

Mac OS X Mountain Lion - Announced and DP Available Now
#1
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:03 PM
Apple has told The Verge that it is now moving to a yearly upgrade cycle for Mac OS X, but The Verge also notes that Mountain Lion is no Snow Leopard simply with performance improvements. Nope. It's a completely new OS.
http://www.theverge....ew-photos-video
http://www.apple.com.../mountain-lion/
Mac Messages is also available in beta, now.
'Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?'
– Steve Jobs
#2
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:20 PM
"...and Mountain Lion will ship out of the box restricted to running only signed apps and apps from the Mac App Store."
Yehaw.
- zero
#3
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:26 PM
devilhunter, on 16 February 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:
"...and Mountain Lion will ship out of the box restricted to running only signed apps and apps from the Mac App Store."
Yehaw.
It's also a simple click away to unrestricted territory.
Game Center looks to be interesting. Cross platform play between iOS and Mac. Nice.
My favourite features so far are probably going to be Messages and AirPlay mirroring. Been wanting those for ages

'Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?'
– Steve Jobs
#4
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:30 PM
#5
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:33 PM
playn, on 16 February 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:
It's also a simple click away to unrestricted territory.
Game Center looks to be interesting. Cross platform play between iOS and Mac. Nice.
My favourite features so far are probably going to be Messages and AirPlay mirroring. Been wanting those for ages

I think Apple wants to lock down the system but are afraid to... don't be surprised if in 10.9 that the "unrestricted" option is gone.
#6
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:42 PM
doh123, on 16 February 2012 - 03:33 PM, said:
I think Apple wants to lock down the system but are afraid to... don't be surprised if in 10.9 that the "unrestricted" option is gone.
The only barrier here is if it requires you to have a developer account, which could cost you that $99/m fee.
Even so, I don't see why Crossover wouldn't be allowed in the MAS, theres already a Wine wrapping app in there.
About total lockdown, I don't think Apple would actually go that far. Gruber got the impression that Apple seems to know their boundaries when it comes to OS X and iOS. I haven't got a reason to doubt Apple on this, they haven't made many mistakes lately.
It also wouldn't make sense to introduce certificates and then take it away the very next year.
'Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?'
– Steve Jobs
#7
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:45 PM
doh123, on 16 February 2012 - 03:33 PM, said:
and you know how easy or cheap it is to get a certificate? Will they actually approve things like Winery that makes other apps? will the other apps you make then be blocked on your own machine? Will Crossover ever be able to be approved.. or any program that runs other software?
I think Apple wants to lock down the system but are afraid to... don't be surprised if in 10.9 that the "unrestricted" option is gone.
Also the OS seems to be downloading new crypto keys every day, and this also gives apple the ability to kill every app remotely on all macs.
Quote:
"It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs
which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications. If
an app is found to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s
certificate, rendering the app (along with any others from the same developer) inert on any Mac where it’s been installed"
A noble idea for bad software, but now it's more big brother apple than ever before.
Also Wrappers spit out via wrapper creator app cannot get automatically signed, and you have to tell every user then to lower his "securtity settings" to run a wrapper for example.
This sucks.
Also every working Mac software out there not coming from the new app store will display a nice error message to users that the app cannot be launched.
Don't give normal/simple/new users so much credit that they understand what they need to do to get the apps working...
- zero
#8
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:50 PM
#9
Posted 16 February 2012 - 03:58 PM
playn, on 16 February 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:
The only barrier here is if it requires you to have a developer account, which could cost you that $99/m fee.
Even so, I don't see why Crossover wouldn't be allowed in the MAS, theres already a Wine wrapping app in there.
playn, on 16 February 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:
It also wouldn't make sense to introduce certificates and then take it away the very next year.
devilhunter, on 16 February 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:
Also the OS seems to be downloading new crypto keys every day, and this also gives apple the ability to kill every app remotely on all macs.
devilhunter, on 16 February 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:
This sucks.
devilhunter, on 16 February 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:
Don't give normal/simple/new users so much credit that they understand what they need to do to get the apps working...
#10
Posted 16 February 2012 - 05:02 PM
If things are as they seem, I'll probably be upgrading as soon as the final release will be out.
