Apple announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
apple.com
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The deeper iCloud integration is also intriguing. I assume this means proper syncing between documents on a Mac, iPad and iPhone. This will be a huge feature, and is currently a major stumbling block with iCloud. I want my documents to sync to my mobile devices.
Those two features alone are pretty big. Beyond that, I'm interested to here about the new APIs and anything else that has been changed under the hood.
OS X Lion has always been a little bit buggy (the latest release is pretty solid, however). I wonder if Mountain Lion will be like Snow Leopard where it tightens up a lot of things under the hood and gives us a better realization of the OS.
I'm excited for Gatekeeper for my parents and other people I know that aren't that tech savvy. This could save me a lot of headaches.
If somehow i am able to mirror VLC i will run and buy Apple TV at once.
But I agree and would welcome the support for VLC too!
That being said, I've got a couple of 8GB MKV's and they all work perfectly. So caveat emptor and all that ... :P
If Apple have to throw Quicktime under the bus to sell more Apple TVs and Macs I think they'll happily do it.
I hope they treat the screen as a "second screen" which is mirrored...
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2801047/mac-os-x-10-8-moun...
This will airplay pretty much everything you throw at it: http://beamer-app.com
Still, VLC integration is a must. With no compromise.
Spending a £1000 on a Mac - I reckon another £100 for an Apple TV with that functionality as the hook is a pretty easy up sell.
Beyond that, Apple may not have wanted to take A5 chips away from the iPhone and iPad to sell in Apple TVs. Now that all of the new iPads and iPhones will be A6 based this year, Apple will have more supply of A5s for other devices.
None of this helps people who already own an Apple TV, however
Apps and/or Content deals with video distributors (Comcast/Verizon/etc) are going to be where it turns the corner. I suspect the whole hobby has been in a holding pattern while Apple has tried to line up the content deals and that the fallback plan is to just enable Apps and let the chips fall where they may. [1]
That's probably even the stick they'll use to get the cable companies to the table: Either they sign up and get preferential treatment in the interface, or they get shoved into being a dumb IP pipe that much faster.
[1] Delaying as the internals for an Apple-quality, app-running, 1080p set-top box get cheaper and cheaper hasn't hurt, I'm sure.
AirPlay Mirroring sounds like it could be a solution for that provided you could choose the Apple TV you wanted to connect to (There'd be at least 200 screens in my office).
Am I the only person that doesn't want an ipad on the desktop?
It seems to me that contrary to Gruber's claim, OSX is moving towards iOS and iOS is moving towards its competition.
Oh, not much--just the whole kernel, userland, graphics layer, and half of the Cocoa API.
EDIT: Also, Spotlight.
Most of the rest of the features that people are listing don't seem right, like both iOS and OS X have a search called Spotlight but they aren't very similar in UI.
It's no secret that Apple is basically creating a hardware software empire where everything from the physical computer to the peripherals to the software and even web services are all Apple. I've been fine with that because the Mac never tried to force things on me. I've always had the option to use a different email client, Dropbox, music player, etc. without any trouble but I'm afraid Apple will move OS X in the direction of Windows where the OS assumes you're going to use its preferred software and services and if you don't it either makes it a hassle to use alternatives or it continuously throws up those annoying notifications.
All that aside, I'm most afraid for how friendly it will be to developers. Snow Leopard was the last OS X that was perfect for me as a developer. In Lion I have to deal with things like LLVM as the default compiler outdated command line tools, some Ruby gems give me problems, the system won't allow you to save hidden files (i.e. ".htaccess") and the list goes on.
I know that developers and power users are in the minority and that for average folks who are all about media and entertainment with a little work thrown in Mountain Lion will be aweso,e out of the box. I'm glad they're making such an awesome system for those people but I feel like they're leaving developers out and not even giving us a way to switch off some of those default behaviors.
I'm only 25 but I feel like I sound like the old guy who thinks things were better "back in the old days". Maybe I am just resisting a good thing and I hope I learn to love it.
> the system won't allow you to save hidden files (i.e. ".htaccess") and the list goes on.
I don't believe that is true, unless you're having problems with a specific editor?
Thanks but no thanks.
I'm a huge fan of the inverted scrolling, though.
This is a much smaller burden to me than having to wait for OSX to launch all sorts of random apps after every single reboot. Most of which I simply close right away anyway because there's no point in having them clutter my screen until I actually need them again.
I.e. I really don't need iTerm to resume because it can't restore my sessions anyway. And even most regular apps fail to resume for me because almost all of my files are on a network share that OSX fails to auto-mount.
On inverted scroll, it's great until you have to use someone else's mac or a PC then it just gets painful.
It would be nice if there was a proper system preference though.
Personally, I think it was a big mistake for Apple to do this. I find it very un-intuitive. Even if the design of the way windows scroll was ultimately an arbitrary decision, it's ingrained now. I think it was silly to change it.
But this update feels like it's creeping towards a heavily consumer facing product. My workhorse is being swapped for a show pony...
(no doubt it'll still do the job, it just a totally unfounded feeling I have)
Two questions:
1) you think you are different than a consumer how?
2) what exactly do you see this update taking away from you?
2) Nothing. But now I'm buying a consumer product to do my work. It's like Iron Maiden using Garageband, or Philip Halsman using Instagram. (not that I would compare myself to them, but you get the idea)
That's just way of the world, I'm not complaining, it's great to get these creative tools to as many people as possible. But my original point still stands.
Of course you still have to have a tallent to make anything of these tools, no matter how point-and-click they are, even so they're robbing me of that feeling of achievement and pride that I had in being able to handle a tool that not many could... and yes, I'm aware that I'm beginning to sound like an old man.
Anybody reading this page is likely to be told they aren't a "consumer." I was having that problem with Ubuntu Linux, for goodness' sake, though in Linux they call it a "Real Person(tm)" instead of a consumer. As in, "Of course XYZ doesn't work out of the box if you run an alternative window manager, because a Real Person doesn't run alternative window managers, and Ubuntu is for Real People."
Based on that, I think it's a valid concern that in focusing on "consumers" or "normal people" or however you want to put it, Apple might fail to take care of the artists, designers, and musicians who have historically been a strong part of its user base. One consistent goal for the Mac has been to be a computer for people who don't want to learn how to use their computer. That could be interpreted to exclude designers, artists, musicians, and so on, because they use very sophisticated software tools with steep learning curves. It would be very easy to lose sight of the distinction between people who enjoy having a sophisticated understanding of their computer (nerrrrds! not a high value or high prestige market) and people who have to use sophisticated software to get their work done (artists, designers, directors, musicians -- a high prestige, trendsetting market.)
