Apple's Mac Makeover, 'Mountain Lion' Software Brings Mobile Features to Mac

Apple's Mac Makeover, 'Mountain Lion' Software Brings Mobile Features to Mac

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO

CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook wants to make its Mac more like an iPhone.

In an interview at the company's headquarters here, Mr. Cook unveiled a new version of the company's Mac operating system that incorporates several features from the software that powers Apple's hit mobile devices.

Named "Mountain Lion," the new version of OS X is the clearest sign yet of Apple's belief that the mobile, laptop and desktop world are destined to converge - and that Apple wants to be a catalyst.

"We see that people are in love with a lot of the apps and functionality here," said Mr. Cook, 51 years old, pointing at his iPhone. "So, anywhere where it makes sense, we are going to move that over to Mac."

Apple's moves come as fiercer competition among hardware makers is leading them to compete over software and giving consumers a familiar experience across various devices. That is leading to a convergence between different categories of devices that could have wide ramifications across the technology industry.

Apple also hopes to add luster to a business line that has momentum but little market share. Apple sold a record 5.2 million Macs in the quarter ended in December, up 26% from the same quarter in 2010. But Macs represented 5.4% of global PC shipments in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, up from 4.5% a year earlier.

By comparison, Apple's iPad leads the tablet industry in market share, and its iPhones frequently command the biggest slice of quarterly smartphone shipments.

Apple will start selling the new Mac software to customers in late summer. It made an early version of the software available to developers Thursday.

The updates will include Apple's messaging service, notifications app, gaming center, sharing features and integration with the company's online service iCloud - all pioneered for the iPad and iPhone, which use software known as iOS.

Mr. Cook said he already thinks of Apple's iOS and OS X operating systems "as one with incremental functionality." He said both laptops and tablets will continue to coexist, but he didn't rule out that the technologies could converge further.

When asked if Apple's iPhones, iPads and Macs might run the same microprocessor chips, he said: "We think about everything. We don't close things off."

Apple's OS X team had already started borrowing from iOS, last July releasing the "Lion" version of its operating system that adopted iOS features like advanced gesture controls - by touching the Mac's track pad, rather than a display screen - and the ability to view desktop apps as icons in an iPhone-like grid.

Now, Apple is going further, even changing the names of internally developed Mac apps to those of iPhone counterparts. The Mac's Address Book, for example, will become Contacts. iCal will become Calendar.

"We went through and just took a logical pass at what the user is going to experience using these products to make it all make more sense together," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of world-wide marketing, in a separate interview. "This is more than people expect."

With Mountain Lion, users will see the same notification screen that scrolls down on the iPhone by swiping their touchpads. The new software has deeper ties to other Apple products, such as iCloud, which Apple is integrating into applications and into the experience of registering a new Mac. A new security feature called Gatekeeper allows users to specify what kinds of apps can be installed on their computers, including an option to only install apps from Apple's Mac App store.

The new Mac software will also support a feature called AirPlay Mirroring that allows users to view what is on the screen of their iPhone or iPad and a television screen connected to a $99 Apple TV device. The technology is highly strategic for Apple, as it contemplates new video technologies for the living room.

Not all mobile features will make it to the Mac. Messrs. Cook and Schiller both said important differences remain, including the need for different touch interfaces on mobile devices, as well as more robust location services.

AirPlay, already available for the iPhone and iPad, has run into opposition from media companies worried about cannibalizing of traditional TV. Mr. Schiller said he doesn't believe media companies will have any issue with customers using it from their Macs. When asked if the Mac would get Siri, Apple's voice-activated virtual assistant available on the iPhone, Mr. Cook smiled and said he would leave the question to Mr. Schiller.

Mountain Lion comes as Mac has been a relatively small contributor to the company's record financial performance. As the company's revenue jumped 73% in the quarter ending in December, the percentage of its revenue from Macs fell to 14.2% from 20.3%.

Mr. Cook said the Mac remains an "incredibly important" part of the company and that it is already benefiting from the success of the iPhone, particularly in China, where Mac sales doubled last year. "They love the iPhone and so they then search out and look for the Mac."

While Apple banks on that halo effect, its competitors are trying to follow its approach. Microsoft Corp. plans to release a new version of its Windows operating system that has a new interface that supports touch-based commands and resembles its mobile-phone software.

"I don't really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple," said Mr. Cook, who said Apple is focused on building the best product and the pressure on the company is "self-induced."

