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Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Move your Mac even further ahead

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C

celebi23

Member
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What is it?: Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is the 9th major release of Mac OS X
Release Date: July 25th, 2012
Where to buy it: On the Mac App Store







Price: $19.99
What's new in Mountain Lion?: Check out Apple's page covering the top new features. Watch a short video showing some of them. See the list with all 200 features.
Build #: 12A269
System Requirements:
  • OS X v10.6.8 or later
  • 2GB of memory
  • 8GB of available space
  • Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
  • Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
  • iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)







Price: $19.99
What's new in Mountain Lion Server?: Check out Apple's page covering the top new features.
Server Build #: 12S302
System Requirements:
  • Mac computer running Mountain Lion
  • 2GB of memory
  • 10GB of available disk space
  • Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
  • Some features require compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.

Important downloads for Mac OS X Server:
  • Server Admin Tools (This adds additional functionality not included in the normal version of Mac OS X Server)

Important links:
****WARNING: Some of the following links aren't live yet****


General Questions (if you have any more questions, just let me know and I'll put them here):
  • Can Mountain Lion be run in virtualization software?
    Yes, I tested the Golden Master build (12A269) in Parallels Desktop 7.0.15098 & in VMWare Fusion 4.1.3. Mountain Lion ran pretty well in both but, a bit smoother overall in VMWare Fusion. The sound is a bit glitchy in VMWare Fusion. Viewing the Notification Center is a bit glitchy graphically in both. Your milage may vary though.
  • I installed Mountain Lion but, I don't see anything about Facebook.
    It looks like Facebook integration will come this fall
  • mrkgoo said:
    Will it tell me what happens to my nonMacappstore version of Aperture? Will ihave to manually download updates, or will it give the AppStore version for free, or just update via the AppStore like an integrated software update, or will I have to buy it again?
    Click to expand...

    I installed iLife '09 & iWork '09 (from my discs), in the Mountain Lion GM, and the Mac App Store didn't put those apps into my Purchased section. It only handles the updates for the apps. Software Update was just integrated into the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store now handles all system updates & other general app updates. If you're upgrading from Snow Leopard, once you have Mountain Lion installed, you'll need to download iPhoto 9.1 from Apple's site before iPhoto will show up in the updates section of the Mac App Store (credit to infiniteloop for reminding me)


Important Guides


Mac OS X Mountain Lion reviews:

Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web
So that should help you to form an opinion on just how successful Apple was with its latest iteration of OS X, and it should also make that picture I painted in the introduction that much clearer. In the end, OS X 10.8 is a generous helping of iOS-friendly syncing apps and services, with a sidebar of unfortunately poor Messages and a grab bag of ‘most wanted’ features and tweaks to Lion.

It’s absolutely worth the $20 price tag to upgrade, as there is more good here than bad, and that’s super cheap. Messages isn’t a bad enough Apple to taint the experience as a whole and hopefully it will get better soon…hopefully.
As far as the future of OS X goes, Lion and Mountain Lion should show you clearly that Apple sees Macs as a still-important but mostly supporting product to its iPhone and iPad business. Any changes that it makes or new features that it brings in the future will be done to facilitate it growing and sustaining that business, and whatever other iOS devices there are yet to come.

OS X will get more features that sync seamlessly with portable devices, that work logically and without a lot of tweaking. It will come at the expense of easy tweaking and massaging, but it will make users lives simpler.

And, if Mountain Lion is anything to gauge by, that’s definitely not such a bad thing.
Click to expand...

Nilay Patel, The Verge
Ultimately, this is pretty easy: you should spend the $20 and upgrade to Mountain Lion, especially if you have a newer Mac. You’ll gain a handful of must-have features, and everything will get faster and smoother. I haven’t really missed Snow Leopard at all since upgrading, which is remarkable considering how much I disliked Lion.

THIS IS PRETTY EASY: YOU SHOULD SPEND THE $20

But there’s something else going on here beyond a simple purchasing decision: we’re witnessing a dramatic change in how desktop operating systems are fundamentally conceived. Mountain Lion is the first version of OS X to deeply integrate network services at every level, from storing documents to sharing photos to connecting external displays, and it seems that much lighter for it — as though Apple’s relentless charge into its post-PC era has allowed the OS X team to rethink exactly what a PC is and should be. Mountain Lion isn’t perfect, but it’s a confident, thoughtful step towards the future of desktop computing.
Click to expand...

John Siracusa, ArsTechnica
Over the past decade, Mac users made it through the most dramatic, unlikely, and successful operating system transition in the history of the industry. Last year, I noted that despite its king-of-the-jungle name, Lion was not the endpoint of a decade of Mac OS X development; it was the start of a new journey. Mountain Lion makes the eventual destination a bit more clear. Just hold on, my fellow Mac devotees, and we'll make it there together.
Click to expand...

John Gruber, Daring Fireball
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.
Click to expand...

Jason Snell, Macworld.com
All told, I found Mountain Lion to be a stable, solid release. Even prerelease builds were far more stable than I’ve come to expect from OS X betas, leading me to wonder if Apple’s new annual schedule is leading to more careful incremental updates (with fewer bugs) rather than great leaps (with more, nastier bugs).

Traditionally at the end of an operating-system review, you’d expect a discussion of whether the upgrade is really worth the money. But at $20 (and that’s a one-time purchase that can be used on every Mac you own), the money isn’t the issue. Do you have an iPhone or iPad that you’re going to be upgrading to iOS 6 this fall? Or are you going to buy Apple’s next iPhone when it comes out? Do you want to have access to the latest features Apple is rolling out across its entire product line? If so, your answer is a definitive yes.

Mountain Lion is the next step after Lion. It’s Apple’s current state of the art. If you’re running Lion (or even if you’re a holdout running Snow Leopard), I recommend hopping on board.
Click to expand...

Brian Heater, Engadget
Let's get this out of the way, shall we? Does Mountain Lion justify its $20 price tag? Yes. Of course it does. If you're an OS X user with a reasonably new piece of hardware, stop what you're doing and upgrade now. There are 200 features here -- odds are you're going to discover a couple you like. Better yet, if you picked up your system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on June 11th or later, you can get it for free. AirPlay Mirroring, Messages, Notifications and some great new uses for iCloud make for an extremely solid upgrade. In our time with the new operating system, we experienced no major issues; just rare hiccups that can are likely to be fixed in a system update. Heck, even the installation went smoothly. Apple devotees will find a lot to like amid the long list of tweaks and new features.
Click to expand...

Jim Dalrymple, The Loop
I’ve been using Mountain Lion since February when I first met with Apple to get a look at the new operating system. The operating system is stable, secure and it has made my working and personal computing life much better.

You can’t ask for much more from your next operating system. At $19.99 it’s a steal.
Click to expand...

Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo
Verdict: this is not the upgrade you were looking for

Even at $20, most consumers will not find Mountain Lion worth the upgrade. And it doesn't seem to speed up your Mac. People looking for things like Twitter integration and Cloud storage should get it. Everyone else, you can save your coins.
Click to expand...

Mg Siegler, Techcrunch
Overall, Mountain Lion feels like the most natural step yet towards the convergence of iOS and OS X. While Apple says there are now over 66 million OS X users, Apple sold nearly 50 million iOS devices just last quarter. It’s clear that OS X has to continue to creep closer to iOS simply because that’s what far more people know now.

It’s hard to imagine how Apple will further refine OS X from here. Maybe they don’t — maybe OS XI (OS 11?) is next. Or maybe Apple has one more big cat left in the bag (in terms of nicknames, there really only are a couple left). For now, Mountain Lion will stand atop the mountain. It’s solid, polished, and perhaps most importantly, cheap.

For $19.99 in the Mac App Store, you’ll be able to upgrade all your machines to Mountain Lion. You can upgrade both Lion machines and Snow Leopard machines, and they both cost the same price, which is great. If your machine is compatible, the upgrade is an absolute no-brainer.

In a time when Microsoft is just about to upend their entire OS with their biggest change (and bet) yet in Windows 8, Apple has taken a much more refined approach. Perhaps they take some criticism for this, or perhaps they’re just being savvy. OS X remains a great OS. And sprinkled with some of the best elements of iOS, it still feels pretty fresh. Not bad for an eleven-year-old big cat.
Click to expand...

Here's some more Mountain Lion reviews
http://readlists.com/6dc4e805/
 
I

Ingueferroque

Banned
When/where will I be able to redeem my free version? (Got a new MBPro recently)

Thanks for the great guides.

Regarding clean installations, can I create a new partition to make a clean installation.. move my files to that, and after I have moved everything delete the other partition so I have one disk again?
 
Z

Zapages

Member
Nice OP. Quick question when will new Mac Books have ML pre-installed?

I am wondering because I ordered a Mac Book Pro Retina a couple of weeks ago and is due to arrive between August 10th and 16th.

Thanks.
 
D

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
My first Mac ever, a 2012 i7 Macbook Air, comes in today just in time for Mountain lion!

OhGodWhatAmIDoing

Hope I can figure out the OS easily.
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
Now to wait for it to hit the store.

Hopefully it is out early tomorrow here, I have to go out for most of the day so it would be nice to download it while I am out and about.
 
K

Ken Masters

Banned
I just hope it's as fast as everyone says it has been. Snow Leopard was very snappy, Lion slowed my macbook pro down quite noticeably
 
I

Ingueferroque

Banned
celebi23 said:
Try visiting this page tomorrow. No problem. If there's anything I'm missing guys, please let me know :p
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I have one more question regarding clean installations, can I create a new partition and install Mountain Lion on that, and after moving everything delete the other partition so I have only one available partition again?
 
L

LCfiner

Member
cool. looking forward to it. If some of the sluggishness with Safari can be fixed, I’ll be happy (and, no, I’m not moving to Chrome. iOS bookmark sync and now tab sync is reason enough for me to stay with Safari)
 
W

WickedCobra03

Member
Everything past leopard has been a waste for me...

Better spotlight, spaces, stacks has been nice for file management-related tasks, quicklook and bootcamp is all I needed from tiger. I for one am not into the iOS'ing of OSX for computers.
 
M

Magnus

Member
So I have a stupid question. Can I nab ML tomorrow, install it without doing a backup/wipe, and just continue using all the apps I have running on my MBP currently?

Or is it possible some apps won't be compatible with ML for some stupid reason?

I'll sacrifice some compatibility issues if it means I can get the speed of my system up to where it was with Snow Leopard. Lion is inexcusably chuggy.

UnluckyKate said:
upgrade or not ? Will it make Diablo run like shit ?
Click to expand...

Isn't the way to go for games always BootCamp? I know it ran much better that way for me, compared to both Snow Leopard and Lion.
 
S

Sean

Banned
Can't wait for this. I have tons of random issues with Lion in TextEdit and other apps.

Going to back up my Mac later tonight and then do a completely clean install of Mountain Lion tomorrow.
 
C

celebi23

Member
Thanks for the kind words guys :p I've been fine-tuning this for a bit :p If there's anything that I've missed, or anything you think I should put in the OP, please let me know.
 
R

Ryn

Member
Ooh buddy. Got my first mac(book) ever earlier this year, excited to check out the new OS, though I have nothing to compare it to other than Lion, which it came with. Only $20? How are the OS's so cheap for macs?
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
So if I have a Macbook Air right now with 40gb free and install this OS, will I only have 32gb free? I'm new to Macs and I should have gotten a bigger hard drive. :(
 
Timan

Timan

Developer
chubigans said:
So if I have a Macbook Air right now with 40gb free and install this OS, will I only have 32gb free? I'm new to Macs and I should have gotten a bigger hard drive. :(
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure if it deletes (the installer) itself after its done. But you'll prob have the same amount of space after its installed.
 
