Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#211

Post by mrshoe » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

bwarp wrote: post #184

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…

Don't fall into the trap of comparing Apple's feature list with that of other vendors. Apple makes these lists of new features to compare one version of OS X to the last, but they don't make those grids full of green check marks and red X's to compare their products to competitors'.

There's a reason for that. New features might provide a reason to buy a $29 OS X upgrade, but they don't represent the reason people choose Mac over Windows. I choose Mac over Windows because the entire user experience is friendlier, more polished, and better integrated. It's the details of how the features are implemented and the way they work together that make for a superior product.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#212

Post by cake » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #25

bdunbar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating. I'm still on 10.6: no compelling reason to upgrade. By the time I _do_ upgrade I'm in for some future shock: like dropping a Victorian gentleman into Haight-Ashbury in 1968.

My work laptop is on 10.5.8...

I'm still on 10.5.8 too, I want to upgrade but I really don't see any reason why I should.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#213

Post by Lewisham » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:55 PM UTC

I know it's not a popular opinion, but yet again I feel like Apple has decided to simply keep status quo with Mac OS X, which is very much the same Mac OS X we got from about 10.3 onwards (Panther, wasn't it)?

Think about how different Ubuntu is now since then. Windows 8 is a real risk-take from a company that does not take risks (whether they were forced to do so or not is another argument). Mac OS X is... Mac OS X again.

I've been using Mac OS X since 10.2, and I will get another Apple machine for my next one, but I really don't know why they bother putting anything out if they're just going to phone it in each time. Pretty much everything added to Lion I really don't care for, and what they did add was minimal anyway.

I wonder if they really have the vision and the tenacity to actually move things forward, or whether iOS and Mac OS X are going to remain the way they are until the company can't take it anymore. They need a software person like hardware needs Johnny Ive. Someone to put their foot down, say "we're doing this" and follow through.

The next 10 years of Mac OS X cannot be the same as the last 10 years, can it?

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#214

Post by hmottestad » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:56 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #207

bwarp wrote: post #184

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…

OneNote only comes with Microsoft Office. Which you can also purchase for Mac. Xcode is free. A developer code signing certificate costs money whether you buy it through Apple or Verisign. Want to release trusted apps on Windows that don't throw up scary looking security warnings to your users that download them? Guess you'll need to pay $299 a year to Verisign or some other CA for that privilege. Gatekeeper is actua…

Mind you though, to spare some confusion, there is no OneNote for mac, even though mac has a special edition of Word that implements a few of the features of OneNote.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#215

Post by glhaynes » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

Lewisham wrote: post #213

I know it's not a popular opinion, but yet again I feel like Apple has decided to simply keep status quo with Mac OS X, which is very much the same Mac OS X we got from about 10.3 onwards (Panther, wasn't it)? Think about how different Ubuntu is now since then. Windows 8 is a real risk-take from a company that does not take risks (whether they were forced to do so or not is another argument). Mac OS X is... Mac OS X…

What is it you're wanting?

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#216

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #147

krig wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you realize that Debian and Ubuntu and most of the large distros already have this: Known, vetted packages, signed and trusted, distributed through a central database. Frankly, I think it's a great idea. People in general shouldn't be downloading and executing random binaries on their machines. I think it would be great if the major distros also refused to install unsigned binaries without explicitly being tol…

With Debian and Ubuntu, there is no difficulty installing arbitrary unsigned packages, putting your own binaries on and running them, etc. There is a source that the community recommends, but that's all it is -- a recommendation. That's not the case with OSX, as far as I can tell.

> With Debian and Ubuntu, there is no difficulty installing arbitrary unsigned packages, putting your own binaries on and running them, etc.

Changing a single setting in the Preferences app (once!) is "difficult" now?

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#217

Post by gurkendoktor » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

hahainternet wrote: post #159

antidaily wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no one wants that (I hope). Read the Gruber preview and you'll feel more at ease. OS X and iOS are not merging. He describes Mountain Lion as "a series of steps toward defining a set of shared concepts, styles, and principles between two fundamentally distinct OSes." http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion

I asked a few friends and couldn't get an answer. What features have been taken from OSX and put into iOS? It seems to me that contrary to Gruber's claim, OSX is moving towards iOS and iOS is moving towards its competition.

The ports of iWork and GarageBand felt like that to me. iOS changing from a web-driven OS into something that can be much better compared to a desktop machine.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#218

Post by orionlogic » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

janus wrote: post #106

orionlogic wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am excited as well in AirPlay Mirroring so i watched several times in the demo. It seems video plays with Quicktime. So lot's of video formats are not compatible like mkv's, iso's etc... If somehow i am able to mirror VLC i will run and buy Apple TV at once.

If you install Perian, Quicktime supports expands to include many more formats http://perian.org/ But I agree and would welcome the support for VLC too!

I already have Perian. It's not supported well imho. Just try to open a 8gb mkv and it broke QT.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#219

Post by ori_b » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 4:59 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #169

moe wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time they took inspiration from iOS we ended up with "Launchpad", an inverted scroll-wheel, and the god-awful "restart all applications after reboot"-nuisance that cannot be fully disabled. Thanks but no thanks.

You like restoring all your applications by hand every time you have to run Software Update?

I reboot because I want a clean slate. Otherwise, I put the machine to sleep.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#220

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #187

ElliotH wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can solve that by charging for access to the beta program surely?

Yes, but Apple doesn't want to allow people to pay to get into a Beta. They want only devs taking part. A fee to enter the dev program seems like the best solution to me. Honestly they should increase it to $199 to help weed out the app spammers.

There's enough money in app spamming that it would have to be a lot higher than that to put them off.

As a rule the people who act like arseholes have at least as much money as those who don't, I don't think it's going to put them off.

I agree a nominal fee is reasonable as it puts another barrier in their way (you can check for duplicate memberships off the same card for instance so they have to get multiple cards) but the actual financial amount isn't a major barrier I don't think.