Jaguar is Over

Steve Jobs announced the end of Jaguar, and the newness of Panther, today at his WWDC keynote address. Panther is to be available as a preview release now, and by the end of the year retail, for $129. Mac OS X 10.3 / Panther has 100 major new features, according to Jobs. Lower-level enhancements include NFS file locking, built-in X11, FreeBSD 5.0, IPsec-based VPN, and various SMB and Active Directory enhancements.

The Panther Finder is brand-new, with a new brushed metal appearance, and enhanced column view, with the items used most commonly in the far left column. Searching is "live" and a lot faster, and is more user-centric instead of computer-centric.

The Finder now has labels, and icons can resize with window resizing.

The iDisk now caches itself locally, so it can be used offline, and the user can copy to and from it more efficiently (with the real copies happening in the background).

A new feature called Expose allows minimizing into a smaller window, all open windows, to temporarily move everything out of the way, sort of like workspaces.

File Vault can encrypt a user directory and decrypt it "on the fly."

Faxing is now built-in, and available system-wide.

Pixlet is a new compression codec that does video compression without noticable artifacts, for 48 bits per pixel: at 960x540 and 24 fps, can be decoded on a 1GHz Power Mac.

Preview is significantly faster, with searching, and PS to PDF conversion.

Panther features fast user switching, a feature in Windows XP, allowing under-one-second (on the demo machine) switching between two different users.

FontBook is a new "pro" app for font management.

iChat AV is an update to iChat that does audio and video conferencing in addition to text, that works with any built-in or USB mic, and any DV video camera, connecting using only a user's screen name. It is going to beta today, and will be included in Panther, and will be sold for $29 to Jaguar users. Apple will sell iSight for $149, a small camera that does audio and video over FireWire.

Apple is preparing a new set of developer tools called XCode, which works with GCC 3.3, does distributed compiles (using available resources on the network), and has other cool stuff. It is fast, it has improved searching (like the Finder, and over entire projects), and it looks like an iApp (though it isn't metal). It removes the need to link; onnly link objects you need to launch. It starts compiling while you are editing, cutting the time you need to compile drastically. It can modify the program while it is running.

Comments

Had to say it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jaguar is dead? Hmmm, I figured it would have nine lives.

Re:Had to say it...

[yroJJory]

Jaguar had 10.2.6 lives.

Re:Had to say it...

[bludstone]

It was a crappy system anyways. I dont know what Atari was thinking.

Didnt have any worthwhile games anyways. :)

Jaguar is dead...

[goldspider]

...but did Netcraft confirm it?

I'm sorry, but someone had to say it!

Re:Jaguar is dead...

[Smitty825]

No, but the number of posts regarding Jaguar has died on the newsgroups...it's just a logical conclusion. (Wasn't Jaguar related to a *BSD anyway?) :-)

Damn, I need new hardware for first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn it! I was hoping to be able to buy a new 970-based PowerMac to be able to get first post faster!

Very Impressive

[ajiva]

OSX is definitly very, very impressive. With regular updates (every ~6-9months), Apple will be so far ahead before Longhorn comes out, that MS might actually have to try to compete! All I can say is that as a long time PC fan, way to go Apple

Re:Very Impressive

[SirSlud]

Service packs dont introduce the kind of features Apple's updates do.

Service Packs are 99% bug fixes. Something that should have been fixed before you got the product.

I'm out of the Apple loop these days, but surely Apple produces free patches between OS point releases?

Re:Very Impressive

[RocketScientist]

Yeah. Because, you know, Apple never puts out service packs. Let's see....I'm running OS X version 10.2.6. That'd be 6--count 'em--6 major upgrade points since release, plus security updates periodically. That averages out to one every couple of months. Windows 2000, on the other hand, is up to a whopping service pack 4 and it's been out for nearly 3 years. And it's probably needed more service packs than that. Last time I did an install of Win2k I spent more time downloading patches than I spent installing the OS. If they'd roll them into SP's more often it would take me less time to get boxes up and running.

I'm more concerned on my MS boxes that MS only puts out one paid upgrade every 3-5 years. What's wrong with their R&D that it takes 3 to 5 years to put out an upgrade of any significance. I remember in the NT 3.5/3.51 days that MS said they'd be on an annual OS update schedule. That sure didn't last long.

Let me be the first to say...

[jocknerd]

What about an upgrade price for Panther? I just spent $129 last fall for Jaguar.

