My personal opinion of 10.8

[blow45]

they even stopped syncing keychains (that was a great feature of mm) and now you have three macs to manage passwords at separately. Once with mm, you set one wifi pass say on one mac, boom, you opened the other one it was there in keychain to be used... What was so hard code wise to implement with keychain syncing, it was the only feature of mm that worked seamlessly (albeit it didn't work as securely as it should have)....

I like your idea btw, it's very creative, something I wouldn't say about apple these days.

 

[AppleDApp]

I do agree that iCloud is good at what it does for being a free service. However, I would love better file syncing between my Mac and my iOS devices. I also feel that iCloud could be a great way for Apple to revolutionize OS X. I feel though that Apple is choosing not to take full advantage of the cloud capabilities they have at hand. iCloud could provide a means of streaming not temporarily loading the song onto your device as iTunes match does now. There is so much to offer from iCloud alone that could put some spring and excitement back into OS X. For example imagine having access to your whole system that is at your house while you are at work (I do not mean the remote viewing app Apple offers) I am talking all settings screen savers etc. being loaded onto the computer you are on. The system itself could be stored in the cloud by backups as iOS devices are and then loaded temporarily fully loaded onto the computer at work. Imagine a blanket covering the sheets so to speak. The blanket being your home system and the sheets being the computer that is covered by your system. Not the greatest analogy but I think my point may have come across. Apple is just not using their clouds potential to its full extent. It is being focused on delivering media instead of work loads. I would pay to have access to a service like what I described.

Yes Apple I believe is setting itself up now with yearly release cycles so that they may just throw in a few features at a quicker pace instead of full upgrades. Some things implemented are just gimmicky however, and poorly executed.

I also agree that no one was there to crack the whip on Lion as SJ would have if he had been in better health.

I thought I would chime in on a few points. File syncing as you said is really lacking between iOS and macs. I use an iPad for taking notes in class, I'd really like to get back home and get to formatting then on my mac like dropbox does. I think iCloud is Apple's long term solution. Over time they will incorporate many new features and OS X might even become cloud centered. Think of a mac that is always connected to the internet with wifi, 4g or whatever the next big connectivity technology is. That mac would have a small SSD for apps say 128gb and all documents and media would be stored in the cloud. This is not for tomorrow but this could be a new big market for Apple. As for having access to your home system at work or elsewhere, Macs have the back to my mac feature, which seems to do what you describe. I haven't had a chance to use it.

 

[Sdreed91]

they even stopped syncing keychains (that was a great feature of mm) and now you have three macs to manage passwords at separately. Once with mm, you set one wifi pass say on one mac, boom, you opened the other one it was there in keychain to be used... What was so hard code wise to implement with keychain syncing, it was the only feature of mm that worked seamlessly (albeit it didn't work as securely as it should have)....

I like your idea btw, it's very creative, something I wouldn't say about apple these days.

Thank you. I feel like the cloud really offers a greater future for computing and Apple is holding out on taking full advantage of it.

----------

I thought I would chime in on a few points. File syncing as you said is really lacking between iOS and macs. I use an iPad for taking notes in class, I'd really like to get back home and get to formatting then on my mac like dropbox does. I think iCloud is Apple's long term solution. Over time they will incorporate many new features and OS X might even become cloud centered. Think of a mac that is always connected to the internet with wifi, 4g or whatever the next big connectivity technology is. That mac would have a small SSD for apps say 128gb and all documents and media would be stored in the cloud. This is not for tomorrow but this could be a new big market for Apple. As for having access to your home system at work or elsewhere, Macs have the back to my mac feature, which seems to do what you describe. I haven't had a chance to use it.

Yes syncing is lacking. I too strongly believe that the cloud is the next big thing for the tech industry. The back to mac app is not exactly what I meant. I would love to see (and I would pay for this service) a way to be able to have a snapshot of my system temporarily loaded into the cloud and then onto another computer and pick back up right where I left off and the snapshot could be moved back to the cloud and when you get back to your computer pick back up where you left off however you would be running your full system not a snapshot.

 

[AppleDApp]

Thank you. I feel like the cloud really offers a greater future for computing and Apple is holding out on taking full advantage of it.

