Apple Sets Oct. 24th Release For Mac OS X 10.3

dricci writes "Yahoo! has posted a press release from Apple, regarding the release date of the next major Mac OS X update, 10.3 ('Panther'). The update will be available 8:00 p.m. on October 24th at Apple Retail Stores and Authorized Resellers for $129.00 US (Family Pack for up to 5 users will be $199). Pretty much the same pricing structure they had for Jaguar. It looks like 'old world' Beige G3 support has been discontinued -- the update requires a Mac with built in USB."

Comments

Countdown clock

[BWJones]

Apple is running a very cool countdown clock on their main page here.

Flash aside, this is one important update for Mac users and shows how much code optimization can get you in terms of performance. This release runs impressively fast on current hardware, but more importantly for the installed user base, it gives new life to older machines with good performance on machines going back several years.

Re:Countdown clock

[Jucius Maximus]

" Apple is running a very cool countdown clock on their main page here [apple.com]. Flash aside..."

Actually it appears to be a javascript type thing. I have flash disabled in mozilla (due to stupid flash ads) and I can still see it.

Re:Countdown clock

[Matthias Wiesmann]

Remember that the time taken by the OS, in most cases is below 1% of the total program execution time.

While programs indeed spend little time executing operating system calls, GUI programs spend a lot of time in libraries and waiting on the graphical server. So by improving the libraries or the graphical server, performance and responsiveness can be dramatically improved. This is exactly the kind of optimisation that where done in 10.2, in particular with Quartz Extreme.

You have do understand that most Mac application rely on the system's libraries to do many task: GUI are dones using Quartz, media handling is typically done using Quicktime, DSP like calculations using vecLib and so on. Now you can debate if those libraries are part of the OS or not, the fact is, Panther will probably bring improvements to those libraries.

Re:Countdown clock

[laird]

OK, well, I've been running various 10.3 beta's for a while now, and it _is_ that much faster. Modern applications (i.e. with a GUI, over a decent app framework) spend the vast majority of their time inside system calls (excluding compute-intensive stuff like Photoshop, of course). Think about it -- did it take more CPU to generate a string to display, or to render every character anti-aliased and alpha-blended onto the display? How much time does iMovie spend decoding and encoding video, or reading and writing files? Apple appears to have really tuned the display code...

Aside from that, there are huge chunks of code above the OS that Apple also tuned -- Mail.app, Safari, iTunes, iMovie, etc. So when Safari runs 3x faster than before (subjective number), I can't really tell without a lot of work whether it's the Safari application layer, the HTML engine ("in the OS"), the text layout engine, the display drivers, etc. But I can tell you that after using 10.3, I wouldn't voluntarily run 10.2 again.

Re:Countdown clock

[Anonymous Coward]

Each version of OS X gets faster because, among other things, Apple has been optimizing.

For example, in Panther, the Type 1 rasterizer had a lot of time spent on it, to the point where rasterization alone saw a huge improvement in performance (10.3's rasterization is almost twice as fast as 10.2).

Of course that doesn't mean text draws *twice* as fast as there are many other factors involved in getting text on the screen. But it does mean that text draws faster in 10.3 than 10.2.

Another example. Cocoa. Cocoa's invalidation model was really piss-poor. Often waaay more of a window would get repainted than was truly necessary. 10.3 greatly improves so any Cocoa-based app with many views will be much faster and more responsive.

Another example. Carbon and and its controls. Rather than have all the controls rasterized in QD which in turn had low-level transformations to CG, eveything is now done directly with CG primitives. For example, the animating progress bar in 10.3 uses 1/10th the cycles as compared to 10.2.

i could go on for hours. I have to wonder if the original poster is actually a developer or not? Clearly OS X is a young OS and the are literally thousands of opportunities for optimization. Apple obviously worked on a lot of them for 10.3

Bryan Pietrzak

Re:rediculous...it's spelled ridiculous & U R

[adzoox]

What are you talking about? If I recall:

10.2.1
10.2.3
10.2.4
10.2.6
10.2.8

Were all free, not to mention all the app and security fixes. Most of those updates weren't REQUIRED like the "free Windows updates" AND each time you updated you had to validate your Windows system under XP.

This is the release of X that everyone should want. faster, more stable on every machine I've tested it on.

