This week saw the release of Apple’s latest update to the Mac operating system: OS X 10.7, also known as Lion. Following in the footsteps of the Snow Leopard, Lion has furthered the possibilities for business owners. Regardless of the size of your business, Lion offers some new features that you’re sure to find useful.
File Sharing—Lion is making it easier than ever to share things. With the new AirDrop feature, you can share files wirelessly with other devices. Instead of cluttering your inbox with large files, you can “drop” them to any computer in the office instantly.
Lion has also improved the Remote Access feature to include multiple users. Now, you can access another computer’s desktop and apps from your own– while someone else is using it as well.
Security—When you host important business files on your computer, you need to know that they’re safe. Lion implements FileVault 2, encrypting the contents of your hard drive so that they’re safer than ever. Mac has also introduced “sandboxing” with Lion. Sandboxing contains apps so that they can’t interfere with the functionality of your computer. This is especially helpful when you download additional apps and you want to be sure of their security.
Autosave—Finally, you don’t have to worry about losing your work. We’ve all done it—you accidentally hit “don’t save”, or there was a power loss, and we had to start over on whatever we were working on. Now, Autosave does just that—it saves a copy of your work every few seconds. It also implements Versions, which keeps all of those saves. So even when “undo” doesn’t work, you can go back to a previous version of your work.
OS X has been upgraded as a whole with Lion, including Launchpad, an easy way to see all of your apps in one place, and multiple desktops so you can work on several things while keeping everything separate and clean. My suggestion—If you’re working on a Mac, upgrade. At $30, it’s well worth the price tag for all of the new features. While it may not be a game-changer worth making the transition from Windows, if you were thinking about switching platforms before, now’s the time.
Author Bio: Jay Druba is a Mac enthusiast and enjoys keeping up with the latest trends in software. When he’s not writing about travel accessories for his job, he’s probably learning new things or spending time with family.
Fascinating review Andy … I haven’t had a MAC in years, but I remember it fondly. I keep telling myself next computer I’ll make it a MAC, but Dell just makes it so darn easy to stick with them. Maybe one day. Thanks for keeping us up to date!
Marquita,
I have never personally owned a MAC, but my mom swears by it. She is a graphic artist, so that is only natural. I use to buy dell all the time, but then their quality went down. Now I just buy what works best for me at the time.
Andy
Hi Andy, nice update on the Lion. I must confess I’m a Dell user, too. My sister keeps on urging me to transfer to Mac because it’s the mightiest of them all. 😀 And you’re just right, Andy, buying what’s best and what works for you pretty well is what’s important. And of course, the price should also be considered. 😀
Aurea,
Price is important, because if you can get the same quality for a dell or any other PC that you can get for a Mac why buy Mac? At this point and time there is not that much seperating Mac from the rest of the competition, so why spend extra money to get the same thing?
Andy
Honestly, I haven’t tried using MAC OS but your review is very interesting. The security features of Lion is pretty impressive and every webmaster would want something like that on their system.
Aiko,
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the review.
Andy