But the tweaks to the service are going to be very welcome to many. iTunes 11 gets a bit of a makeover on its surface and under the covers to make it look more like the mobile version of iTunes that sits on your iPhone and allow content to better integrate with other Apple devices.

The user interface is revamped with more focus on album cover art and contextual information like the upcoming songs in your queue. The iTunes Store will have personal recommendations for users, artists will have their own dedicated pages on which they can share photos and tour dates with fans. The mini player also has a new look, and the software is more tightly integrated with iCloud: With iTunes 11 users can start watching a video on their Mac in iTunes and pick it up later on an iPad or iPhone in the same spot, and any music, movies or TV shows purchased in iTunes on another device can be re-downloaded from iCloud on the desktop.

For a neat look back at how iTunes’ design has evolved since 2001, be sure to see the retrospective that Ars Technica recently put together.

Update: MacRumors picked up on a cool new previously unannounced feature: you can now redeem gift cards or free codes for the iTunes Store via your computer’s camera.

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After the news hit, I actually considered buying an iPad mini with cellular connectivity since many of my contacts use iOS. I bought a Wi-Fi model of the mini — it’s replacing a Retina display iPad 3 for me — and I can still return it for a different model. That idea went out the window once I realized that FaceTime is still a silo, even though at launch, Steve Jobs said Apple would work to make it a standard notes a 2010 Computerworld article:

“Apple will ship tens of millions of FaceTime devices this calendar year, so there’s going to be a lot of people to talk to. FaceTime is based on H.264 video … and a bunch of alphabet-soup acronyms. We’re going to the standards bodies tomorrow and making FaceTime an open standard.”

As one who follows some standards boards, particular those in the wireless industry, I realize that such things take time. But remember: FaceTime was introduced in June 2010 and since that time, not a single piece of information suggests that Apple is working with any standards body to open up FaceTime for use on anything but iOS or OS X. Contrast that to my other heavily used video services, which are Google video chats now done through Google+ hangouts, and Skype.

Both of these services run on every device I own, regardless of platform. That means I’m accessible at any point in time, no matter where I am, what network I’m using and what device I have. Isn’t that the point of instant communications? It’s for these reasons that I use such services. In this day and age, we all want to be connected to our friends and peers without having to worry what device those people are using.

Listen, I love FaceTime. I find it to be one of the better performing video services out there and until my son moved in with me, it’s what I used to communicate with him daily. Two-and-a-half years after FaceTime was introduced, however, I don’t want to ping him on FaceTime, hoping he has his iPod touch with him only to see no response because he’s instead using his Android phone.

I know I’m oversimplifying here, but this is akin to limiting voice calls only to work on phones made by the same company. It’s a huge step backwards in an age where we’ve seen so much forward progress and the removal of communications silos.

If I could make one request it would be this, in my best Ronald Reagan impersonation: “Mr. Cook; Tear down this wall!” Let’s get FaceTime support through open standards and let the video calls flow on all platforms and devices already.

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When MobileMe was a paid service the only content that was automatically stored on your MobileMe account was your email, calendar, Safari bookmarks and notes.  If you wanted to use your MobileMe space to also host your family photos and videos, you had to manually do so by electing to share your content from within iPhoto, iMovie or even iWeb.

But things have changed now that the transition from MobileMe to iCloud is now complete. People who have recently switched will notice that there is now even more data that is automatically stored in your iCloud account than to its predecessor.  Your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch can easily be set up to automatically store all of your app’s data files and your individual device backups in addition to your email, calendar, Safari bookmarks and notes.

With OS X Mountain Lion, your Mac will also by default start storing your documents in your iCloud account — this allows your files and app data to be shared across all of your devices.  With the enhancements that Apple has made with Galleries on both the OS X and iOS versions of iPhoto, you can once again host your family photos using your iCloud storage.  And as photo resolutions keep getting larger, as well as the resolution of the devices that display them, the question that remains is 5GB — the free entry-level storage size for iCloud — is enough space for an individual to use?

On Macs with Mountain Lion you have the ability to decide on an individual basis what files will and will not be stored on iCloud.  This level of control however has not been extended to iOS, as its only configuration is an “all-in” or “all-out” when it comes to the ability for apps to store their data on iCloud.  Some third-party apps on iOS will let you choose between iCloud and other cloud based storage solutions like DropBox.  With the Apple’s own apps in particular, you will find that you are storing more information via your iCloud account than you have in the past.

