Ask Different Chat

gentmatt

7:04 AM

@Daniel Thanks! I thought this would take a bit longer.

gentmatt

8:10 AM

You got a stick up your butt?

stuffe

10:08 AM

@jaberg OK, off to seek exactly which social media app you just stalked me on....!

stuffe

10:26 AM

@jaberg Ah, been Instagrammed. Never seem to get notofied of new followers, even though it's set to.

Never liked the Europas. Something too Pink Panther about them. Wouldn't say no to a new one tho!

Ask Different Blog

12:01 PM

Ask Different Blog: Welcome new moderators Jason Salaz, Daniel, and bmike!

Kyle Cronin on February 16, 2012

The Ask Different 2012 community moderator election has been underway for the past two weeks, and this past Tuesday the polls finally came to a close. We had many qualified candidates in this election, and three very capable moderators have been elected.

Jason Salaz unsuccessfully ran for moderator last year, but since then has been actively involved with Ask Different, is one of the regular hosts of the Ask Different Podcast, and is all around a great asset to the community.

Daniel holds the record on Ask Different for the greatest number of helpful moderator flags. In a lot of ways, he’s been performing the role of moderator for months, at least now he has the diamond to prove it. …

jaberg

12:22 PM

@stuffe No stalking you required. You mentioned Instagram in your Q about web services for photos. Despite the lack of pet, plate of food and screenshot of something I've typed photos in my stream, I'm a big Instagram fan.

stuffe

12:46 PM

So what are the 2 english cars then?

struggling to think what you might have available over there

(or, indeed, what cars we actually make anymore..)

Daniel

1:26 PM

@stuffe I don't know which English cars @jaberg has, but I see a lot of Mini Coopers around.

gentmatt

1:38 PM

Mountain Lion 10.8 announced:

allthingsd.com/20120216/meet-mountain-lion-the-latest-…

I hope the name suggests that there will be some clean up like there was in Snow Leopard.

Mountain Lion? That animal lives closer to the sky. Is that a hint at deep integration of iCloud services?

Daniel

:-(

gentmatt

WHAT? 10.8 WILL BE RELEASED THIS SUMMER?

2012: iPad3, iPhone 5, Macbook Air 15'', Mac OS X Lion...

Just take my money...

apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion

YES, notification center in OSX!

Download Messages beta:

apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta

Sneak Peak Video:

apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html#video-mountainlion

Mountain Lion will provide Growl like notifications.

gentmatt

2:10 PM

The spiral galaxy on the Mountain lion wallpaper is called: NGC 3190

cfa.harvard.edu/~pchallis/mmtpics/ngc3190.tif

Here's another picture of NGC 3190:

@Daniel Why so sad?

stuffe

2:31 PM

@Daniel Proper ones, or the awful BMW things?

Oh wow, Dev Preview already! Good job my Developer Program still have 10 days before it expires :) Looks like the Air is being relegated to play machine again :)

Kyle Cronin

2:49 PM

A mountain lion is the same animal as a puma. Does this mean Apple's re-releasing Mac OS X 10.1?

7

gentmatt

"Essentially, Gatekepper gives you control over the kind of apps that can be installed on your computer. There will be three options: allow apps from anywhere (the way it works today), allow only Mac App Store apps, allows Mac App Store apps and identified developers.

The reason why this will be controversial is because the final option will be the default one. To be clear: this means that **by default, you won’t be able to install any app from the web on your machine.**" (http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/os-x-mountain-lion/)

@KyleCronin Bwahahaha!

Back to the roots!

stuffe

Think it's a bit early to read things into this...

gentmatt

What? Formatting does not work in chat?

stuffe

sometimes

Kyle Cronin

this is disappointing

the only "feature" I see is notification center, something that Growl covers perfectly well

the rest could just as easily be released as apps in the Mac App Store

plus, there have been notes since forever built into Mail

gentmatt

2:56 PM

I guess the new notes will merge with stickies.

You can stick them to the desktop.