This will be another solid update

[dtolton]

Microsoft should (but won't) take a page from Apple's book. You can as a company, co-exist peacefully with the Open Source community. Apple has put themselves in a great position IMO for the future. Their releases add actual features, making people *want* to upgrade instead of forcing them to. It's a beautiful thing, because you can still use OS 10.0 if you want to, but they add so many features, bells, whistles and in general cool stuff - people really want to get the newest version of their software.

Kudos to Apple for that.

Re:This will be another solid update

[jlleblanc]

What has apple given back to the free software community?

Updates to the KHTML group for starters.

Re:This will be another solid update

[Otter]

For the zillionth time -- MacOS X is not FreeBSD with a new window manager and desktop theme. It is a separate operating system, derived from the original BSD. Only a subset of the system utilities comes from FreeBSD.

I know you've read here over and over that OS X is FreeBSD. It isn't.

Re:This will be another solid update

[Drakonian]

Hmmm. I thought the whole point of open source was others should be able to incorporate your work into theirs. And now suddenly we are upset that a company is sucessfully doing it?

Re:This will be another solid update

[BitGeek]

The idea that Apple hasn't given BSD credit is absurd.

Hell, they're getting sued for having the "Based on unix" graphic on their pages!

They have regularly acknowledged ths situation ,and given back by releasing darwin.

The idea that all they are doing is selling other peoples improvementis is also absurd (its a troll really).

They developed a really nice new IO system and released it into darwin, for instance, along with a thousand other things.

And they develop useful apps and sell a OS that has features that Linux and BSD aren't matching yet-- they make money from the value add, while contributing back to the base open source OS.

ITs a win-win business model.

You guys need to get over your bitterness that someone somewhere is selling software and start being realistic.

Re:This will be another solid update

[prockcore]

Personally, I see Apple forcing their users to upgrade since they don't make it simple for developers to write their code once and have it run on all their system versions.

Don't forget about all the software that requires 10.2, like Safari. Those of us who haven't spent the $130 for Jaguar can't run Safari... MS may be evil, but they never forced me to buy a new version of windows to get the latest web browser.

Re:This will be another solid update

[Jon Abbott]

Do you see Apple providing updates for System 7.5 anymore?

No, but do you see Microsoft hosting a copy of Windows 95 on their FTP site?

Re:This will be another solid update

[TheRaven64]

I can understand gushing about new technology, but this "Apple can do no wrong" fetish is starting to get weird.

Umm, no actually Apple can do no wrong. You see it 's a feature of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, and since Apple own the patent on it then Microsoft can't copy it. The 'Dance Monkeyboy Dance' video was an example of what happens when they try to implement a similar technology without infringing any patents. As you can see, the Steve Ballmer Reality Distortion Field is not nearly as effective.

Re:This will be another solid update

[teamhasnoi]

...they never forced me to buy a new version of windows to get the latest web browser.

That's because their lastest web browser gives you the 'new' version of windows. Kind of like herpes: You can't get rid of it.

Re:This will be another solid update

[Drakonian]

Go to the Mac OS X tab on Apple's website and tell me how quickly it takes you to find anything that mentions and links to any of the currently active BSD projects. Looking at the page as it's currently written, it seems as though it'd be pretty easy to neglect the efforts of those groups.

OK, let's be realistic. Mac OS X is a LOT more than just BSD. But the core of it, Darwin, is more based on BSD than any other part. So, I'll go to the Darwin page.

It mentions, right on this front page:

Darwin integrates a number of technologies, most importantly Mach 3.0, operating-system services based on 4.4BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution), high-performance networking facilities, and support for multiple integrated file systems..

And if you go to the Darwin FAQ page. Quote:

The BSD community has been extremely supportive of Apple since we first approached NetBSD, FreeBSD, and others about doing a better job of sharing code. That happened even before we announced Darwin. Now we're pleased to have become an even more active participant in the community.

They don't link to the page, but they acknowledge the projects. Apple would prefer if you used Mac OS X over those other operating systems, because they are a corporation and they make money if you do so. However, there is no denying that the part of Mac OS X that is most heavily based on *BSD (Darwin) acknowledges it.

Re:This will be another solid update

[eganloo]

MS may be evil, but they never forced me to buy a new version of windows to get the latest web browser.

In case you haven't read month-old news, Microsoft announced it will no longer release standalone versions of Internet Explorer for old versions of Windows.

Slashdot: IE6 SP1 Will Be Last Standalone Version

If that is not forcing you "to buy a new version of Windows to get the latest web browser," then what is?

