“Despite over 250 new features, we aren’t aware of any fundamental changes in Apple’s new OS X Lion operating system that would impact performance after upgrading,” Rich Brown reports for CNET.
“Still, the version of iTunes that ships with Lion supports 64-bit processing for the first time. We also wonder about any performance impact from Lion’s new auto-versioning feature,” Brown reports. “There’s also the question of how well third-party programs will make the transition in these early days, since they might still be awaiting optimization.”
Advertisement: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Brown reports, “it seems that iTunes does indeed benefit from the shift to 64-bit support. For Photoshop CS5, which does not yet support Lion’s versioning capability, the performance dip could come from background code tied to versioning, or perhaps it’s simply an optimization issue.”
Read more in the full article, which includes the benchmark results, here.
When I launched CS5 suite for the first time with Lion, it wanted Java installed to run. Maybe thats why it runs so slow, it uses Java instead of native code
Gosh, Do you actually know anything about Java, Steve Jobs just does not use Java because Java is platform independent, an application made in Java will be available for Windows, Mac and Linux, Java is quite fast, differentiate java from java script, and just think a little, if java is such a resource hog, why there’s tons of games for java mobile phones!!? The only reason not to choose java e control, and profit!
Java’s great, when it works as advertised, which is not all the time, especially in the case of user applications.
This is bold-faced lie. Java is crap and the main reason AndriOS will not last. At my shop we tested Java against a compiled high-level language and Java used 400 times the resources to do the same things. Java is interpreted, just like Basic and needs an emulator to run anywhere. Java: runs everywhere… badly!!
Jobs is correct to ban Java from the idevices. Why sacrifice battery-life just so lazy programmers don’t have to learn a real programming language, ie. one that doesn’t waste the resources of your computer and battery.
I know that you know nothing about Java. 🙂
iTunes 1.4 on Lion flies. Editing tags is radically faster on Lion with the new 64-bit iTunes. Love it. Also, I’ve noticed Lion seems to be getting smoother and faster over time.
1.4? did you mean 10.4?
I’m using Pages for a day now and I’m having an horrible experience. It kinda freezes (I press the keyboard and no letter show up on the screen) from time to time and I guess it’s while is autosaving the document.
Than, mission control behaviour is a pain in the ass if you have safari, mail, itunes and a document opened. It just shows the 4 windows side by side, one on top of the other and it’s not efficient or pratical.
I’m surprised none of this issues have been reported here before. I’m looking forward to a “how to use mission control properly” because so far I’m struggling and wanting to go back to the old exposé feature I used and loved before.
Has Apple used a 12″ hunting knife and excised Expose or is that still an option under Launch Pad, Mission Control or whatever you want to call that? I use Spaces more than Expose because it keeps all my work nicely compartmentalised so I don’t worry too much about finding documents with Expose.
I also use a funky add-on to the Dock called Hyperdock that lets me see at a glance all my open windows by mousing over the lighted app icon on the Dock. Within an app I use Alt ~ to toggle between windows so Expose is like a long lost cousin that comes down to visit from the country once in a while.
when you open Mission control, you can drag apps to the top to create its own desktop.
when in that desktop, right click the app’s icon on the dock. you will see a new option under “options” Assign To.
spaces is still there, it just works differently.
I have Hyperspaces… which is now dead according to the dev.
I can’t imagine what additional benefits you could derive from Hyperspaces because to move from one desktop to another all I do is invoke the Spaces icon on the Dock or go directly to the desktop# via the menu bar or some funky shortcut key that I can never seem to remember.
I like things squared away and neat on my desktop. I can’t stand a cluttered mess. I’ll check back with you in a couple of weeks when I’ve had some hands on with Lion, probably muttering under my breath railing against all the changes as I do so.
you can still hit control + [desktop number] to jump directly to that desktop, just as with Spaces.
Biggest difference with Mission Control is that you can’t assign applications to always open in the same desktop.
Right click the icon in the Dock,
select ‘Options/This Desktop’
Be sure to turn off ‘Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use’ in System Prefs/Mission Control
I got hyperspaces just cause it made Spaces a little better, but not exactly how i wanted, or thought honestly..