Here's my first impression when I saw it (an excerpt from the IRC channel log earlier today - Sorry BoomBox, I'm posting your quotes as well

14:57:16 <%BoomBox> syao: http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/ 15:04:38 <@syao> BoomBox: yeah, I was looking at it :o 15:05:27 <@syao> notification center, iMessage... mewants 15:05:59 <%BoomBox> iOS notification center sucks, iMessage, i never use that 15:07:01 <@syao> what sucks about notification center? :o 15:07:04 <%BoomBox> reminders, notes, i dont use either on my iphone/ipad, thats not gonna suddenly change 15:07:14 <@syao> I find it pretty amazing... 15:07:36 <%BoomBox> in 10.8, i swipe my mouse to the top right to hit spotlight, not notifications 15:07:45 <%BoomBox> need to take more care now to where i swipe my mouse up 15:07:55 <@syao> Ah, I dont mouse to spotlight :P 15:08:03 <@syao> I cmd-space to it 15:08:15 <@syao> (I'm gonna type anyways, why reach for the mouse :P) 15:08:44 <%BoomBox> because my touchpad is right below my space bar :P 15:09:00 <@syao> *mainly desktop user* 15:10:11 <@syao> I actually hope they'll le me remove the spotlight icon without disablign cmd-space and without hacks, someday... 15:10:21 <@syao> it eats up space in my menubar for nothing... 15:10:55 <%BoomBox> that help option in every app, i want to remove that 15:11:02 <%BoomBox> i have never once clicked it in any app 15:11:33 <@syao> about iMessage, it's pretty neat... most people I text with have iphones and I dont have a volume plan on texts, so free = good xD 15:11:49 <@syao> help option? you mean the (?) small button? 15:12:08 <%BoomBox> no, the actual apps menubar options, one on the very end 15:12:18 <%BoomBox> the dropdown 15:12:19 <@syao> Ah 15:12:23 <%BoomBox> usually after the Window one 15:12:23 <%BoomBox> :P 15:12:27 <@syao> there's one good use for it 15:12:35 <@syao> when you dont know where to find some menu option 15:12:44 <%BoomBox> I have google for that 15:12:45 <@syao> you can search for it in the help menu textbox 15:12:55 <@syao> err, no? 15:13:12 <%BoomBox> now, that would have been handy to know 15:13:16 <@syao> lets say you're using some over-complicated program (i.e. MS powerpoint, eww) 15:13:42 <@syao> and you dont have a clue on where to find the 'Master Slide' option 15:13:54 <@syao> (happened a few days ago, was my first time using powerpoint) 15:13:54 <%BoomBox> bottom left 15:14:16 <@syao> opened help, searched for 'master' 15:14:26 <@syao> and it showed me an arrow on the appropriate menu entry 15:14:34 <%BoomBox> hmm 15:14:53 <@syao> (not the actual help window, just the menu) 15:15:01 <@syao> help window is kinda useless.. 15:15:22 <%BoomBox> hmm 15:15:29 <%BoomBox> that will infact come in handy 15:15:38 <@syao> yup 15:15:48 <@syao> I like keyboard-driven interfaces, and that one is neat 15:16:24 <@syao> If only there was a way to set a hotkey to trigger it. (maybe there is, and I dont know) 15:16:56 <@syao> about reminders and notes, I use them from inside iCal and Mail 15:17:05 <@syao> it's gonna be one more app open, oh well 15:17:18 <@syao> I like the way they are in 10.7 15:18:53 <@syao> for how I use them, I'd have preferred to be able to drag a reminder from my reminders list to my calendar and have it transformed into an event... it used to do that, but it fails if you're using an iCloud account (where reminders are on a separate list from events) 15:19:15 <%BoomBox> :o 15:19:26 <@syao> about game center...uh... 15:19:40 <@syao> I dont really use it 15:19:48 <@syao> not a fan of all that social stuff 15:19:50 <%BoomBox> they should just suck it up and implement steam into Mac OS 15:19:55 <@syao> Heh 15:20:12 <%BoomBox> i mean, with an interface that actually works properly on OS X 15:20:16 <@syao> I guess it's an attempt to make something similar to steam... 15:20:17 <%BoomBox> one that looks good 15:21:19 <@syao> Ah, they're finally implementing documents in the cloud for desktop versions of iWork 15:21:24 <@syao> that one thing is greay 15:21:25 <@syao> t* 15:21:34 <@syao> I hate having to use the web-app 15:21:50 <@syao> I just ended up ditching iCloud for documents and using iTunes sharing 15:22:07 <@syao> (I have Pages and Numbers for both iPhone and desktop) 15:22:31 <%BoomBox> aah 15:23:13 <@syao> as it is now, to put a document in the cloud from the desktop app, you have to open icloud in a browser and upload the document there 15:23:35 <@syao> to fetch a document from the cloud, open a browser and save the document 15:23:42 <%BoomBox> yeah 15:23:44 <@syao> which is REALLY lame :/ 15:23:50 <%BoomBox> indeed
Now a few more comments after reading more about it, from both the Apple site and the article on The Verge:
• On the yearly updates: Hopefully they won't break as much stuff as the current updates do. I'm talking about Cocoa methods deprecated/dropped, lots of new apps not working <release version> - 2 and old apps not working on the current release.
