Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Features, not specs.

Nothing exciting. Let me quantify this before I get shot by the Apple fanboys. I'm not a Microsoft fanboy either but I am not buying the hype and feature sheet.

Example:

1. iCloud. Have Windows Live ID and Live Mesh integration in windows for nearly 3 years now. Works across mobile devices already.

2. Messages. Windows Live Messenger has social integration already which is on par with this.

3. Reminders. Windows Live calendar does this and gives you alerts through windows live messenger and email.

4. Notes. NOTHING on this planet compares to Microsoft's OneNote.

5. Notification center. Windows live has one built in that you can integrate with. Oh and you also have the system tray.

6. Share sheets. Windows has had "sent to" since about 1996.

7. Twitter. Windows live integration.

8. Game center. We have shops for that and Steam and all sorts. It's an open market.

9. Airplay mirroring. Woo yay etc. Windows media player (!) does this with my Sony Bravia with no complaints. I can right click a video file and select "play on Bravia" and it appears on it straight away. This required NO CONFIGURATION and no special boxes. Both have wireless cards in them. No store or DRM available or required.

10. Gatekeeper. Windows firewall is actually on par with this and is an application AND/OR system level firewall. Microsoft security essentials is the rest.

11. Chinese features. Windows is the mainstream OS in china for a reason (i.e. excellent language support).

The only thing above that cost anything is Windows (which cost effectively nothing as it came with the PC) and OneNote (which cost me 200GBP) and included Word, Excel and Outlook as well. Oh and the nice Acer TimelineX machine only cost me 400GBP, TV cost 300GBP so total 900GBP

Compare that to a MacBook which cost more than that to start with at 999GBP.

Oh and I don't have to pay 99GBP to write software that works on it. Visual Studio is free.

Doesn't add up.

Hmm.

If you think it's that possible then why not contact your congress person/senator and have them look into this? In fact, talk to them about drafting a law against not being able to install software of your choosing on a machine you buy. Or, at the very least, a law for being able to take your data with you when you decide to leave a platform. This wouldn't help China, Iran, Syria, etc. but it would at least give US citizens some protections.

Personally, I'm not very afraid of option 3 ever going away but I also am ready with a FreeBSD VM instance.

> On the other hand, it stops tons of malware. Signed binaries is considered one of the most successful anti-malware strategies by security experts. Are you saying otherwise?

As you've decided to pick anonymous security experts, I thought I'd chip in. I don't know if I'd call myself an expert but I've over a decade in industry breaking systems, fixing software and booting out bad guys, I'm speaking at BlackHat EU next month and I co-founded a security conference so I guess that means I'm not a complete security chump. I can categorically tell you that signed binaries are only part of a strategy, and not necessarily the best one at that. If your goal is to increase the cost of exploitation then signing can help, but so can a decent access control model (into which signing becomes a part thereof).

To put it another way, it's possible to defeat applocker (windows binary signing), iOS code signing on iOS 5.0.1, the XBox and Xbox 360's code signing restrictions, the PS3's code signing restrictions, and more recently, an analysis of RSA keys showed that between 2 and 4 out of every thousand keys are insecure due to weak randomness[1].

The bottom line is that code signing, like placebos only work if you believe them to unless they're backed up by something more solid to augment them and they form a stronger coherent strategy.

At this stage all code signing settings will do is encourage developers to get Apple IDs and for customers to use the App store as they know "it's safe". Even though we know it doesn't mean anything[2] to the end user in reality. The real thing that Apple will do is further on the line when they decide to make it so that you can only run signed apps (and this is at least the direction apple are taking) through their app store.

Your edge case point applies to countless open source developers, including those that worked on the original FreeBSD code that went into Darwin. Apple are of course, under the licences they've inheritied allowed to implement code signing, but please don't think this is an anti-malware measure, it isn't. It's about control of distribution. Anyone that wants to bypass code signing on an Apple product will find a way to do it.

[1] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/16/crypto_security/ [2] - http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/02/15/what-ios-apps-are-g...

Re: iCloud, Messages, Notes, Reminders: Apple has technically had all that for years too, these are all renamed apps. The thing is, now they have a massive mobile presence and they are working on integrating that with the desktop. That is the news. Feel free to compare when Windows grows a comparable mobile presence again, if ever. (Sadly, imho)

> 10. Gatekeeper. Windows firewall is actually on par with this and is an application AND/OR system level firewall. Microsoft security essentials is the rest.

Gatekeeper and the App Store is not about firewalling, but sandboxing.

> 11. Chinese features. Windows is the mainstream OS in china for a reason (i.e. excellent language support).

Maybe, in any case, that doesn't make catching up less interesting. I would also wager that most people in China use Windows for the same reasons for which they use IE6. I only know about Taiwan, but when your bank's customer support site only offers an ActiveX-powered video chat, then you have little choice.

> Oh and I don't have to pay 99GBP to write software that works on it. Visual Studio is free.

No, you can download Xcode for free, write unsigned apps and other people can choose to run unsigned apps.