OS X Mountain Lion Available in July, Priced at $19.99

[sparkyscott21]

No more guesses or vague release schedules, Apple has announced that OS X Mountain Lion will be released in July at a price of $19.99. The download will be available exclusively through the Mac App Store and following along with Apple’s generous purchase policy, a single purchase of Mountain Lion will install on all personally authorized Macs.

Versioned as Mac OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion includes a wide variety of new features, including iMessage integration, AirPlay Mirroring, Dictation (think Siri minus the responses), Sharing Sheets, Notifications, Notes & Reminders apps, GateKeeper, Game Center, improved full screen support, and all-around heavy iCloud integration.

As we have mentioned before, you can upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion directly from Snow Leopard in addition to Lion.

Any new Macs bought from here until the official release date qualify for free upgrades to Mountain Lion, that includes the fancy next gen MacBook Pro.

6-11-12

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[sparkyscott21]

At today's WWDC keynote event, Apple announced a release timeframe and pricing for Mountain Lion, the next version of the Mac operating system which was previewed earlier this year. Executives also gave a preview of some new features including dictation, iCloud Tabs, and Power Nap. Mountain Lion will be released in July through the Mac App Store for $19.99 and all Macs purchased starting today can receive an upgrade for free.





The new dictation feature will be integrated throughout the operating system to allow dictation anywhere to enter text. Dictation was previously rumored in May when resource files in Safari listed keyboard shortcuts that pointed to dictation functions.

iCloud Tabs, a new feature in Safari on the Mac, was also demonstrated. iCloud Tabs will show all tabs open in Safari on all other iOS devices and Macs logged in to the same iCloud account. Safari also gains a unified search and address bar to streamline its interface.

Power Nap is a new feature that will carry out functions while a Mac is charging and sleeping. New emails will be downloaded, Time Machine will automatically run, app updates will be applied and other actions will be carried out with Power Nap, which will be available on the new ultra-thin MacBook Pro that was announced today and second-generation and later MacBook Airs.

Apple first previewed Mountain Lion in February, highlighting many features already present in iOS, including Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notification Center, Game Center and more at that time.

6-11-12

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[JezzerP]

Great news.....can't wait. Will hopefully be able to do a 'clean' install on a new hard disk for my MBP.


_______________________

JezzerP :)

[Macette]

Great news.....can't wait. Will hopefully be able to do a 'clean' install on a new hard disk for my MBP. _______________________JezzerP :)

Happy Happy Happy not long to wait, but will try and wait a week or so past the date to see how it goes. Looks brilliant !

[Yptcn]

Happy Happy Happy not long to wait, but will try and wait a week or so past the date to see how it goes. Looks brilliant !

That's what i say each time too but i finally update as soon as I can ;-)

[Macette]

That's what i say each time too but i finally update as soon as I can ;-)

Yep I know what you mean I probably will too, but I have best intentions lol

[sparkyscott21]

They make it so easy these days to upgrade... Just a click of the mouse, no store going....

[sparkyscott21]

Apple’s iWork suite hasn’t been updated since January 2009. To put that in perspective, when the last major version of iWork came out, OS X Leopard was still the most recent version of Apple’s operating system, and Snow Leopard was still eight months away from being announced: OS X Lion and Mountain Lion weren’t even glimmers on the horizon then. The most current iPhone was the iPhone 3G, and the iPad was still a year from being released.

It’s obvious, then, that the iWork suite is way past due for an update. It’s possible, though, that we could see iWork ’12 hit as soon as the end of July, dropping alongside OS X Mountain Lion.


This theory comes via Applebitch.com, and while it’s all speculation, it makes sense.

Essentially, the argument is that, right now, in every iWork app, clicking the share button on a document sends your document, spreadsheet or presentation to the iWork.com beta site. The only problem? Apple is shutting down the iWork.com beta site at the end of the month, so if Apple doesn’t update the app to at least give it iCloud compatibility, the iWork suite’s share functionality will be broken for millions of users.

