18 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

Yesterday Apple announced that OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth release of the OS, is now available as a download from the Mac App Store. 10.8 offers more than 200 new features including iCloud integration, the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Gatekeeper, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring and Game Center. Mountain Lion is available as an upgrade from Lion or Snow Leopard for $19.99.

“People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.”

With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes:

• iCloud integration, for easy set up of your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes, and keeping everything, including iWork® documents, up to date across all your devices;
  
• the all new Messages app, which replaces iChat® and brings iMessage™ to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch® or another Mac;
  
• Notification Center, which streamlines the presentation of notifications and provides easy access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps;
  
• system-wide Sharing, to make it easy to share links, photos, videos and other files quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo;
  
• Facebook integration, so you can post photos, links and comments with locations right from your apps, automatically add your Facebook friends to your Contacts, and even update your Facebook status from within Notification Center;
  
• Dictation, which allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer;
  
• AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what’s on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV®, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay; and
  
• Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Additional features in Mountain Lion include the revolutionary new Gatekeeper, which makes downloading software from the Internet safer; Power Nap, which automatically updates your apps and system while your Mac is asleep; and a faster Safari® browser. New features for China include significantly improved text input, a new Chinese Dictionary, easy setup with popular email providers, Baidu search in Safari, and built-in sharing to Sina Weibo and popular video websites Youku and Tudou.

Pricing & Availability
OS X Mountain Lion is available from the Mac App Store for $19.99 (US). Mountain Lion requires Lion or Snow Leopard (OS X v10.6.8 or later), 2GB of memory and 8GB of available space. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, please visit: apple.com/osx/specs. OS X Server requires Mountain Lion and is available from the Mac App Store for $19.99 (US). The OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge from the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 11, 2012.

Facebook integration will be available in an upcoming software update to Mountain Lion.

Learn more at Apple's website.

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[ikir]

I love it!

[UmarOMC1]

Anything worthwhile for the gamer?

Anything amazing for those of us whom like to sync our data directly between our devices and not have our data aggregated through online servers before it reaches our other device(s)? ...I mean for those whom like to feel like we own and control something, if not everything, on our devices?

Anything worthwhile for those of us without Twitter and FB accounts?

Odd  how Steve Jobs didn't want to just sell out to Facebook, he dies, Apple  sells out... I stuck it out with Apple through the 1990s and was overjoyed at Steve Jobs' return and turnaround of Apple Computer, Inc... but is this what I have to look forward to? It seems that of the reviews I'm reading those whom laud Mountain Lion are most excited about the features I hate about it.

If Apple's design momentum in its desktop OS and desktop hardware has really hit this brick wall I quite sincerely and quite sadly foresee myself going Wintel PC... and I'll be bringing my family and everyone I've recommended tech and Apple purchases with me. I know, not enough for Apple or maybe you to care but I've principles. Right now I think I'd be paying $20 +tax to change my EULAs with Apple to sell out my data and have to purchase a Bluetooth trackpad to make use of iMountain Lion OS.

Any feedback from developers? I'd like to hear from people whom didn't major in Liberal Arts.

[Eric5h5]

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Anything worthwhile for the gamer?

Updated drivers, I assume.  

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Anything worthwhile for those of us without Twitter and FB accounts?

How about reading the Ars Technica review?  Sounds like it corrects Lion's more egregious blunders to me. (And there is nothing Facebook-related in it, at this point anyway.)

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If Apple's design momentum in its desktop OS and desktop hardware has really hit this brick wall I quite sincerely and quite sadly foresee myself going Wintel PC...

Er, really?  You'd go Microsoft "We're going to make the iOS-ification of OS X look completely tame by comparison with our 'force Metro everywhere no matter how inappropriate' scheme" Windows at this point?  From your above complaints it seems like that would be the last thing you'd want to do.

--Eric

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Facebook wont be in until a later update.

[UmarOMC1]

Eric5h5, on 26 July 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

Updated drivers, I assume.  

