Apple announced yesterday that it has released the first developer preview of the company's next-generation operating system, named OS X Mountain Lion. The ninth major release of the world's most advanced operating system, which brings popular apps and features from iPad to the Mac and accelerates the pace of OS X innovation.

The developer preview of Mountain Lion also introduces Gatekeeper, a security feature helping userse keep safe from malicious software. The preview release of Mountain Lion is available to Mac Developer Program members starting today. Mac users will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store in late summer 2012.

The developer preview of Mountain Lion features the all new Messages app, replacing iChat, and allowing the user to send unlimited messages, high-quality photos and videos directly from a Mac to another Mac or iOS device. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. Starting today Lion users can download a beta of Messages from apple's official website, and the final version will be available with Mountain Lion. Reminders and Notes help you create and track to-dos across all devices.

OS X Mountain Lion included deeper integration with iCloud to automatically configure services like Mail, FaceTime, and Find My Mac, while iCloud Documents handles automatic push syncing of documents across devices. Security is also a focus in the upcoming release, with a new feature called Gatekeeper helping users to specify from which sources apps may be installed on their computers.

Finally, Apple is continuing its emphasis on expanding into China with substantial improvements for Chinese users included enhanced Chinese input methods and the addition of Baidu as a search engine option. Integration with Chinese email and video hosting sites as well as the Sina weibo microblogging service is also included.

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