Apple Gives Mac OS X a Dose of iOS with Mountain Lion
Despite the fact that Apple just released OS X Lion less than a year ago (seven months, if you were looking for a more precise period of time), the company has been hard at work on the next build of Mac OS X and today released a preview of OS X Mountain Lion for developers. This version of OS X drops the 'Mac' from the title, which is the first big hint at where Apple is headed with its desktop OS. Mountain Lion further bridges the gap between Cupertino's mobile and desktop computers with more than a hint of iOS appearing in this latest version.
Apple started mixing iOS with Mac OS X with Lion and that's continuing through with Mountain Lion. The most notable example of this is the presence of iOS features such as Game Center, Notifications, and iMessage (which arrives in the form of an iChat revamp called Messages). Notifications is something that Growl-lovers will recognize, and provides users with alerts from every corner of their Mac, from system updates to Messages to third party applications. Messages is the newest version of Apple's iChat app and supports iMessage. It also pools IM, text messaging, and message history into a brand new interface, though, so while it is technically an updated iChat, it looks completely different.
AirPlay Mirroring is another major feature of OS X Mountain Lion, and, again, it should be very familiar to iOS users already making use of AirPlay. This feature will allow you to mirror what’s on your Mac's display and send it over to your HDTV via Apple TV. Supporting up to 720p, AirPlay Mirroring means you can watch movies or TV shows and play games without that cramped feeling that comes with performing such activities on a computer. It's worth noting that Apple has said AirPlay Mirroring will only work for Macs with second-generation Intel Core processors.
Apple is also taking OS X to the iCloud with this build. Mountain Lion will use your Apple ID to automatically set up Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Messages, FaceTime and Find My Mac. These will continuously sync across all of your Apple devices and is the reason Messages, for example, will be able to show you a combined history of IM, SMS, and message history for each of your contacts. There's also a new API for developers to make document-based apps work with iCloud.
Lastly, there's Gatekeeper, which is a security setting that allows you to set your computer so that it will only accept software downloaded from the Mac App Store, or from the Mac App Store and identified developers. This setting can also be switched off completely, allowing you to download applications from anywhere. In case you were wondering, an identified developer is a developer that has signed their apps prior to distribution. Apple says Gatekeeper's default setting will be for Mac App Store apps and apps by identified developers only. This security setting will probably be the most useful for people sharing a computer with (or setting up a new computer for) less tech savvy people.
Mountain Lion has over 100 new features, and these are just a handful of them. If you're eager to know more, the OS has been released as a developer preview, so you can check it out for yourself. If that doesn't interest you, Engadget has a great in-depth preview of Mountain Lion. OS X Mountain Lion is scheduled for release this summer.

Coming down the Mountain, the first Hackintosh on 10.8 beta is 0n the way.
Once the OS is the same for Mac laptops and pads, techies can finally get some ammo against the stupid 'pads are different, not computers' crowd.
"Apple is also taking OS X to the iCloud with this build. Mountain Lion will use your Apple ID to automatically set up Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Messages, FaceTime and Find My Mac. These will continuously sync across all of your Apple devices and is the reason Messages"
As far as Facebook goes, not ever going to happen on my Mac or any other computer I have.
For the record you can run windows 7 on any pc with a 1ghz or higher processor and 1-2GB (for 32 and 64 bit respectively) of ram.
Would not go there !
After all, the Apple OS is closely related to Linux !
Yep, it is a combination of FreeBSD and NetBSD with the Mac kernel. NextStep just developed a really nice interface for it. If you open up the terminal, it is all Unix all the time from that point on. I compiled Linux source code code for some applications with gcc on my Mac because I needed some of the tools for my job. Now there is a recompiled Linux app repository for OSX. Just another troll talking about something he has never really used.
I want to see a Windows service pack that comes with a bunch of features like that.
The no longer supported Macs are all machines with really crummy graphics cards. Either old Intel integrated graphics (GMA950, X3100) or ATI mobile cards from 2006.
I bet you can still install 10.8 on those machines if you really want to.
OS X is not related to Linux. OS X is related to BSD. Both Linux and OS X are unix-like systems, but that's the only relationship.
(OS X is actually "real" UNIX, because it is UNIX-certified)
But you are sort of right. It's unix-like nature makes it a good choice for "serious computing"... whatever that means.
Lol, in today's Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225380456599176.html
An you guys talk about Apple. Google is actually using coding tricks to track phones that they did not event make.
First of all, Windows service packs include a bunch of fixes, not new applications, not UI improvements, not back end features. Secondly, Apple only charges $29 dollars for their updates for 1 machine and 79.99 for a Family 5 pack. Windows 7 Ultimate (which is comparable) retails for over $250.00 and over $175 for 1 machine OEM version.