Apple has recently released news regarding the new OSX Lion. Now, the only thing really missing is next week's iPad release, and until June, we won't be hearing from them anymore. So, let's talk first about the OSX Lion. Apple has always been really amazing with the way they designed user interfaces. Aside from a mac, my first interaction with an Apple product is none other than an iPod. In fact, it was an iPod Nano Gen 2. At the time, I was amazed at how easy it was to navigate. It's very hard to get a good feel of it at first, with the whole scrollwheel and all. However, with time, it made sense. It was intuitive, and in fact, very good.
Apple had announced the iPhone in early 2007, and it wasn't too long before yours truly had a chance to see what it was like. It was absolutely hard to make sense of it at first. Other than being a touchscreen phone that supported multi-touch gestures (something very useful and innovative of course), it was hard to understand why one would buy into this. You needed a data plan, which cost another $30-$40 on top of what you pay already, making the average phone bill for an iPhone to be in the ball park of about $60-70. This was also before the App Store supported third party apps.
It wasn't until shortly afterward, when the iPhone was given upgrades, the camera is now better, with touch to zoom, third party apps through the App Store, cheaper data plans, and for one, the onscreen keyboard that is now easier to use. It made the entire iPhone experience much much better. In fact, the more you play with an iPhone, the more amazed you are by it. It started to make sense; all the tiny details, the location of buttons, the gestures, and the interface...everything about it seemed right, and strangely..everything seemed very intuitive.
So, when the iPad came out, I did the inevitable: I jumped on the bandwagon along with all other skeptics and completely made fun of it. It was a super-sized iPod Touch, a tablet without a proper widescreen, it was a scam from Apple to force you to buy more attachments because it didn't support a lot of stuff, it was the precursor for me to purchase an iPad Nano (reference to iPhone), how it was the precursor to Apple making bigger products, like an iBoard or iMat etc..etc. It didn't take long before the iPad finally reached Canadian shores, and it was one fateful Friday morning, when I tried it out at my local Best Buy, and realized how much the iPad made sense. It wasn't cluttered like other attempts to make tablet PCs. It supported a "mobileness" in its attempt to be a computer that can be carried around, with a big huge touchscreen, while not having any keyboard at all. It was amazing because being bigger than an iPod Touch, you can actually type properly on it. It wasn't hard to type on an iPod Touch/iPhone, but it was easier on the iPad. The viewing area is amazing, the feel of it was just perfect. So once again, an Apple product had grown on me.
So, with the release of Lion, is it going to be the same? I personally always found that Apple products are very strange. It was hard to like at first. It is difficult to play around with a Mac when you first get to it, but after a bit of work, despite the odd quirk here and there, it's not hard to play with. In fact, that's why I'm confident with OSX Lion. I want to say, that once I get to use it, I'll find that it's really wonderful, that integrating it with the Apple's trackpad can make it all worth the while.
OSX Lion is released with a bunch of new tweaks from iOS. It will have the same sort of scroll gestures, and similar app layout. As far as I'm concerned, it sounds great. However, will it be something that makes sense? Will it be desirable, and grow on me? Only time will tell. Hope reading week was good for everyone!
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