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Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Preview at WWDC

hype7 writes "Apple just announced that it will kick off WWDC 2004 with a preview of the next iteration of Apple's operating system, Mac OS X, in a Steve Jobs keynote. This version of Mac OS X, 10.4, has been code named 'Tiger.' As usual, Apple is being incredibly tight lipped about what's going to be added; there hasn't even been that much speculation of new features on the rumor sites. WWDC is scheduled to begin on the 28th of June."

21 of 935 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yet another Apple upgrade. by justMichael · · Score: 3, Informative
    What ever is in it, I'm sure that it will cost around 200$ to upgrade and still wont have everything that they said would be in version 10. But maybe I'm just an embittered ex Apple developer.
    I think you mean around $130, unless you are buying the family pack. Or maybe the exchange rate is pushing it up to $200?

    To the best of my knowledge the cost has remained a constant $129 USD.
  2. Re:Yet another Apple upgrade. by abh · · Score: 4, Informative

    none of apples upgrades have cost 200 dollars

    Um, neither have Microsoft's upgrades. And by my math, multiple $99 or $129 Apple upgrades are going to cost more than one $99 or $129 Microsoft upgrade

  3. Re:Yeah! by falcon5768 · · Score: 5, Informative
    ummm no one said you HAD to upgrade the software... they are still supporting Jag in system updates. This is just ment for those of us who like to have the most up to date system possible, for the last 3 upgrades the major upgrades have offered at least 40 improvments and additions over the previous OS, and we are not talking bug fixes but ACTUAL software.

    better yet I would rather fork out 120 (I actually pay the student fee so its less) than pay 50 here for something and 50 there for another package just to buy third party products because it takes 6 years for Windows to develop a new OS or update its current one (critical patches DONT count as adding usability)

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  4. Re:And as usual... by grahamlee · · Score: 4, Informative

    They do for the Server editions; I'm not sure it makes so much sense for the clients but if they get enough people asking then I'm sure that they will. The fact is it's possible to get away with an earlier edition (I'm using OS X Server 1.2, Rhapsody DR2, 10.2 Jaguar and NeXTSTEP 3.3 :-) but that many - not all, but a significant minority - of Mac users will upgrade at the drop of a hat. One problem is that often the newer versions aren't binary or library compatible with the old versions, so if a developer upgrades to 10.4 and forgets to click the 'GCC 2.95' box in XCode then their software won't work on previous versions :-(.

  5. Re:Yeah! by CelticLo · · Score: 3, Informative

    errr
    Windows 2000
    Windows XP
    Windows Server 2003
    All released in the last five years.

    Then theres the free service packs...

  6. Re:I may skip this one ... by ev1lcanuck · · Score: 4, Informative
    I beg to differ, 10.1 didn't allow a lot of things 10.2 did, such as DVD playback which is a pretty big thing in my eyes. It made it so if you shelled out the extra cash for a combo drive iBook you would have to boot to OS9 if you wanted to watch a movie on the plane. Very inconvenient. 10.2 also added a number of other features that 10.1 didn't have. 10.1 was essentially a polished and more stable version of 10.0. 10.2 brought the OSX product up to a point where it could stand on its own and be more comparable to Windows XP. It also brought much better Windows networking tools and plenty of extra apps that 10.1 lacked.

    And the only major improvements in 10.3 were iChat AV, FileVault, Expose, and a prettier GUI. All of which, except for Expose, you could get as add-ons for 10.2 (iChat AV is available for $30, FileVault equivalents can be found from third parties, and a prettier GUI that is fully customizable can be found from third parties).

  7. Prices wrong by DamienMcKenna · · Score: 3, Informative

    10.0 was available for free from CompUSA stores, possibly others too. 10.1 was a free upgrade. 10.3 is available for about $90 if you search on froogle.

  8. Re:Yeah! by b-baggins · · Score: 4, Informative

    For a supposed Geek crowd, Apple's numbering scheme sure get them confused. .x revisions are major releases. .xy releases are service packs. It's only been this way for three years, now, so what's your excuse for not getting it yet?

