Apple gets sneaky with Mountain Lion

Mountain lions can be loud, sure, but they can also be pretty sneaky.

Apple's announcement last week of the upcoming update to its desktop operating system -- you know, the one that runs all the non-iThings made by Apple -- was more on the sneaky side. So sneaky, in fact, that I was wondering if Apple was intentionally downplaying the announcement.

I'm not sure why they would, either. There will be some pretty cool stuff in the update to OS X when it's released this summer, and there are a couple things Mac users can take a look at now if they don't want to wait for the release. And as was the case with the previous OS X release -- that one was just plain Lion, released last year -- you'll see a bunch of new features that will seem familiar to iThings users.

Message

When iOS 5 was released last fall, it included a new messaging feature that let users text other iOS 5 users without eating up texts provided by their cell carrier. That was called iMessage, and it's turned out to be a pretty popular thing, enough so that I could consider scaling back the text plan provided by AT&T because just about everyone I text with is also on an iPhone.

Mountain Lion will extend that to the non-mobile Apple hardware with Message. Just like its mobile counterpart, it gives users the ability to send an unlimited number of texts from your desktop or laptop to other Macs or any Apple mobile devices, a feature that cell carriers have to be absolutely thrilled about.

One cool thing? You can try it out now, by downloading the beta version at Apple's website.

Organizational stuff

The Notes app -- a yellow legal pad-looking thing scaled for mobile devices -- has been a mainstay for iOS devices since there were iOS devices. With the Mountain Lion update, it'll be part of the Mac architecture as well and, with the help of iCloud, it'll sync with your iThings too.

A newer iOS feature, Reminders, is similar. Notes is structured for any kind of text thing you'd want to hold on to while Reminders is what it says it is -- a place to keep lists of tasks or stuff you need at the store.

It will also sync between the Mac and your iPhone, so that grocery list can be updated at home and show up on your phone and you won't forget that you're out of coffee. And you know what happens when you forget the coffee.

Notification Center

This is one of my favorite things about iOS 5; it's a pull-down menu that shows any new emails, calendar updates, game moves, emails and texts, and gives you an easy link to go right to the new stuff.

In Mountain Lion, it's similar -- you'll get brief pop-up notifications for the stuff you want to hear about and you can see them all in one place by swiping along the left side of the screen.

Share Sheets

This function makes it easy to share almost anything you come across without having to toggle back and forth between applications.

Find a pic you like while browsing? From one drop-down menu, you can email it, Message it or tweet it. Integration with photo service Flickr and video service Vimeo will also be right at your fingertips.

Game Center

Another iOS feature ported to OS X, Game Center gives you the chance to compete head to head with other players, as long as they have a Game Center account, too.

Twitter

No, Twitter isn't new, but it will be integrated into nearly everything Mountain Lion does. With the new application, you'll be able to tweet from nearly any other app, again without switching back and forth. You'll also get notifications of mentions or direct messages right away.

Playing favorites

Several of the things in the above list show how easy it is to share stuff using Mountain Lion, and Twitter integration is a big part of that. Notice, though, one thing -- I haven't mentioned Facebook. Apple is embracing the social media world, but it apparently isn't playing nice with social media's biggest player.

The folks at Mashable point out that it seems Twitter is the preferable service to the Appleites; they also say this is another instance where it seems the two companies can't get on the same page.

I wrote about how long it took for an update to Facebook's iOS apps to appear last year; Mashable notes that Twitter's native iPad app was available more than a year before the FB apps were ready to go.

The FB gorilla is still everywhere on the web, so it's not like the omission from Mountain Lion is going to make it especially tough to share what you want to, but it's pretty clear that Twitter is the favorite partner among those in Cupertino.