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Mac OS X Mountain Lion Gets Three Million Downloads In 4 Days

hypnosec writes "Apple has announced that its latest Mac OS X version, Mountain Lion, has had three million downloads in just four days thereby making it the most successful OS in Cupertino's history. Philip Schiller, iPhone maker's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said, 'Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever.'"

31 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Actual title should be by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever."

    or?

    We were all very eager for a path forward that offered fixes and completion for Lion's half-realized and sometimes infuriating design / implementation choices. :-)

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  2. Depends on Why... by localman57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remember that Windows 7 was Microsoft's most successful OS ever, in terms of adoption speed. Part of it had to do with the new features that 7 introduced, but part of it also had to do with how incredibly craptacular Vista was. Not saying that's neccesarily the case here; just saying you have to think a bit past the marketing hype.

    1. Re:Depends on Why... by Dynedain · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're absolutely correct. And I think the fact that it was a painless upgrade through their App store made it so quick for adoption.

      Compare to Microsoft's download options for Win7 where you had to find which online store you could actually purchase a download from, then download the disc image, find and download another app to turn that into something you could boot from, reboot the machine, and pray things would choke during the reformat. Not to mention the multiple price points and versions.

      The Mountain Lion upgrade on the other hand was:
      1) Open App store.
      2) Click install next the Mountain Lion.
      3) Pay $20 (or redeem an install code between steps 1 and 2)
      4) After download completes, launch the App from you Applications Folder
      5) Click ok, ok, agree, ok
      6) Wait for restart.

      Easiest OS upgrade I have ever seen. Even Windows service packs are more complicated.

      --
      I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
    2. Re:Depends on Why... by El_Oscuro · · Score: 3, Informative

      In Linux, the equivilent of the registery is stored in the users $HOME under hidden directories. I haven't got into that level with OS/X on my new Mac yet, but since it is Unix, it is probably done the same way.

      So when I got tired of messing with Unity on Ubunu, I deleted the O/S partition and installed Linux Mint. Imagine my suprise when after booting it for the first time, not only did I have my desktop settings and icons, but Firefox even remembered my last opened tabs!

      --
      "Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
    3. Re:Depends on Why... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know that reading is hard, but Phil Schiller said "Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever."

      No one made a direct comparison between Mountain Lion's sales and Windows 7's sales, until you just did right before disproving it. This is what we call a classic straw man argument.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  3. Re:Huge initial release does not mean sucess by tsa · · Score: 3, Funny

    All Apple users are fanboys/girls. You just become one after having used such marvellously perfect hardware and software for a while. Face it: there is nothing better!

    --

    -- Cheers!

  4. Re:Actual title should be by localman57 · · Score: 3, Funny

    We were all very eager for a path forward that offered fixes and completion for Lion's half-realized and sometimes infuriating design / implementation choices. :-)

    Ah, yes. Going forward, I propose that we call this the "Windows Vista Hangover effect."

  5. Why not? by Missing.Matter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Barring comparability and performance regressions, at $20 why not upgrade? From my usage, Mountain Lion doesn't offer any real drastic changes, just some polish and some optional features, some of which are welcome, some which I'll probably never use. I haven't run into any showstopper bugs, and it's generally just a run-of-the mill upgrade with some nice features. Apple always claims they've added hundreds of new features, but their threshold for a "feature" seems to be lower and lower with each release, with even the lowliest check box being counted as a "feature" right next to full applications like iMessage or Reminders or Gatekeeper. When you separate the features by magnitude, there are only really a handful that stand out. I know every release of OSX is a "point" release, but Mountain Lion really captures the meaning behind the phrase.

  6. Re:Actual title should be by Torp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know about the 2999999 other sheep, but i will be upgrading my laptop from snow leopard to mountain lion indeed. I liked some features in Lion, but they sounded like they needed improvement. Mountain Lion may be it.
    Also, it's cheap.

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
  7. Re:senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where I work people can enter their own job titles on the internal 'phone book' on the intranet.

