• App Store was a Lion Feature but will be available four-five months before Lion is released
• Lion is a move away from the Finder
• Lion is a move away from the Dock
• Lion will make files, not apps, cloud-centric
Reschke writes, “Steve said he only had a limited amount of time to share with us some key features. What I think that really meant is he wasn’t quite ready to reveal the massive change (and improvements) Lion will bring to our computing lives. Lion will be the next giant step away from computing as we have known it for the past 25 years.”
Full article, with explanations of the four bullet points above, here.
ROAR!
um no
WHY THE HELL!! WOULD I DOWNLOAD A FILE EVERY TIME I WANT TO USE IT!!!!!!!!@!! (and programs (incase you did not notice) are also files)
If you don’t want finder get an ipad
And launch pad is essentially a full screen dock
swiley
I doubt they haven’t considered the needs of different categories of users. Let’s wait and see what they bring before throwing rocks at it.
Dose not say you’ll download every time. I see this much more like IMAP cloud services. You’ll just have your files “everywhere.” No need to move them around all the time.
Bring on Lion!
I don’t necessarily want my files cloud-centric. If I’m on a train or a plane, and I want to pull out my laptop and work, I want to be able to have a local copy that I can load straight into my app. Now, having a backup saved in the cloud is a different matter, but there just isn’t enough access to the cloud to make an OS dependent on it.
Abandoning the desktop file paradigm would be a HUGE mistake. I don’t mind Apple attempting to create optional shells/programs (iphoto, mail, launchpad, etc), on top of Finder that make it easier to organize files and find information. But to abandon finder entirely, and force an ipadesque interface on a full fledged computer would be a major mistake. Hopefully Apple is smarter than that…
I agree with Steve above. Files will be similar to IMAP. No need to download, everything will stay in sync much like iCal, Address Book, Mail, etc. Look how iTunes and iPhoto works. You want a song or a photo? You don’t open it in the Finder, you open the app. No need for Finder, at least the current iteration.
@swiley,
Steve knows what’s best for us.
@m159
I’m throwing rocks at the guy who wrote this article not lion, lion sounds really cool (except for the zoom button, that sounds windowzish)
@Steve
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thank you for correcting me steve. When see cloud I usually think of the nightmare that is what google proposes as the future of computing, which only works when your tethered to a 6 foot cable. From what I’v seen of apple’s clouds I think they could pull it off in an insane way that “just works” even if your in the middle of a desert in africa
@MacDust
Not all apps work like that, though. Sure, if I want to listen to music or look at photos, it works like that, but if I want to open a doc, I’ll usually go to the file. And particularly for storage space management, if I need to clear out some space on my hard drive, I’ll take files and move them to an external hard drive (or a flash drive or SD card) and then when I want to open a file, I’ll open the file itself, not the app, and then try and navigate my way to the file. For those of us who still value the ability to work on files offline if need be, moving to 100% cloud computing would be a disaster.
@elarue
I think it will be sort of like time machine, so you can still use finder and your sd cards will be completely unclouded.
I think we should all just wait to use Lion and see how it actually will work. Steve Jobs isn’t known for making his OS user-unfriendly that is his friend Bill Gates job.. or atleast was and now Ballmer has taken over that.
Anybody that thinks that Apple intends that you have to download a file everytime you want to use it is dumber than a doorknob.
And anybody really feels that working exclusively in a cloud is the way of the future is even dumber.
The “cloud” is such an F’d out term already. I’m sick of hearing the phrase “cloud computing”.
Isn’t that just a stupid name for having your files on remote, and most likely, redundant servers?
Cloud-centric files = Dropbox
Breaking out my faithful Apple //c: Ahh….
I am afraid Lion is going to push me towards Ubuntu. I already have had to learn ways around Apple’s methods. iTunes can’t keep up with my media needs, and iPhoto just plain sucks. I have to circumvent both of them. Not to mention Time Machine. Looks like I’m going to have to do even more of this with Lion. Why bother?
Careful there @MDmac, your lack of perspective is showing. You sound very much like those people who used to say “Anyone that expects people to use a mouse and a GUI for everything they do on a computer is just dumb. Anyone that thinks command lines won’t remain the primary way to use computers is just dumber.”
More and more of what we do will shift to “the cloud.” Internet access is becoming ubiquitous. The computer is morphing into nothing more than an appliance.
Over the ThanksGiving weekend I did a massive amount of remote maintenance on a network for a client. I pretty much did it all using my iPad. I have ALL my client documents stored in the cloud now, including images, spreadsheets, word processing documents, PDF, etc.
The need for local storage is getting smaller and smaller. Many, if not MOST computer users can get along fine with 32 or 64GB of local space and cloud storage.
John Gage, the 6th employee of Sun Microsystems, is famous for saying “the network is the computer.” When he coined the phrase, few understood it, but these days the meaning is apparent. The Internet has evolved to host many functions that were traditionally housed on local computers and networks. The network has indeed become the computer.
The Mac is dead, at least what we know as the Mac. This is Apple’s direction and you’re going to have to adjust your thinking to see it.
When he was interviewed by Fortune Magazine on February 19, 1996, Steve Jobs was asked what he would do if he was running Apple. Steve responded,
“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
Clearly this is what he’s doing!
The Four Horsemen of the Macintosh’s Apocalypse are Cloud Computing, iOS, the iPad/iPhone, and the App Store. They are the Macintosh’s war, pestilence, famine and death.
I call out the Macintosh by name because it is the platform most near and dear to our hearts, but what we are really talking about is a paradigm shift from conventional computers to appliances such as the iPad and cloud computing. That’s right. Windows and Linux, they’re dead also.
You wanna see the evolution, look no further than the new MacBook Air.
The initial release of Lion will be the first step. By the time Lion ends its life, more and more people will have all of their files in the cloud. Entire businesses will exist in the cloud instead of the 19th century concept of the workplace. People will work in the cloud. It’s coming.
Apple has bought the rights to MS Bob, which will now be Apple Bob. <rimshot>
@theloniusMac
We’re not to the stage of being able to do exclusively cloud computing yet. 64GB of local storage space is basically what I have on my 2007 MacBook (60GB, actually), and I’m constantly getting low space warnings, beach balls, etc. I am so longing for a MBP, one of the reasons being, so I can get a 500GB hard drive! (which is why I’m hoping the rumor about them shifting exclusively to SSD isn’t true, because a 500GB one of those would be prohibitively expensive).
As ubiquitous as internet access is, it’s still not 100% accessible anywhere you go (think trains, airplanes), and so it’s simply not practical to build an OS that’s completely dependent on it. If it’s something where I can sync local copies onto a server at will, sure, that’s a different story, but I still need to be able to store some files locally. (And have more storage space!)
Lion is take a Lion’s share of the competitive market. iCal that.
I have a feeling that Apple has put a few minutes of thought into how to handle those of us who have large numbers of documents and are used to navigating the Finder to open what we want. I seriously doubt this would be just changing the desktop to view app icons, after which you still have to navigate to a file. Apple has something clever up its sleeve, I trust.
And if you don’t like it, don’t upgrade to Lion.
I for one would greatly welcome the ability to have my files sync’d between my iPhoto library, iTunes, Word/Pages documents, movies, etc. Think about no backup worries, no problems with working on old versions of a file. Much better than the Home sync folder which was rumored for OS X for a few years.
@ theloniousMac
I don’t mind if you’re right on the consumer side. This paradigm shift toward touch OS and cloud does work better in many respects on that end with many fewer problems once the Internet infrastructure is completely ubiquitous (which it will be once cellular networks become what they are capable of).
But from a pro app user like myself, I worry some of these steps won’t jive. I shudder to think of a day when Apple products are used to consume professional media but it all has to be generated on Windows and Linux boxes. Not saying that’s going to happen, but I’m paying close attention.
The first Mac on which I install Lion will be my mane computer.
@elarue “We’re not to the stage of being able to do exclusively cloud computing yet. “
“Yet” is the operative word in that sentence. I used to wander around with a MacBook Pro with a 750GB hard drive. 99% of the stuff I carried I didn’t need on a day to day basis, and usually wound up eventually off loading to some backup, putting on a shelf, and never thinking about again.
Obviously you’re doing something special with your computer that you constantly need half a terabyte of storage.
This makes you special. Most people, doctors, lawyers, CEOs, CFOs, secretaries, producers, writers, pick your typical computer user, can get along just fine with 64GB.
There will always be beefed up machines for folks like you, but the majority of the world will live in the cloud.
While I’ve had many clients purchase iPads, I just had a lawyer be the first to dump his MacBook completely for the iPad.
His secretary is keeping case folders in 2 places. Google Docs and iDisk. Over the weekend I moved 30 cases worth of documents onto Google Docs for the guy. He even has video and audio files stored in the cloud now.
This is a guy that hates computers. He L O V E S the iPad. He’s considering keeping a MacBook Air at home for those unforeseen problems the crop up from time to time.
And as you say, some files are store locally, but not all.
The ironic thing is that I find the more technical people are, the more resistant to the idea of the cloud as the basis for most computing. It’s just like the shift from command line to GUI.
With the shift to the cloud, many traditional IT jobs will move to the cloud as well.
For me, it’s gotten to the point of, “Gee, I think I might shave today.”
But eventually I will no longer be necessary. You don’t need tech gurus for appliances. People don’t call me to assist with their toasters. Computers will be the same way.
I’m thinking of opening a yoga studio. Chicks dig yoga.