“Mountain Lion, the latest Mac operating system, introduces more than 200 new features but seems to have only one overarching goal: binding your computer ever more firmly to your iPhone and iPad, while binding you ever more firmly to Apple,” Rich Jaroslovsky writes for Bloomberg.
MacDailyNews Take: Byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to make things seamless for people. Going all-Apple is simply the very best way to live your digital life.
“The most significant change in Mountain Lion is its integration with iCloud, the free Apple service that automatically stores your data online and lets you easily access it from any Apple device,” Jaroslovsky writes. “For instance, using the Documents in the Cloud feature, I created a file on the Mac using Apple’s Pages word-processing application, pulled it down on an iPad to make a few tweaks, then saw them reflected the next time I came back to the Mac.”
Jaroslovsky writes, “Mountain Lion also brings the Messages app, already used on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, to the Mac. Messages, which replaces the previous iChat program, allows you to send free, unlimited texts to fellow Apple users. Even better, your conversations are duplicated and kept up to date on all your Apple devices, so that, in my case, I was able to start a conversation with an iPhone-wielding offspring using the Mac, then seamlessly continue it on an iPad. Then there’s AirPlay Mirroring, which allows you to wirelessly toss anything from your Mac’s screen onto a high- definition television equipped with the compact $99 Apple TV set-top box. It sure beats fumbling with a projector and cables if you’re doing, say, a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. But it makes you dependent on yet another piece of Apple technology. Which, of course, is precisely the idea.”
Read more in the full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: A typical nudnik review. Included here so you can see the sort of claptrap that’s s rattling around in the empty-headed ignorati of the world.
Note that everything he tries is seamless and works perfectly for him, but Richie thinks he’s supposed to want so-called “choice.” “Choice” as in the ability to stupidly wander into a Staples, buy the wrong devices, and therefore forgo the seamlessness and total ease that’s enjoyed by Apple product users every single day.
Related articles:
USA Today reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: One big cat that you’ll want on your computer – July 25, 2012
Daring Fireball reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: Apple’s attention to detail is evident – July 25, 2012
Ars Technica reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: Improves upon OS X Lion’s foundation – July 25, 2012
PC Magazine reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: The world’s best desktop and laptop OS; Editors’ Choice – July 25, 2012
TIME Magazine reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: Much bang for the buck – July 25, 2012
CNET reviews OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: ‘A worthy upgrade, very affordable’ – July 25, 2012
World’s most advanced operating system: OS X Mountain Lion now available via Apple’s Mac App Store – July 25, 2012
Plz. The goal is to bind users closer to apple.
MDN – Apple is certainly introducing products, services, and features to increase dependency and stickiness to their ecosystem. It’s naive to think this isn’t part of the goal. It is.
And, there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, as an investor, I see this as smart business.
And then Apple does asinine stuff like replacing MobileMe with iCloud breaking my access to my server and my shared family calendar, breaking the AutoFill in Safari with version 5.1, and generally being annoying.
“But it makes you dependent on yet another piece of Apple technology. Which, of course, is precisely the idea.”
Oh, boo-hoo-hoo. No it doesn’t. You have total freedom to go and buy a Winblows computer. Now sod off.
^^^this
“Going all-Apple is simply the very best way to live your digital life.”
Tranparent, efficient and prodictive = Simplicity = Genius.
(Not to mention…. Style, Quality and Value)
My wife loves me and does lots of things to make me want to be “bound” to her. It’s called a partnership. Apple surely has ties that bind, but the vast majority of Apple customers are happy to be tied to Apples way of doing things. For now, I certainly am.
Will Mountain Lion frequently remind me to drive slower, and make me do all the washing up?
Siri 2.0 will have that covered, in iOS 6. Clean up your flat before then.
Of course the goal is to bind users close to Apple.
Typical MDN take – pounce on any article that doesn’t sing the praises of all things Apple.
Part of MDN’s take doesn’t sit well with me:
“The goal is to make things seamless for people. Going all-Apple is simply the very best way to live your digital life.”
Ten years ago “seamless” was the excuse for why everyone should use Windows, Office, Active Directory, Internet Explorer, etc.
For example an Excel table could be linked/embedded in Word or Powerpoint, and as long as it’s on the same local network both would always show the latest updates to that spreadsheet.
