The great macdebate (now with roids)

[pubjoe]

So any opinions on Mountain Lion?

Admittedly, other than notification centre, there's not a lot that's immediately apparent, but it's cheap and it's definitely a lot smoother and faster on my older (now my Son's) imac.

From what features I've used so far...

I like the new Safari developer menu, messages integration (right-click file > send message), and I'm trying out dictation at the moment - which is surprisingly good - double tap and hold fn, speak, then release. Seems pretty decent at recognising my voice but I'm having to do the occasional edit. It takes some adapting I think - hold fn and speak out long sentences, release fn when you want to include tricky bits and heavy punctuation. Colon or colon * ...I mean

I don't use twitter but the other share options (message, flickr and soon facebook) mean that it's so much quicker to right click a file and send or upload it somewhere. I know dropbox does this already but the messages option makes it much easier to get something on my phone with one click.

Safari's show page resources section is excellent. You can access it from the develop menu, or right click anywhere on a page and choose "inspect element".

[cRacKh0rN]

So any opinions on Mountain Lion?

Admittedly, other than notification centre, there's not a lot that's immediately apparent, but it's cheap and it's definitely a lot smoother and faster on my older (now my Son's) imac.

From what features I've used so far...

I like the new Safari developer menu, messages integration (right-click file > send message), and I'm trying out dictation at the moment - which is surprisingly good - double tap and hold fn, speak, then release. Seems pretty decent at recognising my voice but I'm having to do the occasional edit. It takes some adapting I think - hold fn and speak out long sentences, release fn when you want to include tricky bits and heavy punctuation. Colon or colon * ...I mean

I don't use twitter but the other share options (message, flickr and soon facebook) mean that it's so much quicker to right click a file and send or upload it somewhere. I know dropbox does this already but the messages option makes it much easier to get something on my phone with one click.

Safari's show page resources section is excellent. You can access it from the develop menu, or right click anywhere on a page and choose "inspect element".

I've not installed yet. Sounds pretty positive so far though and it is a bit of a bargain really.
The Safari developer menu looks like is was lifted entirely from Chrome which is no bad thing as I use it loads

The dictation looks pretty usable. So did you dictate this post?

[pubjoe]

Half of it. Then edited it by hand. I've never used dictation before at all so I'm not used to the starting and stopping. It's one of those features that I thought would be useless to me, but now I'm thinking 'maybe I could get used to this'.

Overall, it is a light update feature-wise to be honest, especially if you don't use twitter. But it seems to perform a lot better so I guess there's a few under the hood improvements that aren't immediately apparent. Safari seems the best update to me. AirPlay will be handy for Lucy's MacBook Air and the further iCloud stuff is also nice.

I was relieved when I found out you could activate the developer menu in preferences. Safari for a long time was one of the best tools for quick access to individual page elements and very quickly tracing activity or looking through individual caches and cookies. It was a good example of simplicity/power, and the previous tools now seem to have been all put together in an inspector panel - I think this is for the best really.

I've never really used chrome much since it arrived because safari and chrome always seem so close.

[cRacKh0rN]

Half of it. Then edited it by hand. I've never used dictation before at all so I'm not used to the starting and stopping. It's one of those features that I thought would be useless to me, but now I'm thinking 'maybe I could get used to this'.

Overall, it is a light update feature-wise to be honest, especially if you don't use twitter. But it seems to perform a lot better so I guess there's a few under the hood improvements that aren't immediately apparent. Safari seems the best update to me. AirPlay will be handy for Lucy's MacBook Air and the further iCloud stuff is also nice.

I was relieved when I found out you could activate the developer menu in preferences. Safari for a long time was one of the best tools for quick access to individual page elements and very quickly tracing activity or looking through individual caches and cookies. It was a good example of simplicity/power, and the previous tools now seem to have been all put together in an inspector panel - I think this is for the best really.

I've never really used chrome much since it arrived because safari and chrome always seem so close.

I am going to install it later. I've had to buy it because it is too much of a faff to redeem the free upgrade
So are you a web developer then?

The killer feature of Chrome for me is the dual address / realtime search bar. Apart from that and the nice dev tools, I am not too fussed and have been using Safari as Chrome is not retina. I have noticed that Netflix runs badly on Lion Safari compared to Chrome for some reason though.

[pubjoe]

I am going to install it later. I've had to buy it because it is too much of a faff to redeem the free upgrade
So are you a web developer then?

The killer feature of Chrome for me is the dual address / realtime search bar. Apart from that and the nice dev tools, I am not too fussed and have been using Safari as Chrome is not retina. I have noticed that Netflix runs badly on Lion Safari compared to Chrome for some reason though.

A few years ago I would have said web designer, but not really today. I constantly find those tools useful though. It always annoys me when people try to hide web page elements and block right clicking with stupid little javascript snippets. It's just not what the internet is about at all. Tools to override this nonsense should be easily available as a simple part of browsing the web. They're useful to everyone, not just web developers.

The Netflix thing seems odd as they're both basically the same engine. I guess it's to do with Chrome's better flash integration?

[cRacKh0rN]

Yeah. Chrome and Safari run on WebKit, but Netflix runs on Silverlight which is what confuses me...

Anyway, just installed it and woohoo! Everything is much smoother and faster on the retina display. Safari feels really responsive.
That's all I have so far as I have just logged on. Will explore some more now.

[SuperPang]

Quite ugly compared to the competition IMO.

[pubjoe]

I've always liked the iphone 4 design, but I know what you mean. We'd all like to see something new.

Did you see the 2007 prototypes? Some of them were nice, one of them looks like a kind of iPod mini/Nokia lumia design.

[skykappah]

These look so much better.

[pubjoe]

I like the top one. it's on par with the iphone 4, but gains points for being thinner. The second one... I dunno really. The third one is horrible, even the unfeasible (at this point in time) thinness can't save it.

As the lawsuits prove, there are not many ways to design a rectangular screen. The iphone 4 and the lumia are the main two standouts to me. The 4 design is still nice, deceptively rugged and especially unique - but it's over two years old now. Terribly unhip.

[skykappah]

I skipped the 4S for something different. My first smart was the iPhone 4 and thats held the test od time very well. I think I'll hold onto it for a another year or so after looking at the 5.

[SuperPang]

Pity the gameplay blows.

[pubjoe]

[DandySephy]

Would there be any interest in my 27" iMac? Around £700 (possibly will take partial trade for games stuff)

[pubjoe]

Just curious, what year and spec is it?

[DandySephy]

Off hand:
3ghz core 2 duo
8gb ram (from 4gb)
1tb hd
Mini display port (in/out with audio, I'll Include a hdmi adapter)
Magic track pad and keyboard (instead of Magic Mouse)

There is a slight mark in the top right hand corner of the screen, might just be dirt. Only shows up on light screen. I have some stuff to try and clean it with

I'll have a look when I get home

[pubjoe]

Sorry, I'm not interested as I recently "fixed" a cheap iMac that I bought as faulty. There was little wrong with it to be honest, but the specs were quite decent - top end 2010 I think.

Fair price though. You should get at least that on ebay if you have to take it there. For the mark on the screen, if you can't clean it from the outside, you can just pull the front glass off and clean it from the back.

[SuperPang]

[Pete]

[DandySephy]

Fair price though. You should get at least that on ebay if you have to take it there. For the mark on the screen, if you can't clean it from the outside, you can just pull the front glass off and clean it from the back.

I really don't want to put it on ebay, it's enough hassle with much lower value items. Besides, I quite fancy a (partial) trade to help me justify more games

As for the mark, I'm really not wanting to take the cover off as knowing my luck I'll damage it properly.