At around 3.7GB, I know that downloading it will take a long time, thanks to our dismal broadband speeds in the country. I am hopeful, though, that it will change thanks to the new NTC memo circular - but that’s another story. Anyway, I fired up Mac App Store and immediately clicked on Lion to purchase it. Took several seconds to connect to the server and then the Lion logo jumped from the Mac App Store and landed on the dock as an icon - the download begins. Now it was time for bed. :)
I have been playing with Lion for several weeks before the July 19 launch - thanks to being part of the Apple Developer program. I installed the developer previews on my Macbook Air to isolate it from all my critical data. First thing that I noticed - the vertical scrolling directions was reversed. Apple dubbed it as “natural”, and true to its name, it really felt natural -- at least if you have used a touchscreen device before. Now scrolling vertically on any Apple device will exhibit the same behavior.
However, the ‘natural’ scrolling direction is definitely weird for those who have not used any of Apple’s touchscreen devices. Good thing that you can disable this feature.
The next obvious change can be seen on the dock. Two new icons, the Launchpad and Mission Control. The Launchpad basically gives you a bird’s eye view of all your applications, presented in the same way the iOS presents applications on your iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. Mission Control, on the other hand, gives you an overview of your desktop(s) and the dashboard (optional), with all the running applications displayed. This is actually a new name and icon for Expose.
A few more interesting tweaks are too obvious to miss. Apple bragged about new window controls for each application. Application windows can now be resized from any corner or side, with a dedicated button on the upper right corner to make the application occupy the entire screen, i.e., full-screen mode. Unfortunately, the application need to be built to support full-screen mode -- as it is, TextMate and Chrome don’t support it.
Interacting with the OS has been enhanced with more gestures. Whilst there is no touchscreen display (yet), multi-touch gestures work perfectly well with the touchpad. Apple practically enables you to use all your fingers to “talk” to your computer. Maybe what is next is a touchpad for your foot and nose. Hehehe. Anyway, the multi-touch gestures are perfect for the touchpad. IN my case, I ditched the mouse for the trackpad already - except for one, my office iMac.
Another feature that I have used recently is AirDrop. A peer-to-peer file sharing utility that uses WiFi. Transferred files from my wife’s iMac to my Macbook Air without setting up anything except connecting to the same WiFi network. To prevent authorized file transfers, Apple requires approval from both parties before data can be transferred.
Mac OS X Lion also remembers your last state in each app. When you run an app again, it brings you back to what you were doing. Along with this Resume feature, Apple’s Mac OS X also auto-saves your data. No need to click on Save every so often when working on documents. Just a word of warning, though, similar to Full-Screen support, applications should support auto-saving.
Apple bundled more features with their latest operating system. I leave it to the readers to discover each one - believe me, it is fun! :)
