OS X Mountain Lion: Looks Like Apple Still Knows How to Keep a Secret

Well it looks like Apple can still pull of a new product announcement without anyone knowing about it. All the rumor blogs are waking up this morning in shame. Meanwhile, the media that hasn’t ticked Apple off has received a gift – a full preview of Mac OS X Mountain Lion before anyone else knew about it.

I follow Apple news pretty closely, and I hadn’t caught even a sniff of this announcement today. Woke up, checked Twitter, and saw this full preview of OS X Mountain Lion by Jason Snell at Macworld. John Gruber also has a feature on his site Daring Fireball.

“We’re starting to do some things differently,” Phill Schiller told Gruber.

Apple’s PR representatives had pulled John Gruber to Manhattan to meet with Schiller about a ‘product briefing’. Not an iPad 3, not retina display Macbooks, but a full blown update to the OS X operating system due out this summer.

This update marks a significant change for the cat-themed operating system. OS X will seemingly move to an iOS-esque annual update cycle.

As is typical, there are many new features, but Apple has chosen to highlight 10 of them. iCloud, Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notifications, Share Sheets, Twitter, Game Center, AirPlay Mirroring, and Gatekeeper.

Myself and Joshua Howland will be writing about each feature in upcoming days. While we may both have access to the early preview, be aware that it is covered by NDA, and we will only be able to discuss the freely available information from Apple. If you are in a hurry, check out Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion preview page

Opinions and more coming soon.