If you manage your backups wisely, and don’t store too many files on your Mac to your iCloud account, 5GB can successfully manage two iOS devices and a Mac.  If on the other hand you rely upon iCloud backups for all of your devices, and depend on your photos being backed up to your iCloud account, and you have been opting to store more and more files from your Mac on your iCloud account, then 5GB will not get you very far.

Fortunately your Photo Stream, comprised of your most recent 1,000 photos, which only stick around for 30 days, does not count against your iCloud space quota.  This also includes the additional Shared Photo Streams that you create for sharing with your family and friends:  They too do not count against your iCloud storage quota.

But what takes up the most space on your iCloud storage will be your iOS device backups.  This is primarily due to the fact that iOS will by default backup your entire Camera Roll to your iCloud storage.  You can however take control of what apps do and what apps do not get backed up by performing the following steps:

• In your iOS Settings, tap on iCloud and select “Storage and Backup”.
• If your iCloud Backup setting is turned on for that device, tap on “Manage Storage”.
• Select the backup file for the device you are currently using.
• Selectively turn on and off which apps data you want to back up the next time you perform a backup.

All iCloud storage is shared across all of your devices, iOS and OS X alike.  If you still find that’s not enough space for you, here is how you can check on how much space your stuff is taking up:

• On OS X, goto System Preferences and select your iCloud preferences.
• Click on the “Manage” button in the bottom right hand corner to see a list of apps that are storing data on your iCloud account.
• On iOS, goto the Setting app and select your iCloud settings.
• Click on the “Storage & Backup” selection, then click on the “Manage Storage” option to see a list of apps that are storing data on your iCloud account.

If you discover, as I have, that 5GB of storage space on iCloud is not enough, you can opt to purchase more.  And for the same price as an individual MobileMe subscription, you can get up to 55GB of space for that same $99 per yr.  I only hope that 55GB will be enough space for my iCloud needs by this time next year.

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Here’s a list of all the issues the update address:

It also appears the update may address battery life problems that cropped up for some MacBook owners after installing Mountain Lion.

Mountain Lion went on sale for $19.99 in late July, and is Apple’s first attempt to sell desktop software entirely through the Mac App Store. So far, it’s working well. The company announced that it had sold 3 million copies in the first 4 days. And likely because of the ease of downloading directly from the App Store, it was one of the fastest desktop software uptakes in Apple’s history: after two days it was already on 3.2 percent of Macs.

Users will be prompted to update automatically or you can find the update in the Mac App Store under Updates.

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I’d be lying if it was a match made in heaven.  Overall I found Aperture slow, especially when previewing images. However, with Aperture 3.3, recently introduced at WWDC, I find myself singing its praises. There are three things I’m going to share with you that I really like: faster previews, better white balance and shared iPhoto and Aperture libraries.

Faster preview after import

Aperture now has an option to use the camera preview of images after import. This reduces that lengthy period after an import where Aperture pretty much let you do nothing. As someone for whom a light day of shooting means 150+ images, this is a life saver. I’ve noticed an overall improvement in image previews. I can’t tell if it’s because Aperture is still using the camera previews, or if they just made the program snappier overall.

Better white balance

Most often, I’m doing event photography (car shows, bands, demolition derbies and the like). None of these are known for great lighting and stationary models. As a result, if a photo captured the mood perfectly, but required too much post-processing to make it presentable, I’d just skip over it.

When I read that Apple included a skin tone white balance in this latest version I was intrigued. Most of the time I’d do a manual white balance filter by choosing a section of the image that was the most neutral and praying for a good result. To test the feature out, I experimented with an image of my friend Neal playing in a poorly lit club with a can light right above his head.

Left image is the original; right is with skin tone white balance applied.

It’s still not a great image. Some of the orange of the guitar is lost, but the skin tone is a little better and the coloring on the shirt is more accurate. I was impressed with how well Aperture handled the image though. This shot is a good representation of the conditions I shoot in and I can’t wait to use the skin white balance on the next band shoot.

Using the white-balance setting is easy. On the Adjustments tab, choose skin tone white balance and then use the eye dropper to choose the flesh area you want to balance the image against.

