Apple today announced that OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, is available as a download from the Mac App Store. With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes iCloud integration, the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration*, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring and Game Center. Mountain Lion is available as an upgrade from Lion or Snow Leopard for only US$19.99.
“People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in the press release. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.”
With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes:
• iCloud integration, for easy set up of your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes, and keeping everything, including iWork documents, up to date across all your devices
• the all new Messages app, which replaces iChat® and brings iMessage™ to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch® or another Mac
• Notification Center, which streamlines the presentation of notifications and provides easy access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps
• system-wide Sharing, to make it easy to share links, photos, videos and other files quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo
• Facebook integration, so you can post photos, links and comments with locations right from your apps, automatically add your Facebook friends to your Contacts, and even update your • Facebook status from within Notification Center
• Dictation, which allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer
• AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what’s on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV®, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay
• Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
Additional features in Mountain Lion include the revolutionary new Gatekeeper, which makes downloading software from the Internet safer; Power Nap, which automatically updates your apps and system while your Mac is asleep; and a faster Safari® browser. New features for China include significantly improved text input, a new Chinese Dictionary, easy setup with popular email providers, Baidu search in Safari, and built-in sharing to Sina Weibo and popular video websites Youku and Tudou.
Pricing & Availability
OS X Mountain Lion is available from the Mac App Store for US$19.99. Mountain Lion requires Lion or Snow Leopard (OS X v10.6.8 or later), 2GB of memory and 8GB of available space. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, visit: apple.com/osx/specs. OS X Server requires Mountain Lion and is available from the Mac App Store for $19.99. The OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge from the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 11, 2012.
*Facebook integration will be available in an upcoming software update to Mountain Lion.
Source: Apple Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Happy upgrading, everyone!
MacDailyNews Note: Multiple MacDailyNews readers report that the purchase of Mountain Lion will remove prior purchase history (and download capability) for OS X 10.7 Lion via the App Store.
Yay! Downloading… Just 3 more hours…
Took some 4 hours to download and almost an hour to install, but is now up and running and looking good!
It came up at about 7:45am here in IL. Been downloading it since then. Got about 20 min left according to the App Store app.
Ready to install. There’s also Safari 6 released today.
Nice. Does ANYONE know if using Lion Diskmaker can be undone on the flash drive? (can I reformat the flash drive again)
I think I’ll wait for 10.8.1 to drop to iron out the kinks before installing on my Mac.
Is this the same build as the developer GM released around 2 weeks ago?
Yes.
Awesome!!!
Just purchased and took 19 min to download. Getting ready to install on my new 480GB SSD!
not so fast – there’s currently an App Store error and they tell you to try again later.
What is the weight or ML? How many bits are we talking about…? 2,8 GB or what…?
4.3GB
Thanx for info 😉
4.05 GB
No Mountain Lion for me right now. The store is reporting “This item is temporarily unavailable.”
Meanwhile, on the Lion download thing, Lion appears to have vanished from the store, so even if one hasn’t yet purchased Mountain Lion, you can’t download Lion any more.
That’s rather frustrating, since I wanted to grab a copy of the Lion installer. Of course, there’s always bittorrent…
i purchased Lion on USB drive last year. Maybe a reseller still has it?
I’ve already bought Lion from the App Store, so I shouldn’t have to go buy a USB-drive version of it if I want to get a new copy.
As it goes, the point is now moot. Lion has been put back on the App Store, so I can re-download it.
I see Lion still…
(Bah, just saw your 2nd comment)
And yes you can download Mtn Lion and do the exact same with your own USB drive. Needs an 8GB though, Lion *could* fit on a 4GB, Mtn Lion can’t..
I’m waiting to grab Mtn lion for a day or so (bugs and the App store is f’n slow atm..) and I need to grab a new 8GB USB drive to stick it on anyway.
We could not complete your purchase
The product distribution file could not be verified. It may be damaged or was not signed.
Something flaky is going on. This is a cable internet connection.
mine is downloading just fine
Agent…could you please let me know if you’ve found a solution as I’m having the exact same problem. Sent a note to Apple and I think they’re confusing this problem with another. They said I’d get an email when fixed. Somehow I don’t think so. Don’t see this error downloading anything else from App store….Do you?
I called the local Apple Store and they connected me to Apple support in Portland, Oregon. After a remote desktop session and all imaginable work arounds, it’s just a symptom of slammed servers. It’s not the most common and they were as puzzled as I was.
The Mac App Store works fine on everything except Mountain Lion and apparently the uptake is very high. He said Apple added server capacity for this and it still is not enough.
I posted on the Apple support forums thus morning and the culprit has been localized. The common factor is that all with the problem seem to have Intego VirusBarrier X6.
If you disable it (prefs) and have NOT attempted to download it you should be good to go. If you have tried to download it with X6 on you will have to delete a corrupted file in var.
My work around was to boot into a backup copy, turn off X6 and it went to work as it should. Once I have the installer file I can use it on my main HD.
Hope this helps.
Check Apple support discussions under Mac App Store then Mountain Lion for more detail.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4134902?start=30&tstart=0
Apple having execution problems again. Just like MM and numerous new product releases. We expect better.
