We walk you through some of the recently-exposed features coming down the pike for OS X users this summer in the form of OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion, including Airplay screen sharing, iMessage for the desktop, Notification Center, Game Center, enhanced iCloud integration, calendar/notes tweaks, Reminders (with iCloud sync), additional Twitter integration, and the dreaded Gatekeeper/App Store Software Update combo. And hey: Even if you don’t care about OS X, you can always enjoy us arguing about the ethics/efficacy of sandboxed apps.
For what it’s worth, I’m exactly in Chuck’s boat when it comes to sandboxing in Mac OS X … errr … OS X. Sandboxing is all good and well from a security perspective and for making a simpler computer experience for my mom and other non-power users. But the moment they keep me from running what I want on my Mac, a piece of hardware I bought with my own hard-earned money and have the right to tinker with however I see fit, I’m out! And while I like the idea of sandboxing apps on mobile devices as well, particularly my primary cell phone, the idea of allowing a single company the power to unilaterally decide what apps I can and can’t run on my phone bothered me too much for me to keep using iOS (at least unjailbroken). IMHO, the Android/Mountain Lion approach of only allowing sandboxed apps by default but giving power users who know what they’re doing the option to sideload unsigned apps is the right way to go. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do things like buy indy games setting your own price and donating some of the proceeds to charity like the Humble Bundle for Android did.