I'm going to have to agree for the most part with the original poster. There is one, and only one
major reason to upgrade to Lion...if you want to use iCloud. Most everything else is little more than the iOS-ification of the Mac. Depending on your preference, that's either a good thing or a bad. I find most of it pointless on a regular sized computer screen.
1) 'Little things' like full screen apps and the intelligent and intuitive ways to manage them are actually 'big things' for me. In some apps, every pixel of screen real estate becomes precious.
There was nothing preventing developers from creating full-screen apps now...witness Aperture. Yes, Lion makes it a bit easier; but it's hardly essential for making full-screen apps. Also, bear in mind that other than the pixel peeping that we here do, the average user isn't all that hard-up for screen real estate on a computer (mobile devices yes, but not on a regular computer). Just how many pixels do we need to read email and surf the web, which is what most users spend most of their time doing.
2) After the recent (overblown) OS X security concerns and my hands on experience with android, I appreciate the comfort of App store and cloud syncing, and the focus on evolving the UI in a consistent fashion across the OS.
You don't need Lion to use the Mac App Store. As far as UI consistency, that remains to be seen. I've been using Macs for over 20 years and the current UI is about as inconsistent as it has ever been (not counting Mac OS X 10.0 which was a horrid mess!). Lion is just adding yet another variation to the UI, likely leading to even more fragmentation of the UI.
3) As a developer I appreciate that these enhancements are easily programmable and deployable via over 5000 new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
No argument there.
4) My original motivation for moving to Mac (though still developing for windows for a large part of my paid work) was how much easier it was to get real stuff done, eg: using apps, not managing them or the OS. As I spend more and more time on the move, so more and more of my time has recently been spent managing and syncing apps and data between different environments. So I think the focus of this update is spot on, although I do share Conchita's concerns that bandwidth everywhere is not up to some of Apples solutions (however third party apps spring up daily to deal with the most serious issues).
Yes, iCloud is a big "feature". But there's really no reason it had to be tied exclusively to Lion other than to force users to upgrade. Some of us can't, for various reasons, upgrade to Lion. And with Apple phasing out MobileMe in June of 2012, they are replacing it with something that won't be usable on a Mac sold less than a year earlier and a mobile device sold less than 9 months earlier. Not without upgrading the OS, which as I stated, some of us can't do (see below). Both Vista and Windows 7 will be supported, but Snow Leopard (by all evidence currently available) won't be. So Apple is saying that Microsoft's OS released years ago is more compatible than what they are currently selling.
5) In my experience I find that developers are, by necessity, ahead of the curve. And I have observed this so many times that I am as certain as I can be that the users will be following right behind. So while end users may not initially see how they benefit from some of this stuff, the next time they upgrade their software and find it really does enhances their digital life (I lose points for that phrase I'm sure!) it will be thanks to the developer focussed elements of this update (like the 5000 APIs).
Forced obsolescence is sometimes necessary, but abandoning technology they were still selling mere months earlier is unacceptable.
As for the point above about not being able to upgrade to Lion. I'm not talking about old hardware. A previous poster said nothing was taken away with Lion. There are some fairly significant things being taken away. Chief among them is Rosetta, the technology that let's you run older software. Not ancient software. Software that was being sold only a few years ago, including by Apple. If you have any PPC software, even if only minor components are PPC, it won't work in Lion. Are all your Photoshop plugin's Intel native? The software that came with your scanner probably won't work at all. How old is your printer and the driver software it came with? And forget about running your Quicken financial software (I'm talking the "regular" Quicken, not the "lite" version they now sell).
Lion could be the most painful Mac OS upgrade you've ever done, especially if you've been using Macs and have software from more than a few years ago. And Apple's not telling anyone about the loss of Rosetta. Users will find out the hard way that some of their software will no longer run. Sooner or later Apple is going to force me to upgrade because I'll want to get the latest iToy. But for now, I'll remain firmly in the "no thanks" column when it comes to Lion. Too much lost in exchange for very little (of use to me) in return.
