As expected, Apple today unveiled a smaller version of its iPad tablet, dubbed the iPad mini.

The 7.9-inch iPad mini includes a 1,024-by-768 display, the same as the iPad 2.

Pricing starts at $329 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version. The 32GB Wi-Fi is $429, while the 64GB will be $529. The Wi-Fi plus cellular versions will be $459 (16GB), $559 (32GB), and $659 (64GB).

Buyers can pre-order the devices starting Oct. 26. The Wi-Fi version will ship on Nov. 2 and the cellular version will ship two weeks later.

The iPad mini comes in at 7.5mm thin and 0.68 pounds, 23 percent thinner and 53 percent lighter than its 9.7-inch counterpart. "It's as thin as a pencil," Apple's Phil Schiller said.

Schiller said the Apple team "worked really hard" thinking about the size of the iPad mini. Cupertino wanted an iPad that was capable of running existing apps, but did not want a device that was so small "that it stops being incredibly usable."

"All the software made for the iPad works on the mini with no change," Schiller said.

Schiller compared the iPad mini to existing Android tablets, criticizing its rivals for using plastic materials, only making the screen 7 inches, and not having as many apps. "There is a gigantic difference in these products," he said. "They have phone applications stretched up, not tablet applications."

The iPad mini runs a dual-core A5 processor from Apple. It supports FaceTime HD and features and 5-megapixel iSight camera. There's LTE connectivity, as well as 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Apple promised 10 hours of battery life.

The iPad mini will include the new Lightning connector found on the iPhone 5. Apple is also offering new polyurethane Smart Covers for the iPad mini in pink, green, blue, light gray, dark gray and (PRODUCT) RED for $39.

"It is every inch an iPad," Schiller said.

Speaking of the iPad, Apple also gave its existing 9.7-inch iPad a boost.

Rumors about an iPad mini have been making the rounds for months - even before the launch of the new iPad. But Apple unveiled its Retina display iPad by itself earlier this year, opting to give the iPad mini its own show.

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Despite the Apple iPhone 5 not being officially available in India, there are reports that online retailers and the grey market are seeing a lot of demand for the new smartphone from the fruity giant, despite the hefty premium being levied.

One of these retailers, Bhaap.com, will start selling the iPhone 5 in India from Friday, September 28. The site will make the smartphone available to customers for Rs 71,995. The deal on the website opens at 10:00 am and will only be available for 24-hours or until the very limited stocks last!

The price of Rs. 71,995 is for the 16GB version. No pricing details about the 32GB or the 64GB variant of the smartphones are known for Bhaap.com.

At eBay.in, the price of the iPhone 5 16GB is Rs. 79,900 and the 32GB is selling for Rs. 90,750. You can take a look at the eBay listing of the iPhone 5 here.

Apple hasn't announced the iPhone 5 officially in India but speculations on the Internet suggest that it will be available towards the end of October or early November.

If you are one who can’t wait for Apple to officially launch the iPhone in India, you can pick one up from the grey market today. The first iPhone 5 was sold in Khan Market, New Delhi for a whopping 1.35 lakhs a few days ago. In the grey market in India, the prices of the three variants of the iPhone 5 is as follows:

• 16GB: Rs. 76,000
• 32GB: Rs. 85,000
• 64GB: RS. 1,00,000

(Prices are approximate)

Apple’s 6th generation iPhone has a 4-inch Retina Display and runs on the all-new iOS 6. Under the hood, the A6 chipset powers it. 

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With its mysterious, Apple-designed A6 processor, the iPhone 5 is unique in the world of smartphones. Most high-end phones nowadays run on one of two architectures: ARM's Cortex-A9, which is used by Nvidia, Texas Instruments and others, and Qualcomm's Krait. But the A6, as AnandTech discovered, is something completely different—an ARM-compatible system-on-a-chip designed, top to bottom, by Apple.

We'll focus on five tests here. First the browser benchmarks: Sunspider, Browsermark, and Guimark 3 Bitmap all test Web browser performance. Sunspider is about JavaScript, Guimark is about interactive HTML5, and Browsermark is an overall browser benchmark. Different browsers will score differently on the same phone. We test with the default browser, because that's what most people use.

(Since you're wondering about Chrome, which is an optional download on Android phones, it gives similar Browsermark results to the default browser on the Samsung Galaxy S III.)

The iPhone 4S running the Safari browser in iOS 6.0 on a dual-core 800MHz A5 processor is about on par with leading Android 4.0 phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and theMotorola Droid RAZR M, both of which are using 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processors. Obviously, the difference is that Safari is a faster browser than the Android browser.

The iPhone 5 takes things to the next level with a processor that can compete with the S4 along with the fast browser. Its Browsermark score is 80 percent higher, and it shows much quicker Sunspider times. GUIMark, like most mobile on-screen graphics tests, maxes out at 60 frames per second because that's as fast as your screen updates.

