OT: OS X Mountain Lion summary and review

[cardfan]

For you Apple lovers out there, this is one of the most thorough articles I've read. I downloaded Mountain Lion ($19.99 on App store) last night - it took all night due to release date madness, but I like it a lot! It's well worth $20 to have your iPad, iphone and Mac in the iCloud.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/25/apple-os-x-mountain-lion-10-8-review/

 

[Fishy]

1) The unified search field....thank God.
2) iCloud - again, thank God.
3) Screen mirroring with the Apple TV.

Those are my first three thoughts about it.

 

[VAMike23]

For you Apple lovers out there, this is one of the most thorough articles I've read. I downloaded Mountain Lion ($19.99 on App store) last night - it took all night due to release date madness, but I like it a lot! It's well worth $20 to have your iPad, iphone and Mac in the iCloud.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/25/apple-os-x-mountain-lion-10-8-review/

Soooo what would you say to prospective "switchers" from Windows to Mac in light of Mountain Lion? And does the (reported) bugginess of Mac Office remain the biggest practical obstacle for those contemplating said switch...? Inquiring minds want to know....

 

[Icebear]

For you Apple lovers out there, this is one of the most thorough articles I've read. I downloaded Mountain Lion ($19.99 on App store) last night - it took all night due to release date madness, but I like it a lot! It's well worth $20 to have your iPad, iphone and Mac in the iCloud.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/25/apple-os-x-mountain-lion-10-8-review/

Installed it today and playing with it at the moment.

Bugginess with Office, hmmm, I have never run into it.

 

[cardfan]

Soooo what would you say to prospective "switchers" from Windows to Mac in light of Mountain Lion? And does the (reported) bugginess of Mac Office remain the biggest practical obstacle for those contemplating said switch...? Inquiring minds want to know....

Well, the first question is what do you use your computer for, which applications and for what purpose? It is practical (need) vs. want - love cool new toys.... Most apple people I know is the latter, unless they use it for graphic design work - Edited to add, but many, including myself, love the simplicity and beauty of a Mac. It just makes sense to me more so than PC. No viruses either...

Do you just surf the web, do email, and have your music and photos on your computer? Do you have an iPhone or iPad and want to sync with Apple products in the iCloud? Computing is very much in the cloud these days and will become even bigger. I think Apple is well ahead of Microsoft in that area, so I'd vote for going with a Mac. Either Mac OS X (Lion or Mountain Lion) are very good, but as Fishy said, Mountain Lion has some cool features and it makes it is easier to work iCloud. Safari has some cool features too.

I use a PC at work but also use my own Macbook Pro for Adobe Illustrator InDesign, etc. I go back and forth using both computers for work. I have Office for Mac '08, which I should upgrade to 2011, but it got bad reviews so I may wait a while. I do Microsoft Outlook for mail and calendar on my Mac (sync in icloud for iphone and iPad for calendar and contacts- and photo stream is cool).

Since i have an older version of Office on my Mac, and work has a newer version, there are some formatting issues at times, but 90%, things are okay. Also, even though I have Office, I also use iWork software on my Mac. I like Pages alot (better templates), and save it as Word. I do the same with KeyNote (saves as Powerpoint). Financial stuff and spreadsheets, I use Excel more than Numbers.

A little side note, my mom used PCs for 20 plus years and hated the idea of switching-- until I got her an in iPad! After she had the iPad for a while, I gave her my older Macbook, and she recently bought an iPhone. She is 77 yr old and has it figured out (with my help and some classes at Apple). The one to one program is awesome - if you buy a new Mac, you can purchase the program ( $99 ) which gives you one on one training (1 hour sessions for 1 yr). They have free classes too.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/onetoone

if you are totally new to Mac, watch this video on switching PC to Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/VI207

Good luck!

 

[cardfan]

Installed it today and playing with it at the moment.

Bugginess with Office, hmmm, I have never run into it.

me either. I also LOVE that Mountain Lion has dictation, similar to iPad and iPhone 4s. I use it all the time!

 

[Fishy]

Something fun....

Go to System Preferences and enable dictation under Dictation & Speech.

Then, position your cursor in the reply field and hit the fn key twice...and dictate your posts on the Boneyard.

Works perfectly.

