Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

FINDER

Finder remains roughly the same. The most noticeable difference is that when copying files and folders, each one now has its own status bar, so you can tell when it’s finished copying. This status bar is shown both in the Finder Window and, on the Desktop, on the icon of the folder or files that you’re copying.

Not strictly a Finder update, but closely related, is the option to change the name of file by clicking a window’s title bar. This feature only works on supported applications, but it’s a godsend for those times you accidentally type the wrong file name and have to close the app, find the file in Finder and make the change there.

The ability to rename files from the title bar is really useful.

AIRPLAY MIRRORING

AirPlay Mirroring lets you stream the picture and sound from your Mac to an Apple TV. If there’s an Apple TV on the network a new icon appears in the Menu Bar.

AirPlay mirroring lets you send your computer’s screen and sound to an Apple TV. There’s a slight delay, but it’s good for videos or presentations.

You can choose to replicate your computer’s screen or set it to match the Apple TV’s resolution (720p for the original and 1080p for the new Apple TV). Make sure that you turn off Overscan in Display Preferences, or you could end up with a black frame around the picture.

If you’re sending your screen to a TV, check the Overscan option is turned off, or you could end up with a black frame round the picture

Getting your Mac on to the Apple TV is very easy, but it’s not particularly responsive with a noticeable lag between actions on the computer and the response on your television.

Sound is also slightly delayed, which makes sense, as you can play videos from your Mac to your TV with proper lip synching. Otherwise, AirPlay mirroring is fine for showing off some pictures or running a presentation but not much else.

You can also choose just to output your audio from the Mac to an AirPlay device, which is handy if you want to play your iTunes music collection or Spotify through AirPlay speakers.

TIME MACHINE

Time Machine has always been a great way to keep your Mac backed up, but it’s always been limited to a single destination. With Mountain Lion, Apple now allows you to backup to multiple disks, say at home and at work.

The immediate benefit is that if you have a fault in your computer, you shouldn’t be too far away from a full backup.

BROKEN APPS

Of course every update also breaks something that worked in the previous version of the OS. The windows management software X11 has now been removed from the system, but Apple at least points you to a replacement for this for any software that requires it, such as The GIMP and Mplayer.

Some libraries have been moved and altered, too, breaking compatibility with old applications. For example, the open source image editing software, ImageMagick, no longer works with Mountain Lion. There are workarounds provided you’re willing to compile your own version of the software.

Problems for most people are few and far between, though, as most commercial applications have been updated to work with the new OS. In fact, the only problem we had was with Parallels, although that was because we hadn’t updated that software before performing the upgrade to Mountain Lion.

VERDICT

There are a lot of neat new features built into OS X and we applaud Apple’s use of the cloud and simple sharing of data between all of your Apple devices. It’s not perfect, though, and the document organisation and sharing of iCloud really needs some work – a full synchronisation service for all documents would be our preference.

Ultimately, it’s hard to knock the price of this update, costing £14 for anyone with Snow Leopard or Lion. As the update runs from the Apple App Store, anyone running a version older than Snow Leopard will first have to pay to upgrade to this version (DVDs are available online for around £25).

Given how cheap it is and the improvements it offers, anyone running Snow Leopard or Lion should upgrade now.