Geekbench is a processor benchmark, which tests the basic components of a phone's system. Here you see less of a difference, but it's still there. Look at the subscores. The A6 and the other processors do math about as fast as each other, but the "memory" and "stream" scores, both of which test loading data in and out of RAM, come out much better on the Apple device.

Mix together the two sets and you see how much of a difference the Safari browser makes, but also that the iPhone 5 still wins with the browser taken out of the picture.

GLBenchmark 2.5 is a graphics benchmark, creating and walking through simulated game scenes. Performance in the "onscreen" tests is dependent on a phone's graphics power but also on screen resolution (you can do more frames per second if you're pushing fewer pixels.) The "offscreen" tests are purely graphics-crunching power. The Galaxy S III has 26 percent more pixels than the iPhone 5 (921,600 to the iPhone's 727,400) but as you can see, in the "offscreen" measure of raw graphics performance, the iPhone 5 doubles the Galaxy S III's result. It's simply a more powerful phone.

A phone's hardware performance can't be taken in isolation, but it's definitely a piece of the puzzle. Based on these benchmarks, the iPhone 5 lives up to the promise of being twice as fast as the iPhone 4S. It's also, for now, the fastest handheld computer sold in the US.

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To know where you’re going, you’ve got to first know where you’ve been. On Jan. 9, 2007, Apple’s Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone at the MacWorld convention in San Francisco. It was promptly dubbed the “Jesus Phone” by a critical public that crucified it worshipped it like a gift from God itself.

And so it began.

This week, Apple is scheduled to announce what many expect to be the iPhone 5, the successor to the iPhone 4S, which many expected to be the iPhone 5. No matter. We’ve taken a crack at the rumors before: larger screen, LTE, improved Siri, a slot for connecting rainbows and fairy dust. But we'll find out soon enough what Tim Cook has up his sleeve.

The iPhone’s success certainly stems from its hardware design. But Apple should be credited with developing the app ecosystem, convincing a world of developers to not only develop apps for the iPhone, but to cede Apple a cut of the profits, submit their apps to Apple’s guidelines, and let Apple cut out possible competitors when it chooses. In all honesty, developing that apps ecosystem almost stands as a greater achievement than the phone itself.

Over the years, the iPhone has slimmed down, added an additional color, an additional antenna, some additional carriers, a friendly yet somewhat cheeky personal assistant, and yes, a few additional customers as well. Since Apple announced the phone, "antennagate" and "You’re holding it wrong" have entered the tech lexicon, when an irascible Steve Jobs reluctantly announced the infamous bumper case promotion. Apple spent a few dollars worth of rubber to placate an irate public (and tech press) who, correctly or not, took issue with their $400 phone not working properly in areas of low signal. Meanwhile, the iPad entered the market, dismissed by many as just a larger version of the iPhone. We know how that turned out.

As you flip through the following pages, be sure to check out how the phone’s basic design has been left unchanged. That has served Apple well, as the iPhone has remained an iconic slab of black (and white) against a sea of Android devices - several of which copied elements of Appe's design, according to a San Francisco jury.

Motorola ROKR

This collaboration with Motorola actually predated the iPhone, and likely convinced Apple to go it alone, rather than with a partner. The ROKR E1 phone essentially flopped and is barely remembered today.

iPhone

When Steve Jobs announced the $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB) iPhones in 2007, consumers went nuts, lined up in droves, and spawned a new generation of fans eager to be first to own Apple’s latest product. The first iPhone also saturated AT&T's network, causing years of angst until Verizon signed on in early 2011. The first iPhone also was the beginning of the end for the iPod, as the spacious 8GB of storage was enough to hold most of one's music collection.

iPhone 3G

Launched on June 9, 2008, the $199 (8GB) or $299 (16GB) iPhone 3Gupgraded the 2G connection used by the original iPhone to a speedier 3G, adding assisted GPS in the process. That, in turn, helped the iPhone lock onto a GPS signal faster. But the real innovation was iOS 2.0, which included the App Store, MobileMe, and push email, along with other enhancements.

iPhone 3GS

Launched on June 8, 2009, the iPhone 3GS, priced at $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) upgraded the processor used by the iPhone 3G, and added a compass and 7-Mbit HSDPA support, to boot. But the 3GS's main addition was an upgraded camera, which finally allowed users to record 480p videos and put another nail in the coffin of the camcorder industry. Apple's iOS 3.0 also added copy and paste functionality, finally.

iPhone 4

On June 7, 2010, Apple announced theiPhone 4, its most controversial model yet. Of course, who can forget that Gizmodo obtained a prototype of the phone that was left in a bar, photographed it, tore it down, and was banned from Apple product launches as a result. When Apple finally launched the three models of the iPhone at $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), and $399 (64GB), excitement was at a fever pitch. The drama escalated when the "grip of death" controversy manifested, as magazines (including PCMag) reported that cell signals dropped in fringe areas. In 2011, Verizon was added as the iPhone’s second carrier, while the first white iPhones, shipped, too.

iPhone 4S

Siri, what was the most recent iPhone named? Why, the iPhone 4S, of course, which kept the same pricing structure as the previous model. Apple’s latest iPhone added the personal assistant plus support for iCloud, although the launch was overshadowed by the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs a day later. A host of smaller improvements were also included. Following the release of the iPhone 4S,Sprint, Cricket, and other carriers now carry the iPhone - save for poor T-Mobile, which is trying to lure unlocked iPhones to its network.

