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What’s new in OSX Lion

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

  • Updated:

Today Apple will announce the launch of OSX 10.7 Lion. We already know lots about this major update to the Mac operating system – here’s my pick of the significant changes and improvements:

Launchpad.

This is the most obvious iOS influence in Lion. Hitting the Launchpad icon in the Dock fades out open windows, and replaces them with an iOS-style grid of all your apps. Like in iOS, you can swipe across pages of apps, and move and organize them in just the same way too. This may not be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s certainly easy to use.

Full Screen Apps.

Windows now have an extra button, allowing you to quickly enter full screen view. Using a three-finger swipe (or hotkeys if you don’t have a trackpad) allows you to flick between full-screen apps, which to me seems to be an improvement over Spaces.

Mission Control.

This allows you to see all open windows immediately. Basically it’s Exposé renamed, but it’s been improved with nifty touch gesture controls. Spaces are no longer in a grid, but a row, so you can swipe through them like pages in a book.

Auto Save, Versions and Resume.

I think these are three features that make small but really useful changes to OSX. Auto Save is just that, so like Google Docs you don’t have to worry about losing work. Versions is like a Time Machine for documents, meaning you can look through and use old versions easily. Resume tops all this off, allowing you to turn off your Mac when you need to, and return to exactly how it was when you switch it back on again

AirDrop.
This is a neat feature that allows you to wirelessly move files between Macs running OSX Lion. This looks really good, although only working with Lion Macs will be a hindrance to some people.

New ‘About this Mac’ app.

This isn’t the most widely publicized change, but the new version is much improved, and full of really useful information about your Mac. You can see if you’re missing any important updates, how your hard disk is being used (like on iOS), and also the status of your battery and installed Ram. It makes finding essential information about your Mac much easier for all users.

[Via Onsoftware IT]

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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