OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is out and so are the reviews. I’ve put together snippets of several reviews for your reading pleasure. I’ve been using Mountain Lion Developers Preview along with iOS 6 beta for quite some time now. My verdict for those using Apple devices is to get this upgrade fast. It’s a no-brainer at the current price. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and iOS 6 are great operation systems, with iCloud providing a seamless integration between the two OSs.
USA TODAY – Edward C. Baig:
The new Mac OS X Mountain Lion operating system software that Apple unleashes in the wild today doesn’t represent as dramatic a change as Microsoft will be making this fall moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8. In Microsoft’s case, the look and feel of its upcoming operating system — meant to be friendly for touch-capable tablets in addition to traditional PCs — is starkly different compared with earlier versions of Windows.
For now, users of the iPad and iPhone will recognize in Mountain Lion such iOS fixtures as Notification Center, Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Messages, Dictation and AirPlay Mirroring. Among the updated features, I’m keen on Twitter and especially Facebook integration, plus improvements in the Safari Web browser. Throughout the operating system, Apple has placed a handy “share” button within apps, making it simple to share photos, videos, Web links and documents, with different options depending on the app. Mountain Lion is also the first version of OS X to come out since Apple introduced its iCloud service.
Apple has committed to a roughly once-a-year upgrade path with OS X, so don’t be surprised if next year, Mac software resembles iOS software that much more. In the meantime, Mountain Lion is one big cat that you’ll want on your computer.
Daring Fireball – John Gruber
What exactly do users get for their twenty bucks? In short: a nicer, more polished version of Lion. There’s definitely new stuff: iCloud document storage (more on that in a bit), Messages (which is more than just a renamed version of iChat — it supports iMessage), Notification Center (which I really like on the Mac; it’s perhaps the feature I’ve missed the most over the last few months testing the Mountain Lion betas when going back to my main machine running Lion). More back-to-the-Mac stuff from iOS, like standalone apps for Notes and Reminders, and convenient system-wide “share sheets” for sending content via email or messages and to websites like Flickr, Twitter, Vimeo, and soon, Facebook. (Facebook integration is not included in OS X 10.8; Apple says it will come in a software update “this fall”.) AirPlay Mirroring is a gem of a feature — a shining example of Apple’s “all our stuff works together seamlessly” philosophy. The new voice dictation feature is accurate, simple, and convenient — a huge accessibility win for anyone who has trouble typing.
Mountain Lion, and the incremental approach Apple has taken with recent OS X updates, highlights the growing schism between Apple’s and Microsoft’s philosophies. Windows 8, in contrast to Mountain Lion, is a radical update — years in the works and it introduces a slew of truly disruptive changes to the user experience. Mountain Lion and iOS 6 certainly share a slew of features and code, and through iCloud are growing to support a single cross-device experience. But they are very much two different and distinct systems, one for traditional keyboard and pointer device personal computers, and another for touchscreen mobile devices. One for trucks, one for cars, to borrow Steve Jobs’s analogy.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is clearly betting everything on their single OS strategy. We’ll see how that goes. But in terms of their traditional blockbuster “It’s taken us a few years but here’s something totally new and different” approach to major OS releases, I’m not sure that’s sustainable. Windows 8 might be the last. How else can they compete with the iPad but than to switch to an Apple-style schedule of annual incremental updates?
That mindset and development schedule — “What can we do to make this nicer by next year?” — may well be the most important thing from iOS that Apple has taken back to the Mac.
TechRadar – Alan Stonebridge
There are many small changes in Mountain Lion that might sway your decision to upgrade. Among them are several concessions from Apple to a few mistakes it made with Lion.
The way Mission Control groups windows by application is divisive. Some people find it more organised than the scattergun presentation of Snow Leopard’s Exposé, while others find it gets in the way of finding what they want. Apple has added an option to Mission Control’s preferences that spreads out all of your windows.If there’s one feature that makes it worth upgrading, it’s Notification Center. At £13.99, Mountain Lion is a real bargain for that alone. The true cost might be higher if you have to upgrade from Leopard, or upgrade any of your applications to make them compatible.
The rearrangement of Notes and Reminders into their own apps is very welcome if you also use an iOS device. And the swathe of other minor tweaks around the system are positive as a whole.
Apple needs to rethink iCloud document libraries before we’re willing to start putting work online. Using iCloud to store documents is entirely optional, and it can be supplanted with alternatives such as Google Drive and Dropbox, which offer a more flexible file system.
Just like the last few versions of Apple’s laptop-and-desktop operating system, OS X Mountain Lion ($19.99) came out of the gate this morning as the best consumer operating system there is.
PC Magazine – Edward Mendelson
At first glance, Mountain Lion looks like an identical twin of its predecessor, OS X Lion. Upgraders from Lion will face an almost flat learning curve, because almost every feature they’ve learned to use works in almost exactly the same way as before. But Mountain Lion unobtrusively slots in dozens of new features—Apple counts two hundred of them—that enhance sharing, messaging, cloud-based synchronization, security, Web browsing, instant notifications, and accessibility.
The Best OS is X – Year after year, we’re more and more impressed by OS X, and Mountain Lion continues Apple’s tradition of building on its strengths, innovating wherever it needs to, yet preserving continuity wherever it can. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is our Editors’ Choice among desktop and laptop operating systems, and it looks likely to retain the distinction for some time to come.
Sources: USA TODAY, Daring Fireball, TechRadar, PC Magazine