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Tablets are becoming a great way to get your gaming on compared with dedicated portable gaming devices and even consoles. Here are the best five gaming tablets.

Horn is one of the only truly graphically impressive games available on both iOS and Android.

(Credit: Screenshot by Eric Franklin/CNET)

In the last month or so, I've taken to doing the majority of my gaming on the iPad as opposed to the Xbox 360. Yep, Hero Academy has me and so far, it has no plans to let go.
While I'm sure the pendulum will swing back in the console direction as the holidays approach, my habits speak to a larger trend of how tablets are slowly becoming great gaming devices. Thanks to their larger-than-a-phone's-but-way-smaller-than-a-TV's screens, tablets fill a unique and specific niche that no other device really can.
That, coupled with fact that processor speeds are fast as all get-out and are only getting faster, the gaming world may have been forever changed with the introduction of these devices.
If you're a gamer and interested in tablet gaming, you'll want to start here.

AMOLED and a faster-than-usual dual-core Exynos processor earns the Tab 7.7 a spot on the list.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
If you've never played a game like Dead Space or Riptide GP on a high-contrast, AMOLED screen, then you're missing out. Not to say that such an action should be at the top of your bucket list, but if portable gaming is a thing you're into (why else would you be reading this?), the Tab 7.7 makes for a great device to facilitate that. It's thin, light, and powerful, with the largest contrast ratio of any tablet on the list.

It's the quad-core processor, not the stylus, you should be excited about in this case.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Sure, the stylus is the reason most will even notice the Note 10.1 (well, the pen and perhaps James Franco's dreaminess), but it's the Exynos 4412 quad-core processor that makes this a gaming beast.

Small and cheap is sometimes a great gaming combination.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Nexus 7
The cheapest way to get quad-core power on a tablet, the Nexus 7 houses a Tegra 3 processor that delivers fast performance as well as Tegra 3-specific graphical effects at a high pixel density. Also, playing on a 7-inch screen as opposed to a honking 10-incher may be preferable to the finger-length-challenged of you out there.

For the serious tablet gamer who wants to go beyond "awesome graphics, bro!"

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700
This is the most powerful Android tablet available and the only one to house a 1.7GHz Tegra 3 as opposed to the 1.3GHz CPU other Tegra 3 tablets use. It also supports Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers, sports a high-resolution screen, and HDMI-out if the 10.1-inch screen ever becomes too small for you.

Sure, the performance is stellar, but it's the breadth and depth of available apps that's truly impressive.

Apple iPad
The iPad is the top dog in tablet gaming thanks to its performance (quad-core PowerVR), games support (many of the best games launch first on iOS versus Android or are completely exclusive), and the highest resolution of any tablet on the list, with tons of games supporting that resolution.

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The tech titan been quietly providing support to several Android partners battling Apple patent suits

Google may have kept a low profile amid the legal clashing between Samsung Electronics and Apple, but the company hasn't abandoned its Android partners.
Rather, Google has been quietly lending support, coordinating with Samsung over legal strategies, providing advice, doing extra legwork, and searching for prior evidence, CNET has learned from people familiar with the situation. Last month, Google asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to intervene on HTC's behalf in its case against Nokia. In addition, many of the companies that rely on Google's Android operating system to power their handsets, coincidentally or not, have tapped Google's law firm of choice. The steps Google has taken to aid its allies illustrate the tenuous line the company walks as Apple wages war against many of them. Though Google and its Android platform have a vested interest in Google partners succeeding, the company has yet to directly take on Apple itself.
"Google will want to stay away from this trial as much as possible," said Neil Shah, an analyst at Strategy Analytics. "They don't want to directly confront Apple."
Apple filed a lawsuit last year accusing Samsung of violating patents involved in the creation of the iPhone and iPad. The trial, which has captivated the tech sector, began last week and is expected to last late into the month. The parties are due back in court this morning.
Apple's various lawsuits represent an attempt to slow the momentum that Android has enjoyed over the last few years. While the iPhone 4S remains a phenomenally successful single device, there are scores of Android phones constantly flooding the market, ever extending Google's reach with consumers. As of the second quarter, Android phones represented more than half of the smartphone market, compared with the one-third share for Apple, according to market research firm ComScore.
The squabble has centered on the look and feel of Samsung's phones, from the hardware to the software. The latter, of course, is Google's Android. Apple, however, hasn't accused Google of being a copycat in any litigation.
Instead Apple has hammered on Samsung for making changes to its software to make its products look more like the iPhone at a software level. And on the outside, Apple has accused Samsung of mimicking visual features like the metallic bezel and rounded corners. In turn, Samsung has responded by noting that the Android-specific buttons on the front of its phones offer ways to differentiate the companies' products from one another.
Other than that, Google's name hasn't come up much in the trial.
A curious link
Nonetheless, Google still has one important link to the case: Quinn Emanuel.
The firm representing Samsung has become Google's law firm of choice in matters of intellectual property. Quinn Emanuel lawyers have represented the search company in numerous patent and copyright cases.
It just so happens that Quinn Emanuel attorney Charles Verhoeven, one of the lead lawyers for Samsung, is also representing HTC and Motorola, two of Google's Android partners, in patent litigation brought against them by Apple. Quinn Emanuel also represented Barnes & Noble, which uses Android as the operating system for its Nook e-book readers, when Microsoft accused the book merchant of violating its patents.

