back to article Apple fanbois leak secrets of Mac OS X Lion

Details about Apple's upcoming Mac OS X version 10.7, code-named Lion, are flooding the web despite Cupertino's ban on such information being released by developers toying with the beta that was made available to them last Thursday. Steve Jobs revealed few details about the OS when he announced it at a "Back to the Mac" …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Morpho Devilpepper
    Jobs Horns

    "How shall we f*ck off, oh Jobs?"

    Funny how Apple's efforts at privacy are hindered if not trampled outright by their most rabid followers. Reminds me of "The Life of Brian," with that crowd who wouldn't give the guy a moment's peace.

    1. ratfox
      Jobs Halo

      Oh woes, oh woes

      - What shall we do Steve? Everybody is trying to find out our secrets! Even though we are trying so hard to keep them secret, EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT OUR UPCOMING PRODUCTS!

      - Calm down, Tim. I will explain to you again how this works, more slowly this time.

      Michael still does not get that one.

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Jobs Horns

    Meh

    Finding it hard to get excited about this one. It's just dumbing down MacOS X to iDevice's level, they don't quite understand that simplicity being good on a small device which you operate on the move doesn't mean it's good on a desktop machine.

    And pushing you more into Apple's ecosystem of course (Rosetta killed so you need to find new equivalents to old applications, Front Row killed so you need to buy an Apple TV, Java made optional as an excuse to deny developers the option to use it in the App Store, etc...).

    1. raving angry loony

      with you

      With you there. Won't be getting this update. Stopping with Snow Leopard. Should have stopped at 10.5 really, as 10.6 broke a bunch of things that I needed. Oh well, they won't trick me again.

    2. jai

      Rosetta killed so you need to find new equivalents

      surely you've had plenty of time to find a replacement in the YEARS since they provided Rosetta.

      1. chillvisio
        Unhappy

        a big issue

        There is still one big issue out there, some hardware is still being sold with software exclusively using the Rosetta env.

        My Lide20 scanner and my brand new EATON UPS are both using Rosetta compatible software.

        1. Ted Treen
          Stop

          Huh?

          So take it up with the scanner manufacturer and the UPS manufacturer.

          It's THEIR responsibility.

          Jeez, even I wouldn't slate MS if I had peripherals whose software/drivers demanded Win98/Win95/Win3.11 for workgroups...

      2. James O'Shea

        feh

        So now i finally have a good reason to move up from Adobe CS2 to whatever they're pushing now. CS2 is PPC-only, and depends on Rosetta. About the only other PPC-only stuff I have left would be some items which are bundled with certain hardware (Epson, you noxious creature, you will DIE) and some abandonware such as Mac the Ripper.

        Or maybe I'll just keep a copy of Snow Leopard on an external disk and reboot into it when I need to run certain apps, the way I've got copies of Leopard, and Tiger, and Panther... (Hmm. I can reformat that Panther disk, it's been at least 10 months since I last booted from it, vs 10 days since I last booted Tiger. Or not. It's not as though I really need a whole 80 GB of disk space, after all.)

      3. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

        Err, no actually

        >> surely you've had plenty of time to find a replacement in the YEARS since they provided Rosetta

        I think I'm down to just one PPC application now - Eudora.

        There is no Intel version of it - and development was stopped quite some time ago. But it works the way I like to work, and has features I use that aren't (AFAIK) in other programs. SO no, I haven't been able to find an acceptable replacement in a good few years.

      4. George of the Jungle
        Happy

        Living in the PPC world

        Guess it's good I still have only PPC Macs. No worries about Rosetta.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          A1

          Not really since they won't take long to update their developer tools to stop producing PPC code.

          It's all about the forced upgrade. It's for your own good...

  3. Ben XO
    Boffin

    Find My Mac probably using IP + WiFi data

    ...which is how pre-GPS iPhone devices, and also how the OS X automatic timezone clock adjuster works.

