Sangeeta Mukherjee Tech 07.25.2012 12:Jul PM EDT

Apple Releasing OS X Mountain Lion Today: From Significant Features to System Requirement (What We Know So Far)

Apple, after announcing its quarterly earnings where it showed sales of 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads and earning quarterly revenue of $35.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion, has confirmed the launch of its next major operating system OS X Mountain Lion on July 25.

"We're thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the press release. "We've also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we've got in the pipeline."

The latest version of desktop operating system has been priced at $19.99 and will be available via the Mac App Store. The latest desktop OS brings an array of new features from iOS and also introduces a gazillion (read 200+) of improvements.

Check out the list of most important features that you will be seeing in the Mountain Lion OS:

1. iCloud

According to Apple, Mountain Lion is the first OS X that is built with iCloud in mind. The latest Mac OS will let the user store every contact, mail, calendars, contacts, reminders, documents, notes, FaceTime and Find My Mac, and access them from any devices like iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

2. iMessage

Apple has prepared the beta version of iMessages for Mac. With iMessage, users can send text using Mac to anyone using iOS devices like iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. You can even send photos, videos, documents, contacts and group messages.

3. Notification Center

The new Mountain Lion OS Notification Center will keep you informed about all notifications starting from social networks messages from Twitter, Facebook, as well as a software update, a calendar alert, stock quotes, weather alert and many more. New message will pop up in the corner of the screen and all new notifications will be available at one catch-all location.

4. Dictation

With Apple's new Mac OS, users will realize "Talking is the new typing" and will get rid of typing on keyboard. Apple says the app trains itself to accommodate your voice and accent as you go.

5. Airplay Monitoring

With Apple's new AirPlay Monitoring, user will now be able to stream any content including music to Mac screen, to an Apple TV-connected television, just like iPad or iPhone 4S. This new feature of Mountain Lion will now help you to get rid of mini-DVI to DVI cables or VGA, or HDMI cables.

6. Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper maximizes security and combats malware by extending OS X's existing authentication-based installation routine. Gatekeeper makes your downloaded apps safer for you.

7. Game Center

You just need to create one Game Center account with your Apple ID and you are all set to play from your Mac with anyone on a Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

8. Twitter and Facebook integration

Mountain Lion integrates Twitter and Facebook so that now you can sign on once and tweet or post Facebook messages directly from all your apps including Safari, Quick Look, and Photo Booth along with some third party app.

9. Safari

Safari has a new OmniBar, which combines both the fields for web addresses and search items. Along with the search results, Safari also suggests top hit, popular search terms, and pages from your bookmarks and history to help you find a web page fast. In addition, the OmniBar contains a "Reader" button showing text of the article without any advertisements. Moreover, web pages opened on iPhone or iPad will also be available on Macs using iCloud Tabs.

10. Power Nap

With the new Power Nap feature, Mountain Lion OS X will update the key applications, software and OS automatically while you continue working. And the update will take place whether plugged in or running off the battery. This feature eliminates the frequent interruptions that Windows users often face with update messages.

Mountain Lion for Chinese users

As china is increasingly becoming important for Apple, the company has also launched some exclusive features for Mountain Lion which will include "significant enhancements to the Chinese input method and the option to select Baidu search in Safari."

The new OS also includes Chinese dictionary and improved text input in order to make typing in Chinese easier, faster, and more accurate. Mountain Lion also provides easy account setup for China's biggest email service providers including QQ, 126 and 163. Moreover, Chinese users can post videos using Youku and Tudou. The new OS will also support Sina Weibo, the popular microblogging service on Mac.

What Experts Say

"While there are a lots of new features this is not a major upgrade like the last version Lion was," Brian Blau, research director at Gartner, said.

"But Apple has also been improving its Office-like software and creation applications along the way, so maybe it didn't need such a big revision. And you have to bear in mind it is only charging $20 [£13.99 in UK] for the change."

System Requirements:

Mac users should be running either Mac OS X Lion or the most recent version of Snow Leopard (10.6.8), 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of available hard disk or solid state storage to upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Check out the list of supported systems: