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 ESTOne of Lion’s biggest new features is totally new Exposé. Exposé’s task is to help people navigate between windows on the desktop. Considering that most of us often have more windows open than we can actually fit on the screen, a feature like Exposé has been very useful. With Lion, Apple has decided to take Exposé one step further and it now goes by a new name: Mission Control.
While Exposé was strictly limited to the apps open in your desktop (or one Space), Mission Control breaks the limits and adds Spaces into the mix. To simplify, Mission Control is just a combined version of old Exposé, Spaces, and the Dashboard.
On the top, you have your available Spaces (and remember, each full screen app you have open will show up as its own Space). You can easily add a new Space by taking your mouse to the top right corner and clicking. The center is taken by Exposé-like app switcher which groups all your open windows togehter by app. If you have for instance three Safari windows open, they will be grouped together. The bottom is taken by Dock, which shows you what apps you have open.
Mission Control isn't as simple as the old Exposé, and if you have absolutely no use for Spaces, then I can see why you would like to use the old Exposé instead. The old Exposé was better at switching between random windows while Mission Control does a better job of switching between apps thanks to its neater grouping.
There is one disadvantage compared with Exposé though: if you minimize a window into app icon in the Dock, that window doesn't show up in Mission Control. The only way I’ve found is to use the Application Exposé, which is still present, by right-clicking the Dock icon and selecting “Show All Windows” (or, if you have a multitouch device, doing a two-fingered double tap on the app's icon in the Dock). For me, this is a big setback as I used that feature extensively and it's now more difficult to take advantage of.
Some avid Spaces users might also prefer the old Spaces, as you could have the whole screen dedicated to switching between Spaces if you wanted. Now you only have roughly 20% of the screen for Spaces when in Mission Control. It can be hard to switch between Spaces because the thumbnails in Mission Control are so small that you can’t easily see what's in each one.
While it’s not a big surprise, the old Exposé and Spaces are dead so there is not an option to disable Mission Control and use them instead. It's possible that third party software will bring back the old Exposé and/or Spaces, but no announcements have been made so far.
I think Mission Control does great job for the people it’s aimed at: consumers. The average user most likely won’t need more than five Spaces, of which the majority will be full screen applications. For that use, Mission Control is brilliant. Personally, I never used Spaces with Leopard or Snow Leopard but I find myself using Spaces daily in Lion. In earlier versions of OS X, Spaces was a feature that was a bit hidden - there was no dedicated button for it and it didn’t feel as integrated as it does with Lion, and Spaces simply didn’t feel as easy to use. Mission Control integrates Spaces into OS X in a much more convenient way.
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mrcaffeinex - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
I purchased a MacBook Pro when Leopard was due to come out. Apple mailed me a free upgrade DVD about a month after I purchased the MacBook. When Snow Leopard came out I purchased the upgrade DVD for something in the neighborhood of $30 if I remember correctly. I've done clean installations from all of the media and never run into an activation/registration problem.On the flip side, I paid $149 for Windows XP, another $149 for XP 64-bit (if only there had been driver support back in the day...), $199 for Vista and another $149 for 7. Granted these were over a slightly longer time period. Still, I can't help but think that some of the initial investment cost of the Mac has been offset by not having to spend significantly more on software upgrades to get the features or functionality that I enjoy having at my disposal.
Factor in the inconvenience of having several iterations of Windows that were more or less junk, but still cost the same and it slides the scale further in favor of OS X in my experience. Now I can also get what is essentially a household upgrade in Lion for approximately $30 if I decide it is worthwhile.
Don't take this as an attack on Microsoft and their Windows operating system, though. It is still an integral part of my computing experience every day and I really enjoy Windows 7 (in fact, it runs better on my MacBook than on most notebooks I've worked on). I just wish they would adopt a strategy that would make upgrading Windows more affordable for the do-it-yourself PC enthusiast.