I saw the screenshots of it showing the menu bar icon showing the different desktops with different backgrounds… Though I could mouse over the icon and SEE what was open on the other spaces… nope. it just shows you the other desktops wallpaper and allows you to name them.
That and every review said the same thing “what spaces should be” I bit.
I like hyperspaces, but i don’t think it lived up to the hype.
Worth getting if you never upgrade to lion? if you get it cheap… I did.
but it’s dead now, and i honestly do like Mission control. I had to work through some changes, and had to do a little research on how to create my own “spaces” again (the above)
Hyperspaces never changed the way i go from space to space though.. same shortcuts as Spaces. It just dressed up spaces a bit.
And Michael,
do like TowerTone and myself said.
the drag into the top inside mission control creates a new space for that app (or apps) but i dont think it’s permanent, the right click the icon once you are in that desktop does.
the meat of spaces still lives, they just changed it a little.
My brother has been having the same experience. His MacBook Pro with 8 gigs of ram was freezing with long pauses (30 seconds or more) and lots of beach balls with versions running. After three reinstalls (two clean installs, one over Snow Leopard) he finally turned off versions and his computer is back to running almost as good as it did on Snow Leopard.
In addition, Lion wanted to take nearly 100% of the processors time to reindex his Time Machine backup for the next 14 hours. That is some heavy indexing!
After playing with his fast MacBook Pro it appears to me that The version feature in Lion might need a little more work.
Spotlight indexing and Time Machine backups will do this – don’t know about versioning though. Give Lion some time. I know I will when I download it this weekend or early next week. I think all that behind the scenes set-up/back-up stuff is causing everyone’s bad Lion mojo.
I have found the new Mail to look great, but a turtle when it comes to performance. It is sooooooo sluggish. I had to go back to Outlook which runs very well.
I have an iPad and iPhone and love the mail layout. Too bad (for now) it does not translate well to the Mac.
Odd, I’ve not run into anything like that. Have you tried selectively disabling email accounts? Perhaps it’s a specific type of email account that Lion isn’t yet handling well.
the only email I am using is Gmail. I have it configured properly and it is working. It is just painfully slow. When it is open, i type a letter and the latency is a couple seconds… sometimes more. It takes longer than it should to open. (100% of the mail is imported)
The remainder of Lion is responsive and o far, so good.
you know, i swear i read something in the discussions (not it’s own thread, inside another) that someone had some slow mail issue… it was some setting they had to change and it worked fine…
Check the settings and make sure it’s correct IMAP/POP. someone said it changed during the conversion.
also someone mentioned they had the beta for facetime installed when they upgraded, and it was causing addressbook/mail problems..
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15680016#15680016
Worth a shot anyway.
I’m rocking Snow Leopard right now while the beta testers (early adopters) sweat through Lion and create a bug fix list. By the time I’m ready to transition the annoyances should be fixed, I hope.
Seems like the bugs are minor and cosmetic, so far…
Absolutely no problem with Mail. The new Conversations feature is great. I don’t like the new horizontal layout, so I use the “Classic” layout (which is a setting in Preferences under Viewing).
I had to literally tear myself away from Outlook and learn Mail when I switched from Windows to OS X. Besides a bit of teeth gnashing in the early phases due to having to learn new commands and menu bar items it’s worked flawlessly so far. I do like the look of the new Mail app in Lion from the screenshots I’ve seen. I have an iPad so I can imagine what it looks like. I think it’s a huge step up from SL Mail which is a bit bland to my eye.
I’m rocking an alternate mail client called Sparrow Mail which is a stripped down version of Mail. It’s got a clean uncluttered look if you like this sort of thing. Part of the reason why I went the Mac way was because I got fed up with the busy make work screen of Windows. I don’t know what it is with Microsoft and clutter. Maybe their interface designers draw their inspiration from my backyard dumpster with banana peels mixed together.
only a few “major” bugs. and it’s only certain people.
Mail slow with some, but could be settings.
Textedit not re-saving in the correct format, for some.
The only thing i am “dealing with” is the sidebar re-order in Finder… i’ll eventually get used to it but it still bugs me.
and WTF is with the blah icons in finder sidebar as well…. and Candybar doesn’t change them. (yet anyway)
I personally have not run into any major problems with Lion. I even got my Mother the Free up to date Lion install last night. (it’s EASY to get. and instantly approved for download)
Her Mini had no problems, although i had to figure out where to reverse the scrolling on her mouse.. she doesn’t have a trackpad.
