OS X Mountain Lion coming in July

On top of the big announcement about iOS 6, Apple has also revealed that the next version of its Mac OS X, codenamed Mountain Lion, will be available next month.

Coming just under a year after its predecessor, OS X Lion, was introduced, OS X Mountain Lion's main feature will be a new Messages app, which replaces iChat and integrates iMessage, allowing users to send messages to anyone on an Apple device.

Another new feature, Power Nap, will automatically refresh apps like Mail, Contacts and Calendar while the machine sleeps, although it seems this will only be available for the second and third generation MacBook Air models, and the newly announced MacBook Pro with retina display.

Perhaps the most important change will be the closer integration with Apple's cloud offering, iCloud, first introduced in October last year. There's not much detail on how the user's experience will change here, but Apple is promising that Mountain Lion will make setting up and using iCloud 'easier than ever'.

We're still waiting for Apple to post their promised video of the WWDC keynote, at which the changes to OS X Mountain Lion were discussed; you can go here to check for yourself. Update: the video is live now, although at nearly two hours long you may want to wait until after work to watch it.