Earlier today Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac was unveiled, bringing more features and substantial speed improvements to the popular desktop virtualisation software. Headline features of the new version include greater Lion support such as Full Screen Mode and Mission Control, iSight/FaceTime Camera support and those speed improvements which include up to 60% faster resuming and 45% faster 3D graphics.
Mac Developers will now be able to emulate a copy of Lion in Parallels whilst on a Lion installation as per the new Lion license agreement. Installing Windows has also been simplified with a “Windows on Demand” service offering users the ability to instantly purchase and download Windows - particularly helpful for those with new Macs that no longer include DVD drives. Walt Mossberg reviewed the new Parallels on his Late-2010 MacBook Air and said it “ran Windows quickly and smoothly, and integrated well with some of Lion’s new features”.
Windows, and Windows programs, can be displayed in Lion’s new Launchpad feature, which mimics the main screen of an iPad. They also show up and behave like Mac programs in Lion’s new Mission Control feature, which shows all the programs running on the Mac in miniature. Windows programs can also run in Lion’s new full-screen mode.
Also revealed today was that the Parallels Mobile App is receiving a substantial update so that it can completely control a users Mac rather than just the virtualised environment as had been the case prior to this update. The app, available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, is on sale at a special introductory offer of $4.99 but the update is free to existing users.
Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is available from today for those upgrading from Parallels 5 or 6 at a cost of $49.99 whilst it will be available generally on September 6th for $79.99. There is also a Student edition available for $39.99, a ‘Switch to Mac’ edition available for $99.99 (which comes with a number of Mac video tutorials) and there are also Enterprise volume licences available.
Jump the break for some promo videos of the new Parallels products.
[Via AllThingsD]