It’s the first option/check box under mouse if there is no trackpad installed.
But i was able to play with AirDrop last night between my MBP and my mother’s Mini.
works slick!
With millions of people buying and installing Lion all at once, there’s going to be a small percentage of people with screwed up existing Snow Leopard systems, or data corruption on their startup volume, or other unpredictable isolated issues. Most users would not bother to run Disk Utility to check their existing system before installing Lion (or even have a backup of their 10.6.8 system and user data just in case something bad happens or in case they find Lion to be currently unsuitable).
There are certainly existing bugs (I know of a few), but just because a “major” problem is reported by someone, that does not mean it is a “bug.” And intentional design changes are not bugs. The bugs I know of personally, are relatively minor, like certain apps not “resuming” in the correct Space after logging out and logging back in. I have not experienced anything (so far) that causes crashes or data loss or performance issues. And that’s good considering my iMac is pretty old, and I upgraded my existing Snow Leopard system (which was an upgrade of my previous Leopard system).
not running slow on my MBP.
Head over to apple discussions, see if anyone else is having the problem.
enough. Can we stop about lion ow and focus n iOS 5? Isn’t iOS 5 supposed to give a real mobile productivity boost?
I hope this was just a bad attempt at sarcasm.
The new iTunes 1.4 did not “ship with Lion.” It was a separate download. My backup 10.6.8 system has it now too. So it would not distinguish Lion from Snow Leopard.
Yes, but Lion runs iTunes in 64-bit. Snow Leopard apparently does not.
Clicktoflash.
I need it back.
I’m missing ClickToFlash too, but I’m seriously considering just removing Flash altogether.
-jcr
Right-click on any Safari page. I see “Disable ClickToFlash” and “ClickToFlash preferences” here. It’s working for me. (Maybe I reloaded it from Apple’s Safari extensions page, but I don’t remember doing it.)
And the ClickToFlash item doesn’t show in the Safari pull-down menu, but I think it used to in Safari under SL.
You need to download an older version ClickToFlash. Ironically it works well in Lion.
This is why I always wait before upgrading to a major OS release. I love Apple. I really, really do. But working in the software business as I do, I know that even after extensive beta testing, bugs will still appear at first. Add to this the fact that so many of you blindly upgraded without first doing the following:
1. Back up your hard drive
2. Make a bootable backup of your system and hard drive
3. Run full maintenance and optimization of your system
4. Check that all of your applications have been properly tested for compatibility and bugs with a new OS. Make all necessary upgrades or patiently wait until your essential software has been updated/fixed.
5. Read reviews on the new OS to look for bug reports, and wait to be sure that the deal-breaker bugs have been fixed
Did you do this? Or like so many MDN readers, blindly race to be the first to download and install Lion? If you are in the latter group, shame on you.
From what I have read, the majority of users are having a great experience. But if you depend on your Mac for your profession, it’s absolutely essential to wait. That’s right. Wait. Make sure that your key apps and hardware are compatible with any new system.
Case in point: Photoshop. When CS5 came out, it was an absolute train wreck: drivers bonked. It broke printing and scanning. It wreaked havoc on video cards. And much more. We waited for over a year to make sure that Adobe had addressed the issues. We made sure that CS5 would play nice with Snow Leopard and the latest Mac Pro Tower.
Our patience was rewarded. After installing CS5 a week ago, it runs much better than CS4, and works well with Snow Leopard. Photoshop no longer crashes and runs very fast compared with CS4. But knowing that the programming behind the CS5 suite uses Flash and Java, we anticipated there would be problems initially with Lion.That’s why we’re being patient and waiting.
Please: WAIT. BE PATIENT. Don’t race to install Lion or any major app until you know it’s rock solid, and that conflicts and issues have been addressed. I’m sure any issues will be fixed quickly. But if you’re whining above, you have nobody to blame but yourselves.
I hope this helps.
Shame on you for being a douche bag.
I think the suggestions were reasonable.
They were. But they were presented in premiere condescending douchebaggery fashion.
