Saturday, February 18, 2012

OS X Mountain Lion: 5 Most Exciting New Features

Apple's Mountain Lion refurbish to Mac OS X is an confirmation of only how critical the clouded cover and iOS formation has turn to any person who uses a desktop Mac. More than 100 new features have been updated to the working system, and many highlight Apple's request to emanate a singular stage that integrates mobile, amicable and clouded cover features opposite multi-part devices.

The summary is clear: Whether you're on a MacBook, iPad or iPhone, you're working on an Apple product that's right away related to other hardware in the same ecosystem. The personal P.C. is no longer the first device in your digital life - it's a node in a incomparable ecosystem that encompasses the entire Apple family.

And device-to-device synergy is only the tip of the iceberg. We've teased out 5 of the many important, many innovative aspects of Cupertino's ultimate let go .

Mountain Lion is moreover about iCloud. You first pointer in to the OS using your Apple ID, permitting services similar to iCloud, iTunes, the Mac App Store and FaceTime to set up automatically. Accordingly, Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Messages and Find My Mac all simply sync once you set up iCloud.

Mountain Lion moreover gives you two built-in ways of storing files and documents: right away in your computer, or in iCloud. You can select to store data in possibly place, pardon you from the tethers of localized storage. By all accounts, it should be a dead-easy doing - and services similar to Dropbox can't be too cheerful about Apple's new built-in clouded cover features.

Mountain Lion will moreover add a underline called iCloud Documents, that lets you store papers in the clouded cover and sync report changes, a la Google Docs, to all your devices. You can moreover coordinate files in to folders in iCloud, and share them by email, Messages or AirDrop with the click of a button.

A number of iOS carryovers similar to Notes and Reminders use iCloud to sync data and alerts opposite your Apple ecosystem, providing the closest thing to a entirely one cross-device computing experience that we've seen so far.

Notification Center was one of the leading new upgrades done to iOS 5 , and with Mountain Lion, the utilitarian presentation assembly core is now on the Mac, too.

Notification Center looks roughly same to its mobile reflection and routinely stays dark beneath the right side of the desktop screen. When you obtain a notification, it pops up on the top-right of your shade as a ensign that disappears on its own after about 5 seconds. And when you obtain an alert, that requires user action before it disappears, an symbol on the far right of the menu club turns blue. Click it, and your desktop slides to the left to exhibit Notification Center.

If you're on a MacBook Pro or Air, or have a Magic Trackpad, you can moreover bring up Notification Center with a two-finger appropriate from its right edge.

Privacy and safety is a flourishing regard of app users (just look at the entire Path disturbance ). But whilst iOS privacy policies are a work in growth for Apple, the safety of your desktop network is a front-and-center regard in Mountain Lion.

Now it's loyal that Mac OS X has been mostly defence from the malware problems that disease other working systems similar to Windows and Android . The MacDefender malware shock in mid-2011 was an exception, and it looks similar to Apple now wants to stay one step forward of the bad guys with a new underline called Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper gives you the ability to manage that sources you download applications from. For now, you can select between the Mac App Store only, the Mac App Store and identified developers, or (if you similar to to live dangerously) from any and all sources. But with Gatekeeper set on a parsimonious leash, you can make sure that you do not unwittingly download an app that has a few malware discreetly tacked onto it. The middle surroundings - the Mac App Store and identified developers - is the default.

Gatekeeper is a underline Apple is heavily working on, so the denunciation in the shade shot and the areas you have manage over could change by the time Mountain Lion ships after that this year.

Mountain Lion delivers burly amalgamation between iOS and Mac. For starters, Apple one and made easy the fixing conventions of many of its features (iCal is now Calendar, iChat is now Messages), paring down a few of the " cruft ," as Daring Fireball's John Gruber put it, that's gathered over the years.

Here are 4 ways Apple is bringing iOS and the Mac together.

Notes: Notes looks sufficient similar to the iOS chronicle of the app - a yellow, lined paper notebook - but with a UI tweaked is to desktop. It supports abounding text, and moreover supports links and inline images. You can share records around email or iMessage, and you moreover have the ability to pin it on the tip of your shade similar to a Post-It. It syncs with iCloud, but can moreover sync with other services similar to Gmail or Yahoo.
Messages: What used to be iChat now integrates with iOS 5′s iMessage service, together with FaceTime. Messages creates chatting seamless opposite whatever stage you're chatting on, and whatever device you're using. It combines content messages and present messages (from sources similar to AIM, Google Talk, and Jabber) so you can access them and hunting by them on the desktop. And with iCloud, you can access iMessages on any device, whether it be your iPhone, iPad or MacBook. This underline is existing as a giveaway beta to stream Lion users.
Calendar: Calendar replaces iCal, and keeps the same faux-leather pattern as it did in Lion. It has undergone a few slight tweaks, similar to the ability to turn off call in alerts without branch off discussion reminders, and one feature, Reminders, has been removed.
Reminders: Removed from Calendar, yes, but it's turn its own standalone app, similar to it is in iOS 5. Reminders syncs with iCloud and opposite devices, together with services similar to Google Calendar. It's got the features you've advance to expect from Reminders, similar to the ability to set priorities, make lists, and set alerts. One disparity from the iOS 5 chronicle is that there are no location-based alerts.


Another iOS import, Game Center, is moreover forthcoming to the Mac, giving you the ability to examine out diversion titles your friends are playing, uncover new friends, and perspective your leaderboard status, amid other things. But the foreword of Apple's new Game Kit API's should moreover open up a entire new world of gaming.

Developers will now be able to emanate games that work opposite the Mac and all iOS devices. For example, you could emanate a multiplayer diversion with one challenger on an iPad, one on an iPhone, and other on a Mac. Suddenly, developers now have sufficient incomparable future user bases, and players have sufficient incomparable future challenger bases.

Games will be able to use extended Multi-Touch features similar to double-tap to zoom, so you can obtain a close-up look at onscreen action. Apple has moreover implemented a new graphics fortitude that can complement OpenGL apps.

The fact that a singular diversion may be played opposite all behaviour of Apple gadgets now opens up engaging possibilities for multiscreen gaming. If a diversion may be played on multi-part devices, it's not a large burst for the gadgets to correlate with one other in an particular game, that opens up a few severely cold options.

One e.g. we prognosticate is that you could fool around a diversion on your iPad, using your iPhone as the controller, then fool around that same diversion on your Mac, still using your iPhone as the controller. And then, when Apple at last outs that much-hyped radio its reportedly working on, well, gaming will obtain even more creative.

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