Apple has posted a preview of some of the hottest features of their new operating system due out this summer, dubbed Mac OS X Lion. As part of the release there are several new storage-realted features that help users not only protect their files, but share them with others very easily as well. Our favorite has to be AirDrop, which lets users send files wirelessly to anyone on the network.
AirDrop doesn’t require setup or special settings, users just click the AirDrop icon in Finder and the Mac will scan the network to see which other computers are using AirDrop. If those users are in your address book and have a photo, that will be displayed too. To send a file just drag it from Finder to the person’s name you want to send the file(s) to. The receiving user accepts your file via notification window and then the file transfers straight to their Downloads folder. Pretty fun and somewhat reminiscent of 24, where they’re always requesting files to "be sent to my screen."
A few other new features surround file versioning and protecting users from losing work, while being storage-friendly. Auto Save for instance automatically saves your work, while it’s in process. Lion saves changes in the working document instead of creating additional copies, making it drive space efficient. Similarly, Versions automatically creates a version of a document each time you open it and every hour while it’s being worked on. Kind of like Time Machine for files, Versions shows the current document next to a cascade of previous versions so you can go back and grab a piece of text mistakenly deleted.
Aside from these features, there’s plenty else to like, including full screen apps, a new app launcher screen, more and improved gesture support, a new mail application and Resume, which lets you reboot you Mac, resuming when it starts with all of your applications open and ready, just the way they were before the reboot. For an entire breakdown of all the Mac OS X Lion features, visit Apple’s Mac OS X Lion Page.
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