Apple Releases Final Mac OS X Mountain Lion to Developers

http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/apple-releases-final-mac-os-x-mountain-lion-to-developers/

by jpadilla_ • 14 years ago

48 82 14 years ago

taligent2• 14 years ago

Something very odd is happening at Apple. Either there is a massive shortage of developers (unlikely) or developers have been moved to a new project (AppleTV ?).

Because Mountain Lion and iOS6 are by far the most underwhelming updates yet in terms of features.

chrisdroukas• 14 years ago

Eh. OS X has been on somewhat of a tick-tock update cycle since Leopard. Add features then refine them.

Also, it's twenty bucks.

dr42• 14 years ago

The cost has nothing to do with the product, that's determined based on other factors, like how many Mac's OSX sells. There's no straightforward relationship between price number of features.

The direction appears to be cheap upgrades, and merging feature sets between IOS and OSX so eventually there's one operating system that changes in unison.

taligent2• 14 years ago

I think I might have been misunderstood. I have no complaints with Mountain Lion and think it offers tremendous value.

My point was whether there had been a movement of developers to a new iOS/OSX based project e.g. like an AppleTV. Because it seems that iOS6 and Mountain Lion combined seem to lack the combined punch of previous releases.

ary• 14 years ago

What exactly would have been overwhelming?

tensor3• 14 years ago

ZFS file system. Fixing iCal and Address book by returning them to proper non-skeuomorph applications, maybe even adjusting the UI to the strengths of computers rather than bring in the inefficiencies of the paper tools we left behind.

Proper Mail.app plugins. Not limiting the notification system to App Store apps. Finder replacement. Maybe with something like semantic tagging replacing folders, complete with proper filesystem level unix support.

Even bigger pie in the sky features: distributed process migration. If you are at home and have multiple computers, why not borrow your desktops CPU to do heavy processing (say for photos or video?)

In other words, features targeting professionals, the opposite of Apple current strategy.

edit: these would be overwhelming to me

mkaltenecker7• 14 years ago

Does the amount of stuff added matter? If the quality is good I honestly don’t care.

Lion was a bit of a dud. Mountain Lion doesn’t add much but it improves massively on Lion. It corrects its mistakes. I’m very much ok with that, I don’t need flashy new features. I really don’t want Apple to start pulling features out of there ass (especially now that they switched to a yearly update cycle), mere refinements every year for something mature like OS X would be awesome.

elithrar• 14 years ago

They have also moved to an 18 month release cycle for OS X[1], so we should not expect huge swathes of changes in each release.

[1] http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/143731/mac-os-x-mountain-li...

yottabyte47• 14 years ago

I thought they announced they were moving to a yearly release cycle.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/44444/mac-os-x-updates-yearl...

CoolGuySteve• 14 years ago

After Snow Leopard, they changed to a development cycle consistent of two week sprints followed by a one week convergence period. Stuff that can't get in by the specified milestone gets pushed back, moved, or cancelled.

It actually makes for a nicer development model than the 'everything doesn't work for a year and then miraculously comes together 4 months before release' development model. For example, with Snow Leopard, XCode became garbage collected and was unusable for like 50 releases in a row.

Ultimately, while you get a slightly less buggy release that comes out on time more or less, the features seem less ambitious.

bluthru• 14 years ago

Over 200 new features and plenty of behind-the-scenes refinements, all for $20 and 12 months after Lion. Sounds like they're firing on all cylinders in Cupertino.

http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html

FireBeyond• 14 years ago

Beg to differ / disagree. I'd say there's a lot less than 200 features, most are "refinements". I mean, really, is "Date Picker in Calendar now has a mini Calendar" is a "new feature"? A new widget on a control?

r00fus• 14 years ago

Underwhelming by what means?

Small features like VIP whitelists for Mail.app, the Finder "share" button, and bigger features like Power Nap are significant improvements for many users.

I'm all about the future made into reality, but what kind of features do you see in other recent OS updates that are a) successful and not buggy as hell and b) ambitious enough to be not considered "underwhelming"?

pooriaazimi3• 14 years ago

The refined App sandbox and new system services (through XPC) are a major under-the-hood change. I don't have time to go through it, but they seem to have changed erything in OS X for XPC (watch WWDC sessions if you're interested).

