∞ My four word Mac OS X Lion review

Written by

People have been reviewing Lion since the first developer preview was released a few months ago. Every Web site known to man is posting a detailed Lion review this morning, with pictures, that say many of the same things that are already known. So here is my concise Lion review.



  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    Thank you Jim!

    Now I don’t have to read Siracusa’s ;)

  • http://www.BarnesFamily.com/ davebarnes

    3 words. Buy it today.

    • http://crankygeek.com Jack Brewster

      Seriously, Jim. Why so long winded? davebarnes nailed it.

  • Kevin

    4 words: Never learned Leopard anyways!

  • Anonymous

    Roar.

    • http://justinfreid.com Justin Freid

      A lot of elements are “meow”, but this was going to be my suggestion, too.

  • Anonymous

    Apropos of nothing truly important, I wonder what the next cat would be. We’ve reached Lion. The King of the Jungle. Will this mark the end of the Big Cats marketing theme? Just curious.

    • McBain

      There’s still the “lynx.”

      (“Whaddya mean we have to talk to this lynx? The last monster we spoke to ate half the party!”)

      • Anonymous

        lol.

        OS X Bobcat OS X Lynx OS X Tabby OS X Sabertooth (that one might actually be cool) OS X Ocelot

        • Vamsmack

          OS X Thundercat, OS X Battlecat & stealing from Peter’s tweet OS X Nyancat

          • Anonymous

            I’ve got to admit I don’t understand the Nyancat reference.

            OS X Cougar OS X Cheshire OS X Lolcat

          • Player_16

            OS X Puddy Tat OS X Cool for Cats

          • Vamsmack
          • Player_16

            The pop-tart cat farting a rainbow, OK. (That 2nd one… ugh, sick)

          • Player_16

            The pop-tart cat farting a rainbow, OK. (That 2nd one… ugh, sick)

          • http://twitter.com/mattanr Mats Ryding

            Maybe Mac OS X Cat, they’re everywhere.

    • http://twitter.com/mattanr Mats Ryding

      Maybe Mac OS X Cat, they’re everywhere.

  • Vamsmack

    2 words. “Fuck Yeah”

  • Rich Prince

    What do you make of the download distribution (without a backup or boxed edition) of Lion? Here is the thing, I love updating and getting my software over the web. It couldn’t be more convenient but there are a lot of things being overlooked in this exchange or transaction, isn’t there? There are lots of presumptions about the situation the users are in or working under. Maybe four words is not enough to write about with Lion and Apple’s distribution methods…

    • http://www.powerwatchers.com/ Dean Lewis

      In August you can buy it on a flash drive. Plus, you miss the problems that will likely be found by the early adopters. Bonus!

  • Chris

    Lion does not support microsoft office, i looked and looked and nowhere said this i am disappointed in Mac

    • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

      You’ve mixed something up here, the sentence should read:

      “Microsoft Office doesn’t support Lion, I’m very disappointed in Microsoft; they had more than two months time to at least start making Office compatible with Lion, but they failed.”

      • Vamsmack

        What part of Office isn’t supported? Is it an older version as I am running Lion using Word 2011 just fine thanks.

        • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

          Dunno, I haven#t installed Lion yet, it was just a general response to the misguided comment.

          • http://www.acid-product.co.uk Ian Davies

            You were also far too generous in putting punctuation back in for him. I’m always suspicious of whiny comments that look like they were written by a 12 year-old on a mobile phone.

          • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

            Hehe, right. But I’m more suspicious of those that unquestioningly agree with me, all while adding a link to similar topics :D

        • Anonymous

          I’ve got a really old Office, circa 2001 (Microsoft Office X). It’s PowerPC, so I expect it will no longer work on Lion. Perhaps that’s his problem?

        • Anonymous

          I’ve got a really old Office, circa 2001 (Microsoft Office X). It’s PowerPC, so I expect it will no longer work on Lion. Perhaps that’s his problem?

        • Anonymous

          I’ve got a really old Office, circa 2001 (Microsoft Office X). It’s PowerPC, so I expect it will no longer work on Lion. Perhaps that’s his problem?

