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

Shame Wallstreet isn't supported Bcause this is it

[adzoox]

The only problem I find with the support is that the Wallstreet line PowerBooks, especially after adding a 500Mhz G4 upgrade was one of the best lines Apple ever made. I liked the Pismo line too, but the dual storage bay capability of the Wallstreet was a real plus. Floppy to floppy copy Expansion bay hard drive to floppy copy, or Zip and SuperDisk transfer was a real plus when I had to copy files for a client. I also upgraded my drive to DVD/CDRW combo drive.

That said, 10.3 is the release of Panther you have been waiting for. Dramatic increases in speed and launch times - and I just have an older prelease from WWDC.

no 'cheap' upgrade for purchases prior to Oct 8.

[Sebby]

except for the G5s. Those thinking that buying 'slightly' before its (officially announced) realease will be disappointed.

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

[hype7]

Flash aside, this is one important update for Mac users and shows how much code optimization can get you in terms of performance

Absolutely! I'm not the biggest fan of XBench, but these numbers do paint a very impressive picture.

Regardless, don't forget the cool stuff Apple's adding - Expose is cool, I got a chance to play with a pre-release version of Panther and it's one of those things that you'll begin to wonder how the hell you ever lived without it. The other thing that I'm looking forward to is the on-the-fly, user-friend 128-bit AES encryption. Your computer goes walkies? Least the pricks don't get all your stuff.

-- james

Re:Countdown clock

[dthable]

The other thing that I'm looking forward to is the on-the-fly, user-friend 128-bit AES encryption.

Yay, no more encryption by hand. I'm also looking forward to the secure delete function. I'd rather have all those proof of concept and rough design programs and documents destroyed if someone swipes my laptop in an airport.

Re:Countdown clock

[ch0ke]

program execution remains the same, it is the GUI that is much more responsive. dramatic difference on my iBook 600mhz and an old graphite toilet seat @ 366 mhz.

Re:Countdown clock

[KevCo]

Everyone keeps saying this. I really hope it's true. 10.2 runs well on my 700Mhz iBook but I'd like to see a little performance boost.

It's refreshing to see an OS upgrade that focuses on improving performance rather than just throwing a bunch of additional bloat and wizards at me.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you used the Panther versions floating out there? My iMac gets about a 30% increase in Finder graphics operations by using one of the developer versions of Panther. Let1KWindowsBloom runs about 57 seconds in 10.2.6 and about 33 seconds in Panther (even considering Panther is run off a FW HD).

Everything else is also *seems* faster, but I don't have objective numbers to back it up.

I don't expect a revolutionary faster OS, I do expect a much more responsive system.

Re:Countdown clock

[Wyatt Earp]

You don't believe it?

Run an OS 10.0.4 box along side of a 10.1.0 box or a 10.0.4 along side a 10.2.0 box and then do a file copy or a browse to a network server and fart around with the machine at the sametime.

Or fire up IE and browse /. articles with more than 50 comments.

The OS does get *that* much faster.

Re:Countdown clock

[Ranger Rick]

I've been using the prereleases of panther and it *is* noticably faster, I'd say pretty close to the difference in speed between 10.1 and 10.2.

Under the covers they've done a lot of work to make prebinding work better, for one thing, and gcc3.3 provides vast improvements in powerpc code over gcc3.1 (even apple's modified version).

Re:Countdown clock

[lederhosen]

Yeah! And people tell me it should be called
Linux instead for GNU/Linux cause only the kernel
is the OS! But of course the GUI will be more
snappy if the graphic sub-system is optimised.

I realy do not think responsivnes and speed is the
same thing though, most people will think that
you now can do your render jobs on a G3.

And I find it amusing that there exist no flaws
in the OS except at the next release; no one
has told me that MacOS is so unresponsive ;-)

Re:Countdown clock

[Jeremy Erwin]

Now you can debate if those libraries are part of the OS or not....
It's been done. Witness the perennial Linux v. GNU/Linux debates.

Re:Countdown clock

[jellomizer]

Yes it is java script. I checked the source.

Re:Countdown clock

[Ranger Rick]

All of the base system libraries that all software depends on have gotten a speed boost. Even for apps that aren't explicitly recompiled, they'll be faster; *all* apps spend a not insignificant amount of their time calling code that comes with the OS.

Re:Countdown clock

[lederhosen]

>> I don't expect a revolutionary faster OS, I do
>> expect a much more responsive system.
Fair enough!

Re:Countdown clock

[Gorbag]

I think he meant "flash" in the normal english sense, i.e., showmanship, and did not intend to refer to any software.

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

[Gid1]

Which timezone is that 8pm in? The Javascript doesn't specify, so I guess those Australasians will get it first ;)

Re:Countdown clock

[lederhosen]

So, you expect dramatic inprovment in the following programs:

SPEC
GCC
PHOTOSHOP
3DSTUDIO

I do not.

>>*all* apps spend a not insignificant amount of
>>their time calling code that comes with the OS.

Thats *not* true.
In fact you do not have to call the OS at *all*.

Re:Countdown clock

[blugu64]

Dang, that's gonna be awesome. I've used every version of OS X since the public beta, and it has gotten much much faster. the PB was dirt slow, 10.0 marginaly faster, 10.1 was a Godsend in terms of speed, and 10.2 is even faster then 10.1, can't wait for 10.3 (on my 333Mhz iMac!!)

Re:Countdown clock

[lederhosen]

I thought that MacOS was responsive, if that is
a lie, you make a point in that some programs that
are slowed down by its GUI will be faster.
But then I do *only* hear about how good and
*fast* the GUI is.

I thought Quicktime was *not* part of the OS, and
would be updated anyway. But are you telling me
that old OS X will not be able to see new film
formats???

I would be suprised if vecLib is faster, such a
lib should be handcrafted in assembler. Do you
mean that the old assembler was made in a rush?

Do you expect that any of the programs below will
run faster?

SPEC
GCC
Photoshop
3Dstudio

Re:Countdown clock

[The Mainframe]

The encryption isn't as cool as it seems. Running 7B85 it insists on creating a duplicate home directory in an encrypted disk image, eating up twice as much space.

Re:Countdown clock

[lederhosen]

Come on, rendering text has been real time
for 30 years.

If you actually do wait for text to appear, then
why do you pay more than $3000 for a computer.

You wait for computational work, if not, the
GUI is badly designed. And that is a fact.

I do *not* consider HTML engine from KDE to
be part of the OS, I do not wait when I send
mail (and neither does mac people).

Re:Countdown clock

[Ranger Rick]

OK, not everything, I was generalizing, but the point remains. It would be difficult to find apps that don't use libSystem on Mac OS X. I'm not claiming all apps will get a massive speed boost, only saying that your original suggestion that there would be basically no difference is incorrect in my experience.

I've been running the panther seeds for months and it's noticably faster. Believe it or not. =)

Re:Countdown clock

[dthable]

So it's really more of a creative hack than an elegant solution. Oh, my poor lil' 20 GB hard drive isn't going to like that.

Re:Countdown clock

[Matthias Wiesmann]

I thought that MacOS was responsive,

Actually I'm pretty sure you never thought that. You should try other rethorical devices.

if that is a lie, you make a point in that some programs that are slowed down by its GUI will be faster. But then I do *only* hear about how good and *fast* the GUI is.

Responsiveness is a subjective thing, I never claimed that OS X was fast or slow, merely that it could be improved. The fact that something can be improved does not mean it is bad, slow or anything.

I thought Quicktime was *not* part of the OS, and would be updated anyway.

The fact that Quicktime is a part of the OS is irrelevant to the issue. I mentionned it because it is one of the libraries that Mac applications tend to rely heavily on. The fact that it might be updated anyway does in no way negate its hypothetical performance improvements.

But are you telling me that old OS X will not be able to see new film formats???

I never made such an affirmation. I said that improving libraries like Quicktime could improve the overall performance of an application. You are right in the respect that files that use new codecs won't be readable on machines that don't have this codec installed, but I fail to see how this relates to the dicussion.

I would be suprised if vecLib is faster, such a lib should be handcrafted in assembler. Do you mean that the old assembler was made in a rush?

You seem to have tremendous amount of fun second guessing what I say to advance you personal agenda. You also have a very romantic idea of how code is optimised: a programmer crafing assembly code by hand with love and doing the right thing.

Reality is, of course, a little bit different. Optimising code like vecLib implies analysing the timing behaviour of the different vector instructions and how the caches behave. This implies running many tests, trying out many variants. This takes a lot of time, and thus even a hand coded library can be optimised further. In particular, different variants of the G4 processor tend to have different timing behaviours in regard of altivec instruction dispatch, cache behaviour and multiprocessor handling, so you can always squeeze out a few cycles.

As I said previously, the fact that something can be improved does not mean it was badly done in the first place.

Of course I never claimed that vecLib would be optimised, simply that it could be one the candidates for optimisation and cited it as an example, there a many other libraries in OS X that could be optimised. But as you seem so intent on disparaging my post, I supose this has escaped you.

Do you expect that any of the programs below will run faster?
SPEC

SPEC is not a real application, it is a benchmark for processors performance and thus does no system call and even less library calls. By definition improving libraries will not change SPEC performance. There might be some improvement by compiling it using the new version of GCC that ships with the system (see below), but better improvement could be gained using IBM's compiler.

GCC

Actually, the new version of GCC that ships with Panther is rumored to be more efficient in compiling PPC code, and GCC is compiled by itself, yes GCC could probably be faster.

Photoshop & 3Dstudio

Those applications might become more responsive GUI wise, the calculations might be improved to the extent that they rely on system libraries. As I am not privy to the internals of either applications, this point is open to speculation.

Re:Countdown clock

[CatOne]

It's most definitely faster, and for a number of apps.

Hell, a common Mac benchmark is "XBench" and it runs about 20% faster on identical hardware (that is, on the SAME machine, depending on the OS you're booted into). The system libraries are the APIs that are used to build nearly all applications (unless you WANT to start writing from int main() {} ;-)

So apps that use system calls (graphics, etc.) are "automagically" faster even without a recompile. And with a recompile, they'll gain more, as GCC 3.3.x is faster than GCC 3.1.x (which was in turn faster than GCC 2.95). Apple is doing good work here -- they've had time to optimze the GCC back end for PowerPC -- which takes some doing because in the past it generated a lot better code for x86 than other targets (no surprise, due to the amount of work done for Linux). 2 years ago GCC/PPC had some *scary* bugs.

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:Countdown clock

[Elwood P Dowd]

Thank you for correctly identifying what was funny about grandparent poster's joke.

Re:Countdown clock

[yomegaman]

That's nice that OS X might be finally starting to run decently fast. The reason you keep seeing these "improvements" is that it was so pathetically slow to begin with. Just think only 3*$130=$390 (10.0, 10.2, 10.3) to get the production version. What a bargain!

Re:Countdown clock

[Draoi]

I'm not the biggest fan of XBench, but these numbers [bidouille link] do paint a very impressive picture

... especially considering those stats were produced with a release earlier than 7b21. It's common knowledge that Apple were seeding 7b85 last week. That's a lot of updates in-between ....

Re:Countdown clock

[venolius]

Yep, it has a JPEG for the base image and the clock digits are GIF's; images are switched with JavaScript (All you have to do is view the source!).
Apple does not use Flash because they are beginning to position Quicktime against it.

Re:Countdown clock

[Wyatt Earp]

A GUI isn't part of the OS?

Apple considers the Quartz and Quartz Extreme engine and the GUI, Aqua, parts of the OS.

So even though you don't consider the GUI to be part of the OS, the folks who made the OS do.

As for not hearing this arguement before a new version is coming, then you've not listened very hard.

From the second the OS X Public Beta and 10.0 came out people complained about the speed of the GUI and some of the bundled applications.

Even before 10.1 was announced.

Re:Countdown clock

[nacturation]

Run an OS 10.0.4 box along side of a 10.1.0 box or a 10.0.4 along side a 10.2.0 box and then do a file copy or a browse to a network server and fart around with the machine at the sametime.

I agree. With 10.0.4 it took over 20 minutes to copy a 17MB file, but 10.2 only takes a few seconds. ;-)

Re:Countdown clock

[MoneyT]

Still cheaper than buying and upgrading windows:

http://simplest-shop.com/Macintosh--1-229660-sof tw are.html

Let's see
X.1 Sept 28, 2001
X.2 Aug 23, 2002

That puts 11 months between those two releases

And assuming the earliest release of X.3 in sept, that would be 13 months from the last release. And 16 months in december.

By contrast:

Windows 2000 , Feb 17 2000
Windows ME released Sept 14 2000

That would be 7 months

Windows XP Oct 25 2001

That would be 13 months

And lets compare prices:

Mac OS X $130 always (full version)

Windows 2000 $320

Windows ME $110 (upgrade) or $210 (full)

XP Home $100 (upgrade) $200 (full)

XP Pro $200 (upgrade) $300 (full)

So from OS X.0 to X.3

March 2001 to (assumed) Sept 2003 (31 Months)

You've spent $390

From Windows 2000 to Windows XP (19 Months)

Feb 2000 to Oct 2001

You spend at minimum $530 and at most $830

Re:Countdown clock

[Orlando]

Expose is cool

Just seen the demo on their site, very nice. But I still miss a decent virtual desktop setup on OS X. Anyone know of one?

Orlando...

Re:Countdown clock

[bar-agent]

Yay, no more encryption by hand. I'm also looking forward to the secure delete function.

So, tell me. Have you stopped browsing for kiddie porn?

Ah, I see you are familiar with the habits of successful kiddie porn viewers.

Wait a minute...

Re:Countdown clock

[yomegaman]

Are you really trying to claim that anyone would start with Windows 2000, then "upgrade" to Windows ME, then to XP Home, and from there to XP Pro? That is utterly ridiculous. There is no reason to resort to such nonsense to defend Apple, just say you think the money was well spent and that's that.

Re:Countdown clock

[MoneyT]

Actualy I was suggesting they would go Win2k to Win ME to one version of XP and I calculated the minimum and maximum price paths. Even if you factor ME out of the equation, and just go from 2k to XP (a reasonable upgrade path) it was still more expensive.

Re:rediculous

[LemonYellow]

Judging from the features that have been demoed so far, this is an upgrade of a similar size to that from Win2k to WinXP. So, paying for it isn't too unreasonable, is it?

Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it run on Windows XP?

Re:Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

am i the only one that sees the humor in this? mod parent up.

Re:Yes, but...

[alanshitface]

Windows XP runs nicely under Panther

Re:Yes, but...

[MochaMan]

About as well as anything else does...

Re:Yes, but...

[Larry*boy.3]

....so it runs well then? cool.

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.

Worth it.

[blackmonday]

Jaguar's price was "worth it" because of the speed increases. This time around I'm satisfied that there's anough new functionality that I'll be putting down the cash.

Re:Worth it.

[doggkruse]

It is only worth it to me because i am a student... and "it" is much less. $69.00

Re:Worth it.

[MoneyT]

Hmm, as a student, one would think you would be getting it for free. Oh well, I guess not everyone signed up for a developer account.

Re:Worth it.

[four2five]

They really should. I signed up for my student account in the middle of Sept. so that I would get the Panther update for free and be able to use the generous hardware discount when the rev. B G5's come out. It's only $99 and the free Panther disc alone pays for it not to speak of all the cool little crap they throw in, like mailing developers cd's to me and a free shirt, etc. I think that anyone that is enrolled in a school should give it a look.

Re:Worth it.

[doggkruse]

As far as I can tell, there is no offer of a free Panther CD in listed in the benefits offered by the student developer program. I believe it specifically states that student developers will NOT be included in apple seed programs. Please point me to the sight that shows this is true.

Re:Worth it.

[four2five]

http://developer.apple.com/students/ADC_Students.p df
If you do a search in the developer section for "student benefits" it's the first it. It's a .pdf file. Here's a qoute from the Software Section under benefits:

"Other Software
Students receive up-to-date Mac OS system software upon commercial release. In addition, members qualify for discounts on
QuickTime API development kits, Mac OS X Server, WebObjects, and other Apple software as available. Development kits for most
Apple hardware and software technologies are available free of charge. Tool samplers are provided periodically from third parties."

Re:Worth it.

[doggkruse]

Thanks for the info

i dunno...

[Box Checker]

...if the feature set is worth the upgrade price for me. expose looks cool, and fast user switching would be nice, but neither are must haves in my opinion. the only thing i'd like is a more responsive finder, you know... snappier. haha. guess i'll just have to wait and get the reviews from people with older hardware like me.

Re:i dunno...

[iJed]

Believe me its much much faster. Everything is faster from the Finder listing massive folder contents to networking to slick graphical features. This is the first Mac OS X release I'd call truly mature. Buy it, you will not be disappointed.

I've got a pre-release running on an PowerMac G4 450, an iBook 500 and an iMac 233 and it makes all these machines feel like their CPU speed has been effectively doubled!

Re:i dunno...

[alfredo]

Us with older duals will see a big improvement in boot time, and less 'bouncing' when launching apps.

Safari will have some big improvements in displaying javascript, and more stability.

The already good spam filter in mail will be much better.

The chances of getting laid will be greatly enhanced, even if you prefer vi over emacs.

Hooray!!

[jcostantino]

I for one am looking forward to Panther's release (as well as iTunes for PC) and I know that someone's going to cry about "The Apple Tax". Apple NEEDS your money, they can't just throw out free software forever, you know. I don't know if there is going to be a free upgrade voucher for units bought in the past month or two though. If I recall correctly, they did have a voucher for people who purchased a unit with 10.1 within a couple months of 10.2's release.

Jeff

Re:Hooray!!

[bojan]

Apple tax? Oh you mean paying someone for hard work and good and decent engineering? Not the clunkiness of X11's user interface or of XP? Everything has it's tax, for some things it's money, for others it's time or experience.

Re:Hooray!!

[edalytical]

Actually I have three "Apple Software Proof-of-Purchase Coupons" which came with my Power Mac G4 (FireWire 800) that specifically say they are used "To get Mac OS updates." Although I have seen no mention from Apple that they can be used to get Panther for free or at a reduced cost or any other product for that matter. I am really hoping they honor them in some way.

Re:Hooray!!

[Van Halen]

Generally these coupons are only for upgrades to the current OS that shipped with your machine -- 10.2.x. It's for people who can't update software over the internet and need to get CDs.

That said, some folks over at MacRumors seem to have had early success in getting their previously obtained PowerBook serial numbers accepted for the up-to-date program. Who knows if Apple will actually honor them, though? Also, there's a group trying to persuade Apple to extend the up-to-date program to all new PowerBook purchasers. Phone number to contact Apple is here.

I'll be interested to find out if this ends up working, as I'm expecting 2 new PowerBooks at work any day now (they were supposed to be here yesterday!).

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.

Old World Support

[kurosawdust]

It looks like "old world" Beige G3 support has been discontinued -- the update requires a Mac with built in USB."

That's OK - the six guys to whom that would actually apply are still waiting for their copies of 10.2 to boot up.

Re:Old World Support

[Durin_Deathless]

I am writing this on my(mostly stock) Beige G3/300. I have 256 megs of ram, and the only other upgrade is a ATI Rage 128. With those two upgrades this machine is nearly as responsive as a lot of the newer machines and it costs a lot less. I have used a Dual 1Ghz G4(the mirrored door model) and it feels about the same speed wise. Sure, Safari takes a very small amount of time less to launch. But that is so small, maybe a couple of seconds. I don't use this machine for iMovie or anything like that, and it suits my developing needs just fine. Apple has done a great job to make the new OSes work on old machines like mine. I may even try Panther once the XPostFacto people figure out the needed support....

Re:Old World Support

[MrDickey]

Yes, it finally looks like beige g3's have gone obsolete. But after so many years- i've had my beige g3 for at least 5 years- what could you expect? Still, My g3 runs OS 10.2 without any problems, and I doubt 10.2 support is going to run out anytime soon.

Re:Old World Support

[LookSharp]

This is yet another example of Apple trying to screw the user...

Yeah, man! Fight the power! I want to run the latest and greatest OS on my six year old computer! Even though I bought into the proprietary platform, knowing full well that Apple goes through hardware generations and OSes every 3-5 years! For the past 15+ years!

No more Apple screwing us over! I want OS 10.4 to support my Mac SE! I put 4 megs of RAM and an ethernet card in that thing... it cost me a bundle in 1989! I want some return on that investment! Damn Apple for screwing the user!

Re:Old World Support

[splateagle]

OK this is kinda redundant and I figure you were trolling anyway but what the hey, my karma can stand it...

still waiting for their copies of 10.2 to boot up

hardly: I haven't had to reboot my old 266 G3 (stock configuration apart from two new HDs and a memory upgrade) apart from for OS upgrades since I installed X - on those rare occasions the boot time under Jaguar is perfectly respectable especially for what is after all an antique!

shame Panther won't run on it, but I guess I've more than had my money's worth, and besides it's not like it'll instantly stop running the moment Panther's released.

Re:Old World Support

[sharkman67]

I don't believe it will not run on the beige boxes. I have the last 10.3 beta build running on a beige G3. I added a usb card to the beige box and did the initial install on a bondi iMac. Works just fine!

I think beige boxes are not officially supported but it should run.

Re:Old World Support

[tgibbs]

That's OK - the six guys to whom that would actually apply are still waiting for their copies of 10.2 to boot up.

A common misconception. Actually, a beige G3 with adequate RAM runs quite well under 10.2. Not surprising; it is close to being as fast as some of the iBooks that are still in common use.

