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Apple Releases OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview

16K views 98 replies 35 participants last post by  Dr_AL 
#1 ·
#2 ·
#7 ·
Well, here comes the flood of 'iOS will ruin OSX' comments... Lol.

I'm liking the new features. Been wanting Messages on my MBP. The AirPlay mirroring is awesome and makes the just-released AirParrot app unnecessary. Notifications look good and might replace Growl for me. Reminders will get more use now.
 
#9 ·
I like Notifications, Messages, and Airplay Mirroring. I still don't see why Reminders is set apart from Calendars. Made no sense in iOS and makes no sense still. Game Center is a waste because users have manipulated the scores on it since the beginning, so to me it is worthless. The only good thing is the ability to play against friends.

This will give me a reason to hold out on a new MBP or iMac and wait for its release.
 
#11 ·
Apple today released a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion which brings popular apps and features from iPad to the Mac. Mountain Lion introduces Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center to the Mac, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay Mirroring.


Mountain Lion is the first OS X release built with iCloud integration with apps. The developer preview of Mountain Lion also introduces Gatekeeper, a security feature that helps keep users safe from malicious software by giving you control over what apps are installed on your Mac. The preview release of Mountain Lion is available to Mac Developer Program members starting today. Mac users will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store in late summer 2012.

“The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.”

The developer preview of Mountain Lion features the new Messages app which replaces iChat and allows users to send unlimited messages, photos and videos directly from Mac to another Mac or iOS device. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk. Starting today Lion users can download a beta of Messages and the final version will be available with Mountain Lion. Reminders and Notes help users create and track their to-dos across all devices. Game Center lets users personalize their Mac gaming experience, find new games and friends to play live multiplayer games, whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Mountain Lion includes notifications. Notification Center provides access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps. System-wide Share Sheets share links, photos and videos directly from Apple and third party apps. Twitter is integrated throughout Mountain Lion so users can sign on once and tweet directly from Safari, Quick Look, Photo Booth, Preview and third party apps. Mountain Lion also introduces AirPlay Mirroring, to wirelessly send a secure 720p video stream of what's on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV.

Apple says that more than 100 million users have iCloud accounts, and Mountain Lion makes it easier to set up iCloud and access documents across users devices. Mountain Lion uses users Apple ID to automatically set up Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Messages, FaceTime and Find My Mac. The new iCloud Documents pushes any changes to all your devices so documents are always up to date, and a new API helps developers make document-based apps work with iCloud.

Gatekeeper is a new security feature that gives you control over which apps can be downloaded and installed on your Mac. Users can choose to install apps from any source, just as they do on a Mac today, or they can use the safer default setting to install apps from the Mac App Store, along with apps from developers that have a unique Developer ID from Apple. For maximum security, users can set Gatekeeper to only allow apps from the Mac App Store to be downloaded and installed.

Click here to find out more about Mountain Lion.
 
#14 ·
AirPlay on all Apple devices is a necessity for the new Apple TV strategy to work.
 
#16 ·
I am looking forward to the messages app. the link is dead on their website (AKA completely removed right now)

What I think Apple is trying to do is get the attention of all the PC users, to get them to switch to Mac. A lot of people have iPads, iPod touch, iPhone, and they want to lure them away from Windows.

What i do not get is I just purchased Lion last July (or whenever it was released) and 1 year for an OS seems silly to me. Yes i know it was only 30 dollars, but look at all the updates for Snow Leopard. Lion is only on .3

I can see a lot of Mac users being pushed away from Apple because it just seems as though now it is just a money grab for them. I could be wrong, and it could be a great OS, but hopefully they give us some upgrade options when it is released.
 
#21 ·
Downloaded the Messages Beta application. Happy to see this app coming. I imagine there are millions of Mac users all trying to try the service at once, and it is beta, so there might be some glitches.

So far, application is downloaded and installed, I'm at screen trying to log into my Apple ID, and it's been spinning for about 5 minutes now.
 
#24 ·
Watching the video about Mountain Lion now (Still can't log into Apple ID through Messages).

Saw the part about Game Centre on the Mac. Would be neat if it could create "Groups" of friends, and then we create an ehMac Group to have regular game night again. :)
 
#25 ·
I'll upgrade just for AirPlay Mirroring alone. :)

I've got my iMac in my basement. A bit over a year ago, I completely renovated my basement, installed a new home theatre, and I wanted to be able to stream my Mac's video to the TV. I had the crew install a long HDMI cable from where my iMac was, to the home theatre. Being a cheap dutch guy, I ordered the long HDMI cable myself, as I could save some money. I thought I was ordering the thickest gauge cable (The one with the highest number), but instead, I ordered a very thin gauge cable and unfortunately it can't carry the signal consistently.

It's always bummed me out, but now with Airplay Mirroring, this will be awesome! Getting a wireless keyboard and Magic Trackpad, will be able to do stuff on the Mac, on my home theatre. :clap:
 
#30 ·
Well... that came outta nowhere, hey?

Apart from all of the iOS feature-ish stuff and the slow-motion merger of iOS and OS X (iOSX ?), this quote from John Gruber / Daring Fireball makes me hopeful:

...the recurring theme: Apple is fighting against cruft — inconsistencies and oddities that have accumulated over the years, which made sense at one point but no longer — like managing to-dos in iCal (because CalDAV was being used to sync them to a server) or notes in Mail (because IMAP was the syncing back-end). The changes and additions in Mountain Lion are in a consistent vein: making things simpler and more obvious, closer to how things should be rather than simply how they always have been.

Still, the only thing that's going to get me even a little bit excited isn't another cat. I need my iWork (Keynote/Pages and... ah, jeez... what's that third thing... nope. Sorry. don't remember. Oops.) fix.
 
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