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Post by sadie1263 on Jul 21, 2011 3:32:17 GMT
By Rosa Golijan 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. for more gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/12/7070647-mac-os-x-lion-yes-its-worth-the-upgrade
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Post by sadie1263 on Jul 21, 2011 19:28:07 GMT
Just finished installing the upgrade.......definitely some differences that will take me a bit to get used to........love how the mail system has changed.........can't wait to really explore all the new toys!!
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Post by alanseago on Jul 22, 2011 9:43:26 GMT
Mac apps was overloaded all yesterday evening. I shall try again on Sunday.
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Post by sadie1263 on Jul 22, 2011 13:12:34 GMT
I haven't discovered all the goodies yet.....but am definitely already enjoying it!!!
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Jul 22, 2011 21:24:01 GMT
I've been using Lion for about a day now. It has many important improvements including many trackpad gestures, Mission Control, and Launchpad. It also has a lot of refinements that add polish and are pretty slick. A good example is the improved dictionary and thesaurus. Just hover the cursor over a word you don't recognize and lightly tap the trackpad twice with three fingers. Up comes the improved dictionary and thesaurus.
If you have Lion installed, open the System Preferences and click on Trackpad. There you will find all of the gestures with video demonstrations. Note that they're not all turned on by default so you may want to turn on some more of them. Very nice.
Once you learn these gestures, and they become habitual, you will be able to move more quickly from page to page, app to app, etc.
They've integrated Spaces and Exposé into Mission Control and it is pretty slick. You can set up multiple spaces - perhaps a work space, a home space, and a hobby space. Different programs and windows can be open in each space. You can move from space to space by swiping the trackpad from side to side with four fingers (or you can open Mission Control from the dock).
The other shoe is yet to drop. That would be iCloud coming in a month or two. iCloud will automatically sync all of your Apple iOS devices with your Mac or PC via the cloud. You won't have to plug in wires, run a synchronization program, or even know how much about it. Take a photo or video with your iPhone and it just automatically shows up on your computer and your iPad. Apple is trying to make computer usage simple enough for those of us who were not born with geek genes. This will be a big step in that direction.
Because of iCloud, I'm thinking it will be more important to choose the iOS ecosystem than the device. You wouldn't want to buy a Windows desktop computer, an Android phone, an Apple iPad, a Zune MP3 player, and a Google Chrome laptop. What a nightmare trying to sync all of those incompatible devices would be. It would also be costly and time consuming to purchase similar but different apps and media for each of them. There would be the hassle of connecting wires and running synchronization programs. You might need to hire a systems administrator. With iCloud and a family of Apple devices all of your 'stuff' will be synchronized automatically. All of your stuff includes emails, bookmarks, calendars, contacts, photos, videos, music, apps, documents, etc. If you add a dentist appointment to your calendar with your iPhone while in their office, your computer and iPad will both beep and let you know that the appointment is coming up. That calendar entry syncs automatically.
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