Now that you've updated your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion it's time to start checking out some of the new features. iMessage now comes stock in Mountain Lion and makes it easier than ever to stay in contact with the people that matter most across your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and now, your Mac.

iMessage in OS X Mountain Lion lets you pick up conversations on your Mac right where you left off on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The best part is it's completely free and will work with anyone who has iMessage activated on their iOS or OS X devices.

Set up iMessage

If you signed into your iCloud account when you installed OS X Mountain Lion, you're probably already signed in and good to go so just skip this step. If you need to sign in manually, you can do so by following these steps:

1. First start by opening iMessage in your dock. The icon consists of blue and white chat bubbles.

2. If you have never signed into iMessage with an Apple ID you'll be prompted to do so upon first launch. Just type in your Apple ID credentials and submit them.
3. That's it. You're good to go to start using iMessage.

How to send an iMessage on your Mac

1. Open up iMessage in your dock. The icon consists of blue and white chat bubbles.

2. Click the new message button to the right of the search field.
3. Start typing the name of the person in your address book that you'd like to iMessage. You'll notice that some names have blue bubbles next to them and some won't. The ones that do are addresses that you can send iMessages to because they are either Apple ID's or phone numbers associated with an iPhone with iMessage enabled.

4. Once you've selected the person you'd like to send a message to, just type out your message and hit send. You're done!

How to add other IM accounts to iMessage

Now that iMessage is replacing iChat in Mac OS X, you may be wondering how to send instant messages without having to download another third party application. iMessage will give you the ability natively just like iChat did.

1. Open iMessage and from the top menu go to Messages and then Preferences.

2. Click on the Accounts tab along the top.

3. Now click on the plus sign in the accounts pain on the bottom left. You can choose from AIM, Jabber, Google Talk, and Yahoo. Select the IM account type you want to add and enter your credentials.

4. That's it. iMessage will now allow you to send and receive messages from your instant messenger services as well.

Enabling iMessage on your other Macs and iOS devices

To set up iMessage on other Macs in your house, just follow the same steps above. If you've got iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, you can also set them up to use iMessage as long as you're running iOS 5 or later. You can check out our guides for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well if you need help.

• How to set up and start using iMessage on your iPhone and iPod touch

• How to set up and start using iMessage on your iPad

Get more help with iMessage

If you need more help setting up or using other features of iMessage, check out our other tutorials via the links below. If you have questions, our iMore forums are a great place to ask for help as well.

• How to share iPhone and iPad photos via iMessage
• More iMessage tips for iOS
• Even more Mountain Lion news and tips

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The popular instant messaging client for iPhone and iPad, IM+ has received an update that allows users to merge multiple accounts of one contact into a metacontact. It also includes iCloud support to sync your IM+ settings and preferences across your iPhone and iPad.

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The iWork suite of apps which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are getting some updates on both OS X Mountain Lion and iOS for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The new versions of the apps appear to add iCloud support across both and dictation support for Mountain Lion.

If you've got a Mac running Mountain Lion, which was just released today you'll want to check the Mac App Store for updates to the iWork suite. Mountain Lion and iOS will now keep all your documents synced across all your devices via iCloud.

The update on the Mac App Store says the following is included in the update:

iWork Update 9.2 adds support for the following features available on OS X Mountain Lion:

• iCloud: Store documents in iCloud and keep them automatically up to date across your Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and the web. Changes made to a document on one device automatically appear on all your other devices. Requires iWork for iOS 1.6.1 or later installed on your iOS device.

• Dictation: Speak words, numbers, or sentences and watch them appear in your presentation, document, or spreadsheet.

• The iWork apps are also enhances to take advantage of the Retina display on the new Mac hardware so presentations, documents, and spreadsheets appear sharper and more vibrant.

So far we see updates for all three iWork apps on iOS and the update for the entire suite in the Mac App Store. No word on the iLife suite yet in terms of new features or functionality but a couple of us have seen some bug fixes and compatibility updates coming through for Mountain Lion. If you don't see the updates yet, keep checking the iOS and Mac App Stores.

Anyone seeing any other interesting updates on iOS or OS X other than bug fixes?

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Mountain Lion, Apple's next generation desktop OS is now available for $19.99 -- here's what it means to iOS users, and for Windows users thinking of switching

OS X Mountain Lion, the 8th generation of Apple's desktop operating system and the elder brother with which iOS shares much of it's digital DNA, is now available in the Mac App Store.

