Mac OS X Lion is a couple weeks old, and although I’m still a tad skeptical about the blending of the iPad and Mac operating systems, I’m trying my best to embrace the changes and new features.

But there’s one change that seems obvious to me, and I’m confused as to why Apple declined to make the switch in Lion.

I’m talking about the desktop.

Since the birth of modern operating systems, the desktop has served as the place for users to dump all the crap they need (and some they don’t). When you look at most people’s desktops, they’re cluttered with all sorts of icons for shortcuts, documents and poorly named folders.

The small screens of iPhones and iPads don’t have room for that kind of clutter, so Apple smartly left the desktop out of its iOS operating system and replaced it with a grid of app icons that serves as a program launcher.

That same idea made it into OS X Lion in the form of Launchpad – a very simple dock tool that takes over your entire desktop and displays the icons of your apps in an iPad-like grid.

Combine that with Apple’s big push for full-screen apps in Lion, and the desktop just seems unnecessary.

If I was the OS X team, I would have made the Launchpad grid the default function of the desktop and routed all file and folder management through the Finder.

The magic of the iPhone and iPad is their simplicity, and part of that is the ability to rearrange the homescreen and keep your device organized with so little effort. No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to make an iPhone screen look cluttered.

So why not bring the same level of simplicity to the Mac? Kill the idea of traditional icons on the desktop and make it the home of your wallpaper and nothing more. The current approach to the desktop is just an invitation for disorganization and confusion – two things that will lead users to detest their Mac instead of adoring it.

I demanded titillation, and Apple delivered. Let’s jump right into the highlights of Monday’s keynote announcement.

• iOS 5 stole the show. The look of the new notification system blew me away, and I love that Apple will be making the lock screen useful with widgets.

• Lion is enroute. The next version of Mac OS X was the only software product Apple discussed on Monday that will be available in the immediate future. Lion has an unspecific release date of “July” right now, will cost just $29 and be available only through the Mac App Store.

• Who needs a real digital camera? iOS 5 will make the iPhone’s camera even more convenient, adding a lock screen shortcut and giving you the option to take pictures with the volume button.

• The official Apple to-do list is here. For six years, I’ve begged for a native iOS task list program that syncs with MobileMe and iCal. It’s finally here with the Reminders app in iOS 5, and the way it was described in the keynote made it sound like Apple just invented the idea of a to-do list.

• Now you can actually find magazines! One of my other major complaints about the iOS ecosystem has been how difficult Apple makes it to find newspapers and magazines in the App Store – especially since the company markets the iPad as a news consumption device. iOS 5 adds a tool called Newsstand that partially fixes the problem by organizing your subscriptions in a central location.

• MobileMe is still barely alive. As I sort of predicted yesterday, Apple killed the MobileMe brand in favor of iCloud but held on to the @me.com domain for email addresses. It will create a little confusion, but there was no way the company could sell the public on @icloud.com addresses.

• Apple only wants to store some of your pictures. MobileMe has a gallery feature that lets you store and share photos online, and it sounds like it will be replaced by something in iCloud called Photo Stream. Pictures you take on your iPhone or iPad will automatically be uploaded to iCloud and simultaneously downloaded to your Macs. However, there are data restrictions on Photo Stream that make the service slightly less thrilling. Apple says it will only store your photos on iCloud for 30 days, which means you’ll still have to find other places to back up your picture libraries.

• iTunes was almost an afterthought. Experts and bloggers have been contemplating the idea of iTunes in the cloud for months and months. Then Monday arrived, and Steve Jobs spent literally five minutes of his presentation explaining how iCloud will handle music. The essence is this: you can now download iTunes purchases on as many devices as you want, but there are no subscription or streaming options, and you’ll have to pay $25 a year if you want iCloud to host non-iTunes songs.
  
  Personally, I was happy to not have the focus of iCloud be on the music factor. Until Apple goes after the Rdio/Spotify/Rhapsody model of subscriptions for unlimited music, there’s only so much value the cloud can add.

Four score and many years ago, the wise members of an intellectual group known as *NSYNC spoke of a world in which sexual activity could exist solely through a computer interface. I believe they referred to this hypothesis as a “digital digital get down.”

Well, it took a while – but the idea proposed by those forward-thinking dance machines is finally becoming a reality. (On an unrelated note, is Chris Kirkpatrick still alive, or did his hair eat the rest of his body?)

First up is a bizarre invention from the Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo. It’s a computer accessory that you stick in your mouth and make out with. Then in theory, someone on the other end of the Internet sticks a similar device in his or her mouth and can experience your french kissing technique without having to actually look at your face or digest your saliva. (You can get a taste of this magical device here.)

At the same level of creepiness is a new iPhone app called Mobile Make Out. You really have to watch the promotional video below to get the full effect. The app displays a pair of cartoon lips on the screen and invites you to smush your face against them in order to satisfy your longing for intimate contact.

Although the thought of lipgloss smeared across a beautiful iPhone retina display makes me want to vomit, I can understand how a lonely individual might get desperate enough to make out with a smartphone. However, the strategy behind the app does not follow the same logic. Mobile Make Out only works if you are linked up with another user over a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection.

Hold on a second – if you are close enough to a person to share a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection, shouldn’t you just kiss that person’s actual lips? Apparently the science is too advanced for my brain – perhaps Joey Fatone can explain it to me.

It’s been a few months since I switched from an HTC Droid Incredible to the Verizon iPhone, and the only time I ever miss my old Android is when I get in the car. The Android operating system features the full Google Maps suite, which includes turn-by-turn navigation and essentially replaces any other GPS device you have.

The iPhone, on the other hand, has a Google Maps app – but no native support for turn-by-turn navigation. It’s frustrating because obviously the technology exists, yet Google is in no rush to bring it to the iPhone since the two companies are such major rivals in the mobile space.

The selection of third party navigation apps in the iOS App Store is decent, but you’re going to have to pay up if you want a true GPS experience. Right now I’m getting by with the free Mapquest app and just praying I don’t get lost and actually need to use it.

However, there is hope. Deep within Apple’s press release following the location tracking scandal in April was this little Q&A:

What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? 

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

The wording is mighty vague – what kind of traffic is Apple talking about? Street traffic? Data traffic? Drug trafficking? It sounds like it could be a while before we find out, but getting a native navigation app in iOS 5 sometime this year would be a very pleasant surprise.

You’ll find a lot of fitness apps for iOS, Android and every other mobile operating system that help you track your eating habits and manage your diet. Some even include a barcode scanning feature that will automatically look up the nutritional content of those stale Doritos you found in your trunk and add them to your food journal.

A new app called Meal Snap takes this idea even further – and maybe it goes a little too far. With Meal Snap, all you have to do is take a picture of your plate with your iPhone and then wait for it to be “analyzed.” Somehow the app deciphers what food is in the picture and tells you how many calories you are about to consume. There are no barcodes to scan or search terms to type. In fact, counting calories with Meal Snap requires practically no effort at all.

And that illustrates the only gripe I have with the app. There’s no doubt the technology behind Meal Snap is super cool (it’s clearly inspired by Google Goggles), but the laziness factor concerns me. Chances are, if you are looking for ways to track your diet, then you are probably worried about getting in shape or worried about staying in shape. Either way, you’re not going to get the sexy physique you want by being lazy, and I feel like the ultra-automated nature of this app promotes a slothful attitude.

Counting calories on your phone is a great way to track what you eat and help you stay on a diet, but when doing it gets so easy that you don’t even have to think, it loses some of its value.