Apple Announces Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Normally I don’t talk about desktop software here unless it relates directly to genealogy applications or information on mobile devices. I leave that kind of stuff for Mac Genealogy Software. But this morning, Apple announced Mac OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” and they have worked to integrate even more features from their mobile iOS platform into the desktop platform. It brings over Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Notification Center, Share Sheet, Twitter functionality, and AirPlay mirroring, and an increased functionality in regards for iCloud, both from an end-user perspective, and a developer perspective. If you are already in the Mac Developer Program, the developer preview is available right now. If you are not, or want to wait, it will be available later this summer through the Mac App Store.

In theory, if you are a Mac genealogy application developer, and you have an iOS version of your software, it should be even easier to share your genealogy data between your Mac and iOS devices.

I will say that I don’t think Notes, even if Apple is making it cross-platform and syncing through iCloud, will be replacing Evernote for me. I do think this is going to have a major impact on mobile devices. Apple is clearly trying to make the computing experience as seamless as possible regardless of what device you are on.

I’ve written more about it over on Mac Genealogy – Mountain Lion

As a part of the Mountain Lion release/hype, Mac OS X users can download Messages beta. Messages is replacing iChat, and is part of a cross-platform unified messaging strategy from Apple. You’ll be able to have unlimited messages/communicatiosn between Macs and iOS 5 devices (iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads running iOS 5) and will be able to launch FaceTime for video chatting, as well as continuing conversations between multiple devices running Messages and iMessages (iOS). You can read a little more about it over on MacGenealogy.org – Apple Releases Messages Beta from Mac OS X Mountain Lion or download it from Apple’s Messages beta website.