Keeping Up Online

via theverge.com

Here is a great new article on Apple’s new operating system, Mountain Lion. As a an Apple user, I’m usually pretty excited about the updates however, their last OS, Lion, just launched seven months ago and now that I’m officially adjusted (it took a while just to remember to scroll in the opposite direction) I’m not sure I’m ready for a new one so quickly.

The new OS does have some pretty cool features however. iMessaging sounds like a lot of fun and there’s a going to be a number of cool feature that are used in the iPhones and iPads. I think what’s cool about what Apple is doing with this update is that they’re making all of their products have the same feel–for someone who uses Apple products, the new OS is going to be great.

I use an iPhone, iPod, and Macbook so I’m pretty familiar with Apple. In their new OS they well have a GameCenter, a notiifaction center. The Verge puts it best, so I’ll let them do the describing here:

You can also use a new gesture to bring up Notification Center: a two finger swipe to the left from the right edge of the trackpad. Swiping right with two fingers from anywhere then closes the panel. It’s Apple’s first edge gesture, and it adds to OS X’s already-intense mix of trackpad moves: two-finger swipes to scroll and navigate, three-finger swipes to manage spaces and full screen apps, and four-finger pinches to bring up Launchpad and show the desktop. In practice I found everything easy enough to remember — it’s just another swipe to the left, after all — but a couple times I found myself accidentally going back in Safari when started my swipe in the middle of the trackpad instead of on the right side. Apple says the basic rule is that one finger gestures in iOS are two finger gestures in OS X, but I much preferred the unoffical Lion metaphor of two fingers for app-level commands and three and four fingers for system-level commands. Everything definitely works, but there’s also definitely room for it to all work better in the final version.

(The addition of the Notification Center gesture also cements the need for a Magic Trackpad if you’re a desktop Mac user — there’s no key command to invoke the panel, and the Magic Mouse won’t have a gesture for it either. You’re stuck clicking on the icon unless you have a trackpad.)

And one of the coolest features in my opinion:

AIRPLAY MIRRORING

AirPlay is one of the best features of iOS, and Apple’s bringing some of it to OS X — you can now use AirPlay Mirroring with an Apple TV to view your computer’s screen on a television. The AirPlay icon simply appears in the menu bar when you’re on the same network as an Apple TV, and it’s just one click to turn it on. You’ll get stereo audio and output is limited by the Apple TV to 720p, but Mountain Lion will automatically switch to the best local screen resolution it can find for your system and scale automatically, so you don’t really need to worry about settings. You’re able to play iTunes movies and TV shows, but licensing restrictions unfortunately means the local display gets blacked out. (This is particularly stupid, but it’s only fair to blame the studios for such foolishness, not Apple.)

AirPlay wasn’t yet enabled on our test system, but Apple showed us a very impressive demo of an iPad and a MacBook Air playing Real Racing head-to-head, with the Mac streaming to a TV. We’ll have to see how it all works with real-world bandwidth in our own living room, but what we saw was definitely amazing — and we can think of many, many more possibilities for AirPlay on OS X beyond simple mirroring down the line.

There’s a cool video that shows the new OS and a slideshow so check out the article to learn more about the Mountain Lion! According to The Verge and to Apple, there’s is still A LOT more to come and things are still changing. The final release will be sometime this summer so don’t get too excited just yet!

 

Color me excited. The more I read the more I realize that they’re not so much changing things as they are adding cool new features that those familiar with IOS already use. Count me in!