2012 in review: The year in Mac
Some people have feared that Apple’s focus on mobile devices would leave the Mac gathering dust in a dark corner of 1 Infinite Loop, but 2012 has demonstrated that Apple’s longest-running product line isn’t out of steam yet. With some impressive product refreshes, a brand-new operating system for the second time in as many years, and the promise of more innovation to come, there has never been a better time to be a Mac user.
Mountain Lion roars onto the scene
Even for a company that prides itself on secrecy, Mountain Lion was an impressive coup: Nobody, not even the most dedicated Apple watchers, expected the company to announce a major system update less than a year after the last one. The pace of Mac OS X development has slowed in recent years as the software has matured, but Mountain Lion showed that OS X was alive and well, and was not just about moving iOS features to the Mac but intertwining the futures of Apple’s two software platforms.
Announced in February and released in July, Mountain Lion came just a year after Apple's last major OS X update, surprising many.
Plenty of Apple’s iOS apps—Reminders, Notes, Game Center, and so on—made their way to OS X with Mountain Lion, but some features came to both the Mac OS and iOS at roughly the same time, including Mail VIPs, Do Not Disturb, and (eventually) Facebook integration, to name a few. iCloud also became an increasingly important part of Apple’s strategy, as the company enhanced the lackluster integration with its online service that had debuted in Lion, adding the ability to store documents in the cloud.
Though Apple let the cat out of the bag in February, Mountain Lion officially arrived in July, becoming available via the Mac App Store just as Lion had been. While it had some bugs—especially with the new iMessage—the overall package got a positive review from our editorial director, Jason Snell. Users seemed to agree, too: The update racked up 3 million downloads in its first four days of availability, and as of September that number had more than doubled to 7 million, which Apple CEO Tim Cook said made Mountain Lion the fastest-selling OS of all time.
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