by Conrad MacIntyre
By Conrad MacIntyre
Before Ice Cream Sandwich has managed to reach more than 1% of Android devices, reports are suggesting that its successor, Android 5.0 ‘Jelly Bean’, could launch as soon as June.
Just to make sure the majority of users are at least one full version behind.
And if they’d fix the embarrassing reliability of Lion’s Preview.app.
Preview has been okay for me, but this actually reminded me of Lion's new "Quick Look" I guess it's supposed to be better, but it is bad. Really bad. Doesn't work 60% of the time.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the companies made use of “a special code” which fools the browser into allowing the monitoring of behaviour, an action that it is specifically designed to block.
Don't be evil.
Reuters reports that wages for Foxconn employees will rise by 16% — 25%, increasing the pay for a junior level worker in Shenzhen to 1,800 yuan ($290) per month and could be further raised above 2,200 yuan if the worker passed technical examinations. This marks a significant increase from 900 yuan three years ago.
Those monsters!
It isn’t a shocker that Tim Cook is pissed off at the NYTimes and cut off access. If you’ve been covering Apple for a long time, this is beyond obvious and a fact of life.
Agreed.
If you get a message sent to your freshly registered iMessage email address, you’ll get alerts on your Mac and any other devices simultaneously. If you have an iPhone, a Mac with Messages installed and an iPad, you’re getting three audio, visual and/or vibratory alerts for every message. After a few of these, you’ll start feeling like you’re in a pachinko parlor with beeps, bloops and flashes driving you nuts.
He continues, a little later:
To fix this, Apple could use a syncing service, say iCloud, or perhaps the Push Notification system that it already uses to facilitate the iMessage network, to determine when your Mac was active. If you’re noodling around on your Mac, and have Messages running, then it will send any iMessage alerts there.
These alerts will appear in the new Notification Center introduced in Mountain Lion, not on your devices. When you walk away from your Mac or it goes inactive for more than a couple of minutes, alerts will move back to your devices. It can even keep track and alert you retroactively from the moment that your cursor stopped moving. That way you never miss any alerts, even if a message was sent moments after you turned away from your Mac and walked away.
This idea has some merit. Especially if you're an avid texter (I'm not). It'll be interesting to see if Apple addresses this issue.
Even if Apple no longer considers Microsoft to be a 'threat' (which was probably intended to point out the differences in their approaches and userbase, rather than being an arrogant offhand remark), both of them are going to be working very hard to keep from being upstaged by the other and to provide the best experience they possible can.
I agree. This can only benefit consumers. I especially appreciate that Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple is. Microsoft isn't full of idiots or anything. They are smart people, but the company is lazy and complacent. Maybe getting pushed around by Apple and Android in the mobile space has woken them up. This will be fun to watch.
Today a German court ruled that most of Motorola’s products infringe on Apple’s slide-to-unlock image patent
Well, things aren't looking that great for ol' Motorola right now. But this means more than that… if Apple can win this slide-to-unlock battle it can win others.
This piece by Devin Coldewey needed a break down to, if nothing else, show technical errors and misunderstandings. Devin, do your homework before spewing half-truths.
There’s a good reason Apple let Mountain Lion out of its cage this morning with no fanfare or event.
Yes, it was hot on the heels of an Education Event, and immediately preceding an iPad Event. They want it out this summer and they want developers to have time to take advantage of it.
Like Lion, the improvements are minor at best and some less than useless.
Not only 'useless' but less that useless? Surely this statement will be backed up with a well-reasoned and technically sound article.
Lion hasn’t sold particularly well, and few of its “improvements” have caught the attention of the public, except when they try to scroll down and it goes up. Personally, I thought being able to resize windows from any edge was worth the price of admission alone, but the rest, not so much.
With two months of release Lion had 14% of the Mac market running it, bearing in mind that PowerPC users are still not able to get Lion, and Intel Leopard users face the Snow Leopard roadblock to upgrading. Also, if natural scrolling (which took me and my wife about 3-4 days to get used to) is so bad turn it off!
[UPDATE: MG Seigler, someone who does his homework before writing an article:
Apple says that over 19 million copies of Lion have now shipped (including both Mac App Store and new Mac numbers). This means the software makes up about 30 percent of the total OS X user base in under seven months. They say that it took Windows 7 twenty-one months to reach that milestone.
That's 2.7 million copies per month. On average. What a failure.
And now here is Mountain Lion, a collection of iOS apps and features already available elsewhere. And a shady “security” feature that by default prevents you from getting apps from any source but the Mac App Store.
Wrong. The default allows Mac App Store apps as well as any app with a free, and unrestricted Apple Developer Lisence. But, well, you tried, didn't you? [Update: The licence is free, but the Apple Developer account costs $99, just to be clear.]
Apple-flavored versions of Growl
That's what you think Notification Center is? Wrong again.
and SimpleNote, great.
Except that SimpleNote requires it's own account and servers and another sync mechanism. Notes makes it simpler and is tied-in at the OS level - which makes it more powerful (especially on iOS).
A desktop version of Game Center, a network built around mobile gaming. Why?
It's built around mobile gaming because that's the only platform it's on… are you kidding right now?
And you can now tweet things from anywhere, super easily. Except 95% of your tweets are done either in a client, on your mobile, or within a browser, where there is already a wealth of plugins and bookmarklets.
So instead of downloading and installing a plugin or bookmarklet you can use the baked-in version. This will allow developers to have Twitter integration at the OS level, which cuts down on programming and let's them focus on the features that make their app great. Sounds like a win to me.
A chat client.
That automatically works with Messages on iOS. I've gotta say, it's awesome. I've been trying to find a text-from-my-Mac solution via Bluetooth or WiFi for ages. This does away with that. Awesome.
A screen-casting thing that requires an Apple TV, and can prohibit some content from being transmitted. The share button might be nice.
Obviously you've never used AirPlay Mirroring, or Apple TV. They are both awesome. And those content restrictions exist on the iPad and iPhone as well. Also, I'm not sure yet if Flash Player (Hulu, etc) will know it's being Mirrored and try to stop you. Someone with OS X 10.8 should check on that.
And Gatekeeper – kind of a heavy name for a single setting.
You're attacking the naming of this thing?
It’s not a serious security feature, just a way to shunt people into the Mac App Store by default.
I won't bring it up again because you obviously just heard about this on the radio or something and didn't actually read anything about it at all, but that is NOT TRUE.
It wasn’t long ago that Facebook and Google were facing withering criticism for similar “defaulting” strategies. The shoe is on the other foot today, though as usual it’s really more a philosophical problem than a practical one. Just change the setting.
Links? Hard to back up baseless assertions, eh?
I’m not trying to be overly negative, here.
Another failure.
I like my Mac. But neither Lion nor Mountain Lion (also known as the Puma or Panther) has made me excited about using it.
Well, keep using Snow Leopard, then. It's a fine OS.
On the contrary, I’m worried about it. The features added have been increasingly imitative, restrictive, and questionable from a user-experience point of view. I know there are big changes coming down the line, and I look forward to them, but these holdover releases are toothless.
But getting rid of the need for a lot of plugins, add-ons, and new programs Mountain Lion (and Lion before it) bring these features to more people. I love Growl, but Notification Center is so much better and more capable than Growl. Google Voice? Move to Canada and try using Google Voice. You obviously don't know what you're talking about and it shows.
Ina Fried:
Although they are doing it in different ways, Apple and Microsoft are aiming for a similar goal with their next desktop operating systems: To make the computer more like the phone.
Jim Dalrymple, in response:
There is a big difference between what Microsoft and Apple are doing.
Even a cursory knowledge of the two OSes should yield that conclusion.
Jordan Crook on tablet market share:
Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet took the third and fourth spots, with 8 percent and 7 percent shares respectively.
I don't know about the Nook, but I've never seen one in the wild. And though I have never seen a Galaxy Tab in anyone's hand or known anyone who uses one I have seen dozens of them posted to Craigslist in the last few weeks. Every electronics retails in BC is giving away Galaxy Tabs. I guess they're selling really well?
Paul ‘Supersite’ Thurrott on the OS X Mountain Lion release:
There were absolutely no rumors to indicate such a release was coming, and given the timing, one can logically assume that Apple is trying to steal some thunder from Microsoft’s eagerly-awaited Windows 8.
Apple CEO Tim Cook to the Wall Street Journal:
I don’t really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple
Who to believe, who to believe…
I bet Mountain Lion ships well before Windows 8. But! While Microsoft has been trying to get Office and Windows Phone 7 out, Apple has been sitting on it's hands so… not really a fair fight.
With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has ditched Software Update as a standalone application, and instead baked its functionality into the Mac App Store’s “Updates” panel. Now if you hit Software Update, the Mac App Store loads and all of the integral software updates are found under a drop-down box under OS X Update.
Finally!
Ryan Faas, in his continued fear-mongering:
Mountain Lion, on the other hand, gives developers a big incentive because not using code signing and not being part of the Developer ID program will likely lower sales for apps not sold through the Mac App Store. That puts Mac developers on a shorter leash and incentives membership in Apple’s Mac Developer Program. It also makes it much easier for consumers to ensure the integrity of apps and security of their Macs.
It increases security, and is free for developers, but it "controls" developers as your title insinuates? What is with your hate-on for Mac security? Any user who would care if their app is signed or not (or even be aware of what that means) will know how to turn off Gatekeeper. Stop with the link-bait headlines. Seriously.
Look at this screenshot of Safari 6 for OS X Mountain Lion. The new placement of the Reader button is totally the right move. And the Chrome-inspired Omnibox is awesome. Finally.
Update: turns out Safari 6 is actually Safari 5.2.
In OS X Mountain Lion, sign in once with your Apple ID and iCloud is automatically set up across your Mac.
What I like the most is that picture of Pages for Mac synced with the Pages on iPhone/iPad. This has been the primary barrier keeping me from picking up the iWork suite for iOS.
Jordan Kahn pens this doozie:
Mountain Lion isn’t a walled garden (yet), but it has a Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper-Gate is gaining momentum.
Pro photographer Dwight Eschliman spent two days on Apple’s Cupertino campus shooting real photographs of the iPod Touch. But because he was using big studio cameras to get huge image files, and was shooting super close-up to the iPod, depth-of-field was hard to come by (DOF shrinks appreciably the closer you get to your subject). So Eschliman took a bunch of photos, all focussed at slightly different distances, and stitched them together “in post.” The resulting composite image shows the iPod in amazing detail, and is sharp from front to back.
Apple's identified developer program does not involve any sort of vetting on Apple's part, as certificates are automatically issued upon request and can be freely used by the developers. But what the program does do is provide a way for Apple to link specific developers to specific apps and use Gatekeeper to revoke application functionality should a developer be discovered to be distributing malware.
Sounds to me like there are no downsides. Any reputable developer can register with Apple and distribute their apps freely. But… just to be safe… let's term this one:
GATEKEEPER-GATE!
Nailed it.
“Mountain Lion”? Really?
That's what I thought. But really, where to they go? (The step-backward) Clouded Leopard? (The retro-sounding) Jaguarundi? (The open-source)Lynx?