MacMost Now 673: A Look At Mountain Lion

OS X 10.8 will arrive late this summer. Apple has given us a preview of new features and is providing an early release to developers. See what is in store for us with the next release of the Macintosh OS.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today�s episode let�s take a look at Mac OS 10 Mountain Lion. So, I�ve been getting a lot of questions about Mountain Lion. The first thing to do if you are curious is to go of course to the Apple site: �apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/�. You can find out everything there is to know about Mountain Lion right now. The page features all sorts of details that Apple�s released. Now basically this is all we really know at the moment. So anything you see here is what�s being repeated in a lot of articles around the internet. So Mountain Lion is Mac OS 10.8. It follows with all the cat names for all the different versions of Mac OS 10: Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and now Mountain Lion. Apple has said that Mountain Lion will be out at the end of the summer. So oh, we could probably look for it somewhere around September. They haven�t said anything about price yet. So we don�t know if it�s going to be $30.00 like snow Leopard and Lion were or perhaps it may even be cheaper considering it�s only been a year since Lion has been released. We do know that the way you�ll get it is to download it from the Mac app store. The same way we got Lion. Now Lion had an alternative after a while they come up with a USB stick use to install it. They said that they are not going to do that Mountain Lion. They�re just wasn�t enough interest with the one they came out with for Lion. As for new features, we�ve got several that were already announced. One of them will be the integration of iMessage into iChat and the whole app will be relaying messages. In addition we�ll have new apps: reminders and notes that breakout those features from iCal and mail and make them more similar to how they work in IOS. And of course xxx sink a lot with iCloud than you do now. We also have a new notification center that will work just like the notification center on the iPhone and iPad to get notifications say when you have incoming messages, when you have xx email we have an application customize which apps send you a notification and how they appear on your screen. We are also going to have more sharing where you are going to see this button appear in various applications so you can say email a document or a photo or twitter and things like that. Also w have Game Center included and Game Center of course has been in IOS for a while but it will allow Mac apps actually have some multi user capability have xxx things like that. And also compare those with Game Center on IOS xxx integrate. Airplay mirroring this will allow you to place the mirror on the Mac screen to an Apple tv. Which you do have on the iPad and the iPhone 4s. Another big feature is Gatekeeper. So Gatekeeper is a feature that�s going to make your Mac more secure. It�s going to define all apps into three types. First type is an app bought from the Mac app store now everything in the Mac app store paid for or free is looked at by apple before it�s allowed in the store. So there is general amount of security there because it�s been viewed. The second type of is an app you get from the developer directly or some other online store but had a digital signature that�s given to the developer by Apple. So Apple isn�t going to review those apps but Apple has a signature. They know who created it so if there is a problem with the app it would be easy to deal with a problem. See if it was malware or something else was wrong with the app. The third type app is everything else. So if you download from developers on the internet and you can define the level of what you can have on your Mac I only want things from the Mac app store or I only want things from the Mac app store and things that have been signed or I�ll allow any app this will allow computers they set up in schools or set up for other individuals in your household that might not be as computer savvy to have kind of a restriction. To prevent them from downloading something and selling something that could be malware. Now there is going to be more iCloud integration in Mountain Lion. One of the things that it can do is synch a lot of settings and things across various Macs. So theoretically you should be able to get a new Mac sign in with your iPad account and then instantly you see all sorts of things like your email account or a bookmark in Safari settings for various applications and things that the Mac app store automatically set up for you very easy to migrate from one Mac to another or have multiple Macs desktop and a laptop. Now developers don�t have to wait �til the end of the summer to get Mountain Lion. They can get a preview release now which helps them to develop their applications and new features like notification center. So they are ready when Mountain Lion is released. Now a lot of times developers leak things uh, screen shots, videos this is what you read a lot about between now and the end of summer before the official release of Mountain Lion. Keep in mind that�s all pre-release stuff. Things change some features are added some are taken away some are changed. So when you read about something is not going to work or is not being included in Mountain Lion keep in mind that it�s not all set in stone �til Mountain Lion is finally released. But yes we can be fairly sure that some older Macs, the ones that barely support Lion, will probably be left out from Mountain Lion. Every time a new version of the operating system comes out of course some older hardware is left behind it can still use the existing operating system, Lion in this case, but can�t upgrade to the new one. So there is a brief look at what we know about Mountain Lion now. So until next this is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: 9 Responses to “MacMost Now 673: A Look At Mountain Lion”

Terry Dillon

13 years ago

Will I be able to upgrade my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion without having upgraded to Lion first?

Gary Rosenzweig

We won't know for sure until it officially comes out. But it looks like it. Not sure why you would want to do this, though. If you want Mountain Lion, why don't you want Lion?

Paul Samaras

I held off upgrading to Lion for a long time, I bit the bullet and I just upgraded to Lion 4 weeks ago and then find Mountain lion is being released. I feel ripped off.

How do you know they will even charge you for Mountain Lion? They haven't mentioned anything about price yet. Even if they do, that would probably be $30 for Lion, then $30 for MLion. Still cheaper than the $100+ price tag on previous versions of OS X (or Windows).
Also: Consider that MLion won't be out until "later summer" (September). So that is 7 months away. Plenty of time to get your $30 out of Lion.

Don Moser

Apple seems to be becoming more like Microsoft with their OS releases. I am still running Leopard and will not upgrade because too many of the peripherals I use are not supported in the later versions of the OS (PowerPC drivers). I use these peripherals in my business and cannot afford to be without them. Leopard still works just fine, thank you.

Gianni Snoeck

Will the new features of MLion, like reminders, gatekeeper, notification center also become available without me having to upgrade to MLion?

No. Some might, but certainly not most. Think about it: If they would add the features of MLion to Lion, then what would be the point of MLion?

Lisa Gary

12 years ago

How does Gatekeeper impact software updates that need to be done regularly in an educational setting but you still want to keep students from downloading app? do you have to go into each computer and change the setting to sign apps and then go back and turn it off. If so this is not efficient for school district and rathe cumbersome.

Not sure. I don't think you would use Gate Keeper in that situation because there are probably other restrictions for downloading software already in place.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 673: A Look At Mountain Lion

Comments: 9 Responses to “MacMost Now 673: A Look At Mountain Lion”

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