Thoughts on Lion

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Larry

We are all looking forward to the release of Lion on Wednesday this week.

So I thought I’d dust off a few thoughts from operating system upgrades from year’s past – just to prevent any problems.

First – and most important – NEVER upgrade anything in the middle of a project. Lion will be just as dandy if you wait to upgrade when your project is complete. Yes, Lion is new. Yes, Lion is exciting. But both of those pale into insignificance if the upgrade breaks something on your edit system.

ALWAYS upgrade between projects.

Second, Lion is a big upgrade. For this reason, I recommend not upgrading any production systems for at least three months after a new OS ships. Give the third-party developers time to make sure everything works properly. Nothing is worse than upgrading only to discover that one filter you REALLY need for your project doesn’t work.

Third, a couple of weeks ago, I contacted Apple to see if Lion would bring any new features to Final Cut Pro X. Apple told me that it would not. My hope is that Apple will have new updates for FCP X in the near future, however, I don’t expect that at the same time as a Lion release.

For all these reasons, I recommend taking a cautious approach to upgrading any systems that you depend upon for editing. If you have a machine that you can spare for testing, by all means, give Lion a whirl.

Just be really, really, really cautious about putting it on any systems you depend upon until Apple has released at least one maintenance update.

Practicing patience can be difficult. But not being able to output a project is far worse.

Larry

17 Responses to Thoughts on Lion

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Claes says:

July 20, 2011 at 5:10 pm

With Lion Rosetta is history. That’s a given, no matter how we upgrade to Lion. On my computer, all FCP suite apps indicate that they are Universal, meaning they will be just fine. It’s the ones that are Power PC that won’t work, like my copy of Quicken 2006.

For anyone with questions about what will run, I recommend that you clone your current boot drive onto a new drive and then install Lion on top of that (or do a clean install on a clean drive). That way, you can play around and check things out and if something doesn’t work and it’s a deal breaker, you can always just boot from your old drive and have lost nothing.

I still have a boot drive for Leopard sitting around even though I’ve been on Snow Leopard for ages.
BenB says:

July 21, 2011 at 3:09 pm

Lion even has a web-only install method for a blank drive.
I’m running FCPX & Lion on three systems, no problems at all so far.
This actually seems like the most bug free OS update Apple has ever done.
BenB says:

July 21, 2011 at 3:10 pm

All Final Cut Studio 3 apps run fine in Lion, as long as you download and install ALL updates for Snow Leopard, QT 7 Pro, and FCS3, FIRST.
David Kuhnen says:

July 22, 2011 at 9:52 am

BenB, it’s interesting you made two separate entries here.

Are you saying the only way to have FCP3 “run fine” in Lion is to upgrade a Snow Leopard system?

Is it unstable if you install Lion on a blank drive and then install FCP3 followed by Software Update?
Floris says:

July 23, 2011 at 4:27 am

Larry (and others):

Since the opening of the AppStore, I believe Apple has never offered a paid upgrade of any application. The same goes for the iOS applications. I also don’t believe Apple is that arrogant… if they offer a paid upgrade to Final Cut Pro X now they alienate much of their user base. I expect a .01, .02, .03, .1, .2 and maybe a .3 to be available for free until they dare to do a 11.0.
Sebastian says:

July 24, 2011 at 5:37 am

Floris I agree with you.

My thought on the update is related to: are they going to include all the professional tools missing until a paid update will come out?

Neverteless, Apple made a statement saying that someof the updates will be paid some are going to be for free. It sounds vague, they may start to charge for some of them and then I fear that the price they sold final cut studio x now, with the updates that makes it for professional use will make the package more expensive.

We will see… Time will tell.
Leo Hans says:

July 24, 2011 at 5:40 pm

Floris,
I agree with you.
When Apple launched iPad version of iMovie (formerly iPhone only) it was a free update. Same when they ported iWork for iPad to iPhone (Pages, Numbers, Keynote).