iOS has grown quickly because there are so many people using it in a daily basis. Since most iPhone users are not as patient or tech savvy as desktop users, Apple had to work extra hard to make the iPhone UI easy to use. With all that user feedback, they managed to tweak and polish that system really well; that's way when they made an overhaul of OSX they applied what they learned to make laptops and desktop computers closer to how a portable device looks and feels. The Lion was that first big change.

Less than a year later, Apple decided to bring a new version of their OSX with Mountain Lion and although the changes are not really big, there are some interesting things to look forward. With this new version, they get much more closer to having a single OS running in all of their devices.

New Apps

Seeing the Mountain Lion presentation looks like Apple has just changed some apps on the system instead of actually making changes. The “new” apps are just versions of the most successful apps in the iOS. Reminders, Notes and Messages will replace iCal and iChat and will work together with all the other devices pushing content through the App Cloud. These new apps will work as native (although they are available already in the App Store).

Notification Center

Working together with the apps and notifications other programs need, this is a smart way to show all the notifications without being too intrusive. The messages will appear in the top window, but you'll be able to access them by “sliding” the whole desktop with a gesture of the mouse. To avoid seeing notifications for all your emails, the Mail app has a new option that lets you flag certain people as V.I.P.’s . Only messages from V.I.P.’s will appear in the Notification Center.

Games Center

Like the game centers of old (I'm talking 90s game centers), this is a central hub for pairing up anonymous players of games across the Internet with 20,000 compatible games. Now it will be possible to play with/against them directly from your desktop computer.

Apple TV

With the new version of the OS, you'll be able to project wirelessly using AirPlay but only if you have an Apple TV I'm wondering what the maximum resolution this system allows, only 720p hi-def, or if it goes up to 1080p.

Twitter

Most of the OSX apps now will have a multitude of sharing options with just one click. One of those options is Twitter, which is nice, although it is a little surprising because it’s the only non-Apple element that OSX will allow without extra programs or configuration. This is one part Apple philosophy and another part Apple strategy: They create closed environments.

Strategy

Messages is a good example, bypassing providers, they offer free texting between devices from iPhone, but close any other kind of access to a different system or technology. The same happens with AirPlay and I imagine other technologies.

By accepting Twitter sharing they have to accept another company handling their users, something I believe they don't completely like.

What is missing

The two elements that Mac is missing, that I imagine they will try to fix someday soon is their Internet Browser and their Media Player.

They have invested a lot in both Safari and Quicktime, but I can't see it surviving much longer as proprietary formats, winning over Firefox, Chrome, or other Media Players like VLC. I wonder if their iOS solution can be a good change for the Desktop version.

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