, you knew that you had to back it up before the install,
5. and knew the equally arcane method of creating your own backup DVD or USB stick,
6. if you messed up any of the above, you have to re-download (and not to mention the download time)
7. or you can hope that you can boot to the recovery partition, which will re-download for you
8. how are you going to explain this to your mom over the phone when she calls in a panic?
9. and if you want to install a vanilla Lion to an external drive, that's going to install yet another recovery partition to your internal HD, because the original recovery partition is linked only to your original install of Lion on your original HD
10. if you're stuck on a trip without the arcane voodoo DVD or USB stick, are you gonna have time for downloading,
11. and I'm sure I've forgotten a whole bunch more if's, and's or but's.

Where'd the simplicity go?
Can you imagine troubleshooting this with your aging relatives or clients over the phone?


You're right that the first go of a downloadable OS has been a bit rocky (another thing not on your list is that the Mac App Store folds on incomplete downloads), but I think Apple is on the right track here. There is much to like about this approach, and much that has gone well.

For starters, Google "Recovery Disk Assistant" and you will see that Apple has released a utility that will allow you to create USB boot disks you can use to recover a bad Lion install, which takes care of your points 3-10, I think.

This is not Grandma friendly, but if Apple can automate this, perhaps make creating a boot disk part of the install process, I think there is a reasonably sound path forward, do you agree?
     
besson3c
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
Sounds far from optimal. I think Apple is preparing for the day when all OS updates, even major milestones will happen OTA and differential installs, just like with iOS 5. It certainly takes power away from the user, and right now with a dodgy install process coupled with sometimes unreliable network connections, problems will definitely occur for some.

I'm not sure I follow your thought process here... Whether you are sending deltas or complete installs, you still need to provide the user with some base to operate from. The challenge is getting that base install onto their machines for the first time. If your point is that Apple is hoping that this will only need to happen once, and on seldom occasions a computer has to be rebuilt, I guess I see your point. Is that what you meant?
     
besson3c
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
3. Apple frees up 3 GB of wasted space that you paid for (depends on your viewpoint).
It should not do this without asking you, and without running their Recovery Assistant thing to give you the option to create a USB drive. This is indefensible, sorry.

4-8. Talking somebody through a re-download of Lion should not take any more effort than it took for any previous version. I wouldn't do either on the phone.
What do you mean? Previous versions of what?

When was the last time you had to re-install your system? I can't remember, for any of my (four) machines.

Not counting formatting the disk and installing Lion on the test-bed MacBook.

With all due respect, I think this is a pretty lame rationale.

You don't just assume that all of your users are too dumb to want to reinstall a system on their own, or that they'll never have to on a crappy file system like HFS+ that is corruption prone, without asking them. Your personal experiences that shape your perception of how often these sorts of events occur is kind of irrelevant, because they do occur, and the users should have the option to assess this for themselves. If nothing more if a user had a bad past experience where they lost data or needed to run DiskWarrior or something, don't you think they would be comforted by knowing that they have some way to get Lion back? This sort of one-way ticket, or ticket that is at least one-way for the capabilities of most users (who probably have no clue that they can do download the Recovery Assistant) is totally unacceptable, IMHO. Usability.

Apple had to do was build the Recovery Assistant into the installer, ask the user if they want to create a recovery drive, and call it a day. Instead they botched this, and this is not cool.
     
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I'm not sure I follow your thought process here... Whether you are sending deltas or complete installs, you still need to provide the user with some base to operate from. The challenge is getting that base install onto their machines for the first time. If your point is that Apple is hoping that this will only need to happen once, and on seldom occasions a computer has to be rebuilt, I guess I see your point. Is that what you meant?
Sort of. I mean that Apple is looking forward to a time when everyone will be able to rely on online downloads of OS updates to such an extent that they'll download and install very fast and pretty transparently through the iCloud so to speak, and that if a new boot disk needs a full OS the EFI will just hop online and nearly instantly get the drive bootable. But that time is not here yet.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
besson3c
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Apple had to do was build the Recovery Assistant into the installer, ask the user if they want to create a recovery drive, and call it a day. Instead they botched this, and this is not cool.

Oh yeah, and the Lion installer itself should install the Recovery Assistant, and tell the user when asked if they want to create a recovery drive that if they don't want to do so at that time they can do so later by accessing the Recovery Assistant in their Utilities folder.
     
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Aug 17, 2011, 12:19 PM
 
Only the best from the most valuable corporation on the face of the earth.

besson, I know I've asked you this before, but why don't you go to Cupertino, get hired as a multi-million dollar software engineer and whip the OS X dev team into shape? Seriously. You could iron out a bunch of these rough edges, speed up the core OS by a factor of 5 at least and get a new super replacement for HFS going in your spare time.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
 
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