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

[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: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...

Don't Forget the Educational Discount...

[Pirogoeth]

Panther is only $69 if you qualify!

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: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: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.