Mountain Lion vs Windows 8: Top 5 Features That Show Microsoft is Inspired by Apple

By sangeeta mukherjee: Subscribe to sangeeta's RSS feed

February 21, 2012 5:43 AM EST

With the increasing dominance of mobile devices, Apple and Microsoft are trying to "mobilize" their PC operating systems too.

Apple has released a developer preview of its Mac OS X 10.8 operating system, nicknamed Mountain Lion, which brings popular apps and features from the iPad to the Mac and will accelerate the pace of OS X innovation.

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Similarly, the Windows 8 OS, which is slated for release in the last week of February, has included Windows Live, Skydrive (a feature similar to iCloud), Metro Start Screen and the primary interface very similar to the Windows Phone 7 and 8.

Though both the PC operating systems are integrating mobile device OSes, yet Apple manages to stay ahead of Microsoft as the latter clearly imitated many of the iOS features.

As both Microsoft and Apple are gearing up to launch the new versions of their respective operating systems, check out the list of features below to see how Microsoft imitated Apple's Mountain Lion for its Windows 8.

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1. LaunchPad - Apple's LaunchPad displays apps the same way as iOS does, with multiple pages of icons organized in a grid. Just like Apple, Microsoft also has introduced new tile icons that act as shortcuts to apps, much like widgets common on Windows mobile devices.

2. App Store - Apple's popular App Store with iOS has inspired the company to add a Mac App Store in its Lion OS to let the OSX users purchase apps and receive operating system upgrades online. Windows 8 too has included the Windows Store with similar functionality, for easy browsing, purchasing and installation of Windows apps.

3. Full-Screen Touch-Enabled Mode - Like Apple's Mountain Lion, which has multi-touch support and gestures to many of its apps, Microsoft is also launching the Windows 8 Metro interface, which will provide a tablet-like experience by removing the task bar and start menu in favor of full-screen apps that are set to be entirely touch-optimized.

4. AirPlay - Apple has launched AirPlay mirroring and Game Center with Mountain Lion as a home entertainment system, which allows Mac, iPhone, and iPad users to play against each other on an Apple TV. Microsoft too, will launch Windows 8 apps to port to Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 apps that will automatically sync between five Windows 8 devices (home, office, tablet and etc.).

5. Apps - Apple's Mountain Lion has included desktop versions of a number of its mobile apps like Reminders, Notes, and Game Center and renames the iChat desktop app to Messages to match the iOS equivalents. Microsoft too will introduce apps with Windows 8 that are available in its store that will run on both Windows 8 desktops and tablets.

Mountain Lion: Will iCloud be the Trump Card for Mac's New OS? (Video Preview)

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