But I completely agree with your first point. iWork hasn't been updated since 2009... I just can't believe it. It's still not on iCloud so if you want to share files between iOS and iWork on Mac, you have to manually copy and upload them. It's disgusting.

chrismealy• 14 years ago

Anybody know if Messages has improved? The beta I'm using is buggy as hell.

akulbe• 14 years ago

Very much so!

dguaraglia• 14 years ago

Sorry, that didn't clarify much. Is "very much so buggy as hell" or "very much so fixed"? I'm confused :(

DeepDuh2• 14 years ago

One question about messages: Does it only work with iMessages or does it actually integrate my SMS when the iPhone is in the same network?

paupino_masano• 14 years ago

It only works with iMessages. You're right though: SMS functionality (somehow) would be pretty awesome.

sneak7• 14 years ago

It's vastly better in the DPs. They haven't updated the beta _at all_ since it was released months and months ago.

lobster_johnson• 14 years ago

But still no MSN integration, right? I still have some MSN contacts that forces me to stick to Adium.

rangibaby4• 14 years ago

I think Apple has made a lot of improvements at their end. I no longer get red badges that won't go away(!) for whatever reason.

bstar775• 14 years ago

Can anyone comment if airplay is disabled on pre 2011 macs? I'm going to be royally pissed if airplay is disabled because I'm missing some BS drm chip. Hopefully the era of "Jailbreaking" macs has not started.

dylanvee• 14 years ago

AirPlay mirroring relies on Intel Quick Sync Video support in your CPU: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video

ken• 14 years ago

Good to know, but it's still a bit disappointing that no Mac Pro can do AirPlay.

I wonder if there's a new API coming down the pipe for this. The obvious way to implement AirPlay mirroring, in my mind, would have been to add Quick Sync Video support as an optimization to existing video APIs, and then simply have AirPlay mirroring use that. Then not only could people with lots of free GPU cycles but no Quick Sync Video CPU (alas, like me) use AirPlay mirroring, but other video apps would automatically take advantage of the new performance.

zdw• 14 years ago

If anything it may be a CPU/GPU restriction that holds you back.

Modern Intel CPU's have a quicksync feature which is H.264 encode assist in the HD 3000 and 4000 GPU. These features may be required to make airplay mirroring work.

Similar hardware is in the A5 chip in the iPad 2 and up, and iPhone 4S and up.

fpgeek• 14 years ago

Is quicksync also behind Intel Wireless Display? Despite needing to by special recievers, I've found it pretty handy.

st3fan2• 14 years ago

DRM Chip? What did that crazy rumour come from?

Zev3• 14 years ago

For a couple years, Apple shipped Macs with a TPM[1] chip from Intel.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

bstar775• 14 years ago

I apologize, I made the mistake of reading cultofmac a bit too literally. http://www.cultofmac.com/177259/why-cant-macs-older-than-201...

gte910h3• 14 years ago

Are you talking about being an Airplay source or destination?

AirServer functions as a destination already: http://www.airserverapp.com/

For a source, Airfoil works for audio: http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/

It looks like a hardware limitation if you don't have the ISQV, you're SOL.

bstar775• 14 years ago

I need it as a source to stream my son's movies. Getting tired of using PS3 media server. I'd much rather organize the library in iTunes.

mkaltenecker7• 14 years ago

Quick Sync is not DRM. It’s a video de-/encoder.

dave842• 14 years ago

Check out AirParrot, it's $10. Fullscreen AirPlay audio and video.

It works fine on my 2008 Macbook but it gets a little hot and noisy. The lag is noticeable but tolerable, fine for browsing the web but not gaming. Audio/video sync is fine too for watching flash videos or whatever.

bstar775• 14 years ago

Will this work well for movies? I'm mainly trying to simplify the streaming for my 3 year olds dvd library from my iMac to a PS3.

ethank• 14 years ago

Still filing some radars against this, including the lingering text formatting issue in Mail.

If this follows the typical pattern there will be some sys update right after public release.

rangibaby4• 14 years ago

Apple .0 software always has at least one showstopper.