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 Buckle up, Angry Birds fans. The barreling birds and sinister pigs are headed on a mission to Mars.

Days before the scheduled Mars Curiosity Rover landing, Finnish game maker Rovio announced it is gearing up to release a "red planet update" for Angry Birds Space this fall. To hype up the update, Rovio released a short teaser video (below) created in collaboration with NASA.

The 30-second spot begins with a notice about the upcoming landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars, which is set to happen in just two days. The video then asks the question "what will it find?" before switching to footage of Mars, where a bird's shadow appears over what looks like a patch of ice.

Rovio last week released an update for Angry Birds Space, adding 20 more levels to the game. Also, the game maker just yesterday sent its beloved pig-popping game on a beach vacation with the launch of 15 new tropical level for the original Angry Birds.

Angry Birds Space was first released in March and has been a hit for Rovio, topping 50 million downloads in just 35 days.

Meanwhile, a real life mission to Mars is happening now with the Rover Curiosity scheduled to complete its 350 million-mile journey and touch down on the Red Planet at approximately 1:31 a.m. EDT on Monday. The goal of the mission is to investigate whether the planet could have previously supported life, study its climate and geology, and evaluate the potential for a manned mission.

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While Apple gears up to replace Google Maps with its own mapping service on iOS platform, Google is stepping up its Google Earth app on the platform, updating it with new various new features such as 3D maps and a tour guide. Google is rolling out the update for the iPad 2, new iPad and the iPhone 4S devices.

"With the release of Google Earth for iOS you can literally fly through breathtaking 3D city landscapes and images and follow virtual tours of places you've never been -- all with a simple swipe of your fingertip," wrote Google's Peter Birch, Google Earth product manager, in a blog post. "It's a new, and I think magical way to explore the world in which we live."

Google’s tour guide feature enables iOS users to discover and explore popular sites in more than 110 countries and regions.

“We’ve put together short tours of thousands of famous places and historical sites across the globe so it’s easier than ever to discover amazing places,” said Birch. “Just pull up the tab at the bottom of the screen to open the tour guide. Each image highlights a tours or place of interest in the area you are looking. Click on an item and you will be flown there. As you fly in and around the sites, snippets from Wikipedia provide additional information about the location. It’s like having a local expert right beside you!”

Last week, Google had announced updating its image catalogue for both Google Earth and Maps with new high resolution aerial, satellite and 45-degree-angled shots. According to reports, the updated image catalogue features as many as 25 cities, 72 nations and regions including London, Pittsburgh, Geneva and a host of countries.

Google had rolled out a similar update to its Google Earth app for Android last month. Meanwhile, check out the short video below just in case you haven’t caught up with the 3D imagery yet.

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Try these five helpful tips to help reduce or even prevent the discomfort caused by staring at your monitor all day.

If you spend hours a day in front of a computer screen (like me), and have experienced anything along the lines of: eyes burning, neck aching, vision blurring, or head throbbing, you might have a common problem known as eyestrain.
In medical terms it's called Computer Vision Syndrome, and it comes from a combination of your monitor's bright backlight, glare and staring at a screen for extended periods of time.
Quick fixes like ibuprofen and eye exercises will usually relieve eyestrain, but in my quest to resolve this issue, I went for a preventative approach.
After consulting trusty sources like the Mayo Clinic, I found that the following five tips were the most effective in preventing my Computer Vision Syndrome.

1. Adjust your monitor's position

A simple tweak to your monitor setup can go a long way in solving your eyestrain. For optimal comfort, your monitor should be 20-30 inches away from your eyes. Additionally, the top of your monitor should be at eye level, as you should be looking down at your work, not up. If you need to raise your monitor, consider using risers, or even a stack of old hardcover books.

