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Mountain Lion

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97 pointsraganesh28 comments

  > That mindset and development schedule — “What can we do
  > to make this nicer by next year?” — may well be the most
  > important thing from iOS that Apple has taken back to
  > the Mac.

Did they really take that from iOS though?

From Wikipedia:

    Version         Codename        Release Date
    -------         --------        ------------
    Mac OS X 10.0   Cheetah         March 24, 2001
    Mac OS X 10.1   Puma            September 25, 2001
    Mac OS X 10.2   Jaguar          August 24, 2002
    Mac OS X 10.3   Panther         October 24, 2003
    Mac OS X 10.4   Tiger           April 29, 2005
    Mac OS X 10.5   Leopard         October 26, 2007
    Mac OS X 10.6   Snow Leopard    August 28, 2009
    Mac OS X 10.7   Lion            July 20, 2011
    OS X 10.8       Mountain Lion   July 25, 2012

I could just as easily say that Apple was "learning from their early development," or "getting back to basics."

I think it's our perception because I bet if you looked at a plot of users, it'd dramatically spike around the intel switch, which was around 10.3 / 10.4.

To my recollection, early versions of the OS (Cheetah) were essentially unusable for many applications. Puma was the first really usable version.

Aren't a "Puma" and a "Mountain Lion" the same animal?

Yes.

I think a Jaguarundi is also of the same class (or genus or whatever) as a Puma Concolor (i.e., cougar, puma, mountain lion, and that the name of that taxonomical grouping is also Puma. So maybe they referred to that with 10.1, or to a German shoe company.

I think panther and leopard too.

just FYI, I learned recently[0] that "black panthers" can actually refer to either jaguars, leopards or possibly other "black" variants of large cats.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

Remember, Mac OS X a brand new OS in 2001, slow and full of bugs. It was also sorely lacking in features. So of course development proceeded very quickly then. Later when the OS became mature, development slowed.

> How else can they (Microsoft) compete with the iPad but than to switch to an Apple-style schedule of annual incremental updates?

> That mindset and development schedule — “What can we do to make this nicer by next year?” — may well be the most important thing from iOS that Apple has taken back to the Mac.

His last couple paragraphs got me thinking... If Microsoft wants to sell hardware, they'll have a better chance of succeeding if they release Windows versions faster... Apple sold a ton of 4Ss, because it was faster, had more ram and a much better camera. But, also because of Siri, a software feature.

And Google/Asus Nexus 7, from everything I hear, is a fabulous 7" tablet. But much of its greatness is because of Android 4.1. How can Microsoft compete with these devices if they want to take their time releasing new versions of Windows every 2-3 years?

Playing devil's advocate, can MS and Apple deliver new features every year that would push someone to upgrade at a low price? With mobile devices being so young compared to the PC I can understand why there is an annual update. For the PC I'm not so sure.

I don't think Microsoft can reasonably compete with Apple in the hardware game. Apple's too good, and they have too much practice. I'm still shocked at their Surface tablet strategy, as I think a lot of people are. They don't have a particularly good track record recently, given the manufacturing problems with the Xbox.

I'm guessing that Microsoft's strategy still lies in software (a healthy combination of Windows, Office, and Business [Windows Server, SQL Server, SharePoint, etc]), entertainment (Xbox, Skype), and "cloud" offerings (Azure, Live, etc).

I think that their release strategy, where they release a "major" update every 2+ years, isn't inheriently wrong. It's still viable, and meshes well with a lot of the corporate money they're chasing. But I do think with the low price point of Windows 8, they realize that there is less and less money to be made in the consumer OS space, and more potential money to be made in servers and services.

>I don't think Microsoft can reasonably compete with Apple in the hardware game. Apple's too good, and they have too much practice.

MS is good at hardware but the problem is margins and the lack of proper leadership. Apple has been building this manufacturing advantage for a decade and can get a cheaper price because of their high volumes of their orders. It doesn't hurt to have essentially created three new markets as well during that span.

>But I do think with the low price point of Windows 8, they realize that there is less and less money to be made in the consumer OS space, and more potential money to be made in servers and services.

I'd also add that Apple and Google are both splitting the PC market with tablets which means even far less future revenues from Windows.

> If Microsoft wants to sell hardware,...

Microsoft does not want to sell hardware, not in the way you imply. Surface is akin to Google's Nexus; a 'northstar' product intended to lead OEMs in the right direction.

Microsoft is not, and never will be, a hardware company. Please don't go off saying "what about Xbox or mice & keyboards".

First Xbox, while finally turning a profit, is a shining example of how far Microsoft needs to go to truly be excellent at hardware supply chain management. The RROD debacle cost MS many $B and there is no evidence that they have truly learned.

I know the people who drove the Xbox360 hardware design and supply chain management. They are now war scared seasoned experts. The type of people you want working on the next big thing. None of them even knew about Surface until it was announced. Typical Microsoft organizational silos.

Designing and building hardware is easy. Easy relative to SELLING hardware. Retail, hardware supply chain management, support, etc... are huge endeavors that Microsoft has very little capability for. The DNA of Microsoft is that of a software company.

Second, a tiny, tiny percentage of Microsoft's profits come from direct sales of products to consumers. Like less than 5%. In order for MS to seriously get into the hardware business it would need a model that enabled something close to the +40% gross profit margins Apple is seeing from its vertically oriented model. It would take a decade or more of radical change for Microsoft to make such a change, and while MS has demonstrated it can turn the ship (more like a fleet) before, I simply do not think this is a direction it can go.

I do not believe Microsoft will try to compete with Apple on Apple's terms (vertically integrated, high-margin hardware with up-front payment). I believe Microsoft will try to end-around Apple by continuing with a predominantly horizontal play, enabling annuity revenue streams from 'experiences' delivered across all of a user's devices, regardless of whether they run Windows or not (including Apple's devices).

>> (Facebook integration is not included in OS X 10.8; Apple says it will come in a software update “this fall”.)

sudo rm -rf facebook_integration && say 'not on MY machine'

I saw this note also and wished it indicated some second thoughts by Apple after the Facebook email imbroglio. Realistically it probably just indicates a delay to coincide with the iOS 6 / new iPhone release.

Nevertheless there is still time and I do believe the cultural disconnect between Apple and FaceBook at some point will win out (as it did at least once in the past).

I don't mean to venerate Apple by this comment, but this is truly the marriage of Jack Sprat and his wife and I don't think I'm alone in wishing for its demise.

If it works like the Twitter integration it won’t be problem. You have to explicitly enter your name and password in the preferences. It won’t bug you, it won’t even be visible until you decide to take part. You have to care about it as much as you now care about the Chinese services Apple integrated.

Though I really do not understand your allergic reaction. Facebook seems like a tremendously useful tool to me since I always know that everyone is there. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to use it – but you should at least be able to appreciate how valuable such an integration is to a great many people.

>> I really do not understand your allergic reaction

Two reasons. 1) I dislike Facebook. They have little regard for privacy and I see interaction with the site as mostly a cheapening of friendships. Everything about it - from "friend our company on Facebook and we'll enter you in a drawing" to the data-mining advertising model - makes my skin crawl. 2) Why is Apple picking services to integrate? I can install a Facebook app if I want it. I wouldn't want them pre-installing a pizza ordering app from their favorite pizza company. Let me pick. If I didn't ask for it, it's backroom-deal crapware, same as the pre-installed antivirus on cheap Windows boxes.

I have to agree that seems a little petty.

Facebook is a top 2 website on the internet, with ~845 million users last I checked. Do you really think that it had to be a 'backroom deal' for a technology company to want to integrate with the second largest internet company in the world? (First largest if you ignore direct competitors) Does it really surprise you that they would integrate in such a way?

To put it bluntly, it shouldn't.

This has been the first Gruber article I didn't want to claw my eyes out while reading from blatant fanboyism. I honestly felt like it was a good overview of what Mountain Lion represents. I (much like Gruber) do not think Microsoft's $XXX strategy on pricing Windows is sustainable. When you can buy a new computer for almost the same price as the OS, that's a serious problem. That then says, "How much should this computer really be?"

I really wish Microsoft would truly and sincerely evaluate the 3-day redsign/rebranding done by the design student/individual that doesn't work for them.

I expect Apple to go "free" with OSX updates sooner than later. Their OS revenue is barely a blip on their quarterly balance sheet. iOS's free OS releases have been a coup in terms of both usability and press attention. People who don't necessarily think of upgrading their OS can still be lucrative customers and can benefit the most from simplifying usability enhancements. And of course, it would be a great card to play against Microsoft, who have a lot to lose if free OS updates become the norm.

* Apple claims it took Windows 7 26 months — three times longer — to reach 40 percent of the PC installed base, and Windows 7 is the most popular and highly-touted version of Windows in over a decade.*

This seems like a dumb comparison. Snow Leopard sold for $29; 7's base pricing was -- IIRC -- $120.

What point are you saying is dumb? They are competing operating systems. The price difference? Microsoft doesn't think it's dumb, as they are using a similar pricing strategy this time around in hope for similar results.

Because friction in upgrading is largely dictated by the price of upgrading?

Adoption of a $30 OS upgrade is obviously going to be quicker than a $120 OS upgrade, just as the iOS upgrades have even larger adoption.

Well, that's part of Gruber's point - he makes the connection between the low price and the fast adoption rate in the next paragraph..

They're not really competing operating systems from a business perspective. Apple's operating systems are zero- or negative-margin sales that are designed to pull people into buying a very high-margin computer. Windows, on the other hand, is a high-margin product drafting behind the momentum of millions of zero-margin PCs.

40% of the Windows installed base is significantly more than three times 40% of the OSX installed base.

There are also many, many instances of Windows that are running proprietary software or which are connected to legacy systems that would never upgrade even if you paid them.

Yawn...

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