After yesterday’s earnings call and a stellar third quarter resulting with an 82% increase in revenue, Apple released its Mac Mini and OSX Lion today, July 20.  So what’s new with their products?  Did it bring something innovative, or are these just some minor upgrades that people will rarely notice the difference from previous versions?

OSX Lion

OSX Lion brags about how this brings the PC age closer to the Tablet age.  If you’re thinking that this will make your Mac function like a tablet, as in being able to use touch screen functions, you’re wrong, and just hoping for far too much.  It just makes your Mac function like a tablet, but still with the use of a touch pad for the multi-touch gestures that you love doing on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.  Here are some of the new features that you can expect from the Lion.

Auto-save and Versions –  You don’t have to stop working to save your progress, it automatically does it for you every five minutes or when you pause.   So, no more accidental data loss.  The auto-save creates a ‘version’ of the document which you can browse through.  For security and privacy purposes, you can disable this function and if needed for sharing, only the latest version of the document can be copied.

Resume –  Any program re-launched, even if you power-cycle your Mac, will start where you left off.

Full-screen Apps – View apps or browser tabs in full-screen, while the menu bar and other controls will be hidden, but always available by directing your cursor to the top of the screen.

Launchpad – an iPad-like display of all your apps that you can swipe thru for the next page.

Mission Control – a feature that opens miniature versions of all open windows and full screen apps in just one click.

Gestures – Additional gestures will be recognized, such as double tapping two fingers to resize a portion of a web page or a file.

Mail – This looks more like the Mail app on the iPad.

The OSX Lion is about 4GB and is available only by download.  It will take you roughly 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours to download, depending on your internet connection.  This costs $29.99.  But if you don’t want to download the file, you can wait for August when Apple makes this available in thumb drives, but costs double at $69.99. Whoa.

Some users have already found minor errs with the new OSX Lion, as it is incompatible with older versions of Mac and file migrating is not that easy, requiring additional upgrades for it to be possible.

Mac Mini

The Mac Mini features next generation Intel Core processors, new discrete graphics, high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology and Lion, the world’s most advanced operating system.

“Mac mini delivers the speed and expandability that makes it perfect for the desktop, living room or office,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With faster processors, more powerful graphics and Thunderbolt in an incredibly compact, aluminum design, the new Mac mini is more versatile than ever.”

It has no optical disc drive but can access the disc drives on other PCs and Macs, and works well with the MacBook Air SuperDrive.  It also features ultra-fast Wifi support for faster downloads, Time capsule to store data, AirDrop for faster file transfer, Bluetooth for wireless peripherals and four USB ports for wired peripherals.

The price of the Mac Mini ranges from $599-$999 — $599 for the 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Mac mini with 2GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. The $799 option offers the 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Mac Mini with 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive, and the $999 is for the 2.0 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Mac mini with Lion Server, 4GB of memory and dual 500GB hard drives.  Consumers also have the option to add memory and hard drives.