 

[cardfan]

Something fun....

Go to System Preferences and enable dictation under Dictation & Speech.

Then, position your cursor in the reply field and hit the fn key twice...and dictate your posts on the Boneyard.

Works perfectly.

I just added that comment. LOVE, love, love dictation (on iPad and iPhone) and doing it now on my Macbook Pro.

 

[Icebear]

I just added that comment. LOVE, love, love dictation (on iPad and iPhone) and doing it now on my Macbook Pro.

Me, too.

 

[VAMike23]

Well, the first question is what do you use your computer for, which applications and for what purpose? It is practical (need) vs. want - love cool new toys.... Most apple people I know is the latter, unless they use it for graphic design work - Edited to add, but many, including myself, love the simplicity and beauty of a Mac. It just makes sense to me more so than PC. No viruses either...

Do you just surf the web, do email, and have your music and photos on your computer? Do you have an iPhone or iPad and want to sync with Apple products in the iCloud? Computing is very much in the cloud these days and will become even bigger. I think Apple is well ahead of Microsoft in that area, so I'd vote for going with a Mac. Either Mac OS X (Lion or Mountain Lion) are very good, but as Fishy said, Mountain Lion has some cool features and it makes it is easier to work iCloud. Safari has some cool features too.

I use a PC at work but also use my own Macbook Pro for Adobe Illustrator InDesign, etc. I go back and forth using both computers for work. I have Office for Mac '08, which I should upgrade to 2011, but it got bad reviews so I may wait a while. I do Microsoft Outlook for mail and calendar on my Mac (sync in icloud for iphone and iPad for calendar and contacts- and photo stream is cool).

Since i have an older version of Office on my Mac, and work has a newer version, there are some formatting issues at times, but 90%, things are okay. Also, even though I have Office, I also use iWork software on my Mac. I like Pages alot (better templates), and save it as Word. I do the same with KeyNote (saves as Powerpoint). Financial stuff and spreadsheets, I use Excel more than Numbers.

A little side note, my mom used PCs for 20 plus years and hated the idea of switching-- until I got her an in iPad! After she had the iPad for a while, I gave her my older Macbook, and she recently bought an iPhone. She is 77 yr old and has it figured out (with my help and some classes at Apple). The one to one program is awesome - if you buy a new Mac, you can purchase the program ( $99 ) which gives you one on one training (1 hour sessions for 1 yr). They have free classes too.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/onetoone

if you are totally new to Mac, watch this video on switching PC to Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/VI207

Good luck!

I only just recently purchased my first Apple device (iPhone 4S) since using a Mac SE back in the late 80s. I switched to PC because of work. But I always thought about switching back. I have not been impressed with reviews on Mac Office (hence my 'bugginess' comment) and wasn't sure about the Mac productivity suite. While they can be saved as Office files (KeyNote as PP, Pages as Word), does it work the other way around? Can you open Office files using the Mac software? My guess is no, but maybe I should watch the videos you linked to first

Thanks for such a detailed reply! I haven't done too much work in the cloud, mostly still old school at this point. But I know it's moving that way fast. I might get an iPad in the near future, and that would accelerate things. And I have to admit the new Mac Pro has me drooling, but it's out of my price range anyway ....

 

[Icebear]

Yes, VA the Mac productivity Suite opens most Windows files very readily. It is in exporting for the limits of Windows systems thay Mac users make file conversions.

The retina screens are unbelievable in their detail and clarity.

 

[Nuzzi]

I am a recent Mac convert. I have been writing Windows applications for the past 16 years and have always used Windows. But I have loved my iPhone from the day I got it, and have always liked how Apple tied design and functionality, so always wanted to try a Mac. Well, early this year, I bought a MacBook Pro. So, I have been using for about 6 months now, and all I have to say is...meh. It's nice, there are definitely some advantages, but, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't really have much, if anything, on Windows 7. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am so used to dealing in a Windows environment, but W7 just seems to me so much more user friendly. Here are some of the areas:

Move a file - try moving a file in Finder. You can't do it. You can copy and paste, then delete the original, but not move. Annoying.

Window anchoring - one really nice feature in w7 is dragging a window to the side of the screen and anchoring it to that half of the screen. Haven't seen anything like it in Mac yet.

