Apple to Announce new Mac OS X version in June

swiert writes "Apple has announced that the WWDC conference has been rescheduled in order to present the new version of Mac OS X, codenamed "Panther". Unfortunately, Apple haven't given any details about what to expect from Panther, but after Jaguar this looks promising."

Comments

why

[Anonymous Coward]

why does this have the amd logo instead of the apple logo? are you letting on more than the article blurb?

Re:why

[Izanagi]

WAKE UP, TACO!!!!!!!!!!

Re:why

[Beatbyte]

Yeah no shit!!!
Especially when Apple is switching to INTEL!!!! ;)

Re:why

[helix400]

why does this have the amd logo instead of the apple logo?

Because nobody's emailed Cmdr Taco about the error in the last 2 hours.

Re:why

[rice_web]

I've seen this on multiple occasions, actually. Exactly why this is the case, ask Taco.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

"why does this have the amd logo instead of the apple logo?"

so that it's distinctly differnt from another story somewhere. as such it's not a dupe ;)

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple" appears one entry after "AMD" in the scroll box, and sometimes... that's... just... one.. scroll... too... far.......

(*yawn*)... so tired...

Re:why

[pseudochaotic]

To distract your attention from the story being a dupe, obviously.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/21/ 1424208&mode=thread&tid=107

Looks like it worked, too.

Re:why

[sweetooth]

Topic selection is a pull down box. AMD and Apple are right next to eachother in the list and this is an simple off by one data entry error.

Re:why

[ehiris]

This happened before.
AMD mutates to Apple over time. Just watch ...

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

You're asking for too much if you expect CmdrTaco to check for errors like that...

Re:why

[EvilBuu]

(On-topic points): "Get Empowered. Get Inspired. Get Registered. (emphasis theirs) How does registering for some newsletter empower and inspire us? With all the crap that's going on these days, being told to register for something actually rings of DRM and the rest of the acronym parade...

Anyway, back off-topic: Maybe only subscribers get to see articles with appropriate icons. Now there's something I'd pay subscription fees for: a version of Slashdot with correct icons, no duplicates, working links and proofread editor postings! (and after almost posting an incoherent paragraph, the ability to edit your own comments after posting...)

Does the term "proofread editor postings" seem oxymoronic to anyone else?

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! You stole my moderation points! I posted this info in humorous form over an hour earlier!

Sincerely,

Anonymous Coward (esq.)

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

Finance centers that allow a country to pay for a war are considered a valid dual-use target. For example, the US shut down Iraq's remaning funds within seconds of the start of the war in any county it could.

Re:why

[kurosawdust]

Topic selection is a pull down box. AMD and Apple are right next to eachother in the list and this is an simple off by one data entry error.

I think it's more complex than that...

First of all to understand what happened to Taco, you gotta understand who CmdrTaco was. Now Taco was born to a three-legged bitch of a mother, and he was always ashamed of this, man. And then right after that he's adopted by this man - Tito Liebowitz. He's a small time gun runner and a slashdot-editor fight promoter. So he puts Taco into training. They see he's good. He is damn good. But then he had the fight of his life. They pit him against his brother, GeneralGordita. And Taco said "no man that's my brother, I can't fight Gordita!" but they made him fight anyway, and Taco, he killed Gordita. Taco said "that's it!" He called off all his fights, and he started doing crack, and he freaked out. Then in a rage, he collapsed, and he selected the wrong category in the pull-down menu. wow.

Re:why

[wwwillem]

Topic selection is a pull down box.

I could be proven wrong ofcourse, but pull down list boxes by itself are not too bad, however, combined with those nice scroll wheels on your mouse .... that's asking for disaster. :-) Or am I the only one who often uses that weel to make a selection, then you move the pointer to another area of the window and try to use the wheel to scroll down. The result is often that your selection in the listbox goes haywire (well you just move to the last option), which sometimes goes unnoticed.

Don't know if this happened tonight, but it could, it could ....

Re:why

[awx]

we know. However, most of us would call this a "joke". Look that word up on e2 sometime.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you posted AC. Most people browse with +1 even with mod points. Deal with it.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf does this have to do with Panther? offtopic

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

This is tangential to your point -- not a direct reply.

What I wonder is why (before it was known to be treason) the military and the media called the granade attack in Kuwait a terrorist attack. It there's a war and someone tryies to blow up part of a military instalation, how is that terrorism?

Re:why

[Jezza]

I'm just saying that your sig is actually misleading (it needs clarification) AND is likely to cause offense. I think it would be better if you changed it, as a mark of respect for the lives lost on 9/11, but also as I think that causing offense to someone is a bad start to changing their mind.

As I said I'm not American, and perhaps you'd like to remember that the attack of 9/11 wasn't an attack on Americans but an attack on the nationals of many nations, including the Muslims that the attackers claim to represent.

Re:why

[Jezza]

It's an interesting point - I think that we'd have called it a 'covert operation'. The media do like the word terrorism, as it is now so politically loaded. It does in part depend on WHO is doing it. (Here I mean soldier, operative or citizien not a political classification) I did find the use of the word odd myself.

Re:why

[daniel23]

> AMD mutates to Apple over time. Just watch ...

Well, may be sometimes. I have an AMD here under close surveillance, for several years actually but up to now it just didn't mutate.

~dp

Re:why

[ehiris]

Mine didn't either.
It has something to do with adding Slashdot to the formula.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were strategically valuable port cities. If we had wanted to kill civilians, we would have bombed Osaka or Tokyo.

God, you're an idiot. Do you know the first fucking thing about DU? It's only poisonous in the same sense as any other heavy metal, and so little of it was used in the 1991 war that it's simply not possible for anybody to have been significantly affected by it unless they ate it by the teaspoon.

"Anyway, the atrocious lack of proper evacuation procedure was what caused so many deaths." Fucker! The fact that a bunch of fucking terrorists flew two fucking airliners filled with jet fuel into the buildings is what caused so many deaths! How dare you compare the WTC to the Titanic!? The WTC didn't hit a goddamn iceberg. It was deliberately destroyed by fucking monsters! Asshole!

"And before someone accuses me of lacking clue, a (now dead) relation survived the Titanic, and a good friend was 5 minutes away from being landing ground for one of the 9/11 planes." What the fuck does that have to do with anything? You're just a fucking idiot.

Re:why

[Lars T.]

And if New York were in Iraq, and the WTC still standing, it would be a "dual-use" target for the American military. Period.

Re:why

[Twirlip of the Mists]

War isn't terrorism? Ever been bombed?

Words have specific meanings. The word "terrorism" means the deliberate targeting of civilians by covert means with the goal of affecting political change through the infliction of widespread fear. War is not terrorism, because it doesn't involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, and fear is not its objective.

Yes, Osama bin Laden has openly stated his desire for a "holy war" or jihad against America and Americans -- yet you still claim Al Qaeda is not at war with us.

War is exclusively the province of nations. We do not recognize the right of non-governmental groups to wage war. The word "war" doesn't apply to al Qaeda.

Perhaps if anyone in the State Department had been listening to his repeated calls for the U.S. expulsion from the Holy Land, we could have avoided WTC in the first place.

Sure. If we always do what everybody wants us to do, we'll never make anybody mad. But there comes a time when it's more important to do what's right than what's popular.

Ultimately, it is a continuum, not a dichotomy between War and Terrorism as you have put forth.

That's like saying it's a continuum between war and blueberries. Terrorism is a completely different thing. It is not war, it is not comparable to war, it doesn't even resemble war.

I feel very strongly that its destrucion was part of "a military compain to achieve objectives that cannot be achieved dipolomatically.

That's demonstrably false. Al Qaeda is not a military organization. They are not even associated with any military organizations. At best, they are a guerilla or paramilitary organization, but their methodology-- the repeated targeting of civilian targets-- sets them apart.

My sig is not intended to justify the destruction of the WTC. Rather, its purpose is to point out the ease with which America rationalizes the violence it commits in the rest of the world.

Oh, get off your high horse. Your signature is designed to make people mad. You're not trying to point out anything; you're just trying to pick a fight. If you really wanted to make a legitimate point, you'd use less inflamatory language.

Now, in the war between US and Al Qaeda

There is no war between the US and al Qaeda. There was a war between the US and Afghanistan, but that was is largely concluded now. If al Qaeda were to pick up and move to another sponsoring state, then we would be justified in going to war with that state as well, but that's a different thing.

See, as I said, war is exclusively the province of nations. Our "war on terrorism" is just like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty." It's not literally a war; it's a metaphor.

Clearly I'm not in favor of any more U.S. buildings blowing up, and I tend to wonder why our troops are protecting the Saud family.

Because the House of Saud is our ally. What more do you need to know?

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

More important than the fact that it was initially reported as terrorism is the fact that that characterization was corrected literally within minutes. Even if it had been a sneak attack by an enemy, "terrorism" would not have been the correct word to describe it, and this was recognized and corrected in very short order.

Words have specific meanings.

Re:why

[Qrlx]

I feel like you're hiding behind a UN-sanctioned dictionary with a lot of your language. "War is exclusively the province of Nations."

Does that mean the French-Indian war wasn't really a war? How about the American Revolutionary War? Name the two nations involved at the start of that conflict, please.

You should take a look at who is fighting the "War on Drugs." It's the United States Army and the CIA. I don't think their involvement is intended to underscore the metaphorical aspect of the War on Drugs; rather they provide reconaissance and targeting information to other nations, and have been involved in combat on occasion. Surely it's a small-scale contained engagement, but it's much more of a war than, say, the War on Poverty.

And since when has targeting civilians fallen out of favor? Must have been after Dresden, after Vietnam, after we bombed Libya and blew up Khadaffi's adopted child, after Waco for that matter. War includes a rich history of civilan casualties, and I think your attempts to encapsulate and constrain war to the realm of nation-states and their materiel is asinine, self-serving, and shortsighted.

You paint the picture that Al Qaeda only targets civlians; this is inaccurate. Khobar Towers was a military target, as was the Cole. The embassies and the WTC were not, though an embassy's role in a nation's affairs make it less "civilian" a target than, say, a shopping mall, in my mind.

I'm reminded of that Monty Python episode, where the British generals face crumbling morale in their troops because "The enemy just isn't taking this war seriously!"

Peace!

Re:why

[Qrlx]

The lives lost on 9/11 pale in comparison to the number of civilian casualties brought about by the Pentagon's "dual-use" classification. My sig is a childish attempt to establish a parallel between civilian casualties incurred in America and civilian casualties created by America.

I think civilians everywhere will be better off if the military guys on both sides stop finding excuses to target them. No disrespect is intended.

Peace!

How is it gonna be called?

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOS XI, MacOS X^2, MacOS Y?

Re:How is it gonna be called?

[AlgUSF]

The next version will catch up with Windows XP, so it should be called Max OS XP.......

This is sarcasm, so don't flame!

Re:How is it gonna be called?

[giaguara]

FYI Apple made the os 10 called OS X as it uses Unix at least to some point... Windows copied even the X of the name so they are XP without having anything about anything Unix.

Re:How is it gonna be called?

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it OS XE

XI

[t_aug]

roman numerals seriously are not that hard people X+1=XI

Re:XI

[Klugheitsucher]

For those of you still struggling with Roman Numerals... It even has a Roman Numeral Converter

Re:XI

[Blondie-Wan]

Don't forget the incremental update numbers. I'm running OS XII.iv.

;)

Re:XI

[Anonymous Coward]

_ _ _
L X V D X X X V I

[/guess from information provided in link]

Re:XI

[batobin]

Actually you're not. You're running MacOS X.II.iv.

What you said was that you're running MacOS Twelve point four.

But I realize you weren't posting to be factually accurate, rather to be funny (which I believe you accomplished well).

Re:XI

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you are running OS X version X.II.IV

Re:XI

[axxackall]

I've noticed that recently everything that Apple is doing has i in the front of name. Thus, the version 10 (X in Roman difits) should be called iX . Wait a minute, Roman IX is 9 in Arabic digits. Hmm... sounds like they are not far away from Mac OS 9, at least in its name.

Re:XI

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but when you're Apple it is hard!

Mac OS XI... Is that now Mac OS 10.10.2.1.1? Or, is it now Mac OS 10.10.3.1.1? Or, is it 11.10.2.1.1? Or, 10.11.2.1.1?

Re:XI

[Anonymous Coward]

You got beat up a lot in junior high, didn't you?

WoooHoo

[Anonymous Coward]

MR Taco is the /. repost king.
Way to go taco. Noch another one down.

Love the AMD icon BTW. :P

Re:WoooHoo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's NOT a repost! this one has the AMD logo... see....

While you're at it

[hotspur_fan]

While you're at it, the correct English would be "Apple hasn't".

Re:While you're at it

[ocelotbob]

Actually, both are correct, depending on the part of the world you're in. The article submitter is probably British, where one refers to company actions in the plural, even when the company's name is in the singular form.

Re:While you're at it

[BeagleBoi]

Well, thank god both are correct as the blurb uses both forms.

"Apple has..." is used at the start, and "Apple haven't..." is then used in the second sentence.

And yes, this post is really as pointless as it looks.

Re:While you're at it

[spoonboy42]

Not on slashdot, my friend. And, incidentally, the title of your post should instead read "While your at it".

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Write "Apple ha'n't..."

Everyone will be happy.

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, "While you're (you are) at it" is correct. Furthermore, "your" reply is not grammatically correct!

Re:While you're at it

[staticdragon]

joke, right? Because You're at it = you are at it, which is correct.

Re:While you're at it

[spoonboy42]

To the above two responders: Of course it's a joke! I'm just not trendy enough to use sarcasm tags.

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct spelling in your case is "While you're a tit..."

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do that, no one will be happy except James Joyce. And he's dead. Everyone else will be mad.

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

(makes Jay Leno show style overdone band swell noise to indicate people should laugh at this)

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Being an American who has now lived in the UK for some time, I've found that we Americans do this somewhat as well. We say "Apple is going to release..." and follow it up with "They also ...". To be consistent, we would need to say "It also...", but we don't.

Re:While you're at it

[iwrigley]

Er... no, one doesn't. Every style guide for every publication I've worked on in the UK specifies that companies are singular, not plural.

Re:While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ on a crutch! Not this shit again.

x86?

[Cyno01]

Will it run on x86 architecture, is that why there's an AMD logo?

Forced Upgrade?

[TedCheshireAcad]

I hope this one is a freebie (doubtful), but at least it's not usability-mandatory like the move to Jaguar was. Mac OS X pre-Jaguar was not good enough to be productive, so then Apple releases Jaguar, and everyone shells out $79 (in my case, student discount) for the upgrade to a usable OS.

I wonder how much they'll suck us for this time.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[red5]

Well according to apple the new upgrade system will be one free, one paid. As OS 10, OS 10.1, and 10.2 were.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has never said any such thing. That's how they did 10.1 and 10.2, but there's no guarantee in that. They could charge $5,000 for 10.3, or they could pay you a dollar to take a copy. Either one would be fine.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[red5]

From the BusinessWeek interview

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?

A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

Of course just before that he said they would have charged for 10.1 but they wanted to encourage the adoption of OS X.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[cappadocius]

Link please. I had not heard such a statement.

Considering that a June preview indicates a fall release (remember that Jag had an early summer preview and a fall release) it will have been a year since the last paid release when this comes out. That would seem to indicate this will be a paid release assuming one paid release per year.

Not that I am saying you are wrong, it is just that I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[the_2nd_coming]

see, I got the hook up from my cousin who is a teacher :-)...you need to get a better netwrok man.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

10.1 was very usuable - I got my tasks with no problem (I'm a network admin btw). 10.2 brought some nice improvements but wasn't "usability-mandatory".

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[aberkvam]

Well according to apple the new upgrade system will be one free, one paid. As OS 10, OS 10.1, and 10.2 were.

Actually, Apple has been alternating the paid/free versions of its OS for quite some time now.

7.5 - Paid
7.6 - Paid
8.0 - Paid
8.1 - Free
8.5 - Paid
8.6 - Free
9.0 - Paid
9.1 - Free
9.2 - Free
10.0 - Paid
10.1 - Free
10.2 - Paid

It hasn't always been an exact alternating of paid and free updates, but it's been pretty close for a long time. So if you want to go by history, the next update will be free.

On the other hand, I think the really telling bit of information would be Apple's financials after the Jaguar release. If the money gained from charging $129 for an OS update had a significant positive effect on Apple's bottom line, I would think that Apple would be looking long and hard at charging for Panther.

