The latest version of Apple's OS X, Mountain Lion, is here . You could read a million articles about it. Or just read this one.
Apple has a brand new OS X for your Mac and you can get it right this second. It's genuinely better than the version of OS X you're running this second.
- It's called 10.8 Mountain Lion and it's a refinement of the previous OS, 10.7 Lion. Apple's always named versions of OS X after big cats — the previous pair of releases were 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard, for instance.
- It's better than Lion, which tried to bring a lot of features from the iPhone and iPad "back to the Mac," but didn't always succeed on the execution front. Just check out some of the reviews if you don't believe me (but you should just believe me): Ars, Gizmodo, New York Times, Verge and Engadget.
It's $20!
- At $20, it's the cheapest OS X upgrade ever. Starting with Snow Leopard, Apple cut the price from $130 to $30. Net result: It forced Microsoft to cut the price of Windows 8 upgrades for most people to $40.
- Part of the reason OS X upgrades are so cheap is that Apple intends to release new versions of OS X annually, with a modest range of improvements and new features — something that comes from the iOS world, which sees a major new release every year like clockwork. It's a switch from the traditional desktop OS release cycle, dropping a giant new OS release bursting with new features every couple of years or so. (Relatedly, if you do decide to skip Mountain Lion, the annual, incremental upgrade approach means you're less likely to miss out on Big Features.)