Re:rediculous

[nat5an]

Yeah, except, as I understand it, the difference is that 10.3 will actually run faster than 10.2 on the same system. As opposed to Win2k and WinXP on the same machine, where the converse is most definitely true.

More info on the Dev Tools too

[HellsAngel]

They got more info on the Developer Tools too right here It uses GCC 3.3 now, and from the looks of it, Xcode is gonna rock! Oh, and if you'll look at the Darwin link, you'll notice that the Terminal in the image uses bash instead of tcsh. Darn, and I was just getting used to the C Shell too.=) Oh well then...

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[Anitra]

sudo niutil -createprop . /users/YOURUSERNAME shell /bin/tcsh

Or you could just use Terminal.app's preferences. Choose whichever shell you prefer.

Don't Forget the Educational Discount...

[Pirogoeth]

Panther is only $69 if you qualify!

Re:Don't Forget the Educational Discount...

[SlamMan]

And $64.50 for a Government discount (which applies to employees of Fed, state, and local governments).

Panther / jaguar compared

[MouseR]

I got my dual G5 on the 7th of september. I have partitioned it and have installed both Jaguar (10.2.7 G5) and Panther 7B74 on it (for those asking, I was at the developer conference, hence my seedings of Panther).

Using Code Warrior to build 730 megs worth of sources (no, really), the complete build cycle (after a total cleanup of objects) took 9 minutes on Panther, and 13 minutes in Jaguar.

And that's with a tool that's not multi-threaded. Kudos Apple.

(Oh, and BTW, this same source code set takes roughly 45 minutes on a dual G4 450!!)

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[MouseR]

Does Panther make the G5 a truly 64-bit platform?

Yes: the OS is fundamentally 32-bits, but the kernel and key parts (math libs etc) are 64-bits under a G5, making it faster. This design decision allows running 32-bit apps seamlessly alongside 64-bit apps.

Ie, does it allow applications to address more than 32 bits (4GB) of RAM? What's sizeof(void *)?

Heres the rundown, from an Apple response in SCITECH:


Hi all,

There seems to be a bit of confusion on this topic. The short answer is
The PowerPC G5 processor is fully 64-bit Mac OS X supports many, but not all, services using 64-bit integers.
Currently, sizeof(void *) == 4

I realize that some people take a rigid position that 64-bit computing = 64-bit OS = sizeof(void *) == 8. Which may be understandable given their problem space, but reality - especially when dealing with mass-market personal computers, not speciality workstations - is a bit more complicated, and different people benefit from Mac OS X's level of 64-bit support in different ways.

A more official explanation is below. Please let me know if there's any confusion about this.
Sincerely,
Ernest Prabhakar
Product Manager, UNIX & Open Source
Apple

Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2.7 and later) features a redesigned kernel and updated system software math libraries specifically for the 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor. The updated kernel delivers the most substantial benefits of 64-bit computing by breaking through the 4GB physical memory barrier enabling the kernel to use all the RAM that can be added to the new Power Mac G5 (currently 8GB).

The key functions of the system math and vector libraries have been hand tuned to make maximum advantage of new and faster math functions that the 64-bit G5 is capable of. This is a great because unmodified applications that use the system math functions will get an automatic speed up when run on the G5. For example, the square root function is implemented as a software algorithm when run on a G3 or G4 but on a G5 when a square root calculation is requested the math library uses the super-fast hardware instruction that the G5 has.

This approach brings the maximum benefit of 64-bit processing to the desktop personal computer market and does so with full native-speed compatibility with existing 32-bit applications. Because the PowerPC instruction set was designed initially with 64-bit instructions in mind, this transition is a smooth and simple one for our developers and customers.

Apple has also supplied a new compiler, GCC version 3.3 which generates optimal code for the new G5 machine model. Importantly, this compiler produces code that executes efficiently on G5, G4 and G3 systems so a single Mac OS X application runs on each of our support processor architectures. This allows developers to build and qualify a single version of their applications for the 32-bit and 64-bit Mac systems.