Kyle Cronin

and reminders have been in iCal

gentmatt

@KyleCronin That's why they can release a new version so early. Hopefully it'll be cheap again.

I can also imagine that apple might make this release for free #justathought

Kyle Cronin

hopefully

actually, on the features page there's a few more things

stuffe

I'm excited. I am imagining (based on precisley zero facts) that is will be cheaper than Lion or Free, and it clears up some of the nagging bugs about iOS that always irriated, like reminders was great, but I would not use it because it wouldnt sync to Mac reminders

Kyle Cronin

looks like they're integrating iWork with iCloud, that's good

gentmatt

2:59 PM

Hence, MOUNTAIN lion. The animal is touching the clouds. ;)

Kyle Cronin

I'm going to hold out for 10.9 SPACE lion

stuffe

same with notes. I'm a big (well I'm starting to be) user of default apps wherever possible, and the iOS ones, while good, were never an option because they wouldn;t sync.

Kyle Cronin

I guess it will be nice to have a more unified, syncing experience, but touting things like reminders and notes so heavily shows how weak their hand is

stuffe

10.9 Albeno Panther

Kyle Cronin

the one really cool feature is AirPlay mirroring

stuffe

3:02 PM

I don't see it as weak, just consider the timescales. It's one enourmous patch with some goodies thrown in

It's the smallest gap ever between releases I think.

Kyle Cronin

I can definitely see this being used for giving presentations

stuffe

So the value comes with the price. If it's free to Lion users, no-one could legitimately complain, surely?

Kyle Cronin

10.0 and 10.1 were 6 months apart

stuffe

Are we about to see Mac OS X go free updates so long as hardware is supported like iOS?

Before my time, although wasn't 10.0 effectively beta?

Kyle Cronin

well, there were several betas before 10.0, but yeah, sort of

and 9 months between 10.1 and 10.2

stuffe

3:04 PM

OK. Still, I think it's good to be on a regular update tick.

Kyle Cronin

but this will be the shortest update since 10.2

stuffe

I will use almost everything in the list, and whilst none of them are earth shattering, each small improvement will be most welcome.

Kyle Cronin

my guess is they're going to try to release updates to iOS and Mac OS at the same time from now on

adding new features to both simultaneously

stuffe

That would be the ultimate halo effect.

Not be long before Preferences is Settings

Who is in the dev program then? I was going to let mine expire, but I've a few days left before I grab this. Can you tell I joined just to get the Lion preview this time last year ;)

Kyle Cronin

I'm not, but I think Nathan's still in some sort of beta program

no doubt he'll be installing this

stuffe

3:14 PM

"And then the reveal: Mac OS X — sorry, OS X — is going on an iOS-esque one-major-update-per-year development schedule. "

cc/gruber

my favourite bit "Apps have been renamed for cross-OS consistency. iChat is now Messages; iCal is now Calendar; Address Book is now Contacts. Missing apps have been added: Reminders and Notes look like Mac versions of their iOS counterparts. Now that these apps exist for the Mac, to-dos have been removed from Calendar and notes have been removed from Mail, leaving Calendar to simply handle calendaring and Mail to handle email."

Nathan Greenstein

Heeeere we goo agaiiiiin!!!

prepares beta testing partition

"You can download and run applications from anywhere, just as in OS X Lion. To be even safer, download and run apps from the Mac App Store and apps with a Developer ID. Or download and run only apps from the Mac App Store"

sighs with relief

I actually like that system a lot. Very much like what I was hoping for.

Abby T. Miller

ahhhh you guys

that's all

stuffe

3:30 PM

:)

@NathanGreenstein the middle option is the default - nice compromise. Give's developers genuine authenticity and users a kill switch - certificate IDs will be free, who can complain? The only thing is not being able to use iCloud or Notification Center unless you go full on mac app store. Easy enough to workaround with growl/dropbox versions for independent distribution

Nathan Greenstein

@stuffe Are those disabled for all apps unless you choose the all-MAS option?

stuffe

Yes, the only 2 restrictions.