For me the distinction is this. If a feature is being taken from a consumer (e.g., me as a consumer), I say bummer and find a new hobby. No Apple remote and Front Row anymore? Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
If I use a feature in a professional workflow and it disappears, then I want at the very least a big fat warning before upgrading, but it'd be better if nothing disappeared altogether; or alternatively, if I could stay on the older version.
The current trend with Apple is to radically drop features that are only used by <n% of users and to always require the latest OS for everything. You cannot sync contacts off a 32-bit Mac anymore because MobileMe is running out and Lion/iCloud is 64-bit only. And on my 64-bit machine, I only found out that iSync was gone after I upgraded and held a (replacement) dumbphone in my hand.
Or look at OS X server, which I am happy I didn't buy. The reviews on the MAS are devastating and I was wondering if it would ever rise from beta software quality. If you relied on OS X server, well joke's on you.
That said, I think 10.8 in particular is only 10.7 with lipstick to directly compete against Windows 8. (Notice even the version numbers?) But 10.7 did cause lots of damage.
Such as?
OSX Server gained a simple user interface mode but otherwise is basically the same thing and now it's only $50. Just install the Server Admin package. It's exactly the same as 10.6 You can do HTTPD, VPN, POP/IMAP mail server, net boot, software update server, DNS, DHCP, etc. From what I can tell all the same functionality is there. Maybe there are some small things missing?
iSync is a relic of a bygone era that hasn't seen any updates in many years. There are better tools available like The Missing Sync. This company focuses on making a really good tool for the small number of people who need it. Apple can't cater to every niche. If they can't do it right they shouldn't do it at all IMO.
Keychain syncing is one thing I would agree on. I found it very useful. I suspect it will be coming back in the future. Apple may not have been totally comfortable with managing the keychains of 100 million people quite yet.
I don't think these changes have anything to do with iOS-ification or whatever. They were going to happen either way.
Put another way, in 2009 at MacWorld there was unanimous consent among my fellow IT track speakers that anyone with non-trivial needs should be using Linux servers for Mac clients, due entirely to the obvious low priority of the server product. Making it a $50 app store add-on is the first step in simply acknowledging that Apple is really a consumer product company and unwilling to devote the significant resources needed to stay competitive in the traditional IT market.
I have been running Lion and do not feel that it makes my computer less of a workhorse. I dont think that ML will make it less of a workhorse. I see this update as adding a bunch of stuff, some of which will be useful to developers, and not removing anything that made me fall in love with my Mac as a dev platform.
Schools used Macs because they were cheap (for the schools). Creatives used Macs because the tools were better. 99% of the other Mac users used Macs because it was more consumer friendly than the business-oriented Windows. Apple has never been in the business of catering to business.
It also seems there's a trend here, with Apple bringing iOS increasingly into OSX and Microsoft bringing Windows Phone into Windows 8, the only operating systems which still are aimed primarily at computer users are Unix or Linux based.
The "Back to the Mac" line might be good marketing but massive over sell if viewed as literal truth. What they did was identify a few holes in the UI (for instance that you might not have every application you wanted in your dock but that going through your applications folder was a pain) and fill them with iOS-ish solutions.
But if you don't want them, you don't use them, they've not taken any of the old stuff away.
And they did screw with the old ui stuff in Lion. For example, they completely fucked up Spaces when they merged everything into Mission Control. It now takes twice as long to move between spaces; you're treated to a stupid iOS-style "fade in" animation, wasting even more of your time; the steps to move a window between spaces is now more complicated; and they removed rows. Why? I assume they wanted to make it look exactly the way it does on iOS, where you just have a horizontal series of windows. This is simple and intuitive. It's also stupid as hell.
Because you can organise them, group related stuff together and so on as opposed to having a single long list. I admit that I don't really use it (I prefer stacks in the dock) but it's better than the application folder.
> And they did screw with the old ui stuff in Lion. For example, they completely fucked up Spaces when they merged everything into Mission Control. It now takes twice as long to move between spaces; you're treated to a stupid iOS-style "fade in" animation, wasting even more of your time; the steps to move a window between spaces is now more complicated; and they removed rows. Why? I assume they wanted to make it look exactly the way it does on iOS, where you just have a horizontal series of windows.
Fair enough, I didn't really use Spaces previously so I'd not noticed the changes, though I'm not sure what you mean about the fade in. Mine transitions very quickly between spaces with no fade in.
> This is simple and intuitive. It's also stupid as hell.
Can you explain this? Simple and intuitive are good. How is that stupid.
In fact, other than the reverse scrolling behaviour (which would be easy to revert if I cared) I rarely notice any difference in behaviour between my Lion laptop and my girlfriend's Snow Leopard laptop.
Lion is great. Swiping between full-screen desktops is a huge productivity boost. Touchpad gestures instead of hotkeys to bring up Expose is awesome. Yes it's iOS-ified, but it takes the good things from iOS that fit naturally with the touchpad.
At the same time, the UNIX guts of OS X keep getting better. Grand Central is an awesome API that you can use from C. 64-bit support is almost seamless. You can swipe just fine between full-screen terminal windows. Xcode keeps getting less shitty, LLVM and LLDB keep getting better. Objective-C keeps seeing feature and performance improvements. The API's keep being improved.
People are afraid that the gains for iOS means losses for OS X, but all I've seen so far are gains for OS X, largely focused on revamping the UI to take full advantage of the multi-touch capabilities of modern Mac hardware.
Are you kidding? XCode 4 is one of the most unstable pieces of software that Apple has ever released. It crashes all the time and is borderline unacceptable as an IDE.
Check out: https://twitter.com/search/realtime/xcode%20crash
I love them both, but they are drastically different products and uses.
All I see is popular out-of-the-box iOS apps/features being brought to the out-of-the-box OS X experience.
What power users don't already have growl, dropbox, a dedicated notes app, a dedicated reminders app, an integrated chat client, etc?
These Mountain Lion features are only iOS-like inasmuch as iOS had them out-of-the_box, while OS X users looked to third parties to provide them. If you ask me, Mountain Lion sounds like a more reasoned approach to "bring what works about iOS to OS X" than misfires like "Mission Control".
I don't use it everytime I launch somthing (I use alfred for that), but to refresh my memory every now and then.
It doesn't work exactly like I would like it too, but it's not bad, and it's very out of the way if you don't like it.
The thing is: pads and phones are fundamentally different kinds of devices. Their UI paradigm is designed around frequent but brief and relatively shallow interactions, while a PC is for deeper longer-term interactions. Trying convergence here seems like something very easy to botch horribly.
My guess is that Apple is waiting for the day when cloud computing is the standard, and there is no longer a great deal of need for the hardware-based functionality or design of a laptop. When that day comes, a simple iOS-style interface might be fine for everything. In the meantime, however, there are still plenty of distinct use cases for Macs and iDevices. Arguably, we're still in the awkward adolescence of cloud computing. We know it's going to grow up quickly, but that day isn't quite here yet.
(And let's not forget that Apple is a hardware company and, accordingly, is probably hesitant to hasten the demise of any of its key hardware lines).
With great power comes great "you guys better not fuck this up."
Yeah, it's not a great reach to think that in five years there will be no Option 3 and malware will include any program that the government of the nation that your computer is in deems undesirable. Apple and Microsoft will likely be forced to have such capabilities by various national governments.
Personally, I'm not very afraid of option 3 ever going away but I also am ready with a FreeBSD VM instance.
I first glance, the main (in fact only) feature seems to be porting several iOS apps and features (notes, reminders, game center, etc.) to Mac OS X, and syncing everything together with iCloud.
There is also a Growl clone. Surprised this took so long. Then again, I personally don't like Growl, so I hope nothing depends on it being turned on.
I notice that, so far, there doesn't seem to be any new 'technologies', just (mainly) ports of iOS apps.
Looks very ho hum to me, but then again I have an android phone, so iOS syncing doesn't really interest me.
It seems that Apple adopted a similar model as Notifications Center on iOS in that you can decide on a per-app basis what they can do: banner, badge, sound… See this MacWorld's screenshot: http://images.macworld.com/images/article/2012/02/notificati...
It's still possible to turn this off, but I have a feeling that we should enjoy our freedom to run GNU grep instead of BSD grep for as long as it lasts.
My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications. If an app is found to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s certificate, rendering the app (along with any others from the same developer) inert on any Mac where it’s been installed. In effect, it offers all the security benefits of the App Store, except for the process of approving apps by Apple. Users have three choices which type of apps can run on Mountain Lion:
* Only those from the App Store
* Only those from the App Store or which are signed by a developer ID
* Any app, whether signed or unsigned
When I was 15 I wrote a Taskbar dialer for Windows 9x and later NT (this was in the modem days. Of course I haven't updated it in ages and the only reason my old webpage is still there is because I found it by accident in an old backup, but here is a google search for it: https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=RasInTask).
I published that on the various download pages and it was good enough to even be featured in dead-tree publications.
Back then I had no permission to use a computer ("they make you stupid" was my parents argument) and certainly no credit card to pay anybody to do development - and even then, as a minor I would probably never have gotten that certificate.
With this rule in place I would never have been able to publish that dialer. I would never have felt how it is to make something that others can use and find useful. I would never have ended up where I am today.
Does this stop malware? Does this stop fraudulent call centers? Does this stop malicious people from telling people to turn it off and then still installing the malware? No.
Does it stop people like me from ever getting to their career of their dreams? Likely.
I might be an old fart, but this is far from acceptable.
Yes but things change. Old fart or not, you're into technology, we all have to realize things change!
You can then publish it on websites exactly as you did and those who choose the appropriate security setting can run it. You have a smaller audience yes, but you can still do what you did.
And while this doesn't stop Malware, it does raise the bar a little higher.
Out of interest how would you feel about it if developer licenses were free for students?
I would be much happier (to the effect of actually seeing more good than bad in this restriction) if getting that ID was a matter of filling out a form an passing a turing test - so, for example, if any apple ID could be used to get a signing certificate, that would be much better.
(edit: this is not about the money. It's about they way of payment (minors don't have credit cards) and the required paperwork that, among other things, require you to be an adult)
Personally I'd like to see the price on Developer licenses dropped and made free for full time or part time students. I think it would make commercial and PR sense for Apple too - show that they are developer friendly and make the Mac attractive as the machine of choice for the next generation of programmers (who will then also be a shoe in on coding iOS apps).
It's also interesting that Apple is using the word "the _new_ Developer ID" in their developer site[1].
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/technologies/mountain-lion/
They reason the have the fee is to keep out people who aren't serious about development. If they didn't have it for example the forums would be overrun with people who just signed up to get the latest OS beta complaining about bugs (this is already a problem at $99).
People can still develop and distribute apps without ever signing up with Apple. This restriction is a good protection step for users imo.
As a rule the people who act like arseholes have at least as much money as those who don't, I don't think it's going to put them off.
I agree a nominal fee is reasonable as it puts another barrier in their way (you can check for duplicate memberships off the same card for instance so they have to get multiple cards) but the actual financial amount isn't a major barrier I don't think.
I don't see why Apple don't invite the developers of high-ranking iOS apps to an early-access program in order to keep their best apps up to date, and not invite anybody else to the beta.
Because every publisher, not just the "blessed" ones, has software in the store that could be negatively impacted by a new iOS release's changed APIs. And every publisher has potential use cases for new features Apple adds in a new iOS revision.
Apple ships major iOS releases at the same time as shipping the newest iOS device. They want a customer to unwrap their new device and have free roam of the store to download/buy as much as they can. They want the software to use the new features in iOS and they don't want their customers downloading crap that is broken.
And as a developer who isn't even close to "high-ranking" (My one paid iOS app maybe pulls in $50 on a good month) it's still not fair to me for someone to one-star my app and say "doesn't work on iOS 6" even when I've had no chance to test it before general release.
Charging $100 just to be capricious is not a good move and is certainly not a good omen for OS 10.9 "Tabby" wherein you can be almost certain they will remove the option to run unsigned software (for your own protection, of course! You don't want to pay Apple $100? What are you, poor? The computer cost $1000! $generic_strawman_argument!)
If you develop an app with the purpose of selling it on the Mac App Store for profit $100 should not be a problem for you.
