On Thursday, the 16th of February, Cupertino-based software developer Apple announced that it rolled out a developer preview of the 9th major release of its Mac OS X operating system, mainly Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Apple touted the fact that Mountain Lion was built with iCloud in mind for easy setup and integration with apps and the fact that Mountain Lion incorporates popular features from the iPad, thus accelerating the pace of OS X innovation.

“The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.”

Here are the main new features that you can expect to see in Mac OS X 10 Mountain Lion:

• Messages – a brand new app that replaces iChat. With this app you can send messages, photos and videos from one Mac to another. Messages provides support for AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google. A beta version of Messages is available for download on apple.com right now; the final version will be incorporated into Mountain Lion.
• Reminders and Notes – these are tools you can use to create and track to-dos across multiple devices.
• Game Center – assuming you’re not familiar with Game Center, it helps you find new games, challenge friends, and play live multiplayer games.
• Notification Center – displays notifications from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps.
• Share Sheets – easily share links, photos, and videos.
• Twitter integration – the popular micro-blogging site is integrated throughout Mountain Lion.
• AirPlay Mirroring - wirelessly send a secure 720p video stream from your Mac to an HDTV via Apple TV.
• Gatekeeper – a new security feature that helps you control which apps can be downloaded and installed on your machine.

The Mountain Lion developer preview is available right now to Mac Developer Program members. The public will get its hands on the final version of Mountain Lion via the Mac App Store in late summer 2012.