I have had 10.7 installed for a day and a half now and while I can't report much, I can mention a few things.
The OS is more robust than 10.6. Not much more, but it feels snappier. The icons are a little cleaner and the interface is a little more "square" vs the bubbly round. The comparison I keep hearing is that it looks more like an iOS device now.
The biggest change to me is that scrolling up and down a website is still a two finger swipe to scroll, but the control is inverted to match the iOS finger swipe. I am trying to get used to it, but it is actually frustrating me more than it is helping. Essentially it is just up = down and down=up.
They added a few new features such as the Launchpad, which is like a repository of applications... not unlike the Applications folder, but easier to navigate with touch swiping.
Additionally they created a section called Mission Control. It is a way to organize windows from applications across a desktop, or multiple desktops, which it allows you to create and manage. I can appreciate the idea, but the three finger upward swipe gesture to open it seems to be triggered by my scrolling habits mixed with my clumsy wrist laying on the trackpad.
In some windows there is a button that resizes the window and its content to fill the entire screen (it is like pressing F11 on a browser). It is a neat trick, but there is a problem. Some apps such as Chrome have the expanding button, but the reduction button is interestingly enough not present. This means that the window must be closed in order to minimize it.
The logon screen looks just like an iPad background now. If it were sharp non-blurry graphics, I would think it was kinda cool. Sadly, it just makes everything a little less sharp around the Avatar and name/password text. It is almost as though someone needs to explain the difference between GIF, PNG and JPEG to the devs.
Scroll bars and window controls both received a makeover as well. No change in usage, just updated graphics.
And then there is the big change. The greatest improvement ever made to a Mac in the history of the entire OS's existence. The inovation was so amazing that it was only adopted by Microsoft in the 80's and made popular in the 90's with Windows 3.0. So what is the feature? Resizing a window from any edge by dragging the border. That is correct, Apple did not offer this basic feature until 2011. Now that they have it, I have already used it about a thousand times and can say, OS X is about a billion times easier to maneuver.
There are other feature changes, some positive and some negative, but for the most part I think I hit the change highlights. I'll post more if I find other changes.
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