    --
    You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
  9. Re:Glad to hear it... by Paulrothrock · · Score: 4, Informative

    Welcome to the family, friend. I'm sure you'll like it here. (Here's a little tip, though: When you get your Mac, wipe it and reinstall without the language packs but make sure to include X11 and XCode. You'll save HD space and get X11 functionality and a great dev environment.)

    --
    I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
  10. Re:Troll Posts asside, Apple seems stupid here... by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or, compare this to Windows. I have a copy of Windows 2000 from early 2000, as in right around when they released it. Retailed for $300 (OEMed for about $180, if I remember right). And that's right about the time of OS 10.0 (a little before, actually). So for $300 for 2000, and another $200 for XP Pro (the actually comparable upgrade) in that span, I would really have gained very little.

    2000's updates were mostly security issues, a few Direct X upgrades (not something I consider an added value, but definitely important for games), Windows Media 9 which I actively work to keep away from everything, and some Journal Reader add-ins.

    Had I decided to upgrade to XP, I would've gained an eye-bleed inducing green and blue color scheme by default, system restore, and...? As far as I can tell, with the exception of some bluetooth products and a few system hack-type programs (stuff to change the UI and so forth), XP would've been 2000 pretty edition (hence the NT 5.1). So in these accumulated 4 years and some change, I'd have paid somewhere between $350 and $500, depending on how I valued support and whether I felt it necessary to upgrade to XP (I don't). I'm sure some harder-core windows historians could tell me a few of the other things introduced, so feel free.

    On my macs, I got 10.0 included with an iMac, and 10.1 for free (the free upgrade offer), but we'll call it $150 there to be fair (assuming that I bought 10.1 retail). I paid $129 for 10.2 and $129 for 10.3, which puts me in essentially the same price category. I've seen substantial speed improvements, particularly on my older hardware (a 450mhz g3 iMac and a 500mhz iBook), which alone makes upgrading even more worthwhile (in stark contrast to XP's potnetial to run slower on a given system out of the box). I've seen quartz extreme, encrypted filesystems, easier integration of X11, fast user switching, and expose all introduced in that span, as well.

    Honestly, to me, it's worth the cash. I'll need to see what Tiger brings to the forefront, although I suspect that theories about heavy G5 optimizations are probably true. If it turns out that people start noticing it running faster on their older hardware, which is entirely possible given the track record, I'll drop my $129 again.

  11. Accessibility Improvements by markyT · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tiger will include Spoken Interface. The integration of aural tools into the OS (instead of tacking on screen readers) will be a major improvement over both the current Mac and Windows systems and a huge boon to users with a visual handicap or motor skill impairment.

  12. Re:Yeah! by Surlyboi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well said. I just got off the phone with a client whose systems I've frozen on Jaguar because certain companies *cough* Kodak *cough* have decided to stop updating their film scanner drivers past 10.2.8. Other than the lack of Expose, he's suffering no ill effects from not having the latest and greatest. He's quite happy with his systems the way they are.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
  13. Re:Yeah! by jlaxson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since when do the service packs add real functionality?

    And, if you want to count server OS's:

    Cheetah (10.0) (Not sure if it had server with it)
    Puma (10.1) (Again, not sure, playing on the safe side)
    Jaguar (10.2)
    Jaguar Server
    Panther (10.3)
    Panther Server

    And you want to count service packs anyways?
    Just from memory:
    10.2.1-10.2.8 is 8 upgrades (all adding FUNCTIONALIY, albeit small steps)
    10.3.1-10.3.3 (10.3.4 is seeded to developers right now).

    You count.

    --
    On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
  14. Re:Yet another Apple upgrade. by kalidasa · · Score: 3, Informative

    Windows XP Pro Upgrade cost $199. By my math, that's pretty damned close to $200 .

  15. Re:Yeah! by MoneyT · · Score: 3, Informative

    Support will probably last untill the next OS release. That is, Apple normaly supports the current and previous OS. Of course, that isn't to say they won't support older ones either. They still release the occasional patch for 10.1

    --
    T Money
    World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
  16. Re:Yet another Apple upgrade. by b-baggins · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple doesn't sell upgrades. That $129 gets you a full version of the OS. You can sell your old version on ebay if you want; you won't need it to install 10.4

    What else Apple doesn't give you: Product Activation. They don't even require a serial number or product key. Just put the CD in the drive and go.

