Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me since that's the way we have
Speaker 1: this studio set up, and really we can't do it
Speaker 1: any other way. It's senior writer Jonathan Strickland in the Jungle,
Speaker 1: the Mighty Jungle. Well you know, uh, you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't tell me what quotes he picks before we do this,
Speaker 1: which is why I always chuckle because I'm going, oh
Speaker 1: see he picked that one. Yeah, um, but yes, wey.
Speaker 1: So today we are we are tackling something that many
Speaker 1: people have asked us about, and boy is that dangerous.
Speaker 1: You don't want to enjoy general tackle a lion sucker,
Speaker 1: l take your head clean off. Uh yeah. And if
Speaker 1: you're wondering why, because people have been asking about this
Speaker 1: for a couple of months now and we didn't get
Speaker 1: right to it. It's it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: we went, hey, this week, we should do mac Os
Speaker 1: ten lion no let's wait until next week. And then
Speaker 1: we we found out that, uh, you know something about
Speaker 1: Windows eight. They they announced it at the Microsoft Developer Conference,
Speaker 1: and we said, you know what, now would be a
Speaker 1: good time for us to do one on Microsoft's new OS,
Speaker 1: and we'll do Lion as well, so that we want
Speaker 1: to talk about Lion. Yeah, so we've you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure when we're scheduling these. We haven't. We
Speaker 1: haven't sat down and scheduled them. But we have a
Speaker 1: Windows eight episode and we have a mac Os ten
Speaker 1: Lion episode, and we're recording both of them on the
Speaker 1: same day. Now. We've just finished recording Windows eight, but
Speaker 1: it may or may not have published yet. So we're
Speaker 1: going to just say that if this one's publishing first,
Speaker 1: don't worry Microsoft fans, Windows eight is coming. And if
Speaker 1: Windows eight came out first, boy, those Land fans didn't
Speaker 1: get upset because I didn't warn them at the beginning
Speaker 1: of that episode. Don't worry Apple fans. You're oh, we're
Speaker 1: recording it. Yeah, So let's talk about Lyon now. First
Speaker 1: of all, it is part of the mac OS ten
Speaker 1: family of operating systems, all of which have names that
Speaker 1: are big cat names. Yes. Now, um, I want to
Speaker 1: point out too that unlike Windows eight, which is coming
Speaker 1: out sometime in twelve, mac Os Lion is available today
Speaker 1: as at the time we're recording this, And but there
Speaker 1: is one big similarity which is, unlike in past operating systems,
Speaker 1: the two of these are taking cues from the mobile world.
Speaker 1: Many of of Lyon's early reviews came back and said, hey,
Speaker 1: this looks an awful lot like the Io S, which
Speaker 1: is the operating system that's used on the i iPod Touch,
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and the iPad UM. And we've suspected for
Speaker 1: a while that the mac os and the iOS were
Speaker 1: converging on a similar point and that maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: to a point where they are practically indistinguishable from each other. Now, granted, uh,
Speaker 1: you're always going to be able to run more complex
Speaker 1: and uh resource intensive UM applications on a desktop or
Speaker 1: laptop because it has more hardware resources to dedicate to
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But the actual experience of navigating
Speaker 1: the operating system should be pretty much, um well, very
Speaker 1: similar to the point where if you're familiar with one,
Speaker 1: the other feels natural to you. Yes, I think that
Speaker 1: these companies are trying to immerse you in their operating
Speaker 1: systems to the point where the whole environment. You have
Speaker 1: your tablet, you have your phone, and you have your
Speaker 1: computer of some kind, and they all look and operate
Speaker 1: very similarly. So I say, you know, I need a
Speaker 1: new phone, but I want to get the Q phone.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get the Q phone. Mean, everybody's
Speaker 1: got that, but I'm not familiar with that operating system.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna stick with this. Yeah, And also
Speaker 1: we should point out that we are recording this podcast
Speaker 1: before the official launch of iOS five. That's true, and
Speaker 1: iOS five is probably we we've already seen some hints
Speaker 1: of iOS five and what's gonna involve in what's going
Speaker 1: to uh the feature kind of features that's gonna have,
Speaker 1: but we haven't had a full rundown of all those features.
Speaker 1: And it may very well be that once iOS five
Speaker 1: has gone live, that the resemblance between iOS five and
Speaker 1: Lion is even closer than what we're talking about right now. Now.
Speaker 1: I've been using mac os ten since UH, since it's
Speaker 1: very first version. And like Jonathan said, UM, these have
Speaker 1: all been named for big cats, UM and UH of
Speaker 1: varying sizes. They don't go in any kind of order
Speaker 1: that can tally the cats get larger because tiger was
Speaker 1: a few versions ago, and tigers are bigger than lions. Well,
Speaker 1: so you might be saying, what are these versions they
Speaker 1: and and this is the other funny part. We have
Speaker 1: another number discrepancy, but this one at least is easier
Speaker 1: to explain than the Windows versioning system. Um. There are
Speaker 1: seven previous versions to mac OS ten point seven. They
Speaker 1: are Cheetah, Puma, jaguar, panther, tiger, leopard, and snow leopard. UM.
