In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 6: Auto Save, Versions and Resume
by Ryan Cushley
With OS X Lion, Apple are attempting through the inclusion of Auto Save, Versions and Resume to reduce the necessity for user interaction in using a Mac. Each of these features has its own specific function, but together they give a streamlined, iOS-like experience in which saving becomes a thing of the past, documents can be reverted to a previous version without external backup, and a shut down computer can be resumed with the same applications open the way they were before the computer was switched off.
Discussion of Auto Save and Versions is stifled at present, due to neither being available in any application. However, each has been described by Apple in detail. Auto Save is to make redundant the necessity to save prior to closing an application. Writing a document? Just hit CMD+Q. No prompts, nothing. The changes are saved automatically by the operating system, always. While this may sound fairly daunting, particularly for compulsive CMD+Sers out there, it will likely be very intuitive. Anyone who has used an iOS device knows that closing an App without saving becomes second nature.
Versions could be described as a Time Machine for each document. With a very similar interface, Versions can be accessed from the menu bar of applications. Clicking on a ‘History’ option in the menu bar presents four new options; Lock, Duplicate, Revert to Last Opened and Browse All Versions. As such, each saved version of the document takes on a status as a new ‘version’, with each previous version still remaining accessible. ‘Lock’ is there however, meaning that the current version cannot be superseded without this option being overridden. Again, this feature sounds very intuitive, although care will need to be taken that much like Time Machine, the feature is not overloaded with so much bling it does not function as well as it should.
tA feature that is intact, and complete, with the Lion release is Resume. This feature allows for the computer to be switched off – literally shut down – and when switched on again, all applications will open in the same place, in the same state, with the same content displayed. And it’s good. Very good. Instead of sending my notebook to sleep during the day, I now shut it down, saving battery life. Previously I was willing to trade off battery life for productivity, but now I don’t have to make any compromises.
Resume, despite being great, and usually working well, is disappointingly quite buggy. At present, sometimes ‘resumed’ applications will immediately crash, and then enter a crashing cycle that cannot be rectified without another restart. This seems particularly evident in Microsoft Office 2011, iWork 09 and iTunes. Helpfully though, on the shut down menu, Apple have given the option to disable Resume – but this disabling is for one time only, rather than any ability to set the preference as permanently off.
More will be written on these features in time, as all three are currently either absent altogether, or flaky in functionality. For an operating system very close to release, it is worrying that – in the case of Resume – bugs have not yet been squashed, even in first-party applications. Despite the problems though, these three features together will, after a couple of point releases of 10.7, provide a compelling reason to upgrade. Working in the streamlined way of iOS is a big improvement over typical desktop behaviour, and is a very good thing indeed. Watch this space for a deeper review of these features as they become available in the coming weeks.
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 1: Introduction
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 2: Installation
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 3: New Visual Changes
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 4: Launchpad and Mission Control
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 5: Full Screen and Mail
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 6: Auto-Save, Versions and Resume
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 7: Multi-Touch and AirDrop
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 8: Conclusion
A few comments on Resume:
1. It’s great on an OS-wide basis, but can really suck on an app-by-app basis. Take Preview for example. You know have to cmd+w a window (every window) if you want Preview to open “clean” next time. I do not want to open preview to check a picture of my son and have to deal with the 5 PDFs I was using yesterday. And yesterday, I did not want to close all 5 PDFs before quitting. Yes, it can turned off on a system-wide basis, but maybe I like the feature in Safari since I can pick right back up browsing. Resume still has a long way to go.
2. Shutting down vs sleeping. Unless you’re using an SSD, you will invariably lose “productivity” on a computer if you’ve shut down since you’ll have to wait for the computer to boot up. Granted, resuming the last state on a cold boot is awesome, but sleep is still the far superior “productivity option.”
Otherwise, good review. I’m just not sold on Apple’s implementation of resume as it currently stands.
Thanks for the comments. This was actually a small omission from the review on my part. I had meant to mention the poor implementation in Preview, which I agree is very much flawed. On your second point, the review has been written from an SSD-centric perspective. Both of my own productivity machines have used an SSD for the last couple of years. Although for many upgraders to Lion the HDD will still be the primary medium, I would suspect that during the lifetime of Lion (perhaps even with the next MBP refresh) an SSD will become standard. At that point what I have written will become applicable to a more widespread audience, but for now I agree that Sleep would be a better option for those on HDD.
For most users I suspect Resume will not cause a problem. The execution is flawless in the rest of the first-party applications shipped with Lion. I am awaiting with interest seeing what API options Apple has allowed for application developers in implementing Resume – that, in my opinion, will be the making or breaking of the feature.
A useful tip to helping control Resume functionality I found on tidbits.com:
Lion’s new Resume feature automatically opens any application’s documents that were active when the app was quit. That can be jarring to people who traditionally quit an app when finished with a document. To ensure that a completed document does not automatically open the next time you launch the application, hold Option and choose [the Application Name] > Quit and Discard Windows, or press Command-Option-Q. Alternatively turn this feature off completely in the General system preference pane; you can then ensure that an open document does automatically open the next time you launch the application, again by holding Option as you quit the application.