It seemed as if it happened overnight. One day I was fighting with Lion to make it more like Snow Leopard, and the next I was wishing all my computers were Lion operated. Lion had, entirely imperceptibly, won my heart. What changed?

In short, I did. Once I’d become accustomed to my grievances, I couldn’t stop noticing how fast I was getting things done. Features like Safari’s Reading List are no joke -- it replaced my entirely dysfunctional group of folders filled with miscellaneous bookmarks. Adding links to Reading List is as easy as Shift-clicking a link -- it’s not something you’ll accidentally do, but it’s as quick and dirty as any keyboard shortcut. If you haven’t seen it, the unassuming glasses icon sits directly left of the open-book icon in Safari’s toolbar.

Mission Control—much more than a spruced-up Exposé.

And speaking of unassuming, Mission Control might just seem like a rebranded Exposé, but with 20 or more open windows, its grouping and stacking makes a world of difference. A lack of Spaces might have stung me initially, but I found the new spaces (Apple’s name for the areas where your apps are full-screened) to be very intuitive. Three-finger swiping is the new Command-Tab, and even if navigating through your open files is a tad messier as a result, it’s also much faster.

If you’ve never learned any gestures, now might be a good time to start. Even if they seem overwhelming at first, once you learn one or two of them (three-finger swipe up to use Mission Control, three-finger swipe to the left to open the Dashboard), you’ll fly from app to app. Learn them all and you could conceivably go entire days without a mouse. I think this is going to sell a lot of Magic Trackpads to iMac and Mac Pro users.

Multi-Touch gestures are easy to learn and incredibly valuable.

And then we have those System Preferences. Sorting through them filled me with the awe that Charlie must have felt in Willie Wonka’s factory. There are preferences for everything! Rearranging spaces based on most-recent use made it possible to navigate my windows even more efficiently, and to get the most out of the new full-screen apps feature, you can check a box that opens all new windows in a new space. This is comparable to opening a new window in your browser, instead of a new tab, and will largely do away with messy stacks of application windows cluttering up your screen.

The Mac App Store isn’t new, but we still love it.

At the end of the day, living with Lion gave me a much faster workflow and, perhaps more importantly, a little bit of insight into Apple’s strategy for future computers’ OSes. Since using it, I rarely see the Desktop, and it’s certainly conceivable to imagine a future in which your Desktop is delegated to a Dashboard-style exile, all while flicking from app to app. Apple’s plan is apparent and despite my initial reservations -- I’m ready for it.