    1. Darryl

      and iPod Touch

      My wife's iPod touch uses WiFi data. The system uses Skyhook's WiFi location system.

    2. Ammaross Danan
      Boffin

      Not Likely

      My IP says I'm about 400km from where I actually live, so not likely. Find My Mac is perhaps just an interface to locate your /other/ lost iStuff. Wouldn't doubt it works a bit like most PC laptop trackers (basically, if it finds the internet, it phones the company with its current IP for police use).

      I'm quite surprised to read about some of these features actually:

      Autosave and Versions. Really? Sounds more like iProductivity apps to me. Last I checked, autosave has been in MS Office since at least 2003. Versions just means they stuck a front-end on RVS/CVS/etc.

      FileVault: I applaud whole-disk encryption built into the OS. Linux has had it in Fedora since Fedora 11 I believe. Did BSD kernel finally get updated to that point? Same for SSD support. Win7 was /released/ with TRIM. Does the BSD kernel devel team really move this slow, or has it just taken this long for Apple to work on their front-end?

      QuickView, if it works for /any/ "normal" file, would be fairly nifty. Currently, Windows only has "quickview" for pictures, Office files, adobe pdf/ps files, and txt (I might be missing some). Granted, as Adobe has shown with photoshop files, you can add a preview filter for any file type you please, but it's not baked in to the OS.

      Sadly though, the list of things Windows does out-of-the-box is fairly limited, whereas OSX ships with a raft of iApps, and thus more things they can list as "OS Enhancements." Granted, the last time MS tried bundling something with their OS, they got sued from every angle (Internet Explorer). Imagine what would have happened has MS Security Essentials been installed and active by default with every copy of Win7. Yes, you can't deny it, even if you think MS SE is crap.

  4. Ralphe Neill
    Jobs Horns

    They missed one!

    Will probably "brick" a significant number of Macs.

  5. peyton?

    nit pick

    re auto save. Surely if you leave the original alone and just save changes, that would lead to more drive space usage, not less?

    1. Pablo
      Jobs Halo

      eww, nits

      I assume they meant "It will use less space than saving a whole second copy which you would have to do otherwise since overwriting the original would be horrible.", but thought that was too obvious to mention.

      1. peyton?
        Happy

        What original?

        You mean the one that is so important that I can't touch it so it's duplicated on completely separate media?

        To be honest, I don't think I've ever encountered a word document containing anything that important to begin with :p

        Let's just hope it can be disabled, for those of us on smallish SSDs that want to live on the edge.

  6. OrsonX

    Toggle Prog with Icon Support?

    OSX, beautiful in some ways, too simple & infuriating in others. For example, why can't I maximise/minimise by toggling the program icon? Also, why do I have to squint when typing my email in Mail?

    Hope Lion will be better!

    Also, a conglomeration of Expose & Spaces eh? I hope it will improve on the current offerings, which are pretty good but far from perfect.

    1. farizzle
      Paris Hilton

      errrm..

      Mail > Preferences > Fonts & Colours...?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mail's text size

      This took me a while to figure out. Plain Text, Rich Text Format, and HTML-based email all can play by different rules between email clients, let alone email clients tweaked by its user. It's a mess of spaghetti.

      As you know, you can adjust the font size in Mail's Preferences to something more screen-friendly. However, what you may not know is when you configure Apple's Mail to send email in plain text, any size you've set to compose your email doesn't piggyback the outgoing email. The recipient's email client will use its settings to size the incoming plain text (typically pre-configured to Times Roman or Courier with a 10 point font). Rich Text formatting does hop along for the ride.

      However, here's a tip you might find useful. I add the "Bigger - Smaller" button to my toolbar (View >> Customize Toolbar). When an incoming email's text is too small to read, or I've changed workstations/laptops with different screen pixel densities, I hit the "Bigger" button -- sometimes several times to either address the myriad of fonts and sizes to incoming email or to redress those emails sent by users who take great pleasure sending 6 point fonts in HTML or Rich Text.