Change “local network” to “iCloud” and conceptually this is what Apple has done for its products.
Not saying it’s not a good thing, and of course MS was a monopoly, but don’t forget the past when the shoe was on the other foot.
MDN is right in saying that the purpose it to provide a better user experience. Jobs preached that for many years. I believe the current Apple management team, selected by Jobs, buys into that.
That is part of the other fundamental rule of Apple: make great products and sales will take care of themselves. Great user experience is part of that. I don’t think anyone ever claimed the Windows/Office/IE combo was a great user experience. Maybe well integrated, but not great.
Like MDN, I see a clear distinction between that and the implication of the review that this is a scheme with the sole goal of selling more Apple products. You can argue that those end up being the same, but the latter does not require making great hardware/software. The former is a method to make you WANT to buy Apple products. The latter is a play to MAKE you by Apple products. Therein lies the difference. It is one that, as a consumer, I respect. Apple may not always deliver great products, but I believe they actually do think on consumers when they make them. That is significantly more than I can say for Ballmer and the MS OEMs.
If Apple supported third party hardware in iCloud, the user experience would suffer for those people. Jobs believed very strongly in not poisoning Apple’s name because of other people’s crap. I don’t think Apple’s DNA has changed since Cook became CEO.
Also, can anyone compare for me what MS cloud systems are available for me, an Apple user? And what mobile devices do they support? Android and Windows Phone? Wow, what choice!
Excellent clarification.
Reviewer’s fundamental mistake is in assuming all manufacturers contrive to maximize profit at the expense of the consumer. Blatantly true when applied to Microsoft…
…but Apple is not the new Microsoft. Apple is, instead, the prophet of human excellence. It is a business that transcends business.
Build it, and they will come.
Guess I can’t buy Mountain Lion when it comes out. I take codeine and that binds me up more firmly than Mountain Lion ever could!
😂
“Going all-Apple is simply the very best way to live your digital life.”
Pure opinion. We have electronics from multiple manufacturers, and each brings something to the table. It’s great when they each offer unique value. We can’t imagine limiting myself to only one brand — ANY one brand. The overwhelming number of businesses agree: sole-sourcing is a risky way to manage an enterprise.
No one manufacturer can be all things to all people — the result would look like MSFT. Apple offers a relatively narrow bandwidth of products and services, and certainly wouldn’t be attractive if a whole host of other companies didn’t help round out the ecosystem. For example: I’ll bet your computer is not hooked up to an Apple printer right now.
If Apple “locks in” users, which is OBVIOUSLY one primary goal of the “cloud”, then consumers lose in the end. BOTH Apple and Microsoft are ramming this crap down their users’ throats, and it is not for the benefit of the consumer.
Yes, by using the best personal computers, Macs, the best smartphones, iPhones, the best personal media players, iPods, and the best tablets, iPads – all four of which invented and/or popularized their individual markets, we are “limiting” ourselves.
Please, Apple, please, “limit” us some more!
The key attribute of Apple is that the company keenly observed arbitrary and unnecessary limitations, and then stripped them away.
By thinking of themselves as typical consumers, they were able to escape the marketing death trap — relying on focus groups, user analytics, CEO vested interests, committee vetting processes, and inbred tech bias. In other words, they recovered the most appropriate—and ultimately profitable—definition of “best”. The rest is business history.
Too bad I have to collaborate with many people that use non-Apple products. Wait, come to think of it, none of these features would make it any easier to collaborate with anyone outside of your iTunes account. It’s a conspiracy – Apple is trying to make us all completely independent workers, yet completely dependent on them. (By the way, that last part was partially sarcastic.)
Choice is not absolutist. In the hands of a realist choice is only relative and provides guidance; but put choice in the hands of a fool, he will monkey himself to destruction.
In which case, since most of us are fools, we are assuredly doomed.
Bloomberg is incredibly pro-MSFT and anti-AAPL. I read their “opinions” as entertainment and a reminder of how the mainstream press used to exalt the virtues of Microsoft over Apple for decades. They HAVE to be on the take from Microsoft to make up the biased reviews of MSFT “hiccups” and AAPL “stumbles.”
“Entertainment”.
In the sense that “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Human Centipede” are “entertainment”.
Me, I can’t look.