Apple previews OS X Mountain Lion

Information Week reports.

Though closely related by name to the company's current Mac operating system, OS X Lion, the software's lineage can be traced to Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, almost as much as it can to previous Apple code named for big cats.

According to PC World, Mountain Lion is less of an upgrade to last year's OS X Lion, and more an ode to Apple iOS 5. The new iChat doesn't look like iChat, but Messaging on the iPhone.

The Notification Centre is straight from iOS, with the latest software and message updates in the same font and format as on the iPhone. Even GameCenter, the rough Xbox Live-style social network, will be added to Macs running Mountain Lion, and it will look exactly the same as the iOS counterpart.

One of the most significant changes from Lion is Gatekeeper and much closer weaving of the App Store into the Mac, The Register writes.

Thanks to Gatekeeper, the default setting of Mountain Lion OS is that you can only run software from Apple-approved sources, unless users are prepared to dismiss warnings from the system.

Gatekeeper is a security feature that controls what software your Mac can install, helpful of course in keeping Macs virus-free, but arguably a little restrictive.