      (Side note: I add a "Bigger - Smaller" icon to the New Message toolbar, too. Also, changing Mail's "Message List" and "Mailbox" font/size helps the eyes, too.)

      Mahalo

      1. OrsonX
        Thumb Up

        18pt

        Thanks for the useful and informative reply! +1 to you Sir

        @Farizzle, yes, but I have to set it to 22pt whilst composing, then reset it to 12pt to send, very user unfriendly!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Finally, TRIM

    Finally, TRIM support. Man, what a wait. Apple did French functionaries proud.

    1. farizzle
      Thumb Up

      hmmmm

      So OSX Lion will hold hands and play nicely with an OCZ Vertex 3 then eh?

      Delicious!!!!

      1. rob miller
        Big Brother

        no TRIM for you sir...

        so far TRIM support only appears for drives sold by apple -- reports from OCZ forums so far are 3rd party drives e.g. Vertex2 not shown to have TRIM support, while apple-supplied SSD in same machine has it. that tag looks reasonably generic from linux, so seems that apple have gone the extra mile to protect you by checking a safety list of ble$$ed models/vendors. well now, isn't that special?

  8. Mark 65

    Filevault

    I see filevault will now offer fde using XTS-AES 128 encryption. Does this mean I'd still be better off getting PGP or is this now up-to-scratch?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      AES 128

      I think I read that the guy who was sent down yesterday for plotting to down BA flights used AES128, it took the Police 9 months to crack. You can be pretty sure that the Police don't have the facillities that the MI5/MI6/CIA/NSA have.

      Basically: Ask yourself why you need to encrypt? If it is to stop some scrote getting your credit card numbers when you have your computer stolen or hacked, AES128 will probably be fine. If it is to stop "The Man" getting your stuff, I work on the principle that if I'm doing something that interesting to them (I'm not!) they'll get all the information they need and I'll either not know about it, or be banged up while they're getting it.

      As for encryption at work (I design datastorage) I wouldn't touch less than AES256, but this information is much more interesting to criminals than a stolen computer would be.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Rosetta gone

    Great. Now someone has to pester Okidata for new Mac drivers for many of their printers.

    Unless Foo2Zjs works on OS X as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Any bundled drivers?

      Mac OS X comes bundled with drivers from CUPS and Gutenprint, and I know some of these target Oki printers. Is that a possible solution, is the range of supported printers too limited?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Well,

        The problem is many low and middle end Oki printers use a proprietary language called HiperC, which is a ZenoGraphics ZjStream language derivative. As I know, the only way to get it supported under Linux was foo2zjs. For Mac OS X, they have an official driver, but said driver is two years old, targets Tiger, and is apparently PPC code- I was prompted to download and install Rosetta when running the installer.

        Well, maybe they'll get a new driver out when Lion rolls around (they do have a Win7 driver for the thing, so there's still hope). There's also instructions to compile foo2zjs on Mac OS X, but it looks like it'll need a whole free afternoon to get up and working.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whaaaaaaaaambulance

    @Morpho "Whiiiiiine...Macs are popular...Whiiiiine...Look at me, I'm contrarian....Whaaaaa...I must bitch on every Apple article about how Apple sucks..."

    Loser.

    1. Code Monkey

      It's called...

      It's called having an opinion. Now how about stopping being an AC and playing nicely?

      1. Ted Treen
        Jobs Halo

        @Monkey

        All too frequently it's nothing to do with having an opinion.

        It's everything to do with knee-jerk ego-boosting and self-aggrandisement.

        Opinions, I'll consider. Whines, I find irritating.

  11. raving angry loony

    it worked

    Oh look, free advertising, and those responsible can't go and ask to get paid for it since they "weren't supposed" to do it in the first place.

    Now Apples gets its millions worth of free advertising. Which, I note, El Reg is all too happy to provide.

    Well played, Apple.

