Mac OS X Lion Available
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 10:22 ;)
Today Apple released their new OS -- Mac OS X Lion available (for now) only through Mac App Store. First impression about download and setup is not very favorable -- it takes lots of time and it seems the delivery servers are overwhelmed by the demand. After installing, there are also some updates (like, new iTunes) but they get stuck and it seems the "quit" and/or "stop" buttons don't respond. I'm pretty sure this piece will improve as soon as the demand goes back to normal.
New features, while plentiful and most of them desirable, are not groundbreaking. Overall, the new OS seems to be moving more towards iOS-like system rather than sticking to the typical desktop OS notion.
My subjective experience on MacBook Pro with 8 GB RAM is that Lion (10.7) is a bit slower than than Snow Leopard (10.6.8). Not by much, but at least it looks a bit slower. I haven't done any benchmarking, but AnandTech people did this morning. At best, it seems that the older and the new OS are very similar from the performance and speed aspects. AnandTech's performance comparison:
;)
In short, for roughly $30 you can't go wrong and the purchase covers all your Macs at your home. Knowing Apple, the new OS will improve within the first few weeks and the performance will eventually match or exceed Snow Leopard on the newer equipment. While there is nothing revolutionary in 10.7, it's a solid update and this is a great deal for homes/families with multiple Macs. While most apps don't have any compatibility problems with the new OS, make sure to update your older (maybe some Power PC-era) apps, otherwise you could get stuck with a non-functional piece of software -- in the example below, Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection is dead on Lion:
