OS X Lion, Full Screen Applications, and Multiple Monitors

Full-screen mode in OS X Lion seems like a gimmick feature to me so I’ve basically ignored it. After a while I thought about the fact that many of the applications I run are opened on their own dedicated virtual desktop which is kind of like full-screen mode so I thought it would be worth experimenting with the gimmick.

My conclusion is that this feature is still a gimmick. Why? There is no support for multiple monitor setups. If you put an application in full-screen mode on a computer with multiple monitors hooked up the application will be displayed on the primary monitor while the second one will be greyed out. This part makes sense but when you put a second application in full-screen mode is basically creates a new virtual desktop with the application on the primary monitor and the second monitor greyed out. It would seem to me having an option to have the second full-screen application open on the second monitor that isn’t being used by the first full-screen application would make a whole lot of sense.

I’m really hoping VMWare Fusion doesn’t being utilizing Lion’s full-screen API because as it currently sits I can have a virtual machine in full-screen mode on one monitor and other applications on a second monitor.

One thought on “OS X Lion, Full Screen Applications, and Multiple Monitors”

  1. Totally agree. Most of all and especially the multitouch features are extremely gimmicky and I failed to grasp the point of the upgrade.

    Lion seems to have a lot of inflexible design flaws like the Full Screen you pointed out. I thought it’d be cool to have a Full Screen Terminal to work on, but what’s the point to grey out a second screen and not be able to see the web browser or other apps?

    On top of that, in 10.6 you can still set up a lot of what Lion advertises for with Exposé to your heart’s content.

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