Speaker 1: The reason that there are seven previous versions of macOS
Speaker 1: ten and that this one is ten point seven is
Speaker 1: that Cheetah was actually ten point zero. UM. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you that cheetahs really don't prosper. It was
Speaker 1: it was clearly clunky Cheetah in the system, but that
Speaker 1: was right after they acquired the technology from next would
Speaker 1: you say that cheetah was a little spotty. So the
Speaker 1: thing that the thing is that macOS ten point six
Speaker 1: snow Leopard UH was considered more of a a bug
Speaker 1: fix and incremental improvements. And a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: was behind the scenes, stuff like grand central um, which
Speaker 1: is not something you see and you know who look
Speaker 1: at that thing. It was designed to improve the way
Speaker 1: the operating system handled information, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: supposed to be transparent, like it's it's better, and there's
Speaker 1: not like a flashy new feature exactly. The idea was
Speaker 1: that this is supposed to improve the consumer experience without
Speaker 1: being intrusive. That is not the case with Lion intrudes
Speaker 1: way the heck Lion prowls yes on you. And I
Speaker 1: think I think, uh, you're seeing with both Windows eight
Speaker 1: and mac ows ten Lion that the major operating system
Speaker 1: manufacturers are unafraid to make major changes to the operating system.
Speaker 1: And you know, we talked about this in the Windows
Speaker 1: eight podcast, which you may or may not have already heard.
Speaker 1: I think we should go ahead and schedule at first.
Speaker 1: Why don't we do that? So but but we've talked
Speaker 1: about it before. But it's clear that uperating system developers
Speaker 1: are really looking at how people are using the mobile
Speaker 1: version of operating systems and how quickly people adapt to that,
Speaker 1: and then they're they're saying, well, what what can we
Speaker 1: take from that design element and apply to a desktop
Speaker 1: or laptop model so that our operating system is just
Speaker 1: as intuitive and easy to use as the mobile version
Speaker 1: of that operating system. Yeah. Yeah, well there are there
Speaker 1: are tons and tons of new features. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are are less than exciting. Um. You
Speaker 1: you did touch on this in the macOS ten article
Speaker 1: you recently wrote about floor how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: um and and I mean there were things like voiceover,
Speaker 1: which supports twenty two different languages. Um. And makes it
Speaker 1: more accessible for people because you can actually have the
Speaker 1: computer read to you. I have an impairment or visual impairment,
Speaker 1: than this can be a way for you to work
Speaker 1: with this computer without, you know, making making it easier
Speaker 1: for you to access the applications and information on your device.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of thing that that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people find less than exciting. But I
Speaker 1: think you know, it's a it's a nice feature, um
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to mention it simply because it
Speaker 1: does make computers more accessible for more people. Can I
Speaker 1: tell you one of the features that I actually think
Speaker 1: is I'm pretty excited about this is going to show
Speaker 1: you how lame I am. No, No, seriously, I really will.
Speaker 1: Launchpad launch Pad Launchpad is the quick of app that
Speaker 1: will open up a box that shows you all the
Speaker 1: the executable applications that are on your Mac. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, it shows all the apps that you can
Speaker 1: run in one view. And the reason why I think
Speaker 1: this is cool is because I'm a Lamo. I I
Speaker 1: am used to using the Windows operating system. When I
Speaker 1: say Lamo, I really mean I'm a Macnube. I own
Speaker 1: a Mac, but I don't use my Mac that frequently,
Speaker 1: so I still don't know all the shortcuts because I
Speaker 1: just don't use it that that much. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know that I could know them all if I actually
Speaker 1: put forth the effort. I just haven't done that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know all the shortcuts on accessing all the apps.