Re:This will be another solid update

[IamTheRealMike]

Write a Carbon app instead of a Cocoa app and it will run on every MacOS from 8.1 thru X. If you want your app to run on every mac every made, you build a classic "fat binary".

Yah, that's one solution, but then your users don't like you anymore because somehow they can tell when an app is Cocoa and when it's Carbon. I dunno why, but details of the APIs used are allowed to leak into the UI.

The main problem that the original poster was referring to btw is the fact that MacOS has no real upgrade management. The way it works is this:

On Windows, you have installers, which check your system for the components they need. Typical components are, ActiveX, DirectX, MDAC, Internet Explorer, Shell32 etc. If the version is too old, it is upgraded. This sometimes breaks things, but generally people prefer it to having apps require XP for instance.

On Linux you have ELF (symbol) versioning. When you compile an app, you can control which set of libraries (and for glibc, symbols) it links against. Then you can install sideloaded libraries if the versions on the system are too old or two new, and glibc never breaks backwards compat so that's OK.

Apple generally doesn't make large core upgrades available for free, so application authors have a problem. Not all their users will be on the latest version, so they have to cleanly disable code that needs the new features. Unfortunately, MachO wierdness means that isn't always as simple as dlopen()ing a library like what you'd do on Linux or Windows, so they use something called "weak references". Basically if a symbol is missing, when run instead of failing to start, the app will run but with the missing symbol set to NULL. If it's used, the app will crash, but you can check if it's NULL before use.

Sounds great right? Well, it would be, but weak symbols were only introduced with 10.2, and API coverage was not complete. In fact, it wasn't even mostly complete. IIRC not even all of Cocoa was covered. So, in the absence of any easy way to cleanly fail features, and no way to upgrade the OS legally, apps end up having hard dependancies on the latest version of the OS.

That fulfills Apples goal of getting more upgrade sales because suddenly all your apps need the latest version (or the developers must be careful to code things and compile on separate copies of the OS etc), but makes life harder for the user and developer. Hopefully they will get weak symbols sorted out soon. It's still lame compared to Windows because you have to switch off features, but at least it's an acceptable compromise.

Berlin WWDC blog provides fresh experience

[Damek]

There's a blog from the Berlin conference at OnlineBlog, Guardian Online's Blog. It's kind of amusing (since I'm not there), as it seems a storm has knocked out the satellite feed, and they're watching the QuickTime stream, and alternately getting drunk...

Predictive Compiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Xcode:
Completely new set of Developer Tools. Speedy: fast compiles using GCC 3.3, Finder UI built (over 100,000 lines of code) in 377 seconds on a Dual 1GHz G4. Distributed builds can speed building by using other machines on a network (built in 208 seconds with an extra machine and 96 seconds with four machines). Zero Link only links objects needed to launch. Predictive Compile literally starts compiling before the program is told to compile. Fix and Continue can make changes to apps while they are running. A single fix turnaround in Xcode takes about 3 seconds on average.

[source: http://www.4osx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1449 ]

Re:Predictive Compiling

[zulux]

A single fix turnaround in Xcode takes about 3 seconds on average.


If this works - this may change the way people develope large C++ projects.

I typically imbed a small parer into all of my large apps so I can quickly tweak the behavoiur of the app without a compile/link cycle.

IF I can tweak things and compile/like at this speed - who cares?

Apple + PPC970 = True!

[Jon Abbott]

Steve Jobs just confirmed at the WWDC Keynote that Apple systems with the PPC970 are a reality! No word yet on availability.

Re:Apple + PPC970 = True!

[Drakonian]

Unconfirmed reports say: Shipping in August.

3 Models:

1.6GHz $1999

1.8GHz $2399

Dual 2GHz $2999

Re:Ugh! Another $129 x 2 Machines!

[Roofus]

If the Apple store was up right now, I'd point you to the "Family License" version that costs $199, and is good for up to 5 computers.

It's TRUE !!!!

[nether]

1.6 Ghz -- 800 Mhz FSB
1.8 Ghz -- 900 Mhz FSB
Dual 2.0 Ghz -- 1 Ghz FSB ...

Straight from his Stevie-ness.

Re:It's TRUE !!!!

[Clock Nova]

Tell that to gamers. Or anyone who wants a machine they can upgrade. The i and eMacs just don't cut it for anyone but grandma. I need something i can replace my $1499 Quicksilver tower with.

I hope to god they're not pricing these machines this high simply to encourage people to buy iMacs.

