Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: features, facts, first-hand impressions – The Verge

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

2012-07-25T08:31:06-04:00

mtnlion_lead

I have a confession to make before I begin this review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: I never really used or liked OS X Lion. Sure, I installed it on my iMac at home and played around with gestures on a Magic Trackpad, but my workhorse 15-inch MacBook Pro remained stubbornly on Snow Leopard, Apple's previous version of OS X. Snow Leopard was in many ways the pinnacle of a previous era of computing: a fast, stable, reliable desktop operating system that bore no trace of influence from Apple's enormously successful iOS products. Lion, by contrast, represented Apple's first steps down a different path - the company literally said it was bringing i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple announces OS X Mountain Lion will be released on Wednesday

2012-07-24T16:41:23-04:00

os x about 1020

As part of its quarterly earnings press release, Apple has confirmed that OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the latest version of its desktop operating system, will be released via the Mac App Store tomorrow. Priced at $19.99, Mountain Lion brings a number of elements from iOS to the Mac with new features including Notification Center, expanded iCloud support, Reminders, a revamped Messages app, and more. We took an in-depth look at an early preview of OS X 10.8 back in February, and Apple has also detailed each of the 200+ new features you'll find inside the OS starting tomorrow. When the moment does finally arrive, you'll need to be running either …

Read the full story at The Verge.

OS X, pro apps, and games updated for new MacBook Pro Retina Display

2012-06-11T13:35:53-04:00

os x retina

Apple just announced that OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion will be updated to support the new 2880 x 1800 Retina Display in the next-generation MacBook Pro, which ships today. The entire OS has been tweaked to support the higher resolution, as have most of Apple's apps, including Mail, Safari, Aperture, and Final Cut Pro.

Apple's also touting a number of key third-party apps that have been updated for the new display, like Adobe Photoshop and AutoCAD. There's also a new version of Diablo III, whichis a bit more fun.

Developing. Check out our Apple WWDC live blog for the latest updates!

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple pushes developers to prepare for Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper security feature

2012-05-01T02:21:25-04:00

Gatekeeper and Developer ID email

Whereas the Mac App Store provides an iOS-style curated app experience, current Mac owners are also able to install any application they desire from the web or elsewhere. As part of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple will be introducing a third option: apps that are available outside the App Store, but are signed by digital certificates courtesy of Apple to help ensure they're malware-free. It's part of a new security feature called Gatekeeper, and Apple has officially started herding Mac developers in its direction. In an email sent out to today, Apple encouraged developers to begin signing their applications, plug-ins, and installer packages w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 released; outstanding issues still abound

2012-04-18T18:51:17-04:00

Gallery Photo: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion screen shots and photos

Apple announced the Developer Preview for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion back in February, and the company continues to iterate the software in anticipation of its summer release. The third version of the preview has now been made available to developers, but it appears to contain more than a few issues. 9to5Mac has the full release notes, which mention everything from FileVault issues that can prevent users from being able to log into their machines to brightness settings inconsistencies. There's even a noted problem with Java applets potentially not being able to run in Safari, though given the recent Java-derived vulnerabilities on the Mac some …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Double-sized icons appearing in OS X Mountain Lion

2012-03-23T09:44:38-04:00

Gallery Photo: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion screen shots and photos

The latest version of Mac OS X may be phasing in support for higher resolution displays. A source with the second developer preview of 10.8 Mountain Lion has told Ars Technica that double-sized icons are appearing in a few places, including Messages, the updated version of iChat. As shown in the screenshot below, the green audio chat icon is twice as wide as it should be, displaying in 2x resolution.

Ars' source interprets this to mean that a "Retina [MacBook] is close; perhaps concurrent with the release of OS X 10.8," which is certainly a possible explanation given the Retina display on the new iPad. However, this isn't the first time that …

Read the full story at The Verge.

OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 adds iCloud tabs to Safari and Twitter to Notification Center

2012-03-19T09:51:05-04:00

Gallery Photo: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion screen shots and photos

As OS X developers spend a bit more time with the recently-released Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2, they're finding more new features in the update. First off, the iCloud tab syncing feature that we heard about in the first Mountain Lion Developer Preview is now functional. MacRumors found that Safari now contains a little iCloud button next to the address bar that hold tabs opened on other devices running iCloud, so you don't have to even bother bookmarking pages on an iOS device if you want to go pick them up on your Mac. From some screenshots making the rounds, it looks like tabs will be divided by device - so if you have an iPad and iP …

Read the full story at The Verge.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 released; asks permission for contact access

2012-03-17T01:01:03-04:00

os x about 1020

Apple is working towards the summer release of OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, and to that end it's released a 2nd Developer Preview to, well, developers. The change log shows that there are still a lot of unfinished edges in the OS, from Game Center to AirPlay to the Notes app. However, one thing you wouldn't know until you ran it is that there's a new privacy feature. Dustin Curtis discovered that when an app attempts to access your contacts, OS X pops up a dialog box asking your permission. Once you grant it, there's a new section in the Security preferences that lists all the apps you've granted permission to.

Obviously, the feature is a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Messages app for OS X brings file transfers to iMessage (hands-on)

2012-02-19T09:36:03-05:00

messages icon transfer 1020

One feature of Apple's new Messages beta that we missed on first inspection is its support of drag-and-drop file transfers. The new app allows you to add files to iMessages, which can be sent to an iOS device or other instance of Messages. MP3 and video files can be played, text and PDF documents can be read or opened in other apps by tapping the Action button; everything works exactly as you'd expect it to.

Transfers are a little buggy, with text files sometimes freezing up, and we hit a file size limit with a 220MB MP4 video. Incompatible file types are represented with a question mark icon on iOS devices, and can't be acted on. Also, tra …

Read the full story at The Verge.

AirParrot offers Mountain Lion-style AirPlay display mirroring, out now for $10

2012-02-16T23:57:01-05:00

Gallery Photo:

If the Messages beta didn't satiate your desire for an early sample of OS X Mountain Lion, here's a way to start using another feature early. AirParrot is a new Mac app that lets you stream your computer's display right to your Apple TV over AirPlay, an ability built straight into Apple's forthcoming OS upgrade. There are a couple of caveats right now: it doesn't work with audio, and you won't be able to bypass any Apple TV passwords you may have set up, though both features are planned for free updates soon. We'd like to see how the quality holds up - AirParrot works by encoding your display output into H.264 video, meaning you'll likely se …

Read the full story at The Verge.