Recently Apple announced the launch of its latest Mac operating system (OS) OS X Mountain Lion with the addition and improvement of certain features. Its launch is considered timely as to combat the impact of Windows 8 that is proposed to be launched by Microsoft, sometime in October 2012. According to software analysts, the features augmented with the new OS is especially attractive for those switching to Mac from iOS.

Before downloading the new OS version for your computer, you need to pay attention to the system requirement set by Apple. You need to ensure that your Mac is capable of running the new OS X Mountain Lion.

Find below the system requirements which Apple has suggested for the installation of the upgraded OS:

iMac (2007 or above)

MacBook (2009 or above)

MacBook Pro (2007 or above)

MacBook Air (2008 or above)

Mac Mini (2009 or above)

Mac Pro (2008 or above)

The OS is presented with a price tag of $19.99 in the U.S. and is presently available at the Mac App Store for download. Before downloading the OS X Mountain Lion, you would certainly like to know about its new and improved features.

Find below its leading five features that will entice you to download and install this OS upgrade on your Mac.

Facilitates straightaway login to the cloud

Nowadays OS developers are laying emphasis on cloud connectivity and OS X Mountain Lion is no exception to that. It enables you to log on to your Mac using the Apple ID. Once you login to the iCloud, your e-mails, photos, documents and contacts all get synchronized. The benefit of logging-in to the cloud is that the changes made onto the cloud will be reflected on all the devices including iPhone, iPad and iPod that have synchronized with the Mac. In a way it actually rivets the Mac user more than ever to the iPhone and iPad.

Improved messaging facilities

The new Mountain Lion introduces a new messaging app that is an integration of iChat and iMessage or you can say the features of iChat have been placed in iMessage. This app was already existent on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. You can chat via your AIM/ Google Talk/ Yahoo! account or send unlimited messages to the iPhone and iPad.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper truly acts as a gatekeeper and prevents intruders from entering your Mac. It is a security feature offered by the new Mountain Lion to keep your system secure. Using this unique security feature you will be able to run your Mac in three different modes that leverage the security of your Mac at these different levels. The first mode allows you to download and install apps that you require. The second mode allows you to safely download apps from the Mac App Store and run them on your computer. Using the third mode you can restrict your Mac in such a way that it will run only those apps downloaded from Mac App Store.

Twitter

Developers of the new Mountain Lion have made it easy to use Twitter by making certain in-depth changes in the software. Twitter has been integrated on the pattern of iOS. Now the OS supports for Twitter accounts enabling the users to tweet from different devices with a single sign-in.

Notification Center

Notification Center is one of the most attractive features of the new Mountain Lion OS. This feature is inspired by the style of iOS used with the mobile devices like iPhone and iPad. Mac OS X is the first OS from Apple that has in-built notification center. The advanced notification center keeps you updated with the information under the categories such as App Store, Messages, FaceTime, Mail etc. Notifications keep up coming on one corner of your screen so that you don’t miss out any important update.

Apart from the ones discussed above, there are a lot more features that have been incorporated with the new and improved OS X Mountain Lion. These features are expected to make computing with Mac machines more convenient, smooth and user-friendly. Moreover, it also becomes important because many of these features are encouraged by the mobile operating system to imbibe the facilities of the mobile devices on your PC.