2. Tweak the lighting

An office setting with too much artificial or natural light can create monitor glare that quickly tires your eyes. So, if you can, turn off any harsh fluorescent lights and position your computer so that any natural light is coming in on either side of your monitor. Light should never be directed behind or in front of your screen. Instead, use floor or desk lamps and position them on either side of your monitor so that they provide indirect lighting.

3. Use the 20-20-20 rule

Every 20 minutes, find an object about 20 feet away, and stare at it for 20 seconds. This trick from labnol.org is intended to exercise your eyes and give them a break from your monitor's bright backlight. If you need to, automate reminders for these breaks with programs like BreakTaker for Windows, or Time Out for Mac.

4.Try Gunnars glasses

Artificial light combined with natural light and your monitor's backlight puts unavoidable stress on your eyes. One solution to consider is Gunnar glasses. These specialized glasses, mostly aimed at gamers, are tinted yellow to offset the cool blue light your monitor produces. They also offer slight magnification, making it easier to read text (even for those who don't normally wear reading glasses.)
They'll set you back about $80, but from my experience, they make a big difference. The glasses come in several styles and custom prescription models.

5. Use a setup that's easy on the eyes

When your work materials and tools are splayed out in different areas of your desk, you force your eyes to constantly readjust for their various distances. Fix this by putting your keyboard directly in front of your monitor, and your reading materials adjacent to it using a copyholder.

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The good: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion's new iCloud integration and syncing features give you the same experience on all your devices. Upgrades to several core apps bring new and useful features for sharing and social connectivity.

The bad: Game Center, while finally available for Mac, still only has basic features. Dictation sends your voice to be translated at Apple servers, so you can't use it while offline. Gatekeeper keeps you from downloading unsafe programs, but it seems mostly unnecessary.

The bottom line: Though it's not a complete system or interface overhaul, Mountain Lion's improved core apps and new features make it well worth the $19.99 price.

In the tale of two operating systems, Apple's Mountain Lion is a less ambitious endeavor. Rather than completely rewriting the book as Microsoft is attempting with Windows 8, Apple's latest operating system simply cleans house, clearing clutter, while bringing more cloud and sharing features into the fold -- specifically to make the desktop play nice with iOS devices. Some of the new features come directly from iOS, and many are welcome, but some seem unnecessary. Ultimately, what you get is the familiar layout of Apple's operating system and much less of a learning curve than with what we've seen so far of Windows 8's completely new touch-screen-focused interface.

The Mountain Lion release marks the second time Apple has offered an incremental upgrade, rather than releasing a new cat entirely (previously Leopard upgraded to Snow Leopard, for example). But don't let the modest feature or name upgrades deter you from seriously considering Mountain Lion: Apple doesn't change the game with the update, but improves everything from Safari to Messaging and adds new iCloud and sharing capabilities that make moving between devices easier.

Where Windows 8 dives head first into the touch-screen tablet market with a completely revamped user interface, Apple has improved upon what was already available, and -- in my opinion, based on using both Mountain Lion and early versions of Windows 8 -- Apple has made the wiser decision. By keeping the mobile and desktop operating systems separate, Apple can still deliver the best experience on each of its devices.

Installation for Mac OS X Mountain Lion requires a couple of steps. Start by running Software Update and check for Mac App Store updates -- this is always a good practice before a major upgrade, to make sure you have the latest versions of Apple's core apps.

From there, simply navigate to the Mac App Store, purchase the upgrade, and begin downloading. You'll need to have an account with Apple via the Mac or iTunes Store in order to purchase Mountain Lion. The OS is about 4GB (approximately the size of a full-length film download), so depending on your connection, you may want to start the download before going to bed or leaving for work. When the download is finished, the Mountain Lion installer appears in the Dock and launches automatically.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion installs in place, so you won't need to create a separate disk or run the installation off an external drive. All of your photos, documents, applications, and other saved files will be there when you're finished with the upgrade. Once the installation is complete, your Mac will automatically restart and you'll be ready to start exploring.

iCloud integration makes getting started easy
As the first major operating system release since iCloud, Mountain Lion was built with several new cloud features integrated into many of the apps.

One great new feature for those with a brand-new Mac is the ability to sign in through the Setup Assistant with your Apple ID and sync all your settings along with your apps. Your e-mail, contacts, calendars, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and more will automatically be synced up with other devices and made ready for use on your Mac by entering your Apple ID. This will be a welcome feature for iOS users setting up a new Mac for the first time because right off the bat you'll immediately be able to take advantage of all the new sharing features in Mountain Lion.One important thing to note, however, is that Apple says that Facebook integration will come in a later free update this fall.

