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Here are the 10 most important new features in Apple’s new Mac OS

Apple’s Mountain Lion operating system will be rolling out in late summer – here’s what you need to know about it.

ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, Apple took the wraps off its newest operation system for Macs called OS X Mountain Lion.

Apple is shifting to a new release schedule for the software that powers its Macs. Now, instead of making you wait two or three years between versions, you’ll get a new one just about every year. It’s very similar to the iOS release schedule for iPhones and iPads.

Mountain Lion is the ninth major release of an Apple operating system. Mountain Lion is due to be rolling out in late summer of this year.

In the meantime though, here’s the ten biggest changes in Mountain Lion:

Messages replaces iChat
1 / 10
  • Messages replaces iChat

    Source: Apple
  • iCloud is now on Mac

    Source: Apple
  • Reminders is on the Mac too

  • Notes makes the move from iOS to Mac too

    Source: Apple
  • Notifications are on your desktop now too

    Source: Apple
  • Share Sheets let you share stuff from Safari and other apps

    Source: Apple
  • Twitter is now Apple's go-to social network

    Source: Twitter
  • Game Centre, the social network for iOS games, is on Mac too

    Source: Apple
  • AirPlay now works with your Mac

    Source: Apple
  • Gatekeeper will protect your Mac from malicious apps

    Source: Apple

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    Mute Lineo
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    Feb 19th 2012, 9:50 AM

    I moved to Mac environment 2 years ago, my girlfriend gifted me an iMac 27″ and I have to say I’m not disappointed. It’s like leaving the dark side of the force to become a Jedi! 10 times much better, I was so sick of windows and it’s repetitive problems (driver issues, cards issues, updates issues, CPU overload) etc etc….. I am IT literate and can solve almost any issues but I was so sick doing that, in a year I was probably formatting my PC 5 times. I had quality hardware worth between 1200 and 1500€ but it’s sounds never enough trough the years. Every PC was kind of ageing dramatically from an hardware point of view after 1 year. Diver failure, WI-FI card giving up, Microsoft updates supposed to help you making things worst!!!!!!! I knew how to fix this but I was so frustrate doing so!!! Since becoming a Jedi I can feel the force, not a single problem to report the iMac is still there and works like magic. Now I gifted my wife a MacBookPro 13″ and she’s loving it!!! Everything is Apple hardware at home (computers, tablets, phones) except for routers (nothing can beat Netgear) and TV media (PS3 media server is the reference). Now stop reading my life and become a Jedi like me!!!!!

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    Mute Conor Oneill
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:36 AM

    Dud ya have to bring starwars into it

    28
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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:48 AM

    Love the mac hardware, Snow leopard was a disaster though, serious wifi issues for many macbook owners. I’ve been running windows 7 on mine since about 2 months after I bought it because of wifi problems and, like you say haven’t had one single issue with bugs, crashes, driver issues or anything else. Maybe it’s the awesome hardware that makes the difference. The mac hardware is slick, but despite the image they do not give a crap about their customers, the 500 odd page thread on their forums about the macbook wifi problems is testament to that.

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    Mute Stephen Hayden
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    Feb 19th 2012, 2:09 PM

    Dude, if you were formatting your PC 5 times a year then you’re not IT literate, particularly if you had hardware worth €1500. Nothing personal but you probably just think you know what you’re doing.

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    Mute Noel Carroll
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    Feb 19th 2012, 6:19 PM

    Dude the Star Wars stuff is retarded. Lay off it. I’m not a Windows fan myself and it has it’s problems but I ran a development PC at home for several years without issue until my HD went belly up. Formatting 5 times a year is excessive and if you were IT literate you’d have figure out the issues rather than blindly reformatting. Finally, you’ve an uber generous girlfriend if she gifted you an iMac 27″. She’s a keeper!

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    Mute Lineo
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    Feb 19th 2012, 7:05 PM

    Gentleman’s why that much negativity? My comment was only an opinion under many others. I had no intention of offending, insulting anybody! Why Star Wars? I’m a fan.. That’s All. Nothing bad mixing humour, fiction in an open debate. The 5 times formatting was approximate, didn’t meant exactly. As we live in a free country you have the right to express yours with dignity and respect! Sounds this is not a shared feeling. But if you wish to be rude and disrespectful in a public place so be it!!!

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    Mute Phil Dargan
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    Feb 19th 2012, 9:29 AM

    Your move Microsoft.

    47
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    Mute Paul Murphy
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    Feb 19th 2012, 9:52 AM

    What does that mean? There is nothing new or revolutionary in any of these spec’s. They are likely to be packaged and marketed well – and will probably have a very nice GUI… But Windows 8 is sounding pretty good too…

    40
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    Mute random
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:14 AM

    I haven’t seen anything about Windows 8 that didn’t look severely brain damaged. They keep tacking on ridiculous UI, while failing to address the severe structural problems of their system. Not that anything in this new version of MacOS looks particularly interesting either, but at least it’s not metro.

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    Mute Phil Dargan
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:16 AM

    It means that MS are following rather than innovating these days Paul. They need to up their game a lot.

    37
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    Mute Conor Oneill
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:25 AM

    They could build in the Kinect to a pc. Apple don’t have anything like the Kinect

    28
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    Mute Paul Murphy
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:05 AM

    Connor, when Apple use a Kinnect type UI on their PC’s, you will realise that they actually came up with the idea first.

    11
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    Mute Conor Oneill
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:42 AM

    Built in. Paul !

    8
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    Mute Cpm
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    Feb 19th 2012, 12:04 PM

    Phil, I’m sure MS with their 90% market share don’t give a toss

    14
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    Mute Ciaran Mc Girl
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:28 AM

    I think ill wait for Ubuntu 12.04 and not have to pay for a flashy update.

    31
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    Mute Sean O Luanaigh
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:55 AM

    well said sir!

    12
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    Mute random
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:27 AM

    11.10 seems to be quite good to me if you haven’t tried that…

    4
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    Mute Brendan Brennan
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:50 AM

    Once you go ‘Mac’ you never go back.

    30
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    Mute John O'Neill
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:39 PM

    Once you die you never go back.That doesn’t make death a good experience.

    5
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    Mute random
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    Feb 19th 2012, 9:58 AM

    Lot of typos today.

    28
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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Feb 19th 2012, 12:48 PM

    Wow so much vitriol from people claiming to be Techies here.

    First off, The Journal should be commended for at least trying to bring an element of Tech to Irish news, most Irish papers are completely behind when it comes to this, although I would like to see a broader subject range rather than just Apple products.

    As a developer a lot of comments here make me laugh, Windows 8 is set to begin freeing up the Windows Kernel so it can run on phones, xboxs, et al and provide unified programmatic access via WinRT. As of Windows 8 you will be able to program full featured Windows 8 applications in .Net, C++ and Javascript, all as equals with your choice of language for UI including HTML and Xaml, I’m pretty sure languages like python and others wont be far off once a few hackers get to root around with WinRT. Some of you really need to get off the have a go techie band wagon.

    Both Apple and Microsoft are changing what we think of in terms of personal computing as we know it and to belittle one or the other just shows ignorance towards tech as a whole.

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    Mute Anthony O'Brien
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    Feb 19th 2012, 6:29 PM

    ……..and I would also like to add that my Windows 7 64 bit based PC is incredibly stable. I consider myself a heavy user and have used all of MS O.S from Windows 95 on-wards. They have made some serious stability improvements with W7 ( and not before time) . I have absolutely nothing against Apple O.S but bombing MS because it’s trendy to do so is childish. Anybody that has to “format” a PC five times in a year must be doing something very “iffy” indeed.

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    Mute Alan Quirke
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:40 AM

    I’m scared of “The Gatekeeper” programme. Surely people must remember the evil gatekeeper programme from the Sandra Bullock movie The Net. And so it begins…………

    19
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    Mute Danny D
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:57 AM

    Played around with dev preview for a while, it’s actually cooler than sounds. And performance seems to be improved over Lion, so looking forward to the release.

    Windows 8 doesn’t seem to be anything, looks like MS completely have no idea what they’re trying to achieve…

    16
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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:40 AM

    apple inching their way towards the iCloud, where all your stuff is stored on apple servers.
    Next step – a push towards storing your apps on the cloud, makes your macbook lighter by not requiring those pesky, bulky hard drives. ;-)

    16
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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:42 AM

    not a big fan of syncing everything either, but that depends on the context I suppose.

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    Mute Pen Name
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    Feb 19th 2012, 10:58 AM

    Free publicity @ journal.ie would be feature number 11. Do you people work for Apple?

    16
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    Mute hjGfIgAq
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:03 AM

    No, we work… here. There was a lot of discussion about Mountain Lion when Apple announced it on Thursday so we thought some readers would be interested in seeing what’s new in it. That’s all.

    53
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    Mute Thats it
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:12 AM

    Pen, if you’re not interested why would you click, read and comment. You negated your comment immediately, bravo.

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    Mute Pen Name
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    Feb 19th 2012, 11:48 AM

    It’s a commercial masquarading as news.

    19
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    Mute Damien Gallagher
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    Feb 19th 2012, 12:28 PM

    Windows 8 is being designed on an iMac and MacBook Pro using an Apple Magic Mouse and Bluetooth Keyboard. Shows how much faith the developers have in Windows.

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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Feb 19th 2012, 1:41 PM

    Have you proof of this or is that just you trying to be sensational? Link perhaps?

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    Mute Damien Gallagher
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    Feb 19th 2012, 2:28 PM
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    Mute Aaron Hastings
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    Feb 20th 2012, 1:47 AM

    Your point being? A lot of Linux apps, as well as much of the Ubuntu operating system are developed using Macs as well. Mac tends to be very popular with developers.

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    Mute Damien Gallagher
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    Feb 20th 2012, 2:02 AM

    Linux uses Unix, which Mac also uses. There’s a similarity there. I don’t want to get into an argument here, I was just pointing out the irony. Calm her down

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    Mute Cathal Martin
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    Feb 20th 2012, 7:16 AM

    cheers damien for that misleading link.

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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Feb 20th 2012, 9:10 AM

    All that proves is that, if actually real, which would be a topic for debate, is that he uses Apple hardware, which I agree would be the best hardware out there. In fact, I reckon most developers from all ecosystems use Apple hardware (although dell do some tasty monitors). because no other hardware manufacturer has grasped the fact that developers want top end. It’s very very hard to get a similar specced laptop to a Macbook Pro that isn’t a lugger!

    Back to the point though, it still does not prove anything, I would be my stake that on that MBP is a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.

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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Feb 20th 2012, 9:17 AM

    Also… That blatantly incorrect one liner says it all really…

    Linux is Linux based, not Unix based, Mac OS X is Unix, not Unix based (It could be considered a distro, but its certified, at least up to SL, Unix). and neither matters much to Photoshop…

    1
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    Mute Damien Gallagher
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    Feb 20th 2012, 10:54 AM

    No problem, my goal is to mislead. I know for a fact that the iMac was running Linux, probably some Unix-based version as Dean mentioned. The MBP was running Windows 7 but it was using a virtual machine running Mac OS, Tiger I believe. To make matters worse, he was using Panasonic batteries in his mouse. I know, I was shocked too when I first heard. You’re right to question whether the picture is real or not – I’d be willing to wager that it’s a painting, probably done on MS Paint on the iMac running Linux and NOT Photoshop on the MBP running Mac Tiger inside Windows 7.

    I know this is hard to believe but as I said, I know this for a fact and everything on the internet is true.

    Also the keyboard is made out of paper. Printed using a HP printer. From a Dell Inspiron running Windows 8.

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    Mute Francis Cussen
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    Feb 19th 2012, 9:44 AM

    here is more on the message app and how to get the beta
    its got a hidden secret to;)
    http://www.redmondpie.com/os-x-messages-app-lets-you-send-files-of-any-type-to-ios-devices-via-imessage-video/

    7
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    Mute Feeds
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    Feb 19th 2012, 4:03 PM

    Mountain Lion’s main goal is to further ensure you get all your apps from Apple, censored and always paying them 30%.

    What if someone tries to install a non-AppStore app? They get an excessively scary warning:

    http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2012/02/gatekeeper_lion.jpg

    How about mentioning that the new Gatekeeper feature locks all non-AppStore apps out of access to iCloud and Notifications?

    6
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    Mute Daniel Dudek
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    Feb 19th 2012, 4:48 PM

    how about doing a bit of research before posting rubbish like this? By default Gatekeeper allows you to install apps from AppStore and trusted developers. You can change it to allow you to install anything.

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    Mute Feeds
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    Feb 19th 2012, 8:13 PM

    This is what I thought at first too. As far as I understand, Gatekeeper only allows App Store apps to access Notifications and iCloud. Even trusted non-AppStore apps are blocked from accessing these two services.

    Some research I actually did before posting:

    “There remains one thing that is of concern to me. Despite these great strides forward, Apple is walking a dangerous line with regard to features that are only available to App Store distributed apps. The two most prominent examples are iCloud and Notification Center. Cabel asked Apple if, thanks to Gatekeeper and Developer ID, App Store-only features would be eventually be available to signed apps that were not distributed through the App Store. There was some shuffling of feet and a “we have nothing to announce at this time”. It didn’t sound particularly optimistic.”

    http://www.panic.com/blog/2012/02/about-gatekeeper/

    Jailbreaking is coming to your mac sooner than you thought…

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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Feb 20th 2012, 9:22 AM

    Post people seem to prefer this method of curation as long as there is enough choice on said store, notice that Microsoft are going the same route by only allowing Metro apps into the Windows Store and only allowing Metro apps to access the new data sharing features like charms.

    Personally I would rather curate my own machine but I can understand the desire to provide this sort of service to the general masses who want their machines to function the same as their phones.

    1
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    Mute Jay Warner
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    Feb 19th 2012, 12:30 PM

    Well, as we all “know” Apple think of everything first even if it is their unique version of time… No that means that their legal team an sue everyone else. I heard that the are bringing out IGod this year who will be more proactive, wear designer clothes and will be less prone to pedophile infiltration. Price of salvation €99,000.00 so be careful. if you follow another faith you are now in breach of Apple copyright property… written on my Galaxy SII.

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    Mute Chaz McFlyte
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    Feb 19th 2012, 12:38 PM

    I agree with Phil Dargan, going forward they really need to up there game. Perhaps they could achieve this with some blue sky thinking.

    3
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    Mute Paul
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    Feb 19th 2012, 2:52 PM

    Windows great for business apps, MacBook great for everything else (other Linux variants are great but I don’t have time for a 3rd). So let’s all get on. I dual boot my MacBook and get the best of both worlds

    3
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    Mute Paul Buckley
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    Feb 20th 2012, 9:54 AM

    To be honest, Linux all the way! Mac is dumbed down and controlling, so knock yourself out if you have an IQ of 10. Windows is a lot of hassle and much bulkier and rarely works flawlessly! Linux, it’s just easy, light and it does what I want it to do all the time!

    1
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    Mute JB Writing Services
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    Feb 20th 2012, 12:55 AM

    Don’t know why they didn’t just call it IOS 5…..it’s basically an iPad with a keyboard now!

    1
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    Mute Kevin Clancy
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    Feb 25th 2012, 12:30 PM

    I looked at your profile. You claim to be a writer and editor. I spotted some flaws.
    The ampersand does not replace ‘and’ when ‘and’ is a conjunction.
    The convention for the dots representing unwritten text is that there are three dots. The Daily Mirror uses two. The Daily Mirror is incorrect to do so. Four dots may be used when the dots lead to the end of a sentence, the fourth dot being the full stop. There is no provision in standard English grammar for any more than three dots other than when there is a full stop.
    Editing and writing are about being correct and accurate.
    Kevin.

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