OSX has left the building...

Krazy Bill said:

With the "Back to the Mac" campaign nearing an end, what's left for the next OSX-Cat to offer?. Other than the remaining things Apple can port over from iOS6 (which are minor) before they're in synch, I wonder what 10.9 will bring in 10 months or so?

There's nothing left. Just like iOS has been basically the same for a long time, OSX will most likely maintain the same look and feel from now on and only undergo minor changes. And Apple now has the release schedule to corroborate this. (more frequent updates always diminishes expectations).

Personally, I think OSX "innovation" peaked with Leopard. I consider Snow Leopard a badly needed rewrite of Leopard and what Leopard should've been. Same goes for Lion/ML. Love it or hate it, Lion was a big change.

Perhaps I'm a fool but I'm waiting to see what Apple builds "on top of" Mountain Lion once all the iOS crap is done. Can't imagine what that will be though. But if the precedent that Apple has set with the last two "sub" cats means anything (2 Leopards and 2 Lions now), then 10.9 will be a new critter entirely and needs the innovation to warrant that distinction.

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you right it will be small changes to keep up with iOS, as long as it stays a small price people will buy it

Just upgraded to Mountain Lion last night, will have a bash through it later. But it doesn't seem vastly different from Lion.

The problem I'm starting to see with Apple is the whole "everything just works" philosophy is great, but they are starting to simply hide behind it and not innovate as creatively as before.

Ironically, Windows 8 looks far more daring, creative, risky and attractive than anything Apple have done to OS X since Leopard. I have to use Windows 7 at work, it's solid (with a dose of usual nonsense).

But Apple need to step it up next year, and def with iOS 6-7.

JesalTV said:

Just upgraded to Mountain Lion last night, will have a bash through it later. But it doesn't seem vastly different from Lion.

The problem I'm starting to see with Apple is the whole "everything just works" philosophy is great, but they are starting to simply hide behind it and not innovate as creatively as before.

Ironically, Windows 8 looks far more daring, creative, risky and attractive than anything Apple have done to OS X since Leopard. I have to use Windows 7 at work, it's solid (with a dose of usual nonsense).

But Apple need to step it up next year, and def with iOS 6-7.

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I dont think windows is more "daring" I think they are more slow at moving their OS to look more like they mobile OS

Krazy Bill said:

Yes. Snow Leopard had a similar impact on Leopard users (although to be fair, SL had a lot of changes under the hood).

SL and ML could be considered major maintenance upgrades at best. If that's the case... and assuming each new release of OSX gets one cousin-cat, we're due for something stellar in 10.9.

But I fear this won't be the case.

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One of Snow Leopard's advertised new features was "Improved Disc Eject" . It used to be too frequent where you had to power eject a disc from the superdrive in Leopard and earlier.

Initially Snow Leopard didn't appeal to me. Worse Expose, higher running temperatures and less battery life (sound familiar!). After updates, it became a good operating system. Mountain Lion looks like it will be solid after a few updates. I already see a small improvement between 10.8 and 10.8.2.

JesalTV said:

Just upgraded to Mountain Lion last night, will have a bash through it later. But it doesn't seem vastly different from Lion.

The problem I'm starting to see with Apple is the whole "everything just works" philosophy is great, but they are starting to simply hide behind it and not innovate as creatively as before.

Ironically, Windows 8 looks far more daring, creative, risky and attractive than anything Apple have done to OS X since Leopard. I have to use Windows 7 at work, it's solid (with a dose of usual nonsense).

But Apple need to step it up next year, and def with iOS 6-7.

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I agree. Apple do need to step up. Both Samsung and Microsoft are releasing better products at the moment in my opinion. I guess we'll see what they come up with. It could be good.

Krazy Bill said:

I've no doubt ML will be plenty stable by 10.8.4 or 10.8.5 but what's beyond 10.8?

After "the merging" of the user experience across all devices is complete, is there any realistic innovation left in OSX without some massive leap in Apple hardware? I don't see what retina displays and Thunderbolt ports can do to invigorate the design and evolution of OSX.

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OS X improvements have NOTHING to do with better hardware - it's about thinking outside the box, coming up with completely new paradigms. Problem is, Cook is an executor and has probably .00001% of SJ's foresight.

Examples? I don't know, but anything from changing UI metaphors to using new input methods would do (heck, even something like BumpTop, TotalFinder or other Jef Raskin-like ideas would be welcome for a change)...actually I will be glad once this crappy iOSification phenomenon ends - it will force Apple to make an effort again; or abandon desktop OSs altogether.

p.s.: Having said the above, I am glad that my ML upgrade worked perfectly fine despite the iOS-related crap - no issues to report apart from my Cyborg RAT 7 not really being able to use programmed buttons (just as under Lion).

