Apple’s “most advanced” operating system, OS X 10.7, which is better known as Lion, saw great numbers on release day but has since settled into a very small part of OS traffic share with less than 1.5 percent of the pie. When released in July of this year, OS X Lion saw a million downloads in a single day (Apple made the OS exclusively available through the Mac App Store, so downloading was the only way to get it). A promising start, to be sure, but the kitty tired out pretty fast according to BGR:
[Chitikia’s Ryan Cavanagh] suggests that issues such as Wi-Fi instability and poor battery performance on MacBook Pro models could be among the causes of hesitation among Mac users. ”Lion’s adoption rate has been less than stellar, to say the least,” Cavanagh added. “While we are seeing consistent monthly growth, Lion isn’t taking off the way some had anticipated.”
Monthly growth is still in the black at 4.05 percent, but “Lion isn’t taking off the way some had anticipated,” says Cavanagh.
Lion has come under fire a little more than some of Apple’s previous system updates. While Leopard and Snow Leopard were quite widely accepted among users and critics alike, Lion has drawn a little more criticism. While many who criticize Lion cite bugs or performance issues, Lion’s interface design (which more closely resembles iOS than previous releases of OS X have) has also drawn criticism.
I’ll admit that I’ve warmed to Lion since its release (I wasn’t a fan at the outset), but I still have yet to see Apple’s characteristic balance between the feast-for-the-eyes graphical interface and this-thing-reads-my-mind functionality. Countless small changes that cumulatively add up to a substantial change in feel. Overall, Lion pushes the Mac towards harmonization with iOS in UI and workflow, and it’s the first time I’ve seen Apple make a decision for the Mac operating system that didn’t directly serve the goal of creating a better Mac experience.
Amusing (or not) that only moments before writing this story, I posted this thought about Lion on Twitter.
Source: BGR
