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Roundup of OS X Mountain Lion Reviews: 'Faster and Smoother', 'Incremental', 'Bargain at Twice the Price'

I agree with Gizmodo - minor changes. Almost the same performance. Please notice that there are no benchmarks/measurements at all and reviewers claim that is a little bit faster :D They shall also compare fresh installation of OS X 10.7.4 vs OS X 10.8. Only Gizmodo mentioned about it!

Game Center vs AppStore vs OS X 10.8 graphic interface inconsistency. These brown skins looked awful. Skins in 10.5 Leopard looked much much better!!!

Apple seemed to be too conservative company. No significant changes for professional advanced users.
 
Marbles1 said:
Has anyone noticed that 'Lion' is now missing from their Purchases list in the Mac App Store? I can't opt to install it anymore from there.
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I hope Lion comes back to the AppStore because many older machines that are supposedly not supported by ML can run Lion, and I thought Apple required Lion on the desktop for full transition to iCloud. My wife's MacPro1,1 (2006) is running Lion and she has the full iCloud thing going but we apparently won't be able to upgrade to ML.

Apple should still sell Lion but perhaps drop the price to $20 now that ML sells for $20.
 
MacRumors said:
[...] It feels like Apple has run out of ideas. Or worse, that Apple is too afraid to implement new concepts, fearing it will kill the company's golden goose. [...]
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Siegler does bring up a defensible point here. Sure, Apple was pretty careful with Mountain Lion in terms of new features and UI tweaks. But it's getting pretty late in OS X's life cycle for major changes.

This is the 9th major release of OS X, starting with 10.0 way back in March 2001. If there is a 10.9, I would expect it to be carefully tweaked and subtly improved. It really feels like Apple is adding finishing touches to the OS X legacy.

But the next-gen desktop OS, whatever it will be called, is where Apple should really shake things up. It should be as different from OS X as OS X itself was different from Mac OS 9. A quantum leap. And who knows? Maybe in the OS XI time frame, ARM-based quad-core 64-bit Macs will be possible. That's about 2 or 3 years from now, I'd guess.
 
Apple Time Travel (ATT)

Apple's new installer uses the Apple Time Travel (ATT) technology. It has the ability to install and complete before the current time, as shown from this screen shot (via iPhone) I took while installing on my laptop.
MrRXL.jpg
 
NorEaster said:
As the second major refinement-focused release, it's easy to view OS X 10.8 as "what 10.7 should have been." The flip side of this argument is that the real-world mileage we’ve all put on Lion has helped Apple make the right kinds of adjustments in Mountain Lion.[/I]"

And yet how many people (here and in the press) slammed MS for Vista? Win 7 is what Vista should have been but no one went easy on Microsoft. Funny how when Apple does this (ie, release a subpar OS version only to make it better with the next release), many folks are OK with it.
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Except it took Microsoft nearly 3 years to fix it, and they charged full price for the update. If Windows 7 were a $40 update and it came in 2008, people would have forgiven them for the Vista debacle.
 
Computers as appliances

Our 4 y.o. family MacBook is not eligible for the ML upgrade, so I will just stick with SL until the laptop fails....which could be a while. We primarily use mobile devices ( iPhone & iPad) now anyway, so the laptop really does not see much action. It is primarily a local storage device, but I am moving more of our photos and documents to the cloud. When we do use the laptop, it is for simple stuff that has been supported by the OS for years and years ( e.g. Excel, Word, and Quicken).

One of the issues all hardware and software manufactures face is that the home computer (desktop and laptop) is basically becoming an appliance....kind of like a refrigerator. The basic function is to keep food cold, so adding computerized water dispenser might be nice, but few people will trash their existing perfectly functional frig for this marginal improvement. If your computer supports ML, then it is probably a good deal at $20 to pick up some new features. If you need to buy a new machine to run ML, I think there are very few people willing to do this, especially when more and more computing needs are met by mobile devices.
 
limo79 said:
I agree with Gizmodo - minor changes. [...]
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Do you also agree with the rest of Gizmodo's quote? Here it is:

Jesus Diaz said:
[...] what you really want to know is whether Mountain Lion is worth the upgrade. Let’s get that out of the way now — yes, it is definitely worth it.

Mountain Lion costs $19.99 and comes with more than 200 new features — that’s a bargain at twice the price.
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Sounds like Gizmodo turned off their Mister Grumpypants filter momentarily.
Mommy must have gotten little Jesus some ice cream before he wrote that review.
 
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ksgant said:
Okay, thanks for throwing that in so we can know you're trying to troll. :)

Lol...Dashboard being called "groundbreaking". Good one...
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It's a large feature.

Like how you avoided his other points, that must have tickled you? Picking the negatives in ones post… "Good one".
 
