Mac OS X Mountain Lion's Messages Beta

If you are excited by today's Mac OS X Mountain Lion announcement and can't wait till the summer to experience some of the apps then you are in luck! Apple have released a beta version of Messages. Messages brings you the iOS iMessage feature to your Mac. You can communicate to and from Mac's and iOS devices and even include attachments such as pictures and HD video.

You can start a conversation on your Mac and then continue it on your iPhone whilst on the move. All of your iOS devices can receive your new message notifications. You can even go from messaging a contact to joining them in a FaceTime call, to speak to them face to face.

Download the Messages beta here.

All of these messages run on a secure closed protocol via Apple's iCloud service and therefore come out of iPhone and iPad's 3G data plan, not as SMS text messages. This is why they are advertised by Apple as 'free'. The limitation is that you can only communicate with your friends and family who have an Apple device running iOS 5.