How to Get Rid of Mountain Lion’s Biggest Annoyances

Lifehacker - With the release of any new operating system comes a list of annoyances for veteran users. OS X Mountain Lion is no different, and while a number of its new features are great, a few annoyances have popped up that are pretty easy to fix. Here's how to do it.

De-iOS-ify the Interface

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It's no secret that Mountain Lion takes a lot of cues from iOS for its interface. Like Lion before it, Mountain Lion has tweaks that are a little annoying. These include reverse-scrolling on trackpads, hidden scroll bars, and more. The good news? If you disabled everything in Lion your settings will cross over to Mountain Lion. If you didn't? Most everything is in the same place, even if it's worded differently. Check out our guide to De-iOS-ifying OS X Lion for a rundown of doing the same thing on Mountain Lion.

For an additional set of options you can also check out the free software Lion Tweaks 2. Lion Tweaks was initially released to get rid of some of OS X Lion's biggest annoyances, but has been updated with support for Mountain Lion. With Lion Tweaks you can quickly disable the resume feature for apps, get rid of the Calendar's leather look, show hidden files, and more.

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Signs point to OS X Mountain Lion launch on July 25

Apple will be holding "overnights" in its stores on July 24 to prepare for a July 25 launch of Mountain Lion, according to a new report.

Mountain Lion OSX is pacing in its cage, awaiting release.

CNET - Apple could be planning to launch OS X Mountain Lion on July 25, according to a new report.

According to 9to5Mac, citing sources, Apple has informed some employees at its retail stores that they'll need to plan for an "overnight" on July 24. Overnights have become a key indicator that something new is coming to Apple's retail stores. Overnights mean that employees work outside their stores' open hours to prepare their location for the next day's new sale. Generally, that means Macs, iPhones, or iPads -- but not always.

If 9to5Mac's sources are to be believed, this time around it means OS X Mountain Lion.

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Is Apple's OS X Mountain Lion on Early-Release Track?

PCWorld - Apple may release OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion earlier than expected, according to a report by a popular blog and clues found within the release dates of the three developer previews of the new operating system.

On Tuesday, AppleInsider, citing an unnamed source, said that Apple's European arm was training new staff to answer queries about Mountain Lion. In the past, Apple has limited the training window, possibly to avoid leaks from the new staff about undisclosed features.

AppleInsider speculated that the staff hiring and training may mean Apple will debut Mountain Lion at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which opens June 11 in San Francisco.

The release dates for Mountain Lion's developer previews also may hint at early availability.

Apple has shipped three OS X 10.8 developer-only previews so far, on Feb. 16, March 16 and most recently, April 18.

Those dates are ahead of the schedule Apple set last year when it fed developers a stream of previews for OS X 10.7, aka Lion, which went on sale July 20, 2011.

Mountain Lion's trio of previews were 8, 15 and 25 days earlier than the first three Lion previews: The former is now more than three weeks ahead of the latter's 2011 timetable.



If Apple keeps to the established pace and seeds one more preview to developers -- Lion offered four last year, then a so-called "gold master" build before hitting the Mac App Store -- Mountain Lion would go on sale June 25, with the gold master ready June 6.

That last date may be a tad early, as Apple opens WWDC the following week. It seems improbable that the company would preempt a ready-for-sale announcement at WWDC by releasing a gold master of OS X 10.8 several days earlier, entailing a risk that the news would leak.          More

Apple moves toward digital unity with Mountain Lion

Blending the best of OS X and iOS makes both operating systems better

Computerworld – Apple surprised the tech world last week by pulling the curtain back on its latest desktop/laptop operating system: OS X Mountain Lion. The final version will be released this summer, but the developer preview unveiled on Thursday shows that the upcoming OS picks up where OS X 10.7 — code-named Lion — left off. The coming update incorporates even more popular features from iOS, the software which runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

The upgrade — pricing not yet announced — will be available only as a download from the Mac App Store. Apple won’t sell it on disc or on a thumb drive, as it did with earlier versions of OS X. That’s a change from past practice and gives Apple another way to showcase its fast-growing App Store.

Another change: Apple execs quietly previewed Mountain Lion first with a select few journalists and bloggers. Their early-bird reports last week led to a sudden tsunami of information about Mountain Lion and what it offers: iOS-like Messages, Reminders, Notifications and Game Center, AirPlay Mirroring, and a new security effort called Gatekeeper.

It was clear with the release of Lion last year that the Mac OS X and iOS feature sets were morphing; this year, that trend continues with Mountain Lion. The big question for users then becomes whether this melding of features works, whether the iOS-inspired apps and processes fit within the context of a desktop operating system.

For better or worse, the future of Apple’s desktop OS is full of iOS-esque flourishes, changes that reflect a new Apple way of thinking and indicate where Apple is going.

iCloud integration

 

The most important element of the new OS is deeper integration with iCloud, the collection of services that stores your data to Apple’s servers automatically and then syncs that data across all your devices. On the iPhone and iPad, every photo, document, bookmark, contact — everything — gets backed up. And through iCloud, it gets automatically sent to all your Macs/PCs, iPhones or iPads. To put it another way, iCloud shifts the onus of keeping data organized and up to date on multiple devices from the user to the machine. It’s invisible. And it just works.                  More