What’s so good about it? The operating system borrows some crucial features from iOS, the mobile software powering the iPhone and iPad, while introducing some improvements, like faster Web browsing in Safari and stronger integration with iCloud, Apple’s cloud service.
Here’s a quick roundup of opinions from some critics:
In a 26,000-word review (per his usual tradition with each OS X release), John Siracusa of Ars Technica looked at the journey that the Mac operating system went on to get to where it is today:
This new thing that the Mac is becoming, its outlines slowly coming into focus in Mountain Lion, is meant to allow people who were previously intimidated by the Mac to use it to accomplish more than they could with a touch-based platform like iOS, but with similar ease.
John Gruber, writer of the Apple blog Daring Fireball, pondered Apple’s strategy of upgrading its operating systems on an annual basis:
Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion — none of these have been radical releases of Mac OS X. But taken together, there have been some radical changes to the Mac experience over the last five years: the App Store, sandboxing, and iCloud to name a few. Apple has introduced these features incrementally, which I think has been a win for them engineering-wise, allowing them to roll features out annually rather than queue them all up for one blockbuster major OS release. But it’s also been a win for users, introducing significant changes at a relatively gradual pace.
Jason Snell, who oversees Macworld, a magazine and Web site that covers Apple, said that some of the new features had been specifically designed for new computer users and were easily ignorable by experts. But over all he found Mountain Lion powerful and stable:
Mountain Lion is the next step after Lion. It’s Apple’s current state of the art. If you’re running Lion (or even if you’re a holdout running Snow Leopard), I recommend hopping on board.
Jesus Diaz, an editor at Gizmodo, the tech blog, wasn’t a fan. Over all, he seemed underwhelmed with the new features and said Mountain Lion wasn’t even worth $20 for most people.
It feels like Apple has run out of ideas. Or worse, that Apple is too afraid to implement new concepts, fearing it will kill the company’s golden goose. Too afraid to change the world once again, as Steve Jobs used to say, one desktop at a time.
Our own David Pogue did some “highly scientific” math to conclude that Mountain Lion’s major new features are worth about $47, so it’s a worthy upgrade.
Over all, then, Mountain Lion is a gentle, thoughtful upgrade. All 200 new features? No, not really. But 10 that you’ll use every day? For $20?
Yes.