Most iOS users still use Windows as their primary desktop operating system. Even as the iPad is replacing traditional, lower-level desktop tasks like email, web browsing, and gaming for more and more of the mainstream, when it comes to proper old operating systems, Microsoft is still king.

Yet Apple's choosing an incredibly interesting way to try and change that, at least for the users it cares about most. No, not you, geeky gaming rig guy in the basement. No, not you beleaguered beige box guy in the cubicle. No, not even you, media server maven guy with your house all wired. With Mountain Lion, as with Lion before it, targets the casual user -- that very same mainstream user who's gotten an iPad for many things, but still needs a traditional computer for some things. A car driver looking for a familiarly appointed truck.

Familiarity is the key. Familiarity is a feature. Though they share many of the same underpinnings, OS X and iOS are very different animals. (One's a big cat, for starters.) Yet Apple understands that, for the user, the interface and the experience is the app. So with Mountain Lion, they've made more of the OS X interface and experience more closely match iOS than ever. Which makes sense, given the iOS user base not only dwarfs the OS X user base, but consists of the very users Apple wants to reach most -- those for whom traditional computers have always been inaccessible, intimidating, and off-putting.

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Setup and iCloud

OS X Mountain Lion now sets up similarly to iOS 5 -- you enter your iCloud-associated Apple ID and almost everything gets done for you. It's not quite that simple of course, at least not yet, but it's vastly better than computers of even a few years ago.

You still have to choose or take a profile picture, which is irksome to those of us who've used Macs with .Mac and MobileMe for years, and iCloud now, who'd really love to have the option to use our existing iCloud avatar. You also still have to fill out registration information. iOS skips both these steps, and for the better.

Once you're done you're done and in, however, and everything that syncs between your iOS devices also syncs between your iOS devices and Macs. (Apple technically doesn't use sync for iCloud but "store and push".)

All your stuff is "just there", and because Apple has made OS X apps sound, look, and even feel more like iOS apps, all your stuff is easy to find as well.

Built-in apps

With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has continued to bring iOS concepts "back to the Mac" with mostly good, and in some cases excellent results.

Calendars & Contacts

Gone are the iCal and Address Book of old, and in their place are Calendar and Contacts, just like iOS. They got an iPad-style makeover last year with OS X Lion, so this year the name is the biggest change. It may not seem like a big deal, but for an iOS user it makes them instantly recognizable and referable across Apple's platforms.

Messages

Likewise, iChat has become Messages... and is more problematic. iMessage delivered a much-needed roshambo to the carrier price gouge that was SMS, and worked in a similar fashion. It was in context. It was understood. Even on the iPad, iMessages made some sense, even if dual-wielders had to put up with dual accounts (phone number for iPhone, Apple ID for iPad and iPod touch) -- and dual alarms! (iOS 6 will fix this by allowing phone numbers and Apple IDs to be merged for iMessage and FaceTime.) On OS X, however, the iMessage/iChat hybrid is messy.

On one hand, if you're working on the Mac, it's faster to respond to iMessages on the Mac than to switch devices and do it on the iPhone or iPad. On the other, holy triple beeping hell, Batman. I've turned off alerts for iMessage on everything but my iPhone, since it's always with me. That way I only get one notification, but can reply from the device of my choosing. A more elegant solution from Apple, however, awaits.

Notes & Reminders

Added to the built in OS X app suite are Notes and Reminders, which now exist and do on OS X what they done on iOS since versions 1 and 5 respectively. They're no more or less than any iOS user would expect, but being able to expect them on the desktop as well as mobile is significant.

Safari

Safari, meanwhile, has lost the separate search field and now has a unified bar for URL entry and search. Google Chrome pioneered this and Apple has copied it, no doubt to delight of many. I've never been a huge fan but I've gotten used to it, and it's nice to have Safari and Chrome on the same page for those of us who switch frequently between them.

Also gone, to my immense consternation, is Safari RSS. Not just the ability to use Safari as an RSS reader gone (which was handy on occasion), you can't even open an RSS file to look at. Apple tells you to go jump in the Mac App Store and buy an app. Removing RSS from public view is one thing. Preventing your web browser from opening files is another. For shame.

