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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."

24 of 484 comments (clear)

  1. Forced Upgrade? by TedCheshireAcad · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Forced Upgrade? by TheGreek · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    2. Re:Forced Upgrade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      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.

  2. Money by kruczkowski · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

    --
    hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  3. Re:Ummm.... by AssFace · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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"

    --

    There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
  4. pre-release advertisement and hype by stonebeat.org · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  5. one thing it will have by jbellis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. The REAL reason by cravey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:64 bit OS? by su-geek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  8. Paying for bug fixes by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    For great justice.
    1. Re:Paying for bug fixes by Znonymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --

      Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.

  9. Re:Panther? I don't know but... by smallpaul · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pink? Nah, Apple already tried that.

  10. Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com) by ruiner13 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "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.

    --

    today is spelling optional day.

  11. Re:Panther? I don't know but... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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*

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  12. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  13. AMD tie in by be-fan · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  14. The metal interface isn't that bad.... by SensitiveMale · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    Not too shabby.

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

  15. Re:Various rumors and speculations by Chucker23N · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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.

  16. Re:What?? Apple SELLS software?? by Bulln-Bulln · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  17. Re:Bullshit by mgv · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

    --
    There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
  18. Re:Why Apple will not switch to intel by dick+johnson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    - dj
  19. Re:What?? Apple SELLS software?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  20. Re:OS X, HDTV, and Panther by ElGanzoLoco · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

    --
    Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
  21. Re:100% Content-Free by zgwortz962 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?)