The release date is nearing for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and there are many obvious indications that Apple's next generation operating system is designed to be touch screen friendly and be ready for ultra-high resolution Mac's. When Apple first announced Mac OS X Lion, they said "We’re taking our best thinking from iPad and bringing it all to the Mac", I don't believe that Apple will change the user interface of Mac OS X just to make it look more like an iPad and leave it at that. Lets have a look at some features of Mac OS X Lion that indicate a touch screen friendly environment.

Mission Control in Mac OS X Lion

Launchpad is a prime example. Launchpad gives you an iPad style access to all your apps. By clicking on the Launchpad icon. All open windows fade away and are replaced by a full screen iPad looking display of all apps. There you can swipe to go to the next page, view & create folders, launch applications just like an iPad. Now by using the mouse, it's actually more quicker and efficient to click on the Applications icon and then click on the desired application to launch, which is one of the current ways to launch an application in Mac OS X. However if the Mac was touch screen, you can click on Launchpad, and use your fingers on the screen to navigate Launchpad.

Launchpad in Mac OS X Lion

Gestures and animations is another indication that Lion is preparing for touch screen Macs.  Mac OS X lion has included many more gestures that are currently used in iOS powered devices like the iPad. This includes rubber-band scrolling, page and image zoom, pinch, and full-screen swiping. Some of these gestures will be difficult on the current Magic Mouse and Trackpad and are only practical on touch screens.

Finally, the inclusion of full-screen applications. Applications like Mail, iCal, iPhoto, and Preview will be in full screen. This gives Mac OS X an iOS feel, but will also possibly activate touch screen for these applications. Just by looking at the Mail application, you can see the interface is clean and very iPad like, which will make Mail touch screen friendly.

Mail 5 in Full Screen

Mac OS X Lion won't abandon the use of a mouse and keyboard. I believe that Apple will integrate the mouse and keyboard along with touch screen. This will give Mac OS X the best of both worlds, a hybrid of keyboard, mouse/trackpad, and touch screen. As not everything is practical using touch screen but some features will be easier just by touch rather than point and click.

As soon as the new iMac hit the stores, iFixit quickly got a 21.5inch model and tore it down to see what new components have been included in the new Thunderbolt iMac.

One of the main differences they have noticed is the GPU is no longer attached to the logic board. The GPU is now present on a separate small card that can be detached from the logic board. This makes part replacement more efficient and cost effective. Which means that if you fry your GPU, you no longer need to replace the entire logic board.

The other difference they found is the optional SSD drive bay, as this is now available for the 21.5inch model. This is located beneath the optical DVD drive. The optional SSD drive was previously only available on the 27inch model.

Apple has released it's second commercial for the iPad 2. The commercial is named 'If You Asked' and the theme is similar to Apple's previous iPad 2 commercial.

If you ask a parent, they might call it intuitive. If you ask a musician, they might call it inspiring. To a doctor, it's groundbreaking. To a CEO, it's powerful. To a teacher, it's the future. If you ask a child, she might call it magic. And if you asked us, we'd say it's just getting started."

The commercial can be viewed on Youtube or the Apple website.

Apple has released the all new refreshed iMac series. As expected the new iMac is powered by Intel's new (Sandy Bridge) Core i processors. This time all iMac's have Quad-Core processors, all models come with Intel Core i5 processors as standard with Core i7 processors an option in the Apple Online Store.

The Thunderbolt I/O has been added to the new iMac range. The Thunderbolt port allows transfer speeds of up to 10-Gbps, this is about 20 x faster than USB 2.0 and 12 x faster than Firewire 800. All iMacs now have 2 x Thunderbolt ports,  1 x Firewire 800 port, 4 x USB 2.0 ports, Audio-in & Audio-out port.

The graphics have been upgraded with AMD Radeon 6750M & 6770M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory as the standard graphics power houses. The highest iMac model offers a Radeon 6970M with 1GB or 2GB  of memory. In addition, the new iMac comes with a HD Facetime Camera in all models, this allows you to make video calls at 720p resolution.

The iMac's body still remains the same, with 21.5 inch and 27inch displays. The new iMac's offers much welcomed upgrades under the hood and we will likely see a significant performance increase to the previous iMac range.

According to reports from AppleInsider, the next update for the iMac is due in about a weeks time. The new iMac range is expected to be powered by Intel's new Core i (Sandy Bridge) processors. In addition the miniDisplay port will be replaced with Thunderbolt, which was introduced to the MacBook Pro in February. The new Thunderbolt I/O will allow you to connect external displays, external hard drives and other peripherals with data transfer rates of up to 10 Gbps.

The new iMac will still have the same aluminium Unibody design like the previous model in 21.5inch and 27inch screens. More than likely the graphics will be updated with a faster GPU, they will all have ATI graphics due to a dispute with Intel and nVidia, thus not allowing nVidia graphics to be paired with Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors.