Hands-On Review: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, are the bugs worth the switch?

by Bill Fox, MacsOnly.com August 23, 2011 [updated August 25]

As frequent readers know, I am an intrepid early adopter so as soon as Mac OS X 10.7, or "Lion" for short, was available on July 19, 2011, I upgraded all my clients and server Macs running Snow Leopard (10.6.8). Risky? A bit so but as usual I had tried out a number of the developer versions. I was mostly concerned about Lion retaining excellent compatibility with my day jobs' Microsoft Exchange Server and Lion was looking very good by the GM version. Apple offers Lion as an upgrade from Snow Leopard (10.6) and Leopard (10.5) for $29 from the Mac App Store application or, now, for $69 on a USB "thumb" drive. Unlimited Lion Server is a further upgrade for an additional $49, an amazing value when compared to the past versions.

It's a little over month later, now, and a 10.7.1 update was released a week ago so am I happy with the transition from Snow Leopard? The answer is generally yes but let's delve into my experience a bit.

I upgraded my 2008 Dual Quad 2.8 GHz Mac Pro running Snow Leopard (v10.6.8) from the Mac App Store but first I copied the Lion Installer to a second internal hard drive that is not my main client version boot drive nor my server version boot drive. I used that copy of the Lion Installer to upgrade my Mac Pro server drive, 2008 1.6GHz MacBook Air and 2010 13" MacBook Pro without having to download the 4GB Lion three more times. I also made a USB Lion Recovery Drive using the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant.

All four upgrades (two on my Mac Pro, client and server) went perfectly, at least as well as I can tell from a month's use. Fortunately, I've not experienced any of the big problems like a black screen, loss of Wi-Fi, loss of Active Directory binding, loss of a network Time Machine or constant discrete graphics card use shortening battery life that other upgraders have complained about rather extensively in the Apple Support Communities. This does not mean that Lion has been problem-free for me. My problems are relatively small for the most part and appear to be simply associated with various Apple applications, especially Mail.

Unfortunately, last week's update to 10.7.1 didn't fix any of the issues I have been having.

Generally

There is a lot to like about Lion. One small thing I really like is that a sleeping Mac wakes only with a keyboard key press. I don't know how many times I have finished work and put my Mac to sleep only to bump the mouse or computer desk inadvertently and have it wake again. Countless times I've come back to a supposedly sleeping Mac and found the screen dark but the Mac running because someone has bumped the mouse or the computer desk and awakened the Mac. As I wrote, this is a small thing but happily it is no longer a significant annoyance to me.

On the other hand, Lion's GUI continues to gray from the slick bright colors of the original OS X. This looks more professional but to me the loss of colors for icons in the taskbars and sidebars makes it less efficient to find the selection that I want. Some don't like the iPad-like look of Lion's iCal and Address Book apps but they look okay to me. It's just curious that they run counter to the general graying of the GUI and stand out as such.

[Update 8-25-11: OSX Daily posted a way to get colored icons back in the Finder using an app called SIMBL and a plug in. I confirm that it works with Lion 10.7.1 with no complications noted so far.]

Lion no longer supports PowerPC applications with the excellent translator called Rosetta. Rosetta was optional in Snow Leopard but gone in Lion. The good news for me is that only two applications that I use much, Quicken 2006 and SubRosa, no longer work. I've replaced Quicken 2006 with Quicken Essentials and SubRosa, a file encryption utility, with a password-protected disk image made with Disk Utility. I have a zillion older applications, some needed to open tax returns for example, so I also have a partition that runs Snow Leopard with Rosetta just in case.

Features

Here are my views on the new features that Apple touts:

First, there are new multi-touch gestures. Because of Lion's nearing unification with Apple's IOS and my frequent use of notebooks, iPad and iPhone I decided to get a Magic Trackpad to use in place of a mouse. With it I can take advantage of Lion's gestures and replicate how I work on a notebook and my IOS devices. It also reduces the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome. However, it will take me awhile to be gesture proficient, something that I have not accomplished so far.

Full-screen applications are great. After trying it out for awhile, I find myself clicking the arrows to put an application into full-screen mode but clicking back to a window when I want to switch applications. I'm trying to learn to use LaunchPad and gestures but until more of my applications, those from Microsoft in particular, are modified to take advantage the full-screen feature I probably won't use it frequently, although full-screen is great for Mail.

