OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: First Look

Apple surprised the world earlier today by announcing the next version of their popular desktop operating system OS X. Codenamed mountain lion, OS X 10.8 is clearly an evolutionary update to OS 10.7 lion. Many of the core features of lion centered around integration of Mac OS X and iOS. Mountain lion continues this trend by further bridging the gap between Apple’s mobile operating system and OS X. Let’s dive in to a couple of my favorite features.

Messages
Particularly after iMessage hit iOS devices the mac equivalent, iChat, became expendable. But many users want all their conversation history in one place. Messages for mac is that feature. Messages allows users to keep in contact with their friends and family through the same network as iMessage. With just a click you can send unlimited messages to anyone with Messages or anyone on iOS 5. Moreover, sending pictures, videos, and more are just as easy. Now whether you are out and about with your iPhone or browsing the web on your Mac you can stay in contact with your peers. And with end-to-end encryption, your personal data is as safe as ever. (Lion users can check out a free beta of Messages today)

Share Sheets
Mountain lion makes sharing easier than ever before. Built into many OS X 10.8 applications are sharing options to post interesting content to the world. With one click you can share breaking news to your twitter followers, post videos to vimeo, upload photos to flickr, and more. At launch Notes, Reminders, Photo Booth, iPhoto, and Safari will all have integrated sharing functions.

Gatekeeper
Apple’s operating system is known for its security. Rarely do we see widespread malware impacting mac users. However, Apple has taken another preventative measure in the form of gatekeeper. Gatekeeper allows users to choose what applications can be installed on their machines: only applications approved by Apple in the mac app store, only applications from the app store or from verified developers, or any application. Apple is building a barrier between malicious apps and the end user by allowing you to only use approved applications. But unlike iOS, power users still have the option to run wild and install whatever they please.

AirPlay Mirroring
This has to be my favorite feature of Mountain Lion. Users can mirror their desktop wirelessly to their HDTV via Apple TV. Of course Apple TV is an additional purchase but consider the possibilities. Watching movies on the big screen, sharing keynote presentations, displaying photos, teaching–there are infinite use cases for this. And now that mirroring is wireless they all become a lot easier.

Apple has made of point of taking the strongest aspects of iOS and merging them into OS X. Full iCloud integration, a unified notification center, and gamecenter are all additions to OS X I haven’t even mention yet. Apple isn’t breaking new ground with mountain lion but rather is refining an already strong operating system. And hey, launch is still months away. I believe Apple has a trick or two left up its sleeve.

Mountain lion is slated for release summer 2012. Although no firm announcement on pricing was made I suspect this update will be available for the same $29 fee as OS X lion.