To all you pirates, I’m pretty sure if you download mountain lion from piratebay, etc… You won’t be able to do future update as all updates go threw the app store instead of software updates. Pretty smart on apples part if you ask me, and pricing it at only $19 is a perfect way to make everyone buy a licsence. I will gladly be handing apple my money today
It shouldn’t matter since you can install ML on all your macs. I can’t see ML being locked to an account if you can do that.
With the price and how easy it is to buy and download I can’t see anyone wanting to pirate this thing (well OK there will be some) but seriously its easier to buy this software than pirate it!
I think Hank may be right. I figure if ML is tied to an AppleID that has not purchased it, then the Mac App Store will not show any updates available as it’s not entitled to any. We’ll have to wait to 10.8.1 to see…
I’m building a USB installer right now so I have not installed ML yet but wouldn’t OS point releases just come through software update like any previous version of OS X ?
No,
Apple reported that Point Updates will now be handeled through the “App Store Application” and no longer will the Software update Application be used.
If Java and such need to be updated then the older software application will support them, but as for the OS, all will be tied to the AppStore Application for updates.
I just ran software update on ML, and I see what you are saying but I don’t see this being tied to a appstore ID. It looks to me like you could still do an OS update without signing in but I agree we won’t know until 10.8.1 hits.
After an hour of Mountain Lion download, the prior Lion purchase entry has been restored. Also, developer.apple.com is showing that Xcode 4.4 has been posted to the App Store … but when I checked it was still on 4.3.3.
Even if you are not (or cannot) install OS X 10.8, do a “Software Update”. Nearly every major Apple app has been tweaked, and it includes Safari 6.
Up and running within 40 minutes.
Looks fine so far……testing out some of its several hundred features…
Server errors. Epic fail. Apple spend your money on servers
Seems to be working fine for everyone else, since it is ALREADY the TOP GROSSING app on the Mac App Store.
I’d say Greece or Spain collapsing would be an epic fail. Mountain Lion not downloading…not so much.
Which one was expected, though, and which one was a surprise? 🙂
I hope they don’t collapse
castelbuono is 100% correct.
“Epic fail”, ha. Teenagers these days love being overly dramatic, I blame “reality” TV.
As evidenced by Joel, the word “epic” has lost all meaning.
Cant wait to get home and get it!!!
(snicker)
per App Center: “AirPlay Mirroring works with Apple TV (2nd generation or new), iMac (mid 2011 or newer), Mac mini (mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (mid 2011 or newer), and MacBook Pro (early 2011 or newer).” jesus christ, less than one year backward compatibility for this feature? that’s effin’ ridiculous. f Mountain Lion.
Yes, botvinnik, Apple restricts device compatibility just to piss you off. Don’t you think if they could make it operate on 5-year old technology they would? So what if your old Mac isn’t capable of the latest functions? If I were you (ridiculously naive), I would send an sternly worded email to the Apple engineers insisting they, first, create a time machine so they can look into the future and create computers today that will work on technology of the future.
FYI: Unlike a pencil and paper, your Mac (as with any device) is outdated the day you buy it.
$19.99 for the very latest, fully loaded, computer OS. THAT is technology!!
Now come on, 5 years is one thing, but two or three year old Macs can run Mirroring just fine. My 3 year old MacBook Pro runs Air Parrot just fine, you would think Airplay mirroring would be no problem. Ferchrissakes, I still qualify for AppleCare.
Solid, thanks for the tip on Air Parrot, man it rocks…ten bucks.
You’re welcome. I don’t think Air Parrot would be as good as Apple’s version, but for $10 it will be worth it to me since Apple abandoned all but their newest hardware.
hey fuck you, I didn’t say five years, I said less than one. READ.
hell I could do screen mirroring on a 1998 Mac G3.
lol, wasn’t wireless…was three RCA plugs connected to a bigass Sanyo tube TV, but hell, it worked like a dream.
It is because of the copyright dufuses.
There is some functionality built into the latest Intel cpus that is used to keep you from copying something they do not want you to.
Note: this is just a waste of money to try and stop.
Why would someone go to the trouble of copying something by throwing it up on their HDTV screen via mirroring? I must be missing something. And why would they allow it on the iPad but not on a laptop?
i just have one question!! i bought it and instal ML on my mac… but i wasn’t aware that it wont let me do a clean instal… so if i download again… from the store… will it charge me twice?
You can redownload anything you buy from the app store (if signed in w same account)
The only problem that I can see so far, is that ‘Launchpad’ will not stay on the second or third page – springs right back to the first screen.
It took about 5 hours to get back to normal, inc. update, besides Launchpad.
Couple of my apps no longer work owing to developer not being trusted, which I presume is the Gatekeeper thing (Handbrake being the biggest down-side). Found the option to effectively install what you like but it’s a shame that it’s an all or nothing option and you can’t authorise specific apps.
I read if you Control-Click on the app’s icon and select Open, then a dialog box will come up asking if you want to open the app and warning that if you do open it, it will be authorized to run from then on.
Gatekeeper’s setting remains to trust only signed apps and It may be the workaround you’re looking for those few unsigned apps you need.