On the plus side, Apple has given Safari for Mac the outstanding Action button from iOS, so you can easily share a web page in a variety of ways. I used to close my Mac and pick up my iPad just to share links in a non-frustrating way. Now, if I happen to be on my Mac, it's just as easy as if I was on iOS.

Also like Chrome, iCloud will now sync your tabs between OS X and iOS, so you can leave home with a web page loaded, and keep up with it on the go. Or vice-versa. Just make sure, if anyone else has access to you Mac or iPad at home or at work, you stick to tabs you're comfortable with everyone seeing you have open.

Yeah.

Notifications

Notification Center has moved from iOS to OS X and... actually works better on OS X. In iOS, Apple copied the base functionality of Google's pre-Android 4.1 notification window shade, but hasn't gone much beyond that. Rollovers still block buttons, and annoyingly to designers, linen appears in an overlay interface element rather than a background element. On Mountain Lion, a two finger swipe from the right edge of the trackpad moves the desktop aside to reveal Notification Center behind it. Notification appear as overlays at the top right of the screen and are even less obtrusive than they are on iOS.

They're still not actionable, however, and that's where Apple is behind Android today, and webOS from years ago. Hopefully that's addresses in a future version. Having a notification appear and being able to quickly adjust controls or jot down a response without switching apps is the way it's meant to be done.

AirPlay and Game Center

The single biggest feature for me in Mountain Lion is AirPlay. Anyone who owns a Mac and an Apple TV will instantly attach to AirPlay on OS X because, like me, they will have wanted it forever. To be able to play any video on your Mac, or view any screen, and at the click of a menu button have it instantly beamed to the big screen TV is one of the Holy Grails of geekdom. And for the most part, it works great.

One of the other Holy Grails (greeks are demanding, we have several), is cross-platform gaming. Mountain Lion provides that as well, with Game Center moving from iOS to OS X. If the same game is available on both desktop and mobile, and it's integrated into Game Center, you can race between iPod touch and Mac as easily as you could shoot between iPhone and iPad last week. It has its quirks, and it might take a while for developers to truly nail the experience between their apps, but it's fantastic.

If anyone had any reason to even consider not getting Mountain Lion, AirPlay and Game Center should have you clicking away your $19.99 right now.

Note: Some older Intel Macs won't get AirPlay in the update, which is beyond annoying.

Twitter and Facebook

If you use them, Apple has integrated Twitter and Facebook into Mountain Lion. Since Apple has struggled with their own social networks, and appears to have no interest in owning social the way they own the core OS and cloud, it was a good choice, and works well enough.

Gate Keeper

Previously, OS X on the Mac was the polar opposite of iOS when it came to how you could install and run apps. On iOS, unless you jailbreak, the App Store and the App Store alone is where you get your apps. With OS X Lion last year, Apple introduced the Mac App Store, but left the traditional, 3rd party vendor system in place and untouched as well. And yeah, phew.

However, the iOS approach is safer, easier, more secure, and carries other benefits, especially for a mainstream customer. So with OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is giving users a choice. Well, three choices actually.

1. Only allow apps to be installed and run from the Mac App Store
2. Only allow apps to be installed and run from the Mac App Store and signed, certified developers.
3. Allow any apps from anywhere to run.

It's a model many have wanted on iOS, even if it's unlikely Apple would ever do it. (There aren't many iOS apps that Apple would allow under Gatekeeper that they wouldn't already allow under the App Store -- no system modifications, for example, would get through either.)

For those who are internet savvy and fancy free, option 3 means the Mac will behave as it always have. For those for whom software on the desktop has always been a scary mess, option 1 makes it as close to iOS as possible. If not win/win, it's absolutely tie/tie.

Dictation

There's no Siri in OS X yet, but like the new iPad with iOS 5.1, there is Dictation. For those of us who've grown lazy typing thanks to Siri and Dictation, that's welcome news.

Upgrade advise

I'm not sure OS X is similar enough to iOS that I can recommend everything go out an update immediately, like most of us do with iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads. Computers are trickier beasts with more moving parts. If you aren't a comfortable, confident, early adapter (who is likely already on a pre-release version.), wait a while. Wait a day or a week until any problems have been identified and fixed. Wait a month or more if you have mission critical software that you can't have fail on a new OS.

Apple is on yearly OS X update cycles now, just like iOS, but the same old computer advice applies: slow and steady wins the reliability race.

