7 ms·

The thing I'm by far the most excited about is AirPlay Mirroring. If I'm reading this correctly, I'll be able to mirror anything from my Mac to my TV using an A

The thing I'm by far the most excited about is AirPlay Mirroring. If I'm reading this correctly, I'll be able to mirror anything from my Mac to my TV using an Apple TV. This will be great for watching Internet videos, going through my iPhoto library with my wife, looking at home videos, etc. All without needing a stupid cable from my couch to my TV. The deeper iCloud integration is also intriguing. I assume this means proper syncing between documents on a Mac, iPad and iPhone. This will be a huge feature, and is currently a major stumbling block with iCloud. I want my documents to sync to my mobile devices. Those two features alone are pretty big. Beyond that, I'm interested to here about the new APIs and anything else that has been changed under the hood. OS X Lion has always been a little bit buggy (the latest release is pretty solid, however). I wonder if Mountain Lion will be like Snow Leopard where it tightens up a lot of things under the hood and gives us a better realization of the OS. I'm excited for Gatekeeper for my parents and other people I know that aren't that tech savvy. This could save me a lot of headaches.

orionlogic 15y ago
I am excited as well in AirPlay Mirroring so i watched several times in the demo. It seems video plays with Quicktime. So lot's of video formats are not compatible like mkv's, iso's etc... If somehow i am able to mirror VLC i will run and buy Apple TV at once.
- janus 15y ago
  If you install Perian, Quicktime supports expands to include many more formats http://perian.org/ http://perian.org/ But I agree and would welcome the support for VLC too!
  - orionlogic 15y ago
    I already have Perian. It's not supported well imho. Just try to open a 8gb mkv and it broke QT.
    - calloc 15y ago
      It didn't break Qt, it broke Perian. That being said, I've got a couple of 8GB MKV's and they all work perfectly. So caveat emptor and all that ... :P
  - driverdan 15y ago
    Perian has never worked for me. I can't get Xvid or MKVs to play in QT. VLC is the only player I've found for OS X that actually plays everything.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  From what I can see it's just screen sharing isn't it? Play something in VLC in fullscreen and you're fine. They use Quicktime for the demo because it's an Apple product but I don't believe it's a limitation. If Apple have to throw Quicktime under the bus to sell more Apple TVs and Macs I think they'll happily do it.
  - replax 15y ago
    What you are saying is true, however it is a rather messy solution. Assuming that the next AppleTV will support 1080p output you could not just mirror your screen to get the best quality. The source film is in 1080p, gets scaled down to screen res. which is transmitted to the AppleTV and then gets scaled up to 1080p again - resulting in a easily visible quality loss. I hope they treat the screen as a "second screen" which is mirrored...
- emehrkay 15y ago
  This says it will display whatever is on your screen, but if you're using itunes, drm will kick in. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2801047/mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-preview-photos-video http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2801047/mac-os-x-10-8-moun...
- moe 15y ago
  lot's of video formats are not compatible This will airplay pretty much everything you throw at it: http://beamer-app.com http://beamer-app.com
  - orionlogic 15y ago
    thanks, didn't know this one. If only it could play burned dvd's like ISO files. Still, VLC integration is a must. With no compromise.
- LokiSnake 15y ago
  Looking at Apple's page, it seems like it doesn't only mirror output of apps such as Quicktime, but is able to do desktop mirroring, so you can play videos in VLC and mirror the entire screen.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
And that's the point the Apple TV goes from a hobby to a major product. Spending a £1000 on a Mac - I reckon another £100 for an Apple TV with that functionality as the hook is a pretty easy up sell.
- toni 15y ago
  It is unfortunate that AppleTV's video output (out-of-the-box) still does not support true 1080p resolutions and everything is upscaled from 720p.
  - miketucker 15y ago
    word on the street is that will change before summer.
  - pwthornton 15y ago
    I expect to see a 1080p Apple TV this year, since the A5 and upcoming A6 can both do 1080p video. The current Apple TV is A4 based, which is limited to 720p. With the new iPad having a resolution above 1080p, Apple finally has a reason to have 1080p iTunes content. Beyond that, Apple may not have wanted to take A5 chips away from the iPhone and iPad to sell in Apple TVs. Now that all of the new iPads and iPhones will be A6 based this year, Apple will have more supply of A5s for other devices. None of this helps people who already own an Apple TV, however
    - sigzero 15y ago
      I will buy a new one. :)
    - ctingom 15y ago
      Prediction: Apple is the company that takes TV past 1080p into much higher resolution displays (when they actually release an Apple TV). Movies are already shot at much higher resolution, and Apple will introduce Apps (subscribe to a show or network, for example).
      - 15y ago
sigjuice 15y ago
I am most excited about AirPlay Mirroring as well. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple pulls some BS like it only works with 2012 Macs.
nilsbunger 15y ago
I would like AirPlay mirroring the other way around too -- let my iPad / iPhone cast to my Mac. Very useful for presentations and iOS product demos.
anthonys 15y ago
From a work perspective, this will be an awesome feature. We currently have a heap of screens with "Wireless Presenter" software running on them which isn't that easy to get going. AirPlay Mirroring sounds like it could be a solution for that provided you could choose the Apple TV you wanted to connect to (There'd be at least 200 screens in my office).
phodo 15y ago
Just last night I found a post on TUAW about something called AirParrot (http://www.airparrot.com http://www.airparrot.com), which provides similar functionality. I've been looking for something like that for a while, so jumped at the chance to download it (cost me $9.99). It's in beta, and the developer makes no secret of that. It does not pipe audio, and has a few other quirks but I managed to: run a powerpoint presentation, run civilization v, and play some youtube videos from my machine to my appletv. I have no affiliation with the developer, but i must say - to pwthornton's point above, it's pretty effing cool to airplay out of your mac. I bet the official release from apple will be that much better too.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
A minor warning: I installed Mountain Lion yesterday on my 1+ year MacBook Pro (core 2 duo, not i5 or i7) and Air Play doesn't seem to work - no icon on menu bar. This makes sense because i5 has some instructions for better video compression. Hopefully older Macs will be supported as the software is tweaked. Otherwise, I like Mountain Lion.