One thing that has always puzzled me. Why didn't they just call it OS X 10.5 instead of OS X 10.2. People complained because it was just a .1 update, which Apple has rarely charged for. I think simply calling it 10.5 would have placated a lot of people.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[aberkvam]

Business Week interviewed Phil Schiller almost a year ago. His comments are rather interesting and point to Panther being a paid upgrade. Here's the relevant part of the interview:

Q: People are asking why you're charging so much for Jaguar, the new OS X update.
A: We came out with OS X 10.0 in May, 2001, at $129. That's our usual price for paid upgrades. Last fall, we came out with 10.1 Normally, we would decide to charge $129, but because we wanted to help the adoption of OS X, we made it free to our customers. Now, with 10.2, it's $129 again, same as it always has been. I think a year and a half before charging for an upgrade is very reasonable. And we included 150 new features in Jaguar. That's a lot for your money.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?
A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[MarcQuadra]

Apple generally charges for feature updates and not for bug fixes. Sometimes there's a little bit of both, but 9.2 was just 9.0 with some bug fixes and very minor revisions. 7.6 was just all the crap that had accumulated from 7.5 and back rolled into a more monolithic system, but they added a new networking core which was major enough to charge for it.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not this one. This one requires a hardware upgrade to get the most out of it. It includes 64 bit extentions after all. Sure, the paid upgrades have come only about once a year. But the forced hardware upgrades arrive every two years making the real cost to upgrade to a new Mac OS the price of a whole new machine.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[kerry-buckley]

One thing that has always puzzled me. Why didn't they just call it OS X 10.5 instead of OS X 10.2.

Probably to put off the decision on what to call the one after 10.9. MacOS XI? Sounds like a football [1] team.

[1] Or "soccer" for the non-UK majority.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[TheGreek]

Mac OS X 10.10, perhaps. Minor version numbers don't need to be single digits.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[red5]

One thing that has always puzzled me. Why didn't they just call it OS X 10.5 instead of OS X 10.2. People complained because it was just a .1 update, which Apple has rarely charged for. I think simply calling it 10.5 would have placated a lot of people

Or make a 50 dollar upgrade version for people who bought 10. That would have been fine. Though come to think about it I'm sure people would have bitched about that too.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[red5]

Not this one. This one requires a hardware upgrade to get the most out of it. It includes 64 bit extentions after all. Sure, the paid upgrades have come only about once a year.

Something tell me they aren't going to phase out the 17" Tibook less than a year after they bring it out.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are obsessed with numbers. Windows 98 was basically a point update to Windows 95. But almost nobody complained about having to shell out for it. "Windows 98" sounds like a whole new OS! But it really wasn't. It was much-needed fixes to the horrible horrible bugs of Windows 95 that made it almost unusuable. MS knews marketing. They named the OS after a year on purpose, and that purpose was so they can confuse people with year-based branding as to exactly what the difference is between OS's. Unfortunately, it has the downside of making a machine with Win 2000 seem old and clunky if it's 2003 already, hence the move to XP, which is just Win 2000 with bubble gum wrappers.

Apple should avoid the release numbers and stick to animals. Mac OS X Cheetah, and then Mac OS X Jaguar, and now Mac OS X Panther. Drop the points entirely, it just gives people something to complain about.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor version numbers don't need to be single digits.

They don't have to be, but marketing almost makes it mandatory, since most people think a double-digit minor version is really odd. You can't have your product having an odd name.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Mikey-San]

You're ignoring what Schiller said. Your logic was that they're sorta alternating.

But look at the release dates of the major Mac OS releases (working backwards):

10.2 - 2002 - Paid
10.0 - 2001 - Paid
There was no major OS release in 2000, save for the OS X Public Beta, free except for $20 shipping.
Mac OS 9 - 1999 - Paid
Mac OS 8.5 - 1998 - Paid
Mac OS 8 - 1997 - Paid
Mac OS 7.6 - 1996 - Paid
Mac OS 7.5 - 1995 - Paid

At least, I /think/ that's how it went. At any rate, do you see a rough pattern here? Apple have released one "reference release" (paid upgrade) each year, with the exception of 2000, since System 7.5.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[mattkime]

Your list is accurate if you go according to what apple put in a box and sold. but if you go by what apple made people pay for, it goes more like this...

6.0 - Paid (1988)
7.0 - Paid (1991)
7.1 - free
7.5 - free (1995)
7.6 - free
8.0 - Paid (1997)
8.1 - free
8.5 - free
8.6 - free
9.0 - Paid (1999)
9.1 - free
9.2 - free
10.0 - Paid (2001)
10.1 - free
10.2 - Paid (2002)

Apple _has_ made the decision to start using its operating system as a source of revenue, rather than something solely to support their hardware sales. I don't mind it as long as they continue to make updates that i want.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[hmccabe]

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?
A: Actually, McDonalds restaurants around the world release millions of Big Macs every day.

Got $129 bucks, you're in luck.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

linux 1.0 free
linux 1.2 free
linux 2.0 free
linux 2.2 free
linux 2.6 (free?!)

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[wtmcgee]

i'm hoping that *if* they do charge for it, we could see some sort of upgrade pricing scheme. maybe $129 for the full version, and a $79 upgrade charge.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[aberkvam]

New network core? Not really. Actually, your description of "crap... rolled into a more monolithic system" and "a new networking core" is a good description of System 7.5.3.

System 7.5 had a ton of different enablers and patches through 7.5.2. (Supporting all the Mac clones coming out at that time only added to the confusion.) And PCI PowerMacs had recently come out, which the old networking core didn't support at all. So Apple rushed Open Transport (their new networking core) out for these new Macs. The System software they were distributing was an ugly mass of hacks and kludges.

Finally Apple rolled all the hacks into one solid System version, incorporated a version of Open Transport that worked on all Macs (except the original 68000 Macs), added a lot more PowerPC-specific code (which reduced crashes a lot), and threw in a ton of other bug fixes. This release was System 7.5 Update 2.0 (i.e. 7.5.3).

Mac OS 7.6 featured a much improved installer, the Apple Internet Connection Kit (the first time Apple shipped system software with web browsers), a new Extension Manager, and a lot of under-the-hood stability enhancements. It did also pull in some technologies that had previously only been available separately.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Hurricane_Bill]

I called Apple and asked them if I upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2 now, would I have to pay again when 10.3 is released. He said it would be a free upgrade. I spoke with them just last week.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're quite a bit off on your early years there. System 7.5 was the first that Apple charged for. Before that, you could download System Software for free.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Sri Lumpa]

"You can't have your product having an odd name."

Why not? This way, with Mac OS X 10.10 Apple will have an OS with an odd and even version number ;)

Anyway, if it makes people talk about it because of its "odd" version number then it's that much more publicity for it.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[TheNetAvenger]

And people complain about the Microsoft Upgrade Cycle.

Jump from one frying pan to a hotter one.

And I have downloaded close to 25 Updates and new features for WindowsXP for free in under a year. (Not counting security fixes which are automatically installed)

Geesh...

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh ... there have been four minor updates for OSX since 10.2 was released. That doesn't include security updates and app updates. What people are talking about are major updates.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[MarcQuadra]

I stand corrected. OT came out in 7.5, but it was really nasty and didn't seem to come into it's own until 7.6. 7.6 was Apple's 'Let's be done with 7' release, it seems, just like 9.2 is their 'lets be done with classic' release. The 'crap rolled into one monolithic system' comment referred to the removal of the enablers and the integration of a number of extensions and technologies.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[mikedaisey]

They can't call it 10.5--they will run out of points before they hit 11, and for marketing they want to keep calling it OS X.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[mkldev]

Mac OS X 11. Oh wait....

http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/

Umm... not quite what I meant.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's common practice in the software industry when people upgrade a product after its successor is announced, and really doesn't answer the question....

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Mikey-San]

Bzzzzzz. Wrong.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr& u=http://eibr.adfi.ucl.ac.be/apple/apple.misajour. anciens.os.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpurchase%2Bsyst em%2B7%2Bmac%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3 DG

Apple charged for system software before 7.5. I used to have System 6 floppies somewhere.

However, versions prior to 7.6 (7.5.5 and before) can be downloaded freely from ftp.apple.com--but this is today, not back during the days of their releases.

-/-

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why didn't they just call it OS X 10.5 instead of OS X 10.2"

How about this idea:
Apple just made a switch to OS X, a new operating system based on uniX (emphasis on the X). They are trying to get the public hooked on that whole X idea. So why change to something different like XI? Because that's counter-intuitive for their marketing.

I think of it like this: they have OS X. First was the incomplete 10.0, which amounted to a polished beta (which was fun to tinker with, but nothing special). Then can 10.1, rather like a version 1.0 release of OS X. It went to version 1.5 before releasing version 2.0, also known as 10.2/Jaguar. Currently its at version 2.4. With all the money invested into MacOS X, they would lose more if they switched to OS 11. Soon we'll get version 3.0, aka 10.3/Panther. At least, that's how I've described the OS pattern to my friends whenever they ask about my OS.

If only I could upgrade my laptop without buying a new one...

Money

[kruczkowski]

The real question is will they charge for the upgrade.

Seriusly I bought my ibook and i'm thinking that my next laptop will be a IBM with XP.

Re:Money

[dcstimm]

??

how can you not like your ibook? Awesome laptop, Im writing this from my ibook now. I sell PC laptops and they just dont compair. But if you are going to buy a PC laptop I would recommend a Toshiba laptop. They are far better than anything else on the PC market.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

?? how can you not like your ibook?

Umm... because I have to pay $100 every time they decide to release bug fixes which should be free!

Re:Money

[Mononoke]

The real question is will they charge for the upgrade.

Seriusly I bought my ibook and i'm thinking that my next laptop will be a IBM with XP.

Then don't buy the upgrade. There's not a time limit on 10.2.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to do the same thing in windows.

Re:Money

[sandoz]

How much does Windows cost? Remember, Apple doens't car if it is an upgrade or a full install. $100 isn't bad compared to $300+ for a full copy of Windows. Most likely, your like most people and will get it from a friend or download it, without paying anyway.

Re:Money

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I'll buy your iBook from you for a fair price. Email me when you're ready to sell.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

The 10.1 -> Jaguar upgrade was hardly "bug fixes which ought to be free". Quartz Extreme, Rendevous, vastly improved networking with regards to Windows interoperability, to name a few. Don't let the version number fool you, Jaguar was a major upgrade.

If Apple charged you for the 10.2.1, 10.2.3, ... upgrades, then you'd have something to complain about. They don't. Suck it up and pay for the upgrade, or stick with whatever version you're using now. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade.

Re:Money

[abischof]

Seriusly I bought my ibook and i'm thinking that my next laptop will be a IBM with XP.

If you decide to sell it, I may be interested in buying it :).

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't _have_ to upgrade. In any case 69$ or whatever they charge for the upgrade is a lot cheaper than the 1500$ you would pay for a new Windows laptop.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, since when did MS start charging for service packs? Even new functionality included in new versions of IE and DirectX, etc. are free.

Re:Money

[Shanep]

Seriusly I bought my ibook and i'm thinking that my next laptop will be a IBM with XP.

Thinkpad's are really nice, I love the keyboard especially. But then I love my iBook too (I've got both). But I prefer to run OpenBSD on both of my notebooks.

I think it would be nice if Apple re-arranged their version numbering so that "major chargable upgrades" came once every 2 years and everything in between was a free online update. I was about to purchase Jaguar about 2 weeks ago, I'm glad the local Apple dealer was shut that Sunday, because this news would have annoyed me.

But, just nice, they can charge if they want and we are free to decide whether we will buy into it or not. MS is hardly any less money hungry.

I think that Apple's OS just keeps getting better and better as time goes on, which I can't really say about MS OS'. I'm sticking with Windows 2000 Pro for my Wintel needs, probably until they completely end-of-life it, at which time I'll hopefully have been able to rid myself of any need of Windows for good.

Re:Money

[pudge]

Umm... because I have to pay $100 every time they decide to release bug fixes which should be free!

Apple has released dozens of bugfixes for Mac OS X which were free, whether maintenance upgrades of the OS, or Security Updates, etc. It charges for the major releases: 10.0, 10.1, 10.2. Stop the FUD.

Re:Money

[Anonynnous Coward]

Then don't buy the upgrade. There's not a time limit on 10.2.

By that logic, we could all be running 10.1, except that you can't run much other new software on 10.1. So while 10.1 won't "expire," it's still effectively a forced upgrade if you want to run much other new software. So will be the case from 10.2 to 10.3.

The only place I haven't seen this work lately is the "upgrade" from Windows 9x/2000 to Windows XP--the product activation caused the upgrade product to fail at market so badly that enough have stuck with what they have that ISVs are forced to continue supporting the older versions.

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

How much do you offer?

I have the highest ibook with 640 RAM, airport, 30 GB and 5gb ipod (Won't work with the IBM, so might as well sell it.)

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

I posted to the other guy,

how much do you offer? I have the highend ibook with 640 RAM, 30 GB, airport and 5GB ipod. Might aswell sell the ipod becouse it won't work with a IBM

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes no sense. Windows upgrades aren't free either. I see this response all the time.

"Apple is going to charge for an update therefore my iBook goes on eBay and I'm getting a Dell"

That makes NO sense.

If the iBook still works, no one is going to make you upgrade it.

If you think its some kind of protest to apple you're nuts as well.

Go sell your iBook. Mac users won't miss you.

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

I like the design on the laptop, but OS X is just too slow for me and it don't have a snap feel to it. I hate that when you maximize a windows it don't cover the entire screen. Also hate the Apple-Tab.

It just seams that I get things done faster in a Windows 2000 box.

For example to open Safari on my ibook takes about 5 seconds. Word is about 10.

Mabye the TiBooks are faster. Don't know, can anyone comment about the diffrence between a G3 and G4?

Re:Money

[usotsuki]

OMG, 640K iBook?!! *joking*

-uso.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

From my experience going from the G3 to G4 is like night and day. All of the guidence I've received from the mac addicts I've worked with is to not even bother buying a G3, it's just not worth it.

Re:Money

[ahknight]

10.0 - bugs, $129
10.0.1 - fixes, free
10.0.2 - fixes, free
10.0.3 - fixes, free
10.0.4 - fixes, free
10.1 - bugs and fixes, $129 (free for most, though)
10.1.1 - fixes, free
10.1.2 - fixes, free
10.1.3 - fixes, free
10.1.4 - fixes, free
10.1.5 - fixes, free
10.2 - bugs and fixes, $129
10.2.1 - fixes, free
10.2.2 - fixes, free
10.2.3 - fixes, free
10.2.4 - fixes, free

They're not charging you for the fixes, they're charging you for the bugs! =)

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

That might explain why my laptop is so slow.

Re:Money

[afantee]

>> I like the design on the laptop, but OS X is just too slow for me and it don't have a snap feel to it.

My iMac (400 MHz) and 2 iBooks (500 & 700 MHz) are all quite snappy.

>> For example to open Safari on my ibook takes about 5 seconds. Word is about 10.

Safari lauches in 4 seconds or 3 bounces on my 400 MHz iMac. How fast do you want it? In any case, I really hate a Wintel idiot like you complaining about such trivil matters. Does it really make you more productive if Safari launches in 1 second rather than 5? There are far more important issues to be concerned about. How about the lack of constant danger of virus and worms on the Mac or the convenience of instant sleep and wake up or the virtually silent working environment and energy efficiency or the lickable GUI for the pleasure of your eyes or weeks and months uptime or the ease of software update or the one-click install and uninstall?

Re:Money

[Llywelyn]

I just purchased a new 12" PowerBook and it is *signifcantly* faster than my 600 MHz iBook. That being said, I found the iBook to be quite snappy, how much RAM do you have?

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

For Apple-Tab, go to http://www.proteron.com/liteswitchx. That'll take care of it.

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

Well, I like some things about my mac, but some things make me mad.

Yahoo messanger locks up on me often.

I hate how the Apple-Tab cycles thru apps in the doc order and not the order of open.

I also don't like that finder locks up the entire laptop. Yes I tried the Alt-Apple-ESC. Nothing.

Don't like how you can mount a SMB share and then try disconecting it when the server is no longer avalible. My ibook just locks up.

Copy and paste doen't work all the time with all programs.

I also get the stupid rainbow cursor all the time. It halt my entire laptop for a few second and sometimes it crashed the app.

I tried reinstalling 3 times and the same happens.

My friend had a ibook also and he gets the apple BSOD after about 5 minutes from the time he goes on battery.

Re:Money

[kruczkowski]

640 RAM.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

on my 1ghz tibook, safari launches in less than a second. Haven't tested office, i think its made by some evil company or something.

Re:Money

[afantee]

Without knowing any details about your system, I can't comment on your situation. But I have been a C++ / Java programmer on Unix (Solaris, HP / UX, etc) and Windows for over 10 years, and OS X is simply the best OS for me in every way - stable, fast, pretty, and preloaded with tons of free and best-of-breed programs and programming tools.

Now I do everything on an iBook (programming, graphics, DVD, music, Internet,etc) and typically keep dozens of programs running for weeks and rarely reboot or shut down the machine.

Finder might not be ferfect, but it doesn't crash the system and you can always relaunch it.

Re:Money

[DJ FirBee]

I have the TiBook G4 400 mhz with 640 megs RAM.

OSX has been snappy on this machine. 10.1 was not but Darwin and Jaguar fly on this machine.

Best computer I have ever owned. Best OS I have ever run. My first mac. Blah blah blah love it. Really.

I probably would have had a harder time if I had not spent so much time with BSD, Sys V, Linux, HPUX ... blah blah blah.

It's a sleek unix box that runs all of the fun stuff. Network hauls ASS on this box. I wonder what the next upgrade will give me.

Peace.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of things I need to clear up here.

The reason Apple didn't make Jag a .5 upgrade (as in 10.5) is because of the branding consequences involved with an OS 11 OR XI. They are pumping this OS TEN and to change the name would only hurt. After 10.3 they will have another 7 years of promoting OS X and by then, well Apple will have gone out of business, right?
It is too bad that people are getting upset over paying for a .1 upgrade when the upgrades really merit a .5. It?s only numbers.

Apple will charge for 10.3 and 10.4?

Re:Money

[abischof]

kruczkowski

I not currently employed, so I wouldn't be able to buy it right away. Perhaps in a few months, things may be different.

In the meantime, if the other guy has given a reasonable offer, I would not be offended if you were to accept it.

The real question

[jyg1234]

The real question isn't "why does this article have an AMD logo". The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"

Re:The real question

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question (Score:3, Redundant) by jyg1234 (309917) on Sunday March 23, @09:17PM (#5581072)

The real question isn't "why does this article have an AMD logo". The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"

Judging by your score, someone else thougt the same of you.

Re:The real question

[happypizzaguy]

No, the real real question is, why are you getting modded redundant when you are only pointing out the abundancy of non-redundant moderated posts? If people want to mod down so much, at least point it at stuff that applies...

Re:The real question

[1u3hr]

The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"

Because if only one person pointed out that the post is either a dupe, or has the wrong logo (this has both, along with grammatical errors), then Taco et al can say "Of the x million readers only ONE cares". As it is, now though they still try to laugh off their mistakes and carelessness as irrelevant, they can't say that no one cares. Eventually they might get annoyed or embarrassed enough from people bitching that they implement any of the simple systems that would detect most dupes or spelling mistakes. Forcing them to select the correct logo might be harder, evidently.

Re:The real question

[Anonymous Coward]

With Intel and AMD delivering faster and more powerful processors at a rate which makes your head swim, the consequences are plain as day. Apple is hurting, its spindly financial footing sinking ever deeper into that fiscal bog of no return. Frankly, many prominent industry analysts have crunched the numbers, concluding that Apple's outlook is bleak indeed.

In Apple's latest numbers released in January for its fiscal first quarter of 2003, revenue fell from a year earlier and all of the company's major computer lines saw diminished numbers. PowerMac sales were down 20%, while iBook sales fell 8%.

At the same time Apple's sales were falling, PC sales rose, though just slightly, according to figures from IDC released last month.

The last time Apple was in this state, it brought back co-founder Steve Jobs to fix its issues. He fostered the development of the iMac and secured a US$150-million investment from Microsoft. But there aren't any new iMacs in Apple's future and Microsoft, bolstered by its victory over the U.S. Department of Justice, is clearly not going to help the beleaguered computer maker this time.

So what have you got left? Apple is a company that controls around 3% of the computer market, has recently undergone a restructuring and is slowly fading into nothingness. Software makers don't even have Mac users on their radar and it's not like Apple can bring Mr. Jobs back to right the ship this time -- he's already there.

Stick a fork in 'em -- this Apple is cooked.

ADC

[XxtraLarGe]

*YAWN* I knew about this two days ago. Maybe CmdrTaco needs to join the ADC ;-)

post

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok someone hurry up and read the article and post goodies. don't feel like reading the long version. :-)

Re:post

[Anonymous Coward]

The slashdot summary is the long version.

Re:Ummm....

[AssFace]

maybe it is related to that other front page article saying that OSX will be on "Intel" one of these days.
"Intel" in this case meaning "not PowerPC"

Panther? I don't know but...

[JoeShmoe]

...if it's not "Pink" then I will be very disappointed!

You have diamond theme, and your screensaver could feature the bulmbing antics of Inspector "Meecroseeeft" as he tries to do the same tasks the Pink Panther so suavely and easily performs.

- JoeShmoe
.

pre-release advertisement and hype

[stonebeat.org]

I hope apple does a better job in creating the pre-release hype. i have been hearing about panther here and there, but apple needs to have a whole campaign, like MS did for XP.

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[BigBir3d]

for a minor number revision!

"announcing windows XP SP5, the 'must buy' of the computing year!"

yeah... ok... whatever.

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope apple does a better job in creating the pre-release hype.

You're joking, right? Every Macworld, Steve is like the guy holding the porkchop, and the press is the dog that hasn't eaten in a week. Apple easily gets as much press as MS, often more. Their products(not just the OS) are so good that they're regularly discussed/reviewed in the papers/mags. When was the last time you read a review of a Microsoft software product, or a news item that the latest version of Streets & trips is out?

i have been hearing about panther here and there, but apple needs to have a whole campaign, like MS did for XP.

Why? MS advertises to convince people it's necessary or there's some magical, wonderful thing that'll make their lives better/more productive, when it's just the same bullshit with a different, prettier, slower, opens-in-a-different-way-to-make-the-training-comp anies-happy container.

Apple just puts in things people want/will care about, and people see the value, and buy the software. There's usually a lot of cool stuff to warrant the upgrade- for example, Jaguar introduced Quartz Extreme, which people couldn't stop raving about.

There's an old rule of thumb- the quality of the product is inversely related to the amount of money spent advertising it. If the product's good enough, its success doesn't depend on advertising, because people KNOW it's good and tell OTHER people it's good.

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[stonebeat.org]

Most of my knowledge usually comes from Scott Adam's (writer of Dilbert) books.
In his book titled "THE DILBERT FUTURE", prediction #43 says:
"In the future, the science of advertising will improve to the point where buying what you see in an advertisement is no longer optional"
Please read the book for details, on why advertisement will be important in the future.

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[b-baggins]

Minor number revision equals 10.2.x

Major product upgrade equal 10.x

It's not that hard to figure out.

Just like the X in OS X is a play on words. Roman numeral 10 for version 10, and X for uniX. Sheesh, my 10-year old boy got it.

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[saintlupus]

f the product's good enough, its success doesn't depend on advertising, because people KNOW it's good and tell OTHER people it's good.

You didn't happed to run the marketing department for DEC, did you?

--saint

Re:pre-release advertisement and hype

[saintlupus]

That should be "happen," not "happed." "Happed" is what you've done to someone when they cease to be "hapless."

--saint

And it's going to run on AMD chips!

[Anonymous Struct]

According to the icon, this is an AMD story, so if I don't get MacOS X on an AMD chip in June, you're getting my therapy bill.

Actually, to say something at least on topic, my fiancee got a 12" powerbook today, and while it really hits the pocketbook hard, I have to admit it's pretty slick. Just keep the good stuff coming, and maybe I'll buy one next. Once we recover financially, that is...

Re:And it's going to run on AMD chips!

[Anonymous Coward]

An AMD chip is not going to make a Powermac any cheaper.

Re:And it's going to run on AMD chips!

[TonyMillion]

If I DO get a AMD chip in my apple in June you'll be getting my therapy bill.....

Re:AMD logo?

[acoustix]

They're giving us a clue: Apple is moving to the x86 platform!!!

I just couldn't resist.

Exclusive info behind the name of Jaguar...

[Eagle5596]

Many people were wondering at the choice of Jaguar and Panther for the latest Mac OS X names. Wanting to get to the bottom of this I asked the Apple heads, and this is what they told me:

"Well, we did want to name it yellow-tailed marmoset at first, but figured it was a little wimpy and obscure. Bitch was suggested too, until we remembered Microsoft had already taken that (albeit in their case it was the name they bestowed on users of Windows). What else choice did we have? Like an OS called Poodle would sell any copies..."

And there you have it!

Re:Exclusive info behind the name of Jaguar...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA he bashed M$, MOD tihs baby up!!!11!

Re:Exclusive info behind the name of Jaguar...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch was suggested too, until we remembered Microsoft had already taken that (albeit in their case it was the name they bestowed on users of Windows).

In Soviet Russia, Windows XP YOUR bitch!

Re:Exclusive info behind the name of Jaguar...

[Anonymous Coward]

More evidence that /. needs a "Stupid" moderation option...

Re:Exclusive info behind the name of Jaguar...

[djh101010]

So, they won't be naming this one after a ButtHead Astronomer, then? I just wonder what happens when they run out of big-cat names. I mean, lynx is taken aready for something else, bobcat is a piece of construction equipment, tiger sounds too cute-sy, and tabby is too underwhelming. I certainly hope that Apple has mapped this out, so they don't end up looking silly as they get up towards OS XI.

Dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew NFL expansion teams were paying out the wazoo to have subliminal advertising by way of Apple. After Panther, its the new Brown, then the Texan.

Re:Dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, they still have Bengal and Lion before they run out of cat names. Tiger if they want to cross sport lines.

Re:OS X: Panties Edition

[Anonymous Coward]

Brings new meaning to the concept of lickable!

one thing it will have

[jbellis]

is jdk 1.4.1 (currently available from apple's software update). this is BIG to java developers -- I had one friend sell his powerbook 6 months ago b/c he got tired of it coming out "any day now." But it's not vapor anymore, finally.

Re:one thing it will have

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded "Interesting"?

Panther will have a feature that Jaguar has had for weeks now! How's that for inside info!?!?

Re:one thing it will have

[Anonymous Coward]

"Java Developers" are all pedophiles. Nobody cares about them.

Re:one thing it will have

[twoshortplanks]

I'd be nice if they put perl 5.8.1 on there too. Perl developers are fed up using the dog old 5.6.0 they ship in Jaguar.

Re:one thing it will have

[BShive]

Since 1.4.1 is available now, it's not really big news that Panther will incorporate it too. 1.4.1's release was news two weeks ago ...

Re:one thing it will have

[Jon Abbott]

May I suggest this link? Or even better, just run "sudo perl -MCPAN -eshell" and then type "install Bundle::CPAN" -- that will not only update your copy of the CPAN module, it will download, compile, test and install perl 5.8 for you automatically. Three cheers for perl!

Re:one thing it will have

[Drakonian]

It was already released via Software Update. See here. And I think it wasn't finished when they released it - it broke some applications HUGELY. Here is a wonderful description of my favorite known issue from the Release notes:

Radar #3160445

Apparent random crashes of Java applications.

Some applications that use Java2D can crash unexpectedly with a crash log that specifies a failure in Java_apple_awt_CRenderer. This is a known issue and is being investigated.

Workaround: None.

Re:one thing it will have

[Pinky]

My app isn't happy in the new 1.4.1.. I have reported every bug I have found. I'm on 10 show stopping bugs on bug tracker at the moment. Hopefully they will fix one before the next release (sigh)...

You should have been on the java seed-list lots of fun complaning going on there.

Ocelot

[starphish]

I think it should be called "Ocelot". Pronounced "OS-A-Lot". It's another spotted cat.

Re:Ocelot

[ocelotbob]

Of course, they may be saving Ocelot for when they release a PDA, so they can have ocelot as the codename for the desktop OS, and margay for the PDA OS. After all, a margay is an ocelittle (or is that ocefew?).

Re:Ocelot

[starphish]

Yeah, but Margay doesn't have "OS" in it. An Ocelot is a better play on words, and an appropriately spotted cat.

Re:Ocelot

[morcheeba]

Let's hope it doesn't cocelot.

Re:Ocelot

[ocelotbob]

I was trying to make a pun -- use Ocelot for the "big" OS and Margay for the "little" OS. However, since I had to explain the joke, I ruined it, and now I suck. *pout*

Re:Ocelot

[Anonymous Coward]

A one-button mouse would be a perfect complement to a one-armed gunman..."I love the smell of Carbon in the morning!"

E.g. Revolver Ocelot, evil bad guy from Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2

Re:Ocelot

[md04]

You know it shits coffee beans too :) I'm sure there is a a Java joke there

Re:Ocelot

[darien]

Maybe they could do something like the "Switch" adverts. The campaign could be called "people who use the Margay."

Re:Ocelot

[Snafoo]

I think it should be called 'cougar'... ....because it's a 30-some-odd-year-old OS wearing a metric crapload of eye candy in order to appeal to teenage males.

Re:Ocelot

[jcupitt65]

How do you titilate an ocelot?

You oscillate it's tit a lot.

Re:Ocelot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious that you have never USED OS X. If you had, you wouldn't be bitching about eye candy, but praising the:

- Easy development environment

- PDF everything

- OpenGL acceleration

- etc.

Re:Ocelot

[Anonymous Coward]

EDB has swallowed [ocelotbob]! EDB needed that!

Would...

[secondsun]

...this be like comparing Apples to Athlons?

Ba du dum.

rumoring?

[Leimy]

Suddenly slashdot is run by John C. Dvorak it seems. :)

They will just change the spots

[traskjd]

The nice spotted X logo will become all black :D

(at least I am sure how MSFT would update it - change how it looks ;))

Re:They will just change the spots

[sharl]

There had better be a pink version. Anyone out there good with fur rendering?

Well

[Kirby-meister]

It's a good thing slashdot never posts anything that may cause sensational rumors and misinformation :P

Re:Well

[Drakonian]

Well, it was reported by a fairly reputable organization. No one linked to this for some reason.

Re:Well

[Kirby-meister]

I was referring to the AMD icon they had used for this news posting instead of the normal Apple icon everybody would have expected. Thus the reason you have so many posts about Apple going to AMD or Intel.

Of course

[Sophrosyne]

its obvious they will charge for it, it is not manditory you purchase it. Your laptop will have the same functionality (or perhaps more given the 10.2.X updates) when you purchased it-- if you want to add value you can choose to upgrade your system- otherwise all the original functionality will still be there for you.
Microsoft did not give out copies of Windows XP to people who bought computers with Windows 98.

Re:Of course

[batboy78]

Perhaps they will release Safari 1.0 with 10.3. I really hate switching between browsers when a page doesn't render well in Sarari.

Re:Of course

[squiggleslash]

Microsoft did not give out copies of Windows XP to people who bought computers with Windows 98.

And to put things into perspective, the amount Microsoft charges for an "upgrade" version of any version of Windows is usually $99, which is only a little less than what Apple generally charges for the full version of its operating systems ($129)

I'm a happy Jaguar user and probably will not upgrade to Panther if it's a Microsoft-style fee for upgrading mind you, but then I think Jaguar's the first OS X that'll be around for a while, by all accounts previous versions were not terribly usable, whereas Jaguar's a joy to use.

Re:Of course

[heitikender]

Well, MacOS X 10.1 and MacOS X 10.2 are totally different, too. One is usable-non version and the other is usable version.
I know I sound ridiculous but I'm speaking from experience.

Re:Of course

[MarcQuadra]

But they SHOULD have given Win98 Second Edition to anybody who paid for Win98, just like they SHOULD have given Win95B to anyone who paid for Win95.

Microsoft and Apple are very different in this respect, Apple likes to give bugfix and minor enhancements away because it's an investment in their user base. Microsoft likes to wait it out and then charge you for what you thought you were paying for last year.

On a side note: GPL'd software tends to tell you that it can't do a damn thing, but then you download it and look at the compile options and see that it does exactly what you were hoping it could do. Updates and upgrades are free, and bugfixes are usually hours in the making, not days or longer.

Plain and simple

[ihatewinXP]

Mac OS X.3
Ten Point Three

As we have today 10.2.4 I dont see anything changing (well maybe a few things, but not the naming scheme).

Re:Plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot!

The name of the operating system is Mac OS X. The version number is (presently) 10.2.4. When this release ships, it will be version 10.3.

So it will be called Mac OS X 10.3. Not X.3, not Y, not XI, not X.III, not any of the other wrong-headed suggestions from the mouth-breathers such as yourself.

Re:Plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Already version 10.2.4? Where can I get Mac OS X versions 1 through 9?

Re:Plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't any. Version 10.0 was the first public release of Mac OS X.

Re:Plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you can get info for Mac OS X Server 1.2

So you can pay for Windows Upgrades?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the heck kinda of logic is that? Windows upgrades cost money too, accutally more...

Re:So you can pay for Windows Upgrades?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the logic of the MS astro turfer.

10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Znonymous Coward]

System-wide metal interface

Support for 64-Bit architecture

QuickTime 6.5

iChat 2.0 with videoconferencing capabilities

Final Safari release 1.0 GM

Updated iApps (possible inclusion of iWorks?)

Enhanced Dock features

Overall system speed enhancements

Optimized for the new systems (AMD, Itanium or PPC970??)

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[NitroPye]

System-wide metal interface .. ew To be honest metal is only good for certain UI

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

Introduction of and embedded version on MacOS X

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Billly Gates]

Here is a link to rumors.com. WHere do you see anything apple or computer related?

Another website maybe?

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[ruiner13]

"System-wide metal interface"

oh man, i hope not. that would be scary. the horizontal lines are bad enough, but this metal fad has to die now. I feel like i'm living in a mad max movie. If i will not have the option of turning it off (as i do now in most apps with minor work), I will not like this new os. I hope that's just rumor, but we'll see.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Znonymous Coward]

It's called looprumors dot com

Slashcode splits apart domains for some reason

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Znonymous Coward]

Yea, metals sucks. Maybe they can add theme support like in Gnome.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[petsounds]

I hope not either. The metal interface flies in the face of the UI standards Apple developed and has championed since the beginnings of the Macintosh. The buttons aren't standard, the "appliance" metaphor doesn't translate well, and it is unweildy and wastes lots of space. I'm not sure what changed internally within Apple's UI team to allow this to fester and grow.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

Billy Gates, you are the biggest douche in the universe.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[kimota]

System-wide metal interface
I hope not; it has more enemies than Aqua has had, and would represent an awfully rapid departure from Aqua, which Apple clearly used to love.

Support for 64-Bit architecture
This would be nice; it's truly OS-related and is likely to happen sooner or later.

QuickTime 6.5
Apple has historically shipped QT as its own product (and clearly as its own source of revenue). It might get rolled up with the shipping version of 10.3, but it won't be a major feature since you'll almost certainly be able to get it elsewhere.

iChat 2.0 with videoconferencing capabilities
Granted, OS X as a whole is still a new beastie, so Lord only knows the directions in which Apple will go, but I have a hard time believing that Apple will expect us to drop $120 or so for a bunch of updated applications (particularly when they could potentially sell a suite of updates as its own product a la iLife). Again, this might ship with 10.3. It might even be only supported under 10.3, but is not compelling enough to make 10.3 necessary. Still, H.323 support (or support for whatever its heir apparent is) within the OS is SORELY lacking, according to my videoconferencing friends, so I know they'll gleefully welcome this.

Final Safari release 1.0 GM
Same as above, but I really think this will probably be available as a standalone, free download.

Updated iApps (possible inclusion of iWorks?)
You should be able to anticipate my answer here. iWorks would change things, but I bet if it ends up really happening, it will be like Keynote, a standalone product. Or maybe I should have likened it to AppleWorks....

Enhanced Dock features
Again, not compelling.

Overall system speed enhancements
Something to be excited about, enough for some people to finally make the jump, but not enough on its own. Remember, since adoption of OS X has been pretty high, 10.3 has to appeal at least as much to people who are already running OS X as it does to people who have not upgraded from 9 or lower-- and also to people running Windows.

Optimized for the new systems (AMD, Itanium or PPC970??)
This would present a pretty radical departure and is one sort of exciting "event" that I have to assume Apple have plenty of with 10.3, but again, isn't compelling to people already owning Macs or already running Mac OS X 10.2.

I have to expect, simply from paying attention to the past:

1. several "new" GUI changes, perhaps re-inclusion of OS 7-9 features, such as labels, some maybe from other OSes, some we haven't seen before.

2. some application or GUI features the likes of which just about no one has anticipated. Just like Jack Kirby did, Apple is always forcing you to expect the unexpected.

--Kimota!

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

If apple announces 64 bit support it won't be long before announcing a 64 bit platform to run it on. I'm sure there will be other improvements but I don't see them selling a 64 bit platform running 10.2., so there is a need to name it 10.3 for that reason alone. The other listed thing as well as many minor changes do add up. You have to remember that OS X is still maturing and many "standard" apps are still being updated frequently.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what changed internally within Apple's UI team to allow this to fester and grow

Steve Jobs loves the brushed metal, according to what I've heard. That'll make a big impact.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

You look at a lot of compelling updates and say "eh" and then your hope is that they add LABELS??? Woah, man, I need to sit down. You're blowing my mind.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I absolutely hate the metal look, along with the glassy round buttons.

With what I've seen from luna, and longhorn, it looks like ms & apple are copying all the BAD theme designs available in kde/gnome.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[fulldecent]

Going to 64 bit would be great, since they are currently at 128 bit.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you have no clue what the fuck you're talking about.

The vector processing unit running at 128-bits is a far cry from the whole processor running at 128-bits.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

And the vector processor isn't 128bit anyway, it runs at 32bit precision on 4 chunks of data simultaniously.

4*32

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[sheriff_p]

Still, H.323 support (or support for whatever its heir apparent is) within the OS is SORELY lacking, according to my videoconferencing friends, so I know they'll gleefully welcome this.

Yahoo Messenger for Mac OS X provides video-conferencing, and fairly well too - it works over NAT too, which is something I believe H.323 doesn't natively support.

So far, it's the only decent system I've found. It's free, it's cross-platform, and I like it a lot :-)

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't waste any time, head right on over to http://xmeeting.sf.net/ and check out the great work being done there.

Currently they have an app, ohphoneX, which is based on ohphone project, and works natively in MacOS X and supports any Quicktime video/audio device for H.323 compliant videoconferencing. It supports NAT as well as the use of gatekeepers.

I've only used it very briefly, but was quite impressed. It's compatible with GnomeMeeting and NetMeeting (although I think NetMeeting users need to install a freely available GSM codec).

And it will be on an Intel platform!

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy mother! I'll be the first to buy an Intel Mac.

64 bit OS?

[jsmith38]

Is panther going to be a 64 bit OS? Are they preping us for the IBM 970? That would make sense why they are trying to get all the Developers proper training on the new OS, (but they do that usually). What other tools could they give us? Probably something that no-one else is doing, or no-one else is doing well. Some things I would like to see: Better integrated ftp support (You can see a hint of this with safari). More options of the gui and finder (graphite and aqua are nice, but ...) More business tools (Make Bill sweat) And of course more speed and adoption of leading technologies.

Re:64 bit OS?

[dethl]

Funny thing about the PPC 970 is that it can handle 32-bit as well as 64-bit instructions. Panther would probably just add 64-bit support, rather than become a total 64-bit OS.

Re:64 bit OS?

[su-geek]

I would like to see a few more finder a gui options. A few of the things I would like to see: desktop panes, speed improvements, faster boot time.

Adam

Re:64 bit OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging from the topic icon, I'd say that its Taco's way of hinting that Apple will be using the Opteron.

Re:64 bit OS?

[jsmith38]

Something else though, is that applications will have to be re-written (or at least recompiled) to take advantave of the larger ram and other features of a 64-bit machine.

Sure database structures can be larger, but what about all the apple die-hard graphic gurus, that have files larger than 2 Gigs. Then what about the biology folks that are mapping the the human gens (that file takes up an iPod)

At then what about my needs, and the ability to run every applications I have from ram so that I don't have to wait for my hard drive.

Re:64 bit OS?

[mslinux]

That's right, not every app on the system would need to be 64 bit. For example, system apps (like listing directories, searching for files, network config apps, etc.) can all still work wonderfully as 32 bit programs.

It's the big cpu and memory intense programs such as 3D graphic modeling that could really get a boost from 64 bit processing. Whenever an app like that can eat data in chunks that are twice as large (32 to 64) there'll be a performance boost.

Re:64 bit OS?

[b-baggins]

You actually boot your OS X box? I haven't rebooted in weeks, so that's a complete non-issue. Wake from sleep takes about three seconds.

Re:64 bit OS?

[betis70]

How often do you boot? I think I haven't booted since I installed 10.2

That was in December. Sleep works great, much better than on any other laptop I have owned/used.

Sshh.....

[miketang16]

The AMD logo is CmdrTaco's subtle hint.....

Re:Sshh.....

[jdkincad]

Obviously he needs to check the meaning of subtle.

Re:Sshh.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention spelling, grammar, dupes...

no no you see

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"

AMD logo?

[blitzoid]

To jump on the 'Har har you didn't select the right logo from the list' bandwagon: Well, congratulations to AMD! I knew all their hard work on OSX would pay off!

The REAL reason

[cravey]

Apple has said that they are moving WWDC (the Apple Developer conference) to coincide with Macworld in June. here

They are doing this because they want the developers to have access to "new features" that won't be ready until then. There are also reports like this that indicate that Apple is about to release a new architecture based on the PowerPC 64 bit G5 processor.

It takes an important reason to reschedule a convention the size of WWDC. I believe that the move is an effort to keep details of the new G5 machines secret from everyone INCLUDING developers until the product announcement.

If the bids for the motherboards are due any day, then the release of the G5 boards could easily be made in June with production release soon after.

If you think Apple is REALLY switching to iX86 technology, I've got a small country to sell you.

Re:The REAL reason

[gmhowell]

I've got a small country to sell you.

Funny, so do I. Except the current residents are being difficult about vacating the premises. I sent over the boys to air the place out. Should be done in a couple of weeks. Oh, you're not with Texaco? Never mind...

Re:The REAL reason

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh, good friend-of-friend, I wish I had mod points to give....

Re:The REAL reason

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG you have just made my day! on to my friends list you go!!

Re:The REAL reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has said that they are moving WWDC (the Apple Developer conference) to coincide with Macworld in June.

1) That page says nothing about MacWorld.
2) Summer MacWorld is in July, not June.
3) MacWorld July is in New York, not San Fran (though Apple is trying really hard to move it back to Boston).

The only thing WWDC coincides with is that it now starts right after MacHack (which is in Michigan) ends.

Re:The REAL reason

[Zhe Mappel]

Brilliant. Loved it. :-)

Re:The REAL reason

[heitikender]

Hi! i dont have a small countrty to sell, but I am the son of the late president of Democratic Republic Of Zaire,President Mobutu Sese Seko, ( now The Republic Of Congo, under the leadership of the son of Mr. Laurent Kabila ). I presume you are aware there is a financial dispute between my family ( THE MOBUTU ) and the present civilian Government. This is based on what they believe as bad and corrupt governance on my late father's part. May his soul rest in perfect peace.As you might have heard how a lot of my father's bank account in Switzerland and North America has been frozen. Following the above named reasons, I am soliciting for your humble and confidential assistance to take custody of twenty five Million United States Dollars ( US$20,000,000.00 ), also to front for me in the areas of business you desire profitable. These funds have secretly been deposited into a confidential Security firm where it can easily be withdrawn or paid to a recommended beneficiary. The funds will be released to you by the Security firm based on my recommendations on that note, you will be presented as my partner who will be fronting for me and my family in any subsequent ventures. Myself and my mother have decided to give 18% to you if you are able to help us claim this consignment.We have also decided to give you any money spent on phone calls or travelling expenses in the course of this transaction at the end of the transaction. Please, I need your entire support and co-operation for the success of this business ventures, your utmost confidentiality and secrecy is highly required, due to my family's present predicament. I sincerely will appreciate your acknowledgment as soon as possible. I am presently in the refugee camp here in the Netherlands under the united nations refugee camp in Netherlands and I can be reached on my direct telephone number +31-641 910 805 for an elaborate discussion. Please indicate your interest by sending your telephone and fax numbers or call me at anytime. I sincerely will appreciate your acknowledgement as soon as possible. Thanks!

Re:The REAL reason

[mslinux]

IBM's PPC 970 is the obvious choice for Apple. It can run 32 or 64 bit programs, shares backward compatibility with current apple hardware, and will debut at 1.8 GHz... it's going to be a superb platform. The cadillac of personal computers. I expect it to be rather costly though.

Re:The REAL reason

[0x00000dcc]

I've got a small country to sell you and I got some hot grits for you, comrade

Re:Ummm....

[mgs1000]

Hey give CmdrTaco a break, they both start with 'A' don't they?

Cool

[DaLiNKz]

Now if they move to using Intel maybe I can get MacOSX running on these computers? Apple should try to go after the x86 markets though.

MOD PARENT DOWN OFFTOPIC

[cyberlemoor]

Another troll posting useless information...as already stated, the real topic is the AMD logo next to the item.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN OFFTOPIC

[Anonymous Coward]

Then reply all -1 Redundants if you think it's that important.

Paying for bug fixes

[Hythlodaeus]

Last time around, Apple forced people to pay for 10.2 to fix the broken parts of 10.1 (most notably OpenGL.) Let's hope they don't ransom the bug fixes again with 10.3

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[Znonymous Coward]

Can someone please show me the real show stoper bugs in 10.2? I didn't think so.

I think that Apple has redeemed themselves from 10.1 and if 10.3 is as big of an improvment as 10.2 was it's worth $129.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[Penguinshit]

It's still cheaper than paying ~$300 for every release of a known-broken OS commonly used on the x86 infrastructure....

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[swb]

It's still cheaper than paying ~$300 for every release of a known-broken OS commonly used on the x86 infrastructure....

I bought a brand-new computer in 1996. It came with Win95. I ran that box until late '98, wherein I bought another box and ran Win98SE until mid-2000, then bought another box and ran 2k.

If you consider the OS with the computer as "free" (ie, you're not paying extra), then about the only OS payment I would have made would have been had I bought XP, in which case I would have paid extra. Win2K service packs haven't added much functionality, but they have been free.

I've spent more on OS X in the past two years than on MS OSes. X, X.2 and now X.3 will be much more money than I would have spent on XP, which I don't plan to buy since it doesn't offer anything that 2k doesn't.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[jc42]

This does make me think: Amidst all the comments on how much current Mac users may/will have to pay to upgrade, I haven't seen much mention of the effect on those like me who have been thinking of splurging and buying an OSX machine.

Does this report mean that I should wait until the panther is for sale? I'd think that Apple wouldn't really want me to do this. But if waiting 6 months will get me better software for the same price, that's probably what I'll do, and I'll keep working on my linux boxen until then.

So is there any reliable info about this (e.g., a link to an apple.com page saying what their policy is for people who bought a jaguar just before the panther was released)?

It'd be nice to get a warm, fuzzy feeling that I can trust Apple to do the Right Thing here for new customers ...

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[Penguinshit]

fortunately for Micro$0pht, you're quite the exception to the rule.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[drunkenbatman]

The biggest for me was the firewire bug and sound bugs- they were known problems and fixed in 10.2, but they were known since 10.1.1.

Basically, with the firewire bug it was prone to hang the machine if you were copying large amounts of data to a firewire drive. It had the unintended consequence of really messing up the drive, and while there were some workarounds with diskwarrior most people just ended up reformatting over and over and over.

The sound bugs plagued titanium powerbooks and dually machines to no end- basically, after the machine went to sleep once, sound would never wake up and you would have to reboot just to get sound out. Also fun things were kernel panics when you simply plugged in your headphones, etc.

I could go on and on about network instability with remote servers, etc.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you bought a new Mac instead of buying the OS, you'd get the latest OS X for free too. So I don't see your point.

It's moot though, because you are paying for Windows when you buy a new Windows box. It's figured into the price of the box, but Microsoft is tacking that on there, no matter what you think.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

What freaking moron. What was the point of your argument again? You seem to have refuted it completely.

If you had stayed with the same PC and wanted to run Win98 (nobody was forcing you to do so, remember), then you would have paid for it separately. Same with 2k. Your argument is ridiculous. If you had bought a new Mac when 10.0 came out, or when Jaguar came out, you wouldn't have paid for OS X separately, just as with the PCs. Can you say duh?

I hate to be redundant, but it bears repeating: what a freaking moron.

And as a footnote, nobody knows if 10.3 will cost anything at all; history suggests that it may not (10.1 didn't) but nobody knows. If it does cost something, why don't you just buy a new Mac so you can get it for "free"? Moron. (oops, I'm starting to sound like CmdrTaco with the dupes)

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[inkswamp]

Can someone please show me the real show stoper bugs in 10.2? I didn't think so.

Think again. I love OS X, don't get me wrong, but it's got some glaring f***-ups that need to be addressed. They are the sort of thing you would only notice in a business or work environment. I don't think a lot of them would pop up in home use.

The worst of the bunch is the Finder's apparent inability to deal with copying large numbers of files to or from a network volume. Try it out sometime. Drag a few thousand files to your desktop from a network volume and let it go. The copy progress either gets bogged down and stops or it puts up an error dialog and bails out. Try copying large numbers of files to a zip disk even. You occasionally get errors trying that. Try copying one or two very large files. Cross your fingers because it may or may not work.

It's not a "show stopper" for most, but if you need to move large numbers of files or several large files around frequently, it can be.

Re:Paying for bug fixes

[foniksonik]

"If you consider the OS with the computer as "free""

You could have done the same with your Apple PC! You don't get the OS for free with the PC... (sheltered). I don't know what makes you even think such a thing. Microsoft still gets your money, the hardware manufacturer just gets less.

Re:Panther? I don't know but...

[smallpaul]

Pink? Nah, Apple already tried that.

Shouldn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, none of this should matter. Oh wow, Apple creates a new metaphor for us all to experience our computing through. Personally I despise the "gui melt" that apple has created with Aqua, and all their so called wonderful iapps are of no use to me. Sure, idvd/imovie are good for their target puroposes, but all the others are overated IMO. Apple has a spectacular way of making people feel like they need what they make. Just take a look at their site. "With this app you can do a, b, c, and d." Do us all a favor and don't buy this crap. Instead donate to the free software foundation or the favorite OSS of your chosing. Please.

Re:the french

[Anonymous Coward]

and we don't?

Pather = Jaguar

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a Panther IS a Jaguar. Does this mean nothing is really different? same old s*t, different, day?
Puma, Mountain Lion, TomAYto, TomAto.

Re:Pather = Jaguar

[cosmo7]

Panthers are black (melanistic) leopards. the gene for melanism is recessive, so black leopards can have offspring with lighter coats. Jaguars are heavier than panthers. The panther has a narrower and smaller head. Genetically, leopards and jaguars are more closely related than lions or tigers. Snow leopards and Clouded leopards are even more distantly related, at one clade each.