Mr. Cook declined to comment on future plans for Mac hardware, calling the company "secretive" about such things. But he expressed pride in the company's MacBook Air laptop. "Now, you see the industry at large trying to copy it in some way, but they'll find that it is not so easy," he said.

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Apple unveils new Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Apple unveils new Mac OS X Mountain Lion

By Edward C. Baig.

When Apple launched Mac OS X Lion last July, it brought the Macintosh operating system ever closer to the experience folks had gotten accustomed to on the iPad and iPhone. Now, just seven months later, Apple today unveils OS X Mountain Lion, an early preview version for developers.

This ninth major release of OS X goes even further in bringing features common to the iPad and iPhone to the Mac. And when Mountain Lion hits, likely this summer, Apple plans to commit to a roughly 12-month release cycle for new versions of OS X.

This is a heady time for Apple's traditional computers. The Mac has outpaced PC industry growth for 23 straight quarters. And during the last quarter of 2011, Mac sales grew 26% year-over-year compared with the overall PC industry, which was flat.

Apple isn't providing pricing at this point (Lion cost $29.99) or a specific date when Mountain Lion will be uncaged for consumers. The operating system isn't even in its prerelease beta state. But as with its predecessor, Mountain Lion will be available as a digital download through the Mac App Store (and presumably preloaded on new Mac models available at the time).

I've had a chance to check out the early Mountain Lion build on a loaner MacBook Air. Highlights of what's coming:

* iCloud. Apple's cloud-based service, launched last fall, now has 100 million accounts. You'll be able to tap into the clouds to set up a new Mac with your Apple ID account credentials. A Documents feature will let you view, create and edit the same documents on your Mac as on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. In a cloud-based Document Library, you can organize documents into folders by dragging one on top of the other similar to the way in which you can create folders containing the apps you have on iOS devices. Apple is opening the technology to Mac developers so that various Mac apps can work with Documents in the cloud. But the feature was not built into the developer preview that I had access to.

* Messages. Apple's iChat instant messenger and chat service is being replaced by iMessage, the Mac version of a feature that arrived with iOS 5. The result: You can send messages to or from a Mac to anyone who has an iOS device. Conversations in iMessage are kept up to date across all your computers and devices. And you can send pictures, high-definition video and other attachments up to 100 megabytes in size. You can also send group messages and receive a "read receipt" that lets you know when a person has seen your missive. Through a typing indicator, you will know when the recipient is readying a response. There's also a FaceTime button within the Messages app that lets you launch a video call. And Messages works with the same instant-messaging services that iChat supported, including AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and Jabber.

* Reminders and Notes. Other iOS 5 features come to the Mac. Reminders are a handy way to track your to-do lists. A built-in Share button inside Notes lets you share your note via e-mail or message.

* Notification Center. As on the iPhone or iPad, Notification Center is a central repository for calendar reminders, incoming e-mail, new messages and more. On those iOS devices, you can pull down notifications by dragging your finger from the top of the screen down. On the MacBook Air, I was able to make the Notification Center come and go with a new gesture - moving two fingers left across the trackpad after starting the gesture off the trackpad. If your Mac doesn't have a trackpad, there's a tiny icon in the upper right of the screen to click.

* Twitter. Twitter is now integrated through Mountain Lion. So in the Safari browser, Preview, Photo Booth and Quick Look, you can select Twitter to tweet from within the app. If you choose, you can add a location to your tweet.

* Game Center. Apple's social-gaming venue in iOS - there are more than 20,000 Game Center-enabled games in the App Store - is coming to the Mac.

* AirPlay Mirroring. If you have an Apple TV box on the same network as your Mac, you'll be able to exploit this to wirelessly stream whatever is on your Mac screen to a high-definition television connected to Apple TV.

* Gatekeeper. Through the years, Macs have famously avoided the scourge of viruses and malware that have plagued Windows PCs. But Apple is keeping up its guard with new security technology.

Apple promises a lot more, including much easier ways to share pictures, videos, links, documents and content within apps. And I'm sure you can expect a few surprises before the formal launch - Siri on the Mac, perhaps? For all of that, stay tuned.

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Apple Switching Back to NVIDIA Graphics for Upcoming Mac Pro Update?

Apple Switching Back to NVIDIA Graphics for Upcoming Mac Pro Update?

By Eric Slivka.

M.I.C gadget reports that it has received information from sources indicating that Apple is "close to finally updating" its aging Mac Pro line. As we detailed in a report last month, the window for a potential Mac Pro update is approaching as Intel prepares to launch its Sandy Bridge E Xeon processors and AMD is pushing out its new "Tahiti" family of graphics cards.

