Back to the Mac Media Event Follow-Up

Well I went scored 4 out of 4 on my predictions.

Mac OS X Lion - The new Lion version was announced and they are going to take things they learned from iOS and bring them "Back to the Mac". There will now be a Mac App Store for purchasing apps. A new launchpad aka home screen will be featured. A lot more support for multi-touch is going in Lion including a new Mission Control window for easy navigation between apps, think new and improved Expose'. Finally lots of apps are going to get Full Screen modes with easy switching between apps. It will be released next summer.

iLife '11 - As predicted this was announced with new versions of iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.

iPhoto does NOT have improvements for Faces, but does now have a full screen mode and has a look and feel much like the iOS photos app. There is new support for books, letters and some more Facebook integration.

iMovie gets some cool upgrades including improved audio editing capabilities and some new audio and video effects. The other cool feature is the ability to create movie trailers which gives you a story board and you just drag and drop different clips onto it combined with some manually typed in things like people in the movie and activities from the movie. It creates really cool looking videos.

GarageBand had some changes, but I didn't really pay attention since recording new music is the third priority for when I use a computer for creative purposes and I rarely get to my second priority which is making movies.

FaceTime - Apple is going to release a new FaceTime app for the Mac that will allow iPhone4 and iPod Touch users to do FaceTime video chatting with a desktop computer. Very simple and basic app which integrates with the Address Book app.

MacBook Air - A new MacBook Air was announced that is lighter and smaller than the previous generation. It comes with a crazy battery life and a new multi-touch trackpad. There is also an 11" model to go with the 13" model. The craziest part is the starting price for the 11" with a 64GB SSD is $999, which is dramatically lower than the previous MacBook Air.

Overall there were some interesting things. I am most excited about FaceTime and might consider buying iPhoto if only for the full screen move and cleaner UI. Lion is a great first step towards merging the Mac OS X and iOS, but there is nothing completely revolutionary that I can't wait to use.