Technology giant Apple presented the latest version of Mac operating system OS X Lion at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2011.

According to Phil Schiller, senior vice president (worldwide product marketing) of Apple Inc. The Mac is kicking ass and even as the PC market has shrunk by 1 percent, Mac continues to roar by growing 28 percent.

OS X Lion has 250 new features but only 10 features were presented on the opening day of WWDC 2011.

Following are the key 10 features that were demonstrated to the audience:

1. Multi touch gestures – The pinch, swipe and zoom function, that till now were available in iOS now comes to OS X Lion. The scroll bars disappears when not in use and magically appears only when you want to scroll.

2. Full Screen Apps – The apps on Mac are no longer the size of thumbnails. They can now be enlarged to fit the screen and they shout out loud on your face. Feeling daunted? A swipe gesture helps you rotate between full screen apps and your desktop.

3. Mission Control – According to Schiller, it is the best feature of Lion!!! It’s a combination of Expose and Spaces. The best feature is dashboard widgets in case you’re wondering how to get to mission control, it’s easy – it’s three finger swipe up on the trackpad.

4. The Mac App Store – In the last 6 months, the Mac App Store has become No.1 software channel to buy software, beating BestBuy, Walmart and Office Depot. Mac applications. The company boasted that Mac App Store is doing very well and many developers' revenues have doubled. Mac App Store is now built into Lion and In App Purchases (IAP) are now available in Mac App Store. Other new features are Push Notifications and built-in sandboxing for added security. Updates are also faster, thanks to Delta updates i.e. Mac users will now only download the relevant update and not the entire app/software

5. LaunchPad – Like iPhone users, Mac users will now be able to show all Mac Apps on the home screen and rearrange the apps or group them in folders. It’s initiated by a gestures and multiple screens are possible just like in iPhone.

6. Resume – Like iPhone users, Mac users will now be able to instantly resume an application where he/she had quit. The Resume feature is useful when you have to restart your system after installing software or something.

7. Auto Save – Lion will automatically be able to save frequently what you’re working on. The Auto Save function is possibly the most useful and important feature of Lion. You can also lock a file to prevent it from being auto saved.

8. Versions – The Lion can save all versions of the file you’re working on. It’s automatic and very efficient. It only stores the differences in each file and when you want to share a file, it only sends the latest version of the file. You can also copy paste between versions and make any version the current one. A time machine-like interface also allows you to see all the versions of your file.

9. AirDrop – The AirDrop feature is a very convenient way to move files between two computers. AirDrop is a sort of Wi-Fi based peer-to-peer file moving utility. Auto discovery and setup makes AirDrop a user friendly feature. AirDrop will show you a list of people you can share your files with. Sending files is a child’s play – just drag and drop the file on the AirDrop logo to send it. Fully encrypted transfer and confirm to send and receive files make AirDrop a secure method of file sharing.

10. Mail – The Mail feature in Lion now comes with a snazzy, cool brand new interface. Now you get 2 to 3 column view that works in full screen. The search function in Mail has become more intelligent, giving prompts for searches. Now you can search by people, by subjects, etc. What you searched for, becomes a “search token” and yes, we can have more than one token. Lion Mail also brings you message threads that are color coded. The new conversation view is possibly inspired by Gmail.

These 10 features make OS X Lion a formidable beast of prey among operating systems. What’s more, Lion now will be available in Mac App Store and it will no longer come on an optical disk. The transition will make Lion cost much less. Earlier, software cost $129 but now the downloadable only version, which weighs about 4GB, will cost $29.99. You just purchase it once and can use it on multiple Macs.

Mac OS X Lion was made available to developers on Monday. For everyone else, it will be available in July.

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