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back to article Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

So, here it is at last, the latest big cat in the Apple game reserve. There are plenty of new features, and numerous improvements but are they enough to tempt Mac users who felt bitten by the radical changes Lion to upgrade? Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Call of the wild: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion talks up its …

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      1. BobaFett
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Re: OCD much

        These are evidently in-house applications where the UI designers share strongly different opinions. To be honest, I'm surprised Jobs allowed this diversification of metaphors to promulgate as they did under his stewardship.

        And here's a personal gripe that bothers me day in day out, on Calendar.app and Google Calendar but not Outlook: what the fuck is up with paging your calendar by month?! A day is a day, and arbitrary month delimiters just make viewing last 2 weeks of one month with the first 2 weeks of the next painful! Woefully, unnecessarily painful! Time is a continuum, I don't need some arsehole to insert some stupid bloody paging mechanism at inappropriate moments. FFS, it's the 21st century, can someone please realise month (and year ends) are only of significance to pen-pusher money-pinching accountants!

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OCD much

        "Because the desktop and mobile versions of Apple's operating systems have been on a collision course for some time. I would speculate that you're[*] only a few years away from an identical interface on both"

        Just not like Metro?

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        1. Steve I
          Reply Icon
          Go

          Re: OCD much

          "Because the desktop and mobile versions of Apple's operating systems have been on a collision course for some time. I would speculate that you're[*] only a few years away from an identical interface on both"

          Hmmm, 10" MacBook AIr, add a touchscreen and removeable keyboard; add an 'IOS' interface like Dashboard and it's widgets and you have a potentially nice dual purpose machine.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OCD much

      While I do kind of agree, but there are too many apps on Mac OSX that look the same too..

      I have open:

      iTunes

      DeployStudio

      Mail

      Apple Remote Desktop

      I have to study the window to see which is in focus as they all have the left column pane, header toolbar and same grey effects etc...

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    That's me out then...

    ... My lappy is a late-07 model Macbook, apparently this doesn't run on there. C'est la vie.

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    1. Law
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Re: That's me out then...

      I thought I was out of luck too (MacBook Pro late-2008 model)... then I checked Apples website and it turns out MacBook Pros can still be upgraded from mid-2007 models onwards.

      Full list is:

      iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)

      MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)

      MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)

      MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)

      Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)

      Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

      Xserve (Early 2009)

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      1. Richard Cartledge
        Reply Icon

        Re: That's me out then...

        I think anything aluminium (not titanium nor plastic) will run ML.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        FAIL

        Re: That's me out then...

        You are not out of luck. I am. Reason: You run a Macbook Pro. I run the plain vanilla Macbook.

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  3. Alan Bourke

    Ah, the Notes application ...

    still looks like a shareware app from 1998 I see.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ah, the Notes application ...

      The whole OS looks like 80's wall paper!

      So old hat.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ah, the Notes application ...

        <fanboi_alert>

        Obviously! desperate to get noticed on an Apple thread again

        </fanboi_alert>

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      3. Toothpick
        Reply Icon
        Trollface

        Re: Ah, the Notes application ...

        Obviously is here again!!

        As a matter of interest, what OS do you use?

        It must be brilliant because every time Apple or iOS is mentioned in any article on here it magically posts shit.

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  4. Stacy
    Unhappy

    I was wondering whether to get it

    Until I saw that some features are artificially disabled for anything other than the expensive new models. (I mean really, why do you need an SSD for powernap?)

    Hmm... I know people love these machines but I just can't see why - after not quite a year of ownership I have come to loathe the damn thing...

    This kind of thing just add's to the list of reasons why... Shame really becuase it does look and feel much better than my day to day Vaio that I use constantly...

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    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I was wondering whether to get it

      I think it won't be long before a PowerNap app will appear. All you need is to schedule some uptime in the Energy settings and run a script with whatever you want to execute and re-enable sleep once done.

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    2. toadwarrior
      Reply Icon

      Re: I was wondering whether to get it

      I assume it's for SSDs only due to SSDs using much less power and there is now issue with doing a lot of small little jobs. If my MBP had an HD I definitely don't want the thing spinning up numerous times through out the night to do little tasks. That's not going to be good for the HD.

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    3. Law
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: I was wondering whether to get it

      "Hmm... I know people love these machines but I just can't see why - after not quite a year of ownership I have come to loathe the damn thing..."

      Mines a late 2008 macbook pro and it was really just bought as the best spec'd laptop on the market at the time (was cheaper than a similarly spec'd Alienware at the time too at half the size).

      At that time, they were essentially a thinner nice looking "normal" laptop - no unibody, no odd Psion 3a styled keyboard keys, or oversized glass track pads, or glued in batteries. I'm sure for alot of people they'll be well worth the cost, but I won't be getting another one, even though I'm more than happy with my current one.

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      1. Steven Gray
        Reply Icon

        Re: @Law

        Mine is also a late 2008 MPB - pre-unibody - and it was a refurb with a fair chunk knocked off the RRP..

