The other main highlights from my perspective: "App Nap" energy-saving API (p. 13), generally better battery life, even on old hardware (p. 18), & support for offline speech-to-text (p. 23).
I wonder when airplanes are going to be new again, or books, or cars. Maybe you mean everything related to computers? I am not sure of even that though...
These kinds of things are best handled as an integrated component of the operating system, rather than a hacky third party add on, and are likely more viable now that we have so much more available CPU time, on multiple cores so it doesn't even impact latency, and better compression algorithms.
Also note that Ram Doubler, per the Ambrosia Software description, didn't just do compression, it also re-used free RAM that other applications had allocated to them while they weren't running, depending on the cooperative multitasking nature of the operating system to avoid conflicts. Before yielding, it would either compress or swap out that "borrowed" RAM.
A properly virtual memory system and cooperative multitasking make these techniques not particularly useful, while improvements in technology since have made compressed RAM more useful.
Considering I've had this feature enabled and running in my Android kernel on my phone 2 generations back, I'd hardly say this is "in the works".
It's actually real live tech and has been for quite a while.
Not to nitpick details, but you make it sounds like Apple is pioneering new ground here. They aren't.
Did you see the Wired article headline? http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/apple-ends-paid-oses/
The LWN article is about it shipping with the Linus kernel.
Apple systems still leave a lot to be desired if you are serious about 3D work. And the new Mac Pro does not seem to be worthwhile of a 3D workstation.