Re:Pather = Jaguar

[wyvern5]

While avoiding doing some homework, I found this image of a black panther: click!
I think that guy would have been more effective (and amusing) than David Boies in a courtroom.
(You thought it was going to be a gang member, didn't you? :)

Re:Pather = Jaguar

[jafac]

Black Lectroids from Planet 10?

I just saw Steve Jobs on the oscar red carpet

[zymano]

I know Jobs has computer film company but does this guy love himself or what ?

Re:I just saw Steve Jobs on the oscar red carpet

[usotsuki]

And Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas - I swear!!! Go to Pixar's or Lucasfilm's sites. ;)

-uso.

Oil to cook freedom fries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:Oil to cook freedom fries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just call them "chips", like any half-sensible person does.

"Fries", I mean really. The word "chips" brings to mind sliced potato, while the word "fries" brings to mind.. well, McDonald's.

New Powerpc sounds strong.

[zymano]

thanks for that info.

Sherlock!

[antdude]

It also fits Sherlock program theme. :)

100% Content-Free

[Michael_Burton]

Unfortunately, this story is 100% content-free. There aren't even any good rumors about Panther. I can think of only two explanations for this: either Panther is going to be remarkably free of anything new and interesting, or Panther is going to be so amazingly ultra-mind-bogglingly spectacular that Apple relocated the development team to some secret Iraqi WMD labs to protect the secrecy of the project.

If 10.3 is as big a step forward as 10.1 and 10.2 were, I will be glad to pay for it. Heck, I'll be thrilled to pay for it!

Re:100% Content-Free

[Znonymous Coward]

Panther = Shock and awe

Re:100% Content-Free

[sandbagger]

Q: You know where the weapons of mass destruction were?
A: In the baby incubators.

Re:100% Content-Free

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't even any good rumors about Panther.

Heh... depends on where you look. (Scroll down to Thursday, November 7 and Thursday, October 31.)

This supposed "internal document" was all over the Internet for a while and contained lots of likely additions and improvements, but I'm not sure who has it available for download currently.

Re:100% Content-Free

[gidds]

If 10.3 is as big a step forward as 10.1 and 10.2 were, I will be glad to pay for it.

But you didn't have to pay for 10.1 - it was a free upgrade from 10.0. Rumour has it that future odd-numbered upgrades, like 10.3, will be similarly free.

Re:100% Content-Free

[zgwortz962]

Actually, the meaningful content is the change of date to the WWDC, although that's already been covered by another Slashdot article.

A lot of the people who've never been to a WWDC might be saying "big deal" to that, but it becomes incredibly significant when you realize that Apple has been holding their developer conferences in the same place (San Jose Conference Center) in roughly the same time of year (mid-May) for a *very* long time now.

For them to change that date and location, *especially* after already announcing a different date and location (a lot of people already had flights and hotel reservations that will have to change...) is a huge deal. It's clear this is a fairly recent change - otherwise they'd never have announced the original WWDC dates. Also, the logistics involved in moving this conference on such short notice are massive -- it's probably costing Apple quite a bundle to make the shift, not counting the higher rental cost for the Moscone Center.

All of this says to me that either Apple had a serious falling out with the SJCC people that forced them to relocate the conference on short notice, or they've got something planned that, at least in Apple's view, is incredibly important.

Delaying it so we can get a better preview of Panther just doesn't fit "incredibly important", IMHO. Either Panther is going to include something out of left field that *nobody* expects, or there's going to be significant hardware announcements as well. (PPC 970 maybe, or maybe the long rumored reentry into the PDA market -- who knows?)

Re:Ummm....

[FyreFiend]

Right, Probably just clicked too quickly. The editing here can be bad but this is just a little oopsie

Hemos Ok'ed that submitted story.

[zymano]

so your wrong there.

Re:Hemos Ok'ed that submitted story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no it's the same story. Posted by Hemos on friday. If thats not a repost I don't know what is.

FREEDOM FRIES WHILE BAGHDAD BURNS

[Anonymous Coward]

[nt]

My guesses...

[zestymonkey]

Customers will pay full price for a glorified incremental update.

Re:Panther? I don't know but...

[squiggleslash]

Wasn't "Pink" the codename for an operating system IBM and Apple were planning in the early nineties?

It's amazing what you find out when you Google for your old memories of stuff you never heard about again... *grins*

Silly Brit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chips are those things that come in bags and aren't hot. Fries are freshly fried and have hot lard to help clog those arteries.

Re:Silly Brit...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no lard in fries. Fries are nothing but frenched (hence the name) potatoes fried in hot oil, usually peanut or canola oil. Lard is rendered pig fat, which is a completely different thing.

Re:Silly Brit...

[usotsuki]

It's usually oil, not lard. (Lard? What's that? LOL)

-uso.

Re:Silly Brit...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Chips are those things that come in bags and aren't hot.

Here in California, CHiPs are the guys who give you speeding tickets. ;)

I'll let you debate whether they are hot or not.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Announce YES ship NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Just before everyone gets in a knot, this is the ANNOUNCEMENT of the Panther 10.3 series, not the SHIPPING of Panther. It'll probably be a while yet before 10.3 ships. This is so all the developers get on board and stay up to speed, so when 10.3 comes out all their stuff doesn't break, as well as take advantage of new API's.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD has Apple logo!

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong. Please observe the proper format:

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

AMD logo sees YOU on Apple story!

Wondering...

[athlon02]

I can never keep track of all the various events Apple hosts or is present at... So what's the likelihood of Apple introducing new hardware lines (specifically 2nd generation 12" powerbooks is what i'm hoping for) as well as Panther too?

I want to buy a 12" powerbook but due to cash flow, I need to save every buck i can when purchasing one... maybe if Apple did a free 512MB DDR SO DIMM with 12" powerbooks offer *hint* *hint* (instead of just on the 17" models).

AMD topic Logo?

[frooyo]

If I am not mistaken, this ia an APPLE story - not AMD!

Pronunciation

[DavidLeblond]

How does Steve pronounce Panther? "Panth-ire"?

Re:Pronunciation

[kcbever]

jag-wire. jaguar. jag-y-re.

i dont get it. maybe its the native californian in me, but i dont know how else to pronounce it.

Re:Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it's Panth-air. :-P

Re:Pronunciation

[MrLint]

pahn-thar the barbarian and Algore the mock!

Re:Pronunciation

[Halo1]

I (as non-native English speaker) always pronounced it more or less as jag-war or jag-u-war (not pronouncing the "u" very explicitly of course).

Re:Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

I (as native English speaker) always pronounced it more or less as jag-war or jag-u-war (not pronouncing the "u" very explicitly of course).

Re:Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

I (as native English speaker)

Oh, I don't think so.

Re:Pronunciation

[usotsuki]

Jaguar: dj-à-g''-w-á-r
Panther: p-à-n''-th-r

(That's my upstate NY accent. à as in "at", á as in "father".)

-uso.

Re:Pronunciation

[BlankTim]

I don't really see what the fuss is.
Here in Nebraska I always seem to hear it pronounced just like Steve does: Jag-Wire.

The only time I hear it any other way is on the commercials for Jaguar cars, and of course the narrator sounds pretentious anyway.

Toe-MAY-toe? Toe-MAH-toe? who gives a rats ass?

Re:Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, its the same here in California, and it cracks me up every time I hear one of those ads :-P

why is the Icon an AMD icon?

[the_2nd_coming]

is it ment to be an hint that the new OS will support the opteron?

Re:PROOF APPLE IS GHEY:

[Anonymous Coward]

The really disturbing thing is that this is funny !!!

What's with the Atari game system names?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come Apple keeps on assigning code names for their OS X versions that were former names of Atari game systems?

First they named the last version of OS X "Jaguar." Jaguar also was the last console game system made by Atari Corporation. The ill-fated "64-bit" (flame on!) game system...

Now they are naming their next version of OS X "Panther." Panther was also the name of the unproduced 32-bit game system Atari had under development until they cancelled it in favor of throwing all their development resources behind the Jaguar.

Seems kinda backwards if you ask me. Perhaps the previous version of OS X should've been named "Panther," since it was 32-bit based, and then saved the name "Jaguar" for the version of OS X set to support the Power PC 970 chip...thereby being a more appropriate 64 bit reference... But then again, Apple has to "think different"...

So, will we see a PalmOS based Apple PDA codenamed the "Lynx"? :)

- The Lynxpro
(forgot my password)

*anyone know how many former Atari Corp. (and Flare Ltd.) employees now work for Apple?

Re:What's with the Atari game system names?

[tuffy]

anyone know how many former Atari Corp. (and Flare Ltd.) employees now work for Apple?

No, but I do know a couple of former Atari employees that now work for Apple. I think they wrote "Breakout".

Re:What's with the Atari game system names?

[mbbac]

Steve Jobs worked for Atari before he started Apple. He did Breakout. Actually, he got Wozniak to do a lot of it for him.

Re:What's with the Atari game system names?

[The Lynxpro]

uhm, yeah... Jobs and Woz...but technically, it was just Jobs who worked for Atari. He let Woz in at night so Woz could play "Night Driver" for free. Woz got money for each chip he cut out of the arcade version of "Breakout" which is the Jobs actually was assigned to by Bushnell himself. Both guys "creatively acquired" spare parts from Atari to build their "devices." Jobs went to Bushnell first for investment to start Apple, but Bushnell was strapped for money being plowed into the 2600 VCS's design, which caused him to sell out to Warner Communications for $26 million in 1976. Yes, we all know that. You could also mention the fact that Alan Kay worked for Atari too up until 1984... It could also be stated that many of Atari Corp.'s employees who were employed to port Unix V. over to the Atari TT platform (Motorola 68030 based system) who later went to work at Taligent, the failed joint-venture between IBM and Apple... I'm not referring to any of the above; I'm asking if anyone knows how many post-1997 Atari Corp. or Flare Ltd. (the British company Atari bankrolled who developed the Panther & the Jaguar for Atari) employees now presently working for Apple in any aspect... Hello Apple employees reading this, feel free to chime in! ps. former Epyx employees who worked on the "Handy" (aka the Atari Lynx) who might work for Apple now do not count...

Bullshit

[Lethyos]

Microsoft did not give out copies of Windows XP to people who bought computers with Windows 98.

Not that I am in favor of proprietary software, but this is no way compares to the upgrade path for OS X.

Windows9x and NT are two completely different operating systems. I can see Microsoft marketing them as two different products and hence, owning one does not mean you get the other. However, paying to upgrade Windows95 to Windows98 is an absolutely asinine thing to do. That upgrade is essentially a set of system updates an a free web browser. In fact, one could upgrade Windows95 to Windows98 for free -- download the latest Internet Explorer and let it do shell integration. You got the kernel enhancements, a more threaded Explorer, and all that.

Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade. Yes, 10.2 includes some very hot technologies (Quartz Extreme, for instance), but it is really only a marginal upgrade over the previous version. It is something the user should have received with previous versions, nothing radically new or improved.

Minor version upgrades have traditionally been something the user should have gotten with the previous release. They make a product you already own more complete. Charging for them is robery. Major releases, on the contrary, are typical radical advances in the software, such that it is largely dissimilar from previous major releases. MacOS 9 versus MacOS X is an example of this -- that's a worthwhile purchase.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

X is a fun number/letter. The speed (as if we all got hardware upgrades!) and stability of Jaguar could have easily justified the name 11. But 11 isn't fun like X.

Going from 10.1 to 10.2 wasn't like downloading Windows Update, which is what you seem to be implying. These programmers work their asses off, and for the work they do, they definitely deserve $100 a year.

If you don't wanna pay for it, don't. Anyway, you don't get just an OS, you also get an iLife! Remember the rumors that it was going to cost everyone $39.95 or something? Well, roll that into your OS cost. Break it down:
iTunes - $19.95
iPhoto - $29.95
iMovie - $19.95
iCal - $10
iSync - $5
iChat - $5 (hey, there's no ads, even if it's buggy)
OS = $30. Not so expensive. Even if you don't use all the iApps, it's still a steal. And, most importantly - iBrowse, err, Safari.

But seriously, stop whining just because you don't like Apple's X-obsessed naming strategy.

Re:Bullshit

[OS24Ever]

Please.

Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows ME

They each cost a lot to upgrade from one to the other.

Ok, so maybe Windows 98 to Windows XP would be like comparing OS 9 to OS X. But Windows 95 to Windows 98 would be OS X 10.1 to 10.2

Here's to hoping 10.3 Windows ME :)

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Charging for them is robery.

Ah, yes. Robery. Practiced by monks, kings, and people about to take a shower.

Re:Bullshit

[dogkow]

Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade

They charge for it, and people are willing to pay for it. That's not robery it's good business.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't slam a company (Apple or Microsoft) just because they don't charge the prices you think they should.

Re:Bullshit

[ablair]

"Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade."

Not necessarily. For example, the upgrade from MacOS 8.0 to 8.5 was a paid upgrade, though still 'incremental' in number. The same can be said about a number of similar incremental upgrades with various software packages and operating systems over the years, not just from Apple. Whether a company calls a significant upgrade a minor point release or major point release often depends more on convenience from a marketing standpoint rather than a technological standpoint. In Apple's case, they are a little tied into making even fairly major upgrades only point releases due to their chosen nomenclature system - can you imagine the confusion resulting from MacOS X 11? I think a very major new system (eg the first 64-bit native system after 10.3 or perhaps 10.4) should be MacOS XI, but they are more likely to keep the X moniker and call it MacOS X 11, unfortunately.

Not that choosing a roman numeral system wasn't good - it was, and highlighted the break with the old and incidentally spawned another wave of X-this and X-that everywhere in technology. It's just too bad they also decided to stick to their system naming guidelines used since system 6.x days, resulting in the X 10.x.x that they'll have to string out for as long as possible. So these point upgrades can often be as significant as the paid Photoshop 5.0 to 5.5 was, for example.

Re:Bullshit

[Dynedain]

Besides the active desktop stuff (which was the visible "free" update to W95) there were significant enhancements in Win98...there was siginificant work in filenaming (8.3) problems...and there was a lot of core development (Win98 eliminated all the legacy Win3X 16bit core components). And the active desktop stuff ran much faster and much more stable in 98 than on 95(or NT4)....and once IE4.5 came out, you could no longer download active desktop for any version of Windows. It was only available as part of the IE4.0 and 4.1 install.

Now, a better comparison is the Win98 to Win98SE upgrade (which was not downloadable but was free if you paid shipping and handling of $25 I believe)

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that choosing a roman numeral system wasn't good - it was, and highlighted the break with the old and incidentally spawned another wave of X-this and X-that everywhere in technology.

It was such a good idea that MS had to steal it like everything else they stole. MS doesn't have the capacity to innovate, just the ability to rip people off.

Re:Bullshit

[mgv]

Besides the active desktop stuff (which was the visible "free" update to W95) there were significant enhancements in Win98...there was siginificant work in filenaming (8.3) problems..

Yes, except that microsoft made its big change in file systems from windows 95a to 95b

95b was the major change, and most people didn't even know that it had happened. Which also meant that when people paid for an upgrade to win 98, it was quite a difference if they were going from 95 or 95a than if they had 95b or 95c

Except that nobody told them that, and marketing didn't have a new "major" release scheduled for 1997. However, it was an essential upgrade as the old fat16 just couldn't do drives over 1GB well, and could not handle over 2GB at all - you had to have multiple partitions (and drive letters) for each 2GB of space. FAT16 plain sucked anyway.

Also, IIRC 95B was when they started to look at USB (although it wasn't really until 98 that it was marketed as such).

Michael

Re:Bullshit

[usotsuki]

MacOS X first versions predated MacOS 9 BTW. ;) It is X - in the sense of Extended? - not 10.

-uso.

Re:Bullshit

[reallocate]

Nuts to you. Arguing about whether or not Apple should charge for an OS upgrade is inane. They can give it away or sell it for any price they choose. They can leave the code alone and change the color of the box and put it on the shelves for $500.00. Or they can crank out millions of free CD's and stack 'em up on checkout counters next to all those AOL CD's.

But...so what? It's a business decision for Apple: Will selling the upgrade of giving it away generate more profit?

Customers, as always, can do what they want. Apple doesn't owe them an upgrade, much less a free upgrade.

Re:Bullshit

[Orgg]

Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade.

x.y to x.y+1 isn't always an incremental upgrade ;)

Windows 2000 = Windows NT 5.0
Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1

Apple goes into some details here

[azav]

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/descriptions.html

Apple goes into some details about what will be in the next major rev of the OS.

Cheers,

Re:Apple goes into some details here

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, that page is a list of descriptions of seninars at WWDC, not os features.

TIMESTAMP MODS

[Anonymous Coward]

its called a timestamp mods, thats why redundant should always be meta moderated as unfair

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Okonomiaki]

iLife and iWorks (if there ever is such a thing) are separate products, they are not a part of the OS. At best we might see them annouced at the same time as 10.3 but they certainly won't come in the same box.

And exactly what benefits do you expect from a Cocoa Finder?