    • Anonymous

      Microsoft Office 2011 runs fine under Lion. (Make sure you’ve got the latest version of Office).

      Office needs to be updated to use the new Lion features, like full screen & autosaving.

      I guess Microsoft will get round to that eventually.

    • http://www.jphotog.com Hrunga Zmuda

      Yes it does. It runs Office 2011 right now. Do you expect it to run 2008? (I was sorta hoping.) But 2004 was PowerPC only, so it’s out anyway.

    • Bob

      Off course Microsoft Office is supported. Both 2008 and 2011 versions. I’m running 2011 Word as I write this. Have you heard of Google?

    • Kerry

      I too am very disappointed with mac.  I was so excited to download and update to Lion.  When my system restarted, three huge cross-outs on top of my three MS Office icons.  My lifetime of work was done in MS Office, and now I need to go back to PC just so I can work again…

      Damn, I hope the apple guys make this work again!!!

      • http://www.acid-product.co.uk Ian Davies

        So what you’re saying is that you installed a brand new operating system on the day it was released, and didn’t bother to check whether your work-critical apps actually still ran properly or not? I think you may need to look elsewhere for the cause of this problem. Like in a mirror.

        • Kerry

          Pardon me, though I never knew that you had to go and check on everything that people you “trust” would do… you must be such a perfect little creature who need not look into that same mirror!

          • http://www.acid-product.co.uk Ian Davies

            Good work making the leap from me criticising you on one point, to me claiming to be perfect. Here’s one thing I’ve never done though: assumed that software written in the past would continue to work perfectly on operating systems that come along at some point in the future. If, as you claim, your “lifetime of work” was so dependent on the version of Office you were running, then I maintain that upgrading to an untested new operating system without being sure of your ability to keep working was a pretty naive and silly thing to do. I work for myself, and I too depend on software that runs reliably, which is why Lion won’t be touching my production Mac for at least 6 months, maybe more. Having a working machine on which to earn my living is far more important than the new shiny, and if knowing that makes me “perfect” then I’ll gladly take your comment as the glowing compliment you obviously intended it to be.

      • His Shadow

        Now you are just trolling.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/E56NECVZQSIT4KFSA22PTMYDWI BCtheDJ

    ******************************  NOTE **************************

    At appx 4:30 ET Wed – problems with ‘Apple ID Authorization’ 

    When trying to buy Lion via ‘App Store’ Application

    Kept returning – “Your Apple ID has been disabled”

    But ID works fine for Account Info/iTunes/Apple in General

    Can even reset, re-password it, etc

    .

    Contacted Apple ‘Help’ on phone – they say (in effect)

    “Are problems with Apple ID Verification in App Store due to huge load/volume, should be fixed in few hours, try again later, ok?”

    Well, is not ‘ok’ but … it is what it are

    Find out in few hours ?

    .

    Anyone else run into this same ‘situation’  ?

    .

  • Jameslweaver

    Does Lion Email enable one to respond to websites such as Craigslist…many ISPs (such as Charter), block Port 25, forcing me to go through their home page and re-type website addresses!

  • Anonymous

    Nice review, but you needed to use a semicolon rather than a comma ;)

  • Yeschick

    I am still installing. Nearing 3 hours, wished I knew this would take this long,

  • Anonymous

    It helps having a 50Mb download capacity (thanks Virgin UK). It will take a while to find out and get used to the new bits. I have reversed the scrolling direction but other than that Lion seems fine. Curiously iPhoto froze twice on day 1 but now seems fine. Does Lion work out its glitches on its own?

  • Ybatal

     be careful if u do upgrade, Microsoft office, if u have it won’t work anymore 

  • Macmu

    Gee why did I spend all that money on MS Office only to have it wiped into oblivion. What Jobs has done should be illegal.

    • Vamsmack

      Or you could have done your due diligence and checked your software was going to work with a new operating system. 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PGAKF77XPPPBXVHRA76CYIEO2Y airmanchairman

    That should have read: “Lion is red hot!”