    As you can imagine everyone is senior this, senior that etc ... except for one of the sysadmins in India who is the 'Most Senior Systems Administrator'

  8. Re:Ok... but why? by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Airplay that can mirror anything on you see on the Mac to an AppleTv was the killer feature for me. Also time machine backups can be set to rotate between different targets

    --
    Good-bye
  9. Re:Actual title should be by DJRumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can't agree more. /. is becoming a joke as a 'news for nerds' site. They turn into the trollfest we see above. Every single post above is flamebait.

    The fact that OS X broke out of the marginal OS arena is good news for any non-windows platform, regardless of who makes it. It's also of interest to the enterprise crowd looking for alternatives to Windows 8, and not only due to the fact that this happens to be OS X but also because they may look at other alternatives if Windows grip on the computer market isn't rock solid.

  10. Re:senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing by dingen · · Score: 4, Informative

    He answers only to the CEO, as do all senior VP's. There are just nine of these guys and they're each responsible for a fundamental aspect of Apple's operation.

    I agree most corporate titles are complete bullshit, and I'm sure there are also lots of these folks running around at Apple Inc. But imho Apple's Senior VPs aren't really part of that nonsense as their titles actually show their responsibility and function pretty well.

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  11. Re:senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wish we had that. I'd be High Potentate And Head Muckety Muck.

    No, wait... SENIOR High Potentate And Head Muckety Muck.

  12. Re:Actual title should be by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FileVault2 is worthwhile.

    So is multi-destination Time Machine.

    There's a bunch of better integrations to iCloud - which are interesting - and make Time Machine less valuable, at the same time. ;-)

    The other cloud/SaaS plugin services are no use to me, as I don't Twit, etc.

    I like airplay mirroring. It makes my 1080p TV a big display via Apple TV - without cabling.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  13. Re:Ok... but why? by dingen · · Score: 4, Informative

    The real killer feature is that ML is faster than Lion and runs better on systems with less than 4 GB of RAM.

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  14. Other ways than torrents to save bandwidth by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    would have saved them quite a bit of bandwidth

    So does Akamai, which is what Apple uses.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  15. Re:Actual title should be by FreshlyShornBalls · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Indeed. It boggles the mind as to why they finally fixed that feature, but still have not enabled simple file operations (copy / paste / rename / etc.) in the File Open and File Save dialogs. I can't tell you how pissed I get when I have to stop what I'm doing, open a Finder window and then navigate all over again to a location just to rename a folder, for example.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank.
  16. 2007 Mac Mini couldn't be upgraded by mpetch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yesterday I went to the App Store, only to learn that my 2007 Mac Mini (Purchased in 2008) didn't have the hardware requirements to run OS/X Mountain Lion. I have a 64bit CPU, 2GB ram, but only have 32bit EFI. Apparently the video in this unit isn't supported. I was a bit surprised that 5 year old equipment just isn't worth it to Apple to support. If someone asks why I needed to upgrade - it was required to build and test some open source projects I work on.

    1. Re:2007 Mac Mini couldn't be upgraded by the_humeister · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have a Sempron 2600+ (64-bit too!) machine I assembled back in 2004. It runs Windows 7 just fine.

    2. Re:2007 Mac Mini couldn't be upgraded by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why did she not simply re-install Snow Leopard?

      There's no reason she had to upgrade any of that...

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  17. Re:Actual title should be by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...just poking MS with a stick to amuse yourself?

    It's the simple things that make you smile.

  18. Re:But the big question... by Pieroxy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You must be joking... Steve Jobs spent more than half a decade to design an OS from the ground up (UI wise) to make it useable on a tablet, and you think, citing Jobs, it would be a good idea to bring Jobs's other OS to a tablet?

    I honestly cannot think of anything more ridiculous. That's basically what Microsoft tried before the iPad which failed so miserably that everyone forgot tablets existed before the iPad.

    You're looking for a job? Try applying to the CEO position of Miscrosoft. You seem to be as smart as he is.

