Thoughts on the Mac OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham & Anand Lal Shimpi on February 19, 2012 7:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Mountain Lion
- Mac
- macOS
Is it Safe to Use & The Future
Mountain Lion does still have some rough edges and there's an extensive list of known bugs. The OS is usable if you're wondering whether or not you can install it on a secondary machine and live with it. I would caution anyone against migrating their primary system to it unless they're ok with dealing with some bugs that may not have workarounds.
We often encourage competition because the end user stands to benefit. It's clear that Microsoft's renewed aggressiveness with Windows 8 is making the OS space more interesting than it has been for a few years now. I don't know that we're necessarily going to see an increased rate of switching/reverse switching as a result of Mountain Lion/Windows 8 but that's where all of this is heading. Microsoft wants to prevent and reverse any exodus to the Mac while Apple wants to grow its marketshare at Microsoft's expense. Even as the mobile revolution transpires it's clear that there's still room for innovation and competition in the more traditional notebook/desktop space.
Going into 2013 and beyond things do get more interesting however. The line between notebook and tablet will become even blurrier. If you could build something iPad-sized out of MacBook Air hardware what would it run? iOS or OS X? UI aside I think there are some very interesting options for OS convergence going forward.
Conclusions
Like most OS X updates, Mountain Lion combines visible new features with under-the-hood changes and improvements, which between them usually amount to an upgrade that is worth Apple's asking price for the majority of users. The changes you care about will vary from person to person, but based on what I've seen (both in the new features covered by other outlets or the changes I've mentioned above) it looks like there should be something here for most people, especially if you own multiple Macs or are in any way invested in iOS.
Those of you worried that Lion was the first step toward disallowing non-Mac App Store programs from running in OS X: that future has not come to pass, at least not yet. "Never" is a long time, but for now it appears that the Gatekeeper functionality is indicative of the way these things will be handled on Macs. The default settings may change, but power users can freely install anything they want on their systems, just as before.
The (admittedly smallish) audience of OS X Server users who were worried that Lion Server was a step toward dumbing the servers down and stripping out features: it looks like your fears may be more justified, depending on which services you use. Apple seems focused on maintaining a core set of technologies like Mail, NetBoot, Messages, Open Directory, Profile Manager, File Sharing, and others, but by (apparently) removing more enterprise-centric features like DHCP from OS X Server, the company seems to be admitting that its servers are typically used in conjunction with other Windows and/or Linux boxes that supply the network's backbone (which, at least in my experience as an IT admin, has tended to be true).
At this early point in the development process, the conclusions I've made here are the only ones I feel comfortable making. Keeping in mind that all of this is subject to change, have at it in the comments section.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
96 Comments
View All Comments
suprem1ty - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Won't Windows 8 ARM be purely for tablets and such anyway though?It's pretty clear Microsoft wants to start fresh with their ARM port, by not allowing x86/x86-64 desktop applications to be run or ported to it.
But yeah cars are another area where I think people should have atleast a fundamental/working understand of the internal workings - even if its basic maintenance (changing oil, sparkplugs, air filters and the like)
Bateluer - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
Bullspit. Maybe over the entire existence of Apple . . .repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
First of all, "in the wild" does actually refer to anyone still using a Mac that was produced at some time during the course of Apple's existence.Furthermore, Apple sold 17.8m Macs in the past 4 quarters alone, so that number seems pretty reasonable, no?
GotThumbs - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
"Just as was the case on PCs, I've always grabbed and installed software on my Macs from a multitude of sources and I've never really wished there was a centralized, policed repository of Mac applications. That being said, I do understand and accept that I may be a part of a shrinking minority."I believe that as the general public/consumer becomes better educated and more knowledgeable about what options are available in the market and the web, then they will begin to gravitate towards more individual choice and begin to resent the extreme level of control Apple wields over the newbies still learning.
In the early years of the internet, AOL was the tool for many to wade into the WWW using 'Key Words' to grab their news or information. Now today's WWW users are more and more comfortable using a browser of their choice and surfing the web without training wheels of yesterday. It's just a learning curve...and as people's knowledge grows...they then wish journey beyond the shackles that begin to bind and restrict them. Freedom of choice will always be desired by those who are not followers.
Question regarding this article...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS? Just wondering since MS had to pay big penalties for that kind of situation with IE.
Death666Angel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
"Question regarding this article...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS? Just wondering since MS had to pay big penalties for that kind of situation with IE. "Looking at the market share, I doubt any judge would rule that OS X and Windows are comparable in that regard. :-)
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
"...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS?"Typing "sudo rm -rf /Applications/Safari.app" in Terminal would do the trick, although it's not highly recommended due to the potential dependancies of other programs that are still installed.
"Looking at the market share, I doubt any judge would rule that OS X and Windows are comparable in that regard."
How about when you add iOS and mobile Safari to the mix?
Death666Angel - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Then Apple still doesn't have dominating market share. Apple is getting nice profits, but not from outselling the competition. They are just having better margins. :-)solipsism - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
1) You can remove the Safari.app with a drag-n-drop but not the WebKit framework that is used by many apps. So yes, the app is removable.2) You don't understand the antitrust case if you think that Apple could be in some violation here.
Conficio - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Not sure if we haven't come full circle. How many users live their Internet life on facebook these days, including news and videos!ramuman - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
...actually AirPlay Mirroring does work, but it requires iOS 5.1 on an Apple TV. I'm running the developer build of ML and my Apple TV shows up, but I don't have iOS 5.1 on it so it says "incompatible hardware"