My mother has no idea what species of big cat lurks inside her recently purchased Apple iMac.
Mom bought the Mac a few weeks ago after her old one croaked. She likes her new computer, partly because it’s so shiny and moves so fast, and partly because the operating system on it is … newer and better, somehow. She doesn’t know what version of the software she has.
So last week’s release of OS X version 10.8 — code named Mountain Lion — is meaningless to her. All Mom cares about is getting to her online New York Times crossword and other digital pastimes.
As her tech-support guy, I’m not about to force Mountain Lion on her if its precursor, version 10.7, or Lion, is purring along just fine.
Me? I have been installing prerelease versions of Mountain Lion for months and using the final version (known as the “gold master” prior to its public availability) in recent days. I downloaded the public release the nanosecond it became available.
I write about this stuff, so I need to experience it firsthand to critique it properly. But that is just an excuse. I live for these OS releases. I practically giggled as I upgraded my iMac.
If you’re a Mac user, you likely fit somewhere between the two Mac-user extremes — that is, you likely know about Mountain Lion and want to install it, but you are not sure whether to do so right away or wait a bit.
My advice: Do as I say and not as I do. It’s a good idea to wait at least a few weeks to be sure the latest OS X version doesn’t have some kind of horrific bug. I’ll be your guinea pig.
I do recommend Mountain Lion. It is a terrific update with a raft of useful, delightful new features.
There are more than 200 of these (see the list at bitly.com/LIX80K), so I’ll cherry-pick the ones I like the most.
The price: At $20, it’s a steal. OS X updates used to cost a small fortune, but Apple is practically giving them away now.
The delivery method: This is the first version of OS X distributed only as an Internet download, with no option to buy it on a disk or solid-state stick, and that is just fine with me.
Mountain Lion installs beautifully over Lion, too, so my usual MO of wiping a drive and installing the OS on a virginal volume does not present the advantages it once did. But I did this anyway; it’s tradition.
Social-media integration: Apple has baked Twitter features into Mountain Lion as it did earlier with the iOS running on its iPad, iPhone and iPad Touch. This means you can tweet without the need for a Twitter client. Instead, you tweet from within apps, such as the Safari browser.
Similar Facebook integration is coming in the fall.
Share, share, share. Tweeting is just one way to share in Mountain Lion. Pop-up menus dubbed Share Sheets are built into apps so you can e-mail or text from them, upload pictures to Flickr or video to Vimeo — whatever kind of sharing is appropriate in that app.
Notification Center. This slide-out notification tray, similar to a pull-down notification tray on iOS devices, pings you about incoming mail, imminent appointments, FaceTime video-chat requests, pending tasks via Mountain Lion’s new Reminders app and the like. You can see your Twitter @ replies, too (but only from those you follow, strangely) and even tweet within Notification Center.
Subtle little notification windows materialize in the upper right of your screen and either slide out of sight after a few seconds or stay there until you do something about them. Once you get such a nudge, you open Notification Center from the right edge of your screen to get more information.
iCloud. Though not new, this Apple approach to storing your personal data online and swapping it among Apple devices is now fully implemented on the Mac as well as on iOS.
Apple’s cloud keeps crucial data like Safari bookmarks, mail, appointments and contacts in sync across Macs and iOS devices. A Photo Stream feature does the same for pictures.
Best of all, Apple’s Mac-based iWork productivity apps — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — can now sync up with their iOS counterparts, which have had iCloud support for a while. This means I can write or assemble a deck on multiple machines — Mac or iOS — with changes to the files reflected on all of the machines automatically.
AirPlay Mirroring. iPad users with Apple TV boxes hooked up HDTVs can stream slide decks, audio, video, Web pages and the like to the televisions. Pretty much anything visible on the iPad screen can be mirrored on the TV.
Now you can do this with a newer Mac. AirPlay Mirroring from a current-model MacBook Pro to my Sony HDTV worked nicely, except for momentary gaps in the audio when playing YouTube videos and so on. Odd.
Safari Smart Search field. Now Apple’s browser, like Google’s Chrome browser, has a single field for typing search and Web addresses. I love that. Separate fields strikes me as untidy and inelegant.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes about consumer technology. Read him: twincities.com/techtestdrive and yourtechweblog.com. Reach him: jojeda@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5467. Follow him: ojezap.com/social.
