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Mountain Lion Power Nap

One of the main new features of OS X Mountain Lion is Power Nap. Power Nap allows your SSD Mac to keep itself updated and synced to the cloud, even while it sleeps. While its a highly-touted feature of Mountain Lion, support for the 2011 and 2012 MacBook Air and the new MacBook Pro with Retina display was left out. Today, Apple released a download that enables Power Nap for the aforementioned MacBook Air units, with the promise that an additional download that'll enable the feature on the MacBook Pro with Retina display is "coming soon." You can get Mountain Lion now for $19.99 on the Mac App Store.

Read More | Apple

Gallery: MacBook Air gets update that enables Mountain Lion Power Nap feature


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iWork 9.2 UpdateAnother major Apple product to get an update today is iWork. iWork Update 9.2 brings with it support for various features of OS X Mountain Lion, which launched this morning on the Mac App Store. What's new? For starters, iCloud integration finally comes to iWork. You can now store documents in the cloud, and keep them updated across your Mac, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, and the web. Dictation allows you to speak words, numbers, and sentences into your documents. Lastly, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers have all been updated to take advantage of the MacBook Pro with Retina display. You can grab the iWork 9.2 update now.

Gallery: iWork update 9.2 brings iCloud, Dictation, Retina display support


iMovie 9.0.7

Following the string of software that Apple has released today, including Mountain Lion and iPhoto 9.3.2, an updated version of iMovie is also available. iMovie 9.0.7 brings with it fixes for a few bugs that users have been experiences. Expect fixes related to third-party QuickTime compenents that would cause iMovie to crash, stability improvements when previewing MPEG-2 video clips in the Camera Import window, and a few audio fixes as well. You can download iMovie 9.0.7 now by launching Software Update on your Mac.

Read More | iMovie

Gallery: iMovie 9.0.7 released


iPhoto 9.3.2 Mountain Lion

A bunch of Mac apps are being updated today (like Rdio and Fantastical) to support today's release of OS X Mountain Lion, now available on the Mac App Store. iPhoto joins the list with release 9.3.2, which includes support for Mountain Lion and adds sharing options for Messages and Twitter alongside other performance and stability improvements. You can download the update now.

Gallery: iPhoto 9.3.2 released with Mountain Lion support


Rdio Mountain Lion

Rdio released a small updated for the Rdio for Mac app today, bringing with it Mountain Lion compatibility. In short, the OS X media keys will now perform as expected with Rdio when running the newly-released OS X 10.8. The changelog:

  • Media key support for Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
  • Layout bug fixes

If you haven't tried it, Rdio is our pick for the best streaming subscription music platform available in the US. In fact, you can follow the Gear Live Rdio channel for our song picks and recommendations.

Read More | Rdio

Gallery: Rdio for Mac 2.08 released with Mountain Lion support


Fantastical 1.3.2

Fantastical, the fantastic calendar replacement app for the Mac, has been updated to version 1.3.2. With that update comes support for the just-released OS X Mountain Lion operating system, as well as enhancements for the MacBook Pro with Retina display. Here's the full changelog:

  • OS X Mountain Lion compatibility
  • Enhanced for the MacBook Pro with Retina display
  • Added support for simple repeating reminders
  • Pressing the space bar with a selected reminder now toggles the completion state
  • Improved performance for users with thousands of reminders
  • Fixed error that could appear when loading reminders
  • Fixed a hang when completing certain repeating reminders
  • Fixed a problem when setting the next due date of certain repeating reminders
  • Fixed a potential problem for iCloud users who have a pre-MobileMe account that was originally set up with mac.com
  • Various bug fixes and improvements

If you haven't tried Fantastical, we highly recommend it. You can get a 30-day free trial of the software, and it's selling for 50% off right now on the Mac App Store.

Gallery: Fantastical updated with Mountain Lion, Retina display support


OS X Mountain Lion Download

Just as Apple promised yesterday (and as we predicted,) OS X Mountain Lion is now available to all on the Mac App Store. If your Mac is supported, you can head over to the Mountain Lion download page and grab it for $19.99. Make sure you're on a speedy broadband connection though, as the download weighs in at a hefty 4.05 GB. Mountain Lion was announced just five months ago, and has going from Developer Preview to public release fairly quickly thanks to Apple's new annual OS release schedule.

Have you downloaded it? Are you going to wait until 10.8.1? Sound off in the comments!

Read More | OS X Mountain Lion

Gallery: OS X Mountain Lion now available for $19.99 on Mac App Store


Mountain Lion July 25

Earlier today we guessed that Apple would be launching Mountain Lion tomorrow, and it turns out that we were correct. During it's earnings call today, the company announced that OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will hit the Mac App Store tomorrow, July 25th. Users will be able to purchase the OS X update for $19.99. Be sure to check out our getting ready for Mountain Lion guide, as well as our Mountain Lion Mac compatability list to be sure your computer can run the new OS.

Gallery: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion launches tomorrow, July 25 for $19.99


Carbon Copy CLoner 3.5

With the rumor that Mountain Lion will launch tomorrow, a bunch of developers have been released Mountain Lion compatable software updates recently, and we can now add the excellent Carbon Copy Cloner to the list. Carbon Copy Cloner allows you to automatically make backups of your data using a simple-yet-powerful interface. CCC 3.5 requires Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, while 3.4.x will continue to run on Tiger and Leopard. As a nice bonus, Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5 also includes support for the Retina display. Here's the full changelog:

  • This version of CCC requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, and is fully qualified on each of those OSes. We will continue to provide user support and bug fixes for Tiger and Leopard users on CCC 3.4.x for a while longer.
  • Recovery HD support has been overhauled to better support the concept of "one Recovery HD partition per volume", rather than one per disk. If you have multiple backup volumes with different OSes (e.g. Lion and Mountain Lion), CCC can associate a Recovery HD with each one and apply the appropriate OS to each Recovery HD partition.
  • We have leveraged code signing within CCC for nearly five years. For GateKeeper compliance on Mountain Lion, however, CCC is now signed with an Apple Developer Certificate.
  • Most of the binaries in the CCC bundle are now 32/64-bit Intel-only binaries.
  • Fixed an issue that appeared in 10.7.4, specific to Macs running Lion with a 64-bit kernel, in which the /Volumes folder on the destination volume would be locked rather than hidden. This resulted in external volumes being unmountable when booted from the backup volume.
  • Performance of deleting scheduled tasks is much improved.
  • CCC previously encountered some performance problems when simultaneously saving very large numbers of scheduled tasks (e.g. > 29). These problems should now be resolved. This is most applicable when updating CCC, or when CCC has been moved and all tasks must be re-saved at the same time.
  • Updated graphics for High Resolution support on the new MacBook Pro (Retina).

You can get the new update now.

Read More | Carbon Copy Cloner

Gallery: Carbon Copy Cloner updated with Mountain Lion, Retina display support


OS X Mountain Lion release

Apple will be reporting its third-quarter fiscal year 2012 earnings call later today, and many are speculating that part of that call will be the announcement of the OS X Mountain Lion release date. In fact, last year Lion's release date was announced during the earnings call, and it debuted the following day. Apple has promised that Mountain Lion would be released this month, and we've got a week left. If we had to bet, we'll see Apple's next major operating system launch tomorrow. Mountain Lion will be available on the Mac App Store for $19.99, and the Golden Master was released to developers recently.

Gallery: Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion to be released tomorrow?


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