    1. Code Monkey

      Oh come on!

      I enjoy bitching about Apple as much as the next commentard but a new version of a popular OS is news. No, really it is.

  12. T J
    Grenade

    Secrets?

    What? Like how it'll be better than Jaguar and all the other failcats but still shyte because of all the new features that break basics? HOW LONG was it that rsync didn't work Jobsy, was about 3 years I believe?

  13. slack

    title

    I am not seeing any compelling reasons to upgrade from SL yet. Quite the reverse actually if they are going to try and make OSX act like iOS

  14. Pablo
    Troll

    Oh wow!

    "windows resizeable from any corner or side"

    Between this in the multi-button mice, they've almost caught up to Windows 3.11!

  15. Goat Jam
    Jobs Halo

    User Interface Breakthrough

    "windows resizeable from any corner or side"

    Wow! Just wow!

    So, one of the *many* little annoyances in OSX has finally been fixed, and it's only 2011!

    This is from the OS that is held up by mac acolytes as the shining beacon of user interface design in the operating system space.

    Sheesh.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      User interface

      I use both Win 7 and OSX SL and I have to say that OSX is looking pretty dated these days. Some people need to open their eyes a little wider.

  16. marktyers

    You Missed the Server!

    One important piece of info you missed was that Lion Server comes as standard so there is no separate purchase.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      only in the Beta

      Server is only included in the beta, it's not expected for it to remain as part of the standard OS - i.e. currently OSX Server is a separate purchase, and it's expected to remain so.

      1. Dan Wilkinson

        Not so

        It's there for all. Not just for the Dev Preview/Betas

      2. James O'Shea

        not quite

        apparently OS X Server, as a separate product, will be dead with Lion. There'll be one install disc, and which version you install will depend on which license you bought. Kinda like Windows, only with just two choices instead of eleventy-seven. Allegedly the pricing will be US$30 for the basic version and $90 for the server version... and the key for the server version will also unlock the basic version, as it seems that Apple only cares if you use Apple hardware...

        We'll find out for sure in around August.

  17. Confuciousmobil
    Unhappy

    Piracy

    I am surprised at El Reg condoning piracy.

    Lion is currently in Beta for registered developers only. Downloading it from other sources is piracy and should be condemned, not encouraged.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Hey, I just had an idea for a new El-reg competition...

      after reading this post. How about a weekly (say) winner for the most pious and self-righteous post?

      you could call it "the Assange of the week".

      there need to be some rules, posts along the lines of "where's the IT angle" and "I'm going to whine about something frivilous in Bootnotes" should probably be ineligible.

      there's no charge.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Assange of the week

        I lol'ed that one

        And you're right - it's justly deserved here.

    2. NightFox

      Better of Two Evils?

      Yes, but at least people who run pirated copies and comment on the OS aren't breaching NDAs, which no-one seems to have a real problem with (apart from Apple).

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Lion is *not* IOS

    Sorry, but this is just a tinkering update, adding stuff we already had, and seems to have been lifted directly from IOS to save time/effort.

    - Full screen apps....errrr...and what did the green button do?

    - App icons on desktop (via overlay)...again...woopee

    - a tweaked interface for mail. oooooh

    - autosave...most office drones have this already in MS office

    - versions...see previous

    - Airdrop. A public share folder. really pushing the boat out there...

    - About this mac - cosmetic tweaks. God almightly...

    I was expecting more innovation to be honest, given this is a "premier" OS, not the cut-down-for-tablets/phones OS. Snow leopard did at least have an underlying premise of performance and 64bit. No real compelling reason to upgrade in this one. It's a yearly release purely for the sake of it.

    Are Apple just getting lazy/complacent?

    I want to buy it...I really do...but unless this is no more than £25 it's a bloody rip off.

    1. ThomH

      Trying to play devil's advocate...