Apple could, of course, just send out a point release update giving iWork ’09 iCloud integration, but couldn’t there be another possibility? After all, it’s widely believed that Apple will officially release OS X Mountain Lion on July 25th, one day after the company’s quarterly earnings call. This is the same timing Apple used to release OS X Lion last year. Wouldn’t the release of OS X Mountain Lion also be the perfect opportunity to drop a totally new version of the iWork suite?

At the very least, iWork should get an iCloud update before the end of the month. Could it be more than that, though? iWork has gone an awful long time without an update, but it seems weird that Apple wouldn’t showcase an entirely new version of their office suite on stage at an event. What do you think?

7-5-12

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[sparkyscott21]

Safari turns 6 in this summer's release of OS X Mountain Lion, offering a new view of open tabs similar to iPad and a new iCloud tab-sharing feature, along with an offline Reading List, new website passwords browser, new privacy settings, and a feature that allows websites to send alerts to the new Notification Center.

Apple's latest build of Safari 6.0 builds upon features previously outlined for what was originally called Safari 5.2, which brought a unified new user interface with one field for both Web, bookmark and history search as well as for directly entering a URL. That change also removes the SnapBack button and creates room for an always-visible Reader button.

Safari's new unified user interface, anti-phishing URL highlighting, emphasized Reader feature and prominent Share Sheet features (all depicted below) were detailed earlier in the year, but Apple has continued to work on its browser in the months since.

READ MORE ABOUT MOUNTAIN LION HERE:

7-12-12

[sparkyscott21]

In Mountain Lion, Macs are getting system-wide speech recognition, the same "Dictation" feature Apple gave the new iPad at the beginning of the year. While it works well, it does require a network connection.

Apple's cloud-based Dictation feature, currently supported on the new iPad and as part of the broader Siri voice assistant feature of iPhone 4S, converts speech to text virtually anywhere.

It works by sending audio recordings of captured speech to Apple's servers, which respond with plain text. While it doesn't go as far as the more intelligent Siri, Dictation does intelligently cross reference the names and assigned nicknames of your contacts in order to better understand what you are saying.

Similar to Siri or Dictation on the new iPad, Dictation on Macs running OS X Mountain Lion pops up a simple mic icon when activated, which listens until you click or type the key to finish.

Just as with Siri or dictation on the new iPad, Dictation under Mountain Lion is quite fast and highly accurate, but does require a network connection to function. If you don't have a network connection, the Dictation input icon will simply shake, indicating that it is not available.

Anything you say can be used to improve your dictation

Apple appears to be exercising great caution in highlighting the privacy issues related to using Dictation. The service is turned off by default, and turning it on from System Preferences requires clicking through a notice that various types of local data, including Contacts, are sent to Apple's servers in order to recognize the speech you're trying to convert to text.

Privacy on parade

For an even longer discussion of what's involved, you can click the "About Dictation & Privacy" button, which presents the following explanation:

"When you use the keyboard dictation feature on your computer, the things you dictate will be recorded and sent to Apple to convert what you say into text. Your computer will also send Apple other information, such as your first name and nickname; and the names, nicknames, and relationship with you (for example, “my dad”) of your address book contacts. All of this data is used to help the dictation feature understand you better and recognize what you say. Your User Data is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.

"Information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple's Privacy Policy, which can be found at Apple - Apple Customer Privacy Policy.

"You can choose to turn off the dictation feature at any time. To do so, open System Preferences, click Dictation & Speech, and then click Off in the Dictation section. If you turn off Dictation, Apple will delete your User Data, as well as your recent voice input data. Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Dictation and other Apple products and services. This voice input data may include audio files and transcripts of what you said and related diagnostic data, such as hardware and operating system specifications and performance statistics.

"You can restrict access to the Dictation feature on your computer in the Parental Controls pane of System Preferences."

7-13-12

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