Macworld September 2012

Two Roads, Diverged When you come to a fork in the road,” Yankees great Yogi Berra once remarked, “take it.” That seems to be Apple’s current plan for its two major platforms. While some users worry about platform fragmentation, and others worry that the juggernaut of iOS will subsume their beloved OS X, it seems pretty clear that the company is splitting future development into two separate but parallel paths. I was in the audience at June’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, when Apple rolled out its plans for both iOS 6 and Mountain Lion. It occurred to me then that the coincidence of features is creating parity, not convergence, between the two operating systems. For example, the goal of adding iOS-first apps (such as Reminders and Notes) to Mountain Lion…

Moving Mountain Lions ROARING TO THE SCENE Apple is not a company that revels in legacy technology. The answer is clear: If you don’t want to use Mountain Lion, you don’t want to use a Mac. Either accept it or find a new platform. Jasonmwa, via the Macworld.com forums Drag-and-drop files in screen sharing might be a small addition, but it will prove incredibly useful! jowie, via the Macworld.com forums I have been using a Mac for the last seven years, and I am honestly happy with the direction Apple is taking with this upcoming OS. The convergence of social media with OS X will make my MacBook a truly personal computer. Some people may be turned off by this, but if you use your Mac for work, remember that…

News and Analysis about Macs, OS X, and Apple Apple is advertising OS X 10.8—Mountain Lion—as dead simple to install. But as with every major upgrade to OS X, there are a few things you can do before Mountain Lion is released to ensure that your Mac is ready. To install Mountain Lion, you need a compatible Mac (see “Is Your Mac Compatible?”) running either OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or any version of 10.7 (Lion). This last requirement is very important. Mountain Lion will be available only via the Mac App Store, which requires Mac OS X 10.6.6; and version 10.6.8 provides a number of enhancements that make upgrades to 10.7 or 10.8 go more smoothly. In addition, Apple recommends that you install the very latest updates to Snow…

REVIEW The new Mac Pros have the same upgradable case, the same graphics cards, and even the same ports as its predecessor. However, Macworld Lab’s test results show that the new Mac Pros are considerably faster than the systems they replace. The Mac Pros aren’t cheap. The new low-end Mac Pro costs $2499 and comes with a 3.2GHz quad-core Xeon W3565 processor and 6GB of 1066 DDR3 RAM. The $3799 Mac Pro has a pair of six-core 2.4GHz Xeon E5645 processors, and 12GB of 1333 DDR3 RAM. Both systems have 7200-rpm 1TB hard drives and ATI Radeon HD 5770 PCI Express graphics cards with 1GB of video memory. The new Mac Pros lack Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, and the latest processor technology. It would’ve been nice if Apple had included Thunderbolt…

REVIEW With the same $99 price as its predecessors, the new AirPort Express Wi-Fi base station is powerful enough to serve a single-floor home or to act as a main base station to which other base stations are chained. Previously, doing either of these things would have required Apple’s $179 AirPort Extreme base station, or a Time Capsule. In a significant improvement, the Express now lets you use both 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands of 802.11n at once (known as simultaneous dual-band). Previously, you had to choose one band. The old AirPort Express had a single ethernet port, but the new model includes a second one. One ethernet port (labeled WAN) is used to connect to a broadband modem; the other port (labeled LAN) can be used by a single computer…

Wrapsol Original’s Protective Film Wrap If you’re the proud owner of a new MacBook Pro with Retina display, you are probably interested in keeping its screen smudge-and scratch-free. But don’t forget about its body. Why use a bulky covering that not only adds weight to the laptop, but also hides the beauty of the MacBook Pro design? Wrapsol Original’s $45 protective film wrap is made of thin polyurethane and provides an extra layer to prevent wear from everyday use. It’s ultrathin, stretchy, and transparent, with an easy application process (and detailed instructions in case you need them). The film not only protects the laptop, but it’s grippable, too. Wrapsol’s generous warranty includes a lifetime replacement guarantee, so the film will last as long as your MacBook does (wrapsol.com). —LEAH YAMSHON…