PageUp and PageDown - non-existent in OSX from what I can tell.

Window maximize and minimize from the button bar. In W7 if you click an open application button you can minimize if maximized, or maximize of minimize. OSX only does the latter.

There are more. Some of these might just be that I haven't found the option yet, but I don't think so.

As for viruses, don't fool yourself into thinking they do not happen with a Mac. If that were true, they wouldn't be selling anti-virus software for Macs now. I never really worried about this though. I think if you have half a clue, you will steer clear of stuff like this anyway.

Some of the stuff I like more:

Mousepad gestures. This stuff is cool, and very useful. Almost makes up for PageUp/PageDown, but since I mostly use a mouse, not quite.

Parallels - This is one of the best programs I have ever purchased. I use virtual machines a lot, including a W7 machine to do my job. You can do VMs in Windows too, obviously, but not a Mac VM. You can do any VM you want in Mac. And, for what I have seen, nobody does it better than Parallels.

Program storage and installation. Geek type stuff that most people would not care about, but I have never been a big fan of the whole Windows registry. Mac apps are self-contained. Very clean.

That's about all I can think of right now. I just loaded Mountain Lion, so I will see if anything in there is cool over the next few months.

Going forward, when I buy another system, it will still probably be another Mac. But only because I can still use a Windows machine within the Mac through Parallels (or some other VM software).

On another note, I have MS Office for Mac and outside of the huge headache I had importing my old PST files over (had to buy a third party app), I have not had any problems with it. They store the data totally different, so the conversion was necessary and did not work well in the program itself. I found that immensely annoying.

NUZZI

 

[Nuzzi]

Also, I have not found Mac-based programs for the following tasks that are as good as the one I use in Windows:

Text Editor - I used Editpad Pro in Win, I have found nothing even close in Mac yet.

File Comparing - I use Winmerge - haven't even found a decent visual compare tool in Mac yet outside of a program that comes with XCode, which is way too fat to use everytime I need it.

Find in files - I used AstroGrep, haven't found anything good in Mac yet.

If anybody knows of any programs mentioned, please let me know. I have done extensive web searches and tried a bunch of different programs.

 

[Fishy]

Also, I have not found Mac-based programs for the following tasks that are as good as the one I use in Windows:

Text Editor - I used Editpad Pro in Win, I have found nothing even close in Mac yet.

File Comparing - I use Winmerge - haven't even found a decent visual compare tool in Mac yet outside of a program that comes with XCode, which is way too fat to use everytime I need it.

Find in files - I used AstroGrep, haven't found anything good in Mac yet.

If anybody knows of any programs mentioned, please let me know. I have done extensive web searches and tried a bunch of different programs.

I think there are better text editors for Mac than there ever were for Windows - you might just need some time to get used to 'em. Head to BareBones.com for BBEdit and/or TextWrangler. If that doesn't work for you, they should take away your Mac.

Can't help you on file comparing. You can use grep from a command line on a Mac, but I think there is an actual app called Grep.

 

[cardfan]

I am a recent Mac convert. I have been writing Windows applications for the past 16 years and have always used Windows. But I have loved my iPhone from the day I got it, and have always liked how Apple tied design and functionality, so always wanted to try a Mac. Well, early this year, I bought a MacBook Pro. So, I have been using for about 6 months now, and all I have to say is...meh. It's nice, there are definitely some advantages, but, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't really have much, if anything, on Windows 7. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am so used to dealing in a Windows environment, but W7 just seems to me so much more user friendly. Here are some of the areas:

Move a file - try moving a file in Finder. You can't do it. You can copy and paste, then delete the original, but not move. Annoying.

Window anchoring - one really nice feature in w7 is dragging a window to the side of the screen and anchoring it to that half of the screen. Haven't seen anything like it in Mac yet.

PageUp and PageDown - non-existent in OSX from what I can tell.

Window maximize and minimize from the button bar. In W7 if you click an open application button you can minimize if maximized, or maximize of minimize. OSX only does the latter.

There are more. Some of these might just be that I haven't found the option yet, but I don't think so.

As for viruses, don't fool yourself into thinking they do not happen with a Mac. If that were true, they wouldn't be selling anti-virus software for Macs now. I never really worried about this though. I think if you have half a clue, you will steer clear of stuff like this anyway.

