Originally Posted By: Dignan
I'm interested what people think about this. I'm not a fan of the "tabletization" of desktop operating systems.

Certain aspects of the tablet OS I don't want in my desktop OS. But there are many that I do. Tablets are becoming a way for the OS makers to experiment without the huge issue of legacy. Lion's ability to resume apps and their state even after a kernel panic impresses me, and it came from the tablet side. That same system also enables me to open up an app, work in it, then quit it, resuming later without having to manually save files first. I was skeptical about this feature and it's reliability, but so far it has yet to fail me.

Many of the Mountain Lion changes are to unify parts that make sense to do so. Why does OS X have iCal when iOS has Calendar? Why does OS X put notes into Mail, when iOS has a dedicated Notes app? Mountain Lion corrects those discrepancies. Am I personally bothered by the differences greatly? No. But by eliminating them, it makes it easier for my grandmother to transition between her laptop and iPad without as much context switching.

I'm not as bothered about the skeuomorphism as some people are, so I can't say I'm annoyed by more of that occurring in 10.8. So far they haven't really removed features when doing the conversion.

Originally Posted By: tonyc
As for the other stuff, it looks like a mixed bag. The centralized notification thing could work -- I certainly have no love for Growl at this point after their decision to go App Store only, so seeing an alternative show up in the OS could be a nice plus.

I'm mostly agreeing with you here, both that Notification Center will probably make Growl less relevant over time. And it is a plus since it brings the Growl type feature to everyone, instead of the few people who knew about it.

I wasn't bothered by the Mac App Store conversion for Growl. $1.99 isn't much at all, and helps support the developers. Seems a cheap way to ensure continued development for at least the rest of the time I'll need it. As nice as getting something for free is, I don't personally expect people to work for free to give me something for free. The MAS conversion also helped insure I have Growl on any Mac I use. It's pretty handy these days to just boot a new Mac, log in, open the App Store, and click Install down a list of apps.

Originally Posted By: andy
I may be wrong about the Developer ID programme being free, as I can't find any mention to that now, even though I definitely saw it stated in a couple of bits of early coverage.

I've seen it too. Macworld didn't specifically call it out as free, but said "A developer signs up for an account and gets a certificate. That’s it. What’s more, these apps have no seal of approval from Apple. Apple never sees them. Developers don’t need to check with Apple before signing apps."

Another useful tidbit from Macworld:
Originally Posted By: Macworld
Gatekeeper is also really easy to override. If you right-click on an app in the Finder and then choose Open, you’re prompted with a different dialog box—one that also offers to open the offending app. If you choose Open, the app launches normally, and that’s it.

Finally, it’s important to note that because Gatekeeper uses the File Quarantine system, it only works the very first time you try to launch an app, and even then only when it’s been downloaded from an app on your Mac like a web browser or email program. And once an app has been launched once, it’s beyond the reach of Gatekeeper.


Originally Posted By: Dignan
Also, what do you think of them dropping the "Mac" in "Mac OS" Tom? I guess it doesn't really mean anything, and it's still OSX versus iOS...

I hadn't given it much thought. Lion already started dropping the Mac part, and it didn't change anything.