A Quick Look at OS X Mountain Lion

Apple will be releasing Mountain Lion, the successor to Lion this summer and have given developers and people who go to their site a sneak peak. From its pre-beta stage, Mountain Lion inherits many new features – mainly from iOS. Here are some of the highlights.

 

1. Enhanced and Integrated iCloud

Mountain Lion will inherit a more advanced iCloud that will act to sync your mail, calendars, contacts and documents across all devices that use the service – including the iPad.

2. Messages

Apple will be opening the doors for free and easy communication between the Mac and its iDevces adding a Mac counterpart to the new iOS feature, iMessage. Messages is in Beta and is accessible to Mac users with 10.7.3 or later and will allow free unlimited messaging between devices along with the ability to share videos, pictures, documents and contacts through the service. Messages will enable group communication and as well as read receipts. The conversation is synced among all of your devices.

3. Reminders

Are you a forgetful person? If so, this may become your favorite app. Reminders is a list that is synchronized among your devices and can be sorted. It let’s you assign due dates to tasks and will alert you as they approach. Checking off items will let it and you know that the task is complete. It will sync using iCloud.

4. Notes

If you have an idea Notes will allow you to write it down on the go and see it later. It will sync using iCloud and be available on all of your iDevices. You can use the app to send notes to friends using Mail or Messages and pin important notes to the desktop.

5. Notifications

Notifications was first released in iOS 5 and is now making its way to being the one stop place in Mac OS X to alert you of recent activities. Whenever you receive a new message or email or alert, you will get a banner that hovers for a few seconds on the top right corner of your desktop.When you want to see it, it will appear on the right side of your screen.

6. New Sharing Features

Mountain lion will come with built-in sharing capabilities. In Photo Booth and Safari there will be dedicated menus to allow you to share something with a social network on send it by email. It also comes with built in Twitter integration and a twitter app. With twitter integration in Safari, iPhoto and Photo Booth, you can tweet directly without ever having to leave the app.

7. Game Center

Mac will get a Game Center where users can play games with friends on any platform with their Apple ID. If you want to expand the horizon beyond your friends, you can.

8. Stream Wirelessly to an HDTV

With AirPlay Mirroring contents on your Mac can be streamed wirelessly to an HDTV via Apple TV for those social occasions. The feature was optimized for Keynote, Apple’s presentation software, and iMovie, Apple’s basic movie editing service.

9. New Security Settings

Gatekeeper will prevent the download and install of malicious software along with give you control of where it comes from. You will have 3 options: anywhere, Mac Store and Developer ID apps only, or Mac Store apps only.

Apple continues its path towards the harmonization of its multiple platforms but insists on keeping them autonomous – unlike Microsoft who is now making a one-size fits all operating system which will debut very soon and has recently his Consumer Preview.