(Bloomberg) - Apple Inc. (AAPL) will release an upgrade to its Mac operating system later this year, making its laptops and desktops more like iPhones and iPads just as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) prepares a new version of its competing Windows software.

A preliminary version of the new software, dubbed “Mountain Lion,” will be made available to developers today, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing, said in an interview. He didn’t disclose pricing for the upgrade, which will be available only via download from Apple’s online Mac App Store. Mountain Lion will be widely released in late summer, he said.

Like its predecessor, called “Lion,” the new operating system is designed to make Macs feel more like Apple’s mobile devices, which use an operating system called iOS. Windows 8, built to work on both traditional keyboard-centric computers and touch-based devices, represents Microsoft’s attempt to come from behind in the market for tablets such as the iPad.

Mountain Lion — version 10.8 of the Mac’s OS X operating system — comes more closely on the heels of its predecessor than other updates. While each of the last four Mac upgrades has come about two years after its predecessor, Version 10.7 was released just seven months ago.

Schiller said Apple was able to get an early start on Mountain Lion because of all the work done to prepare Lion, which reviewers said marked the most sweeping changes in OS X since its 2001 inception. He said the company has so far shipped 17 million copies of Lion, making it the company’s best-selling release ever.

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