Lion is Apple Vista #

Feels like a constant struggle with the UI, from the obtrusive scroll bars, to the clunky Apple Mail search, to the useless empty space at the top and bottom of windows when scrolling, to the iCal and Address Book train wreck... The last straw was an email spontaneously disappearing from the inbox (long after importing, indexing, and encrypting had completed) only to reappear a short while later. Really wanted Lion to work out, especially since FileVault 2's whole ~~disk~~ volume encryption was performing beautifully, with very little impact on system performance. Ended up going back to Snow Leopard after several hours.

UPDATE: I've been using and supporting OS X since 10.0, and a huge fan from 10.2 to 10.6. Lion goes completely off the rails. Frustration is the overwhelming feeling, especially with the three apps I use most: iCal, Address Book, and Apple Mail.

REVIEWS

Why I Seriously Regret Upgrading To Mac OS X Lion "Features like Launchpad don't translate well to the desktop, and they feel bloated and unnecessary. Apple also decided to update classic apps like iCal and Mail, making them less and attractive and more difficult to use."
I hate Mac OS X Lion. Here's why. "Yesterday, I completely erased my hard disk and reinstalled Lion’s predecessor, Snow Leopard. I hate Lion so bad that I wish it were still shipped in a box so I could punch it right in its grinning, cardboardy box. And I’m not the only one."
OS X Lion: Causing hair loss as you use your Mac. One follicle at a time. "With OS X Lion, we've challenged the accepted way of doing things by introducing new features that challenge the user."
Mac OS X Lion: This Is Not the Future We Were Hoping For "Now there's gross faux wood panelling in Photo Booth. The Address Book is a real world hardbound address book. iCal is a bloody pseudo-calendar made of paper and leather. The question is: Why is Apple reproducing things that are obsolete already? Do people still use calendars made of leather and paper? Do people use agendas? Seriously, does anyone under 18 even know what these are?"
Apple launches OS X Lion with features from Windows 3.1 "OS X Lion also adds some other groundbreaking features, like disabling support for apps coded for the PowerPC Macs of old and introducing a new scrolling system that makes no sense at all."
OS X 10.7 Lion is more painful than Vista "Having lived with the pain of Vista pre-SP1, I can tell you that the problems currently facing Apple with Lion are worse. Much worse."
Back To The Mac "Yesterday, after months of using Lion and its developer previews, I formatted the internal SSD on my 13 inch MacBook Pro and reinstalled Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. I did not go back to 10.6 for the compatibility Rosetta provides, or the performance gains of an earlier operating system. I reinstalled Snow Leopard because I don't need the iOS features Lion brought back to my Mac, and can't see the point of compromising my productivity for an operating system that doesn't know what it wants to be."
Apple started decaying before Steve Jobs' death "Lion's disregard for users' taste and preferences permeates throughout. It looks more like a design philosophy than an accident."
OS X Lion is one broken big cat "Stay far away from OS X Lion if you value your sanity."

TWEETS

toddhellings: You know what OS X Lion is missing? The Windows logo.
davely: I think calling OS X Lion "Apple's Vista" is really unfair. This is more like Apple's Win ME.
shadowbottle: The "All My Files" view sucked in Windows 7 when it came out and it sucks just as bad in OS X Lion. Resources better used on Address Book.
popcube: Lion、かぎりなくWindows Vista並にダメな子ちゃんかもなぁ。戻そうかな。イライラの方が多い。Lion待ちと言ってた連中は、後悔するがよい。今のところ差し引き赤字だ。
jisyack1077: lion=VIsta,snow leopard=xp,tigar=2000なかんじ。だから今のところ、lionにアップデートしない。
yamj: MacOS X Lionを使って5日目。どうやらLionはWindowsでいうVistaみたいな存在だったみたいだ。Snow Leopardに戻そうかな...

MITIGATION

These alternatives sync with iCal and/or Address Book:

BusyCal - iCal replacement
Contact Book - Address Book replacement (does not seem to be much of an improvement, as the UI is very similar to Lion's Address Book)
Outlook 2011 - Apple Mail, iCal, and Address Book replacement (SP1 brings better syncing)
SOHO Organizer 9 - iCal and Address Book replacement
Daylite - iCal and Address Book replacement
Bento - iCal and Address Book replacement

More tips for living with Lion:

Hold Alt/Option key while clicking arrow to disable iCal page turning animation. UPDATE: Steve Bell's iCal Classic Page Flip plugin disables the page flip animation altogether; unfortunately, it depends on SIMBL, which reportedly causes problems in Lion (as of version 0.9.9).
Now that the 3-pane view is gone (Apple even went to the trouble of removing it from the Debug menu as of 10.7.1), an ugly workaround is to launch two instances of Address Book (use open -n /Applications/Address\ Book.app/ twice) and drag between the two. Another approach is to use "Present People Picker Panel" found in the Debug menu (which can be enabled via defaults write com.apple.addressbook ABShowDebugMenu -bool YES). Frankly, PPPP has a better UI than Address Book itself. (Hat tip to Lukas Chrostowski)
Restore color icons in Finder sidebar
Restore color icons in iTunes
Lion Tweaks 1.3 - Simple GUI for applying common tweaks (unhide the user Library folder, change iCal and Address Book skins, disable local Time Machine backup, etc)

/mac | Jul 27, 2011

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