Speaker 1: And if it's not in my dock at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the screen, then I'm like, wait, where's my Where's
Speaker 1: the program I want to run? Because I don't see
Speaker 1: the icon down here, And then I have to open
Speaker 1: up Finder and I have to find the thing. And
Speaker 1: I know all you Mac users out there are saying, oh,
Speaker 1: calm on. A lot of the macusers out there are
Speaker 1: probably using something like Alfred or or um Quicksilver, you know,
Speaker 1: or or launch Bar or something like that too. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a key command and then you can type in
Speaker 1: the name of the thing and it just opens. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are things like that for Windows to right right,
Speaker 1: It's just that I'm familiar with navigating through Windows, so
Speaker 1: I don't have any There's no delay for me there
Speaker 1: because I've just I've used it so so much. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Once you know the once you know the way, and
Speaker 1: you've got used it a couple of times, you're good
Speaker 1: And I just haven't taken that that that time. Well,
Speaker 1: launch pad it opens up a window that shows you
Speaker 1: all the applications you can run. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about hunting for it in
Speaker 1: the dock or if it's not there, where do you
Speaker 1: find it? If it's not on your desktop, what do
Speaker 1: you do? And um, And that I think is a
Speaker 1: great feature for people who are new to the Mac
Speaker 1: operating system or people who just like the simplicity of
Speaker 1: doing it that way. Frankly, Yeah, except that I think
Speaker 1: if you've been using a Mac for a while, you
Speaker 1: probably have so many apps that opening up a window
Speaker 1: that has all of them listed is not really a
Speaker 1: great solution, which is why I use a launcher. Yeah, exactly. See,
Speaker 1: so for So for someone who's used MAX quite a
Speaker 1: bit and have experience with lots and lots of applications,
Speaker 1: and they have lots of applications, it's not an ideal,
Speaker 1: uh feature. But for someone who's brand new to the
Speaker 1: operating system who doesn't know their way around yet, it
Speaker 1: is something that makes it much more user friendly. Um
Speaker 1: especially I mean if you're like me, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the old dog new tricks thing, right,
Speaker 1: I've had it beat into me that this is there's
Speaker 1: a very specific way that you go about to access
Speaker 1: the programs that are on your computer, and it's really
Speaker 1: hard for me to rewire that at this point. Well,
Speaker 1: another another trick they've taken from the iOS book. And
Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of people who were
Speaker 1: saying that they kind of thought that iOS might be
Speaker 1: moving to the Mac. Um it's not there yet. This
Speaker 1: is definitely unlike again Windows eight. This is definitely a
Speaker 1: there's a line in between the two still, but there
Speaker 1: are a lot of similarities, including the ability in launchpad
Speaker 1: to group applications in folders as you would in an
Speaker 1: iOS device, and just your navigation Yeah, which actually, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, has caused some people to go bonkers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's just your it's modeled after that mobile device
Speaker 1: um experience. So for example, when uh, when you are
Speaker 1: looking at a screen and there's more information on uh,
Speaker 1: let's say it's a website. So you're looking at a
Speaker 1: website and there's more information below the bottom of the
Speaker 1: screen that you cannot see. The way you look at
Speaker 1: that on us on a mobile device, as you put
Speaker 1: your finger on the screen and you move your finger up,
Speaker 1: and that pulls the page up so you can see
Speaker 1: the stuff that's lower down, right, So in other words,
Speaker 1: you flick up to see further down. Well, if you're
Speaker 1: using a mouse with a scroll wheel, the traditional way
Speaker 1: to scroll through a a web page that has more
Speaker 1: information further down is you dial that wheel towards you
Speaker 1: downwards and your fingers making a downward motion. Right, So
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so you're pulling the wheel towards you to
Speaker 1: scroll down. That ain't the way Lion does it. Lion
Speaker 1: apes the the model of the mobile device. So now
Speaker 1: in order to scroll down, you you push the wheel
Speaker 1: up away from you, not toward you. So it's opposite
Speaker 1: what it used to be, which when I first was
Speaker 1: reading the reviews, and that, and even Apple says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna take you a little while too
Speaker 1: to learn this, and if you really hate it, you
Speaker 1: can change the settings. So it's not like Apple makes
Speaker 1: you do this, it's just it's said as the default.
Speaker 1: I read so many people like, how do I change
Speaker 1: my settings? I can't scroll anywhere, I have to hold
Speaker 1: my mouths upside down, and I gotta be underwater and
Speaker 1: it only works with bacon's on the stove. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening. There might have been a bit of hyperbole,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was one of the That was one
Speaker 1: of the first things I saw was that it wasn't
Speaker 1: talking about how slick the interface it was. It was
Speaker 1: I don't know how to scroll anymore. Yeah. That the
Speaker 1: gesture navigation, Um, it's gonna be easier for people who
Speaker 1: are using laptops with a touchpad. Um. Of course Apple
Speaker 1: also max with a touch pad now also, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they sell a magic what they call the Magic
Speaker 1: touchpad track pad. Sorry, yeah, and they also have the
Speaker 1: Magic mouse. What you can you can also scroll using
Speaker 1: your fingers, so um, and do other gestures as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know some people who do gestures at them. But
Speaker 1: U But yeah, I mean so you can you can
Speaker 1: do that. Another feature that I think is cool again
Speaker 1: sort of that falls in the same sort of buckets
Speaker 1: Mission control, which is sort of a uh refined version
Speaker 1: of expose a UM, which is a feature on a
Speaker 1: couple of previous versions of the macOS where you can
Speaker 1: hit the A button or use a you know key
Speaker 1: command UM, and it will show you every open window
Speaker 1: on on your Mac, all the all the active applications
Speaker 1: that are running at that point. Yeah. Now mission control
Speaker 1: shows you even more than that, including the dashboard which
Speaker 1: is where widgets are found. Um, any open window, full
Speaker 1: screen applications. Oh yeah that it also allows you uh
Speaker 1: lie and also allows you use full screen apps, which
Speaker 1: is nice. Yeah, so that that models after the iPad. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a visual version of the task
Speaker 1: Manager for Windows. So for people who are who are
Speaker 1: used to Windows, who are thinking what does this mean?
Speaker 1: All right, so when you pull up your task manager
Speaker 1: and Windows, you want to see all the applications that
Speaker 1: are currently running. Maybe you want to do that so
Speaker 1: you you know, you can make sure that you aren't
Speaker 1: running any unnecessary applications. So that way your your computer
Speaker 1: is not running slowly that kind of stuff, same sort
Speaker 1: of thing, except this is a much more visual way
Speaker 1: of representing that. It actually literally opens up all the
Speaker 1: little windows so that you can get a bird's eye
Speaker 1: view of all the stuff that's happening on your Mac
Speaker 1: at that moment. Um. Expose A still exists, but expose
Speaker 1: A now handles multiple multiple windows in the same application UM,
Speaker 1: and you can you can control spaces, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: basically alternate desktops UM, which I use sometimes, Like for example,
Speaker 1: I'll have you know, music playing in one window and
Speaker 1: I really don't want uh, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: a browser window open where I'm working with all on
Speaker 1: all the tabs in that browser window are how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com related where I'm looking up uh facts
Speaker 1: for the podcast or looking something up for or testing
Speaker 1: a page before it goes live. And I don't want
Speaker 1: my music player in the same window. I move it
Speaker 1: to another space so that I could, you know, keep
Speaker 1: my work stuff there and it helps me focus on work. UM.
Speaker 1: That's all part of mission control now, which I think
Speaker 1: is nice and I actually like the idea of grouping applications.
Speaker 1: I thought that was cool about Windows seven because one
Speaker 1: of my big complaints about earlier versions of Windows was
Speaker 1: you'd have you know, say, three browser windows open, and
Speaker 1: after a while with all the other stuff that you
Speaker 1: have open, they they they're so sliver thin that you
Speaker 1: can't tell which window is which without you know, tabbing
Speaker 1: through them. Um. And I like that the Windows seven
Speaker 1: has that, And I think that this is also a
Speaker 1: nice feature in mac os Lion. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of little different but there are a couple of features
Speaker 1: in Lion that I think are like killer features, features
Speaker 1: that make me want Lion and make me want to
Speaker 1: buy a new Mac. And this is confim Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is coming from someone who doesn't use the many Mac applications,
Speaker 1: but I just I love the fact that it's built
Speaker 1: into the operating system. Um. The first being the auto
Speaker 1: save feature, yeah, which is this is not can't stress
Speaker 1: how important that is that. This is another feature that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people consider unglamorous. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you have apps that do auto save, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: for all operating systems, but this brings it across the
Speaker 1: entire operating system. So basically, anybody who's using that part
Speaker 1: of the API for the Maco and you know, it's
Speaker 1: got it plugged into the operating system, it's going to
Speaker 1: auto save for you. And it's a it's kind of
Speaker 1: similar to UH time machine if you've ever used that.
Speaker 1: It's and there are actually three components to auto save.
Speaker 1: There's the auto save component, where it's saving the state
Speaker 1: of the computer automatically, so that way, should you should
Speaker 1: you shut down prematurely or whatever, the pet loss of
Speaker 1: power or whatever, you're able to get back to a
Speaker 1: state that's very close to what you were at before
Speaker 1: the power went down. UM. There is UH the resume feature,
Speaker 1: which is part of auto safe. Resume is where it
Speaker 1: picks up right where you left off. So let's say
Speaker 1: that you're in a document and you're editing a document.
Speaker 1: Chris does this occasionally. So you're editing a document and
Speaker 1: you have to shut down because it's time for you
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else, and you're you're in the middle
Speaker 1: of editing, so you you save your progress and you
Speaker 1: shut down and you go, Well, resume lets you when
Speaker 1: you launch that application again, it's going to open up
Speaker 1: exactly where you left off, including the cursor position, which
Speaker 1: so if you're working on page sixteen, you're the cursor
Speaker 1: is exactly like, yeah, if you were you, if you
Speaker 1: leave your cursor right where you left off, so that
Speaker 1: way you're you say, Okay, from this point forward, I
Speaker 1: need to continue editing. But I've done everything previous to
Speaker 1: this point. Now that sounds that might sound really mundane
Speaker 1: to you, but this is a huge help for people
Speaker 1: who do a lot of content creation and editing. Speaking
Speaker 1: as someone who does a lot of writing, this is
Speaker 1: incredibly important because sometimes once in a while, I'll write
Speaker 1: an article and I'll be on page three of my
Speaker 1: article and I realized, hey, there's this cool thing I
Speaker 1: should have written in page two, and uh, or maybe
Speaker 1: there's something that should be page three, and this is
Speaker 1: what I'm working on right now should really be page four.
Speaker 1: And I'll go back and I'll insert a new page
Speaker 1: and I'll start typing stuff, and then I have to quit,
Speaker 1: and I have to go do something else, and I
Speaker 1: have to come back. Well, having it pick up exactly
Speaker 1: where I left off means that I spend less time
Speaker 1: going through this document that I've been working in and
Speaker 1: figuring out where I need to pick up from. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if if I worked in a very chronological
Speaker 1: timeline specific way, it wouldn't be necessary because I would
Speaker 1: just go to the first blank spot in the document
Speaker 1: and that's where I would need to start. That's not
Speaker 1: how I work. So that featured to me is really important.