From what I read so far*

Graham Perrin

@stuffe hopefully an opportunity to reinstate the features that were removed from iCal in Lion

stuffe

@KyleCronin you guys talked a lot on the podcast about the whole path thing and access to data.

@GrahamPerrin there seems to have been some changes made to the iCal event entry box

I though it was all interesting, but missed to be what is the major point, and that is that the trust should be earned, not assumed.

Graham Perrin

@stuffe thanks … I'm most keen to have an option for a sidebar list of calendars, as we have in iCloud. The popover is a very poor device for some use cases.

stuffe

3:44 PM

It's OK to try to put in all these clever ways to prevent access from being transmitted and son on, but at the end of teh day that leave a) Apple liable (in the true sense, not the legal one maybe) for any bugs etc, but the simplest way has to be to prove to the user what you are doing

So asking for permission has to be better than not even knowing whether an app is trying to circumvent the system or not.

Many years ago I had a PalmOS calendar sync app (Dataviz to go, I think?) that needed access to my outlook data to sync across. Way back then it would pop up with the "app trying to gain access to your calendar, grant access: No, 5 minutes, always"

it's the best way to keep everyone honest, if it;s not asking, you know it's all good. If you are OK with a permanent allow, then you can, and if you aren;t sure why it wants it, you can grant temporary rights.

The point being that the app had to earn your trust, not just do it's own thing with you in blind trust that a third party (apple) has got your back.

my 2p. Good podcast.

jaberg

@stuffe I have a 1967 Land-Rover Series IIA (88) and a 2004 Discovery 2 "big and stupid" truck. Would like to dump the Disco and add a Mini Cooper S to the fleet for 'round town.

stuffe

Bah, I was going to say land rover

Discoveries are awful machines. Mini's are German now.

yee trusty old Series II sounds fun tho.

My mum had a land rover that was ex army, had been modifieid for lightweight use as a parachute drop landrover...

I prefer a nice lightweight 2 seater myself, none of this cross country malarkey

Kyle Cronin

@stuffe I think the threading model I mentioned where a thread can be allowed access to personal data, or network access, but not both would probably be simpler and less prone to error

jaberg

Fortunately the '04 (the last of 'em) had most of the bugs worked out. Got it so my ex could also do some off-road driving--she refused to learn a manual transmission.

stuffe

@KyleCronin whose error tho?

jaberg

3:59 PM

As for German Minis--I sold my BMW 3 when we got it. And I miss it every day.

stuffe

@jaberg what engine was it?

jaberg

Wow, missed a lot of announcements while I was at the local consultants breakfast.

stuffe

the 1.8 four pot?

Kyle Cronin

@stuffe implementation error, and errors of developers using the system

jaberg

The BMW? It was a 318. Dyno-tuned/custom chip by Jim Conforti. Nice little grocery getter.

Yes, the 1.8

stuffe

4:01 PM

@KyleCronin I just really pike the permissions system. It's polite, it's obvious, it's unobtrusive and it should be a piece of cake for devs to implement s/Location Services/Contacts/g

Kyle Cronin

@stuffe the only reason I suggested the network restriction was because there are some use cases where an app needs access to private data, but doesn't need for it to leave the phone. in those cases, it could avoid having to ask, which decreases the tendency for these permissions popups to become UAC-like

jaberg

Ironically @stuffe the Land-Rover "lightweight" is heavier than the stock 88 unless you strip the doors, roof, etc. It's one big advantage is the flat fenders that allow it to be stacked in a cargo hold.

@KyleCronin I'm not 100% caught up with the conversation, but I think the biggest concern is to prevent the OS from asking for permissions too often. It's a fine line to walk.

Graham Perrin

@gentmatt the notification centre looks good in that video.

Kyle Cronin

@jaberg exactly - my suggestion was a way to reduce the number of times you need to be asked

jaberg

I was agreeing with you @KyleCronin

In my own mangled way. I think I'll really enjoy typing once I get the hang of it.

When did this 10.8 stuff break? Is it a scoop or was it an announcement?