If you want to distribute it yourself, go ahead. Apple is not charging you.
The need for a non-default security setting in order to run the software is a pretty big difference.
Requiring a developer license to work with the default security settings - thereby allowing Apple to unilaterally delete your application from your customer's computers without recourse - may only raise the bar a bit.
However, it is an entirely different development ecosystem from the one described. Microsoft couldn't delete your application or block customer's access to it arbitrarily back in the 90's.
If iOS is a precedent, the probability of Apple changing the terms of service in regards to their developer agreement in ways which have adverse effects on the saleability and distribution of existing applications is significant.
Gruber's article says signing will be free. No paid developer program membership required.
The computer isn't free either. And you can always build and distribute without the ID or the certificate. This is just for distribution through the App Store or to users that have it set to only allow signed apps.
Does this stop malware? Does this stop fraudulent call centers? Does this stop malicious people from telling people to turn it off and then still installing the malware? No.
"No" to the last question, maybe. On the other hand, it stops tons of malware. Signed binaries is considered one of the most successful anti-malware strategies by security experts. Are you saying otherwise?
Does it stop people like me from ever getting to their career of their dreams? Likely.
Well, if you are that easily discouraged, then maybe that career wasn't really for you, anyway.
You present an edge case ("I need to build and distribute my software to OS X users AND I want those users to not only allow signed apps BECAUSE I can't fork $100 dollars for a developer certificate").
If that kind of thing discourages you from "getting to the career of your dreams" what to say about the hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of toil needed to become a doctor, a lawyer, not to mention the hard learning needed to become a professional programmer.
The latter is the default. So for other people to use this application I wrote as a minor, my users would have to change the setting.
Well, if you are that easily discouraged, then maybe that career wasn't really for you, anyway.
This would not have stopped me, but imagine what kind of an ego-boost it is for a 15 years old sufferer of heavy bullying due to overall geekyness to see his home-grown application not just be used by other people but actually getting mentioned in paper publications.
Nowadays I couldn't even get /permission/ to try because these various developer programs require you to be an adult due to various organizational issues.
Honestly, without that ego boost when it happened, I don't know where I would stand today, if at all.
But this is my story. I have a feeling that I'm losing objectivity here due to heavy emotional involvement. I'll be quiet in this topic from now on and just turn that switch off for myself, hoping that there will be a switch to turn off in the future.
Yeah, but should users configure their systems to the distribution convenience of some developers?
Or should Apple keep signed apps forever away from OS X for the same reason?
Or should they introduce them, but make unsafe apps the default, and thus render them useless for non security minded people?
All of those options seem a little strange to me.
Nowadays I couldn't even get /permission/ to try because these various developer programs require you to be an adult due to various organizational issues.
Yes, but consider some other things:
a) nowadays computers are a dime a dozen and more kids have access to them than ever.
b) nowadays there are tons of compilers, programming environments, most of them given away for free and/or open sourced.
c) nowadays a kid can make a web app and reach millions of people worldwide. There are tons of ways to put it up even for free.
d) nowadays there are even kids making iPhone/iPad/Android apps, and some have reached hundreds of thousands of users.
e) the sound/graphics/processing capabilities of modern machines were unheard of in those times.
f) High Level languages like Python/Ruby/Javascript trump anything available at the old times for kids (mostly stuff like Basic, Logo, etc). Especially in the libraries department.
As you've decided to pick anonymous security experts, I thought I'd chip in. I don't know if I'd call myself an expert but I've over a decade in industry breaking systems, fixing software and booting out bad guys, I'm speaking at BlackHat EU next month and I co-founded a security conference so I guess that means I'm not a complete security chump. I can categorically tell you that signed binaries are only part of a strategy, and not necessarily the best one at that. If your goal is to increase the cost of exploitation then signing can help, but so can a decent access control model (into which signing becomes a part thereof).
To put it another way, it's possible to defeat applocker (windows binary signing), iOS code signing on iOS 5.0.1, the XBox and Xbox 360's code signing restrictions, the PS3's code signing restrictions, and more recently, an analysis of RSA keys showed that between 2 and 4 out of every thousand keys are insecure due to weak randomness[1].
The bottom line is that code signing, like placebos only work if you believe them to unless they're backed up by something more solid to augment them and they form a stronger coherent strategy.
At this stage all code signing settings will do is encourage developers to get Apple IDs and for customers to use the App store as they know "it's safe". Even though we know it doesn't mean anything[2] to the end user in reality. The real thing that Apple will do is further on the line when they decide to make it so that you can only run signed apps (and this is at least the direction apple are taking) through their app store.
Your edge case point applies to countless open source developers, including those that worked on the original FreeBSD code that went into Darwin. Apple are of course, under the licences they've inheritied allowed to implement code signing, but please don't think this is an anti-malware measure, it isn't. It's about control of distribution. Anyone that wants to bypass code signing on an Apple product will find a way to do it.
[1] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/16/crypto_security/ [2] - http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/02/15/what-ios-apps-are-g...
You mean things like sandboxing and blacklisting? Or do you think this is not (an attempt at) a coherent strategy?
"At this stage all code signing settings will do is encourage developers to get Apple IDs and for customers to use the App store"
It also (even if ever so slightly) decreases the attack surface. It is harder to infect executables if the OS checks the hash of the code every time it is run. Finally, it gives Apple a handle for disabling malware, once it has detected it. That will not prevent malware from infecting systems, but it can make it less likely that machines will keep getting infected for years after the time.
I would much rather have teenagers work to be able to pay $100 to distribute signed applications than make it free for anyone (malware makers) to distribute signed apps.
The trade off isn't even close here. It's free to develop the app, and even distribute it outside of the app store. If you want to go into the app store, you'll need $100, which helps keep software more secure for millions of people.
Will all of these OSX devices be regularly polling Apple to get a list of revoked certs?
I guess this would be useful to prevent malware being installed, but it's not going to be massively useful to remove already installed malware. Especially if that malware can interrupt the polling.
I wonder how difficult it will be to get developer IDs. Might be a market for them.
Will be fun to uninstall a developers software from every machine by stealing his cert, releasing some malware signed with it, and then waiting for Apple to push out a revocation cert.
Or, the signing key will be stolen, like it always is.
I'd wager that blackhats around the world are currently tendering to cartels for this contract as we speak.
