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Messages Will Be Available On Mountain Lion Only After Beta

Apple may have released a public beta version of Messages for Lion yesterday, but from what Consomac has discovered, it may only be a temporary situation. Digging into the text strings inside the app’s resources found one particular string which said:

Thank you for participating in the Messages Beta program. With the inclusion of Messages in OS X Mountain Lion, the Messages Beta program has ended.

To continue using Messages, please visit the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Mountain Lion.

This suggests that once the Messages beta has concluded, the app will cease to work and users will have to purchase Mountain Lion to continue using the Messages app.

[Via MacRumors]

Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper→

Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper

When the Mac App Store launched just over a year ago, many feared that it was the beginning of the end for running apps that weren’t approved by Apple on OS X. Jump forward a year and a bit and Apple has announced Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X that is set to launch this summer. One big feature of Mountain Lion is what Apple is calling Gatekeeper. It’s a new setting, aimed at both security and peace of mind. Essentially Gatekeeper will be giving users three options for controlling what apps run:

  • Only allow applications from the Mac App Store to run
  • Allow Mac App Store apps and those from identified developers
  • Allow any app to run

By default, the second option is chosen, allowing apps from the Mac App Store to run, as well as those from identified developers. What’s an identified developer? It’s someone that has registered as a developer with Apple and receives a personalised certificate. They can use that certificate to sign their apps, so that Gatekeeper will allow the app to run. It also means that if the app is found to be malicious, Apple can order Gatekeeper to remove that app from any Mountain Lion machine. Mac developers Panic have written a long blog post explaining the feature in great depth, explaining how it works, why it’s needed and why Apple chose to implement it in this way.

The simplest thing Apple could have done would have been to make the Mac App Store the sole source for Mac apps, in the same way the App Store is the sole source for iOS apps, shutting off every other app distribution venue in the process. While this would have immediately solved the problem, you would have seen developers’ heads bursting into flame and flying across the room in rage. Why?

Although security is a vital feature for Apple, developers, and users alike, being unable to run unsigned code cuts a lot of really great things off at the knees. You wouldn’t, for example, be able to just download and run an open source project unless it had been submitted to and reviewed by the App Store. Highly disruptive software (think Napster or BitTorrent) may have not been able to exist on the Mac platform since it would have been likely to run afoul of Apple’s App Store guidelines. Major vendors such as Adobe and Microsoft might have withdrawn their support for the platform, being unwilling to cede 30% of their revenue to App Store distribution.

It isn’t all good news though, Panic is concerned that Apple may be implementing an “artificial gulf” between App Store apps and non-App Store Apps by restricting some new features to only those distributed on the Mac App Store.

There remains one thing that is of concern to me. Despite these great strides forward, Apple is walking a dangerous line with regard to features that are only available to App Store distributed apps. The two most prominent examples are iCloud and Notification Center. Cabel asked Apple if, thanks to Gatekeeper and Developer ID, App Store-only features would be eventually be available to signed apps that were not distributed through the App Store. There was some shuffling of feet and a “we have nothing to announce at this time”. It didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

Gatekeeper will no doubt be a hot topic of discussion in the coming months and we’re likely to see all sides of the debate argue about what Gatekeeper represents. ZDNet, for example, has labelled the feature as a “tool that restricts what the user runs, rather than a security tool that sorts the wheat from the toxic chaff”. Macworld also has an in-depth hands on article with Gatekeeper that is well worth the informative read.

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Macminicolo’s Mountain Lion Server First Impressions→

Macminicolo’s Mountain Lion Server First Impressions

The folks over at Macminicolo have posted an initial overview of the setup process for Mountain Lion Server, also released today to developers. In short, there are some nice changes in this first version, but it’s too early to judge:

Here, I wanted to take a look at what Mountain Lion means as a server. They released the Server preview today as well, but it is very much a preview. For instance, it doesn’t provide the ability to upgrade from Snow Leopard Server. Also, you can’t backup and restore using Time Machine with this seed. I’m sure both of these options will come later.

You still upgrade a a regular version of Mountain Lion with the Server app from the Mac App Store. In other words, you upgrade “OS X” to “OS X Server” by installing the app just like Lion. And from a first look, it seems you’ll have to do that for one of the most basic things. For the first time that I can remember, the “Sharing” pane in OS X System Preferences no longer has Web Sharing.

Mountain Lion Server, alongside the consumer version of Mountain Lion, is available today as Developer Preview in the Mac Dev Center.

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Mountain Lion: Mac App Store-only, New Software Update System

Following the announcement of OS X Mountain Lion this morning, Pocket-lint has obtained more details regarding the distribution model for the new OS, and the way it will handle software updates in the future.

According to the website, OS X Mountain Lion will be available exclusively from the Mac App Store, breaking Apple’s usual tradition of making a physical copy of a new operating system available for purchase either online or through its retail stores. Mountain Lion won’t come on a dedicated USB Thumb Drive either, as Apple feels confident the experiment with Lion last year proved customers are ready for digital-only downloads and updates through the Mac App Store.

Including installs on new Apple Macs, Apple says that it has virtually shipped more than19 million copies of the current operating system, Lion, to date, with a 30 per cent uptake from Snow Leopard users, suggesting the digital download path has been a successful one.

Apple has confirmed to Pocket-lint though that its concerns weren’t justified with customers not remotely interested in the USB drive offering:

“It was an interesting test, but it turns out the App Store was just fine for getting the new OS.

In a similar fashion, Mountain Lion will adopt a new Mac App Store-based software update system that will get rid of the Mac’s standalone Software Update panel to unify new updates inside the Mac App Store to avoid user confusion and offer a single place to update both apps and the operating system.

Explaining to Pocket-lint in a behind-closed-doors briefing for the new developer preview of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has told us that the new method will offer updates to the OS and Apple applications in a similar way to how it does on iOS via the App Store, but in this case via the Mac App Store.

It also presumably means that all Apple users will be required to set up an Apple account to access software updates in the future, as well as to encourage users to keep the Mac App Store logo on their Dock to easily see when updates appear, although that has yet to be confirmed or set in stone - It is still early days for the developer preview.

When Apple released Lion last year, confusion indeed arose as to whether the company would release software updates through the dedicated desktop utility, or via the Mac App Store, which had been used to digitally distribute the OS. As it turned out for the best part of Lion’s history to date, Apple adopted a strange “Software Update first” model that saw new versions of Lion – such as 10.7.1 or 10.7.2 – released on Software Update and Apple’s website, then a few hours (or days) later via the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store updates, however, only allowed users to download the entire Lion installer, thus forcing those who simply wanted to update the OS, and not set up a fresh installation of OS X, to use Software Update or manually download a Combo updater from Apple’s servers.

While we’ll have to wait and see how Apple’s digital-only (for real this time) policy will play out for Mountain Lion upgraders, we think the Software Update overhaul is a welcome change. The previous system was confusing, inconsistent, and this new one is inspired by iOS’ simplicity and one-click access to ease the process of updating desktop software.

You can read more about Mountain Lion in our complete overview.

Tim Cook On Mountain Lion→

Tim Cook On Mountain Lion

The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Apple CEO about Mountain Lion, officially announced today. The key point from Cook:

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 Apples iPhones, iPads and Macs might run the same microprocessor chips, he said: “We think about everything. We don’t close things off.

“Incremental functionality” is a nice way to put it. Whenever a new feature is released on iOS, you can most definitely stay assured it’ll show in some form or another on the Mac as well, and vice versa. The operating system is seen as “one” in Cook’s vision.

Also interesting: whilst The Wall Street Journal was the only publication to get an interview with Tim Cook, others like Daring Fireball’s John Gruber were invited to private presentations by Phil Schiller and Apple PR. A few weeks ago, a Japanese blog reported Apple would have a “strange” or “unusual” media event in February. Apple’s strategy for the Mountain Lion announcement has surely been unusual and different from the past, as Gruber noted multiple times in his article this morning.

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OS X Mountain Lion: The iOS-ification Continues This Summer

Earlier this morning Apple caught the Internet by surprise with a series of major announcements regarding the future of OS X. To put it simply, Apple officially unveiled OS X Mountain Lion, or version 10.8, the next major iteration of OS X that will become available later this year – the initial targeted release date is a vague “this summer” – through the Mac App Store. A preview of Mountain Lion was given to a few selected tech blogs, including The Verge, Macworld, Daring Fireball, and The Loop, which we are linking back to summarize the new features of Mountain Lion and reflect upon the changes previewed by Apple.

