A Non-Troll Report on the Irrelevance of ML

[50548]

Those who don't know me in this forum have been accusing me of behaving like a troll due to my harsh criticism of the soon-to-be-launched ML. Unfortunately, these people ignore that probably over 95% of my thousands of posts have always been rabidly pro-Apple.

Moreover, I have converted more than 15 people over the last 5 years to Mac - and none of them are ever going back to the sad world of Windows.

So what's the problem with my criticism now? The problem is that, in my view, Apple no longer strives to innovate and/or devote the necessary resources for the development of a great OS X desktop experience. Instead, they have decided to take the easy path and simply integrate a bunch of iOS fluff, in total contradiction to the TRUE innovativeness that has put Apple back in the game since 1997.

Worse: most of the pro-ML comments in here tend to state that "no further innovation is expected" since OS X (or Windows) is so "mature". Well, do you remember how cell phones and music players were before the iPhone and iPod? I do. Do you also remember when Bill Gates said that no one would ever need more than 640KB of RAM in their home computers? I also do.

The genius of SJ was exactly to think OUTSIDE the box of mediocrity and come up with totally unexpected steps which, when taken together, would mean sheer innovation instead of continuity. However, the Apple of today has apparently abandoned this track (at least as far as OS X is concerned), focusing instead on doing more of the same. Whether it is a 3D desktop, a totally new file system, a mindblowing Finder interface, new input methods, new metaphors, NONE of these are realized in ML.

But to make such accusations is also an easy way of being termed a "troll". So I have decided to go through each and every one of the 200 "new" features (or chapters containing them) to justify my current state of opposition against ML. This message is, thus, directed at those who don't feel exactly excited about Apple's new release - let's see what we can find out (categorized in terms of innovativeness/usefulness -> both on a scale of 0 to 5, respectively):

1 - Accessibility - irrelevant for me and most persons out there, including those with special needs - other than 14 additional Braille keyboards and some additional VoiceOver commands, not much to report - rating: 0/2

2 - AirPlay Mirroring - everyone saw this one coming, probably one of the few truly welcome additions to OS X, even though Audio Support has been there for AGES now - rating: 0/4

3 - Auto Save - "Prompt to save when closing a document"? "Save As" Really? How is this even worth mentioning? The only good thing is that it brings back some requested functionality - rating: 0/1

4 - Built-in Sharing - This mostly annoying feature already existed before for some services and is just being extended. NOTHING else to report - rating: 0/2

5 - Calendar - "Search suggestions"? "Sidebar"? "Notifications"??? Are you joking? I had this with Leopard already! - rating: 0/1

6 - Contacts - "Groups column"? I've had Groups for AGES now! "Share button"? Gimme a break - rating: 0/1

7 - Dashboard - the ONLY notable thing here is the possibility to create widget folders à la iOS, something which may be useful to those having a gazillion widgets on their large screens - rating: 1/2

8 - Dictation - another relatively useful feature (depending on your proficiency of a handful of languages, of course), even though it's just another iOS thing brought over - rating: 1/3

9 - Dictionary - "Swipe between pages"? "New dictionaries" for definitions? - not even worth mentioning, but well... - rating: 0/1

10 - Facebook - yep, Mark Sugarloaf's FB is now part and parcel of OS X. No innovation, just annoying built-in sign-in and sharing tools - rating: 0/2 (for those FB lovers)

11 - Features for China - I am not Chinese, so I couldn't care less. This is the first time a SINGLE country is mentioned as a set of features for OS X. So we have two ratings, one for non-Chinese and another for Chinese users: 0/0 and 0/4

12 - Finder - the poor Finder doesn't get much love, now does it? "Inline progress", "Easy encryption", "Customizable sidebar"? "Tap to Quick Look" has been there since forever with the free MagicPrefs! Advice to Apple: Just buy Pathfinder or TotalFinder and pretend they are your creations - rating: 0/1

