Apple ’s glazed novel sister is about to slew out of the womb , and if you ’re a Mac user , it ’ll take over your computer soon . New feature abound , butOS X Mountain Lion is missingsome amazing stuff Microsoft hascooked up in Windows 8 . Apple : copy this .
Mountain Lion Review : What come about to Apple ’s Innovation ?
(Smart) Full Screen Apps
Mountain Lion is plenty lofty of its ability to blow up windows to occupy your show , a la Windows over a ten ago . It bring , in that the apps do expand to the further potential edges of your covert . But it ’s goofily follow out , clumsy in appearance , and does n’t really help you do things any comfortably . Full screened apps in Mountain Lion push everything else out of the way , forcing you to slide between multiple background if you want to bet at more than one thing at a time . We ’re all about maximizing pixel real land , but only in a room that makes mother wit . Filling a screen with a slim white word processor and fat black bars is n’t maximise much of anything .
windowpane 8 , by comparability , makes the most elegant and satisfying of screen infinite we ’ve ever seen in any operating organization . Not only are Metro ’s apps super - graphical and downright pretty — lending themselves to big silver screen loveliness by design — they’re whippy . When you use a full screenland app in Metro , you do n’t get the sense that you ’re hurriedly sweeping everything off your background with a crash , as one does in Mountain Lion . Rather , apps only take up as much space as makes sensory faculty — and you ’re in accusation of that . It ’s your software . It ’s your computer . They ’re your eyeballs , your brain . Make the four dance together at will .
Want the Windows 8 weather app to take up your entire silver screen ? Go for it . Want to gibe your e-mail on the side ? Pull up a smaller panel of your inbox , and check out it in your fringe . Go ahead , switch the two , create weather condition the appetizer and e-mail the entree . It does n’t matter . spree and resize apps however you want them , whether it ’s to insulate one against distraction , or combine two into a multi - pane billboard of efficacy . window 8 makes full screen about far more than just stuffing your screen — and it ’s time for OS X to catch up .
A sense of style
call up when Apple was the one with the repute for chic , dare new visuals , and Microsoft was the stale , frumpish crone ? The steering wheel of fate has become , cast Apple in the fashion dupe column and Microsoft — Microsoft!—of all companies , in the avant garde . Windows 8 ’s Metro aesthetic is like nothing else we ’ve ever seen . It ’s a large part of why we adore Windows Phone so much , and it ’s what earn Windows 8 expression like an operating organisation from the future . It ’s superflat , colored without being brassy , as uncontaminating as we can imagine , and entirely New . It embraces the fact that it ’s a digital user interface on a computer , while at the same sentence hug you as a exploiter .
OS X , on the other hand , is starting to search garbled . Grey gradient , translucent docks , scramble icon , more gradients , stitched leather — Christ , the sewn leather . OS X has become a mish mosh of competing design estimation . Should your estimator bet like the things around you ? Should iCal resemble a actual calendar ? Or should software calculate futuristic and virtual — like , y’know , software ? Apple does n’t have a consensus , and Mountain Lion is the shrug of an answer . There ’s too much going on , a scattershot of invention , rather than a reproducible political theory a la Metro . It ’s distracting and turgid .
Yes , Apple require to copy Microsoft ’s pattern . Get over it — this is n’t a joke anymore , it ’s a unusual computing reality .
Interesting touch gestures
Pinch to whizz along , swipe to slide , twist to revolve — these are a given now . The standard . Every earpiece has them , every tablet at least seek them , and they ’re no longer considered an accomplishment of modern seafaring . Touch can be more than just the comfortable stuff , and Windows 8 make this clear .
Take Microsoft ’s “ semantic zoom”—which sort of amazingly change how we ’ve ever think of “ zooming . ” Rather than just making something larger , as is the case with OS X ’s zooming gestures , Windows 8 allows you to focus or pull out on level of info item . see up there—”zooming ” into the Windows 8 calendar app “ zooms ” you in clip , rather than quad . You ’re get a more detailed looking at at a given calendar week , or day , or hour . This information - zoom is spread all over Windows 8 , and should be received for a Mac too . Imagine clicking an iMessage impinging and zooming into her speech book info , draw in back from an iPhoto album to see metadata plotted across a mapping , or being able-bodied to rapidly sprint between folders on your hard drive , take a leak Indian file pecking order less of a internal ear and more of a wormhole .
Microsoft is doing more with pinch than Apple . It ’s being more originative . Apple : do n’t turn a loss your lead . You made this stuff mainstream .
Picture password
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHQ91cwM8FE
type parole with “ parole ” and “ letter of the alphabet ” is bo - oring , and not always enough to keep your gear locked down . So Windows 8 throws in image “ passwords , ” which allow you wiretap or cabbage certain prats of a picture to prove you ’ve memorized something and deserve memory access . Is it enough to supersede text parole entirely ? Maybe not , but it ’s a clever way of making security department more safe without being noticeable in the slightest .
Built-in clouds
iCloud is okay , but there ’s an enormous affair it ’s not doing : giving you a outside hard crusade that no outlaw or act of God can touch . Microsoft ’s SkyDrive storage is broil right into Windows 8 , chip in you the selection to offload your stuff where it ’ll be good straight from the O . iCloud ca n’t do this — instead , you ’ll have to apply a third company inspection and repair like Dropbox . Dropbox is in effect , but if Apple adore its swarm so much , should n’t it do the most obvious thing possible ? get us save to iCloud , drag and degenerate to iCoud , and in general pack as much stuff as we need into that fancy drive in the atm . And maybe consider matching Microsoft ’s free seven gigs of blank space .
Charms
Yeah , it ’s a dumb name . Whatever . Windows 8 sports a hidden toolbar that belt down out from the side with approach to hunt , mount , communion , and other quick - trigger natural process . Apple , make Mountain Lion ’s notification bar more than just notifications ; give us shortcuts to the guts of the o that need frequent changing .
So go forth , Cupertino . Windows spent the past two decades rip you off as often and flagrantly as they pleased . Do us all a service and return the favor .
AppleMicrosoftMountain LionOperating SystemsoftwareWindows 8
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , skill , and culture word in your inbox daily .
word from the future tense , delivered to your present .
Please select your desired newssheet and submit your e-mail to upgrade your inbox .
You May Also Like
