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Apple posts OS X 10.8.1 update, mends your Mountain Lion
There's a special moment in every operating system's life when it loses its innocent .0 status and grows up. It's OS X Mountain Lion's turn to mature, as Apple has just pushed out the 10.8.1 update for early adopters. Most of the fixes are for issues that plague specific use cases, such as audio output from a Thunderbolt Display or crashes in Migration Assistant. There are a few remedies that a wider audience might appreciate -- a fix for iMessages that don't send and an improvement to Exchange compatibility in Mail, for example. We don't yet know of any surprises lurking underneath, but it can't hurt to have a smoother-running Mac while we investigate.
OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.1 update now available
Apple has released OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.1, and the update is now available in the Mac App Store under the Updates tab. A manual installer is also available for download. In the support notes about the update, Apple recommends backing up your system before running the installer. A reboot is required in order to complete the update. The update includes a number of fixes: Resolves an issue that may cause Migration Assistant to unexpectedly quit Improve compatibility when connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server in Mail Address an issue playing audio through a Thunderbolt display Resolves an issue that could prevent iMessages from being sent Addresses an issue that could cause the system to become unresponsive when using Pinyin input Resolves an issue when connecting to SMB servers with long names Addresses a issue that may prevent Safari from launching when using a Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) file Improves 802.1X authentication with Active Directory credentials If you are updating today (and please back up first!) let us know your results. Last week, we rounded up our top Mountain Lion gripes; hopefully some of them were addressed in this update.
VMware announces Fusion 5 with support for Windows 8
Mac users that run Windows on their machines will be happy to know that VMware just updated its Fusion software to support Windows 8. The new Fusion 5 is also optimized for OS X Mountain Lion, so you can run the best of both desktop platforms when Windows 8 debuts later this year. The latest update adds more than 70 new features including support for USB 3.0 devices, better memory management on devices with 16 GB or more of RAM and improved power management. You can also now use AirPlay with the software as well as run Mountain Lion or Mountain Lion Server in a virtual machine. The standard version of Fusion 5 is available for $49.99. Customers who bought version 4 since the release of Mountain Lion are eligible for a free upgrade. There's also a professional version available for $99 that'll let IT administrators deploy Fusion in a corporate environment. [Via Engadget]
VMware intros Fusion 5 virtualization software with support for Win 8, integration with Mountain Lion
With Mountain Lion newly available and Windows 8 on the verge of shipping, now was a pretty good time for VMware to update its Fusion virtualization software, dont'cha think? The company just announced Fusion 5 with 70-plus new features, including support for Win 8 and tight integration with OS X 10.8. For instance, you can now view Windows programs in Mountain Lion's Launchpad, while VMware software updates pop up in the Notification Center. Fusion also supports AirPlay for the first time, and you can also run either Mountain Lion or Mountain Lion Server as a virtual machine. The company also added support for Retina Display MacBook Pros, so that everything looks crisp on that 2,880 x 1,800 screen. Also of note: Fusion now supports USB 3.0, and Linux users get some love in the form of Open GL 2.1 graphics support. The standard version of Fusion 5 is available now for $49.99, but people who bought Fusion 4 since the release of Mountain Lion can upgrade for free. There's also a professional version ($100 for one license), which includes all the above features, and also lets IT departments lock down settings for employees' virtual machines.%Gallery-163118%
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion gripe list
To be sure, I think OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is the best OS Apple has ever released. It feels like a completed version of what Mac OS X 10.7 Lion should have been. It's fast, it's clean, it melds some iOS concepts to OS X and, for the most part, it just works. That being said, no OS is entirely perfect and there are some gripes my colleagues an I have about Mountain Lion. We've compiled them into the list below. Now, most of these gripes are minor and they'll probably be corrected in future updates like 10.8.1 -- at least, we hope so. After reading through the list (which may grow) feel free to add your own gripes in the comments. And please, don't let this list of minor gripes put you off the OS. It really is the best one Apple has ever released. Mail Wobbly scroll on external monitor. No "Reply to sender." Signature sticks when changing accounts (Exchange only). Calendar Accepts invitations in the top calendar, not the default Exchange calendar (and not the account that received them). Displays menubar Mirroring only. Notification Center @mention tweets don't show from people you don't follow. Notification Center/Mail Clicking on an email message in Notification Center should take you to that specific email's inbox in Mail, NOT the universal inbox for all your different email accounts. Safari Under Safari>Preferences>Passwords the list of websites and your usernames should probably be hidden until you enter your administrator password. The passwords are already hidden by default but it seems like a security problem when anybody using your computer could see what websites you go to and what your usernames for the websites are. Knowing your usernames gives them one less thing to hack. Not to mention it tells people exactly which sites they should target you at since they know you're a member of the sites by looking in Safari's preferences. Safari JavaScript bugs render some websites unusable. Loss of RSS button in Safari means users have to jump through several hoops to subscribe to feeds. They also have to spend money to buy Reeder for Mac (or another RSS reader). Stock Widget You can no longer rearrange the order of stocks. Stocks don't sync with Stocks app on iOS devices (they never did, but they should). General: Numerous graphical "tearing" issues throughout the OS on the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Most prevalent in TextEdit and Mail. "Open Recent" has disappeared from opening dialog splash box in many apps, most notably iWork apps. No "share" button in TextEdit. "Save As..." behaviour is completely contrary to how it worked pre-Lion. MacBook Pro with Retina Display has serious wake-from-sleep issues. Requires hard reboot more than 50% of the time. 3rd party apps: Microsoft Office apps refuse to hide. Sandboxing (or something else) seems to be preventing the iStat Menus Dashboard widget from delivering data on CPU processes.
