Apple releases Mac OS X Lion
Apple released Mac OS X Lion (v10.7), which takes some of the best ideas from iPad and brings them back to the Mac.
Security-wise, Lion brings an improvement to Address space layout randomization (ASLR) for all applications, and is now available for 32-bit apps (as are heap memory protections), making 64-bit and 32-bit applications more resistant to attack.
Sandboxing has also been improved. Lion’s predecessor – Mac OS X Snow Leopard – did use it but it was limited to critical processes. In Lion, the sandbox protection is finally extended to third-party applications.
Sandboxing protects the system by limiting the kinds of operations an application can perform, such as opening documents or accessing the network, and makes it more difficult for a security threat to take advantage of an issue in a specific application to affect the greater system.
Other new and improved features include:
Systemwide support for full-screen apps that use every inch of your Mac display. You can have multiple full-screen apps open at once — along with multiple standard-size apps. And it’s easy to switch between full-screen and desktop views.
Mission Control unifies Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and full screen apps to give you a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps as well as your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a click.
Launchpad makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single click, Launchpad displays all your Mac apps in a stunning full screen layout where you can launch, re-order or organize apps into folders. You can also arrange apps into multiple pages and swipe between them.
New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations give you a natural and intuitive way to interact with your Mac. New gestures include pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps and swiping up to enter Mission Control.
The Mac App Store lets you browse and download thousands of free and paid apps that you can start using right away on all your Mac computers authorized for personal use. New apps install in one step right to Launchpad, and the Mac App Store keeps track of your apps and tells you when updates are available.
Resume brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app.
An improved FileVault provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously.
AirDrop allows you to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup.
The Server app features a setup assistant that walks you through the server configuration process step by step. So now anyone can turn just about any Mac into a server. Profile Manager lets you remotely manage computers running Lion and iOS devices such as iPad and iPhone.