MOTUnation.com

Mountain Lion is out today.

Some of those who have the Beta installed are having problems downloading and installing it but there are solutions already posted if you get Error 100.

As with Lion, you can burn the installer to a DVD if you do it after download but before you install. You will find it in your Applications Folder. You can use this installer on multiple computers under your Apple account. It will be interesting to see if updates will go through Software Update or the App Store only as has been promised. If App Store only, that should cut way back on its desirability for pirating as you can only update through a paid account.

Unlike previous OS releases including Lion, I could not get the download DVD to boot my 2010 iMac as an emergency boot disk. True, it's not necessary with the Restore partition but it is no longer possible either.

I have installed it on two drives - one as a clean install only; the other will have it with all of my applications for testing. Only when I think it's ready will install it on the main drive for my iMac.

So what are the must have features?

I'm not seeing anything about actually purchasing the new "improved" OS but I did find this:

http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/

While I know you are interested in the dictation feature, I still don't see a single thing of ANY value that I can use. Just more iOS features for the desktop.

If DP 8 ever materializes and works well on PCs, it would appear I've bought my last Apple computer.

How sad.

I'm seeing lots of reports of ML being "snappier" than Lion. So there seems to be some under-the-hood efficiency improvements which could be worth the $20 if none of the other new things interest you.
I'd pay $40 just to have notes not live in the mail app! Unfortunately my Mac Pro 1,1 (2,1 now!) isn't supported in ML or it would have been a no brainer to update.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:...I still don't see a single thing of ANY value that I can use. Just more iOS features for the desktop.

I do agree - Lion cost a bit of money to upgrade other software that no longer worked after Snow Leopard, and I wanted to keep my mac e-mail address after the close of mobileme. But the actual features all seemed designed for those with iPhones and iPads neither of which I have or will have. Mountain Lion seems even more that way - I guess some people will find the Facebook features useful but really its of no use to me.

Having just upgraded Bias Peak so it would work on my iMac due to Lion, and now seeing it be closed down I do not want to immediately upgrade to Mountain Lion and find that Peak no longer works. Everything works at the moment - I will be sticking for a long while with Lion as I can't see any benefits. The problem will be software updates that only work with Mountain Lion onwards - is DP8 due for this fate?

Key comment: Everything works now.

I want to keep it that way!

I enjoyed David Pogue's take on the value of ML in the NY Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/techn ... technology

I'm still on 10.6.8 on my music computer.
Frank

Velvet handcuffs. That's the best takeaway from the article.

Nope. Still not for me. As far as being 'snappier' that could simply be the result of a fresh install and reinstalling your current OS might result in the same 'snap.' If there were hardware accelerants in the ML release, surely Apple would have said so.

I guess if it's not compatible with my old MacPro 1,1, then Snow Leopard is for sure the end of the road for me until I can afford an updated Mac. By then I'll likely have more to contend with as my PCIe-424 based MOTU system may be end of life also if Thunderbolt interfaces become the standard.

Could be that the "snappier" response means that screen redraws are better.

I have always held-off for long periods before Mac OS upgrades. Takes a while for developers to catch up. I also have to say goodbye to some list of legacy functions-- (rosetta, etc.).

As someone who uses Notes in Mail all the time, it was quite buggy. Text editing within Notes involved quite odd behaviour: text pasting on the wrong line, lines jumping up or down several places. It's a known bug, but Apple has not sorted it yet. (10.6..

I'll probably make the jump to Mt. Lion more quickly than any other Mac OS, only because of the timing of the arrival of my new computer.

stubbsonic wrote:I'll probably make the jump to Mt. Lion more quickly than any other Mac OS, only because of the timing of the arrival of my new computer.

That sums up the nature of things in a way.

There was a time, and not so long ago, in which a change of OS didn't necessitate a change of hardware. If one has an older machine, it *almost* doesn't make sense to update the OS. If one has a newer machine, it *almost* doesn't make sense to stay put-- except where third-party software and OS compatibilities factor in.