Shared iPhoto and Aperture libraries

You can finally share libraries between iPhoto and Aperture now (although only one program can access the library at a time). This helps keep unified libraries if you use the Add Image to iPhoto feature of Safari, or want to use iPhoto to do a quick import. Where I hope this is leading to is the next version of iPhoto that will allow albums and events created in iPhoto for iOS to show up on OS X.

Final thoughts

While I’ve read some people saying that Aperture 3.3 could be considered Aperture 4.0, I don’t share that view. While the features list is lengthy, there aren’t enough improvements to warrant a 4.0 version tag. That said, since the release of this version was tied to the introduction of the Retina MacBook Pro, Apple could have just upgraded it for the Retina display and called it a day. What these improvements do tell me is that Apple is serious about this program and its future.

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The delay itself has been greeted with mostly positive reactions from developers, who are thankful for the additional time to adapt to this new approach even if they are still anxious about the long-term implications. Chris Foresman wrote a great summary of sandboxing, Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software covered some of the issues that face developers of Mac software, and Manton Reece, developer of Clipstart, explained why he is dropping out of the Mac App Store to avoid sandboxing entirely. Most discussion of sandboxing has focused on the security implications of the new approach. However, I think that Apple may be playing a long game here that goes far beyond incremental improvements to the security of OS X.

Sandboxing: Security is not the end game

I don’t mean to imply that security is not an important consideration. It is. The problem is that sandboxing is only partially effective as a technique to improve security simply because outright malicious software won’t use it anyway. Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster wrote an excellent essay on the limitations of sandboxing as a security measure. Gatekeeper is likely to be s more effective security measure. So if sandboxing is not the last word on the future security of the Mac platform, what else might be going on?

What use could there be for a shift in programming conventions that requires apps to assume that all their files and settings are held in their own isolated container? That requires developers to carefully document when, where and why they need to reach out of their sandbox. That puts the OS in charge of allowing apps to access shared resources instead of unfettered access to the whole filesystem. What use is there in breaking long-held traditions of using arbitrary file access to enable shared settings? Why remove the ability to talk to other apps through Apple events?

It is not a far stretch to consider that this shift in approach might have a connection to Apple’s long-term plans to make iCloud the center of their strategy for the next decade. Apple intends for developers to move away from reliance on direct access to all of the nooks and crannies of the local filesystem on the computer and instead package up their files using the container approach. Self-contained sandboxes are more easily copied and moved between machines and are easier to back up. More and more, applications interact with online services across multiple devices. If your digital “stuff” is strewn about the cloud and across a couple of Macs (work, home, desktop, laptop) as well as multiple mobile devices like your iPhone and iPad, a dotfile on your computer might not be the best place to store settings anyway. Sandboxing could be a step towards abstracting away the local filesystem in favor of cloud-based storage.

The long game of sandboxing

While we don’t have answers now, there are a few areas to pay close attention to over the coming months as Mountain Lion moves closer to release and iOS is updated as expected later this year. (WWDC this summer will be interesting.)

The first feature to watch is entitlements, which are the list of permitted actions apps are allowed to perform from within the sandbox. Apple has expanded them a bit in Lion 10.7.3, but developers would like more. Daniel Jalkut thinks it is urgent that Apple address the current scope of entitlements. “The number one broken thing about sandboxing as it stands today, is the list of entitlements is simply too limited.” Further refinement of the available entitlements is likely, but it will be more interesting to watch where Apple expands the access granted to sandboxed apps. Will there be more direct access to places in the filesystem? More access to hardware features like serial ports? Or just more refinement to the iCloud APIs? Entitlements will be a clear indication of Apple loosening up on app restrictions or sticking to their guns.

The second area to watch is to see what Apple will do to explain sandboxing to users. If this is truly a security-focused measure, I would expect to see more prompts in OS X about what applications are asking to do (or which entitlements they have requested). If sandboxing isn’t meant to keep users better informed on what apps can and can’t do, then I would suspect that sandboxing is more about corralling developers to interact with the system in ways that can be abstracted or redirected to iCloud.

The big question in my mind, is what will be done with inter-process communication? URL schemes, as we have in iOS, are certainly much more limited than Apple events, even with call-backs. However, URL schemes also provide an abstraction where they could be made to work in different contexts, such as on a computer, on an iPhone or in a web app. Surely, something else is coming to meet the need for automation, workflow scripting and sharing between apps if the Apple events system is being phased out. This will be a key area to watch over the next few months to see where the wind blows out of Cupertino.

