This is the follow up of yesterday’s keynote from WWDC 2011, where Mac OS X Lion was announced by Philip Schiller, Senior VP, Apple. Mac OS X Lion sports 250 new features to get out hands busy. I got a glimpse of what’s in the bag for Lion and we’ve shared some details about it.
As you might have known, we were blogging live from WWDC 2011 and you can read the entire transcript of our live blog here. Below are some of the major features of Lion that you need to know before you can buy it from Apple.
- Pricing: $29.99 (Per user)
- Availability: Lion will be available only via the Mac App Store. “We’ve been using discs all along for Mac OS X. But now it’ll be available via the Mac App Store.” said Philip Schiller, Senior VP, Apple.
- Mail.app: Mail.app now has improved search which will give you intelligent suggestions. Next is the conversation view for the app. Improved sync with iCal. And a brand new brushed metal icon.
- Multitouch gestures: This will be a major highlight for the Lion’s feature rich user controls. Some gestures which you can try now are: Hit the top or bottom by scrolling and it springs back to normal (iOS like animation), Despite Pinch to zoom, we now have Double tap to zoom (Like in iPhones and iPads), Swipe to the left or to the right to move between Fulscreen apps, a swipe gesture will push the expose in and out of your screen. We are discovering some more of the gestures despite those given at the Apple’s site. I’ll do a separate post on this alone soon!
- Mission Control: This is more of an improved Expose. You could view all your open apps in just one screen, in a very neat and tidy UI. You can now Add and remove spaces.
- Auto Save and Versions: Your apps will autosave itself. “We have been doing “Save, save, save and save” for a long time now and we wanted to change this.” Said Philip Schiller at yesterday’s Keynote. So now comes the autosave with no need for a manual save option. Other than saving automatically, the OS also maintains the history of the document (versions). You can also, Cut, Copy and Paste between different versions of the same document. Current version is displayed on the left and the older versions on the right of your screen. Clicking an older version will change it to the current version. You can also delete some versions of the same document. AirDrop will allow you to share different versions of the same document among friends. The best part is Lion only saves what has changed in the document and not the entire document itself!
- Resume: Lion now will ask you if you want to save state of the apps while shutting down or booting up. Shutting down the system with resume state will have the app open and will resume when switched back on.
- Launchpad: It’s the new finder (Almost). Has iOS like folders and gestures. Removing an app will wobble like we do it on the iPhone. Three finger swipe will move between Launchpad screens.
- Full-screen apps: We now have a native full screen app solution with Lion. Click on the new full screen option in the title bar and your all will go full-screen. This has been implemented system wide and should work on all the apps. The Dashboard for full-screen app shows all the apps that are open in full-screen.
- iTunes Macth: iTunes will scan your local library for media files and match tracks with almost 18 million songs available on iTunes. When a match is found, it will mirror to the cloud for streaming. This comes at a cost. And it’s $24.99/year.
- iTunes WiFi Sync: You can now sync your iDevice over WiFi. The features are not so clear as in what authenticity the users will have while syncing.
- AirDrop: You can now share the documents and files with your friends and peers with AirDrop. Just drag the file you need to send and drop it in the image of your friend in your network, and it will initiate the file sharing with no initial setup. AirDrop also provides identity of the friend with whom you are sharing the files with Apple ID.
- iCloud Integration: This is a major feature of Lion. iCloud for Mac lets you sync your documents like Pages, Keynote and Numbers. You can also backup photos automatically for 30 days onto the iCloud. All these will happen for free. This will sync across all your iOS devices.
- Mac App Store: Now integrated into Lion with Push notifications and in-app purchases. Mac App Store will act more like the iOS devices’ App Store. The developers can now use push notifications for apps like those on the phone. Most of the updates will be Delta updates.
- Mac OS X Server: Server will also be available via Mac App Store. The price is unknown as of now.
- Hardware Requirements: Lion requires the same configuration as that of Snow Leopard. If you are running Snow Leopard on your Mac now, you are good to go with Lion. You can check if you are running Snow Leopard by going to Apple Menu > About This Mac.
So, this is what we have as some of the major features of the Mac OS X Lion. I’ll keep you posted about the features that are hidden as and when I find them on Lion. You can view some of the common features of Mac OS X Lion at their official PR page.