Cool

[boola-boola]

Wow, that's pretty cool. I always look forward to Apple releases, be it hardware or software. Funny thing is, I don't even own a Mac! :-) (yeah yeah, I'm just waiting for my dually 64-bit IBM 970 Apple :-P)

Anyhoo... hopefully this time they will offer some kind of upgrade offer. For instance, if you bought Jaguar (...which will have come out a year before "Panther"), then you can get it 50% off or something. If they don't offer some kind of upgrade offer, I will hold sway with my original thought: that they are simply trying to make money off of some redundant update, or at least, until the press release comes out :-D

What?? Apple SELLS software??

[feldsteins]

Why is it that there is always a few vocal whiners ready to spout off every time Apple wants to sell an OS upgrade? What is it that's so hard to understand about the idea that they sell software?

Apple's OS development cycle involves one paid rev per year and one or more incrimental upgrades that are free. It's really not that hard to get. And nobody is forcing you to buy it, either.

Jesus, there's plenty of legitimate reasons to knock a wierd company like Apple. Try to bring up one of them next time you take a swipe at them.

Panthers, Jaguars, & Tigers, oh my

[Tumbleweed]

Also, if you get a good look at a panther in the light, you can still see the spots on them - they're not jet black or anything, though they're still friggin' cool.

I still prefer white tigers, though. For white tiger fans, go see the Audobon Zoo in new Orleans. They've got two boys (brothers) there that are a lot of fun to see. A great zoo, in fact. I went to the San Diego Zoo last year, and was disappointed - nowhere _near_ as good as it's reputation, and not even close to the Audubon Zoo, IMO.

*meow*

Nah, this is all pre-emptive...

[SlashdotTroll]

Notice whatever information leaked from Apple on their development plans results in the immediate expulsion or cancelation of the related project.

\*BSD's advocate\
I am a developer *for* Apple and I declare that Apple is planning to not: I repeate not, travel to the moon and not; I repeat, NOT install a BEOwulf cluster of orbitting lasers and NOT hold Earth's tide tables hostage to be negotiated with the Pentagon.
\*BSD's advocate \

Sit back in shock and awe as Apple officially announces its plans to travel to the moon for initially undeclared !

AMD tie in

[be-fan]

This says that AMD might make (manufacture) PowerPC chips. So maybe CmdrTaco isn't asleep after all.

Re:AMD tie in

[Anonymous Coward]

"
Please pray for all those who will die in this war, both Iraqi and American. Each human life has the same worth."

I see.

So you value Saddam's life to be the same worth as the late Mother Theresa, do you?

Interesting...

Re:AMD tie in

[be-fan]

Most Iraqis are not Saddam. I was trying to get the sig to say "American lives are not inherently worth more than Iraqi lives" but I hit the 120 character limit. I assumed most people would be smart enough to catch on to what I meant...

or try the final fantasy version number scheme

[lingqi]

the incremental update of X would be, intuitively, X-2.

The next version is, of course, X-3.

(btw, since FFX-2 sold 1.2 million copies (out of 1.8 million made) the first day, apparently the naming scheme works quite well)

Re:How is it gonna be called? (Rant)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you leave out the other side of the coin, which is equally insidious. How much legacy hardware has to be abandoned with each of these "upgrades"? I support legacy machines back to OS 8.6 simply because they use scanners, printers, tablets that cause OS X to crater.

With all this work, Steve, please don't wonder why I will chuck MacOS X for Linux once I have decent access to 3D acceleration...

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[cymen]

No no no no no... See, this is /. and we <em>*HAVE*<em /> to have the latest release just like we have to have food to live. It isn't an option. So when the parent poster says (s)he is forced to buy it then one can safely so that it is true, Apple is extorting money from this geek! This is an international crime to force the geek to pay for the upgrade. We should invade One Infinite Loop and liberate the OS.

The time is now to drop your jolt cola, fire up your major comipile jobs, lock up your computer room, don your smelliest sweat soaked t-shirt (hint, the one you're wearing right now), and go forth to meet at Zero Infinite Loop. We will attack at dawn (*).

* bring extra sweat soaked shirts for use as biological weapons against the door guards
<sarcasm />

The metal interface isn't that bad....

[SensitiveMale]

I'm running a theme that gives the metal interface to everything.

Not too shabby.

http://homepage.mac.com/max_08/themes.htm

Re:The metal interface isn't that bad....

[teh*fink]

i think the possibility of a complete metal interface heralds the return of theming to the mac os.

just my little prediction.

OS X, HDTV, and Panther

[Anonymous Coward]

There was supposed to be integration of OS X and TV concurrent with the release of Panther, both as a set top box and extensions from desktop Macs.
All of this is supposed to be highly, or exclusively, HDTV-centric. The STB would be both a standalone system and a portal to Macs on the network.
Tuner and PVR capabilities and high integration with iLife and iChat.

This is one of Jobs ahead-of-the-curve pushes. Trouble is that HDTV isn't near the point of critical mass with the general public today that Apple
had hoped for. The politics of DRM have also diminished what's deliverable as a product. If these things would be released now,
they would be wasted, so Apple is refining the concepts and waiting it out. Too bad. I'm ready for it now.

Re:OS X, HDTV, and Panther

[ElGanzoLoco]

Trouble is that HDTV isn't near the point of critical mass with the general public today that Apple
had hoped for. ...Which might just be why rumors say that Apple is working on a 30 inch "Cinema display". I, for one, think that Apple is pushing hard to diversify to new markets...

I mean, 30 inches for a display is just too big. If it were just a display, they'd have gone through the 25", 27" and 29" steps before... but they're apparently jumping right at 30 inches...

But then I'm not sure I want to tie my computer and my TV (my G4's in my room, the TV in the living room...). Well, it might be cool to get rid of that f*cking VCR once and for all...

Re:OS X, HDTV, and Panther

[The Lynxpro]

No it won't. Apple is working with TiVo currently. TiVo will be integrating Rendevoux (sic) into its Media Center options for home networking. Tivo is asking Apple integrate TiVo networking options into future versions of iTunes for streaming music off networked Macs to TiVo units. You might read Tivo's website...

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Chucker23N]

"iWorks", if more than just a rumor, would probably consist of 1. a word processing app (TextEdit isn't truly powerful - what about initials and footnotes?), 2. (possibly) a publishing app (even if it's just for greeting cards and nasty boss letters), 3. a spreadsheet app, 4. a simple database app (most likely based on a FileMaker backend) and 5. a presentation app (Keynote, of course)

iLife was just released. iTunes will be upgraded (it's the oldest of the four, right now) soon, though.

There won't be that much benefit from a Cocoa rewrite. If you want a Cocoa Finder, give PathFinder a try; my experience with that one is that it has a few nice features, but is often way too slow (which reminds me of most other Cocoa apps, unfortunately).

New version of Safari? 1.0 isn't even out yet. Surely the 10.3 release will be the latest date they can offer the final; otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to me.

Video conferencing in iChat is quite likely - check its bundle for some unused icons ;-)

Multiple Customizable Docks - I doubt this. I hope they come up with a way to make the Dock a lot more useful, or, at least, fully replacable by third parties.

Now let's come to the less likely things:

- Metadata (Database FS)

As you said, they hired BeOS's file system engineer, who supposedly implemented journaling in HFS+. It would be very nice if he helped work on a metadata implementation.

My idea of it would be to work similarly as iTunes' Smart Playlists do, but even more transparently. Per default, the Metadata Finder won't show you the hierarchical file structure, but the semantical one. There could be such a topic as "downloads", which would show your recent downloads. It would consist of sections like "music" and "shareware". Each download would have information like "downloaded at" and "downloaded from" attached to it.

More interesting would be a topic like "e-mail", split up between your various e-mail folders. It would provide information like "date received", "subject", etc. Opening an e-mail letter would launch Mail.app with that specifict mail, of course. BeOS actually could do such a thing already, and that was half a decade ago.

Another topic is Aqua2: a resolution-independent approach. The Dock shows the benefit of (almost) perfectly resizable icons: No matter how good or bad your eyes are, you'll always be able to have the icons in your optimum size. But what about the rest of the GUI? Any of the text labels are already resizable, in theory. They're vector-based. Widgets, aren't, though.

I think one of the plans of Apple is to wait until we have very-high-resolution displays (closer to 300 dpi, instead of the currently typical 96 dpi) and then automatically scale any object on the GUI to fit best.

Rendezvous: I really hope Apple will offer a Rendezvous implementation for Windows. Some parts of it are there, already, but I have yet to see a working implementation example.

Netcraft Confirms : "Panther" Is Dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Panther community when last month IDC confirmed that Panther accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Panther has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Panther is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in th recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Panther's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Panther faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Panther because Panther is dying. Things are looking very bad for Panther. As many of us are already aware, Panther continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Panther leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of Panther. How many users of Panther are there? Let's see. The number of Panther versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Panther users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Panther posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put Panther at about 80 percent of the Panther market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Panther users. This is consistent with the number of Panther Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Panther went out of business and was taken over by Panther who sell another troubled OS. Now Panther is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Panther has steadily declined in market share. Panther is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Panther is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. Panther continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Panther is dead.

Panther is dying

1 plus 1 equals 10

[doublehelix_nz]

think about it.

Intel arnt pushing the 64bit PC market for a while yet.

The new MacOS supports 64bit cpus.

any one else thinking what im thinking :)

Apple introduce intel powered systems, and AMD go "oh f**k we just got played"

all I want ...

[styxlord]

System wide disabling of redrawing windows whilst they're moving or resized (two separate options please) ... the wife has a nice iBook and I get nice fuzy feelings about making a BSD based OS my primary desktop (instead of WinXP with ALL of the bells and whistles disabled) but the interface is just to damned annoyingly laggy.

cat people

[tabby]

Of course the naming scheme should be of a feline nature. Cat people are, of course, ;-) smarter than dog people (and smell better) so of course they would want to use a mac. Its a smart choice.

Of course by the time I can afford to buy my ibook they'll probably have run out of cool wildcats and I'll get OSX-Scrawny Alley Cat

Re:cat people

[k2r]

> Cat people are, of course, ;-) smarter than dog people

Too bad that O'Reilly prints dogs on any book on MacOSX. Nobody will buy these books, so O'Reilly is doomed.

k2r

Re:cat people

[tabby]

only the smelly dog people will buy them of course ;-)

safari everywhere

[BortQ]

Like a lot of people have speculated, I expect that Safari 1.0 will be part of 10.3. However I think the bigger improvement will be in the release of WebCore along with integrated apps. A fast HTML renderer that is available to all apps will be quite useful. Not to mention that it would better the performance of any apple app that displays HTML, like Mail, Sherlock, Help Viewer (please!!!), Project Builder, etc ...

Re:safari everywhere

[Mordaximus]

"However I think the bigger improvement will be in the release of WebCore along with integrated apps. A fast HTML renderer that is available to all apps will be quite useful. Not to mention that it would better the performance of any apple app that displays HTML, like Mail, Sherlock, Help Viewer (please!!!), Project Builder, etc"

Microsoft did this a while ago, and everyone screams murder. Apple does it and you're looking forward to it?

Re:safari everywhere

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yes. Thanks for pointing this out. I don't like MS's business stratigies. But including IE with windows and having the ability for anyone it's HTML rendering engine is great.

Sure, the way it was done might be bad and cunning (probably not done in a nice, modular way). But the idea is good.

Re:safari everywhere

[sal]

will microsoft sue once safari becomes a built in part of the base os? isn't that going to kill IE?

Can someone fix the icon?

[Anderlan]

After the fact? Or is /code too rigid?

I thought OS X was getting an X86-64 port, dangit! =[

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hours later... No correction?

[sweetooth]

No, it's probably not fixed because they are probably not paying attention ;)

No metal theme PLEASE

[JohnZed]

Yes, I have to agree with many other /. peons. PLEASE don't go to brushed metal as the default theme for apple apps. I'm strongly considering a switch from wintel/lintel to Mac when ppc64 comes to consumer processors, but that's mainly because OSX is so damn pretty. Metal themes, OTOH, have been played out since Mario64. Please... aqua is neat, the jaguar logo theme is cute, but brushed metal!?!? sooo 1999....
--JRZ

Re:No metal theme PLEASE

[k2r]

Hi JRZ,

you can switch brushed-metal off application-wise or in general, either using the developer-tools or some free-/shareware applications.

But I can tell you that yo'll get used to the look. It still doesn't hurt as much as "Luna"...

k2r

yeah. your right.

[zymano]

who the hell is commander taco anyways ? haha.

Re:Ocelot (mandatory joke)

[Col Bat Guano]

Q How do you titillate an Ocelot

A You Oscillate its tits a lot.

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

AND GOD FORBID THEY MAKE EVERYTHING METALLICIZED!!!

I really doubt this, because the brushed metal is supposed to be reserved for apps that are modeled after or interact with real world devices. iTunes->Stereo, iCal->Calander, iPhoto->Camera, iSync->Palm. Check out apples Aqua Human Interface Guidelines for textured windows.

The only exception is Safari. I really hope they change the UI to the standard Aqua style in the final release. Right now it really clashes with Mail. Maybe apple should look at their AHIG.

Why Apple will not switch to intel

[Anonymous Coward]

As an admin of Sun an now moving to Linux, Apple has a long time before they switch their architecture. I have used a Mac regularly for the past 8 years, and what I like about it is that it just works. As a UNIX geek I still need to deal with the business world, and M$ office for Mac does it. Just keep this in mind as you hear about Mac/Intel...

First: There will no longer be office (or well supported) for Mac if Apple switches hardware.

Second: The new IBM chips see PowerPC 970 Running at 2.5 GHz on /.

Third: The reason I like Sun and Mac, it just works. I can install the OS and have no worries that something may not work due to lack of drivers. If Apple makes OSX work on Intel, they would have to support the NUMEROUS drivers for the hardware. Of course they cannot...M$ cannot even keep up. A Mac that did not work due to these kind of problems would not be a Mac.

Fourth: Linux is great but we have to realize that the new generation of IT has never used a command line.

I could say more but I have been waiting for the animatrix to download, and it is done...

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[dick johnson]

Actually, there's no reason Apple can't switch to Intel, while remaining a proprietary platform as well.

Apple simply needs to add a proprietary ASIC (application integrated circuit) to the motherboard to keep clone makers at bay.

Apple could use the cheap pc components to bring their prices down. They'd be able to say their machines run at the same MHz as pcs. But if you wanted to run Mac OS X on Intel, you'd still have to buy a computer from Apple.

Hence, no need for the drivers you mention.

(You may also recall, that Motorola and IBM briefly made PowerPC machines (I'm not talking about the Mac clones either) that were NOT capable of running Mac OS 8/9. These machines ran AIX or other unix OSes. But the motherboards lacked the correct ASICs to run the Mac OS.

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[b-baggins]

What cheap components would that be that Apple doesn't use right now? The only proprietary thing in an Apple computer is the motherboard. Interestingly, the only proprietary thing in a Dell computer is the motherboard.

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[dick johnson]

Well, the main one would obviously be the cpu. That aside, a better reason for Apple to go Intel is that they avoid the problem of being the only mainstream computer maker relying on Motorola and IBM for its CPUs.

If Moto or IBM have chip production problems, the only computer maker that gets hurt is Apple. You can't sell new, faster computers, if you can't obtain enough new, faster cpus to go into the computer. Meanwhile, Dell continues to release new computer with Intel or AMD chips.

On the other hand, if they go over to Intel, chip supply constraints affect all computer makers equally. If Intel or AMD have supply problems, they are hurt no more or no less than Dell, IBM, etc.

Also, while I completely understand the Megahertz myth. The average comsumer doesn't and isn't likely to "get it" anytime soon.

Apple fights a losing PR war in trying to convince people that it's chips are just as fast, even though the numbers don't indicate it.

Finally, going Intel opens all kinds of other possibilities for Mac Users. The least of which might be much better performance from Windows emulation software (and there's others out there besides Virtual PC).

Performance of these programs will dramatically improve, if they don't have to emulate the hardware. Some might scoff at the need for this last item. But believe me, there are plenty of folks who won't "switch" simply because there are one or two windows applications they "Need" and can't get on the Mac.

As for Microsoft, they really won't care about this last part. They're in the business of selling Windows. You still have to buy a copy of Windows in some form to get these emulation programs running. Microsoft really doesn't care, as long as it gets its money.

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple simply needs to add a proprietary ASIC

You have identified the primary difference in price now. One of the few rational moves to Intel chipset would be to pick up standard support chipsets. Not keep them. [ Case study.... what happened to SGI x86 proprietary workstations??? ]

The Megahertz myth will blow over soon enough. For the average user is there any difference between a 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz box? Not in the generic day to day apps.

Primarly folks buy computers not based upon MHz but on the software they can run. How does a Mac with an Intel chip allow you to run more software? In fact, it will very likely run any
present Mac software slower (emulating the PPC chip on x86.... yeah that's fast).

Vendors like the Dell buy motherboards off the general component market. They may cook up the modified BIOS, but much of what Dell sells is just packaged Intel (and other motherboard makers) stuff. They might stamp "dell" on the motherboard in a few circumstances, but that is mostly cosmetic.