Kyle Cronin

4:08 PM

@jaberg ah, well, thanks. I've been trying to defend the idea for several days against people insisting it wouldn't work that I guess I just assume everyone's out to get me

jaberg

Just because I agree with you doesn't mean I'm not out to get you.

Seriously, I think the privacy concerns need to be addressed, but at least more me I'm willing to settle for a reasonable expectation of privacy combined with a moderate amount of user choice--too much choice, controls that are too finite is not a good thing.

Shawn Geddis (apple's enterprise engineer for security) made the point in a presentation once that users faced with a choice regarding security generally make the wrong choice. There's some solid thinking to back that point up. (Schneier for one).

Graham Perrin

@jaberg announced by Apple, but some of the media outlets seem well prepared so Apple must have done a good job of keeping things secret whilst discussing with a select few. identi.ca/group/apple includes a link to the press release.

jaberg

@GrahamPerrin Thanks. I'll be playing catch up all morning now. :)

As much as I agree that Growl works well, I'm glad to see a notification system rolled into the OS. I hope more developers will hook into it.

Kyle Cronin

@jaberg developers have been hooking into Growl for years. Unless Apple is reimplementing the growl API, there will be a lot of apps that will work with Growl but not notification center

jaberg

0

Q: OS X Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring DVD Playback

OS X 10.8 will allow AirPlay mirroring of the desktop, keynote presentations, and iMovie videos (see Apple's website). In desktop mode, will it mirror DVD playback with audio? I read that some content may be blocked out and it wasn't clear that audio was sent in desktop mode. Note: it may take s...

How do we handle questions about not-yet-released product.

Kyle Cronin

4:17 PM

like that

jaberg

The OP at least has the sense to recognize that he's treading on thin ice around the NDA.

Kyle Cronin

yeah

jaberg

That's what I figured @KyleCronin. Probably even had read it in the FAQ at one point. (I'm more literate than my typing would indicate.)

Kyle Cronin

the NDA is one aspect of why we don't allow questions about pre-release software

another is the fact that it's not finished yet and the answer to the question may change before its release

jaberg

I'd think a more "real-world" aspect would be "why would care:

Yeah, what you said.

(you caught me mid statement)

Kyle Cronin

4:19 PM

:)

stuffe

@jaberg No, the rover. If it's the 1.8, it's EXACTLY the same engine in mine, and equally pront to head gasget failure...

jaberg

Rover is the good old 2.25 four. It's a fresh engine (as of '98 or so, so I guess not so fresh anymore). I stay on top of it. Will probably re-power with a diesel (Mercedes? Perkins? CAT?) if forced to.

I assume we're talking the classic Rover.

stuffe

@KyleCronin They will be the ones not in the MAS, but with approved developer certs instead. MAS=Notification centre and iCloud, non MAS = Growl and Dropbox

jaberg

@KyleCronin I have the sources to back up the "Users make poor security decisions" statement if you need them for your argument.

Kyle Cronin

@jaberg I think the argument is pretty much over at this point, but if you've got them ready you could put them in the comments for the podcast: apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/02/…

Graham Perrin

4:25 PM

@jaberg I'll be interested (but away from chat for a while, I'll pick up some time later) — thanks

stuffe

Sorry guys, wasn't intending to stir the pot ;) Just commenting on the stand out good bit from the podcast

Kyle Cronin

0

A: Can we open questions about Mountain Lion?

There are a few reasons why questions about pre-release software is off-topic for Ask Different: A lot of companies, most notably Apple, require everyone with access to pre-release software to sign an NDA. Anyone that asks or answers questions about software covered under this NDA are in violat...

@stuffe not at all! I'm glad that there was a part of the podcast that's gotten people talking

jaberg

4:41 PM

Comments posted Kyle.

Kyle Cronin

awesome, thanks

Jason Salaz

Damn

Cupertino woke up early today.

