OS X Mountain Lion

OS X Mountain Lion
Version of OS X
OSXMLion.png
MacOSX-MountainLion-12F45-Desktop.png
Version10.8
CodenameZinfandel
Preliminary name
Architecturex86_64
Latest build12F2560
Release date2012-07-25
Support end2015-09-30
Replaces
Mac OS X Lion
Replaced by
OS X Mavericks

OS X Mountain Lion, or OS X 10.8, is the ninth major release of the OS X operating system released on 25 July 2012. It was announced on 16 February 2012 on Apple's website. It introduced various revamps to the Lion user interface and fixed many of the paradigms that were found to be controversial in Mac OS X Lion.

This version drops support for 32-bit kernels and corresponding 32-bit EFI BootROM Macs. The decision to drop 32-bit architectures was made relatively late in the development process, as Beta 1 (12A128p) shipped with a 32-bit kernel.

It is the first version to be released under the OS X name. It is also the first version to be released under the new annual release schedule for the operating system in which newer versions of OS X will be released annually in order to be consistent with the release schedule for iOS. It is the last version of OS X to be released as a paid upgrade as subsequent releases would be released as free upgrades starting with OS X Mavericks.

New features and changes[edit | edit source]

  • AirPlay Mirroring has been added, which allows wireless mirroring of the Mac's screen to an Apple TV.
  • Notification Center has been added, which is a system-wide notification feature that can be accessed by clicking in the right-corner of the menu bar.
  • Launchpad now has the ability to search installed applications.
  • Game Center, Notes, and Reminders from iOS have been added.
  • The Messages app was added to replace iChat. It supports iMessage and has native video conversation support through FaceTime.
  • The Address Book and iCal apps have been renamed to Contacts and Calendar respectively.
  • Social media integration for Twitter and Facebook has been added.
  • The Mac App Store can now install app updates automatically.
  • Software Update and its functionalities were moved to the Mac App Store.
  • Dictation functionality has been added.
  • System-wide integration of AirPlay audio transmission was added.
  • A new security feature called Gatekeeper was added. It enforces code signing and checks downloaded applications before they can run, reducing the likelihood of executing malware.
  • Dashboard has been updated slightly to resemble the UI of Launchpad when editing Widgets.
  • The design of the Dock has been updated slightly, and the separator no longer resembles a crosswalk.
  • The Preview app has an updated UI.
  • Support for X11 has been removed.

Hardware compatibility[edit | edit source]

OS X Mountain Lion is officially compatible with the following Macs:

  • iMac (Mid 2007 and later)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 and later)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 and later)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2007 and later)
  • Mac mini (Early 2009 and later)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 and later)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

Support for the following hardware has been removed:

  • NVIDIA GeForce 6000/7000 Series GPUs
  • ATi Radeon X800/X1000 Series GPUs
  • Intel GMA 900/950/3150/X3100 (Mobile 965 Express Chipset Family) GPUs

List of known builds[edit | edit source]

10.8.0[edit | edit source]

10.8.1[edit | edit source]

10.8.2[edit | edit source]

10.8.3[edit | edit source]

10.8.4[edit | edit source]

10.8.5[edit | edit source]

Security Updates[edit | edit source]