WWDC: Lion, iOS, and iCloud, OH MY!

Apple had their annual WWDC this week, and sweet fancy moses was there a lot of news and announcements. I found myself overwhelmed at all the new information, and what it meant personally and professionally.

Apple showed off another demo of Lion, and while there is not that much new information, its still nice to see the improvements. I’m really excited to run Lion full time, as I have been testing it part time. Versions and Autosave are going to be life savers. The new Mail is very usable. The interface looks better. Of course, there are some changes I don’t like (such as Spaces), but overall its very nice. Obviously I can’t talk about too much without breaking the NDA, but I do love it. Once big downside is its only available on the App Store. I hope that changes, I need a DVD. Read more about it from Ars Technica.

While we’ve already know about most of Lion’s features, we haven’t heard anything about iOS 5. And now that Apple has demoed it, I think we should be blown away. The notification system in previous versions was built when there wasn’t a push notification system- and only dealt with texts, voicemails, and missed calls. It was very scalable, so when the third part apps started using it, the usability was a nightmare: notifications took over, and if you missed one- too bad. The new system with a scrolling list on the lock screen and the pull down menu is a wonderful way to solve the scalability and usability problems. And after using it for a few days, I never want to go back.

Three more features I love: Apple also announced iMessage, which is basically free text messages between iOS devices. Time to finally stop paying outrageous prices for texts. iOS finally supports wireless syncing which means I don’t have to plug in all the time. And one other feature is the camera can now be accessed from the lock screen, and it can use the volume up button for a shutter button- both much needed functions. Read more about iOS 5 at Ars Technica.

So after blowing us away with that, Apple revealed iCloud. Wow, just wow. If it works as well as they say it will, its a game changer. iCloud will be the central store for all kinds of content, from music and movies to pictures and documents. Not only that, developers can use iCloud to sync data between devices. This has be unbelievable excited- especially because its free! Read more about iCloud at Ars Technica (yes again!)

Whew! That was a lot of new information coming out of Cupertino. Now we want for them to be releases to see how well they work in the wild. And we’ll look out for that elusive iPhone 5!