301 days

Rosa Golijan

Mac OS X Lion: Yes, it's worth the upgrade

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion — the latest version of Apple's popular operating system — is now available through the Mac App Store. It's priced at $29.99 and — based on a guesstimate of average download speeds — will probably take most people about an hour to download. Is it worth the money and time? We think so.

According to Apple, Lion is how the company will challenge "the accepted way of doing things by introducing new features that change the way you use a computer." What does that even mean though? It means that there are more than 250 new features, tweaks, additions, and changes crammed into Lion.

Yes, that sounds like a lot, so we're just going to focus on the highlights, the little gems, and the handful of annoying parts in order to give you a general overview of Apple's latest feline-themed update.

Multi-touch gestures
Lion slightly alters the way you interact with your computer by adding a some powerful multi-touch gestures. You can now control more features and content than ever simply by tapping, swiping, scrolling or pinching your fingertips across your trackpad or Magic Mouse.

You can swipe up with three fingers to view Mission Control and see every open window on your Mac. Swiping to the side with three fingers, on the other hand, will let you switch between full-screen apps. Two fingers are all that's needed to scroll up and down through documents and websites or to swipe through content as if it's part of a book. A quick two-finger tap or a pinching gesture will let you zoom in and out on whatever's on your screen.

All of these gestures may sound complicated, but after using Lion for a brief while, you'll find yourself not even thinking about them. They'll feel entirely natural and as if they've always been a part of your computing tasks.

Full-screen apps
You've got a gorgeous display on your Mac, so why not take full advantage of every single pixel? With Lion's new full-screen app feature, you can.

All you need to do is tap a button in the corner of an app's window and — boom! — suddenly that app is able to take over your whole display. Another tap and things are back to normal. (Go with a three-finger swipe to the side instead and you'd would be looking at another open full-screen app.)

Apple notes that "Mail, iCal, Safari, Photo Booth, FaceTime, Preview, and other built-in apps come with full-screen capability. And apps like iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers were designed to work even better in full-screen view."

Mission Control
Want to see everything that's going on at once? Just swipe up on your trackpad with three fingers — or tap the Mission Control icon — and all your dreams will come true. You'll be able to see everything that's running on your Mac at that given moment — open windows, full-screen apps, Spaces, and Dashboard. Everything.

Thanks to Exposé, multiple windows belonging to the same app will be grouped in an organized manner and can be navigated through with a quick swipe. In fact, you can navigate through all the open windows, full-screen apps, Spaces and Dashboard items with a swipe of your twitchy fingers.

Launchpad
Looking for your apps? Pinch your trackpad with all five fingers and you'll find them — neatly organized in something called Launchpad.

If you've used iOS in the past, then you'll quickly note that Launchpad mimics the mobile operating system's app structure — right down to the way folders look and the way app icons jiggle before you delete them. Any apps downloaded from the Mac App Store will automatically appear in Launchpad, so you'll barely have to think about organizing things manually unless you want to.

Auto-Save and Versions
Lion's Auto-Save and Versions features will probably spare you a lot of headaches at one point or another. At first glance, they're a way to automatically maintain copies of documents as they're edited or created, but in reality they're so much more.

Auto-Save constantly saves the changes you make to your document in a way that doesn't require it to maintain duplicate files — everything's part of the original file as a "Version." Versions are basically snapshots of a document which you can browse through, revert to, compare, delete or copy at any point. 

AirDrop
Need to wirelessly share some files with a nearby individual? A Lion feature called AirDrop will make the task easy as pie — or whatever pastry you prefer.

AirDrop doesn't require any setup or wireless network. Instead it automatically spots nearby Macs which are using the feature and offers to create a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection with them. This means that you'll be able to transfer files by simply dragging-and-dropping them to the appropriate icon and confirming that yes, you really want to send them to that person.

Oh, and don't start panicking about security: Files are encrypted, and a firewall is created between you and the person you're sharing files with, so the whole process is reasonably secure.

Updated apps
Many of the apps bundled with Mac OS X have received makeovers or feature upgrades in Lion. The changes appear focused on simplifying layouts and tweaking app functionality to feel more like what is found in iOS — or more specifically, on the iPad — but they're also giving most apps quite a nice selection of new capabilities.

• Mail - The Mail app has received one of the most obvious makeovers. It now sports a look very reminiscent of its iPad counterpart and offers a redesigned message list, favorites bar, a new formatting bar, search tokens, and color-coded labels which will help you organize everything.
• iChat - Fans of Yahoo! Messenger will be happy: iChat finally supports the client. It also offers a unified buddy list as well as unified availability and status messages.
• iCal - Just like the Mail app, iCal has received a makeover which makes it feel a great deal like its iPad counterpart.
• TextEdit - Apple's basic text editor has received a tiny makeover in the form of a cleaner-looking toolbar and better placement for controls such as font selection, font size settings, bold/italic/underline toggles, and so on.
• Spotlight - The powerful Spotlight tool now lets you drag-and-drop files right out of the menu in order to send or preview them in an instant.
• Photo Booth - The beloved Photo Booth app has received a cute makeover which makes it resemble an actual photo booth. There are also plenty of new effects to play with, as well as support for high-resolution photos.
• Address Book - Yes, the Address Book app also has a nice new look. It is far less cluttered and appears to have improved support for contact syncing and integration with other services.
• Dictionary - The Dictionary app built into Mac OS has finally been updated to use the 2010 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary — as opposed to the 2005 version — as well as a variety of brand-spanking-new foreign language dictionaries. The app now uses a clean-looking, two-pane display and can be triggered via Spotlight searches or with a three-finger tap onto any selected word.