        Best laptop ever.

        2.4GHz Core 2 duo, FW800/400, 2xUSB, ExpressCard/34 slot, DVI out, Audio in/out (both optical), 1440x900 matt display (LED backlit), wireless n, bluetooth, gigabit ethernet, backlit keyboard, mult-touch trackpad... the compromise was I guess the 256Mb graphics and relatively small 200Gb HDD... but it's all good and runs ML just fine, though I expect this to be the last major OS update for this unit.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Law

          Similar spec to mine. I've had it about 4 years now and the Enter key is a little loose (partly broke it trying to get crumbs out of the keyboard) but with ML on it the performance seems to be back to how I remember it.

          I'm not really looking to upgrade any of my kit right now. I have a Mac Pro that has just missed the boat in terms of ML upgrade. Although it is still on Snow Leopard as being a productivity machine I don't want to mess about with it too much.

          Not sure I like how things are going in the desktop/laptop market and tablets are only okay for very casual use.

          Windows 8 looks like being a disaster, Apple aren't as "nice" as they were a few years back and Linux doesn't seem to ever achieve that level of quality that Windows and OSX have.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not all that sure about the dictation feature :(

    From what I read in the specs it needs an Internet connection to work, which suggests it ships whatever you say off to some US servers like Siri does - and so the same objections apply.

    I have absolutely *zero* desire to provide anyone with a pristine, identifiable voiceprint so that means the Dragon Dictate guys will still get a sale if I decide I want that on my Mac. Neither do I have the desire to share whatever I do or whatever I work on with any 3rd party - I call that armchair espionage.

    Do I suspect Apple of such evil deeds? Not really. But I have no reason to trust them either, and what they don't have they cannot lose/give away/be forced to part with under force of law or warrant.

    Anon, obviously.

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    1. Craigness
      Reply Icon

      Re: I'm not all that sure about the dictation feature :(

      If you've got a phone then anyone who you wouldn't want to have your voice map already has access to it.

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      1. verity33
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        Re: I'm not all that sure about the dictation feature :(

        :o(

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  6. Mondo the Magnificent
    Angel

    Nice....

    ..but it will not tempt me to upgrade from 10.6.8 which still suits me just fine..

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once "Tony" and his crew gets it working well, then I'll upgrade!

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OS that’s powerful, attractive and even cool.

    The quickest way to dissuade? Use the word "cool".

    NEXT!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      How about just looking at the features of the OS and making an informed decision instead of reading the marketing blurb.

      Oh, it's Obviously!, should've guessed it'd just be a lame anti-apple comment.

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  9. Bailey

    Tony

    According to "Tony", it's going to be the most hackintoshable to date, especially concerning GPU support.

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  10. Steen Hive
    Facepalm

    For me, Lion sucked donkey balls - is this any better?

    Lion came pre-installed on this late 2011 15" MBP - but I could never find a way to have the "Save open apps" shutdown checkbox unchecked by default. That and the ludicrous "local" time machine backups that choked my SSD within days before I found out how to switch them off, the not-fit-for-purpose bluetooth and the constant dropping of wi-fi connections.

    Result - slipstream 10.6.8 into a 10.6.3 install disk and wipe the reverse-mouse annoying bollox off my machine. Happiness.

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    1. JaimieV
      Reply Icon

      Re: For me, Lion sucked donkey balls - is this any better?

      "Save open apps" is now fixed, remembers your setting. Local TM backups still exist, same fix as before to disable them. Bluetooth I don't know, never had an issue, but the stack has changed to include Bt4.0 support so perhaps. Wifi is reported to be pretty solid, but I never had trouble before...

      You can legitimately install ML into a VM (as long as it's hosted on a Mac) to trial it.

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    2. Steven Raith
      Reply Icon

      Re: For me, Lion sucked donkey balls - is this any better?

      For reference, I had issues with my Macbook on my Draytek routers wifi - update of the firmware on the router sorted it out.

      Worth a pop.

      Steven R

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    notifications

    So Apple now use swipe to ignore notifications? someone over there obviously has a liking for Android features.

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  12. Jonathan White
    FAIL

    Up To Date

    The 'up to date' program (where if you buy a new Mac between the new OS being announced and being shipped you get it for free) has turned into a rolling fireball of a car crash almost immediately.

    Firstly, the page to access it went up too early. So people applied, got codes to download it from the app store and found they didn't work because the app wasn't available yet.

    Secondly, the process they use to give you the code is this : They send you an email, with an encrypted password protected PDF file attached to it. They send you the password to open the PDF file in another email. The encrypted PDF contains the code. I assume anyone reading El Reg can tell you how utterly useless and idiotic this is. To make it worse, a lot of email systems regard encrypted archives/pdfs as suspicious, since they can't look inside them to virus scan the contens.

