Apple this Wednesday announced a really cool new version of the MacBook Air, plus gave a preview of the next version of OS X, version 10.7 dubbed “Lion.” Despite the update coming near 11 months from now, I’m not eager to upgrade, nor do a plan on doing so.
You know I’m a nerd. I would only be thrilled if Jobs would have stood on stage and announced that the best way to run a computer was from the command prompt. “It’s magical,” he would say. Then I would wake up.
First, the MacBook Air. It looks cool. Light. Fast. And I absolutely adore the instant-on feature. In fact, I’ll bet you see more of that in the future on the PC side.
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of Microsoft, a mid-level manager has fired off a red-hot memo to his group, ordering that Windows 8 feature “instant on” technology. Knowing Microsoft they’ll call it Extended X Active On, or some other nonsense. And, of course, it means nothing until hardware manufacturers develop an instant-on flash memory supplement for PC.
No! Better still: Microsoft will dictate the Extended Enhanced Active On X Technology Suite, which they’ll dub as an “open” standard and demand that all hardware manufacturers follow it or else. That scheme seems more Microsoft-y.
I must also note that the MacBook Air pricing is getting competitive. Just under $1,000 for a MacBook Air is reasonable. Apple will sell a ton.
Second, Mac OS X Tiger.
Ugh.
For almost ten years now, each new release of OS X had something brilliant to offer: Exposé, Firevault, Spotlight, Dashboard, Time Machine, Spaces, Boot Camp, and so on.
The OS X Tiger, version 10.4, was the most innovative release. I really wanted Tiger for my Mac. That was followed by Leopard, which added a host of features.
The current release of OS X is Snow Leopard, which is basically just Leopard optimized for the Intel processors. It’s actually a very strange release of the OS, with lots of little quirks that drive tech support nuts.
So far, nothing about Lion is blowing my skirt up. The big item is something called Mission Control, which seeks to combine Exposé, Spaces, and Dashboard into one crowded mess of a screen. When I saw it demoed on Wednesday, I was shaking my head thinking, “No! No! No!” What a step backwards. It seemed more like a clunky feature you’d find in Windows, not in OS X.
Bottom line for me is that I’m not excited about upgrading my Mac to OS X Lion. In fact, so far, I won’t be upgrading the Mac. Like I write in my books, unless the new version of the software offers a feature you need or want, or fixes a problem you have, then there’s no reason to upgrade. I agree with myself.