Speaker 1: And a third one is the version's feature. Now versions,
Speaker 1: what that lets you do is look the various iterations
Speaker 1: of whatever the file is or whatever the app is,
Speaker 1: so that you can see what what its status was
Speaker 1: each time it was saved. Okay, So here's the scenario.
Speaker 1: Hit me with it. I uh, I was working on
Speaker 1: a project my senior year in college on my Amiga.
Speaker 1: Um I had written they had Amiga's back when you
Speaker 1: were in college? Yes? Were? They made out of wood? Okay?
Speaker 1: So I was working on this on this one paper
Speaker 1: for my class. It was due. I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what time, but it was you know, afternoons, like two
Speaker 1: pm or something like that, and I don't know. I
Speaker 1: got really good at the keyboard command for saving, so
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, Amiga s to save it
Speaker 1: because they had you know, keys like the Apple command key,
Speaker 1: so you know, or the Windows key, so you know,
Speaker 1: I save that the document you know on type type
Speaker 1: type type, and I'd save it because I've learned the
Speaker 1: lesson that we all learned many times, where we don't
Speaker 1: save something and you come back and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: what happened to it? Somehow? He by the way, he
Speaker 1: does sound like that when it happens. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: I was ready to do this. I was going, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna save this and print it. I hit,
Speaker 1: I hit something, I hit select all, deleted it, saved
Speaker 1: it and closed it. Somehow I just fat fingered it. Wow.
Speaker 1: So and so, like the worst possible the entire paper
Speaker 1: minutes before it was due. If I had had a
Speaker 1: feature like this, I could have gone to the previous
Speaker 1: version of the paper and at least had I don't know,
Speaker 1: nine and three quarters of ten pages left to you know,
Speaker 1: finish my conclusion or whatever it was that I was doing.
Speaker 1: I procrastinate, you know, because of this. It's why Chris
Speaker 1: does not own Facebook, exactly that splitting path. If he
Speaker 1: had just saved it, yes, he would be a multi billionaire.
Speaker 1: And instead he's sitting at this little table with me.
Speaker 1: Please shoot me now trump bowe um. So. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is a very incredibly useful feature to be able to
Speaker 1: go back or if you've written something you know that stinks,
Speaker 1: and then the next day you you know what, maybe
Speaker 1: that did what what did I write that? Maybe that
Speaker 1: didn't stink? Well, now you can go find out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the other you know, because I said there
Speaker 1: were two big things that I thought were really important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the other one? The other one is air drop. Ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a nice feature. Air Drop is again because are
Speaker 1: setting up a home network is not necessarily difficult, but
Speaker 1: there is a level of familiarity you have to reach
Speaker 1: in order to get to this point where you can
Speaker 1: set up a home network where it's easy for you
Speaker 1: to share files across devices. Right, not everyone knows how
Speaker 1: to do that. They might know, oh, well I use
Speaker 1: this router and that allows me to access the Internet,
Speaker 1: but they don't know how to send files from computer
Speaker 1: A to computer B without emailing it or something, right,
Speaker 1: sneak net right, put it on a flash drive exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's because there's still that barrier there. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that the
Speaker 1: average user doesn't know how to do that. Air Drop
Speaker 1: is getting around that. Air Drop is a way that
Speaker 1: you can share files. You can transfer files across from
Speaker 1: one Mac to another as long as they're both in
Speaker 1: WiFi range, and it doesn't matter what network the two
Speaker 1: machines are on, which is phenomenal to me. You've got
Speaker 1: like your own little local area network that just exists
Speaker 1: for as long as they're in WiFi range of each other.
Speaker 1: So if you have multiple uh mac os ten lion
Speaker 1: devices running or computers running we should just say computers
Speaker 1: because it's not really devices computers running, then you can
Speaker 1: air drop a file from one to the other and share,
Speaker 1: you know, just it'll go through as fast as the
Speaker 1: the WiFi speeds allow, which is pretty phenomenal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes it makes that networking and sharing so much easier,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to fiddle with things like email
Speaker 1: or putting it on a flash drive and walking it
Speaker 1: on over. Yeah, and it's it's a little easier to configure.