I can’t shake the feeling that sandboxing is part of a much bigger play by Apple and that it connects to their strategy for iCloud. While all we can do at the moment is speculate, I feel certain that developers that can suss out the larger meaning here and see a few steps ahead of the rest of us have a real opportunity. We saw companies that pulled ahead of the pack with the first generation of mobile, connected, and social apps for the App Store. There is a similar opportunity here with sandboxing and iCloud to try and skate to where Apple is looking to send the puck, to borrow a phrase from Wayne Gretzky, instead of simply complaining that the puck is not where it’s been.

Tea leaves thumbnail used courtesy of Flickr user xJason.Rogersx

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The major new features in OS X Mountain Lion are what everyone is talking about, but with every release of OS X, Apple makes some smaller changes that escape the notice of most. We’re going to take a look at some of those changes, starting with more general ones dealing with look and feel, up to some new features in apps like Mail and Safari.

General

• When you move a large file in the Finder, the file icon reflects the progress, just like when you install an app on iOS. The default progress dialog also opens, but I imagine it’ll be gone in later builds of Mountain Lion.
• The iOS-like scrollbars in Lion are pretty thin, and they stay thin when you hover over them, making them harder to target with the cursor. In Mountain Lion, scrollbars are noticeably wider, so they’re easier to hit.
• In Lion, grid-view Stacks still used the scrollbars from Snow Leopard, which is odd given that every other scrollbar has been iOS-ified. Not any more — in Mountain Lion they’ve been replaced by darker iOS-like scrollbars.
• Last, there are some changes to System Preferences. There are new slide-show-style screen savers in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane, similar to the ones for Apple TV. The Universal Access preference pane has a cleaner interface, and it’s been renamed “Accessibility” and moved from the Personal section to the System section.

Versions

• When you begin editing a document that’s just been saved, the “Edited” status in the toolbar will flash blue three times, to make sure you know.
• When duplicating a document, it lets you change the name right in the title bar, instead of just creating a new document with “copy” at the end of the name. You can also just hit Cmd-Shift-S to duplicate, so you don’t need to map that shortcut in System Preferences.
• In the Versions drop-down menu, there’s a new “Move To” option, so you can move the current file around on your Mac, or to iCloud.

Launchpad & Dashboard

• Launchpad has a new search bar at the top, which lets you filter through applications just by typing. You can key through them and press enter to launch them.
• Dashboard has a new interface for adding widgets, and it works exactly like Launchpad. It even has folders, for those hyper-organized Dashboard users (if they exist).

Safari

• Safari has a bunch of small refinements that make it easier to use. First, there’s a unified search bar and address bar, à la Chrome’s Omnibox. URLs are grayed out after the domain name, and the “http://” is stripped out as well.
• Tabs scale proportionally now, so if you have two tabs open, they’ll each take up half of the tab bar instead of a fixed width like before. This actually isn’t entirely new, as the Safari 4 beta did the same thing, though Apple axed the behavior before final release.

Mail

• You can now designate contacts as VIPs, so their emails will show up in a separate mailbox in the sidebar. Inline find is another new edition to Mail, and it works much the same as it does in Safari, with the addition of find and replace when composing a new email.
• The new Mail lacks RSS support, which has also been taken from Safari. It seems Apple doesn’t see the point in keeping that feature around.

Preview

• Preview has a simplified toolbar, with View, Zoom and Share on the left, and Crop, Rotate and Edit on the right. The Edit button opens a toolbar where all of Preview’s other tools reside, similar to the Edit button in the iOS Photos app.

Calendar and Contacts

• There are some pretty minor changes to Calendar and Contacts. In Calendar, the calendar’s drop-down menu is gone, replaced by a slide-out sidebar instead. Also, the faux-stitching has been removed from the toolbar. Also, the search box now supports search tokens, like in Mail.
• In Contacts, the red bookmark used to access groups is gone. Instead, there are three different views.

It’s clear that Mountain Lion is all about simplifying OS X: getting rid of things that don’t work, and refining things that do.

What else do you think Apple should change before Mountain Lion is released this summer?

Header image via Flicker user sigsegv.