But the motherboards lacked the correct ASICs to run the Mac OS.

That liability isn't substantively present anymore. The old equivalent of the "boot roms" is loaded in RAM nowadays. It would be nice if Openfirmware was around to smooth out the booting process ( Intel seems to be reinventing the wheel on that front soon enough though). Darwin boots and runs on Intel boxes now. What you might be refering to is the drivers for the specific ASICs.
That has to change from Mac to Mac also as the ASICs (North/South bridge and I/O support chips get tweaked). At this point in time most of what you need is PPC, Openfirmware, and the correct drivers for the hardware you're siting on. It isn't "hardware"; there are no dongle chips anymore.

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[hellfire]

Not necessarily true. First, the Apple itself would lose some of its flare for "innovation" with all the current hardware its turning out. You couldn't make iMacs without the low-heat Motorola chips that they have right now. P4s and the like are heat hogs and the little touches steve puts on the Macs are brilliant little things which make the users just a little more happy because "its nice to know a computer maker thought of that, it makes my experience more enjoyable!"

Which leads to the second point, Margins. The hardware market is tight right now and if they used standard parts their margins would drop tremendously, because of point three.

And point three is, you know how many people would be able to buid Macs if you just needed to introduce a simple chip to a standard intel board to get the OS to run? Apple wouldn't be selling as many machines because people would start building their own. Apple is a hardware company and wants to keep it that way.

As a side note, I like Macs, but I don't like these practices and wish there was a way Apple could make money and still provide lower costs for their hardware.

Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel

[mgbastard]

Apple simply needs to add a proprietary ASIC (application integrated circuit) to the motherboard to keep clone makers at bay.

Oh PLEASE, you know how long that would last? If folks can crack hardware dongled 3D/Media apps, they would get through an ASIC in a day, maybe two. I find it difficult to believe the ASIC couldn't be cracked anymore than any other hardware dongle. That's all that would be. Go ahead encrypt the code in memory, etc. that won't stop a cracker. I read from the field: some clever folks at connectix were so afraid of playing pirated PSX games, that VGS (virtual gamestation) did some funny stuff with encrypted code and phoning home that fooled some crackers, but not all. The hardware dongle won't stop folks, unless Apple intends to stop selling their OS at retail. I somehow doubt they would ever support various goober-with-a-screwdriver intel boxes trying to run their OS. I don't see Microsoft doing that either.

Apple could use the cheap pc components to bring their prices down. They'd be able to say their machines run at the same MHz as pcs. But if you wanted to run Mac OS X on Intel, you'd still have to buy a computer from Apple

Cheap! Yes, Cheap is good for hours of frustration. Thankfully, most of that is confined to software, rather than hardware problems these days. Nobody has really done that well with being both a software and hardware company. The business model seems to fail. Sun and IBM of course still ship hardware and software. IBM is all about being a services company, and nobody else is going to make hardware that runs the software for their computer. It's just not commodity. Neither is Sun hardware, excusing the Hitachi and Fujitsu variants.

It would be asinine for Apple to try to sell commodity PC Hardware to the masses. What would be the point? Even IBM brass has stated that's just a business to keep their current clients all with IBM, a mindshare concern rather than a profit center.

All that being said, Apple intel boxes make sense if their business model shows that it's very important for Apple to sell support, and to provide that support, certified hardware is mandatory. Parametric (Pro/ENGINEER) doesn't sell its own hardware, they have Dell and HP, etc. certify their systems for compatibility, and then they provide support.

Re:Panther? I don't know but...

[henele]

No no no, isn't this what you meant :)

no details = promising ?

[mirko]

Unfortunately, Apple haven't given any details about what to expect from Panther, but after Jaguar this looks promising.

Why does it look promising, then ?
Let's wait until it is available, then decide if it's worth paying the update cost.

OK, Jaguar is cool, but I own an iBook and I am just afraid OSX++ could require too much resources from my white DA.

Re:That's Odd

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a couple of episodes of Family Guy up there for download. Tell nobody, and wait a few weeks. That's how I went from no hits per day to so many I had to take the page down!

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, if we're lucky it'll be rewritten entirely in cocoa.

No. If we're really lucky it will still be in Carbon but rewritten to take full advantage Carbon Events, and will be without any PowerPlant code. Fuck Cocoa. Obj-C message dispatch isn't free, you know. Plain old ANSI C is faster.

And everyone just save the replies with the old "Cocoa apps are more 'native'" line. That's just marketing hype to get people to adopt it. Carbon is every bit as "native" as Cocoa. Anyone who says differently doesn't understand how Mac OS X is put together.

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[Bulln-Bulln]

Why is it that there is always a few vocal whiners ready to spout off every time Apple wants to sell an OS upgrade?

1.) Apple users often claim that Apple is just a hardware company. According to them, the software is just a way to sell the hardware and that's why the hardware is so expensive.

When people ask why an update costs money, they are refering to Apple software beeing a "bonus" to the hardware.

2.) Microsoft (yeah, flame me) does still provide free updates for Win2k. Microsoft provides free updates (at least fixes, not always added features) for every Windows version for five years.
Apple's latest Security Update requires "Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later".
MacOS X 10.1 useres do no longer get scurity updates. They are forced to pay for an update.

Re:I used to hate apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you hated your English teachers as well. That is, all of them but the one who taught Hooked on Phonics.

Java3D for OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac is the last major platform without Java3D. So sad. Any thoughts about when this might change...

Forget about it

[mrnick]

I won't switch from 10.2 to 10.3 unless it's a free upgrade for those, like me, who shelled out for 10.2. I'll wait till 11.0 if it has some real advantadges.

Nick Powers

Re:Forget about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'll have to wait around another 7 years because it's gonna be 10.x until then.
These point revisions are equivalent to whole number revisions in pre X days. Apple will be milking the X for some time to come. We are effectively at system 12 now. My only problem with these revisions is the level of backwards compatibility. Anyone using 10.0 (are there any?) now are pretty much screwed since I guess most 10.1 apps don't work on it. Likewise the move to 10.2 left those stubborn enough not to upgrade in a limbo land where they're using X but they can't use many new X applications. Admittedly it wasn't as bad that time but I am worried that the new OS architecture keeps changing. In 9 and under it was fairly rare to have to upgrade applications to cope or am I wearing rose tinited spectacles.

One other niggle I have is with localisation. It's great that the OS is getting better and better but X has been around for 2 years (today in fact) and we still can't pull up cinemas listings for the UK in sherlock, or maps, or search Google UK from the safari menubar or spell -ise words correctly without being corrected by the system dictionary.

wow...

[dfj225]

more pointless Apple news. This goes along with my theory that anything involving Apple gets instantly posted. (See this previous post) Also, without having any details of any kind, the author of this news post states that "this looks promising", when it could very well be a regression for the operating system. I dont' think it is really news that Apple is planning an update for their OS (du..duh!), when we have details then that will be news.

Re:wow...

[dfj225]

see...the mere fact that they try to mod me down proves my point!!!! :)

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[jonr]

For those don't know, Dominic Giampaulo was the brain behind BeOS BFS. If Apple has Dominic, expect to see some really great stuff.
J.

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 2000 = Windows NT 5.0
Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1

You're not paying for services packs (updates) but you sure are paying for upgrades. Microsoft isn't any better at all, don't be lured by the fact they changed product name!

Hardware costs money to produce, so does software. If you don't like to pay for Mac OS X, install Linux.

A REAL Upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

I will do a real upgrade by installing yeller Dawg 3.0 on my iBook. And I guarantee you it will run twice as fast as the new Panther, ans cost 10 times less.

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[Anonymous Coward]

actually they ARE forcing you to upgrade?

Have you bothered to look at much new software since 10.2 came out? How much of it requires 10.2 or higher? (try 90%)

IMNHO 10.2 was just another bugfix from my perspective. Quartz extreme: useless, etc.

However since Apple IS a hardware company I'd be willing to bet that some of those otherwise useless features enticed many people into upgrading from otherwise still overpowered hardware for what MOST people are using their machines for. This is also why Apple will never seriously optimize OSX. They are very much like M$ in this respect excepting for the fact that Apple also happens to sell the hardware. i.e. in the Apple world if the OS is slow to you most people will advise purchasing new hardware.

Although all this said, Apple does a good job on hardware, and the price point of decent hardware isn't nearly as bad as it used to be. Also buying new hardware gets you out of paying for a new copy of the OS as long as you time the purchase correctly. Additionally if you watch Apple still miscalculates sales rates on some machines, and some times it is still possible to pick up good bargains when new machines replace older models. You could also ebay shop or buy refurbished as well, but the previously mentioned option gets you a new machine with a full warranty, which is especially good for notebooks, but much less so for desktops.

yeah, ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

those machines are selling so FAST they do not need any incentives. or you.
sorry, try again. (AND, they can be maxed out at 1.128 gigs of ram if youre willing to spend $660.00 for a gig so-dimm ddr, this also means the top end powerbooks (with two full user accesible slots can hold 2gigs of ram- when available.))

What will the version number be?

[louzerr]

So, when the release this, what are they planning on calling it? X.I? Sounds like that would require a logo change.

I know "Panther" is their working title - how come no one ever calls their new system "Guppy" or "Sloth"? How 'bout "Slug" or "Dung Beetle"?

Re:What will the version number be?

[saddino]

The version number for Jaguar is 10.2, i.e., Mac OS X 10.2. I assume the Panther release will be Mac OS X 10.3 or something similar. No logo change required.

Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[eyefish]

What I *really* hope the anounce is support for AMD's x86-64 architecture.

This would be great for AMD since I'm sure many users would gladly upgrade their motherboards/CPU to run both Windows and OS/X, and it'd be good for Apple for several reasons, among them:

- Compete with Windows on equal hardware, thus now having a chance to prove it is better or not than Windows on identical hardware.

- Allow an easy upgrade path from the x86 croud to the OS/X world, since it is easier to buy a motherboard and CPU and continue running your Windows apps, than buying a whole new machine just to run OS/X on it.

- It'd give Apple a head start on the x86 race on Windows own's turf. I can imagine the headlines "Apple beats Microsoft at shipping a 64-bit x86 OS", which is the kind of things Steve Jobs likes to do.

- It'd bring Apple to the commodity pricing world of the PC. This is bad for Apple for hardware upgrades, since users would stop buying peripherals from Apple, and instead buy them from third parties, but it'd be good for Apple's software business which could potentially grow tremendously, thus the bottom line is possitive for Apple.

- It'd end the perception that the Apple machines are slower than Windows-based machines, since now they can be compared on identical hardware running at identical speeds (we'll also finally know if Steve Jobs's claims of superior software technology are true for the first time...)

On a side note, I hope that Steve Jobs doesn't give himself to temptation and releases OS/X for the x86-64 arquitecture ONLY. There are several millions x86-32 PCs out there which could easily be upgraded to OS/X with a simple software install without buying new 64-bit hardware, so let's hope they're smart about it...

Finally, please, PLEASE Steve, simple admit that a two-button mouse (along with scroll well which also serves as a third button) is simply better than a single-button Apple mouse, and get on with it!!! A one-button mouse SUCKS!!!

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[saddino]

What I *really* hope the anounce is support for AMD's x86-64 architecture.

It's been said many times already, so I'll just make it short: If Apple were to support the x86 architecture, it would only be on Apple hardware. For the near future (as long as Apple makes its money from hardware sales), you can forget about running OS X on your x86 box.

Finally, please, PLEASE Steve, simple admit that a two-button mouse (along with scroll well which also serves as a third button) is simply better than a single-button Apple mouse, and get on with it!!! A one-button mouse SUCKS!!!

I agree, which is why I use a three button/scroll wheel mouse on all my Macs. It really doesn't cost that much, and I don't have to spend any energy frustrated about what Steve Jobs thinks. ;-)

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[usotsuki]

Just thinking... :\

Maybe if we copy the Aqua API and apply it to Darwin we can finally have our MacOS on x86.

-uso.

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[selderrr]

Finally, please, PLEASE Steve, simple admit that a two-button mouse (along with scroll well which also serves as a third button) is simply better than a single-button Apple mouse, and get on with it!!! A one-button mouse SUCKS!!!

I know that this is feeding the troll, but anyway :
the majority of mac users are dumbos that get frustrated with even 1 mousebutton. Adding 2 + a wheel would drive those users bananas. My mother loves her mac (among other reasons) for the simplicty of never having to ask me 'which mouse button is that, left or right ?'
The remainder of the mac community are nerds & freaks who don't mind paying 49$ for an optical 3button wheel mouse.

So tell me again, why should steve introduce a needlessly complex device when a simple, appropriate one exists for the dumbos, and a complex appropriate one exists for the nerds ?

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[MacDaffy]

- It'd bring Apple to the commodity pricing world of the PC. This is bad for Apple for hardware upgrades, since users would stop buying peripherals from Apple, and instead buy them from third parties, but it'd be good for Apple's software business which could potentially grow tremendously, thus the bottom line is possitive for Apple.

My 400 MHz G4 has an LG 4320B DVD-CDR combo drive, Viking PC100 memory, a Maxtor 80 GB HD, a Sylvania T721 monitor and an internal IDE Zip drive. I work as a computer consultant and regularly buy/recommend/install off-the-shelf equipment for my customers from Wal-Mart (the easiest place to find a lot of stuff here on the Big Island of Hawaii). As a matter of fact, just about the only non-commodity part you'll find on a Mac is the CPU. Apple has been using commodity parts for a LOOONG time now.

As for the three-button mouse... many of Apple's customers are first-time users. One button is more than enough for them. Any user that knows enough to NEED another button can buy one (I heartily recommend the optical mice from Micron--a steal at around fifteen bucks--or the optical ones from Logitech). I've been a three-button man for a long time now (early versions of Mac OS X) but I can still be happy and productive with one button--as long as it's not the iMac "hockey puck." Apple's usability studies are a lot more extensive than your experience or mine.

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[Theaetetus]

"Finally, please, PLEASE Steve, simple admit that a two-button mouse (along with scroll well which also serves as a third button) is simply better than a single-button Apple mouse, and get on with it!!! A one-button mouse SUCKS!!!"

I agree, which is why I use a three button/scroll wheel mouse on all my Macs. It really doesn't cost that much, and I don't have to spend any energy frustrated about what Steve Jobs thinks. ;-)

And in fact, more to the point - who out there uses the stock generic mouse that came with their Windows PC? Everyone on that side buys a third-party mouse (Wireless, Optical, you name it), and so do we - I personally have a Logitech wireless optical 4-button+scroll wheel USB mouse for my G4.

-T

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[Anonymous Coward]

Two button + scrollwheel mouse: Thought I agreed too. Got a nice one, used it for a long time. Began to get painful tendons, and went back to the one button mouse. No more sore hands. Never noticed it before, but with the one button the fingers naturally vary themselves if one gets tired; the scrollwheel forces all left-clicks to the index finger.

Now I only plug in the scrollwheel mouse for the one specialized app I originally bought it for. (OpenDX, if anyone's interested. Very cool.)

My hands are very very grateful to Steve for the choice!

Re:Mac OS/X on x86-64 Opteron/Athlon64

[Jimithing DMB]

I agree, which is why I use a three button/scroll wheel mouse on all my Macs. It really doesn't cost that much, and I don't have to spend any energy frustrated about what Steve Jobs thinks. ;-)

Very true. Though oddly enough, I've taken a liking to the one-button hinged mouse. At home I use a Microsoft trackball. I'd prefer a logitech but they haven't come up with a decent trackball since the Trackman Vista, which was, to put it succinctly, KICK ASS! So, the MS Trackman Explorer it is.

Anyway, at work my options are a bit more limited. I haven't (on my personal machines) used a mouse in ages. The problem with most mice is overall clunkiness. Unless you are into twitch mode, they must be picked up somewhat frequently. Take a look at some of the newer Microsoft mouse designs. The damn things are huge. I think some of the featherweight laptops actually weigh less than these damn things do.

The hockey puck is cool because it is so light and easy to pick up. Furthermore, the fact that the whole damn thing is a button is really cool. Every so often I kinda catch myself just pressing the whole thing down (like, using index, middle, and ring fingers in tandem) and I am somewhat awe struck.

Yeah, I know it sounds sappy, but it is seriously true. Don't discount the idea of a 1 button mouse. Having used Windows (16-bit), OS/2, Windows (32-bit), KDE, and GNOME (in approximately chronologic order) with the occasional use of IRIX, CDE, ROX, and others I can say with certainty that all the different mouse systems have their plusses and minuses. For example, OS/2 has a very logically defined right mouse button. KDE mostly copies Win32 behavior. GNOME is more akin to old school UNIX (3 button mice exist for a reason dammit!). But the Mac is rather unique in that the mouse and keyboard are designed to be used together. Modifier keys are a very cool thing.

One big bonus. For some strange reason, it seems easier to click. It's like boom, I clicked. I didn't think about which finger to do it with, I just did it! And I've been using computers for years. Watch newbies use computers and you'll definitely see why one mouse button is the answer.

Of course, as the parent post says, choice is good too. Some people really do prefer a 2 or 3 button rodent, often times with one of those wheel thingies because the thing is so clunky that without it scrolling is quite akward.

