Ryan Cushley

When Apple announced Snow Leopard to the 2009 WWDC audience, attendees were shocked by the announcement of ‘no new features.’ So then, in July 2011, many newer Mac users are getting ready for their first real taste of an OS X upgrade, with a whole new feature set to learn and adjust to.

Waiting four years since the release of Leopard for a significant new feature set to make its way to OS X, users have often hypothesised what would become of Apples desktop operating system. Many, however, at the announcement of Lion in 2010, were stunned to find that the features that were included, were not the new user interface rumoured, nor were they as notable as some had hoped. Instead, Apple again has taken an evolutionary approach to OS X, offering up only a few dramatic, but many minor changes.

Pricing this time is $29.99.  This is ninety-nine cents more to the US customer than Snow Leopard, however, for the international customer will come out slightly cheaper. For example, in the UK, the $29 USD price for Snow Leopard translated to £25. At the time of release, a direct exchange rate, plus tax, puts the price at around £21. So, UK customers were getting charged significantly more for the same product. This time around, that is changed. Distribution is via the Mac App Store only (more on that in Part 2), and through this storefront, Apple charge roughly the same amount regardless of the territory. Pricing in the UK is £20.99 for Lion.

The announcement of Lion was done at a special ‘Back to the Mac’ event, held last October. However, little of what was seen at this event, or can be seen in the final version of Lion is original work. In fact, many of the new features are directly lifted from iOS. Multi-touch, Resume, Launchpad, the Mail interface and the Mac App Store all have their roots on iOS. So, rather than Apple returning to the Mac, Lion can be seen as an attempt to translate some of the massive success seen in iOS onto the Mac platform.

Lion features have seen intense debate on the Internet; more intense than has been witnessed with any other OS X release. Users are divided as to whether the new features signify a dumbing down of the operating system, or even an abandonment of the power user. However, using the operating system on a daily basis for over five months, this debate has become redundant. Whether this is the first step of an iOS-OS X blur remains to be seen, as it must be noted that the user can ignore almost all iOS-type functionality in this release.

With over 250 new features, Lion changes a huge amount for the end user. Thus, this is by no means a fully comprehensive review. Reviews of the smaller changes will come at a later date. However, all of the main features of Lion are covered within, with all being covered to a good level of detail. Enjoy the review, and please do not hesitate to comment or contact me with feedback, errors or omissions.

Without further ado, is Lion the King of OS X, or is the operating system close to reaching endangered status? Read on.

In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 1: Introduction
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 2: Installation
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 3: New Visual Changes
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 4: Launchpad and Mission Control
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 5: Full Screen and Mail
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 6: Auto-Save, Versions and Resume
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 7: Multi-Touch and AirDrop
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 8: Conclusion