With Apple's latest version of Mac OS X, upon launch of any app that lets you create documents, you'll now have all of your cloud-synced projects available whether you created them on your Mac or on an iOS device.

Documents in the Cloud should make it easier for those who work on multiple Macs and iOS devices. Now, when you launch a program that produces documents (such as Pages, for example), you'll be presented with what Apple calls the Open Panel. Here you'll see that specific app's iCloud Document Library with all of the documents you have saved to iCloud with the most recent at the top. Using a button at the top, you can also choose to launch documents currently on your Mac. The window supports document folders, letting you drag one document on top of another to create a folder, just as you would arrange apps into folders on an iOS device. As I talk about more of the new features in Mountain Lion, you'll see many that are clearly ideas brought over from iOS devices.

As I mentioned, Documents in the Cloud will work with any Apple app that produces documents currently (like TextEdit and Preview) along with all three iWork apps. Apple is also making it available as an API for third-party developers, so expect other apps that produce documents to come out with an update soon after Mountain Lion is released.

Messages on the Mac
Those with iPhones or iPads running iOS 5 or later will appreciate the update for Messages (and iMessage) in Mountain Lion. Now, whether on a Mac or iOS device, you'll be able to take advantage of Apple's no-cost texting features with iMessage, and the ability to send a text to an iPhone from your Mac is certainly convenient. Messages (as opposed to iMessage) will also let you communicate with the same services you did with iChat, including AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Jabber. The way Apple differentiates between the services is by making iMessage chats blue and chats with other services green (similar to iOS devices).

The Messages app lets you chat with both Mac users and people with iOS devices. You can add a picture by dragging and dropping one in, but I wish there were a button for uploading an image.

The Messages window is set up with all your recent conversations on the left and the actual conversation window on the right. Just like iOS, you'll get typing indicators to show your friend is responding and delivery receipts that show your message has been delivered to the device. But in Mountain Lion, you'll also be notified when the recipient has read the message (only if the iOS user has allowed for it in settings) -- a feature that will be added to Apple's mobile devices in iOS 6.

Just like the iOS version of Messages, you'll be able to start a group chat simply by adding more names at the top. When you send your message it will be seen by all recipients and their replies will be shown to everyone as well. In the Mountain Lion version, you'll also have the ability to quickly switch to FaceTime video chats using a button in the upper right of the chat window.

One issue I noticed in the preview that remains in Mountain Lion is the absence of a camera button to quickly add a picture to a message (something that comes standard in iOS messages). Messages in Mountain Lion lets you drag and drop an image, but in the case when you don't have the image handy, it requires a few steps to go find one and drag it into the interface. This is a feature where we prefer the iOS method, so hopefully it will be added in a future update.

Safari
Apple's Web browser isn't the fastest Web browser overall, but improvements in Mountain Lion have added more reasons to stick with it on the Mac. With the Smart Search Field, Apple is taking a page from other popular Web browsers like Google Chrome, making the address bar serve double duty as your place to enter addresses and search the Web. When you enter a search term, Safari displays Top Hits right below the field based on your browsing history.

Across all the core apps, you now can click the Sharing Button to send items through e-mail, via Messages, to social sites, and other options based on the current app and content you are sharing.

iCloud integration in Safari also adds more features, including a couple of new interface additions. With iCloud Tabs, Safari now has a new cloud-shaped button next to the forward and back buttons in the upper left. Once you sign in during initial setup with your Apple ID, you'll now be able to view open tabs on all your Apple devices, making it possible to pick up where you left off on another device without missing a beat. Apple has added a sharing button to Safari as well, where you'll find the options to add a page to your Reading List or create a bookmark, but it also lists out ways to share a site via e-mail, Message, Twitter, or Facebook. If you pick Message, Twitter, or Facebook, Mountain Lion brings up a Share Sheet without ever leaving the Web page you're currently on; sending via e-mail populates the e-mail body with an image you're sharing, for example, and lets you fill in the rest.

One major new interface enhancement for Safari is a joy to use when running Mountain Lion with a trackpad. When you have a lot of browser tabs open, the new Tab View lets you use a pinch gesture, then use a two-finger swipe to browse your open tabs. A reverse-pinch returns you to normal browsing. While mostly a cosmetic upgrade, once I got used to pinching and swiping to browse tabs, it became second nature. In my years reviewing Apple products, this is yet another example of how Apple can make a small tweak to the interface that vastly improves the experience. It may not be totally necessary (you could easily click to look at each tab), but it's intuitive and saves time.

To round out the updates to Safari, a few added features will make your surfing smoother. Apple says it tested Safari (admittedly in-house) using the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and says that it's faster than Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 13, and Chrome 20 (in that order). Check back for our official benchmark testing later this week. Safari also uses your GPU for improved hardware acceleration for noticeably smoother scrolling and faster loading of pages. A new Offline Reading List lets you save Web pages for offline viewing -- great for when you're going to be on a plane or in a no-service area. The browser also supports Do Not Track (think of Google Chrome's Incognito mode) and Password AutoFill for sites you return to frequently.

