Apple has introduced a new, two-finger swiping motion that opens it up on the side of the screen, as well as a new menubar item in the top right-hand corner of the screen that does the same thing. Notification Center now sits "next to" the desktop and is accessible from any application you're on. One of those is Notification Center, an iOS 5 feature that takes any notifications from applications-be it a calendar event, an incoming instant message, or a software update-and puts it in an organized list. That includes a high-profile spot in Finder (the Mac's file viewer), where users can view and access documents they have stored there-just like they would in their iCloud-enabled apps on their iOS device.Īpple's also brought a little bit of iOS fairy dust in the form of two new "Centers" that act as ground zero for certain types of activity. Mountain Lion's Messages app now works with iMessage to let users carry over conversations from their iOS devices to their computer.Īlongside the developer preview of Mountain Lion, Apple is also offering a beta version of Messages as a standalone download to users of Lion.īehind the scenes, these new apps are synced up with their mobile counterparts through Apple's iCloud service, which Apple has more deeply integrated into the Mac. Messages can be used to send and receive iMessages with these users for free, and the conversation can be picked up and continued from any device with that same Apple ID and iMessage enabled. Users will still get access to IM networks like AIM, Yahoo, and Jabber, though Apple's added compatibility with the same iMessage service that was introduced as part of iOS 5, which Apple says has now served up 26 billion messages since its October launch. Messages, as it's called in Mountain Lion, will replace iChat, the chat software Apple includes out of the box. Those three apps were introduced as part of iOS 5 and are now standalone pieces of software that work like and sync up with their iOS counterparts. That includes software like iMessage, Reminders, and Notes. Among them are ones you may have already heard of and been using for the past three months. It's also a stark contrast to competitors like Microsoft, which is expected to release its Windows 8 software-the follow-up to 2009's Windows 7- near the end of this year.Īs usual, Apple isn't offering a full look at what the new OS will have when it ships but is instead focusing on 10 features that it will launch with. The end result brings the possibility of both the Mac and iOS devices receiving annual updates, something of an achievement for Apple given that the Mac OS has traditionally held to a release cycle of about every two years. This time around, Apple's giving itself and developers what is likely to be a shorter timeframe to work out bugs and integrate new features. Apple broke with that tradition with Lion, instead showing it off about 9 months before it would hit the market. That said, the release represents an unusual departure for Apple, which in years past has used its annual developer conference as a place to unveil its major Mac OS releases. In Mountain Lion, iCloud is that glue, taking some of those iOS apps gone OS X and made them work with one another. In Apple's vision, that role's been taken over by iCloud, and the software that taps into it. To carry the "hook up" comparison further, it's another step in Apple's strategy to tie users into its ecosystem, creating differences where they're needed, but also blending in similarities that make everything feel more unified.įor years the unification came in the form of iTunes, but as restated by Apple CEO Tim Cook in a talk earlier this week, the company believes that computers are not longer at the center of people's digital lives. Mountain Lion is very clearly the result of a longer term commitment.ĭoes that mean we've finally reached a point where OS X (as Apple calls it now, not "Mac OS X") and iOS are on the cusp of becoming one in the same? No. When taking the wraps off Lion (Mountain Lion's predecessor) in 2010, Steve Jobs said the software was what the company imagined would happen if the iPad and the MacBook "hooked up." Of course, the idea of convergence between the two platforms is nothing new. It's also a direct response to recently-added features on those devices that-for better or worse-make the Mac a less essential piece of the puzzle. Like Lion before it, Apple has imbued the new software with many of the top-billed features from the iPhone and iPad, all with the intent of making its computers more useful and approachable to the millions that have snatched up an iOS device in recent years. The software is being released as a preview to Apple developers today, with a commercial release to follow sometime this summer through the company's Mac App Store. Its name is Mountain Lion, and it's the next major release of Mac OS X.
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