Hasta La Gadget!

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 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.

Continue reading Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review

Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look forward to many hours of frustration with Lion's Launchpad

Both of the new Macs that Apple shipped today come with the latest version of OS X: 10.7 Lion. The update brings many new features, as you’d expect of a new operating system, but there are some fundamental changes both to the user experience itself, and the way Apple has chosen to deliver the new OS. One — the lack of any physical install media — is both convenient and annoying. The other — adopting UI metaphors from the touch-only iOS — is likely to appeal to new users and upset old ones.

Download Only

The very first thing that is impossible to ignore is that Lion only exists in the ether. There are not, nor will there be, physical media carrying the installer. Instead, you have to either buy a new Mac with Lion pre-installed, or download the 3.5GB installer from the Mac App Store. [UPDATE 2011-07-21 09:49:45. Apple will sell a Lion USB thumb drive for $70, starting in August. It will still be a lot cheaper to make your own]

There are ways to make this file into bootable USB sticks and DVDs, but that’s for the nerds and sysadmins who want to install on multiple machines. For the regular customer, the installer disk is dead.

And what happens if your computer goes belly-up? Is there a recovery disk in the box? Nope. Apple gets around this by partitioning the boot drive and putting a utility called Lion Recovery onto it. When you have trouble, press Command-R when you start up and you’ll be booted into recovery mode. From there you can repair the disk, reinstall Lion or restore from a Time Machine backup.

I know what you’re thinking. What if the drive is completely dead? How do I rescue my Mac then? Well, the news is good and bad. The good is that, even if you slot in a brand-new, bare hard drive, the Mac will boot into “Internet Recovery” mode. This connects to Apple’s servers and grabs a copy of Lion Recovery, and you go from there. This works thanks to firmware installed on Lion-capable Macs bought from now on.

The bad news is that you need an Internet connection to do it, and we all know that hard drives always fail at the most inconvenient moment. The worse news is that, even if you have an Internet connection, it’s going to take a long time to download that 3.5GB installer file.

It Looks Like iOS

The other big change is the look of the OS. Apple titled it’s introduction of Lion “Back to the Mac,” signaling that many new discoveries made in iOS are being folded back into the Mac mix. Thus you’ll find Launchpad, which turns even the giant 27-inch screen of the iMac into an icon-infested home screen. Just like on your iPhone, only way harder to use.

You also get full-screen mode, allowing you to concentrate on one app at a time, again like iOS. Windows users will chuckle at this “new” feature — Microsoft’s OS defaults to full-screen windows, but it is great for certain kinds of app — photo and video editors for example. Our own Brian X Chen praises it in his Lion review, but I’m not sure how useful it will be for a blogger’s simultaneous, multi-window needs.

There are plenty of other tweaks, from Resume (which lets an app pick up where it left off last time you quit it) to Autosave, which does what you’d expect. For more details, check out Brian’s review. And if you’re not sure if your favorite apps will be compatible with Lion, check out this rather handy wiki from Roaring Apps to find out.

Lion is available now in the Mac App store for $30.

Lion Features [Apple]

In search of “the ultimate docking station” for your Mac notebook? Look no further than the new Thunderbolt Display, a single 27-inch model packing a 2560 x 1440 res 16:9 IPS display, one of Apple’s fancy new connectors, integrated 2.1 speaker system, and even a Firewire 800 slot. There’s also a built-in FaceTime HD camera and Mic, Gigabit Ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports and MagSafe charging for your laptop, but the big difference is that single speedy DisplayPort hookup. It can daisy chain up to six high speed devices and all those connectors mean when it’s time to take your laptop on the go there’s a minimum of cables mooring it to your desk. It’ll cost $999 to bring home in just a few days, if resolving cable clutter to your Thunderbolt-equipped Mac (required) is a good enough reason to ditch your old Cinema Display.

Continue reading Apple rolls out 27-inch Thunderbolt Display with FaceTime HD camera, built-in speakers

Apple rolls out 27-inch Thunderbolt Display with FaceTime HD camera, built-in speakers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Off with his head! Serial blinkers are no longer a problem with Photoshop Elements 9

Grab your coats: Hell has just frozen over. Or rather, Photoshop has come to the Mac App Store. For $80, you can now download Photoshop Elements 9 from the App Store.

Ever since the Mac Store was announced, there have been two standout examples of apps that would “never” be sold through Apple’s strictly-controlled channel. The first is Microsoft’s Office suite. The second was Photoshop. The reasons? Price and compatibility.

The thinking goes that Adobe and Microsoft wouldn’t want to give 30% of the revenue of their flagship products to Apple. The second, and more sensible reason is that these monster applications would never be accepted into the Store thanks to their deep and “illegal” ties into OS X.

Elements isn’t the full Photoshop, to be sure, and is clearly compatible with Apple’s rules (either that or Apple has bent them). More interesting is the price. The full Elements 9 costs $100, making the App Store version cheaper. It is missing the Adobe Elements Organizer, but as Elements is designed to complement apps like iPhoto, this is probably a good thing.

Elements is like a power editor for your snaps. You can tweak the basics, but the gimmick is that you get to use Adobe’s fancy-pants image processing features. You can paint out mistakes with a brush that uses Content Aware Fill to fill in the gaps. You can make panoramas. You can even switch in people from various group shots to get one picture with everyone looking good.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 is available now for $80, the same price as Apple’s Aperture.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 [Mac App Store]

See Also:

• Photoshop Crashes onto iPad
• Hands-On Review: Pixelmator, a 'Photoshop Lite' for Mac Shutterbugs

We’re still waiting for Apple to launch OS X Lion Lion–which we had heard would be released today in the Mac App Store–but we did discover some changes in the way we can download Lion, along with applications, widgets, and utilities. Until recently, Mac users have been able to access new software from the OS X […]