The good: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion's new iCloud integration and syncing features give you the same experience on all your devices. Upgrades to several core apps bring new and useful features for sharing and social connectivity.
The bad: Game Center, while finally available for Mac, still only has basic features. Dictation sends your voice to be translated at Apple servers, so you can't use it while offline. Gatekeeper keeps you from downloading unsafe programs, but it seems mostly unnecessary.
The bottom line: Though it's not a complete system or interface overhaul, Mountain Lion's improved core apps and new features make it well worth the $19.99 price.
In
the tale of two operating systems, Apple's Mountain Lion is a less
ambitious endeavor. Rather than completely rewriting the book as
Microsoft is attempting with Windows 8, Apple's latest operating system
simply cleans house, clearing clutter, while bringing more cloud and
sharing features into the fold -- specifically to make the desktop play
nice with iOS devices. Some of the new features come directly from iOS,
and many are welcome, but some seem unnecessary. Ultimately, what you
get is the familiar layout of Apple's operating system and much less of a
learning curve than with what we've seen so far of Windows 8's
completely new touch-screen-focused interface.
The Mountain Lion
release marks the second time Apple has offered an incremental upgrade,
rather than releasing a new cat entirely (previously Leopard upgraded to
Snow Leopard, for example). But don't let the modest feature or name
upgrades deter you from seriously considering Mountain Lion: Apple
doesn't change the game with the update, but improves everything from
Safari to Messaging and adds new iCloud and sharing capabilities that
make moving between devices easier.
Where Windows 8 dives head
first into the touch-screen tablet market with a completely revamped
user interface, Apple has improved upon what was already available, and
-- in my opinion, based on using both Mountain Lion and early versions
of Windows 8 -- Apple has made the wiser decision. By keeping the mobile
and desktop operating systems separate, Apple can still deliver the
best experience on each of its devices.
Installation
Installation for Mac OS X Mountain Lion requires a couple of steps. Start by running Software Update and check for Mac App Store updates -- this is always a good practice before a major upgrade, to make sure you have the latest versions of Apple's core apps.
From there, simply
navigate to the Mac App Store, purchase the upgrade, and begin
downloading. You'll need to have an account with Apple via the Mac or
iTunes Store in order to purchase Mountain Lion. The OS is about 4GB
(approximately the size of a full-length film download), so depending on
your connection, you may want to start the download before going to bed
or leaving for work. When the download is finished, the Mountain Lion
installer appears in the Dock and launches automatically.
Mac OS X
Mountain Lion installs in place, so you won't need to create a separate
disk or run the installation off an external drive. All of your photos,
documents, applications, and other saved files will be there when
you're finished with the upgrade. Once the installation is complete,
your Mac will automatically restart and you'll be ready to start
exploring.
iCloud integration makes getting started easy
As the first major operating system release since iCloud, Mountain Lion was built with several new cloud features integrated into many of the apps.
One great new feature for those with a brand-new Mac is the
ability to sign in through the Setup Assistant with your Apple ID and
sync all your settings along with your apps. Your e-mail, contacts,
calendars, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and more will automatically be
synced up with other devices and made ready for use on your Mac by
entering your Apple ID. This will be a welcome feature for iOS users
setting up a new Mac for the first time because right off the bat you'll
immediately be able to take advantage of all the new sharing features
in Mountain Lion. One important thing to note, however, is that Apple says that Facebook integration will come in a later free update this fall.
With Apple's latest version of Mac OS X, upon
launch of any app that lets you create documents, you'll now have all of
your cloud-synced projects available whether you created them on your
Mac or on an iOS device.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
Documents in the Cloud should make it easier for those who
work on multiple Macs and iOS devices. Now, when you launch a program
that produces documents (such as Pages, for example), you'll be
presented with what Apple calls the Open Panel. Here you'll see that
specific app's iCloud Document Library with all of the documents you
have saved to iCloud with the most recent at the top. Using a button at
the top, you can also choose to launch documents currently on your Mac.
The window supports document folders, letting you drag one document on
top of another to create a folder, just as you would arrange apps into
folders on an iOS device. As I talk about more of the new features in
Mountain Lion, you'll see many that are clearly ideas brought over from
iOS devices.
As I mentioned, Documents in the Cloud will work
with any Apple app that produces documents currently (like TextEdit and
Preview) along with all three iWork apps. Apple is also making it
available as an API for third-party developers, so expect other apps
that produce documents to come out with an update soon after Mountain
Lion is released.
