Apple previews OS X Lion

THE IPAD EFFECT has reached the Apple OS X operating system with the previewed Lion version making the most of the tablet's look and feel.

Apple has just released the developer preview of its next operating system and said that it, the eighth version, has had a design polish that makes it well suited to the IOS running tablet.

"The Ipad has inspired a new generation of innovative features in Lion," said Philip Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide product marketing. "Developers are going to love Mission Control and Launchpad, and can now start adding great new Lion features like full screen, gestures, Versions and Auto Save to their own apps."

Mission Control and Launchpad have an administration ring to their names, and Apple said that they offer a new way of looking at running processes or the contents of a machine. This might not sound like the most exciting thing to ever happen to an operating system so Apple has garnished it with some other tweaks.

For example Mail has been updated and now resembles what you might see on the Ipad. Apple said that it allows for horizontal scrolling and can sort mails into conversations, which is great news for anyone still using a mail client that does not.

Other notable features include Multitouch, for sticky fingered screen control, Airdrop, which is a way of wirelessly sending files between Macs, autosave and recovery tools for documents and applications, a Filevault for storing encrypted information and Mac OS X Lion Server. µ