First Day of 10.7

I decided it might be worth updating Mac OS to 10.7.  First, for anyone thinking of updating, double-check all of your apps.  I was surprised by the number of applications that I had that were PowerPC.  I think the machine was spending more time running Rosetta than x86 binaries...  The important apps I found newer versions and trudged forward.  My scanner will only be usable with an older Power Mac.

So.  How does the OS fare?  Here are the positive and negative features on a per-app/feature basis in my opinion.

Mail.app
Mail.app's interface update is great!  The application is now designed for wider screens.  On the far left is the side-bar as it was there before (hidden by default but click on "Afficher" -- I guess that's "Show" in English).  Organized like it is, stretch the application and there is plenty of room for the previews and other information.  The preferences allow for plenty of customization.

iCal
I like the way it looks.  Where Mail.app got a massive functionality upgrade, iCal seems to suffer.  The problem is that things normally aren't neatly split up between months.  So if I'm trying to schedule something it won't be for a specific day but some time-range.  So I want to quickly jump between weeks (if possible see multiple weeks) and not be stuck in groups a day/week/month/year.  (the option to scroll a day at a time is silly - it renders the velocity scrolling of the magic mouse useless)

For example, if in the week view it scrolled continuously and could display multiple weeks in it's columnar view I'd be very happy.  For the day view, for a sufficiently wide screen multiple months can be seen.  Even multiple days.  On a small 1024x768 screen the spacing is elegant, however I'd argue there is space for two more monthly calendars in day and week view.

Finder
Overall, it's as usable as ever.  I can't complain, it feels normal.  A few settings I had to re-enable, but it's as I expected.  The overall view of all my files is... pointless.  It seems to be randomly picking stuff I downloaded -- such as a picture generated by Doxygen.

I'm happy that the library is now hidden.  To many things could go wrong by having that exposed to the user.  Those of us that wish to muck with system stuff can hit Command-Shift-G.  The icons are much clearer.

Terminal
Works.  Happy.  Why can it go fullscreen?!

LaunchPad
I don't know what to make of this.  LaunchPad attempts to present a nicer view of the applications.  Sure, that's great!  The question that's running around my head is: why isn't LaunchPad's view synchronized with the Application folder?

For example, a folder in Applications becomes a folder in LaunchPad.  Of course there are issues with nesting folders but I don't see why folders nested more than one couldn't just be collapsed.  Certain applications would be dangerous to move (bad developers)...  However organizing my applications once is, in my opinion, preferable.

Actually, I would have loved LaunchPad if it just opened a fancy view of my Applications folder.

Apart from that, it's a great idea.  Only if I didn't use the dock to store often-used applications and Spotlight for everything else.  (StarCraft II?  Spotlight!)

Mission Control
A very good update to Exposé.  It unifies all the window management features into one nice spot.  One button to see all my windows from all the apps with all the desktops + fullscreen apps.  Then, windows from the same application are grouped.  It's very nice.

Fullscreen Apps
Really.  I wanted to love this.  I have a small-ish monitor on the side where I tend to throw documentation, iTunes, Mail, and the web browser.  The main monitor is reserved for work (XCode, iOS Simulator, etc.).  Never doubt having the documentation on a second monitor!

Fullscreen apps grey out the second monitor.  As in, they don't use it!  And I can't put floating windows on it if applications on the main monitor are full screen.  XCode, which I thought would actually use both monitors (put the Organizer on the second!) spawned the Organizer as a new full-screen window.

Use multiple monitors?  You'll go further running the applications in windows.

Safari
The download window is gone and replaced with a pop-up...  Thanks Apple!

Unfortunately flash videos skip now when the system is under load...

XCode
The documentation within the Organizer is still a mess.  It's more convenient browsing to Apple's site since the side-bar should be synchronized to the documentation (or a viewable side-bar should be there).

No, I don't want Quick Help.  Quick Help doesn't even pick up on the Doxygen comments littering my code.

Last Impressions
The Mac OS / iOS hybrid seems to be an odd beast.  The ability to quit and resume applications is wonderful.  But the addition of fullscreen applications and launchpad feel like kludges.  (LaunchPad especially feels like it's tacked on rather than integral).

The scroll-bars...  This is minor.  Use it for a day or two with the default settings.  Within a few minutes I was already used to the scrolling.  The elimination of scrollbars didn't affect me:  I never used them anyhow.  Give it a chance for at least a day.

Autocomplete -- it's annoying when it fails.

Those are my comments from one day with the system...