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Jaguar is Over
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.
Darn it! I was hoping to be able to buy a new 970-based PowerMac to be able to get first post faster!
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
What about an upgrade price for Panther? I just spent $129 last fall for Jaguar.
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.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Xcode:
9 ]
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=144
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?) :-)
Doh!
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
...says the announcement for QuarkXPress 6 on Apple's front page.
So Quark has fallen behind once again?
Dear Mr. Jobs:
... please use a flame more creative than "whiner." Obliged.
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
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?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Don't you mean "The nicest SCO OS front-end ever" ? :-)
Steve Jobs takes the stage. [13:02 ET] .Mac to offer auto-syncing of files. [13:19 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
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
Well, that belted a laugh out of me.
"What thou shalt not, I shalt did!" -Bart Simpson