1. Multi-Touch Gestures

Multi-Touch gestures transform the way you interact with your Mac, making all you do more intuitive and direct. Now an even richer Multi-Touch experience comes to OS X Lion. Enjoy more fluid and realistic gesture responses, including rubber-band scrolling, page and image zoom, and full-screen swiping.Learn more about gestures and animations

Full-Screen Apps

OS X Lion offers systemwide support for gorgeous, 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. Learn more about full-screen apps

Mission Control

Mission Control brings together full-screen apps, Dashboard, Exposé, and Spaces in one new feature that gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything on your system. With a single swipe on the trackpad, your desktop zooms out to Mission Control. Think of it as the hub of your system: View everything and go anywhere with just a click.Learn more about Mission Control

Mac App Store

The best way to discover apps for your Mac is now on your Mac. Just like the App Store on iPad, 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.Learn more about the Mac App Store

Launchpad

Launchpad gives you instant access to all the apps on your Mac. Just click the Launchpad icon in your Dock. Your open windows fade away, replaced by a display of all your apps. Arrange your apps any way you want, group them together in folders, or delete them from your Mac with ease. And when you download an app from the Mac App Store, it automatically appears in Launchpad, ready to blast off. Learn more about Launchpad

Resume

Now apps you close will reopen right where you left off, so you never have to start from scratch again. And when you install software updates, you no longer need to save your work, close your apps, and spend valuable time setting everything up again. With Resume, you can restart your Mac and return to what you were doing — with all your apps in the places where you left them.

Auto Save

It’s time to stop worrying about saving your work. Because now your Mac automatically saves what you’re working on so you don’t have to. It’s not just an improvement for OS X, it’s an improvement for anyone who’s ever lost hours of hard work after forgetting to press Command-S.Learn more about Auto Save and Versions

Versions

Versions is a new feature that charts the history of your documents, taking snapshots in time, and displaying them side by side with the latest versions in an easily browsable timeline. You can review the past iterations of your compositions, restore a previous version, or copy and paste from old versions to new ones.Learn more about Auto Save and Versions

AirDrop

Looking for a fast way to share files with people nearby? With AirDrop, you can send files to anyone around you wirelessly — no Wi-Fi network required. And no complicated setup or special settings. Just click the AirDrop icon in the Finder sidebar, and your Mac automatically discovers other AirDrop users within about 30 feet of you. To share a file, simply drag it to someone’s name. Once accepted, the fully encrypted file transfers directly to that person’s Downloads folder.

Mail

OS X Lion introduces a whole new take on email. Mail puts your entire display to work with a gorgeous widescreen view featuring a full-height message and a message list that includes snippets. The Conversations feature presents messages from the same thread in an elegant timeline showing each communication as it was sent while hiding redundant text. Mail also features search suggestions and search tokens, which help you find the messages you’re looking for fast. A new favorites bar gives you easy access to the folders you use most often. And now with iCloud, you get a free me.com email account that’s always up to date everywhere you check it. Learn more about Mail

iCloud

iCloud stores your music, photos, calendars, and more and wirelessly pushes them to your iOS devices and Mac. And it’s free with OS X Lion. iTunes in the iCloud automatically downloads the songs and TV shows you buy on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac. And Photo Stream puts your photos everywhere you want them — new pictures you take on your iOS device automatically show up on your Mac, and the ones you import to your iPhoto or Aperture library from a digital camera automatically appear on your iOS devices. iCloud also keeps your email, contacts, calendars, and Safari Reading List and bookmarks up to date everywhere you need them. And if you’re away from home, Back to My Mac lets you access your Mac remotely. Read more iCloud tips.

Find My Mac

Stuff happens. Luckily, if you lose your Mac, iCloud has ways to find it and keep it safe. Sign into icloud.com from another computer or use the Find My iPhone app on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to locate your missing Mac on a map. If your Mac is offline when you try to find it, you can ask to receive an email as soon as it makes a Wi-Fi connection. You can also display a message on your Mac screen so whoever has it knows how to get it back to you. And until your Mac is back in safe hands, you can remotely set a passcode lock, or even initiate a remote wipe to delete your personal data and restore your Mac to its factory settings.

Lion Server

OS X Lion Server includes a host of enhancements that give you more control of your Mac server and the users who access it. The Server app — new in Lion Server — 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. You can even send updates to your users wirelessly via push notifications. Lion Server also adds file-sharing capabilities for iPad; includes improvements to Wiki Server, iCal Server, and Mail Server; and comes with Xsan built in. Learn more about Lion Server.