    Thirdly, after the page went live too early, they reset the backend database. what they didn't do was mark all the codes they had previously sent out as 'already used' in the refreshed database, so the system is sending the codes out again. So a load of people are getting codes that when they put them into the app store redeem codes page, it says 'hard luck, that code has already been used' (I'm paraphrasing).

    This is utterly clueless work. It's the kind of thing someone on their first day in the job would be utterly ashamed of (and it would probably be their last day on the job to boot). For a company with the resources of Apple to screw this is this badly is just... well, frankly, it's mind-boggling. How hard can valid issuing codes to people be?

    (by the way - yes, I am one of the people who got a duff up to date code. But that doesn't make the work they've done any less amateurish).

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    1. Dana W
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      Re: Up To Date

      At least you GOT your code. I'm still waiting. I can download it faster than this. That's what I get for being honest.

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  13. Wibble
    FAIL

    Full screen still broken

    Full screen mode hasn't been fixed. If you've multiple monitors -- normal for a laptop -- when you put an application into full screen it 'blanks' the other screen by displaying a rather naff canvas background. Apparently Apple thinks that full screen means "only one application can be seen". So sod you if you've got several monitors (easy with Thunderbolt).

    See the Apple website discussion "Dual monitors and fullscreen fiasco, is there a work around?"

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3196329

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still happily using a 24-inch, Late 2006 perspex iMac

    Which is still going strong, so no upgrade path for me...

    Will have to wait for a new shiny retina iMac.

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  15. Herby

    There ARE alternatives...

    My Mac might go to system 8 or so, as its a Quadra 840AV. While it is a bit underwhelming at this point, it is a pretty nice Mac, and with System 7.6.1 running on it, it does what I ask it to do (not much currently).

    A thought for Apple: Maybe have an option to install Libre Office/Open Office at the same time, free of charge. It is pretty much compatible and will up the user base of that product (might make the people in Redmond unhappy, but Apple already does that). It would be a great service for those who are using Macs for "real work".

    Just a thought!

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "it doesn’t take kindly to expletives"

    "...it doesn’t take kindly to expletives,..."

    So what fucking good is it, eh?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "it doesn’t take kindly to expletives"

      There's a good reason. Do you really want your kids to use it and say "duck" only for it to return the f word by mistake?

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  17. Toothpick

    Parallels

    I updated last night and the only thing that appears to be bust is Parallels. All my other stuff (eg creative suite) is fine.

    I'll try a reload of Parallels as according to their website it is compatible with ML.

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    1. chr0m4t1c
      Reply Icon

      Re: Parallels

      I've not tried Parallels yet, but I have had two emails from them inviting me to upgrade to the version I already have.

      I wouldn't mind, but I bought it directly from them as a download *and* registered it, so it's not like they have no way of knowing that I already own it.

      Thinking about it, I think there was a ML-compatability patch a couple of weeks ago, did you apply it?

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      1. Toothpick
        Reply Icon
        Pint

        Re: Parallels

        I must admit I've not used Parallels recently.

        Been back onto their website and there is a knowledgebase article posted today acknowledging the issue, along with a link to download the latest version. Fully working now.

        Beer icon? Cos I owe you one.

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  18. Dinky Carter

    Skins / themes

    Is there any way to set a desktop theme? Or even just change the default app background colour from retina-burn #FFFFFF to something more civilized?

    I have an eye problem means I have use subtle colours on my desktop. The first thing I do when I work at new Windows machine is change the theme with a few mouse clicks.

    This seems to be completely impossible with OSX (seriously dodgy 3rd party hackware nothwithstanding) and so Macs remain useless to me.

    But I suppose fanbois would say that's my fault for having an eye problem.

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    1. chr0m4t1c
      Reply Icon

      Re: Skins / themes

      OS X has high contrast and reverse video modes that you can turn on in the Accessibility area of the system preferences as well as things like a screen magnifier that can be turned on and off using keyboard shortcuts or gestures and voice over (a screen reader).

      Are none of those features any use to you, or are your requirements more subtle than that?

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  19. DM2012
    Thumb Up

    Wow

    I think this is the first time Australians have been on the other end of the Great Apple Tax (GAT). At $20.99 AUD (about 14 quid) we're actually getting something cheaper from the big A than our northern cousins. At that price I might even upgrade!

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  20. Malvernite
    Thumb Up

    Very happy with OSx, nothing much major in this release but £14 isn't braking bank and a few features such as notifications I will use..

    Like the idea that iOS and OSx are using similar features, app launcher (which was in previous release) I like..

    have to duel boot due to Windows 7 for work (programming) and I find OSx more of a joy to use, very simple to navigate and use which is what I like for a OS.. Windows 7 I find the configuration such as network a pain in the butt compared to OSx, I find Mail and Safari meeting my expectations in OSx .. XP was nice and easy to navigate, I am really dreading what Windows 8 is going to be, why does a operating system have to reinvent itself every release?

    All in all thumbs up to Apple for creating a simple to use operating system with a very power under belly..

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