Re:It's TRUE !!!!

[TheCrazyFinn]

Note that these all have Superdrives. Expect a Combodrive base model once demand drops a bit (September-ish I'd guess, maybe october), at ~$1600-1700 USD.

Given the likely supply issues, Apple's going to try and lower demand initially (That's why the only SMP box is the 2GHz, and why they're all Superdrive models), and then quietly introduce cheaper, lower-spec models in a few months (They've done this a few times before, including the superdrive/combodrive trick)

Re:It's TRUE !!!!

[afidel]

Seems pretty reasonable, just speced a 1.6Ghz Opteron, 512MB DDR ECC (PC2100), DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, GiG-E, 80GB Segate SATA drive, Audigy 2 OEM, Win XP Home, ~$2,000, and if the Apple comes with an FX it will have much better graphics (was using onboard because it was not going to be used for anything graphics intensive). Plus Velocity Engine is MUCH better than SSE2 for vector ops.

G5's announced

[alfredo]

Apple shows off the worlds fastest PC with three things: chip (G5), system, product. The G5 has some amazing properties: it's a 64-bit processor, runs up to 2GHz, and has a 1GHz front-side bus. It offers full SMP ("designed entirely for SMP"). The G5 has a the industry's highest bandwidth using an entirely new architecture. It has a 12 unit core with 2 FPUs.

What comes next after Jaguar and Panther...

[WIAKywbfatw]

OS X 10.4 = Bengal
OS X 10.5 = Lion

And then Apple will have to move to the non-feline NFL franchises. Names to look forward to are Titan, Giant, Jet, Raider, Buccanneer, Eagle, Falcon and Raven but Packer, Ram, 49er, Colt, Redskin and Seahawk don't sound too good.

Something tells me that they won't ever be using Bill though.

Re:What no 970

[killmenow]

I never knew Jobs suffered from Premature Specification!

Brushed Metal Appearance

[Talking Goat]

"The Panther Finder is brand-new, with a new brushed metal appearance..."

Well, then it must be better! It looks like the future! Ooohh, shiny...

Ironic Sig

[Nutcase]

-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.

And othertimes, apparently, you have to drop 2-3k on the most proprietary home computer available.

Re:Ironic Sig

[Golias]

Oh man are you stupid. All of those things are wonderful (and most are standard on PC's) but the key is that you can only install OS X on an Apple computer. The end. That is propietary.

Before you call that person "stupid," I think somebody should point out that you clearly misunderstand what is commonly meant by "proprietary hardware."

Years ago, when Apple was using NuBus and IBM was using Microchannel for their respective card expansion options, those were examples of proprietary hardware. You could only plug Microchannel cards into those IBMs, and you could not use them with any other PC (unless they licensed Microchannel from IBM.) Eventually, both the IBM PC division and the Apple designers came to their senses, and they switched to Intel's PCI design, which pretty much the rest of the home computer industry had already moved to.

Proprietary hardware is troublesome, because it restricts the availability of expansion and replacement parts. You are either locked into the original vendor, or to the handful of hardware makers who have specific hardware license agreements with the company who invented the hardware platform in question. Over the years, a lot of companies (including Apple) have attempted proprietary solutions for memory, video, expansion cards, etc. They seldom succeed, unless they manage to get the rest of the industry to adopt it as a standard.

Writing an OS that is specific to your company's computer architecture (such as OS X for the Macintosh or Solaris for Sun servers) is not an example of "proprietery hardware." It's an example of operating system software integration, and if vendor lock-in (for the complete system, not for replacement parts) doesn't scare you, it can be a very good thing.

My G3 tower has been upgraded with a third-party IDE hard drive, a third-party G4 CPU, a third-party PCI SCSI card, a third-party Firewire CD-R drive, and lots of third-party memory. All of these parts were industry-standard items which could have been installed in almost any x86 box sold in the last few years, too (except for the CPU, which could be used on any open-firmware motherboard, but then you can't drop a P4 onto an Athlon board, either.) If Apple used proprietary hardware, as you claimed, none of this would have been possible. I would have had to purchace my CPU, HD, memory, SCSI card, and CD-R from Apple themselves.

I mean think about what you are saying - if that is your criteria for being open then Microsoft has Apple beat.

Microsoft, they have never, as far as I remember, sold any proprietary hardware at all. The only hardware they sell is usually stuff like re-branded HP mice and keyboards, using either PS/2 or USB.

