Announced back in February, Apple's OS X Mountain Lion is scheduled for release this month. Today, the OS hit a milestone, with Macrumors reporting that Apple today seeded the Golden Master (GM) version of OS X Mountain Lion to developers. The "Golden Master" label on this build, otherwise known as 12A269, means it's the final version that will be shipped to the public save for any last-minute issues that need to be ironed out.
Apple first talked about Mountain Lion way back in February, detailing several features of the operating system. The company took the OS out for another viewing at WWDC in early June and expanded upon some of the details it had already provided. Cupertino has promised 200 new features. These include the Messages app; Notification Center; and System-wide Sharing, which will allow you to share photos, videos and other files over third-party services at the click of a button without switching apps. Apple is also throwing in support for dictation, AirPlay Mirroring, and Game Center. This is along with Power Nap, a new feature that keeps your computer up to date while sleeping with auto-refreshes of Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, and Documents in the cloud. Another feature called GateKeeper beefs up security by allowing you to alter your settings to only accept software downloads from the Mac App Store or from the Mac App Store and identified developers.
OSX Mountain Lion is due out this month and will sell for $19.99 in the United States, or €15.99 in Europe. If you're in the UK or Australia, you can expect to pay £13.99 or $20.99, respectively.
