Back to the Mac: OS X 10.7 Lion Review
by Andrew Cunningham, Kristian Vättö & Anand Lal Shimpi on July 20, 2011 8:30 AM ESTMail, now at version 5.0, has gone through some pretty major overhauls in Lion. It is yet another feature that has clearly been inspired by iOS. The most obvious connection between iOS’s and Lion’s Mail is that received emails are grouped as conversations, which is supposed to make it easy to quickly review the email history on that topic. For users who hate iPad’s Mail, don’t worry, there is an option to use the classic layout in the preferences.
Lion's new Mail layout
Classic layout
On the top, you have ten buttons by default: get new emails, trash or junk the email, reply, reply to all or forward the email, send new email, compose a new note, show relevant emails and the flagging button. Most of these buttons are straight from Snow Leopard and are the backbone of any email application, but there is at least one totally new button which shows the relevant emails or hides them. This is actually part of the new conversation layout, since showing relevant emails means that it will also show the emails that you have sent so it looks like a conversation. Disabling relevant emails simply hides your sent emails and shows only the emails you have received. The preferences have an option to automatically show the related emails as well so you don’t have to click the button every time you want to see the emails as a conversation. Users can customize the Mail toolbar by right-clicking it and selecting “Customize Toolbar…” which will reveal lots of different buttons, such as printing. Obviously, some of these buttons are only enabled when you have selected an actual email/conversations, and are greyed out if you have just selected a mailbox.
Below the toolbar, you have a small toolbar-like stripe that Apple calls the Favorites bar. It allows easy and fast navigation between mailboxes and is the most useful if you have hidden your mailboxes. You simply have shortcuts for inbox, sent items, notes and drafts mailboxes.
The email window is divided into three different sections. On the left-hand-side you have your mailboxes, which includes inbox, drafts, sent items, trash and so on. Next from the left you have the emails for the selected mailbox, which can be sorted by date, attachments, flags, sender, size, subject, receiver or based on whether they have been read or not. Finally, you have the actual email or email conversation on the right-hand-side that occupies roughly half of the window. Actually, if you hide the mailboxes, you can drag the center section to full size, meaning that you will only see the headers of the emails and you can then double-click the header to open it.
The similarities with iOS’s Mail don’t end here. There is now an option to list a preview of the email under the header, just like in iOS. The preview can be anywhere from one line to five lines depending on what you prefer, but it can also be totally disabled.
On the technical side, Lion’s Mail adds support for Microsoft Exchange 2010, which should be excellent news for users of Exchange. iCal and Address Book will also support Exchange 2010 so you should be able to take full advantage of OS X’s built-in apps, even as an Exchange user. Another good piece of news for Exchange users is the support for a vacation responder.
All in all, the new Mail offers a new convenient layout, and anyone who has used the iPad’s Mail should be familiar with it. I find it to be better than the old one, especially when in full screen mode. The conversations make it very simple to read earlier emails in a nice format (no quotes, or etc.) and the layout is logical and very easy to use. While iOS-ification in general may sound scary, it will bring us some great updates as well. The new Mail is one of them.
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quiksilvr - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
$29 is indeed a solid improvement. However, given the Mac Store now being out there, their desktop OS should follow the formula of their mobile OS: Free to upgrade. These features are nice but I can't help shake the feeling that these are Service Packs (because they are). And with their "app" store available on the OS and the means of most of their cash inflow, it makes more sense to make this a free upgrade for everyone instead of a $29 upgrade.xype - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Service packs? Are you serious? Read up on the changes and try to come up with one service pack that changed as much.Some people…
danielkza - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
XP SP3 would be a good candidate, but yes, 10.7 is a bit beyond what one could reasonably call a Service Pack.Taft12 - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
You're thinking of XP SP2, and if you have to go back 7 years to come up with a comparable "service pack", it's certainly fair to say OSX 10.7 is more than a service pack.AfroPhysics - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link
I fail to see how the age of the service pack matters. Xype asked for an example and qualified nothing.ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Are we really going through the tired argument that every 10.x update to OS X is just a service pack and should be free? Then at what point should Apple try to recoup costs for OS development, because even if individual point updates are evolutionary, going from the original 10.0 to 10.7 has got to be a major change in anyones eyes. And the same questions could be raised about Windows NT 6.1 aka Windows 7 where the server version is bluntly labeled Windows 2008 R2 and Windows NT 6.0 aka Vista/2008 or Windows NT 5.1 aka XP and Windows NT 5.0 aka 2000.Besides, even if you discount the user facing changes, Lion has seem some major security infrastructure changes. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit kernel have been rewritten with full NX-bit and ALSR support as in place in Windows Vista/7 addressing the major security complaint Charlie Miller had with OS X. Application sandboxing frameworks are now available and soon to be mandatory for Lion apps in the Mac App Store which I believe is a security feature that even Windows isn't pushing yet. With the dropping of the Core Duo, the Lion has also be rewritten to make more use of SSSE3 instead of just SSE3 as pointed out by the Hackintosh community. Lion isn't just Snow Leopard with a few features added on top, but the entire OS has seem updates at a low level even if the user might not necessary see all the differences.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
And about the App Store being a major source of income for Apple, Apple has consistently said they aim to run their stores as a break even venture.http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/19/apple-reports-...
I'm not clear if the iTunes Store in the graphic in the above link includes the App Store, but at the very least as an example of Apple's digital store, the revenue stream really hasn't increased in the last 2 years. Apple's sales growth is clearly from their hardware, iPhone, iPad, and even Mac.
GotThumbs - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
$1,634,000,000 in revenue from Other Music Related Products and Services (3)(3) Includes sales from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore in addition to sales of iPod services and Apple-branded and third-party iPod accessories
I'd say their goal of a break even venture is not an accurate description of their stores. Hence the creation of the MAC Store. It sounds like a nice thought, but Apple is in business to make money and it seems their VERY good at it. Perhaps their projection analysis was a bit off.
Hey, this is good news for the investors and I understand that they are a business. Lets not be too naive and just don't drink the cool-aid.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Perhaps my finance terms are wrong, but I'd hope the Apps Store is taking in revenue. But if Apple should be offering some of their other products like OS X updates for free, shouldn't we be concerned with whether the App Store is making major profits, such that there is money to spare to pay for OS development?solipsism - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - link
Revenue ≠ ProfitThey've paid billions to both developers, and music and video cotent owners. They've also spent money on the infrastructure to support their stores. I'm sure they're making a profit as all good for-profit companies should, but it's not the cash cow you've attempted to present here.