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.
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macuser2134 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
I have an important question about the Text-to-speech synthesizer that is included with OS X. Have they given it an independent volume control?This is coming from someone who is still on Snow Leopard. Whenever any 3rd party application invokes this feature - its always extremely lound at 100% the maximum volume. So unfortunately it never gets used for anything. But its such a great feature.
chemist1 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
My two principal concerns with the accelerated (yearly) release schedule are:1) In my experience, it takes nearly a year before each OSX release becomes fully useable -- i.e., it takes nearly a year before all my apps are updated, by the developers, to be *completely* compatible with the new OS (some of these are smaller developers with more limited resources), and likewise nearly a year before most of the bugs in the OS itself are worked out. So with the annual release schedule we lose that "sweet spot" second year when things are basically working well, and the OS and app developers can continue to refine and improve. Instead, all the focus will be redirected towards the new OS.
2) Consider the case of expensive software like Adobe CS. Typically, a given version of Adobe CS is good for the current Mac OS and the next two or so (=> about six years when releases are biannual) before one starts to run into compatibility issues and thus needs to upgrade. With releases coming out annually, might this not cut the longevity of such software in half? Indeed, wouldn't this be a problem for your apps generally?
MobiusStrip - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
"The Mountain Lion Finder, along with Lion additions... are at this point largely identical to their Lion counterparts."Apple's failure to fix this pathetic piece of garbage they call Finder is just disrespectful to their users at this point. If there is a single foil for all of the breathless fawning over Apple's mythical design "elegance", Finder is it.
When you have a file browser that can't even sort its contents properly (with FOLDERS AT THE TOP), start searches in the selected folder, create subfolders in the selected folder, or present search results that show you WHERE each hit is... you have a failure.
Whatever happened to the much-ballyhooed "rewrite" of Finder for SnowLeopard (or was it Leopard)?
repoman27 - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
I recognize that you're just trolling, and you don't appear to be a Mac user, but you do realize that the Finder already can do all of the things you listed? If you haven't been able to figure out how to do these things, the failure would seem to be a personal one and not on the part of the Finder.You seem very angry at Apple. Has Apple or its fans hurt you personally in some way?
Shinobi_III - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
Since forever, Mac OS has looked exactly the same..And now a new OS version every year, for 100 bucks or whatnot?
These are basically just service packs, why is anyone even getting excited?
BTW, did they add cut/paste yet? lol
snouter - Thursday, February 23, 2012 - link
Apple will need to push/encourage 3rd parties to keep up with them.Adobe is notorious for taking their time with updates to newer Mac OSes.
Canon, only a few weeks ago released EOS Utility for Lion.
My Girlfriend bought some new $100 Samsung laser printer. No Lion drivers. I use dropbox to move files to my Windows computer so I can print them in 2012! There are CUPS hacks and stuff, but, meh.
So with Mountain Lion on the way, will Adobe CS6 be ready? Will I have to go a year waiting for Canon to upgrade EOS Utility? I guess in 2012, I can just forget about printing, lol.