      Auto Save (at the OS level) + Versions (presumably) join together as an evolutionary advancement on Time Machine, further reducing the ability for people to lose work. Auto Save is a bit more interesting than the stuff provided since time immemorial by Word, etc, because it has an aspect of versioning to it and should become uniform across the OS (or, more probably, like the built in grammar and spell checker, the Keychain, etc, will just make it even more obvious which are the particularly shoddy Windows ports).

      File Vault and Air Drop seem to be designed to expose what many people would consider latent functionality, even though your or I could easily achieve both things now, on any moderately recent major OS.

      Bundling the server features into the mainstream OS arguably makes this more of a premier OS than previously.

      I'm unable to come up with any reasons why full screen applications are being sold as something new or even a particularly good idea, or to support the other cosmetic changes as worth paying for.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Erm Green button.....

      The Green button is a zoom button, NOT a maximise button.

      I know its a small difference and not everybody likes it. Its works for me.

      By zoom, what I mean is the green button increases the size of the widow to fit the width of the currently displayed document.

      It is nice that they are doing proper resizing now, that is a very annoying issue

      1. ThomH

        @AC

        I took fullscreen apps to mean frameless, game style. Which obviously are already trivially easy to produce, but so is any possible interpretation of a fullscreen application.

        Obviously you're right about the zoom button.

        1. Dan Wilkinson

          The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits

          I don't think that the fact that Full Screen is available is the thing to take away, it's more the fact that you can still switch around to and from full screen apps to normal windows and so on using standard gestures, without having to alt-enter an app out of full screen for anything. It's just wrapping it all up formally within a defined method. I have yet to test this with 2 monitors, but I believe it will stop the whole 'full screen one app and lose your other monitors problem' that is prevalent on both the windows and mac machines I use - often when you full screen an app your mouse becomes constrained to the boundaries of that app. Not any more, I hope.

          1. ThomH

            @Dan Wilkinson

            That would make sense. The mechanism I tend to use, which I think is a defacto standard, is to get the relevant screen that the window I want to go fullscreen from is on, create a frameless window of that size and position and promote it to frontmost. That should be multi-monitor aware but doesn't always create the nicest switching behaviour. Giving us a proper way of doing it is probably sensible, but it'll be a bit odd if that's an on-the-box sort of feature.

    3. Mark Serlin
      Jobs Halo

      Yeah but how much is Win7?

      £80? Makes this look cheap, and I'd happily pay £25 for the resizeable window thing. welcome to 1986!

      1. Dan Wilkinson
        WTF?

        Which One?

        Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Retail (Green) 32 & 64 Bit

        £115.07 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate - Retail (Black), 32 & 64 Bit

        £170.48 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium UPGRADE DVD, 32/64Bit, Retail

        £79.28 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Professional - Retail (Blue), 32 & 64 Bit

        £164.48 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM £134.48 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM

        £72.08 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM

        £106.88 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM

        £105.68 inc VAT

        Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit Operating System, Single, - OEM

        £138.08 inc VAT

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge
          Pint

          Which one?

          Debian Linux, Workstation £0.00 inc VAT.

          Debian Linux, Server £0.00 inc VAT.

          Go Ubuntu if you really need simplicity. Still £0.00 inc VAT. by the way. :-)

          I'll drink to that.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Grenade

            Re: Which one?

            You forgot the cost of "WTF time".. when you load up Ubuntu and then think WTF how does this work and spend days trying to get your wifi to work, so you can then download drivers for your printer, scanner etc to work. without resorting to jerking about in a command prompt.

            I'd happily pay £150 for software that works straight out the box, life is to short.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Backwards Mac

    So not only are they getting rid of Rosetta, so software purchased <5 years ago such as Office 2004, older Final Cut, music production programs are no longer executable.

    But they're trying to make OSX more like iOS?

    Why try and dumb down to a mobile operating system level?

    A desktop OS has different UI needs to what a mobile phone / media player UI needs.

    And no Java?