    --
    You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
  17. Re:Improvements by System.out.println() · · Score: 3, Informative

    My point is that now that 10.4 is about to ship

    Well.... no, it's not. It'll be at least 6 months, probably more.

    Finder is the top listing. So, you couldn't find files before? No tool to help you seek what you are looking for? Yes, yes there was. What does this top listed improvement give me? Hint: Pretty Icon layout. How much was that worth?

    Actually they did vastly improve the Finder in Panther - and none of the improvements had anything to do with the icons (except for the colored labels). Off the top of my head, there's a new, highly convenient sidebar, and Folder Actions allow you to attach an Applescript to a folder any time something happens to said folder, which is really cool (and useful).

    The improvements to Mail aren't eye candy - the biggest one, organizing email by discussion, is really nice, similar to what Google's webmail gives you, only in a desktop app.

  18. Re:Glad to hear it... by bedouin · · Score: 3, Informative

    (Here's a little tip, though: When you get your Mac, wipe it and reinstall without the language packs but make sure to include X11 and XCode.

    Or he could just use Monolingual.

  19. Re:What's improved? by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm afraid you're reading a bit too much into autorelease pools. Autorelease is nothing more than a delayed messaging mechanism. It's not a GC.

    Cocoa uses manual reference counting, and autorelease provides a way for you to return an object to a caller without making the caller necessarily responsible for freeing it.

    Now, the fact that the kit has many methods that we call "convenience constructors" means that you can often not worry about memory management.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  20. Re:Yeah! by ratlater · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually WPA auth works well with 10.2. I think the Airport 3.3 update added this functionality.

    -matt

    --
    http://thewonderllama.com
  21. Economy of Scale and Computer Whiners by tyrione · · Score: 3, Informative
    System Pricing:

    People seem to repeatively rehash on the notion that spending $129 per .1 incremental OS update is expensive and not worthy of your hard earned funds.

    The 10.x Model is very NeXTish in their 2.x, 3.x and 4.x phase of NeXTSTEP/Openstep before we ultimately merged with Apple.

    Here is the rub. The Cost for Openstep User was $799, to go from NeXTSTEP 3.2 to 3.3 and to go from NeXTSTEP 3.3 to Openstep 4.0, so on and so forth.

    The Developer CDs were $4999.

    Educational User was $249. (I bought this package that was both User and Developer, before I went to work at NeXT)

    Flashforward and we now get User/Developer for $129.

    All I'm hearing is as the price goes down the Whining Increases exponentially.

    DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE ANY BALLS?

    HOW MANY OF YOU PISS MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN, DAILY?

    Answer: ALL OF US

    Apple Resources:

    We hear people discussing on how Apple has an Army of developers working on OS X.

    Unless Steve suddenly changed years of development philosophy that Avie, John, Bertrand, Peter and others brought from NeXT to Apple such statements are PURE FANTASY.

    Do most people know that only 12 Principle Architects/Core Developers worked on Openstep? Do most of you know that SQA @NeXT was a group of no more than 25 people (I know I worked in it)? Is it surprising that after the Hardware Days, NeXT kept only 300 employees yearly, world wide? See a pattern?

    There are way more 3rd party developers banging away on the Beta code releases than their are in-house building the next release and there always will be.

    Too many cooks spoil the soup.

    With the emergence of Applications Engineering that houses all these new iLife apps and Professional apps even those teams will be lean and mean.

    We all wore several hats at NeXT and at Apple when I worked there. Steve doesn't believe in bloat and when the IT Group alone, during the merger had over 500 employees with the single largest annual budget of over $40 million, not to mention over 180 in-house only applications built, can you take a guess which group got gutted first?

    Within all this fat emerged a new Apple and one that will slowly get stronger, as time keeps showing.

    P.S. As you can guess I'll spend the $129, and if I had an extra $1299 ($300 early bird registration) to WWDC--the best place for Business Networking within the Apple Dev Community, bar none. MacWorld is like a Rave where discussions of vinyl suited women on motorcycles (Iomega chicks) appears to be more important than Business discussions. If you are serious about being an Entrepreneur on the Mac platform, than get your ass to WWDC 2004.