Mac OS X Lion gave us the ability to take apps full-screen, moving clutter and distractions out of the way and making organizing your desktop easier. Native apps like iPhoto, Safari, Mail and iCal supported this new full-screen mode out of the box, and third-party apps followed suit, including some of my favourites like Evernote, Chrome and Reeder.
But for anyone using more than one screen, this new full-screen mode renders that second or third screen a little pointless. For example, here’s a dual-screen setup with iTunes on the primary monitor and a peek at the second monitor, which displays Apple’s now-signature cross-hatch wallpaper:
That cross-hatch wallpaper area on the second monitor does not allow for a window or another full-screen app to be placed on it. It doesn’t even allow for widgets from the dashboard area. In other words, it’s useless.
I have heard the arguments from the other side on this one, stating that a solution is to simply close your laptop and use only the external monitor, or that placing two full-screen applications next to each other isn’t really in line with Apple’s intent when they rolled out this feature. The intent was to allow you to focus on one application, one task, one project at a time. Dual-monitor setups don’t fit into this philosophy because they’re made to multitask. I am of the opinion this dialogue could swiftly be snuffed out if Apple would provide an option to either allow or disallow applications to concurrently run in full-screen mode when more than one display is hooked up.
As it stands, it seems like a deliberately lazy part of an otherwise great operating system.
I don’t use the feature myself, but the use case I see for it is if you want to focus only on one app and eliminate distractions from others. As a developer I often find it helpful to close my email client and chat windows and just focus on my editor and console. If I could get my debugger working properly inside my editor, I think I’d probably use this feature.
If you look at the description for the feature (http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/full-screen.html) they even say “Systemwide support for full-screen apps means you can work and play without distractions, using every inch of your display.”
So with that in mind, it makes sense that the second monitor is unusable, because you asked to focus only on one app.
I agree that focusing on one application is the motivation behind activating full-screen mode and that’s totally in line with Apple’s MO. Where I see this functionality becoming more useful is to look beyond focusing on one application and looking at focusing on one task. Your example of coding and debugging at the same time is a perfect example of this distinction, but what blows my mind is that when you activate full-screen mode inside iMovie, an application that natively supports Lion’s full-screen mode, it disables use of a second display. It would be so helpful to be able to activate full-screen mode in iMovie and see a project preview on one screen while editing clips on your timeline on the other. You’re still only focusing on one task (video editing), but you’re getting to use every pixel of two displays.
I know Apple’s response to queries like mine is often to say that they design software and hardware for mass use cases, not fringe users. But I believe this issue to be an oversight on their part for so many users out there who run dual-display setups on their Macs.
I agree that focusing on one application is the motivation behind
activating full-screen mode and that’s totally in line with Apple’s MO.
Where I see this functionality becoming more useful is to look beyond
focusing on one application and looking at focusing on one task.
Your example of coding and debugging at the same time is a perfect
example of this distinction, but what blows my mind is that when you
activate full-screen mode inside iMovie, an application that natively
supports Lion’s full-screen mode, it disables use of a second display.
It would be so helpful to be able to activate full-screen mode in iMovie
and see a project preview on one screen while editing clips on your
timeline on the other. You’re still only focusing on one task (video
editing), but you’re getting to use every pixel of two displays.
I know Apple’s response to queries like mine is often to say that
they design software and hardware for mass use cases, not fringe users.
But I believe this issue to be an oversight on their part for so many
users out there who run dual-display setups on their Macs.
Just wanted to say I totally agree with you. This is either just a seriously lazy implementation or pure arrogance.
Lion Fullscreen is the most useless feature in the history of computer engineering. Whoever made that decision must be very retarded and should quit from Apple.