Back to the Mac: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: App Store

Today Apple announced that they would be taking some of the best features from iOS and moving it to OS X 10.7 Lion.  While the application won’t support touch screens, it will have a number of multi-touch gestures.  Steve Jobs said that they will be focusing on using the MacBook Trackpads and Magic Trackpads as the primary input devices for multi-touch functionality on the Mac lineup.

Multi-Touch Gestures
Steve stresses that touch-based vertical screens do not work well. They’ll be sticking with touch-based pads for Macs – no touch screens.

App Store
Hell yes! There will be a Mac-based App Store in 10.7. The 70/30 split remains the same as on the iPhone App Store. Best of all, the apps will be licensed for every Mac you own. This is great news for users.

Mission Control
Mission control combines Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard, and Fullscreen apps into one interface. About time that Dashboard received some love!

Just with a gesture on the trackpad, you now have access to every window, screen, and app on your Mac. I’m stoked.

Home Screen
Just like the iPad and iPhone, we’ll get something called “Launchpad.” It allows you to have home screens to organize your apps in a consistant way. Frankly, I think this will make a big difference.

Grant is a writer from Delaware. In his spare time, Grant maintains a personal blog, hosts The Weekly Roar, hosts Quadcast, and writes for video games.