Yeah, that.
Yes, the first problem will be to create some malware from OS X first. You know, the biggest success so far had been that Mac Defender, that was:
a) a trojan (you had to install it yourself)
and
b) only affected like 10 users
The current app eco-system doesn't allow them to just switch off the ability for people to install arbitrary apps. They need to get themselves into a situation where the vast majority of apps are signed first. Then it will be a lot easier for them to require apps to be signed. For your own protection of course.
EDIT: After all, if developer IDs are so easy and free to get, and will make it easier for people to install your app. Why wouldn't you get it signed?
Presumably, in order to keep the problem small. If OS X grows in marketshare, it will become an increasingly attractive target for malware developers. If the default is that the majority of Apple users only run signed applications (this also means that the certificate wasn't revoked), then the number of possible "users" for your malware is greatly reduced, making OS X a much less attractive target platform for malware developers.
> After all, if developer IDs are so easy and free to get, and will make it easier for people to install your app. Why wouldn't you get it signed?
If you are a legitimate developer, then there's no reason not to (assuming it actually is free and easy, which isn't clear). As a malware developer, there's little point; as soon as the developer ID is being used for malware, Apple will revoke the corresponding certificate, and your malware won't run.
I don't understand the question. Apple has been improving OS X security mechanisms in every OS X update. From "address space layout randomization" to the "first run warning". This is another step in the same direction.
Are you implying that Apple should only do something about OS X security AFTER malware on OS X get's to be a problem? Because, I'd rather they do it BEFORE.
And I fail to see how pro-actively making an OS more secure is "security theater".
Then it will be a lot easier for them to require apps to be signed. For your own protection of course.
Of course. I miss the irony here. Signed applications are touted by security experts as a highly successful security measure. Are you suggesting it is otherwise or are you just confusing the potential of misuse of that feature with that feature being meaningless?
* After all, if developer IDs are so easy and free to get, and will make it easier for people to install your app. Why wouldn't you get it signed?*
Yeah, why? Surely not for the $100 it takes.
SSL certificates cost money too, but I don't see anybody suggesting running your web app in plain HTTP is better, or that paid certificates hamper secure web application development.
You then replied by being sarcastic about how malware isn't really a problem.
I then asked a rhetorical question about why would they be doing this if not to defend against malware.
Now you're ranting about how malware could become a problem as if this is somehow news to me.
I'm sure you had a point.
No, you stated what you THINK they will do.
For one, most Macs are updated very often, what with Software Update and Mac Store updates. So updating a black list of applications wouldn't be a problem.
Second, they cannot just get a certificate, because they will have to interact with Apple and the developer program. You know many malware writers that want to give their details away?
Third, even if they somehow get through the second caveat above, revocation would just be a step away.
I then asked a rhetorical question about why would they be doing this if not to defend against malware.
No, you said that if they don't do it to defend against ALREADY EXISTING malware then it's either a security theater or a mystery to you why they'd do it.
As if defending against POSSIBLE FUTURE malware is a "security theater" or a strange notion.
I didn't think I would have to point out that I'm not psychic, and that it was only an opinion/prediction. I will try to be more clear in future.
"Second, they cannot just get a certificate, because they will have to interact with Apple and the developer program. You know many malware writers that want to give their details away?"
Sorry. I forgot that identity theft was impossible, and not rampant and easy and used as a matter of course by malware authors.
The last three lines of your comment are complete nonsense. You have failed to parse and understand what I wrote.
Yeah, because it is so off base, right, you writing:
"If malware on OSX is as small a problem as you're suggesting, why is Apple bothering with any of this? Is it to wrestle further control of the app eco-system on OSX? Or is it just security theatre? Or both? Something else?"
And me translating the above as you saying that if they don't do it to defend against ALREADY EXISTING malware then it's either a security theater or a mystery to you why they'd do it.
Ridiculous how?
It's perfectly valid, as in: VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY FEW OS X users ever had problems with malware. Less that what would be statistical noise. On top of it, all the cases of OS X malware, had been trojans. So, 99.9999% got scratch free, despite not even running any antivirus or anything.
So, an ACTUAL, EXISTING problem, it is NOT.
Now, a POSSIBLE, FUTURE problem, yeah, it can be.
This is why it looked like you were the one that was ignoring the future likelihood of malware on OSX, not me.
Go back to your first comment in this thread, and look at my most recent response to it. Then read my original comment. The problem here is that you simply misunderstood my initial comment, and replied to something which I did not say.
Because they're not thinking about their current problems, they're thinking about their upcoming problems.
"I guess this would be useful to prevent malware being installed, but it's not going to be massively useful to remove already installed malware. Especially if that malware can interrupt the polling."
You mistakenly read that as if I wasn't talking about malware that exists today. No. There are two situations:
1.) revocation cert issued before malware installed
2.) malware installed before revocation cert issued
Read what the world's biggest Mac-shill has to say to defend the world's least open company and biggest patent-troll?
Thanks, but no thanks.
I'll go for something open and free, and you wont get anything like that out of Cupertino.
You do know the core OS, Darwin[0], is open source? See also http://opensource.apple.com/ You may have even heard of a little rendering engine named WebKit that Apple helped create.
Also, do users get the choice to accept a certificate revocation?
But it's within the realm of possibility for Apple to start refusing support to users who disable GateKeeper. I would disable it anyway, but how many other users would?
There ARE ways to make a kick-ass, no hassle Linux OS, even better than OS X and more open (and still open source).
But all of them involve throwing top dollar into it, starting a few projects from scratch, forking a few existing ones and stoping the bazaar-style, design by committee, approach. You should only rely on upstream bazaar-style approach for the userland (like OS X does) and server backend stuff, not for visible UI, no core components, no libraries.
Canonical, and all other Linux companies, always just wanted to act like integrators, instead of creators. Except maybe in a few select areas.
The safest place to find apps for your Mac is the Mac App Store. That’s because the developers who create them are known to Apple, and the apps are carefully reviewed before they’re accepted in the store.
As I've had no reason to upgrade my home PC from 10.6 to 10.7, EOL for 10.6 will probably be when I ditch the Mac and just dual-boot Linux and Windows. It's really amazing how much Apple has changed since the pre-OSX days.
There are only a few things really keeping a package out of the main Debain repositories: Being "non-free" (which takes it out of "main"), being clearly malicious, and not attracting enough interest to have a maintainer/packager.
