You’ve heard Steve and others discuss the big features such as: multi-touch gestures, full-screen apps, Mission Control, the Mac App Store, Launchpad, resume, auto save, versions, AirDrop, and Mail. For this post, I scoured the list of 250+ new features and after a click of the link below, I will present some of the important lesser know features and explain why they matter.
Disclaimer: I am lifting all descriptions of features directly from Apple’s 250+ New Features marketing page located at http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html. I am not a developer and do not have access to the recently released Gold Master of the OS so I’m winging all thoughts on these features from Apple’s page. Take notes kids. The lengthy list begins below:
Accessibility | All Options
Description: “None”
Benefit: Any addition, and there are eleven in this release, to Accessibility is major. As the father of a special needs child, I appreciate features added to ensure that everyone can access and utilize their computer.
Address Book | Social network profiles
Description: “Address Book lets you quickly access the social network profiles for your contacts, including Facebook. Press and hold an email address to select the appropriate profile.”
Benefit: We’ve already seen syncing of our contacts and Facebook on the iPhone through the Facebook app. Now it comes to OS X through Apple’s own Address Book app. No more manual data and image entries for your Facebook friends. If their information changes, contacts are automatically updated.
AppleScript | Cocoa AppleScript applets
Description: “AppleScript Editor can create and edit Cocoa AppleScript applets that provide direct access to the Cocoa frameworks from their AppleScript code, using the AppleScript/Objective-C bridge introduced in Snow Leopard.”
Benefit: This feature is a bit geeky and probably won’t make sense to mainstream users or some of Doc’s Tech Notes readers, but this feature should be a boon to AppleScript users/developers. Having access to the Cocoa framework will allow more sophisticated AppleScripts and provide a way to access Cocoa frameworks without the need to learn the more complicated Objective-C programming language.
Automator | New Automator actions
Description: “New actions can turn text into images, turn text documents into ePub books, display and retrieve web content, and enable desktop encoding for video and audio files.”
Benefit: Yet another geeky update but a valuable one for Automator users. I’ve been dabbling more and more into Automator and with the addition of these new features, I have additional ideas for automating some of the tasks I perform on a regular basis. The ability to display and retrieve web content has long been something I wished I could accomplish with Automator.
Electronic Distribution | Install on all authorized computers
Description: “When you purchase Lion from the Mac App Store, you can install it on all your authorized Mac computers. Just sign in to the Mac App Store from each Mac and download Lion from the Purchases list.”
Benefit: At $29, OS X Lion is a steal. $29 for every Mac I own is amazing! This is another one of those reasons to tell Windows users why switching to a Mac makes financial sense over the life of their computer(s).
FaceTime | Ring anywhere
Descriptions: “Whenever someone tries to reach you, the FaceTime call rings through on every Mac you own even if FaceTime isn’t running.”
Benefit: It appears FaceTime is now baked into the OS. Those of us that purchased FaceTime from the Mac App Store for $1.99 may be a bit frustrated that it is now a free addition in Lion, but personally, I don’t mind. I use FaceTime regularly to stay in contact with my daughter. This feature will help me not miss a call. Although not specifically stated, I also assume that my iPhone will ring as well.
FileVault 2 | External drive support
Description: “FileVault 2 supports encryption of external USB and FireWire drives.”
Benefit: FileVault is used to encrypt/protect your data. It has always been a mystery to me why I couldn’t use FileVault on an external drive. Now I can backup sensitive data securely to remote volumes and store them offsite or in fire proof vault.
Finder | Drag files
Description: “When you drag multiple files from one location to another, they flock together. An indicator also appears next to the cursor, telling you how many files you’re moving.”
Benefit: Read the blog title again. These are minor updates that are major. This update is a prime example. I’ve always found it awkward to drag multiple file selections because the selection set maintains the files relative positions. This occasionally makes it a bit difficult to drag a selection set accurately to a new location. “Flocking” them together into a single file will not only be more visual appealing, but will make the movement easier.
Finder | Resize from any edge
Description: “You can now resize a window from any side or corner.”
Benefit: You no longer have to move your mouse all the way to the lower-left hand corner of a window to change its size. It’s about time!
Full-Screen Apps | Gesture navigation
Description: “A swipe of the trackpad takes you from one full-screen app to another, or back to the desktop to access your other apps.”
Benefit: First, if you have a new Mac with a multi-touch trackpad and Snow Leopard, try this. Take four-fingers and swipe down. Now swipe back up. Did you know you could do that? As Lion integrates full-screen apps, we’ll be gesturing more frequently to switch between them. Your workflow will change from ⌘ + ⇥ to a three or four finger swipe to change between apps (although I’m sure you’ll still be able to ⌘ + ⇥ if you like). Like your mom telling you to “eat your vegetables” I suggest you “learn your gestures” if you want to take advantage of some of the coolest new Lion features.
iCal | Year view
Description: “Year view lets you see 12 months at a time, making it easy to jump between months.”
Benefit: This one speaks for itself and has been a LONG time coming.
iChat | Service plug-ins
Description: “Service plug-ins from third-party developers let you add new chat services to iChat. Installing a plug-in is simple. Once it’s downloaded, double-click it. Plug-ins run in a separate process to help ensure that they won’t damage your system.”
