OS X Mountain Lion
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Getting Ready for Mountain Lion: Performing the upgrade
Mountain Lion is almost here, arriving tomorrow on the Mac App Store. Are you ready to upgrade? First, make sure your Mac is Mountain Lion compatible. Apple offers a list of technical specifications, so you'll be able to upgrade with confidence (although Apple says 2GB of RAM is OK, we'd recommend at least 4GB). If your Mac is from 2010 or newer, you are generally in the clear. Owners of older Macs will want to check upgrade specifics. Purchase and download a copy of the installer from the Mac App Store. The installer should run about 4.5 GB more or less. We recommend that you copy the installer file to a safe place before you run it. The installer is automatically deleted as part of the install process. That's not a problem if you've got lots of bandwidth in your life and don't mind downloading copies for each machine associated with your Apple ID. It is a problem if you live in New Zealand or rural Ohio or someplace else with metered Internet and intermittent connectivity. Apple's recommendation, if you're bandwidth-limited, is to visit an Apple Store for downloading assistance; a Starbucks or internet cafe should be fine as well. As reported back in February, Apple has no published plans to deliver Mountain Lion on USB sticks. Next, make a system backup. We recommend running Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to prepare against any bad upgrade scenarios. Finally, you're ready to get started with your upgrade. Just double-click the installer. An upgrade typically takes under an hour and consists of a short install sequence followed by a reboot followed by a longer install sequence followed by another reboot. The rule is this: have patience. You may need to wait 30-50 minutes for your upgrade to finish. So go take a walk, have a snack, or do Pilates. Keep your fingers away from the Power button and let the upgrade do its thing. For many new Mac owners, the move to Mountain Lion represents your first major upgrade. To help users prepare to make the jump, Erica Sadun and Steve Sande wrote Getting Ready for Mountain Lion, an Amazon/iBooks eBook (US$4.99). It's aimed at first-time upgraders and people looking for hints and tips about smoothing the transition. They're sharing some of their tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the 10.8 upgrade.
Get your Macs ready: Mountain Lion ships tomorrow
Apple has announced that OS X Mountain Lion will be offered for sale on tomorrow, July 25, for $19.99. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, states that Apple will "release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we've got in the pipeline." We can't wait. Join us tomorrow for the Mountain Lion launch and lots of how-to. Want to catch up on our coverage? Check out some of our Getting Ready for Mountain Lion posts. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Apple to release OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion tomorrow
Apple just confirmed in its Q3 2012 earnings report that Mountain Lion is coming tomorrow. The hotly anticipated 10.8 version of OS X brings with it a host of new features, as we've expounded upon in the past. The upgrade will be just $19.99 (unless you've recently bought a new Mac -- in which case it'll be free) and will be available via download on the Mac App Store in 24 hours or less. Better start finding some disk space.
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: Dr. Rich and Mr. Steve
Cyfarchion, darllenwyr teg! TUAW TV Live is going to get an international flavor to it this afternoon when our very own Dr. Rich (@PenLlawen) Gaywood joins me for an hour of witty repartee about 7-inch iPads, the upcoming Apple 3Q earnings call, Mountain Lion (which I'm assuming will be available on July 25), and any other topic that happens to spring into our minds. Everybody's favorite Welshman and I will be on the air at 5 PM EDT (10 PM BST / 2 PM PST), and as usual the IRC chat room is open to your comments. So pull up your favorite computing device, grab a frosty refreshment, and join us! To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel. The chat is on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.
Tweetbot for Mac arrives as free alpha, we give a quick hands-on
Seemingly anyone who's used an iPhone (and often the iPad) knows Tweetbot -- it's often the go-to Twitter app for those who prefer not to go the official route. It's to those users' delight, then, that Tapbots just posted a free alpha version of Tweetbot for Mac. As you'd anticipate, it's an attempt to bring much of the app's power user mojo to the desktop world: you can check just retweets of your content, mute overly chatty people or hashtags, and otherwise get more control than just watching your stream drift by. It's even (mostly) Retina-ready for that new MacBook Pro. Alpha does mean that there will be a fair amount of things missing; it won't tap into iCloud or Mountain Lion's Notification Center until it's official, for example. But if you're willing to deal with that and a few potential bugs, it may be time to brush other apps aside -- just note that you'll need Mountain Lion or newer when the app is ready to face the Mac App Store, even though it works with Lion today. We've had a quick spin with the app, and it largely does what it says on the tin: it's Tweetbot, on the Mac. The primary differences are changes that make sense when a mouse pointer and a larger screen area are available. You can reply, retweet, or view whole conversations from buttons that appear as you hover, rather than using the myriad taps and swipes of the iOS apps. It's a wonderfully minimalist app, if that's your thing, and you can open multiple windows (currently through a keyboard shortcut) to get some of that TweetDeck-style power user layout. Our main gripe? Tweetbot on the Mac always updates in a live stream, and there's no option for intervals; if you follow a lot of people, there's a chance you might miss something. Still, for an alpha, it's a decidedly polished and useful effort that doesn't leave us wanting like a few clients, including Twitter's own.
Apple sunsets a few 64-bit Macs with Mountain Lion, video drivers likely the culprit
Apple is well-known for wanting a close spread in hardware requirements with OS X upgrades, having dropped PowerPC like a hot potato when Snow Leopard arrived just three years after the Intel switch. Whether or not you're a fan of that policy, it's certainly carrying forward with Mountain Lion. When the newly-finished OS hits the Mac App Store, it will rule out the very first wave of 64-bit Macs: certain MacBook Pros, Mac Pros and other early systems will be denied a taste of 10.8. Some sleuthing from Ars Technica suggests that it's a matter of graphics drivers rather than capriciousness on Apple's part, as the Macs excluded from the mix are using 32-bit drivers that won't play nicely with Mountain Lion's 64-bit Utopia short of a wide-scale conversion effort. It's little consolation to those who dropped a pretty penny on certain Macs just a few years ago. That said, Apple is still going the extra mile to support some systems -- if you're reading this on an original aluminum iMac, you're sitting pretty.
Getting Ready for Mountain Lion: Messages
In this series, Erica Sadun and I have talked about many of the ways that you can prepare for the upcoming release of OS X Mountain Lion and about some of the new features that are to debut with the new OS. One of those features, Messages, has been available in beta form in Lion since February. Unfortunately, mention of the beta was quietly pulled from the Apple website in the last few weeks -- but you can still try to download and install it via direct download. Messages is designed to let you send and receive instant messages without the need for a text message account from your cellular carrier. The idea is that you should be able to send and receive texts on any device, whether it's an iPhone, iPad or Mac. While Messages is available on iOS as iMessages, the feature won't be built into OS X until next month. Messages replaces iChat on your Mac, adding the iMessage capability but keeping other IM accounts like AIM. During the beta, I've been quite happy with the app and use it daily to chat with my wife on her iPhone while she's at work. If I leave the house with my iPhone, I can continue the chat on that device. Erica and I did some tests using Messages to send photos, videos, contact info and attachments between different devices, and it's very handy for exactly that type of cross-device transfer. I love how you can see when a message has been delivered, and three dots tell you when someone's in the process of replying. The Messages beta will probably cease to operate as soon as Mountain Lion ships in a few weeks, so be sure to upgrade to Mountain Lion as soon as you can if you're hooked on Messages. For many new Mac owners, your move to Mountain Lion represents your first major upgrade. To help users prepare to make the jump, Steve Sande and Erica Sadun wrote Getting Ready for Mountain Lion, an Amazon/iBooks eBook. It's aimed at first-time upgraders and people looking for hints and tips about smoothing the transition. We're sharing some of our tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the 10.8 upgrade. OS X Mountain Lion will be offered for sale in July 2012 for $19.99. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Apple adds new security feature to Mountain Lion preview
An update to the OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4 was released yesterday afternoon, and the Twittersphere was immediately filled with missives about the features people were finding. A tweet by @Lhunar pointed out a new "Mountain Lion Security Updates" system. The system apparently does daily checks looking for security updates, downloading and installing them automatically or upon restarting your Mac. This shows Apple's growing concern about malware attacks on the Mac platform, particularly after the Flashback attack earlier this year. The system also includes a more secure connection to Apple's update servers. For developers who have downloaded and installed Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4, the update is a 1.16 GB download. Apple requests that those developers "[i]nstall this update as soon as possible." Mountain Lion will be available next month via the Mac App Store for US$19.99.
Getting ready for Mountain Lion: Clean up your Mac
It's not too early to start thinking about getting your Mac prepared for Mountain Lion. By the way, I'm going on record as saying that Mountain Lion will be released to the public on July 18, 2012 -- if history repeats itself, Apple will hold its third-quarter financial call on July 17th and announce the availability of Mountain Lion for the next day. [Well, that didn't quite happen -- but don't be surprised if it's still the day after the earnings call, now scheduled for 7/24. –Ed.] One of the best ways to ensure a smooth transition to Mountain Lion is to make sure that you've cleaned your Mac. I'm not talking about washing and detailing your favorite Mac; instead, I mean getting rid of the junk files that accumulate from the first day that you pull a Mac out of a box and start using it. First, it's a good idea to check your current disk usage to make sure that you'll have enough storage to perform the upgrade. Select Apple menu > About This Mac and then click the More Info button. This launches the System Information app. Click the Storage tab and you'll see detailed information about what's taking up space on all attached drives: Expect Mountain Lion to take up about 8 to 10 GB of free space. If your drive is low on space, it's time to clean up. Free apps like Grand Perspective and Omni Disk Sweeper can tell you what big files are chewing up space, giving you an idea of what to delete. However, use caution! Don't delete files just because they're big. When in doubt, Google file names you don't recognize, and take special care removing files from your Mac's Library folders. Also think about emptying the Trash. Some new Mac users don't realize that they have to empty it occasionally, so it can take up gigabytes of space. In Mail.app, select Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items > In all accounts to free up space. iPhoto also holds onto deleted photos in a special trash bin -- select iPhoto > Empty iPhoto Trash to move them to the real Trash, and then empty it again. Another big space waster? iOS device backups. If you're now using iCloud backup to back up your camera roll, accounts, documents and settings, and you've been an iOS user for years, you might have a ton of backups chewing up space. To delete those backups, launch iTunes, then select iTunes > Preferences. Click on the Devices button, and you should see a list of device backups: Select one or more of the backups, and then click the Delete Backup button to dump those backups and clear up space. One more tip is to clean up temporary files and system logs. Your Mac normally runs UNIX maintenance scripts between 3:15 and 5:30 AM local time, but if you have your machine shut off or asleep at night, they won't run. [As our commenters pointed out, while this used to be the case in earlier versions of OS X, modern versions will actually "catch up" on the maintenance routines when the machine is awake. –Ed.] If you want to force a maintenance script to run, you can either install a free app like OnyX to perform cleanup and repair functions directly (a good idea), or use Terminal to run the scripts occasionally. Launch Terminal, which is in the Applications > Utilities folder Type the following command at the prompt, followed by the Return key: sudo periodic daily weekly monthly When prompted to type your Mac's admin password, do so and press return again. As soon as the scripts have run, the Terminal prompt returns and you can quit Terminal. Lastly, think about moving large folders or files to an external disk drive. The iPhoto and Aperture photo library and the iTunes Music folder are both notoriously huge. These are some common-sense tips for clearing up space on any Mac, even if you're not going to be upgrading to Mountain Lion. However, an OS upgrade is a perfect time to change those hoarding habits. For many new Mac owners, your move to Mountain Lion represents your first major upgrade. To help users prepare to make the jump, Steve Sande and Erica Sadun wrote Getting Ready for Mountain Lion, an Amazon/iBooks eBook. It's aimed at first-time upgraders and people looking for hints and tips about smoothing the transition. We're sharing some of our tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the 10.8 upgrade. OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 will be offered for sale in July 2012 for $19.99. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Apple airs new Retina MacBook Pro commercial
Hot on the heels of WWDC, Apple aired a new commercial that showcases the Retina display MacBook Pro. The ad pans between the retina-capable Final Cut Pro and other OS X apps like Mail. Without a doubt, the commercial is designed to show off activities that would benefit from the gorgeous display. You can watch the retina MacBook Pro ad and a new OS X Mountain Lion video on Apple's YouTube channel. They are also embedded below for your convenience. [Via MacStories]
Apple's WWDC keynote video is up, play along at home (update 2: video for everybody)
Next-generation MacBook Pros? iOS 6? The new Maps app? Sure, you watched the whole thing live, but is that really enough? Apple's tossed up the Tim Cook-led WWDC keynote, so now you can experience the magic of liveblogging the whole thing all over again. Check out the video in the source link below. Update: Looks like it's only Safari users who get a peek at first: if you're on Chrome, Firefox or another browser, you'll have to sit tight for a little while longer. Update 2: The keynote video now looks to be working for most, so stream away.
iOS 6, OS X Mountain Lion SDKs and betas now available for dev download
Let's hope there's a lot of bandwidth available at hotels around the Bay Area, because the software development kits for iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion just became available for download. Developers will need to agree to new Developer Program License Agreements prior to being able to download or even glance at the new materials. The Xcode 4.5 Developer Preview is ready for your developer love, and iOS 6 beta version 10A5316k is available as well. Those interested in the Apple TV will rejoice in the fact that a new Apple TV software beta is available. iTunes 10.6.3 beta is ready for download, as are pre-release versions of FindMyiPhone and FindMyFriends for iOS 6. Mac developers will find Developer Preview 4 of Mountain Lion ready to go, as well as Mountain Lion Server Developer Preview 5.
Apple slips out new OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion beta, leaves 2007 MacBook Pro in a momentary lurch
Apple looks to be stepping up the frequency of OS X Mountain Lion beta updates after initially keeping the pace slow and steady: it just posted a new, unceremoniously titled 12A206J build for developers. What the update fixes in the Developer Preview isn't clear, but there are still glitches with Fast User Switching, Java applets, sharing menus and Notes syncing with iTunes, among a handful of other showstoppers. There's also a major heads-up for those who own mid-2007 MacBook Pros, as they can't properly run Mountain Lion at all until another update. We wouldn't be surprised if there's another fix in store ahead of WWDC next month, and there's still all of the summer left for Apple to put the final polish on the OS and make its release target.
Apple inadvertently teases iCloud.com banner notifications, pings your browser iOS 5-style
Apple already made clear that it was expanding iOS 5-like notifications to the desktop with OS X Mountain Lion, but it now looks as though that's extending to your web browser, too. Some visitors to iCloud.com have reported seeing notifications show at the top of the page that were both based on iOS' look and which were clearly not ready for prime time -- not unless Default Title for English is a new iCloud feature, at least. There's no indication of how advanced notifications might become in Apple's web portal, or if they'll transition from development cocoon to public butterfly at all. In the meantime, though, keep an eye on the top of your browser and let us know if you see anything leap out in the near future.
High-res Mountain Lion art could point to Retina Macs in 2012
Apple developers test-driving the latest Mountain Lion (10.8) release may have noticed some higher-res graphics erroneously popping up in "unexpected places," such as the double-size phone icon that appears alongside an audio chat invitation in Messages. One such dev reported his findings to Ars Technica, as you can see evidenced in the graphic above. This mild slip-up could imply that Apple plans to release Macs with high-density displays later this year, or, at the very least, that Mountain Lion will be Retina-ready. High-res support dates back to OS X Lion, which is reportedly equipped to play nice with HiDPI displays, should they eventually become available. Compatible icons are but a second piece of the puzzle, which could be completed to the tune of deliciously dense 2880 x 1800 (or higher) resolution 15-inch LCDs. Wouldn't you love to see that.
Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2's new features detailed
When Apple dropped the second developer preview of Mountain Lion on Friday it didn't see fit to include release notes, instead leaving it to us and the rest of the blogosphere to dig up the new features ourselves. The big ones are clearly Twitter alerts in the Notification Center and the introduction of tab syncing in Safari through iCloud. The latter of which should sooth iPhone fans that were jealous of Chrome for Android. Smaller enhancements were also turned on, including warnings when a program asks to access your contacts and location-based alarms in the Reminders app -- which can be shared with your iOS-based mobile device as well. We'll keep looking for more, but let us know you discover any new features in the comments.
Mountain Lion Preview 2 now available to devs
A new beta of Apple's pre-release Mountain Lion 10.8 OS is now available for developers. Build 12A154q is the second preview that Apple has released of this new operating system, expected to debut sometime this Summer. Release notes and update details are waiting for you behind the developer firewall. The preview is currently restricted to paid members of Apple's Mac developer program.
Parallels Desktop 7 updated so you can test Windows 8
Users of Parallels Desktop 7 are used to using a variety of operating systems on their Macs: Windows 7, Google Chrome OS, Fedora and Ubuntu Linux, and even other instances of OS X Lion. An update that was released today by Parallels now adds support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview and OS X Mountain Lion. The update to Build 7.0.15055 (Revision 740667 if you're counting) can be installed from Parallels Desktop 7 at no cost. Once the update is installed, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available as a free one-click install from File > New. The Parallels Mobile app (free) can be used to operate the virtual machine from an iPad or iPhone, great for those times when you want to (koff) pretend your iPad is a Windows 8 tablet. A screenshot of Windows 8 as seen from an iPad follows.
Mountain Lion developer preview changes file renaming options
One of my pet peeves with Mac OS X always appears when I'm in the process of opening a file from an app and want to either make a duplicate of an original or just want to rename the file. With Lion and previous versions of OS X, that meant that I'd have to close the "Open" dialog, open a Finder window, make the name change, and then go back to the dialog. AppleInsider noted today that the Mountain Lion developer preview adds some changes that will eliminate this pesky issue. Mountain Lion now includes "new and improved" Save and Open dialogs (see above) that finally let users rename files from the dialog -- no trip to the Finder required. With a double-click on the name, it becomes editable in the dialogs, exactly what you see in the Finder now. Files can also be renamed from the title bar of apps. The Versions pulldown currently displays options to lock, duplicate, revert to last saved version, or browse all versions. In Mountain Lion (below), the pulldown is changed so that it now adds Rename, Move to iCloud, and Move To items. While this is just a small change to the operating system, it's something that a lot of us have wanted for a long time.
Mountain Lion: It's called a developer preview for a reason
Every time a developer preview of a new version of Mac OS X or iOS arrives, we at TUAW wait for the onslaught of emails telling us about the favorite apps that did or did not work, peripherals that suddenly won't work, or machines that end up being totally borked. Jason O'Grady at ZDNet has written a wonderful cautionary tale about what might happen if you pull the tail of Apple's OS X Mountain Lion. O'Grady installed OS X Mountain Lion DP1 on a backup 11" MacBook Air and basically loved the new OS and how well it worked with most of his existing apps. He was impressed with the integration of iOS capabilities and the improved security. And then all hell broke loose. While working with eBay client iSale on the MBA, things started going bad -- the app crashed repeatedly. So O'Grady decided to try a reboot ... which didn't work. To make a long story short, he "elected to take the "nuke and pave" option. I ended up booting from my Lion flash drive, reformatting the SSD and re-installing the relatively stable Mac OS 10.7 (non-Mountain) Lion. Patching it up and calling it a day." O'Grady ends the post with a reminder that all of us who are anxious to try out developer previews need to have pounded into our brains every time Apple tempts us with a new and shiny OS release -- don't install developer previews on production machines, and always assume that the worst will happen. As O'Grady found out, sometimes that worst possible case does happen and in this situation, you'll be mauled by an angry Mountain Lion.