What are we, Brian’s kids? Brian, get off your high horse and go blow yourself. It may surprise you to know that a lot of us did what you suggested and are not having any problems. And we did it all by all our feeble little selves. Nothing worse than good advice presented in a way over the top self righteous manner. More bees with honey there, Bri.
agree.
he could have suggested his ideas. not bashed people for NOT listening to him…
And Brian…. Ever thought that people like me… LIKE to play with new stuff?
holy crap, MAYBE I have aspirations to find problems, and HELP people with “Issues” they may run into!
Maybe… just MAYBE… I got Lion quickly so the people i know/work with… could ASK ME questions and find answers to any problem they may run into.
I have been able to convince many people to get an iOS device JUST cause they know I can help them if they run into ANY questions.
My Niece just got her iPhone 4 (white, some ARE jealous) for her 17th birthday. If it were NOT for me… She would not have known to get the unlimited data plan. She got her iPhone on the VERY LAST DAY Verizon offered it.. Verizon clerk did not mention it to her.
Verizon screwed up her “switch” from her Android crapware phone also. they synced up my Sister’s contacts and email accounts… She was not happy with her new iPhone. I fixed it for her. now she’s in love with the iPhone like the rest of us are.
I have Lion on my MBP only, for some of the very reasons Brian said. I was NOT about to put it on my iMac on day one until i knew everything would work.
it does, and the iMac will probably get Lion tonight/tomorrow.
Although i WILL need to remove a few apps before i upgrade the iMac. a few are DOA with Lion. and one says they are working of on a fix, so i’ll just uninstall it till then.
the DOA ones.. i have 2. One is replaced in Lion, the other i think the dev quit right after SL was released.. hasn’t been updated in about a year, and Lion crashes it. I rarely use it, so no loss really.
And just in case someone needs to know.
http://roaringapps.com/
they have a very good list of compatible apps listed there, tells you if the dev is abandoning the app (if it’s known) or working to update it. Or if there is an update for it.
Anyone about to upgrade, i’d check the list.
Shame on you for being a dick.
After reading this and the horror stories that fill the “reviews” on the App Store, I’m convinced to wait. There is no reason for me to upgrade now. I’ll stick with Snow Leopard until there’s something I want that isn’t compatible with Snow Leopard. (iCloud?)
——RM
What horror stories? I have only read about the success stories of the winners and shame of the losers. Shame on you for spreading fear.
For SHAME!
The truth is, people who have problems tend to want to complain about it, while people with no problems tend to just be happy and silent. By now, the number of Lion purchasers is probably up to two million (or more). When total number is that large, even 1-out-of-1000 is a large number.
And the “ratings” on Mac App Store are pretty good; out of about 12,000 current ratings, about 90% are four or five (out of five) stars. But when it comes to “reviews,” most of the people who bother writing one have something to complain about; we don’t hear from most of the happy majority.
exactly.
I think i have like 3-4 actual reviews out there…
I did however go out of my way to review iVI though. (Love iVI)
I had a problem, pretty much my fault… right after i bought it.
I emailed the support, and the Dev responded fast. and even though i figured out what the problem was… and fixed it. He was happy to know the cause and how to correct it. And while not exactly a bug he could at least know what to tell someone if they did the same as me.
I reviewed the App.
(if you install the iVI trial.. remove it BEFORE you buy the app from the app store. have them both installed, remove the trial… settings will not change. ever. Had to remove the purchased app, and re install it. works flawless now)
Mission Control functions like spaces – in that you can create new desktops by dragging an application to the “+” that appears in MC when you start to drag it. Not a bad idea at first blush
Mission Control combines Spaces and Exposé to make it more useful than the sum of those two separate features in Snow Leopard.
I don’t use Dashboard very much, and I don’t need it to appear as a “Space” in MIssion Control, so I unchecked that option.
In Snow Leopard, the number of Spaces was set in System Preferences as a “grid.” Although you could change it at any time, the number of Spaces felt “static.” In Lion, it’s more like, “I need a new Space to separate this task. Add one.” OR “No need for that Space anymore. Remove it.” It feels like opening and closing a Finder window. i can easily move open windows between Spaces. And it’s simply done from Mission Control. Nicely implemented.
Things the may be causing you performance issues:
Spotlight indexing occurs for sometimes hours after install.