Some of the stuff I like more:

Mousepad gestures. This stuff is cool, and very useful. Almost makes up for PageUp/PageDown, but since I mostly use a mouse, not quite.

Parallels - This is one of the best programs I have ever purchased. I use virtual machines a lot, including a W7 machine to do my job. You can do VMs in Windows too, obviously, but not a Mac VM. You can do any VM you want in Mac. And, for what I have seen, nobody does it better than Parallels.

Program storage and installation. Geek type stuff that most people would not care about, but I have never been a big fan of the whole Windows registry. Mac apps are self-contained. Very clean.

That's about all I can think of right now. I just loaded Mountain Lion, so I will see if anything in there is cool over the next few months.

Going forward, when I buy another system, it will still probably be another Mac. But only because I can still use a Windows machine within the Mac through Parallels (or some other VM software).

On another note, I have MS Office for Mac and outside of the huge headache I had importing my old PST files over (had to buy a third party app), I have not had any problems with it. They store the data totally different, so the conversion was necessary and did not work well in the program itself. I found that immensely annoying.

NUZZI

Well, to each their own . I've used Parallels too, but honestly, I prefer using Macbook because I like Mac OS X better than Windows. I feels odd, like cheating, using Windows on a Mac. Hah. But again, it's all what you need it for.

For some of your questions above.

1. PageUp and PageDown- Use the function (fn) key and the up or down arrow.
   
2. For Window anchoring - Open a window, set it as desired, CMD+J, and click on Use as Defaults
   
3. Apple Automator Tutorial for Moving Files (older OS, but still pertinent)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puj2VXKxicE&feature=related
   
4. Finder keyboard shortcutshttp://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/mac-os-x-lion-finder-keyboard-shortcuts.html?cid=RSS_DUMMIES2_CONTENT
   
5. See the link for 80 tips and tricks on Mountain Lion. See tip 57 for hot corners and 78 for moving files. 79 and 80 for dictation.http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/80_os_x_mountain_lion_tips_and_tricks
   
6. Another good review with highlights of changes in Mountain Lion:http://www.macstories.net/mac/mountain-lion-the-macstories-review/

Yeah, viruses are going to become a reality, but they haven't yet because Apple is only 10-15% of the market. I wouldn't waste $ on anti-virus software either.

Cheers!

 

[Icebear]

Just think if a Windows machine was, actually, smart enough to run OSX and Mac software.... nah, don't worry about it, ain't ever gonna happen.

 

[Nuzzi]

Oh, they could. Apple won't allow it. Microsoft is a software company, Apple a hardware company that happens to make an OS. They don't actually sell an OS. They do, but that is their reasoning. If people could just buy their OS, they couldn't sell their overpriced hardware.

NUZZI

p.s. Re-reading my first post, I meant cut-paste file, more so than move a file. You _can_ drag a file from one place to another.

 

[cardfan]

Oh, they could. Apple won't allow it. Microsoft is a software company, Apple a hardware company that happens to make an OS. They don't actually sell an OS. They do, but that is their reasoning. If people could just buy their OS, they couldn't sell their overpriced hardware.

NUZZI

p.s. Re-reading my first post, I meant cut-paste file, more so than move a file. You _can_ drag a file from one place to another.

Cmd-C and Cmd-V That doesn't work?

Apple’s market cap is more than Google and Microsoft combined, so they don’t need the $. If you’ve read much about Steve Jobs, he wanted control of everything and he was very much interested in beauty and ease of products. See “Think Different “campaign. This is why Apple is very unlikely to start selling and supporting Mac OS on other hardware platforms because they lose a decent amount of control, including ability to ensure a positive user experience. Apple tried supporting clones in the 90s and it is not likely to be an experiment they'll repeat.

Part what makes the Mac/Mac OS X experience less of a hassle than Windows is Apple controls both the Hardware & the Software. Third party applications can introduce some issues but the OS itself is pretty much guaranteed to work with Apple's supported hardware for that OS.

Here is a really good write up comparing costs.

http://technologizer.com/2008/08/14/are-macs-more-expensive-lets-do-the-math-once-and-for-all/