Apple’s Back to the Mac Announcements
First off, I'm very impressed that Apple is continuing with the live broadcasting of it's major keynotes and product releases. I think for a technology company, it's what should be done, as opposed to what can be done. If you invest in massive server farms and huge datacenters, with streaming video, TV, and movies, then if you can't pull off a keynote, you're in big trouble.
That said, I had hoped that there would be something really neat about the things I'd see in the keynote. But there weren't. I can understand that a lot of people like to work their apps full-screen. My wife is one of them. Makes sense for her, as that's how she "sees" the computer - a device that has "multiple personalities". It can do email, it can do web, it can do music, but in her mind, as with many others, it doesn't do these all at once.
And that's where I sit. All kinds of things happening at once. For me, my phone can do one thing at a time, and with the fast app switching, I have to say I'm not upset about the "reconfiguration" time. But for a computer? That would be horrible. So while I can see the keynote going for the more consumer-level audience, it missed me.
Don't get me wrong, I'll upgrade to iLife '11, but not because of the full-screen modes.
But as for Mac OS X 10.7 - Lion, I didn't see anything there that I liked. Not a thing. I'm very comfortable with Spaces and Expose. I don't need them in a different view. I don't dislike the new view, but it's something I'd never have asked them to improve upon in a million years. It's perfect at what it does.
As for the App Store. I'll wait and see. There's a lot to like about it, but I like the way in which my apps now work. They all update, or close enough. They are easy to find with LaunchBar, and I don't have to worry about those ugly screens of apps. That's something for a phone, not a real computer. At least, not for me.
They didn't highlight the little things, and I'm hoping there's more to like about Lion than what I saw. The new iOS-like scroll bars will be nice. I don't want to see them if I'm not needing to see them. Scroll bars on Terminal.app have been something I wish they could remove for ages. Glad to hear that the rumors say they'll be updated in Lion.
I'm sure I'll get Lion for my machines. It's the future. But I hope there's a lot more to like about Lion than what we saw in the keynote. That's awfully thin, in my book.
Finally, the MacBook Air. Nice looking notebook, but too small and too underpowered for me. It'd be nice to see a higher resolution screen on my 17" MacBook Pro... along with faster processors and more memory. I'm already excited about the SSD option, but just need to wait for a nice update to the MacBook Pro line to get a new one.
In all, it's interesting, but not earth-shaking.