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OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Tops Lion as Most Popular Mac Operating System

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ZZ Bottom

macrumors 6502a
Apr 14, 2010
829
258
Have three Hackintoshes which are all happy with 10.8.2; would have four if not for one stubborn PC.

For a while after Apple introduced "full screen apps" in Lion, I was really disappointed that they didn't offer a touch experience instead. After having used Windows 8 for the past 3 months, I know I was very wrong.

Full screen apps in 10.8 > awkward Windows 8 dual OS
 
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HenryDJP

Suspended
Nov 25, 2012
5,084
843
United States
FSMBP said:
Not a fan of this yearly desktop OS update. Devs are taking long to update their apps for the latest OS; by the time they do update, Apple announces a beta of the next version of OS X. (I'm not blaming Devs - I can't imagine them wanting to support multiple OSes within such a short timeframe)

I'm not saying pull a oldschool Microsoft and go 5 years between releases, but a 18-24 month schedule seems easier on consumers and Devs.
Click to expand...

Microsoft also announced annual OS upgrades. Time for the dev's to move fast or let someone else come up with a better app.
 
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Spungoflex

macrumors 6502
Oct 30, 2012
388
488
bobsentell said:
But 30% of all Macs would equal ~2% of all PCs. I guess this is great news and all but it is still being curb stomped by Windows Vista (5.67%). In fact, 10.6-10.8 combined just barely beat out the much maligned version of Windows.

Apple is generally a mobile company now. They may release new Macs from time to time, but I think they've either surrendered the desktop market or decided to no longer invest heavily in it. Apple needs to just continue to focus on their strengths lest Microsoft actually makes a move in the tablet space.
Click to expand...

There are more devices running OSX in the wild than at any time in the entire history of apple. Apple's share of the PC (desktop and laptop) market continues to grow, year after year after year. The growth of iOS and iDevices has been astronomical, so it's ridiculous to compare the two.

Just because iOS has been unbelievable successful doesn't mean OSX is failing. OSX is surging, just not as fast as iOS.
 
bobsentell

bobsentell

macrumors 6502a
Nov 14, 2008
836
0
Alabama
Spungoflex said:
There are more devices running OSX in the wild than at any time in the entire history of apple. Apple's share of the PC (desktop and laptop) market continues to grow, year after year after year. The growth of iOS and iDevices has been astronomical, so it's ridiculous to compare the two.

Just because iOS has been unbelievable successful doesn't mean OSX is failing. OSX is surging, just not as fast as iOS.
Click to expand...

But that isn't true. In the link I provided in my post, we actually saw a month-to-month drop for Mac OS during the heart of the Christmas buying season. Even if the drop was slight, that is hardly "surging".
 
DakotaGuy

DakotaGuy

macrumors 601
Jan 14, 2002
4,226
3,791
South Dakota, USA
bedifferent said:
1. 10.8 is selling well as it's currently sold on all new Mac's. Mac's are at an all time high in sales.

2. Snow Leopard 10.6 is still doing well, and is now used more than 10.7. A lot of Mac users do not like 10.7 or 10.8 for reasons many know.

3. Snow Leopard was the biggest Mac OS when it was released, and so was Leopard, Tiger, etc.

A 3 1/2 year old OS X release is still used strongly after two major OS releases. This is interesting as all new systems are sold with current OS's, and Mac sales are stronger than ever, yet Snow Leopard is being used more than Lion and just a tad below Mountain Lion. Apparently some users must be installing Snow Leopard over their new systems with their DVD's or disc images. That says more about 10.7/8 than anything.
Click to expand...

Well how many years did Windows XP remain the dominant Windows OS even after newer versions came out? Personally on the Windows side I still like Windows 7 better then Windows 8 at least on the desktop and laptop.
 
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HenryDJP

Suspended
Nov 25, 2012
5,084
843
United States
rmwebs said:
The thing is though. They really havent done any innovation on the OS. Look at the feature lists. It's all full over overhyped eye candy. Sure there have been improvements, but not anything major.

The top 'Features' Apple lists for Mountain Lion over Lion are:

- iCloud integration
- A reminders app
- A notes app
- iMessage (basically rebranding of iChat
- Facetime (as above)
- Notification Center (perhaps the most overhyped pile of junk)
- Facebook integration (big friggin' deal!)
- Game center (cant comment - never even opened it)
- Gatekeeper (which 99% of people disabled)
- Airplay (Useful, but could have been put into a minor update - airplay is a very, VERY small package)
- Twitter
- Dictation (cant comment)
- Powernap


If you pull out the real features, you've got 2, maybe 3 'real' features there. The rest is just 'padding'.
Click to expand...

