Apple announced Tuesday during its highly anticipated Q3 earnings report that its latest operating system, Mountain Lion, will go on sale Wednesday.

This confirms previous rumors about the system's release date that predicted Apple would unveil it in the wake of updated models of the Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, and the next-generation Macbook Pro with a Retina display.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in the report: We're thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter. We've also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we've got in the pipeline.

Mountain Lion upgrades will be freely available on Apple's website for Mac owners who purchased one of their computers on or before June 11, 2012. Other users will pay $19.99 in the App Store.