‘Mac’ in ‘Mac OS X’ is no more
Apple announced that it has removed ‘Mac’ in ‘Mac OS X.’ It means the company will call the new update ‘OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion,’ not ‘Mac OS X 10.8.’ It looks like that ‘Mac’ will now be only a term to indicate hardware. ‘OS X’ will represent the software from now onwards. The rebranding is certainly sensible as people used to address various Apple computers with a simple term ‘Mac.’
A new Safari
During OS X Mountain Lion announcement Apple has revealed no more features of the OS. However, it has announced a developer preview of Safari 5.2 for 10.7 Lion with some Mountain Lion UI enhancements. Analysts hope the new Safari will also appear on Mountain Lion, Apple has introduced many features including a Chrome-style universal search bar and several others. Safari certainly requires some advanced changes to compete with Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
Mountain Lion drops support for older Macs
It is a disappointing thing for the owners of older Macs. The new version of OS X Mountain Lion will not support many previous models. The list includes iMac (mid 2007 or later), MacBook (13-inch aluminum, 2008 and some other models), MacBook Pro (13-inch, mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, 2.4/2.2 GHz) and (17-inch, late 2007 or later), Mac Mini (early 2009 or later), MacBook Air (late 2008 or later), Xserve (early 2009) and Mac Pro (early 2008 or later) and so on.
At a glance, it looks like Intel’s older chips (GMA 950 and GMA X3100) are to blame for the support issues of Mountain Lion. However, since Macs with ATI Radeon and Nvidia GeForce solutions currently run Lion but won’t run this Mountain Lion build, we think there’s more to the story. The late 2006 iMacs (ATI Radeon X1600) and MacBook Pros (Mobility X1600), as well as the original Mac Pros (Nvidia GeForce 7300) are all on the chopping block too — at least for the time being,” says Jeff Blagdon of The Verge.
AirPlay Mirroring
The much-touted iOS feature for wireless streaming of content is to appear on OS X Mountain Lion. Well, AirPlay has been one of drastic iOS features ever. Users can stream contents of their MacBook Air notebooks and other Mac computers to HDTVs or large other screens. There is no need to connect your computer using cables now.
Notification Center
Apple introduced an advanced Notification Center on iOS 5 last year. The new feature helps users have a quick look at all notifications such as texts, e-mails, calls, friend requests and others on their handsets. Of course, Notification Center has been one of flagship features of iOS. It is now to appear on OS X with the Mountain Lion version. Well, you can keep an active notification center on the home screen of your iMac and MacBook Air also.
iMessage
It is yet another tremendous iOS 5 feature. The iMessage is meant for free delivery of texts between iOS 5-enabled gadgets over internet connectivity. The new OS X Mountain Lion is to tout iMessage as one of key features.
Sum-up
Apple is obviously designing the Mountain Lion with more simplicity and perfection. Consumers want more user-friendly and feature-rich operating systems. From this year onwards, Apple also intends to update OS X yearly. It is to utilize the growing trends in technology and also to keep consumers satisfied always.
“That’s partially to match the breakneck pace of iOS development, but also to capitalize on the growing popularity of the Mac in general — Mac sales have outgrown the general PC market for something like six years now, and Apple says it’s investing heavily in the platform to build on that trend,” says Nilay Patel of the Verge.