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, you might be saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know that sounds kind of dangerous to me, what
Speaker 1: if somebody else is lurking around outside uh the The
Speaker 1: connection between the two during air drop is encrypted, so
Speaker 1: it should be theoretically impossible for somebody to capture the
Speaker 1: transfer and and get at you in that way, and
Speaker 1: if not impossible, very very improbable. Well you know that
Speaker 1: I hate to speak indefinites, because there's just gonna be
Speaker 1: an exception to the rule until we get to quantum
Speaker 1: of encryption. I don't know. Except for that rule, there's
Speaker 1: never gonna be an exception to the exception to the
Speaker 1: rule rule. I mean, you know, nothing moves faster than
Speaker 1: the speed of light unless it does. Is the top
Speaker 1: still spinning? So what about file vault fault similar? It's
Speaker 1: an encryption technique. Now, people complained about file vault which
Speaker 1: didn't have a one, but file vault one they're calling
Speaker 1: it you now, uh, because there were there were let's say,
Speaker 1: problems with it. Um, not that it was bad. People
Speaker 1: use it and it works, but um, there have been
Speaker 1: problems getting at some of the things in there. And
Speaker 1: and so file Vault two is an improved version of
Speaker 1: the whole disc encryption scheme that was in previous versions
Speaker 1: of the operating So now this is important if you
Speaker 1: are using a Mac to work on sensitive material. Let's
Speaker 1: say it's for work and you work at a company
Speaker 1: where you've got uh, sensitive corporate files on your Mac. Well,
Speaker 1: something like file valled is important just in case should
Speaker 1: that that computer ever leave your side for any reason,
Speaker 1: someone else doesn't have access to that information. That's the
Speaker 1: it's just it's the point of encryption, and the and
Speaker 1: Lion has built it in directly into the operating system
Speaker 1: so that it's and at least in the very easier
Speaker 1: for you to to activate, so you're not going to
Speaker 1: be um, you know, having to hunt for a third
Speaker 1: party solution to encrypt your information. It also supports external
Speaker 1: drive encryption and it is bit encryption, so it is
Speaker 1: pretty thorough and it won't work on the entire drive.
Speaker 1: It also offers you an instant wipe feature, so if
Speaker 1: something you lose the laptop, you can or well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can do it remotely, so I
Speaker 1: take that back, but you can. You can wipe it.
Speaker 1: You can wipe the entire drive. Uh Let's say you
Speaker 1: you know you're done with this computer, but you want
Speaker 1: to give it to someone else. You could you could
Speaker 1: have it go ahead and wipe the entire drive and
Speaker 1: give it to him knowing that it's done. Let's coming back.
Speaker 1: You're sitting at your desk and the Feds are coming
Speaker 1: and you're thinking Oh no, lull Sec is going to
Speaker 1: be so mad at me. You know, legal is going
Speaker 1: to be all over your case. I'm just saying, lull Sec.
Speaker 1: You know all the FEDS are after you. We know this, man.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's common knowledge, that's in the news. So
Speaker 1: then there's also a Lion also has the Lion Recovery feature.
Speaker 1: So if you if you're with one of your disks
Speaker 1: is damaged and when I say a damage disc, I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily mean physically damaged. Uh, then you can have
Speaker 1: a a full reinstall of OSX Lion without having to
Speaker 1: require you use a physical disk. So um. It also
Speaker 1: helps you restore from things like a time machine backup
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Uh. Oh, there's the uh you
Speaker 1: know what we didn't mention. What didn't we mention? The
Speaker 1: Mac OS ten Lion, to my knowledge and correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, is the first of the Mac operating
Speaker 1: systems which you could just download directly from the Mac
Speaker 1: app Store. Yeah. I was going to bring that up
Speaker 1: if we were done talking about specific features, because some
Speaker 1: of the features aren't features. This is this is brand
Speaker 1: new for for Mac. And another thing that they did
Speaker 1: which was sort of unusual because both Windows and Apple
Speaker 1: have our Windows and Macintosh operating systems recently have come
Speaker 1: with sort of higher prices depending on which version of
Speaker 1: Windows you're buying. I mean, you can buy a cheaper version.
Speaker 1: The mac Os. Until snow Leopard had been retailing for
Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty nine dollars for the next
Speaker 1: version of the operating system, and then with snow Leopard
Speaker 1: they offered it for twenty nine dollars, saying hey, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an incremental upgrade. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: small lions stayed at that price point and it's now
Speaker 1: digital download, which is going to cause people to go, ah,
Speaker 1: so if you don't have to print manuals and uh
Speaker 1: press discs and arrange for distribution, you can charge less
Speaker 1: for things. Yeah. Yeah. It puts the pressure on other
Speaker 1: operating system developers, yes, yes, um, specifically ones that ryan
Speaker 1: with sch Microsoft. Yes, well, you know the Linux operating
Speaker 1: system manufacturers. Most of those are for free distributions. Usually
Speaker 1: with the distributions distributions usually usually the distribution is free
Speaker 1: and support is what you end up paying for. Yeah. Yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is kind of a new thing now
Speaker 1: they do offer again, not everyone has access to high
Speaker 1: speed internet, so they offer a thumb drive version which
Speaker 1: came out after the initial release of Line. I believe
Speaker 1: it's sixty dollars to get a thumb drive with Line
Speaker 1: installed on that. But um, they Apple has been pushing
Speaker 1: the move from physical format software a disc with the
Speaker 1: software on two digital downloads, so of course they were
Speaker 1: doing that with a Mac app store. Um. But but
Speaker 1: this is they're they're actually I mean to download your
Speaker 1: operating system. That's kind of a new thing. Um. One
Speaker 1: thing that Lion doesn't have that may completely prevent me
Speaker 1: from switching my current Mac over is Rosetta. Rosetta was
Speaker 1: um of course, several years ago Mac uh computers moved
Speaker 1: from the I be empower PC architecture to Intel's X
Speaker 1: eight six architecture. Rosetta was a technology built in the
Speaker 1: operating system prior to Lions, so it's no Leopard. And
Speaker 1: before that allowed you to run PPC apps on the
Speaker 1: Intel architecture, you had the Universal Translator. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: included and you can't get it for Lions. So if
Speaker 1: you if you are transferring when you when you install
Speaker 1: Mac OS ten Lion to a machine previous, you know
Speaker 1: you already own a Mac, and now you're upgrading your
Speaker 1: operating system. It will port over all your applications from
Speaker 1: your old Mac into this new operating system unless they
Speaker 1: rely on this translation. Yes, because it doesn't. It's not
Speaker 1: supported within Mac os ten lions, So you those applications
Speaker 1: will remain untouched. And a loon in the desert crying softly. Yes,
Speaker 1: so these legacy apps, that's going to be a problem. Yes.