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There are two ways to think about securing information: Enabling access to information that you want to keep, and disabling access to information you no longer want to keep.  In this post, we will focus on the information Mac users no longer want to keep.  If you are thinking that this is as easy as moving a file to the trash, then emptying the trash, think again.  There are numerous data recovery utilities on the market that can recover lost or deleted files.  And these utilities work because most of us do not know how to securely erase information off of our Macs.  The following are some tips on how you can at least make if very difficult for others to recover your unwanted files.

Finder’s Secure Empty Trash

When you just empty the trash on a Mac, OS X no longer keeps track of where the data associated with the file is stored on the hard drive.  The data is still there, it’s just that the Finder can no longer find it.  As you continue to work and OS X saves new files on your hard drive, OS X could write over parts of your deleted files data with the new files data.  What many data recovery utilities take advantage of is the chance that old data is still there, and has not yet been written over by new data.  When you instead elect to use Secure Empty Trash, OS X does in fact ensure that the old data is written over with new data, which will ensure that the old data is no longer there — think of it like scribbling out a written message on a post-it note.  What is not known for sure is how many times Secure Empty Trash writes over the old file’s data.

The U.S. Department of Defense data erasure guidelines require that erased data be written over no less than seven times.  Why seven times?  It just so happens that because of the way hard drives work, there is an opportunity for parts of the data to remain on the physical disk.  There is a mechanical arm that reaches out across the hard drive to read and write data off of a magnetic platter.  That mechanical arm may not pass over exactly the same spot on the hard drive with each pass.  If you remove the platter from the drive, you can actually scan the surface of the drive using a much more precise mechanical arm to read old data off of the drive.  Writing over the data seven times compensates for this opportunity.  Think of it like plowing a field: The more times you plow over the earth, the less likely you are to see last season’s crop lines.

Permanent Erasure Utility

There are utilities that you can use that take this even further.  Available in the Mac App Store is a free utility from Edenwaith called Permanent Eraser.  Tools like Permanent Erasure give the user greater control over how the old data is written over with new data when you empty the trash.  For instance, Peter Gutmann, a computer scientist in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, had devised a method of overwriting data 35 times, each pass utilizing a different pattern of ones and zeroes.  Permanent Erasure is configurable to take advantage of Gutmann’s research and can apply his technique of writing over old data when the trash is emptied.  In fact, Permanent Erasure goes even further by also scrambling the original file name and truncating the file size to nothing before finally unlinking it from the system.

Gutmann’s technique is quite dated, as it was originally applied to a variety of consumer grade hard drives available back in the late 1990s.  While widely considered the most secure means of erasing data off of an old hard drive that you still intend to use, some have speculated that this technique is no longer entirely necessary on modern-day, high-density and large-volume SATA drives.  Some security forums online have speculated that a single pass of random ones and zeroes is sufficient on modern equipment.  Even though there are tools that make utilizing even the most secure of techniques easy, you do wear down the drive and decrease its lifespan by overemploying this technique on a daily basis.  It is probably best to utilize the Finder’s Secure Erase on a daily basis, and use tools like Permanent Erasure when you have recently deleted something important that you want to make absolutely sure no one will be able to access again.

Time Machine Backups

Lets not forget about Time Machine and other backup solutions you may have implemented.  Going to extremes to erase a file from a hard drive that you routinely back up could be seen as a fool’s errand if you neglect to erase all of the backup copies as well.  But there is a way to delete all backed up versions of a file from within Time Machine.  Before you delete the file you want to remove permanently, open Time Machine and click on the gears to expose a menu.  From the menu select “Delete all backups of this file.” This will remove all references in Time Machine showing that the file ever existed.

This feature of Time Machine will not implement the same technique as Secure Empty Trash or any more advanced utilities like Permanent Erasure by writing over the data on the drive that the original file occupied.  It just so happens that a halfway decent automated backup strategy could end up being the Achilles’ heel of a halfway decent security strategy.  Once you backup your files online for instance, you may not have any way to delete individual files from all of the redundant backups that your cloud-based service provider has elected to employ.  The data is still out there, somewhere.

Disk Utility’s Secure Erase Options

Looking at this problem from an individual file perspective is good if you intend to keep using all of the old hard drives you have ever owned.  But what if you want to sell or give away your old equipment to somebody else?  At such a time it is a good idea to securely erase an entire drive’s data.  Fortunately Mac OS X’s Drive Utility has you covered.  Just open Disk Utility and select the drive you want to erase.  Choose the selector labeled “Erase” and click on the “Security Options” button.  Here you will find a range of options from “Fastest” to “Most Secure.”