Conclusion

Apple touts over 200 new features in Mountain Lion, including many specifically for the growing Chinese market. For me, it's not the number that matters but the nature. Making OS X look and feel more like iOS is a smart play by Apple. Previously, anyone getting into the Apple ecosystem via an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad might have looked at a Mac and seen something just as alien as a Windows PC. Now they'll see something just as familiar as their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Now, there's actually a reason iOS users, especially mainstream ones who are new to or have never been comfortable with traditional computers, to choose Mac over Windows -- it feels like just one more iOS device, a more capable if complicated one. It feels like a nicely appointed, leather stitched, linen-lined truck.

Sure, some element of the market has always had a compelling reason to choose Mac -- it was prettier or friendlier or simply fit the way they worked better. But many didn't. Many went with Windows for reasons every bit as legitimate to their feelings and needs.

Apple may not convert many more Windows devotees to Mac with Mountain Lion, but they'll convert or simply attract a great percentage of those who previously had no strong loyalty one way or another. They'll get the iOS using mainstream, and that's good for both Apple and mainstream computer users or users-to-be.

I had my mom try it out this weekend -- my version of the ultimate usability test -- and even though she's been using Lion for year, she found it immediately more relatable simply by virtue of the similar apps. That's no doubt what Apple was going for, and what they've achieved.

And for those worried that Apple is "dumbing down" the Mac for iOS users -- you still have Terminal. You're fine.

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Recommended reading

• Ars Technica review by John Siracusa
• The Loop review by Jim Dalrymple
• The Verge review
• Macworld review) by Jason Snell
• Daring Fireball review by John Gruber
• TechCrunch review by MG Siegler
• The Next Web review by Matthew Panzarino
• TUAW review by Richard Gaywood
• MacStories review by Fedrico Viticci
• 512 Pixels review by Stephen Hackett
• Engadget review by Brian Heater
• ABC News review by Joanna Stern
• CNET review

Last night Apple reported Q3 fiscal 2012 earnings. If you look at some of the headlines floating around, you'd think Apple was in some kind of trouble. Phrases like "iPhone slump" and "big earnings miss" are being tossed around as if the sky is falling on Cupertino.

What a joke. I think this just proves how short term Wall Street's memory can be. And I'll get to that in a bit. For now, let's go through the basic numbers to understand what all the fuss is about.

The numbers

Revenue was $35 billion for the quarter. While this beat Apple's own guidance, stocks are measured against Wall Street analyst estimates. The average estimate (known as "consensus") for revenue was $37.2 billion. So that's a miss as far as any professional investor is concerned.

Earnings per share (EPS) was $9.32 and this was also higher than Apple's guidance. But again, Wall Street expected $10.36. Another miss.

It's worth pointing out that Apple's own guidance is often viewed as ridiculously conservative. I can't think of too many companies who have a track record of sandbagging their guidance so significantly and consistently.

So is Apple to blame? Not entirely. Let's look at the breakdown.

iPhone shipments were 26 million, which is a healthy 28% year-over-year (YoY) growth, but lower growth than we've seen in the past from Apple. It was also lower than the 29 million units Wall Street thought Apple would sell. My opinion is that analysts didn't adequately account for the inventory adjustments going on within Apple's distribution channels. Recall that Apple was supply constrained for quite some time with the iPhone 4S, and delivered some outstanding numbers in the December and March quarters. This was the cool-off quarter where channel inventory declined.

iPad shipments, however, were incredibly strong. Apple sold 17 million tablets in the quarter. This is up from sales of 11.8 million iPads last quarter, and 9.25 million in the year-ago quarter. Talk about growth! iPad is on fire. Numbers were higher than Wall Street expected, and I think this is extremely important for the company. iPads are becoming PC replacements for many customers, and Apple has the killer product everyone wants.

Heck, they just sold over a million of the iPad 2 to the education market last quarter. Most tablet models from other vendors struggle to sell a million TOTAL. This market is growing like crazy, and Apple is dominant.

It's not worth spending a ton of time on Mac and iPod, especially since these are much smaller contributors to Apple's financials. But suffice to say that Mac growth of 2% (year over year) is outpacing the PC market, and the iPod is still by far the market leading MP3 player brand. Over 50% of iPod sales are the iPod touch, which runs iOS and helps edge new customers into the Apple ecosystem.