Kyle Cronin

man, we just did a podcast this past week (usually we do every other) but there's so much to talk about that I really want to do another one

Jason Salaz

Take it all in. Formulate a good opinion. Make it better next week.

complete and good*

Kyle Cronin

oh, I've been taking it all in all right

forumulating opinions left and right

I'm ready to go

plus, new mods

jaberg

4:45 PM

@KyleCronin My guess is than any developer currently will hooking into Growl will also look to integrate the Notification Center as quickly as possible—and that developers who never considered the third party route will look into the officially blessed model. I have nothing against Growl, it's installed on every machine I use—even with my "stay close to stock" approach—but I see little downside to having Apple move in this direction.

Kyle Cronin

@jaberg one possibility will be that Growl itself will hook into notification center

3

magically notification-centerifying apps on ML, but falling back to regular growl on Lion and below

Jason Salaz

Apple did say they were deferring profits for iOS AND Mac sales, right?

Kyle Cronin

where did you hear that?

according to The Verge, this will be a paid upgrade

Jason Salaz

Ummmm. Last WWDC I think.

jaberg

Absolutely @KyleCronin. And I wish no harm to the developer. On the other hand, I'm not of the Growl was there first so Apple should stay away camp. If there's a feature that the OS should have, Apple should implement it, third party devs be damned.

Kyle Cronin

4:48 PM

@jaberg yeah, it's a bit surprising it's taken them this long, too

jaberg

30 bucks a year (or so) to keep the OS up-to-date doesn't seem too high a price.

stuffe

wonder if the server app will get a yearly update

Kyle Cronin

@stuffe that would drive Mac OS X sysadmins to madness

stuffe

Growl took it's cue from OS9 Notification Manager anyway.

This is going to kill our tags ;)

Kyle Cronin

@stuffe was that a built-in feature of OS9?

stuffe

4:51 PM

I don't remember from first hand, but according to Daniuel Jakult from Red Sweater it was

jaberg

My OS 9 brain cells must all be dead because I don't remember that feature.

Jason Salaz

Make it face- to-face.
Switch to FaceTime right in Messages.

me likey

jaberg

If Dan says it, it must be so.

stuffe

He's a clever guy, I trust him :)

I'm post Tiger, what do I know? ;)

Kyle Cronin

@JasonSalaz all Apple has to do is make an iCloud-based voicemail service and I'll drop Google Voice like a broken simile

stuffe

4:52 PM

point being Growl didn't invent anything, may have embraced enhanced and improved though.

jaberg

We used to hit the same geek groups in Boston, I'd go so far as to trust him to watch my MacBook. :

Growl took the spirit of "artist stealing" to heart and ran with it. Apple will return the favor. Neither is a copy.

Jason Salaz

"Tweet right from your apps."
Bye Wren, it was nice knowing you.

stuffe

Point in case: Instapaper survived the Reading List onslaught ;)

jaberg

Reading List is for dabblers, Instapaper is for pros.

Jason Salaz

And that's perfectly fine.

stuffe

4:54 PM

Exactly, same will happen for Growl.

Jason Salaz

Growl is a bit different, because apps have to support it.

Instapaper is just a reading cache, the page remains the same.

jaberg

On the other hand, with a little work, Apple could improve Reading List/iCloud to the point where I don't need another service. So it goes.

stuffe

Growl will still be go-to for nan MAS apps, and as Kyle presciently mentions, Growl is already in the App Store, what's to stop it parsing messages into Notification Center?

Jason Salaz

whoops, can't install messages, don't have 10.7.3

I think that may be the case at home too.

jaberg

Wait, they released Messages today?

stuffe

4:56 PM

They could, but typically they don't, they do enough to meet average users requirements and expectations in all their apps like mail/calendar/contacts etc etc, and leave it to others to build on that and write better stuff for more advanced users

jaberg

I am so behind. No more breakfast meetings for me.

stuffe

Download it now! Even without being a developer member

Jason Salaz

@jaberg apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta

jaberg

downloading now.

stuffe

Damn my windows PC at work with no wifi for my Air...

GAH!

Jason Salaz