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Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#51

Post by gearoidoc »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #32

-I'd probably pay $30 for the Airplay feature alone. -I don't know how Apple thinks they can push these web-enabled apps that only work on their platforms. A chat app that basically only lets you interact with Apple customers is kind of comical. -Gatekeeper won't win over any Apple critics, but it's actually more flexible/open than what a lot of people feared was coming (ie "App Store apps only"). -Notifications and…

"A chat app that basically only lets you interact with Apple customers is kind of comical"

Ehm, it's iChat linked to iMessage. It still supports chatting over gmail, yahoo etc.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#52

Post by Tichy »

Argorak wrote: post #16
zrgiu_ wrote: post #7

is there a specific reason they needed to update the entire OS for this ? Most of the new features are actually apps, and the rest wouldn't really justify a major version change.

Well, Ubuntu does this every 6 months. They also pick another silly name every 12. Maybe Ubuntu is becoming the role model here?

Ubuntu updates are free, though.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#53

Post by st3fan »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #49
st3fan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read what Gruber writes about that Gatekeep feature: My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. 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, render…

Malware writers will just get free ids and sign their malware. Will all of these OSX devices be regularly polling Apple to get a list of revoked certs? I guess this would be useful to prevent malware being installed, but it's not going to be massively useful to remove already installed malware. Especially if that malware can interrupt the polling. I wonder how difficult it will be to get developer IDs. Might be a mar…

If you are worried about that then just allow apps from the Mac App store? For many people that will be a good choice.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#55

Post by JonnieCache »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #49
st3fan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read what Gruber writes about that Gatekeep feature: My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. 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, render…

Malware writers will just get free ids and sign their malware. Will all of these OSX devices be regularly polling Apple to get a list of revoked certs? I guess this would be useful to prevent malware being installed, but it's not going to be massively useful to remove already installed malware. Especially if that malware can interrupt the polling. I wonder how difficult it will be to get developer IDs. Might be a mar…

>Malware writers will just get free ids and sign their malware.

Or, the signing key will be stolen, like it always is.

I'd wager that blackhats around the world are currently tendering to cartels for this contract as we speak.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#57

Post by oinksoft »

krig wrote: post #48
oinksoft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a scary preview of Apple's vision of desktop computing (which we all anticipated with the App Store being brought over from the iPhone world to the desktop): The safest place to find apps for your Mac is the Mac App Store. That’s because the developers who create them are known to Apple, and the apps are carefully reviewed before they’re accepted in the store. As I've had no reason to upgrade my home PC from…

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…

I don't think that's a very good comparison. A project in the Mac world begins and ends its life as a .app. This effort by Apple means that the vast majority of users will only see "approved" software. In the Linux world, most software begins as a .tgz, and earns packagers as it becomes more popular.

There are only a few things really keeping a package out of the main Debain repositories: Being "non-free" (which takes it out of "main"), being clearly malicious, and not attracting enough interest to have a maintainer/packager.

I think we've seen with the iPhone that Apple has very, very different criteria. Further, Debian hosts something in the ballpark of 20,000 packages: I seriously doubt we'll ever see such diversity for the Mac, especially with their developer fees.

The other force driving me away is their refusal to accept GPL3 software. I don't like having to build things myself that every Linux distribution provides so easily.

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#58

Post by jbrennan »

pilif wrote: post #41
st3fan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read what Gruber writes about that Gatekeep feature: My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. 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, render…

Gruber was telling that the Apple ID was going to be free. It isn't. It requires a Mac Developer account as far as I could understand it. When I was 15 I wrote a Taskbar dialer for Windows 9x and later NT (this was in the modem days. Of course I haven't updated it in ages and the only reason my old webpage is still there is because I found it by accident in an old backup, but here is a google search for it: https://w…

>Back then I had no permission to use a computer ("they make you stupid" was my parents argument) and certainly no credit card to pay anybody to do development - and even then, as a minor I would probably never have gotten that certificate.

Yes but things change. Old fart or not, you're into technology, we all have to realize things change!

Re: Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

#59

Post by idspispopd »

zrgiu_ wrote: post #7

is there a specific reason they needed to update the entire OS for this ? Most of the new features are actually apps, and the rest wouldn't really justify a major version change.

In these events they talk about the new features as they're the most recognisable for press, often examples of what some of the new APIs are capable. (Features, which could of course have been programmed to run atop 10.7 Lion.)

E.g. growl does system wide notifications, but it's not built-in, and Apple like to control these things so they may more easily interface them with other Apple devices. (E.g. Apple could very easily make their Apple TV notify the user's iPhone when a new TV episode has been downloaded, or even schedule it onto their Mac.)

With that in mind Apple have a history of meshing the experiences across their devices, the messages app is a recent example.

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