Here’s the handsome new login screen in the update to OS X Lion Developer Preview 4, that Apple released on Wednesday afternoon.
It’s a dark linen motif, and it’s used in several places in the Lion and iOS 5. We got sneak peek of this color scheme during Steve Jobs’ presentation at WWDC. Now it has been rolled out to developers, and soon to the public. Who’s excited?
Here’s screenshots of some other new stuff in the update (Build number 11A494A). Lion is shaping up nicely:
Here’s the login screen again showing a single user account. There’s a small arrow in the password box that brings up the password hint when clicked. Note the battery indicator, WiFi signal strength and time in the upper right corner. Clicking the clock cycles through the computer name, IP address and current build.
Here is the battery indicator, WiFi and time in more detail.
The graphics glitches that plagued the startup screen have now been fixed, according to reports.
The dark linen background is also used in Mission Control. Invoking Mission Control now defaults to an upward three- or four-finger swipe.
And here is dark linen again, as the folder background in Launchpad.
Earlier versions of the Lion beta suffered from missing icons in Launchpad, which has now been fixed.
The “About This Mac” box has a slightly modified look. Instead of icons there are now just the words: “Displays,” “Storage,” etc. Here is what the old one looks like.
And here is the Storage screen showing current usage of the hard drive (or SSD in this case). There’s a handy link to Disk Utility.
The icons in previous versions of Mail were a little cryptic. A paper airplane to mean send? A new option allows them to show both text and icon. The Mail database has also been updated.
As well as new features, there are new bugs. Two-finger swiping to go back a page in Safari no longer works. However, there is a workaround: Go to System Preferences>Trackpad>More Gestures. Hit the “Swipe between pages” menu and select “Swipe left or right with three fingers.” Voila — it works!
This may not be new but I just noticed it. The Downloads button in Safari includes a blue status bar.
And here is what the Downloads drop-down looks like.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