My favorite was the way the initial release of SL hosed fonts that it decided conflicted with the system ones. Like non-Apple versions of Helvetica. Thanks Apple! ;-)

cdrxndr• 14 years ago

Just bought a new Macbook Pro and have recently gotten my first taste of Lion. Two words: kernel panic.

Hoping for a stability boost on this one. No way my entire overpowered system should crash from running a browser, text edit, and Skype.

sneak7• 14 years ago

Check your hardware. xnu is incredibly stable. It may also be a 1.0 driver, considering what you're running it on. You _are_ on the absolute cutting edge of the universe right now, GPU-wise, after all.

Lion itself is rock solid.

rangibaby4• 14 years ago

Agreed. The only KPs I've gotten since at least ~Snow Leopard have been hardware-related. Off to the Genius Bar!

shadesandcolour2• 14 years ago

To toss my hat into the "i haven't had any problems so no one had any problems" ring, I've only seen on kernel panic and that was because I had just put some bad memory in. Lion's gotten way better, make sure you do all the updates and you should be fine.

Zev3• 14 years ago

Retina MBP? If so, I can vouch for things being much better in 10.8 than 10.7.

jasomill2• 14 years ago

Do you have any third-party drivers installed? I've been using Lion on a MacBook Pro since release and I've never had a kernel panic.

You might also look into hardware diagnostics — not sure if Apple Hardware Test is still available, but the Genius Bars certainly have something — as intermittent kernel panics from flaky hardware aren't unusual.

Raticide• 14 years ago

Sounds like a hardware issue. The only time I've ever seen OSX kernel panic is with bad hardware.

Get that sucker replaced.

hollerith• 14 years ago

Never had Lion kernel panic. In fact, in about 1200 hours of use, I've had to reboot it only once to get it working right again.

greedo3• 14 years ago

I was looking forward to ML until I read the supported hardware and found that my 2006 Mac Pro won't be supported. This has happened in the past with other Macs, but this is the first time it has bit me.

My Pro is perfect for me, I have it maxed at 32 GB of memory, dual optical drives, and 4TB of local disk. Quad 2.66GHz cores is more than enough for me.

I understand that things like display Airplay mirroring depend on newer CPUs/GPUs, but ML should still be supported, just with fewer features.

And yes, I know this is a 6 year old system. But it's still a good solid system with a long life ahead of it. I'll keep running Lion on it until something dies (system board?) that's irreplaceable.

sneak7• 14 years ago

Agreed, that is bullshit. That system is more than capable.

Apple shouldn't penalize anyone in software for paying a small price premium for their ultra-reliable hardware.

jdboyd• 14 years ago

When 10.5 came out, a lot of unsupported systems only required a minor hack to make 10.5 install (copy the DVD to HD, edit a file, burn back to DVD).

With luck, there will be an easy hack this time as well. I believe the factor that decides which machines got cut off is the lack of 64bit EFI, which Apple requires for booting a 64bit kernel. Some people have already worked out how to use hackintosh tools to boot from Legacy Mode into a 64bit EFI and then into a 64bit kernel on the 2006/2007 Mac Pros, which apparently increases expansion card compatiblity (particularly making it possible to put unflashed PC video cards in the machine). Also, after doing this, some of the older MacPro video cards will be unsupported (such as the 7300GT). A suitable Radeon replacement is probably cheap though.

It is too early to tell, but with luck the same thing can be done by dedicated MacPro owners to get 10.8.

Personally, I'm very disappointed that my wife's MacBook is also on the unsupported list. I will probably end up just replacing her laptop rather than trying to hack it.

greedo3• 14 years ago

If the hacks progress to the point where I can upgrade to a card that supports display mirroring via Airplay, I may look into it. The video card on this system is its only weak spot in terms of reliability. Too much WoW burned out two prior cards, and replacement cards are outrageous.

EDIT: Now I see that it's a CPU issue, not GPU, so I'm screwed. Maybe I'll end up getting a new Mini to replace my old one for HTPC.

smashing• 14 years ago

What's the point of upgrading to ML? It seems pretty unimpressive.

greedo3• 14 years ago

Airplay mirroring was the first "gotta have" feature for me, but my videocard is too old to support it, regardless of whether I can hack ML to run on my system.

Apple Releases Final Mac OS X Mountain Lion to Developers

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