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Mac OS X Lion Has a Browser-Only Mode

Posted by timothy on from the meme-gets-around-quick dept.

dkd903 writes "It turns out that there is a feature in OS X Lion which no one expected and was never announced at WWDC. The feature we are talking about is 'Restart to Safari.' As you might have guessed from the name, this feature makes it possible to restart the Mac into just the Safari browser and nothing else."

2 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Re:why is windows still in business? by bsharp8256 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I didn't realize Windows was a business.

    The answer to the question "why is Microsoft still in business?" is because Apple doesn't license its operating system to OEMs. Apple is a hardware company, and they want you to buy their stuff. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it's the reason Macs have the reputation of just working. Restrict the hardware you have to support to a very limited range and you can work out all the bugs.

    Microsoft, however, allows any Joe Dirt to buy OEM licenses and install on any homebuilt computer. And so we have the great trade-off: Monopoly on hardware and higher unit prices, but fewer bugs vs. Competition from different manufacturers and lower prices, but more bugs and security issues.

    Most people go for the lower priced computer.

    Disclaimer: I own a MacBook Pro and various home-built desktops

  2. Was Mentioned By Apple by friedmud · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually... Apple did mention as part of "Find My Mac":

    http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/07/os-x-lion-developer-preview-4-adds-find-my-mac/

    The idea has three purposes:

    1. Guest Access (as has been pointed out here)
    2. Recovery. If you hose up your HD it may be possible to troubleshoot using this browser. It actually boots from a "recovery partition"... so your actual OSX installation doesn't even need to work.
    3. Finding a stolen / lost machine. The idea is that if someone picks up your machine and tries to use it.... they might use this browser mode for a while allowing "Find my Mac" to phone home and show the coordinates of the machine.

    That last one seems dodgy to me.... but that's the rumor going around the Mac sites.

    Personally, I think Guest Access is a great idea. If I know I'm going to have people over to my house all evening (maybe to watch football)... I can leave a laptop around in this mode for anyone to use all evening... without fear that they are getting into my personal stuff.

    One final note: This is only enabled after downloading the iCloud installer to go with Lion preview.... just in case anyone else out there is trying to figure out how to use it.