Mail indexing can take time and is impacted by Spotlight indexing as each piece of mail is a finder file.
Menubar apps like Air DIsplay and Air Server can cause issues with drag and drop not functioning. Turn off all system enhancements and add back in one -by-one to see which app is causing problems.
If your Lion install is misbehaving, make sure you’re backed up to Time Machine. Restart your computer, holding down the “option” key. Select the new “Lion Recovery” HD (partition) as the boot disk. Then use system tools to reinitialize your Macintosh HD drive. Then, you can do a clean install directly from the recovery disk. An internet connection will be required and you’re given the ability to log into you Wi-FI while in the Lion Recovery HD. Preety fool proof. I had one computer that upgraded flawlessly and one that behaved funky. Did a clean install and all is good. Loving Lion.
For the first time ever when I upgraded to lion from snow leopard I noticed a speed boost. Things were more responsive than before.
I use my Mac professionally and with the exception of 2 applications tha needed updating for Lion (which were available) the switch has gone off without issue. Indexing for spotlight hook place at night while I slept. Really do like new features and was worth the time to sort out issues which were minor… You can wait, but from what I can tell after 2 days …. They pretty much nailed it.. I am a software developer so maybe knowledge of systems make the upgrade a little easier.
I am having trouble with downloading blog pages on safari in lion. It takes a couple reloads to get it to load the vid/pics. Considering the Internet is a key function, I am disappointed.
Any suggestions to help on my iMac? Otherwise I really love the ui in lion.
if you want lion to run smoother. Do a clean install of lion. Upgrades never work as well as a clean install. I did it to my iMac and MacBook pro and there both running perfect now
How? Via creating a Lion install DVD?
Probably using Lion’s Recovery Mode (booting from the hidden “Recovery HD” partition that is created by the Lion Installer).
Or if Phil is the cautious type, he cloned his existing 10.6.8 system to an external drive (as bootable backup), booted from the clone, erased the internal drive, and ran the Lion Installer from there (targeting internal drive). The advantage with using the clone is being able to “clone the clone” back to the internal drive and have the 10.6.8 system back (exactly as it was before), if something about Lion is not acceptable.
The “burn a DVD” method is the least elegant, IMO. 😉
The more I use Lion, the more problems I have.
I need a bigger whip for this buggy OS….
So
I’ve had lots of crashes so far. I’ve lots of hardware plugged in so I am guessing one of these will be the culprit. Have to give up my Canoscan LiDE 80 and upgrade to a 110 which seems to be different in that it is black not metallic.
I am skipping Lion. I am going to wait for OS XI – otherwise known as PoleCat. I hear it blows away Windows 3.0.
I’m waiting for some feedback on how well Lion handles Adobe CS4 and Microsoft Office 2008.
iTunes is an awesome Swiss Army knife. While a lot of bloat remains, and features like “iCloud” were added that many people (audiophiles or anyone who already has a legacy music collection) will never use, it is reassuring that one can still disable useless crap like Ping and Genius. Thankfully, iTunes doesn’t support Facebook or Google Plus or other waste-of-time marketing organizations. And now, finally, it’s 64 bit! We can almost ignore the fact that the download is bundled with Quicktime, a software that has been mismanaged since version 7.0!!!
Oh, wait, curb your enthusiasm. It’s not 64 bit for OS 10.6 users. Must have Lion to run in 64-bit. Could you please explain yourself, Apple? The decision to push the latest iTunes on software update for Snow Leopard users in 32-bit mode is pathetic. Apple hardware has been 64 bits for how many years???
Not the longest post, but then again my Motorcycle LED site hasn’t many posts either, and a less than stellar theme – Great post anyway, added your XML feed! Cheers
New Mac user, install or wait?
Hello All…I am a BRAND NEW MBP user. In fact my new laptop arrives today, and it will be my first experience out of the “Windows World”. New new system apparently ships with Snow Leopard, but I will be allowed to upgrade to Lion for free. My question is, should I do it? I figure since I won’t know any better, I might as well. even if it is different from Snow Leopard, it is bound to be better than Windows Vista, which is where I came from. I am just using this MBP for home\basic use and was just tired of Windows sluggish performance ,constant background processes, freeze ups, and security issues\maintenance. Thank you for your input!
What a frankly joy of a read!!!