13 - Game Center - more iOS fluff, although gamers may like the fairly innovative cross-platform multiplayer support, the only thing worth mentioning here - rating: 2/2

14 - Gatekeeper - just more of the walled garden approach, with increasingly less flexibility as far as your apps are concerned. But increased security is good anyway - rating: 1/3

15 - iCloud - ALL of the features announced there already exist in one form or another. ML just brings a few tweaks here and there. And for those cloud haters, this means absolutely nothing, NADA - rating 0/3 (for cloud users)

16 - Launchpad - "Search"? I do not need to comment further, do I? rating: 0/0

17 - Mac App Store - this is NOT an OS feature, it's an update to an app by itself - "Swipe between pages" and "Automatic downloads" are somehow useful - rating: 0/2

18 - Mail - "VIPs" are like Google "stars"; irrelevant. "Inline search" may be useful. "Notifications" have been with us for years now through Growl and others - rating: 0/2 (for inline search)

19 - Messages - This is just iChat improved, with better iOS/OS X integration, nothing else. And I've heard the NASTY RAM/disk eating bug is still there - rating: 0/3 (for heavy cross-device messaging)

20 - Notes - It seems like this doesn't even have copy/paste enabled. Stickies on steroids and nothing more - rating: 0/1

21 - Notification Center - more iOS fluff/Growl-induced crap - may be useful to some, though - rating: 0/2

22 - Photo Booth - these "new" features are so ridiculous they are not even worth mentioning - rating: 0/0

23 - Power Nap - another one of the FEW true innovations in ML. Of extremely limited usefulness, though (only notebooks with flash storage) - rating 3/2

24 - Preview - Hardly innovative, but "Inline notes" and "insert page from scanner" may be useful to some - rating: 1/2

25 - QuickTime X - irrelevant, apart from slightly faster decoding for some - rating: 0/1

26 - I am getting tired of typing, so see 21 above - rating: 0/2

27 - "Password Autofill"? How is that possibly new? "Smart search" and "Tab view" and "DNT" are improvements, still. Sad to see that the main "innovation" in ML belongs to an autonomous browser - rating: 2/3

28 - Security - I thought "Kernel ASLR" was already in place, but still...more sandboxed apps are also welcome. Innovations? Close to ZERO - rating: 1/3

29 - System - apart from "improved scroll bars" and "drag and drop in screen sharing", NOTHING else needs to be elaborated upon. Not to mention that the "Go full screen on any display" is a pathetic non-fix of the full screen problem in Lion. Sadly, even Windows can do better than that. Don't believe me? Check this AI thread: http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/15...tain-lion-gm-go-full-screen-on-any-display/40 - rating: 1/2

30 - TextEdit - irrelevant improvements - rating: 0/0

31 - Time Machine - "Backup to multiple locations"? Sure, but this doesn't seem to mean multiple drives at the same time - rating: 1/2

32 - Twitter - irrelevant, to say the least - rating: 0/0

Now YOU do the math and tell me who is trolling.

Am I gonna buy it? Probably yes, just as I buy a $20 lunch every day here in Switzerland. Marginal improvements, perhaps a little more speed. Innovation? Excitement? Bragging rights? That "I love Apple" feeling? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

 

[Hellhammer]

I think Microsoft is seriously trying to bring something new to the desktop world with Windows 8. Whether it ends up being a catastrophe remains to be seen, but innovation requires taking a risk. Apple has been playing safe for too long in my opinion. I'll be sticking with Snow Leopard because it has all the features I need - I tried Lion but it was noticeably slower and reduced my battery life.

 

[trustme]

Ummm. What kind of rating system is that?

 

[rorschach]

What innovations would you like to see? It's easy to post what you don't like, what do you want? Honest question, because that's what I'm much more interested in hearing.

Also, an aside:

The genius of SJ was exactly to think OUTSIDE the box of mediocrity and come up with totally unexpected steps which, when taken together, would mean sheer innovation instead of continuity. However, the Apple of today has apparently abandoned this track (at least as far as OS X is concerned), focusing instead on doing more of the same.

People here were saying the exact same things with every new Apple product while Steve Jobs was in charge. Just saying. Go through the archives and look at some of the old announcement threads.

 

[Glockron]

Gotta agree with the OP. ML brings very little new. They really should focus on some of the base flaws of the OS, such as finder (would prefer WinExplorer anyday...) and compatibility.

Personally I really dislike the move to a more iOS-like environment. There's a reason I got a Mac and not an iPad... Some iOS-inspired features are welcome, such as launchpad - but a lot of the other stuff is just useless.

 

[maflynn]

. Apple has been playing safe for too long in my opinion.

Mountain Lion is a polished up Lion with a few more features. I like ML and what it has to offer over Lion. With that said, I agree wholeheartedly that apple is playing it safe at this point. I think they had an opportunity to really leverage and extend OSX, but instead opted to make a few updates.

 

[Krazy Bill]

Dude... I'm probably more critical than you about where OSX is headed (see my sig) but an Airplay rating of zero just because "everybody saw it coming"? Still I give you an up vote for the elaborate dissertation though.

Overall, I agree more than not about most anything else. We all have nits but mine is specifically:

WHY DO FULL SCREEN APPS GET THEIR OWN FREAKING SPACE???? (thereby causing a bag of hurt for multi-monitor users).

Fix the above and I can swallow a lot of eye candy and other ancillary fluff.

 

[w3rt]

I agree apple are playing it safe lately and the whole iOS integration stuff is not what I am looking for to be honest.

 

[50548]

Just to be clear, the "two-number" rating system I came up with means, respectively, "innovativeness and usefulness". This is why Airplay, in my view, gets a ZERO for the former, and a FOUR for the latter.

 

[comatory]

Some of those points remind me of one of Lion's "features" touted last year - window resizing, haha that was good one.

Actually I'm hoping that ML will become something like SL to Leopard, improvement in speed and stability.

Yeah, some of that stuff is bleh.. but Powernap seems really cool if there's anyway to modify some settings (I don't like installing updates to my apps automatically for example).

 

[50548]

What innovations would you like to see? It's easy to post what you don't like, what do you want? Honest question, because that's what I'm much more interested in hearing.

Rorschach, I have posted elsewhere my multiple suggestions for areas of "innovative" improvement in OS X.

A quick example above is in Finder. Everyone knows a MAJOR revamp has been necessary for years, yet nothing is done by Apple.

At the very least, they could have bought something like Pathfinder and implemented it as part of the system. And if they had thought a little more ahead, perhaps something even more avant-garde like BumpTop.

 

[Orlandoech]

The only few things I like are;

• the new look of the dock
• the copy progress in finder
• notification center
• icloud integration
• speed improvements over lion

Other than that, they are trying too hard to incorporate iOS into OS X.

 

[Pompiliu]

BRLawyer, that's exactly how i feel about new Apple.

A few years ago, apple used to innovate with features like Expose, Spaces, Time Machine, Quicklook,etc, now all we gate is facebook, twitter, gamecenter.
And features for China.

 

[aicul]

Am I gonna buy it? Probably yes, just as I buy a $20 lunch every day here in Switzerland. Marginal improvements, perhaps a little more speed. Innovation? Excitement? Bragging rights? That "I love Apple" feeling? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

share all points

Will probably buy also

But don't think 20$ gets you lunch in switzerland

 

[Krazy Bill]

At the very least, they could have bought something like Pathfinder and implemented it as part of the system. And if they had thought a little more ahead, perhaps something even more avant-garde like BumpTop.

You are missing the obvious direction Apple is taking with OSX. The Finder is the anti-iOS thorn in Apple's arse. They'd like nothing better than to do away with it entirely.

 

[Sky Blue]

A quick example above is in Finder. Everyone knows a MAJOR revamp has been necessary for years, yet nothing is done by Apple.

Like what? If you were in charge of OS X, what would you do? What would do with the Finder?
How is a "3D Desktop" in any way a useful relevant feature?

 

[aicul]

BRLawyer, that's exactly how i feel about new Apple.

A few years ago, apple used to innovate with features like Expose, Spaces, Time Machine, Quicklook,etc, now all we gate is facebook, twitter, gamecenter.
And features for China.

If i take your comments and add them to the initial 20 odd, it seems quite obvious, osx is now mature and will no undergo a revolution.

Basically this simply speaks to me as follows; if i want the next relase of iphoto, imovie, i will have to cough up the price of ML i don't really need

So maybe Apple needs to stop cats, start some other animal and surprise us with a yeue renewal.

The risk is incremental improves, something that cost nokia dearly

 

[talmy]

They've backed off of the radical changes in Lion (thinking here of Resume and Duplicate, as well as the backwards UI steps in Calendar and Address Book) which should make Lion Haters perhaps more likely to move forward. And since ML installs over SL, they've certainly had that in mind. For people that like Lion, ML is a no-brainer upgrade. It fixes more problems than it creates. (Admittedly, it does remove some features that some people want/need, but that's always been the case with Apple.)

 

[50548]

Like what? If you were in charge of OS X, what would you do? What would do with the Finder?
How is a "3D Desktop" in any way a useful relevant feature?

At the very least, implement something like Pathfinder on a system-wide basis; but my point is not even that.

It's about seeing Apple once again TRULY INNOVATE in the OS X arena, with some thinking outside of the box just like SJ used to do with things such as the G4 Cube, OS X itself (following the Copland fiasco), the iPod and the iPhone.

Problem is: SJ is gone, so I don't know WHO would be able to see things beyond the ordinary. ML is definitely NOT a step in that direction.

 

[d4rkc4sm]

ml is a refinement of lion, just like sl to leopard. ml will be a must-have upgrade.

 

[scarred]

You aren't trolling, but you sure do lack a lot of perspective imho.

This is a $20 update. A "point" release. No, it won't blow anyone away. I'm hoping most of the effort was behind the scenes stuff tbh. It is a decent way to spend twenty bucks. It polishes Lion.

Now, your comments that Apple isn't innovating anymore is a whole different topic. I'll have to disagree with you on that front, but honestly, if you can't see this on your own, then me pointing it out won't do anything.

 

[Tankmaze]

to be fair, mountain lion is only a year old upgrade than lion... we usually get 18 - 24 months OS upgrade from apple, now apple wanted to do it every year just like iOS.. plus mountain lion is like leopard -> snow leopard that is mostly under the hood improvement...

 

[iSimx]

I'm looking forward to getting ML as I see this update as a refinement of Lion (which for me has been sluggish) but on the other hand I do agree with a lot you say. Apple have played it safe for quite a while. Although I personally don't like Windows 8 (although it may grow on me) you've got to applaud Microsoft for taking the risk and making something completely different.

 

[50548]

And ANOTHER reason to be underwhelmed with ML: PowerNap ONLY works with Apple-branded SSDs. So Point 23's rating must be down from 3/2 to 3/1...

 

[Mac32]

Well, I'm still on Snow Leopard on all my Macs, and I've complained about Lion since day one, so..yeah I totally agree with you.
Also, it's not just a lack of new, useful features, it's also about Apple making non-sensical changes in the user interface that messes up the workflow for *serious* use, not just web browsing, playing music, and writing a couple of documents now and then.

Quite frankly, Snow Leopard is already an incredibly mature and well functioning OS. I'd rather have a "safe" upgrade, than using something that havn't been thought through well enough. Lion is a prime example of how well intended programmers can mess up already working functions, and give us something that is clearly worse - ie. autosave, fullscreen implementation, mission control etc..

On the other hand, there are things missing in Finder, that Windows Explorer have had for 10 years or more.