by Apple is often appreciated for the timely rolling out of new versions of its operating systems. Around same time last year, Apple introduced Mac OS X Lion (Mac OS 10.7), which served as a major update to its predecessor, Snow Leopard. Now that Mac OS X Mountain Lion is here we are going to see if it has something new to offer. Apple claims to have added over 200 new features since Lion but we are going to focus on the most important developments.
If you remember, Mac OS X Lion was based on the ‘Back to the Mac’ philosophy — i.e. bringing the best features of iOS to Mac, making the two easier to work with. Mountain Lion extends this relationship even further by giving you the comfort of using both iOS and Mac side-by-side. It takes place by syncing across your Apple devices.
When you upgrade to Mountain Lion (a $19.99 one-time purchase from the Mac App Store), you’re prompted to log in with your iCloud account or to set one up if you haven’t already. However, if you decide to skip this then you’ll be missing most of what Mountain Lion is all about. Once iCloud is set up, the content on your iOS devices (set up with the same iCloud account) will be synced to your Mac (and vice versa). But the content that is going to be synced is where Mountain Lion differs from Lion. Mountain Lion can now sync notes, reminders and documents from your iOS devices, along with the usual stuff that was synced on Lion. It also includes iMessage as a part of i0S. This means now you can send iMessages between Macs and iOS devices. Your sent messages will also be synced across all devices; once again, thanks to iCloud. So, all of your content is uniformly synced across all the Apple devices you own, and that’s the first noticeable feature of Mountain Lion.
The Notification Center that Apple introduced with iOS 5 has now been ported to OS X as well. All the notifications on your Mac are now managed by Notification Center. Swipe from the right edge of the trackpad with two fingers, or click the icon in the top right corner of the screen to reveal the Notification Center. It displays all the notifications related to your Mac, whether it’s a new email, a calendar notification, or even a software update. And that’s just the beginning — there’s a lot more you can do (like sending tweets from it), making it one of the attractions of the new iOS.
Other features include sharing controls in almost every aspect of the OS, allowing you one-click sharing on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Voice Dictation is also a part of Mountain Lion which works as well as it does on iOS devices. In short, we can say that Apple has ported and inherited most of the stuff from iOS to the Mac, keeping in line with the ‘Back to the Mac’ philosophy. If you are a fan of the iOS interface or need some integration between iOS and your Mac, Mac OS X Mountain Lion is,an upgrade you should definitely have.
