WWDC 2011: 250 new features coming with Mac OS X Lion (here's ten of them)

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The Mac OS X Lion segment of the WWDC 2011 keynote has just begun. Apple previously previewed some of the features last Fall and on their homepage, including  iPad-like Launchpad, full-screen apps, deep multi-touch gestures integration, and Mission Control. There are more than 250 new features in Lion and Apple will be demoing ten today, most of the stuff we’ve seen already.

Go past the fold for an overview of the feaures… We’re updating this story with new capabilities as Phil Schiller reveals them on stage at San Francisco’s Moscone West. For other keynote news, check out the complete WWDC 2011 coverage and follow us @9to5mac.

• he describes how Apple has learned from multitouch gestures on iPhone and iPad and applied that to Lion; you can swipe through Safari’s history, quickly switch between full-screen apps, swipe to reveal desktop, a bunch of window control gestures
• full-screen apps that work like on iPad
• Mission Control to help keep your screen clutter free; Schiller says it’s “the best feature of Lion” because it matters on notebooks the most; deleting a space recollect all its windows on your desktop; flipping between windows using a three-finger swipe
• Facial recognition now applied to Photo Booth, which can now track your face; he calls it “targeted facial enhancements”
• Mac App Store, taking us through the familiar features of Apple’s software bazaar for desktop apps; Mac App Store apps will get in-app purchases, just like their iOS counterparts
• goes through Launchpad, shows how to move the app icons around and create folders, like on iOS devices
• Resume, a system-wide feature in Lion automatically saves your every step in apps so you never lose your work; demoes Resume after a reboot, it automagicaly restores all apps and windows to their pre-reboot state, even down to the selected text in the Pages app; the feature is seamless and works with documents, too, allowing you to go back in time through your document history and easily revert to an earlier versions; revisions only store differences, thus saving disk space; put simply, it’s like a Time Machine for your documents
• now onto AirDrop, a wireless file sharing technology with zero setup needed;accessed from Finder, AirDrop lets you view all computers around you and drag-and-drop a file to send to others; upon receiving and downloading the file, it gets saved to their Downloads folder

• Lion comes with a new version of Mail; It looks like on iPad, with an all-new design, new multi-column view and conversation view which also supports attachments and is compatible with folks who don’t run Lion; search in Mail is also improved and you can combine multiple searches very easily; it works great in conjunction with seach suggestions that can suggest even email subjects to search for.