OS X Mountain Lion Review 424
John Siracusa at Ars Technica has published a lengthy and detailed review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. (Lengthy enough that the review garnered a review of its own.) Siracusa methodically goes through all of the changes in the new version, covering everything from the minor new features to the overarching goals. Quoting:
"Despite the oft-cited prediction that Mac will eventually be subsumed by iOS, that's not what's happening here. Apple is determined to bring the benefits of iOS to the Mac, but it's equally determined to do so in a way that preserves the strengths of the Mac platform. Where we Mac nerds go wrong is in mistaking traditions for strengths. Loss aversion is alive and well in the Mac community; with each 'feature' removed and each decision point eliminated from our favorite OS, our tendency is to focus heavily on what's been lost, sometimes blinding ourselves to the gains. But the larger problem is that losses and gains are context-dependent. A person who never uses a feature will not miss it when it's gone. We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion. The fact is, we are not the center of the market, and haven't been for a long time. Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts.'"
A somewhat briefer review is available at ComputerWorld, and there's a quick one from John Gruber.
Gizmodo has a much more interesting article... (Score:2, Interesting)
"It feels like Apple has run out of ideas. Or worse, that Apple is too afraid to implement new concepts, fearing it will kill the company's golden goose. "
Re:Gizmodo has a much more interesting article... (Score:4, Interesting)
Big Difference though between..... (Score:4, Interesting)
the changes OSX is making and the dumb moves that ubuntu did.
Removal of scroll bars on OSX is not a big deal, Apple hardware had scrolling devices (magic mouse and multitouch pad) for a long time. so scrolling is not affected on that platform. Removal of scroll bars on Ubuntu was the stupidest move ever. I dont have a multitouch device to scroll with, so now I have to hit a 2 pixel bar on a window. WTF is that??!?!?! ROWARRGH!
Ubuntu needs to stop everything they are doing right now and support apple multitouch hardware and tell everyone to use X,Y or Z and suck it up. OR they need to stop chasing a UI that requires special hardware to make it useable.
Now the "single window" mode is retarded. on a 27" mac it is utterly stupid to do this. on a 11" macbook air? ok, I can see that. Dumbification of the UI needs to be optional. Let me have a "professional mode" to switch to a power users multiple window setup.
Re:Here we see the difference between Free and Sla (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as you do not mind having a botnet zombie.
Botnet malware doesn't just pop in out of nowhere. It's gets in when the user does something careless. It's gotten much easier to avoid issues without being excessively paranoid. If you like torrents or porn, quarantine them in a Linux VM. I believe Chrome (and maybe Firefox) now sandboxes websites as well. (of course, VM works here too) Change the moronic default settings to various programs so executables don't get launched without your direct action. (I blame software developers, including Microsoft, in the early 00's for this) There are other things to do as well, but you still get to enjoy your Windows gaming.
Re:Is it really all life and death? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you neglected to mention that you are as 'locked in" to your preconceptions about Apple, Microsoft, and even Linux to the point that you just assumes the 'competition' is doing something boneheaded, even though a read through the article in question would answer most of your preconceptions. The fact that it's marked insightful is pretty telling.
In what way has OS X "succumbed to tablet madness"?. When the your description of OS X is entirely counter to reality and shows that you have no clue as to what this version of OS X looks like, what the last version looked like, or the version before that, it speaks volumes. Slashdot is about anything that is anti-Apple, Anti-Microsoft, or pro-linux/android. It's no longer someplace to go for an adult discussion of new tech, new software, or new features. It's turned into an Android Thunderdome. I expect this post will be marked 'troll' or 'flamebait', or oddly enough 'Offtopic' even though the thread is an OS X thread because it speaks ill of the general bent of Slashdot these days. They've all put their blinders on and have turned into a Fox News of Technology unless the posts in question praise Google or Android regardless of the story.
OS X It looks nothing like a tablet OS and is nothing like Windows 8's push to tablefiy it's OS. It borrows some features that work well on a desktop or that are cloud centric, but that's about the extent of it (excluding Launchpad, which for the life of me I still can't figure out why they put it on the desktop). For most Mac users, it's just an OS Update. I'm betting a large number of Mac users can't even tell you the version of the OS, or the name for that matter, just as you would find on a Windows machine, or possibly a Linux machine if they are of the non-geek orientation.
Is wanting to upgrade to get some decent new features 'drinking the Kool-Aid'? I'm betting that for the majority of us, it's not a religious war. It's just a computer that fits our needs, and this is just an update that adds some decent features for $20 bucks.
Sounds like a better upgrade than Windows 8... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mountain Lion might be the thing that tips me over. The retina Macbook Pro is becoming hard to resist and there is no comparable Windows laptop on the horizon. I like Windows 7, I am comfortable with it, but if I am going to relearn stuff from scratch, I would pick ML over the travesty that is Windows 8. I'll pick something that doesn't show me a blocky touch based interface on a goddamn laptop. I never wish to use a touch screen on a laptop or a desktop, it's the most uncomfortable thing ever, I don't know why Microsoft and everyone forgot about Gorilla Arm. OSX doesn't look like it's going to anything that crazy, some of the things copied over from iOS, like notifications, are actually worth copying over. At least for now, Mac OS still doesn't put restrictions on anyone who wants to do stuff from the command line or install unapproved apps. App support in Macs has improved with growing market share. The only thing I will miss about Windows is games, but for the few times I do play games, dual booting with Boot Camp will do.
I can't think of a reason why I shouldn't 'learn' ML rather than learning Windows 8.
The rise and fall of general purpose computing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Slightly OT in that I'm getting away from the Apple-ness of the topic, but...
This is precisely why smart phones and pads are going to return us to the days of $2000 hard drives and $5000 PCs. The general population has needed to buy a PC or laptop in order to not be left behind in our increasingly computerized and online society. Now that the average person has access to surfing the web, reading email, and anything other than compute-intensive work in the palm of their hand, there is absolutely no need for them to buy desktops or laptops. The commodity surge of desktops and laptops is now passing us by, and we're going to see general purpose computing return to non-commodity prices.
To quote Samuel L. Jackson, "Hold on to your butts!"
Re:Apple isn't helping things (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, my "dumbed down laptop" has the latest generation of Intel chips, a dedicated graphics processor, the best display on any laptop anywhere, truly high-speed connectivity (Thunderbolt), and all kinds of goodies in the OS including a free IDE and tools for multithreading, process monitoring, etc, and I regularly do video editing, statistical analysis, 3D, and all kinds of other technical pursuits on it.
Yes, it's troubling that Apple has neglected their towers for a while. But very few industries require a tower instead of a well-designed laptop at this point. With a Thunderbolt disk array, I can edit 5 HD sources in real-time on the Retina MacBook Pro that shows a full HD video in a window. You don't need a tower to edit video, or to do a whole bunch of other things anymore.
Re:Here we see the difference between Free and Sla (Score:5, Interesting)
Free software doesn't exist in industries that does not involve computers itself. This is the fundamental limitation of the free-software model, since it relies on its own industry to support it - you need other software engineers to make it happen.
But, most people don't use computers to use computers, they use them to do something else that DOESN'T involve computers. People are only interested in what gets that job done.
For example, there is no better tool than Apple's Aperture in cataloging and publishing photos within an hour of doing a photoshoot for a fashion magazine or newspaper. Free software doesn't even exist in that industry. (Lightroom isn't as good...) So, what are you going to use to code a free-software version of Aperture? A bunch of eager fashion models and stylists? =^D Who's going to code the controls of your kitchen's microwave ovens? A bunch of chefs?
Nobody else really cares about software. You still have to pay to play in these industries. If you can't pay, you don't play. Go do something else.