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Posts tagged with "lion"

OS X Lion: AirDrop Overview

Among the new features of Lion that Apple touts on the Mac App Store and the OS’ official webpage, there is a new peer-to-peer file sharing functionality called AirDrop, which uses the Finder as a way to share files with Macs nearby through drag & drop. Acting as a replacement to the omnipresent USB stick and providing an easier approach to wireless file sharing than the Mac’s default “Drop box” feature, AirDrop wants to replace any physical media and alternative software solutions used to share documents with your friends, family, or colleagues that happen to have a Mac next to your machine. I can’t tell you how many times in the past I found myself using my MacBook next to a friend’s MacBook, and doing something as simple as sharing an .mp3 file required us to either go through the Mac’s Sharing settings in System Preferences, upload it online for a one-time usage, or rely on the typical USB thumb drive.

AirDrop is aimed at making file sharing easy, and secure at the same time. Before I delve deeper into its feature set though, here’s the list of computers Apple says are compatible with Lion’s AirDrop:

  • MacBook Pro (Late 2008 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 or newer)
  • iMac (Early 2009 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

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Miscellaneous Lion Tips and Tricks

Lion is a solid update to OS X and it comes with several new features as we’ve outlined in our review, however there are so many little touches and minor features it is possible some of them will go unnoticed, leaving a user wondering whether something he thought would be possible was removed by Apple. In this post, we’ve collected some of the best tips and tricks we’ve received from our readers and Twitter followers since Lion came out yesterday, as well as stuff that didn’t make it to the review. More will follow throughout the next days, but in the meantime check them after the break.

Note: Part 2 is now online.

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OS X Lion: Interface Tour

As we discussed in our OS X Lion review, Apple’s latest operating system is an evolutionary step forward, a milestone in the company’s desktop software history that innovates old concepts and user interactions by bringing some of the features and design schemes seen on iOS devices to the Mac’s bigger screen. There is a subtle difference though: whereas most people would think Apple is “stealing” from iOS, building on the success of the iPhone and iPad (now a bigger business than desktop computers) to sell more Macs, Lion does in fact prove that the roots of OS X are still strong, but looking for a cohesive integration with the seeds planted on mobile. As Cody wrote in his review “Apple weaved our working knowledge of gestures and interfaces into the Mac to capitalize on our intuition” – Lion isn’t a glamorous iOS. Lion is an evolution of the OS X we know and use, and the changes made to the operating system are immediately visible in the interface.

Lion doesn’t look like iOS. If anything, Apple has tweaked the Aqua interface to achieve the same elegance, minimalism and focus on content first conceptualized on the iPhone, but it’s far from being an iOS clone. With Lion, Apple hasn’t ported iOS’ design principles to the Mac – they took the best parts of a mobile interface that they thought would also make sense on the desktop, and managed to make it work. The changes in Lion – both design-wise and feature-wise – never feel like forced additions that are weird to use and be familiar with. Rather, they’re subtle improvements that will make you wonder why they weren’t implemented before. Read more

The First Five Things I Do When I Set Up Lion

Whether I’m installing OS X for myself or for another person, there’s always several things I do first before anything else. The steps I take aren’t too different in Lion, and whether you’re getting a new Mac, finding ways to install Lion fresh, or looking to see if you’ve missed anything, let’s take a quick five minute tour of the OS’s settings.

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Lion Internet Recovery: In Case of Emergency

Lion doesn’t come on optical disc. Your Mac’s hard disk drive — fragile and vulnerable in your MacBook’s chassis — is a ticking time bomb. Components fail, and hard drives are more often than not the first things to go. Rigorous backups can archive your data offsite, but what happens when the MacBook you have isn’t serviceable? If you have the ability to replace the hard drive, how will you reinstall Lion if an Internet Connection and Snow Leopard is required to re-download Lion from the Mac App Store? These have been burning questions pertaining to routine maintenance and repair, and Apple’s answer is Lion Internet Recovery.

Quite simply, it’s ‘Internet Recovery’ that’s going to be built into new machines starting with today’s MacBook Air and Mac Mini. If the hard drive dies or you have to replace your HDD/SSD, your Mac can connect to the Internet and download the OS in case of a failure where a Wi-Fi connection is present. On Wi-Fi, WEP and WPA-Enterprise secured networks aren’t supported: WPA or WP2 are the only network protocols Lion Internet Recovery will work with. I point this out since I know many of you are irresponsibly still on WEP (at least all of my neighbors are). A Recovery HD image is downloaded, and your hard drive and memory are quickly scanned for hardware issues while your Mac does its thing.

(If Recovery HD can’t be downloaded, Apple does provide a support document that details how you can download the tools onto an external drive.)

For a generic reinstall of Lion, holding Command-R at boot will launch Recovery HD, which contains a set of basic utilities (such as Disk Utility) that can be used to troubleshoot your Mac and its hardware. A Safari browser is also provided in case you need to visit Apple’s support pages for various documentation. The Recovery HD utilities will allow you to reinstall Lion, but an active ethernet or Wi-Fi connection is required. Recovery HD should work with your home network regardless of the wireless security protocol set.

As an absolute last resort, Apple recommends that you call AppleCare so they can take care of you, briefly mentioning that they’ll “send you everything you need to to help restore your Mac.”

Apple Updates Remote Desktop with Per-User Remote Control

As part of the ongoing series of software updates that Apple is releasing today following the big debut of OS X Lion on the Mac App Store, Apple’s professional tool to access and manage computers on a network, Apple Remote Desktop, was updated as well to incorporate some of the new functionalities baked into Lion. The new version of OS X, in fact, allows users to log into a remote machine (or one on a local network) using a different account than the one currently in use by the second computer; so say your co-worker is logged into his personal account, you can still remotely access his Mac and log into, for instance, a shared work account. This is one of the big new features of Lion that was unveiled with the developer previews, and which works in conjunction with the possibility of remotely logging into a computer using an Apple ID.

The new Apple Remote Desktop isn’t exclusive to Lion (requirements accept OS X 10.6), but it includes Lion’s per-user remote control. Apple writes in the changelog:

You can remotely log in to a Mac with any user account on that computer and control it, without interrupting someone else who might be using the computer under a different login.

You can read more about all the features offered by Remote Desktop here, and buy the app from the Mac App Store. For those who didn’t purchase Remote Desktop on the Store, there are some updates available on Apple’s website as well:

- Apple Remote Desktop 3.5 Admin

- Apple Remote Desktop Dashboard Widget

- Apple Remote Desktop 3.5 Client

Lion App Updates: GrowlMail, Pixelmator, Plex, Backblaze

Earlier today, Apple released new hardware, OS X Lion, and a series of software updates to bring new OS compatibility to apps such as the iWork suite, Cocoa enhancements to iTunes, and new features to Safari. Apple also released several minor updates on its Support website, which we outlined in a separate Lion article here. But on the other hand, developers of third-party apps for the Mac haven’t missed the opportunity to update their software following the release of Lion, which is likely being installed and tested for the first time by hundreds of thousands of Mac users as we speak. In the past few hours, we’ve collected the most interesting app updates released today, so check them out after the break. Read more

Bought a Mac Recently? Don’t Forget You can Download Lion for Free!

If you’ve purchased a Mac between June 6th and July 20th, or you’re buying a new Mac that doesn’t come with Lion preinstalled as of today (July 21st), you can redeem a free copy of Lion from the Apple Online Store! Downloads are good for both Lion and Lion Server on qualifying new or refurbished machines. You’ll need to enter receipt information such as date of purchase, place of purchase, and from your Mac the serial number in order to get the redemption. Alternatively, Apple gives you the opportunity to scan a proof of purchase. Most likely the Up -To-Date Program will pertain to Mac users who’ve purchased their machines in the past weeks — I bet many college students would be happy that their $100 credit will continue to go towards apps, and not an OS upgrade.

You can find all the details about the program on Apple’s Up-To-Date landing page.

Lion Launch Notes: What You Might Have Missed

It’s not just your normal Wednesday morning folks. Nope — coinciding with the launch of Lion that was only confirmed yesterday during Apple’s Q3 conference call, Apple has released a handful of new products including updated MacBook Airs, updated Mac Minis, and new Apple Thunderbolt Displays (a step up from the Apple Cinema Displays). In the chaos of four press releases and an updating Apple Store, there’s lots of new items to note alongside our major morning launches, so let’s run through the list!

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