Moving forward or staying put has now gone well beyond the usual concern of stability alone, although that point is good enough by itself. It's the old "if it ain't broke" idea.

Beyond that, things get sort of complex. The time intervals between OS updates which require (to one degree or another) an exclusion of certain hardware has increased. There was no running SL on PPCs, which was a big adjustment for some users who had to come to terms with there being "two different kinds of Macs" all of a sudden. Now, it seems that ML requires an install of Lion. The relative stability of SL for a lot of users has kept them from going to Lion at all. For some who have gone to Lion, they are now finding that their machines may not have the EFI firmware requirements to go to ML. Different users are bumping their heads for different combinations of reasons.

Factor in some developer lag, the usual point-zero concerns, and the iOS craze, and what we're seeing is an accelerated rate at which Mac users are becoming more sundered from one another than in the past. Mac users had always been *accused of* being unified and overly confident, but where some Mac-only software (including DP) will be available on PC, there rises another potential exit ramp for the previous Mac-faithful.

Is this good or bad? I won't nor can say-- and it's not a complaint rather than an observation. I will say that it *is* becoming an increasingly individual matter.

It's not that it's "all that" tough to accept that progress can be painful and expensive, but it's just that the rate of change is not nearly as easy to deal with or to plan ahead for as it once was.

So far, for DP or Finale etc., there is no reason to upgrade. If SL works best for you, no reason to go further.

I am one of those who will benefit from the "$46.50 worth of features" but I do not pretend that my needs are the same as anyone else's.

Will DP 8 change this? We won't know till it comes out.

BTW, if you have a machine capable of running ML, you do not need Leo to acquire it. The App Store runs on 10.6.8, too. In addition, the installer can be burned onto a single layer DVD if you do so before running the installer (first thing I did after downloading). I think you can use the DVD to install on compatible machines running 10.5 (but I have no way of testing this). The App Store will be required for updates - Software Update now runs through the App Store.

If I have time on my hands and the curiosity to do so, I'll install a clean copy of 10.6.4 on a spare HD and check out the direct upgrade.

mikehalloran wrote:BTW, if you have a machine capable of running ML, you do not need Leo to acquire it. The App Store runs on 10.6.8, too.

What you said is very important to know. There is a little bit of confusion with some users on this.

Apple says, "If you are running Snow Leopard (10.6.x), update to the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard before you purchase OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store." It is quite true that Leo is not required, but 10.6.8 and later are. At least one otherwise reliable web resource erroneously posted 10.7 or later to the exclusion of 10.6.8.

This is good news for those who never got into Lion should they want to or are able to upgrade. It means that 10.6.8 is their ticket forward. 10.6.7? Not so much.

Ah-- and there's this, fwiw:

Apple Pulls Lion From The Mac App Store.

I can run ML on my MacBook Pro, but not on my MacPro 1,1. I wonder if Apple would give me a copy of Lion when I purchase ML. I know it's not technically true, but I've always felt that if a person purchases a piece of software, companies should give them permission to use any previous versions if necessary. Most companies will make those kind of allowances, I bet Apple will. Obviously, this doesn't apply to software that has specific variations. I'm talking updates, specifically.

UPDATE: I just talked to my local Mac store franchise (it's not a first-party Apple Store but a licensed apple shop). They said that in the past, Apple has been totally okay with giving users back versions for free if they've purchased a newer version. The employee told me that if I brought my receipt for ML in, he'd give me the Lion installer on a thumb drive or DVD. Whether this is TOTALLY legal, from a lawyer's perspective, is a bit hazy, but Apple's customer service representatives have suggested that they do it anyway, and just not make a fuss about it.

Sometimes a company's legal definition conflicts with their customer service strategy. It's nice that in a minor case like this, they're able to bend the rules.

Hope that other mac stores and franchises out there have been given the same leeway.

If no one pursues (or sues) then the legality is moot.