Apple’s new Macbooks have arrived. Earlier today, the store went down whilst Apple employees furiously set about readying its store to feature the new Thunderbolt-enabled Macbook notebooks. It came back up a couple of hours later, much to the joy of Apple fanboys.
One thing that people might have missed is the preview page for Apple’s upcoming operating system refresh; Mac OS X Lion. That page received an update too, featuring new screenshots of mail.app, Auto Save, Versions, Resume and the new Air Drop.
- A new version of Mail, with an elegant, widescreen layout inspired by the iPad; Conversations, which automatically groups related messages into one easy to read timeline; more powerful search; and support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
- AirDrop, a remarkably simple way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup;
- Versions, which automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions;
- Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
- Auto Save, which automatically saves your documents as you work;
- The all new FileVault, that provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously; and
- Mac OS X Lion Server, which makes setting up a server easier than ever and adds support for managing Mac OS X Lion, iPhone®, iPad and iPod touch® devices.
If you didn’t know, Apple has done away with its separate Server and Desktop products, combining them into one standard OS X product, bundled as Lion Server.
Members of the Mac Developer Program can download Lion from the Mac App Store using a special code obtained from the Mac Dev Center. Developers will need an Intel-based, 64-bit Mac running Mac OS X v10.6.6 Snow Leopard to redeem their code.
A full list of Lion’s new features can be found on the Mac OS X Lion page on Apple’s website. The operating system is expected to launch in the Summer, breathing new life into your now defunct (we kid!) Macbook.
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