Getting back on track, the sixth of our ten Lion features is Resume, a feature which allows everything from running programs to the OS itself to remember its last-used state when it's started up. This feature is said by Apple to be "system-wide," meaning that there should be literally nothing that can't be remembered and relaunched in the event of a system shutdown.
In the same spirit of automation, our next feature is auto-saving, which brings to OS X a Google Docs-like attitude toward saving documents: automatically and often, without the need for constant CTRL-S keystrokes or did-you-want-to-save-your-changes prompts. If you don't want a document to automatically save, you can opt out of auto-save by locking it. Apple only demoed this functionality with its own iWork products, but I assume that the APIs will be usable and that the more-widely-used Microsoft Office could take advantage of this service with a few tweaks.
Auto-save works with Versions, which uses a Time Machine-esque interface to allow you to view all past versions of a given document. This happens automatically as you work, though you can also manually save a snapshot of your file if you'd like. You can then compare past and current versions side-by-side, copying and pasting content from one to the other.
Our penultimate Lion feature is Air Drop, which aims to simplify the sharing of files between computers in close proximity. Apple claims that clicking the AirDrop icon in the Finder will automatically find any computer within 30 feet of yours. If the user on the other end accepts the transfer, it's moved over with no need to put the computers on the same network. This would certainly be useful for quick sharing of documents at a conference or something, though if you need to share multiple files with people over a great physical distance, I'd still recommend something like Dropbox.
The last feature Apple demoed was Lion's new Mail app - Mail has been pretty static since 10.4 or 10.5, so it's good to see it get a fresh, Gmail-flavored coat of paint.
In keeping with Lion's "back to the Mac" motif, Mail now more closely resembles its iOS counterpart: The left column is used to show your messages (with or without conversation view: your choice) while the right pane is now a full-height message viewing window. In addition, the new Mail offers search suggestions based on your terms (i.e., searching all messages for the month of March, finding messages from specific senders, and etc.).
Conclusions
These ten features are probably among the more visible in Lion, but keep in mind that Apple is always moving and changing around a lot of little things about Mac OS in between versions - we probably won't know everything about the operating system until we have it in-hand (figuratively, of course, since we have to download it now).
At first glance, I'd say that none of said changes are to the detriment of the platform: the iOS additions and multitouch functionality are generally only used where they'd actually make sense (with the possible exception of Launchpad, which seems a bit tacked-on at best and a way to make non-App Store apps less accessible at worst). You can still use a mouse and keyboard to get around, but I could see the additions to Lion making a touchpad preferable in some circumstances (there's something I never thought I'd say).
Other changes (like the Mac App Store) that attempt to alter OS X on a more fundamental level don't do so at the expense of more traditional functionality (like downloading and installing programs from anywhere you want). The file system is still there. If you have a favorite browser or program that chooses not to make itself available in the App Store, you can still install and use it. Knowing Apple, I don't feel comfortable saying that you'll always be able to do that, but that change isn't coming with Lion.
And that's all she wrote! Stay tuned for more on iOS 5 and iCloud, Apple's other big WWDC reveals, later today!
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theangryintern - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - link
There was an article on TUAW earlier this morning that talked about how to take the download from the App store and make a bootable DVD, so at least that can be done. Of course, the average user isn't going to know about it or how to do it.linlijunoo - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - link
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