The Lion is here!
Apple’s latest version of its operating system, Lion 10.7 has arrived. Unlike previous versions that you needed a DVD for, this version is only available via the Mac App Store and costs £20.99. The server version is £34.99.
OS X Lion is the next major release of OS X, the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. It includes over 250 new features that will transform how you interact with your Mac. Tap, swipe, and scroll your way through your apps using fluid Multi-Touch gestures that make everything you do feel more natural and direct. Full-screen apps take advantage of every pixel of your display — perfect for reading email, surfing the web, or browsing photos. Launchpad gives you instant access to all the apps on your Mac in a stunning new layout where you can quickly find any app and open it with a single click. And Mission Control brings together Exposé, full-screen apps, Dashboard, and Spaces in one unified experience. With a gesture, your desktop zooms out, displaying a bird’s-eye view of everything running on your Mac and making it easy to navigate anywhere with a click.
I won’t be installing it straight away and will wait to see what happens with everyone else first. I will also probably first install it on an external drive before installing it on my “production” iMac.
It’s one big download 3.49GB and even if you have broadband, on a typical connection this is going to take hours to download. For those on rural broadband or 3G connections I have no idea how they are going to download it! Thankfully I have my BT Infinity fibre connection so it shouldn’t take me too long to do.
There is one advantage to downloading it through the Mac App Store and that means you can install it on all your Macs (legally).
Update: You can only download it and install on as many Macs you own or control if it is for personal use only (so not for commercial or educational use).
The screenshot was taken from the OS X Lion 10.6 License Agreement as linked to in the Mac App Store on the right hand side of the Lion App page.
Though in theory it does mean you need to download it each time for each Mac! I am sure there will be some workarounds soon.
This version of OS X combines the traditional elements of the desktop operating system with some of the features you will find on the iPad and the iPhone.
The use of gestures is much more useful in the OS, but I am sure will take a lot of training and getting use to.
I still smile when I see Apple talk about full screen apps, this is something that has been in Windows for ages. Often when people I know used Windows for the first time they would ask me how to make an application full screen, I said that it “wasn’t possible” and that the maximise window feature was there to put the application window at the ideal size for working with. So with Lion we now have full screen apps.
I have been using iPhoto full screen on Snow Leopard, however most of the time I have found I hadn’t needed to click the “full screen” button and have worked with it the same way I always have.
Apple have said that most of the refinements in Lion are behind the scenes, they have improved the way the operating system works rather than lots of new features, which in some ways is a good thing, but I am guessing provides less of an incentive to people to install it, if they can’t see what it brings to their Mac.
So if you have downloaded and installed Lion, what do you think? It is an incremental change with little new, or is it making a radical difference to the way that you work on your Mac?
and the 
on Amazon, you can’t at the time of writing get the iPhone case in the UK yet. Soon I hope. 
than buying from the Mac App Store, however one of the advantages of buying from the App Store is if you have more than one Mac, then you can, using the App Store, install it on all your Macs. I also like how I can update apps more easily from the app store. Another nice feature of the App Store is when you get a new Mac and then you can transfer your software to it really easily.