Apple gave the world an early look at its latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 - or Mac OS X Lion, as its big cat naming convention goes. It also demonstrated and launched the latest version of its creative suite, iLife '11.
CEO Steve Jobs expressed Apple's desire to bring some of the more successful features from iOS, its mobile operating system used in the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, to the company's desktop and laptop computers.
Jobs, citing research his company has done, explained that touch-enabled user interfaces could not be on vertical screens, such as those on modern computers. Instead, he said, the multi-touch trackpads in its laptop computers and the new Magic Trackpad for desktops would pave the way for touch interfaces on non-tablet devices.
The reason for multi-touch in OS X is due to interface elements from iOS making their way to the latest version of the desktop OS.
Craig Federighi, Apple's VP, was on stage to demonstrate some of the features that have made their way from iOS to OS X. Mac computers will now have a Launchpad to present application shortcuts in a similar manner to the iPad and iPhone.
Jobs also announced the Mac App Store, a centralised store with one-click purchase, download and installation for OS X software. This will operate in a similar fashion to the iTunes App store for the mobile devices and will be available on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) within 90 days, while shipping standard on OS X 10.7 (Lion).
Also demonstrated was a standalone beta version - currently downloadable from Apple's site - of FaceTime, the video-calling application for the iPhone4 and new iPod touch. Mac users can now make video calls to other Mac, iPhone4 and iPod touch users, and vice versa.
Available from today - though not for local users just yet - is iLife '11. The revamped creativity suite features new versions of Garageband, the music recording package, the iPhoto photo management package and iMovie, the movie editing suite.
iLife '11 retails for $49 in the US. Mac OS X 10.7 will be available in the (northern hemisphere) summer of 2011.
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