Apple seeded OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion for the developers today, the public release of the new OS is scheduled for this summer. The new version does not have as many massive changes under it’s hood like we saw in OS X 10.7 Lion. But that’s not to say OS X 10.8 isn’t a big deal.

Average users who already own other Apple products like iPhone, and iPad will appreciate the improvements Apple has introduced with OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion to bring OS X more closely in line with iOS.

What’s New in Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion:

1. iCloud Integration

One of the highlights of Mountain Lion is iCloud Integration, once released this summer, it will be much easier for the iCloud users to sync documents between Macs and iOS devices. Mountain Lion-aware apps will allow you save documents to iCloud or your local system directly from the file system. If you save a doc to iCloud, any revisions that you make on one device are instantly available on all your other Apple devices. There’s a Documents Library for easy access to your iCloud documents, with the most recently used documents sorted to the top. Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Messages, Notes, and many more Apple apps and services work with iCloud in Mountain Lion, and there’s an API that will allow developers to create iCloud-enabled apps, too.

2. iChat replaced with Messages

The extremely popular iMessage service will be replaced with iChat on Mountain Lion. The result is a cross-platform service that lets users on Macs, iPhones, and iPads chat with each other. It allows for unlimited messaging, including the sending of high-quality photos, HD video, and attachments as large as 100MB. Mac users will want to restrain themselves when chatting with friends on capped mobile data plans, although the iOS version of the app is smart enough to route messages through Wi-Fi when it’s available. Messages shows delivery receipts by default, and there’s also an option to turn on read receipts. Messages are encrypted end to end, and there’s a button to escalate your chat to a FaceTime video call. Messages works with other instant-messaging services, including AIM, Google Talk, Jabber, and Yahoo. Want to try out Messages before Mountain Lion drops? Check out the beta for Lion at apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta/.

3. Game Center Integration on Mac

If you don’t know it from iOS, Game Center is a social gaming platform which will now be a part of the OS X in Mountain Lion. You’ll be able to play against anyone with a connected iPad, iPhone, or Mac, too. Game Center enables multiplayer games, in-game voice chat, and notifications of friend requests and game invitations. There will be an API for Game Center that lets developers leverage in-game chat, leaderboards and more.

4. AirPlay Mirroring

If you have an Apple TV device on the same network as your Mac (with a second-generation Intel Core processor), Mountain Lion makes it simple to mirror your screen on your HDTV (at 720p resolution). AirPlay Mirroring pops up to let you know when it detects an Apple TV, and it handles all the resolution matching. Combined with Game Center, AirPlay Mirroring can more or less turn your Mac into a game console.

5. New Notification Center

Apple has unified system and app messaging in Mountain Lion, giving all messages a consistent look and bringing them into one place. The Notification Center slides in and out from the right-hand side of the screen when you use a new trackpad gesture (a two-finger swipe from the right edge). Or you can click the Notification Center button in the upper right corner of the screen. (It turns blue when there are new notifications.) Apps can pop up banners, which last on your screen’s upper right corner for five seconds before moving into the notifications center. Alerts, on the other hand, pop up and persist until dismissed. There’s an API for developers, too, so that their apps can appear in the Notification center and conform to the Mountain Lion style.

6. Share Sheets

Mountain Lion also brings Share Sheets, enabled apps will get an option of pressing the share button from within the app that will load a menu (a “sheet”) of services for sharing links, pictures, videos, etc.  There’s a developer API for Share Sheets, too, so third-party apps can also get in on the sharing action. Twitter gets special mention. Click Twitter on a Share Sheet and you get a “Tweet Sheet” that contains whatever it is you’re tweeting about: link, picture, etc, with the usual character countdown. Once you’ve got Twitter set up, it gets added to the Notification Center, by default.

7. Reminders

The Reminders app you know from iOS  will be available as part for your Apple desktop. This simple organizational app keeps you on track with lists, due dates, and sorting by date. Apple iCloud can keep it synced across all your devices, and it also works with CalDAV services, such as Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar (though you can keep local-only reminder lists, too).

8. Notes

Mountain Lion pulls Notes out of email, promoting it to its own app. Notes can be fairly rich, content-wise; you can drag and drop photos and attachments to Notes and format them with bullets, fonts, numbered lists, and so on. You can pin Notes to your desktop with a double click, and the Share button makes it easy to send them to collaborators. Finally, with iCloud, all your Notes are synced across all your Macs and iOS devices.

9. Gatekeeper

Mountain Lion focuses on security with Gatekeeper, a powerful line of defense against future threats. Gatekeeper prevents malware by only running apps it deems safe because (at Gatekeeper’s most restrictive setting) you downloaded them from the Mac App Store, or (by default) because they were downloaded from the App Store or written by licensed Apple developers and contain digital signatures that are destroyed if hackers modify the code. There is a third setting you can choose, too, that will let you run apps downloaded from anywhere. Apple will provide digital signatures to every registered developer for inclusion in their software, so by the time Mountain Lion ships, most safe apps should be signed.

10. One More Thing: China

Apple has a chance to get some positive China-related coverage for a change with its OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion one more thing: A big push for improved Chinese localization. New features include improved text input, for example, with better suggestions for Chinese characters, and typing for English and Chinese characters without toggling between the two for more convenient input of names or words without Chinese equivalents. Apple also promises to more than double the number of Chinese characters supported in handwriting recognition, auto-correction, and improved text input for those who type Pinyin with regional pronunciations. Apple also gives a nod to local services: Users will also be able to set up Mail, Contacts, and Calendar with services like QQ, 126, and 163. Also planned is Baidu search in Safari, as well as access to Chinese social-network site Sina weibo and video sites Youku and Tudou via share sheets.

Considering all the improvements it still looks and feels like a desktop operating system, it’s still OS X, not iOS. With the forthcoming consumer beta of Windows 8, which focuses more towards the tablets, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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