I think we've seen with the iPhone that Apple has very, very different criteria. Further, Debian hosts something in the ballpark of 20,000 packages: I seriously doubt we'll ever see such diversity for the Mac, especially with their developer fees.
The other force driving me away is their refusal to accept GPL3 software. I don't like having to build things myself that every Linux distribution provides so easily.
The stated goals of Apple for gatekeeping apps are practically the same as signing packages in the distros: To protect unwary users from installing malicious or broken applications. I think that's a worthy goal.
But _normal_ users, that is not-very-technical people using Linux as a desktop, _never_ see that tgz. They wouldn't even know how to install it.
That's not the case with OSX, as far as I can tell.
In regards to OSX, the argument seems to be that this is a step towards not even having the switch there, and yes, they may be headed that way which is unfortunate. I think that's a mistake that would end up biting them if they tried it, but maybe I'm naive. I still think being more aggressive in only allowing signed binaries by default is a good approach, even for open source systems.
Changing a single setting in the Preferences app (once!) is "difficult" now?
Defaults matter. Non-technical users don't know about this computer magic.
Carefully reviewed to ensure they don't upload your whole address book.
The model essentially matches Debian package distribution.
(And as mentioned by oomkiller, this won't go down to unix, it is just the "application" launching.)
Edit: pilaf's reply got down voted into oblivion. What he suggests is flawed because applications are not in your PATH. But in the spirit, your application could write malware into somewhere on the PATH, and could find an exploit to get the setuid bit turned on. As soon as someone realizes this, Apple should kill your signing key thereby blocking the distribution vector. It will not help in cleaning up the mess. The victim is still looking at an "erase disk, reinstall, restore backup DATA ONLY!" recovery as they should anytime they lose control of a machine.
Whether or not it can be disabled is irrelevant. I don't want to have to instruct my customers about how to essentially jailbreak their Mac just to use my app.
And will it just be .app applications which need to be signed, or will it be all binaries, e.g. Vim and Apache?
Worrying times indeed. I don't particularly want to use Linux, cause I really love OS X's elegance, but I can see switching being a real possibility over the next few years if Apple continues the trend of forcing iOS's walled-garden on OS X.
Example:
1. iCloud. Have Windows Live ID and Live Mesh integration in windows for nearly 3 years now. Works across mobile devices already.
2. Messages. Windows Live Messenger has social integration already which is on par with this.
3. Reminders. Windows Live calendar does this and gives you alerts through windows live messenger and email.
4. Notes. NOTHING on this planet compares to Microsoft's OneNote.
5. Notification center. Windows live has one built in that you can integrate with. Oh and you also have the system tray.
6. Share sheets. Windows has had "sent to" since about 1996.
7. Twitter. Windows live integration.
8. Game center. We have shops for that and Steam and all sorts. It's an open market.
9. Airplay mirroring. Woo yay etc. Windows media player (!) does this with my Sony Bravia with no complaints. I can right click a video file and select "play on Bravia" and it appears on it straight away. This required NO CONFIGURATION and no special boxes. Both have wireless cards in them. No store or DRM available or required.
10. Gatekeeper. Windows firewall is actually on par with this and is an application AND/OR system level firewall. Microsoft security essentials is the rest.
11. Chinese features. Windows is the mainstream OS in china for a reason (i.e. excellent language support).
The only thing above that cost anything is Windows (which cost effectively nothing as it came with the PC) and OneNote (which cost me 200GBP) and included Word, Excel and Outlook as well. Oh and the nice Acer TimelineX machine only cost me 400GBP, TV cost 300GBP so total 900GBP
Compare that to a MacBook which cost more than that to start with at 999GBP.
Oh and I don't have to pay 99GBP to write software that works on it. Visual Studio is free.
Doesn't add up.
Hmm.
> 10. Gatekeeper. Windows firewall is actually on par with this and is an application AND/OR system level firewall. Microsoft security essentials is the rest.
Gatekeeper and the App Store is not about firewalling, but sandboxing.
> 11. Chinese features. Windows is the mainstream OS in china for a reason (i.e. excellent language support).
Maybe, in any case, that doesn't make catching up less interesting. I would also wager that most people in China use Windows for the same reasons for which they use IE6. I only know about Taiwan, but when your bank's customer support site only offers an ActiveX-powered video chat, then you have little choice.
> Oh and I don't have to pay 99GBP to write software that works on it. Visual Studio is free.
No, you can download Xcode for free, write unsigned apps and other people can choose to run unsigned apps.
http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion
"It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications."
Not sure what you're talking about, XCode is free. Visual Studio is $799.
The IDE's on both OS's are irrelevant arguments. There are free versions of Visual Studio as well that work just as nice as the Professional editions. Those editions are for corporate enterprise architect roles etc.
VS Express is actually pretty much fine for 90% of development work. If you are in a TDD environment, you don't even need the unit test stuff as NUnit ships with a GUI test runner.
Profiling is solved by using ANTS profiler.
I'm specifically speaking on my personal experience with Visual C++, in which x64 is much more important. Additionally I'm unsure if native interop can be done at all with Express editions, since there is a seperate Visual Studio Express for every language.
I'm certain .Net languages have other limitations using the Express editions.
> Profiling is solved by using ANTS profiler.
If we are expressing equivalency with every free non Microsoft product with the similar Visual Studio pro feature the whole Discussion is moot, because you'll be able to find a Mono or GCC, or some other tool that has the same feature checkpoint. But that doesn't change the fact that Visual Studio Express doesn't have profiling among other things.
>>> 1. iCloud. Have Windows Live ID and Live Mesh integration in windows for nearly 3 years now. Works across mobile devices already.
It works across mobile devices, poorly. I think iCloud is a much better user experience, and has better app support even being the newer product.
>>> 2. Messages. Windows Live Messenger has social integration already which is on par with this.
Windows Live Messenger is not on par with this. iMessage will work across many platforms. Using Messenges you can chat with someone who thinks you are texting them.
The list goes on... The point is, yes, Calendar applications have been around for a while. Reminder apps have too. All of these things are offered in lots of ways on lots of platforms. What Apple is succeeding at doing (albeit slowly) is simplifying and improving software offerings in all of these existing domains.
