Can your operating system do all this?
Applications
Automator
Automate frequent tasks.
With Automator, you can accomplish time-consuming, repetitive manual tasks quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly. Automator lets you skip the complex programming and scripting that is normally required to create automations. Instead, you assemble individual steps into a complete task by dragging these actions into an Automator workflow. Automator comes with a library of hundreds of actions. And with the Watch Me Do action, you can record an action — such as pressing a button or controlling an application without built-in Automator support — and replay it as an action in a workflow.
Calculator
Simple and complex calculations.
The Calculator application allows you to perform simple arithmetic calculations, complex logarithmic calculations, and logical operations. It includes three modes: basic, programmer, and scientific. You can review and print your calculations with the Print Tape feature. Calculator also includes a unit converter for converting common units of measure like area, length, and volume as well as currency.
Calendar
A powerful desktop calendar application.
See all the appointments and activities that make up your life with Calendar. You can create and manage multiple calendars and share them with friends and family over the Internet.
Chess
Challenge yourself to a game.
With Chess in OS X Mountain Lion, you can play against your Mac or go head-to-head with a friend using Game Center. Customize your chessboard and pieces by choosing from a variety of styles. You can use your voice to control the pieces and even have each move spoken out loud. And see your achievements and track your personal progress in the Game Center app.
Contacts
Store all your contacts.
Contacts gives you a flexible and convenient place to store contact information for your family, friends, and colleagues. With built-in sharing, you can include everyone’s updated Facebook profile information. You can also import information from other applications, create distribution lists for clubs and groups, print address labels and envelopes, and more.
Access contacts anywhere.
Because Contacts is integrated throughout OS X, you only have to enter contact information once to access it from Mail, Messages, and other applications. With iCloud, Contacts on your Mac stays up to date with Contacts on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. So everyone you know follows you everywhere.
Dashboard
Quick access to information.
Dashboard is a full-screen app that’s home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. With a single click or swipe to the right on your trackpad, Dashboard appears, complete with widgets that bring you a world of information — real-time weather, stock tickers, flight information, and more — instantly.
Download new widgets.
OS X includes a suite of 16 built-in widgets to get you started, and you can add more anytime. Almost 4000 Dashboard widgets in every conceivable category are available for download. It takes only a few moments to download and install widgets. Keep the ones you like, delete the ones you don’t.
Dictionary
Words at your fingertips.
Find definitions and synonyms using the New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, which include over 250,000 words, in Dictionary. You can look up words directly from a variety of applications, including Safari and Mail. When you’re connected to the Internet, you can look up terms in Wikipedia directly from the Dictionary application. That means access to millions of articles written by thousands of people all over the world. Dictionary even includes a list of Apple terms and definitions — such as “Finder” and “AirPort” — that help you get to know your Mac better. And Dictionary includes support for British English, Japanese, Japanese translation, Japanese synonyms, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and German.
DVD Player
Watch DVDs on your Mac.
Enjoy a front-row seat for everything from the latest action thriller to your family vacation — with dramatic sound and high-quality video — all from DVD Player on your Mac. It lets you control your viewing experience just as if you were using a full-featured remote control with a standalone DVD player. It remembers where you stopped viewing a DVD and gives you the option to resume play at that point. You can bookmark your favorite scenes for viewing at any time, restrict access to certain DVDs using parental controls, and play media stored on your hard drive.
Font Book
Letter-perfect type management.
Manage your fonts quickly and easily with the Font Book application in OS X. Easily install, preview, search, activate, and deactivate the fonts on your Mac. Also create custom font groups and validate fonts to ensure that they are displayed properly. The changes you make in Font Book are immediately available throughout OS X.
Game Center
Mac gets in on the game.
With Mountain Lion, the Game Center social gaming network is now on the Mac, so you can enjoy games with friends who have a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The new Game Center app lets you set up and personalize your gaming experience. Simply use your Apple ID to create your Game Center account or use your existing account from iOS. See the friends in your gaming network and check out leaderboards and achievements you’ve earned. You can even browse recommendations for new games you may like.
Image Capture
Capture images from your devices.
Image Capture transfers images from your digital camera to your Mac for use in iPhoto and other applications. You can download all or any portion of the contents from your digital camera or memory card and delete unwanted pictures. Image Capture also makes it simple to scan pictures and documents on your scanner or multifunction printer and save them in your Pictures folder.
iTunes
The ultimate digital jukebox.
iTunes plays all your digital music, podcasts, and videos. It syncs content to your iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. And it’s a 24/7 entertainment superstore that lets you browse and buy over 20 million songs, rent or buy blockbuster movies, get HD episodes of your favorite TV shows, download apps for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, subscribe to free podcasts, and shop for books on the iBookstore.