Speaker 1: Now I suppose I could partition my hard drive and
Speaker 1: run lying on a separate partition. Um, but right now
Speaker 1: I'm kind of running low on hard drive space. Are
Speaker 1: you still using those legacy apps regularly? Well? One, the
Speaker 1: one that I've seen most frequently mentioned is into It's
Speaker 1: Quicken seven. Um Quicken. There's a newer version of Quicken
Speaker 1: that will run online, but it is the the essentials version,
Speaker 1: so it's not as feature rich feature rich as previous versions,
Speaker 1: like the full version of Quicken. Now, um, that's not
Speaker 1: Apple's fault. But people who use Quicken a lot, like
Speaker 1: my my spouse who keeps track of all our finances
Speaker 1: on Quicken, uh, probably would prefer to continue. Now you know,
Speaker 1: we don't. We haven't tried the other version so I
Speaker 1: don't know. But there are other things too. Um, some
Speaker 1: of the games I play are for earlier versions of
Speaker 1: the Mac operating system, and I would like to continue
Speaker 1: to be able to play those games. So I might
Speaker 1: leave this particular Mac on snow Leopard and the next
Speaker 1: wait for the next computer purchase to like marath On.
Speaker 1: No I do I have a copy of Marathon No
Speaker 1: shock here? Yeah, well, you know, stuff like a Rise
Speaker 1: of Nations in Age of Vampires is wondering. I'm like, gosh,
Speaker 1: playing those old games. Yeah, I'm not actually usually allowed
Speaker 1: to pop open an r C Cola and need a
Speaker 1: moonpie while I'm doing it. Worcraft three three, Oh my gosh. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that old well okay, no, it's it's pretty hold yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: Burning Monkey Solitaire and well there you go. So there
Speaker 1: you go. If you've got Burning Monkeys in it, I'm
Speaker 1: on board, see, And that's why I'm sad that free
Speaker 1: Verse discontinued all their Burning Monkey apps. So one other
Speaker 1: thing that's kind of interesting now, if you have if
Speaker 1: you download Lion from the app store, you can install
Speaker 1: it on all the computers that you own and control,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to buy a family license. If
Speaker 1: you own and control ten max in your house, that
Speaker 1: can run lyon Apple is okay with you installing Lion
Speaker 1: on all those machines, which is pretty upgrade price. That's
Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal, and I'd like to see other operating system
Speaker 1: manufacturers do that too. I think that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: an operating system. And there's some stuff we haven't talked about.
Speaker 1: I mean, macOS tens of stuff. Supports FaceTime yep, so
Speaker 1: you're able to do the video calls with people who
Speaker 1: have an iPhone four or an iPad two. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course you can. You can do that with it earlier.
Speaker 1: You can download FaceTime on earlier version, but it comes
Speaker 1: funded in. This one's incorporated directly into the operating system.
Speaker 1: They've improved mail. There's a new wide screen view on mail. Never.
Speaker 1: I never used Apple Mail, um never. One of the
Speaker 1: things I like about Apple Mail is that it allows
Speaker 1: you to use all different kinds of accounts, including Microsoft
Speaker 1: Exchange accounts um. So, if you have your personal account
Speaker 1: on say Yahoo or Gmail or a o L, you
Speaker 1: can use that and check your work mail with Exchange
Speaker 1: and well, uh, you know, update your eye cow I
Speaker 1: cow is also updated on account either yeah. Well, well,
Speaker 1: and here's the other thing is that the we should
Speaker 1: also point out this is as we record this podcast
Speaker 1: OS ten, Lion is still pretty young. Yes, it is right.
