Mac OSX Lion

1. Mission Control - The easiest way to explain mission control is as a combination of Expose and Spaces. After the normal four-finger swipe all of your desktops are shown on the screen and whatever windows are running on your current desktop are grouped into applications where they can then be easily managed. However my problem with this is that it is now much harder to move windows and applications to different spaces as it now only allows you to move windows from your current desktop. Spaces no longer features the squares layout you're used to, and now forces you to have all of your separate desktops in a line, making navigation a lot slower, but using four-finger horizontal swipes to change desktops makes up for this. However as far as functionality I would have to say that I prefer Snow Leopard's version of Spaces.

2. Full-Screen Apps - This actually interacts pretty well with Spaces by making a new 'desktop' for full-screen applications. My favorite use for this so far is running iTunes full-screen and switching through my desktops to change songs. This is a pretty cool addition and a lot of people will love this option.

3. Launchpad - I was turned off by this at first (I hate having icons on my desktop), but after a few days using Launchpad I have seen the light. This feature turns your desktop into an iOS screen to view all of your apps, create folders, and so on. Since it can be activated with a quick multi-touch gesture, Launchpad proves to be a very quick and sexy way to get to your favorite apps. This is definitely my favorite new feature.

4. Resume - Resume makes restarting your Mac a lot simpler by automatically saving things as they were before the restart. It does the same while closing apps as well. This is just one of the many little things that make Apple's OS great and should also help users to not be as wary of constant software updates that require a restart.

5. Airdrop - This is a neat app built into Finder that allows you to share documents and apps via Bluetooth to nearby Macs. While it's functions seem pretty limited, this is helpful for users who own multiple Mac computers. This could have a lot of potential if iOS5 allows us to Airdrop documents to iOS devices.

6. FaceTime - Pretty cool, but the features are severely limited compared to competitors Skype and Oovoo.

7. Multi-Touch Tracking - The coolest of the new supported finger motions are A. Four-finger horizontal swipe to switch desktops and B. Thumb and three fingers pinch to open Launchpad. Sadly the latter is just as hard to perform as it sounds, but can quickly be picked up after the awkward initial practice. If you aren't already using a MacBook with a glass track-pad or the new desktop track-pad I definitely suggest an upgrade, multi-touch makes navigating your Mac a lot sleeker. The added three finger double-tap to define a word in the dictionary, thesaurus, and wikipedia is a great addition. Also three finger drag is a lot more useful than you would think.

Well that's all I've got for now, but I may post more updates in the future as I delve deeper into Lion's capabilities. I would definitely suggest that you upgrade, it's easier than ever through the App Store and the price tag is very reasonable. Really the only major flaw I noticed is the dumbed down version of Spaces. Thanks for reading!

Digging Lion or hating it? Post a comment!