Mac OS X Panther takes the same approach to the G5 as Jaguar but will be able to optimized additional math functions based on feedback from the developer community.
References
Optimizing for the Power Mac G5
):
Technical Note TN2086: Tuning for the G5: A Practical Guide

Technical Note TN2087: PowerPC G5 Performance Primer

Technical Note TN2090: Driver Tuning on Panther or G5 (Of interest only if you have written a device driver)

Power Mac G5 Performance White Paper (PDF)
http://www.apple.com/powermac/pdf/PowerMacG 5_Perf_ WP_071503.pdf

Default Sizes
sizeof (char) == 1
sizeof (short) == 2
sizeof (int) == 4
sizeof (long) == 4
sizeof (long long) == 8
sizeof (void *) == 4
sizeof (void (*)(void)) == 4
sizeof (float) == 4
sizeof (double) == 8
sizeof (long double) == 8* [may change in the future]
sizeof (size_t) == 4
sizeof (off_t) == 8

G5-Related Flags for GCC
-mcpu=970
This allows the compiler to use instructions only available on the G5 (also known as

XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[Talez]

Seriously... Take a look!

The rendezvous enabled distributed building and predictive compiling look to be winners.

Re:Looks like the Apple 'lies' (marketing) continu

[green pizza]

This is why my 6400/200 was the last new Apple machine I bought.
I'm sorry to hear that... the PPC 603 in the 6400 **sucked** compared to the 604 in most of their other desktops.

The Beige G3s were the last Apple machines that I would have considered buying. Since they are no longer supported I guess I won't be buying Apple
Huh?? Were you fond of the 66 MHz bus and onboard 10 MB/sec SCSI? Or was it the EIDE that you liked?
The Blue&White G3 had just as much expansion as the Beige G3 (3 PCI & 1 66 MHz PCI for gfx versus 3 PCI & 1 "personality slot" in the beige). One less drive bay, though, but the machine came with onboard USB and Firewire. Even had a legacy ADB port to help you transition over and keep your favorite keys/mouse. The stock Rage128 blew the beige's graphics out of the water with about 8x the fillrate.
The G4s were even better. And... there are gobs of aftermarket CPU upgrades for the B&W G3, just as there are for the beige.

I would agree that Apple is lacking a good entry-level desktop machine right now ($3K for a monster dual that can support 8-16 GB RAM is a good price, as are most of the PowerBooks... but there is no ideal $1K single processor desktop [the single proc G5s are really expensive in terms of bang for the buck]).

Re:Why is USB required?

[valkraider]

USB is not required.

Apple started shipping ALL of their computers with USB around the same time. Those are the oldest computers that Apple is supporting Panther on. Thus it is easiest to say that they require the Apples with USB built-in, instead of naming all of the oldest computers that they support.

So it's not USB that is required - but the "spec" of the Apple computers that come with USB built in that is required.

Make any sense?

Re:Looks like the Apple 'lies' (marketing) continu

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would agree that Apple is lacking a good entry-level desktop machine right now ($3K for a monster dual that can support 8-16 GB RAM is a good price, as are most of the PowerBooks... but there is no ideal $1K single processor desktop [the single proc G5s are really expensive in terms of bang for the buck]).

Huh? If you have $1K to spend you can get:

• 1GHz PowerPC G4
  
• 128MB SDRAM
• 60GB Ultra ATA drive
• DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo drive
• Keyboard/Mouse
• VGA out
• S-Video Out
• Firewire
• USB
• Audio In/Out
• 10/100 Ethernet
• 56K modem
• Mac OS X
• Speakers
• 17" monitor
• and a bunch of useful software

That's a pretty good entry-level system. It's not the fastest thing you can buy, but it's plenty of machine for most people. If you need more of a machine than that, besides some RAM, you're not in the market for an entry-level machine.

Re:rediculous...it's spelled ridiculous & U R

[raptor21]

The OPs analogy was perfect. the 10.2.x updates you describe are hotfixes, and the 10.x are service packs

No. This analogy is false. Apple's version numbering is 10.X where X is the new release number based on the baseline Mac OS 10 architecture. 10.X.Y releases are service packs.

This is no different from Microsoft's release engineering versioning. Windows 2000 was based on NT and was versioned 5.0 and Windows XP based on windows 2000 is version 5.1. Just open a cmd window and look at the verison of XP it should say 5.1.0.xxxx.

Linux does the same thing with 2.X where X is even numbers for stable new releases and 2.X.Y is the number for fixes and minor updates.

There is a difference between marketing and release engineering verisoning.

Free ($20) Qualifying Update

[Josuah]

If you purchased any new Mac after Oct. 8 you are entitled to a $20 upgrade. If you purchased any new G5 (any date) the same applies. Visit the Mac OS X Up-To-Date page for the application an further details.

The $20 covers shipping and handling of the retail box.