Mountain Lion = ....meh?

[migo]

I disagree with your opinion. I believe they are now set in to a Major -> Minor release cycle similar to how Intel have Tick Tock

They never said they were doing that, it's just an interpretation a number of tech sites made.

[.Neo]

Performance is way better, even on older hardware. You're not just getting a new interface, you're getting benefits you'd normally only get from a hardware upgrade. That's worth $40 (roughly what I paid to upgrade my RAM to 8GB).

Quite a few people here noticed the same with OS X Mountain Lion. Beyond that a lot of users complain Metro apps currently take for ever to load and it isn't because of debug code. My The time you save during startup you basically loose when trying to launch an app.

[Fry]

I disagree. Mission Control isn't as good as it could be, but full screen options in Lion are really welcome.

Well there is nothing wrong with liking full screen and I'm happy for you if you do, but even that is an example of a complete **** implementation of a feature. If you have more than one screen, full screen only uses one monitor and disables your second monitor. Tiles it with that stitched pattern Apple likes using now, and doesn't let you use it, at all. And supposedly that was being fixed in Mountain Lion but lo and behold, it actually isn't. The only improvement in ML is that you can now choose which monitor gets to use the full screen. But your other monitor is still disabled. Why? How stupid is that? Especially considering apps such as VLC have had proper full screen implementation since before Lion.

[Shadrack]

--x-snip-x--

People have put Apple on a pedestal for so long. They are no longer underdogs. Success is basically a given. They don't have the same fight anymore.

--x-snip-x--

I absolutely agree with your sentiment there. Now that they are "on top" (at least from a profitability stand point and especially now that they are the darling of the media) there are different expectations. But I'll probably be one of the firsts to download ML when it is finally released. When the hell is it going to be released anyway? Didn't they say July?

[Shadrack]

Well there is nothing wrong with liking full screen and I'm happy for you if you do, but even that is an example of a complete **** implementation of a feature. If you have more than one screen, full screen only uses one monitor and disables your second monitor. Tiles it with that stitched pattern Apple likes using now, and doesn't let you use it, at all. And supposedly that was being fixed in Mountain Lion but lo and behold, it actually isn't. The only improvement in ML is that you can now choose which monitor gets to use the full screen. But your other monitor is still disabled. Why? How stupid is that? Especially considering apps such as VLC have had proper full screen implementation since before Lion.

The direction they took with fullscreen apps seems to be the culprit and I don't expect that they are going to be able to fix it anytime soon. The fullscreen API is intertwined with the virtual desktops API. I can't really say if it was just a bad choice of direction. I love the fullscreen apps when I'm just using my 15" laptop screen or if I'm connected remotely on my iPad. When I'm hooked up to my 27" monitor putting an app into full screen mode just doesn't make any sense and always looks terrible. I think that as your desktop real estate goes up, the utility of going into full screen mode goes down anyway...

[cooky560 Veteran]

I was more interested in the possibility of new iMac hardware than anything else, I'm starting to feel a little in the dark

[Vice]

I was more interested in the possibility of new iMac hardware than anything else, I'm starting to feel a little in the dark

Count yourself lucky that the iMac still exists! :rofl:

They axed my beautiful 17" MacBook Pro completely. Now I have to step down to a 15" model if I want to "upgrade".

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

It seems like Mountain Lion is akin to a maintenance release with just a few added features. Similar to Snow Leopard. Except that SL concentrated on under the hood changes whereas Mountain Lion's focus is more on refining user-visible features.

[migo]

Quite a few people here noticed the same with OS X Mountain Lion. Beyond that a lot of users complain Metro apps currently take for ever to load and it isn't because of debug code. My The time you save during startup you basically loose when trying to launch an app.

That's an app specific problem, not an OS level one. The apps that get coded well will see preference, and overall you'll see better performance throughout.

[migo]

Well there is nothing wrong with liking full screen and I'm happy for you if you do, but even that is an example of a complete **** implementation of a feature. If you have more than one screen, full screen only uses one monitor and disables your second monitor. Tiles it with that stitched pattern Apple likes using now, and doesn't let you use it, at all. And supposedly that was being fixed in Mountain Lion but lo and behold, it actually isn't. The only improvement in ML is that you can now choose which monitor gets to use the full screen. But your other monitor is still disabled. Why? How stupid is that? Especially considering apps such as VLC have had proper full screen implementation since before Lion.

