OS X Mountain Lion announced

I had to check to make sure it's not April 1. I guess there's a lot of iOS influence, and it's coming this summer. I'll read more about it after I stop laughing.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain...

Ars Technica preview

Interesting how both major PC companies are convinced that what consumers really want out of their desktop experience is a mobile experience.. Time will tell...

I'm just waiting to see what cat we get after this. OS X Ocelot?

TheGameguru wrote:

Interesting how both major PC companies are convinced that what consumers really want out of their desktop experience is a mobile experience.. Time will tell...

I was just thinking that "inspired by iPad" was precisely what I didn't want to see in my desktop OS. I'm curious to try out Windows 8 on a tablet, but tablets aren't desktops.

NSMike wrote:

I'm just waiting to see what cat we get after this. OS X Ocelot?

IMAGE(http://www.epicnews.gr/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/mac-os-x-nyan-cat1.jpg)

I'm not sure how it looks like OS X is becoming a mobile experience. There'll be more integration of iCloud, as well as what I'm doing on my phone and what I'm doing on my computer now. I use Reminders and Notes all the time on my phone and I'd love to be able to work with them on my computer, or see everything tied together in an OS X Notification Centre.

Looks good to me so far. When Lion came out, I turned on scroll bars*, reversed scrolling and ignored Launch Pad. They just need to do something about that name. Is it 10.8? Can I just call it 10.8 instead?

[size=8]*Actually I didn't, I just said that for rhetorical purposes.[/size]

So is Gamecenter Apple's push to get games onto the Mac? It would be pretty weird to see allot of IOS games say they include Mac support. Its something but I don't think the IOS ecosystem is the type of games people were hoping for. Most of those games can be played in the browser (Flash / HTML5) for free anyways.

Airplay Mirroring sounds cool...

Fun fact: "Mountain Lion" and "Puma" reference the same animal. Does this mean that 10.8 is actually 10.1? That said, I actually like most of the features mentioned so far.

complexmath wrote:

Fun fact: "Mountain Lion" and "Puma" reference the same animal. Does this mean that 10.8 is actually 10.1? That said, I actually like most of the features mentioned so far.

A mountain lion killed our neighbors dog a couple weeks ago and has the whole neighborhood freaked out. Wondering if the naming of this after a killing machine could lead to some lawsuits...

PAR

complexmath wrote:

Fun fact: "Mountain Lion" and "Puma" reference the same animal. Does this mean that 10.8 is actually 10.1? That said, I actually like most of the features mentioned so far.

Memories!

IMAGE(http://toastytech.com/guis/osxfolders.jpg)

The most interesting bit to me is that Apple has moved to a signed-code setup with OS X, called Gatekeeper. Fortunately, you can opt out if you wish:

IMAGE(http://www.malor.com/gamerswithjobs/mtn_lion_gatekeeper-4f3d1c9-intro.jpg)

(image mirrored from this Ars Technica article, in case they don't like hotlinking.)

This is fine with me, and is, in my view, where iOS should always have been, at least with WiFi-only models.

Note, however, that all they now have to do is remove one radio button, and you no longer really own your laptop. You'd have all the downsides of ownership, plus all the downsides of a rental. ("mother, may I?")

One possible point of contention, which might stop me from upgrading: I want that middle button to allow me to add new certificates to my own master store, so that I can sign and trust my own executables. As long as I have control over the keys, this is a great feature. But if I don't have control over the keys, then the computer is being turned into a weapon that can be used against me. At first, that will be to enforce 'Trusted Computing' (which means the CONTENT COMPANIES can trust my computer, not that *I* can), but it wouldn't have to stop there. Apple could use that to implement any arbitrary restrictions they want, like the one for iOS that says nobody can write a replacement for iTunes, or that nobody can write an interpreter.

As long as I control the keys, it's a powerful security feature. But if I don't, then it's of little value to me, and could potentially be a huge minus, enough for me to leave the platform.

*Legion* wrote:

Memories!

And it was a huge improvement over 10.0, though I can't remember whether 10.1 or 10.2 was the first version that I didn't find myself occasionally rebooting into OS 9 in order to get work done.

Anyway, back in 2012, I'm a little surprised that they're going back to yearly OS X releases.

Continuing to make iOS and OS X more similar clearly fits with their strategy (after she'd had an iPad for a while, my mother started talking about maybe getting a Mac; she's in the target market for that part of things). And, well, Gatekeeper does look like a step in the direction Malor has warned us about Apple taking.

[Edit: And Malor weighed in while I was writing that! ]

The list of supported Macs has made its way to the Internets. If you're worried about Gatekeeper, or Software Update being rolled into the Mac App Store, check the list: maybe 10.8 won't even be installable on your computer—dodged a bullet there, maybe!

(My iMac makes it; my wife's BlackBook, not so much.)

Gravey wrote:

The list of supported Macs has made its way to the Internets. If you're worried about Gatekeeper, or Software Update being rolled into the Mac App Store, check the list: maybe 10.8 won't even be installable on your computer—dodged a bullet there, maybe!

(My iMac makes it; my wife's BlackBook, not so much.)

my trusty Mac Pro is on that list... well.. it lasted a good long time.. (mid 2007 model)

Malor wrote:

The most interesting bit to me is that Apple has moved to a signed-code setup with OS X, called Gatekeeper. Fortunately, you can opt out if you wish:

There's the developer side to that too, this article approaches it from the games angle, but I don't see why it doesn't apply to everything else too.

Essentially to publish something to Lion, it needs to be through the app store, you've got to get 'identified' with apple (which is going to have a non-zero cost to it, whether that be time, money, etc), or nothing if the customer is on the lowest setting. However, if the customer has that set high, you've got to ask your customers to lower the security setting to run your program.

Imagine that as the experience that greets someone using your program for the first time:
"Hi, our program isn't on the app store (*), but we are identified with apple so can you go to the gatekeeper control panel and lower this security setting?"
"Hi, our program isn't on the app store and we're not identified with apple(*), can you go to the gatekeeper control panel and turn this security setting off?"
(* because we didn't want to, because apple rejected us, because it would cost us too much)

That really comes across as either a massive user experience failure, or that apple is trying to heavily dissuade developers from their platform if they can't pass muster with them.

I dunno, Guru, there's no major difference between the 2007 and 2008 models, I don't think. It looks like planned obsolescence to me.

I'd be furious if Apple told me my $4500 computer wasn't good enough anymore for no real reason, just that they wanted to sell me another $4500 computer.

I haven't checked every model in detail, but from comparing the specs of some of the supported and unsupported models, it looks as though Mountain Lion requires a CPU that supports the SSE4 instruction set. At least that would explain the Mac Pro 2008 vs 2007 cutoff, along with at least some of the others. Presumably there's some heavily optimised portion of Cocoa or the kernel that takes advantage of the new instructions.

Scratched wrote:
Malor wrote:

The most interesting bit to me is that Apple has moved to a signed-code setup with OS X, called Gatekeeper. Fortunately, you can opt out if you wish:

There's the developer side to that too, this article approaches it from the games angle, but I don't see why it doesn't apply to everything else too.

Essentially to publish something to Lion, it needs to be through the app store, you've got to get 'identified' with apple (which is going to have a non-zero cost to it, whether that be time, money, etc), or nothing if the customer is on the lowest setting. However, if the customer has that set high, you've got to ask your customers to lower the security setting to run your program.

Imagine that as the experience that greets someone using your program for the first time:
"Hi, our program isn't on the app store (*), but we are identified with apple so can you go to the gatekeeper control panel and lower this security setting?"
"Hi, our program isn't on the app store and we're not identified with apple(*), can you go to the gatekeeper control panel and turn this security setting off?"
(* because we didn't want to, because apple rejected us, because it would cost us too much)

That really comes across as either a massive user experience failure, or that apple is trying to heavily dissuade developers from their platform if they can't pass muster with them.

It is interesting to see how this shakes out for the smaller indie developers that were supporting the Mac platform.. either they will embrace the App store and deal with losing a % of rev to Apple or they just ignore the platform for "greener" pastures.

I wonder if Microsoft will attempt to follow suit with integration of Xbox Live Marketplace for their Windows platforms.

I read a blog a while back written by one developer who sold more copies of his software in his first month on the Mac App Store than in the previous four years (IIRC) it was available via other means. In general, I think the added visibility is well worth the lost off revenue per unit for indie developers.

And I guess that is Apple's motivation in the end.. what appears to be anti-consumer to some...really isnt to the masses. Just look at the iOS ecosystem.. for the most part people just don't care about the behind the scenes stuff.. just deliver me a consistent experience and make it easy to get new stuff.

A blog post with some good thoughts about Gatekeeper from a Mac developer.