I'm not sure what your point about Microsoft is. Their software is not open, just as a lot of Apple's code is not open, but that doesn't really have anything to do with what we were talking about (proprietary hardware.)

Re:Proof Apple is still not enterprise ready...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jaguar is not the OS, OS X is the OS. It is not being "killed off after a year," simply upgraded to a new version. No one is being forced to upgrade, nor will developers be forced to optimize for 10.3 (the minimum requirements for new software will probably continue to be 10.2, which was the first Really Stable release).

Comparing actual improvements and new features to a bundle of bug fixes in an OS that didn't work in the first place is.. well.. missing the point.

In any case, "enterprise" is clearly not Apple's target market, with the exception of graphics houses and the like. Corporate America can go right on crunching numbers in Excel on the gray boxes.

Brushed Metal == ugh

[Garthnak]

Am I the only one who doesn't like the iTunes/Safari/etc. "Brushed Metal" look? And now they're doing it to the beautiful Finder? I can't imagine that I'm the only one who thinks it looks significantly less pretty than the simpler white look. The dark gray is just too intrusive and distracting, and it just doesn't LOOK as nice. I mean, here..

http://www.studio2f.com/misc/images/1946sPanther -1 1-med.jpg

Why is that better than this?:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/finder.html

I ask you. Am I alone here?

Re:Ugh! Another $129 x 2 Machines!

[dochood]

I just started using Macs, after using Windows and Linux for years...

I'll pay the extra, because I don't have to screw around with it to get stuff to work the way I want, like I did Linux and Windows.

Call it "dumb" if you like, but it works for me. I'm not "dumb", but I'll admit to be "cheap" (hoping for cheaper upgrade this time around...)

dochood

"Built for Mac OS X Jaguar"

[eMartin]

...says the announcement for QuarkXPress 6 on Apple's front page.

So Quark has fallen behind once again?

Re:The nicest Unix front-end ever?

[greenskyx]

I think step 2 would be "sell them to consumers" :P

PPC 970 confirmed as G5

[Sri Lumpa]

As seen here (and soon on /.): http://www.rumortracker.com/framesets/macrumors/in dex.html

# One more thing... some of you may have noticed on the net...there was a funny thing that happened last thursday... where specifications were posted.

# 3 responses: 1) Can't be true 2) It's true 3) It's great marketing

# "Premature specifications" - it was a mistake, and it's true.

# We are delivering today - the Worlds Fastest Personal Computer.

# The Chip - we turned to IBM several years ago.

# We're calling it the G5. It is a 64-bit processor. The first first 64-bit desktop processor. Runs our existing 32-bit apps no problems.

# fastest front sidebus - ever. designed for dual processor systems.

# Massivly parallel. Up to 250 inflight instructions. -- can be processed at the same time. The G4 can do 16. Floating point "monster". Two fully symetric integer units. massive branch prediction logic.

# This is a new generation architecture.

Of course everybody expected it, heck, even the Apple WWDC pages used the term Velocity Engine (IBM-ism) instead of Altivec (Motorola-ism) like here: http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/tracks.html (in the last item "Hardware")

Seeet!

Now time to save some money and then spend it ;)

Oh, what the heck, time to get more indebted :(

Nooo, must resist temptation, DAMN YOU APPLE!!

Re:XCode

[Surak]

Ahem. Works with GCC 3.3? That's GNU/XCode!

-- Richard Stallman

Aw, frickin' crud ...

[WCityMike]

Dear Mr. Jobs:

Iâ(TM)m not saying I donâ(TM)t want to pay you guys when you upgrade the OS. You guys put a lot of features in every release, and your staff deserves to get paid for it. Panther looks pretty damn cool, for the most part. Just do me a favor. Reward me, even with a paltry amount, for being a customer who likes to keep his OS up-to-date.

Knock $40 off the price and call it a $89 upgrade fee. Hell, even $30, and $99, would be somewhat palatable. Thatâ(TM)s really not that much to ask, considering the discounts one can find elsewhere on the OS after a few months.

Itâ(TM)s a bit more palatable than the pure psychological âoeF--K YOUâ of making me buy the operating system over and over and over again with every new release.

Longhorn users may be waiting until 2005 for their next release, but I doubt theyâ(TM)ll have spent $460 or $690 by that point on keeping their OS up to date.

Sincerely,

Quite Unpleased Customer Who's About to Get His Ass Handed to Him By Fellow Mac Loyalists for Even Daring to Question the Wielder of the Reality Distortion Field

P.S. To all those who decide to flame instead of intelligently reply ... please use a flame more creative than "whiner." Obliged.