Re:Old World Support

[x3ja]

Plenty of people out here using OS X on their G3s... including me - G3/266 with 160M RAM. Just put a 20G disk in there. It runs iTunes, Safari, an ssh session, a web server and 2 IRC bots on it... all runs very well. Although I did put MySQL on it the other day and it didn't do many queries per second :)

Anyway, where does it say the support's been discontinued? Or is implied by the need for built-in USB? What if I have a USB card? (which I do)

Re:Old World Support

[HTH NE1]

I think beige boxes are not officially supported but it should run.

But will it still work with ADB keyboards? I still have one on my Blue & White because the USB one it shipped with had poor action, tiny arrow keys, and no forward-delete key.

Re:Old World Support

[An Anonymous Hero]

I want OS 10.4 to support my Mac SE!

Oh, but it does!

Re:Old World Support

[LookSharp]

That's hardly the same thing, and you know it. You can throw a USB card in a beige G3 for $9; I know because I have done it. Then you can hook up a USB keyboard and mouse. But what about the Old World ROM? It's completely different than the Opern Firmware in current machines, and the OS has to handle is differently.

The thing is, when Apple went to iMac/Blue & White/WallStreet, it was a completely revised system design for their product. I suppose they could put a lot of enginerring into 10.3 and try to get it working on the old machines, but where's the value in that?

Things like this is why I abandoned the Apple Cult three years ago, my my Rev A. Bondi iMac became largely obsolete. Maybe YOUR Bondi iMac does what YOU want running 10.2, but my Athlon 2000, GeForce FX, and 1gig of DDR (running XP) provides me much more value than any Mac I have ever owned. And I owned about six of them between 1988 and 1999.

Re:Old World Support

[Admiral Llama]

Dammit, I'm using a Gossamer as a file server around here. Oh well, it isn't like 10.2.8 is going to implode when Panther arrives.

Re:Old World Support

[theolein]

Relax, someone will have a hack out sooner or later that will make this possible.

Re:Old World Support

[Hes Nikke]

But will it still work with ADB keyboards?

yes. all TiBooks, and all shipping iBooks _STILL_ use ADB for there keyboard and trackpads. i don't know about the AlBooks, but i don't see why they should be any different! (otoh, apple did just shift the internal modems to be on USB rather then classic serial, so keyboards can't be far behind)

Re:Old World Support

[babbage]

Amusing, but that actually applied to me at my last job. I wanted to use a Mac as my desktop machine, but they would only requisition new ones for the graphic design department, and I was a sysadmin. The only way I was able to get one for myself was to pull an old beige G3 out of a supply closet. The machine had previously been used as a scanning & print server for said graphic designers, but they were all using new equipment now and the G3 was gathering dust in a closet.

It wasn't too hard to get Jaguar installed, and once up & running the performance really wasn't that bad (especially since most of the work I was doing happened in an SSH session in the Terminal). The machine in question was 300mhz and had 320 mb of ram, which is better than some of the still supported iMacs. The only real problem was that the hard drive was small & crowded, which meant that once the machine started using too much virtual memory, applications would begin to thrash, then crash, and the only fix was a reboot (which would magically restore 30% of the disc space). Putting in another old hard drive helped avoid this most of the time, but ancient SCSI drives with decent capacity weren't easy to find, so I was kind of stuck with this arrangement.

Still, had that machine still been my primary one, I would have liked to upgrade it to Panther when it comes out. But that's not an option (on several levels), so c'est la vie. I'm sure that there are some others in this kind of situation though, and now they'll have to accept Jaguar as their ceiling OS. There are valid reasons for this (the beige G3s probably had archaic firmware that Panther wouldn't be able to work with), but it's still going to be unfortunate for some people.

Oh well, there's always Linux :-)

Re:Old World Support

[istewart]

Well, I did put a 1GHz G4, a Radeon, and a USB/FW combo card in mine, so I am able to get a marginal amount of work done.

I don't know about the other five poor suckers, tho.

Re:Old World Support

[General Sherman]

The USB isn't a hardware requirement, it's a gague of how old your computer is. You don't NEED USB to run the OS, that would be just silly.

And now...!

[scaife]

This version has special built-in protections to keep it from biting you in the neck while you're taunting it in front of your friends. And since its ferocity has been turned down, I suppose I can also expect that I'll need to pet it every once in a while.

Re:And now...!

[Jon Abbott]

If only Roy Horn had upgraded...

Please tell me they fixed automounting

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me they dumped am-utils and went to an autofs code base to get rid of the !@#$ symbolic linking in the auto-mounting, and dumped the proprietary auto.master format.

Please?

Re:Please tell me they fixed automounting

[thefinite]

Sheesh. Okay, they dumped am-utils and went to an autofs code base to get rid of the !@# $ symbolic linking in the auto-mounting, and dumped the proprietary auto.master format. (Whatever the hell any of that means.) Anything else you want me to tell you?

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

[AssFace]

I am buying an AlumBook this week since my laptop has died. I've long been a Windows user - but I'm going to give the PowerBook a shot to see if it is as durable as people say.

I started reading up on Panther and was very pleased with Xcode - good looking stuff there.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[kolombangara]

Oh, and if you'll look at the Darwin link, you'll notice that the Terminal in the image uses bash instead of tcsh

Root shell has always been #

Darn, and I was just getting used to the C Shell too.=) Oh well then...

You can change your default shell to anything you like.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[.com b4 .storm]

Darn, and I was just getting used to the C Shell too.=) Oh well then...

What's the big deal about bash being the default? As it is now, tcsh is the default, but you can easily switch to bash (which is included). I'm sure it'll be the same with Panther. A real quick way to switch your shell (chsh doesn't work on OS X):

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

Apple isn't making it impossible for you to use the C shell, they just decided it's not the right thing to use as the default shell. Whether or not that's a good move depends, of course, on your personal preferences. But most likely tcsh will just be one little command away after you install Panther.

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.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[cryosis]

I've had my 1GHz 15" PowerBook for around six months now. I work for a wireless ISP and I have to climb towers and houses and all sorts of odd things that people shouldn't ever have to climb. My PowerBook has come on every trip with me and to date, the only thing that's wrong is that she has a small crack next to one of the screen supports. And for that she had to be dropped about four feet off an environmental enclosure onto the floor of a water tower. These things are tough as hell.

I've been running Panther 7B74 for about two weeks now and it's almost painful to use Jaguar anymore. You'll fall in love with Expose. Not having used Jaguar before, you probably won't notice most of the changes, but you'll appreciate them.

I was a BSD/linux guy before I got my Mac and I love OSX. I can't imagine having a different laptop.

Also, I swear that I'm not on the take from Apple. But I would be for free gear. Anyone from Apple listening?

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[.com b4 .storm]

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

Yeah, but that doesn't help you much when you ssh into your Mac, or otherwise log into it remotely. In that case, it goes back to using whichever shell is specified for your account - which, if you only change it in Terminal.app, will still be bash. :) That's why I suggested niutil.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[Lodragandraoidh]

Why not change the default shell entry in the /etc/passwd file?

Instead of /bin/bash, use /bin/csh or whatever...

If you need another shell, for whatever reason after that, you can either invoke it to run a script, such as bash script.sh, or invoke the shell over your existing, such as bash, or exec another shell to replace the default, like exec bash.

In *nix there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[Admiral Llama]

Ever hear of Netinfo Manager? They actually provide chsh, and you can use it to pretend you're changing stuff, but it's all a lie.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[mapinguari]

/etc/passwd isn't used by default for user accounts. It only contains built-in userID's, like root, daemon, etc.

That being said, the chsh/chfn/chpass utility now interfaces with NetInfo under Panther, so it's finally usable (it shipped with Jaguar, but was useless).

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[TheInternet]

I've been using Xcode for a few months now, and it's definitely a big leap from Project Builder. Even the "beta" version of Xcode I got at WWDC was my preferred tool over the last release version of Project Builder.

There are a lot of features that aren't obvious on the surface, which is good because you can get started quickly, and dig deeper at your leisure.

Good stuff.

- Scott

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[scrod]

It's not as if you can't change the default shell.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[Anitra]

Sorry, wasn't thinking of remote logging-in. I only have OS X on my laptop, where that's not really a issue.

Re:More info on the Dev Tools too

[Lodragandraoidh]

This must be a BSD-ism - similar to shadow password database under system V?

Even under the shadow system, the entries for users are also in the passwd file - for backwards compatability with certain applications.

This is not so under BSD?

(I learn something new every frikin' day - and I'm sick of it...So stop it!)

Re:rediculous

[LemonYellow]

:-)

I'm looking forward to getting my grubby paws on Xcode.

iSync adds some support for more phones

[bunnyshooz]

Apple also announced releasing new versions of iCal and iSync today: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/08ical_is ync.html "iSync 1.2.1 adds complete calendar synchronization support for Symbian-based smartphones such as the Nokia 3650 and 7650, and the Sony Ericsson P800."

Re:iSync adds some support for more phones

[tomdarch]

Let's hope that it supports the new P900, as it's expected to be out in November

Re:got it!

[rastachops]

After trying out B85... I must say I'm not all that impressed. For $129 it really should be something special. Don't get me wrong, it has a more responsive GUI and Expose is excellent and the new Finder is a *lot* quicker... it just somehow doesn't feel worth the pricetag that they're asking for it.

Maybe I was hoping for too much for a .1 update but the GUI speed is no where near the speed of Windows (admittedly... it doesnt crash though :) ).

Just my $0.02

Panther

[rampant mac]

I had the chance to preview Panther on a friend's PowerBook (1Ghz Ti /w SuperDrive) recently. I was very impressed to see the speed improvements Panther brings to "older" machines. Imagine that, and operating system that removes bloat and performs better after subsiquent releases! While 10.2 was what I finally considered a 1.0 release of Mac OS X, Panther is a huge leap in usability.

Expose is so amazing, expect Microsoft to "borrow" it in their next OS release.

Re:Panther

[hype7]

I had the chance to preview Panther on a friend's PowerBook (1Ghz Ti /w SuperDrive) recently. I was very impressed to see the speed improvements Panther brings to "older" machines. Imagine that, and operating system that removes bloat and performs better after subsiquent releases! While 10.2 was what I finally considered a 1.0 release of Mac OS X, Panther is a huge leap in usability.

Expose is so amazing, expect Microsoft to "borrow" it in their next OS release.

Well, they might try. It'll probably be a pale imitation, just like with everything else that Microsoft has copied of Apple's.

Regardless, there's a precedent that Apple has set, that MS hasn't been able to follow (and, IMO, won't ever be able to): that is, with every new OS release, your computer gets faster.

-- james

Re:Panther

[hey!]

Regardless, there's a precedent that Apple has set, that MS hasn't been able to follow (and, IMO, won't ever be able to): that is, with every new OS release, your computer gets faster.

This is usually a sign of good software engineering: make it right first, then make it fast. It's difficult to make bad software faster since it is a challenge to get it work acceptably and changes have too many consequences.

That said, MS probably doesn't care about older machines. Most people don't upgrade their MS operating systems, they buy new ones bundled with new machines. This allows the MS engineers to focus on features that will help MS in its business plans. So, when you get your new machine, with a few exceptions it feels pretty much the same speed as the old one, but has lots of spiffy new features. The folks still using 90MHz Pentiums are not the people who spend much money on IT, and therefore they can do without or suffer horrible performance. It doesn't make for a product one admires on a technical level, but it's hard to fault the business strategy.

Apple's approach makes sense too though, considering their niche position. People buy the latest Macs because they must have them, and roll down their old Macs to other folks. Improving the experience of folks with the hand-me-downs probably helps create the next generation of converts who will shell out money every year to year and a half out of pure technological lust.

Re:Panther

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"with every new OS release, your computer gets faster"

XP is already fast enough. On a 500mhz notebook, I almost never experience the same kind of "lag" that my Mac (and Linux) using friends do. I'm not talking about speed per say, but XP just feels snappy compared to GNOME or Mac OS. Hopefully 10.3 will resolve this.

I have seen expose in action, but, quite frankly, it doesn't impress me all that much. There are already emulations of Expose for Windows, but quite frankly I find the taskbar to be just as effective.

Re:Panther

[Anonymous Coward]

> with every new OS release, your computer gets faster.

A cynical person might say that that's the result of Apple setting a precedent of their new OS releases not being very good.

System 6 to 7 wasn't faster. I don't recall 9 feeling faster than 8. And surely you wouldn't say 10.0 was faster than 9?

So I think what you really meant to say was: I'm disappointed that 10.0 and 10.1 were so bad, and now Apple looks like they'll release something reasonably fast, which is just as well because their machines are just a little slow and I can't afford to pay top dollar for the biggest and best.

Quite a mouthful, that. So I understand why you stuck with your original comment. No worries.

Re:Panther

[rreay]

I have seen a pre-release version of Longhorn (at WinHEC, New Orleans) and they were showing off a system that was functionally equivalent to Expose in that it allowed switching between thumbnailed versions of running applications.

I was different from Expose in a number of significant ways.

Re:Panther

[BrokenHalo]

XP is already fast enough. On a 500mhz notebook, I almost never experience the same kind of "lag" that my Mac (and Linux) using friends do.

I'll leave the comparison between XP and MacOS to someone who knows something about it (on Slashdot and all; the irony... :-))

But I have a friend with a 700 MHz laptop with XP, and I have an identical machine with Linux, Gnome 2.4 and so forth. My friend has had to admit that my machine is a lot snappier in both loading and operation of the apps the two machines have in common (OpenOffice and the GIMP) and the Linux machine is a lot more consistent with smooth audio output when the machine is under I/O and CPU load.

Re:Panther

[Jeremy Erwin]

And when exactly is Longhorn going to ship?

I've heard 2004. I've heard 2005.

Re:Panther

[rampant mac]

My bandwidth will get blasted, but here's an example of expose:

Expose In Action

1.8MB, someone mirror please...

Re:Panther

[CountBrass]

The follow on consequence for this is that Mac's tend to hold their value - and wintel boxes don't. Check out eBay and compare a G3's prices against a Pentium 1 (if you can find one).

Edward

Re:Panther

[Lugae]

It seems that I remember that Enlightenment had a feature like expose back in the day. Has that been squashed in more recent versions?

Re:Panther

[Goo.cc]

"And when exactly is Longhorn going to ship?"

Well, it shouldn't take too long now that Apple (Microsoft's unpaid R&D wing) has determined the feature-set.

Re:Panther

[greygent]

You're ignorant.

- Windows 2000 was much faster (overall) than Windows NT 4

- Windows XP was much faster than Windows 2000

- Windows 2003 Server is faster than Windows XP (If you disable all the extra "server" services and set priority to foreground processes. And even if you don't network/file IO is still faster)

Re:Panther

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

In my (and others) experience, Win2000 and WinXP are about the same.

Re:Panther

[sootman]

Regardless, there's a precedent that Apple has set, that MS hasn't been able to follow (and, IMO, won't ever be able to): that is, with every new OS release, your computer gets faster.

Um, no. In fact, every OS since 7.5 (when I started using and upgrading Macs heavily) has gotten more and more bloated, and thus slow. I've taken computers from 7.5 to 9.1 (first G3 shipped with 7.5.x, remember) and they *always* run slower with each newer version. Plus the apps--I used to copy the old sherlock (pre brushed metal) onto new systems because I hated how much crap they added. (Hey, didja notice how 'find' on 10.2 is, you know, all stripped down and fast and usable, and 'sherlock' is now a separate app *just* for web searches? what does that tell you?!?) Not to mention that *huge* drop in perfromance from 9.x to 10.x. (Even discounting 10.0, which was nearly unusable even on dual-G4s.)

10.1 and 10.2 were dog slow on a computer like, say, my G3/300. IIRC, I could boot my G3 into OS 9 and launch Dreamweaver in 15 seconds, reboot to OS X and it took 25. I forget the exact numbers (sold it a year ago & bought an iBook) but it was prety severe--50% to over 100% longer--on every single app I tried it with. And those were carbon apps, so I was running the same executable file in each OS-- don't think I was using an older version in OS 9.

Each OS X gets faster and faster partly because yes, they did do the 'make it work, then optimize' thing, but moreso because they released it so damn early. The Public Beta was a Public Alpha, 10.0 was a public beta, and 10.1 was a 1.0. 10.2 and, from what I've seen, 10.3 did show speed increases. But, given my experience back to 1995, I'd say your statement that every OS from Apple gets faster is severely off the mark. I'll bet that 10.5 or 11 or whatever the next *major* rev is will once again be more bloated and slower than the last. In the meantime, I'm glad they're enhancing things, but the only 'precedent' they set was releasing the OS before it was fully cooked.

Re:Panther

[tupps]

I found that XP has a higher priority to frontmost app. I found that if your frontmost app is a CPU hog then other apps in the background would quite unresponsive, even taking some time to switch the frontmost app. This is using an app that pegs the CPU at 100% for many minutes.

Re:Panther

[ShinySteelRobot]

Expose is so amazing, expect Microsoft to "borrow" it in their next OS release.

Don't you mean, "expect Microsoft to innovate it into their next OS release"?
;-)

Re:Panther

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

No. I don't drive or bike.

XP flies on my low-end notebook. It's that simple. I have no complaints about the speed. The PowerBook G4s that my friends have are noticably less responsive.

Re:Panther

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"But I have a friend with a 700 MHz laptop with XP, and I have an identical machine with Linux, Gnome 2.4 and so forth. My friend has had to admit that my machine is a lot snappier in both loading and operation of the apps the two machines have in common (OpenOffice and the GIMP) and the Linux machine is a lot more consistent with smooth audio output when the machine is under I/O and CPU load."

That has not been my experience. My Linux system (Gnome 2.4; 2.4.22; ReiserFS) is quite a bit more laggy than my Windows 2000 system.

Re:Panther

[Scudsucker]

- Windows XP was much faster than Windows 2000

The heck it is. The one and only thing XP does faster than 2K is let you log in (negligibly) faster, and thats only because it launches stuff in the background as you log in.

Re:Panther

[Scudsucker]

IF Apple moves quickly to the G5, your vaunted resale value is going to go to crap.

Bzzt. Mac's have always had better resale value than pc's, even during that period where Mac's were faster than PC's in raw mhz.

Don't Forget the Educational Discount...

[Pirogoeth]

Panther is only $69 if you qualify!

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

[repetty]

I keep forgetting that damn discount!

--Richard

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).

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

[Jon Abbott]

Panther is only $69 if you qualify!

While I don't work for Apple, I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to qualify. You must be a student or educator at either a university/college or in a K-12 school. Individuals are only allowed two educational software purchases from Apple per academic year (July 1 - June 30). Supplies are limited. Batteries not included. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE for details -- operators are standing by!

I wonder if this counts as zealotry or not...

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

[craw]

And if you are a US, State, or local government employee, Panther is $64.50. Not too shaby.

If you don't know how to access this, go to the on-line Apple Store, and change the location in the option menu indicated by "Visit other Apple stores around the world" and select US Government.

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

[madcow_ucsb]

Better yet, if you're a student, put down the $99 to join ADC (developer.apple.com) and you'll probably get it for free along with a MUCH better hardware discount than the regular education one. But be sure to buy your G5, displays and iPods at the same time, cuz it applies to everything but you only get it once (or maybe it's once a year).

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

[Chicane-UK]

Just had a quick look on the Apple Store for Education, and found the UK price to be 59.99 - I expected it to cost double that!

Have to ask the boss nicely as Panther sounds well worth the asking price.

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

[coolmacdude]

It's not once a year. It's once per lifetime.

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

[SeanAhern]

Or head to store.apple.com , and look at the "Interests..." section on the left. If you click Government, you'll find a page with a link to Federal Employee Store.

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

[erat]

I believe the limit only applies to individual Apple product families, i.e. you can purchase one laptop per year, one copy of Final Cut Express per year, one iPod per year, etc.

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

[wongaboo]

Note that the educational discount is not available on any software in a phisical apple store. Guess I'm going to have to go online.

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

[coolmacdude]

It's once per year for Premier ADC members ($500/yr). It's once per lifetime for student ADC members ($99/yr).

Rumor sites right

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone loves to bash the rumor sites when they get something wrong... but here we are... rumor sites were spot on with this... so credit where credit is due:

Panther is GM
October 24th Release for Panther
Oct 8th official announcement
S+H Upgrade price for G5 owners

Re:Rumor sites right

[fermion]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Much like the telephone psychic, it is not so much a matter that they are occasionally correct, but that it is difficult to predetermine which occasion that is.

Upgrade Coupons

[Brobock]

Will we be able to use the upgrade coupon that comes in the box with new systems or will they refuse them, like they have in the past. I believe we are entitled to up to 3 upgrades from the purchase of the system.

Re:Upgrade Coupons

[heychris]

There's no entitlement to 3 upgrades, nor have any packaging or marketing claims said so. Indeed, every Mac upgrade since 1997 (at least!) has been the same way. People who bought Macs in the interim period between announcement and release can get the latest OS for $19.95. For OS X 10 to 10.1, it was freely available from a reseller if you asked for it!

However, I do know what you're talking about. Those coupons are only proof-of-purchase coupons. I don't think I've seen any use for them ever, as Apple has usually asked for dated sales receipts rather than those coupons.

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

[GrumpyOldMan]

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

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

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

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[GrumpyOldMan]

OK, so the answer is "No". Its not possible to write a 64-bit app. Just like x86/PAE. Sigh.

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[addaon]

What? Yes it is. Don't use C.

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[statusbar]

9 minutes!

Drool.

Glad to see panther being faster - I had noticed that running a compile on yellowdog linux on my mac was noticeably faster than running the exact same compile under jaguar...

--jeff++

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[GrumpyOldMan]

Heh. I gave up programming in assembly years ago.

Anyway, if the OS only provides a 32-bit address space, I don't see how the programming language is relavent.

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[torpor]

I can think of plenty of uses for a 64-bit processor (and related instructions) which don't depend on the ability to address more than 32-bits of RAM ...

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[GrumpyOldMan]

Sure, but the most important to me is the ability to address large amounts of memory in a single process.

I wonder when apple will release enough of the specs so that a real 64-bit OS like NetBSD or Linux can run on it.

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[chrootstrap]

I feel really skeptical about your times. 730 megabytes of source code is absolutely huge. If we used the a very large average line size of 40 bytes, that would be 18.25 MLOC. I simply do not believe that you compiled 18.25 MLOC of code in 9 minutes, nor 45 minutes. Please explain. I have a feeling that the actual amount of code being compiled is _FAR_, _FAR_ less than 730 MB.

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[torpor]

Yeah, I understand that. I've got a few 'big-memory' applications I've been meaning to build, myself, when I finally can get my hands on the hardware ... closer ... closer ... closer ... :)

Re:Panther / jaguar compared

[lederhosen]

Me too, but the case is that you can only use
the G5 as a 32-bit processor in MacOS X.

sizeof(long) = 4
sizeof(void*) = 4

Both of which should be 64 bit.

long long is a gnu extension to c (and c++)
that is always 64 bit _even_ on x86.

It works by using _two_ 32 bit register.

The G5 (like the power4) can be run in two modes,
32-bit or 64-bit. When running in 32-bit mode
the register are 32-bit. So in what he says
is that programs will be faster because the G5
is a faster processor (with built in sqrt
funcktion), something that has _nothing_ to do
with 64 bit computing.

Re:no 'cheap' upgrade for purchases prior to Oct 8

[The Placid Casual]

The OS 'Up To Date' program applies to all Apple computer purchases post 8th October, allowing an upgrade to 10.3 for the reduced 'handling fee' of $19.99.

However, I can see there will be a lot of new 12", 15" and 17" 'Alu' Powerbook owners that will feel they have been shafted having bought the new revised machines at the start of October...

XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[Talez]

Seriously... Take a look!

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

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[watzinaneihm]

They finally seem to have a solution to the "too many windows open" (not apple specific, I have not even used one) problem. I hate to have to hold down Alt-Tab (i like to use the keyboard) and then look around to find which window I want to switch to. Because of this, I tend to have a max of two or three windows open at a time. No OS really helps here, though in Linux I use multiple desktops to group tasks of similar kind (Desktop one for work, two playing music, three for a root login in case I want to mount NFS etc. ) and I can easily switch when the windows hierrarchy looks like a tree.
Take a look at the Apple solution called Expose . They use F9 to cascade all windows (like opera), another key to grey out all windows of other apps than the one you are using. Press F10 and all photoshop apps are highlighted while all other apps fade into grey. In linux Gimp could benefit from such a feature.

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[g0at]

Looks like they forgot to finish updating the text on that page... notice the second-last paragraph:

The Developer Tools CD which comes with Mac OS X includes Project Builder, the Interface Builder and other development tools. Mac OS X features Project Builder 2.0, Interface Builder 2.3 and AppleScript Studio 1.2. Try out the new widgets in Interface Builder such as progress wheel and brushed metal windows.

I've been using PB 2.1 and IB 2.3.2 for months now, both of which are newer than described. I suspect that was a cut-and-paste vestige from the Jaguar blurb.

(Am I correct to assume that the application formerly known as Project Builder is now renamed Xcode? Does Interface Builder still exist under same name?)

-ben

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

They use F9 to cascade all windows (like opera),

No. Not like Opera. Not like anything.

I have Expose set to a mouse gesture; it's also set to F9 by default. When I hit F9 or mouse over to the bottom-left corner of the screen, all of my open windows shrink down to fit the screen without overlapping. These are not proxies; these are live windows. For example, if I'm watching a DVD in a window while I work, and I invoke Expose, my DVD window shrinks down to the size of a postage stamp while it is still playing. Without a skip. All windows continue to run, live, while I scan the screen to see what I want to click.

There's never been anything like this before.

Mine's not a top-of-the-line machine, either. It's a dual 1 GHz G4 with a Radeon 9000 card. It was top-notch a year ago, but today it's decidedly in the middle of the pack, and soon it'll be equivalent to an entry-level machine.

Expose is just incredible. It's absolutely amazing.

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

I have Expose set to a mouse gesture; it's also set to F9 by default. When I hit F9 or mouse over to the bottom-left corner of the screen, all of my open windows shrink down to fit the screen without overlapping. These are not proxies; these are live windows. For example, if I'm watching a DVD in a window while I work, and I invoke Expose, my DVD window shrinks down to the size of a postage stamp while it is still playing. Without a skip. All windows continue to run, live, while I scan the screen to see what I want to click.

There's never been anything like this before.

Actually there was, has, and is... Windows has been able to cascade or Tile Windows since Windows 3.0.

Still to this day, you can right click on the taskbar in WindowsXP and select Tile or Cascade to have all the open windows on the desktop automatically resized to fit on the screen.

And this is not mentioning the hundreds of screen utilities available for Windows that have been able to scale the Windows and move them around with a keystroke.

Has any Mac Zealot ever even used Windows for more than Five Minutes?

I have lots of Mac friends/employees, many technical engineers for Mac, and they would laugh your post off the screen and they loath Windows.

What will your next post be "OSX is the first OS to allow multiple users to login at the same time without closing applications" ?

Geesh...

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[FeTrut]

Not disagreeing with you here(although tile/cascade in windows is a pretty shabby solution to the problem that expose addresses), so i'm curious could you point me in the direction of something that does more or less what expose does, but for windows? Again, i'm not saying you're wrong, i'm genuinely interesting in checking something like that out, thanks...

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

It's just that the Mac does it better

Well of course, it has the Apple logo...

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

When you Fast User Switch on Panther, the outgoing user's keychains get locked, and all of his processes get niced. If he's a FileVault user, his home directory gets unmounted. It's safe and secure, and convenient.

So, not only do you not understand fully how panther handles fast user switching, you also demonstrate you have no idea how WindowsXP handles 'locking' user's folders, or 'making the processes nice'.

WindowsXP's security mechanisms and user structure has NO need to 'unmount' anything. This is like complaining that a jet doesn't parallel park as well as a honda.

I'm sorry if you feel threatened by that, you shitfaced retard.

And you surmise with your grandest intellectual retort.

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

Meaning that if you fast user switch over to a user with "root" access (for lack of a better term), you can read the other user's files. Great. Very secure.

Get a fucking clue.

Steaming vagina piles of crap. Fuck you.

Not only are you lacking in technical knowledge, you are a vial person.

Fast User Switching and SECURITY are independent in WindowsXP. It doesn't matter if the user is logged in or not, the other person ONLY HAS THE Security that has been allocated to them to access what they can.

Even if the other users have Administrator privileges, they only can access files and folders that are given to them in the security system of WindowsXP. It DOES NOT MATTER if the other user is LOGGED in or not. XP simply does not work that way, as security is requested and passed for every operation and process, even at Ring 0 level of the OS, unlike *nix that gives the ROOT account a Free pass to do anything.

(NT has NO ROOT account - or a concept like a ROOT account - it is divided among the Administrator and other System security accounts)

If the other user is an administrator they could 'Take Ownership' of your folder structure, but they could do this whether you were 'logged in with fast user switching' or NOT if they have administrator access.

If security is that important on the local machine...

#1) You should not be giving all users Administrator access.

#2) You should encrypt your User Folder and its contents, then if the person has administrator access, reinstalls the OS, or tries to hack the system in any way, they will NOT be able to EVER access the files - they become virtually inaccessible short of employing a supercomputer to decrypt the NTFS encrypted file system.

NTFS has the ability to encrypt files and folders to restrict access past the standard OS ACLs and this STILL CHANGES NOTHING whether the other user is logged in or NOT via Fast User Switching.

(BTW - NT has NO ROOT account - or a concept like a ROOT account - it is divided among the Administrator and other System security accounts.)

Even in OSX, if a USER has ROOT access, fast user switching doesn't matter if it unmounts the user's files or folders or not. You STILL CAN FULLY access the User's files and folders.

Please for the love of God, actually read a book on security before you post again.

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

No, vial - as in an empty person - quit trying to rewrite my words. Would you rather I said a vial of air so you would get it?

Actually after reading your acerbic response, a stronger word like vile might have been more appropriate.

Pick up a book called Inside Windows NT (The original first edition and subsequent editions that cover WindowsXP).

You might actually learn that the Object/Token security model in NT is SIGNIFICANTLY different than the security system in OSX or *nix.

You might also learn that the 'ROOT' in *nix is NOT the same thing as the administrator account privileges in NT. You sound like a fool by keep referencing them as being the same thing.

You will also learn that the Security Model in NT was designed from the beginning as a crucial core concept of the OS - to the extent that pieces in the kernel itself have to grab a security token just to run a process or perform simple operations. It is not a 'bolt it on later' method. Are you confusing Win9x as most fools do?

The NTFS file system is not only a secure FS, but has had the mechanisms for encryption for a long time.

After reading about NT or any 'modern' OS, you will also learn that during fast user switching, the MEMORY SPACE is protected from other processes; you can't yank data from another person's running programs, not even if you are the Administrator.

If you took time to look at things that not in your face, you might also learn that OSX does not simply 'un-mount' the user's volume. The applications for the user are STILL running, STILL in Memory, and the Volume is STILL active to keep the applications from crashing. It is 'conceptually un-mounted, but it is not truly un-mounted from the OS. Period.

Other than the 'cool' spinning cube for switching users it fundamentally does not work any differently than WindowsXP. Just because WIndowsXP doesn't force users to encrypt their User folder does not mean that XP is more insecure in fast user switching. Read the security mechanisms of NT so you can fully understand how it works and how it works 'differently' than the *nix security model that is at the core of Mac OSX.

I have been an OS architectural engineer for way to long to listen to your dribble. I have worked with everything from OS theory, OS Security theory to XWindow development, the NT OS architecture, and have also contributed to many open source projects. In fact, some of my work is even in the Mac OSX you are using today. But since you have been using OSX for a couple of years, I am sure you understand OS theory better than any other mere mortal posters here.

Trust me when I say there are major differences in how security is used and implemented in Windows (NT) and *nix. Just because you are only capable of seeing the security model in reflection of how it works on *nix or MacOSX I feel sorry for you, because you are missing the bigger picture.

Re:XCode alone looks worth the upgrade

[TheNetAvenger]

At first, I thought you were a half way intelligent person - even disregarding your grammatical and spelling errors. I gave you way too much credit.

With your latest post you have fully demonstrated that not only are you admittedly ignorant but also a rabid racist and homophobe.

Have fun in your pathetic closed minded life, I give up on you.

Just to clarify for other readers...
*nix is a common way to reference any or all Unix style OSes that are not TRUE Unix. OSX is not TRUE Unix, nor is Linux. It is a common generic term.

Additionally Win9x is a common term to reference the Win95 to WinME code base which is built on the DOS architecture; hence differentiating it from the NT OSes like Win2k and WinXP which have no code commonality to the DOS Windows OSes.

Re:rediculous

[BlackBolt]

Except that you could hardly call going from Win2000 to WinXP an "upgrade".

Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[morcheeba]

That sucks. I shelled out $3k for their latest revision of the 17" powerbook on the second day it was released (Sept 17), only to find that the features they have been touting for so long (X windows, native & fast PDF support, X code) are going to cost. Why only the top of the line desktops - why not my more expensive top of the line laptop? My machine is newer than many G5s (although maybe they were trying to satisfy customers with long preorder times).

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[alecto]

Don't you mean "Just install Gentoo and you'll be upgrading the OS for the rest of your life?" :)

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[BrokenHalo]

Unfortunately, this is the downside of throwing your dollars into proprietary systems. If you really want X-windows, there are alternatives. I'm not quite sure what you mean by native PDF; if you are looking for perfect text rendering on screen, it is now available in those same alternatives.

Though I freely admit the Mac hardware does look very cool, I'm not so sure that it represents good value for money, though I guess that depends on what you use it for.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[nullard]

X windows, native & fast PDF support, X code ... are going to cost

You can run X Windows programs on any version of OS X. I do it under 10.1.5. That's right, I don't even have Jaguar. The native PDF support is also in every version of OS X. It got faster with 10.3, but it's plenty fast already. The only feature that you listed that's missing is XCode. So you have to deal with Project Builder for a while, is it really that big of a deal? If so, isn't it worth the $130 for the upgrade? I mean, you want the new development environment right? If you are going to be making money developing, then $130 is peanuts. If not, what's wrong with Project Builder?

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[Pius II.]

But X window and native and (relatively) fast PDF support are already available for Jaguar. XCode is definitely available for Jaguar, too, although probably not for non-developers. So, the features you are asking for are there.
Plus, it was widely known that Panther would come, and probable that there would be no cheap updates for folks who bought Jaguar prior to the release announcement (because it was like that with the last updates, too).

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[morcheeba]

When I bought my last laptop, Office 2000 was on the horizon, and I was upgraded three months later when it was released. Maybe my case - 5 weeks - is pushing it, but did they really have to screw everyone who bought a laptop yesterday?

Three years ago I switched completely to Linux. I wanted a unix machine that was well integrated because I was tired to trying to get Red Hat to do simple stuff (example: native MP3 support was discontinued because of license issues, DVD playback). RH is great - I've bought 2 copies retail and my desktop runs RH8 for work, but I just didn't want to do admin chores while on my own time.

The pdf support is supposed to be "the fastest of any machine ever"... probably marketing hype, but I use a lot of large postscript files and render speed is important.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[Jeremy Erwin]

If you really want X-windows, there are alternatives, I'm not quite sure what you mean by native PDF; if you are looking for perfect text rendering on screen, it is now available in those same alternatives.

Such as this?

I have heard, however, that Panther's PDF viewer is quite fast; the current MacOSX PDF tools, though still usable, are somewhat slow.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[morcheeba]

Ha ha - Me too, once you pointed it out. But were' laughing with you PiusII, not at you. Actually, I think Xcode will be free to anyone - I remember a blurb saying dev tools would be free, but couldn't find it again on their website.

It's not so much the actual features that rubs me wrong, its just getting left out of the update. I know I'm whining. I mean, anyone who bought a laptop yesterday is getting screwed, too; I just want some logic: "30 days" or "latest round of hardware" are both good, "16 days or the only a certain line of computers that aren't the newest" just doesn't make sense.

Also, I misspoke - the current preview doesn't have postscript support, only pdf -- I generate my own ps and only the newer version will work for me. Of course there are other programs, or I could convert ps2pdf (which isn't in 10.2.7).

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[Midnight Thunder]

Don't buy a Mercedes if you can't afford the associated costs. Same thing goes for a Mac and any other high end goods. Then again, after market stuff can be bought from someone else for cheaper, if you know where to go. The only thing you really need to buy from Apple once you have bought the computer is the OS upgrade, but then again if you are happy with the OS as is, then stick with it.

The way I see it a lot of work goes into developing software and the developers deserve to get paid, not just the people in management. Sure you can develop software for free, and I do, but at some point you need to pay your bills and buy the next computer, so that's where the paid job comes into picture.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[hpavc]

you obviously dont know what your talking about. apple is very opensource friendly, a lot of good programs come out of the open darwin family.

"represents a good value for money" might make sense if you put a dollar figure on your time. how many hours i used to (and still do for other people) fixing windows machines where windows wont start, documents wont print, etc.

one of the major values of apple products is that it works and keeps on working. most people will never want nor need to reinstall thier os. they wont have an equivlent blue screen on boot up that says they are missing something.vxd. this is easily true for macos and osx. and why people switch -- and end to the hassle of tossing time and money into their intel machines.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[rudiger]

on my iBook, under applications, there was an installer directory which had the stuff to install Xcode.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[tgibbs]

did they really have to screw everyone who bought a laptop yesterday?

Considering that nearly everybody has known for some time that Panther was imminent, I figure that most everybody who bought a laptop yesterday figured that having a laptop then, instead of in a week or two, was worth the extra $130 or so that it would cost them for the OS upgrade.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[morcheeba]

It's not that I want something for free just because, and it's not about shelling out the muulah.

When I bought the machine, I knew there was a risk that I wouldn't get an upgrade to Panther, and if they had a consistant policy, I'd be happy to live by it.

But they are favoring one particular product - the G5 - over all others, even though my machine is newer a newer model, costs more, was bought later than most of the G5s. It's even aimed at the same professional market. Just an explanation - Isn't this supposed to be the year of the laptop?

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[Midnight Thunder]

I see your issue. It does kinda suck. Maybe if you contact the guys in the right places, you could get something? I don't know but a nice letter indicating your gripe, it might help?

Here's wishing you luck :)

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[tf23]

Well, you'd be wrong.

Whether the 8th was going to be the day, or not, was debateable. Rumors are rumors.

But some of us have begged, pleaded, etc, our boss's to order us a new powerbook. For months. The OK was finally handed down. It was ordered about 7pm on the 7th.

So yes, now I will have to beg for another $130 expenditure for a new laptop that just came for it's OS. Do you think my boss will be happy that after shelling out nearly $3k, it'll cost another $130 for the upgrade less then a month later?

No, he won't. And considering that I'm a first-time 'switcher' and this purchase, in the company's eyes is a huge risk (we're basically MS/Linux shop) it would be far easier for me to not rock-the-boat if Apple atleast did a $0 cost to those within 30-days of purchase.

I really don't see that as too much to ask. For some of us, just obtaining the Mac is a huge battle. Let alone the idea that if I'd just bought it w/ $3k of my own cash, ouch.

Yes, my situation is probably in the minority, compared to most people's.

But damn, if Apple really wants increased marketshare, they need to open that daterange up a bit.

Re:Sucks if you just bought a new powerbook

[tgibbs]

Whether the 8th was going to be the day, or not, was debateable. Rumors are rumors.

The exact date was unknown, but it was known to be within the next few weeks, so if you ordered a system before the announcement, you could reasonably assume that the final price including Panther would be $129 more. Of course, you don't need Panther. Jaguar continues to work just fine.

Still, you might want to check with Apple; reportedly, they're being somewhat flexible about the policy for people who are right on the cusp.

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

[matchlight]

I'm not trying to fuel any fire but I tend to agree with the principle of the original poster. Not that this release isn't worth paying for, just that if it is, why make it a point release?
From a marketing perspective it's much easier to sell something that not only is different but also looks different (i.e. the major version number)
I guess by looking at old Windows, 3.1 and 3.11 were different versions that were not just free upgrades AFAIK, but I never liked that naming scheme either. lol.

First complaint...

[selderrr]

The ftp client built-in in the finder is still read-only.

Shame on you Apple...

Re:First complaint...

[reiggin]

Pay more attention to the other posts. Yours is far from the first complaint. This is slashdot, after all.

Re:First complaint...

[Farrside]

Dammit! I just bought a copy of Transmit!

Re:First complaint...

[Monkey Angst]

Dammit! I just bought a copy of Transmit!

Err... doesn't the persistence of read-only FTP in the Finder justify your purchase of Transmit?

No G5

[dublisk]

Panther requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to run on the following Apple products with built-in USB support: iMac,(R) iBook(R), Power Macintosh(R) G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube.

Thank god I didn't get a G5.

Re:No G5

[CountBrass]

Bet you're having a Homer moment right now.

Re:No G5

[reiggin]

"minimum": the least possible quantity or degree.

Re:No G5

[Carbonite]

I'm sure that 10.3 works fine on a G5 but you can tell that from reading the parent's statement. I parsed it to have two criteria:

Panther requires

1. a minimum of 128MB of memory

2. the following Apple products with built-in USB support: iMac,(R) iBook(R), Power Macintosh(R) G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube

Re:No G5

[Carbonite]

Arggh, I meant that you can't tell from the statement if it works on a G5.

Re:No G5

[reiggin]

Well, now you know how Apple feels. We all have typographical/grammatical goof-ups every now and then. ;o)

Re:No G5

[Textbook Error]

"minimum": the least possible quantity or degree.

"Humor": That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement.

Re:rediculous

[Jugalator]

As opposed to Win2k and WinXP on the same machine, where the converse is most definitely true.

Most definitely not true if you compare the boot up and shutdown times.

Windows 2000 = syruuuuup... :-)

Finally...

[TintinX]

I'm hoping that this release of OSX will perform sufficiently on my Apple Powerbook G4 Titanium 400.
All other releases have proven too sluggish.

Am I being too optimistic?

Re:Finally...

[memph1st0]

i believe the g4 400 had 1 meg of L2 cache on the chip, so i'm surprised 10.2 is running too sluggish on the box. how much RAM do you have installed? i have a g4 400 powermac with 768 mb of RAM at home, and have been running os x since 10.0, and every single major update has made the machine significantly faster. what an insane and crazy idea in OS development, code optimization instead of bloat!

also, the onboard video in the original Ti may hold u back a bit, and cause the machine to be visually sluggish, altho its actually performing quite well. try compiling a shitload of source.

Re:Finally...

[oosid]

I'm running the beta on a 400Mhz G4 workstation and a Powerbook 550. The only way to describe it is "snappy". I'm very pleased with the performance improvements. I had been thinking about trading in my powerbook in a couple of months, but it's literally like having a new machine. I don't care what the haters say, i'll put my powerbook 550 with 4+ hour battery life and Panther up against any new Ghz wintel laptop out there for everyday ease of use, system responsiveness, and application speed.

