Apple Mountain Lion was announced by Craig Federighi, Apple's vice president of Mac Software Engineering, when he took the stage shortly before 11 a.m. PDT at the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Succeeding Lion, Apple's best selling release, the aptly named OS X Mountain Lion offers over 200 features at a $19.99 upgrade cost -- $10 less than the last upgrade.

Since Federighi did not have enough time to debut Mountain Lion in its entirety, he kept the presentation short with eight key features from the Messages app to the Game Center. Apple's iCloud service auto-syncs all data from programs such as Pages and Numbers with the corresponding apps on mobile devices, and vice versa. The quick sync software even saves Safari content, such as browser tabs, bookmarks and history to the cloud, which can be accessed from any device.

Users can purchase Apple's Mountain Lion from the Mac App store starting in July. While new Macs will have Mountain Lion pre-installed, Mac users all the way back to Snow Leopard can download the latest Apple software for a low fee.

Check out the first gallery to see the roundup of the OS X Mountain Lion features.

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  • Mountain Lion Messages

    iPhone users can respond directly on their Mac to messages received on their phone. The feature not only enables Mac-to-Mac and Mac-to-device messaging, but also saves the complete message history. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Notification Center

    "Sometimes when you're using a Mac it can have something it needs to tell you," Federighi said <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">during WWDC 2012</a>. Similar to notifications on the iPhone or iPad, Mac users will receive instant alerts and notifications in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. However, oftentimes these notifications can be disruptive. With Mountain Lion, these messages will slide in and users can navigate back to the full list using two-finger gesture control. Users can also enable Internet notifications from websites like Twitter to pop-up in this fashion. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Sharing

    Support for sharing is built directly into the operating system so users can authorize specific apps and programs in order to seamlessly access and connect to social media services and networks. For example, in iPhoto, users can press the share button and instantly send a photo to a friend via Messages. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Safari

    Among the Apple browser's newest features, the new unified smart search field received the most applause. Users will be able to type in their search inquiry and Safari will bring up the best result using bookmarks, browsing history and other data. Safari will also be iCloud-enabled so that browsing history, bookmarks and even open tabs will be automatically synced across all devices. A user could effectively switch from their Mac to their iPad, picking up their browser where they left off. Federighi demonstrated Safari's improved usability with multi-touch gesture control. Scrolling is smooth and lightning fast and users can visually navigate through all of their tabs with the swipe of a finger just like in iTunes. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Dictation

    Although Mountain Lion will not have Siri -- not yet anyway -- the Mac OS is being revamped with its own voice dictation service. A user can talk directly into the microphone and Mountain Lion will dictate to Facebook, Microsoft Word or other third-party programs. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Power Nap

    Siestas are often necessary during the day, but that usually means time away from our laptops is time wasted. With Power Nap, a user's Mac will automatically update itself, fetch emails and auto-sync while its offline, enabling users to sleep easy. The feature will run quietly in the background, and boasts power efficiency. "We all love using our Macs, but wouldn't it be great if when we weren't using them they were still working for us?" Federighi said. <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">during WWDC 2012</a>. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Airplay Mirroring

    With this feature users will not be hindered by bulky cables when they want to push something from their laptop onto their TV screen. Airplay Mirroring enables users to wirelessly push pixel-for-pixel 1080p content from an Apple laptop with Mountain Lion, <a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5209" target="_hplink">or another device</a>, to a screen via Apple TV. Airplay will not only be limited to visual devices. Users can effectively send audio from their laptop to their stereo system. "We also support sending audio to AirPlay-enabled stereo systems and speakers," Federighi said during WWDC 2012. (<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-wwdc-2012-liveblog/" target="_hplink">Image via <em>Engadget</em></a>)

  • Mountain Lion Game Center

    The platform will appear the same on Apple laptops as it does on a user's mobile device. Federighi showed off his racing skills -- or lack there of -- in an on-stage CSR Racing demo against a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1123502/The-Stig-s-unmasked-Top-Gear-use-FOUR-different-mystery-test-drivers.html" target="_hplink">Stig</a>-like racer (any Top Gear fans?) Using both Airplay and Game Center, multiple players can participate in a game whether they are on a Mac or a mobile device. (Photo credit: AP)

Want to see what Mac users think of the new OS X features? Check out the gallery below for some Twitter reactions.

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  • Janne Hansen

  • Maarten Jansen

  • Owen

  • stephen spackman

  • Scott Stein

  • Ulysses Fondeur

  • Mohammed al-shara

  • Shrey Gupta

  • Ashlyn Benta™

  • Vijay Stylesz

  • Scott Sigler

  • kim giordano

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