Microsoft has no plans for Retina display Office apps (updated)
There's someone who's kicking sand out of the Retina display sandbox, and that company appears to be Microsoft. Even though Microsoft boasted that Office for Mac is ready for OS X Mountain Lion, Macworld is reporting that users with Retina display MacBook Pros are describing a less-than-stellar experience when using Office for Mac on one of these machine. This isn't a surprise, as about the only current OS X Mountain Lion feature that Office for Mac supports is Gatekeeper, which I think is largely a move to keep the average user from thinking that Office isn't working with Gatekeeper turned on. Other yet-to-be-delivered features include iCloud support (no surprise), auto-saving, versions (though there is a workaround) -- the last two being Lion features that the Office for Mac team was supposedly working on. In the blog, an Office for Mac team member claimed that Outlook does support Retina display. "Outlook for Mac 2011 already supports Retina Display and the remaining apps will have the same viewing quality as on any non-Retina device. Unfortunately at this time, we cannot comment on any future updates regarding supporting Retina on Word, Excel or PowerPoint," the person said. The same isn't holding true for other software. Adobe's Creative Suite also lacks Retina display support, but told Macworld in an email that it would be coming later this year, and the same goes for AutoCAD. But the support is coming, as Photoshop and AutoCAD were demoed during the MacBook Pro with Retina Display announcement. The installed base of Office for Mac users that own Retina display MacBook Pros might not be big enough to justify adding the support right now. As more Retina display machines are adopted in the business industry, Microsoft might eventually come back to the Retina display issue and other Lion and Mountain Lion features that it's neglected. But, I suspect that given Microsoft's laissez-faire attitude toward the Office for Mac suite, those features might come some time in 2016 ... maybe. Update: As one of our commenters pointed out, Office for Mac is written in Carbon while Retina display supports requires Cocoa API. The current Outlook was written in Cocoa.
SlimBatteryMonitor a better menu bar battery monitor
One of the annoyances of Mountain Lion has been the loss of the option to have the remaining battery time shown in the menu bar. Fortunately I can offer you not only a solution, but a better option, all for the low, low price of $0. I have used SlimBatteryMonitor instead of Apple's menu bar battery monitor for several years, because it is much more flexible than what Apple has ever offered. For example, I have never liked using "Time Remaining" while I'm on battery power, because I find that the estimate has always been unpredictable. So when I am using the battery, I prefer to have the "Percentage Remaining" displayed. However, when charging the battery, I like to have the "Time Remaining" shown, because I want to know about how long it will take before the battery is fully charged. If the battery is fully charged and I am using AC power, I don't really need to see the battery status in the menu bar at all. Even before Mountain Lion, those various options would have been hard to maintain using Apple's battery menu bar item. Sure, I suppose I could have gone into the settings and changed the preferences each time I went from battery to AC to fully charged, but we all know that was never going to happen. SlimBatteryMonitor has separate preferences for each of the three states I mentioned above: on battery, charging, and charged. Here's how I have mine configured: You can have it show the time or the percentage (either with or without a battery icon), or just have it show the battery icon (which you can assign different colors for each state). When the battery is charged, SlimBatteryMonitor can even "hide" itself, meaning that it will not show any menu bar icon at all. (Because it is still running, it does stay in the menu bar, there's just nothing shown and the width is reduced to a few pixels. You probably won't even notice it unless you look for it.) The developer has a very detailed page explaining configuration options. The app is free. Donations are accepted but there's no limitations or nag screen. The current version (1.5) hasn't been updated for a few years, but I've used it on Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion with no problem. Those of you still hanging on to Mac OS X 10.3 or 10.4 can even use the 1.4 version of SlimBatteryMonitor. Download from Orange-Carb.org. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
OS X 10.8.1 seeded to developers
Version 10.8.1 of OS X Mountain Lion has been seeded to developers. There aren't any known issues listed in the release notes, just a short list under "Focus areas": Active Directory Microsoft Exchange in Mail PAC proxies in Safari SMB USB Wi-Fi and audio when connected to Thunderbolt display These changes must be minor, as the delta update clocks in at a svelte 38.54 MB in size. This is the first developer seed we've seen since the release of Mountain Lion on July 25. This update is available at Apple's developer site under "Additional Downloads." As Ars and MacRumors pointed out, 10.8.1 made a cameo appearance in Geekbench results earlier this week -- but more interesting than the OS version was the machine ID it was supposedly running on, a possible hint of a 13" Retina display MacBook Pro.
Set up Mountain Lion's text expansion options
Lifehacker has a simple look at how to set up Mountain Lion's built-in text expansion (or, as Apple calls it, "substitution") options. In System Preferences, under Language and Text, you can go in and set up any number of text shortcuts that will expand into commonly-used phrases and words. There are a few built-in already -- typing "(c)", for example, will give you a copyright symbol. But you can put anything in there, so you can use a few quick keys to punch out your email address or phone number, or use some other phrase for anything you happen to type often. Developers know how helpful this can be while writing code. Not only can you use text expansion to help reuse bits of code, but a text expander can remember the exact wording or form of something that you might not always remember. Third-party apps have handled this task well, but with the new restrictions on sandboxing, which is preventing a lot of apps from working on a system-wide scale, it could be helpful to set up your text expansions in the OS.
Put colorful Finder icons back in Mountain Lion
OS X Lion introduced greyscale Finder icons in the side bar of Finder windows. They look nice, but many think their colorful counterparts were nicer. SideEffects lets you replace them. This simple Mac utility installs components that enable color Finder sidebar icons in both Lion and Mountain Lion. SideEffects is donationware and a beta, so if that makes you hesitant you can skip over it. Otherwise, enjoy the pretty icons!
Flip4Mac WMV tool launches public beta of v3
Mac owners who work in a Windows environment know how difficult it can be to play a Windows Media file on their laptop. One popular solution that lets customers play and edit a WMV/WMA file is Flip4Mac, a QuickTime component that is developed by Telestream and supported and hosted by Microsoft. The latest release is Version 3, which customers can now download as a public beta. This newest version includes support for 64-bit Core Audio in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. The package is now signed with a digital certificate that meets Gatekeeper's security requirements. Besides some changes for Mountain Lion, this release also includes a new Flip Player application. Flip player is a free, standalone media player that complements Flip4Mac's system-wide QuickTime integration. Customers who want more than a player can purchase an upgrade to a Pro (US$29), Studio ($49) or Studio Pro HD ($179) version. In addition to playback, these paid versions can edit and transcode WMV and WMA files.
Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts
Mountain Lion's Notification Center is handy. It displays banners and alerts from notification-aware apps to keep you informed of changes, like a new Twitter mention, Calendar event or email message. That last one can get distracting, depending on how much email you receive. Here are some ways to tame email alerts: Disable alerts and banners in System Preferences. Open System Preferences and click Notifications. Select Mail from the list on the right and then click None. You'll no longer see email notifications. Quit Mail. Apple's Mail app won't push notifications if it isn't running. Turn them all of at once. Open Notification Center on your Mac and swipe up to the very top. Move the slider labeled Show Alerts and Banners to the Off position to silence all pop-up alerts and banners (they still appear listed in Notification Center itself). Slide it back to On to restore alerts and banners. If you're worried about a notification popping up when you're making a presentation, don't be. Notification Center is smart enough to recognize when you've got Keynote open and silences notifications on its own. Additionally, it won't display alerts or banners on a mirrored display.
Mountain Lion 101: Notification Center in a hot corner
Apple's Mountain Lion introduced Notification Center to the Mac. This handy feature lets notification-aware apps display pop-up style alerts when something changes, like an incoming email message, Twitter mention, Calendar appointment and more. Apple notes that you can access Mountain Lion's Notification Center by swiping your trackpad or Magic Trackpad from left to right. Alternatively, you can click the Notification Center icon in your Mac's menu bar (here's a more thorough look at Notification Center options). Those are great, but I use a third option. Specifically, I've assigned Notification Center to a hot corner by following these steps: Launch System Preferences and click Desktop & Screen Saver. Click the Screen Saver tab, then click Hot Corners. Click the drop-down menu at your corner of choice, choose Notification Center and then click OK. Now the Notification Center will appear every time you move your cursor into that corner. I suspect you're wondering why, so I'll tell you. First, I run my MacBook Air connected to an external display with the lid closed. Also, I don't have a Magic Trackpad and finally, I've been using Hot Corners for years to trigger Exposé and Spaces, so it's an action I'm used to performing.
Panic's Candy Bar is now free, goes to Iconfactory
Panic has updated icon customization app CandyBar for compatibility with OS X 10.8, changed the price to free and handed it over to The Iconfactory. As the 'Factory workers point out, changes Apple has recently made to OS X security have hindered the app significantly. For that reason, it's no longer supported. Mac users have long enjoyed the ability to customize the look of their operating system. Who remembers Kaleidoscope from the pre-OS X days? We sure do. Unfortunately, OS X rendered Kaleidoscope obsolete, and now Mountain Lion is looking to do the same to CandyBar. For example, Apple's latest OS prevents customization of Dock icons (though the indicator light can be changed). Also, a custom icon on a signed app could cause the App Store to fail to recognize an available update. Anyone who purchased CandyBar during July, 2012 can receive a refund (see details here). Panic indicates that The Iconfactory has plans for the app's future, but we'll have to wait and see what those will be.
Talkcast tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET: Dog days edition!
It's Sunday again, like it or not, and as long as you can turn the air conditioner down low enough so the noise doesn't drown it out, you can join us tonight to record the Talkcast! We'll be discussing the latest and greatest (or not so greatest) news on Mountain Lion, the Apple/Samsung Showcase Legal Showdown, and include a PSA about security. It may be a warm one where you are, so tonight's Aftershow will likely include topics that go well with ice. Now it's really all about you, the community, so join me won't you? To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Mountain Lion bugs: Chopped battery life and nonsensical 'Save As' behavior
It's inevitable that with new operating systems come new bugs. One widely-reported bug has affected a noticeable chunk of laptop Mac users who've upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion: some users are reporting steep declines in battery life. A poll at Engadget shows that over 7400 of nearly 17,500 respondents who've installed Mountain Lion (42 percent) say they've noticed a definite and discernible drop in battery life. A similar poll at RazorianFly suggests that the 2011 models are disproportionately affected, but that may be sample bias. Battery problem reports came out last year when OS X Lion launched. The problem with these bugs is it's nearly impossible to predict which systems will be affected or under what circumstances; my Early 2008 MacBook Pro has had no observable loss of battery life under Mountain Lion, but a brand-new MacBook Pro may well see battery life declines of 20 percent or more. No one has tracked down a specific cause or a fix yet, including Apple. However, it's safe to assume this will be a top priority for the forthcoming 10.8.1 update, so don't start sharpening those class-action lawsuit claws just yet. Far more concerning is the way "Save As" works in Mountain Lion. You'll recall that Mountain Lion brought "Save As" functionality back to OS X, which spared us from a year of workflow-breaking "Duplicate" then "Save" hoop-jumping. Fellow TUAW blogger TJ Luoma even figured out how to change the menu commands around so "Save As..." showed up by default instead of "Duplicate" in the systemwide "File" menu. Unfortunately, it turns out that Mountain Lion has answered a question no one thought to ask until now: When is "Save As..." not really "Save As..."? The answer is surprising and somewhat distressing. As Mac Performance Guide notes, the "Save As..." command in Mountain Lion saves changes in your new document and the original document. In my own testing, the reason seems to have something to do with Mountain Lion's auto-save features. Initiating and completing a "Save As..." command will automatically close the original document and leave the new document in its place. The simple act of closing the original document triggers Mountain Lion's auto-save feature, meaning the next time you open the original document, those changes will still be there. This could be a potential nightmare for document version management. My own testing in TextEdit and Preview documents showed that Mountain Lion's handling of the "Save As..." function wasn't at all what I've come to expect from nearly 30 years of using Macs. Anyone not familiar with the esoteric intricacies of Mountain Lion's auto-save behaviors (in other words, the overwhelming majority of users) is likely to fall into a panic the next time they open their original and supposedly preserved document only to find something else entirely in front of them. Mountain Lion's use of auto-versioning means you can always revert the original document back to its pre-"Save As..." state -- but we shouldn't have to, and counting on everyday users to be capable of navigating through the Versions interface to find their original document seems foolhardy at best. No. Just no. All of this means that the triumphant return of "Save As..." to Mountain Lion has turned out to be not so triumphant after all. The way the command worked in the past, your original document would be preserved without edits and would be waiting for you in its original state the next time you opened it. The new behavior in Mountain Lion is more complex, far more confusing, and has far more that can go wrong with it. Some people might say that the old methods of document management and versioning are old-fashioned, and the new way is better. As someone who regularly works on complex projects demanding meticulous version tracking, I respectfully disagree. This isn't necessarily a "bug" in Mountain Lion, but it is conspicuously incongruous behaviour -- and it's also something Apple can improve for users, if it chooses to do so.
LaCie reveals new Mac-friendly USB 3.0 external drives
Lacie's just announced its next generation USB 3.0 drives meant to take advantage of the new Ivy Bridge internals of the latest MacBooks. The fresh Rugged Triple, Porsche Design P'9223 and P'9233, and RuggedKey models all use USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UAS) for maximum data transfer speeds to and from machines running Lion or Mountain Lion. If you're looking to pick one of these slick storage devices, they'll be available in Apple stores and on LaCie's website this summer.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Will my brand new refurb Mac come with Mountain Lion?
Dear Favourite Aunt TUAW, I'm using British spelling in honor of the Olympics. I know that I haven't called lately but I've been very busy waiting for my new Refurb Mac mini. It's going to replace my trusty but aging 2007 edition. I've fetched my Firewire cord and have the step by step method of transferring data, etc... and then it struck me - will the new Mini come already equipped with Mountain Lion? How will that affect the migration? I can't sleep as I fret about this, so please offer your expert advice. Thanks... Your 16th favorite nephew, Mark Dear Mark, Auntie's pretty sure that "Aunt" is spelled identically on both sides of the Atlantic, although she should point out that you (and all of her nieces and nephews) have always been her favourite. (See what she did there?) Auntie gave Apple a call and confirmed that refurb minis qualify for the Up to Date program. You'll be able to upgrade for free. What's more an Apple rep confirmed that the migration assistant will work between OS versions, so you'll be able to move your data from the original Lion install to your new mini -- whether you've already upgraded it or not. Cheers, pip pip, and Tally-Ho (two can play at that game), Auntie T. P.S. Uncle Rich is now squirming. Not just because of Auntie's take on the entire British Empire, but also because he's not a huge fan of Migration Assistant's reliability. He writes, "Migration Assistant [redacted] impressively on my iMac. I extracted my MBP HDD and put it in a USB caddy. Told Migration Assistant to use it as the source and let it do its thing. Rebooted; system seemed good. Disconnected the USB drive... and it stopped booting. Something I had on the old OS X install was cross-connected to the USB HDD, and wouldn't start without it! Never did figure out what it was. In the end I did a clean install of Lion, then told Migration Assistant to move only my home directory and not any of the other settings or apps. I had carried my OS X install forward from Leopard onwards, so it was high time for a clean out anyway." #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Tweetbot for Mac's latest alpha adds experimental 'snap-together' column layout
Tweetbot's been offering a rough-around-the-edges alpha version on its upcoming refresh for a few weeks now, but it's the latest update that's caught our attention -- again. There's several substantial changes that could tempt you away from other desktop Twitter clients. These include a new multiple account view, with separate columns that can either be docked to your main feed or left in their own window. You can spin out mentions and search results into their own space, and even adjust each column's height and width -- if you're looking to squeeze even more Twitter content into a single screen. A new menu bar icon offers access to your multiple accounts, new tweets, direct messages and mentions, while the latest build also improves support for media upload and Mountain Lion's notification bar. Tweetbot's alpha is still free to try for now, but once the kinks are eventually worked out, expect to pay for the finished article.
Poll: Is Mountain Lion devouring your Mac's battery life?
We've seen plenty of users report that Apple's latest OS, Mountain Lion, has caused a massive drop in battery life. While we haven't been able to confirm any decrease in longevity with our own OS 10.8 machines, which include previous generation MacBook Pros and the company's latest Retina model, it's clear that some of you who were able to get the operating system downloaded and installed have experienced some not-so-favorable side effects with your Pros and MacBook Airs. While there are plenty of theories, there has yet to be a fix, though Apple is reportedly investigating the issue. This isn't the first time users have reported decreased battery life after an OS update, with a lengthy support thread popping up after Lion's release last year. So, how has the upgrade affected you? Sound off in the poll below to let us know.%Poll-76894%
