How Awesome is Mountain Lion!

I've finally made use of my dev accounts and jumped on the latest OS X Mountain Lion dev preview. So far I'm literally blown away, it's awesome! Don't get me wrong there are a few bugs here and there - for a first show at a new OS it's simply, brilliant.

Messages works, instantly. It's mad how it comes to both your Mac and iDevice(s). In my instance I've been sent an iMessage, it comes to my MBP first then to my iPhone followed shortly by my iPad. Notification Center is quite basic right now, but has the potential to notify you for pretty much anything! I think we can say goodbye to, Growl.

I initially installed ML on a partition on my MBP's HD, changed my mind and started over and made a bootable ML SSD. After playing around with a locked partition (which caused a few headaches during install) I managed to get the auto install file onto a smaller partition (5Gb) then created a 30Gb partition which is where ML now sits. After installation I removed the 5Gb partition and all is good! SSD's are definitely the way to go from now on!

I'm still finding new features all the time! Apple did good. Safari is still crap, though.

 

I was a little harsh in saying it was crap, it isn't that bad. I wish they would make it quicker, more smooth.

The notifications aren't that intrusive, you see the Messages.app bouncing on the dock, though. I agree that Chrome is a much better browser than Safari.

 

It definitely won't be free. Would be nice nice if they did decide to give it out for free

I think they'll stick to the $30.00/£26.00 price tags. Windows software is terribly overpriced... you could buy a half decent Netbook for $200.00.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how they can integrate iOS into OS X. I'm excited, curious and anxious all at the same time!

 

Saurik always said that there was going to be Cydia for Mac. Watch this space...

 

There are loads of tweaks which you can use to enable hidden files in Lion.

Here's a good one:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/07/tinkertool-for-mac-os-x-lion-is-a-must-have-for-customizing-10-7/

Even if Apple decides to lock down their OS, doesn't bother me as I know there is and will always be a way around it

Sandboxing is probably going to cause a problem for OS X. Dev's are mostly annoyed because Apple want to force developers into submitting their apps through Apple's Mac App Store - the dev's loose 30% instantly. I can see why they would want to sell something they've made and get 100% of the asking price, I know I would.

 

Since Apple have been merging iOS with OS X and iOS is and has always been locked down. I think it's safe to say that OS X will follow suit. The only reason it's hidden is to protect noobs from deleting key files which appear to be duplicates/alias's, which happens a lot - on the plus side it makes browsing through Finder a more pleasant experience. You don't even need to enable the ability to view hidden files, you can use the Go menu.

Windows 8 looks pretty good, but it's still Windows. I'd rather have a hackable (potentially) locked-down Mac than use Windows. Unfortunately for me I have to use a Win 7 high-spec laptop for work - it's terrible and my 2008 MacBook performs better running Leopard.

 

Shift-Command-G is quicker. I'm a massive fan of keyboard shortcuts

It's a Samsung 15" i5 with 4Gb RAM, no Blu-Ray player.