But M.I.C gadget reports that Apple may be planning to switch back to NVIDIA for its stock graphics options in the next Mac Pro instead of sticking AMD as on the current models. The move, which would line up with a rumored similar shift for the MacBook Pro, could open the door to improved performance on a number of applications such as those from Adobe that embrace NVIDIA's CUDA architecture.

Nvidia has their “Kepler” platform due out around the same time as Intel is making their changes, and our sources within the company indicate that they have chosen to have Nvidia lead the charge so to speak on the graphics front. This is good for all our compatriots who want to use the special graphics engine in Adobe products, as it supports Nvidia only, or for those who wish to do CUDA based programs as well, again only supported by Nvidia.

The report cites "rumblings" that Apple may be targeting a Mac Pro update "near the end of quarter three", although that timeframe may be subject to change. The report's definition of "end of quarter three" is a bit unclear, as that would equate to September as measured by calendar quarters or June as measured by Apple's fiscal calendar. But with Intel pushing out Sandy Bridge E chips in "spring" and NVIDIA reportedly launching Kepler in April, Apple would likely be able to follow fairly closely on the heels of those releases with a Mac Pro update if it elects to do so.

But curiously, the report also claims that Apple will be looking to jump directly to Ivy Bridge, Intel's successor processor family to Sandy Bridge, for the revised Mac Pro. Intel's Sandy Bridge E processors have seen significant delays but are now close to shipping, and it is unclear how Apple's Mac Pro plans would line up with any Ivy Bridge server chip plans from Intel.

Unfortunately, M.I.C gadget does not have a terribly accurate record on hardware rumors, particularly on the Mac Pro front where last year the site was one of those sources claiming that Apple would issue a mid-year Mac Pro update using a custom processor from Intel. So while a switch to NVIDIA for graphics cards in the next Mac Pro may make sense given the timeline for availability on NVIDIA's Kepler lineup, we hesitate to place too much faith in this report's claims for the time being.

Apple Asks Labor Group to Audit Foxconn

By Sajid Farooq.

Apple is showing some love to workers in foreign factories building its products -- just in time for Valentine's day.

The Cupertino company announced Monday that the Fair Labor Association will conduct voluntary audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including its controversial contract factory Foxconn. Audits will be conducted at both the Shenzhen and Chengdu, China locations.

Apple said the audits are being done per its request, which is in line with CEO Tim Cook's statement two weeks ago to employees that said the company cares about all its employees and their well-being.

Cook has a long history with Foxconn. Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent Cook to the factory to conduct his own safety audits and to examine reports of employee suicides at the plant.

"We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers," Cook said in a statement Monday. "The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports."

Apple says it has conducted more than 40 audits since 2006 of its factories, including Foxconn. The company also puts out an annual report of what it fines, which is available online.

The labor association will interview thousands of factory employees and do an assessment of the work environment.

Apple reportedly squeezing supplier to stop building MacBook Air clones from Asus

By Katie Marsal.

Apple has reportedly asked Pegatron, one of its overseas device assemblers, to "choose sides" and stop producing the MacBook Air-like Zenbook from Asus, or else lose Apple's business.

Apple's apparent aggressive strategy with Pegatron was detailed on Monday by China Times (via Google Translate). It was said that Apple executives are upset because of the "high similarity" between the MacBook Air and the Zenbook from Asus.

It is expected that Pegatron will comply with Apple's demands, and Asus will move production of its thin-and-light Zenbook laptop to Compal or Wistron. That would allow Pegatron to continue production of Apple's hot selling MacBook Air.

The Asus Zenbook is one of a line of computers based on the "Ultrabook" specification spearheaded by chipmaker Intel. After the first Ultrabooks hit the market last year and saw soft sales, manufacturers began slashing prices to undercut Apple's MacBook Air.

Intel's Ultrabook class aims to bring "tablet-like features" to thin-and-light notebooks, but manufacturers have struggled to keep prices down. One report last year said that Apple's control of its overseas supply chain, particularly with respect to metal chassis, was a roadblock for PC makers.

Apple is so bullish on the success of its MacBook Air lineup that the company is expected to bring features from its ultraportable laptop to the high-end MacBook Pro lineup this year. AppleInsider detailed last week how a radical redesign of the MacBook Pro will make the company's 15- and 17-inch professional laptops look more like the MacBook Air.

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