Quick Review of Apple Mac OS X 10.7 features : codename Lion

The tech world is today abuzz with rumors that Apple is going to unveil the latest version of its Mac OS X operating system on the 20th of October. 8 more days to go to justify the rumors.

Citing an invite – titled “Back to the Mac” – sent out by the company for an event which will be held at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino in California, TechCrunch claims that a “sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X” would be unveiled during the gathering.

Invitations to the event display a picture of a silver-grey metal rectangle with rounded edges and the Apple logo cut out of it. The image looks 3D and the logo is slightly rotated to just about reveal a lion behind the rectangle.

As you might recall, Apple’s Mac OS X has always been named after a big cat. The Mac OS X 10.0 was called Cheetah, 10.1 was branded Puma, 10.2 came to be known as Jaguar, 10.3 was Panther, and 10.4 was Tiger. Then there was 10.5 or Leopard, and the last Max OS X – the 10.6 – was called Snow Leopard. Initially these names were used only within Apple, but of late they’re being used more and more for marketing. Now, although Apple hasn’t revealed the name of the latest OS X 10.7, going by the hint of a lion in the invite, Lion is probably what the new OS will be called. Interesting!

So what to make of this news? Well, Apple could be implying something by naming its latest OS 10.7 as Lion (if indeed, that turns out to be the case). This, because, Apple never does things at random – as we all know. The word ‘Lion’ could imply something big, or well, endangered as well. But, your guess is as good as ours here.

OS X Lion: Expected features

But here’s what could possibly be in the offing. The Lion might be a completely revamped version of the Mac OS X – with a long awaited new user interface. What’s more, we might even find the company combine the OS X 10.7 with the Mac’s iOS – the operating system used on the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Rumor has it that Apple is working at integrating web features into the Mac OS X 10.7. This, some believe, might include a lot of social networking capabilities integrated into various aspects of the operating system. The OS might also have multi core processing options and a lighter source code. Any guesses on this one? Hmm, what about the new OS using an 8-core ARM processor as well as an Intel chip?

It could also be the case that the new OS will support multitouch screens, super fast USBs, the LightPeak optical connection for data transfer, as well as a Blue-ray player. The OS X 10.7 might also – possibly –use cloud-based computing technology much more than any of the older versions did.

The new OS, some observers think, could allow syncing different products such as an iPhone with a Macbook much better than the current iOS and iWork can do. Also, the new OS X 10.7 could support ads just like iAd does on the iOS.

If you remember, when Apple released the Snow Leopard, it candidly admitted there wasn’t much difference between the OS X 10.6 and the older version, Leopard. Indeed there wasn’t, at least as far as the user was concerned because the changes had largely to do with rewritten code which was lighter and so forth – things that users couldn’t see in any case. An all  new name, therefore, might be indicative of a brand new OS!

Or could it also be possible that Apple wants to reaffirm its love for desktops with the ‘Back to the Mac’ invite, considering its focus on the iPod, iPhone and iPad in recent years? We will soon find out.