I'm keeping an eye on Netkas.org

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How about reading the Ars Technica review?  Sounds like it corrects Lion's more egregious blunders to me. (And there is nothing Facebook-related in it, at this point anyway.)

Reading it right now. I forgot I ran into this review while searching for reviews on my phone throughout the day today.

Quote

Er, really?  You'd go Microsoft "We're going to make the iOS-ification of OS X look completely tame by comparison with our 'force Metro everywhere no matter how inappropriate' scheme" Windows at this point?  From your above complaints it seems like that would be the last thing you'd want to do.

--Eric

I'll be doing a lot of soul searching when it comes to this but I; web browse, check email, play games. I don't use Facebook. I don't use Twitter. I haven't even instant messaged for the longest... I send text messages to my family and a few coworkers from my phone. Nothing's set in stone but if Apple's going to let OS X's advancements go stagnant I might well look into investing in a custom Windows 7 gaming PC by next year. I guess I'll see how I feel about Apple's vapor[hard]ware MacPros for 2013. I get a new Mac every 4-5 years anyway.

Thanks, Eric. Have a peaceful night.

[Hansi]

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Anything worthwhile for the gamer?

No, for the rest check the Ars review.

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Odd  how Steve Jobs didn't want to just sell out to Facebook, he dies, Apple  sells out...

Sell out? By adding optional ease of use integration? So by that definition supporting Microsoft Exchange is selling out?

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

I stuck it out with Apple through the 1990s and was overjoyed at Steve Jobs' return and turnaround of Apple Computer, Inc... but is this what I have to look forward to? It seems that of the reviews I'm reading those whom laud Mountain Lion are most excited about the features I hate about it.

So don't update until some application you want to use needs it? And even then just disable the stuff you don't like. I have dashboard, launchpad etc disabled. Runs pretty much the same as SL in terms of the generic usage front.

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

If Apple's design momentum in its desktop OS and desktop hardware has really hit this brick wall I quite sincerely and quite sadly foresee myself going Wintel PC... and I'll be bringing my family and everyone I've recommended tech and Apple purchases with me. I know, not enough for Apple or maybe you to care but I've principles. Right now I think I'd be paying $20 +tax to change my EULAs with Apple to sell out my data and have to purchase a Bluetooth trackpad to make use of iMountain Lion OS.

They are catering to the slew of people that have been attracted to the platform via iOS, you don't need to use these iOS like options if you don't want to.

Windows 8 is going to be a clusterfrak so don't expect to find what you want there either.

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Any feedback from developers? I'd like to hear from people whom didn't major in Liberal Arts.

Not sure what that's suppose to mean, but I'm pretty far from the Liberal Arts: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hansrobert

I think most Obj-C devs will welcome the new API options and the new syntax sugar that make Obj-C into something that allows you to code much faster in (see the Ars review for examples or just developer.appple.com).

[Smoke_Tetsu]

The updated graphics drivers have fixed some graphical issues in Serious Sam 3 (namely the shadows)... and it does seem to be at least a little faster than Lion in general. But I'm still waiting until I have the OS broken in before I proclaim it as truly having a performance improvement.

Also for some reason after episode 2 came out The Walking Dead stopped working on Lion for me but started working again in Mt. Lion. I don't know if upgrading had anything to do with it but there you go. It's not earth shattering I guess I would say but still pretty worthwhile in my book.

[Hansi]

And to be clear, I'm not defending Apple on adding all these new iOS like options since I don't use most of them.

Heck when Lion came around pretty much the only thing I wanted out of the new stuff was the new Mail.app and I held out upgrading till 10.7.2.

For ML I like these updates:
- Remove reminders from iCal
- Remove notes from Mail
- Notification center
- Power Nap
- The scroll bar fix (see Ars review)
- Gatekeeper*
- Object C and API updates
- Mission Control offering old style expose

Easily worth $20 for me.


*looks useful but then again I don't install software from unknown sources. Hate the sandboxing stuff though.