Re:Aw, frickin' crud ...

[jo42]

...waving hand in Jedi manner...

These aren't the Panther ISOs you where looking for...

Re:Aw, frickin' crud ...

[NaugaHunter]

Dear QUCWAGHAHHBFMLEDQWRDF,

Thank you for noting that our "guys" put a lot of features into this release. Thank you for also noting that our "staff" deserves to get paid for it. However, I'm feel I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we also have to pay the CD manufacturers, box manufacturers, and print houses. Not too mention that our "staff" is probably a good deal larger than you think, and are, as you can imagine, premium people all around.

As to your suggested pricing structure, we will take you advice into consideration. Far be it for us to know the worth and cost of our work so well that an unsolicited suggestion won't completely turn us around.

Also, I am sorry to hear you feel that I am "making" you buy the operating system "over and over and over again". I am sure you will notice that your computer will continue to function with the software you have already purchased and installed. If that is not the case, please contact Apple Support for assistance.

It is not generally my comment on a competitor's product, but rumor has it Longhorn users will pay a heavy price indeed.

Sincerely,
Mr. Jobs

Re:Steve Jobs plan

[WIAKywbfatw]

Why do people constantly bitch (yes, bitch) when someone dares to charge for software that they can do without?

The release od Panther doesn't make your copy of Jaguar any less useful - it doesn't detract from Jaguar's functionality, ease of use or anything else.

If you like what Panther has to offer and can't live without it then buy it. If you don't think it has anything significant to offer or that it's poor value for money then don't. It's that simple.

Nobody forced you to upgrade from OS 9 to OS X and nobody forced you to upgrade from OS X 10.0 to Jaguar. Similarly, nobody's got a gun to your head forcing you to fork over your cash for Panther.

You don't expect free upgrades for life do you?

Re:The nicest Unix front-end ever?

[bobdotorg]

1. Make pretty GUIs and lovely gadgets 2. ??? 3. Profit!!! Actually, it's a pretty damn good business plan.

No No No....

1. Make pretty GUIs and lovely gadgets

2. Profit!!!

3. There is no Step Three!!! There is no Step Three!!!

I'm here at the Glendale Apple Store watching the Stevenote, and all I can say is, "Holy Crap. No, really. Holy crap."

He's just about to do the spec test of the new G5 vs. Dell's bst offering. Again, Holy floating point performance Batman.

Re:Holy Crap, these G5s are going to be $$$

[xanasin]

$1999 $2399 $2999

Why they've gone to names

[NaugaHunter]

It seems to me that rather than being analagous to 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, etc. OS X's 10.1, 10.2, are more like System 7, System 8, System 9. Each version has entirely new features on top of entirely different underpinnings. Apple is using the cat names as an attempt to shed the 'They're charging for an upgrade!' stigma.

Not that I'm looking forward to the price, mind you. However, they haven't (that I've seen) given a release date, and as I'm looking to buy a new computer it probably will work out for me. Even if I weren't, I don't think my graphite iMac would take it anyway. :(

Pricing

[peachawat]

3 models, all available in August :

1.6 GHz, 256 MB, 80 GB $1999
1.8 GHz, 512 MB, 160 GB $2399
Dual 2.0 GHz, 512 MB, 160 GB $2999 (Wow!)

G5's won't ship today

[bobdotorg]

The Photoshop guy just said, "We'll be releasing new software at about about the same time these machines ship."

Well, my credit card, which has been quivering in my wallet's deepest darkest crevices all morning, is safe for now.

Pic of iSight

[kawaichan]

iSight

Re:The nicest Unix front-end ever?

[jbr439]

Don't you mean "The nicest SCO OS front-end ever" ? :-)

Intergrated X11!!!!

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

The one reason that I thought that OSX was too little when it was released was that it had no native support for X applications. With built in X11 support, this should make OSX a full-fledged *nix-compatible OS.

This could very well pull some of the crowd who love UNIX workstations, especially with the specs on that new chip.

Image of the new PowerMac G5

[kawaichan]

Power Mac G5

Updates Anyone?

[d3xt3r]

What does $129 buy you? OS, application and security updates until Apple EOL's the product. You're not just buying a OS, you're getting updates and support for the life of the product as well.

For those who are counting, that's 5 minor releases of 10.2 since it was released and numerous security updates within 24-48 hours of the publishing of vulnerabilites.

Oh, and it all just works.

