Most of what was shown was stuff we'd seen before in other Apple demos of Lion, but I'll go through all of them for the sake of having all of this data collected into one place.

First, Lion brings new multitouch gestures to the table in an effort to replace mouse-heavy clicking and dragging behaviors. Scrolling, multitouch taps, pinching to zoom, and swiping through multiple photos, web pages, and fullscreen apps. Scrollbars, instead of standing by at all times to be clicked with a mouse, will appear and disappear as needed, as they do in iOS.

Apple has been equipping its Macs with the hardware to do this for awhile - most of its laptops sold since the unibody MacBook Pro refresh in late 2008 have included large, buttonless multitouch trackpads, and the Magic Trackpad introduced in mid-2010 (and offered as an option at no cost with the latest iMac refresh, reviewed here) brings the same functionality to the desktop. 

Fullscreen apps

Next, Lion gives developers standard methods for making fullscreen apps, which can run without all of those pixel-eating toolbars and title bars seen in the OS today. This should alleviate my own personal complaints about how much room the standard OS X title and menu bars take up in OS X, especially on the low-resolution screens found in their smaller notebooks.

Most of Apple's built-in programs are going to take advantage of the full-screen feature: this is a list that includes Safari, Mail, iCal, Preview, Photo Booth, iMovie, and iTunes, among others. Toggling between different apps in fullscreen mode and the OS X desktop is accomplished via the aforementioned multitouch gestures.

Mission Control

Apple has also added what it calls Mission Control to aid switching between apps - this feature is a natural extension of the Expose app switcher that first showed up in OS X 10.3. You can see all of your open windows (now grouped by app), as well as your different Spaces desktops and widgets. Fairly heavy Expose users will appreciate the extra organization, and this goes a long way toward making Spaces' multiple desktops manageable.

App Store

Next up is the Mac App Store, a Snow Leopard add-on that Apple is pushing extremely heavily in Lion - they boast that the App Store is already beating out brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy in terms of units sold. In Lion, the App Store adds support for in-app purchasing, push notifications, and delta updates, meaning that users can download patches that are just patches, rather than a patched copy of the full app. No word on whether Snow Leopard users will be able to enjoy these features, but Apple doesn't habitually backport core OS features.

Launchpad

Apps purchased in the Mac App Store are automatically added to Launchpad, Apple's fancy-pants name for the iOS home screen that it has added to OS X. Apps in Launchpad can be organized and grouped just as they are in iOS - there's literally nothing new here if you've ever used anything running iOS 4.

Apple didn't mention whether programs installed via traditional means could be added to Launchpad - given how heavily they're pushing the App Store, I'm guessing that they won't allow it. It's in Apple's interest to make non-App Store programs feel like second-class citizens in the OS, even if they don't completely ban the installation of these programs. This gives consumers more reason to frequent the App Store and developers more reason to get their programs in the App Store. This sort of behavior makes me a bit uncomfortable, even though I can name a dozen people right off the top of my head who would be better off if they could only install approved software on their systems - the user is trading control for convenience, and it's up to the user to decide whether that's a trade they want to make.

 

System Requirements, Availability, and OS X Server Resume, Auto-Save, Versions, Air Drop, and Mail
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  • Zandros - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    Well, duh, it says so right on the the first page concerning Lion Server.
  • Andrew.a.cunningham - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    Whoops! Thanks for the correction - article updated.
  • Nihility - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    My favorite new feature is "Resize from any edge".

    Amazing how they came up with that...

    Up next: "maximze window".
  • smalM - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    "Resize from any edge" - finally! I waited 25 years to get that feature.....
  • Conficio - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - link

    Yeah! That is worth half the purchase price.

    While I tread the App Store, resize from every edge and the decision to sell the OS Update for $29 are good decisions.

    And if Mail is really improved, not just iOS ook alike, that would be a good thing. With improvement I mean the ability to connect to IMAP servers that are not only off the narrow ilk that Mail can auto firgure out and some decent error messages for what is going on. Or some good search feature.

    Or how about improving iCal so that it does delete Events that are deleted in the exchange server. Or the reminder dialog in a less intrusive spot than smack in the middle of my screen.
  • EnzoFX - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    I think people aren't considering launchpad as an application launcher. It's not gimmicky in the sense that there are a lot of 3rd party apps that offer just this, that do well.

    Also, is there any confirmation that it won't scoop up apps installed in the traditional manner? It just seems like speculation to say that it would leave those out. If I had to guess I'd say it just scans what ever apps are in /Applications, regardless of how they were installed.
  • vailr - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    What physical system disc DVD will be included with new Macs?
    I just can't believe Apple won't offer a physical OSX Lion DVD for sale on Amazon, at the same $29 price that Snow Leopard currently sells for.
  • Tros - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    Most non-mac-users aren't aware, but Disk Utility provides the means to rip installation media (DVDs in MBP, USB sticks in MBA's case) to an Apple Disk Image file (.dmg), and go in the opposite direction to a piece of media (SD card, DVD, USB stick).

    I imagine Apple to offer the Apple Disk Image through the app-store, much like how they offer X-Code. And by current capabilities, for that image to be burnable to bootable media, if one couldn't run the installer from within the OS already.
  • solipsism - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - link

    It will be on a DVD for the systems with optical drives and for those without likely on an 8GB USB flash drive. While cost prohibitive to sell an 4GB USB flash drives to 10s of millions of Mac users just for an OS upgrade it makes perfect sense to roll the expense into the cost of the new Macs that are without ODDs, which is a growing trend will soon also include the MBP lineup.
  • Omid.M - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link

    So, in effect, if you're on OSX 10.5.x, you'll have to pay $29x2 to get to Lion?

    $29 - 10.6, so you can use Apple Mac App Store, since it's not compatible with 10.5.x
    $29 - So you can download it from the app store

    Am I right?

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