First Developer Preview of Lion Hits The Mac App Store

Apple announced alongside new MacBook Pros the first developer preview of OS X 10.7 Lion, first demoed last October.

Apple today released a developer preview of Mac OS X Lion, which takes some of the best ideas from iPad and brings them back to the Mac for the eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system. The Lion preview is available to Mac Developer Program members through the Mac App Store, and the final version of Lion will ship to customers this summer.

Apple also outlines a number of features to be found in Lion:

• Launchpad, an interface for opening apps;
• Full screen apps that use the entire Mac display;
• Universal Auto Save, which automatically saves updated documents as you work;
• Versions allows you to track your changes through any document via a Time Machine like interface and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions of documents;

• AirDrop, which allows to wireless transfer files between Macs without additional setup;

• MacStories is the new gesture to slide between tabs in Safari;
• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• A new version of Mail with more powerful search, support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;

• Versions, which automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it,
• FileVault, that provides encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously.
• AirDrop, which allows to wireless transfer files between Macs without additional setup;
• MacStories is the new gesture to slide between tabs in Safari;
• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• A new version of Mail with more powerful search, support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
• FileVault, that provides encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously.