Apple announced the preview to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, just seven months after OS X Lion’s release last July. Here are the new features in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in summary form for quick digestion:

• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has a serious looking cat.
• Similar to Snow Leopard, the name Mountain Lion suggests it is a fine-tuning release of Lion.
• Apple surprised everyone by announcing the preview release without the usual press event. Instead, only selected tech publishers are invited to closed door briefings by Apple.
• Apple released a preview of Mountain Lion to its developers as part of the announcement.
• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is scheduled to release in late summer 2012.
• With OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple is changing to an annual release cycle of OS X, to be on par with its iOS counter part.
• Apple started using “OS X” without the “Mac” naming since the release of Lion. But “Mac OS X” is still the title when view from within let say the “About This Mac” screen in Lion. In OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple officially drops the “Mac” title from within the operating system.
• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be exclusively available from the App Store. It will not be available in USB stick like in Lion.
• iCloud is integrated deeper with Mountain Lion. You will be asked to sign-on with or create new Apple ID during installation. This is similar to the startup of iOS 5.
• iCal is renamed to Calendar and Address Book is renamed to Contacts, making apps to have consistent naming in iOS and OS X.
• Messages app will replace iChat in Mountain Lion. Messages app supports existing iChat services and iMessage, allows you to message to anyone using iMessages on their iPhone and iPad without the carrier texting charges. Apple released a public Messages beta for existing users to try out Messages before it’s release in Mountain Lion.
  
• Reminders will be moved out from iCal into a standalone Reminders app. The app looks similar to its iOS counterpart and will sync with iCloud, enable you to have the same tasks on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. 
  
• Notes will be moved out from Mail app into a standalone Notes app. The app will sport the same look as iOS version and will sync between the OS X Mountain Lion and iOS. 
  
• Notification Center will be a system feature in OS X Mountain Lion. Apps can publish notifications to pop up in a sidebar. This is a port of Notification Center from iOS, and is likely to replace Growl to become the de facto notification standard in OS X.
  
• Apple will bring the Game Center app from iOS to OS X. This will bring social gaming to the desktop, let you play games and chat with friends, and keeping your game score.
• AirPlay Mirroring allows you to mirror the content of iPad 2 and iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. With Mountain Lion, you can stream 720p content from your Mac to HDTV via Apple TV.
  
• Share Sheets is a system window component that allows app to implement standard sharing mechanism. Safari, Preview etc in Mountain Lion will have a small button at toolbar to trigger the Share Sheets, allowing you quick access to email, message, tweet, AirDrop, share to Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo etc.
• Twitter is integrated with Mountain Lion, as with iOS 5.
• You can install apps from anywhere or from App Store in Lion. With Mountain Lion, Apple introduced a third type of app which is available outside the App Store but is digitally signed with Apple. This is a measure to combat malware as Apple is able to remotely prevent digitally signed apps from installing. Signed apps also can not be modified as it will break the signature. Gatekeeper is a new security mechanism introduced in Mountain Lion that allows the users to choose the type of apps that can be run. By default, Mountain Lion will allow only apps from App Store and identified developers with digital signature.
• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion reflects the rising importance of the China market. Mountain Lion will have integration with Chinese services such as Baidu, Weibo, Youku, QQ etc.
• Mountain Lion brings a new Documents in the Cloud view to the traditional Open/Save File Dialog for apps that support working on documents in iCloud. iCloud will appear as another location besides your local disk for opening and saving your documents.
• The usual Software Update will be relocated under App Store app in Mountain Lion.
• OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion comes with an improved Safari 5.2. One notable new feature in Safari is its integration of search bar within the address bar. Apple has seeded a beta release of Safari 5.2 to its developers.
• There are reports that some older Mac models can run Lion but not Mountain Lion. Those affected are mostly machines with integrated graphics. It is still too early to confirm the minimum requirement since there is no official statement from Apple and Mountain Lion is still months away from release.

Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion Sneak Peak

Apple greatly improved mobile Safari app with iOS 5, bringing a number of features previously found only in Safari for OS X. Beside improved performance, Reader is another welcomed new feature especially when you are reading on a small iPhone screen.

Reader is a feature where Safari displays only the main content of the web page, sans the flashing advertisements and sidebars on most web page. It is not so obvious how to access Reader as not all web page can be rendered in Reader. When a web page can be viewed with Reader, a Reader icon will be displayed at the address bar.

Tap on the Reader icon. The Reader page will pop up to display the web page content. And you can adjust the font size with a tap for an easier read.

As mentioned, Reader is not available for all web pages. Based on our experience, a web page needs a certain number of paragraph of texts for the Reader feature. Most blog posts, reviews and articles page will be able to rendered under Reader, but not forum or search result pages.

With Photo Stream enabled in iCloud settings on an iDevice, a copy of the photo you just snapped will be automatically uploaded to Photo Stream. You can then access the photos in Photo Stream folder from any devices including the Mac.

iCloud will store only the last 30 days of photos. Older photos will be removed automatically by iCloud. There is no way for you to manually remove individual photo in Photo Stream. You can however reset your Photo Stream which will remove all your Photo Stream photos from iCloud.

To reset Photo Stream, you need a browser. Go to icloud.com website and sign in using your Apple ID.

Click on your account name at the top right corner of the page.

On the Account setting screen, click Advanced, and then click Reset Photo Stream. Click Done to close the Account screen.

The new 8MP 1080p camera with its low-light capability is one of the highlighted feature of iPhone 4S. Camera in smartphone is now a capable replacement for your point-and-shoot camera. Hardware asides, it is the iOS 5 that makes the camera really shines. And older iPhone that runs iOS 5 can take advantage of the improvements Apple made in camera and photo apps. Here are the 9 new features:

1. Photo Stream. Photo Stream is an iCloud feature. When you enable Photo Stream in your iCloud settings in your devices, a new “Photo Stream” photo album will be created. From then on, when you snap a picture, a copy of the picture will be automatically stored into “Photo Stream” and then sync to iCloud. Each devices with your iCloud account will then be able to access the photo in the same “Photo Stream”.

Photo Stream can be viewed as temporary buffer for your current photos. iCloud stores photos for 30 days only and will remove older photos automatically. There is also a limit of 1000 photos that you can view on Photo Stream. You can setup Photo Stream on Apple TV, and iPhoto and Aperture on the Mac.

2. Organize with photo albums. iOS 5 finally brings the ability to add and delete photo albums. Great way to organize your photos.

3. Access camera from lock screen. When you double tap to unlock your phone, a camera icon appears at bottom corner for quick access to the camera app.

4. Swipe from camera app to camera roll. While using the camera, you can swipe from left to right to switch to the camera roll. A quick way to check whether the last taken picture is good or not.

5. Grid lines. Grid lines are helpful to get horizontal alignment of objects right for the shot. It is also an essential guide for framing your subject. To turn on grid lines, tap on the Options button on the Camera app, and then toggle the “Grid” switch.

6. Use Volume Up button to snap. You can now use the Volume Up hardware button to snap a photo while in Camera app.

7. AE/AF Lock. When you touch and hold on a spot while taking a picture, the Camera app will apply Auto-Exposure and Auto-Focus lock on the spot. The exposure reading and focus position will then be used for your next snap.

8. Pinch to zoom. While taking picture, you can now pinch to zoom instead of using the slider at the bottom to zoom. You might find it a much simpler and quicker method.

9. Photo Editing. The Photo app now comes with built-in editing features. You can rotate or crop a picture. An auto-enhance mode can be used to apply automatic improvement to the color and tones of the picture. And there is a red-eye removal tool.

With the introduction of iOS 5 and iCloud, it is possible to use your iPhone and iPad without owning a Mac or PC. In iOS 5, a number of features are introduced to fulfill the “Post PC” era of iDevices.

Activate from within device. Instead of having to plug your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into an iTunes running Mac or PC to activate the device, iOS 5 allows you to activate directly from within the device.

OTA (Over-The-Air) Software Update. OTA Software Update will make it possible to update iOS system software wirelessly. When Apple release a new update let say iOS 5.1, just go to Settings > Software Update to upgrade. No iTunes and Mac/PC required. Apple implements delta update mechanism. Instead of the whole iOS, you only download what’s changed, which significantly reduced the size of the update.

Purchased apps, music and books in the cloud. Apps, music and books that you purchased from the iTunes store are now in iCloud. You can re-download them into your iDevice without relying on iTunes backup.

