# In which I pit Apple for a diabolical annoying change in Lion **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 16, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869 "2011-08-16T05:07:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/61 "2011-08-21T02:52:05Z")
So I just realized that after umpteen years of whining about the useless little green button next to the Close and Minimize buttons, Apple has finally given me what I always wanted: a true Maximize button! I click the top-right corner of a supported app and watch as the window fills the screen, just like I have been doing in Windows since the beginning of time. I am pleased with this feature. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/62 "2011-08-21T03:38:10Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:60, topic:592869”] Sure. Windows never stops supporting your old software when you upgrade. And it never causes network failures because one version won’t network properly with another. And, Lord knows they don’t completely change the UI so you can’t find anything anymore. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Goodness. Defensive much? Methinks he hath pricked a sore spot with his jest… 😛 Though, come to think of it, I’ve never had any trouble with any of the things you’ve mentioned. _shrug_ ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/63 "2011-08-21T04:59:40Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > Goodness. Defensive much? Methinks he hath pricked a sore spot with his jest… 😛 > > Though, come to think of it, I’ve never had any trouble with any of the things you’ve mentioned. _shrug_ Defensive? Of what? I’m griping about Windows, not defending anything. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/64 "2011-08-21T07:15:58Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:60, topic:592869”] Sure. Windows never stops supporting your old software when you upgrade. And it never causes network failures because one version won’t network properly with another. And, Lord knows they don’t completely change the UI so you can’t find anything anymore. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Windows does not support software, software is written to support windows. All versions of windows speak standard networking just fine. It may not hand it to you on a silver platter with wild rice stuffing and a nice garnish but its all still there. MS office, yeah, they went a little apeshit on 2007, but vista and 7 still work the same way, start button, most start menu items structured in a similar fashion. Moved a setting or two, yup, but not so far that someone who took 2 seconds to look at what they were clicking couldnt figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/65 "2011-08-21T11:54:20Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > All versions of windows speak standard networking just fine. It may not hand it to you on a silver platter with wild rice stuffing and a nice garnish but its all still there. No, they do not. Microsoft is notorious for incompletely supporting, or worse yet, introducing their own proprietary incompatibilities into standard Internet protocols. Even where they do offer standard protocols, they are often not exposed by default; this way they can pay lip service to standards compatibility while pushing their own proprietary protocols. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/66 "2011-08-21T13:49:13Z")
Good grief, **drachillix** , stop playing Windows fan-boy and pissing in the Mac griping thread. Go start a “Windows is wonderful” thread somewhere else. > [@drachillix](#): > > Windows does not support software, software is written to support windows. Semantic games are fun, aren’t they? I mentioned that certain of my (expensive) programs don’t work in the latest Mac operating system. This has also happened many, many times in the history of Windows. Just as it has happened in the development of virtually every other non-trivial and long-lived operating system. That’s how things work. I know that, but it won’t stop me from bitching about it. > [@drachillix](#): > > All versions of windows speak standard networking just fine. It may not hand it to you on a silver platter with wild rice stuffing and a nice garnish but its all still there. Get real. I ran mixed enterprise networks for years and I used to develop network training programs for Cisco. But I still had a home network where the new Windows system and the old Windows system wouldn’t talk to each other properly, but the Mac talked to both. When I had Windows 98, Windows NT, Linux, Solaris, and Mac systems on the same network, there were lots of inter-version compatibility issues. > [@drachillix](#): > > MS office, yeah, they went a little apeshit on 2007, but vista and 7 still work the same way, start button, most start menu items structured in a similar fashion. Moved a setting or two, yup, but not so far that someone who took 2 seconds to look at what they were clicking couldnt figure it out. Yep, Office 2007 is what I was talking about. They took a user interface that the whole freaking world is comfortable with (pull-down menus) and replaced it with one that ground productivity to a near-halt while everyone retrained. And if you skip a version of Windows, it takes many hours of fiddle-farting around to figure out what they did with everything in the control panel – ESPECIALLY in networking. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/67 "2011-08-21T15:47:35Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:66, topic:592869”] Yep, Office 2007 is what I was talking about. They took a user interface that the whole freaking world is comfortable with (pull-down menus) and replaced it with one that ground productivity to a near-halt while everyone retrained. [/QUOTE] That was going to be necessary sooner or later, though. Replacing the hideously bloated interface, I mean, not specifically replacing drop down menus with a tabbed strip. Each version of Office added more and more and more features, but they were buried in sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub menus, since they were added to the existing interface. Microsoft conducted a survey about Office and asked what sorts of features people would like. Survey result after survey result would ask for features _that have been in Office products for years, but were totally buried in those sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub menus._ And let’s be frank, here: Clippy had the best intentions, but never could actually give any useful advice, bless his heart. 😉 If you have that many people _unintentionally_ telling you the interface is crap? It needs to be changed. You’re going to piss off a chunk of people (power users, those who just hate change, infrequent users who knew exactly how to get to the handful of options they used, etc.) no matter _what_ you do for the redesign. And if anything, I should be one of those people pissed off at Microsoft, because I had to field countless calls (non-MS corporate IT) from users who had no idea what to do in Office 2007. But I’m not. Know why? Because their redesign concept was solid. I went through the Big Four (Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint) and saw that the ribbon organization was far more intuitive than the bloated drop-down menus\*. Did it slow me down for a little while? Sure. Were there times where I’d instinctively go to click on “Edit” at the top? Yep. But that doesn’t mean the redesign is bad. If you look at it through the eyes of someone actually trying to explore and see how things are grouped, it’s a lot better; but too many people look at it through the eyes of “WTF? this is different! What the hell do I do? I just want to do x, y, z! Stuff isn’t where it used to be. This sucks!”\*\* The bloat and unintuitive UI was only going to get worse and worse, so they bit the bullet and did the redesign now instead of waiting until the drop-down menus were basically unusable. Keeping the same UI just because it’s what people are used to isn’t a good enough reason. Plus, the loudest 2007 complainers I came across? Were also the loudest complainers about Office’s interface _before_ the redesign. - Other than some parts of Excel, which seemed a bit less clear to me. But Excel in general is a program where it’s easy for me to forget _a lot_ if I’m not constantly using it, so keep that in mind. \*\* And of course I’m not saying that everyone would love it if they just really gave it a chance, maaaan. There are some that will just dislike it or not find it intuitive, but that’s no different than people who disliked the old drop-down menus. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/68 "2011-08-21T17:37:16Z")
You have some valid points, **zweisamkeit** , but the my original point remains: software companies make dramatic changes to their user interfaces. Apple isn’t the only one in the world that’s done this. The ribbon bar pisses me off mostly because (a) it eats up a bunch of valuable vertical real estate on my screen and (b) I knew where everything was on the menus. I dearly wish I could go back to the old version, but I need to keep up with the times whether I like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/69 "2011-08-26T14:38:35Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > “ME”, while being oh so cutesie because it could sound like “me! It’s Windows for me!” actually stood for Millennium Edition. Did anyone actually pronounce it like the word “me”? Everyone I know said “em ee.” > [@drachillix](#): > > Windows does not support software, software is written to support windows. Actually, I’d say both of those are accurate. Software is often written geared towards Windows, yes, because it has such a huge market share. But part of the reason that Windows tends to be much less stable than Macintosh OSes is because of its ridiculous amount of backwards compatibility with old software, old drivers, old hardware. So in that sense, Windows \*is \*written to support software. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869/70 "2011-08-30T03:12:45Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Are there no keyboard shortcuts for moving up and down in your document? For instance, the arrow keys, or the Page Up / Page Down keys? That should be faster than hitting two tiny buttons in the corner of your screen with the mouse anyway. > > Personally, I like the new (lack of) scrollbars in 10.7. It results in that much more screen space, and a less cluttered display. > > I am not a fan of the new Mission Control - I was a heavy Expose and Spaces user in previous versions, and while quite similar, Mission Control it is just different enough to be disruptive - but I will get used to it. 1. Thank you (whoever you were, I don’t remember now) for pointing out that you could change the direction of scroll on a mouse with a trackball. Whew! 2. I’m confused about this question. There are arrow keys, and they work the same as on a PC. For page up/down FN + the appropriate arrow key does the trick. 3. I though Command + arrow would take you to the beginning or end, but I see right here in this forum that all Command + arrow does is move you to some arbitrary spot. Odd. This is actually the first place where it DOESN’T work, so I think Command + arrow is what’s meant to work. I guess the SDMB’s coding doesn’t recognize it properly. 4. In case anyone was wondering (because I was): Command + TAB is the equivalent of Alt + TAB for moving from one open program to the next. 5. Taking a screenshot: this one is crazy: shift + ctrl + command + 4 will turn your cursor into a thingie that looks like a target on a rifle, and what you do then is highlight the part of the screen you want to screenshot and then let go: it lands in your clipboard. I don’t know about any other program, but the free Paintbrush one then lets you open a new picture from the clipboard. 6. Finally, just because I use it a lot: F2 for editing a cell in a spreadsheet: use FN + F2 to do the same thing. (FN + F2 in my browser - Opera - opens a prompt to take me to another web page. Interesting. BTW, I found Safari to be a really awkward program, so I downloaded Opera and use that as my default browser. Much better.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-pit-apple-for-a-diabolical-annoying-change-in-lion/592869.md?page=3)