OK, so now that I've had a chance to try it out for a little while longer, I thought I'd write a more thorough view of my impressions. Overall, I think Apple hit the right price point for what you get. This update, despite being a "major" version, I consider to be a relatively modest update from Lion.
First, a key difference I see between Windows and OSX is that Apple appears to take a "produce it and they will come" attitude. I started the Mac right when Snow Leopard came out, and a criticism at the time was changes that Apple made that initially made some applications incompatible. Apple didn't apologize or change anything, the apps did. And sure enough after some initial pain in relatively short order everything worked. Similarly when I updated to Lion, there was a little pain, and the same with Mountain Lion. So I expect that before too long, some things will work better than they do currently.
So when I installed the operating system, and pretty immediately my fan came up and things ran slower I suspected that the new features were causing it to slow. However with some investigation, I found some discussion online which led to a fix that I posted on Facebook, resetting the PRAM. The URL is [1]. If you are not technically inclined, the PRAM basically helps the computer to tune things like battery usage and the fan. Once I did that, the computer operated a LOT better.
The second issue was that I would get a "beach ball" when trying to access the "dock" in the top right of the computer, including the spotlight area. The fan also came on, and when I investigated, I found that a certain process was hogging the computer. For a while I was just ending that process, and that "fixed" it. But I had to keep doing it. Today, I found this [2] article because I was running Parallel Desktops. If you are doing so too, you may find this helpful.
The moral of the story, is just by following two simple steps, my OSX Mountain Lion computer appears to functioning identically as when it was running Lion.
Which leads to the question... What do you get for upgrading?
The main reason I upgraded, to be honest, is that it's new and cool. I'm always interested in seeing whether things run better. And in this case, it's a mixed bag.
So for the good, I'm rather OCD about email. I check email all the time. And I like to be able to get all of my email in one place. Which has led to one main issue... Hotmail. Hotmail doesn't expose an IMAP interface, and I personally don't like POP. To my non-technical friends, IMAP and Exchange allow you to have folders, and your email is stored on the server. POP is old and is designed to just download email to your computer. So I downloaded software called "MBox" that makes your hotmail look like an IMAP server. Point is, this software never worked well in Lion (nor do I think Snow Leopard). I got strange errors, and eventually gave up. The good news, is it works now with Mail, so I can literally run one program and read all the email in the 12 accounts I monitor regularly. I realize this is very atypical.
To me, that alone is worth $20.
Looking at other things... One of the key improvements supposedly was with Safari. Safari now will allow you to search from the address bar. OK, cool. My current preferred browser, Chrome, already does that, as well as Internet Explorer since uh IE4? To be fair, I've tried to switch to Safari just to give it a fair shake. That said, I think I'm going to go back to Chrome just because it's just plain better. Sorry, Apple.
Social Web, specifically Twitter. OK, admittedly, I'm biased... My other computer is a Windows Phone 7. (Yes I have other computers, but I use them way less than the Mac and my phone). My phone already is synced with everything (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MSN). And it's cool, and I love it, and I use my phone for that. So when I heard about the features, the question that came to mind "is it cooler than my phone?" At this point it's not, but maybe some day. OSX Mountain Lion allows you to Twitter (and soon Facebook) from the operating system. And sure enough I tweeted from the notification window. Unfortunately, I'm not really into Twitter, so I haven't received any tweets yet (feel free - @dionhoustonsr). Normally when I've used Twitter I've been outside my house, normally places where I don't bring my Mac, but I do bring my phone. Now I do Facebook all the time, pretty much on any device, so I'm highly interested in seeing that integration. So more to follow. Similarly, iMessages seems OK, but I don't really instant message any more either.
I took a look at the Game Center. I am highly interested in the possibility of playing games via the iPad. Specifically I was looking for a way to play Chess with my wife. At this point that doesn't seem possible with Game Center, but we'll see. I recognize this is new territory for Apple.
The iCloud support looks interesting, but I'm not sure how that would fit in with me. I purposely have my entire music library in MP3 format specifically so I can use it on anything. My calendar I keep on an Exchange server so I can sync it again everywhere. Same with my contacts. So right now, I don't really see a use for it, but I think for a lot of people that could be a good deal.
OK, so in a nutshell, here's what I think. Mountain Lion is worth $20. With operating system upgrades come improvements, and in this case, I now have a system that works better for me than previously. I'm still a rabid Mac guy. That said, no new feature has a "wow" for me.
[1] http://socialmediaseo.net/2012/07/25/os-x-mountain-lion-install-errors-problems/
[2] http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20074173-263/dock-using-100-cpu-after-os-x-10.6.8-update-for-parallels-6-users/
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