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Wednesday 20 July 2011

Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review

Never one to shy away from dramatic hyperbole, Steve Jobs declared ours a "post-PC world" about this time last year, acknowledging a move away from personal computers as smartphones and tablets become even more ubiquitous. And while Jobs might happily look on as iPhones and iPads become our primarily tie to the outside world, the question remains: what happens to the PC during this grand transition? To a large extent, the answer lies in the the OS, which brings us to OS X Lion. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to post-PC computing.

In typically grandiose fashion, the company has declared OS X 10.7 "the world's most advanced desktop operating system," touting the addition of over 250 new features. The list is pretty uneven on the game-changing scale, with updates running the gamut from Airdrop (file-sharing over WiFi) to a full-screen version of the bundled chess game. If there's one thing tying it all together, though, it's something that Jobs touched on when he first unveiled the OS back in October: the unmistakable influence of iOS. Now it's true, we already got a taste of that with gesture-based trackpads and the Mac App Store, but those were merely glimpses of things to come. Apple borrows so heavily from iOS that at times, cycling through features makes the whole thing feel like you're merely operating an iPad with a keyboard attached.

There are plenty of welcome additions here, including aesthetic tweaks and attention to mounting privacy concerns. Like Snow Leopard before it, however, Lion is hardly an explosive upgrade. And like Snow Leopard, it comes in at a reasonable $29 (or a decidedly more pricey $69 as an upcoming flash drive install), making it a worthy upgrade for current Mac owners. But does a boatload of evolutionary features add up to a revolutionary upgrade? Let's find out.

Gallery: Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review