Along with support for Windows 8, Boot Camp also added support for Macs with 3TB hard drives, a feature that is long overdue considering the storage needs of a lot of users. The 10.8.3 update also comes with several bugfixes including patches for Logic Pro and a fix for a bug that sometimes made audio stutter on some iMacs.

Overall, OS X 10.8.3 spent three-and-a-half months in beta, with 13 different beta version being released over that timeframe. That’s a long time for such a small OS update, but this isn’t anything new from Apple. They’ve been known to release several beta versions of updates before seeding it out to the public.

Hopefully todays update doesn’t cause any problems. In the past, several different OS X updates have wreaked havoc on particular Mac machines, so if you’re weary about updating this time around, then it won’t hurt to wait it off for a few weeks to find out if it’s causing any problems. Otherwise, the update should be ready for you, either in Software Update, or through the Mac App Store.

Design

Visual sleight-of-hand and some impressive manufacturing innovation have helped Apple come up with a new design for the 2012 iMac, which from certain angles leaves it looking as slender as a MacBook lid. In fact, the heavily tapered aluminum rear narrows to just 5mm at the edge, though it bows out toward the middle to accommodate everything that needs to fit inside an all-in-one computer.

That accommodation and construction uses everything Apple has learned so far from unibody notebooks, scaled up to suit a 21.5-inch or bigger desktop. So, you get carefully stacked logic boards and custom speaker enclosures, along with a single central fan that pulls cool air from a row of holes under the front edge, and pushes it back out of vents behind the tilting stand. You also get minimal upgrade potential: the 21.5-inch iMac is an entirely closed box, with nothing intended to be user-accessible, while the 27-inch iMac has a small panel by the power socket that allows access to the memory but nothing else.

Apple’s production magic is friction-stir welding, more commonly used in the aerospace industry, and repurposed for the new iMac to bond the front and rear panels together. Traditional welding the seams wasn’t possible, thanks to the slimline build, and so a technique where the panels are pressed tightly together, heated, and fused was implemented. There’s a sizable reduction in weight, too, versus the old design – the 21.5-inch iMac is down 8 pounds to 12.5 pounds, while the 27-inch version is down 9.5 pounds to 21 pounds – which is useful if you’re moving the computer around.

Face-on, meanwhile, and you’d be forgiven for not realizing that you were looking at a new iMac. The black screen bezel and slim aluminum chin look just as they did before, and it’s only when you see things from the side that the new design stands out. The obvious loss from the blunt-edged last-gen model is the optical drive, with the 2012 iMac following the trend of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina and focusing on digital distribution for apps and multimedia.

On the back, as before, there are the ports clustered to the left side and the power button on the right. No matter which size iMac you choose, you get the same connectivity: a 3.5mm headphone jack, an SDXC memory card reader, four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, and a gigabit ethernet port; inside, there’s WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. Up front, there’s a FaceTime HD camera above the display, together with a pair of digital microphones that can use beam-forming technology to isolate your voice from ambient noise.

The new iMac’s speakers deserve a little attention on their own, given that they’re nothing like as anaemic as we feared they could be given the 40-percent smaller chassis. In fact, Apple has been able to accommodate two 20W amplifiers, one driving each of the speakers, which themselves fire down from holes alongside the front-edge air intakes. Despite the unusual positioning, sounds feel like they’re coming directly from the display and quality is strong. These speakers are easily capable of being cranked up to uncomfortably loud levels, without encountering any distortion until you’re at the very top end of the scale.

Display

Finessing the iMac’s display is no small part of the redesign process for 2012, though there’s more to it than pure pixels. The LCD panels themselves are the same as in the previous-generation – either a 21.5-inch LED IPS screen running at 1920 x 1080, or a 27-inch LED IPS running at 2560 x 1440 – but the way they’ve been assembled has changed.

Called full lamination, it’s a technique where the cover glass is fused to the LCD panel rather than sandwiching them together with a gap in-between. Apple – and others – have already used it to good effect on phones and tablets, but the 2012 iMac is the first time it’s been implemented on such a large display. The upshot is a thinner panel overall, by around 5mm, and an improvement in picture quality.

Despite the LCDs themselves being the same as before, the combination of full lamination and a new anti-reflection coating process makes a real difference when you’re sat in front of the iMac. Colors are brighter and punchier, the screen is impressively bright with consistent backlighting, and viewing angles are broad, with no inversions or color mangling even when sat almost side-on to the display. Graphics appear as if they’re swimming right at the surface of the glass, rather than being slightly inset from the black bezel.

Apple quotes a 75-percent reduction in reflection, helped by the so-called plasma deposition system which coats the glass layers with more precise coatings of the same materials used to cut glare on camera lenses and fighter pilots’ helmets. It’s a tough thing to measure exactly in a real-world setting, though there’s an obvious cut in reflections (see image above where a flash from camera is minimized) when you set old and new next to each other. We spent far less time tweaking the degree of tilt of the new iMac versus the old to find a position where artificial lighting and the sun didn’t prove frustrating, and even once we’d set up both to our liking, text and graphics simply look better on the 2012 model.

Fusion Drive

Until now, the iMac has been offered with a choice of up to two different storage options: traditional hard-drives, for those who want the most capacity, and SSDs, for those who want the most speed. The 2012 iMac keeps both those options, with a 1TB HDD the default (5,400rpm on the 21.5-inch; 7,200 rpm on the 27-inch) upgradable to 3TB HDD on the 27-inch, along with a 768GB flash storage option on the 27-inch.

For 2012, however, Apple adds a third option: Fusion Drive. A hybrid of HDD and flash storage, Fusion Drive pairs 128GB of speedy solid-state memory with either 1TB or 3TB of HDD capacity, promising the best of both worlds. On the one hand, the flash storage is far faster than the typical spinning-platter drive, but Fusion Drive is also a fifth of the price of the SSD option.

We’ve seen hybrid HDD/SSD drives before, of course, but Apple takes a slightly different approach. Rather than the relatively small amount of flash memory other companies have used for caching a few frequently-accessed files on their models, Apple’s Fusion Drive has a full 128GB of flash which allows a far greater number of files to be kept in the faster part.

Chunks of the OS, the apps you use most frequently, and the media you commonly play are all prioritized automatically, while over time OS X learns which content is infrequently required and shunts that to the more capacious, but slower, HDD. A true SSD will inevitably be faster across the board, but for everyday use Fusion Drive is hard to argue with, as the benchmarks in the next section demonstrate.

Specifications

All new iMac models use Intel’s Core i5 quadcore Ivy Bridge chips by default, with the quadcore Core i7 processors available as options on the more expensive versions of each core configuration. The cheapest 21.5-inch iMac uses the 2.7GHz Core i5, supporting up to 3.2GHz Turbo Boost, while its more expensive configuration gets the 2.9GHz Core i5, with up to 3.6GHz Turbo Boost. The latter can be built-to-order with a 3.1GHz Core i7, with up to 3.9GHz Turbo Boost.

As for the 27-inch iMac, that starts out with the 2.9GHz Core i5, with the more expensive pre-build getting the 3.2GHz Core i5. The build-to-order on the latter is Intel’s 3.4GHz Core i7, with 3.9GHz Turbo Boost. All of the chips come with 6MB of L3 cache.

Memory is 8GB as standard across the range, comprising two 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 chips. The 21.5-inch iMac can be specified with up to 16GB, while the 27-inch iMac can go up to 32GB. However, only the 27-inch iMac has user-accessible memory slots: the four bays are accessed via a panel behind the stand, whereas the smaller iMac isn’t intended to be user-upgraded. In short, if you think you’ll ever want more than 8GB of memory on the 21.5-inch iMac, you should bite the bullet and upgrade at the point of purchase.

Then there’s the graphics. Space constraints mean that Apple opts for mobile GPUs rather than desktop chips, though they’re the same Kepler-based NVIDIA GeForce examples that we’ve seen in the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina. On the 21.5-inch iMac, the entry-level model gets the GT 640M with 512MB of dedicated GDDR5 memory, with the more expensive model stepping up to the same GT 650M as in the Retina MBP, only with 512MB of memory (rather than 1GB).

On the 27-inch iMac, the entry-level GPU is the GeForce GTX 660M with 512MB, while the most expensive pre-configuration gets the GTX 675MX with 1GB of GDDR5. The latter is also the only 2012 iMac that supports a graphics upgrade, with the GeForce GTX 680MX with 2GB of GDDR5 memory a $150 addition.

Performance

Apple provided us with a 3.4GHz Core i7 iMac with 8GB of memory, the top-spec GTX 680M GPU, and the 1TB Fusion Drive; all together, it’s a configuration priced at $2,599. We kicked off with Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance, and the iMac scored a whopping 14,064, around 50-percent more than the 2011 model could manage. It’s worth noting that Apple’s portables have narrowed the gap between mobile and desktop, however; the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display scored 12,970 in Geekbench.

In the SunSpider test of browser performance, the new iMac completed in 133.3ms (faster is better); the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro scored 179.5ms in the same test. Cinebench, a test of processor and graphics performance, saw the new iMac score 42.72fps in the OpenGL category, and 7.32 points in the CPU category. Again, in contrast, the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro scored 34.40fps and 5.74 points in those categories respectively, with its 2.6GHz quadcore Core i7 and 8GB of memory.

FusionDrive certainly doesn’t hurt. In the Blackmagic test of disk performance, the iMac managed read speeds of 409.6 MB/s and write speeds of 318.7 MB/s using the flash/HDD hybrid. Given the flash storage is prioritized until capacity becomes an issue, it comes as little surprise to see those rates up around where recent all-flash models from Apple have performed. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, for instance, came in at 431.7 MB/s read and 382.7 MB/s write with its 500GB solid-state drive.

The difference is particularly clear when compared to a 2012 iMac without FusionDrive. We also tested a 21.5-inch entry-level iMac, with Intel’s Core i5 quadcore 2.7GHz, 8GB of RAM, and the standard 1TB 5,400rpm hard-drive. In Geekbench, the iMac scored 9164, but the big change is in drive speeds: without the hybrid technology we saw 90.7 MB/s read rates and 107.2 MB/s write rates.

All those numbers add up to a machine – when equipped with FusionDrive, at least – that simply flies in day-to-day use. Apps generally load in under 2-3 seconds, and while the iMac might use mobile versions of graphics chips, it’s still eminently capable of photo and video editing, and conversion; iMovie and Aperture run with no lag. Gaming is also more than possible, though we wish that – as on some all-on-one computers we’ve seen – there was a video input to use the great display with an external console. However, it’s possible to drive a second external display; up to a 2560 x 1600 panel, in fact, as well as the iMac’s own screen.

Value

The new iMac range kicks off at $1,299 for the base-spec 21.5-inch model, while the 27-inch iMac starts at $1,799. It’s worth noting that of the two 21.5-inch configurations, only the higher-spec can be outfitted with a FusionDrive, which means $1,499 plus $250 for the drive upgrade; there’s also a good argument to be made for maxing out the memory on the smaller iMac, since it can’t be upgraded later, which is another $200.

All versions come with an Apple Wireless Keyboard (a wired keyboard with numeric keypad is a no-cost option) and a choice of Apple’s Magic Mouse, the Magic Trackpad, or the wired Apple Mouse; for $69 you can have both the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad. Those who simply must have an optical drive can pay $79 for the USB SuperDrive, though any external DVD burner should work.

The all-in-one computing market is small, but it’s not non-existent, and the new iMac does have a few rivals. Dell’s XPS One 27 runs at the same 2560 x 1440 resolution as the 27-inch iMac, and starts at $1,400 for the non-touch variant. That, however, uses Intel HD integrated graphics; if you want a discrete GPU, you’re looking at upwards of $2,100 and NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 640M, a weaker graphics chip than Apple’s entry-level 27-inch model. It does support multitouch, should that be a buying decision.

Vizio offers 24- and 27-inch All-in-One PCs, though they both run at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and the GPU – only discrete on the 27-inch – maxes out at the GeForce GT 640M LE. The range of processors is more humble too, with only the top-end 27-inch model getting a quadcore Core i5, though the maximum price of $1,539 makes them competitive for budget buyers.

HP’s Spectre ONE is a 23-inch, $1,300 option, meanwhile, kicking off with the same 2.9GHz quadcore Core i5 processor, but less RAM and a lesser GPU. Several of these all-in-ones offer a secondary flash caching drive, though typically around 32GB in capacity, and as such are less practical than FusionDrive.

Of course, the big difference between the iMac and these other all-in-ones is the OS: if you want Apple’s OS X, then the only way to get it is to buy a Mac. All of the alternatives come with Windows 8, and while that’s a capable platform, it’s not Mountain Lion, and thus a deal-breaker for many users.

Wrap-Up

The new iMac is a beautiful piece of hardware, that’s clear to see. Apple’s clever construction techniques have enabled a stylish, distinctive all-in-one, but more importantly they’ve legitimately improved the user-experience, too. The full lamination process takes the same display pixels as from the previous generation iMac and makes them work harder and look better; you’ll appreciate the many pounds dropped from the overall weight of each system from the moment you lift it out of the box.

With style comes a handful of compromises. As with Apple’s recent notebooks, there’s less room for user-upgrades: adding memory is basically the only thing that you can do, and even then that’s only an option on the 27-inch model. With both, then, it’s a case of digging deep when first ordering, particularly since having experienced the speeds on offer from FusionDrive, we’d seriously recommend that every buyer tick that option box.

DIY enthusiasts may miss the upgrade possibilities, but everyone else will be enjoying an incredibly capable computer. With strong performance the 2012 iMac proves that beauty needn’t be merely skin-deep, and that all-in-one needn’t mean conceding speed. That, and Apple’s creative use of components and design, makes it our pick of the all-in-ones.

As it turns out, Apple has decided a solid end date for the Messages beta: December 14, 2012. That’s just under a month from now, so if you’re still using the Messages beta on Lion, your days are numbered. Of course, if you want to continue using Messages, it can be found in OS X Mountain Lion, which Apple unsurprisingly suggests users upgrade to. Here’s the email for Apple:

The Messages Beta program for Lion will end on Friday, December 14, 2012. We hope you’ve enjoyed the opportunity to preview Messages.

If you’d like to continue using Messages, upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Messages is one of many great new apps and features built right into OS X Mountain Lion.

Thank you for your participation in the Messages Beta program.

Mountain Lion, which currently is at version 10.8.2, is available on the Mac App Store for $20. That’s not too bad a price for an OS upgrade, so it isn’t much of a surprise that we saw so many Mac users take advantage of it back when it launched back in July. We reviewed Mountain Lion when it launched, deciding that there was a lot of value in the new version of Mac OS X, especially for just $20.

With that in mind, it might not be a bad idea to upgrade anyway. After all, you get a full version of Messages along with all of the other features Mountain Lion brings with it. Did any of you get this mysterious email popping up in your mailbox today?

The Mimo Magic Touch is the first model released by Mimo Monitors to be assured readiness to work with the official Mac OS X Touchscreen Driver distributed by Mimo Monitors as well. This driver works with Intel Macs only and is compatible with systems up to and including OS X Mountain Lion. The driver, incidentally, is an alpha release – but once the final version is ready for action, you’ll get that upgrade for free.

The folks at Mimo Monitors note that “that this software is proprietary and we cannot provide it without charging this nominal license fee.” This is why it’s not free, if you’d like to know. You’ll also get a free downloadable “Gesture Pack” that allows two-finger scroll, pinch / magnify, and rotate gestures galore. You can also download a “trial version” of the software from Mimo Monitors once you’ve got the Mimo Magic Touch if you’d like to be sure you actually want to work with it, too.

The Mimo Magic Touch is also a lovely touchscreen monitor on its own, working with Windows 7 with full touchscreen capabilities with a 1024 x 600 resolution display, an adjustable dock/bast, and connects with USB 2.0. This unit needs to be connected with a USB cord in order to function, but requires JUST the USB cord and no additional display cords to work. Neat stuff! You’ll be picking up the monitor for $299.99 and the driver for $35.00 USD.

According to Microsoft back in December of 2011, they had an install base of 1.25 billion Windows PCs – that includes all versions of Windows. It was also asserted back then, according to business insider, that 500 million Windows 7 licenses had been sold in the last two years (again, this was reported in December of 2011). Interestingly enough, Ballmer also let it be known that 670 million machines are now running Windows 7, that falling relatively in-line with the idea that Windows 7 adoption has been slowing down since Windows 8 was announced.

Apple on the other hand has slightly different numbers as far as OS X installs and upgrades to Mountain Lion, their newest system. Back at WWDC 2012, Apple let it be known that there were 66 million installations of Mac on the market.

Ballmer announced that 4 million Windows 8 upgrades had been sold in the three days since it’d been launched. In the same amount of time, Apple announced more than 3 million OS X Mountain Lion upgrades. If you take the total amount of machines with Windows installed on them and compare it to the upgrade numbers for Windows 8, you get about 1/3 of one percent of the total. If you take the total amount of machines with a Mac OS on them and compare it to the Mountain Lion upgrade numbers, you get 4.5% of the total.

The rate of adoption between these two ecosystems is drastically different – which do you consider more successful? A better question might be: do you consider the adoption rate to be more important, or the total number of machines that now work with one system or the other?

Cook says that this was the fastest update rate of any software history that the company knows of. Cook also talked about the seamless integration between iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, specifically calling out Documents in the Cloud, saying that there are over 125 million Documents in the Cloud right now.

iMessage has also seen a huge boost in usage. 300 billion (with a “B”) iMessages have been sent since the platform was first launched, and it’s at a rate of about 28,000 messages being sent every second. Other statistics that Cook quickly mentioned were about Game Center — 160 million Game Center accounts have been created. Also, iOS 6′s shared Photo Stream feature also has seen over 70 million photos shared between iOS users.

This device will be appearing as a 13.3-inch Mac-based pen tablet computer. You’ve got a 64GB solid-state drive inside, upgrade possible to 480GB internal SSD storage, and a ship-date for online purchases of the device for as early as mid-November. This device combines the original hardware of an Apple MacBook Pro with OS X Mountain Lion with a digitizer from Wacom for 512 levels of pen pressure sensitivity. Also in the mix is a ForceGlass pen interface and the ability to work with Microsoft Windows 7 as well.

If you purchase the base configuration of this machine, you’ll be getting Modbook Inc’s own original 64GB Nishara-class SATA 3 SSD with NAND technology – and you’ve got the option to work with a bigger more powerful beast as well, of course, with up to 480GB of storage. With NAND technology you’ll have the best speed and performance available with flash-based storage, and you’ll have no moving parts – better for the long run.

Sales of this Modbook Pro will begin on Wednesday and will have customers living in the United States – or at least whose mailing addresses are in the USA – getting shipment in starting in November. The Modbook team lets everyone know the following about each Modbook purchase, and makes it clear that this is not an original product in and of itself, but a modification of a product originally manufactured by Apple.

The Modbook Pro is an enclosure conversion kit designed to exclusively contain an original MacBook Pro base system manufactured by Apple Inc. Apple Inc.’s one-year warranty on the base system is voided by the conversion and replaced with the Modbook Pro Protection Plan, which covers the entire hardware solution, including the base system.

Let us know if you’re into the idea of the Modbook Pro, or if you think people should just stick with the iPad and leave the real power to the notebook universe!

Today was also a pretty big day for the Apple fans out there, as the company officially released the final version of iOS 6, and we were there with the full iOS 6 changelog. A new version of OS X Mountain Lion launched alongside iOS 6 (10.8.2 to be specific), and new benchmarks show that the iPhone 5 is a beast when it comes to browsing. IHS iSuppli says that the 16GB iPhone 5 costs Apple $207 to make, and a Samsung Facebook campaign has been invaded by the pro-Apple crowd. Samsung ultimately got the last laugh though, as it released a new commercial informing the consumers of the world that the best has already arrived.

T-Mobile USA has named John Legere as its new CEO, and he sat down for a hello to everyone on YouTube. AT&T brought its 4G LTE service to 8 new cities today, and ZTE gave us an idea of when it will launch its first phones running Firefox OS. The Samsung Galaxy Note II has been announced for all major US carriers, and US Cellular gave the new device a price tag of $300 and a late-October launch. Earlier in the day, we heard that Google was planning to launch a new update for Google Maps on Android, and sure enough, that update arrived just a few hours later with a couple cool new features in tow.

Tobii and NTT DOCOMO will soon be showing off a new tablet with Tobii’s eye-tracking technology, while the Raspberry Pi’s turbo mode gives it a 50% boost in power. After its two co-founders announced yesterday that they were leaving the games industry, BioWare outlined its plan for the future (spoiler: it includes more Mass Effect and Dragon Age), and Toshiba announced the latest in its line of Camileo camcorders, the rugged BW20. Finally tonight, we have a review of the all new Kindle Fire HD for you to check out – does Amazon’s latest impress or does it fall flat? Read the review to find out!

That’s all for the Evening Wrap-Up, folks. Now go out and enjoy the rest of your night!

One of the most exciting new features is true-to-form Facebook integration. After installing OS X 10.8.2, Mountain Lion users will be able to take advantage of single sign in for Facebook, as well the ability to share links or photos directly to Facebook. When you’re browsing your Contacts, you’ll see the profile pictures and contact information of your Facebook friends, and your Notification Center now houses your Facebook notifications as well.

Game Center has also received a few Facebook-related updates to, with users now able to share their scores to Facebook (support for sharing your scores on Twitter, Mail, and Messages is there too). Your Facebook friends will be recommended as Game Center friends after installing this update, and Apple has also included a Facebook Like button for your Game Center titles.

Of course, there’s far more beyond just Facebook integration, as Apple has added Power Nap support for late 2010 MacBook Airs. If you’re using iOS 6, iMessages sent your your iPhone will also show up in you Mac’s Messages sections, and dictation has added supported for a number of different languages, including Mandarin, Spanish, and – finally – Canadian English. Aside from all of that, there are number of new features and fixes, so take a look at the whole changelog below:

Facebook

• Single sign on for Facebook
• Adds Facebook as an option when sharing links and photos
• See Facebook friends’ contact information and profile pictures in Contacts
• Facebook notifications now appear in Notification Center

Game Center

• Share scores to Facebook, Twitter, Mail, or Messages
• Facebook friends are included in Game Center friend recommendations
• Added Facebook “Like” button for games
• Challenge friends to beat your score or achievement

Other new features

• Adds Power Nap support for MacBook Air (Late 2010)
• iMessages sent to your phone number now appear in Messages on your Mac*
• You can now add passes to Passbook (on your iPhone or iPod touch) from Safari and Mail on your Mac*
• FaceTime can now receive calls sent to your phone number*
• New shared Reminders lists
• New sort options allow you to sort notes by title, the date you edited them, and when you created them
• Dictation now supports additional languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Korean, Canadian English, Canadian French, and Italian
• Dictionary app now includes a French definition dictionary
• Sina Weibo profile photos can now be added to Contacts

* Requires iOS 6

General fixes

The OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 update also includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac, including the following fixes:

• Adds an option to discard the changes in the original document when choosing Save As
• Unsent drafts are now opened automatically when launching Mail
• Receive Twitter notifications for mentions and replies from anyone
• URLs are shortened when sending tweets from Notification Center
• Notifications are disabled when AirPlay Mirroring is being used
• Adds SSL support for Google searches from the Smart Search Field in Safari
• Adds a new preference to have Safari launch with previously open webpages
• Resolves an issue that may cause the “Enable Autodiscover” checkbox to always remain checked
• Enables access to the Mac App Store when Parental Controls are enabled
• Support for @icloud.com email addresses
• Resolves a video issue with some VGA projectors when connected to certain Mac notebooks
• Addresses an issue that may prevent Active Directory accounts from being locked out
• Resolves an issue that may cause the policy banner to re-appear prior to logging in
• Improvements to SMB
• Addresses an issue with NIS users when auto-login is enabled
• Addresses an issue in which the Keychain may not be accessible
• Ability to pre-authenticate a FileVault protected system
• Addresses an issue that may cause Xsan to not automatically start after migrating from Mac OS X Snow Leopard

So there you have it – we weren’t kidding when we said that Mountain Lion users are getting a lot with this latest update. What do you think OS X 10.8.2 for Mountain Lion?

Cook started with OS X Mountain Lion, saying that since its release, 7 million people have downloaded a copy. That makes Mountain Lion the fastest selling Apple release of all time, definitely something worth bragging about. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display – which Apple says is the best Mac it has ever made – and the MacBook Air have been doing quite well too.

So well, in fact, that Apple says its notebooks are now in first place as far as US market share is concerned. To get specific, that’s a 27% market share for its notebooks, and Cook says that for the past 6 years straight, Mac has grown “significantly faster” than PC has. That definitely isn’t bad, and you can bet that Apple will look to keep that growth up with future Mac releases. Be sure to tune into our liveblog for up-to-the minute updates straight from Apple’s press event, and have a look at our Apple portal for more in-depth coverage!

Twitter has taken away Tumblr Friend Finder functionality, and the inexpensive T-Mobile Concord has launched to bring 4G to budget-minded consumers. It was recently discovered that the SMS security hole known to plague iPhones doesn’t affect other devices running a different OS like Android or BlackBerry, and LG has apparently started working on the screen that may end up gracing the iPhone 5. Speaking of the iPhone, it seems that production on the next model has slowed thanks to a shortage of supplies.

The FCC has approved Verizon’s bid to buy up additional 4G LTE spectrum, and the Xbox 360 will be offering users election coverage starting next week, complete with live streams of the three debates that are planned. A large percentage of consumers are saying that they don’t need 4G LTE service, despite the fact that carriers are advertising it like mad. There’s a new OS X Mountain Lion update on the scene, and it’s bringing some software fixes with it, while today we received word that Facebook’s storage requirements grow by 500TB each and every day.

Sony Mobile has announced that it will be laying off 1,000 employees by March 2014, and the jury that is deciding the Apple and Samsung patent case decided to put in a little bit of overtime today. Paypal will be teaming up with Discover to bring its service to a ton of retail locations, Nissan will be giving prospective buyers of its 2013 Pathfinder a virtual tour of the car with a little help from Kinect, and Amazon has a new event coming up next month, where we’re thinking it will announce a brand new Kindle Fire. It just so happens that we’ll be at that event, so if there is a new Kindle Fire announced, you’ll be able to read all about it here at SlashGear.

Finally tonight, we have a brand new hands-on with the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. Enjoy the rest of your evening everyone, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow night for Friday’s edition of the Wrap-Up!

This new software VMware Fusion 5 will bring on a whole new generation of performance, with “40% faster general performance” than in previous versions of VMware. That’s a pretty darn good improvement, and the team is making sure we know that this improvement comes in faster 3D graphics as well as improved power management which leads to longer battery life on your MacBook products galore. You’ve got support for Linux 3D desktops as well, for those of you looking to expand far beyond the two titans.

This system is build specifically for Mountain Lion and optimized for Windows 8. You’ll be able to run Windows and Mountain Lion searches both in Launchpad and will be able to use AirPlay Mirroring to stream both environments to your Apple TV. VMware Fusion notifications will also appear in your Mountain Lion notification center regardless of if they’re through Windows 8 or OS X. VMWare Fusion 5 will also be supporting Windows 8 standard, pro, and enterprise editions.

Enhancements for your Mac in this software release include compatibility with Retina-quality displays, USB 3 connectivity, and improvements in support for large memory machines. You’ll be able to pick up Fusion 5 for $49.99 for the standard version immediately – there’s also a Professional version available for $99.99. And what’s best of all is that if you purchased VMware Fusion 4 on or after the 25th of July, you’ll be able to upgrade to this new version for free!

If you’re not a VMware sort of person and instead choose Parallels as your cross-OS software of choice, you’ll be waiting until September 4th. More info on that release soon and very soon!

Once you do upgrade, you’ll find that you’re running just a bit quicker and that several bugs you may or may not have noticed recently are completely fixed up. Apple’s upgrade list includes several small fixes as well as an “unexpected quit” error appearing in Migration Assistant more often than the software and hardware company was comfortable with. Per Apple, their upgrade list reads as follows.

• Resolve an issue that may cause Migration Assistant to unexpectedly quit
• Improve compatibility when connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server in Mail
• Address an issue playing audio through a Thunderbolt display
• Resolve an issue that could prevent iMessages from being sent
• Address an issue that could cause the system to become unresponsive when using Pinyin input
• Resolve an issue when connecting to SMB servers with long names
• Address a issue that may prevent Safari from launching when using a Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) file
• Improve 802.1X authentication with Active Directory credentials.

NOTE: Check out our full OS X Mountain Lion review if you’ve not already downloaded the software yourself – it’s a winner!

For a full list of upgrades, you can head to Apple’s full upgrade page at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5418, and note that Apple suggests that you do a full back up of your system before you initiate this upgrade as well. Selecting your Apple Menu and Software Update will also reveal any other software updates available to you via Apple’s own server.

Software updates for 3rd party applications can be found in your Apple App Store application – Software Update works specifically with Apple-loaded software. If you’re uncomfortable with the Software Update process, you can also use Apple’s Manual Update software to make it all smooth.

[via Apple]

“Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said in a statement this morning.

Also among the 200+ new features are iCloud integration – Mountain Lion being the first OS X refresh since iCloud was launched – and AirPlay Mirroring, along with the same dictation system as on the iPhone 4S and new iPad. Game Center has also been added, and Facebook integration will be enabled in the fall.

An unofficial count on Friday pegged Apple as having seen in excess of two million downloads of Mountain Lion in the first 48hrs. These new, official figures confirm that – and more, though there’s no word on how many unique Apple IDs actually bought Mountain Lion. A single purchase can be used to update all Macs registered to the same ID.

Nonetheless, it’s an impressive achievement and certainly lays down the gauntlet to Windows 8 which is expected to arrive in October. There’s more on Mountain Lion in the full SlashGear review.

The popular web tracking firm Chitka has posted some numbers confirming a rough estimate of around 2.11 million Mac users are now running OS X (10.8) Mountain Lion. If those numbers are accurate Mountain Lion could be the fastest released and adopted operating system of all times. That isn’t all either. If estimates are correct, assuming 90% of users paid the $20 upgrade fee, the Lion just racked in $38 million in revenue for the Cupertino folks in the past 48 hours.

With iCloud, Siri like Voice dictation, improved trackpad options, tons of features and options brought over from the iPhone and iPad, and well over 200 new features this is the best Mac OS to date. If you haven’t upgraded yet or don’t know what you’re missing you’ll surely want to check out our Mac OS X Mountain Lion Review. Go ahead and upgrade now because the $20 will be well spent. More details on your upgrade path to Mountain Lion can be found below.

Power Nap also supports calendar and contacts synchronization, along with reminders and notes, and makes sure your Mac has the latest content from your Documents in the Cloud account. It will also grab updates for your Mac App Store apps. If you’ve lost your notebook, you can use Find My Mac to locate it even if it’s sleeping.

Not all of the functionality is enabled every time your Mac is sleeping, however. Only when there’s a mains connection will Power Nap download software updates, makes Time Machine backups, run through Spotlight indexing, complete Mac App Store downloads and update Help Center.

Unfortunately, the 2010 MacBook Air isn’t supported by Power Nap, and neither are any MacBook Pro models beyond the Retina Display toting model from this year. That’s apparently due to a flash memory issue. The

More on Power Nap – and OS X 10.8 in general – in our full Mountain Lion review.

[via MacRumors]

Apple made it clear yesterday during their earnings call for their financial third quarter of 2012 that part of their sales were hurt due to the massive amount of rumors floating around the web speaking on future versions of their hardware. When we speak about the iPhone 5, the iPad mini, and so forth, we put the question into yours and our own minds: “Should I buy a device now, or should I wait until the next generation?” Any hardware company would have you pick up their current model if they had the choice – no question about it.

So what does OS X Mountain Lion (see our full review here) do to make it clear that Apple means business when it comes to picking up any one of their devices, not just their future releases? They set up a collection of connections between their iProducts and their Mac computers that work on the current generation as well as future generations alike.

In Mac OS X Mountain Lion you’ll be able to use iCloud for more media than ever, with desktop integration working to keep all of your files – such as documents, for example – part of the same collection no matter what device you’re on. Apple’s Messages app now exists on the desktop as well as the iPad and iPhone, the same being true of Reminders and Notes. Those of you used to working with notifications in your mobile OS will be glad to see Notification Center working with OS X Mountain Lion.

Then there’s Game Center – a social media connection between gamers on the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and now Mac as well. Dictation now works on your Mac with Mountain Lion with the same icon you see in Siri on both your iPhone and iPad, and AirPlay Mirroring makes you want an Apple TV with its lovely simple functionality.

Apple is not about to let up on the idea that their current AND future product sets are connected so well that it’s always your first option to purchase them all for the ease of it. Stay tuned as the web tightens!

The redemption code program went live earlier this week and some users reported it appearing before its official launch time. Because of this, it seems, there may have been some incorrect codes sent out to the public. On the other hand, users grabbing codes both before and after the official launch time for the program have both been reporting non-functional redemptions.

Not to worry, though, Apple’s program for new users doesn’t end until August the 24th. This means that anyone who has a code that has not worked thus far can certainly very easily call up Apple, email them, or head down to their local storefront to make the new upgrade so. Those of you who purchase new Mac computers starting today that still have Lion installed on them will have 30 days from the date of purchase to upgrade your computers to Mountain Lion for free as well.

Check out our timeline of Mountain Lion features from the past day or two, and don’t forget to check out our full review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as well!

[via MacRumors]

Before you go too far, be sure to check out our [Mac OS X Mountain Lion full review] to make sure you know what you’re getting into. After you do, continue below if you still need a quick run-down of what you’ll be getting that’s above and beyond the previous version of OS X, Lion – without the Mountain.

iCloud

This feature was introduced several months ago to make connections between your desktop computer and your iDevices much simpler. Now with Mountain Lion you don’t just have to rely on your web browser to deliver your various bits of media between devices. Documents in the Cloud allows instant updating of documents between devices with this new update, these documents sitting kindly on your Mac, updating with ease.

Messages

You’ll no longer be using iChat, instead you’ll be working with the same message environment that the iPad and the iPhone use. Messages are now seamless between the iPad, the iPhone, and your Mac.

Reminders

You’ll now have the same convenient ability to leave yourself reminders that pop up whenever you want them to – these reminders also work between devices, so you can create one on one device and each of your devices will know to notify you when the time comes for your reminder to remind you.

Notes

Similar to the functionality of Reminders and Documents in iCloud, you’ve got Notes which also work in iCloud – it’s basically a very simplified version of the situation. You’ve got a stack of notes and they’re all synced no matter which device you’re on.

Notification Center

Just like your iPad and iPhone, you’ve now got a list of notifications from your apps and system. Calendar invitations will pop up independent of your email system, you’ll be able to get alerts from apps when they need or want an update, and you’ll have a quick overview of it all in the upper-right of your display whenever you want it.

Safari

Mac’s built-in standard web browser now includes a Smart Search Field with instant reaction to your typing of URLs or search terms. You’ve also got Tab View that shows off open tabs – and iCloud Tabs allow you to pick up wherever you left off in your web browser no matter which device you’re on.

Sharing

Safari is only one of several apps throughout OS X Mountain Lion that benefit from the system’s ability to instantly share a variety of elements. Built-in sharing allows you to use Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo to share.

Facebook

Just as it is in iOS 6 – coming to an iPad and iPhone near you soon – you’ll be able to easily work with Facebook throughout your Mac. Sign in once and you’ll have easy posting of links and photos forever more. Your Facebook friend will appear in your Contacts automatically and you’ll receive updates in your Notification Center as well.

Twitter

Like Facebook, you’ll be able to quickly access Twitter from locations throughout this updated operating system. Tweet from your apps, sign in once to be able to share with Twitter from many places throughout your Mac, and get instant integration between the people you follow on Twitter and your Contacts list.

Game Center

Just as it is on your iPhone and iPad, you’ve now got full integration with Apple’s Game Center for social networking in a purely gaming level. You’ll be able to track your achievements, connect with friends to play collaborative games, and interact with your friends using their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

AirPlay Mirroring

This is the first version of Apple’s OS X desktop operating system that allows instant mirroring of your Mac’s display to your HDTV with your Apple TV. This wireless system allows high-definition mirroring of both your computer’s visuals and audio at once, seamlessly.

Note that AirPlay Mirroring requires that your Mac be one of the following: iMac mid-2011 or newer, Mac mini mid-2011 or newer, MacBook Air mid-2011 or newer, or MacBook Pro early 2011 or newer. Your Apple TV needs to be 2nd generation or newer as well for AirPlay Mirroring to function with OS X Mountain Lion.

Dictation

With Mountain Lion you can now speak out loud and have what you’re saying instantly typed up by the system. “Talk anywhere you can type” is their new motto, and no training or setup of any new system is required to make it all so.

Power Nap

While your Mac is sleeping, you’re now able to receive emails, software updates, calendar invites, and more. Where before if you wanted your computer to continue to keep up to date and synced with all things web-based, you’d have had to keep it awake – now you don’t. Simple as that. Note that Power Nap only works MacBook Air models mid-2011 and newer as well as MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Gatekeeper

You’ll have a new selection of controls for the entirety of your Mac, Gatekeeper giving you control over which apps are allowed to be downloaded and which apps are allowed to be installed as well. This feature has been implemented primarily to continue Apple’s battle against malware, and should very much be keeping the torch lit through the foreseeable future.

Download

You can download OS X Mountain Lion for your Mac right this minute through your Mac’s App Store for the cool price of $19.99. If you’re in need of instructions on how to do so or need guidance on what’s necessary to make the install happen, head to our post entitled Prepping for Mountain Lion: three steps you must take.

Also head to the timeline below to catch up on all things Mountain Lion while you stay tuned to our OS X Mountain Lion portal as well!

Apple runs a little-known scheme for those considering picking up a new Mac when a fresh OS X version is on the horizon, called Up-to-Date. So that customers aren’t tempted to wait until the new OS arrives preloaded, Apple promises a grace period within which any Mac bought is eligible to get the upgrade free.

In the OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date program, anyone who bought a Mac from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 11, 2012 can claim the new version free. Similarly, if you buy a Mac from now onwards, still running a previous version of OS X, you’ll have thirty days from point of purchase to apply for a free upgrade.

To apply, you’ll need an electronic copy of your sales receipt (if you bought your Mac through a brick & mortar Apple Store, or through an authorized reseller) and the serial number (used to identify online order eligibility). Systems bought through Apple’s Certified Refurbished store are also eligible. Apple will email you a redemption code to use in the Mac App Store.

If you think you’re eligible for the Up-to-Date scheme, head over to Apple’s registration site to punch in your details. Otherwise, you can find Mountain Lion in the Mac App Store [iTunes link] for $19.99.

After you have a peek at our OS X Mountain Lion full review, you’ll want to grab that update for yourself and follow up by heading to the Game Center. In this new section of the app store you’ll find a collection of just seven games for starters. These seven games represent a rather interesting cross-section of genres and gameplay, but what’s most important about all of them are their cross-platform abilities.

Every single one of the games in the Game Center for Mac right now also works with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. With these games you’ll be able to play with your friends and associates via the Game Center functionality they also all work with in-app.

Anomaly Warzone Eath
Mancala FS5
Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy
Real Racing 2
SpellTower
Cut the Rope
Osmos

Each of these titles are available for between $3.99 and $12.99, each of them able to be played on whatever Apple device you’ve got, more or less. We recommend Osmos first and foremost – it’s been essentially the same game for more than two years now, and it’s still very much one of our favorites – grab it!

Also have a peek at the timeline below to see other bits and pieces coming with Apple OS X Mountain Lion asap!

iCloud Tabs is one such feature. That will save whatever pages are open on your Mountain Lion device and sync them to an iOS device when you next open Safari. Tab View, meanwhile, allows you to pinch out in the browser and see a zoomed out card like view of your open pages, not unlike what you’d see on Safari for iOS. Reading List is Apple’s equivalent of Instapaper, bookmarking and saving websites to read offline.

Safari 6 also sees a unified URL bar and search field, mimicking functionality in Chrome that allows you to search or type in URLs from the same bar. Do Not Track isn’t too far off Incognito mode, setting a flag that tells websites not to track your activity or save any cookies, and the password pane allows you to manage any saved login details for websites. If you’re a fan of Apple’s browser and want the latest and greatest, hit up this link and get downloading. Those hoping for a Windows version of the browser might be out of luck, however, as Apple seems to have scrubbed it from the website.

There’s also Dictation, borrowing the voice recognition system from the iPhone 4S and new iPad, though Apple is yet to add full Siri support. New Twitter and – eventually – Facebook integration has also been implemented, with Share sheets throughout the OS to enable straightforward pushing of content to social networks.

Not all Macs will be compatible with Mountain Lion, however. You’ll need one of the systems on Apple’s approved list; full details, complete with other preparatory steps, can be found in our guide here.

If you bought a Mac sometime between now and June 11, however, you can get a free upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion. Head over to Apple’s Up-to-Date program to register your details and get the new software free.

You can find Mountain Lion in the Mac App Store here.

iCloud, Notifications and Productivity

Apple’s iCloud may already be a fixture on the iPhone and iPad, but Mountain Lion is in fact the first new version of OS X since the cloud storage and sync system went live. With over 150m iCloud users, and considerable overlap between those depending on both iOS and OS X, it’s no surprise that Apple has used iCloud to streamline the Mountain Lion setup process.

If you’re fresh to Apple’s ecosystem then it’s the usual few steps of setting up an Apple ID account, but if you’re already registered through iCloud then a single login sets up not only your user account but apps and services across the system. Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages and FaceTime are all automatically set up with your accounts, friends’ details and appointments, while Notes and Reminders sync and Game Center logs in for cross-platform play. Documents & Data are also synchronized with what you may have been editing on your iPad or iPhone, and Safari bookmarks are pulled down too; obviously your Mac App Store and iTunes credentials are automatically plugged in, and your previous media downloads re-acquired.

The new Open Panel – accessed whenever you launch a document-based app – now allows you to flick between content stored locally and in Documents in the Cloud. Each app supporting the cloud-sync service gets its own iCloud Document Library, sorted by most recent update by default. Just as you can drag icons onto icons and instantly create folders in iOS, so you can stack documents to create folders in the Open Panel; the icon and open-animation is even the same as from the iPad. Apple will update its own productivity apps to support Documents in the Cloud to coincide with Mountain Lion’s release, as well as offer developers an API to add support to their own apps.

It’s all evidence of how slickly integrated OS X is with the overall Apple product range, and how Mountain Lion borrows elements from mobile to its benefit. The streamlined notifications system is a relatively new addition to iOS but it jumps the line to desktop in Mountain Lion in the shape of the new Notification Center. As with Growl pop-ups before, Apple Notifications appear in the top right corner – complete with action buttons if applicable, such as “close” or “show” – but Mountain Lion also corrals them together into the Notifications Center.

Pulling out from the right edge of the screen – triggered with a two-finger swipe from the right edge of the trackpad, or with the dedicated button in the status bar – Notifications Center shows all of the recent alerts organized by app and sorted by time or according to a manual order if you prefer.

Out of the box, Calendar, Mail, Messages, Reminders, FaceTime, Game Center, the Mac App Store, Facebook and Twitter all support Mountain Lion’s Notifications, while a third-party API allows developers to add support to their apps, notifications arriving even if the software itself isn’t running. It’s all intuitive and slick, and the temporary override to shut down all notifications for that day is very useful if you’re trying to focus on a specific task without distraction (they’ll automatically be muted if you’re presenting in Keynote, too).

Notifications aren’t the only elements borrowed from mobile. Reminders and Notes are each OS X counterparts to the iOS apps, as straightforward as their names suggest. The contents of both are automatically synchronized across devices using iCloud – so your up-to-date shopping list is to hand on your iPhone, even if you’ve been editing it on your Mac – and you can add extra highlights by setting alarms or location-based reminders, or by pinning a note to the desktop so that it stays open even if the Notes app itself is closed.

The idea of having your data anywhere and everywhere, without compromise, is carried over to Power Nap. Currently supported on the MacBook Air (mid-2011 or newer) and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Power Nap promises to automatically keep your Mac up to date even when it’s sleeping. Basically a sufficiently low-power mode that means the Mac notebooks can work silently and unobtrusively – no fans, no flashing lights – it means your computer is up to speed with the latest sync and messages when you open it up in the morning.

Mail pulls in new messages, Contacts and Calendar sync with any new updates or invitations, and Reminders and Notes pull in the latest versions from iCloud. Documents in the Cloud synchronizes changes to documents made on other devices, and Photo Stream grabs the latest shots from your iOS mobile devices. Arguably more useful in terms of reducing frustration while you’re actually using your Mac is support for Time Machine backups while it’s sleeping, Mac App Store updates automatically taking place, and Find My Mac working should you lose your laptop.

We’re used to turning on our phones and having the very latest data in front of us – and, conversely, turning on a computer and waiting for everything to synchronize, update and generally get ready for use while we distract ourselves with the first coffee of the day – so having that on the desktop really does feel, to use Apple’s phrase, “magical.”

Finally, there’s Dictation, reappearing after being first seen on the iPhone 4S and new iPad. Based on Nuance’s Dragon technology, only running on Apple’s servers rather than locally – meaning you’ll need a data connection in order to use it – the speech recognition supports any app that recognizes text entry, meaning you can dictate emails, documents and even Facebook messages.

Dictation is triggered by tapping the Fn button twice (or, alternatively, tapping and then tap-and-hold the button, releasing it when you’re finished) at which point a Siri-style microphone icon pops up indicating where the text will be entered. In theory you could dictate an entire document, complete with basic formatting: Dictation differentiates between regular text and instructions such as “all caps,” “new line,” “new paragraph,” “period,” “comma,” “exclamation point,” and “question mark.”

As with Nuance’s own DragonDictate, Apple’s Dictation learns from repeated use and promises increased accuracy over time, including handling more difficult accents. It also gets a head-start by looking through your contacts so as to aid in identifying names. Out of the box there’s English (US, UK and Australian), French, German and Japanese support, Dictation automatically selecting the correct option depending on your Mac’s system settings, with Apple promising Cantonese, Mandarin, Canadian English, Canadian French, Italian, Korean and Spanish in a subsequent update.

Our experience with Dictation proved mixed. For quickly jotting down brief messages and emails it could be very useful, though we had to ensure the pace of our speech was suitably measured in order for the system to keep up. Longer periods of text entry saw more typos creep in, and remembering to say “comma” and “period” to manually insert them was often a distraction from our train of thought. Admittedly, going back through blocks of text and cleaning up errors was a relatively simple matter, and the experience should get better over time.

What Dictation isn’t is Siri as we know if on the iPhone 4S. Ask what the weather is in San Francisco or when your next appointment is, and you’ll see your question transcribed not answered. Apple hasn’t said when – or indeed if – Siri will be brought to OS X, but we’d like to see even basic functionality such as opening apps by voice introduced.

Social Networking and Messaging

Sharing and social are baked into Mountain Lion from the ground up, with both Facebook and Twitter woven through the new OS X while a one-click sharing system makes pushing content between services straightforward. (Facebook integration won’t actually arrive until a software update in the fall, though it was present in our test build.) Apple uses so-called “Share sheets” to handle content sharing, pop-up boxes that gather together all the privacy, media and location elements you might want to control.

So, once you’ve logged into your Facebook and Twitter accounts – you can only have one of each – clicking the “Share” button in apps like Safari, Preview, Photo Booth and Quick Look brings up the option of sending out the current content via one of those services. For Facebook, you can choose which friends can see the update, whether a photo should be left on your wall or slotted into an existing album, and whether your current location should be appended.

For Twitter, you have the same location and media options, though no gallery option. Unfortunately, there’s no way to send to multiple services simultaneously with the same Share sheet; you can’t update both your Facebook and Twitter accounts with the same content.

It’s not just about sharing, though. Details of Facebook friends are automatically pulled into Contacts, dynamically updating existing records as your friends keep their contact numbers and other details up to date. Twitter photos are also integrated into Contacts, while Facebook adds friends’ birthdays to your Calendar. Meanwhile the ShareKit API allows third-party apps and services to offer the same social network posting.

Sharing doesn’t end at Facebook and Twitter; Mountain Lion also improves how content is shared with other services. Click the Share button and you might find the ability to email or send by Message the webpage you’re viewing, the photo or video you’re watching, or the document you’re working on. It also hooks into AirDrop, meaning you can share directly with nearby Macs (as long as they’re running Mountain Lion or Lion) in just a few clicks. There’s also support for uploading to Flickr and Vimeo, and while there’s no YouTube sharing by default, developers could add it by using the ShareKit API.

The other big social element of Mountain Lion is Messages, the OS X version of iMessage on iOS devices. Replacing iChat, Messages replicates the functionality of SMS and MMS between Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, with support for photo and video attachments up to 100MB in size, and synchronized across all of your devices. So, you can now pick up a conversation started on your iPhone on your MacBook, including one-button FaceTime call access and support for group conversations.

Messages will get even more useful come the release of iOS 6, when Apple unifies iPhone phone numbers and Apple IDs. Then, you’ll be able to receive and respond to iMessage messages – or FaceTime calls – directed at your iPhone number from your Mac (or iPad) instead. As a data service, the speed of messages can sometimes be delayed somewhat, but read receipts do at least give confirmation as to when they’ve actually been read.

Safari

More and more of us are living online, and so Apple has spent no small amount of time finessing the Safari experience. Updates to the browser include practical ones to boost speed under the hood, as well as interface and usability tweaks that cut down on key presses and clicks. So, the separate address and search boxes have been merged into a single Smart Search Field which suggests both likely webpages and searches (with a choice of search engines), and Safari has riffed on the thumbnail tabs of the old iPad browser with a new preview system. Pinch in (or choose the “show all tabs” button next to the tab row itself) and a side-scrolling list can be navigated using two-finger swipes.

As of iOS 6 on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, there’ll be support for iCloud Tabs as well, using the sync service to list what webpages you had open on each of your devices (even if they’re turned off at the time). It also works for bookmarks and content in Reading List, though not if you’re viewing a page with Private Browsing turned on. The Reading List also now supports offline access, caching pages for reading when you might not have a connection, and it cleverly recognizes articles spread across multiple pages and makes sure to grab each page rather than just the first one.

Privacy and security have been given a polish, with new support for the incipient “Do Not Track” privacy system. That works as a global Private Browsing setting of sorts, requesting compliant websites that they not track you (though not preventing your own browser from keeping a history record of where you’ve visited). And, if you’ve ever forgotten a password, the new feature in Password AutoFill which – after you type in your system password – shows a list of all the saved credentials Safari is holding, could save your from running through frustrating “Forgot my password” recovery tools.

Behind the scenes, there’s now hardware acceleration for the entire webpage, using your Mac’s GPU to speed up text and graphics rendering, and to provide smoother scrolling. The jerkiness that could previously surface while Safari rendered other pages or your Mac was otherwise busy has now all but disappeared.

Gaming and Entertainment

Mac ownership isn’t all social networking and productivity, and so Apple has brought Game Center across from the iPhone and iPad and integrated it into a cross-platform gaming system. All of the same gaming invitations, friend discovery, leaderboards and achievements are supported – albeit scaled up to suit the average Mac display – and you can play against other gamers no matter what device they’re using. We can expect to see more games in the Mac App Store tie into Game Center, too, as developers take advantage of Mountain Lion’s new gaming APIs to hook into the system.

Meanwhile there’s AirPlay Mirroring, linking your Mac with the $99 Apple TV. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display may have an HDMI output now, but any Mountain Lion Mac will be able to wirelessly send a high-definition picture – complete with sound – to their HDTV. It’s a painless process, too: when your Mac catches an Apple TV on the same wireless network, it automatically shows an AirPlay Mirroring menu item. AirPlay mirroring works on mid-2011 forward Macs (sandy bridge).

One click, and your computer screen show up on your TV. The resolution is automatically matched, up to 1080p, and we had no problems with judder or skipping with a MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion and a Full HD sample clip from iTunes. It’s also possible to route just the audio through your TV speakers (or whatever sound system you have hooked up) through the System Preferences. It’s great for communal consumption of slideshows in iPhoto or putting together a group playlist in apps like iTunes or Spotify.

Security and more

As OS X grows even more popular, so its profile among malware authors rises, and Apple has moved to protect its reputation for security with Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion. A digital signing system for developers distributing their software through channels other than the Mac App Store, Gateway can use the Developer ID to check that the app you’re about to install is indeed just as the coder responsible intended it, as well as blocking installation of any app from a blacklisted developer.

By default, Gatekeeper permits only Mac App Store apps and those with a valid, signed Developer ID to be installed. Unsigned apps flag up a warning message (which users can override on a one-time basis), or Gatekeeper can be instructed to allow apps from anywhere. It’s worth noting that Gatekeeper is only effective for apps downloaded from the internet; if you’re side-loading them from USB or CD/DVD then they won’t be checked. At the other extreme – and ideal for malware-prone parents – Gatekeeper can be set to only allow software that comes through the Mac App Store.

Meanwhile, Mountain Lion now automatically checks for important security updates daily – rolling OS X and Mac App Store app updates together into a single install process – and can now optionally encrypt Time Capsule backups. There’s also a new App Sandbox, where each piece of software runs in its own safe little silo: if it proves compromised by malware, it can’t access other apps, user data, or the underlying Mac infrastructure.

Then there are the new features for Chinese users. With sales of Apple products in China up 300-percent in the most recent quarter, it’s little surprise that the company has given some thought to how it could tailor Mountain Lion to suit users there.

So, Mountain Lion gets streamlined Simplified Chines and Traditional Chinese text input, with the promise of more accurate and appropriate auto-suggestions pulled from dynamically updated dictionaries that keep pace with common usage trends (and sync any user-added words or phrases across multiple devices via iCloud). Pinyin auto correction and the ability to mix English and Chinese in the same body of text, as well as handwriting support for nearly 30,000 Chinese characters, are also included. Meanwhile, there’s Sina Weibo, Youku and Tudou sharing options in the new Share menu, and streamlined setup for mail providers QQ Mail, 126 and 163.

How to get Mountain Lion

Like Lion before it, Apple will be distributing Mountain Lion via the Mac App Store rather than in boxed form. Priced at $19.99 – though that covers all of your personal Macs registered to the same iTunes account – you’ll need to be running Lion or the latest version of Snow Leopard.

Not all Macs will be able to upgrade, however, due to the technical requirements of Mountain Lion. You’ll need to have one from the following list in order to qualify:

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

However, if you bought a new Mac anytime since June 11, you’ll qualify for a free update to Mountain Lion under Apple’s Up-to-Date program. You’ll have thirty days from Mountain Lion’s release to apply for a free update using the form here (http://www.apple.com/osx/uptodate/).

Wrap-Up

If there’s a one sentence summary of OS X Mountain Lion, it’s probably “You’re getting a whole lot for twenty bucks.” Apple weaves together elements from desktop, smartphone and tablet in a way that not only makes stepping over from iOS to OS X more straightforward, but which further refines the company’s ecosystem promise: it simply makes more sense to pair a MacBook with an iPhone and/or an iPad, because they play so nicely together.

Where Lion’s evolution toward that same goal proved jarring in places, Mountain Lion’s polish rescues it. The three core advantages of iCloud, Notifications and Sharing are just as useful on the desktop as their counterparts are in iOS: they combine to iron out workflow annoyances in daily use. Like the best services, features like Power Nap blend seamlessly into the background: invisible in their operation but clearly bringing a benefit to the overall user experience.

Apple’s obvious competition is Windows 8, due to arrive in a few months time. Microsoft takes a different approach with its desktop platform, but from what we’ve seen so far it lacks the comprehensively integrated ecosystem that Apple delivers. iCloud is the glue that makes iPhone, iPad and, now with Mountain Lion, Mac, each act as an extension of the same holistic whole. If you love your Mac, OS X Mountain Lion is a no-brainer upgrade.

1. Requirements Check

System requirements for any machine hoping to update to Mountain Lion include the following three bits – and you’ll need em all:

• OS X v10.6.8 or later
• 2GB of memory
• 8GB of available space

In addition to these requirements, you’ll need to have each of them on a machine that Apple has officially stated they’ll be supporting. You can find out exactly which machine you currently own – if you do not already know – by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left-hand corner of your display, going down to “About this Mac”. Once your About window has popped up, hit the “More Info…” button and you’ll see a summary of what your machine is and when it was made.

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

If you’re included in both categories above, you’ll be good to go! For those of you wondering which applications you’ve got that might not be compatible with the new system, there’s a webpage that’ll help you figure it all out: Roaring Apps.

2. Backup and Clean Out

Though it’s not completely necessary, it’s always a nice step to take before doing any large moves on your computer – clean it up and back it up. You’ve got a built-in bit of technology on your machine that will do part of your job for you – head to Applications, find your Utilities folder, open it up and find Disk Utility. This application will be able to verify and repair your disk permissions and the disk itself with only a couple of clicks.

You can also work with a lovely application called AppCleaner which will allow you to toss out all the applications you’ve got that’ve just been sitting there collecting dust for months – you don’t need that image editing app anymore, right? You’ve upgraded long ago. Now it’s time to toss the trash.

Finally you’ll want to backup your machine with OS X’s build-in ability to do so: Time Machine. This functionality allows you to simply plug in an external hard drive (which you should have always, so go get one if you don’t) and back up your system with a simple button click. This functionality also exists up in the left-hand corner of your display in that Apple logo – click it and look down the menu until you see System Preferences. Once you’re there, the Time Machine logo exists in the fourth row – it’s silver, green, and self-explanatory.

3. Update your system (before you load Mountain Lion)

You’ll want to head to Apple’s built-in system updater by heading to the Apple logo in the upper left-hand of your screen and finding “Software Update”. Here you’ll see you’re ability to update any and all system bits with a couple of button clicks. Easy as pie! You’ll then be completely ready to update to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

To grab Mountain Lion you’ll want to head to the App Store built-in to your machine – in your apps. Or you can head to Apple’s page for the software – which will also link you to the same place. The download will be rather large, so make sure you’re on either wired internet or you’ve got some time to spare while waiting for it to transfer to you over the web. And let us know how it goes!

The $20 software upgrade will have you moving to Apple OS X 10.8 and will be free if you’ve purchased an Apple computer in the last couple of weeks. You’ll need a bit of extra disk space to download this upgrade, but those of you that keep your system relatively clean should have no trouble whatsoever – fair warning though, the last upgrade was a doosie of a download.

Our first look at Apple OS X Mountain Lion can be found at [Meet Apple OS X Mountain Lion] and can be seen in brief in the video below. Also expect us to expand upon this report soon, too – stay tuned!

Apple wasn’t quick enough though, with the folks at MacRumors filling out the application and even receiving their codes for the upgrade before Apple managed to take the application offline. The redemption process goes something like this: users are required to fill out the form with information on their eligible Macs, including the date and location of the purchase, personal contact information, and the serial number of the computer that will be receiving the update. After that’s done and sent off, Apple then sends back a pair of emails – one with a password-protected PDF containing the redemption code, and another with the password needed to access the PDF.

Naturally, with Mountain Lion not yet available, MacRumors’ attempt at redeeming the code on the Mac App Store (the only place OS X Mountain Lion will be available) proved fruitless. At the moment, Mountain Lion’s release date is still unknown, but with Apple giving it a release window of July 2012, it has to be coming up pretty quickly here, considering that the month of July ending in just eight short days. If that July release window holds, we’ll likely be seeing the Up-to-Date application go live again soon, so stay tuned.

The website also points out how the date would coincide with Apple’s Q3 ‘12 earnings report. Last year, Apple held its Q3 ‘11 results on July 19th and announced the July 20th release date of OS X Lion during the call. Apple’s Q3 ‘12 results are due on July 24th, which may point towards a July 25th launch when paired with the “overnight” information.

So what does an “overnight” entail at an Apple store? The staff will essentially be installing Mountain Lion on all the Macs found in stores. When you think about how many Macs there are in Apple stores, you can imagine how long the process takes. 9to5Mac notes, however, that some retail stores haven’t heard about an “overnight”. Still, Apple has indicated that Mountain Lion will launch “in July”, so there’s not long to go.

This version will be missing features like multiple windows – which you can currently get to with command-shift-n – but this and other bits like actual developer support will be much more smooth (or existent) in future versions. You wont get Notification Center or iCloud support here, and there may very well be some graphics issues (as Tapbots describes here).

You’ll be getting periodic updates as the app continues through alpha and beta modes, and the final version (version 1.0) will not be free. They’ve not yet decided how much this app will cost, but you’ll be able to use this pre-release version until then – so have at it!

Everyone using Mac OS X 10.7 and above for now, but the final release will only work with OS X 10.8 and above with full Mountain Lion compatibility being a must. You can download this pre-release alpha version from Tapbots right here: [download with care!]

The suspicion over at Ars Technica, however, is that graphics on select 64-bit systems are what’s causing the issue. According to the Golden Master seed of Mountain Lion, released earlier this week, the older machines now out of the big cat loop rely on 32-bit GPU drivers, and the new OS X version won’t load them.

Apple’s decision, it seems, was to leave those machines off the upgrade cycle, rather than spend the time, money and effort involved in writing replacement drivers. That means no more significant OS updates for anything other than the list of models below, though Apple is still committed to releasing security patches and other bugfixes as the need arises.

Mountain Lion will arrive in July, released through the Mac App Store as a $19.99 upgrade.

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

This week Apple released the Golden Master version of Mountain Lion to developers. Golden Master is a designation that means it is the final version of the software to be released to the public. Final version is a term used rather loosely when it comes to operating systems, because you never know what sort of last-minute changes may need to be made if issues are discovered.

With Mountain Lion going Golden Master, the last major hurdle has been cleared for the operating system to come to the Mac faithful. It’s also worth noting that back during WWDC Apple announced the new operating system would also get other features, including Dictation, iCloud Tabs, and Power Nap. The OS will launch this month, and the update will be $19.99. If you haven’t been keeping up with Mountain Lion, check out the video below to see 30 new features for the operating system.

[via MacRumors]

Design

Apple saved its design news for the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and outwardly there’s almost nothing to distinguish this updated MacBook Air from its predecessor. That’s arguably no bad thing, though; given the Air is still one of the more distinctive and good-looking ultraportables out there.

The wedge-profile remains, with ports split between the left and right edges. Our 13-inch review model has power, a USB 3.0, headphone socket and microphone on the left side and Thunderbolt, a second USB 3.0 and an SDXC card slot on the right; the 11-inch MacBook Air lacks the SDXC slot.

The one noticeable change from the 2011 Air is the power connector, with the 2012 model using the same MagSafe 2 port – slimmer and wider – as the new MacBook Air. That means you’ll need a $10 adapter to use older power supplies with the new notebook.

Open the lid and there’s the same bare display, with no glass cover-layer on top, as well as a backlit keyboard and large mutlitouch trackpad. At 0.68-inches at its thickest when closed, and 2.96 pounds (2.38 pounds for the 11-inch), the Air remains one of the lightest and most portable notebooks on the market.

Specifications

With the exterior for the most part unchanged, it’s the internal components in the 2012 MacBook Air that have seen the biggest changes. As with the new MacBook Pro line-up, Apple has switched to Intel’s 3rd-Gen Core processor range, with the 11-inch starting out with a 1.7GHz dualcore Core i5 (with up to 2.6GHz Turbo Boost) and the 13-inch starting with a slightly faster 1.8GHz dualcore Core i5 (up to 2.8GHz Turbo Boost). Both have a Core i7 upgrade option, a 2.0GHz dualcore Core i7 with up to 3.2GHz Turbo Boost.

Each model uses Intel HD Graphics 4000, the onboard GPU paired with Ivy Bridge processors. Unlike the larger MacBook Pro there’s no discrete graphics option, and you can only drive one external display, not two. For most mobile users that’s probably an acceptable compromise in the name of portability and battery life, though if you plan on doing any HD video editing – or, indeed, gaming – then the limitations of the HD Graphics 4000 chipset will soon make themselves clear.

Otherwise there’s 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L memory as standard – double that of the 2011 model – with 8GB a $100 upgrade. Storage starts at 64GB of flash memory on the entry-level 11-inch and 128GB on the entry-level 13-inch, with the option to double that on each for $100 or $300 respectively. A 512GB upgrade is also on offer, though it’s expensive at $500 or more. It’s worth bearing in mind that, thanks to the soldered RAM and the proprietary flash storage system, upgrading your MacBook Air is near-impossible, so it pays to make sure you’re happy with the specifications when you first order.

Memory benchmark

The other key change over the last-gen Air is the new webcam, stepping up to a FaceTime HD camera running at 720p 1280 x 720 resolution. The 11-inch Air runs at 1366 x 768 resolution, a good choice given the size of the panel, while the 13-inch comes in at 1440 x 900. There’s no word on when – or indeed if – we’ll see Retina Display versions of the Air, nor when Apple might switch to IPS panels which have broader viewing angles.

Performance and Software

Performance in an ultraportable form-factor is always going to be a compromise with power consumption and portability, but Apple and Intel are confident that Ivy Bridge strikes the best balance yet. Our review unit runs the 1.8GHz dualcore Core i5-3427U with the standard 4GB of memory.

In Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance, the new MacBook Air scored 6,743. That’s more than 1,000 points higher than the 2011 1.7GHz Core i5 also with 4GB of memory and, perhaps even more interesting, 400 points more than the 2010 MacBook Pro running a Core i7 processor.

MacBook Air 2012

MacBook Air 2011

We then turned to Cinebench, a test of 3D rendering and OpenGL that demands the best of both processor and graphics components. The MacBook Air scored 2.56 points for CPU and 16.41 fps for OpenGL, unsurprisingly lower than machines with discrete GPUs. Still, the flash storage and high-speed low-voltage RAM showed its worth in xbench testing, with the Air scoring 347.67: that’s just 143 points short of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

In practical terms, our usual load of multiple browser windows (each with many tabs), email app, multimedia playback and image editing ran with no issues on the updated Air. Intel quotes a 60-percent improvement in graphics performance from the new GPU, and we did find iMovie exported HD video clips faster than the last-gen model. It took 15-minutes and 28-seconds to import an 8-minute long 1080p video while exporting the same video took 33-minutes and 35-seconds in our testing. In comparison to the new MacBook Pro Retina display, importing the same video took 12-minutes and 5-seconds and exporting only took 20-minutes and 48-seconds. That being said, if you’re planning on doing a significant amount of video processing, we recommend looking to a notebook with a discrete GPU (we highly recommend the new MacBook Pro with Retina display) or alternatively equipping the Air with an external video processing dongle such as from Elgato.

At launch – and for the next few weeks – the new MacBook Air runs OS X Lion. However, buyers are guaranteed a free update to OS X Mountain Lion when it launches in July.

Battery

Apple quotes the same 7hr runtime for the 13-inch MacBook Air as before, or up to 5hrs from the smaller 11-inch version. In our testing, with brightness set to 50-percent and WiFi and Bluetooth turned on, continuous browsing (loop test), we were able to stream a 2-hour long video once while playing a looped video for a total of 6-hours and 18-minutes before the battery ran out.

Wrap-Up

There will undoubtedly be some disappointed that the Retina Display hasn’t made it to the MacBook Air range yet. It’s true that the massively pixel-dense display is one of our favorite features of the new MacBook Pro, but for the moment it’s an expensive addition. In contrast, Apple has actually reduced the price of entry to the MacBook Air club, with the 11-inch starting at $999 and the 13-inch at $1,199.

That’s no small achievement for a machine that delivers not only extreme portability but the sort of performance that, only two years ago, would’ve demanded a top-spec MacBook Pro. The addition of USB 3.0 and an HD webcam addresses two of the most common feature requests, and there’s minimal impact on runtime despite the more powerful processors.

With the PC industry throwing every ultrabook it can come up with at the market in the hope of scoring a win, Apple has done exactly what it needs to with the MacBook Air. Faster, more flexible and cheaper, it presents the strongest challenge from an Air model to-date. That’s certainly enough to leave it as our choice of ultraportable notebook. [Visit Apple for details and videos]

It also brings various improvements to the app’s UI, including a more compact contacts monitor, resizable contact list columns, and the addition of SMS sending from the contextual menu. There’s also a new keyboard shortcut for volume control  (cmd+opt+up/down), along with more accurate orientation flipping when on calls with mobile users.

There are also a few bugfixes, as you’d expect, though the biggest change is that the app is now ready for Mountain Lion. Skype makes no mention of Retina Display support for the new MacBook Pro, which suggests it may take a little longer for that to arrive.

You can download Skype 5.8 for Mac here.

Design

A little evolution, a little revolution. Apple has a track record of making significant design decisions, particularly when it comes to dropping “old” technology from its products or adopting new, and the reworked MacBook Pro with Retina Display is no different.

At first glance, then, it’s familiar from the persistent design of the previous model (which stays on sale, of course, with updated Ivy Bridge processors and NVIDIA graphics). None of the Air’s wedge-like taper, with new Pro instead resembling a flattened version of before. Both base section and lid have been trimmed to get the thickness down to 0.71-inches, with some casualties along the way.

Most obvious of those is the optical drive. Just as Apple led the way in ditching the floppy drive from its desktops years ago, now the DVD burning SuperDrive has been relegated to external (and optional) peripheral. Priced at $79, it connects via USB and works with not only the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display but the MacBook Air and Mac mini. As design decisions go, it’s one not only do we think most will approve of, but that fits in perfectly with Apple’s growing emphasis on digital content delivery.

The other sacrifice is an ethernet port, now dropped in favor of a second Thunderbolt port. This leaves the new MacBook Pro reliant on wireless connectivity, unless you think ahead and bring the new $29.99 Thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet adapter. Expecting that to be included in the box is, perhaps, over-ambitious, even with a new flagship notebook, but it’s something we imagine most users Pro may find themselves needing at some point, and is a little tougher to stomach than the absent optical drive.

While it may look like a flatter Pro of old, Apple has in fact done some significant reworking to achieve the 4.46 pound notebook. Half of the ports – the two Thunderbolt, a USB 3.0 and the 3.5mm headphone socket, along with the redesigned MagSafe 2 connector – are on the left, while a second USB 3.0 along with HDMI and an SDXC card slot are on the right. Long-time Apple watchers will have noticed some unusual additions there, and indeed the MacBook Pro with Retina Display breaks some conventions.

HDMI is a welcome inclusion, as is the much-requested upgrade from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 (Apple bucks convention and keeps its USB ports white, rather than the blue we’ve seen on PCs). Thunderbolt’s huge throughput and a growing number of adapter cables – not to mention native peripherals – means the two ports can turn their hand to many things, not least Mini DisplayPort, DVI, dual-link DVI and VGA, with a FireWire adapter due in July. It’s worth noting that, although there are potentially three display connections, the new MacBook Pro can only support two external monitors (at up to 2560 x 1600) plus its own Retina Display panel.

The MagSafe 2 connection – which, as in MacBooks from before, uses magnets to hold the power plug in place and thus shouldn’t drag your notebook off the desk if you stumble over the cord – has grown wider and flatter. It’s the only way Apple could accommodate it in the new design – the last-gen MacBook Air has the old style, but can fit it because of the blunter-edged wedge profile – which means if you want to use an existing power supply you’ll have to throw in a $10 adapter. Apple has also returned to its older cable style, with the cord sticking straight out of the plug.

It’s inside that the biggest changes have taken place. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is resolutely not intended to be opened up by the end-user, and Apple has used that disclaimer to squeeze in components with a focus on space-saving rather than subsequent accessibility. Much of what heft is left is battery, with the 95-watt-hour li-poly pack considerably larger than the 77.5 Wh of the previous-gen model. As in the MacBook Air, neither RAM nor SSD are user-upgradable, with the former soldered to the mainboard.

Cooling has become something of an obsession among Apple’s engineers, and the new MacBook Pro is evidence of a new strategy for both quiet and effective heat dissipation. Air is sucked in through the hinge section and then funneled through to gills on the sides of the notebook, driven by a newly-designed asymmetric fan with unevenly-spaced impeller blades. That unusual blade design, Apple says, helps to reduce the tonal impact when the fans are spinning.

In practice, it’s a different type of noise to before: not necessarily quieter, but less intrusive. You still hear the fan spool up when doing heavy-duty processing, such as video exports, and the base can become warm – though not hot – to the touch at those times, but it cools again quickly.

The large glass trackpad and black, backlit keyboard are as on the previous model, and just as easy to use: the former is silky-smooth and responsive, and the latter provides a good amount of travel and spring.

Specifications

Just as with the old-style MacBook Pro, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display has Intel’s 3rd-gen Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors inside. There are two spec models, the entry level at $2,199 with a 2.3GHz quadcore (supporting up to 3.3GHz Turbo Boost and paired with 6MB of L3 cache) and a $2,799 version with a 2.6GHz quadcore (supporting up to 3.6GHz Turbo Boost and with 6MB of L3 cache). The latter can optionally be upgraded to a 2.7GHz quadcore (with 3.7GHz Turbo Boost and 8MB of L3 cache) for an extra $250.

Standard memory is 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L, with $200 doubling that to 16GB. It’s a decision you’ll have to make at point of purchase, too as Apple solders the RAM to the mainboard. The entry-level machine has 256GB of flash storage, and cannot be upgraded, while the more expensive model comes with 512GB by default and can be bumped to 768GB for an extra $500. Again, the nature of Apple’s hardware design means it’s an option that needs to be picked from the start. All in all, a fully-spec’d out new MacBook Pro with Retina Display – with the fastest chip, most memory and biggest SSD – comes to $3,749.

Apple has changed its graphics allegiances again, moving back to NVIDIA and outfitting all versions of the new MacBook Pro with the GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. There’s also Intel HD Graphics 4000 with automatic switching between the two GPUs depending on graphical load.

Above the screen there’s a 720p-capable FaceTime HD webcam, while Apple has a new pair of custom speakers under the machined grills. Despite the space constraints, they sound surprisingly good; no subwoofer, but no bass weakness either, and they’re room-filling at maximum volume.

Meanwhile the dual microphone array uses beam forming to focus on the user speaking rather than ambient noise, and we could tell the difference on Skype calls in noisy environments. the system should also be a boon when dictation arrives with Mountain Lion next month. Finally, there’s both WiFi a/b/g/n with dual-band 2.4/5GHz, and Bluetooth 4.0.

Retina Display

Make no mistake, the Retina Display of the new MacBook Pro is the notebook’s pièce de résistance. Running at 2880 x 1800, it delivers four times the standard resolution of the previous Pro, and is finally capable of showing iOS developers a full-size preview of apps for the new iPad. Apple’s “Retina” branding refers to whether the human eye is capable of individually-distinguishable pixels at a typical user-distance, hence this 221ppi panel getting the label while not matching the 264ppi of the new iPad or 326ppi of the iPhone 4S, each of which are expected to be held closer to your face.

It’s not just core resolution that makes the screen special, though. Apple has used an IPS LCD panel with LED backlighting, which means broader than usual viewing angles – the quote is 178-degrees, and in practice we could sit off to the side of the new MacBook Pro and see graphics and text with no odd colors or other glitches – and some particularly inky blacks.

The redesigned lid section does away with the cover glass as well, which Apple says not only reduces thickness but helps cut out glare. It’s the same approach as we’ve seen on the MacBook Air, and according to Apple it’s good for a 75-percent reduction on the sort of reflections that can make using a previous-design Pro frustrating. In practice, while not entirely glare-free, there’s nonetheless a noticeable improvement.

Combined, then, it’s the finest display on a notebook we’ve seen. Icons are so clean and crisp as to look printed; photos and video are beautifully engaging. Switch between the MacBook Pro with Retina Display and its regular predecessor and the difference is night and day: if the pixelated “crunchiness” of the iPad 2 screen became a frustration after you used a new iPad, then expect much the same response with the new MacBook Pro.

There is one issue, though it’s not necessarily one that Apple can directly address. Applications must support the Retina Display with suitably high-resolution graphics, and if they don’t it’s a recipe for visual disaster. Apple’s own Mail, Calendar, Address Book, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Aperture and Final Cut Pro are all Retina-optimized, but most third-party apps aren’t, and the difference between them is brutally obvious.

Apple uses a similar scaling-up system for non-Retina apps as on iOS, which means you get software that’s usable in terms of on-screen size (rather than tiny) but blurred and pixelated. It’s not only native software that suffers, but webpages in browsers other than Safari: FireFox and Chrome are distinctly underwhelming in how they render sites, with text and images each looking like they’ve had a run-in with a dot matrix printer.

Photoshop and AutoCAD were among the third-party titles name-checked as working on Retina updates during the WWDC keynote this week, and no doubt there are hundreds of others bringing their apps up to speed, but for the moment it’s a reminder that life on the cutting-edge comes with some usability compromises.

Performance and Software

Thin the new MacBook Pro may be, but that doesn’t mean Apple has compromised on performance. The new processor and graphics options present the biggest advantages over the MacBook Air, if you’re trying to balance raw power with portability, with no question that this is a capable desktop-replacement.

Our review unit, the 2.6GHz quadcore Core i7-3720QM with 8GB of RAM, scored 12,970 in Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance. That’s more than 2,000 points more than the 2011 MacBook Pro running Intel’s 2.2GHz Core i7-2720QM Sandy Bridge chip.

MacBook Pro with Retina Display (mid-2012)

MacBook Pro 15-inch (early 2011)

We then turned to Cinebench, which benchmarks both processor and graphics performance with a mixture of 3D rendering and OpenGL tests. It provides a solid overview of how a system will handle intensive tasks such as video processing and gaming.

The new MacBook Pro scored 5.74 CPU points, putting it ahead of a last-gen 3.2GHz Core i7, and only really bested by eight- and twelve-core alternatives such as Intel’s workstation-focused Xeon (as you’d find in the Mac Pro). It managed 34.30fps in OpenGL testing.

In a disk speed test of the new flash storage, the Pro managed 306.6 MB/s write speeds and 448.0 MB/s read speeds. Finally, in Xbench the new notebook scored 490.43 points.

In practice, there proved little we could do to trip the new MacBook Pro up. Apps load with alacrity, on-screen and ready for action even before the icon has finished its bouncing, and playing back Full HD video – something you can do in a window at full resolution, given the pixels on offer – while simultaneously browsing and rendering video in iMovie didn’t see the notebook miss a beat.

Memory speed test

Xbench performance test

At launch – and for the next few weeks – the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display runs OS X Lion. However, buyers are guaranteed a free update to OS X Mountain Lion when it launches in July.

Battery

Despite a battery that’s 23-percent larger than before, Apple is quoting the same seven hour runtime estimate for the new MacBook Pro. That’s likely down to the extra power consumption of the Retina Display, but in our testing we still exceeded Apple’s predictions.

With brightness set to 50-percent, we were able to browse in Safari over a WiFi connection for almost 8 hours and 10 minutes. Obviously if you take advantage of the processor or graphics potential for gaming, multimedia editing or other system-intensive tasks that number will shrink dramatically, but conversely those with more humble needs such as word processing should find they can extend it even further by turning off the wireless.

Wrap-Up

It’s worth noting that Apple didn’t describe the new MacBook Pro as its “Retina Display” upgrade to the previous Pro: instead, it referred to the notebook the company’s best ideas for the next-generation of Pro. That’s because there’s more to it than all those extra pixels. Apple has polished, trimmed and pared away at its flagship to bring it resolutely up to date with the leading edge of the computer ecosystem.

While it may command a $400 premium over an entry level old-style MacBook Pro, that’s not quite a fair comparison. Spec-up a regular 15-inch Pro with 8GB of memory, a 256GB SSD and the highest resolution display possible (1680 x 1050) and you’re looking at $2,499: a full $300 more than the entry-level Retina Display version but still offering fewer pixels.

A more likely question is new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. The Air is undoubtedly more portable again than the new Pro, but it loses out on the Retina Display, the discrete GPU and the second Thunderbolt port. The new MacBook Pro also has more memory as standard, and faster processors. In short, if your primary use is browsing and document editing and you’re frequently carrying your notebook, the Air is a solid choice, but we’d still lean toward the Pro for its superlative screen.

That’s perhaps little surprise. In the end, though the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is more than just the sum of its screen, the inescapable truth is that any other notebook feels dreary and last-gen in comparison. Just as switching from Retina on a new iPad to another tablet feels like stepping back in time, so the new MacBook Pro’s  display feels like what computing really should be. Priced at the top end of the market it may be, but for multimedia professionals, developers and those that covet the cutting-edge, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is the new gold standard. [Visit Apple for details and videos]

MacBook Pro with retina display-Every Dimension-commercial

MacBook Pro with Retina Display Specs

Have a peek below at the video and don’t forget to keep your audio on – there’s no way in heck you’re going to be able to keep all of this information packed in your mind with visuals alone. Then for those of you who actually do want to go a bit more in-depth, we’ve got so much coverage of this event – and the devices it revealed – that you’re going to flip your lid, starting with the Apple WWDC 2012 Keynote Round-Up and fabulous MacBook Pro 2012 15-inch with Retina Display Hands-on – fresh out of the box!

From here you’re going to want to hit up our massive [WWDC 2012 portal] and see the timeline below for additional reactions and in-event updates as they came down this week. Let us know if you prefer to have the news strewn out for you as it was in the full-length WWDC 2012 Keynote video or if you’d rather have the rapid-fire action that you see above. We enjoy both!

What Notification Center does is to take every alert, update, and message you might be getting in all of your preferred applications and ties them all together in one location. This center for notifications exists as a list as well as a set of pop-ups which disappear after a short set of seconds after they’ve been initiated. Users working with OS X Lion already have some of this functionality in place now, with only the option to close the Notification bubble right now rather than having it able to be closed or Shown.

Each Notification bubble is able to preview the content it’s alerting you about, this including for example: a Twitter mention, a software update, or an email. Your Notification Center list appears with a title for each application and an X in the corner of that title to get rid of all updates at once. If you’ve got no Notifications, you’ve got no Notification Center at all! Clicking a Notification here from your list will bring you to the application it originated from.

You can arrange your Notification Center in whatever order you want it to appear, and you can choose which applications give you Notifications and which do not. A simple swipe from right to left on your trackpad will bring you to your Notification Center, with the opposite gesture pushing the list away once more. Simple stuff!

Check out the Timeline below to see more OS X Mountain Lion updates from this week’s keynote at WWDC 2012, and get prepared for the update soon!

[UPDATE: MacBook Pro with Retina Display review]

As you might have guessed, hands-on it’s a combination of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air we’re already familiar with. The shape is a flattened Pro, trim at 0.71-inches thick, without the Air’s tapered profile; however, the weight falls somewhere in-between. It’s not as light as the true Apple ultraportable, but then neither does it have a 13-inch or under display.

Hands-on Video

And that display is definitely something worth having. The new Retina Display on the MacBook Pro is to the new iPad’s screen as the third-gen tablet was to the iPhone 4S: a stunning step up in what we’ve come to expect from our computing tech. It sounds crazy, but the panel just looks more “real”, more authentic somehow than the typical Pro resolution, with the absence of individually discernible pixels sanding away at the impression that you’re looking at a computer screen.

There are a couple of obvious compromises to be made, the absence of a dedicated ethernet port the one most likely to frustrate owners initially. Apple offers a gigabit ethernet adapter as a paid accessory, just as with the Air, which is another thing to remember in your bag. The change in MagSafe connector, too, is a potential frustration to anyone with a collection of existing power supplies: again, not backward compatible unless you buy a $10 adapter.

The ports you do get are – for the first time on a portable Mac – an HDMI port and two USB 3.0, the latter now conveniently split between both sides of the notebook. Dropping the optical drive has meant Apple can space things out more evenly, rather than gathering all the connections on the left panel, which means you can now plug in even bulky USB drives without having to dangle them from extension cables. Losing the ethernet port has been countered with a second Thunderbolt port.

Apple was keen to highlight that the new MacBook Pro is what it believes is the next evolution of the notebook: more than just a new version with a clever screen or a slimmer body. Those charms will take a little longer to pick through, however, so enjoy the hands-on gallery and we’ll be putting the MacBook Pro through its paces for the full SlashGear review!

iOS 6

First for you mobile-minded folk out there, it’s time to get real about the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 6. This upgrade is available for developers today but will be coming later this summer for everyday average users. You’ll find Guided Access to be one of the brand new abilities of iOS 6 with UI-disabling features coming with it. Another new app is Passbook, complete with your cards and tickets for movies, airplanes, coffee shops, and more.

You’ll be doing a whole lot more Photo Stream sharing with iOS 6 as well as FaceTime over cellular on the fly! Of course Apple wouldn’t have started any of this without first telling us about how amazing iOS 5 has been and how widely it’s been adopted thus far – the same goes for the iTunes App Store – explosive!

Facebook Integration

Perhaps one of the most important distinctions iOS 6 will have from its predecessors is the fact that it has deep Facebook integration. This integration will spill over to OS X Mountain Lion as well, but it’ll be extremely noticeable here in the mobile operating system world first and foremost.

Apple Maps

Apple has truly come on in a big way with their Google-Maps-ending Apple Maps software which includes turn-by-turn navigation, 3D viewing of buildings, and a whole lot more. This will without a doubt give Google a run for its money – even if Google did make a valiant pre-release effort this past week.

Siri

The personal assistant known as Siri will be coming to several new countries around the world and will also be pushed to the iPad 3, aka the iPad 3rd Gen with Retina display. Siri will also be upgraded to include several new features including sports scores very soon.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air lineup has been refreshed with 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, both of them i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge. This upgrade also has you gaining a USB 3.0 port (which of course is also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0), a Facetime camera with a new 720p quality to it, and 8GB of RAM inside with 512GB of flash storage. These ultra-thin, ultra-light models will continue to be the most portable notebooks in the Apple range.

MacBook Pro 2012 refresh

Keep it all straight and notice this: there is a MacBook Pro 2012 refresh lineup as well as a brand new MacBook Pro model with Retina Display. We’ll go ahead and call this refresh the “classic” MacBook Pro while the Retina version is one section down. This Classic refresh includes Intel Ivy Bridge processors, for starters, keeping the optical drive that was rumored to be dropped, and comes in at a price that’s slightly cheaper than the Retina model as well: 13-inch for $1,199 or 15-inch for $1,799.

New MacBook Pro with Retina display

The New MacBook Pro with Retina display brings not only a high-definition display that’s to be envied by all your past-generation MacBooks, but upgraded hardware all around as well. There are new air vents at the sides of this device, there’s a new thinner “MagSafe 2″ port for power, and you’ve got both a thinner and lighter notebook than any MacBook Pro before. It can even roll out with Diablo III with no trouble at all, imagine that! This notebook sits between the MacBook Pro 2012 refresh and the MacBook Air for thickness and offers a slightly more powerful option for those of you looking for the sweetest notebook on the block.

We’ve had our own eyes-on look at the Next-Gen MacBook Pro with Retina quality display under a glass case thus far and will see it much closer up soon enough.

Meanwhile you can order this notebook starting today and starting at $2199 – with upgraded models adding on several hundred dollars to that price.

OS X Mountain Lion software and Applications

While there weren’t too many things in OS X Mountain Lion today that we hadn’t seen before in our own hands-on preview, we did see a swath of new options that will have the whole hardware range looking mighty good when they’re upgraded this summer. This upgrade will include AirPlay Mirroring and 1080p streaming to TV as well as integration with the thus-far mobile-only Game Center ecosystem.

For your web browsing needs you’ll be checking out the brand new Safari complete with Unified Search, iCloud Tabs, and Tab View as well. The application and software integration known as Power Nap was revealed as an always-active bit of silent-doer for tasks you’d otherwise have to do while your computer is fully awake.

Apple has also brought on a tiny bit of Siri (though it’s not quite called that yet) to OS X Mountain Lion with Dictation and iCloud integration will be larger than ever, and not just in your browser window this time around.

You’ll be able to pick up Mountain Lion for just $19.99 USD in July if you feel so inclined – and if you’ve purchased one of the devices revealed today, you’ll be getting the upgrade for free – 200 features and counting, so they say!

After-event Updates

After the keynote was over, it became apparent that several news bits did not make the big event cut. The first of these was the dropping of Apple’s 17-inch MacBook Pro from the big lineup. Next you’ll find the Apple AirPort Express update to be bringing a new form factor and set of abilities. The iPad has gotten a new iPad Smart Case and the mighty mighty desktop hero Mac Pro has been pushed up the hill incrementally as well.

Stay tuned to our WWDC 2012 portal for all the news as it continues to pop up through the day and through the week as well – Apple updates galore!

The Mac Pro 2012 will have these processors updated over the two 6-core 2.93GHz Intel Xeon X5670 processors it has been working with for a couple of years and will begin at just $2,499 from the Apple Store today. This version has a 3.2GHz single quad-core Intel Xeon W3565 processor, while upgrades can go up several thousand dollars and can bring two Westmere-EP E5645 chips at 2.4GHz. This upgrade was certainly not mentioned in the main chute this week as it’s certainly not the jump that the MacBook Pro Retina display upgrade nor is it on-par with the software magic shown in iOS 6.

What it does present, on the other hand, is a tower that’s certainly powerful in its own right even though it’s not had a real significant upgrade for a couple of years. Head to the Apple Store today to pick up the new model and check out the rest of our WWDC 2012 news through our giant WWDC 2012 portal!

Mountain Lion is said to bring over 1,700 new APIs, including new iCloud features, Dictation support, Game Center, and a new AirPlay Mirroring mode. In addition, Power Nap will help update all your Macs at night when they’re not being used.

A new Safari is also included, which is said to sport faster JavaScript and browser benchmarks scores than any other shipping browser, and there’s a new sharing feature which makes transferring files all the more easier. Again, all new Macs will get a free update to Mountain Lion, and the update will cost $19.99 for everyone else.