Benefit: Want to add Facebook chat to iChat, there’ll likely be a plugin for that. This is a nice feature to ensure that iChat is your sole IM client. My only request is that Apple merge iChat and FaceTime. Is there really any reason for these two apps to be separate? Doesn’t this feature allow someone to create a plug-in to access their FaceTime service?
Internet Restore | Built into Lion
Description: “OS X Lion includes a built-in restore partition, allowing you to repair or reinstall OS X without the need for discs.”
Benefit: This sounds as if you’ll be able to boot to the separate partition, access a minimal Lion install, and then begin the download process to restore/reinstall your main partition. Of course Wi-Fi will be required. If we can also access the Disk Utility app from the partition, we can also use disk verify to clear up minor issues preventing the main partition from booting.
Internet Utility | Browse the web with Safari
Description: “Recovery mode now includes the Safari web browser, so you can check your email or browse the Apple Support site.”
Benefit: If your computer is down and you need to access the web to locate troubleshooting information online, you can boot to the Restore partition and still get online using Safari.
Networking | Low-power wake
Description: “In OS X Lion, your Mac can wake up for services such as file sharing, backup, and more without the need to turn on the monitor or attached USB devices.”
Benefit: If you are running a Mac Mini as a home theatre appliance, you will stay off the grid more than normal while you move files over your network.
Preview | Add your signature
Description: “Preview makes it easy to add your signature to PDF documents. Hold your signature up to an iSight or FaceTime camera, and Preview uses sophisticated image processing to turn it into a pen-perfect signature annotation. With a click, the signature is added to your document, which can be saved or sent via email. It’s ideal for signing PDF forms and documents.”
Benefit: Moving legal documents electronically just became easier and less expensive for Mac users. You can now digitally sign without purchasing expensive software such as Adobe Acrobat and PDFPen (although I do like PDFPen).
Quicktime Player | Capture a region of the screen & show clicks on capture
Description: “QuickTime Player lets you record part of the screen, such as a specific window. It’s perfect for creating a video tutorial of an application. Screen capture in QuickTime lets you show mouse or trackpad clicks, highlighting the pointer each time you click an object on the screen.”
Benefit: Screen-casting just got easier, more professional and less expensive. For many, a ScreenFlow or SnapZPro purchase may no longer be necessary. Drop the video into iMovie, edit and share your screen-cast to YouTube.
Safari | Auto setup for Gmail and Yahoo! in Mail and Sandboxing
Description: “When you first log in to your Google, Yahoo!, or AOL accounts in Safari, you’ll have the option to use them with Mail, iCal, Address Book, iChat, and other applications on your Mac.”
Benefit: Your Mom will no longer ask you to set up Mac applications that access these online services.
Safari | Sandboxing
Description: “All the websites and applications you use in Safari are sandboxed, so they don’t have access to information on your system. If a website contains malicious code intended to capture personal data or tamper with your computer, sandboxing provides a built-in blocker that restricts the code from doing harm.”
Benefit: Increases security from malicious coders. That’s always a major feature that keeps us bragging about Mac security.
Screen Sharing | Per-user screen sharing
Description: “You can remotely log in to a Mac with any user account on that computer and control it, without interrupting someone else who might be using the computer under a different login.”
Benefit: I had to think about this one for a minute and then thought, this is HUGE! The way I understand this feature is that I can log into a machine someone else is currently using and then access another account. In effect, the machine is running two desktop sessions at once – one local and one remote. Linux has allowed this for years and it seems long overdue for the BSD backend that is OS X. We’ll have to keep our eyes on this one as I can envision some very interesting applications for this feature.
Spotlight | Drag and drop from Spotlight menu
Description: “Now you can drag items from the Spotlight menu, which makes it quick and convenient to send a document via email or AirDrop.”
Benefit: Find an item using Spotlight and then drag the item from the Spotlight list onto your Desktop or into an application. Useful when you find a graphic you want to drop in a document or a contact you want to send to someone via e-mail.
System Preferences | Push notifications
Description: “Receive push notifications sent from Lion Server for calendar events, contact updates, and device management.”
Benefit: We’ve been using push notifications on our iPhone for years and this will be a welcome addition to Lion. This could replace Growl.
System Preferences | Set up online accounts
Description: “The new Mail, Contacts, and Calendars pane in System Preferences gives you a central location to set up and manage all your accounts, including Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo!, and AOL.”
Benefit: I’ve always thought having to fire up Mail to manage accounts was a bit counter-intuitive. Managing accounts from System Preferences makes much more sense. I hope other things such as default browser and camera connection application are also included in System Preferences.
So what do you think? Have I captured some minor features that you may not have been aware of? Did I miss a feature that Apple is not discussing in detail that you think is huge? Drop me a comment and let me know.
I agree, there are lots of little tweaks in Lion that are going to add up to lots of niceties. Especially for people who aren't that good with computers.
ReplyDelete@Richard, good point. Many of the new features will make Lion a bit easier to manage. They've learned a lot from iOS.
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