• On Gatekeeper: They already had something like that, even though much more limited. Recent OS X versions already come with a (sort of blacklist) antimalware to get rid of some well known malwares. They're extending it a bit now, and asking to digitally sign apps. That way they have a bigger control, and it makes it easier for them to cut off malware makers. That's not as bad as it sounds. Since the number of OS X based computers are increasing (lower prices compared to a few years ago - even lower than many comparable computer from Sony, Dell, etc; increased Apple popularity thanks to iPhones, iPods, iEtc; not to mention how craptastic windows 8 is gonna be), they don't want to fall in the same hell Microsoft currently is with their Windows when virus and malware makers will start targeting OS X en masse. I'd rather live in a (low-)walled green garden than in a scorched, gray field (as much as I prefer living in a high walled iOS garden on a mobile device, rather than in an Android quicksand).
This may cause problems for cracked apps. But it also may not. If one wants to run cracked apps, it's still possible to allow unsigned apps anyways.
• On Game Center: I'm not much of a gamer, just a casual one. I'm not a fan of social network stuff either, so I can't say I really use it much on iOS. I opened it a few times, I don't mind the 'achievements' thing, but I can't say I have much of a use for game center.
• On notification center: This alone stole my soul. I absolutely love it (yeah, I'm a Growl user and can't live without it - I like ot know what happened while I was away or to have things put on a side waiting for my attention when I'm busy with other stuff). Hopefully it'll be more widespread than Growl, being a core OS feature now. I also hope, we'll see some growlnotify-like utility to make use of it (or I'll have to write my own), since I use Growl a lot with Terminal / shell scripts / etc.
• On Messages: I'm already using the beta. It's absolutely amazing, at least for me. Now I don't have to type on my iPhone's small keyboard (or pair my extra bluetooth keyboard with it) when I'm at the desk (hopefully they'll fix it to use the phone number as well other than the email address, since many of my contacts refer to me with that one :x). And I can pick off a conversation from the iPhone where I left it. Ah, I forgot to mention, this also means having to use less skype-resource-hog-stuff.
• On AirPlay mirroring: I don't own an Apple TV, even though I might consider getting one someday. But it's a nice feature in any case.
• On iCloud: As I said, they're finally getting support for Documents on the Cloud. It took a while, huh. No more web apps to use to share documents between OS X iWork and iOS iWork. Very promising the Safari tab sync (I found myself using Reading List or make bookmarks a lot just to share an URL)
• On iCal: The calendar list is no longer in the awful, annoying popover they used in Lion. Back to an usable interface. Finally.
• On Notes: I occasionally use it on the iPhone and on Mail, and it's not bad. I also like how you can convert a note to a desktop sticky and vice versa. I wanted to have synced sticky notes some times, but Sticky Notes.app couldnt do iCloud sync, nor could leave stickies when you closed it.
• On Reminders: I preferred having Reminders and Events in the same app. I'll have to live with two separate apps. I hope they'll let me drag a reminder to iCal to create an event and vice versa (feature currently broken in Lion iCal, if you use iCloud).
• On Sharing, Twitter, etc: I couldn't care less. I mean it. Well, okay, I lied. I like AirDrop integration. But they can take back all the social network stuff, I don't want that.
• Misc:
- If I swipe left to show Notification Center, what do I use to go back one page in Safari/Firefox? Or it's a different number of fingers swipe?
- Safari unified search/URL bar. Really...? ...that sucks, I deeply, truly, hate it. In Firefox, I even disabled the search feature when I type in the URL bar...
This ███ will be left blank in sign of protest █████ internet censorship.
#11
Posted 16 February 2012 - 07:31 PM
Although I like how trackpad inter phasing with the system a lot, there are still thing I like less.
LaunchPad have really grown on me and I miss it on SL, but iCal is so much nicer on SL and I really miss rosetta.
I've yet to encounter any apps that won't work on SL yet, but I guess the list will grow.
I guess when CiderX is out I'll consider updating to Lion on my desktop, but until then I'll stay on SL.
I've usually upgraded pretty quick when a new OS is released, but for some reason I still think SL is the better choice for me.