Messages on the Mac
Those with iPhones or iPads running iOS 5 or later will appreciate the
update for Messages (and iMessage) in Mountain Lion. Now, whether on a
Mac or iOS device, you'll be able to take advantage of Apple's no-cost
texting features with iMessage, and the ability to send a text to an
iPhone from your Mac is certainly convenient. Messages (as opposed to
iMessage) will also let you communicate with the same services you did
with iChat, including AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Jabber. The way Apple
differentiates between the services is by making iMessage chats blue
and chats with other services green (similar to iOS devices).
The Messages app lets you chat with both Mac
users and people with iOS devices. You can add a picture by dragging and
dropping one in, but I wish there were a button for uploading an image.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
The Messages window is set up with all your recent
conversations on the left and the actual conversation window on the
right. Just like iOS, you'll get typing indicators to show your friend
is responding and delivery receipts that show your message has been
delivered to the device. But in Mountain Lion, you'll also be notified
when the recipient has read the message (only if the iOS user has
allowed for it in settings) -- a feature that will be added to Apple's
mobile devices in iOS 6.
Just like the iOS version of Messages,
you'll be able to start a group chat simply by adding more names at the
top. When you send your message it will be seen by all recipients and
their replies will be shown to everyone as well. In the Mountain Lion
version, you'll also have the ability to quickly switch to FaceTime
video chats using a button in the upper right of the chat window.
One
issue I noticed in the preview that remains in Mountain Lion is the
absence of a camera button to quickly add a picture to a message
(something that comes standard in iOS messages). Messages in Mountain
Lion lets you drag and drop an image, but in the case when you don't
have the image handy, it requires a few steps to go find one and drag it
into the interface. This is a feature where we prefer the iOS method,
so hopefully it will be added in a future update.
Safari
Apple's Web browser isn't the fastest Web browser overall, but
improvements in Mountain Lion have added more reasons to stick with it
on the Mac. With the Smart Search Field, Apple is taking a page from
other popular Web browsers like Google Chrome, making the address bar
serve double duty as your place to enter addresses and search the Web.
When you enter a search term, Safari displays Top Hits right below the
field based on your browsing history.
Across all the core apps, you now can click the
Sharing Button to send items through e-mail, via Messages, to social
sites, and other options based on the current app and content you are
sharing.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
iCloud integration in Safari also adds more features,
including a couple of new interface additions. With iCloud Tabs, Safari
now has a new cloud-shaped button next to the forward and back buttons
in the upper left. Once you sign in during initial setup with your Apple
ID, you'll now be able to view open tabs on all your Apple devices,
making it possible to pick up where you left off on another device
without missing a beat. Apple has added a sharing button to Safari as
well, where you'll find the options to add a page to your Reading List
or create a bookmark, but it also lists out ways to share a site via
e-mail, Message, Twitter, or Facebook. If you pick Message, Twitter, or
Facebook, Mountain Lion brings up a Share Sheet without ever leaving the
Web page you're currently on; sending via e-mail populates the e-mail
body with an image you're sharing, for example, and lets you fill in the
rest.
One major new interface enhancement for Safari is a joy to
use when running Mountain Lion with a trackpad. When you have a lot of
browser tabs open, the new Tab View lets you use a pinch gesture, then
use a two-finger swipe to browse your open tabs. A reverse-pinch returns
you to normal browsing. While mostly a cosmetic upgrade, once I got
used to pinching and swiping to browse tabs, it became second nature. In
my years reviewing Apple products, this is yet another example of how
Apple can make a small tweak to the interface that vastly improves the
experience. It may not be totally necessary (you could easily click to
look at each tab), but it's intuitive and saves time.
To round
out the updates to Safari, a few added features will make your surfing
smoother. Apple says it tested Safari (admittedly in-house) using the
SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and says that it's faster than Internet
Explorer 9, Firefox 13, and Chrome 20 (in that order). Check back for our official benchmark testing later this week.
Safari also uses your GPU for improved hardware acceleration for
noticeably smoother scrolling and faster loading of pages. A new Offline
Reading List lets you save Web pages for offline viewing -- great for
when you're going to be on a plane or in a no-service area. The browser
also supports Do Not Track (think of Google Chrome's Incognito mode) and
Password AutoFill for sites you return to frequently.
Safari is
arguably the most important software on your computer as your window to
the Internet, and in Mountain Lion, Apple has succeeded in bringing it
up to speed with competing browsers, and offers a few extras (like Tab
View, Sharing, and Cloud Tabs) that make common tasks much easier.
Game Center now on Mac, but it's not perfect
Mountain Lion leans a lot on the up-to-the-instant, multidevice syncing
capabilities of iCloud across several of the core apps, but you wouldn't
know it from the Mac OS X debut of Game Center. The perennially
underpowered social gaming hub of iOS has always been disappointing for
iOS gamers, and its arrival on Mac desktops won't do much to change
that.
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