  19. Re:senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing by Ed_1024 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "There are just nine of these guys"

    Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne...

    Ooooerrrr! Jony Ive must have made them out of Aluminium, maybe Titanium for the Tim Cook's One!

  20. Re:Actual title should be by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hear there's actually a few competing products for your operating system money that do just that. In fact, it's safe to say that limited power user oriented features have been one of the chief complaints with apple operating systems for years.

  21. Re:Actual title should be by jbolden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would have tried OSX ages ago, if only Apple let me install it on hardware I already owned instead of purchasing new hardware which is spec'd damn near the same as what I've already got.

    I would have tried Black Berry OS 10 if only RIM would let me use it on iPhone. Huh?
    Apple is not Microsoft, they do not sell operating systems. If you are unwilling to buy an Apple then why would they care if you try OSX?

  22. Re:All of them by jbolden · · Score: 4, Informative

    You don't need a tool. If you open up the package that comes with mountain lion there is a file which is mountable / burnable as a stand alone installer. Very typical of Apple: hard enough to stop people who don't know what they are doing from shooting themselves in the foot, easy enough that if you do know what you are doing you can make your install media.

  23. Re:Actual title should be by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Informative

    A lot of the house-keeping of multiple destination was left to the user. If you want round-robin or first available, etc.? You'd make this manually. But HEY! Time Machine is automatic, right? There is a plethora of AppleScript and even Cocoa Apps to manage this. These are pretty much obsoleted.

    I'll defer to the Ars Technica description:

    Time Machine can now back up to multiple volumes. When more than one volume is selected, Time Machine will do a full backup to each selected volume, taking turns each time it runs.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  24. Re:Apple by Phrogman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was *so* impressed with Apple years ago. My wife had an older OS/X laptop and had just bought a new one. The old one was running when she booted up the new one and during the setup process (all of about 3 minutes to be on the web), it popped up a dialog stating it noticed another laptop was running nearby and would we like to transfer the user settings and data from that machine to this one? Click yes and it was done in no time.
    After years of fucking around with Windows systems, it was a joy to see something like that done right. Actually, thats the way I think of OS/X mostly - it works the way I want it to most of the time, and the rest of the time I pay it no attention because its not malfunctioning. I readily admit MS has made great leaps and bounds between Win7 and WinXP, but its still not as polished.

    --
    "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
  25. Re:Ok... but why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was the killer feature for my son as well. But then he found out Airplay mirroring isn't supported on his 2010 MacBook Pro. He's a little pissed at Apple. I figure he's getting a lesson in tech obsolescence. I'm happy - Airplay mirroring works great on my 2012 Air. :-)

    If he's techy at all, tell him why.

    You can't send HD resolution video across WiFi (or even Gigabit Ethernet) uncompressed, so AirPlay mirroring requires compression. AppleTV hardware only supports the H.264 codec, so the format has to be H.264. While it's very efficient in terms of compression ratio, it's also very difficult to implement in software -- as in, it probably takes almost all of a quadcore CPU's cycles to encode 1080p in realtime. Since that would be pointless (you want to use your computer normally while mirroring, not have its fans howling just to send its display to the TV), Apple requires hardware H.264 encoding to implement AirPlay mirroring.

    On Macs, that hardware is the QuickSync H.264 encoder / decoder block. QuickSync is a feature of Intel HD 3000 (or better) video, introduced in codename "Sandy Bridge" CPU models (aka "second generation Core i3/i5/i7"). Earlier Intel CPUs didn't have a hardware H.264 encoder. Sandy Bridge CPUs first shipped in 2011 Macs, so 2010 Macs cannot support AirPlay mirroring -- they do not have the required hardware.

  26. Re:senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing by KhabaLox · · Score: 3, Funny

    VP of middle eastern marketing,

    Read this as "VP of middle earth marketing."

    One veep to rule them all,
    One veep to find them,
    One veep to sell them all and with an iPad blind them,

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un sig.