Mountain Lion Available in July From Mac App Store

Apple® today announced that OS X® Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, will be available in July as a download from the Mac® App Store™. Mountain Lion introduces more than 200 innovative features including the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration*, Dictation, Power Nap, AirPlay® Mirroring, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper. With iCloud® built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across all your devices.

Apple today announced that OS X Mountain Lion, with over 200 new features and built-in iCloud integration, will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $19.99.

The Mac is amazing

“The pace of research on the Mac is amazing, OS X Mountain Lion comes just a year afterwards the incredibly successful launch of Lion,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud built right in and the new Notification Center, Messages, Dictation, Facebook integration and more, this is the best OS X but.”

Using your iCloud account, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to set up your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes. The new Reminders and Notes apps help you remember important tasks and jot down your thoughts quickly, during iCloud automatically keeps everything up to date. Documents in the Cloud works with iCloud-enabled apps including Apple’s iWork® suite so you can always access and edit your documents on any device.

The new Messages app replaces iChat®

The new Messages app replaces iChat® and brings iMessage™ to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch® or another Mac. You can include attachments, high quality photos and HD video, and your iMessages appear on all your devices so you can pick up a conversation right where you left off. iMessage includes group messaging, delivery and read receipts, typing indicators and secure end-to-end encryption. The Messages app as well supports traditional instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber.

Dictation is built into Mountain Lion and allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer. Mountain Lion as well introduces Power Nap, an innovative new feature that keeps your MacBook Pro with Retina™ display and MacBook Air up to date during it sleeps. Power Nap automatically refreshes Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac and Documents in the Cloud, and when plugged in, downloads software updates and backs up your Mac using Time Machine®.

The revolutionary new Gatekeeper feature makes downloading software from the Internet safer by giving you control over which apps can be installed on your Mac. You can choose to install apps from anywhere, such as you do today, or for maximum security you can set Gatekeeper to allow only apps from the Mac App Store. The default setting allows you to install apps from the Mac App Store and apps from developers that have a unparalleled Developer ID from Apple. Just in case to checking daily for security updates, Mountain Lion includes app sandboxing to keep misbehaving apps from compromising your system, and kernel ASLR for improved protection against buffer overflow attacks.

• AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what’s on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV®, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay;

• Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch;

The Mac App Store for $19

OS X Mountain Lion will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $19.99. Mountain Lion requires Lion or Snow Leopard, 2GB of memory and 8GB of available space. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, please visit: apple.com/osx/specs/. OS X Server requires Mountain Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $19.99. The OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all clients who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or afterwards June 11, 2012.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

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