Mac
OS X Lion is definitely a worthy upgrade for all Intel Mac users.
Featuring several interface enhancements and useful new features across
all the core apps, Mac OS X Lion is an excellent update for the price.
When
Apple showed off Mac OS X Lion at the Worldwide Developers Conference
keynote speech earlier this year, it was clear the company had paid
attention to its successes with the popular iOS devices, and was now
beginning to include successful iOS features in its flagship OS. Also,
with Apple laptops and tablets now far outpacing desktop sales, Apple
has moved from a primarily desktop computer company to embrace mobile
computing. This release of Mac OS X seems to be a reflection of Apple's
successes in those categories.
With this eighth major release of
the big-cat OS, Apple is adding more than 250 features. Some are big
interface changes, whereas others are smaller refinements with the clear
aim of making certain actions easier. Priced at $29.99, the upgrade
adds plenty to make it worthwhile for most Mac users, but those who do
not have Snow Leopard will need to pay for that upgrade as well. Lion
can only be downloaded via the Mac App Store, which was introduced with
Snow Leopard.
In
Mac OS X Lion, Apple has rethought the concept of scrolling through
pages by making the idea of the scroll bar mostly obsolete. Now you can
swipe with two fingers to scroll through a Web page or document, but the
document moves as though you are actually moving it with your hand.
This is different from former scrolling methods, where you would scroll
downward with the scroll bar to make a Web page move upward, for
example. This might take some getting used to for many people, but we
found it very intuitive once we got used to "grabbing" a Web page or
scrollable document and moving it. The scroll bar is not completely a
thing of the past, however, because it still shows up to indicate where
you are on a page and disappears once you're done scrolling--it's just
that you will mostly no longer need to use it.
Some of the
more-useful gestures we found were the aforementioned two-finger
scrolling, a three-finger swipe upward to open Mission Control (more on
this later), and the three-finger swipe to the side to switch between
full-screen applications. All of these gestures are very fluid and
intuitive and--once you remember the important ones--should become
second nature.
Full-screen apps: One of the more obvious
differences between the Windows and Mac operating systems throughout the
years was Windows' ability to easily switch (or maximize) to full
screen, while Mac apps would always launch (and remain) in a window.
With Mac OS X Lion, you're now able to switch the core Mac apps to a
full-screen view using a diagonal arrow icon in the top right of the app
window. Apple's Mac software that's separate from the operating system,
like iWork and the iLife apps, now have this functionality as well, but
you'll need to update them through the Mac App Store to add full-screen
capabilities. Apple says that full screen will be available as an API
to third-party developers as well, so expect many of your favorite apps
to soon be updated with full-screen support.
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