I personally think that it's also worth noting that "have to register a developer ID to sign code if you want your users to feel comfortable" is a heck of a lot lower barrier to entry than what it takes to effectively build software for Windows. I'd rather have code signing and freely available dev tools than the opposite.

NSMike wrote:

I'm just waiting to see what cat we get after this. OS X Ocelot?

They should partner with the producers of Archer for that.

TheGameguru wrote:

And I guess that is Apple's motivation in the end.. what appears to be anti-consumer to some...really isnt to the masses. Just look at the iOS ecosystem.. for the most part people just don't care about the behind the scenes stuff.. just deliver me a consistent experience and make it easy to get new stuff.

Yeah, honestly since getting a Mac I always buy the App store version of a program, it's just less overall hassle...

TheGameguru wrote:

And I guess that is Apple's motivation in the end.. what appears to be anti-consumer to some...really isnt to the masses. Just look at the iOS ecosystem.. for the most part people just don't care about the behind the scenes stuff.. just deliver me a consistent experience and make it easy to get new stuff.

Users don't care, that's for sure. Or, more precisely, they don't understand why they should care. They don't realize how much of computing has been shaped by the DIY hacker culture, and how much they would lose if that were stomped out.

What's proposed in Mountain Lion is OK. Code signing is a Good Thing. Most users should simply install trusted binaries. The only reason anyone is concerned is because of how Apple went full-on lockdown with iOS. There's a big difference between only allowing signed code as a default, and only allowing signed code as the only option.

Gatekeeper sounds cool but I would want more granular control that what Apple is likely to give us. Like I want to go with App Store & Signed + app X, Y and Z. Hopefully there will be some kind of tool or commandline hack to allow this.

But I haven't heard of a single must-have feature (which was how I felt about Lion and Snow Leopard for the most part). Of course I only recently got the Lion update (last week on my MacBook and Saturday on my Hackintosh) so I am obviously not the day one must have type of user.

And just to drive zoologistically minded insane I purpose Mac OS X 10.9 Cougar

Rykin wrote:

Gatekeeper sounds cool but I would want more granular control that what Apple is likely to give us. Like I want to go with App Store & Signed + app X, Y and Z. Hopefully there will be some kind of tool or commandline hack to allow this.

But I haven't heard of a single must-have feature (which was how I felt about Lion and Snow Leopard for the most part). Of course I only recently got the Lion update (last week on my MacBook and Saturday on my Hackintosh) so I am obviously not the day one must have type of user.

And just to drive zoologistically minded insane I purpose Mac OS X 10.9 Cougar ;)

If it's 30 bucks like the last OS update, I think the refinements are worth it. The Lion OSX thing was great on a laptop.

Gravey wrote:

The list of supported Macs has made its way to the Internets. If you're worried about Gatekeeper, or Software Update being rolled into the Mac App Store, check the list: maybe 10.8 won't even be installable on your computer—dodged a bullet there, maybe!

(My iMac makes it; my wife's BlackBook, not so much.)

w00t! My old macbook5.2 just makes the cut.

Rykin wrote:

Gatekeeper sounds cool but I would want more granular control that what Apple is likely to give us. Like I want to go with App Store & Signed + app X, Y and Z. Hopefully there will be some kind of tool or commandline hack to allow this.

That is in fact how Gatekeeper works already. If an app isn't allowed by your current GK settings, you can still run it anyway, from an option in the right-click menu. You get an are-you-sure dialogue the first time you run an app that way, but after you've run any particular app once, GK marks it as trusted and won't bother you about it again.

There's a big difference between only allowing signed code as a default, and only allowing signed code as the only option.

They're working toward that, since there's functionality in OS X that can now only be accessed by App Store applications. So they're headed for full lockdown eventually -- unlocked software "will run", but it won't be able to use features introduced in Mountain Lion or later. It'll be functional lockdown, while they lie through their teeth and tell you that the OS is open.

As it turns out, Gatekeeper is not true code-signing -- it only checks when the 'downloaded' bit is set on an application, and then promptly clears that bit. If the app is then trojaned by something else, it'll still run. So Gatekeeper is almost purely cosmetic. It's driving you to the App Store, without giving you much in the way of real security.

Awesome news. You probably just broke your NDA though. Apple Legal will be there in 5... 4... 3... 2.........

DanB wrote:

w00t! My old macbook5.2 just makes the cut.

Same here. Early 2009 MacBook FTW!!!!!!!! Though the part of me that would love to get a new one is sad that I can't use this as a reason while the part of me that can't afford a new one is happy that I can't use this as a reason.