It's mainly people with laptops, or smaller screens who benefit from full screen, and for those people, the lack of proper support for a second monitor is hardly a problem. If my MacBook had HDMI out to allow hooking it up to my HDTV without going to the hassle of an expensive converter cable that's not even officially allowed and therefore not available from any reputable site, then I suppose that might materialise as a real problem. I'm not otherwise defending the crappy implementation of it, but I think it's telling that the people who like it the most never noticed anything wrong with it.

[migo]

It seems like Mountain Lion is akin to a maintenance release with just a few added features. Similar to Snow Leopard. Except that SL concentrated on under the hood changes whereas Mountain Lion's focus is more on refining user-visible features.

Yeah, I'm not too fond of the visual changes. Back when OSX had the pinstripe Aqua look and XP had Luna, I liked that OSX was cleaner and more consistent in look throughout, while each program in XP seemed to have its own skin that contrasted (usually quite badly) with the default UI. Now Apple is baking that bad contrast right in. Their whole brushed metal phase got a bit boring too, but at least it was consistent. Not a big deal if I hardly use any of the apps that ship with OSX, but it will get annoying if devs start taking after it as well.

[.Neo]

Even though some apps spot a different texture window chrome they all work alike so in that regard OS X is still highly consistent. Like you said, things were getting too boring.

[sanctified Veteran]

It's $20/year now if you want to keep up. You can get Windows 8 for $40, and that's for a 3 years of development.

If you can't spend 20 bucks every year and a half then upgrading it's not the biggest of your problems I'm afraid.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Apple charge for updates (service packs?) to their os? If so will they start charging for updates to ios then? Or should I not give them ideas :(

[migo]

Even though some apps spot a different texture window chrome they all work alike so in that regard OS X is still highly consistent. Like you said, things were getting too boring.

That was the wrong way to fix the boredom though. It just shows that they weren't sure what to do and figured they had to do something.

[migo]

Apple charge for updates (service packs?) to their os? If so will they start charging for updates to ios then? Or should I not give them ideas :(

No, if they charged for updates they wouldn't be able to squish JB exploits so easily, and would have to continue supporting older versions.

[migo]

If you can't spend 20 bucks every year and a half then upgrading it's not the biggest of your problems I'm afraid.

That's always the worst reason for justifying any price.

[.Neo]

That was the wrong way to fix the boredom though. It just shows that they weren't sure what to do and figured they had to do something.

In your opinion. If everything looks exactly the same things get boring, no way around that but to introduce some change here and there. Since the apps don't actually work any different than the norm I really don't see the issue.

[sanctified Veteran]

That's always the worst reason for justifying any price.

It's an OS upgrade. You can't compare OS X upgrade model to Windows. OS X has always been about constant refinements over the years, Windows is about change of paradigms within their own system.

[.Neo]

That's an app specific problem, not an OS level one. The apps that get coded well will see preference, and overall you'll see better performance throughout.

Who cares where the problem lies? In the end the result is the same. FYI, we're talking about Microsoft's own apps here.

[notuptome2004]

Dictation on the ML works well a friend of mine has a copy of it on his system and it is one thing that makes things much simpler in so many ways for things as she is back to school and stuff and could use it for her courses and stuff so yea that is 1 upgrade well worth it also seems to run faster on her imac then regular lion did with 12gb of ram

[Shadrack]

Apple charge for updates (service packs?) to their os? If so will they start charging for updates to ios then? Or should I not give them ideas :(

Not going to have this debate again.

Not going to have this debate again.

Not going to have this debate again.

IT'S NOT A GOD DAMN SERVICE PACK!

Damn it...oh well, here we go again...

[shifts]

Both Lion and Mountain Lion are crap....

Are you running the latest GM of Mountain Lion. Compared to Lion it's a speed demon and right up there with Snow Leopard and this is on a mac that went through several "over the top" installs rather than clean installs.

Agreed there is nothing revolutionary like Xp to Vista or the new Metro interfaces, theres nothing glaringly looking at you to say it's different but theres an undeniable speed increase and some nice tweaks to general apps. For ?13.99 I'm really on the fence about if it's worth it so far..

[spedanden]

Yeah it's not gonna revolutionize browsing Facebook or anything... but for those of us that actually USE our computers... there's http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html

[Rudy]

Apple charge for updates (service packs?) to their os? If so will they start charging for updates to ios then? Or should I not give them ideas :(

:facepalm: