Apple has taken another step forward to transforming OS X into iOS with the developer release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
We’ll bring you a full review soon but in the meantime, here are some essential points to be aware of before Apple releases it on the App Store late this summer:
- There are no major changes in Mountain Lion but it does bring OS X closer to iOS 5 with better integration with iPads and iPhones. The most notable features are taken directly from iOS and include Messages – a replacement for iChat – plus Notes, Reminders and Game Center.
- Mountain Lion will not work on some older MacBooks, MacBook Airs and Mac Minis from 2007/2008. This is because it demands a minimum spec requirement of an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. MacBooks with nVidia GeForce graphics (9400M or 320M) will be fine. For the following models, OS X 10.7 Lion is the last OS that they will support:
- Any Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook from late 2007 – late 2008 (Model Numbers: MB061*/B, MB062*/B, MB063*/B, MB402*/A MB403*/A MB404*/A, MB402*/
- The Mid-2007 Mac mini (Model Numbers: MB138*/A, MB139*/A)
- Late 2006 polycarbonate iMac (Model Number: MA710xx/A)
- The original early 2008 MacBook Air (Model Number: MB003LL/A)
- Some MacBook Pros from 2006 may also not support Mountain Lion.
To check the serial number of your Mac, check the About section of your Mac by clicking the Apple logo or follow this guide.
- Mountain Lion supports iCloud and introduces AirPlay mirroring so you can stream video content from your Mac to a TV using Apple TV.
- Mountain Lion is now far better integrated with social networking sites. You can tweet pages directly from Safari or images directly from Preview for example.
- You can now control OS X with your tongue by swiping it across the screen
The last point is not true, but the rest are the most essential points to have emerged so far. If you rely heavily on an iOS device, then it’s definitely going to be worth the upgrade especially because it’s likely to be no more than $30.
We’ve already taken a look at Messages (which you can install now on Lion and try for yourself) and the fact that it allows you to send unlimited free messages to iMessage on iOS devices could be a big draw for those that use it a lot.
Watch this space for a full review!
