Back to the Mac: OS X 10.7 Lion Review
by Andrew Cunningham, Kristian Vättö & Anand Lal Shimpi on July 20, 2011 8:30 AM ESTNow that we've talked a bit about how things look in general, let's talk a bit more about the Finder specifically.
My first impression of the Finder was that it had lost some weight - Finder windows, in general, can now show the same amount or more using the same number of pixels, though that does come at the expense of some functionality. The arrangement and spacing of the left sidebar has been adjusted to take up less space than before, which is especially welcome on 11” and 13” Macs. Note that the Devices field now shows up at the bottom of the list instead of the top, another small step toward obscuring the filesystem (and, as well, steering newbie users away from just dumping everything on the desktop or the root of their drive).
Finder windows also shed some pixels (and, yes, I’m going to harp on this some more, downplay the notion of “files” and “disk space”) by removing the bottom toolbar by default - the one that shows the number of items in a given folder and the amount of disk space remaining on the volume, along with the slider that allows users to easily change the size of the icons. Thankfully, those who miss these features can switch them back on by opting to “Show Toolbar” up in the View menu.
Also missing is the button in the upper right-hand corner that would invoke icon-only view - those of you who use it will have to become acquainted with Alt+Command+T, a keyboard shortcut that toggles this change.
The default view when you open up a new Finder window now is called “All My Files,” which uses Spotlight’s file indexing to show you all files of a certain type no matter where they are on your hard drive - this is similar to Windows 7’s Libraries in that it groups your files together in one place without actually altering the fundamental directory structure (i.e., documents show up in All My Files, but they're still physically stored in the Documents folder).
All My Files is organized by rows, and by default, you’ll be shown just the first few files of a given type in each row - clicking on the left and right-hand side of the row will allow you to navigate through the files, and you can also click “show all” to see your icons tiled in a more traditional Finder view.
Snow Leopard introduced the ability to thumb through multi-page documents, PDFs, and presentations, and Lion further enhances that functionality by adding a full screen mode to Quick Look (which is still invoked by selecting a file and hitting the spacebar).
Finally, Finder gains some abilities that Windows Explorer has had, like, forever: the ability to merge two folders of the same name, and the ability to keep two files of the same name during a copy operation by renaming one of them. It's boring stuff and Windows has done it for years, but that doesn't make me appreciate it less now that Apple has finally implemented it.
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GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Apple has recognized the money maker it has with its App Store (Or can we now call this an application store). I'm not a mac user and most likely never will be, but I have to say their business model works very well for squeezing income from every corner of their empire. The IOS app store has been a huge money maker (30% of every purchase adds up quickly) and now Apple is moving the same business model to its computers. Apple does have a tendancey to repackage and sell its products in various versions, but with the same underlying technology (develop once, repackage multiple times). True to form, all the apple fans will swarm around and gladly deposit their coin into the machine.GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Realistically, They should give away their OS to invite more users, who will then shop their true money maker....the app store. Kinda like a drug dealer would give the first taste for free. :-)ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer has already said they operate the App Store as a break even venture, ie. their 30% cut basically goes directly to operating expenses. Unless you believe their CFO is actually lying to investors at shareholder meetings in which case you should report this and your evidence to the SEC.GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
$1,634,000,000 in revenue from Other Music Related Products and Services (3)(3) Includes sales from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore in addition to sales of iPod services and Apple-branded and third-party iPod accessories
Lets not be too naive.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
The App Store no doubt generates revenue for Apple, but how much profit do they actually make?steven75 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link
Please educate yourself. As much as you might think it, yuo aren't smarter than the SEC.GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
I think ALL investors are looking for profits, and if Apple happens to turn a profit through their iTunes store (whoops), do you really think the investors will be angry about the white lie?Taft12 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Accountants can paint a revenue picture to look any way they want it to. Look no further than "Hollywood Accounting" in the movie industry. Don't take that break even comment at face value.parlour - Monday, July 25, 2011 - link
I would call up the SEC and tell them about your great insight. If what you are saying is true Apple is in deep, deep trouble.In reality it would be stupid for Apple’s CFO to lie about something like that, not worth the trouble at all.
Puppies04 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
$1,634,000,000 just to break even! Sheesh that is some massive overhead.