X
Business

Apple: Mac OS X Lion launching on Wednesday

Apple got official with the launch date for Lion, the next version of Mac OS X. It will be available tomorrow.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Apple got official with the launch date for Lion, the next version of Mac OS X. It will be available tomorrow.

Speaking during the company's quarterly conference call on Tuesday, Apple senior vice president and CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that Lion would be released on Wednesday, July 19.

See also: Apple Q3 a blowout: 20.34 million iPhones; 9.25 million iPads

There have been rumors, almost on a daily basis, about when Lion would finally be released. The most hyped report was that Lion would go on sale last week as rumors swirled that Apple Stores were planning "overnights" with the launch of both Lion and a new MacBook Air expected for either July 14 or 15.

Well, at least for Lion, that story was off by about one week.

Don't forget that the only other way to obtain the new version of Mac OS X is not by buying it in a brick-and-mortar store but rather by downloading it from the Mac App Store. It will be priced at $29.99, and Mac users will need to have the most recent version of Snow Leopard installed on their computers first before upgrading to Lion.

Lion was first introduced during the fall of 2010, but it was showcased in detail during WWDC 2011 in June. The advanced operating system is touted to sport over 250 new features, including multi-touch gestures on track pads, full screen viewing in Safari and other programs, and a significant revamp for Apple Mail. Additionally, Lion is taking on look similar to iOS, signaling Apple's shift to almost unite the operating systems - at least in design and functionality.

Related:

Editorial standards