Is Mac OS X Lion Apple’s Best Innovation Ever?

It’s been just a few days now that Steve Jobs’ keynote at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco (Jun 6-10) has concluded! And what an event it was!

Leave alone the showcasing of the newest technologies and latest innovations from Apple including iOS 5 (to be available this fall meant for iPhone 3GS and above, iPad & iPad 2, and 3rd & 4th generation iPod Touch) or iCloud (a cloud-based service for syncing and backing up documents, photos, calendars, contacts, music, and email), the event was ‘Significant’, for it showcased to the world, the very first preview of the Mac Operating System’s next major version X Lion.

Once the news is out, there’s no stopping back! And rightly so, after all, you wouldn’t get to hear about so many tech innovations in a single day under one roof! But that’s how iGod had planned!

Now that the World Wide Web is teeming with reviews of WWDC 2011 and the internet is flooded with reviews, synopsis, expert analysis, and critical insights on Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 or iCloud, I don’t really find it fruitful to make this post yet another boring discourse.

Let’s not talk about what ‘can be’ or ‘should be’. Let’s try and see what’s there for the offering. Here’s a brief  ‘easy-to-digest’ summary of the salient features of Mac OS X Lion.

• The new OS X Lion has 250+ fresh features!
• There’s Multi-Touch Gestures to give users an iPhone like feel and touch.
• With Mac OS X Lion, the App Store comes with delta upgrades for faster app updates. Besides, the Mac App Store is now the #1 channel for buying any software and is ahead of Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Office Depot.
• There are more than 3,000 new APIs in Mac OS X Lion
• If you want to upgrade any of your earlier versions of Mac OS like Snow Leopard to X Lion, all you need to do is buy it from Mac App store. No more discs involved!

Here’s an insider look at what more you can expect from the Mac OS X Lion once it hits the App market place in July with an upgrade price of $29.99.

Just 2 latest stats that I came across:

• Mac users – More than 54 million globally
• Mac has grown 28%, while PC growth has shrunk 1% year-over-year!

With the X Lion ready to spring into action this July, the figures would certainly need to be revised before WWDC 2012 rolls out with yet another bunch of surprises!

Microsoft Puts iPad Users Under Scanner

Top IT companies conduct different kinds of researches in their labs to develop innovative solutions for their global clientele. Apple's iPad being the hottest gadget around, companies all over the world are naturally showing interest in what the users are currently thinking about this wonder gadget.  On top of the list is none other than Microsoft! Recently Microsoft is showing an 'extra' interest on iPad users for obvious reasons!

As reported recently, Apple’s arch rival is calling all iPad owners to make a visit to their Redmond campus in the third week of July, to interact with them and share their 'iPad experience' so far. Even those who think it to be a wastage of time should give it a second thought before dumping the idea.

Microsoft’s User Research Group is trying hard to make this seemingly impossible task of conglomerating iPad users from the world over to speak the “big truth” about their iPad experience in public. A two hour meet has been finalized for the fixture as per latest information from the company.

However, industry insiders are calling this survey to be just another “big show” from Microsoft to woo the huge number of iPad users, a majority of them being teens or youth students who find this gadget ultra stylish. Whatever be the outcome of this “open study session”, one thing is sure, that Microsoft is gung ho on poaching Apple fan boys from iPad fan base in a short time.