OS X Mountain Lion Review Roundup

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iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store This morning, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on the Mac App Store, for $19.95. I have been using Mountain Lion since Beta 3 as a part of the OS X Developer Program. While there were a few bugs during the betas, as to be expected, the ones I noticed were all fixed by Apple by the time they released the GM Seed to developers a few weeks ago. Since then, the OS has been rock solid. There are lots of new features, many of which I think you'll appreciate. Rather than attempt to explain them to you myself, I wanted to list a few places where you can go read reviews of Mountain Lion written by the veteran reviewers themselves. First and foremost, I want to point out, that John Siracusa has once again written one of his famous OS X reviews (Web or Kindle) . John's review, which weighs in at 25,935 words, is the most in-depth review of all reviews. John has famously written epicly detailed reviews of OS X going on for over a decade now. His reviews are a must-read by die hard Apple users, so much so that Marco Arment has wrote a review of his review (which is quite funny to read).

Review Roundup

  1. John Siracusa - "OS X Mountain Lion" (Web or Kindle)
  2. John Gruber - "Mountain Lion"
  3. Jason Snell - "OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)"
  4. MG Siegler - "OS X Mountain Lion: Quick, Familiar, Cheap, And Drenched In iOS Goodness"
  5. Jim Dalrymple - "Apple Releases OS X Mountain Lion"
  6. Wayne Dixon - Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and ML Server via Web, Kindle
  7. Federico Viticci - "OS X Mountain Lion Review"
  8. Richard Gaywood - "OS X Mountain Lion: The TUAW Review"
  9. Shawn Blanc - "Mountain Lion and the Simplification of OS X"
  10. Harry McCracken - "Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Review: The Mac's Lion Adventure Continues" While a lot of these reviews, or probably all, talk about the same topics, like me you may wish to read them all as I respect the views of each author and each author will have a different take on these features. Also, some reviewers will catch details that the others miss. I like to have a thorough understanding of the tools I use, so knowing as much as possible about OS X is desirable to me. I find that reading all of these reviews each year when new OS X versions come out gives me that knowledge.

Evening Edition

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Jim ray, at Off the Hoof, Mule's Blog:

Now, we’re all constantly awash in a torrent of news-like “updates”, in between fake celebrity death tweets, divorce notices on Facebook and new-puppy tumblrs. How is anyone supposed to sift through all of that to get to the important stuff? The answer to Jim's question is Evening Edition. Mule has launched a clean, concise summary of the day's news published in time for your commute home that talks about the major news events of the day in short summaries, linking to more in-depth versions of the story. Evening Edition is edited by the lovely Anna Rascouët-Paz. As I told Katie and Mike over Twitter earlier: Evening Edition + Instapaper = commuter heaven.

Why Microsoft Should Screw Its Hardware Partners

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Mat Honan's first article at his new (old?) job over at Wired:

And then there are tablets. Microsoft isn’t even close to being a player in the tablet business, which is dominated by Apple and Android. (And, in all reality, Android is but a twee little sideshow relative to the iPad.) Many of Microsoft’s desktop partners have gone full-tilt toward Android tablets, so they’re already competing with Microsoft. So Microsoft’s best bet is to prove there’s a market in Windows tablets — which shouldn’t be hard given how abysmal Android tablets are.

Dropbox Doubles Space For Pro Users

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Dropbox just announced on their blog that all Pro account users are getting free storage upgrades. * 50GB $10 accounts now become 100GB accounts. * 100GB $20 accounts now become 200GB accounts. * a new 500GB account option will be available (pricing not announced) The changes go live tonight. This is great.

Building And Dismantling The Windows Advantage

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Horace Dediu, at Asymco:

Considering the near future, it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs. Windows within one or two years. The install base may remain larger for some time longer but the sales rate of alternatives will swamp it in due course. The consequences are dire for Microsoft. The wiping out of any platform advantage around Windows will render it vulnerable to direct competition. This is not something it had to worry about before. Windows will have to compete not only for users, but for developer talent, investment by enterprises and the implicit goodwill it has had for more than a decade. It will, most importantly, have a psychological effect. Realizing that Windows is not a hegemony will unleash market forces that nobody can predict. Horace outlines why all of these things will happen, based on years of data going back to the 80's and current trend-lines in this article. Great analysis.

Does Google Have Any Social Skills At All?

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Sam Biddle, at Gizmodo:

Everything new from Google is prima facie fantastic, and served with the best intentions. Google is a monolithic company, sure, but it's filled with geniuses who want to make your life easier through technology. Nobody's faulting their ambition, or questioning its motives. But we have to wonder: Are these new things meant for regular people, or the data-obsessed, grace-deficient Silicon Valley nerd vanguard? As much as we wish it weren't so, the answer seems a whole hell of a lot like the latter. That the company responsible for Android is still building for robots. In each case, Google has balanced on golden fingers a product—clearly with a lot of time, thought, and money behind it—that just doesn't seem to jibe with the way we actually live our lives. There isn't any lack of effort or innovation here, but rather a gaping disconnect between the way data geeks and the rest of us see the world. What happens when you fill a company with socially inept software engineers and allowing essential things like design take a back seat to engineering. That you can get the light bulb to work is not the ultimate goal. People have to want to use the light bulb.

Preview Of An Upcoming Vanity Fair Piece On Microsoft's Downfall

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Two time George Polk Award winner Kurt Eichenwald, at Vanity Fair:

Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.” I've read several other articles by reporters who've read an advanced copy of the entire piece (which is much bigger than the preview I've linked to above) and if what they write is true, it should be a great read.