The release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion brings no major changes to Wi-Fi support compared to the previous 10.7 Lion release, and this edition of the book remains relevant for Mountain Lion. There are two minor differences, however, one useful and the other cosmetic. AirDrop became slightly easier to take advantage of, too.

Apple has finally upgraded its software base station feature, available through the Internet Sharing service in the Network preference pane, to support WPA2 Personal security. Until Mountain Lion, only the old, broken WEP method was available. I've written a long article about the topic for TidBITS: Software Base Station Finally Adds Modern Encryption.

The cosmetic change is in the Wi-Fi menu. If you hold down the Option key before opening the menu, an item is added at the bottom: Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics. This program, found in /System/Library/CoreServices, was available in Lion, but only by navigating to that folder and launching it.

The utility of AirDrop was improved slightly through the new Sharing button in Mountain Lion. You can choose AirDrop from the Sharing drop-down menu to open a sheet for sending files to other parties.

—Posted by Glenn Fleishman on July 25, 2012