Facebook integration to come to OS X later

Shortly after the company's keynote at the WWDC on Monday, Apple released a "near final" OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4 and Server Preview 5 for developers. While some were expecting that OS X 10.8 would gain Facebook integration on the level promised for iOS 6, it appears Apple may wait and implement that feature in Mountain Lion at the same time as it launches in iOS 6 -- in the fall, a few months after Mountain Lion's release.

Developers will get a chance to test Facebook integration early through the separate release of an "OS X Facebook Developer Preview," but the Mountain Lion web page now says that consumers will see the feature "in fall," roughly the same timeframe as the iOS 6 final release. The Developer and Server previews (builds 12A239 and 12S254j respectively) do not ask developers to focus on any particular issues, an indication that the release is as Apple claims "near final."

Testers, who must be registered members of the Apple Developer Connection, are cautioned that any machine they put the Developer Preview on will not be able to be upgraded to the final release through normal upgrade methods. A handful of known issues are noted, including a problem with entering a Wi-Fi password in Setup Assistant for international users (suggesting some non-English characters may be a problem), an issue with FileVault's login window, a pair of video card-based issues still to be ironed out and a bug with Final Cut Studio 3 hanging unless Automatic Graphics Switching is disabled.

The video-card issues relate to the possibility of corrupted videos that can cause crashes on machines with NVidia graphics, and an issue with rotating an external display that can cause a panic on Radeon-based machines. Game Center for the Mac (a new feature in 10.8) is still being worked on, requiring a provisioning profile to use Game Center on developer games at the moment. The peer-to-peer game framework is not supported in this build, nor is "Tell a Friend" functionality in Game Center.

Machines supported for this build include aluminum 2008 and newer MacBooks, iMacs and MacBook Pros from mid-2007 and newer, the MacBook Air, Mac Pros from 2008 and newer, Mac minis from 2009 and newer, and Xserve machines from 2009. OS X Mountain Lion is expected to be released sometime in July and will sell for $20, one-third less than either Snow Leopard or Lion.

by MacNN Staff