[HackPro i7-4790K, 3x SSD + 5TB HDD • 16GB RAM • NVidia GTX 780 GHz Edition • OSX 10.10] . [MacBookAir 13 1.7GHz • Intel HD 3000 • OSX 10.9.5]
How to port Steam games .... My Youtube Porting videos ... Play my RPG
#12
Posted 16 February 2012 - 08:46 PM
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#13
Posted 17 February 2012 - 01:56 AM
osx has been consistently getting worse since snow leopard (hate lion and hate the look of this more and more).
apple please don't pull a microsoft
Quote
#14
Posted 17 February 2012 - 02:22 AM
But mountain lion should be a update to lion and not a separate realse. Cause like really lion came out like less then 7 months ago. It's seems like just a big pain to keep on spending $30 over again and keep on downloading 3gb of an operating system. Like I have already wasted 6gb downloading lion twice . Once it failed and second it worked.
You know what I going to realse a secret to the forums here I go if you dont want to pay for mountain lion just
Get the dev preview . It's not free but you. Get a copy of imdzl.com. (for free)
And when 10.8 comes out just click the update button and it will give you the full update dev >full
Enjoy
Ps I am sticking with lion
HM
#15
Posted 17 February 2012 - 02:40 AM
These are some previews of the error messages that will pop up on every single Wrapper:
http://images.macwor...moom-272454.jpg
http://cdn.macrumors...keeper_lion.jpg
I think I roughly know how doh can implement code signing into exported WS Wrappers, and maybe this works even on heavily modified Wrappers; as long as Apple's checks do not check for plists or Wrapper internals (exe files and whatnot)
Fact is, every existing Wrapper (roughly millions) out there, cider or WS, will display these nice error messages or scaring off users.
Always something different with Apple; I wouldn't be surprises at all if they disable the ability to run non-Store apps completely in one of the next big cats.
- zero
#16
Posted 17 February 2012 - 03:34 AM
Wake up people!!!
We should make a petition against this Gatekeeper crap either way and hope it goes viral...
#17
Posted 17 February 2012 - 08:55 AM
I'm still on 10.5 because of some ridiculous icon cache issues I'm expriencing on 10.6 which render many of the icon graphics of the OS blurry or invisible after a while - this is absolutely unacceptable - hundreds if not thousands of bug reports have been filed about this particular issue but there has been absolutely NO response from Apple on this issue whatsover - let alone a fix - how could this be you ask? - well the only logical explanation I can come up with is that Apple knows exactly that they can now afford to ignore such problems and instead tell you to upgrade your OS as it won't impact sales or profit anymore in a negative way.
http://macbitz.wordp...fuzzy-icon-bug/
#18
Posted 17 February 2012 - 09:54 AM
Gatekeeper is the part that scares me. It's not made for us, OK I get that part, it's made for people like my mum, who barely ever uses a computer. Fine. And these people are not even interested in wrappers, Wine or such stuff, so they would never see these warning messages anyway. The part that scares me is how far Apple might take this in the future.
Another concern is the design of of the message. It looks like a major issue, but most of the time it' strivial. This could lead to an effect similar with the Windows warning thing where users just get used to allowing everything, they won't notice when the warning is actually legit.
rynotheking14, on 17 February 2012 - 01:56 AM, said:
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Descent 3, Fallout, Space Rangers 2
#19
Posted 17 February 2012 - 01:19 PM
thedoctor45, on 17 February 2012 - 08:55 AM, said:
I'm still on 10.5 because of some ridiculous icon cache issues I'm expriencing on 10.6 which render many of the icon graphics of the OS blurry or invisible after a while - this is absolutely unacceptable - hundreds if not thousands of bug reports have been filed about this particular issue but there has been absolutely NO response from Apple on this issue whatsover - let alone a fix - how could this be you ask? - well the only logical explanation I can come up with is that Apple knows exactly that they can now afford to ignore such problems and instead tell you to upgrade your OS as it won't impact sales or profit anymore in a negative way.
http://macbitz.wordp...fuzzy-icon-bug/
Funny you mention this. My mini server which runs 10.5 has a similar problem.
After its running a few days, most icons on the desktop get completely scrambled, even the hard drive icons.
The scrambled icons will display parts of other icons, or very small icons, or become extremely fuzzy, or change every time with a click of the mouse. I suspect that this is a fault of Quicklook, since Quicklook is broken as well for images then when the icon issue pops up. reinstall didn't help.
