Not to be talking about the Mountain Lion in the room right off the bat or anything, but I believe something needs to be said. Yes, the whole announcement was a bit of a surprise; it's great to see that in a world where writing about Apple rumours is more popular than people dancing in Apple Stores, Apple still manages to keep a few things to themselves. There were very few people that knew about it beforehand, and it wasn't even introduced in the traditional Mac OS X style — and there are even reports big publications like the New York Times didn't get advance notice like individuals not on the Apple shit-list did. Speculation says it was because the Times ran that piece a little while back on the iEconomy, their investigative report on how Apple's cost to workers in China was more than just a pittance. Whatever the reason, the Times opted not to disclose their advance knowledge of Mountain Lion in their article on the matter — something others were more than mention. At the end of the day, this kind of Apple PR-blacklisting isn't new. Remember Gizmodo after the iPhone incident? Also see: ZDNet's Jason O'Grady.
By now, you've probably seen your fair share of in-depth previews of Mountain Lion, or read about how Mountain Lion means that Apple is capitalising on local social networks in huge markets like China, potential or otherwise. If you're a developer, perhaps you've even downloaded the Mountain Lion beta to try on your machine (the particularly brave-of-heart will have downloaded and installed it as the main operating system). Of if you're just like me, you might have tried out the Messages beta. Or maybe you've tried to do all of the above, but been stonewalled by an upgrade path that doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon — word on the street is that Apple is going completely 64-bit with Mountain Lion, as evidenced by their decision to not support 32-bit kernel extensions.
With the introduction of apps like Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion, it means that Apple are hearing out developers, too — Gatekeeper is at least quite a nice compromise to mandatory App Store sandboxing, but what might be more of a shame is how non-Mac App store apps won't get access to Notification Center. That's okay though, because apps like Growl have your back — if it is indeed possible for a collection of ones and zeroes to "have your back".
The thing is, Mountain Lion will bring change — if we're being really pedantic (or just... correct), it's not even "Mac OS X Mountain Lion", it's now just "OS X Mountain Lion". You've already read the words of John Gruber saying things are done a little differently at Apple now, and he's right: some features in Mountain Lion such as wireless AirPlay mirroring on the Mac are simply evolutions in concrete iOS features, logical steps on the ladder of progress if you will, while others such as the separate Notes and Reminders apps are just the way things will be done from this point on. Mountain Lion just seems like Apple are saying "hey, this is what we're doing now, and it's about damn time".
And you know what? They have every right to. Regardless of whether you think the update should be free or not, just think of that $30 price to be like a subscription and you'll be on the right track, just like Apple are. They're the ones about to hit 25 billion downloads on their App Store. They're the ones that have sold more iOS devices in 2011 than it did Macs in 28 years. They're the ones with Tim Cook at the helm, who some say could definitely be the best CEO for the post-Jobs Apple.
Now the only question becomes: do I really want a carbon fiber Magic Mouse?
Normal news coverage returns Tuesday.
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