Unfortunately, Disk Utility stops short at just a seven pass overwrite and does not employ any other technique of securely erasing an entire drive.  And since OS X 10. 7 Lion, you no longer have the option to boot from DVD in order to gain access to Disk Utility in order to wipe the internal hard drive of your Mac clean.

One of the most widely used and highly recommended tools to use in cases like this, Darik’s Boot And Nuke (DBAN), can be accessed from a bootable CD/DVD on your Mac.  You can also create a customized USB drive that will boot to Ubuntu where you can install and use the terminal command “wipe“ (there is also a GUI interface for “wipe called Parted Magic).  Your best bet is to stick with something like Micromat’s TechTool Pro Wipe Disk feature, which will also boot from DVD or USB.  Any one of these three tools will wipe the internal drive of your Mac completely clean.

Hardware-Based Accessories

You can always try booting your MacBook in target disk mode in order connect to the hard drive externally and securely wipe the internal hard drive.  However, wiping a drive clean may be difficult if the Mac that the drive is in no longer boots up.  There are two hardware accessories for sale at MacSales by NewerTech that can come in handy once you have decided to remove the hard drive from your old Mac.  If you only need to do this on a rare occasion, consider the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Universal Drive Adapter.  It supports both IDE and SATA formats for 5.25-inch, 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives.  If you are looking for a more permanent SATA solution, one that you can connect to via eSATA, then get the NewerTech Voyager hard drive dock.

If you happen to do this a lot, or if you are the go-to person when it comes to IT issues, you may consider investing in a hardware-based wipe solution to securely erase all of the hard drives you have to work with.  WiebeTech’s Drive eRaser Ultra will wipe your IDE and SATA drives clean and won’t lock up your Mac in the process as it is a standalone wipe accessory.

Physical Destruction

There are ways to render a hard drive completely useless to others through the means of bashing, grinding, shredding, incinerating and even exposing the raw elements of the drive to a phase transition by vaporizing all of its components.  Rather than try to handle this yourself by purchasing your own Model 22 HDD Hard Drive Disintegrator, there are services that will take care of this for you.

But even professional disintegration services recommend that you first perform your own due diligence by securely wiping off any private information before submitting the equipment to them for disposal.  One thing to look for when shopping around for such a service is to see if they are NAID Certified, if they offer an audit trail of the destruction process and will issue some sort of certificate of destruction.

Solid State Drives

This is all well and good provided you only have a traditional IDE or SATA hard drive that uses mechanical arms to read and write data off of rotating platters.  But what if you have a solid state drive (SSD), what then?  SSDs utilize a completely different technology that renders many of the above techniques ineffective.  The Non-Volatile Systems Laboratory of the University of California San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering department has commenced a study to look at the effectiveness of various sanitizing techniques on SSDs. What researchers found was that a new approach to securely wiping a drive is needed.

The SSD’s wear-leveling technology, while designed to prolong the lifespan of the drive, makes it almost impossible to guarantee that a given file has been overwritten.  The implementation of many SSDs’ buffering technology, which was designed to help compensate for memory failures, also challenges many of the established erasure techniques.  The only recourse then is to always use full disk encryption on SSDs.  SSDs store the encryption keys in a Key Storage Area (KSA).  This KSA can be cleared to make the data that remains on the drive practically impossible to recover.  Some newer SSDs provide an “erase unit” command, but this has not been implemented uniformly across all drives and is not exposed in popular drive utility tools currently available to consumers.

When thinking about both your security as well as your backup strategy, think also of the reverse side of the equation — not just how can you continue to securely access your most private information, but also how can you prevent access to your private information by wiping it clean off of any device it has been stored on when you no longer want that device.  Paying attention to someone can access your files stored on old discarded computer equipment is key to any good security strategy.