"it lets you send unlimited messages to anyone on
a Mac or an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running
iOS 5."i/OS/X is geared toward the average consumer. ie. someone who knows nothing about how it works and probably won't find a feature if it isn't on the desktop.
Don't confuse "features" with selling points.
Every time I grab a Mac, I have to remove all the crap from it (Garageband, iPhoto etc). It's easier to drop the restore CD in and reinstall it from scratch without all the junk (and don't tell me to just leave it there as it takes up valuable space on an Air SSD).
Second, you claim you have an Air and that you're dropping in a restore CD. Does not compute.
Easy with the hyperbole.
2. Messages integrates with iMessage which allows any iOS device (over 100mil) and now any Mac to message each other free. WLM is IM. There is a subtle but important difference I think.
4. I agree, OneNote is fantastic. But the Apple Notes app is not designed to complete with OneNote.
5. Don't put the system tray forward as a positive thing. System tray is terrible. 8. A better comparison would be Xbox Live (which is better than Game Center).
9. Airplay mirroring allows you to mirror the entire screen not just video. You can do games, apps etc.
You don't have to pay 99GBP to write iOS/Mac apps. It's 59GBP for a developer membership. And the IDE Xcode is 100% free to anyone. Visual Studio is not free. It's several thousand dollars. Visual Studio Express is free.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/list/size....
Cool story bro, mind sharing how you can use WMP to mirror your whole display? You know, for things like presentations, VLC, games?
It totally misses the point.
Gatekeeper is actually a cool feature because now any developer will be able to release signed applications without going through the app store approval process. If they do nasty things, their certificate gets revoked. You get the benefits to the user of running signed/trusted code, and the benefits to the developer of deploying for free, without app store approval.
According to Gruber, signing OSX apps will be free (which is sensible: it's really a service to Apple)
There's a reason for that. New features might provide a reason to buy a $29 OS X upgrade, but they don't represent the reason people choose Mac over Windows. I choose Mac over Windows because the entire user experience is friendlier, more polished, and better integrated. It's the details of how the features are implemented and the way they work together that make for a superior product.
Scrivner and Evernote do compare, actually. That being said, OneNote is one of the least appreciated MS products.
In actual fact I sit in front of a Linux machine neatly occupying the neutral zone :-)
So you have a Windows Phone for 3 years? Impressed. Must be a hard time.
2. Messages. Windows Live Messenger has social integration already which is on par with this.
Like chatting with Jabber/Gtalk buddies?
4. Notes. NOTHING on this planet compares to Microsoft's OneNote.
Bloat-wise, sure. For the rest of us who prefer simplicity, SimpleNote/Notation Velocity wins. But I still envy Notes. Why? Because it is synced automatically across all your iOS/OS X devices. You don't even have to keep any app open.
9. Airplay mirroring. Woo yay etc. Windows media player (!) does this with my Sony Bravia with no complaints. I can right click a video file and select "play on Bravia" and it appears on it straight away. This required NO CONFIGURATION and no special boxes. Both have wireless cards in them. No store or DRM available or required.
What about showing your working desktop fullscreen to do a demo on your Bravia?
11. Chinese features. Windows is the mainstream OS in china for a reason (i.e. excellent language support).
Don't get me started on this. It has nothing to do with language support.
The focus on feature-by-feature comparisons is why Apple is cleaning everyone's clock. I wrote this 2 years ago when the iPad came out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025200):
-------
In my head, I call this the "blender" comparison that many technophiles seem to use.
Want to compare two meals? Put them in the blender and analyze the nutritional content of the resulting goop.
What? You don't compare food by spec sheets? (Calories, vitamins, carbs, proteins). What are these subjective "texture, taste, style, temperature, presentation" variables you care about? They offer little or no nutritional difference!
That's a really bad choice. The corners are the click targets fastest to reach (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fittss_law ), and demoting searching in favor of 'reading messages that have popped up before' doesn't strike me as quite well-balanced.
Two fingers in SL:
* Scroll.
Two fingers in ML:
* Scroll
* or back/forward
* or Notification Center
I actually like it better -- I'm much more likely to activate notifications with a mouse, so I'd much rather have that be the "bigger" target.
Our family room computer is a mac mini that is logged into one user account all of the time. It is shared by myself, my wife and my kids. The iPhoto on that account is set up to use my iCloud account. If my wife wants to get her photos (iPhone) downloaded from iCloud she has to log over to an account that only exists for this purpose.
So I'm sure the whole documents, todos, calendar and everything else on 10.8 is going to be a similar pain in the ass for people sharing one computer.
We have to manage three AppleIDs. My iCloud account, her iCloud account and we share an AppleID for purchases from the App Store. They need to fix this for multi-Apple families.
Think about how different Ubuntu is now since then. Windows 8 is a real risk-take from a company that does not take risks (whether they were forced to do so or not is another argument). Mac OS X is... Mac OS X again.
I've been using Mac OS X since 10.2, and I will get another Apple machine for my next one, but I really don't know why they bother putting anything out if they're just going to phone it in each time. Pretty much everything added to Lion I really don't care for, and what they did add was minimal anyway.
I wonder if they really have the vision and the tenacity to actually move things forward, or whether iOS and Mac OS X are going to remain the way they are until the company can't take it anymore. They need a software person like hardware needs Johnny Ive. Someone to put their foot down, say "we're doing this" and follow through.
The next 10 years of Mac OS X cannot be the same as the last 10 years, can it?
Personally, I think Microsoft's strategy of bringing back the hybrid desktop/tablet, where you can do tablet-type things on the road/in bed, then drop it into a dock and go back to mouse and keyboard for work, is pretty sound now. I like what they've done with Windows 8. I like that they're trying.
What do I want from Apple? Probably something I don't know I want. I want to be able to drop an iPad into an iMac enclosure and have a hybrid work area. I want iCloud to be more than some weird, feature-free Dropbox (the new organization structure sounds like a misery for anyone with more than a handful of files). I want them to fix Finder and rethink the Dock.
But this is like asking what I want from an iPhone before I ever saw one, and I think most people's ideas of what they wanted were so wildly off, and then Steve comes out and says "You want this" and he's right. That's what I want from them, to know me better than myself.
OS X's yearly cycles allows them to take a loyal user base who will upgrade and gradually introduce them to paradigm shifts, like cloud storage. Apple is taking calculated steps to make sure any of their risk taking features are done right and presented to the consumer correctly so they're adopted. I think they definitely have the vision. Something they do even better is have the patience to make sure their vision comes to fruition (mostly) correctly.
