First screenshots from new OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Apple promises: The world’s most advanced operating system is getting even better—and with a new developer preview coming just seven months after Lion. The ninth major release of OS X, Mountain Lion brings some interesting features "inspired by iPad and reimagined for the Mac". Highres: http://www.mac-history.net/?attachment_id=1887

Mountain Lion: Sync with iCloud

iCloud. The first OS X release since the introduction of iCloud, Mountain Lion works with iCloud from the start, so setting up your new Mac is easy and fast. With Documents in the Cloud, the same iCloud documents on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are now available on your Mac.

Mountain Lion: Sync with iCloud

iCloud. The first OS X release since the introduction of iCloud, Mountain Lion works with iCloud from the start, so setting up your new Mac is easy and fast. With Documents in the Cloud, the same iCloud documents on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are now available on your Mac.

Mountain Lion: Twitter integration

Twitter is now built into Mountain Lion. Sign in once to tweet right from your apps with the Tweet Sheet, receive Twitter notifications, and view your contacts’ Twitter profile photos and usernames in Contacts.

Mountain Lion: Reminders

Reminders. The new Reminders app makes it simple to remember and manage tasks on our Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. With Reminders, you can create to-dos and check them off your lists as you complete them.

Mountain Lion: Notification Center

Notification Center. Mountain Lion presents system and application notifications as banners and alerts in the upper-right corner of your screen. The all-new Notification Center has a streamlined design that makes it easy to see notifications in one place from anywhere on your Mac.

Notification Center - Configuration

In the Notifications pane of System Preferences, you can select which apps send you notifications, the order in which you see them, how many recent items appear, and whether you receive a banner or an alert.

Notification Center button

The Notification Center button in the top-right corner of the screen is blue when there are new notifications.

Two-finger swipe - Notification Center

A two-finger swipe from the right edge of the trackpad slides in Notification Center.

Mountain Lion: Notes

Notes. Jot down anything with the new Notes app and iCloud will keep your notes up to date on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Mountain Lion: Messages

Messages. The all-new Messages app replaces iChat and brings iMessage to the Mac, so now it’s easy to send messages from your Mac to friends with an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. With your messages on all of your devices, you can keep up with your conversations no matter where you are.

Mac momentum - iMac and MacBook Air

Apple says: The Mac has outpaced PC industry growth for 23 quarters straight. Year-over-year PC sales were flat in the last quarter of calendar year 2011, while Mac sales grew 26 percent.

Mountain Lion: Game Center

Game Center. Game Center brings gaming on the Mac to a new level. With the social gaming network from iOS now on the Mac, you can discover games with friends who have a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Mountain Lion: Game Center

Game Center: Game Kit includes APIs that give developers a way to create multiplayer games for iOS and OS X.

Mountain Lion: AirPlay Mirroring

AirPlay Mirroring. Wirelessly stream what’s on your Mac to your HDTV using Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring sends a 720p video stream with audio to your Apple TV. It scales the contents of your Mac display to fit on your TV, or you can choose to set the display resolution of your Mac to match your Apple TV for a sharper image.

Sound Output - Airplay

Airplay as standard sound output.

Security & Privacy pane

Users can configure their installation settings in the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences

Not from an identified developer

When a user downloads an application from the web, the application’s Developer ID allows Mountain Lion to confirm the following before installing it: • The application has not been identified as malware. • The application’s developer is not known to have distributed malware. • The application has not been tampered with. Any Mac Developer Program member can obtain a Developer ID.

Notes app in Mountain Lion

With the new Notes app in Mountain Lion you can create rich, formatted notes on a Mac

Notes - Share button

With the built-in Share button, you can send a note without leaving the app.

Pin a note to the desktop

Pin a note to your desktop by double-clicking it in the left column of the main Notes window.

Share Sheets

When you share a file from Quick Look, the Share menu detects the file type and presents relevant sharing services.

Single sign-on - Twitter

Sign in once and Mountain Lion automatically sets up Twitter for Share Sheets, so you can start tweeting right away. Signing in also sets up Twitter for Notification Center and Contacts.

Mountain Lion: New features for Chinese users

New features for Chinese users. Mountain Lion makes the Mac even better for Chinese users, with improved text input and built-in support for popular Chinese web services.