More than one million users download Apple's OS X Lion

Updated:  More than one million users have bought and downloaded OS X Lion in one day.

In a press statement released today, Apple said in one day, more than one million users worldwide had bought and downloaded its new operating system, the eighth major release of the OS from the company.

The company said users were buying Lion faster than any other OS release in its history.

Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Philip Schiller said Lion was off to a great start.

"User reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic."

The new OS has been likened to its mobile equivalent iOS, a move which has received both positive and negative reviews.

The OS is available from the Mac App Store for $NZ38.99.

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Apple’s new operating system Lion is on sale, following a third quarter net profit of $7.31 billion, up 125%.

OS X Lion is available for download for $38.99 from the Mac App Store and has been hailed as a “giant step” in the merger of personal computers and smart devices such as tablets and smartphones by the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times also saw many iPad-style features in what it calls a "shake up" and a "radical" upgrade. One of the radical twists is that the new OS is download-only; it's a 4GB download.

The operating system, which requires 2GB of memory and 7GB of available space, incorporates multi-touch gestures, including pinch zoom, swipe to switch between applications, and swipe to Mission Control, a feature which allows a full-screen view of everything on the system.

Apple has also introduced inverse scrolling, where users scroll up to go down a page, a feature which has received uncertain reviews in the tech world.

Another of Lion's more than 250 new features is Resume, where apps reopen where the user left off and Auto Save, which saves automatically every five minutes or during pauses, with a Revert feature to return the document to its last opening state.  Each Auto Save produces a ‘version’ and users can view all versions in a stack, switching back to an older version, or copy and pasting from one to another.

Mail is described as a “whole new take on email” by Apple, with a widescreen view, full height messages and a list that includes snippets. 

Reports are that the upgrade to Lion, from Snow Leopard, can be a slow journey, with half hour speeds on fast connections.  However Apple has apparently said its stores would help users with the download and would sell Lion on a USB drive for $69 in August.

To upgrade, users need OS X v10.6.6 or later, and must upgrade to the latest version of Snow Leopard before they can proceed to Lion.

Record results
The new operating system release follows on from Apple’s recent third quarter results, which saw a quarterly net profit of $7.31 billion, compared $3.25 billion for the 2010 fiscal third quarter.

The company sold 3.95 million Macs, a 14% increase on the 2010 quarter, and with the release of Lion, this number might be set to continue growing.

Apple also announced saled of 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142% unit growth from the 2010 quarter, and 9.25 million iPads, representing a 183% growth.

Chief executive Steve Jobs said it was Apple’s best quarter ever, with revenue up 82% to $28.57 billion, and profits up 125%.