[Janichsan]

Hansi, on 27 July 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

- Mission Control offering old style expose

What? Where? How?! Mission Control is one the "features" I hated the most about Lion and the last I've seen, ML didn't have any improvements here. It would be great if they had fixed that.

[doh123]

Janichsan, on 27 July 2012 - 04:44 AM, said:

What? Where? How?! Mission Control is one the "features" I hated the most about Lion and the last I've seen, ML didn't have any improvements here. It would be great if they had fixed that.

under Mission Control in System Preferences, if you uncheck "Group windows by application" then it works pretty much like 10.6 Expose, but still has the desktop options at the top.

[DaveyJJ]

Hansi, on 27 July 2012 - 01:40 AM, said:

I have dashboard, launchpad etc disabled.

How, please?

[doh123]

DaveyJJ, on 27 July 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

How, please?

I always disable Dashboard... I don't like it.

I use Secrets to do it and many other things... you can get the Pref Pane for Secrets here, or search and make the changes manually... I find the PrefPane much easier.

[Janichsan]

doh123, on 27 July 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

under Mission Control in System Preferences, if you uncheck "Group windows by application" then it works pretty much like 10.6 Expose, but still has the desktop options at the top.

Awesome! Seems that Apple does listen to customer feedback from time to time.

[UmarOMC1]

Ok. So far it appears snappier; the transitions for everything seem to be cut into about half. The notifications in the upper right [menubar], when activated, shift your working screen over rather than present an overlay which I thought would be annoying. Speaking of annoying, one complete annoyance that ML gets rid of from Lion- the side bar is always there if I set it as a default in my view! That proved annoying when I opened a DMG and wanted to drag something to the Applications shortcut in the sidebar because I'd have to make the extra step of pressing a keyboard combination to have it show. Yay. The AppleID prompt at initial login I believe is to coerce everyone to utilize Apple's iCloud. If you were already signed in to your iTunes and Mac App Store accounts before installing Mountain Lion you're still signed into them. Text rendering on my screen is noticeably bolder and easier to read, not necessarily smoother as font smoothing is still in just about everything that utilizes text on my Mac–my web browser (Firefox Nightly 17.0a1), the Finder, video games. Although the latest version was installed I had to reinstall XQuartz to get GIMP to run because I kept getting prompted to install X11.

Anyway. Besides the Screen Saver collection I was using seemed to not load (the handful that I tried, so I trashed the collection) but I'm hoping to get an update soon. Well I've wasted $20 on less and I'm not really running into anything that won't run, just had to update a few apps for compatibility (Sophos AntiVirus, TotalFinder, etc.). The Mail, Contacts & Calendars PrefPane can be synced with just about any type of social media account you might have. Apple really seems to be going after the Chinese market, too. $20 might well be worth it just for the ease of mind of GateKeeper and other security features.

EDIT: Apparently that screen saver collection works, there's a newer, version 5.19 build. The Screen Saver PrefPane actually shows thumbnails of the screensavers, too.

[Janichsan]

UmarOMC1, on 27 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

The AppleID prompt at initial login I believe is to coerce everyone to utilize Apple's iCloud.

Not really. It may look like that at first, but when you enter your Apple ID there, you'll get asked explicitly after that if you want to use iCloud – or not.

[Nox]

UmarOMC1, on 26 July 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Anything worthwhile for the gamer?

Not exactly that, but if you play or intend to play Diablo 3, there are some graphics artifacts that have started appearing after upgrading to Mountain Lion. It's a known issue, and Blizzard is fixing it.

Aside from that, expect certain applications to stop working as usual... in my case, most notably Little Snitch.

[ikir]

Janichsan, on 28 July 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

Not really. It may look like that at first, but when you enter your Apple ID there, you'll get asked explicitly after that if you want to use iCloud – or not.

Noyou can choose. Anyway iCloud is the best thing happened in the last 5 years in computer world.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

I read that Starcraft 2 got a big boost in FPS with ML. So if that is your thing..