A preview of Lion was publicly unveiled at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event on October 20, 2010. It will bring many developments made in Apple's iOS, such as an easily-navigable display of installed applications, to the Mac, and will include support for the Mac App Store, as introduced in Mac OS X Snow Leopard version 10.6.6.[4][5] On February 24, 2011, the first developer's preview of Lion (11A390) was released to subscribers of Apple's developers program.[6] Other developer previews were subsequently released, with Lion Preview 4 (11A480b) being released at WWDC 2011.[7] Lion achieved Golden Master status on July 1, 2011
Release
On June 6, at WWDC 2011, it was announced that the official release for Lion would be in July 2011 and that, unlike previous versions, which were released on a set of CD-ROMs or a DVD-ROM, Lion would only be available as a download from the Mac App Store for US$29.99.[9][10] The only prior version of OS X that supports the Mac App Store is Snow Leopard, implying that any machines that support Lion currently running Tiger or Leopard will first have to be upgraded to Snow Leopard, as opposed to allowing a direct upgrade to Lion. The Server portion of Lion will be available as a separate download from the Mac App Store for US$49.99.[11]
On July 19, 2011, Apple released its third quarter 2011 earnings and announced that Lion would be released the following day, July 20.
Hardware support
The first developer preview of Lion added TRIM support for solid-state drives (SSDs) shipped with Macs, which is also included in the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.8) shipping with current MacBook Pros. As of yet, there is no TRIM support for other SSDs.
System requirements
* x86-64 processor (Macs with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, Intel Core i7, or Xeon processor.)[9][13]
* At least 2GB of RAM[14]
* Latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8), with the Mac App Store installed[9]
* At least 4GB of free disk space for downloading[14]
Like Snow Leopard, Lion does not support PowerPC-based Macs (e.g., Power Macs, PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs (G3-G5), eMacs).
Furthermore, Lion does not support 32-bit Intel Core Duo or Core Solo based Macs. Rosetta is no longer available in Lion, which means Lion no longer supports PowerPC applications.
New or changed features
Some new features were announced at the "Back to the Mac" keynote in October 2010, and the Apple website was updated in February 2011 with more details. Other features were announced at the WWDC 2011 keynote or on Apple's Mac OS X Lion Web site after the keynote. Apple claims that there are over 250 new or changed features in Lion, including:
* Address Book now uses an iPad-like user interface.[15]
* AirDrop – Lion-to-Lion direct file sharing via Wi-Fi Direct. No wireless access point required.[16]
* Address space layout randomization – Address space layout randomization (ASLR), a security technique that puts important data in unpredictable locations, making it harder to target known weaknesses, is available for 32-bit applications, and "has been improved for all applications", in Lion.[17]
* Auto-correction now behaves much like on iOS devices, displaying an iOS-like popup box.[18]
* Auto Save – As in iOS, documents in applications written to use Auto Save will be saved automatically so users don't have to worry about manually managing their documents.[19]
* Emoji support – Apple has added a new Emoji font commonly used in chat to express ideograms.[18][20]
* Exposé in the Dock, a way of activating Exposé for a single application from the Dock, a feature added in Mac OS X 10.6,[21] is altered. One must now double-tap with two fingers on a dock icon to initiate single application exposé, or simply right-click or control-click and select Show All Windows.
* FaceTime comes bundled with Lion.[10]
* FileVault now offers full disk encryption added security with XTS-AES 128 data encryption. Support for FileVault on external hard drives has also been added.[22]
* Finder improvements – Finder search offers suggestions, files can be grouped by various attributes, and one can now merge files under two folders with the same name – a prompt will appear asking whether one wants to replace or keep both files.[23][24]
* Font Book 3—Font Book 3 now provides more flexible displays of character glyphs supplied by a particular font face. Duplicate font files are now flagged with a warning icon, and can be fixed automatically or resolved manually.[20]
* Full-screen apps – Native, system-wide support for full-screen applications. Supporting applications display a new button at the top right of application window, this button opens applications in full-screen mode.[25]
* High-quality multilingual speech voices – users can download new high-quality voices in more than forty languages and dialects.[26][27]
* iCal has an updated user interface, an annual view, and support for a full-screen view.[28][29]
* iChat now has support for logging into Yahoo! Messenger. Users can audio- and video-chat with other iChat users using their Yahoo! accounts.[30][31]
* Languages/Localization – Arabic, Czech, Turkish and Hungarian are added as full system languages, to make the total number of twenty-two languages available in Mac OS X.[32]
* Launchpad – An application launcher that displays an iOS-like icon grid of installed applications. It features the ability to make multiple pages and group apps into folders that function the same as folders in iOS.[33]
* Mac App Store – An application store built in the image of the iOS App Store. Like in iOS, it will provide ways for shoppers to discover apps, one-click installation of apps, and one-click updates of all or selected installed applications.[5][34][35] Despite being announced as a future feature of Lion, the Mac App Store was released for Mac OS X Snow Leopard on January 6, 2011 as it was bundled with the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update.[36]
* Mail 5 – Uses an iPad-like user interface, has a fullscreen-optimized view, uses chronological "Conversations" to organize messages,[37] and supports Exchange 2010.[38]
* Mission Control replaces the "All windows" Exposé feature. It gives an overview of all running applications just like "All windows" but groups windows from the same application. At the top of the screen it gives quick access to the Dashboard, Spaces, and running full screen applications.[5][39]
* Multi-touch gestures – Similar to iOS, additional gestures performed using a multi-touch input device (e.g. Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad) will allow the user to scroll, swipe to different pages, and enter Mission Control.[40] While this is not the first official multi-touch support for Mac OS X, it has been expanded; other frameworks, such as Lux,[41] have already created multi-touch support.
* Multi-User Screen Sharing—The built-in Screen Sharing feature now allows remote users to log into a separate user account from the one that is currently logged in. That means that while one user is logged into a machine, a second user can login to the same machine remotely, seeing their own desktop and user environment.[42][43]
* Preview gains several features, including full-screen support and the ability to sign a document just by holding a signed piece of paper up to the camera.[44][45]
* QuickTime re-incorporates some features from QuickTime Pro. New features cited include Copy/Paste, Insert Clip, Crop Video, Rotate Video, Resize, Trim, and more Export options.[45]
* Recovery Partition – Apple has introduced a recovery partition that includes utilities generally found on the OS X discs. This partition will allow the user to restore their computer to its original factory state.[46][47]
* Resume – Applications resume in the same state when re-opened as already seen in iOS.[48]
* Safari – With full-screen mode and the new WebKit2 layout engine.[49][50]
* System Information – This feature is a re-design of "About This Mac" and has been completely altered with new views which display graphical information on displays, storage devices, memory usage along with other hardware information.[51]
* Terminal has extra features, including full screen mode.
* TextEdit gains a new graphical toolbar with font selection and text highlighting. The new TextEdit also supports Apple's new automatic file saving and versions technologies.[52][53]
* Versions – Time Machine-like saving and browsing of past versions of documents for applications written to use Versions.[19]
* Vertical text – Lion supports vertical layouts for East Asian languages.[18][53]
The complete list from Apple can be found on Apple's website.
Server features
Main article: Mac OS X Server
* Wiki Server 3 – Making it easier to collaborate, share, and exchange information. Users can quickly switch between a server's home page, My Page, Updates, Wikis, People, and Podcasts. File sharing is simpler, and a new Page Editor is added for easy customization.[11]
* File Sharing for iPad – Lion Server delivers wireless file sharing for iPad. Enabling WebDAV in Lion Server gives iPad users the ability to access, copy, and share documents on the server from applications such as Keynote, Numbers, and Pages.[11]
* Profile Manager – Profile Manager delivers simple, profile-based setup and management for Mac OS X Lion, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. It also integrates with existing directory services and delivers automatic over-the-air profile updates using the Apple Push Notification service.
Refinements to the user interface
* Redesigned Aqua user interface elements, including buttons and progress bars. The red, yellow, and green buttons in the window decorations have also been made smaller.[citation needed]
* Flexible window resizing from any corner or edge of the window.[56][57]
* The metal finish has also been slightly altered. It is now a lighter shade of grey than before and features a speckled texture.[citation needed]
* On demand scroll bars now disappear similar to iOS when they are not being used by default.[56]
* Scrolling is reversed by default, to act more like a touch screen computer. (Content moves in the direction of finger movement on touch-pad or mouse.) Also, like in iOS, scrolling "bounces" when the scroll bar hits the top or bottom of the window.[58]
* When resizing a window by clicking on the green button (left-top), a transform-effect animates the enlargement.[citation needed]
* New windows fly to the front (like opening an app in iOS).[citation needed]
* The dashboard is now its own space in Mission Control, rather than in previous versions of OS X where the widgets simply flew in and the background dimmed. The "ripple effect" that was seen previously when adding widgets is no longer there due to this change. Users have the option to return to the old dashboard configuration in System Preferences.
* Tabs, when selected, now appear as being pushed in and darkened as opposed to previous versions where selected tabs were highlighted in aqua blue.[59]
Dropped features
# Front Row[60]
# A Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is no longer installed by default, but can be installed on demand.[60]
# Adobe Flash Player is no longer installed by default and must be installed manually.[61][62]
# Rosetta, software which makes possible the execution of PowerPC software on x86 hardware, is no longer available.
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