The big little things
There are a lot of features within Lion which you won't even realize exist until you really need them for a task or stop to think about why something "just works." They're the big little things that make life simpler.

• Auto-correction - Lion has an improved auto-correction feature and offers suggestions in bubbles to fix your typos, similar to what's done in iOS.
• Resume - It can be annoying to lose all your windows when you need to quickly shut down your computer, but thanks to Lion's Resume feature, you can restart with things reappearing just as they were — right down to window position.
• Window resizing - It's a minor tweak, but worth mentioning: Open windows can now be resized from any edge or corner — not just from a spot on the bottom right.
• Emoji support - Those who love the cute little emoticons frequently used in text messages will appreciate the fact that Lion comes with support for such fonts.
• Digital signatures - Need to add a signature to a document but don't have a scanner? No problem. Just hold up a paper with your signature on it in front of your Mac's iSight camera and let it do the work.
• Restore partition - We prefer to never think about having to deal with an operating system restore, but it's still comforting to know that Lion comes with a built-in restore partition which will allow you to reinstall the operating system without the need for a disc.
• All My Files - If you ever need to instantly view all the files on your computer in a single window, the All My Files feature built into Finder will help. A quick click and you'll see everything — no matter where it's normally located.
• Search tokens - You can filter searches by creating "tokens" which are basically criteria to narrow down results. These tokens are automatically offered up as suggestions when you use Finder, so you'll find yourself using them without much thought.
• Better file management - Oh, how nice the improved file management is in Lion! When you select and drag around multiple files, they automatically flock together. When you place files with the same name into the same folder, you'll immediately be offered the option to keep both and the duplicate will automatically get a "copy" added to its name. If you've got folders with the same names sitting around, you'll be offered the option to merge them with a click.
• Low-power wake - Lion allows your Mac to wake up and deal with file-sharing, backups or similar tasks without the need for your display to turn on.
• Interactive iTunes screensavers - You can turn your Mac into a jukebox of sorts by using a screensaver composed of iTunes artwork and clicking on album images to start playing tunes.
• FileVault 2 - Need to encrypt your entire disc? With the revamped FileVault feature you'll be able to secure all your files in just a few clicks. You'll be able to access all your data either with your user login or by entering an encryption key generated by FileVault. Careful though! If you lose both your login password and your encryption key, your files are locked up and doomed.

What's the catch?
As with any operating system update, it's not all sunshine and kittens when it comes to Lion. Many folks will be annoyed that they can only download the operating system update from the Mac App Store instead of simply purchasing a disc. Some will feel as if all the little things don't add up to a decent upgrade; others will be disappointed that Lion isn't a perfect mirror of iOS for the desktop, and so on.

But let's be realistic: You're paying $29.99 for an operating system upgrade which contains more than 250 new features. Yes, some of them are minor, but there is some strength in numbers — especially when just about everything is well-designed and integrated into the existing operating system. Some of the interface changes may feel awkward at first, but anyone who spends more than half an hour using Lion will probably forget he or she ever did anything differently.

Getting your computer ready for Lion
Convinced that this is the update for you? Great! There are a few things you should do before rushing off and attempting to download Lion though:

• Make sure that you've got at least 2 GB of RAM and an Intel processor that is at least a Core 2 duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon.
• Make sure that you have at least 4 GB of free hard drive space. Preferably, you should have more space than that bare minimum.
• Update your computer to Mac OS X Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 or higher. This is necessary because Mac OS X Lion will only be available as a download through the Mac App Store which was added in that version. (Yes, this does mean you need Snow Leopard to install Lion.) You should be running the very latest version of Snow Leopard, so consider hitting the "Check for Updates" button before installing Lion.
• Backup your files. We can't emphasize enough the importance of backing up your files. Plenty of things can go wrong on an ordinary day, but you're just asking for trouble if you're upgrading your operating system without a backup.

Got all those little things checked off? Wonderful! Head over to the Mac App Store and grab Lion. Use it for a while and then come back here and tell us what you think about it.

Related stories:

• How to get your computer ready for Mac OS X Lion
  
• Slow Internet? Order Mac OS X Lion on a USB drive

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there while coping with a Twitter obsession. Sam Spratt — the guy who made the adorable lion illustration above — on the other hand, is mostly all about Facebook.