Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

FOR

• Notifications
• Low impact of Gatekeeper
• Share sheets
• Mission Control better
• AirPlay mirroring

AGAINST

• Awkward iCloud documents
• iMessages needs work
• Tab View too restricted
• No custom Finder groups
• Finder icons still mono

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

The ninth major version of OS X adds more than 200 new features

The ninth major version of OS X adds more than 200 new features. A few major additions stand out from the crowd, but there are many more small tweaks tucked in for good measure.

Just like its predecessor, OS X Mountain Lion draws much inspiration fromiOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone and the iPad.

The only place to get it is the Mac App Store. Unlike OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple won't be selling this version on a pricey USB flash drive, so you'll need access to a fairly good internet connection to download the installer.

Getting it is a cinch. Open the Mac App Store and you're sure to see Mountain Lion listed prominently on the front page, just a couple of clicks away from purchase. It installs right over the top of your current version. It's wise to make a complete backup of your system before you go ahead with the upgrade. If you do that with Time Machine, it's easy to roll back to your previous operating system if something goes wrong.

You can upgrade straight to Mountain Lion from Lion or Snow Leopard. If you're still running Snow Leopard, make sure it's updated to 10.6.8. You don't have to upgrade to Lion first; save some money and skip it entirely.

Some Macs that shipped with Leopard (10.5) are able to run Lion, too. You'll need at least 2GB of RAM installed, but the ride will be smoother with 4GB. Most Macs provide easy access to their memory sockets, so you can upgrade much less expensively by purchasing third-party RAM and fitting it yourself, instead of paying Apple to do it.

• Read our tutorial: How to install Mac memory

To get from Leopard to Mountain Lion, you'll first have to install Snow Leopard, because it's the earliest version of OS X with access to the Mac App Store. Snow Leopard is still available on DVD from the Apple Online Store for £26/$29.

The maximum cost of upgrading your OS is £40, but check that any applications you depend upon have no known issues with Mountain Lion. OS X no longer includes Rosetta, the technology that enabled PowerPC apps to run on Intel Macs. If you're upgrading from Leopard or Snow Leopard, you'll need to ensure that your applications have been rewritten to support Intel processors.

Mountain Lion abandons support for some old models, some of which aren't really very old at all. Apple lists compatible models by the time and year they were introduced.

It's easy to confirm your Mac's age in Lion. Click the Apple icon in the menu bar, choose About This Mac, then press More Info. The next window lists your model's era.

Older versions of OS X don't reveal the age of hardware so easily. Open System Profiler, copy your Mac's serial number from the Hardware Overview to the clipboard, then paste it into this form to find it out. 

Set aside any consternation at the continued adaptation of features from iOS. The best thing that Mountain Lion borrows from its leaner, mobile sibling is undoubtedly Notification Center. When you're swamped with meeting alerts and emails all day long, it's a convenient way to filter out some noise, while remaining in touch with people who matter.

We liked

Sometimes the simple ideas are the ones that take you by surprise. That's certainly our view of the Share button, which is an efficient way of getting things done without dragging things from the Finder. It's a particularly good point if you use a trackpad.

Apple's efforts to tidy up some of Lion's messy attributes haven't gone unnoticed. The restoration of Exposé-like organisation in Mission Control will appease some, as will the ability to once again show contact groups and a list of calendars on the left-hand side of the eponymous apps. But these are capabilities that should not have disappeared in the first place.

We disliked

Apple's insistence on a minimal file system in iCloud is fine if you only author the occasional document, but the simplicity soon becomes awkward when you have to deal with many of them. In stark contrast to the Share button, it makes a long-winded job of doing things with different types of document. Apple's determination to avoid a complex folder hierarchy would be laudable if search options worked better (folder names are excluded), and if there was a quicker way to gather related files of any type into a project.

We're also disappointed that icons in the Finder's sidebar are steadfastly monochromatic. Without a lack of colour as a guide, it inevitably slows you down. And iMessage needs improving to better handle file incompatibility when sending from a Mac to iOS device.

Verdict

If there's one feature that makes it worth upgrading, it's Notification Center. At £13.99, Mountain Lion is a real bargain for that alone. The true cost might be higher if you have to upgrade from Leopard, or upgrade any of your applications to make them compatible.

The rearrangement of Notes and Reminders into their own apps is very welcome if you also use an iOS device. And the swathe of other minor tweaks around the system are positive as a whole.

Apple needs to rethink iCloud document libraries before we're willing to start putting work online. Using iCloud to store documents is entirely optional, and it can be supplanted with alternatives such as Google Drive and Dropbox, which offer a more flexible file system.