Launchpad
A home for your apps.
Launchpad makes hunting through an applications folder a thing of the past. Just click the Launchpad icon in the Dock. Click an icon to launch its app. Create folders of similar apps by dragging one app onto another, and delete apps from your system with ease. And all apps downloaded from the Mac App Store are automatically added to Launchpad, ready to go.
Mac App Store
Great apps for your Mac. Right on your Mac.
Just like the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, the Mac App Store lets you browse, purchase, and download your favorite Mac apps. Browse apps by category, and read developer descriptions and user reviews. When you find an app you like, click to buy it. Apps are added to Launchpad on your Mac in seconds, ready to go. The Mac App Store even tells you when updates are available, so you’ll always have the latest version of any app you buy.
Manage multiple email accounts.
Mail offers an elegant full-screen interface that makes it easy to manage all your email from a single, ad-free inbox. It works with most email standards — including POP3 and IMAP — and popular email services such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL Mail.
Systemwide integration.
Because it’s a desktop application, Mail is fully integrated with other programs on your Mac. For example, it uses the contact information from Contacts, it can access your iPhoto library, and it lets you use Quick Look to view attachments without saving them and opening another application.
Powerful Spotlight search.
Search your mailboxes at lightning speed and with pinpoint accuracy, thanks to the built-in Spotlight search technology. Search suggestions and search tokens make finding the messages you’re looking for fast and easy.
Messages
iMessage.
iMessage lets you send messages to anyone on a Mac, or an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5. Messages appear on your Mac and any device you use, so you can start a conversation in one place and continue it on another device. Send photos, videos, documents, and contacts — even send messages to a group. Messages also supports traditional instant messaging services such as AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber.
Delivery and read receipts.
Messages indicates when your message has been delivered and when someone’s typing a reply. Turn on read receipts, and they’ll see when you’ve read a message. And with end-to-end encryption, your messages stay safe and private.
Mission Control
Mac command central.
Bringing together Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard, and full-screen apps, Mission Control gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything that’s running on your system. A row of thumbnails across the top of Mission Control displays Dashboard, desktop spaces, and your open full-screen apps. The lower part of the screen gives you an Exposé view of the open windows on your desktop. Navigating among everything running on your Mac from Mission Control is as easy as swiping left or right on the trackpad or clicking a thumbnail.
Notes
A place for big ideas.
Notes is designed for whatever’s on your mind. Jot down your thoughts. Add photos, images, and attachments. You can add, delete, and flip through your notes or do a quick search. Use the Share button to send your notes with Mail or Messages. Pin important notes to your desktop so they’re easy to get to. And take them with you everywhere. Notes works with iCloud, so when you create or edit a note on your Mac, it automatically updates on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. And vice versa.
Photo Booth
Photo fun.
Take fun snapshots and video clips with your built-in FaceTime or iSight camera using Photo Booth. Send them to your friends, use one as a Messages icon, add them to Contacts, or organize and edit them in iPhoto.
Preview
View and work with PDFs.
Preview is a simple, elegant application for viewing and working with PDF documents. With a single click, Preview takes your PDF document full screen for an ideal reading or viewing experience. Quickly select text or images and copy and paste them into other applications. Move individual pages around or delete pages altogether, and combine documents with a drag and drop. Easy-to-use annotation tools let you add markup or editorial comments for sharing with others.
Search with Spotlight.
Spotlight technology makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. Type in a word or phrase, and Preview instantly displays the results in a convenient sidebar. With a glance at the sidebar, you can read the text, learn the number of matches per page, and see a thumbnail of the page.
Image viewing and editing.
You can also view and edit images. Crop, rotate, resize, and save images in a range of formats. Enhance your image files using several Core Image-powered adjustments for easy control over color, exposure, and sharpness.
QuickTime X
Crystal-clear video playback.
QuickTime X includes the powerful QuickTime Player, the application used by millions to watch a wide range of video formats and files. Using the Core Animation technology in OS X, QuickTime Player offers a clean, uncluttered interface with controls that fade out when they’re not needed. Instead of text-only chapter names, QuickTime Player displays frame-based thumbnail images for each chapter marker, so it’s easy to navigate your chaptered media. QuickTime Player also lets you trim media clips to the perfect length and even combine multiple clips into a single movie.