BRLawyer said:

OS X improvements have NOTHING to do with better hardware - it's about thinking outside the box, coming up with completely new paradigms. Problem is, Cook is an executor and has probably .00001% of SJ's foresight.

Examples? I don't know, but anything from changing UI metaphors to using new input methods would do (heck, even something like BumpTop, TotalFinder or other Jef Raskin-like ideas would be welcome for a change)...actually I will be glad once this crappy iOSification phenomenon ends - it will force Apple to make an effort again; or abandon desktop OSs altogether.

p.s.: Having said the above, I am glad that my ML upgrade worked perfectly fine despite the iOS-related crap - no issues to report apart from my Cyborg RAT 7 not really being able to use programmed buttons (just as under Lion).

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You do realize that all that has transpired, product wise, since Steve Jobs death is all Jobs. Apple and Cook are just rolling out what Jobs planned.

S-

sidewinder said:

You do realize that all that has transpired, product wise, since Steve Jobs death is all Jobs. Apple and Cook are just rolling out what Jobs planned.

S-

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I disagree. Although deeply involved in high-profile projects such as the latest iOS devices, it's clear that SJ was way away from marginal improvements or detailed OS-level initiatives.

Besides, my point above was simply to state that Cook hasn't got the foresight or the guts to think outside the box and break established paradigms, like SJ could. To think otherwise is extremely naive, to say the least.

BRLawyer said:

I disagree. Although deeply involved in high-profile projects such as the latest iOS devices, it's clear that SJ was way away from marginal improvements or detailed OS-level initiatives.

Besides, my point above was simply to state that Cook hasn't got the foresight or the guts to think outside the box and break established paradigms, like SJ could. To think otherwise is extremely naive, to say the least.

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You can disagree all you want. But that doesn't make you right. Also, I never said or even suggested that Cook had the same abilities as Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was unique. That doesn't mean that Cook can't lead Apple forward and that Apple cannot continue to innovate and establish new paradigms.

You have no idea what Cook is capable of because he has never been in this situation before. You are making judgements based on facts not in evidence. You are making facts up to bolster your opinion.

Scott

I'd rather that Mac OS X be boring and better maintained than it has been. There are lots of little things I would love for Apple to address.

The changes to AV Foundation in Lion were good and made QuickTime better as a recording application in many regards, but in Mountain Lion, they removed auto-saving of recordings, the ability to record to an external disk, and files have to be exported rather than saved, inexplicably even when choosing to save the file in its original format. I've reported all these issues to Apple, and they say that they were intentional changes, but I'm not so sure. The QuickTime Help Center says otherwise.

It feels like Apple will often focus on major features in its recent OS X releases (Lion and Mountain Lion) and unintentionally (or possibly intentionally) break things that were already working well.

And if they want iCloud document storage to take off, they need to make some big changes, IMO. Right now, the system is so limited in terms of ability to access files you save if you're not at your computer signed into your iCloud account. With Mountain Lion after playing around with iCloud storage in TextEdit for a while and dealing with that annoying open dialog box and the way it always defaults to save to iCloud even if the last folder you saved to was a different one, I turned off iCloud document storage.

For me, Google Drive still makes more sense; although I can see what Apple's idea is. They want you to log in and have everything set up—all your apps and documents. But ironically, they removed syncing app and system preferences across Macs that was present in MobileMe, so in that way they've gone backward.

So in short, I think there's lots of room for improvement! No new features! I'd be happy if they did three maintenance releases in a row, a la Snow Leopard.

Is a new finder never going to come?

sidewinder said:

You can disagree all you want. But that doesn't make you right. Also, I never said or even suggested that Cook had the same abilities as Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was unique. That doesn't mean that Cook can't lead Apple forward and that Apple cannot continue to innovate and establish new paradigms.

You have no idea what Cook is capable of because he has never been in this situation before. You are making judgements based on facts not in evidence. You are making facts up to bolster your opinion.

Scott

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The idea of a master plan was quite possibly just something to appease a rabid fan base. Didn't Jobs mention that he didn't know where things would be even five years later? The goal seemed to be one of greater agility than other companies of similar size.

thekev said:

The idea of a master plan was quite possibly just something to appease a rabid fan base. Didn't Jobs mention that he didn't know where things would be even five years later? The goal seemed to be one of greater agility than other companies of similar size.

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I don't disagree.....but we are at exactly 11 months since Steve Jobs died. That's means products he was alive for still haven't been released. He certainly influenced what is coming out any time this year!

S-

JesalTV said:

Just upgraded to Mountain Lion last night, will have a bash through it later.

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First time through i read that as "...will have to bash it later."

Sital said:

First time through i read that as "...will have to bash it later."

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Not quite there yet