New Lion Features to Get Hyped Over

Along with the refresh to the MacBrook Pro line, Apple announced a developer preview and a slew of new features that will be found in the next iteration of OS X, fittingly named Lion. Previously revealed in the Back to the Mac event last year were the App Store, LaunchPad, Mission Control, and complete support for full screen applications. Now added to that list are: increased usage of gestures with the trackpad and Magic Mouse, Autosave, Versions, Resume, Mail 5, and Air Drop.

Increased Gesture Usage
If you've ever used a Magic Mouse, you'll know how limited it's functionality is straight out of the box. To really take advantage of the revolutionary Multi-Touch interface you need a third part app like MagicPrefs or BetterTouchTool. Clearly Apple looks to rectify this with Lion, though in the demo video below only a trackpad is used a Magic Mouse was used in the Back to the Mac demo.

Shoot, no more video. Got taken down due to copyright claims by Apple.

Autosave
As you can clearly tell by the name of the feature, you no longer have to consciously save the file or document that you are working on, Lion will handle it for you. There is also a lock feature which means that you can close your documents and keep them safe from unintended changes being automatically saved. You can also choose to revert the document to the state it was in upon opening.

Versions
This is a feature that acts much in the same manner as Time Machine, only for continuously saved versions of your documents. Not only will this allow you to revert to a previous version of the file, but you can also copy and paste directly from those older versions.

Resume
Much in the way multi-tasking works on the iOS devices, this means that when you open up and return to an application, things will be as they were when you lasted used it.

Mail 5
With Lion, as expected, Mail gets a refresh. It now has adopted an appearance similar to that of the Mail found on the iPad. Not only that, mailboxes are now handled in a bar across the top of the application rather than a menu on the side giving the app a much cleaner appearance.

Air Drop
This feature allows easy file-sharing with any Mac. You simply click the icon in the Finder to see who else are using Air Drop and simply drag and drop files onto their name.

All of these newly revealed features are getting me more and more excited for Lion's release this summer. I'll certainly be there on day one to pick up my copy.