orionlogic 15y ago

I am excited as well in AirPlay Mirroring so i watched several times in the demo. It seems video plays with Quicktime. So lot's of video formats are not compatible like mkv's, iso's etc... If somehow i am able to mirror VLC i will run and buy Apple TV at once.

janus 15y ago
If you install Perian, Quicktime supports expands to include many more formats http://perian.org/ http://perian.org/ But I agree and would welcome the support for VLC too!
- orionlogic 15y ago
  I already have Perian. It's not supported well imho. Just try to open a 8gb mkv and it broke QT.
  - calloc 15y ago
    It didn't break Qt, it broke Perian. That being said, I've got a couple of 8GB MKV's and they all work perfectly. So caveat emptor and all that ... :P
- driverdan 15y ago
  Perian has never worked for me. I can't get Xvid or MKVs to play in QT. VLC is the only player I've found for OS X that actually plays everything.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
From what I can see it's just screen sharing isn't it? Play something in VLC in fullscreen and you're fine. They use Quicktime for the demo because it's an Apple product but I don't believe it's a limitation. If Apple have to throw Quicktime under the bus to sell more Apple TVs and Macs I think they'll happily do it.
- replax 15y ago
  What you are saying is true, however it is a rather messy solution. Assuming that the next AppleTV will support 1080p output you could not just mirror your screen to get the best quality. The source film is in 1080p, gets scaled down to screen res. which is transmitted to the AppleTV and then gets scaled up to 1080p again - resulting in a easily visible quality loss. I hope they treat the screen as a "second screen" which is mirrored...
emehrkay 15y ago
This says it will display whatever is on your screen, but if you're using itunes, drm will kick in. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2801047/mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-preview-photos-video http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2801047/mac-os-x-10-8-moun...
moe 15y ago
lot's of video formats are not compatible This will airplay pretty much everything you throw at it: http://beamer-app.com http://beamer-app.com
- orionlogic 15y ago
  thanks, didn't know this one. If only it could play burned dvd's like ISO files. Still, VLC integration is a must. With no compromise.
LokiSnake 15y ago
Looking at Apple's page, it seems like it doesn't only mirror output of apps such as Quicktime, but is able to do desktop mirroring, so you can play videos in VLC and mirror the entire screen.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

And that's the point the Apple TV goes from a hobby to a major product. Spending a £1000 on a Mac - I reckon another £100 for an Apple TV with that functionality as the hook is a pretty easy up sell.

toni 15y ago
It is unfortunate that AppleTV's video output (out-of-the-box) still does not support true 1080p resolutions and everything is upscaled from 720p.
- miketucker 15y ago
  word on the street is that will change before summer.
- pwthornton 15y ago
  I expect to see a 1080p Apple TV this year, since the A5 and upcoming A6 can both do 1080p video. The current Apple TV is A4 based, which is limited to 720p. With the new iPad having a resolution above 1080p, Apple finally has a reason to have 1080p iTunes content. Beyond that, Apple may not have wanted to take A5 chips away from the iPhone and iPad to sell in Apple TVs. Now that all of the new iPads and iPhones will be A6 based this year, Apple will have more supply of A5s for other devices. None of this helps people who already own an Apple TV, however
  - sigzero 15y ago
    I will buy a new one. :)
  - ctingom 15y ago
    Prediction: Apple is the company that takes TV past 1080p into much higher resolution displays (when they actually release an Apple TV). Movies are already shot at much higher resolution, and Apple will introduce Apps (subscribe to a show or network, for example).
    - 15y ago

sigjuice 15y ago

I am most excited about AirPlay Mirroring as well. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple pulls some BS like it only works with 2012 Macs.

nilsbunger 15y ago

I would like AirPlay mirroring the other way around too -- let my iPad / iPhone cast to my Mac. Very useful for presentations and iOS product demos.

anthonys 15y ago

From a work perspective, this will be an awesome feature. We currently have a heap of screens with "Wireless Presenter" software running on them which isn't that easy to get going. AirPlay Mirroring sounds like it could be a solution for that provided you could choose the Apple TV you wanted to connect to (There'd be at least 200 screens in my office).

phodo 15y ago

Just last night I found a post on TUAW about something called AirParrot (http://www.airparrot.com http://www.airparrot.com), which provides similar functionality. I've been looking for something like that for a while, so jumped at the chance to download it (cost me $9.99). It's in beta, and the developer makes no secret of that. It does not pipe audio, and has a few other quirks but I managed to: run a powerpoint presentation, run civilization v, and play some youtube videos from my machine to my appletv. I have no affiliation with the developer, but i must say - to pwthornton's point above, it's pretty effing cool to airplay out of your mac. I bet the official release from apple will be that much better too.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

A minor warning: I installed Mountain Lion yesterday on my 1+ year MacBook Pro (core 2 duo, not i5 or i7) and Air Play doesn't seem to work - no icon on menu bar. This makes sense because i5 has some instructions for better video compression. Hopefully older Macs will be supported as the software is tweaked. Otherwise, I like Mountain Lion.