OS X Mountain Lion Officially Launches Tomorrow, July 25

Apple will officially release its latest operating system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, tomorrow July 25 thru the Mac App Store for $20. The upgrade will be for free if you've purchased a new Mac on or after June 11, 2012 thru Apple's Up-to-Date program.

OS X Mountain Lion Is Packed With New Features

WWDC 2012 had both its excitements and its disappointments. To the dismay of a lot of us, Apple’s glorious Retina Displays will not be included throughout their entire laptop lineup, but on the bright side, we have an entirely new addition: the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. With all of its upgraded hardware, Apple just had to make it even better with improved software as well. OS X Mountain Lion will be the next big thing for Apple as it plans to improve the current OS X and include new features as well.

The basic structure and ideas for Mountain Lion seems to mirror a lot of what iOS already has to offer, creating an overall mobile experience, loaded with simple gestures and finger movements. Notifications will now alert you of incoming messages, emails, reminders and much more. An easy swipe to the right on your trackpad will bring it right up. As Apple has always strived for simplicity and ease of use, Mountain Lion is no exception. By incorporating Facebook integration, we can now post updates and statuses on Facebook directly from our Mac, without having to go back to your Facebook page.

iMessage was released to the public months back as a beta, and rightfully so. The numerous bugs and issues it had made it practically useless. With Mountain Lion, iMessage will do what it was created to do: send messages. Exactly like iMessages on your iPhone, this app will send messages to any other Apple product, as long as there is WiFi. This makes communicating with your friends so much easier as you will no longer have to stop what you’re doing on your Mac and reply with your iPhone. To make things even easier, with the help of the Cloud, all of your messages will stay updated throughout all your devices.

An interesting feature that Mountain Lion will have is called Power Nap, which allows your Mac to quietly update itself without leaving sleep mode. This seems rather convenient as it prevents you from missing an important software update or Time Machine back-up. Lastly, Dictation might be a solution to a keyboard-free experience. Similar to Siri, it translates what you say into text.

OS X Mountain Lion will be available to all users through the Mac App Store in July for only $19.99. All of these features and more can be found on Apple’s website. 

Download Your OS X Mountain Lion Galaxy Wallpaper Here

At least Apple's taste in wallpapers is still going strong unlike replacing that heroic and most magnificent Lion photo for the more sissy, bald looking Mountain Lion. In any case, here it is. Download the full resolution (3200x2000) Galaxy wallpaper that will soon be the new face of OS X Mountain Lion above! Click it.

Update: Get your Mountain Lion Galaxy fix on all of your portable gadgets too! Click your device to download - iPhone 4/S | iPod Touch 4G | iPad & iPad 2

Apple Announces OS X Mountain Lion 10.8

Just like that, without any exclusive press event Apple has announced its next cat, OS X Mountain Lion. OS X Lion was considered to be a big upgrade from Snow Leopard, but Mountain Lion is what Snow Leopard was to Leopard. 10.8 will bring with it many new enhancements, tweaks and new features. In a nutshell, Mountain Lion brings a whole lot of the iPad-inspired iOS to the Mac with things like Notification Center, Messages (Beta now available to download), deep Twitter integration, Game Center, Notes, Reminders and AirPlay Mirroring for streaming HD content on your Mac to large screened devices using Apple TV. Mountain Lion has put an end to Software Update and letting the Mac App Store do all the work of handling your Mac's updates.

Mountain Lion also brings improved security features like Gatekeeper, which helps protect you from unknowingly download and installing malware. Apple has also made sure to support many Chinese services with 10.8 from social networking to email. The popular Chinese search engine Baidu will be integrated into Safari and Chinese text input will be improved. Developers can download the developer preview of Mountain Lion starting today, while the rest of us have to wait until the summer for the official release. Apple has yet to reveal the price, but it's safe to assume that it'll cost as much as Lion at $30. As for that good looking wallpaper you've set your eyes on, we'll be sure to get that out to you shortly!