Apple has just released beta 4 of OS X 10.6.7 to developers for further testing. OS X Lion is gathering a bit of pace. You can expect to get your grubby little paws on a 10.7 release in the next 3 to 5 months.
The philosophy for OS X Lion is “back to the mac”. OS X drove a lot of the features for the iPhone & iPad. In many ways OS X paved the way for iOS. In an Apple Special event from October 2010, Steve Jobs makes it clear that Lion will inherit innovations from iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone.
It’s a case of the cubs showing daddy Lion all the cool things they learnt while at camp!
Some of the features coming to OS X Lion include:
- Mac App Store -already launched for Snow Leopard.
- Launchpad – a full screen grid of apps with a carousel. Similar to the iPhone
- Folders – create folders of apps that are similar to one another
- Full Screen – Better handling of going proper full screen
- Gestures – Mouse gestures are better integrated with the OS
- Dashboard – revamped dashboard gets its own dedicated window
- Mission Control – Expose view of all open apps and windows. This seems to be the main innovation in Lion that Jobs is pushing.
- Auto save & resume – all apps will auto save and auto resume from last interaction
Vice president of Apple, Craig Federighi, will bring you through a visual overview of Snow Leopard:
Jobs pretty much puts to bed the idea that Lion may eventually have touch screen abilities for desktop devices. “Touch services don’t want to be vertical”. Jobs cites fatigue and arms falling off as ergonomical reasons not to make the screen touchable. Jobs instead says the Macbook trackpad, Magic Mouse, and the Magic Trackpad will suffice for touch based integration for Macs.
You can see the OS X Lion event in its entirety, below:
