Lion thoughts part 2

Less than a minute after I posted my initial thoughts on Lion yesterday I remembered at least two other things I really liked or thought were nice touches. So…here they are along with a little bit of the interface inconsistency I mentioned previously.

If you ever use command+space bar to invoke a Spotlight search you will be familiar with the list of results that pops down and updates as you type. I’ve used it as a launcher and dictionary lookup method for years. In OS X Lion, Apple has taken the search results one step further and provides a quick-look preview of each result as you will see in the picture below. What you don’t see is the animated graphics that are preserved in the preview. It sure takes some of the guess work out of finding “that file” you were looking for. Pretty slick!

Lion provides previews of Spotlight search results

Another nice update is the System Profiler. In previous versions of OS X if you clicked the More info…button in the About This Mac dialog you would be taken to a detailed report of all of your computer’s hardware specs. In Lion Apple has added an intermediate step. When you click that same old button you get a small summary screen with all the info you might need if you called technical support or were checking to see if your system met the requirements for Diablo III when it comes out. From that summary screen you can still click a button at the bottom that will take you to the same old detailed report. I think most people, especially those new to the Mac, will appreciate this summary approach.

The hardware summary screen in Lion's System Profiler

There are tabs at the top of the window that provide other info in a similar fashion. The Displays tab gives info on your screen resolution and the model of graphics card in your machine along with the amount of video memory. As an aside, this is the one tab that seems to provide little additional information from the Summary tab.

The Displays tab of Lion's System Profiler

The Storage tab, however, is much more handy. It provides a graphical snapshot of your hard drive showing how much space certain types of files are taking up. iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users will instantly recognize the storage bar as iTunes provides the same storage overview for those devices when connected to your Mac. Below the storage bar is a list of all of the formats your optical drive will support (assuming your computer has one – the new MacBook Airs and Mac Minis don’t). This can be handy for those two times a year you need to burn a DVD and can’t remember what kind of discs your computer can use.

The Storage tab in Lion's System Profiler

Finally, the Memory tab not only tells you how much memory is in your machine but tells you how many memory slots your computer has, what kind of memory it takes and what is currently in each slot. I wish I had discovered this gem before I went RAM shopping. It took me a little more poking around before I was sure that I was buying the right kind of memory.

System Profiler's Memory tab in OS X Lion

Although I don’t use this last feature all that often, both of these updates are welcome and seem right in line with Apple’s philosophy of making things even easier for their users, especially the newbies.

I’ll close this post with a brief look at the interface inconsistency that I mentioned in my last post. One of the noticeable changes in the Finder’s interface is the replacement of the colored icons in the sidebar with gray versions of the same icons. The reason Apple has given for this is that they want to make the User Interface (UI) as subtle as possible so people can focus on their work. While I can appreciate that sentiment, I think the all-gray icon look actually makes the UI harder to navigate. This is one instance where color increases usability in the UI. With all of the icons the same color I really have to look at each entry in the sidebar list to make sure I’m clicking the correct one. The color icons in Snow Leopard and earlier made choosing an option much easier.

But here is my real complaint: The monochrome approach is not universally implemented in the OS. If you compare the two pictures below you will see the icon for the Desktop highlighted in a standard Lion Finder window in the first picture. It is gray like all of the others. But in the second picture you will see a color version of the same icon in an Open/Save dialog box.

An example of the all-gray icon approach in Lion

An unexpected use of color in OS X Lion

It is possible that this is just something that slipped through quality control at Apple. Or it may be that Apple isn’t as convinced of their UI approach as they seem to be. Personally, I hope they return the colored icons in a future update. But if they don’t I’d at least like to seem them bring some consistency to their use (or lack thereof) of color.