What’s New in Mac OS X Lion?

Apple has been busy: Lion adds more than 250 new features to Mac OS X! But it’s not the quantity of features that impresses — it’s the quality. Let’s check out some of the more prominent Lion goodies:  

Accessibility

 Features in Lion are unmatched. VoiceOver (a utility that allows your Mac to speak to you) now supports 23 languages. There is also built-in support for 80 braille tables. 

 FaceTime video calling

You can now talk to your favorite pals with a true video phone using your Mac and FaceTime.  

AutoSave

Applications developed with AutoSave automatically save any changes you make to your documents. There’s no longer any need to constantly press Ô+S to save your files after each change. 

 Lion is now distributed online

You can download the entire Mac OS through the Mac App Store and install with just a few clicks.  

Full-screen applications

You can run many of your applications in full-screen mode, which cuts down on external distractions and keeps you focused. 

 Recovery mode

You no longer need discs to reinstall or restore Mac OS X because Lion includes a built-in restore partition on your hard drive. Just press Ô+R during a restart to boot into Recovery mode.  

Launchpad

This literally launches all of the apps on your Mac. You can see most (if not all) of them with a click of your mouse or a swipe of your trackpad. You can also organize your applications into folders, a process with which iPhone and iPad users are already familiar.

  Mission Control

 Mission Control allows you to see everything that’s happening on your Mac in one window.  


Multi-Touch gestures

 Multi-Touch gestures make your Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, or your laptop trackpad absolutely rock! Properly orchestrated finger swipes instantly scroll through web pages, open Launchpad, zoom in, and much more.  

Versions

 Lion saves versions of all of your documents once an hour while you work. You can browse between versions of your documents if you mistakenly remove an item and need to restore it. You can restore parts of older versions or you can restore the entire document. Lion saves only the information that has changed from version to version so your hard drive space won’t be eaten up with duplicate information.  

Resume

Resume allows you to open an application in the exact same state you left it when you last closed it. Any windows that were open, any palettes that were on-screen, and even the position of the cursor, remain exactly as they were when you last used the application. You can also restart your Mac, and any applications or windows that were open before you restarted are restored upon reboot.