http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/os-x-mountain-lion/

Apple Announces OS X Mountain Lion for Mac Desktops

• By Tim Carmody

• Email Author

• February 16, 2012 |

• 11:22 am |

• Categories: Desktops, Software and Operating Systems

Apple has announced its latest version of OS X for Macs — and like all iterations of its desktop operating system, the latest version is named after a big cat. It’s called Mountain Lion, and it will be more like iOS than ever, as Apple integrates various mobile services and moves to yearly OS updates across all its devices.

Mountain Lion is available for preview today in two ways. If you’re a consumer, you can read about the new features at Apple’s website. If you have a developer account, you can download and install the updated operating system. And anyone running OS X Lion can download and install the beta version of Messages, a new app that replaces iChat for instant messaging, and integrates iMessages, the Apple-only text-message replacement service for iPhone, iPad and now Mac.

Even the name “Messages” helps indicate Mountain Lion’s guiding philosophy. It extends OS X Lion’s “Back to the Mac” approach of pulling ideas and concepts from Apple’s mobile ecosystem into the desktop. There’s no more iChat, iCal or Address Book. You’ll soon be using Messages, Calendar and Contacts — the same names on all products, with no more of the outdated “i” in front of app names. AirPlay, Game Center, Reminders, Notes and Notification Center are all new to the Mac too, looking much like their iOS counterparts.

I, for one, welcome the new “i”-less naming conventions for basic utilities on the Mac. Apple simply doesn’t need that kind of iBranding for its software any more. (Although it would be either weird or brilliant to buy new software suites called “Work” and “Life.”)

Now, there is one big exception to the naming scheme: iCloud. Apple’s cloud service is everywhere in Mountain Lion; there’s even support for saving directly to the cloud right in the file system. Third-party cloud services get some love, too, just like in iOS: Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and Gmail allow you to share media and integrate contacts across a range of services, not just Apple’s. For the Chinese market, a huge growth area for Apple, there’s also new support for popular search and social services like Baidu and Sina weibo.

Apple’s also approaching updates to OS X differently from now on, in two ways:

• The company plans on updating its desktop software every year, from 10.8 to 10.9 until the innumerate future, just like it currently does with iOS. It’s an incremental approach to steadily add new features, rather than rethink the OS from scratch. Until, of course, Apple needs to rethink the OS from scratch again.

• Apple didn’t send out invitations or hold a big event to announce this upgrade. It gave a handful of folks advance access to the developer preview and dropped it like a bomb early Thursday morning. Links to information about Mountain Lion aren’t even at the top of Apple.com — they’re tucked away in a corner.

After all, if you compare this announcement to, say, a brand-new iPad, a developer preview of Mountain Lion is mostly inside stuff. Even in our Apple-crazed times, for the average consumer, a new name for a new version of iChat isn’t setting the world on fire.

rice555

the only thing i dont like is that apple tosses too much Hardware out of the supported Hardware List.

Compatible Hardware for the 10.8 Seed will be only:

• iMac (mid 2007 or later)
  
• MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
  
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, 2.4/2.2 GHz), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
  
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
  
• Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
  
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
  
• Xserve (Early 2009)
  

Edited February 17, 201214 yr by nullx8

Anyone having any luck downloading the messaging beta?? When I try the site flashes a quick " sorry..." but too quick to read. Is it not available for us Asians, or just too busy?

Anyone having any luck downloading the messaging beta?? When I try the site flashes a quick " sorry..." but too quick to read. Is it not available for us Asians, or just too busy?

I was able to download it this morning without a problem.

Still a problem here. Might go try with safari.

I also can confirm that I was able to download it without a problem. ISP is True in Bangkok

Ta, but still no joy. Tried two browsers - the messege says: "our apologies but there was an error (perhaps you walked away from you rcomputer for a while)... click here to return to the download page"..

Happen to be on to ApplCare about something else ... they reckon might be 'busy'.

Anyone having any luck downloading the messaging beta?? When I try the site flashes a quick " sorry..." but too quick to read. Is it not available for us Asians, or just too busy?

I was able to download it this morning without a problem.

Screen snapshot?

