Mac OS X Lion: Apples New Operating System

Mac OS X Lion is the latest version of Apple's advanced desktop operating system. It was released on the 20 July 2011, replacing the previous version, named Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

We were lucky enough to be able to try the developer previews over the weeks leading up to its release. We were very excited and to say that we are impressed is a bit of an understatement.

But like all new software releases it did, and probably still has, a few gremlins. Although we are pleased to say that version 10.7.3 released on the 1 February 2012 is very stable, and fixed a number of issues!

Mac OS X Lion running on Mac Computers Image courtesy of Apple

The first major difference when compared with previous versions, is that Mac OS X Lion is only available as an upgrade through the Mac App Store. You will not be able to get it on DVD, the retail boxed version is a thing of the past.

But you can purchase a copy of Mac OS X Lion on a USB drive direct from the Apple Store, and it is even possible to create your own Lion install DVD from the downloaded Mac App Store version.

Mac OS X Lion Desktop

As you can see from the screenshot above of the Lion desktop, the first obvious difference is the new background. But if you look a bit closer at the dock you may spot a couple of new icons. Lets start our overview of the new features by looking at these icons.

Mission Control

In Snow Leopard you were used to having Dashboard with all of your favourite widgets, Expose for viewing your open applications, Spaces for having more than one desktop giving you a larger working area. It all seemed to work very well and many people loved this mix of functionality.

But Apple have added a new feature called 'Full Screen Apps", which we will take a look at below. This one feature caused Apple to rethink the way that you and me work. They decided that more control was needed. Enter Mission Control.

Mission Control Screenshot

As you can see from the screenshot above, taken from my MacBook Pro, Mission Control allows you to view all of these different views in one place and then easily navigate to the application you want. In practice it works very well!

Like all changes in life it is not to everyones taste. I have already read complaints on the forums with users wanting Expose and their Spaces back - I say give it a chance! All new things take a bit of time to get used to.

If you look at the screenshot again you will notice that the entire centre of the screen is scattered with application windows. These are grouped together by application with the application logo denoting each bundle.

If you move your mouse over a bundle a single window is highlighted, click it and it opens. Moving the mouse around the bundle highlights different windows.

Looking at the top of the screenshot you can see four miniature screens. These are the new Spaces. You will notice that the furthest left is your Dashboard, next is Desktop 1 which is a normal desktop view.

But the next one along has been created by a Full Screen App. Set an application to Full Screen and it automatically creates a new Desktop. Click on any desktop and it opens before your eyes.

Click here for a more in-depth overview of Mission Control.

Launchpad

When Mac OS X Lion was first announced the keynote session was named 'Back to the Mac'. The idea was that the major developments found in iOS, on the iPhone and iPad, should find there way back into your Mac.

The Launchpad is really where your iPad becomes your Mac. You have probably seen the screens on the iPad which are full of App icons, swipe to the right and you see the next screen full. When everything gets a bit cluttered simply create a group.

Well you get the same functionality on your Mac now with Launchpad. The idea is that it will make accessing your Applications easier in Mac OS X Lion. You can create folders just like on the iPad to group together similar Apps.

This was one of those features that I was not sure about. But having used it now on Mac OS X Lion, it is surprising just how right it feels. But I don't use it all of the time, the Application menu and the Dock are still used the most. The screenshot below gives you a glimpse of the Launchpad.

Launchpad Screenshot

Click here for a more in-depth overview of Launchpad.

Full Screen Applications

This feature was mentioned above when we looked at Mission Control. It is basically as straightforward as the name suggests. Your applications fill the screen completely. It is a great way to work, no clutter, and no distractions.

Ulysses Running Full Screen

Finder

You might be wondering why I have mentioned the Finder, after all it is not new. It has been around for a long time. Before I explain take a look at the screenshot below, then read on.

Finder with New Icons

May be you have realised already! Basically, the Finder shows very clearly the difference between the Snow Leopard and Lions icon colour scheme. It has gone grey! Gone are the nice coloured icons and boy has the response been negative.

So many people hate this change that the 'fix' has become a king of recognised Mac OS X Tweak. To be honest I like it, but then I like using black and white backgrounds. I can't possibly be the only person who likes it, can I?

The Address Book

The first thing you notice is the new look. The Address Book gets a fancy book look. But under the hood it also gets enhanced functionality.

Address Book

We all know how much Facebook has taken over our lives. Now you can access the social networking profiles of your contacts from within your Address Book.

All of the latest Mac computers have the powerful FaceTime camera allowing HD video conference calling. You can now initiate a FaceTime directly from Address Book.

AirDrop

AirDrop is a new piece of functionality which I suspect is going to be very popular. It allows anyone with a Mac computer to share files wirelessly.

The beauty of it though is that there is no configuration required. As Apple says "It just works".

So how does it work? Well, when you open a Finder window and click on the AirDrop button you automatically get a list of Macs in your vicinity. If the owner is in your Address Book you will also see their contact photo.

Transferring a file to them is easy. Simply drap the file from the folder onto the user you want to copy the file to. You will be prompted to ensure you really intended the transfer, they will then see a request, and once they confirm the request the transfer is completed.

Security is taken seriously. When a connection is enabled with another Mac a firewall is created preventing any other users accessing your Mac. If at any time you want to close the connection simply close Finder or exit the AirDrop window.

The transfer is performed wirelessly and doesn't even need a wireless infrastructure to work. It will quite happily work peer-to-peer.

Safari

Safari is Apples web browser and in Lion it seems to have got much quicker at rendering web pages. They now seem to snap into place.

Like all of the core applications it can also run full screen which is a good way of browsing more of a web page.