I can understand your point, but I'm not sure what progress you want. I'm more inclined to say that you're a segment that Apple doesn't quite need.
I would place money on Apple killing the Mac within 10 years, moving all consumers to iOS (which, let's face it, they're doing all by themselves), and releasing Xcode onto a Linux distro and wash their hands of desktop computing once and for all.
Apple clearly doesn't see a lot of future in the desktop, and that may well be right.
I hope that could be decoupled, making life easier for application authors: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/application_quality_assurance_in_l...
E.g. growl does system wide notifications, but it's not built-in, and Apple like to control these things so they may more easily interface them with other Apple devices. (E.g. Apple could very easily make their Apple TV notify the user's iPhone when a new TV episode has been downloaded, or even schedule it onto their Mac.)
With that in mind Apple have a history of meshing the experiences across their devices, the messages app is a recent example.
One of these years Apple is going to discontinue carbon API support and go 64-bit only. I doubt this release is it, but those kinds of under-the-hood features are not the kinds of things that you would talk about at this point. We'll learn more at WWDC.
The benefits might not be apparent immediately, but they'll start showing up in apps written to take advantage of 10.8's features. Some improvements in the frameworks will effect existing apps that use those frameworks.
I have a few friends who are switching to Unix instead of Mac OS X because of the direction it's going. For me, it's going to be all about how much Apple allows developers to innovate on their platform. We'll see what happens, but GateKeeper is a good sign.
I was looking to get CrunchBang Linux running on my MBP, but realistically the battery life change will make the device hard to justify. If I am going to go back to 2-3 hours of battery life, I'm probably going to have to change my hardware setup to get a Thinkpad with a pair of nine cells.
That said, I can't even flip my virtualization set-up, because I doubt that it is going to be smooth sailing (license-wise and technically) running a copy of OS X in VirtualBox or VMware.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html
One of the more interesting bits is at the - they're supporting a bunch of China specific services.
*It’s a new Mac experience in China. OS X Mountain Lion brings all-new support for many popular Chinese services. And they’re easy to set up. Mail, Contacts, and Calendar work with QQ, 163, and 126. Baidu, the leading Chinese search provider, is a built-in option in Safari. The video-sharing websites Youku and Tudou are included in the new Share Sheets, so users in China can easily post videos to the web. They can also blog with Sina weibo, the popular microblogging service. And with improved text input, typing in Chinese is easier, faster, and more accurate."
iCloud - not useful, no iOS devices.
Messages - not useful, too Apple centric, I already use Adium to interface with several non-apple services.
Reminders - not useful, wont' sync to my phone. I already just use CalDAV via iCal for this.
Notes - not useful, wont' sync anywhere, I already use the much better Evernote.
Notification Center - maybe, but it only works with App Store apps of which I have few. I used to use Growl from the command line to notify me when long running computational jobs were completed, but if it's locked to App Store apps I suppose I won't be able to use it for that.
Share Sheets - maybe, but I already use Sparrow instead of Mail and Chrome instead of Safari. I use another photo hosting site that isn't Flickr and don't use Twitter.
Twitter - don't use it.
Game Center - not at all a compelling feature for me.
AirPlay Mirroring - don't have an Apple TV and prefer more open platforms for this.
Gatekeeper - this is a good idea in principle, remains to be seen if it gets in the way.
The exclusive partnering and increasingly closed Apple ecosystem is really showing. Maybe I'm a very small minority, but this direction is not in the slightest bit thrilling to me. Where are all the options to plug your own services into the system?
It's inevitable that the layer for non-techies feels more and more integrated with iOS.
Will we ever lose access to the do-anything BSD box underneath? That will be a sad day for me - Windows+cygwin is an abomination.
Most of the time, an actual restart is not required, just logging out and then back in.
Others have hinted at this, but I'll say it outright: I've been a pretty solid Mac user/developer for 25 years (with a 3-year interlude on Windows + ThinkPad towards the end of classic MacOS, when the lack of true multitasking and a "real" operating system just got unbearable).
I suppose it's inevitable, but I really hate to see the Mac become just another part of the whole iOS ecosystem.
There's nothing specific I can point to, but it does feel like the end of general-purpose computing for those of us who really like Apple hardware.
Edit: Perhaps I'm wrong, and the cloudification is happening everywhere: with Chromebooks/Chrome OS, with Win8, etc. So maybe this is the inevitable regardless of which platform(s) one enjoys.
Linux, here we come? ;-)
Still, if someone can point me to a hassle-free Linux laptop in a MacBook Air form factor, I'll jump ship in a heartbeat.
iCloud document storage and Notification Center. Both of these are slated only for third-party apps from the Mac App Store. Many developers, though, have been maintaining non-Mac App Store versions of their apps. If this continues, such apps are going to lose feature parity between the App Store and non-App Store versions.
This will affect software from companies such as Adobe where custom installers are necessary and/or the economics of taking a 30% App Store hit is not necessary when they can already reach their customer base. The move strikes me as anti competitive.
iCloud seems to be moving things in that direction.
OSX 10.1 Puma.
Puma, Cougar, and Mountain Lion are names for the same species of cat (Puma concolor).
The code-names "Puma" and "Mountain Lion" are distinct words, ergo they represent different releases. That in biology these words refer to the same species of cat is utterly irrelevant.
Side note: panthers are technically black leopards or jaguars.
I think it's time I started looking at high-end Linux laptops...
Conveniently, if I connect it to an Apple display, it's magic, but somehow not.
Sorry folks, Couldn't resist.
By the time I _do_ upgrade I'm in for some future shock: like dropping a Victorian gentleman into Haight-Ashbury in 1968.
I'm sorry, but IMO the value of this update is $0.
It will cost $29
How close you can get involves how much tolerance you have for litigation and risking a loss.
Windows 8 is definately banking having this sort of hardware in laptops and displays being available. You dont do Metro on the desktop unless you think that kind of hardware will be available in some form at launch. Metro with a mouse is hideous, even for Microsoft...
From the official Apple pages: Messages supports iMessage and instant messaging services such as AIM, Jabber, Google Talk, and Yahoo! Messenger.
Ehm, it's iChat linked to iMessage. It still supports chatting over gmail, yahoo etc.