Nothing's free my friend. You can pay Red Hat $60/year or Apple $129. I think the Apple user experience is worth the extra $69 to support actual R&D, don't you?

live WWDC coverage from macminute.com

[valmont]

Follow the live WWDC Steve Jobs Keynote coverage at macminute.com.

Re:someone post a pic of the new mac?

[shayborg]

Look here for a couple pictures of the Mac as well as the iSight.

-- shayborg

Strange enough...

[singularity]

I am writing this from the Apple Store in Shaumburg, IL. The strangest thing I have seen is that the Apple Store website is currently down. THis is depite the fact that the only addition they have made today that is currently selling is the new video camera (so far... They just got done releasing the new G5 computers).

Maybe that is just to make sure no rumors start circulating. I am not sure.

The keynote has been great so far.

Seeing the dual Xeon stutter on things that the dual G5 is able to handle without sweating is great.

iChat AV looks nice. It will work really well when combined with Rendevous.

He just said that Safari is going 1.0 today.

8GB of RAM supported? Serial ATA? USB 2.0? 1 GHZ frontside bus? I said these things were too fantastical to be real. Apparently I was wrong... Glad to be wrong for once.

Keynote just ended, nothing new for sale.

About 120 people here watching. The most amazing thing? I got told that I could not take pictures with my camera. Weird...

Also had to say it...

[Trepidity]

Of course it's dead; it's based on *BSD.

Re:someone post a pic of the new mac?

[Halo1]

Adding more pics to the parent dir.

Keynote Highlites

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs takes the stage. [13:02 ET]
We have so much great stuff for you today, we may need to take a break in the middle, says Jobs. [13:03 ET]
3800 attend Keynote [13:04 ET]
300,000 Airport Extremes have shipped. [13:06 ET]
58 Apple retail stores: 17 million visitors so far. [13:06 ET]
Jobs showing a rendered pic of the upcoming San Francisco Apple store. [13:06 ET]
Later today Apple will ship its one millionth iPod. [13:08 ET]
Apple has sold 5 million songs on its online music store. [13:08 ET]
5 million Safari beta downloads since January. [13:10 ET]
Safari 1.0 final will be available for download in a few hours. [13:10 ET]
Apple also releasing Safari SDK for developers. [13:11 ET]
Over 100 new features in Panther, the next major revision of Mac OS X. [13:12 ET]
Mac OS X is now the most popular UNIX in the world, says Jobs. [13:13 ET]
Panther to offer lots of UNIX features and Windows operability. [13:14 ET]
Jobs says the old Finder was 'computer-centric' and Apple wants something 'user-centric' [13:15 ET]
Panther features a one-column Finder, brushed metal Finder window, fast searching, an 'Action" button, the return of Labels, and New open and Save panels. [13:16 ET]
Jobs demoes Panther. [13:17 ET]
There is a new iChat 2 icon with a camera in the middle that Jobs has not mentioned yet. [13:17 ET]
The searches appear tremendously fast in the new Finder. Jobs says it is "The best the world has ever seen." [13:18 ET]
New .Mac to offer auto-syncing of files. [13:19 ET]
Next up: "Expose" [13:20 ET]
Expose is a new feature for organizing windows. [13:21 ET]
Jobs says it makes it easier to find the window you are looking for. [13:22 ET]
Expose shrinks all of the windows in order to display them all on the screen at once, so you can find what you are looking for easily. [13:23 ET]
Users can assign any key on their keyboard (or assign screen corners) to perform this feature. Lots and ooohs and aaaahs from the audience. [13:23 ET]
Expose uses Quartz Extreme. [13:25 ET]
FileVault: secures a user's entire Home folder. [13:26 ET]
It encrypts and decrypts on-the-fly. [13:26 ET]
Mail to be optimized for Panther. [13:26 ET]
The new Mail app will be much faster, offer Safari rendering built-in, allows you to manage your mail by threads, and Addresses are now 'Objects' [13:28 ET]
Jobs demoes HTML emails. [13:28 ET]
Jobs demoes thread view in Mail. [13:29 ET]
IPSec-based VPN is built-in to Panther. [13:30 ET]
Built-in fax in Panther -- every print panel has a fax button. [13:30 ET]
'Pixlet' features a breakthrough new QuickTime codec with studio-grade quality -- 48 bits / pixel source data, no noticeable visual artifacts, no inter-frame compression. [13:31 ET]
Jobs demoes Pixlet by showing a Finding Nemo trailer. [13:33 ET]
Jobs shows Matrix Reloaded trailer. The quality is outstanding. [13:35 ET]
Preview: Jobs talks about PDF. [13:35 ET]
Apple has updated Preview to be the fastest PDF reader in the world. Jobs compares the render speed to Windows Acrobat 6 -- Acrobat gets trounced. [13:35 ET]
By the way, Jobs has a small camera hooked up to the top of his Cinema display. No mention of it yet however... [13:37 ET]
Scrolling a large PDF document is very fast in the new Preview. A search feature has also been added. [13:38 ET]
Preview offers on-the-fly postscript to PDF conversion. [13:39 ET]
Faster User Switching: there is now a menu in the corner to switch between multiple users on a machine. [13:40 ET]
The Fast Switch in awesome - loud applause from the crowd. The Desktop literally spins around to the new one, kind of like Keynote. [13:40 ET]
FontBook: handles professional font management. One button to install a new font. [13:42 ET]
Offers a nice preview feature and instant searching. This is built into Panther. [13:42 ET]
Jobs says he saved the best for last... iChat. [13:43 ET]
25% of Apple customers use it routinely. [13:43

