1. It will be called “Lion”

Don’t laugh. It might be just a name, but it tells us a lot about the product.
First, it’s a clear cut from the previous OS X versions. Unlike “Snow Leopard”, which was a stripped down, polished and accelerated version of “Leopard”, “Lion” is destined to be something completely new.
They could have chosen another cat. Frankly, even OSX “Simba” sounds better than “Lion”. What about Lynx, Cougar, or even Clouded Leopard? But the Lion is after all the king of the jungle, which indicates that Apple is aiming high.
Snow Leopard is an excellent system, but Apple was resting on their laurels lately. Now that Windows and Ubuntu are slowly catching up, it’s time for some real change.

2. It will feature a redesigned UI

OS X has seen some small but significant UI design improvements along the years. The main theme, Aqua, now features a sleek gradient instead of the brushed metal featured in the previous OS X versions, but even a gradient can get old.
Newer apps, like AppZapper, Transmit or the CS5 suite have demonstrated new kinds of UI designs, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple change the way OS X looks.
Of course, when it comes to Apple, I’m always open to surprises, but the new UI is probably going to look like the one Quicktime X is using: dark, elegant and sleek.

3. Performance, performance, performance

Performance is like iOS apps, you can never get enough. Newer technologies allow more efficient coding, newer processors allow better multi-threading and multitasking.
But to be honest, OS X 10.6 is already bloody fast. So what could be improved? 3D performance is the answer. As it turns out, one of the largest gaming companies has recently opened its doors to Mac, and this will probably play a major role in OS X 10.7′s handling of heavy 3D graphics, or at least we shall hope so. I want to play Crysis on my MacBook!

4. Multitouch

Multitouch is at the core of Apple’s mobile technology, and it has already found its way to the Macintosh line: the truly phenomenal glass trackpad on unibody MacBook Pros and the Magic Trackpad rely on multitouch gestures to make the OS X experience so smooth.
More, deeper, and better multitouch integration is bound to be integrated to OS X in some way or another, be it thanks to hybrid MacBooks (A MacBook Air made of an iPad with a keyboard?) or simply gigantic multitouch surfaces on Cinema Displays.
Regardless of the way multitouch is used in OS X, one can safely state that the UI will have  a major impact here.

5. The cloud

I’m not a huge fan of the cloud. I like having my media on my own hard drives. But regardless of personal preferences, the fact remains that cloud storage becomes cheaper faster than physical storage does. Cloud apps becomes increasingly popular, and with the slow adoption of HTML5, they will be able to match desktop apps.
Apple knows that, and I would not be surprised to see their MobileMe scam being transformed into something actually quite usable. iTunes will, eventually, work like Spotify.

… And surprises

I recently ranted on and about Apple’s increasingly boring predictability. OS X Lion is the perfect occasion for Steve Jobs to rise back to his own standards and surprise the world with something revolutionary, something that we, mere mortals, simply can’t imagine.
October 20th will also probably be the day that iLife ’10 get’s unveiled, and maybe, who knows, some new hardware.
Any specific feature you’d like to see in OS X 10.7? Let us know in the comments.

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ome close to fully utilizing.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone to someone’s house to clean out a system that is used strictly for webrowsing and typing papers and the system is a total power house. Maybe it is just myself, but it seems wasteful to use a 2.4ghz Quad core sporting 8gigs of RAM to just compose papers.

Why does this happened? Well there are really two people to blame here. The first is the sales person. Odds are the system was purchased from someone who works on a commission and as such it is to their benefit to sell a more expensive computer than a cheaper one. The second is the consumer themselves. If they had been informed on what they are buying in the first place they never would have purchased something so ridiculously powerful for their simple needs.

Beyond these two factors I think another misconception that is ingrained in people is that technology has to be expensive. A computer that costs half as much? That can’t possibly last as long as the more expensive model or meet my needs as readily.

In the same manner I believe people have become accustomed to be gouged on the cost of software. The old “you get what you pay for” motto sticks in the back of their mind and because of this I think many don’t give free alternatives a fair chance.

OpenOffice meets the needs of easily 95% of home users (and a good deal of those that use office software at work) and most of those people using an, often times illegal, version of Photoshop would be able to accomplish the exact same tasks using the legally free GIMP. Beyond this beginning Linux distros such as Linux Mint or Pinguy OS easily fulfill all the desktop computing needs of your average user.

With all of this in mind, why don’t you see Linux, OpenOffice, or GIMP on the shelf at your local computer store? Simple:

There is no money in it for the retailer.

None of these products come with the, often hundreds of dollars, price tag attached that the commerical products have. Beyond this if a customer is using a Linux system the store will not have that same customer returning in six months to have their system cleaned out of viruses and “brought back up to speed”.

The lesson to be learned here/the point I would like to get across is this – if you are not familiar with technology, bring someone with you who is when you go to pick out new hardware/software! It could end up saving you a good deal of money in the long run.

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The first emotion that came upon me when testing the new Ubuntu was disapointment. The last release, although an LTS (Long Term Service) release had brought some radical changes to Ubuntu’s interface, featuring a complete new lookand the all-new “indicator applets”. Ubuntu 10.04 was exciting, and although I was disapointed by some details, I couldn’t stop the child in me to rejoice. I felt as though Canonical had released the first really good Ubuntu release, the one all would future versions would be measured against. That is not the impression I had when first trying the Meerkat.The theme has barely changed and some obvious defects in the OS have remained. I was almost considering turning my back to this release and waiting for the next one. A deeper look revealed that there was much more to 10.10.

The name

Dubbed “the perfect 10,” Canonical founder Mark shuttleworth promised even more open-source greatness for this release, and maybe even a new way of looking at the OS. According to the tradition, this version will be numbered as of the year and month of the release ( the first 10 for the year and the second for October) and given an animal name with an adjective starting from the same letter, following the alphabet’s progression. Ubuntu 10.10 is code-named “Maverick Meerkat.” Why? According to Mark, meerkats are smart and social, and that’s what this release of Ubuntu has been designed to be.

The look

Maverick looks a lot like it’s predecessor, Lucid. It features a purple desktop and the now-not-so-new black ambiance theme, together with orange icons. But it’s not because the theme is in keeping with the preceding version that we can say that the design team was bowling for the last six months. There are a lot of changes to be seen, and they’re all for the better as far as I can tell.

First of all, brown was dropped completely. In Lucid, the text-selection color was a washed-out version of the traditional Ubuntu theme-color. But the days when Ubuntu was synonymous with brown are over. The selection color is now officially orange.

That doesn’t mean that I’m pleased with the color choices. I love the purple, but I really don’t believe it goes well with orange. If I were in the Ubuntu Art Team, I’d push for a complete conversion to purple.

There’s one great change since the beta days of 10.10. The Art team had ditched the old default wallpaper that had caused quite a stir in the community because of it’s perceived ugliness for something that definitively feels more smooth. The old wallpaper apparently was Lucid’s with two bright orange blurs added to it. Not good.

My advice to everyone who upgrades: switch your color scheme to purple. In just a few clicks, your desktop looks much better. It’s just an opinion, but you should at least try.

I’m not a fan of dark window theme either. It’s the best that I’ve ever seen on Ubuntu, but I don’t think it can compete with Mac OS’s or KDE’s lighter themes. That said, the Ambiance theme has been improved. Most notably, the window buttons are less pronounced and don’t feel as aggressive as before. Also, a small line has appeared between the window titlebar and the similarly colored menu-bar. I’m not sure if I approve of that last change, but it does have the advantage of making the window look a tad more balanced.

The main problem I see with the black-ish Ambiance theme is that it makes the title and menu -bars seem out of touch with the rest of the window. In my opinion, a clear contrast between the top and bottom of the window should be eliminated, instead to be replaced by a feel of unity from the top to the bottom of each application.

The “Ubuntu” Font now comes as default font for supported languages in the Meerkat. The font that has been in private beta for long time was made available for all users and looks quite good. It’s also very readable and has personality, something that most default fonts do not have.

The Applications

The applications included in the default install haven’t changed much, and the one thing that changed has nothing more exciting than the removal of a wallpaper would have. What is that change you ask me? Ubuntu has ditched the F-Spot Photo management program for Shotwell.

I know, exciting isn’t it?

I won’t bash it though. Shotwell is a great application, andit does bring a cleaner (and more beautiful) interface to photo management. If you use this sort of application, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Shotwell is a great app built by Yorba, a small open-source development studio based in California that aims to bring simple-yet-powerful tools for our Linux media management. As well as great photo-organization features, it includes some limited image editing features. My lack of enthusiasm may be due to the fact that don’t use any photo-manageent application. If I did, I’d be pleased with the switch (though probably not over-excited either).

Apart from that you won’t be seeing anything new under the applications menu.

The Software Center

One thing to have received a major overhaul is the Software Center. A quick look at it revealed a lot of important new features and now just bug-fixing and slight aesthetic improvements.

The first big addition is the “for purchase” option for downloading new applications. Ubuntu 10.04 had introduced a “Canonical Partners” button now place right above it that hinted on it’s appearance. As of the time of writing, the only paid application available for purchase is the Fluendo DVD player (at $24.95)., but more are sure to come.

In addition to being more practical than buying an installation disk or hunting the official website down and then paying with Paypal, the Ubuntu Software Center’s paid apps can be transferred to another computer or reinstalled anytime you want via the user’s Software Store account. Whether Ubuntu users will be able to change their habits and actually buy applications is another story.

Some other less drastic changes have been made. An all-new “History” tab helps you keep track of all the changes you have done to your system, including updates, installations and software removal. The function is simple yet it may prove to be a great tool to the average power user.

The first page has been redesigned to present a sideshow of the “featured” applications, as well as a “what’s new” box. The featured list has quite a few interesting applications all new users should check, including games, productivity software and even web-apps.

The application view (the page you get when you click on “more info”) has been substantially upgraded. Plug-ins are now included at the bottom of the page (below the application’s description and screenshot). You can select them by clicking on the check-box, and they will be installed along with your application. Additionally, a new “find it in the menu” line has been added so you won’t ever again wonder where that installed app disappeared.

Technical packages are not shown by default anymore, so you won’t have any more strangely-named entries all over the place. That’s a significant improvement, and together with the changes mentioned above, it makes the Software Center quasi-perfect. All that’s needed now is to populate the commercial applications’ list to encourage third party developers to write for Linux.

Ubuntu One

Ubuntu One, Canonical’s free (as in beer) cloud solution, has had a welcome upgrade. There have been a lot of bug fixes, and Maverick’s implementation is now much more stable. Better integration with Nautilus, Ubuntu’s default file manager is evident. When browsing within his home folder, the user will see a bar with a check-box asking him if he wishes to sync the folder’s contents with the Ubuntu One server.

Additionally, Ubuntu users can now create their account from their desktop, without having to start-up their browser. Most settings and information about your Ubuntu One account can be found from within the desktop application.

Syncing has also become much more easy. You can view all your synchronized computers from the “devices” tab as well as select what will be synchronized in “services.” You can synchronize bookmarks (through a Firefox plugin installable through the Ubuntu One interface), your “broadcast” massage archives, Evolution contacts and, of course, files. The online interface has been streamlined as well, making it easy to access from other people’s computers, whether they run Ubuntu or another OS such as Windows or Mac OS.

Two application developed by Canonical for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) as well as Google’s Linux-based Android OS have already been released, giving you the option to sync your computer’s music and contacts with your smartphone.

Indicator applets

Before reaching my final conclusion, there is one small feature and one small problem that I’d like to talk about. As you may well remember, indicator applets made an appearance in Ubuntu 10.04, almost completely replacing the now archaic “Notification Area.” Within this applet, one indicator has recieved a major overhaul (and with that, a great deal of attention): the sound indicator. the new sound indicator does more than adjust the sound volume. It now gives you power to control Rhythmbox (and other media players with the available plugins) from within the small menu. That does not seem like much, but it’s extremely practical to be able to control your music without even leaving the window you’re working on.

Some of you may point out that there have been widgets on Mac OS and Linux available that did just that for quite some time, but the inclusion of this tool makes the task more simple and more intuitive than ever with no need to configure your computer. I’d replace it with no other fancy tool.

There are some caveats though. First of all, the sound indicator has a little glitch in it: the background of the music controls are of a slightly different color than the rest of the drop-down menu. Most people won’t notice it, but on some screens, it’ll be slightly annoying, if not very important.

More importantly, the networking applet does not exist yet. this means that, for the second Ubuntu release in a row, we are stuck with a notification applet that does not look, feel and react the same way as the other “indicator applets.” This was inevitable, and I wasn’t expecting Ubuntu to be able to change all notificators with indicators overnight, but it is sad that an applet as important as this one could be overlooked.

Conclusions

Ubuntu 10.10 wasn’t love at first sight. The first thing I noticed was what had not changed, and some of it (like the networking applet) was disapointing. However, on a closer look, a lot of great improvements have been made. The software center is fabulous, the installer is the best I’ve ever seen, and the OS is solid. This is a great release. Should you upgrade? Definitely. It doesn’t cost you anything, and there’s only goodness in Maverick. I’d wait a few days to hear what people say about stability though, but that’s a choice.

Install it, upgrade it. Above all, have fun with the newest Ubuntu release to date!

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