robloweyx: OS X Mountain Lion now available in the Mac App Store!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

OS X Mountain Lion now available in the Mac App Store!

OS X Mountain Lion, the 8th generation of Apple's desktop operating system and the elder brother with which iOS shares much of it's digital DNA, is now available in the Mac App Store.

Most iOS users still use Windows as their primary desktop operating system. Even as the iPad is replacing traditional, lower-level desktop tasks like email, web browsing, and gaming for more and more of the mainstream, when it comes to proper old operating systems, Microsoft is still king.

Yet Apple's choosing an incredibly interesting way to try and change that, at least for the users it cares about most. No, not you, geeky gaming rig guy in the basement. No, not you beleaguered beige box guy in the cubicle. No, not even you, media server maven guy with your house all wired. With Mountain Lion, as with Lion before it, targets the casual user -- that very same mainstream user who's gotten an iPad for many things, but still needs a traditional computer for some things. A car driver looking for a familiarly appointed truck.

Familiarity is the key. Familiarity is a feature. Though they share many of the same underpinnings, OS X and iOS are very different animals. (One's a big cat, for starters.) Yet Apple understands that, for the user, the interface and the experience is the app. So with Mountain Lion, they've made more of the OS X interface and experience more closely match iOS than ever. Which makes sense, given the iOS user base not only dwarfs the OS X user base, but consists of the very users Apple wants to reach most -- those for whom traditional computers have always been inaccessible, intimidating, and off-putting.

Setup and iCloud

OS X Mountain Lion now sets up similarly to iOS 5 -- you enter your iCloud-associated Apple ID and almost everything gets done for you. It's not quite that simple of course, at least not yet, but it's vastly better than computers of even a few years ago.

You still have to choose or take a profile picture, which is irksome to those of us who've used Macs with .Mac and MobileMe for years, and iCloud now, who'd really love to have the option to use our existing iCloud avatar. You also still have to fill out registration information. iOS skips both these steps, and for the better.

Once you're done you're done and in, however, and everything that syncs between your iOS devices also syncs between your iOS devices and Macs. (Apple technically doesn't use sync for iCloud but "store and push".)

All your stuff is "just there", and because Apple has made OS X apps sound, look, and even feel more like iOS apps, all your stuff is easy to find as well.

##Built-in apps

Gone are the iCal and Address Book of old, and in their place are Calendar and Contacts, just like iOS. They got an iPad-style makeover last year with OS X Lion, so this year the name is the biggest change. It may not seem like a big deal, but for an iOS user it makes them instantly recognizable and referable across Apple's platforms.

Likewise, iChat has become Messages... and is more problematic. iMessage delivered a much-needed roshambo to the carrier price gouge that was SMS, and worked in a similar fashion. It was in context. It was understood. Even on the iPad, iMessages made some sense, even if dual-wielders had to put up with dual accounts (phone number for iPhone, Apple ID for iPad and iPod touch) -- and dual alarms! (iOS 6 will fix this by allowing phone numbers and Apple IDs to be merged for iMessage and FaceTime.) On OS X, however, the iMessage/iChat hybrid is messy.

On one hand, if you're working on the Mac, it's faster to respond to iMessages on the Mac than to switch devices and do it on the iPhone or iPad. On the other, holy triple beeping hell, Batman. I've turned off alerts for iMessage on everything but my iPhone, since it's always with me. That way I only get one notification, but can reply from the device of my choosing. A more elegant solution from Apple, however, awaits.

Added to the built in OS X app suite are Notes and Reminders, which now exist and do on OS X what they done on iOS since versions 1 and 5 respectively. They're no more or less than any iOS user would expect, but being able to expect them on the desktop as well as mobile is significant.