Mission Control unifies Expose and Spaces plus Dashboard and full-screen apps but really provides nothing for me. I never really got Spaces and still don't although Expose is quite useful for navigating the many windows I usually have open at one time. I rarely use Dashboard and haven't since the early novelty wore off.

The jury is still out on the Mac App Store for me. It is nice and easy to use, especially if you have originally obtained an application through it. I like the distribution of Lion via the Mac App Store versus running to a physical store to get it or waiting for mail order to deliver it. There are still two big drawbacks to me. First, if you bought an app carried on the Mac App Store but not via the Mac App Store, I don't know of a simple way to get it included in the Mac App Store's nice update process. The second is that updates can be out for quite some time before they are finally available from the Mac App Store. Apple has a way to go in developing the Mac App Store before it is THE way to go.

I'm wondering if LaunchPad is going to go the way of Dashboard for me. It's cool now in the beginning but I like to see my apps listed in the multi-column Finder so my use of LauchPad may decline over time. By the way, have you noticed that showing the Finder window is no longer the default starting view for the desktop? You have to have a Finder window open when you shut down, log out or restart and not uncheck the "Reopen windows..." box, the new Resume feature's dialog box that asks if you really want to shut down or log out. Apple is trying to break us from the Finder window habit and only time will tell if it will be successful with me--I am fighting pretty hard against it so far....

Speaking of Resume, I like this conceptually and in practice. It's a nice addition to this new version of Mac OS X. It's cousins, Auto Save and Versions, however, have a way to go. I also like both conceptually but I don't trust Auto Save yet and wish the manual Save As Draft command in Mail and other applications still existed. It will take a disaster to see Auto Save really work like it should and recover a lost document in order to earn my trust. I almost despise Versions because with it Apple eliminated the "Save As" command in the menubar's drop down menu. Clicking "Save a Version" and then selecting "Duplicate" from a dialog box sometimes or not getting the dialog box other times, even when the document has been modified is confusing. I hope I'm not just being old and cranky here but Versions is still a work in progress to use it naturally and to feel comfortable with it.

I haven't tried AirDrop since I don't have two very recent Macs but it seems like a very handy feature for those who do or among colleagues who do.

Applications

Preview gets a great new capability for handling PDF files as it continues to slowly evolve toward Adobe's Acrobat Professional. The new capability to add your signature to PDF files is really cool (see a how to from Mac Observer). I have been printing documents, signing them and scanning them back in as PDF files forever and now I can add my signature to a PDF quickly and easily.

Mail is very similar, in look anyway, to Mail on an iPad and iPhone. My reaction is mixed plus there are still a few bugs that need to be ferreted out, at least one is pretty significant.

The best thing in the new Mail is its wide view format. I have long used the utility Letterbox by Aaron Harnly to move the email viewer from the bottom of the email list to the right side of the list in order to fit the aspect ratio of computer screens much better. Apple has finally implemented this natively in Mail.

Lion Mail includes "conversations", i.e. a thread of directly related emails. Some may like this but I don't. Unfortunately, it is on by default and was very confusing to me initially. I disabled it on every email account on every Mac because I was missing incoming emails. I like my email organized from the most recent at the top to the oldest at the bottom. However, I occasionally temporarily re-enable conversations just to see all those related altogether at one time and then disable it again.

Searching Mail for an email or collection of emails is much more effective with the new search capability.

But, one thing that helped me search for an email among the hundreds (yes with an "s") that I get every day is gone in Lion Mail and I haven't figured out how to bring it back. The time of day that the email was sent or received for the days before "today" is missing. It's there for "today" but not for previous days! Unfortunately, it is not on the attribute list that can be displayed using the pull-down menu.

High on my list of new features that I like are the snippets shown following the subject. One can choose to show one line, two lines or none. I chose one line as a compromise between having the feature and making the email list shorter per screen. My 100's of emails per day create a much longer list to scroll though but I like the snippet to triage which I tackle first.

A new feature that similarly improves my email triage efficiency is the option to show images from Address Book at the left of each email on the list. Some may not like this feature if most of their email comes from people who do not have images in their Address Book. But mine is a nice balance and it helps.

Also helping me is an old feature of assigning background colors and colored text using the Rules in Mail's preferences.

Unfortunately, in Lion's Mail 5.0 showing images and colors is not consistent. Too many images and colors are simply not shown when the email arrives that should be colored or show an image or both. In some cases, it's not even possible to get them to show by manually applying rules or by closing Mail and reopening it or by retyping the email address in Address Book. Each works sometimes but not always.

This is also true for the little symbols that appear in front of an email to show whether one has replied or forwarded an email. Too many times no symbol appears (or even later disappears), especially on email going through a Microsoft Exchange server.

Similar inconsistencies happen with other preferences. If one checks or unchecks the "Display unread in bold font" preference, Lion Mail doesn't change anything. The "from" and "subject" fields are always shown in bold and the snippet is never shown in bold no matter whether the box is checked or unchecked. The only thing that changes between unread and read messages is the appearance or not of the blue dot in front of the email message.

As I said before, I also miss the manual "Save As Draft" button and will continue to miss it until Auto Save proves itself.

Finally, the biggest problem in Lion Mail is that occasionally attachments fail to show as icons in the email at all, both emails that are received from others and in emails composed in Lion Mail. Occasionally, emails sent with an attachment appear to recipients as if there is no attachment. A corollary problem is the body of a forwarded email does not show to the recipient. Curiously, the "missing" body shows in the copy placed in my Sent Mail box and also occasionally in the response email asking where the body is, something that confused me for quite awhile. These are significant formatting issues that need immediate attention and they could be a deal killer for some people.

Safari is excellent. My only issue is that initially it was not compatible with 1Password, a tremendously helpful utility for keeping track of passwords but that is the developer's fault.

Speed with 10.7.1

I tested the speed of 10.7 against 10.6.8 in this review shortly after Lion emerged. The results were different between my 2008 Dual Quad 2.8GHz Mac Pro and 2010 13" MacBook Pro. Basically, on the Mac Pro Lion slowed the Finder and disk tests. But on the MacBook Pro Lion sped up the same tests. The graphics results were mixed on both machines. So I re-ran them (see how here) and here are the results:

Mac Pro Speed Tests of Mac OS X 10.7.1 vs 10.7
Test Mac OS X Change
GRAPHICS BENCHMARKS
10.7.1 10.7
%
Cinebench 11.5
   
-- CPU Rendering (8x)
6.59 6.61
-0
-- OpenGL Hardware Lighting
29.8 29.8
0
Xbench 1.3
   
-- Quartz Graphics
259 270
-4
-- OpenGL Graphics
289 288
+0
-- User Interface Graphics
147 357
-59
OpenGL Viewer 3.37
   
-- 2.1 Cube
2820 2829
-0
FINDER/DISK TESTS
   
Start Up (sec)
30 30 0
Shut Down (sec)
26 26
0
Dup. 500 MB Folder (sec)
26 26
0
GAME TESTS
   
Quake III Arena (frames/sec)
998 995
+0
Halo 2.0.4 (frames/sec)
197 197
0
       
Red is faster by 10% or more. Blue is slower by 10% or more.

The User Interface Graphics test of Xbench is a whopping 59% slower in 10.7.1 on my Mac Pro. The next largest change is a 4% decrease in the related Quartz Graphics test of Xbench. Everything else is virtually unchanged.

13" MacBook Pro Speed Tests of Mac OS X 10.7.1 vs 10.7
Test Mac OS X Change
GRAPHICS BENCHMARKS
10.7.1 10.7
%
Cinebench 11.5
   
-- CPU Rendering (2x)
1.32 1.34
-1
-- OpenGL Hardware Lighting
12.3 12.3
0
Xbench 1.3
   
-- Quartz Graphics
195 189
+3
-- OpenGL Graphics
131 134
-2
-- User Interface Graphics
64 90
-29
OpenGL Viewer 3.37
   
-- 2.1 Cube
447 463
-3
FINDER/DISK TESTS
   
Start Up (sec)
15 18 +17
Shut Down (sec)
4 4
0
Dup. 500 MB Folder (sec)
18 24
+25
GAME TESTS
   
Quake III Arena (frames/sec)
419 408
+3
Halo 2.0.4 (frames/sec)
-- --
--
       
Red is faster by 10% or more. Blue is slower by 10% or more.

The significant slowdown in User Interface Graphics is also manifested on my MacBook Pro. On the other hand, the fast Finder/Disk operations of start up and duplicating a 500MB folder of files are even faster in 10.7.1.

I don't really notice either Mac as being slower despite the test results.

In Summary

Lion has a few bugs, mostly in Mail according to my use, and one of those is significant resulting in my having to re-send emails on occasion. So far, this is just an annoyance so I recommend moving to Lion. Hopefully, these bugs in Mail will be squashed in 10.7.2 that is already being tested by developers.


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Copyright © 1995-2011 by Bill Fox
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