Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is now available to download through the Mac App Store. You won't find Lion on the front page of the Mac App Store, though, but you can locate it by using the search function.
Apple finally unveiled its long-awaited update to the Mac OS after chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer let slip that it would launch today in last night's third-quarter financial earnings call.
“Lion is the best version of OS X yet, and we’re thrilled that users around the world can download it starting today,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
“Lion makes upgrading a Mac easier than ever before; just launch the Mac App Store, buy Lion with your iTunes account, and the download and install process will begin automatically.”
There are a whole host of new features in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, including support for new Multi-Touch gestures such as momentum scrolling, tapping or pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, and swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps.
There is support for full screen apps, meaning you can swipe from one window to another, between full screen apps, or back to your Desktop, Dashboard or Spaces without ever leaving full screen.
Also new to Lion is Mission Control, which provides and overview of everything running on your Mac, combining Exposé, full screen apps, Dashboard and Spaces into one unified experience.
The Mac App Store will be built in to the OS; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps where a single Multi-Touch gesture presents all your Mac apps in a full screen layout, is another new feature and there is a completely redesigned Mail app.
The new Conversations feature groups related messages into an scrollable timeline, hiding repeated text so the conversation is easy to follow, and retaining graphics and attachments as they were originally sent.
Lion costs £20.99 and is only available through the Mac App Store on Macs running OS X 10.6.6 or higher. It is a 4GB download.
Download only OS X Lion 'will hurt retailers'
You'll need a Mac with a dual- or quad-core Intel processor, such as the Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 and Xeon to run Lion. Like Snow Leopard , Lion won't run on the PowerPC architecture that Apple abandoned in early 2006 when it started the switch to Intel CPUs. 2GB of RAM is also a minumum.
If you bought a Mac after 6 June you will be eligible for a free upgrade to Mac OS X Lion 10.7. Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and is also available in the Mac App Store for £34.99.
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Comments received
osxboy said on Wed, 20 Jul 2011
Would love to get this downloaded at my office in London (fast internet) but I have to do so at home and I get 1.2MB on a good day as I live in a semi-rural location. 4GB will take a while!
ecosse206 said on Wed, 20 Jul 2011
Does anyone know if we have to pay 20.99 per mac? I own more than one mac so if I buy it once will it say that I've already purchased this and not charge me a 2nd time?
ecosse206 said on Wed, 20 Jul 2011
Does anyone know if we have to pay 20.99 per mac? I own more than one mac so if I buy it once will it say that I've already purchased this and not charge me a 2nd time?
Mark Hattersley said on Wed, 20 Jul 2011
Haven't downloaded it yet but my understanding is that you can install it on any (and all) machines that are linked to your account. You only need to purchase one copy for all machines.
treadmill said on Wed, 20 Jul 2011
16 mins to download, 33 minutes to install and 30 minutes to re-index HDD for Spotlight.
Job done.
jujuwarrior said on Thu, 21 Jul 2011
I'm living in Grenada(West Indies) and I cannot download Lion because Grenada is not included in the App Store List. Does anyone know a way around that ? Shame on you Apple because there so many Mac fans like me (since 1990) around the world who live in small countries anxiously waiting for Lion.
thelemondropkid said on Thu, 21 Jul 2011
This is the first Mac OS since 1993 that has disappointed me.
The interface is no improvement over Snow Leopard and all the fancy effects are memory intensive, far too intensive for my Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM and 256MB VRAM to handle. Everything just feels slow and unresponsive. I will not even mention some of the interface design change, especially the calendar and address book - hideous! If I wanted an iPhone or tablet experience, I would have baught one of those !
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