----------



Yes syncing is lacking. I too strongly believe that the cloud is the next big thing for the tech industry. The back to mac app is not exactly what I meant. I would love to see (and I would pay for this service) a way to be able to have a snapshot of my system temporarily loaded into the cloud and then onto another computer and pick back up right where I left off and the snapshot could be moved back to the cloud and when you get back to your computer pick back up where you left off however you would be running your full system not a snapshot.

I imagine that would take a ridiculous amount of storage space and time to download.

 

[Sdreed91]

I imagine that would take a ridiculous amount of storage space and time to download.

True but that could be an optional service that users could opt in for and pay for. I am not a software engineer I am an enthusiast that sees the potential of what the cloud could offer and Apple has the resources to make that work. So as far as the really technical stuff I couldn't really get into the details but something like that could be great and revolutionary.

 

[blow45]

we are a long from there boys, they better bring back keychain sync for the time being so at least we can keep our passwords in order, and if not dropbox that they couldn't (and god forbid not another broken idisk) buy some proper file sync options...

 

[Sdreed91]

we are a long from there boys, they better bring back keychain sync for the time being so at least we can keep our passwords in order, and if not dropbox that they couldn't (and god forbid not another broken idisk) buy some proper file sync options...

True. But the future is always a day away.

 

[nuckinfutz]

The problem with endlessly complaining is that you miss out on the "behind the scenes" stuff.

iCloud is far beyond MobileMe in architecture and scope. Despite the lamentations of iOS having an undue influence on the Mac I disagree. The cross pollination between the two has yielded good fruit.

Lion has some UI gaffes but those are surface issues that should be easy to correct. I had the sense after 10.7.2 was released that Lion was already in maintenance mode. With the announcement of Mountain Lion my presumptions were confirmed. Basically Apple punted...they realized that the OS they wanted to deliver with iCloud done right wasn't going to be Lion.

I'm ok with that. With sync technology you really have to have product in the field to test it and then iterate.

I read one post that I thought made sense. Developers have been up in arms about losing the ability to write to some directories. Apple has hidden the Library from users as well. The blog post I read postulated that Apple's actions seem to point towards the ability to put much of your OS into the Cloud. If Apple breaks the assumption from the developer that they are writing to the user library on the HDD then it makes the system far more portable.

If Apple didn't care about OS X they wouldn't have finally developed an in-house Volume Manager for storage.

With iCloud we're not seeing everything it can do already. Collaboration is likely coming, smarter routing (LAN sync) is there.

I'm pretty sure we're just seeing the beginning. The UI stuff will be fixed in a couple of short revisions we'll see some pretty dramatic changes to how we use our computers.

 

[throAU]

+1 to the dude above.

Lion was a major upgrade in behind the scenes stuff.

icloud, and more importantly the security model.

Mountain Lion takes it a step further.


If you don't run multiple devices and sync with icloud and don't care about security there's little new in Lion. If you do, there's HEAPS new.

Gatekeeper (signed code), sandboxing (preventing apps do stuff outside of their playpen) and iCloud are good things.

Most people simply don't understand the implications or care about it.

 

[LostSoul80]

Tl;dr

 

[afin]

The problem with endlessly complaining is that you miss out on the "behind the scenes" stuff.

iCloud is far beyond MobileMe in architecture and scope. Despite the lamentations of iOS having an undue influence on the Mac I disagree. The cross pollination between the two has yielded good fruit.

Lion has some UI gaffes but those are surface issues that should be easy to correct. I had the sense after 10.7.2 was released that Lion was already in maintenance mode. With the announcement of Mountain Lion my presumptions were confirmed. Basically Apple punted...they realized that the OS they wanted to deliver with iCloud done right wasn't going to be Lion.

I'm ok with that. With sync technology you really have to have product in the field to test it and then iterate.

I read one post that I thought made sense. Developers have been up in arms about losing the ability to write to some directories. Apple has hidden the Library from users as well. The blog post I read postulated that Apple's actions seem to point towards the ability to put much of your OS into the Cloud. If Apple breaks the assumption from the developer that they are writing to the user library on the HDD then it makes the system far more portable.

If Apple didn't care about OS X they wouldn't have finally developed an in-house Volume Manager for storage.

With iCloud we're not seeing everything it can do already. Collaboration is likely coming, smarter routing (LAN sync) is there.

I'm pretty sure we're just seeing the beginning. The UI stuff will be fixed in a couple of short revisions we'll see some pretty dramatic changes to how we use our computers.

The glass is but half full and still being filled. I like your outlook.

 

[Confuzzzed]

This...

Fact is, there are a lot of very happy iPad and iPhone users who do not have a Mac...It is in Apple's best interest to make the gap between the two platforms smaller, while still making sure OS X works well on a desktop/laptop.

PS. Are we still talking about a beta version of ML or have I missed the public release? Surely some of the issues will be ironed out before the full release in August

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Unless an OS offers something you need/want just stick with the older one.

Apple is Bleeding Edge unfortunately.

 

[baryon]

I agree, I find that I have to disable everything I can that constitutes a "new feature" in Lion. I think that everything I do is to make Lion look more like Leopard, but it's not entirely possible (Spaces, Exposé, etc…) so it's always going to be a more annoying OS to me. I don't want to go backward and I don't mind so much as to downgrade, but it's just a bit stupid that they're going away from the Apple-like elegant simplicity of Leopard and going towards a feature-heavy complicated OS with lots of things that don't make sense if you try to work out why it's the way it is.

For example, the loss of "Save As" is annoying because most apps still use Save As, so it adds inconsistency. I have to know two different file saving methods instead of one. I don't really care which one is better, it's more a matter of which one I'm used to. And I prefer getting used to one instead of two.

 

[mac-collector]

.... if not then thats cool to.

too*

 

[james948]

Surely it's possible for someone to write a hack that turns mission control into spaces? I've never understood why this hasn't been done.

Meanwhile; yes, we're getting there. What will happen in the not so distant future is the computer will sense your proximity, you type in a password and your data is instantly downloaded to the computer; we're not too far away; there's not that much data now anyway; this is why I could downsize to a 256GB hard drive on a Macbook Air. I deleted my entire itunes library and now just stream it from Match when I want to; home movies I put into vimeo. done

 

[blow45]

This...



PS. Are we still talking about a beta version of ML or have I missed the public release? Surely some of the issues will be ironed out before the full release in August

I hope they don't use they same iron they used when they released lion...

 

[andrewpturko]

Speaking only for the new features (not stability, etc.), if you don't like what ML has to offer, why upgrade? Same with Lion - why'd you do it? Personally, most of the changes I've seen are beneficial. Seems like the OP isn't to fond of change. I can understand not liking the features that aren't beneficial, but when "turning off notification center" was mentioned, I then took on this point of view. What's wrong with notification center? Is change good or bad? There really is no right or wrong answer to this, just a preferred answer to the relative person. One guy is pro beneficial change, the next isn't... I am, because I tend to think beneficial change is...beneficial.

 

[Freyqq]

Unless an OS offers something you need/want just stick with the older one.

I'd like to, but in a few months when 10.8 is released, they are going to end all support for 10.6. If possible, I'd like to stay with 10.6. However, no support means no security updates, etc.

 

[rumandcoke]

The additions are nice, but I only keep up with the upgrades so that my sistem does not become obsolete.

 

[dukebound85]

Unless an OS offers something you need/want just stick with the older one.

which would be nice if newer machines could support older os's

 

[mrsir2009]

For the first time I'm not going to upgrade my OS when ML comes out. They're pushing things like notes and reminders as major features... Seriously?

 

[Mac32]

I totally agree with the OP, it seems Apple is getting lazy. Too much success can be dangerous...

Notes and reminders, search in Safari address bar..wow, that sounds amazing.

And a lot of the changes introduced in Lion are just plain stupid and pointless, they mess up the workflow, and make OSX a less intuitive and seamless experience. A shame, really..

 

[nuckinfutz]

People said the same when Snow Leopard was announced.

 

[jameslmoser]

People said the same when Snow Leopard was announced.

I don't recall that.... I certainly didn't. I loved the upgrade just as I had all the ones prior to it. That was not the case for Lion. I certainly didn't recall this much complaining almost a year after Snow Leopards release.

Lion is a mess for Apple, and they (and more importantly, their users) know it which is why Snow Leopard is still the biggest share of the mac os x user base. The advertised features of Mountain Lion are "Notes" and "Reminders" apps?!?! Thats because the real goal of it was to fix Lion's issues and put it behind them. You probably won't see them make a TV commercial out of that one...