For Mac owners, it’s Christmas in July again.
In its earnings report Tuesday, Apple officially announced that the long-anticipated Mountain Lion, otherwise known as OS X 10.8, would go on sale first thing Wednesday morning — just as predicted.
Costing $19.99, it will be available in the Mac app store only. Anyone who bought a new Mac on or after June 11 is entitled to a free upgrade.
Apple is making a habit of releasing new versions of the Mac OS in July; that’s when we got our first taste of OS X 10.7, known simply as Lion. That, too, was announced on the company’s earnings call and made available the following morning.
Lion is now used by 40% of Mac owners, according to Apple. Some 50% are still using the previous version, Snow Leopard. Lion was criticized by some for being a minimal upgrade that removed some much-loved features, such as replacing the “save as” with the less user-friendly “export.”
Mountain Lion, by contrast, is a significant upgrade that adds plenty of integration with the iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS. Users will see their Reminders, Messages, Notes and other notifications automatically synced between devices.
The upgrade also allows you to post to Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and other services from within every page and window. At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers’ Conference, CEO Tim Cook boasted that Mountain Lion added more than 200 new features.
It’s only for current Lion or Snow Leopard owners, however; if you’re one of the few Mac users on a previous version, you’ll have to upgrade to Snow Leopard before buying Mountain Lion. And if you’re on a pre-2009 Mac, chances are your computer won’t have enough power to run Mountain Lion.
Stay tuned for our full Mountain Lion review Wednesday, and let us know in the comments: are you ready to buy?
