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As speculated, Apple also unleashed its next-gen mobile OS iOS 6, along with the new Mountain Lion OS for Macs. The former, which was originally hinted at by the company in February, is the successor to Apple’s Lion OS. And, just like its older sibling, the new OS is intended to deliver a user experience similar to that of the iPad, delivering iOS-like features such as Apple’s messaging service, the notification app and a gaming center.
Mountain Lion, which is projected to be widely available sometime next month, is also tightly integrated with Apple’s home-grown cloud service iCloud, which means users can synchronize apps such as mail, calendar and contacts across their Macs, iPads and iPhones.
"With Mountain Lion we built support for iCloud right in,” said Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple. “When you sign in with your account, we configure all of your apps, and your content is up to date across devices."
A new feature called Power Nap is also available with Mountain Lion. Intended to keep your Mac up-to-date even while "asleep," the new capability refreshes thing like iCloud synchronization and system software updates when idle.
Lastly, the new Mac OS plays host to a new steaming feature called AirPlay Mirroring, which can be used alongside Apple TV to wirelessly stream digital content including HD movies and TV shows from a Mac onto an HD TV.
Developers will get a "close to final" version of Mountain Lion at WWDC, Federighi said, before it officially becomes available in the app store next month for $19.99. The upgrade to Mountain Lion will be available to users currently running Snow Leopard and Lion, which Federighi said was the best-selling release in Cupertino history, with 40 percent of Mac users leveraging it today.
On the mobile software front, Apple gave WWDC attendees a taste of its next-gen operating system iOS 6. Through its delivery of nearly 200 new features, the platform is poised to create a new user experience on both the iPad and iPhone.
NEXT: Mobile Plans: Siri, GPS And More
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