Safari is arguably the most important software on your computer as your window to the Internet, and in Mountain Lion, Apple has succeeded in bringing it up to speed with competing browsers, and offers a few extras (like Tab View, Sharing, and Cloud Tabs) that make common tasks much easier.

Game Center now on Mac, but it's not perfect
Mountain Lion leans a lot on the up-to-the-instant, multidevice syncing capabilities of iCloud across several of the core apps, but you wouldn't know it from the Mac OS X debut of Game Center. The perennially underpowered social gaming hub of iOS has always been disappointing for iOS gamers, and its arrival on Mac desktops won't do much to change that.

Game Center on the Mac gives you gaming info about what your friends are playing and leaderboards, and offers recommendations for new games based on what you already have.

Game Center on Mountain Lion offers all the features you know from the iOS version: leaderboards, friend info, game matching, and more, and it shows up in much the same way it does on the iPad. But the killer app of any gamer social-networking interface -- and arguably the lifeblood of the communal gaming experience on consoles -- is the ability to log in and see what you're friends are currently playing, so you can join in, suggest something else, or just see who's shirking work on a Friday afternoon. This type of capability seems like such an obvious fit for iCloud, even if it were lacking a strong invite component, and I'm disappointed to see this missed opportunity in Mountain Lion.

Most of the promise of Game Center on the Mac OS is under the hood: with Game Kit APIs, developers will be able to create multiplayer games across multiple devices, so for example you can play a game on your Mac against a friend on an iPhone or iPad -- a multiplatform approach that mimics what we're seeing in the Windows 8 preview, Windows phones, and the Xbox 360.

Even though its underpowered and lacking in features, making it available for Mountain Lion could be Apple's move to improve gaming on Mac desktops and MacBooks. Giving developers added incentive to port games from iOS could re-energize gaming on the Mac, but we'll have to wait and see how third-party developers respond.

Notifications
Another feature that comes to Mac from the iOS is Notifications, letting you sync up notifications across all devices so you have the latest information from everywhere. With the new Notification center in Mountain Lion, notifications show up as banners or alerts in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. An Alert for an app update that requires your attention will remain until you decide to update or hit snooze to update later (9-minute snooze time; why is it always 9 minutes?), while updates like a newly received e-mail or Message will show for a few moments, then slide off the screen. To look at all your recent activity, you can click the notification icon in the upper right or you can perform a two-finger swipe, dragging your fingers from right to left starting with the right edge of the trackpad.

The new Notification Center opens with a two-finger swipe from the right edge of your Trackpad, and you can customize how things show up there in the System Preferences.

The Notification Center also offers a really cool feature for posting to Facebook (not available until this fall) or Twitter. Now, with the simple swipe from right to left mentioned above, at the very top of the Notification Center, you'll have buttons to Click to Tweet or Click to Post (on Facebook). Without ever leaving the desktop, opening a Web browser, or launching an app, you can now enter a quick Tweet or Status and send it off to its respective social network.

More social connectivity
In Mountain Lion, sharing what you're looking at with people on popular social networks is easier than earlier versions. Along with e-mail, Messages, and Air Drop, you'll now have the option from of all the core apps to share with social networks including Twitter, Flickr, and Vimeo (depending on the content being shared). Unfortunately, as mentioned above, though I've seen the Facebook integration in action in my review copy of Mountain Lion, the feature won't be available at the time of release. Apple says that full Facebook integration will come in a later update to Mountain Lion this fall, but it's a shame Facebook features couldn't make it in for launch.

Reminders
The Reminders app will be recognizable to any iOS user, and not much has changed in the new app for Mac. You can create and manage tasks, make to-do lists, and set alerts, and iCloud automatically syncs them up with your other devices. You can set up separate lists of reminders based on categories such as groceries, or a trip you might be taking, and you can manage alerts for each by adding due dates or even location-based reminders. Being able to set the Reminders app to send you an alert as you leave or arrive at a location is very useful, and its absence was something we brought up in our preview coverage, so it's nice to see that Apple has added it in for the final release.

The Reminders app keeps all your reminders in one place and syncs with your iOS devices so you can manage important alerts from anywhere.

Reminders works with multiple accounts, so those with CalDAV services like Yahoo Calendar and Google Calendar can create separate accounts or you can just create lists of reminders that are only on your Mac. All of your reminders will show up in the Notification Center when they are approaching their due dates.

Notes
The Notes app is sort of the catch-all on my iPhone for quick lists, jotting an address down, and any other random information I want recorded somewhere quickly. On the Mac it syncs with Notes on your iOS devices through iCloud and it behaves just as it does on your iPhone, but adds a few useful extras.