I have to stay on 10.5 on the server, because PeerGuardian OSX (block lists) got discontinued long ago and only works well on 10.5
For a test I put 10.6 on the server and let it run a few weeks, the issue was gone ...
- zero
#20
Posted 17 February 2012 - 02:24 PM
devilhunter, on 17 February 2012 - 01:19 PM, said:
After its running a few days, most icons on the desktop get completely scrambled, even the hard drive icons.
The scrambled icons will display parts of other icons, or very small icons, or become extremely fuzzy, or change every time with a click of the mouse. I suspect that this is a fault of Quicklook, since Quicklook is broken as well for images then when the icon issue pops up. reinstall didn't help.
I have to stay on 10.5 on the server, because PeerGuardian OSX (block lists) got discontinued long ago and only works well on 10.5
For a test I put 10.6 on the server and let it run a few weeks, the issue was gone ...
Curious.. I used to have this problem on Snow Leopard, but it got fixed by itself, I don't remember whether it was after a system update or a Caches cleanup (i.e. through Safe Boot).
I've had it again recently on Lion though, after the 10.7.3 update. I did the update before it was pulled and re-published, so I'm afraid it broke something. If neither this nor a full Caches cleanup will help, I'll download the 10.7.3 combo update and try with that.
About PeerGuardian, I'm told there's a version that works on Lion just fine, maybe you might want to give it a look. Even though (if this is for p2p stuff) I'd rather set the blacklist directly in Trasmission without other heavy software running... Unless you use PG for another reason, that is.
This ███ will be left blank in sign of protest █████ internet censorship.
#21
Posted 17 February 2012 - 02:43 PM
I also had icon issues when I was still using OSX 10.3/10.4 - (garbeled icons moslty but not blurry ones) - however those where not nearly as persistent or annoying as the 10.6 bug. It basically renders SL useless for me.
#22
Posted 17 February 2012 - 06:18 PM
Apparently, you can still run unsigned apps, no matter what the GK setting is, if you option-click them the first time you run them. Then it won't bug you anymore. Not *that* bad I guess.
This ███ will be left blank in sign of protest █████ internet censorship.
#23
Posted 17 February 2012 - 10:14 PM
syao, on 17 February 2012 - 06:18 PM, said:
Apparently, you can still run unsigned apps, no matter what the GK setting is, if you option-click them the first time you run them. Then it won't bug you anymore. Not *that* bad I guess.
While its not bad for a power user... it means in about 5 years fro now it'll be rare for a normal user to be running anything that isn't in the Mac App Store... when people aren't using software in other places, that software ends up dying off, so over a long period of time, eventually 99% of everything will be the MAS, with a few registered devs as exceptions.
#24
Posted 18 February 2012 - 04:00 AM
Iion ?
And does adding like 3 -6 new features justify a whole new realse ?
Plus wasnt lions whole goal to bring the iPad to Mac . So what's the point to have a new realse and charge $30 again for something that was promised in lion .
Mountain lion better be free or I am calling apple . Returning lion , then going to back to 10.6 cause I bought lion thinking that these features whole be added to lion in the future never knew that they would release lion over again . Lion = waste of money
Also apple thank you now I have to waste another 3gb to download 10.8
Plus I have 3 Macs so that's 9gb of my bandwidth gone . ;(
HM
#25
Posted 18 February 2012 - 02:00 PM
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Descent 3, Fallout, Space Rangers 2
#26
Posted 18 February 2012 - 03:34 PM
HiPhish, on 18 February 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:
But they are smart to realse the new o s 7-9 months after lion this way all the warrentys and return policy's on lion expire before 10.8 comes out.
I am going to get 10.8 dev preview first and see of I like it... If not. Back 10.6 ... Never liked lion anyway .. All these iPad features useless on Mac
HM
#27
Posted 18 February 2012 - 03:53 PM
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Descent 3, Fallout, Space Rangers 2
#28
Posted 18 February 2012 - 06:44 PM
hmtinc, on 18 February 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:
If people are looking for massive UI changes, don't bother getting this preview. Although Apple lists that there will be over 100+ new features (not 3 to 6), you aren't going to notice much in this current release.
Other than the few features making headlines, (Messages, Notification Centre, Safari, etc) you won't see much.
Ported Games: Rollercoaster Tycoon 1, Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (both with all expansion packs including UCES),
Sim Tower, Yoot Tower, Need for Speed - High Stakes, Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit 2, RCT3
Aliens Vs. Predator, Armed and Dangerous, Re-Volt, Sid Meier's Railroads, Steam:Rush
#29
Posted 18 February 2012 - 07:09 PM
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