Apple has announced that their latest desktop operating system Mac OSX Lion will have around 250 new features and will hit the stores next month. Though everyone expected Steve Jobs to be the star of the keynote speech, he handed the reins to Phill Schiller to demonstrate the new OSX Lion. Here are some of the top features in the new operating system.
In addition to the new touchpad capabilities and the apps and services that can run in full screen mode, there is a revamped Mission Control, the service that allows users to see all the applications that are running on their desktop at a given time.
Lion includes a simpler way to find applications. With a pinch gesture on the trackpad, all the applications show up on the screen. When you start an application in Lion, it remembers where you were and starts there. It automatically saves documents as you work, and if it saves too often, you can revert easily to an earlier version.
The Mac Apps Store will also be built in to Mac OSX Lion and Apple has enabled Delta updates, which will make patching easier.
The other features in Lion include Air Drop, which allows users to share files with each other through WiFi by simple dragging and dropping them. There is also a revamped version of Apple's desktop email application.
An extension of the autosave mechanism is a new feature, "versions," that allows users to see older versions of documents they are working on. It looks a bit like Time Machine, Apple's backup program, but works for individual files rather than for everything at once.
Several of its features have the look and feel of iOS, the operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Lion will also feature a Windows Migration assistant for people who are migrating from Microsoft Windows.
The Mac OSX Lion upgrade will be available for $29.99 and will be exclusive to the Mac App store. For the first time Apple will not offer an upgrade disc.