Interesting - Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"

Also... just keep in mind... Apple hasn't said anything about getting rid of folders. It was simply a posting discussing things that someone would like to see in a future version of the Mac OS. So, if you like folders or not... just remember you're just discussing ideas... not anything Apple has indicated (or even hinted) any plans on doing.

Darko, thanks for your opinion, I am 100% with you. I'd like to get rid of folder browsing rather sooner than later. Maybe I'm a bit harsh but I'm just afraid that they over-simplify stuff. Like removing the "save as" function which was a pretty straight forward command.

I am a business consultant and when clients call me I'll have to dig out the project files quickly. I can't imagine how that would be possible in the new iPad style. I can't afford to scroll through all 500 Pages and Numbers documents, I need to find that project location. But as you say, it's a beginning and maybe they will come up with some genius solution that "just works". Maybe instead of saving to a directory it would be saving to one or multiple context-location.

Joey, actually Phil Shiller did talk about that to the press. It was about a new way of saving documents like on one level without the "traditional" way of folders. The way I understand that is, that you can choose how your documents are saved. The new way or the traditional way. With the new way you can sync docs with iCloud. The tradtional way I guess not. (That's why I am so concerned about it - having to throw all into the bucket if I want to sync them)

I read it here: http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion

I find having a folder based file system extremely important, particularly when working on a project that integrates items from several different applications or when working with several people on on project. Keeping everything in one folder makes things so much easier than, say, creating longer file names to differentiate the project it is used for. It also makes it easier to transfer the project to other people or archive it when complete. How would that work without a file system?

Thomas A Reed wrote:

I don't understand what you're talking about. Just because Apple has integrated a few features developed for iOS back into Mac OS X does not make it a "toy."

I think the technical term for the concept is "meme". Some people keep repeating something over and over until it "catches" and that is how people start to refer to something. Then they adjust their conceptualizations to fit the terminology. The facts are irrelevant.

Shootist007 wrote:

So when are they going to fix Lion????

How about fixing the things wrong with the current OS before you launch a new one.

I don't own an iPhone, I will never own and iPhone or Pad. So why would I want this OS on my Mac notebook or desktop computer?

I have nothing wrong with Lion. It has got better and better with each update. I don't see a need to have an iPhone or iPad to change over to Mountain Lion whenever and however it is released. But I do have both and cannot wait for it''s release so I can have an even better integrated experience and an even more powerful OS. If I don't like a certain feature I will turn it off, as I have done with Launchpad and Dashboard. Anybody who doesn't like things in this next release hopefully can do the same.

Another case of people becoming paranoid over something they don't know much about. My Mac runs all my Adobe programs, Avid, FCP, Corel Suite, iLife and anything else you throw at it. And when I'm finished working it is an absolute pleasure to sit back and enjoy the fun aspects that Apple also offer in their complete computing experience.

Bring it on. Windows are heading into the same territory with Windows 8 and their Windows 8 phone by all reports.

Excited

Pete

etresoft wrote:

Thomas A Reed wrote:

I don't understand what you're talking about. Just because Apple has integrated a few features developed for iOS back into Mac OS X does not make it a "toy."

I think the technical term for the concept is "meme". Some people keep repeating something over and over until it "catches" and that is how people start to refer to something. Then they adjust their conceptualizations to fit the terminology. The facts are irrelevant.

Like Lion is Apple's Vista? I have read that so often in the last week reading around these forums, it actually makes me feel ill.

Pete

Trying to make the computers I use to get work done into "super" iPhones and iPads just gets in the way of getting my work done and slows me down.

They are not doing that. They are bringing a few interface options in addition to the ones already there. They're co-ordinating apps apps that are common to both. They are making it easier to work across the platforms. There's nothing to suggest that the key differences between iOS and OS X - multi-tasking, file management - are goinf anywhere.

I find this all very alarming. I don't mind adding app which look similar to iOS apps -- I don't have to use them (even the dreadful Lion look of iCal and AddressBook, which make me avoid ever putting them on a beamer in public out of sheer embarassement in front of Windows folk).

However, I am deeply worried by the implied changes to the file system (I noticed at once that the illustration of Mountain Lion's apps show no sign of disks, folders or files on the desktop even when the menu is showing Finder). Only Martin Pace here has pointed out one of the many things which will break in the app-centric vision.

