OS X: Apple announces Mountain Lion

A small surprise, Apple has lifted the veil – at least partly – on OS X Mountain Lion which will be available in the Mac App Store late summer, 2012.

Mac OS X will have a ninth update nicknamed OS X Mountain Lion. They have abandoned using the Mac term for qualifying the desktop version of their OS. This engine will be offered to Mac users late in the summer of 2012 via the Mac App Store, which has now become the traditional release pathway. Developers already have access to a pre-version.

Like Lion started to do, Mountain Lion will come with numerous functions taken from the iPhone and iPad to try and slowly merge OS X and iOS. iChat has for example been replaced by Messages which is similar to iMessage in iOS 5 for sending an unlimited number of messages for free to any other user on a Mac, iPhone, iPad (or even an iPod Touch). It should be noted though that Messages will also handle AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk in the same way that iChat does.

Also coming from iOS is the notifications centre, reminders and even Twitter integration. The iPhone and iPad Game Centre has also been deployed.

 

In their presentation, Apple has highlighted a dozen functions which are coming from a different source, as they will be put in the iCloud. "Mountain Lion is the first version of OS X conceived with iCloud at its heart to facilitate the configuration and integration with apps".

Gatekeeper is a new security function to control apps which can be downloaded and installed on the Mac. By default, the only source considered as safe is the Mac App Store with apps signed by authentic developers.

In a press release, Apple also points out that functions have been specially designed for Chinese users. This demonstrates the company’s interest in this market.

To find out more, you simply have to visit Apple’s Mountain Lion site.