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iCloud support is significant because it potentially reduces the IT infrastructure needed for shared document storage and backup of documents and device settings. Students will be able to share documents created on the iPad with a Mac, or even share back and forth. There are a few caveats, of course. You’ll need software for both platforms that can work with the same document. The iWork bundle is an example of software that can work on the same documents on both iPad and Mac. This could be great for situations where students have iPads but might need to hop on a computer to quickly paste in an image or chart created on the Mac. The downside to all this is that Apple didn’t really design iCloud for a shared computing environment like a school, so you’ll have to figure out how to allow access in your Mac lab. If we’re lucky, there might be something like the old iDisk where you could temporarily access a user’s documents, but I’ll assume that each student will need their own user account on the Mac to make the integration work. It could be great for a Bring Your Own Device program where students can bring their own iPad and Macs are available in the school lab.

Gatekeeper is a new feature of OS X Mountain Lion that gives users more control over running only software downloaded from the Apple-run Mac App Store, software that has been signed by a registered developer (so you know the source), or any software at all. Gatekeeper sounds like it could be good for schools because it provides some restrictions against running untrusted software, but I suspect that most will continue to lock down apps by only allowing approved software from a centrally managed white list. Still, I like the possibility of a middle ground where non-IT folks could install the software they need for a class, or even just a certain unit for a few weeks, as long as it is from the App Store or signed by a registered developer. It would certainly help teachers avoid malware, but it doesn’t do much on its own to prevent kids from installing time wasters and games. You’ll still need to use admin accounts, permissions and profile manager or some other tool for that.

Notes looks like it could be a great research tool and organizer for students working on a project. I like the idea of students collecting notes on their iPad and then pulling them together to write a paper or a presentation on the Mac. Of course, I’m still hoping that iCloud syncing of notes will be workable in schools. Reminders, a simple to-do list for both iOS and OS X, seems to fit right in with Notes and could definitely be useful, but only when integrated with iCloud syncing so students can make notes to themselves when working in the Mac lab and then pick up those notes and reminders on their iPad later.

Share Sheets, Twitter, Notifications, Messages and Game Center are probably not on the top of the list for pedagogically sound uses of Macs in school, but I’m sure some creative teacher will surprise me. I suspect that most schools will be fighting with their IT departments to even allow network access to Twitter, let alone allow the students to access those features on the desktop. Messages, the new version of the iChat instant messaging application, could be a nightmare in some situations, especially since it allows for sending messages to iPhones, much like texting from the computer to a friend with an iPhone. Just one more thing to watch out for, I guess.

Which brings us to the end of line with AirPlay Mirroring. Sweet, sweet AirPlay. AirPlay Mirroring allows you to display your screen to an Apple TV hooked up to a projector or a big TV in the classroom. Airplay Mirroring is going to be great for schools that are deploying an iPad 1-to-1 program. Not because we don’t have ways to hook up computers and iPads to TVs and projectors now, but because there will be a uniform method to do so that works across iOS devices and Mac computers that doesn’t require a variety of easily lost or misplaced adapters and cables. It also helps that this uniform method is wireless and relies only on a $99 Apple TV being installed in the classroom. I think teachers will be thrilled with the options available to share their desktop with the projector, switch to their iPad so they can walk around the room and still show their notes on the screen, and then let a student put their work up on the screen — all without plugging in a single cable or wasting time trying to find the adapter that was supposed to be returned to the projector cart or their desk drawer.

None of the above-features are going to revolutionize education or create a surge in demand for Macs, but I do think that it will help tremendously in schools where iPads are being adopted. OS X Mountain Lion pulls together iOS and the Mac in a way that will make it easier for teachers and students to go back and forth with iCloud syncing (as long as you work out the policies and procedures to do that effectively), and AirPlay makes it dead simple to make use of projectors and big TV screens as well.

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A unified experience on desktop and mobile

Before getting to my own experiences, let me share a thoughtful piece that hones in on what Apple is doing, from Jean-Louis Gassée’s point of view. Here is a key excerpt from his most recent Monday post:

For a company that prides itself on simplicity and elegance, it only makes sense that Apple would offer a consistent UX across all its devices, a GUUX, a Grand Unified User Experience. Apple customers should be able to move easily and naturally from one device to another, selecting the best tool for the task at hand. Add another unification, iCloud storage services, and Apple can offer more reasons to buy more of its products.

