14 DAY TRIAL // Apple this week rolled out a new Mountain Lion beta to developers which included the official release notes aimed at end-users. No word on whether build 12C50 is actually the Golden Master, but common sense tells us OS X 10.8.2 is a wrap.
“The 10.8.2 update is recommended for all OS X Mountain Lion users and includes new features and fixes,” Apple tells developers enrolled with its $99-a-year program. That’s around €76, for who’s asking.
The “new features” list begins with Facebook integration. Users will get a single sign-on and Notification Center will instantly index the social network.
You’ll get it as an option when sharing links and photos, and you’ll get friends’ contact information and profile pictures in Contacts.
Moving on to Game Center, users will be able to share scores to Facebook, Twitter, Mail, or Messages; see Facebook friends included in friend recommendations; a Facebook Like button for games; and the ability to challenge friends to beat your score or achievement.
Kids’ updates aside, OS X 10.8.2 brings a lot more changes and enhancements for power-users.
For example, the Power Nap feature that keeps your Mac in sync when it goes to sleep is now supported on MacBook Air (Late 2010) models.
iMessages sent to your phone number will now appear in Messages on your Mac, and you’ll be able to add passes to Passbook on your iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 6, from Safari and Mail on your Mac.
A new shared-Reminders list will be provided, and the Dictionary application will include a French definition dictionary.
FaceTime will receive calls sent to your phone number, and you’ll get new sort options for notes. Customers will arrange these by title, the date they were edited, and the date they were created.
Dictation now supports several new languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Korean, Canadian English, Canadian French, and Italian.
Last but not least (as far as “new features” are concerned), you’ll be able to add Sina Weibo profile photos to Contacts.
The changelog further notes that “The 10.8.2 update also includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.”
These fixes include a much-needed option to discard the changes in the original document when choosing Save As.
Apple is indirectly admitting that they’ve messed up trying to alter the behavior of Save As, a blunder originally documented by Softpedia in 2011 when OS X Lion shipped, and several times thereafter (including in Mountain Lion). The rest of the changes are listed below.
- Unsent drafts are opened automatically when launching Mail - Receive Twitter notifications for mentions and replies from anyone - URLs are shortened when sending tweets from Notification Center - Notifications are disabled when AirPlay Mirroring is being used - SSL support for Google searches from the Smart Search Field in Safari - New preference to have Safari launch with previously open webpages
Apple is expected to release OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion and OS X 10.7.5 (for Lion customers) around the same time iOS 6 ships. That’s going to be this month, perhaps even this week.