Ideas and Form by Joseph Cohen

Lion

Apple’s latest desktop operating system is a big deal. When the company announced Lion, I thought the iPad-inspired enhancements were gimmicky and underwhelming. But after using it for a week, I’ve realized that this latest OS is truly the start of a profound shift from the classic desktop OS to the world of gesture based computing.

Swiping between full screen apps. Zooming with your fingers on the trackpad. Double tapping the mouse for Mission Control. These things make the experience better. It’s quicker to use, more pleasant, and most importantly, it’s more intuitive.

We know that iOS represents the most natural computing platform in history. Instead of directing a small black triangle on a screen that’s 12 inches away from your hand, you just tap whatever you want.

The challenge has always been: how does this control mechanism translate to desktop computing? We know that touchscreen desktops won’t work because our arms will tire from holding them up throughout the day. What Lion shows us is that there can be an intuitive, natural way of using a computer by gesturing – even if you’re not touching the content itself.

They reversed the direction of mouse scrolling! Crazy! But really, they needed to. With Lion, Apple is trying to change the user experience metaphor that has governed OS design since the 80s. It was a symbolic move, but one, to me, that ties together the new interaction paradigm – you interact with the content, not the OS.

Lion - at $29 - seems like an incremental upgrade. But I guarantee that it will prove to be one of Apple’s boldest moves in defining how we interact with computers of the future.