Apple’s WWDC 2012 keynote wrapped and there were a lot of announcements made today. A majority of the keynote was spent showing off the new features of OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6 (most of which weren’t on my wishlist).
Although Mountain Lion won’t be released until July for $19.99, the developer version released today is close to the final gold version. Without further ado, let’s cut the fat and take a look at the most interesting features of OS X Mountain Lion.
iCloud Documents
iCloud is getting some nice feature updates. One of the more substantial updates is document integration. Users will now be able to drag and drop documents into iCloud, which sync them between all of your iOS and Mac devices. This is a nice little update and brings it up to what Google is doing with Google Drive and Google Docs integration.
Notification Center
Apple is finally addressing the problem of desktop notifications with its new Notification Center. Notifications in OS X Mountain Lion will work exactly like they do on iOS. There will be a heads up notification bubble, which will disappear after a few seconds. If the user doesn’t act on the notification, it will sit in the Notification Center, which can be activated by a button right next to the Spotlight button in the menu bar.
There will also be a slider to activate “Do Not Disturb” mode when you want some quiet time or need to concentrate on a task. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the Notification Center supports “Do Not Disturb” scheduling like iOS 6.
Universal diction and sharing button
Although Siri isn’t coming to OS X, her voice dictation is. There will be system wide integration of voice dictation. Apple was proud to announce that it would even work with Microsoft Word. Users will even be able to blast out a quick Twitter update using voice dictation inside the Notification center.
Speaking of Twitter, OS X Mountain Lion will now have more powerful sharing options. Safari has a built-in sharing button which allows it to share webpages via Email, Messages, AirDrop, Twitter, and Flickr. Facebook will also be integrated throughout OS X Mountain Lion, as it will be in iOS 6. With universal sharing, Apple has made sharing on social networks an completely integrated affair on OS X and iOS 6.
PowerNap
This was one surprise from the WWDC keynote I was not expecting. PowerNap is a feature where you can sleep your Mac laptop and still have it update from the Mac App Store, system updates, and even perform Time Machine backups. PowerNap will even update Twitter and Facebook. Apple was vague on how much this will impact battery life and didn’t specify whether it will work with Wi-Fi syncing.
Unfortunately, PowerNap will only work with the second generation MacBook Air and the new Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Users of the chubby, regular MacBook Pro will not be able to take advantage of this feature.
Game Center
Game Center finally makes it way onto OS X. Apple computers have always been made fun of for not focusing on gaming, but Game Center is definitely a step towards challenging Window’s desktop gaming hegemony. Mac and iOS users will be able to play games together for the first time.
Game Center will also attempt to take on Facebook Connect with social gaming. Users can send their friends on Game Center “challenges.” These challenges can yield achievement awards and bragging rights between you and your friends. Game Center will also sync your friends with Facebook, making it easy to pressure (or annoy) your Facebook friends into joining Game Center.
If I had to sum up WWDC 2012’s OS X announcements with one word, it would be “evolutionary.” Everything announced at today’s keynote was either playing catch up with what Apple’s competitors are doing or making small tweaks to make the operating system more user friendly. Even though nothing revolutionary was announced and at $19.99, Apple knows you’re still going to buy it.