Instead of just a place to jot down information, you'll now be able to create formatted notes with different fonts, rich text, and numbered lists, and all can be viewed with the same formatting on your iOS devices. You can add photos, attachments, and links just by dragging them onto a note. You also create a sort of sticky note by double clicking it to open it in a new window, then pin the note to your desktop so you'll have the info handy. Notes has a sharing button as well that allows you to share via e-mail or Messages.

With Notes on your Mac, you'll now have all your quick notes and information synced between all your devices. But on a Mac in Mountain Lion, you also can create formatted numbered lists, use rich text, and add images.

AirPlay Mirroring
AirPlay Mirroring works mostly well in Mountain Lion only showing minor delays in my testing, but some delay is to be expected. In Mountain Lion, it automatically detects when an AirPlay-supported device is present by displaying a little icon in the menu bar. Provided you are on the same network, you can click the icon, enter the Displays system preference, and then choose AirPlay Mirroring from a drop-down window.

In my experience, the feature works well for mirroring just about anything on your desktop, any of the included apps, HD movies, supported games, and even Flash videos. The only lag I noticed in my testing was on higher-resolution videos where it became slightly jerky at times, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of my viewing experience unless I was actively trying to see it.

Dictation
In Mountain Lion, in any app or window where you would normally type, you'll now be able to dictate. After turning the feature on in the System Preferences, Mountain Lion only requires you to hit the Function key twice (or a hot-key combination you specify), then it will immediately start recording. In my testing the Dictation feature did an admirable job, but it was (obviously) important to enunciate clearly and project my voice for the most accuracy.

There is one big problem with Dictation: the feature sends your voice to Apple's servers to be translated to text. Aside from the big brother implications of sending your correspondence through Apple, this also means that when you're not online you cannot use the feature. I'm not sure if the issue is processing power, memory, or storage issues, but it's disappointing that it doesn't work unless connected. Why wouldn't Apple simply include the voice-to-text software in the OS? I can't imagine, but it doesn't seem like the best way to implement the feature.

Gatekeeper
In keeping with bringing more iOS features to the Mac, Gatekeeper acts as an optional "walled garden" to keep your Mac safe by only allowing programs to launch that are from trusted sources. Your options here are to only download from the Mac App Store (most safe), allow both Mac App Store downloads and files from sites that have been identified by Apple (likely safe), or from anywhere (least safe).

With iOS devices, you can only download apps from the iTunes App Store, so Apple has some control over the security of what gets accepted in its library. On a Mac, however, you still have the ability to download apps and files from third-party sites (which may or may not be trustworthy), so the Gatekeeper acts as a last line of defense against potentially harmful software. For an example of how it works, if you set up Gatekeeper to only allow apps from the Mac App Store, you'll still be able to download a file from a third-party site, but you'll get a warning dialog box and won't be able to launch the program. The precaution makes sense for new Mac users, I suppose, but more-experienced users will probably set the option to Anywhere and use good judgment when choosing downloads. In other words, while Gatekeeper is mostly effective (some bad programs slip through the Mac App store's approval process), I wonder how necessary it really is.

With Gatekeeper you can set up what level of security you want for downloads. Choosing the Mac App Store only option is the safest, while choosing Anywhere will mean you'll have to be especially careful.

Do you use Launchpad?
While not a new feature in Mountain Lion, the Launchpad, which started with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, remains as an optional way to launch apps on your Mac. Taking a page from the app layout on iOS devices, you get crisp colorful icons for launching your apps, and in Mountain Lion, a new quick search to help you narrow it down to the app you're looking for. But is it really necessary? I don't mind the feature for finding and launching apps, but most Mac users still launch apps the old-fashioned way: straight out of the Finder. It's not that Launchpad is a bad way of launching apps, but it seems like Apple should pick a method and stick to it.

Conclusions
Mac OS X Mountain Lion has more than 200 new features, many of them small, but all seemingly with the idea of making current common processes easier while adding more sharing and cloud features across all your devices. The strong focus on iCloud integration and sharing indicates Apple wants to be ahead of the curve as our information becomes available everywhere, whether on a desktop computer or a mobile device.

Some features left over from Lion still seem gimmicky, such as Launchpad for launching apps like on an iOS device, even though I understand that carrying over the design aesthetic will probably help new users (whose only experience with Apple is through the iPhone).

Nevertheless, the features in Mountain Lion make for a worthy upgrade for the lowered price of $19.99 (Lion cost $29.99), whether for a Mac desktop or MacBook of any variety. The automatic syncing of all your devices through iCloud, new sharing capabilities, and upgrades to several of the core apps make spending 20 bucks for the price of entry seem very affordable.

The question is whether Mountain Lion is enough of an upgrade compared with the striking visual and interface changes in Windows 8. Windows is offering more-compelling reasons than ever to try something new, but in the end, most people will likely stick with the operating system they already know.

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