service packs

[McDutchie]

At least M$ does a few service packs for free before they ask for more money with a new OS.

Er, Mac OS X 10.2 has had 6 of them so far, from 10.2.1 to 10.2.6. That's not counting the Developer Tools updates (and M$ certainly doesn't give a world-class developer environment away for free with the OS).

Safari 1.0 now up for download.

[phillymjs]

Get it here.

~Philly

Apple's ubiquitous humor....

[Vengie]

From the panther preview section....

Unix-lover Heaven
Panther will include a final X11 client for Unix-based applications, improved NFS/UFS, FreeBSD 5 innovations as well as support for popular Linux APIs, IPv6 and other important acronyms.

"Other important acronyms" hehehe ;)

HA HA sense of humour at apple

[panck]

On the Panther page look at the right side column on the bottom under "System-wide enhancements".

Unix-lover Heaven. Panther will include a final X11 client for Unix-based applications, improved NFS/UFS, FreeBSD 5 innovations as well as support for popular Linux APIs, IPv6 and other important acronyms.

Well, that belted a laugh out of me.

"Because we can"

[Shenkerian]

That's not all.. On the Fast User Switching page, their final point is this:

Because we can
Mac OS X animates transitions from one user to another. The current desktop becomes a texture placed on a 3D cube that rotates out of view while the incoming account desktop rotates into view on another side of the cube.

I'm glad they decided to flaunt the Quartz engine this way. And they're really doing it just because it's cool.

The lesser of evils..

[digital photo]

Being a recent convert to the Mac/Apple fold, I find I have both concerns about these upgrade cycles and at the same time, I feel they are justified.

Let's take a look and see what we are comparing so we aren't comparing Apples and well.. you know.

In my mind, there are really only three platforms out there: Apple, Windows, and *nix(Linux,BSD,Solaris,etc).

Let's look at the "cost" of upgrades for each of these, shall we?

With Apple, it seems you pay $129 for each major revision change. People who were using 10.0-10.1 were charged to go to 10.2 and now it seems that 10.2 users(myself included) will be charged to go to 10.3.

My experience with my iBook running 10.2.6 has been about as damn near perfect as I have ever experienced on any platform with a user interface to match. Sure I paid top dollar for a laptop which won't beat my fellow co-workers' 1-2Ghz laptops anytime soon, but I also won't be cursing at my laptop for wiping out my data either. That has got to be worth something.

With Linux, we get free kernel and OS upgrades. However, each time I went through the upgrade process, I had to literally double check every software package and perform countless recompiles to get things right again. On average, with every major kernel release I have had to spend the better part of an afternoon performing "installation" exercises. With every minor release, I have had to recompile the kernel. I didn't pay cash on the barrel for the upgrade, but I paid for it in time.

With Windows, it has always been a struggle. People say *nix is unfriendly. I say it is Windows which is unfriendliest of all. You have to pay about $149 for an upgrade to the OS or in my case, $349 for the "full" version of the software. To top it off, if I have any aspirations of a marginally stable system, I have to perform a clean install and not just an upgrade on top of my existing system. This results in at least a full day of work on my part in re-installing the OS and all of the applications on the system. I pay in time and money.

Now. With that in mind, I'm looking at the prospect of paying $129 for the 10.3 version of Mac OSX:Panther for my iBook which will run better with other systems and be even friendlier.

I think I can live with that.