Backup to iCloud. When you enable backup to iCloud, it backs up daily over Wi-Fi your photos and video in the camera roll, device settings, app data, home screen and app organization, ringtones and text/MMS messages. This backup can be used to restore your phone data and settings such as when changing a new phone.

Reminders is a useful new todo app in iOS 5 with its location aware alerts and iCloud support. You can view your reminders on all iOS devices and on Mac OS X Lion.

There is no Reminders app for OS X Lion. Instead Apple has taken the todo lists found inside the old iCal and change it to be Reminders. It is not so obvious at first as Reminders by default is not shown on iCal’s main window.

In order to view the same Reminders as in your iOS devices, you need to enable iCloud on OS X Lion. This feature is not available on OS X Snow Leopard as OS X Lion is the minimum OS X for iCloud.

Next, under System Preferences->iCloud, check the “Calendars” to enable iCloud sync. And wait for a moment for the sync to complete.

To view Reminders on iCal, select from menu View->View Reminders or toggle Reminders on/off using Option Command T. Reminders will appear as a right side pane on the main iCal window.

To create a reminder, right click on the Reminders pane for a popup menu and select “New Reminder”. Or press the Command-K key. Check off reminder by clicking on the checkbox. Command-Delete to remove reminder. And double click on a reminder to bring up the edit window.

Find My Friends is a showcase of the kind of app/service that can be provided by iCloud. Either it is to keep track of your family or to share your location temporarily with your friends, Find My Friends is the ultimate for a simple to use location tracking app. Find My Friends is a free app and requires iCloud account.

Find My Friends at App Store

Apple introduced its chat service iMessage with the launch of iOS 5. iMessage is a text messaging chat similar to internet messaging AIM, ICQ, Facebook chat or the ever popular WhatsApp app. The difference is iMessage is integrated into the Messages app which is used for SMS/MMS.

When you send a text message, the message app will check if the recipient is using iOS 5 with iMessage enabled. If yes your text will be send out via iMessage. If not the text will be send out using regular SMS via telco. iMessage is a free service, and this could potentially saves you some telco SMS charges.

When you upgraded to iOS 5, iMessage is enabled when you enable iCloud. To check, open the Settings app and look for Messages and make sure the switch is turned on.

You can find out if your text will be send out using iMessage or SMS while composing your text. iMessage text will be blue in color and the text entry field will display “iMessage”. For SMS message, the text is green in color and the text entry field will display “Text Message”.

iMessage is not limited to iPhone, the Message app is also available on iPad and iPod touch. When you use the Message app on iPad or iPod touch, you need to enter the recipient’s email address when composing a text. Phone number will not work.

In order to receive iMessage from someone using iPad or iPod touch, you need to setup an email address for your iMessage. Under Settings>Messages, tap the “Receive At”.

Select to enable to use Apple ID for iMessage. This will add the email address for your Apple ID as an address for “You can be reached for messages at”. Your friends can then iMessage you using the email address.

With iMessage, Apple merged the traditional telco SMS and Internet chat within the same Message app. A brilliant move that brings cost saving benefit and convenience to iOS users.

Apple probably just had its greatest software updates in its history. For the past 2 days, Apple software relating to iOS 5 and iCloud are updated, together with few new apps. Here are the list:

• iOS 5
• OS X Lion 10.7.2
• OS X Lion Recovery Update
• iCloud & iCloud.com website (new)
• Safari 5.1.1
• iTunes 10.5
• Apple TV 4.4
• Updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS
• Updates to Remote, iMovie, Find My iPhone for iOS
• iPhoto 9.2
• Aperture 3.2
• iCloud Control Panel for Windows (new)
• Cards app for iOS (new)
• iTunes Movie Trailers app for iOS  (new, US only)
• Find my Friends app for iOS (new)
• AirPort Setup utility app for iOS (new)
• XCode 4.2

Apple has released iOS 5 which includes new Notification Center, iCloud support, iMessage, Newsstand, Twitter integration and more than 200 features. iOS 5 requires iTunes 10.5 for the upgrade and is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2 and third & fourth generation iPod touch.

Together with the launch of iCloud and iOS 5, Apple updates OS X Lion to 10.7.2 which has support for iCloud. OS X 10.7.2 comes with Safari 5.1.1 which includes improved JavaScript performance.

Apple iOS homepage

OS X Lion 10.7.2 Support Article