Even though Apple officially announced the arrival of OS X Mountain Lion months ago, the updated OS was not available in the Apple Store until today. That’s right, folks, today marks Apple history with the actual selling of the much-anticipated OS X Mountain Lion. Alright, maybe the arrival of Mountain Lion isn’t a momentous occasion, but it is something that Mac users have been looking forward to with some excitement.

The last Apple OS update, Lion, was met with a lukewarm “meh.” Mashable reports that 60% of Mac users didn’t actually bother to upgrade to Lion when it was released. Will Apple fare better with Mountain Lion? The numbers aren’t in yet, but here’s what you can look forward to if you are considering the upgrade.

A Total Twitter-Based Revamp

Apple has placed a great deal of emphasis on Twitter integration this time around. In fact, it’s hard to ignore the Twitter details included in this version of Apple’s OS. Users will have instant access to Twitter updates directly on the desktop, Twitter newsfeeds can be seen by scrolling in the right direction, and posting a link or photo to Twitter is a heck of a lot easier with Mountain Lion than it ever was with any other Apple OS. Yes, Twitter is really the name of the game here, and it’s certainly something to keep in mind if you plan on upgrading.

Reminders: An Interesting Addition

Apple has created a Mountain Lion feature called “reminders,” which are actually reminders, of sorts. This list of tasks and must-dos will follow Mountain Lion users wherever they roam. Reminders is an app that lots of Siri users will be very familiar with, since the iPhone already has the Reminders feature. In fact, it’s hard to ignore the presumption that Apple has included the Reminders app in OS X simply due to Siri integration.

If you have an iPhone equipped with Siri, you could, hypothetically, dictate a list of reminders to Siri, and then that list would appear on your Apple desktop or laptop when you arrived at your office or home. From there, the list of reminders would be open and available while using OS X.

Messages: A Really Innovative Feature

In addition to including the very cool Reminders app in OS X, Apple has also added something called “Messages.” Essentially, messages combines all of your iPhone, iPad, AIM, and Google Talk messages into one neat little bar that sits on your desktop. Can you check and send messages to iPhone users who text you from your desktop? You bet. Can you really use Google Talk and AIM through the Messages feature? Definitely.
So, now that you know just how awesome OS X really is (and, believe me, it is), you might be wondering how much it will cost you to upgrade to the new OS. If you currently run a version of Snow Leopard or Lion, you can purchase OS X from the Apple Store for $19.99. This is a small price to pay for a major upgrade that’s well worth the thirty-minute download time! Make sure to check out OS X – you won’t regret it!