Whenever Apple releases a new version of OS X, the blogosphere goes wild, typing tens of thousands of words about the latest features and changes in the operating system we all love. There’s always new core features that are hidden to most of our eyes, as well as the more subtile changes you might not notice in the UI without a reviewer pointing them out.
It’s only been one short year since Lion was released, but even with the quick release window for Mountain Lion, reviewers still went through the OS and found plenty to write about. Our own Alex Arena wrote a thorough overview of the new features and apps you’ll use most in his Mountain Lion Review. In our opinion, it’s a great place to find out what to expect from Mountain Lion if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about the deepest changes in the OS. We even included a giveaway of 3 copies of Mountain Lion, so be sure to check it out and enter in our drawing if you haven’t upgraded already!
But, if you’re looking for more detailed info about Mountain Lion, here’s some of the best Mountain Lion coverage from around the ‘net, as well as some extra Mountain Lion info you should keep in mind.
Don’t worry: This Mountain Lion doesn’t bite.
Digging Deeper Into Mountain Lion
- John Siracusa always writes the most comprehensive reviews of OS X at Ars Technica, and his Mountain Lion Review is no exception. It’s over 26,000 words long, broken into 24 pages in your browser, and covers everything from UI changes to the deeper changes Apple made in the internals of OS X.
- Marco Arment of Instapaper fame even wrote a review of John Siracusa’s review, comparing it to previous reviews he’d written and rating it on features. It’s a fun read if only for the laughs.
- John Gruber is easily the top Apple blogger, and his Mountain Lion review puts this release in the perspective of Apple’s overall goals for OS X and iOS.
- Federico Viticci at MacStories wrote another lengthy review of Mountain Lion, covering in detail the changes, small and large, that you’ll notice in Mountain Lion.
- TidBITS is one of the oldest sites covering Mac news, and they wrote a nice feature article about little details you might not have otherwise noticed in Mountain Lion.
- Shawn Blanc wrote about more little features in Mountain Lion, and also wrote a concise review about the Simplification of OS X.
- Wayne Dixon digs into the new features and changes in Mountain Lion Server.
Extra Stuff to Keep in Mind
Now that you’ve got your Instapaper queue filled for a while, you might want to turn your attention to getting your Mac upgraded to Mountain Lion if you haven’t already. From an informal poll of our readers on Twitter today, and from looking at comments on the Mac App Store, it looks like upgrading directly from the App Store is working fine for most users. If you’d like to do a clean install of Mountain Lion, though, you can use our guide for making a Lion Boot Disk (we’d recommend using a USB flash drive), as it works the exact same in Mountain Lion.
Another thing to remember is that you can install OS X Mountain Lion on all of your Macs (assuming you have 5 or less) with the same App Store purchase. If you want to save the time and internet bandwidth of redownloading it on each Mac, you can copy the installer from your Applications directory before installing it on your Mac, then copy and run it on your other Macs. It might be a good idea to keep a copy on your external hard drive just in case you ever need it.
If you bought a Mac this past month, or buy a new one running Lion, you can get Mountain Lion for free. But you might have to wait…
Then, if you recently purchased a new Mac, you can get a free code to download Mountain Lion from the App Store from Apple’s Up-to-Date program. Unfortunately, there have been a few glitches, with some users not receiving their codes yet. Others, like myself, quickly received the code, only to have the App Store reject it saying the code had already been used. Apple Care says this is a known issue, and they’ll have new codes sent out within 72 hours. We’re still waiting…
Once you have upgraded (or clean installed), be sure to check the App Store for the latest versions of your apps. Many apps, including Apple’s own iWork apps and my favorite writing app, iA Writer, have been recently updated with support for the latest iCloud features. Also, if you have a new Retina Display MacBook Pro, you’ll find that many app updates include support for the Retina Display graphics.
Happy Upgrade Week!
We’d love to hear how the transition to Mountain Lion has gone for you, so if you’ve upgraded, let us know your experience in the comments below. Or, if you’ve found great Mountain Lion features you’d like to share, or are holding out on upgrading for some reason, we’d like to hear about that too.
Now let me go check my inbox again to see if Apple’s emailed me my Up-to-Date code for Mountain Lion…