You mean of the error message? It flicks too quick, but after clicking it heaps of times it something like:

"our oppologies, there was an error with your session (perhaps you walked away from your computer for a while. Please click here to return to download page"

But it doesn't go anywhere.

Still happenng. Is there an alternate download?

OK, got it from alt dl source. Works well so far.

Messages does (just like ichat) make not much of sense ... since the world is much furtor developed than AOL is

but finally Apple figured this out by addig the ability to use other protocolls as well ...

still a huge number of protocolls are missing and some are probably never going to be implemented .. (like IRC)

so the app to go is still Adium .. with Remodium Plugin it does just do exact the same as (i)Chat promises to do ..

btw, Little Snitch is not compatible to 10.8 ... all the rest seems to work good so far ..

btw, Little Snitch is not compatible to 10.8 ... all the rest seems to work good so far ..

I'm beta testing 10.8, and Parallels isn't working with it. That wouldn't be good for a lot of us who have to use Windoze for one reason or another, but I bet it will be sorted before the official release this summer.

Svn also not working and web sharing is off the preferencies, makes 10.8 not usable for development.

Also drag&drop into opening dialogs is gone.

What, 10.7 was so bad that they're onto 10.8 already?

What, 10.7 was so bad that they're onto 10.8 already?

10.7 is (from my point of view) the best Mac OS ever.

10.8 focusing on merging iOS with OSX more together.

What, 10.7 was so bad that they're onto 10.8 already?

No it's just that another year has passed. Didn't you notice?

I guess Windows updates come in 5 year cycles (10 years if one only counts the good versions) but for OS X every year is the norm.

Messages does (just like ichat) make not much of sense ... since the world is much furtor developed than AOL is

but finally Apple figured this out by addig the ability to use other protocolls as well ...

never mind the lack of protocols - the reason I never use iChat is that it can't deal with disconnections. Which on a laptop happens all the time. It doesn't properly or reliably re-connect, it shows alerts, in short it throws a fit whenever the connection goes down / changes. Unusable.

Adium on the other hand is just fine. Connects whenever there is a connection, and otherwise remains silent.

What, 10.7 was so bad that they're onto 10.8 already?

No it's just that another year has passed. Didn't you notice?

I guess Windows updates come in 5 year cycles (10 years if one only counts the good versions) but for OS X every year is the norm.

Yeah, I guess you're right. It's almost time for the WWDC in San Francisco again. Time to roll out another version. I still hanging with 10.6.8. It does everything, still! 10.7 still doesn't do some things the last I checked...

Adium on the other hand is just fine. Connects whenever there is a connection, and otherwise remains silent.

absolutely agree .. i use Adium since Years .. the history alone is enough reason to stick with it .. (i have even wrote some importers to adium storage format)

and well since Remodium ... can have the messaging on the phone just like at him on the mac http://remodium.com/ 5 bucks same functions but can keep 10 years of chat history ;P

I still hanging with 10.6.8. It does everything, still! 10.7 still doesn't do some things the last I checked...

10.6.8 is like the XP in Mac OS'ses (its extreme stable and somehow "state of the art") so if you happy with it .. keep it (i even have a 10.4 machine hunting my faxes somewhere in a corner) ..

10.7 introduced some major changes, and started the migration process to iOS .. (most peoples will notice (or even being annoyed of the change) how the mouse and scrolling is handled now ...this process may lead to peoples saying "not working" but about 99,99% are just working slightly different due the migration process to iOS

but as for the productivity in general .. there is no "doesn't do" between 10.6.6 and 10.7.2 (later versions or earlier versions may have some differences)

but the functionality is 100% there

Edited February 21, 201214 yr by nullx8

I installed it on an external drive on my MBP 13" and up to now is reasonably stable and as a previous poster mentioned little snitch does not currently work. I have also installed it on my Hackingtosh desktop based on a gigabyte motherboard and all is working fine. I have got the cmos reset loop when trying it on my Asus X53E and have the required files on board (fake smc etc ). I may get time to play with that upon my return from LOS

I still hanging with 10.6.8. It does everything, still! 10.7 still doesn't do some things the last I checked...