Speaker 1: It has moved to dot one though it's a cub
Speaker 1: so there are some third party like sound workstations that
Speaker 1: are not yet supported by Lions. So depending on what
Speaker 1: you use your Mac for, there may be things that
Speaker 1: you can't do just yet because it's just not yet
Speaker 1: supported by Lion. And that's true of any operating system
Speaker 1: when it goes through a change like this. It also
Speaker 1: has one one well known bug, yes, Safari, mm hmm, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just hate that browser. Well, I know you do,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to use it. No. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Mac version of Chrome is quite nice, and I
Speaker 1: know you like Chrome. Yeah, it's the Mac version of
Speaker 1: Chrome is is uh is acceptable? But yeah, Safari, I
Speaker 1: just can't stand I still can't stand it, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean what else can I say? Okay, well, did
Speaker 1: aug I know I would. It's going. I don't know
Speaker 1: if a bug ins apart, No, no, it is the bug. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're interested and if you're interested in making the
Speaker 1: switch and you're concerned about which apps will and won't work. Um,
Speaker 1: I suggest a site called roaring apps dot com like
Speaker 1: roaring like a Lion does, and they have a table
Speaker 1: that you can look at and see which apps are
Speaker 1: and are not functional in Lion. And I suggest uh,
Speaker 1: looking carefully at the comments because some people, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: do what Jonathan just did. I hate this app and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but does it work? Yeah? Some people
Speaker 1: like me troll, So yeah, there was totally a trolling,
Speaker 1: fling baiting content comment I I fully admit. So make
Speaker 1: make sure you check to see if if people are
Speaker 1: actually reporting that it isn't working or they're just snarky
Speaker 1: comments about you know, I don't. Of course, if you're
Speaker 1: buying a new a new Mac, then it's gonna Lion
Speaker 1: is gonna be what's the operating system that's on the computer,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna see these features and um, if you're
Speaker 1: buying a new Mac, well, then you know you're not
Speaker 1: worried about poring over old apps. Probably, I mean you
Speaker 1: might be. I guess you could be buying a new
Speaker 1: machine importing all your stuff from an old machine to
Speaker 1: your new machine. But and it also will will port
Speaker 1: some information over from Windows so at least that's my
Speaker 1: understanding of it. Interesting. UM so yeah, if you haven't,
Speaker 1: if you were ready to make the switch, if you
Speaker 1: decided that you do like the mac os and you've
Speaker 1: been using a Windows machine, it it can do some
Speaker 1: of that for you. Yeah. It's um, I mean we're
Speaker 1: seeing I think, as the mobile devices that Apple produces
Speaker 1: continue to dominate in the market, UM, we're gonna see
Speaker 1: this operating system kind of emulate that more and more
Speaker 1: until it's pretty much a seamless experience from one device
Speaker 1: to another. Uh. It's proven to be a popular moll
Speaker 1: modele and um it might just make Apples mac share
Speaker 1: go even higher. Um yeah, it's it's entirely possible. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: according to I just wanted to check before I uh
Speaker 1: found out for sure whether or not I needed to
Speaker 1: completely rerecord this section now and you talked about Uh,
Speaker 1: it will move Windows Home directory folders including music, pictures, documents, downloads, browser,
Speaker 1: bookmarks and settings, um Outlook and Windows Live Meal. Um
Speaker 1: so yeah, I really will migrate a lot of your
Speaker 1: personal information from Windows. So that's um. It's interesting too.
Speaker 1: That and the fact that they promote boot camp and
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to install Windows on your mac. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, thinking back to the days where there was
Speaker 1: high pitched animosity between two companies and now Apples going,
Speaker 1: you know what, and use ours and install theirs. It's
Speaker 1: all right, we'll help you move over. If you want
Speaker 1: to stay with it, it's okay. Well, if it means funny,
Speaker 1: if it means that they move more machines, of course
Speaker 1: they're going to do that, and they have been. The
Speaker 1: recent sales figures I've seen suggest that Apple is selling
Speaker 1: more machines. Of course, that still means that they have
Speaker 1: a tiny market share, but but it's growing. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: before it was so small that you know, most people
Speaker 1: just dismissed Apple outright. But over the past few years
Speaker 1: they the company has proven you know, don't dismiss us,
Speaker 1: that's a mistake, and that's kind of proving true. So
Speaker 1: we'll see if Lyon continues that trend. Yep. And again,
Speaker 1: we we've mentioned a lot of stuff that that we
Speaker 1: like about lying and there are many many more features
Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about. So please let us know
Speaker 1: if you, uh, if you have a particular feature that
Speaker 1: you thought was cool and that we didn't get to.
Speaker 1: We'd like to hear about it. And if you're a
Speaker 1: Safari fan, I'm sorry, you know, I hope, I hope
Speaker 1: you find help soon. So if you guys want to
Speaker 1: write us and let us know what, okay, I'll admit
Speaker 1: to that I really do have that. I just can't
Speaker 1: stand it. Um. But if you guys want to hear
Speaker 1: more about any particular topic, let us know. Email us.
Speaker 1: Our address is text stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: Drop us a lion lion on Facebook or Twitter round
Speaker 1: That handle is text stuff H. S W and Chris
Speaker 1: and I will roar at you again really soon. Be
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