Re:Finally...

[SlamMan]

I'm running 7B85 on my 500 MHz TiBook now (512 MB ram), its certainly good enough for me. Mind you, FinalCut still can't work properly, but that because of drive speed more than anything else

Re:Finally...

[ernstp]

If you have an old graphics card that's not really optimized for 32-bit color (like any Rage128, and my Rage Pro Turbo :-) MacOS X could become exactly twice as fast/snappy by switching to 16 bit color. Tried that?

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

[base3]

The OPs analogy was perfect. the 10.2.x updates you describe are hotfixes, and the 10.x are service packs. The difference being that even the big bad evil MS doesn't charge for service packs; and if they did, they'd be tarred and feathered here. But it's OK for Apple to charge for them.

Mod me down for telling the truth. I've got the karma.

Re:Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one am with you 20%.

Re:rediculous

[fermion]

You don't have to pay for it. You can live without it. Just like music or really cool sneakers, OS is not a life necessity, no matter what the propaganda wants you to believe.

And, if we use the MS argument against Linux, unless your time and bandwidth is worthless, you do pay or every incremental upgrade.

Re:Shame Wallstreet isn't supported Bcause this is

[Alexander]

My Pismo had dual bays...

Damn!

[Strepsil]

I was hoping this announcement would take a bit longer - I was going to put my old Beige machine up on eBay next week. :)

class-action

[lemonboy]

Does anyone know what happened to this: Class Action lawsuit I have been unable to find any more info on this topic.

Re:class-action

[CountBrass]

Try reading the article you provided the link to and you might find your answer!

Someone mod' the parent down, -1 dumbass.

Re:Of course, the real question is...

[Cheesy Fool]

Yes it does.

Re:MacOS 10.3

[CountBrass]

Two fallacies in one post - way to go.

Fallacy one. How many different word processing/spreadsheet/paint packages do you use ? how many does anyone need? There's a slection of the best from free to costly available on the Mac. Some of the best aren't available on Windows...

Fallacy two. OSX (and Linux and Unix) aren't just more secure because not so many people hack them - they're more secure because they're built that way. They don't by default execute attachments when you read email, they don't leave ports open all over the place etc etc. OSX has fewer security problems because its built that way and Windoh!s isn't. Edward

Re:Shame Wallstreet isn't supported Bcause this is

[adzoox]

But not dual storage bays, only dual battery bays. The wallstreet could fit a battery or a storage device in either bay, one a 5.25" or 3.5" the other a 3.5" (2.5") Zip, floppy, superdisk, HD

is it so hard to use the CLI FTP client?

[dmnic]

nope, I didnt think so.

Re:is it so hard to use the CLI FTP client?

[selderrr]

ehm, you don't use resource forks do you ?

A little too anxious counter?

[dusanv]

Damn counter is eating up 100% of CPU in my Safari 1.1 (Panther 7B53).

Re:A little too anxious counter?

[a.deity]

Hm. It hits about 65% on my iBook/500 under 10.2.8 6R73. And this is the machine with the 66 MHz bus!

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

[dema]

The difference here is that when Apple updates, the OS I M P R O V E S. That's what MS doesn't seem to get right. Take XP and turn on the "classic" theme and you're right back to 2000. Frankly, I'd rather pay $199 for a faster, more efficient OS, than $299 for a new color theme.

Re:Somehow I still had hope for a discount.

[memph1st0]

that's the way it goes dood, real apple consumers know this, and we all hate it, but we don't really bitch about it. if i were you, and just spent 3k on hardware, i'd download myself a free copy of acquisition, and go lookin for panther, and you might find it at a sufficient discount ;)

Proven GCC 3.3?

[Stonent1]

I dunno, I'm running Gentoo on my laptop and GCC 3.3 is still masked. Not that I don't trust 3.3, but when a major computer company touts a new version of software as "proven" I just kinda wonder. But I digress. Possibly this new speedup could be by Apple using GCC 3.3 with some more aggressive compiler flags. Red letter date. Apple learns about -O3 -mcpu=PPC750 -fomit-frame-pointer -(etc etc)

Re:Proven GCC 3.3?

[MarcQuadra]

GCC-3.3.1 worked fine to rebuild my gentoo system from stage-1, and Apple wouldn't use it if it was totally borked. Sometimes stuff stays masked to maintain sanity (a lot of ebuilds have to change 'GCC=3.2' to 'GCC=>3.2' to build), sometimes they want to wait until the bug reports roll in, and sometimes there's more coming soon enough that unmasking and rereleasing would be foolish.

While it is a bit dangerous to live so 'close to the edge' the OS vendors generally have their shit together enough to test before releasing (excepting RedHat a few years ago, idiots).

No you dont.

[irn_bru]

A purchase of a G5 system AT ANY TIME qualifies for the $20 (postage and packing) Upgrade. It's just folks like me who have just spent 2 grand on a new powerbook that miss out... Details Here

New software doesn't run on old harware? Shocking!

[JClark-IdleME]

So the Mac you bought a few years ago doesn't meet Panther's minimum requirements? The PC I bought a few years ago doesn't meet Windows XP's minimum requirements. Cry me a fucking river.

Enough with the "point" release

[mariox19]

I will stipulate that Apple went ahead and violated a convention in computing for the sake of marketing; but people criticizing the $129 price in the context of the upgrade being a "point" release are way off the mark.

Panther is OS XII -- but I guess Apple wants to stick with the mindshare that the big "X" has created.

I stuck with 10.1 until only last month. Know what? When I finally installed Jaguar on my machine, I was kicking myself for waiting so long.

These are major upgrades.

Re:Enough with the "point" release

[memph1st0]

i agree with them being major upgrades, and can see your logic in saying that it is OS XII, but one thing we all have to notice is that our notion of OS true "upgrades" is warped by the likes of microsoft. they simply bloat their code, change the ui a bit, and add some more features on. but what apple has done has created a nearly perfect user interface [that steve worked on at NeXT for years and years], and now they are doing what they should be doing - optimizing the existing codebase, and then tacking on new revolutionary features. so they're sticking with name X, because it "looks" the same and microsoft has taught us that changing the UI means major upgrade.

Re:Enough with the "point" release

[reiggin]

1) It's far from the same. Play with it and Jaguar side by side and you'll see real quickly. 2) At least Apple releases major upgrades in a timely fashion. I bought WinXP in 2001. Say hello to Longhorn in 2006.

Re:Enough with the "point" release

[midknight32]

Ya wouldn't happen to mean touting win2k.1 as a whole new operating system (XP)??

nahhh.. never.

Re:Enough with the "point" release

[b-baggins]

I'm surprised this still comes up.

The X in OS X is a word play. It has a double meaning. It means 10 in Roman numerals, thus signifying the next big release after OS 9, and a revolutionary release. It is also an X as in uniX and advertises that OS X is a uniX operating system. There's more to the name than just changing to a Roman numeral numbering scheme.

OS X is the name of the operating system. The number afterward is the version.

Could they have gone with OS X 1.0? Yeah, and I think that would have been better, but, I'm not paid by Apple to make the big decisions.

Re:Enough with the "point" release

[mariox19]

No -- I'm sorry but your hyperactive logic just doesn't hold up.

The operating system prior to Mac OS X was just "Mac OS," with versions 1-9? Then, what's running on my iMac is emphatically not "Mac OS" by your reasoning?

"See if you can follow this at home" -- anonymous coward -- no Mac user on the planet has ever considered things in the way in which you put it. And, if you followed along on any Macintosh forums, you'd know that my original statement is in line with the common -- correct -- understanding.

10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[dmnic]

which is on par with Microsofts old release schedule regarding Win95a/b/c, 98/SE, ME

Re:10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[superdan2k]

No, it's just over 1. I bought it last fall the day it was released. (Yes, I am a geek that sat in line @ the Apple store for the midnight opening.)

Re:10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[dmnic]

odd considering I bought my iBook in April 2002 and it came with Jaguar. got home and updated to 10.2.2 that same day.

Re:10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[Halo1]

I really think you are mistaken. I got my iBook in February 2003 and it came with 10.2.1

Re:10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[blugu64]

glad I'm not alone!!

Re:10.2 Jaguar is OVER 2 years old, not 1...

[Wudbaer]

odd considering I bought my iBook in April 2002 and it came with Jaguar. got home and updated to 10.2.2 that same day

May I borrow your time machine ? I want to put OS XI , Linux 5 and Windows XP 2010 on my machines.

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

[TheCrazyFinn]

But my Beige G3 runs Jaguar just fine. There is most certainly OS X support for Beige G3's.

6 year old Macs are no longer supported under OS X. Big deal.

I was hoping to get one more release out of it though. Ah well, time to shop for a G4.

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

[acceleriter]

That's what MS doesn't seem to get right. Take XP and turn on the "classic" theme and you're right back to 2000.

That's not entirely true XP with the classic theme still has Windows Media Player 8/9, Secure Audio Path, and Windows Product Activation :).

Don't laugh

[beavis88]

I'm running a 266Mhz G3 imac with 576 MB RAM, and it works like a charm with 10.2.x. It was [not surprisingly] unusable with the stock 64 megs, but the ram upgrade made everything happy. Even GUI performance isn't bad (with the notable exception of the "genie" effect) with this smokin' RAGE 8MB onboard video :)

Re:Don't laugh

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Didn't know made a beige iMac ;)

Re:Microsoft can do it...

[proj_2501]

hey now, there's a reason it's called AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX

Re:rediculous

[Overly Critical Guy]

Windows File Protection, themes, much better hardware support, wider application compatibility, great laptop support (Win2k refuses to run correctly on my laptop), built-in media support, System Restore, and much more.

Yep. Upgrade.

Upgrade price

[frozenray]

Ellen Feiss doesn't like it

8P

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

[EnVisiCrypt]

10.x are service packs

Um, no they're not. They are more like Windows 95 to 98, or 2000 to XP.

Have you actually used those releases? I know the dot versioning is confusing, but you should think of them like OS X v1, OS X v2, etc.

The additions in functionality between versions of OS X are too great to be considered "service packs". Since "big bad evil MS" rarely includes appreciable new functionality in their service packs, it's more like mega-hotfixing on the MS side.

Re:rediculous

[Eric Ass Raymond]

"Slashdot" anagrams relating to reality: "Sad Sloth", "Lad's Host"

I'd add these: "Has Dolts", "Halt Sods", "Stash Old" and "Ass Ltd Ho".

mistake, Jaguar IS 2 years old, not over...

[dmnic]

damn too much coffee this morning

Powerbook users screwed

[Nutcase]

I bought a new powerbook on Friday. Less than 3 weeks from the date I bought, they will be releasing Panther. So far, this is cool. But the fact that the up-to-date program doesn't cover it is not cool. That sucks.

It wouldn't burn so bad if they hadn't made a specific exception for machines that were shipping back in August. That's like a slap in the face.

I wonder who to complain to (clearly complaining to /.ers is not the right approach). Squeaky wheel and all that....

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[2starr]

I have to agree with you. I ordered a G5 at work in early September and a 15" PowerBook for myself the day after they were announced (late September). The laptop came first because it shipped faster, but it seems really silly to "punish" me for getting a laptop instead of a G5.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[teamhasnoi]

My 15 inch is currently somewhere in Airborne Express Limbo without Panther installed. :(

Why do G5-ers get all the love? It wouldn't be so bad IF I HAD THE LAPTOP. Then the Reality Distortion Field can take over and I'll deal. ;)

I will be calling Apple and inquiring why new powerbook owners are now 'second class' citizens.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[valkraider]

I have the same problem! Mine arrived the 3rd, ordered it the day they announced them. What bothers me is that all the G5s get the upgrade FREE, but the NEW Powerbooks are NEWER than the G5s!!! And the laptops are not even considered...grrr.

No bother anyway though, cause my laptop will fit under the family pack that I have to buy for my older machines anyway, it's just the point of it all. They should say - anyone with a computer that SHIPPED with 10.2.7 should get a free (or $20) 10.3 upgrade.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Goo.cc]

I totally disagree with you.

When you ordered your computer, it was indicated which version of the operating system you would be getting. You got what you paid for and your are not entitled to anything further. Also, Panther is not manditory, so if you don't like the policy on this, stay with Jaguar.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Nutcase]

I know. When I bought it, I knew it was Jaguar. I was ok with that. What pisses me off is that they are not taking a "you bought before we announced, so you get what you bought policy" across the board. The have a weird "unless it's a g5 you've had since august" policy, which doesn't follow the logic of "you knew what you were getting" - It's the selective good will that bugs me.

Maybe this is a case of jealousy, but I tend to think of it more as unfairness. It's life, and it's not like I wasnt budgeting for it.. but I have a hard time seeing the logic, and thus feel shafted.

Mac apps always tend to use features from the latest release, and thus won't run on older ones. This includes updates to apps you may already own. Mac OS upgrades are such a hard sell that they may as well be mandatory. But to be fair, yes, if I was doign everything I need on it right now, didnt ever upgrade my apps, and didn't care about patching any security holes that may arise, then yes... I could stay on Jaguar. (out of curiosity, /does/ apple publish security updates for older releases of OS X? I haven't ever seen it, but I tend to upgrade when it becomes available)

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Yarn]

Same thing happened to me with my 15" TiBook. So when the apple rep was showing off the new powerbooks on his visit I asked about this and he said "you should have our support contract anyway".

I said I'd advise all my users against buying any new macs until 10.3 was released.

I guess it does help them in a small way, they do seem to have supply problems even with the disincentive of an old OS.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Goo.cc]

Nutcase,

I do see your point about the unfairness of G5s being able to get the upgrade. I don't understand it either. I also don't understand why Apple includes those useless coupons since they never seem to be good for anything.

BTW, shouldn't you be shopping for Zeta instead of Panther? :)

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[paulio]

>My 15 inch is currently somewhere in Airborne Express
>Limbo without Panther installed. :(

>Why do G5-ers get all the love?

Ah... it's the 17 inchers who get all the love :)

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Lunazul]

I wouldn't worry about it. It would probably be a good idea to wait until at LEAST 10.3.1 to upgrade, judging by my recent 10.2.8 debacle, which has me shipping my PB back to apple.

Re:Powerbook users screwed

[Nutcase]

lol goo.cc - I have a lot of machines. Until OpenBeOS is ready, my mac is my main one. I also have a linux from scratch box, a windows xp laptop, and an old dual p3-500 for beos/zeta/whatever.

But BeOS, as great as it was, is not up to OS X levels. Hopefully OpenBeOS will rock so hard it will catch up. The freedom aspect will be nice.

Anyway, good observation. :)

Re:Microsoft can do it...

[Pope]

So if they called it 12.0, that'd be OK? Yeesh, It's just a friggin number.

Re:Broken G5 comes in handy after all

[oingoboingo]

still waiting for yours to turn up too, huh?

Re:rediculous

[cperciva]

Yes, upgrade -- to a point release. Win2K is Windows NT version 5.0; WinXP is Windows NT version 5.1. (Yes, those are Microsoft's own numbers.)

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

[fridgepimp]

the 10.2.x updates you describe are hotfixes, and the 10.x are service packs

That is a ridiculous analogy right there...

Microsoft doesn't usually introduce significant new features in a service pack (Fast User switching, updated Mail.app, Expose, revamped Finder, etc.). Usually, in fact, a service pack is simply a condensation of hotfixes. 10.x releases are much more akin to 95 -> 98 -> ME in terms of change, however, Apple typically includes a larger number of features in a given step than MSFT did from 95 -> ME. Microsoft DID charge for those upgrades BTW. In fact, for many, Microsoft actually charged for 98 twice, by charging for the 98 2nd Edition Upgrade as well (at a reduced price).

--fp

Pixlet

[Box Checker]

does anyone know what happened to pixlet?

This is what?

[BrokenHalo]

Shouldn't this be OS X.III ?

Re:This is what?

[Goo.cc]

You're right. Apple should just come out and admin that "X" is really being used as the letter X. After all, why would they call the OS "Mac OS X 10.3" if the X really meant ten?

Personally, I thing that the should change the name to "System X" or MacStep. :)

Re:This is what?

[jerde]

After all, why would they call the OS "Mac OS X 10.3" if the X really meant ten?

Well, it is pronounced "Mac Oh Ess Ten, version ten dot three".

"Mac OS X" is the product name, separate from the version number. Just like Windows 95 and Windows 98 each had multiple versions, released in years other than '95 and '98.

But it is obviously connected to the version number, and you can tell that Apple is trying hard to preserve the decimal number 10 -- once they get to 10.9 there's going to be some gnashing of teeth as they figure out what to do next to preserve product identity.

(The funniest consequence of all of this is that their first release of an "OS X" product was "Mac OS X Server", which was later renamed "Mac OS X Server 1.0" -- and then once the new version came out, it was "Mac OS X Server 10.0".)

- Peter

Re:This is what?

[Elwood P Dowd]

No, we'll have "Mac Oh Ess Ten, version ten dot eleven," prompting all kinds of Spinal Tap jokes.

Re:This is what?

[stfvon007]

Im still waiting for Mac OS XXX. I hear that version can double click its own mouse.

Re:This is what?

[Trurl's Machine]

Well, it is pronounced "Mac Oh Ess Ten, version ten dot three".

Apple has implemented this even into the built-in speech synthesizer. Just highliht the sentence "After all, why would they call the OS "Mac OS X 10.3" if the X really meant ten?" and select "speech" from the "services" menu. The voice will read: "After all, why would they call the Oh Es Mac Oh Es Ten Point Three if the Ex really meant ten". Even the built-in speech synthesizer knows that X in "MacOS X" is ten, but any other X is just Ex!

Re:This is what?

[Bi()hazard]

Your point is correct, but you mistyped the quote. I just ran it by highlighting part of your comment and using speech in 10.2.8, and it said:
"After all, why would they call the oh es Mac oh es ten ten point three if the ex really meant ten?"

Yeah, mac os ten ten point three. Aren't they cute?

Re:This is what?

[JDWTopGuy]

I for one welcome our new these-go-up-to-eleven Mac OS X using overlords from soviet russia. Clearly their beowulf cluster of guitar amps is t3h ub3r r0ckz0rz.

I personally can't wait for Mac OS X 10.42, because it will be the answer to life, the universe, and everything, you insensetive clod.

Re:This is what?

[BrokenHalo]

once they get to 10.9 there's going to be some gnashing of teeth as they figure out what to do next to preserve product identity.

My, these macheads take themselves seriously... My original remark about OS X.III was not serious, but that obviously escaped a number of people.

In any case: after 10.9 the next version should be obvious:

OS XI.

:-)

Re:This is what?

[bhtooefr]

Version 10.99d?

Re:This is what?

[bursch-X]

Yeah, but it will still have only one button...

Now beat me. This was a joke.

Not really...

[FatSean]

If they called this release OSX version 11 and people bought it and found, hey it's almost identical to what I already have, they'd be pissed.

Re:Liberate your software.

[azzy]

If you don't like it, why do you want someone to send it to you?

You probably like record players, too

[SuperBanana]

The only problem I find with the support is that the Wallstreet line PowerBooks, especially after adding a 500Mhz G4 upgrade was one of the best lines Apple ever made.

Please. This is just my-record-player-is-better-than-your-CD-player BS. I had a Lombard, and it was a piece of shit. In your hands it looked, felt, and sounded like a plastic toy. The CD drive door broke. The rubber feet fell off within a month. The case scratched -incredibly- easily and the letters on the keyboard wore off within 2 years. One screen clutch broke, the hard drive died inside of 3 years, the battery within 3 went to half-capacity, and Apple stopped selling new Lombard batteries shortly thereafter. The screen was horrible- in any kind of sunlight, for example, all you saw was green plastic w/ a hint of something in the way of a screen. Half the keyboard doesn't work anymore, the screen has a white line down one side- and to top it all off, the video cable to the screen is toasted; the display went from occasionally flipping out to requiring 2 minutes of adjusting the screen angle, to just not working period.

I now have a revision-1 17" powerbook. It's awesome. Fit+finish is excellent, and everything in the design screams attention-to-detail. The case appears to be very durable(I do have a few small scratches on the bottom however). The screen is terrific in strong light, even direct sunlight hitting it. Gigabit ethernet is fast as hell, airport reception is fantastic, better than my Orinocco Gold card, which was widely considered the standard. In almost every way, my 17" PB kicks the living shit out of your Wallstreet, including battery life...the one exception being weight(so get a 12 or 15"). So do yourself an enormous favor and start using a computer built this decade.

My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8, and with Panther right around the corner, it looks like it'll never get fixed. That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update." Um, no- and as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Bluetooth broken in 10.2.8? I've been using all of the Panther seeds and Bluetooth has always worked (with my SE T610).

Or are you just whining like most loser slashdotters?

Re:You probably like record players, too

[ivan256]

Dude, you must have beat the shit out of that thing. I carried my lombard around for 3 years, and it still looks like new. The little rubber feet did fall off after the third DVD I played, but other than that it was a quality machine. It's not a TiBook, but it was an excelent machine compared to the others on the market at the time. I still use mine every day, but I find it's too heavy to carry around without serious justification.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[grue23]

10.2.8 is Jaguar, not Panther.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[colinleroy]

You seem to have had bad luck with your lombard. Mine works perfectly since 1999, despite an horrible hack (and apart the fact I had to fix its fan). Great keyboard, nice screen, still 2 hours of autonomy, cdrom OK, old HD still works (in another computer as the lombard got an upgrade) etc.

BTW. Of course a 17" G4 "kicks the living shit" out of a Wallstreet. It's five years newer. This is called progress, but it doesn't make older machines worse than they were initially, however.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[wirelessbuzzers]

My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8, and with Panther right around the corner, it looks like it'll never get fixed. That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update." Um, no- and as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

Apple broke a lot of things in a MAJOR way in 10.2.8, and they've fixed bost of them in 10.2.8.1. I bet they fix bluetooth if it's broken so bad.

And if not, you still aren't forced to upgrade. You can reinstall from 10.2.6, which is sort of a bitch to do, but it's still a way out. You can also compile your own SSH fixes (i do stuff like that sometimes).

Re:You probably like record players, too

[keg]

I have a 400mhz 15" tibook, the feet have fallen off, case is scratched, and my battery is down to about an hour. I use it daily so it does get a lot of wear but I think most of this stuff is common with any laptop.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[JohnKFisher]

Bluetooth working as well as it always has, if not better, on my 12in PB G4 with 10.2.8... so not sure what you're going on about, chum.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[ecki]

My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8, and with Panther right around the corner, it looks like it'll never get fixed. That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update." Um, no- and as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

My thoughts exactly... the Bluetooth thing really sucks. Seems like they rushed it out because of the new keyboard and mouse and screwed it up for the rest of us. There's still the option to go back to 10.2.6, but I don't feel like going through a complete archive & install session...

Re:You probably like record players, too

[greenhide]

Hmmm...

Well, it sounded like you were saying, "What do you mean it doesn't work in 10.2.8?!? I have Panther, and it works just fine!" In fact, that is what you said. It did sound like you were equating 10.2.8 and Panther.

Maybe if you had phrased it so:

It isn't working in 10.2.8? That is a shame. However, let me reassure you that I have the Panther seeds and Bluetooth is working, so it looks like it is just a problem with 10.2.8 and won't be a problem in Panther.

Then it would have been clearer. As it stood, your reply seemed to be questioning whether 10.2.8 really did have a problem with Bluetooth, when in fact you were simply letting him know that an upgrade to 10.3 should be worth it.

There, I'm glad that's all settled.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[ecki]

One thing for example is that the Acer BT-500 USB Dongle doesn't work anymore. It used to work with 10.2.6.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[milkman_matt]

I had a Lombard, and it was a piece of shit. In your hands it looked, felt, and sounded like a plastic toy.

I have a Lombard too, and after playing with my coworker's TiBook, I still like the feel of the lombard keyboard/palmrest/trackpad better, I like the contour it has to it instead of being totally flat and metal.. maybe i'm weird like that. Yeah, the feet fell off of mine too, but when you've got rubber feet stuck to a hot plastic laptop that's being moved around and put in a carrying case then out then in then out again, that's bound to happen, whatever. I've got a COUPLE scratches, but that's to be expected from a 4 year old system that I use as my primary every day computer (yeah, primary, as opposed to the GHz PC I have sitting next to me, I get a lot more done, easier, on my 400MHz Lombard) the letters wore off of the home keys for me, and /, but I know where all of the keys are by now, and all of the other keys all seem to be in tact. My 4GB HDD lasted until this year when I upgraded out of going insane from lack of disk space, but it was still working great when I did replace it. Now the battery life, I can agree with you there, I've got about a half hour charge on my battery these days, but again, I got this thing in december of '99, that's an old damned battery. The screen? The screen still works perfectly. The only real bitch I have about this system are the battery life, the video card and the fact that I can't play DVDs after kicking down an extra $200 for the DVD drive and that when I put it to sleep, USUALLY, it won't light back up unless I reset it via the reset button on the back.. yeah, that's pretty annoying, but overall. All of these are very minor problems, not some showstopper that's going to cause me to jump on /. and shit on my powerbook's little flaws, like I said, it's powerful enough that it's STILL my daily system, and I love it.

I'm sure your 17" powerbook kicks a lot of ass, in fact, i'd love to have one. But "my 17" PB kicks the living shit out of your Wallstreet, including battery life" Well i'd sure as shit hope so! Your system is 4 years newer, if it were an equal then I'd say you've been had! and as for "So do yourself an enormous favor and start using a computer built this decade.", First off, my lombard only missed this decade by 1 year, so whatever on that, but i'd love to get myself a 17" powerbook, care to make a donation to the buy matt a new powerbook fund? because as much as i'd love one, and i'm sure i'm not the only one, I just can't afford to throw down another 3 grand on another laptop just now... I will be getting one relatively soon, just not until i'm out of debt on some other things were a little more important than replacing a killer system that isn't dead yet, with a newer killer system.

-matt

Re:You probably like record players, too

[the argonaut]

Although the way I read the OP is that he had no plans to buy Panther, but since getting Panther is the only way to get Bluetooth functionality back (short of rolling back to 10.2.6), he'll be downloading Panther.

Re:You probably like record players, too

[dwightk]

Dude, I love my 12" PB, but you know what? the feet fell of of it after 2 weeks, there are scratches in the Aluminum, the wrist rests get dirty, the track pad is getting worn smooth, the space bar is half worn smooth, the screen gets dirty... The left wrist wrest gets annoyingly hot too often, and the fan never comes on...

I can list of a million things I wish were better about the computer, but there isn't a computer (including your 17"PB) that I couldn't find something I didn't like about...

Re:You probably like record players, too

[deathmolor]

Ahh.. didn't Adam Sandler make a song about that.

My piece of shit 12" Powerbook.

Should the designer also lick your sweaty nutt sack?

Re:You probably like record players, too

[ProfessionalCookie]

So do yourself an enormous favor and start using a computer built this decade.

Don't you mean: "So do yourself a favor and start using a computer built this millennium."

It sounds better that way ;)

Re:You probably like record players, too

[the argonaut]

his own potential illegal activity aside, there is something substantially wrong though is Apple doesn't get with the program and fix the issues that still seem to be popping up with the 10.2.8 update. Regardless of the substantial arguments for upgrading to Panther (which I had the opportunity to try, and all I have to say is it rocks, aside from the crappy brushed metal windows (i still have to ask WTF are they thinking? it would be one thing if they went to an all metal GUI, which I wouldn't care for but at least it would be consistent, but this metal here and aqua ther crap has got to end...)) requiring customers to go for a paid upgrade to repair what was a working future is ludicrous and ought to be illegal in my mind.

And arguing that one should just re-install and roll back to 10.2.6 isn't a real solution either. Having had to do that myself with the first update, I can sympathize with the poster there. It would be little skin off of Apple's back to fix the problem and would probably win them at least a small amount of goodwill amongst those who will not be upgrading to Panther in the immediate future.

Granted, even if Apple doesn't fix it, it still doesn't give the OP a privilege to act illegally himself anf just download 10.3...

Re:Liberate your software.

[wo1verin3]

>>Frankly, I'm tired of Steve Jobs claiming he
>>has a "revolutionary" new upgrade for my
>>Macintosh every year. I don't think that this
>>is worth $129.00.

Well I've put a team of monkeys to work on trying to figure out how to ensure you don't lose your $129 dollars, and will still allow Steve Jobs to market his product in a way that he sees fit.

After 3.4 seconds, the monkeys typed the following:

DON'T BUY IT

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

[edspunky]

Dammit. Me too. Windows XP won't run on my IBM PC XT. What the hell? They're both 'X' something, right?

Re:Damn!

[DJ Rubbie]

Windows 2000 and Windows XP are point releases. Internal versions are Windows NT 5.0 and Windows NT 5.1, respectively.

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]).

not a complaint, believe it or not

[reiggin]

...just an observation.

Apple's timing for these upgrades is what makes me chuckle. I know that it's not intentional so I'm not complaining. But I just renewed my .Mac at $99 (no complaints, it's well worth it. I've gotten great deals over the year from them: free software, integrated features, and a permanent email address). And now I have to pay $129 for 10.3. Just bad timing for my wallet. Did I mention I'm getting married Saturday? "Honey, I know we just got back from the honeymoon, but this is PANTHER!!!"

Re:not a complaint, believe it or not

[island_earth]

Did I mention I'm getting married Saturday? "Honey, I know we just got back from the honeymoon, but this is PANTHER!!!"

Sorry, but a real Mac fan would have said "Honey, I know we're still on our honeymoon, but this is PANTHER!!!"

Of course, your average /. reader would more likely only be able to say "Honey, it's sweet and comes from bees."

Re:not a complaint, believe it or not

[terrified]

Sorry, but a real Mac fan would have said "Honey, I know we're still on our honeymoon, but this is PANTHER!!!"

Actually, it should be
No, honey, you go on ahead; this is PANTHER!!!

Re:not a complaint, believe it or not

[MKalus]

Well,

you still have time to call the wedding off.... A man has to have his priorities, no? ;)

Re:not a complaint, believe it or not

[reiggin]

To paraphrase: "It's okay to love your OS, just don't love your OS."

Re:not a complaint, believe it or not

[Sri Lumpa]

"Sorry, but a real Mac fan would have said "Honey, I know we're still on our honeymoon, but this is PANTHER!!!""

More like:
"Honey, I know our wedding ceremony is this afternoon, but this is PANTHER".

Not true at all

[RealisticWeb.com]

I know you were trolling, but I have to differ with you there. I have a beige G3/300 tower with 192 megs of ram, and it boots every bit as fast as my Windows XP box which is a 1ghz Athalon with 512 mb ram. Granted the G3 won't run games like my XP box but that mostly has to do with the video card. I was hesitant to put OS X on it in the first place, but I have been downright SHOCKED at how well it runs on this old hardware. And it is actually more stable than it was with OS 9.

Of cource I am rather dissapointed that Panther won't run on it :(

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

[MarsCtrl]

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

No, I disagree.

Microsoft's updates can be catagorized into three things: 1) Service Packs, 2) Critical Updates (such as the latest IE bugfixes), 3) Non-critical updates (such as improved foreign language support, Media Player Upgrades, etc)

Apple's updates can be similarly catagorized: 1) Mac OS X Updates (i.e, 10.2.x), 2) Security Updates (such as the one I received on 8/14), and 3) Non-critical updates (such as the Java 1.4.1 update)

There is a direct correlation between the two in their catagorization. The only difference is in how they express their version numbering; Microsoft tends to be slightly more liberal in their updates of the major version. Just because Microsoft didn't refer to Windows XP as "Windows 5.1", are they more justified in charging for a periodic upgrade than Apple progressing from 10.2 to 10.3?

The difference being that even the big bad evil MS doesn't charge for service packs; and if they did, they'd be tarred and feathered here. But it's OK for Apple to charge for them.

If there's one thing to be learned from the 10.2.8 update, it's that Slashdot won't hesitate to gang up on Apple for doing something stupid. Unlike other companies, however, Apple doesn't make a business out of it.

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

[artemis67]

I think "Apple ][ Forever" was an attempt by folks inside of Apple (most notably Woz) to keep Apple from dumping the Apple ][ in the face of the Macintosh. Of course, they failed.

The Newton WAS a very important part of their product line, and was even starting to make money right before it got the axe. The Newton could have OWNED the mid- to high-end PDA market right now if Apple had nurtured it. See how Apple is gradually morphing the iPod into a PDA? They know that PDA's are the future. Unfortunately, the Newton was a Sculley project, and I believe Jobs killed it for that very reason, out of spite. And then I think he deeply regretted what he had done, because he tried to buy out Palm, which was populated with most of the former Newton engineers.

Running the original Rhapsody version of OS X on a TAM? A PPC 603e processor? Why would you want to do that? Rhapsody ran way slow on my 400 mhz G3 Blue & White tower, I can't imagine trying to run it on a TAM.

Beige G3's get the shaft? Fine with me. Why should Apple commit tremendous engineering resources to running the latest OS on Macs they sold four and five years ago? The experience would not be satisfying, even if they did.

sorta OT

[matticus]

Does anyone know why Apple's support in Europe is so bad? I work as a sysadmin at a scientific institution in Germany, and I moved here four months ago from Michigan. I am so shocked at how bad it is here compared to in the states. We preordered a G5 on the day of the announcement and it came in today. That's a lot longer than it took in the States. Oh, and Panther-we've been beta-testing it for some time, and everything we've found that doesn't work with our network (setting a central cups print server for example) we have told Apple, and they told us they would investigate the problems for 700 euro per incident. FOR US TO FIX THEIR BUGS! I like Apple a lot, but it seems they care very little about Europe, and being as that's where I am, and we are running about 400 macs in the institute, I think they should care more. Anyone feel the same? Or anyone in Europe have better experiences?

Re:sorta OT

[Pius II.]

Apple Germany is the worst !"$%&/()="#?^\ of "$%&/ I've ever seen. You'll probably have noticed how everything from Apple is up to 150% the price of the US; there are _no_ Apple stores; the Apple service point in my city is a cellar hole, smelling of motor oil, and the people who work there have no interest in helping at all; although every few years Apple starts another try to actually sell systems, these pathetic tries end up with some big retail chain (not) selling misconfigured several-year old iBooks...
Shortly, Apple Germany really sucks.

Re:sorta OT

[tbien]

Apple Europe sucks... It's really bad und Apple Germany is the worst. I'm really glad I'm an ADC member and have other ways of getting support from Apple.

Re:sorta OT

[Get Behind the Mule]

Does anyone know why Apple's support in Europe is so bad? I work as a sysadmin at a scientific institution in Germany ...

The problem might not be Apple, and it might not be that bad in all of Europe. It might just be the general attitude about service in Germany, in many cases far less conscientious than what you're used to in the US. Look around in the media, and chances are you'll find soul-searching essays in the Op-Ed pages, in which the Germans wonder why this is so.

The extremely long delivery times is common for any product, not just an Apple computer. Try to buy a new car, and you might find that you have to wait months before the one you specified arrives. I have tried to explain to my German friends that this is madness, in the US you can often get a delivery within days, but many of them just don't understand me. It's always been this way for them, they can't conceive of anything different, and they can't perceive the problem.

In many multinational corporations, the German part (or other European part) is actually an independent company, except that it's wholly owned by the "mother" company, who also controls the products, trademarks and so forth. I don't know about Apple specifically, but it's highly likely that they are set up that way. If so, you're dealing with a company that's trying hard to look just like Apple as you know it at home, but in many respects is really a German firm; and that might be showing in their approach to service.

Re:sorta OT

[KH]

I'm with you.

Apple's support in Europe is virtually non-existent. I don't even see their existence. I'm waiting for my iBook to be repaired for 1.5 months! It's simply the regular power supply, AirPort antenna, and backlight cable problems. Why the hell does it take so long? It took three days for Apple Japan to pick up in a hotel in Tokyo, fix the backlight cable and send the iBook to Nagasaki where my parents live.

Maybe that's because I'm living in a small city in the Netherlands, but the support here makes me seriously consider switching to PC. At least when I was living in Hamburg, I saw a lot of ads and some shops that deal with Apple.

But as a second thought, that may not help much, either. From my experience in the university I work for, the people here are simply backwards. Unskilled, ignorant, arrogant Windows admins taking care of the network. Disruption of services happens at daily basis, and ridiculous policies, etc... It simply seems that technology-wise, people here do not care much.

That's too bad

[m_niessner]

It's too bad you can't wait. Apple never ships anything on time. If I were you, I would prepare to wait.

Re:That's too bad

[rworne]

They sure don't. I received Jaguar the day before the official release. Damn them, I wanted to wait.

Re:rediculous

[Bishop923]

I'd rather wait a couple minutes for Win2k to boot up and run at full speed(As fast as a modern Windows will run at least...), rather than only waiting 1 minute for XP to boot and have my system running like, as you so eloquently put it, "syruuuuup".

Yeppers

[ruiner13]

Yes, it does, just buy virtual PC. I've heard that it is fairly usable even on a 400MHz iBook, especially if you install a haxie that lets you quit the finder. I haven't tried it though, so don't take my word for it.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Microsoft did call to Windows XP as Windows 5.1. They just threw the XP on to detract attention from it.

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

[matticus]

Well, 5 years ago I had a p2-400 with 128MB RAM and a 12GB hard drive. XP still runs fine on that...not that I advocate Windows usage, but I can see why some people might be frustrated. Of course, like any good slashdotter, my current machines are a p4 2.8GHz, an Athlon 2600+, a P4 1.9GHz, a Sun Blade, an SGI O2, a P3 750 lappy, and an 800MHz FP iMac.

Why is USB required?

[Refried Beans]

Are they going to force you to use little USB doggles to let you log in? Seems like a strange requirement for an OS.

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:Why is USB required?

[ChrisDolan]

"USB-required" is just a mnemonic. What it really means is they're only supporting machines released after some date, which happens to coincide with when they made USB a standard feature. Saying "only computers with built-in USB" makes it really easy to check if your machine will support Panther.

I suspect it's because Panther drops support for certain older Apple motherboards, namely the ones from just before Apple added USB as a standard feature.

Re:Why is USB required?

[Kazymyr]

No, it's just because all of the machines with built-in USB are NewWorld, and all the macs without built-in USB are OldWorld (including the beige G3s). Saying that it won't support macs without built-in USB is marketspeak for "we've dropped support for all OldWorld systems".

Re:Why is USB required?

[valkraider]

My guess is - no.

That is not to say that you won't have options - there are all sorts of hacks to install OSX on unsupported hardware. But the requiremenst for a supported system say G3 or G4 Powerbook AND Built-in USB.

As it is, the performance of Panther is "Snappy!"(TM) which should help on older machines. Of course they might call the user switching "slow like molasses in january" user switching, if it takes as many CPU cycles as it looks like it would... And it might be faster for you to manually open and close all your apps than use Expose without a Quartz Extreme capable video card... But who knows? I haven't had a build running, and Those who have legally can't say anything until October 24 - so all of you pyr8s - any info on how fast the new features that look "heavy" are on older hardware?

Re:Why is USB required?

[myov]

Good theory, but the (supported) iMacs started shipping in Aug 98, and the B&W's were in Jan 99. There's a 4 month period where the higher-end G3's (which also went through a speed bump around Oct, irrc) are not supported.

I'd love to see Panther run on my beige G3.
I'm not expecting it to be quick (It's not like I'll be running Final Cut on it any time soon - I have a TiBook for that). However, I still use it quite a bit when I don't want to tie up the powerbook (especially when the tibook is traveling with me). In fact, it runs better than my supported Rev B iMac (which won't recognize 256MB dimms).

I've read that earlier builds *were* supported. I'm sure it will run, but Apple doesn't support the various upgrades (CPU mainly), and it's too slow otherwise. But if "not supported" means ripping out the existing ADB drivers, I'll be upset.

Re:Why is USB required?

[transient]

I don't know that it's market-speak really. Market-speak usually consists of euphemisms to cover up something embarrassing or controversial. In this case I think they're referring to New World Macs as those with built-in USB because most Mac users don't have a clue what "New World" means. But they should all know what USB is (God knows Apple made a big enough fuss about it when they started using it).

Then again, I could be reading more into your use of the term "market-speak" than you intended.

Re:Damn!

[Guano_Jim]

Apple has a monopoly on Macs. For some reason, we don't hear /. crying about that monopoly.

This just in!

Toyota has a monopoly on Corollas!

Holy sweet Ashcroft on a stick, call the Justice Department!

Not worth the patent infractions

[siskbc]

Font Book, a new application that provides system-level font management with double-click font preview, one-click installation and an intuitive interface for managing font collections, and activating or deactivating fonts;

Jeff Bezos will have Apple's ass over that one. Everyone knows that all operations completed with at least one but fewer than two clicks is 0wnz0r3D by Amazon.

Re:Not worth the patent infractions

[Shenkerian]

Yes, but everyone except you also knows that Apple has been licensing Amazon's One-Click "technology" pretty much since .Mac came along. iPhoto's One-Click print ordering is one example.

Re:Not worth the patent infractions

[rjung2k]

It's even earlier than that -- Apple licensed One-Click from Amazon for the rollout of the online Apple Store.

Re:Not worth the patent infractions

[Scudsucker]

Did you miss the part where Amazon has a patent on one click shopping?

moron

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

[Lord Kano]

Huh?? Were you fond of the 66 MHz bus and onboard 10 MB/sec SCSI? Or was it the EIDE that you liked?

I was fond of the onboard SCSI, mini-din 8 serial, and ADB. I don't want to use USB adaptors or PCI cards to get them.

LK

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

[stingerman101]

Apple's support cycle is five years. Nothing unusual here. However, just because you can't officially upgrade to Panther, doesn't mean your Mac can't be used anymore. Just keep doing what you're doing with Jaguar, it's an awesome OS.

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

[Lord Kano]

Not to mention, a new eMac with Panther will cost you about $800. If you can't afford $1000 every 5-8 YEARS perhaps you shouldn't be looking at Apples in the first place.

I can afford such upgrades far more often, but I am not interested in doing so.

The PC that I'm using now is the evolution of the Pentium 100 that I built 7 years ago. When I was ready for a new CPU/MB, they fit into the sustem that I had. When I was ready for more, I added more. Over time that P100 became a P200MMX then a P2 300, then a K62450 and now an Athlon XP 1800+.

The Mac that I bought 6 months after I built this PC is still at 200Mhz, I could have added a G3 to the L2 cache slot, but why cobble together something that just barely works?

LK

jaguar-panther compatibility

[b17bmbr]

i have a 700mhz ibook. it runs jaguar wuite nicely to tell you the truth. what concerns me is that when 10.2 came out, it seemed that alot of 10.1 stuff didn't work. is this going to be the case. it doesn't say so on apple's web site. and i actually don't blame them. backwards compatibility is a PITA to maintain, and it doesn't make good business sense. (they're not a monopoly) just that before i upgrade, i don't want my apps to break. of course, i'm going to reward my self with a new 15" PB in the spring when i finish my masters, so by then all the bugs will be worked out. i hope.

Illegal?

[mccalli]

My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8,

err....really? Works fine here on a 12" Powerbook/Nokia 3650 combination. In fact, with the iCal/iSync updates out today my machine just become a lot more useful as it now sync calendars with any Series 60 device (which includes the 3650).

That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update."

Or go back to pre-10.2.8 for free. Assuming it's broken of course, as stated above I haven't seen any evidence for that. Happy to be proved wrong if you can point me anywhere.

...as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

Now, if you're looking for something that really is illegal...

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Illegal?

[Llywelyn]

No problems here on a 12" PowerBook. In fact it was acting kind of flakey before the update. Maybe the original author would like to specify what he meant?

Re:Illegal?

[dbirchall]

I've got an iBook 600MHz with a USB bluetooth adaptor and a Nokia 3650.

Bluetooth worked fine under 10.2.6.

Bluetooth worked fine under 10.2.8-original.

Bluetooth worked fine under 10.2.8-reissue.

Oh, and with iCal 1.5 and iSync 1.2.1 out, guess what? Bluetooth still works fine. ;)

Re:Business Model?

[tgibbs]

I have a friend running a pre-release version, and if the new features were offered as a 3rd party product, with no OS improvements, I'd consider $129 a more than reasonable price (although being in academia, the price for me is $69).

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:Biege G3

[Halo1]

Jaguar does officially support beige g3's. Panther indeed doesn't anymore.

Shame about the release date

[bill_mcgonigle]

We all read they were targeting 10/3 for 10.3. 10/24 just isn't as cute. Yeah, 3 is between 2 and 4, but not many people are going to get that.

Re:Shame about the release date

[adelayde]

Erm how about 10.3 as in the tenth month of the 3rd year of the third millenium?

Bastards!

[evilned]

Just got my dual g5 on friday afternoon for work. Guess what, I don't qualify for the up to date program, its only for macs sold after today.

Re:Bastards!

[Luckboy]

You should look again. ALL G5 owners get it. This is from http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

Customers who purchase a qualifying new Power Mac G5 (M9020LL/A, M9031LL/A, M9032LL/A) regardless of purchase date that does not have Mac OS X Panther v10.3 included can upgrade to Mac OS X Panther.

Check your facts before complaining.

Re:Bastards!

[tbien]

No it's not... All G5s qualify for the up-to-date program...

/cite/
For Power Mac G5 systems Customers who purchase a qualifying new Power Mac G5 (M9020LL/A, M9031LL/A, M9032LL/A) regardless of purchase date that does not have Mac OS X Panther v10.3 included can upgrade to Mac OS X Panther.
/cite/

Re:Liberate your software.

[rworne]

That's why there's EDU pricing. If you are eligible, the cost for Panther is $69.00

Re:Liberate your software.

[Lysol]

Hey, as far as iChat AV goes, Net Meeting does not work as effortlessly (as with most non-Mac things) nor has there ever been any significant effort to market it as anything spectacular.
Although iChat does require either a AOL or .Mac account, there are NO firewall issues at all. Period. With Net Meeting - now some other MSN Messenger something - there are not only issues connecting thru firewalls but it also claims to adhere to h323, while, as usual, brakes various things such as directory lookups.

While I agree that this is not 'revolutionary' I think it is significant as far as speed goes and has some interesting features. Apple still supports OS projects such as Apache, Samba, and OpenSSH/SSL - you won't see any of these coming out a a M$ distro soon. Or ever for that fact.

So, while there still is competition and choice out there I'll continue to vote with my pocketbook.

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.

Actually, there's 10...

[siskbc]

That's OK - the six guys to whom that would actually apply are still waiting for their copies of 10.2 to boot up.

...and you just found them all!

Re:Actually, there's 10...

[splateagle]

ha!

now you see this guy is actually funny!

Hey, that's my birthday!

[rolocroz]

Cool! Panther's coming out on my birthday!

However, that's not the important part. I'm still kind of disappointed that there's no discount to people upgrading from Jaguar; I bought Jag in April for the full $129, and I'm rather disappointed that Panther's going to make me pay again. I'm not saying that Panther should be free; Apple deserves money for all the great new features, but I wish there were at least a small discount for Jag users. Oh well.

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[b-baggins]

Apple doesn't sell upgrades, they sell full versions. After you buy Panther, you can sell Jaguar, toss the disk, whatever, and still be able to reinstall Panther should you need to.

Another nice thing: No product activation.

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[Jon Abbott]

Another nice thing: No product activation.

Not only is there no product activation, there is no serial number to enter as well. :^)

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[tweek]

If it makes you feel any better, I bought my copy of Jag on September 13th. I just got off the phone with a very pleasant supervisor at the apple store who told me to wait it out and they might provide a nice upgrade path for some people. If not, I'll just buy it anyway but to shell out 129.97 twice so quickly is not my idea of good money management skills ;)

I actually asked her what those software upgrade coupons were for and she said nothing really ;)

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[rolocroz]

I might as well sell my copy of Jaguar after I upgrade. That would be just fine.

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[E'Laren]

Not correct! Apple sold 10.2 Upgrade discs that required an existing 10.1 installation on the hard drive. These $20 10.3 discs that everyone is talking about REQUIRE 10.2 INSTALLATION already on the machine. They're upgrade discs not "full" version discs. Other than that limitation, these upgrade 10.3 discs can do everything a full 10.3 disc can including an Archive and Install which was a very useful feature that 10.2 Upgrade didn't offer.

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[geoffspear]

IIRC, they did give a discount on 9.2 with the coupons from 9.1. I don't believe I've seen any offers that used them since then, but they keep including them with the OS.

Re:Hey, that's my birthday!

[TheInternet]

These $20 10.3 discs that everyone is talking about REQUIRE 10.2 INSTALLATION already on the machine.

That makes sense, doesn't it? Only people who bought machines recently (ie -- came with Jaguar preinstalled) are entitled to a $20 Panther upgrade.

- Scott

XCode

[Lysol]

And don't forget, XCode has distributed build capability. So for multi-server build environments the build time can drop significantly.

This is a good thing.

Panther Server

[mrpuffypants]

Also of note is that Apple announced Panther server (I'm sure that means we'll be seeing uber-optimized X-Serves in the near future). One of the most fucking amazing features of P.Server is that it can function as your Windows PDC for all those poor XP boxes out there.

Now this could be like Apple previously said "Jag can auth to Active Directory" and basically make it impossible by not telling anybody how to do it but if P.Server really can act as a PDC then the X-Serves loaded with an unlimited license of P.Server are a fucking great deal!

Oh, and if anybody lives in the DFW area then look for me at the Knox Street release party on the 24th. I'm the goofy redhead :)

Is the Finder Cocoa or Carbon?

[Jack Auf]

The sometime slugishness of the OSX Finder has been attributed by some to the fact that it was written in Carbon. There are some interesting discussions on this around the net.

So, are the changes to the Finder in Panther just an update or has it been re-written using the Cocoa APIs?

Funny - I'm experiencing something similar.

[speechpoet]

I never thought about it before, but my new dual G5 is measurably faster than my WallStreet, which has, yes, shown certain signs of age since it was released in 1998. In retribution, I will not only download Panther, but shoplift a 17-inch PowerBook and steal Steve Jobs' turtleneck collection.

Yes, IF...

[alispguru]

Is this a sucessful business model? Put out a new OS every year? Sorry, I should say an "upgrade" every year, and charge users $129 every time?

Yes, if and only if the yearly upgrade gives users things they're willing to pay $129 a year to get.

OS X is still a relatively "young" OS, despite its BSD/Mach roots. I'm going to get it for the performance enhancements alone - the "fast" machine in my house is a 466 MHz G4, my white iBook is a 500 MHz G3, and they'll both benefit.

{aside type="snarky"} Anyone have any examples of a Microsoft OS upgrade or new release that promised and delivered improved performance on 2+ year-old hardware? {/aside}

In a year or two, all the "easy" tuning in the OS will be done. At that point, new OS releases will have to sell primarily on new features. That's when we'll see if this digital hub stuff sells.

Re:Liberate your software.

[MalleusEBHC]

Or, send a serial number so that I may liberate it off of KaZaA Plus.

Aww, how cute, a Windows user pretending he owns a Mac.

Re:Biege G3

[tgibbs]

I've used XPostFacto to install Jaguar on a PowerComputing clone (with G3 upgrade). Perhaps there will be a version of Panther and beige G3's.

X11

[CGP314]

I'm suprised no one has mentioned the native X11 support in 10.3. That's what's going to make me switch from a win/linux dual boot dell to an ibook or powerbook.

Re:X11

[tobyblake]

Does anyone know if the X server coming with Jaguar will offer full-screen support? This is what has prevented me from using the x11 public beta.

Re:X11

[TheInternet]

Does this mean Darwin comes with 10.3?

Mac OS X has always sat on top of Darwin.

- Scott

Re:Shame Wallstreet isn't supported Bcause this is

[cloudmaster]

USB floppy. USB zip. USB superdisk. I'm pretty sure all of those are available for new laptops, and are just about as easy to carry around as internal drives (assuming a laptop bag, of course)... :)

Re:Sounds like a letdown?

[Lysol]

Hmm, I don't remember Panther being touted as a 64-bit OS at all. In fact, that's all on the G5 side of things.

Regardless, 10.2.8, as mentioned earlier, is free. And there are some significant things that make this worth the upgrade.

A lot of things have been sped up/optimized. PDF viewing, file searches, graphics in general.

The file system is fully journaled.

File Vault provides full 128-bit encryption of user files - with no or little speed degradation. A very handy feature for people with laptops that might possibly get stolen.

All the Samba stuff works much better.

iChat AV. I video call my relatives on the west coast and this is a billion times better than the phone; I don't care if people think it's cheesy or not.

X11 is a lot tighter than in previous versions.

etc.., etc.., etc..

As far as the G5 goes, what other PC, PC mind you, can you have 8-gigs of ram on or that comes stock wither SATA drives?! None yet. Apple is doing it right. They're introducing things that work well and will then provide incremental upgrades that bring in tested features, such as 64-bit. I think a lot of people are just too used to the Windoze way of release crap asap and then fix. Charging along the way as well.

Re:I can't even upgrade to 10.*2*!

[splateagle]

hm... can't help you there but the guys over at Low End Mac probably can - try subscribing to their "G list" if it isn't covered in an article somewhere

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

[tgibbs]

Generally, Apple's "pay" upgrades include major new software and or features, as well as OS performance enhancements. Having seen Expose in action, I'd certainly pay $69 for it (which is the academic OSX upgrade price) if it were offered alone as a shareware product.

Tribute?

[wtmoose]

I'm sure this has been noted before, but I hadn't come across it...

OS X Panther

Malcolm X

Black Panther Party

Re:call the OS at *all*

[lederhosen]

>> How could you write a program which accesses
>> files, with a GUI, without calling the OS?

You can make programs that do not call the
OS at all. I have said *nothing* else.

I have not said that gcc has not improved, I say
it will not run faster because of an OS upgrade.

I am right. You are wrong.

[BrokenHalo]

Or maybe you don't know what the world "proprietary" actually means?

I think I might have a better grasp on the meaning of the word than you. From the Macquarie Dictionary (I'm in Australia, but you'll find the OED agrees):

"proprietary... -adj.1. belonging to a proprietor or proprietors. 2. being a proprietor or proprietors; holding property: the proprietary class 3. pertaining to property or ownership: proprietary rights. 4. belonging or controlled as property. 5. manufactured and sold only by the owner of the patent, formula, brand name or trademark associated with the product..."

Re:Liberate your software.

[rworne]

True, that's why some of us are software engineers who work on their master's degree, juggle family responsibilities and hold a full-time job.

But I still look (and sometimes smell) like a highly educated homeless person. Can't have everything, I guess.

How badly will this break Fink?

[wirelessbuzzers]

I use the UNIX side of things on my Mac as well. I have a lot of software installed through Fink or simply from tarballs, including perl 5.8, QMail, TeTeX, nmap, and a host of minor utilities. I have backups scripted with hfstar (a Mac-enabled version of GNUtar) and cdrecord. I serve HTTP off Apache 2.

I know that Fink does not yet support Panther. In part this is due to GCC3.3. But how badly will I be screwed if I upgrade? Will I have to wait for Fink to catch up and recompile everyhing? That would probably add up to days of compiling, even with GCC3.3 (my eMac is hardly top-of-the-line).

Re:How badly will this break Fink?

[paulio]

I had the same problem from 10.1 to 10.2. Fink did not support the new OS.

A workaround for me was to do the Fink installations on a 10.1 machine, then copy the entire /sw directory to the 10.2 machine. Worked perfectly. I wonder if that would work for 10.3? It's worth a try.

Upgrade or clean install?

[antdude]

This is probably the first MacOS X I will ever get. I have 10.2.7 currently. I was wondering how well is its OS upgrade? Does it leave behind a lot of left overs like Windows? Or is it better to do a clean installation?

Re:Upgrade or clean install?

[shiva600]

You'll get 3 options of installing 10.3:

-Clean install: wipes everything on your hd and installs panther, no leftovers at all of course

-Archive & Install: Archives your old stuff, installs a fresh system, und puts back your personal documents, users, user settings etc. to where they were before. Keeps your old OS-related files in a folder called "Old System" (or something like that). A great feature btw, which I used on all my updates. No problems at all.

-Update. "Just" Updates your OS.
Not as clean as Archive & Install, potentially messy. And your system is way more fragmented compared to archive&install.

Re:Upgrade or clean install?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the first MacOS X I will ever get. I have 10.2.7 currently.

Hmm... There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don't know where to begin.

Re:Upgrade or clean install?

[antdude]

Err, first UPGRADE. :) I just got a PowerBook G4 back in December.

Still has ugly brushed metal

[Anonymous Coward]

The brushed metal finder is still there. Yuck!

It's not too late to sign the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/stopugly/

Re:Here's the way to go

[MikeCapone]

Panther's definetly worth it! Just but the 5 license family pack and split the cost with five friends. 40 bucks a piece, not bad for an excellent OS

You know FIVE people with Macs? I wish I did...

Universal Access in Panther

[beetle496]

The accessibility features are not being promoted as prominently as they were with Jaguar (in fact, I could not find a direct link to this page), but they are improved. Specifically, Zoom now has adjustable contrast, which makes it work very much like a CCTV magnifier for paper. Full keyboard access has also been tweaked. Both very nice, but someone who is totally blind still can't use OS X.

Re:How do you prove you qualify?

[caseyc]

I only had to agree to something saying I qualify...

So you had to lie...

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

[EnVisiCrypt]

I agree. The X.z notation has to go, but they are major improvements over the previous versions.

They really ought to do something like OS X2, or something like that.

No, you're not whining...

[bluelark]

I purchased an updated 15" PowerBook on September 17th and I feel the same way as you do, especially because G5s were grandfathered in the Up To Date program. It's one thing about a cutoff date, quite another when one model gets upgraded and the other doesn't. And I'm especially pissed that I waited for three months to order the most up to date machine I could, and then get told this.

I don't mind spending money for quality, but I just freakin' spent $2700 three weeks ago.

I complained to Apple about the discrepancy, you should too.

Re:No, you're not whining...

[morcheeba]

Thanks. I just did. And on to the apple store on my way home tonight...

Re:No, you're not whining...

[Blikank]

I'm with you... Airborne still has my powerbook, and I can't get an up-to-date break.

The Finder is Mach-O Carbon.

[Steve Cowan]

Think Secret has been answering some Panther FAQ's based on what they've seen in developer seeds. Here is one of their answers:

Is the "all-new" Finder now multithreaded? Is it written in Cocoa?

The new Finder is still Carbon, but it's worth noting that it's a Mach-O binary. Mach-O binaries are native to the Darwin core, and while all Cocoa applications are Mach-O, only some Carbon applications are. With regard to programming and structure, there's little new in Panther's Finder, and in terms of multithreading, it's no more multithreaded than Jaguar's.

Longhorn at PDC 2003

[thermal_noise]

Microsoft PDC 2003 attendees will get an alpha of Longhorn. PDC 2003 is October 26-30. So we'll see 10.3 a few days before.

Coincidence? I think not!

Not an AOL account.

[ArsSineArtificio]

Although iChat does require either a AOL or .Mac account

Clarification: iChat doesn't require an AOL account. It requires an AIM account. Very different, thankfully.

Steve Jobs secret marketing meeting

[teamhasnoi]

Somewhere in California, in a seamless ivory tower that slowly glows, then fades.

Steve: "Well, we'll just give all the G5 people the free upgrade, the powerbooks are shit out of luck."

Lackey: "What if the angry powerbook owners storm the building, and take it?"

Steve: "How much damage can they do? Those powerbooks wouldn't even dent my skull. Now, if the G5 owners got pissed, wielding their G5s like clubs, then I might shit my pants. Those things are big. Let's keep them happy."

Lackey: "Good thinking, master. I will alert your minions."

Steve (to self): "Yes... Angry G5 owners...damn....Shit my pants..."

Re:Steve Jobs secret marketing meeting

[Binky The Oracle]

Now we know why he switched from Titanium to Aluminum...

Re:Loads of Bull...

[sharkman67]

Really, I am currently a beta tester for OSX Server (10.3). When they send out the latest builds they also send out the latest client (10.3 Panther) builds to test with.

I have a old bondi iMac that I use for client testing. My OSX Server is a single processor xserve. Pictures (here and here

I installed Panther on the iMac (Bondi upgraded with a 333 processor and in the iRack box), took the drive out of the iMac and put it into the beige box (lower right corner of second picture). And there runs Panther.

I have been doing this stuff for probably more years that you have been out of diapers AC so back off. For example note the pair of ANS in the second picture. I have 6 of them running AIX, LinuxPPC, Debian and YDL. I've been working on a hack to get OSX 10.2 running. So far so good as it starts to boot but hangs about 1/2 way through the boot process.

Re:Sounds like a letdown?

[Mr. Darl McBride]

As far as the G5 goes, what other PC, PC mind you, can you have 8-gigs of ram on or that comes stock wither SATA drives?! None yet.

Hit Google, search for "sata xeon workstation" for 6,330 hits. The first few links I visisted were PCs with SATA and capable of more than 8 gigs of RAM for less than the price of a G5. Most Xeon chipsets, and many Pentium IV chipsets allow 36-bit addressing, if you didn't know. (The 32-bit barrier was a non-issue as early as 2000.)

If the results degrade as you go on down the Google list, and only 1 in 100 are systems for sale, that's still nearly a hundred different SATA 8g PCs for you to choose from, and you can certainly build them yourself as well.

The G5 is interesting for many reasons, but this isn't one of them.

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.

Re:Free ($20) Qualifying Update

[sameerd]

Even if you purchased a powerbook G4 a few weeks earlier you have some chance of qualifying. Check out this link I bought my powerbook on Sept 16th and I didnt qualify at first but when I tried a couple of days later it worked like magic.

Forgive me Jobs, for I have sinned.

[teamhasnoi]

My 15" Powerbook is here. What's this Panther? ;)

I can actually *feel* the Reality Distortion Field taking hold of me. Time is moving slowly. I can't bring myself to open the box. Wow. Powerful Stuff.

I'm sure the crack-high will wear off sooner or later, but for now it's all good. :)

/me floats in air

I bought a 15" on the 1st, 12" on the 7th!!!!!

[Desmoden]

and I don't get a free upgrade?!?!?!!?

very lame.

Re:I bought a 15" on the 1st, 12" on the 7th!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cancel your orders, and re-order. Then: "call 1-800-767-2775 and have the phone tree direct you to the Operator and ask for Customer Relations. Make it very clear that you would like your complaint to be Officially Logged and heard by Upper Management." That is from an Apple rep in a discussion forum. I called and they logged my complaint, with a followup request.

Re:rediculous

[LemonYellow]

WFP is a Win2k feature, actually.

From what I've seen of System Restore, though, that is a *very* nice feature.

OTOH, the OS X method of drag-and-drop application support removes most of the need for a system restore, as app removal is usually a straight deletion of one "file".

What's the GM Build #?

[Steve Cowan]

Does anybody know the build # of the GM release?

Re:What's the GM Build #?

[bobdinkel]

According to this it's build 7B85.

Re:I can't even upgrade to 10.*2*!

[jchapman16]

There are limitations on the allowed drive configurations for beige G3s; the (first) boot partition must be 8 GB or smaller. If you're out of spec, freezes during installation are a common result.

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

[spagiola]

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]).

Entry-level single processor desktop systems for about $1,000?
Hmmm... we... let's see...
There's the eMac ($700-$1,700 depending on config).
Entry-level, check. Single-processor, check. Desktop, check. About $1,000, check.
And for just a little more, there's the iMac ($1,300 and up).
And you can find both for less (or with bundled add-ons) without looking very hard.

new Mail = MAPI?

[Kobold Curry Chef]

From the article:

Support for Microsoft Exchange is built into Mail and Address Book to make it easy to access Exchange email and sync address book entries;

Does anyone know if this means full MAPI support for Exchange Server? I'm guessing not.

Re:new Mail = MAPI?

[phillymjs]

From what I've read, it is not full MAPI support. Instead, you must supply Mail and Address Book with the URL to the Outlook Web Access pages on your Exchange server, and the apps 'screen-scrape' the data from there.

If true, it's not an optimal solution. But I suspect Apple didn't want to go to all the trouble of reverse engineering MAPI, only to have Microsoft "improve" MAPI (read: change it to break Mac interoperability) shortly thereafter.

~Philly

Re:new Mail = MAPI?

[Kobold Curry Chef]

I figured it was something like that. I think Outlook 8 was the last Mac client Microsoft did, too. So the new Mail will be the "best" solution for Exchange for now.

Really, a better solution would be to wean people off of MS Exchange. Funny how end users hold onto Exchange and Outlook with a death grip. You could take away their Windows, even their MS Office, but don't you dare take away their Outlook!!

Re:no 'cheap' upgrade for purchases prior to Oct 8

[Sebby]

Not sure what you mean by "Technology Assurance"; is this something Apple provides?

Re:I can't even upgrade to 10.*2*!

[e4liberty]

I've gotten three Beige PowerMac G3s to run 10.2.x, but each has had installation freezes at one time or another. The advice at lowendmac and other sites has been helpful, but there is no silver bullet. Things to try:

Remove the SCSI card and any other add-ons; install on the primary IDE drive.

Remove all but the first SIMM which should be 256M.

Do a minimal install to keep it short; add the apps and printer drivers and languages later

Wait it out; sometimes the display dies but the installation proceeds. Wait a while for the CD tray to open and insert the next CD-ROM.

If you get into a situation where you can't boot, use Open Firmware. At reset use "Command + Option + O + F" to boot into Open Firmware. Type these three commands, with a Return after each:

init-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

Use "Command + Option + P + R" to zap PRAM, maybe more than once.

If all else fails push the little button near pci slot 1 to zap PRAM and reset firmware.

Good luck -- keep trying.

Upgrade Inevitability

[buckhead_buddy]

While many people will be able to "get by" with older versions of 10.x (Cheetah, Puma, and Jaguar). I think that the raft of new features Apple has put in to Panther (10.3) will make most software developers insist on Panther as a minimum requirement for their users.

Many of the trendy UI widgets you see in Apple's iApps are now "standard" in Panther. The new features in the table view alone will greatly simplify developer code. Add to that a compelling new controller layer that allows developers to ditch most of their boring MVC glue code for only a slight speed penalty and things are looking much simpler if a developer just says "Minimum Requirement: 10.3 Panther or higher".

There are some great new features in the system for end users (Expose', Better Finder, modest speed bump*), but in the end I think it's the developers who will compel the mom & dad crowd to move to Panther.

(*Incidentally, I don't think the speed bump will feel as big to most people as the bump from Puma to Jaguar felt. Some frames have been dropped from some UI animations so it feels like they're popping out faster for example, but in some cases (like the new controller layer) things are actually going to slow down.)

Rendered text

[tgibbs]

Come on, rendering text has been real time for 30 years. If you actually do wait for text to appear, then why do you pay more than $3000 for a computer.

Let's see, that would put us back in '73. Not many PCs then. The Apple II (released 26 years ago) was capable of generating text on its hi-res graphics display (if blitting a pre-stored bitmap directly to the screen can really be called "rendering"), but was painfully slow. The operating system relied upon hardware character generation, and did not even attempt to render. Other PCs of the time lacked graphics display with sufficient resolution for text rendering. The Macintosh (19 years ago) was the first PC to use "rendering" of text routinely (if you don't count the Lisa), but it was still just blitting prestored bitmaps. Actual real-time rendering of outline fonts came in 13 years ago, with Adobe release of Adobe Type Manager, but it was still pretty crude and ugly, with no antialiasing. Apple introduced antialiased text in OS 8.5, about 5 years ago (Microsoft offered it in an upgrade to Windows 95). The idea of antialiasing is an old one, but it wasn't until the mid 90's that computers had enough power to do it to text in real-time at a respectable (albeit slow by modern standards) rate.

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

[Admiral Llama]

System Profiler on the Beige G3s claim to have a system bus of 67 MHz. Take THAT!!

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

[green pizza]

Not to nitpick... er, yeah to nitpick:

The PC that I'm using now is the evolution of the Pentium 100 that I built 7 years ago. When I was ready for a new CPU/MB, they fit into the sustem that I had.

Fair enough.

When I was ready for more, I added more. Over time that P100 became a P200MMX then a P2 300, then a K62450 and now an Athlon XP 1800+.

When you went from a P200MMX to P2/300 you needed a new mobo. So why did you then go to a K6-2, which required yet another new mobo? Why not replace that P2/300 with a P3/500 and keep the same board? Also, are you seriously running your Athlon XP 1800+ with the same powersupply and case airflow as the Pentium 100? How many times have you upgraded your hard disk? Your optical drives? Don't get me wrong, I like futzing around with my PCs too... but I also love my G4. You're comparing apples to drywall.

The Mac that I bought 6 months after I built this PC is still at 200Mhz, I could have added a G3 to the L2 cache slot, but why cobble together something that just barely works?

FWIW, I know two people that have used the cache slot CPU upgrades... they worked well in their day with the versions of MacOS at that time.

I put a new/rebuilt engine in my 1977 Ford F150 a couple years ago, it only took two afternoons with the help of a mechanic friend. But my BMW 528i still has its original six cylinder engine after several years dispite my desire for a V8. I guess I should blame BMW for not using more standard parts, I could have slowly upgraded it like some of my buddies do with their japanese imports.

Re:New software doesn't run on old harware? Shocki

[ebbomega]

But yet the 486 I bought 12 years ago still runs linux.

Funny that.

Re:Microsoft can do it...

[kalidasa]

With OS X and Windows, "Point releases" refers not to the second number (the one after the first point), but the third. As you probably know, if you know what AIX is.

Way more than 1%

[Trillan]

Before Apple trnasitioned from 680x0 code to PowerPC, it profiled exactly how much time applications spent in OS toolbox routines. I believe the figure that was thrown around was 80-85%.

My guess why G5 users get the $20 upgrade

[nocutename]

Here's what I take away from the whole "G5 customers are grandfathered" situation:

My hunch is that the 10.2.7 release they're shipping on the G5 today must represent the *bare minimum* needed to get the OS to run reliably on those systems (and maybe some 'low-hanging fruit' optimizations), and they spent much more time and effort getting 10.3 optimized for the G5. I'd be really curious to see some comparative benchmarks between 10.2.7 and 7B85 on a G5 system to see if that hunch pans out.

On the other hand, what's in Jaguar 10.2.x has already been tweaked for the G4 processors pretty thoroughly.

(I'm NOT defending Apple's decision - I think setting today as the cutoff date is pretty sucky.)

For those who complain about older machines

[theolein]

For those who complain about older non USB machines not being supported I have this comment.

Firstly, someone will provide a hack sooner or later such as X PostFacto which will enable it to run, so relax, and

Secondly, although I have a (supposedly now ageing, ha ha) 667MHZ G4 TiPowerbook, I also have a 333MHz Lombard G3, which I often use... with the OS that came with it, Mac OS 8.6. This is for a number of reasons, which include the fact that,
a. OSX wasn't really made for machines like this
b. I have a load of software for that OS
c. I have some peripherals that don't work on OSX that still work there, like my old Wacom Artpad
d. With that OS and those versions of the software, I can still get a lot of practical use out of it.
e. It's very responsive and stable with all those progs on it.

I will get Jaguar, but for my TiBook, which will see use for a number of years yet.

Re:Biege G3

[Kazymyr]

This time it's different. It's not the USB that's holding back the support - but the absence of New World-type firmware. Beiges are the last of the Old World machines, they have an actual ROM chip instead of ROM-in-RAM. It may also have to do with the OpenFirmware version (beiges use version 2.0f IIRC, which has quite a few bugs as compared to the latest versions used in B&W and following machines).

Basically the architecture changes after the beiges were as profound as the change from NuBus to PCI between the 8100 and the 7200.

Am I pissed? Yes I am, I'm a beige G3 owner. But that's life. OSX 10.2.8 and Gentoo will still run nicely on my machine even after Panther is released.

USB required? and what if I put a pci USB-card in?

[flok]

It looks like "old world" Beige G3 support has been discontinued -- the update requires a Mac with built in USB."

Oh dear, recently bought one of those to be able to run MacOS X (had a powerpc 801).
But wait: my Mac has PCI-slots, what if I just insert one of those el cheapo USB-cards? Will that work?

Re:rediculous

[BlackBolt]

Wow. Nice sense of humor there. I see you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

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

[Lord Kano]

When you went from a P200MMX to P2/300 you needed a new mobo. So why did you then go to a K6-2, which required yet another new mobo? Why not replace that P2/300 with a P3/500 and keep the same board?

Fair question. I'll explain, I was an early adopter of the PII, I had an FX chipset MB. I couldn't go beyong a PII 350 and I had no AGP slot. I had to get a new MB to upgrade. The P3 was not available at the time, and the price of the K62/MB combo was right.

Also, are you seriously running your Athlon XP 1800+ with the same powersupply and case airflow as the Pentium 100?

No, I've gone through several cases. But I until this time last year, I had my linux box running a 700 Mhz Duron in the same case with the same 235 watt power supply that supported my PII 300.

How many times have you upgraded your hard disk? Your optical drives? Don't get me wrong, I like futzing around with my PCs too... but I also love my G4. You're comparing apples to drywall.

Let's see... HDs 1.2 GB to 2.4, 3.2, 10, 20, 40, and now 80 GB. My 10x cd and 6x changer have been replaced with a 16x DVD and Plextor burner.

But my BMW 528i still has its original six cylinder engine after several years dispite my desire for a V8. I guess I should blame BMW for not using more standard parts, I could have slowly upgraded it like some of my buddies do with their japanese imports.

Both of my automobiles are GM for a reason.

LK

Re:Sounds like a letdown?

[djupedal]

must have coffee...

10.2.8....urgg.... Should have read: '10.3/Panther is a tease...' [clip]

Again, what happened to all the talk that Panther would at least pretend to be 64-bit, and be the OS of choice for all those G5 owners, looking for way to leverage their purchase? This Panther is not targeted at them at all. They may get something free, but it won't be the one true G5 OS they are (still) waiting for, and will have to pay for eventually.

No listing on amazon yet?

[firefoxnx]

Have'nt seen Panther listed on amazon yet

Re:Liberate your software.

[Ilan Volow]

But on systems running Steve Jobs' Panther upgrade, the monkeys were able to type it in 2.3 seconds and use the extra time to write Hamlet.

Re:Have XP composit the GUI as X does...

[Jayde Stargunner]

Out of the box? Probably not, sure.

However, anyone with a nVidia card can do this very easily. The tools that come with the newer Detonator drivers allow for all kinds of window-play, including transparacy. It works like a charm, and as it is all done in hardware it is very speedy as well.

-Jayde

Apple is positioning G5 and MacOS as Workstations

[reporter]

Our suspicions are confirmed. According to "Apple Eyes UNIX Market with Panther", Apple is positioning the Mac OS-X 10.3 as an operating system for workstations. Apple is expected to take a sizeable chunk of the market for workstation -- both Windows and UNIX. Apple will likely hurt Sun Microsystems the most.

Steve Jobs is really amazing. He will be the first person to successfully establish a non-x86 processor as a viable alternative to the x86 processors. The entire ill-fated consortium called the Advanced Computing Environment (which promoted MIPS R2000), backed by professors from Stanford University, could not do it. The gang (which promoted the PowerPC) of IBM, Motorola, and Apple (under the old CEO) could not do it.

Now, here comes Steve Jobs. Apple, under his leadership, manages to do it. How does he do it? What's his secret? You can be sure that ECC memory for the G5 is on its way.

... from the desk of the reporter

Re:How do you prove you qualify?

[babbage]

I'm curious about that too. My brother is a teacher, and I'm curious what he would have to do to take advantage of the discount. Possibly, nothing.

It used to be that companies would offer steep discounts on software for educational customers, but you would have to verify your credentials in order to get that discount (e.g. buy from a campus bookstore, and have to present your student ID at purchase time, etc).

Now though, at least some companies seem to be a bit more lax about this. For example, I regularly see the student edition of Microsoft Office XP advertised in the local newspaper & area stores for around $100 to $150, while the full version -- which I almost never see advertised -- can be more than double that. The student version only has part of the suite, but it's the part that most Office users would want anyway -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. My fiancee bought a copy of this edition when she got her computer a year ago, and the clerk at the register didn't do anything at all to verify if she's actually a student. I assume that most of the people buying this edition of Office aren't actually students, but the fact that it apparently sells much better than the full edition has encouraged Microsoft to avoid slaying this particular golden goose.

Maybe the same is going on with Apple. As far as I can tell, they don't do much or anything to enforce the restrictions on the educational discount program. Maybe they see it as a small leak that allows for a bit higher sales than they would have gotten had such a program not been available; that is to say, if they started enforcing the "are you really a student or educator" rule more closely, they might lose too many sales to be worthwhile.

*shrug* In any case, I'm going to have to talk to my brother, and find out if he's interested in buying an operating system that won't run on any computer in his house... :-)

Whine, whine, whine.

[phillymjs]

G5 owners get the upgrade "free" because the G5s were originally supposed to ship with Panther as their OS. Since Panther wasn't ready when the G5s had to go out the door, Apple had to "hack" 10.2.6 to for the G5, producing the G5-only Mac OS X 10.2.7 to tide people over.

Secondly, Apple didn't fuck you, you fucked yourself by buying a PowerBook when you knew that Panther was forthcoming. You were perfectly happy to trade $x to Apple in exchange for a new PowerBook running 10.2.x. The deal is done, you got what you were expecting to get, and Apple does not owe you anything else other than the balance of time on your warranty.

pricey...

[werd life]

I mean, you can buy a lot of things for $129. It's a shame there's not a cheaper upgrade price....

Samba

[appleLaserWriter]

PDC support comes from Samba.

Bluetooth

[daviddennis]

Were you one of the early downloaders of 2.8?

There's a new 2.8 which showed up in my sofware update a few days ago - maybe that would solve your problems?

I haven't hd any problems with my original 2.8, but that might be just because I don't use bluetooth.

D

built time machine, got my copy today...

[steak]

but if i say too much they might be able to hunt me down and do bad things. ok, ok, i just preordered me a copy. also i recomend you find a college student to buy you a copy if you dont like $129.

p.s. xp home $199, xp pro $299, and before you say "but ms doesnt make you pay for upgrades" look real hard at xp and you might notice that it is just 2000 with a pretty face. every software company makes you pay for upgrades, mac upgrades come out quicker than windows upgrades i guess.

I wonder when MS will copy this

[theolein]

Apple's including a full featured IDE with OSX has been one of the major factors in motivating so many people to switch to Mac OSX and Apple machines. There isn't really any other proprietry OS (I'm not talking about the OSS Darwin subsystem, but the Aqua GUI here) that does this. In almost all operating systems you pay a hefty price for even crippled beginner versions of coding tools (Microsoft's Visual C#.Net, VB.Net and VC++.Net all cost almost as much as Apple's OS upgrade itself, yet are crippled in that they don't support the whole feature set such as networking and custom forms etc).

IN Windows there is no real coding tools built into the OS, unless you consider WSH scripting in a text editor coding. Given that this is so, I wonder what it will take for MS to start trying to compete with Apple by releasing some stripped down version of the VisualStudio toolset free with the OS? MS is known to fear ANY ceompetition, no matter how small, which is why they included Luna in WinXP to combat OSX, and why they are doing the compositing graphical model in Longhorn. Even though Linux is really not there yet on the Desktop, MS is frightened of fractions of minor percentage points in marketshare being lost to Linux.

On the other hand, what is to stop Apple doing what MS has done and include useful and popular features of Windows in OSX, some of which already happened in jaguar with Cmd-c and Cmd-v copying and pasting of files in the finder.

Yes.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Actually, it is for the majority of Apple's users. Even for web-developers like me, it's just easier and quicker to use a GUI for things like FTP.

Re: 10.2.7

[LochNess]

Are you saying that 10.2.7 is a G5-only version? I'm asking because my new Powerbook G4 came preloaded with it.

Correction.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

That should read: Didn't know Apple made a beige iMac.

Re:rediculous

[Overly Critical Guy]

What does that have to do with anything at all? XP is based off of 2k, so of course it's a point release.

Are you saying there isn't a significant difference between kernels 2.4 and 2.5 as well?

Re:rediculous

[Overly Critical Guy]

WFP is a Win2k feature, actually.

No, it's not. It was introduced with XP and manages DLL versioning to forever eliminate DLL dependency hell (something the Linux experience still forces on its users to this day).

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

[vegetablespork]

You mean it's as good as Netmeeting?

Re:rediculous

[Overly Critical Guy]

Nice refuting of the points. The grandparent post had no humor whatsoever.

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

[vegetablespork]

