At a Wednesday “Back to the Mac” event, tech journalists got their first peek at some of the concepts driving development of Apple’s next desktop operating system, dubbed OS X Lion.
Primary among those drivers, as Apple chief executive Steve Jobs announced, was bringing to Lion what Apple had learned from its experience with the successful iPad tablet. Like the iPad, Lion will run apps from a similar central app store. A new Launchpad for apps and a Mission Control feature will combine the talents of Spaces, Exposé, and Dashboard.
Jobs announced that Lion would emerge in the summer of 2011, but the Mac App Store will open within 90 days. Another anticipated Mac OS feature is coming along much sooner: Facetime for Mac, which will let Mac users make video calls with iPhone 4 and iPod touch users. It is available now. So it’s not part of Lion, but coming already for Snow Leopard.
Multitouch support was another much-predicted feature for Lion, but Jobs was careful to state that it wouldn’t be in the form the pundits expected. Apple researchers determined that multitouch doesn’t work on vertical screens, because of arm fatigue. Instead, Lion’s multitouch support will be for larger trackpads. If you want multitouch on an actual screen, you’ll have to get an iPad.
Over 7 billion iPhone iPad and iPod touch applications are downloaded from the Apple app store, the company saw this and wondered why the Mac also? Jobs noted that there are still other places as the store to get Mac applications. The installation is as simple as it is on the iPhone, and developers to get the same 70 percent of revenue on paid apps. Update is automatic and you can use an application on any of your PCs. You will also be able to see reviews of users and the popularity of downloads. But it remains to be seen how traditional Mac applications from the new app store available live comfortably side by side. One wonders whether the developers need to recode it for the new system.
Not only will the applications from a store like for the iDevices, but you’re going page by their respective symbols with a Launchpad, it looks like the screen of an iDevice. You can Launchpad apps group in folders as you do it on smaller machines. The apps are themselves behave rather like iPad and iPhone apps running in full-screen mode, automatically save, auto resume next time you start them and let them. Full screen in particular is something that Windows has long been able to do easily with one tap of the F11 key. But uses to navigate Lion multitouch gestures on the desktop between and full screen applications.
Another important new interface function in Leuven, mission control, could actually Mac change as you surface your. These combine the kindness of four desktop organization navigation functions: exposé, dashboard, spaces, and the new full screen applications mentioned. Apple Vice President Craig Federighi demonstrates the function at the event. Mission control provides access to applications and widgets and lets you browse with Multitouch gestures. This organizer makes it easier to navigate between spaces, full screen applications and dashboard in an elegant and intelligent manner typical for Apple.
“We think bringing some of these things back [from the iPad] to the Mac, with some fresh new things like Mission Control, will really delight Mac users,” Jobs said. With all the attention bestowed on the iPad and iPhone, it’s about time Mac users get to enjoy some of the delight. This was just a first glimpse, but it’s promising. We’ll be there when it debuts.
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