Back to the Mac: OS X 10.7 Lion Review

For those of you worried that Apple's "back to the Mac" marketing push would result in an OS X version that sacrifices functionality in favor of imported iOS features and reduced capability: those fears are, by and large, unfounded. The iOS-inspired functionality is mostly laid over top of a foundation that's more or less OS X as it has been since Leopard - a solid, mature and full-featured desktop operating system.

That said, the usefulness of individual Lion features will likely come down to your individual needs and work patterns. Most should appreciate solid new features like Versions, the new Mail, and the much-needed enhancements to FileVault, but features like Launchpad and the UI overhauls of iCal and Address Book are of dubious benefit to users, and other heavily-promoted features like multitouch gestures and the Mac App Store are already available to Snow Leopard users.

Even so, at $29, there is really no reason not to buy Lion unless you really need Rosetta support (though generally speaking, unless you absolutely need a Lion-only feature, it'd be wise to wait until 10.7.1 or 10.7.2 to make the jump, just in case), and this $29 expense covers every Mac associated with your Apple ID. The price makes Lion a real bargain - full OS X updates have typically cost $129, and Family Pack licenses for five Macs used to cost $149. Business customers can get Lion for $29.99 per copy in units of 20 or more, and educational institutions can buy it along with the latest iLife and iWork upgrades for $39 in quantities of 25 or higher. Especially when compared to Microsoft's complicated and expensive Windows licensing, these simple, low and clearly defined upgrade prices are extremely welcome.

The real question is - what comes next? With OS X picking up some iOS features and iOS 5 promising to become almost entirely independent of our computers, many predict a future where the two operating systems eventually merge into one, and this doesn't seem entirely unlikely (though I suspect we'll hear about new hardware made for this purpose before we see software that does it).

The biggest question I have about OS X's future is whether the Mac App Store model will ever become the only way to install programs to your Mac, as it currently is on iOS. Such a system is not without its merits (users get a streamlined way to buy programs and a system protected from malware; Apple gets a healthy share of the profits), but for many, this would represent a fundamental (and, perhaps, intolerable) change to the operating system.

It's very hard to say whether this will happen - on the one hand, Apple seems to appreciate that different devices have different functions and needs, and that people expect to be able to install what they want, how they want on their computers. On the other hand, the App Store model has been very successful and lucrative for them, and the company has a history of throwing power users under the bus to appease the masses.

In either case, what we have here today is mostly a net gain, regardless of how you use your computer: existing functionality has been preserved (unless you use Rosetta), some useful new features have been added, and Lion runs as quickly on the same hardware as does Snow Leopard (unless you've got a Core Solo or Duo Mac, in which case it won't run at all). It's another incremental OS X upgrade, and like most OS X upgrades, it's fairly easy to recommend as long as your Mac and your programs support it.