A whole new OS? That must be some good spliff they include in those MacOS service packs^W^W releases.

~~~

Re:rediculous

[jdennett]

Paying is reasonable, but paying the same for an upgrade from 10.2 to 10.3 as someone might pay to upgrade from Mac OS 9 to 10.3 is not.

It ought to be cheaper to get an upgrade of the same OS (Mac OS X) than to upgrade from a different OS (Mac OS 9, say).

I'll probably upgrade, as it won't be too long before software will not run on 10.2, but I'll be less likely to buy hardware from Apple again. I'll switch back to Linux. 10.2 was a big improvement on 10.1, which was frankly still of alpha quality (or beta if you want to flatter it). The biggest thing I'd like to see in 10.3 is that it would crash less often. I've seen far too many panic screens with 10.1 and 10.2.

Those who say "you don't have to upgrade" are missing one vital point: you don't have to, but if you don't you can't count on being able to run the applications software you want in a year or two.

Re:USB required? and what if I put a pci USB-card

[sfgoth]

what if I just insert one of those el cheapo USB-cards? Will that work?

No, it won't work. 10.3 requires a Macintosh built after USB became standard equipment. It doesn't need USB, but a machine built since then.

Re: 10.2.7

[valkraider]

So did mine. And the re-install DVD contains 10.2.7 as well.

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

[myov]

10 is the marketing number. Ignore it.

"Mac OS", to version 9.2.2, is dead.

"Mac OS X" is a new product. 10.0 was really "Mac OS X Version 1.0". 10.1 was "Mac OS X Version 2.0"

Apple could have very easily called it Mac OS 11, or something other than Mac OS, but it wouldn't have had the same effect.

The question though, is what happens after 10.9?

Re:Liberate your software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe i should shell out money for windows xp and watch as its security holes get rammed.

Anyone running the preview on recent iBooks?

[carbona]

Only reason I ask is I'm considering whether to plunk down the cash for the upgrade.

I love my iBook 800 but I do wish it was a little speedier with 10.2 (yes I do have 640M of RAM). The new features seem really cool, especially Expose and built-in faxing. But what will really matter for me is just how much, if any, speed improvement there is.

September 03 PowerBooks can qualify for uptodate

[bluelark]

A friend showed me this forum over at MacRumors where some people who purchased new updated PowerBooks in September were reportedly able to qualify for the upgrade.

Of course, hearing about this, I immediately went to the up to date page at the Apple store to qualify my new PowerBook which I purchased in September. My machine was qualified for the $20 upgrade and I promptly ordered it.

Record players are useful

[chemindefer]

Lotsa stuff isn't out on CD and never will be. Original Thelonious Monk releases, and Jet Black Berries records, as examples. Without a turntable, I can't listen to them. The list of recordings that got deleted from our culture when they changed formats is long and saddening. I'm typing this on a 333 Lombard I bought right after they came out in 99. The original battery still does over two hours. A Sony CDRW from ebay works perfectly with 10.2.6 and fits the expansion slot. Yes it's slow, but when I go to the Apple Store and try opening apps on the new ones it doesn't seem blindingly faster, which I expect if I'm going to pay to upgrade. And everyone should have known to wait for Panther. They only announced it last summer. Another reason to wait: The upgrade CD's always suck: the Jag ones wouldn't do an Archive and Install, for reasons beyond my comprehension. I worked AppleCare support, Apple made a lot of enemies over pinshit like that and like October 8, but the veteran buyers are like Russians at the GUM, they buy when it's right time.

Click through anyway.

[Rebar]

Maybe they listened to you and changed the web back-end already, or maybe there isn't a hard date. I just successfully ordered it for my Powerbook purchased on Oct. 3. It saves them some money; I was ready to box it up and take it back to CompUSA.

Even though the form that is linked from the parent post says that you qualify if you purchased on or after Oct 8, I clicked through, entered Oct 3 and my Mac's serial number, and it allowed me to order. Woot!

Moral: If you miss an arbitrary deadline, try anyway.

Re:rediculous

[BlackBolt]

Your points were lame and refuted by others.

My OPINION, which is irrefutable because it is SOLELY MINE, is that 2000 is superior to XP (and it still SUCKS). Many of the points you made were not valid in cases that occurred around me. As always, the slogan of Microsoft is "Your Mileage May Vary". Nice quality control by your favorite monopoly. And you complain about Linux. Shame shame little troll.

But WHY am I talking to you? You ARE a troll, despite your impotent and desperate protests on your journal. I've read your journal, and your noble crusade to expose the bias and zealotry of the "Slashbots", and it's irrelevant. Your reasons are no justification for your pathetic and uber-patronizing posting history. You're better than a paid Microsoft apologist, you whore yourself for them for free. Nearly every post is flamebait, as you haunt areas known for harboring fans of an operating system, then puke out poisonous bile which cannot seriously be intended to provoke intelligent conversation. You're looking for flames. That makes you a flamer.

Have a nice day, flamer. You are what you eat.

It's Mac OS X 3.0

[TheInternet]

but paying the same for an upgrade from 10.2 to 10.3 as someone might pay to upgrade from Mac OS 9 to 10.3 is not

For technical reasons, Apple chose to go with a more conservative numbering scheme. The problem seems to be that buyers put way too much emphasis on the version number. For example, 10.2 brought Quartz Extreme, which was a massive leap for the graphics engine. This isn't something you'd typically find in a point release. These are major new features that require serious engineering.

Mac OS X 10.3 is actually Mac OS X 3.0. In fact, I have an early Mac OS X packing list that reads "Mac OS X 1.0", but they've since changed it to Mac OS X 10.0. Apple tried to address the point release stigma using "Jaguar" and "Panther", but there's still some confusion.

The bizarre dilemma Apple finds themselves in is that they've created this incredibly flexible architecture that allows them to make sweeping improvements very quickly, but it happens so fast that people don't think it's real. You can't win.

As for needing Panther to run future applications, yes, of course. Apple buffs up the frameworks, so better applications will result from the framework enhancements. The alternative is to just sit around and let other OS architectures catch up while not selling a new product. I don't think the advantages of this outweight the disadvantages at this point.

- Scott

Re:September 03 PowerBooks can qualify for uptodat

[h3]

Just to confirm this, I just went through the "qualifying" and my 12"PB purchased 9/18 qualified and I placed the order for 10.3 for $20.

-h3

s/Apple/Sun, IBM, HP, SGI...

[caveat]

They don't provide major OS updates for free, why should Apple?

Have at the, mousers!

[rf600r]

An Apple story! Maybe now we should start a debate about the number of buttons a mouse should have. That would be real fun.

MacOS X 10.3 really is that much faster

[laird]

Well, rendering text has been "realtime" for 30 years, because the sophistication of what rendering text means has grown in complexity to take advantage of faster CPU's. Sure, on a 1.77 MHz TRS-80 I could edit text (16 lines of 64 characters!), but all text was white on black, monospaced pre-defined characters (not a graphics display, no fonts much less bolding or italics), and word wrapping was a special command that you issued when you were done writing because the computer took several seconds per page to format. On my current Mac (733 MHz G4, fairly slow by today's standards) I'm driving a huge 24-bit deep bitmapped display, where everything displayed is rendered anti-aliased, then mapped onto a display where it's alpha blended. It doesn't allow me to write much faster (OK, saving to a hard drive is a lot faster than saving to cassette tape) but it's doing 400,000 times as much work in order to do realtime spell checking, text wrapping, line layout, proportional spacing, etc.

And to bring it back to the question of whether applications spend any time executing OS calls, _all_ of that work is being done automagically by the operating system. In fact, I can build my own (simple) word processor using Cocoa in minutes, by snapping together prebuilt framework components that understand fonts, layout, etc., so there's almost no application level code at all.

Well, I guess the question of whether the HTML rendering engine is "in the OS" is a philosophical one -- one could argue that only the lowest levels (kernel, filesystem, VM, drivers, etc.) are really the OS. Or you could say that all of the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks and below (including QuickTime, the HTML rendering engine, etc.) is in the OS, which I think is what any Mac developer would say, since that's all stuff provided by Apple that applications can use. Or you could say that "everything in the MacOS X box" is in the OS, which would include applications.

That being said, when people say "MacOS X 10.3 is faster than 10.2" they're talking about the performance of the total system, not attempting to differentiate between the performance of the filesystem, drivers, GUI, frameworks, applications, etc., so the distinction you're trying to draw is not terribly relevant.

So while I guess you might be right in saying that applications spend fairly little time executing time in the OS if you define the OS as only the kernel, I think I'll stick with my definition of OS: the total software system as provided by Apple. And pretty consistently for nearly 20 years now (I've been developing Mac app's a long time -- I used to use the Lisa Pascal cross-compiler) well written Mac app's typically spend over 90% of their time in OS calls. So when Apple tunes their code, it really does have a strong impact on overall application performance.

Seriously, you misread the parent post

[2nd Post!]

Whether it's about right or wrong is irrelevant, you misread the parent post and Expose. Windows can tile/cascade windows to the screen so every screen is visible on the desktop.

Expose scales (as opposed to resize, stick with me for a moment) all the windows to fit on the screen.

Say you have a DVD window, an active IM window, a browser with a Flash animation, and a Terminal doing a Mozilla compile.

In Windows, tile would fit them all to screen, and resize them; this means the DVD might be cropped, the IM window stretched horizontally and squished vertically (with the text rewrapped), the browser similarly squished and the Flash animation cropped like the DVD window, and your terminal will be resized like the IM window, with the contents similarly rewraped.

In 10.3 (Panther) each window is scaled. Antialiased, proportional, and resampled. The DVD window might shrink to 80%, but there's no cropping of the content. The IM might shrink to 30%, but there's no resize and rewrap. The text is scaled appropriately, shrunken, instead of rewrapped. The browser with the Flash animation is similarly scaled, lets say to 50%, and the Terminal is kept full size.

The best you could say is that Windows fitted all the windows onto the screen, but did not keep each window congruent to itself; it would crop, rewrap, alter the window content to fit, while OS X does not; it changes the zoom factor, instead.

An analogy between the two can be found in virtual desktop space and increased DPI. The Windows tile function is akin to the Photoshop Zoom function '100%', and anything bigger than the desktop is cropped and scroll bars are presented. The Expose function is akin to the Photoshop Zoom function 'Fit to screen', where the content is resampled into the desktop resolution, thereby giving you access to more of the data at once, even if it's resampled.

That's the best I can describe it to someone who doesn't know what Expose is.

Re:Seriously, you misread the parent post

[TheNetAvenger]

I actually appreciate your and the other posts on here quickly correcting my total misconception.

After totaling missing the main feature of Expose that was being talked about, I had one of my Mac techs give me a demonstration since I don't always play with the upcoming OSX releases - like I should be doing.

Expose is kind of cool, and we also took the time to talk to the Mac tech that had conveyed to me earlier that it wasn't much different than the Tile Windows command in Windows. He also got Expose explained to him by the other Mac tech that demonstrated it to me.

So I thank you for correcting my post.

BTW The Mac tech that showed me Expose, wanted to smack me upside the head for making such a stupid mistake in comparing it directly to the Tile Command. lol

Humbled by all your posts and my Mac techs,
The Net Avenger

Re:Seriously, you misread the parent post

[TheNetAvenger]

If you say "Mac techs" one more time, I am going to fucking kill you. You sound like such a fucking dickhead

How about Apple engineers? Oh wait, that sounds like they work for a produce company.

Give me a break...

Re:How do you prove you qualify?

[peachawat]

No. You don't necessarily have to provide any proof that you qualify. But Apple reserves the rights to audit. From their website :

Apple routinely audits the purchases of customers at the Apple Store for Education to insure that only eligible purchases have ordered and that all purchase conditions have been observed. Should an audit disclose after delivery (or should Apple otherwise discover) that you were not an eligible purchaser at the time you placed your order or that you have not observed all of the conditions applicable to your purchase, you authorize Apple:

* If you placed your order by credit card, to charge to your credit card the difference between the amount you paid for the delivered goods and the price that Apple charged the general public for the same goods at the Apple Store, in effect on the date that you placed your order; and
* If you paid by a means other than credit card, to (a) invoice you for the difference between the amount that you paid for the delivered goods and the price that Apple charged the general public for the same goods at the Apple Store, payable in fifteen days from the date of the invoice, and (b), should you fail to pay the invoice when due, institute legal action against you in a court of competent jurisdiction, with the prevailing party entitled to attorneys' fees.
* Should Apple not offer to the general public the specific products that you purchased at the Apple Store for education, your credit card will be charged or you will be invoiced the difference between the amount you paid for the delivered goods and the price that Apple charged the general public for the closest equivalent goods at the Apple Store, in effect on the date that you placed your order.

See here.

Don't forget family pack

[TheInternet]

p.s. xp home $199, xp pro $299

For that matter, you can get a five license "family pack" of Panther for $199.

- Scott

Re:"Apple Technology Assurance Program" (TAP)

[Sebby]

Yep that rings a bell; I do remember something from Apple like that.

Re:Liberate your software.

[nacturation]

how to ensure you don't lose your $129 dollars...

Question: how do you pronounce $129?
Answer: One hundred twenty-nine dollars.

Question: how do you pronounce $129 dollars?
Answer: One hundred twenty-nine dollars dollars.

Score: -1, Redundant Redundant.

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

[JasonAsbahr]

G4 500MHz is an upgrade? And you only have PCI video? What system did you buy?

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

[2nd Post!]

So essentially you're willing to play the piecemeal upgrade game on the PC, but not the Mac?

I mean from where I stand, it's not radically different, except you never change the case or power supply. I've cobbled together at least 6 PCs in my lifetime from parts and upgrades and recycling. I'm new to the Mac universe, but I do believe my 933MHz PowerMac (heck, even someone's old 450MHz G4 PowerMac) could be similarly 'recycled'.

Add PCI RAID
Upgrade AGP video card
Add PCI video card + 2nd monitor
Replace HDs
Install SuperDrives
Replace 450MHz G4->1GHz G4
Replace 933MHz G4 -> Dual 1.25GHz G4
Upgrade the RAM
Install FireWire 800+USB2 cards
Install Airport cards

Migrate half these things to the 'new' 1.25GHz G4, shuffle some things into the old 450MHz G4, and get new parts for the 933MHz G4 and I have 3 fully functional machines of relatively decent performance:
450MHz -> 1 GHz
933MHz -> dual 1.25GHz
New 1.25GHz

Differences include the fact that you can't buy any old case or power supply, unlike a PC, and are stuck with the motherboard that comes with said case and powersupply, but everything else is user upgradeable, and I plan to take full advantage of that with my PowerMac.

Slightly off topic ADC question

[RedWingsSuck]

I am a student ADC, apple developer connection, member, does anybody know if this will be shipped free to ADC members?

The wait is OVER :-)

[RedWingsSuck]

Here's a screenshot showing the wait time for Panther is 00 days 00 hours 00 minutes and 00 seconds !! :-)

Re:Business Model?

[MoneyT]

And amazingly enough it's still cheaper than running and upgrading windows:

http://simplest-shop.com/Macintosh--1-229660-sof tw are.html

Let's see
X.1 Sept 28, 2001
X.2 Aug 23, 2002

That puts 11 months between those two releases

And assuming the earliest release of X.3 in sept, that would be 13 months from the last release. And 16 months in december.

By contrast:

Windows 2000 , Feb 17 2000
Windows ME released Sept 14 2000

That would be 7 months

Windows XP Oct 25 2001

That would be 13 months

And lets compare prices:

Mac OS X $130 always (full version)

Windows 2000 $320

Windows ME $110 (upgrade) or $210 (full)

XP Home $100 (upgrade) $200 (full)

XP Pro $200 (upgrade) $300 (full)

So from OS X.0 to X.3

March 2001 to (assumed) Sept 2003 (31 Months)

You've spent $390

From Windows 2000 to Windows XP (19 Months)

Feb 2000 to Oct 2001

You spend at minimum $530 and at most $830

Re:Sounds like a letdown?

[Shanep]

As far as the G5 goes, what other PC, PC mind you, can you have 8-gigs of ram on or that comes stock wither SATA drives?! None yet. Apple is doing it right.

I've seen some Athlon XP motherboards which take up to 12GB of DDR.

Re:Maybe not

[MoneyT]

No, no pre release, but you do get a copy of the OS every time they release an update.

I however got it.

[mirko]

I got my new Powerbook on Friday 3rd.
I then called the AppleStore and after giving them my serial number, they told me it is eligible.
I ordered the upgrade before he'd change his mind (he assured me Apple are not "these kind of people").

Re: WFP

[LemonYellow]

Thanks for the link!

WinXP may have introduced desirable new features, but Windows Files Protection wasn't one of them. From my side of the fence (Windows developer) the link would be to MSDN. Check out the "Requirements" section at the bottom and see that Win2k was where it was introduced.

Large memory access

[LemonYellow]

I know that the size of (void*) is still 4, but will there be any memory management functions which will return a long long as a pointer and allow 64-bit arithmetic on it? Pointers may not be 64-bit by default, but if there's a way of using a 64 bit pointer then that will give you your >4GB blocks.

So, any info?

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

[artemis67]

The difference being that Win XP is the successor to NT, which also ran fine on that system. Apple made some stray comments about backwards compatibility when they started the OS X project, but they really had no idea how resource instensive it was going to be because it was so radically different from OS 9. I mean, typically, OS's run slower and slower with each version because of feature bloat; but OS X is getting faster and faster as they learn how to optimize it.

Before OS X, the larger concern for me was that older OS's be able to run on newer hardware because of the potential speed increase.

Frankly, I'd rather that Apple spend their resources learning how to optimize OS X on newer machines than on making it run on systems that are five years old. Because let's face it, people who keep their systems 5+ years aren't exactly driving the industry forward.

Hell, HOMESCHOOLERS qualify!

[alispguru]

All you have to do is go here and tell them you're a homeschooler who meets the requirements of the area you live in.

They trust you not to use this discount fraudulently. Like they trust you to only install Mac OS on machines you paid for, without license key or authorization BS to enforce it.

Slightly related note: according to a friend who works in Cupertino, Apple is homeschooler-friendly because a small but significant number of the employees there are homeschoolers.

Re:got it!

[Tukla]

Maybe I was hoping for too much for a .1 update

For $129, I don't think you were expecting too much. That's how much I paid to go from Windows 98 to Windows XP, fer chrissakes.

Did they fix the lameness of Preview?

[King Babar]

OK, so one of the lamest aspects of the current Mac OS X experience for me revolves around using Preview to view PDF documents. (An issue I won't get into is why Preview and Acrobat fight over who gets to do this.)

So Acrobat (and Safari, and every other sane program) use the obvious cmd+ and cmd- to zoom. Preview psychotically uses the lame cmd-uparrow and cmd-downarrow. These choices are clearly lame because while + and - only have obvious meanings here for magnification, arrow keys should be for navigation. If I asked one hundred naive users what down-arrow should do for a document you're reading, I think it's clear they would all say "scroll down" and *not* "next page".

I find this infuriating because with arrow keys and the command key, you *could* get the nirvana of using arrow keys alone to scroll and pan, and then use cmd-arrrow keys to move by page. As it is now, I'm forced to touch the mouse to pan, and that's just lame. The beauty of Mac OS X for me is that it allows you to control 98% of what you ever need to do from the keyboard, despite having a very handsome GUI.

Other lamenesses of Preview include the lack of full-page mode, and the (current; this will be fixed) limitations to using it with pdf files rather than ps files. And these things are too bad, since *other* features of preview (e.g., "Export...") are quite nice. For a system that is so decisively built on top of PDF, it's very odd that Preview is now a weak link.

So does anybody out there with a preview copy of Panther know if Preview has been improved beyond what they brag about at apple.com?

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

[Lord Kano]

So essentially you're willing to play the piecemeal upgrade game on the PC, but not the Mac?

Almost. It is a 'game' that can only be played with the PC.

Differences include the fact that you can't buy any old case or power supply, unlike a PC, and are stuck with the motherboard that comes with said case and powersupply,

Exactly! If they chose to, Apple could make machines that conformed to industry specs, like ATX but they choose not to. Can you imagine the market if someone was able to make custom cases that you can migrate any Mac to? I used to be a Mac user, I know mow much they love to customize their machines.

LK

Uhh

[2nd Post!]

Why is it a game only played on the PC? The game is only playable because you can change the motherboard, power supply, and case?

You don't need to upgrade the motherboard on the Mac; you can upgrade CPUs from G3 -> G4 -> dual G4 (quite unlike a PC which *forces* motherboards to be paired with generational CPUS), and the same with power supplies, which are just as generational as the CPU. And cases... I suppose that's one thing, being able to upgrade the case. But that's the *only* thing that makes a difference between the game on Mac or PC platforms.

Reiterate: You have to upgrade the powersupply when you upgrade the CPU a generation, and you have to upgrade the motherboard when you upgrade the CPU a generation. If you only stick within a generation, then you don't have to. Oh, and ram too.

On a Mac, you don't have to upgrade the motherboard, powersupply, or ram to switch generations. If you want more motherboard features... then you use PCI cards... is that what you're complaining about?

Re:Uhh

[Lord Kano]

Reiterate: You have to upgrade the powersupply when you upgrade the CPU a generation, and you have to upgrade the motherboard when you upgrade the CPU a generation. If you only stick within a generation, then you don't have to. Oh, and ram too.

I used the same 235 watt powersupple from my PII 300 through my Duron 700.

Why is it a game only played on the PC? The game is only playable because you can change the motherboard, power supply, and case?

It is only playable on the PC because it is the platform where you have choices about what to upgrade to. On the Mac, you'll upgrade to a PPC, a PPC or a PPC.

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

[Herbmaster]

So what you're saying is, if I want a desktop with:

• any PCI slots
• upgradable video
• more than 1 hard drive bay
• more than two DIMM slots
• a reasonable enclosure/case which I can stick under my desk (i.e. not a built-in monitor, because like the vast majority of buyers I already own one because I've owned a computer before)

I become a non-entry-level user, and suddenly I should pay $1300 instead of $1000, even after dropping the crappy 17" CRT? Okay buddy. Apple must know something about those non-entry-level users who don't want to pay over $1000 for a desktop, and their money, that Dell and Gateway don't.

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

[bill_mcgonigle]

* any PCI slots
* upgradable video
* more than 1 hard drive bay
* more than two DIMM slots

I become a non-entry-level user

Yeah, you are. I'm thinking of the members of my family who are entry level users. They've all upgraded their RAM once (at my behest) and one put a second hard drive in his PC. So the eMac would be perfect. For the extra hard drive, slap down a firewire case and don't sweat screws, cables, jumper settings, etc. They wouldn't even have a clue you could upgrade a video card, if they even knew what one was, and if they had any idea theirs was too slow. We're not talking about hardcore gamers with neon case mods.

* a reasonable enclosure/case which I can stick under my desk ...

And have to cable... entry-level users don't have any idea what cables go where. They want easy, and maybe want to move the computer on their own occassionally.

(i.e. not a built-in monitor, because like the vast majority of buyers I already own one because I've owned a computer before)

Again, they all had pale 14" or 15" CRT's previously and went out and bought 17" CRT's with their new computers. If you really want to hook that old 15" to the eMac you can do that and have dual monitors (spanned with a freeware utility).

Does 'entry-level' mean the same thing to you as it does to me? I think 'entry-level' means people without much computer experience who just want to use the darn thing and not fiddle with it. I think you mean people who want a cheap computer.

Noone will argue that Macs have a major cost advantage on PC's, but cost and value are two different propositions.

You must have the patience of the buffalo...

[Zhe Mappel]

...and the flexibility of the willow, grasshopper. ;-)

If you bought your PB from an Apple Store, then the simple answer is: broken record time.

I'll spare the psychological theory, other than to observe that you must not "complain." You have an open and shut case, so to speak, of being burned by an arbitrary and capricious rule. Now, how to press your case?

Call the store manager. Calling is better in this instance because the manager can not afford to be seen "bending the rules for you" in "just this one instance" - the words that signify you have become too much of a pain to continue to subject to the arbitrary rule.

Keep politely telling the manager, and I emphasize politely, that you feel entitled to the upgrade and you'll be disappointed if you don't get it and yes, you understand the company's position (not "your" position - avoid being personal), but it's only been three weeks since you spent nearly two thousand dollars and you feel entitled to the upgrade and you'll be disappointed if you don't get it. Repeat as necessary. You may find yourself saying the same words as many as ten times. Just keep saying the same things, over and over. Corporate America practices this technique; so can you. ;-)

Call him or her during a busy time of day to increase your chances of success. Persist for 15-20 minutes. Unless you earn at least $387/hr, this is well worth your time. Good luck!

Re:Liberate your software.

[ziggyboy]

If they released an upgrade, probably more than half of those willing to get Panther will qualify for an upgrade.

I personally think it's too expensive for an upgrade. I hope Apple doesn't turn out to be another Microsoft.

Re:rediculous

[Scudsucker]

but XP boots several times faster than 2000

Not really. It onlys seems to because XP lets you log in sooner while its still launching stuff in the background. By the time XP is done thrashing the disk and is responsive, you could have been up in 2k in the same time or less.

Re:Pismo /= Wallstreet

[djtripp]

Try switching your DVD and Battery on the Pismo... It's not terribly possible. Now the real deal is Apple's support of Legacy computers. By dropping legacy support (like the Wallstreet) they can focus on future peripherals, not serial, and SCSI, and ADB.

Speed matters

[Clith]

I use a dual-450 MHz G4 with a GeForce 2mx at home and a dual-1.25 GHz G4 (Mirrored Drive Door) with Radeon 9000 (I think) at work. Both machines have 512 MB of RAM. The speed increase is substantial. Apps launch almost instantly and window dragging is snappy. I really, really notice it when I go home and start launching apps and moving things around.

Just a tit for your tat.

MS should care about older machines

[ScottEllsworth]

I note that our consulting group recently extended machine lifetime to three years, while at most of our clients, it has been pushed out to five or more years.

Perhaps this is not the pentium 90 era, but it does show the importance of working well on older hardware. Apple may drop support for some older machines, but if each release gets faster, then they get a steady stream of revenue from users who have not bought new hardware AND they get users with those older machines up to date on software. Up to date users are a lot easier to sell new hardware to, as the software that comes with the machines is the same.

Scott

Virtual Desktops on OS X

[dosglob]

Check out CodeTek VirtualDesktop.