Like many in niche areas, I work with multiple apps from many vendors. In my spare time I make astro-photos. I acquire image data (dozens to hundereds of files) with a particular software. These files have quasi-identical names, differing only with the optical filter name and a sequence number. These are then calibrated, aligned and processed in another software, from another vendor. Each of these steps is separate and requires segregation of the mutiple new files into new folders to avoid an impossible file-management problem. The images resulting from this process are then imported to another software (PhotoShop) for further processing, and the end results used in yet more software for display.

The image acquisition, by the way, only works because some 4 or 5 softwares are cooperating, exchanging data between themselves and multiple hardware devices -- I have 8 USB->serial ports and 6 USB-driven hardware gadgets cooperating. Most of this will not work under sandboxing.

This is just not going to work in the app-centric model. After holding out for so many years I'll have to move over to Windows. This is such a pity, to ruin a wonderful Unix-based operating system so that people can have a big phone on thier desk.

WhenSteve Jobs first introduced the iPhone, he received a big cheer when he said that it ran OS X. I suspect that had he said that in a few years OS X will be reduced to a replica of a phone operating system the applause may have been rather more muted.

A colleague of mine writes and runs cutting edge synthetic aperture radar processing software on his MacBook Pro. His software powers a big data processing centre which provides processed satellite data to scientists worldwide. I can tell you right now that he would not have been able to do that on an iPhone.

Phones are for doing phone things and computers are for doing computer things. Lets try to remember that.

As for Gatekeeper, it's the obvious next step after sandboxing, and was accurately predicted. And I'm sure that the prediction for the next OS (probably to be called ***** Cat, in keeping with its capabilities) will be that the "anywhere" option will disppear. To be followed in the first update by anything other than sandboxed App Store apps.

But by that time all "power-users" and most serious users will have moved on.

As a Mac user and advocate since 1990 I am deeply saddened.

outdated its beyond belief.. I have over thousands and thousands documents that accumulated Over the years of school and work.. I was looking for a document from 2008 that I new I had but forgot the name and where I put it. Took me nearly 20 min to find it

I have 20 years of accumulated files and face similar problems very often. I find that the search box in the header of every finder window works very well indeed. You just need to remember some content and off it goes.

good luck!

Richard1952 wrote:

I have 20 years of accumulated files and face similar problems very often. I find that the search box in the header of every finder window works very well indeed. You just need to remember some content and off it goes.

good luck!

It may well pay to start converting that data into an updated format and organise said files reasonably soon, as this is the direction of computing, like it or not. I do not see how Power Users will be affected by running the most advanced OS available. Windows 8? That's the alternative for most. No thanks. Lion is running everything fine as Macs did under the previous OSs. UI does not mean that we will have 'big phones' on our desks. Phones don't allow Video authoring or Design on the scale of a Desktop or Macbook Pro.

Anyhow, a lot of discussion on something that has not come into being yet. I will happily wait until the day I can buy Mountain Leopard and keep out of the speculation from now on.

Good Luck

Pete

Darko Ibrahimpasic1 wrote:

I understand what you are saying John :-)

Think about it, all stuff that we are getting from IOS is what makes sense. They are not forcing us to use screen to navigate, it's not like they are discontinuing mouse and keyboard. Is not like we have to type on a Mac like we do on iPad... Hence all the typos on this post :-) They are simplifying things for things that should be simple and integrated to begin with.l I would have done this years ago if I was in charge of this. Stuff like contacts, messages, FaceTime, calendar, photos etc should be as simple as on iOS. We still have all pro tools, aperture, Adobe, avid, autocad, office, even tho I think office is junk.. (personal preference) Again people are freaking out over nothing.

You sometimes Should allow users to revert to older way of doing things, but sometimes you need to force the change because that feature needs to integrated into othe feature looking forward.. I have a friend who refuses to upgrade from windows XP because he is so stuck on windows 98 look of windows.. He thinks all this modern stuff is junk... xp can be reverted to look similar to 98. Not sure about vista or 7. (don't care either to be honest) anyway guy never embraced change so he got left so behind.. To us this sounds crazy at this point, but that's how we will look back on people who are not embracing these changes.. My biggest issue with windows and avid is they are affraid of changing things.. They just keep adding and rewarding the packaging.. It's creates a mess of an app.. Crumbesome, hard to use (by today's standards) impossible to deal with bugs, unstable etc... I admire apple approach of killing stuff off when it's pass it's prime.. God knows I don't agree with it all the tie but eventually everything works out...