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
The amount of money Apple made on your purchase of their hardware more than covers the cost of the OS. Microsoft does not sell their own brand of computers. You can purchase a PC laptop for hundreds less than you can purhcase an Apple MAC.Think McFly, think!
xype - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link
I love it how PC people have such a sweet feeling of entitlement.Have you ever had/bought/found a product that you were simply content with paying a premium for because it just worked well for you? Have you ever overtipped a waiter because the service was really good?
You know, some people don’t have a problem rewarding either individuals or, yes, teh ebil corburayshns, for work/services well done.
GotThumbs - Thursday, July 21, 2011 - link
??? "feeling of entitlement" ???Not sure what you mean, but I do work hard for my money and do have a choice of where I spend it and how much I'm willing to pay for a product or service. There is a HUGE difference between tipping a waiter for working hard to provide you the best experience, than a company who sells consumers the same technology I can get elsewhere for less and be just as satisfied with my purchase. I'm not a 'Scrooge', but I'm also not a fool. Meaning: A fool and his money are quickly parted.
I build my own systems so I not just satisfied with what is put out by the large PC sellers either. Most readers here are not satisfied with being 'spoon fed' what we should be satisfied with.
If you or anyone else wish to purchase apple products, your free to do so. Just don't expect me to give you a pat on the back for it.
steven75 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link
You seem to have missed the entire point that Microsoft OS upgrades are *hundreds of dollars* per copy and Mac OSX upgrades are $30 for multiple copies.wicko - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - link
Umm, currently it is roughly 100$ for Home Premium (I paid 125 when I preordered Win7 Pro Upgrade edition), less at some retailers.Not to mention, you glossed over the fact that there does exist a "mac tax", which you would have paid on every mac you own, offsetting the total cost.
Say I spend 2400 on 3 PCs (including OS) and you spend 3000 on 3 Macs. Performance is identical. It will cost me 300 to upgrade each one to Win7. It will cost you 30$ to upgrade all of your Macs. 2700 vs 3030, Interesting. I will have to go through another version of Win7 in order to catch up with you in cost. And I'm being generous with respect to the difference in price before upgrades.
But, you know, you can install it on as many Macs as you'd like, so go nuts. Just don't pretend you're somehow spending less than those who buy Windows licenses.
anactoraaron - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - link
Sure, but let's compare apples to apples (pun intended). If Microsoft were to charge $150 for what little differences there are from 10.6 and 10.6 + hybrid iOS called 10.7 windows discs would never sell (who the hell buys MS discs retail that reads AT anyway?? Newegg has always sold oem discs MUCH cheaper-wait apple person NM). But to sit there and tell me that there isn't any major changes from XP to 7... that's just ridiculous.xyn081s - Monday, August 1, 2011 - link
I think you're the one who missed the point. Even with all these Win licenses, it'll still be cheaper than a Mac. Plus, you can get the Family pack, 3 licenses for $150...ex2bot - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I know this comment was a few days ago, but I had a laugh at your comment, so I just had to open my digital mouth and reply:"2400 for 3 PCS ($800 ea.) and $3000 for your [POS] Mac".
If you paid $40,000 for three Chevy Malibus and I paid $80,000 for my one souped-up Corvette" I would have gotten RIPPED OFF! (No, actually I would have received A LOT OF TICKETS!!)
A better comparison is
$800 PC vs. $1400 iMac . Not 800 vs. 3000. * Incidentally, you can sell your used Mac for a lot more than the technically equiv. PC. I've used that to upgrade my Macs several times.
-Ex2bot
Mac Fanbot
* Think an $800 PC = Mac Pro? The Mac Pros have Xeon processors. You know better than I that Xeons are $400 or $500 each. The cheapest Mac Pro has *dual* E5620s @ 2.66. You can't build a octo-core Xeon machine for $800. And you've got to have a motherboard and a, what, case? Power supply? And a few other parts, right?
nafhan - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
So, you bought four copies of Windows for a single computer? You may be the only person to have done this... A more typical experience over that time period is: Windows XP "free" with new PC, and $100 to upgrade to Windows 7.With the amount of money you spent on OS licenses, you could have purchased both a Win XP computer (OS included) and a Windows 7 box (OS included) outright.