Category Archives: Mac App Store

Jul 22 2011

Lion: First Impressions

OS X Lion revealed at WWDCI took the plunge and installed Lion the day it became available. Normally, I do everything by the book and backup everything onto an external drive (usually cloning the whole drive, just in case) as well as important files onto DVD.

This time I took the totally rash (some may say reckless) course and just installed Lion without any backups. Now before you start commenting and telling me what a total idiot I am let me make one or two things clear. First, all my important work files are backup in Dropbox. Secondly, I have numerous DVDs full of my image files. Thirdly, well, thirdly I just trusted Apple. Yes I know that’s a bit rash but hey, they have had at least 18 months to get this thing right and all the pre-release comments from developers was that everything was going smoothly and no big problems had arisen.

So, how did it all go you are asking? Well, in simple terms it was totally problem free. Having purchased Lion in the App Store and clicked the ‘Install’ button I just left it for a few hours to do its stuff. As it happened, I had a meeting I needed to go to that evening so when I returned it was all done and dusted. One thing that did surprise me about the whole thing was that unlike previous upgrades there was no ‘Previous System’ folder. Everything was as before, except that instead of Snow Leopard I now had the Lion interface to get used too.

Also, apart from the whole thing being so trouble-free, it also took just a few hours rather than a whole day to do. No more copying files back into the new set-up etc. Just carry on as normal.

Also, the new scrolling didn’t bother me, I just adapted quickly to it and have decided to stick with it. Those bloggers who make a point of changing settings to go back to the old way of doing things, well my view is that they should live in the present and go with the flow. Its easy and after a while you don’t even notice.

Other positives are that everything seems a bit quicker though this could just be a subjective thing because of the novelty of having a new OS. Certainly, Finder seems quicker and once indexing had completed, searches in Spotlight seem to be much quicker.

So, all in all, first impressions are excellent. Apple deserves a big slap on the back for making the whole process so smooth and trouble-free. Oh, and we mustn’t forget the cost either. Just £21 for the right to install Lion on up to 5 authorised Macs is a steal. Well done Apple!

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Jul 20 2011

Latest MacBook Air makes it debut

MacBook Air

Today (Wednesday 20th July) saw Apple announce its new line-up of MacBook Air portable computers. Both the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air now feature the latest generation of Intel processors, the Core i5 and i7. With speeds up to 1.8GHz and faster memory, the new MacBook Air gains up to 2.5x the processing performance over the previous generation.

The new MacBook Air also features the Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor, which includes an on-chip engine for video encoding and decoding. It also comes with the new Thunderbolt port, transferring data up to 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0. You can also use it to connect the new Apple Thunderbolt Display.The new display (more of that later) offers over 4 million eye-popping pixels while coming with the following features:

  • Gigabit Ethernet,
  • FireWire 800,
  • an additional Thunderbolt port,
  • three USB ports,
  • a FaceTime HD camera,
  • 2.1 stereo sound and
  • a built-in microphone.

Instead of a traditional hard drive the MacBook Air is now all Flash memory storage (64GB, 128GB or 256GB), offering reliability, speed and efficiency, as well as up to 30 days on stand-by. It also comes with a full-size keyboard that is backlit, as well as a Multi-Touch Trackpad, making use of the new Multi-Touch gestures in Lion (also released today and available only on the App Store).

The display of the MacBook Air measures a mere 4.86 millimetres (0.19 inch) thin, yet the resolution is so high, you’ll feel like you’re looking at a much larger screen.  The 11-inch MacBook Air features a resolution equal to that of your typical 13-inch notebook, while the 13-inch MacBook Air wows with a resolution equivalent to a typical 15-inch notebook.

