You might be familiar with the File > Duplicate (Command-D) command in Finder. New in OS X Lion is the function “Duplicate Exactly”. You can access Duplicate Exactly by pressing Command-Option-Shift keys while in the File menu. The “Duplicate” menu item will change to “Duplicate Exactly”. Or you can just press the keys Command-Option-Shift-D.

When you choose the normal “Duplicate” command, OS X will create a copy of the file and set the file owner to your login account. “Duplicate Exactly” will create a copy of the file but the ownership of the file follows the source, thus ensuring the exact same file even for file permissions.

New in OS X Lion is the build-in support for Emoji characters. Feeling moody or a little playful? You can now add smiley faces and cute animals to your email, chat or the monthly report. In TextEdit, Pages. iChat or any apps that support this system feature, select from menu File > Special Characters… or press Command-Option-T. A “Characters” window will popup. Select Emoji from the sidebar. Choose the category such as “People” or Nature”, and double-click on a character to place it into your document or chat window.

As you may have discovered by now, OS X Lion has killed the “File > Save As…” command. The change has taken effect in apps such as TextEdit, Preview and Pages. More apps are expected to follow suite when they update to support OS X Lion.

The “File > Save As…” function is now sorted of being replaced by the new “File > Duplicate” command. But there are differences. This is a big deal if you rely heavily on “Save As…” in your document workflow, as the new ”File > Duplicate” command double the steps required.

In the old way using “File > Save As…”, you simply enter a new document name, click the Save button, and you can start working on the new document.

When you issue “File > Duplicate” command, a new document window will appear with a copy of the same document content. You then have to issue “File > Save…” to actually save the new document as file.

This changes might appear more consumer friendly, but it is a pain to adjust to for many who are used to the long time computing “File > Save As…” workflow.

iCal the calendar app in Mac OS X Lion has a new trick. You can create calendar events using plain English. Click on the icon with a plus sign or press Command-N to activate the Quick Event pop-up. Enter your calendar event in plain English, for example “Dinner with Sarah Friday at 7pm”. Press Enter and the event will be created for you on the calendar.

You can create multi days event by keying the start and end date. For example “Year end holidays from Nov 22 to Nov 28″.  For one thing, you can’t specify “next weekday/week/month” with Quick Event such as “Movie with Sam next Saturday 8pm”. Let’s hope iCal will improve on this feature for future release. But for now, using plain English is a better way than entering the event date/time manually.

Jenga for the iOS is possibly the best electronic approximation of a game of physical blocks. This is the official game designed with the help of the original Jenga creator Leslie Scott. The standard poke, flick and pull controls are all translated to your mobile screens, except for the tactile feedback. The game now even sports online multiplayer mode for emulating the social nature of the physical game. And there is a version for the Mac as well.

Jenga for iPhone

Jenga HD for iPad

Jenga for Mac

Apple has delayed the requirement for all apps in the Mac App Store to be sandboxed till March 01, 2012. The original date is November 1, apparently there are issues preventing the enforcement. This is a relief for developers with apps in the Mac App Store, most are rushing to change their apps in order to meet the sandbox requirement.

When an app is sandboxed, it is more secure to the users as the app is limited on what it can access on the Mac. This is similar to the sandboxed environment of iOS. By limiting access to system resources, app also is limited to what it can do. This is especially apparent for utilities apps which most often than not are manipulating system resources. Certain type of system access is forbidden under sandbox, thus we might see a number of existing Mac App Store apps drop out after March next year.

Sanbox requirement applies to apps on the Mac App Store. For apps that you downloaded or install via disc, it is still the same open world as before.

Mac Pro is the only Mac left that has not been upgraded this year. The last Mac Pro update is August 2010. One reason cited for the delay is the lack of a suitable Sandy Bridge Xeon Intel processor, which is said to debut only in earlier 2012. There is also wild speculation at the moment of Apple “rethinking” their Mac Pro line.

Desktop Mac currently consists of Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro. With desktop range of Mac declining in sales in favor of notebook Mac,  there is a possibility that Apple might cancel it’s Mac Pro line, in the footstep of Xserve server line which was canceled end January this year. The truth is, Mac Pro is a very niche workstation class of computer, its sales number might not justify its attention for resource inside Apple.

We are hoping Apple will keep the Mac Pro line, with a brand new case design. A case that is smaller than the current one, and is convertible to be rack-mountable. But we see Apple shifting to be more and more focus on the consumer market, and will not be surprised if the end of Mac Pro is announced.

New in OS X Lion’s Finder is the ability to quickly group items into a folder. You can select multiple items (file or folder) under a Finder window or on the Desktop, right click for the menu and select “New Folder with Selection”. This saves the one step of creating a folder first and dragging the items into it.

Apps that are installed into the system folder “Applications” will appear in Launchpad. This include apps from the Mac App Store.

To remove the apps from appearing in Launchpad, you have to remove the app. There is no way to hide an app installed into ”Applications” from appearing in Launchpad.

To remove the app, simply remove it from the “Applications” folder. To remove the app from within Launchpad, click and hold on the app icon until you see all icons jiggle. The click on the “x” button on the app icon to delete the app. Mac App Store apps that are deleted can be easily reinstall from Mac App Store under the “Purchases” tab.

If you have too many apps, one way to organize the Launchpad is to make use of folder. For example, create a folder to keep apps that you seldom use. To create a folder in Launchpad, simply drag an app icon into another app icon. A folder will then be created that houses the two apps.

With the introduction of iOS 5 and iCloud, it is possible to use your iPhone and iPad without owning a Mac or PC. In iOS 5, a number of features are introduced to fulfill the “Post PC” era of iDevices.

Activate from within device. Instead of having to plug your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into an iTunes running Mac or PC to activate the device, iOS 5 allows you to activate directly from within the device.

OTA (Over-The-Air) Software Update. OTA Software Update will make it possible to update iOS system software wirelessly. When Apple release a new update let say iOS 5.1, just go to Settings > Software Update to upgrade. No iTunes and Mac/PC required. Apple implements delta update mechanism. Instead of the whole iOS, you only download what’s changed, which significantly reduced the size of the update.

Purchased apps, music and books in the cloud. Apps, music and books that you purchased from the iTunes store are now in iCloud. You can re-download them into your iDevice without relying on iTunes backup.

Backup to iCloud. When you enable backup to iCloud, it backs up daily over Wi-Fi your photos and video in the camera roll, device settings, app data, home screen and app organization, ringtones and text/MMS messages. This backup can be used to restore your phone data and settings such as when changing a new phone.