Guidance disappointed Wall Street

Now let's talk about Apple's guidance for the upcoming September quarter. Management's outlook on the upcoming quarter is at least as important to the stock market's reaction as the current quarterly numbers. And again, Apple provided a more somber outlook that Wall Street wanted.

Revenue is expected to be $34 billion, down only 4% sequentially. But EPS guidance is $7.65, down 18% sequentially. And gross margin? After seeing Apple report over 42% gross margin, analysts are now being told to expect the company to deliver 38.5% margin in September.

This has Wall Street freaking out, and explains why the stock was down more than 5% in after hours trading on Tuesday evening.

But come on ... do we have no ability to look back at last year and notice that we're watching this play out all over again? Hey Wall Street ... Bill Murray called. He wants his movie role back.

Before I dive into the numbers to show you what I'm talking about, let's talk about Apple's September quarter. Two things usually happen during this quarter.

First, it's the big "back to school" period. Apple gives discounts to students and teachers. Lots of Macs and iOS devices get sold. Margins are lower. That's life. It happens ever year.

Second, and arguably more important, the September quarter represents the greatest period of iPhone anticipation by customers. Everyone knows the next model is about to be released. Sales slow down, only to hit a new explosive record in the December quarter.

Groundhog Day: Remembering 2011

Last year Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, guided Wall Street to expect gross margin of 38% (down 370 basis points), which is even lower than they guided to this year. The explanation? Back to school promos, mix shifts, and the cost of a future product transition. Sound familiar? Thought so.

Of course the gross margin didn't end up dropping that much. Apple ended up reporting 40.3% and said that the beat came from lower component costs. Easy excuse for Apple to make, right?

Also last year, Oppenheimer guided for EPS to drop a whopping 29% sequentially. That didn't happen either. Instead of the $5.50 guidance, Apple ended up reporting $7.05 instead. Not so bad.

A couple of differences this year

All of this said, I'm more inclined to believe Apple is guiding closer to the truth this year simply because of the expected rollout of an iPhone 5 which should incorporate many higher-priced components (LTE radio, in-cell display, better processors, bigger battery, etc). Last year's iPhone 4S launch was not as big of a deal from a cost perspective.

Apple also gave us more reason (than normal) to believe that iPhone sales are slowing due to iPhone 5 anticipation. Oppenheimer specifically said, "Our weekly iPhone sales continue to be impacted by rumors and speculation regarding new products. "

What does this mean to the stock?

Is this a reason to worry about the future of Apple's stock price? I don't think so. All it means is that your products are so popular and highly anticipated that they become much very seasonal. As a long term investor, this doesn't bother me one bit. And it's a whole lot better than having to worry if new products will be in demand.

Is there an iPad Mini coming?

I guess at this point pretty much everyone is expecting a smaller iPad ... and a smaller price tag. But just how small will the price tag be? Tim Cook gave an interesting answer in response to one of the analyst questions about "price umbrella".

Here's what he said:

"We re-priced the iPad 2 to $399, and it did very well in the quarter. The most popular iPad is the new iPad, but iPad 2 did very well. It was particularly a key in the K-12 area that Peter spoke about earlier where we sold about 1 million units for the quarter... and so, we've been very aggressive in the space, and I don't see changing that in terms of competition. We've all seen, I think many different tablets, hundreds of them come to market over the last few year. And I have yet to see any of them really gain what I would call any level of traction at all."

This answer is open to interpretation, isn't it? Is he saying that Apple is already aggressive (and the only real winner) and doesn't need to push the envelope any further? Or is he saying that he doesn't see their aggressiveness waning?

Tell us what you think.

China: Growth or economic risk?

China is another big source of growth for Apple. The iPhone is clearly doing well there, but the new iPad has only hit China last week. It had no impact on the June quarter, as a result. Same goes for the new Macbook Pro with retina display. These are two major products that start helping Chinese growth right now.

However, this is also a source of risk given the macro-economic concerns that the market faces with respect to this Asian giant. The more China starts to represent to Apple, the more risk the company faces in the event of a major adjustment to the country's economic growth.

Final thoughts

Apple is firing on all cylinders, and we're heading into another very normal major product transition. As an investor, I'm hanging onto this one.

DISCLOSURE: I like Apples, and I own shares.

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