Supported resolutions:

11.6-inch (diagonal) model:

  • 1366×768 (native),
  • 1344×756 and 1280×720 pixels at 16:9 aspect ratio;
  • 1152×720 and 1024×640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio;
  • 1024×768 and 800×600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

113.3-inch (diagonal) model:

  • 1440×900 (native),
  • 1280×800, 1152×720 and 1024×640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio;
  • 1024×768, 800×600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

The new range is available now and ships with Lion OS X. UK pricing is as follows:

  • 11.6-inch model, 64GB Flash Storage – £849.00
  • 11.6-inch model, 128GB Flash Storage – £999.00
  • 13.3-inch model, 128GB Flash Storage – £1,099.00
  • 13.3-inch model, 256GB Flash Storage – £1,349.00

The UK Apple Store is quoting 24 hours free delivery.

 

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Jun 8 2011

Lion OS X available for mere $29.99 from App Store. Arrives July.

OS X Lion revealed at WWDCFinally, Lion OS X was unveiled after much fanfare and expectation at Apple’s WWDC on the 6th June. Perhaps the greatest surprise was the price and the fact that it will be available only though the App Store. The download will be 4GB and you won’t need to reboot! The price will be $29.99 (£20.99) and you will be able to install it all your Macs that are authorised on your Apple account. You will also be able to purchase the Server version for just $49.99 (UK price TBC), a huge reduction on the previous price of $999!

The next iteration of OS X comes with 250+ improvements (though most are minor tweaks). Here is the most important ones (as chosen by Apple):

OS X LIon's new featuresHighlights look to be Mission Control, Multi-Touch Gestures and Resume.

Mission Control:

Mission Control brings together full-screen apps, Dashboard, Exposé and Spaces in one new feature that gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything on your system. With a single swipe on the trackpad, your desktop zooms out to Mission Control. Think of it as the hub of your system: view everything and go anywhere with just a click.

Mission ControlApple has brought together the functionality of Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces and full-screen apps into one place. By using the trackpad or the Mission Control icon in the Dock, you can zoom your desktop and voila, the Mission Control GUI appears! nWith Mission Control, a row of thumbnails appears at the top of your screen. Icons represent Dashboard, desktop spaces and your full-screen apps. The lower part of the screen shows an Exposé view of the open windows on your desktop grouped by app. To get where you want to go, just swipe left or right. Or click a thumbnail. Simple!

You can create new ‘spaces’ easily by just dragging an app to the top row of icons on the screen or by clicking on the + icon in the top row. If you want to move windows to a new space then just drag it from the Exposé area to the icon at the top for that particular space.

Multi-Touch Gestures:

Multi-touch gestures allows you to tap, scroll, pinch and swipe to navigate around your Mac in an intuitive manner.

Multi-Touch Gestures

With Multi-Touch Gestures, when you scroll down on your trackpad or Magic Mouse, your document scrolls down. When you scroll up, your web page scrolls up. When you swipe left, your photos move left. In addition, Lion introduces new animations, making it all seem more fluid and enhancing the whole experience. In addition, in OS X Lion, the scroll bar appears only when you scroll. So it doesn’t get in the way of the content on the screen.

Resume:

Apps resume when launched

When you launch an application, it appears exactly as you left it. All the open windows, palettes and panes — even the cursor position and highlighted text — come back just as they were.

System resume on restart

When you restart your computer, OS X Lion pauses your system so everything comes back just as you left it. All the apps that were running reopen, and windows appear exactly as they were, so you can begin working immediately.

Clean start

Lion lets you choose a clean start, so you return to a fresh desktop after you restart your Mac.

All in all, the next version of OS X looks like it will improve what is already the best user-experience beyond anything in Windows 7 or Linux. Also, the gradual alignment of features in OS X and iOS should help make the whole experience of switching between your Mac, iPhone and iPad all that much more smoother. This can only be a good thing and may actually help sell more Macs. Good news all round basically.

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Apr 15 2011

Lion Developer Preview available for download

OS X LionIf you are a registered Mac OS X developer, you can now hit Software Update for the latest update to Lion Developer Preview 2. The prerelease version of Mac OS X 10.7 works with XCode 4.1 Developer Preview 3.

Looking forward to Lion we can enjoy the prospect of full screen apps, refined Aqua look (popovers, overlay scrollbars and multi-touch gestures), as well as Auto Save and versions.

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