Did you or do you have any new ideas in terms of feature set that you would like to share with us that would greatly benefit many of us or did you just want to point out what they aren't doing?
 
P

petsounds

macrumors 65816
Jun 30, 2007
1,493
519
If it wasn't for Apple forcing iOS developers to upgrade to Mountain Lion, I'd still be running Snow Leopard. The mdworker issues have STILL not been fixed months later, and overall ML is less stable on my Mac Pro. Logic Pro also has a lot of wonky display issues on ML. I have no use for social networking features built into the system, and the iCloud syncing is very dodgy. I think there's a couple nice features in ML, but overall I'd gladly go back to Snow Leopard if I was able.
 
macs4nw

macs4nw

macrumors 601
Sep 21, 2010
4,336
1,933
Next-door from the little old lady from Pasadena..
tigres said:
Almost a year into ML, and messages is still out of order, SMB is clunky, blah blah. It may be the most popular (only by force) but it is FAR from their best. SL FTW
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wonderspark said:
I think these numbers show just how great Snow Leopard is, being that Apple works hard to force our hands to adopt the latest from them.
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"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user". Tim Cook

Blame iOS-sification. OSX and iOS are two different animals, that are best kept separate. Here's where convergence is not desirable. What's intuitive on a phone or a tablet, is not necessarily so on a desktop. We're definitely not getting the best of both worlds. Although ML has some (very) useful features, I too will stick with Snow Leopard for now!
 
mrsir2009

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
macs4nw said:
"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user". Tim Cook

Blame iOS-sification. OSX and iOS are two different animals, that are best kept separate. Here's where convergence is not desirable. What's intuitive on a phone or a tablet, is not necessarily so on a desktop. We're definitely not getting the best of both worlds. Although ML has some (very) useful features, I too will stick with Snow Leopard for now!
Click to expand...

In my opinion messages is the only useful feature that ML introduced... Even though it is actually a Lion feature, but Apple canned the Beta to force everyone that wanted messages onto ML. And messages doesn’t even NEED to be an OS feature. It’s an app. Why not just have it for sale on the Mac App Store for a dollar?
 
QCassidy352

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Mar 20, 2003
12,028
6,036
Bay Area
unobtainium said:
I like Mountain Lion in theory but it's giving me Wi-if headaches and iMessages are all out of order for some reason. I'd like to see Apple really focus on consistency and quality control for their next release.
Click to expand...

I have both of those problems, and they are very annoying, especially the wifi. It's well past time apple fixed them. I'd consider going back to SL if it supported iCloud.
 
76ShovelHead

76ShovelHead

macrumors 6502a
May 30, 2010
527
32
Florida
FSMBP said:
Not a fan of this yearly desktop OS update. Devs are taking long to update their apps for the latest OS; by the time they do update, Apple announces a beta of the next version of OS X. (I'm not blaming Devs - I can't imagine them wanting to support multiple OSes within such a short timeframe)

I'm not saying pull a oldschool Microsoft and go 5 years between releases, but a 18-24 month schedule seems easier on consumers and Devs.
Click to expand...

Neither am I. I have a feeling my Core 2 Duo won't be making the cut for the next version of OS X.

OS 10.9 Requirements:
Intel Core i3 Processor or later. :rolleyes:

I would add Hyperthreading to the list, but Core i5 are still supported and don't have it.
 
FSMBP

FSMBP

macrumors 68030
Jan 22, 2009
2,712
2,623
HenryDJP said:
Microsoft also announced annual OS upgrades. Time for the dev's to move fast or let someone else come up with a better app.
Click to expand...

I know they did - hence my "oldschool Microsoft" in my original post.
 
M

Morshu9001

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
214
0
the capital of Assyria
maxwelltech said:
LOL Lion is now less popular than Snow Leopard despite being newer. Kind of like the relationship between Windows Vista and XP.
Click to expand...

It's because the Lion users went to Mountain Lion since they've already committed to using the OS that doesn't support Rosetta or older Macs.

I'd update past SL if the newer ones had @#$%ing Rosetta.
 
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