The screenshot below shows another new feature of Lion and that is the disappearing scroll bars. In other words they don't appear until there needed. Again some people prefer the old style, the always there option.

Mac OS X Lion Running Safari

Auto Save

Mac OS X Lion now brings you the joy of knowing that your work, any work, in any application, is being saved for you. No more lost work!

Your Mac now saves your work in the background, without you knowing about it. Any changes are saved to a single file so you don't have the hassle of multiple files cluttering up your drive.

You also get more version control. You can now create duplicates of the document, and revert back to an earlier version of the document without any hassle.

iCal

iCal is the now standard Calendar software having been in Mac OS X since Panther (version 10.3). However, in Lion iCal is another program to get a facelift.

As you can see from the screenshot below it that it gets the leather look the same as the Address Book. But iCal has also been improved because it is now a full screen app and has a new Day View, with a nice colour representation of how busy each day is.

iCal Screenshot

Restore Utilities

When I first read about the electronic distribution in the previous section, I thought, OK, what happens when you need to restore Mac OS X?

The answer is to add a 'restore' partition onto the hard disk, allowing you to reinstall in what is called recovery mode. Of course you can also restore from a Time Machine backup.

Another nice feature is that you can now access Safari while in recovery mode. It might not sound that impressive, but it would allow you to access email and support websites helping you to fix a problem.

The Mac App Store

The Mac App Store was announced during the 'Back to the Mac' keynote speach, and is an integral part of moving the features adopted with the iPad back into Mac OS X. It is off course one of the core applications in OS X Lion.

The Mac App Store

Click here for a more in-depth overview of Mac App Store.

Multi Touch Gestures

If you are fortunate enough to own an iPad then you will be familiar with the use of gestures and animations to gain control of your applications.

Mac OS X Lion brings these features back to the Mac, but at the same time enhancing them. If you own a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro you will be able to make full use of them on your glass TouchPad.

Gestures are in reality the use of one or more fingers in a pre-determined motion that results in a certain action being performed. This may be as simple as scrolling a web page. If you use the iPhone or iPad you will know that gestures allow you to zoom in to a document, or zoom out.

It is clear that Apple are intending to expand this functionality in Mac OS X Lion, and not just limit it to mobile users. In 2009 Apple launched the Magic Mouse which seemed to function as both a mouse and a trackpad. Then in 2010 Apple released the Magic TrackPad allowing users of desktop Macs to enjoy the same freedoms as enjoyed by MacBook users.

Versions

This feature is one of my favourites! Versions takes a snapshot of your document when you first open it, and then every hour that you are working on it.

If you suddenly realise that your masterpiece of an hour ago is now not quite so good. Then you can access a previous version via a new menu in the title bar shown below.

Accessing Versions via Menu

Selecting 'Browse all Versions …' takes you to a Time Machine like interface to browse back to a previous version, as shown in the screenshot below.

Versions Document View

You can then revert to this previous copy with a single click, or just copy and paste the bits you want back. Nice!

Resume

One of life's little niggles is when you have a stack of windows open and then need to restart your computer after a software update, for example.

Before the restart you have to save and close everything. After the restart you have to re-open everything. It can be really frustrating!

But Mac OS X Lion is about to make life a whole lot better! Resume will allow you to return after restart to exactly as you were before the restart. In other words you can restart your computer with all of the windows returning exactly as they were before the restart.

The screenshot below shows the restart confirmation window with a tick box allowing you to select or deselect the opening of windows after the restart.

Restart Confirmation Window

Mail 5

In Mac OS X Lion your favourite mail client has received a face lift. Again the changes are based on those now found in the iPad version. The intention is also to make use of those wide screen displays now found on the latest Mac computers.

The first thing you will notice in Mail 5 is that the views have changed. You get to see all of the messages in your mail box and a full preview of the currently selected message.

You will also find a new mailbox bar that gives you a quick and easy means of switching between different mail boxes.

All New FileVault

FileVault has been available in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, giving you the ability to encrypt your data on the hard disk. But it wasn't very versatile.

Mac OS X Lion now includes an all new version of FileVault, called surprisingly FileVault 2. It has a number of new features including;

• XTS-AES 128 data encryption at the disk level.
• Initial encryption is fast and unobtrusive.
• Encrypt external drives.
• Wipe your data instantaneously

Mac OS X Lion Server

In Mac OS X Lion Apple have now combined the Client and Server versions of Mac OS X into one version. You purchase the server update through the Mac App Store like any other application.

We were very pleased when we read the license for Mac OS X Lion. You can now install up to two instances of Mac OS X Lion in virtual machines which are running on Apple hardware.

Because the server is now an add-on to Mac OS X Lion, this means that both the client and server versions can be virtualized. Wonderful!

Click here for a more in-depth overview of Mac OS X Lion Server.

iCloud

The latest update of OS X Lion includes the long awaited Apple iCloud service. This is the replacement to MobileMe, which provides a number of features to help us keep our lives and, more importantly, our mobile devices in sync.

iCloud via Web Browser

So after the long wait what exactly do we get? In reality the totally FREE service offers some very powerful features which are listed below.

• iTunes in the Cloud
• Photo Stream
• Documents in the Cloud
• Apps, Books and Backup
• Mail, Contacts and Calendar
• Find My Friends and My iPhone (iPad, iPod Touch or Mac!)

I have been using iCloud since day one and for a new service it seems very stable and overall I am quite impressed. Take a look at our iCloud page for more information.

Much, Much, More!

There are over 250 new features available in Mac OS X Lion. We are busy trying them all at the moment. We will be updating this and many more pages over the coming days, and weeks, covering as many of the features as possible.

Want a glimpse of what is available in Mac OS X Lion, check out the Introduction to Mac OS X Lion You Tube Video below, created by Apple.