Reminders
Now everything’s easy to juggle.
Organize your life on your Mac. Make as many to-do lists as you need and easily add to them. Set due dates and you’ll get alerts as deadlines approach. Set a location from your Mac, and your iPhone or iPad will remind you when you get there. Check items off your lists as you go and keep track of what you’ve completed. And to be sure you don’t forget anything, iCloud keeps your reminders up to date on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
Safari
Distraction-free browsing.
Safari sports an elegant full-screen look that keeps your focus where it belongs: on the content of the web page. The controls you use most are just a click away, and a smart search field makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. A click on the glasses icon at the left of the bookmarks bar opens Reading List, where you can save web pages to read later.
Surf securely.
With support for the latest standards for secure access and information sharing on the web, Safari protects you. It includes built-in antiphishing technology that detects fraudulent websites and support for EV (Extended Validation) Certificates.
Stickies
Stick to the point.
Stickies lets you keep notes on your desktop so you’ll never forget what you need. They’re great for jotting down reminders, lists, and other information. Stickies notes can include rich graphics, and you can change their colors, fonts, and font sizes. You can also export your notes as text documents to share with others.
System Preferences
Customize your system.
The System Preferences application lets you do everything from setting a desktop picture to adding a printer and more. Its straightforward interface and easy-to-understand language make it simple to make your Mac truly yours. Every person using your Mac can adjust system preferences as needed.
Search with Spotlight.
If you can’t find a setting, just type in what you need in the Spotlight-powered search field. You can even search for a Windows-style term, such as “wallpaper” or “wireless” — helpful if you know what you’re looking for but don’t know the Mac term.
TextEdit
Simple yet powerful word processing.
TextEdit is an easy-to-use word processor built into OS X. It’s great for creating simple compositions, but it also includes features like spelling and grammar check, Auto Save, tables, smart quotes, lists, and graphics. You can save your documents in a number of formats including plain and rich text, Microsoft Word, OpenDocument Text, and HTML.
Time Machine
Effortless backup.
Never again worry about losing your digital files. Time Machine works with your Mac and an external hard drive (sold separately) to automatically back up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents.
Every change, every hour.
Time Machine automatically makes backups every hour, every day, copying just the files that have changed since your last backup. And it does this all in the background so you can continue working while Time Machine is busy copying your files.
Go back in time.
What makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it remembers how your system looked on a given day. So you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past to restore a missing file simply by entering the Time Machine browser.
Utilities
Activity Monitor
Track processor and memory usage.
Activity Monitor displays information about all the processes running on your Mac, including CPU, disk, memory, and network usage. You can see exactly how your computer’s resources are being used via a searchable table, helpful graphs, or even directly in the Dock icon. You can view the processes organized in different groupings, quickly search for processes, and quit processes. Activity Monitor also makes it easy to see how your memory is being used and how much memory is available, as well as disk activity and data transferred over the network.
AirPort Utility
Wireless setup made easy.
AirPort Utility allows you to manage and monitor AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule base stations. It’s easy to set up a base station with the optimal settings or combine multiple base stations to create a larger network. You can view the status of the Internet connection, create a secure network, set up wireless printing, and manage your Time Capsule hard disk all from one convenient location.
AppleScript Editor
Everything you need to start automating tasks with AppleScript.
AppleScript is a powerful and versatile scripting language built into OS X. You can use AppleScript to create shortcuts, automate repetitive tasks, or even make custom applications that save you a great amount of time. Script Editor is an easy-to-use yet powerful authoring tool for creating and editing AppleScript scripts.
Audio MIDI Setup
Control all your audio with a single utility.
Use Audio MIDI Setup to control settings for all audio going into and out of your Mac, whether it’s from a microphone or a multitrack digital audio interface. Set up audio sample rates and formats for your audio devices and configure your external speakers for stereo or multichannel output. Audio MIDI Setup works with audio and MIDI devices connected to your Mac using FireWire, USB, Bluetooth, PCMCIA, and PCI.
Bluetooth File Exchange
Share data wirelessly.
Bluetooth File Exchange makes it easy to share files between your Mac and Bluetooth-enabled devices. It automatically discovers Bluetooth devices in range of your Mac and pairs them. This is perfect for transferring digital photos to your Mac or taking files with you wherever you go.
ColorSync Utility
Color management system.