Mainsail said:
Our 4 y.o. family MacBook is not eligible for the ML upgrade, so I will just stick with SL until the laptop fails....which could be a while. [...] If you need to buy a new machine to run ML, I think there are very few people willing to do this, especially when more and more computing needs are met by mobile devices.
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Sorry to hear that your older MacBook isn't eligible. I'm lucky: my ancient iMac and ancient MB Pro are both at the rock bottom of the eligibility list. And it's an arbitrary cutoff. ML runs very fast on my late 2008 MB Pro (2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo + 4GB RAM) so I imagine it would be very fast on earlier hardware.

One thing about Mac hardware (that the Wintel crowd tries very hard to ignore) is that the hardware simply lasts far longer on average than the typical Wintel PC. Brings the total cost of ownership down over time.

And I'm sure Microsoft is happy about the situation. Few people bother upgrading Windows because 1. it's fraught with danger and complexity, and 2. their PC will die or freeze up soon anyway. Wintel users just get whatever version of Windows is the latest when they buy a new PC. (And many corporate IT departments erase Windows 7 on brand-new PCs and re-image them with XP anyway.)
 
Sigh

iconboyips said:
Actually I think it a perfectly reasonable question to ask a manufacturer what their products are compatible with.

If a camera lens manufacturer made lenses and did not know which cameras their lenses were compatible with what would you think?

In-fact I consider it good business practice that both Adobe and Apple know how their products are compatible with each other ready for release. It provides a better customer experience.
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Such as "Hello, Adobe. Hi. I am a user of Adobe Creative Suite and was wondering what your compatibility is for the new Apple OS X Mountain Lion OS. It is? Okay, thank you."

Apple is not the manufacturer of Adobe Creative Suite.
 
My iMac gets a little nuts periodically, switching back and forth rapidly between running applications. Can't seem to figure out what it wants to have in the foreground. Probably should have waited for 10.8.1 before upgrading :D.
 
I liked the Lion version of Dashboard better. They add the search feature and then make navigation worst and use tiny icons. No preference settings to customize it like the Dock.
 
melendezest said:
For those that hated Lion, I sympathize with you, although I don't agree with everything. Many have posted legitimate reasons for their dislike of Lion, as the OS wasn't perfect. I agree with many of their assertions.

At least for me, all the issues I had were fixed or able to bring back to their SL version (finder window options), but I am coming from a strict consumer perspective. I work in the Windows workspace, but VMware takes care of that for me.

However, I can't say that Lion was pointless, as some in this forum argue. When coupled with a Magic trackpad, (or an MBP, of course), it comes alive. For me, it was worth the upgrades just for the gesture based navigation and control. So in the interest of balance, I'll point out why Lion was a good OS for me:

- I thought Launchpad was pointless before I got the Magic Trackpad. But once I got it, no more looking for the dock. Five-finger pinch, and my apps are there. Fast.

- While Spaces was useful, I find the new multiple desktops superior, just because of the linear navigation. This right here is my favorite feature, and I just cannot live without it. Four-finger swipe and I'm where I need to be. Again, fast as hell and super intuitive. Excellent for multiple VMs, etc.

- As a household with a lot of iOS devices (big family), the iCloud integration was a bonus too.

Those are just 3 of the main reasons why I like Lion. ML looks like it'll take whatever issues I had with Lion and obliterate them completely. Can't wait to get it!!

And if you don't have a magic trackpad, get one! Some of you may really be missing out.
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I still can't understand Apple and some Mac users obsession with trivial things like starting an application or finding a window. Is it really that difficult to do in OS/X? You'll never see any discussions among Windows users about the ways to launch the apps but that's about 90% of all Mac user discussions. Do Mac users suffer from ADHD more than Windows users? Unlikely. Then what is it? Expensive hardware might be one reason (people can't afford dual monitor setups). What else?
 
Looks like all updates now go through the MAS. If I go to :apple:-Software Update... it takes me to the MAS.

It DID detect I had iWork that needed to be updated even though it was purchased on DVD.
 
Oh my god I can't believe how magical and absolutely brilliant the twitter integration is.. absolutely stunning. It is unbelievable, one of the best things I've ever seen and it's really a game changer!!!!!!! :apple::apple::apple:
 
shiseiryu1 said:
For anyone who has been wanting to mirror their laptop screen wireless on their HDTV this OS update is a no-brainer! Can't wait to try it out tonight. :)
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Orange Crane said:
Yes, that is a feature I am most looking forward to as well. Fewer wires is always a plus.
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I guess I should have read the specs...My 2010 MBP does not support AirPlay mirroring. Only the 2011 and later models do.

I am bummed. That was my main reason for upgrading.
 
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