The basic theme of Mountain Lion is iOS-ification.

Apple took the best features of iOS, and in particular iOS 5, and brought them “back to the Mac”, giving them a desktop-class facelift to make applications and services suitable for the Mac environment. Mountain Lion will feature some familiar faces for iOS users: iChat has been renamed Messages and integrated with the iCloud/iMessage ecosystem from iOS; Notes and Reminders are now standalone apps; Notification Center, Game Center, AirPlay Mirroring, Share Sheets, and a new security system called GateKeeper are now part of OS X as well.

In this post we’ll provide a quick description of the new features, a Storify bundle that aggregates the most interesting links and tweets about Mountain Lion (which is available as developer beta today), and some thoughts on what Mountain Lion means for Apple and its users. Read more

Apple Releases Messages Beta, An Early Taste Of Mountain Lion

Update: I’ve included initial impressions of the new Messages app for OS X below the break. Links also added to our OS X Mountain Lion coverage.

Apple has today released a developer preview of Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X. We have full coverage of that in this article, but in short, a big part of this release will be how iOS and OS X continue to merge and interweave. One aspect of that will include Apple removing the iChat app from OS X and replacing it with a new app, simply called Messages.

The new app will allow users to chat with someone using either their Apple ID or phone number, that should ring a bell because that’s exactly what iMessage does. It’ll also retain the traditional chat services such as AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and Jabber - so don’t worry about your old iChat handle, it’ll continue to exist.As should be expected, Messages will keep conversations synced across all your devices.

Download Messages Beta and get a taste of what’s coming in OS X Mountain Lion. When you install Messages, it replaces iChat. But iChat services will continue to work. And Messages brings iMessage to the Mac — just like on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch running iOS 5. Here are the features you can expect with Messages:

  • Send unlimited iMessages to any Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.*
  • Start an iMessage conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
  • Send photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations, and more.
  • Launch a FaceTime video call and bring the conversation face-to-face.
  • Messages supports iMessage, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts

Better yet, a Messages beta is now available from Apple’s website. Just note that it will replace your install of iChat. Jump the break for some first impressions and screenshots.

[Via The Loop]

Read more

Apple Adds Screenshots And Promo Codes To The iBookstore For Publishers

The iBookstore now has support for screenshots and promo codes, according to an iTunes Connect letter that was sent to content publishers today and that TUAW obtained. Content publishers are now able to giveaway 50 free codes that redeem a copy of a book they are selling on the iBookstore — something developers on the App Store have long been able to do. No doubt it will be helpful for publishers trying to get their books reviewed and for when they want to run promotional give-aways.

The other big change is that publishers can now also submit screenshots of the book. This new feature will be most useful for multi-touch books that are created with the iBooks Author app. Like the App Store, Apple is specific about the dimensions and formats it will accept for this: 1024 x 768 or 768 x 1024 in RGB, formatted as either .jpeg, .jpg or .png.

Apple has also made a minor change to how pre-orders are handled on the iBookstore. From now on, publishers need not upload a cover or any other assets until two weeks prior to publication, but can still offer the product for pre-order.

[Via TUAW]

SHAPE Creates iPhone App to Get WWDC Ticket Alerts

Apple’s WWDC, or Worldwide Developers Conference, is the highlight for Apple developers working with iOS and OS X operating systems. WWDC is a great opportunity for peers to meet and greet and learn more about each other and the industry as a whole. It’s also a highlight for anyone that looks forward to hearing announcements and product reveals from Apple, such as a new iPhone and major iOS updates.

After last year’s WWDC, SHAPE met with many fellow developers and in turn the experience inspired them to continue making better apps. Tickets for WWDC can be hard to come by, last year’s event sold out in less than 10 hours and many developers missed their chance to get tickets because of travel, sleep, work arrangements, etc. This year could sell out as fast or even faster than 2011.

SHAPE took it upon themselves to develop an app specifically for WWDC ticket sales that works as an alarm. It monitors twitter for the keyword “wwdc” and also patrols the official WWDC site for changes. When announcements or keywords are triggered, the app sends a push notification and will activate an alarm within the WWDC app.

Video after the break. Read more