Android, Windows and Linux Getting Huge Makeovers

Apple's flagship computer operating system, Mac OS X, has seen a long series of incremental improvements since it was first released in 2001. With its latest release, though, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple has started to incorporate concepts from its iOS operating system (for iPads and iPhones) into its Mac computers.

That's the trend that's sweeping the computer and mobile worlds right now: Turning desktop OSes into mobile ones, by bringing the concepts from simplified mobile OSes up to the desktop and making computers into iPad-style "app consoles," to use the phrase coined by John Gruber of Daring Fireball. Meanwhile, Google's open-source Android operating system is developing a style of its own, beyond just being a bare-bones smartphone OS. Read more...