Sorry for typos.. On iPad :-)

Your choice of device shouldn't be an excuse, this is the reason people fear migration to iOS style devices. It is really hard to make quality output on them. Our hands and minds are moulded by the keyboards we have been pounding away at for decades. Go back & re-read if you think I'm being snarky :^)

Apple are discontinuing the mouse to an extent, for example in Lion you cannot use the same range of gestures for Exposé. This means you cannot see the 'all application windows' view, to make matters worse they removed the old way to access the same feature (click & hold on App in the Dock). Sadly the 'all application windows' is the only view that doesn't overlap the window content.

You need to assign the action to a hot corner if you want any kind of parity with how 10.6 behaves. Lion seems to be missing an item from it's requirements - a trackpad.

The new notifications are described with the word 'swipe', how well do you think that will work for mouse users?

petermac87 wrote:

It may well pay to start converting that data into an updated format and organise said files reasonably soon, as this is the direction of computing, like it or not.

Indeed I've been facing that for years. I used to be a big fan of FrameMaker and had many technical documents, which have active lives of at least a dozen years.

Unfortunately, Adobe bought Frame long ago and a few years later killed off the Mac version, and for all I know, have now done the same to the Windows version.

To handle these files which still need occasional update I keep an old PPC-based laptop in my office which can run Classic. Adobe never updated FrameMaker to OS X.

I would dearly love to update these files to an updated format, but unfortunately finding any contemporary app which can convert FrameMaker files is the Holy Grail of technical authors, and has not been found.

And, indeed, in some cases where I did not have the necessary foresight in preserving the software as well as the files, the files are effectively useless. But huge numbers are still OK.

... I do not see how Power Users will be affected by running the most advanced OS available. Windows 8? That's the alternative for most. No thanks. Lion is running everything fine as Macs did under the previous OSs.

I hope you're right. However, the loss of the file system suggested by some posts, supported by the screenshots, would spell the end.

And as sandboxing prevents any advanced usage (eg using files outside the sandbox, say from other apps) the feared creep of Gatekeeper will have exactly the same result.

lets hope I'm only in a pessimistic mood this evening.

Richard

However, I am deeply worried by the implied changes to the file system (I noticed at once that the illustration of Mountain Lion's apps show no sign of disks, folders or files on the desktop even when the menu is showing Finder).

Just so I understand: You're "deeply worried" by a screenshot on a marketing page? This is what precipitates a crisis in your life?

Relax. There is no "app centric" model. It's still your Mac. It has all the same things it used to have. Read about it.

But by that time all "power-users" and most serious users will have moved on.

And can someone explain to me what a "power-user" is? Because I keep reading about these mysterious creatures who seem very conservative in their computer usage and have difficulty coping with even the possibility of change. They seem rather fixated on a particular workflow and seem terrified that there might be an alternative way to do the same thing. How did they get that name?

xtremecarbon wrote:

Just don't update your OS then. You don't HAVE to go to 10.7 or 10.8 if what is offered doesn't fit your needs.

MobileMe isn't available after June 2012. iCloud support hasn't been announced for 10.6. If you want to use the same syncing features for your calendar, contacts & bookmarks you have little choice…

1. Use Lion & iCloud
2. Convert to iCloud & don't use it on any pre-10.7 Mac.
3. Take your data elsewhere for MS Exchange or Google to sync it with the Mac & iOS devices.

I'd hoped sticking with the same service since iTools would mean I didn't need to pay for services hosted with Microsoft technology, but it seems there is only so much Apple is willing to do. Google are also being creepy at the moment too.

In the space of 1 year Apple made a paid for service free & discontinued support for users on the last OS. Apple still provide iCloud support for Windows Vista, released in November 2006, Snow Leopard came out in August 2009.

Making Lion 'fit our needs' by removing previously paid for features from 10.6 is very poor behaviour.

PS.

Someone please point me to 10.6 info and iCloud, I really want to be proved wrong.