ColorSync is the built-in color management system in OS X. It delivers greater color accuracy for your images and video — from the time you capture them until you print or display them — by automatically matching color from one device to another. With ColorSync Utility, you can check and repair color profiles, compare two profiles using a three-dimensional graph, calculate color values, and view ColorSync information for all devices connected to your Mac. You can even print your color targets when setting up color-managed workflows.
Console
Track system messages.
OS X records a wealth of diagnostic information about virtually every application on the system, from routine status messages to detailed errors and warnings. The Console utility allows you to monitor all these logs from a central location, which is essential when you are trying to track down a problem, or just want to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes. You can quickly search through thousands of messages and email logs and delete the logs you no longer need. Console can automatically alert you when a specific system message occurs.
DigitalColor Meter
Exact color values when you need them.
DigitalColor Meter shows you the color value of any pixel on the screen. As you move the pointer around the screen, DigitalColor Meter displays the actual color value of the exact pixel you select. You can also translate the color value into popular color spaces such as sRGB.
Disk Utility
One stop for managing disks.
Disk Utility is a powerful application for viewing, managing, and troubleshooting the disks connected to your Mac, including internal and external hard drives, disk images, CDs, and DVDs. With Disk Utility, you can verify the integrity of a disk, repair it, securely erase it, and partition a hard drive. You can also create secure disk images for storing important files using AES 128- or 256-bit encryption.
Grab
Easy screen capturing.
Grab lets you take a picture of all or part of your computer screen. You can select a specific area of the screen to capture or just choose an application window. Grab an image immediately with a keystroke, or set a timer so you can activate part of the screen before taking a picture. Grab saves the pictures in the high-quality TIFF format complete with an embedded ColorSync profile.
Back to topGrapher
Explore equations visually on your Mac.
With Grapher, you can graph equations and data sets and visualize the results on your Mac in real time. Grapher displays algebraic relations, both implicit and explicit, in 2D and 3D. You can use a variety of coordinate systems and choose from a wide array of mathematical functions, including differential equations, parametric curves, and more. When you’re done, you can export your graphic as an animation that can be played in QuickTime Player.
Keychain Access
Securely store all your passwords.
With OS X, you can securely store all of your passwords for websites, servers, networks, applications, and more in a keychain. This allows you to use a single login password to unlock your keychain and automatically log in. With the Keychain Access application, you can manage your passwords, view and manage digital certificates, and even securely store notes containing important information.
Migration Assistant
New Mac setup, simplified.
Migration Assistant simplifies the process of moving your information from a Mac or Windows computer to another Mac by transferring documents, music, photos, applications, network settings, and preferences. Simply connect the two Mac computers using a FireWire or Ethernet cable. If you use Time Machine, you can transfer files from your backup copies by connecting your Time Machine backup drive via USB or wirelessly using Time Capsule. And transferring files from a Windows computer to a Mac is just as easy.
Network Utility
All your network information in one place.
Network Utility provides a wide range of information about your network and offers tools to help you troubleshoot it. The utility includes an interface for common functions used at the command line — such as ping, netstat, traceroute, finger, and port scan — and the information is written out to a text field, making it easy to copy into email, bug reports, or other analysis tools.
RAID Utility
Manage your RAID volumes.
With RAID Utility, you can set up and monitor RAID volumes using a Mac Pro RAID Card or Xserve RAID Card and disks in your computer. Create a RAID array using RAID 0, 1, or 5; designate an available drive as a hot spare; check the status of the RAID card, drive modules, and RAID arrays; display and save a log of operations; and more.
System Information
All the details about your Mac.
System Information provides detailed information about your computer’s hardware, software, and network in an easy-to-read layout. It’s perfect for checking to see if your Mac meets the requirements for a new hardware or software product and for helping Apple Support troubleshoot your Mac. You can save your profile or have it sent directly to Apple Support.
Terminal
Command-line access to UNIX.
OS X is built on an industry-standard UNIX foundation. The Terminal application allows you to access the complete UNIX environment using standard commands, tools, and scripting languages. Terminal includes numerous shortcuts that will save you time. For example, you can copy and paste text commands, and if you drag files or folders into Terminal, the correct file path appears on the command line. You can customize Terminal with your favorite fonts and background colors, including transparent, as well as manage multiple sessions from a single window using tabs.
VoiceOver Utility
Change screen reader settings.
Every Mac comes with built-in screen access software called VoiceOver that describes aloud what appears on your computer screen and enables you to control your computer using only the keyboard. VoiceOver Utility allows you to customize VoiceOver settings to suit your needs. You can change the voice, adjust verbosity, create custom pronunciations, and much more. You can also export your settings and take them with you to another Mac.