In typical fashion, Gassée nails the concept with a descriptive term, a “grand unified user experience.” I had a similar epiphany over the past weekend as I kicked the tires of Apple’s Mountain Lion software, but Gassée penned it perfectly. And even before I read his post, I noticed something that I hadn’t been doing for ages. I started reaching for my iPhone 4S instead of my Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Does this mean I will no longer be a daily Android user? No, I will keep using Android alongside iOS and even Windows Phone. Of course, I am an outlier: I try to use all platforms to see which is best for the different tasks and use cases people have. However, it is telling that my Galaxy Nexus — and even my Galaxy Tab 7.7 slate — have not been used much since I installed Mountain Lion.

How these two platforms work together

Take a look at the feature set in Mountain Lion and you can see the integration between desktop and mobile. Use Mountain Lion, however, and you will start to experience something new; at least, that’s how I’m feeling. It begins to matter less if you are on a desktop, laptop, phone or a tablet: You can use similar apps and interfaces to get things done.

The new Notifications in OS X works and looks just like its counterpart on iPhones and iPads running iOS 5. And reading an email on my iPhone, for example, removes the notification for that message on my desktop. That is huge, as people don’t need to see the same email or notification for it multiple times as they move across devices.

The new Messages in OS X, which you can actually download now, is another example. It looks and acts similar to iMessages in iOS 5. Plus the conversation follows you whether you are on a Mac, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Over the weekend, I had a long chat with my son and was able to seamlessly carry on the conversation regardless of which Apple product I had in hand. Of course, FaceTime is supported on both OS X and iOS, so with a single tap we were video chatting without worrying which devices we were using.

Reminders and Notes in Mountain Lion are also lifted from iOS, where they are simple and effective. But the killer feature of both is the ability to sync data across iCloud between the desktop and mobile devices. Again, it doesn’t matter which device you are using at a given time: You will still see your notes or get your reminder alarm at the appropriate time. These are just a few of the new iOS tie-ins. Here is a complete list.

So what does this have to do with Android?

Simply put, Android doesn’t have native integration with a true desktop platform. Instead, it is cloud-focused from a data perspective while leaning heavily on third-party apps, browser extensions and its own Chrome browser to offer a “use anywhere” experience. It works, but based on what I have seen from Mountain Lion so far, it is looking more disjointed.

Perhaps Google’s ChromeOS, used in ChromeBooks, will eventually bring this type of integration for Android users, but today it doesn’t exist in a Google platform, with the exception of the Chrome browser and the web in general. For example, there is no true Google Tasks apps, unless you consider the applet that is part of Gmail in the web. And there is no mobile Tasks app from Google. Instead, there are several third-party apps that synchronize with Google Tasks.

The new Chrome browser for Android is a step in the right direction, as it can show you open tabs from Chrome on a desktop. Safari can’t do that yet, but it does support bookmark synchronization through iCloud, which is good enough for most people now. The odd thing is that I have used Chrome as my go-to browser for the past three years or so. But again, with Mountain Lion, I flipped over to Safari 5.2, which I find faster than the current version of Chrome, and it supports a synchronized reading list between my iPhone and my MacBook Air.

I smell a trend

Clearly, Apple is unifying the experience across all of its devices, based on the examples here. Google is doing it to a lesser degree between Android and the Chrome browser. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see it attempt to do the same with its ChromeOS, possibly at this year’s Google I/O developer event. But even Microsoft is working the same angle with Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

Both will use the Metro user interface, presumably to provide a seamless experience. It is for this reason among others that I made the prediction of Microsoft handsets outselling BlackBerrys by the end of this year. In December I suggested that “Windows 8 will actually help create demand for Windows Phone in the second half of the year as desktop upgraders will want the Metro user interface on their phones for a unified experience.”

How much could this interaction between Mountain Lion and iOS hurt Android sales? That is hard to say. Those who prefer a greater range of control over their mobile devices will still likely choose an Android device in the near term. But people looking for a “grand user interface unification” may give up some control in order to gain a seamless experience across devices and choose iOS, especially if they are current or new Mac OS X users when Mountain Lion arrives this summer.

I will still continue to rotate through my gadgets based on my needs so that I am always using the best tool for my tasks. Plus I enjoy customizing my Android devices and using my phone to wirelessly pay for goods. However, there is something to be said for Apple’s core integration competency, and I think I said it best in a tweet last week:

It's easy to whine about what a closed system can't do, but If done right, it's hard to whine about what it can do. #Apple #GOM—
Kevin C. Tofel (@KevinCTofel) February 16, 2012

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