D

DasRaven

Member
I'll be fresh installing ML on my new 480GB Intel 520 SSD by the end of the month.
The upgrade from 10.6.8 on a SATA2 SSD to 10.8 on a SATA3 SSD should be noticeable.

And as has been the case with iOS/OSX upgrades recently, I'll be able to drop several third party programs/apps at the same time.
 
Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
Ryn said:
Ooh buddy. Got my first mac(book) ever earlier this year, excited to check out the new OS, though I have nothing to compare it to other than Lion, which it came with. Only $20? How are the OS's so cheap for macs?
Click to expand...

They're not. This would be like a Service Pack for Windows, if it was Windows, IMO.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
At $20 there's no real reason for me not to upgrade but man, they are really going to run out of names soon.

EDIT: None of the surface features look like they have any relevance at all for me. I'll be getting it for the under-the-hood tweaks.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
felipepl said:
They're not. This would be like a Service Pack for Windows, if it was Windows, IMO.
Click to expand...

Not really... it’s not like a service pack. i’ve gone through a bunch of these updates. they do more than any win xp or win 7 service pack ever did. There’s more stuff going on under the hood and more user facing features. it’s a new OS update. Apple updates more often than Windows but each revision is usually less sweeping than the Windows releases.

Apple used to charge around 130 for the same style of OS update. they’re charging 20 now (30 for SL and Lion) since they make so much money off the hardware, they can have cheap OS upgrades to make the high margin HW more enticing.

It also has the effect of somewhat undermining Microsoft’s business model of charging for just the software.
 
M

Magnus

Member
The_Technomancer said:
At $20 there's no real reason for me not to upgrade but man, they are really going to run out of names soon.

EDIT: None of the surface features look like they have any relevance at all for me. I'll be getting it for the under-the-hood tweaks.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia:

Family Felidae
Genus Panthera (roaring or great cats)
Tiger, Panthera tigris (Asia)
Lion, Panthera leo (Africa, Gir Forest in India; extinct in former range of southeast Europe, Middle East, much of Asia, and North America)
Jaguar, Panthera onca (the Americas; from the Southern United States and Mexico to northern Argentina)
Leopard, Panthera pardus (Asia and Africa)
Genus Acinonyx
Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus (Africa and Iran; extinct in former range of India)
Genus Puma
Cougar, Puma concolor (North and South America)
Genus Uncia
Snow Leopard, Uncia uncia (mountains of central and south Asia)
Genus Neofelis
Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa (southeast and south Asia)
Sunda Clouded Leopard, Neofelis diardi (Borneo and Sumatra)
Click to expand...

So...Cougar or Cheetah.

Or Sunda Clouded Leopard. :p
 
Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
giga said:
No, not really. Service packs rarely pack any feature increases.
Click to expand...

Rarely, but sometimes they do. Most big things from ML are security related, and Safari should be constantly updated just like Chrome and Firefox.

I own a Mac, love it, but paying for ML kinda sucks.
 
K

Korosenai

Member
Ive been thinking about getting a macbook recently (macbook pro 15").

Should i go with macbook pro 2011 or 2012? Is the 2012 version really an upgrade or will i be fine with the 2011 one? Thanks in advance.

Mountain lion looks very cool. Cant wait to try it out on my mac in the future.
 
M

mescalineeyes

Banned
felipepl said:
Rarely, but sometimes they do. Most big things from ML are security related, and Safari should be constantly updated just like Chrome and Firefox.

I own a Mac, love it, but paying for ML kinda sucks.
Click to expand...

you will change your tune once you've used it.

It's a speed increase akin to doubling your RAM and overclocking your processor.
... without actually doing so, you know.
 
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