I downloaded and installed Lion from the Apple App Store. Grrr.
Definitely not going to tell you anything you don't already know or can't read from other sites. Just some thoughts;
- Having a 4GB download sounds like a brilliant idea, until you realise you live in a country with shit broadband. Advice: copy the installer from the Applications folder to somewhere else after you've made the big investment
- One of the least touted features of Lion is the Recovery Partition. Its excellent, and a welcome addition
- Augmenting the above is the ability now to encrypt the entire OS file system using FileVault.
- The natural gestures, LaunchPad (for iTards) and Mission Control are gimmicky. I've left them on, but don't think its anything wonderful.
- The Apple ID is now quite pervasive in the OS; you link it to your user account, you assign encryption recovery keys to them etc, all pointing toward more powerful user and identity management across devices
Overall, on the surface, it feels like a maintenance release rather than a massive shift. But fundamental changes that improve security and manageability are never bad things. We'll just have to see how the big download concept works when you're not in the US or Europe.