    What I used to like about OSX was the plethora of Open Source software available for unix that could run on it. Now if it isn't app stored and approved by St Jobs of California then it is frowned upon (and I'm sure in the future release of OSX Hyena will be blocked).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Java...

      will be available for free, on demand from Oracle, the people responsible for Java.

      "Now if it isn't app stored and approved by St Jobs of California then it is frowned upon (and I'm sure in the future release of OSX Hyena will be blocked)." You don't have to like te changes in OS X, but making up this sort of bullshit is just pointless trolling.

  20. Syntax Error

    Zilch

    Apart from the encryption this sounds like a minor update from a computing point of view and an advancement in turning my Mac Pro into an Ipad. We'll have to wait and see when it officially comes out whether its worth the upgrade.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WOW!

    Wow, the list of leaked features is truely mind-blowing!

    I doubt even the most urber fanboi managed to pop one off to that list!

    Oh yeah, auto-save & resume, oh yeah, Drop... i mean AirBox... sorry AirDrop, oh God yeah, full screen apps... yes baby, multi touch me baby... mission control, we have.... ....flopped. lol

    1. Monkey Bob
      Coat

      @WOW!

      iFap

      iCoat please!

  22. Dan Wilkinson
    FAIL

    Bootlegs

    I can't believe you are suggesting people download bootleg versions of this, and providing links and instructions for how to do so. OK, we get it, you hate the Apple ignore you and like to goad, but would you have done this for a new Windows release, bearing in mind they have heavily advertised (and co branded colour schemes) on el Reg?

    If nothing else, you could see fit to mention that if anyone wants to try it, they can do so by joining the Mac Developer Program for £59 also.

    Stay classy.

    1. James O'Shea

      you don't need to join the developer program

      or at least you don't need to pay up. I'm in the free end of ADC and I just got a note from Apple (well, it arrived last week Thursday) which I haven't replied to yet which is why I can say stuff... not everyone in the free end of ADC is getting the seed, and I don't know how they pick those who do.

      1. Dan Wilkinson

        Hmmm

        Perhaps you have got their attention by posting bug reports or something that makes it look like you are active enough to bother. I was in the fre for all area for years, but I stumped up after the announcement to get it. If I am right, so long as I use the machine for development (I will, a bit...) I an entitled to a free license and download of the latest OS anyway, so it may actually save a little.

  23. 88mm a.k.a. Minister for Misbehaviour
    Paris Hilton

    Slow mouse

    I like the windows resizing from any side corner, I really do. It will save me quite a few man hours over the course of a year and help reduce my forearm trigger-points. But have they found a way to speed up the mouse before logging in on a multi-user system. Seriously, I have a 30" display and the mouse pointer is up on the top left corner before logging in. It takes about 5 strokes of my trackball just to reach the centre of the screen.

    Paris, because she knows balls about stroking Jobs

  24. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Pint

    Underwhelmed

    Rosetta will probably still be available at least for the plethora of devices that (Canon, Oki, etc.) than package drivers with it. Otherwise a fuck of a lot of people will either not pay out or not read the small print and be fucking angry. Quite possible that a restricted set of Rosetta will still be around and available for download.

    Some nice things in there but given that Snow Leopard was apparently only a minor update (with things like Grand Central and CUDA) and this will be two years after Snow Leopard I can't help thinking that something is missing. Support for the ARM toolchain is probably the elephant in the room so that "compliant" applications can be easily cross-compiled for Mac OS and iOS.

    Mac OS is still a really nice platform to work with so I don't feel any pressing need to jump ship but I will be installing PC-BSD 8.2 on a separate partition and probably buy some kind of Android 3 based notebook once the teething troubles are solved.

  25. Steen Hive
    Joke

    But will it work on the most important platform?

    Hackintosh, natch ;-)

    1. jaygeejay

      Eventually

      It's being worked on... I gather.

  26. TRT Silver badge
    Alert

    Applescript

    Doesn't that rely on Rosetta?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like