Considering upgrading to Apple’s New OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)?
On July 25th, OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) became available for purchase on the Mac App Store for $19.99. The Mac App Store is currently supported on OS versions 10.6.6 (Snow Leopard) or later. Machines running the latest version of Snow Leopard can purchase and upgrade 10.8 without having to purchase and upgrade to 10.7 (Lion). Additionally, since the purchase is tied to your Apple ID, you are able to install it on any machine you own that is running Snow Leopard or later. The download is over four gigabytes in size and can take a considerable amount of time (anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours) depending on the speed and stability of your connection. If you are downloading the upgrade on campus, I would recommend using a wired connection versus connecting to OU Wifi.
Mountain Lion contains 200+ new features. Highlights include iCloud, Reminders and Notes, iMessages, Notification Center, Dictation and AirPlay. If you own one of Apple’s recent iOS devices (iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPad 2, the new iPad, etc.) these features should seem familiar to you.
With iCloud integration, your reminders, notes and documents sync seamlessly between all of devices tied to your Apple ID.
Using iMessage, you can start a chat with one of your contacts on your computer and continue on the conversation on your iPad or iPhone.
Notification Center alerts you with a pop up when you receive an email, message, appointment or software update.
Dictation, allows you to use the built-in speech to text feature anywhere that you can type. Currently, Dictation supports English, French, German and Japanese.
AirPlay Mirroring will let you mirror your display and/or audio wirelessly to an AppleTV on the same network (note that your computer needs to have been released in 2011 or later). Mario Rosas wrote an excellent post last week with specifics on AirPlay Mirroring.
Unfortunately, Mountain Lion is not without bugs or issues. There have been reported compatibility issues with some applications. If possible, verify that your applications are compatible with Mountain Lion prior to upgrading. It may be difficult to revert back to Lion or Snow Leopard after you’ve upgraded to Mountain Lion.
For me, the upgrade was fairly quick and seamless (I used a wired connection on campus), but some users have mentioned experiencing issues with the download and install process. May sure you back up any important files and locate installer files or media for any applications that you may need to reload. If you run into issues, please call us anytime at 405-325-HELP.
Have you had any issues or successes with Mountain Lion? Share your stories in the comments!
