Monday, March 5, 2012

Review: OS X Lion

The king is back! But definitely not this one!


I know it's kinda late, considering the next OS X is expected to come this summer. But I'm a new Lion user (Thanks to my 32 bit MBP), so what the hell, let's spend some time blabbering about this OS. I like OS X, and frankly I've spent my last 6 years using OS X. And I'm happy with it. Well, I was happy. Until I bought Mac Mini and install Lion. Here is the spec of my Mac Mini: 

i5 2.5 GHz Dual Core, Memory 4 GB (2 x 2GB), HD 500 GB connected to 24 inches Samsung SyncMaster SA350 running at full HD (1920 x1080).  




GUI:
There are a few things added in Lion like the Mission Control. But not much. I wouldn't expect much for a US$ 30 software so I won't complaint much about this. But considering the Metro invasion in Windows, Apple should at least come up with something in the next version.

Performance:
This is where all the problems exist. Before I started cursing on Lion, let me explain why I'm pissed of. I have a 6 years old Macbook pro running Snow Leopard using Core Duo (32 bit) 2.0 GHz with 4 GB Memory. Now I still use it occasionally. The most significant trouble for me is the quicktime. I saved a few videos on my portfolio using .mov extension (codec H.264, no sound). The problem is when I ran the video using quicktime, the video is extremely laggy. But that's not the case if I use VLC. I'm not sure why but considering quicktime comes with OS X, they should've notice this. The second problem is, I'm not sure what happened, the OS tend to freeze each time I try to open something (Menu, Program). It's a short less than half a second freeze but it's extremely annoying. I mostly run Xcode and Pixelmator and most of the times, when both program opened, the freeze happens more often. I'm not sure why and how to fix it, but after a few search on Google, I simply can't find anything to fix the problem. Currently I'm typing this on my safari while listening to iTunes. And I notice that sometimes the music just stop for half a second, and the cursor don't move for half a second. It annoying and hopefully Apple fix this.

Feature:
Just like the GUI, there are not much addition on the feature. But I would like to focus my attention to the Resume feature and the disappearance of save-as. So for short, resume is a feature that keeps the status of your program when you shut down the computer and re-open the application when you start the OS. I don't know if it's just me, but I tend to shut down the OS without closing the programs and let the program automatically closed by itself. And thanks to the resume feature, I can't do this anymore because each time I open my computer in the morning, the massive pile of program is reopening. It's extremely annoying to start my day by closing programs. And to make it worse, Apple does not provide anything to set the default 'do not reopen programs'. There are scripts around the internet to shut down this feature, but still it's extremely annoying. The second feature called 'the disappearance of save as'. I dont know about you guys, but I hate this 'achievement'. So instead of save-as, apple decided to put duplicate and save feature. It will do the same, but requires 2-3 additional click, considering what app you're currently opening. Its just as stupid as no-cut. I'm not sure what Apple's motivation doing this, there are a few explanation on the net, but I just can't justify them.

Conclusion:
This OS is like the Vista of the Apple. Not only it's a hit performance-wise, it's also a set back to Apple OS. If not because the requirement of Xcode 4.2+, I wouldn't even consider upgrading to this version. I simply can't wait for Cougar, this OS is an abysmal to Apple's OS. At least that what I thought.

What Went Right: cheap update
What Went Wrong: lack of significant feature, too many useless gimmick, performance hit

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