<snip>

10.7 introduced some major changes, and started the migration process to iOS .. (most peoples will notice (or even being annoyed of the change) how the mouse and scrolling is handled now ...this process may lead to peoples saying "not working" but about 99,99% are just working slightly different due the migration process to iOS

but as for the productivity in general .. there is no "doesn't do" between 10.6.6 and 10.7.2 (later versions or earlier versions may have some differences)

but the functionality is 100% there

You can change your scrolling preferences back or use which ever parts you like in 10.7.2 in system preferences. But there were quite a few months of lag time before some applications would work with 10.7. Most all applications I have are caught up to 10.7 now. So yes, it's now fully functional if you update all of your software to the latest versions. But 10.7 won't run any legacy software like 10.6.8 would... So, not quite fully functional in some people's books...

Edited February 26, 201214 yr by Jimi007

Anyone having any luck downloading the messaging beta?? When I try the site flashes a quick " sorry..." but too quick to read. Is it not available for us Asians, or just too busy?

I have downloaded it no problem.

but as for the productivity in general .. there is no "doesn't do" between 10.6.6 and 10.7.2 (later versions or earlier versions may have some differences)

but the functionality is 100% there

True for the most part but I do have some complaints where 10.7 is simply *worse* than previous OS versions:

- Finder sidebar has become less useful. No colors make it hard to see what's where (though I do have a workaround for that). And the disks were moved to the bottom for some reason which makes it harder to eject USB disks. Very strange.

- Scrollbars automatically hiding - need to hit the tiny grey zone to hold and scroll before the thing hides again.... hmm... I just double checked and there is a setting for having scroll bars always show - woo hoo, did that just now. Much better.

But the improvements outweigh these of course. For example, no way could I go back to the old Mail.app. Mail had really fallen behind the times and in 10.6 was much worse than either Gmail web interface, or even the iPhone / iPad version. Now it's back to being on par with proper threaded views that actually work...

but as for the productivity in general .. there is no "doesn't do" between 10.6.6 and 10.7.2 (later versions or earlier versions may have some differences)

but the functionality is 100% there

True for the most part but I do have some complaints where 10.7 is simply *worse* than previous OS versions:

- Finder sidebar has become less useful. No colors make it hard to see what's where (though I do have a workaround for that). And the disks were moved to the bottom for some reason which makes it harder to eject USB disks. Very strange.

- Scrollbars automatically hiding - need to hit the tiny grey zone to hold and scroll before the thing hides again.... hmm... I just double checked and there is a setting for having scroll bars always show - woo hoo, did that just now. Much better.

But the improvements outweigh these of course. For example, no way could I go back to the old Mail.app. Mail had really fallen behind the times and in 10.6 was much worse than either Gmail web interface, or even the iPhone / iPad version. Now it's back to being on par with proper threaded views that actually work...

Did you persevere with the 'natural' scroll direction? Took a few minutes to get used to, but makes so much sense now!

but as for the productivity in general .. there is no "doesn't do" between 10.6.6 and 10.7.2 (later versions or earlier versions may have some differences)

but the functionality is 100% there

True for the most part but I do have some complaints where 10.7 is simply *worse* than previous OS versions:

- Finder sidebar has become less useful. No colors make it hard to see what's where (though I do have a workaround for that). And the disks were moved to the bottom for some reason which makes it harder to eject USB disks. Very strange.

- Scrollbars automatically hiding - need to hit the tiny grey zone to hold and scroll before the thing hides again.... hmm... I just double checked and there is a setting for having scroll bars always show - woo hoo, did that just now. Much better.

But the improvements outweigh these of course. For example, no way could I go back to the old Mail.app. Mail had really fallen behind the times and in 10.6 was much worse than either Gmail web interface, or even the iPhone / iPad version. Now it's back to being on par with proper threaded views that actually work...

Did you persevere with the 'natural' scroll direction? Took a few minutes to get used to, but makes so much sense now!

Took me a about 2 minutes to get used to the new scroll direction too... agree it makes more sense this way.

Agree with you nickster, well the scrolling (if you have a trackpad or a magic mouse) is secondary

I do not use the scrollbars at all (maybe once a month)

Pushing things arround became very normal.

Guess if use a iphone as well it comes much more easy and shortens the learning courve

About connected devices, you can move the whole block up and down in the finder sidebar.

But standard dialogs not always following this sorting always. So its abit confusing sometime as items not always apear at the same place.