Apple OS X Mountain Lion Hits Mac App Store Today

Apple Mac users will be able to get their hands on the latest version of the Mac operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, from the App Store later on today.

The Cupertino-based company confirmed the release of the software in its third quarter results yesterday. Apple traditionally releases updates the day after.

The release of the software was expected as Apple made the Gold Version available to developers earlier this month.

OS X Mountain Lion

During the third quarter, Apple’s revenues increase to $35 billion (£22.6bn), up from $28.6 billion (£18.5bn) a year ago, while profits rose to $8.8 billion (£5.7bn), a year-on-year jump from $7.3bn (£4.7bn). In the period leading up to 30 June, Apple sold 26 million iPhones, a yearly increase of 28 percent, and 17 million iPads, which represented an 84 percent rise over last year.

More disappointing were the sales of Macs, which rose by just two percent, and iPod sales, which fell by 10 percent to 6.8 million.

“We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.”

Mountain Lion will cost users £13.99 and comes with many of the features of Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. These include iCloud, Notification Center, GameCenter and access to the iMessage platform. Security has been beefed up too with the introduction of GateKeeper, which lets users put limits on what software can be downloaded onto their Macs.

It will compete with Microsoft’s imminent Windows 8 operating system, which incorporates a number of mobile features and promises to work equally well on both desktops and tablets. Unlike Windows 8 however, the Mac and iOS operating systems are completely separate.

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