Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion on Thursday, set to ship this summer as the successor to OS X Lion. The new version of OS X boasts more than 100 new features, but the most notable ones are features imported from iOS.
That includes iCloud, iMessages, Reminders, Notes, Notification Center, Game Center, and Twitter integration. For users who are using the iPhone or iPad, these apps on the Mac play well with their equivalents on mobile devices, in a sense that everything is kept in sync.
Essentially, Apple is attempting to create a more unified experience on all of its products by baking iOS features into the Macs, without compromising the existing Mac experience.
Gatekeeper
Apart from apps taken from iOS, OS X Mountain Lion has two more major features on its own, namely Gatekeeper and AirPlay. The success of Apple’s App Store on iOS had inspired the company to create an equivalent, the Mac App Store, for OS X in 2010.
Just like the iOS App Store, Apple vets every application and software submitted to the Mac App Store, only allowing those meeting its strict guidelines to be published. The new Gatekeeper is an attempt to create a similar walled garden experience in the Mac environment.
By default, the Gatekeeper allows only apps from the Mac App Store, along with apps by developers in Apple’s white list to be installed. Users can tune the setting a notch higher or lower, by strictly allowing only apps from the Mac App Store or to have no restrictions at all.
AirPlay
With OS X Mountain Lion, it’s now possible to mirror your Mac’s screen on your big television screen via AirPlay. In other words, you can use your television as your monitor without getting messy with cables.
Check out the sneak peek below to learn more about OS X Mountain Lion:
All wEll and good that Apple is working towards a unified OS for their products. However they should not forget their current Snow Leopard or Lion users. A lot of Lion users have complained that the WiFi doesn’t automatically reconnect to the prefered network when awaking from sleep mode. Hopefully this is addressed before Mountain Lion hits the stores.
I’m not crazy about dumbing down the Mac OS for iPhone and iPad users. And, making Apple apps available only thru the App Store is a serious problem for those of us have to deploy software in a work environment – ever try installing Final Cut Pro from the App Store?
The Gatekeeper settings can be changed. You can request your co-workers to turn it off completely so that you could deploy software just as before, without any restrictions.
It’s not a Gatekeeper restriction problem – it’s a no-media problem.
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