:-D

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[Bulln-Bulln]

Windows 2000 = Windows NT 5.0
Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1

You're not paying for services packs (updates) but you sure are paying for upgrades. Microsoft isn't any better at all, don't be lured by the fact they changed product name!

You don't understand. Just because MS has released WinXP (NT5.1), doesn't mean, they do no longer provide any updates for it.
MS still releases patches for Win2k (NT5.0). OTOH Apple does not even release any security fixes for OSX 10.1 any longer.
THAT'S the difference.

Showstoppers

[objekt]

I had to remove the Microsoft Mouse drivers. I never run Mozilla or any Netscape derived browser for fear of crashing. I'm scared to run any third party screen savers.

I still crash about once a day.

Never had these problems under 10.1.

Wait til June?

[digitalsushi]

I was gonna get an ibook in April-ish. Would any Apple users care to comment on whether they would wait until June to get it with 10.3 or not?

Is there a grace period where Apple will typically give you a free upgrade if you just bought one of their computers?

Re:Wait til June?

[merger]

Odds are that it will be an announcement and preview of the new OS, not the actual release of 10.3. The only factor that may come in is if apple says it will give a discount or coupon to people who purchase a new mac after that date.

If it were me, I'd get the new mac now just so I could begin using it. Is $129 (just a guestimate from previous costs) really worth not having the ibook for two months.

Re:Wait til June?

[digitalsushi]

sadly, yes. thats 4 weeks of ghetto mart food!

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[b-baggins]

Um, you've been Redmond-conditioned. Apple doesn't provide security fixes for 10.1, because there aren't any known security holes in 10.1

The latest security fix requires 10.2.4 because that's the version that has the security hole.

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? Maybe there are no security holes THAT THEY TELL YOU ABOUT. Who in their right mind would even think that there are no security holes in a piece of software, especially if there are holes in a minor revision to said software. In other words, people who cannot/will not pay for 10.2 are getting the shaft.

if you're called by a panther ...

[porky_pig_jr]

don't answer (Ogden Nash)

Apple = Pokey

[Anonymous Coward]

As the not so proud owner of a Quicksilver 933 and a 500 Mhz G3 iBook (Both running OSX 10.2.4). I must say that I'm never, ever buying another Mac until I see some fundamental architecture changes. They are sooooooooooo freakin slow to get a program started, and the Finder is the world's slowest file manager. The whole system pretty much stinks. Oh, BTW I have a Geforce 4 MX video card and 512 MB of RAM in the G4 and it still sucks compared to my Athlon XP 1900+ that cost about one half the price to build. Having said that, I do like iPhoto a lot.

-Mike

Once a DAY?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the world are you doing to your poor computer? I've been using Jaguar for the past 9 months, and can count the number of crashes on one hand.

And that's including running Camino and two different 3rd-party screen savers. The only thing I can think of to crash Jaguar is closing my iBook with a server still mounted. And that only works once in a while.

Re:Once a DAY?!?!

[objekt]

Just a minute ago I went to http://www.robodex.org/ and it crashed shortly after the flash screen loaded.

that dang brushed metal.

[0x00000dcc]

System wide?? Ok so when the version goes out of date do rust spots begin to appear??

NIS+ Support

[Khakionion]

Hmm...Do you think they'll finally add support for NIS+? 'Tis causing quite a headache over here.

The 10.3 "feature" that worries me!

[King_TJ]

Personally, the new "feature" I fear most is Apple coding the new OSX revision to ensure it no longer runs on older hardware!

I have OSX running quite nicely on a beige G3 tower right now, and had it working well with XPostFacto on a PowerMac 7600 w/G3 upgrade.

In OSX, pre-Jaguar, you could still get it to install on some older systems without having to fork over the cash for a G3 or G4 upgrade. In 10.2 though, that was put to a stop.

Seeing how hard Apple tried to prevent people from doing so much as using DVD-R drives other than the exact models that came built into their new systems (even forcing Other World Computing to stop selling a patch they developed to make firewire DVD-R external drives work with iDVD), I can easily see how they'll attempt to block OSX usage with any processor upgraded system.

Sure, they *say* they do this to ensure a quality user experience and so forth. Let's face it folks. That's just P.R. jargon for "We're doing our best to force you to buy a *new* Mac to run our new software on!"

Re:The 10.3 "feature" that worries me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't stop people from using other DVD-R drives, they stopped people from using iDVD with other DVD-R drives. Why? Their reasoning was that iDVD was only licensed to be used on computers that came with Superdrives. So if you added a DVD-R drive and got your grubby little hands on a copy of iDVD, you got an unlicensed and thus pirated copy of iDVD.

Also, what would happen if people with processor upgraded systems were able to install OS X and then got lots of problems running it? They'd call Apple support or start speaking poorly about Apple and how poorly OS X runs on their 5 year old computer. Sure it's not exactly to "ensure a quality user experience" but it's one way of saving them from support costs and bad publicity based on unsupported configs.

Re:The 10.3 "feature" that worries me!

[King_TJ]

I see your point on iDVD, except that's a poor assumption for Apple to make. What if someone bought a Mac with a Superdrive in it, and thereby legally obtained a copy of iDVD - but then wanted to use that copy on a different Mac system? Sure, it might be a stretch, but it's well within the realms of possibility.

Furthermore, iDVD can now be purchased seperately as part of iLife - yet Apple still isn't allowing OWC to release any drivers to enable it working with 3rd. party DVD-R drives.

Also, the argument about people running into problems with OSX on older, processor upgraded systems seems bogus. There are only a relative handful of machines out there than you can even upgrade with G3 or G4 cards. The vast majority of these were built by Apple themselves to begin with! It's really not a huge deal for Apple to conduct some Q.A. testing on OSX on those configurations and certify them as OSX compatible. Doing so would surely sell more copies of the operating system.

I stick by my belief that the *real* reason they refuse to do this is because they feel OSX is impressive enough to drive sales of new Mac hardware. They want the nice profit margin built into the $1500-3995 cost of a new G4 tower or Powerbook.... not just the $129 per copy of OSX.

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[usotsuki]

IMHO, Apple should go to a strict XFree86 (!) system and ditch Aqua.

What's *x without X? ;) Er... (FreeBSD is *officially* _not_ UNIX, and I kind-of like tinkering with Linux sans X, only way I've ever used it)

-uso.

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[ahknight]

Bzzt. Wrong. There's an update for 10.1.5 as well.

Security Update 2003-03-03 (10.1.5): Information and Download

I want it to be called "PUMA"!

[ElGanzoLoco]

Yeah, PUMA, like in "Pummeling Up Microsoft's Ass".

Ha!

I LOVE MAC OSX and *NIX

[g_bit]

According to results recently seen from this post I should get a Moderation of 5 Insightful for the following information:

I hate Microsoft (Windows ease of use is way over-rated). I love Unix and Linux and the Mac OS X. Long Live Linus!

Re:I LOVE MAC OSX and *NIX

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a moron.

Why is Apple moving so fast?

[afantee]

In the short space of 2 years since the initial release of OS X, Apple has rolled out 2 or 3 major release and many more minor updates, on top of new software and hardware products like Safari, Keynote, Rendezvous, Java 1.4.1, QuickTime 6 with MPEG4, Xserve, Xserve RAID, iPod, 802.11g, Firewire 800, 17" PowerBook, etc.

Each update adds new features or improves performance as well as fixs bugs, and only takes 2 mouse clicks to do. As a result, my 400 MHz iMac bought 4 years ago gets faster and more stable over time, and runs 24/7 for weeks and months with no rebooting or disk defragmenting.

And it looks most likely that Apple will be the first to release a mainstream 64-bit desktop OS.

What has our beloved Redmond beast done over the same period of time? Well, apart from weekly or daily security patches, the only thing springs to mind is XP SP1, which apparently can render some PC 10 times slower (according to http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8485 at the inquirer). A friend of mine had to reinstall Win 2k on his office machine after his XP Pro was killed by the SP1, and another friend has just experienced a second dead Wintel PC within about 18 months.

And the much hyped next major Windows update Longhorn is at least 2 years away. So what is MS doing with all those well paid programmers and the money? Are they finally caught by their own badly flawed bloatware?

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[wirelessbuzzers]

iWorks Application (standard office suite)

They could get pretty far here by improving LyX...

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[rehannan]

The sendmail/openssl security update you refer to was also released for 10.1.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/1 5352

WHOOOSH!

[Anonymous Coward]

(the sound of a joke going right over your retarded head)

*sigh*

[yorkrj]

It seems like just yeasterday that i purchased Jaguar. I don't want to have to pay for an upgrade so soon.

Big Mac releases

[Anonymous Coward]

I am waiting impatiently for the next Big Mac release.

Re: Big Mac release

[Anonymous Coward]

I am waiting impatiently for the next Big Mac release.

Country for Sale RSN (Select Buyers Only)

[perfessor multigeek]

LOL.

The "Oh, ...." last line is the one that brings it home.

Oh, the pain, the laughter, the laughter about the pain . . .

Rustin

Re:Panther = Jaguar

[Anonymous Coward]

In North America, the term "Panther" is sometimes used for Felis concolor, a.k.a Cougar, Mountain Lion, Catamount, Painter, etc. It is the largest member of the genus Felis. Its species name, concolor, refers to it having a fairly uniform coloration ("one color") as opposed to spotted or striped like most other cats.

Panther is also sometimes used to describe the all black coloration variant of the leopard, Panthera pardus which is a whole different beast.

The Jaguar, Panthera onca is another New World cat, mostly found in South and Central America. Like the leopard, it is spotted.

Church of Apple?

[broeman]

Is it me, or doesn't the picture at the bottom of the link look like the "Church of Apple". Everyone praying for that glowing apple and the whiteclothed preacher.

Not saying that I am not a happy mac-user, but I really felt like seeing a episode of Futurama again, or was it the church of Star Trek? ;-)

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[The Analog Kid]

There is a catch for a free update, look at their EULA.

Breach of trademark

[grolschie]

Isn't "Jaguar" already someone else's registered trademark?

Re:Breach of trademark

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Of course Ford Motor Group owns the Jaguar brand and associated trademarks. However in the US, there is a clear enough differentiation between the products (motor vehicles v. computer operating system) to mean no infringement. In Australia on the other hand there is no mention of Jaguar in relation to Apple at all (check the website, etc)... all because some Jaguar exec said "hey there now Apple..."

Re:Breach of trademark

[amlutias]

is apple attempting to sell cars under the mark "jaguar"?

Mother Teresa

[commodoresloat]

OK, she was no Saddam Hussein, but she was no saint either, and she kept the company of dictators like Saddam.

Re:the french

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, moron, your link shows that the french already have contracts for Saddam's oil. It's the US who is disrupting that with this war. In other words, it's the US that wants the money, and more specifically they want to take it from the French (and Russians).

There is no such cat as a "panther".

[jellisky]

The term "black panther" is used interchangably between black jaguars and black leopards.

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/agarman/bco/fact2.h tm

IIRC, all big cats are in the genus "Panthera", which is where the term originates. But, there are no such things as panthers. It's always some OTHER species of big cat.

-Jellisky

Re:Ocelot (mandatory joke)

[jjsoh]

LOL. Where are my mod points when I need them? Very funny. :)

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

Rendezvous is open source. Why can't someone else write an implementation for windows?

offtopic (Re:Panthers, Jaguars, & Tigers, oh m

[mandolin]

I went to the San Diego Zoo last year, and was disappointed - nowhere _near_ as good as it's reputation, and not even close to the Audubon Zoo, IMO.

Next time you're in the San Diego area, try the Wild Animal Park. Sadly I haven't been to the S.D. zoo so I can't tell whether you'll be disappointed or not, but the WAP is certainly nicer than the Nawlins zoo (which is also good).

Re:the french

[Anonymous Coward]

My lord, he's almost correct. "Sa dame a eu sein."

Of course, dame actually is more accurately translated nanny (or as a woman decorated in the british empire, etc.), so technically that would be "his nanny had breasts".

Scary.

Puma was 10.1 :)

[TheInternet]

Puma was 10.1.

- Scott

Dvorak / Microsoft stories fit together

[dave1212]

It should be easy for Apple to jump ahead by the possible use of Mac OS X 10.3 on Intelx86/Itanium/AMD chips.

Especially since Microsoft's monolith of an OS has no chance of working in a 64-bit environment. Someone mentioned they would have a working version of Windoze for 64-bit around 2008, so Apple really has a wide opening here, a place to get EVERYONE with a computer running their superior products (hardware and software).

Looking forward to it.

OS X Crisis Five Years Off

[Pete McCabe]

(My first Slashdot post)

Mac OS X 10.0 was released in May, 2001. Assuming 10.3 hits around 10/2003, that's .3 in 2.5 years.

That puts OS X 10.9 five years later in late 2008.

After that, what? OS X 11?

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Chucker23N]

Apple provides a few tools for implementing mDNS (multicast DNS) on Win32, yes. But even so, I have yet to see any implementation (whether it's from Apple, from SYMANTEC, from MSFT, or anybody else).

Re:Three blind mouse buttons

[Phat_Tony]

I really wish I could find a source on this to site, but unfortunatly all I've got is what I rememeber from a magazine article from the early nineties- Apple stuck with the 1 button mouse for the default because they had someone do research on a simple mac-like GUI with extensive and varied two-button options, and the overall results were that novice users faced a much steeper learning curve with two button mice. Macs were all about user friendliness and they wanted people- say, kids in shcools, to sit down and find the machines to be friendly, and the point and click, with one click to choose from, is just very intuitive. Advanced users can probably work faster with more buttons. But hey, the Mac supports more buttons. As the parent post says, if you want more buttons, shell out some dough for whatever you want. Some people prefer pen tabs or touch screens. I use a four button Kensington TurboMouse, whcih is a trackball. Whatever makes you happy. It makes sense that Apple includes the simplest thing with the computer. It's a Mac, don't fault them for sticking to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) design, it's where they grew up. And their new whole-mouse-button optical mice are really elegant, I love them. Although I have to say, the hockey puck mechanical mouse was the worst mouse I've ever seen in my life. My girlfriend has one, and it makes me cringe. - as an aside, we switched my Mom from a PC to a Mac recently, and she thought she was right clicking and left clicking on her Mac's "whole mouse is one button" mouse. She couldn't understand why it didn't do different things depending on how she clicked. Still, she went on for a week right and left clicking around before I explained it to her, and she still got her stuff done somehow before she knew.

If you're going to be pedantic...

[Anonymous Coward]

...at least be correct! It's not MacOS X, it's Mac OS X.

Get your ohphoneX right here

[sbwoodside]

Get your ohphoneX right here. It doesn't have video (yet) but it works. I used it the other day to talk to a buddy in san jose from canada.

simon

Re:What?? Apple SELLS software??

[milkman_matt]

Why is it that there is always a few vocal whiners ready to spout off every time Apple wants to sell an OS upgrade? What is it that's so hard to understand about the idea that they sell software?

Apple's OS development cycle involves one paid rev per year and one or more incrimental upgrades that are free. It's really not that hard to get. And nobody is forcing you to buy it, either.

I couldn't agree with you more... First off, i'd like to say, I'd rather pay 100 bucks for a yearly revision of a kickass operating system. Actually, maybe more like 50 bucks, that sounds more reasonable for a YEARLY release assuming i'm buying -every- release.. Anyhow, i'd rather pay that price for an OS like OS X, it's just worth it. At least they're not charging almost 200 bucks for an UPGRADE and $350 for a full version like some other operating systems with piss poor performance.

-matt

OS X11

[Unregistered]

This shouldn't confuse peiople at all when i install X on their macs so they can use oo.org and abiword.

How the hell is this "Informative"?

[Lethyos]

OKay, this is coming from the guy who wrote the original post.

Moderators are fucking retards.

To all the morons who moderated the parent up, you suck.

I wrote this post only as a little expression of my opinion. I never thought it was particularly "insightful" or "informative". To call it that is seriously overrating it. To give it a point is one thing, but all the way up to 5 (and then brought up again after a neg)!? That's insane! Get some lives, people!

I wish you people would have used those points raising good points above the cacophony.

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[foniksonik]

"And exactly what benefits do you expect from a Cocoa Finder?"

SERVICES!

also I use Cocoa Gestures, a beautiful OS-wide implementation of mouse gestures that works with any Cocoa application.

If that's not enough I don't know what would be.

Re:64 bit OS? Think BFS

[foniksonik]

64 bit would really help out the BFS style FS that is rumored to be in Panther. Large databases are ideal for 64 bit. BFS is in part a large database... a very nice connection don't you think?

Re:Various rumors and speculations

[Okonomiyaki]

The Finder can already use services and even provides a few. If it doesn't work with Cocoa Gestures, it's really more of a shortcoming with Cocoa Gestures, not the Finder. Anyway, most users don't care much about those features. Not that they aren't nice but most people either don't know they exist or don't see them as making much of a difference in everyday life. They certainly aren't important enough to warrant the kind of effort it would take to rewrite the Finder. I for one would much rather see Apple put their resources into something else.