This week Apple gave the world an early look at their forthcoming operating system, and tech journalists got their first peek at some of the concepts driving development of Apple’s next desktop operating system, dubbed Mac OS X Lion.

Could the company be preparing to bring one of the most frequently demanded features, a fully functional Mac OS, to the iPad?

Our brief glimpse of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion told us one thing: Apple is attempting to bridge the gap between their mobile platform, iOS, and their Mac operating system, Mac OS X. When it arrives next year, Mac OS X 10.7 will bring new several staple features of iOS 4 to Apple’s Mac computers, specifically Launchpad, an icon-focused interface that arranges all of your available apps, complete with app folders, just as they would appear on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, on your Mac desktop. Unlike a full iOS interface, however, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion makes the system toggleable, and users will still have access to the dock, desktop, and menus of a full Mac OS

Furthermore, apps designed for Mac OS X 10.7 will feature full screen modes that occupy your entire desktop or laptop screen, much like an iPad app, and will support trackpad gesture controls that could easily be applied to a touchscreen interface.

Primary among those drivers, as Apple chief executive Steve Jobs announced, was bringing to Lion what Apple had learned from its experience with the successful iPad tablet. Like the iPad, Lion will run apps from a similar central app store. A new Launchpad for apps and a Mission Control feature will combine the talents of Spaces, Exposé, and Dashboard.

Jobs announced that Lion would emerge in the summer of 2011, but the Mac App Store will open within 90 days. Another anticipated Mac OS feature is coming along much sooner: Facetime for Mac, which will let Mac users make video calls with iPhone 4 and iPod touch users. It is available now. So it’s not part of Lion, but coming already for Snow Leopard.

Multitouch support was another much-predicted feature for Lion, but Jobs was careful to state that it wouldn’t be in the form the pundits expected. Apple researchers determined that multitouch doesn’t work on vertical screens, because of arm fatigue. Instead, Lion’s multitouch support will be for larger trackpads. If you want multitouch on an actual screen, you’ll have to get an iPad.

Over 7 billion iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch apps have been downloaded from the Apple App store, and then the ipad or ipod touch ursers transfer music from ipad to mac , Jobs noted that there will still be places other than the store to get Mac apps. Installation will be as easy as it is on the iPhone, and developers will get the same 70 percent of revenue on paid apps.

“We think bringing some of these things back from iPad to Mac, with some fresh new things like Mission Control, will really delight Mac users,” Jobs said. With all the attention bestowed on the iPad and iPhone, it’s about time Mac users get to enjoy some of the delight. This was just a first glimpse, but it’s promising. We’ll be there when it debuts.

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