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Jobs Previews Displays, Tiger at WWDC
DonaldGelman writes "Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display capable of displaying a resolution of 2560x1600. The display requires a new Nvidia card with 2 parallel DVI connections. The display is going to retail for $3299 in August, and the Nvidia card for around $599." Jobs also announced new 20- and 23-inch displays, for $1299 and $1999 in July. All three feature a new aluminum enclosure, and DVI. Also from WWDC...
Jobs also previewed Tiger, with Spotlight (fast iTunes-like searching in all apps, and systemwide), Dashboard (Konfabulator-like widgets combined with Exposé for fast showing/hiding), Automator (visual AppleScript, combining prewritten actions into scripts), H.264 code for QuickTime (high definition scalable video from MPEG), iChat AV conferencing (up to 10 for audio, four for video), RSS reading in Safari, Core Image and Core Video (realtime filters at the core OS level), and system-wide Sync Services. All of this is extensible (except for iChat conferencing), with SDKs available for developers.
There's a lot here, and a more detailed description is forthcoming. Tiger will be available in the first half of 2005.
Could you give us an SDK for the iPod? We've been very good boys and girls this year, and we promise to be nice with it.
Thank you,
AAiP
P.S.: It'd be really cool if you could make it your "Oh, and one more thing..." We love it when you do that.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Let the copying of Tiger features into Longhorn... begin!
... it's Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference.
The Army reading list
If it's quiet around you, you can probably hear the collective screaming of the Longhorn team from Redmond WA that sounds like "AGHGHGHGHHGHHHHHH!!!!"
"Peter, did you copy all that down?"
"I got only the first half before I fainted. You?"
"I got most of it. Ok, the Longhorn features spec meeting is Wednesday morning, we have two days to put all that new Tiger stuff in!"
For those of you wondering where the pictures on the cinema displays came from it's the Jungfrau Region of Switerland. The valley is the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Now if I could only get the display to go with the picture...
NMG
A nice Safari RSS screenshot, starring our favorite site.
Can you say "purchase order?" I'll take five.
irb(main):001:0>
I knew I picked a bad week to not be rich.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
Apple's basically gone and done their own version of the coolness that is Konfabulator, little widgets that do a variety of things.
This is a completely Apple-created innovation and is not a rip-off. Oh no. Definitely not.
No, I'm serious. Really. Because despite all the talk of it being a clone of Konfabulator, it appears, in essense, to be Apple's original Desk Accessories brought into the 21st Century. Which is nice.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
These new displays are:
1. Larger
2. Use DVI instead of ADC, so you don't have to have mac hardware to use them.
I'm hoping that the increases in speed seen in the last upgrades continue for "older" machines. I'm assuming so based on what Apple has posted on their website, but a lot of that is G5 performance info.
I'm hoping that the "instant search of everything" feature, which I'll almost never use if my current searching is any indication, won't bog down the system while indexing everything.
All in all, not too revolutionary. Which is just fine with me. I think Panther is damn nice and would rather they spent time cleaning up and helping developers make their apps more reliable than anything else.
Not announced on stage, but previewed off, is 10.4 Server: includes 100% 64bit libs, ACLs, iChat server, SUS. Also includes NT migration tool, improved email, and a one-click SOHO setup. Nice bump.
--
$tar -xvf
"You can now host your own iChat server. Instant Messaging serves as a vital means of communication for organizations of all sizes, so it's useful to deploy and run your own private and secure IM server. Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, using SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy, and Kerboros for authorization. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs."
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/
This is...
O
U
T
R
A
G
E
O
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S
!
"The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac."
Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display capable of displaying a resolution of 2560x1600
Jobs also previewed Tiger
There Grrrrrrreaat!
Aha! So this is why nVidia has been working on the 2 card video load balancing system.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
I really hate reading this panic "they're stealing!" attitude every time.
Let's do a review here, okay?"
Frankly, Konfabulator was a low hanging fruit. It didn't really introduce anything except using Javascript, it just tied together a batch of old technology with a very old Apple idea. It's common sense to realize that Apple would move widgets back onto the desktop and add Javascript support once they realized how well it would work out. About the only thing you can really take issue with is Apple's decision to use Javascript.
You should simply never buy anything, and that way you'll never have that problem.
sulli
RTFJ.
Fortunately they also announced these products to the development teams today.
In other news, starbucks stores around the Apple campus are open 24 hours a day over this summer...
-Adam
Hey, check out the Dashboard page here:
On the simulated Dashboard you can have all sorts of nifty mini-programs called Widgets. One of Apple's sample programs is a stock price table, and they're up 7.36 percent. Microsoft is the only stock on the fictional list that's down. Direct link to the image here.
Nice to see Apple's sense of humor. And in fact this sort of functionality is a real smack in the face to Redmond, who have updated little on their desktop (XP) in three years, while Apple has had three release cycles that have been better each time.
Not to be nit-picky, but Firewire doesn't really illustrate your point. Apple didn't adopt Firewire. Apple invented Firewire instead of using the standard (USB).
As sarcastic as it sounds, it's true. The Desk Accessories weren't *real* apps, just little buggers running in an early 1980's kind of multitasking mode.
o sh &story=Puzzle.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detai l=medium&search=Desk%20Accessory
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macint
So yes, it's a rip off of Konfabulator. But Konfabulator was a rip off of Apple's original. Sort of like how Apple did labels in pre-OS X and Unsanity provided them as an APE module. Then Apple re-integrated them in OS X.
What matters here is it's still an opportunity for 3rd parties to provide a superior alternative to a basic function provided by Apple. Watson is better than Sherlock. xPad is better than stickies. Camino is better than Safari. ( of course, these are all arguable )
Ho hum. I don't really care. But from a usability standpoint it's a *great* idea to have my sticky notes *appear* ( rather than fly away ) when I move my mouse cursor to a certain corner. I like the sound of that, since I use stickies all the time.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
The real reason they dropped ADC was that they realized there was a limit to how much power you could push through the video card, and the 23" display was right about at that limit. If you check Apple's tech specs, you'll see that the 30" display has a 150W power supply - it simply needs a separate cord and brick. And once you're resigned to having two cables, it makes little sense to nitpick about having three. I like how they've at least bundled them at the monitor end, though.
right-on rumor
Sheesh!
--- Ban humanity.
That's a pretty neat innovation, in my book. Is it major? Well, no, probably not. But it doesn't take a whole lot of stand-alone "hey, neat!" innovations before they start to add up to something substantial.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/safari.html
Also, those who are FIREFLY fans will note the movie is mentioned in the post...
If you look at the calculator in the Dashboard demo, you'll notice it says 1.337!
I love a company with a sexy UNIX based OS and a sense of humor.
I can't speak for Konfabulator, which I never really found useful, but LaunchBar is already facing stiff competition from QuickSilver, a free and considerably more intuitive work-alike.
I don't know where you get the idea that Apple is replacing these programs. When they released Safari, did everybody stop using other web browsers? Does nobody use Entorage or MailSmith or Eudora just because Apple includes Mail? Are people going to stop using NetNewsWire just because you can read RSS feeds in Safari now? Don't people use VLC dispite QuickTime?
crushing the very developers that make people switch to the Mac because of the cool things that shareware developers do.
I don't know about you, but I switched because of the things that Apple had developed.
Rotating the display is supported on Macs on the Radeon 9800; the retail cards can do it out of the box, the OEM cards require a driver hack.
I would say there are more Konfabulator users that were surprised and or upset than its developers. The Konfabulator idea has been around for a long time, since early 90's. It's just that Arlo and crew had the best implementation around that I've ever seen.
If Apple wants the developers code, it will purchase. Its done so with Soundjam (which became iTunes) and other applications. If your idea just furthered their idea, then obviously they just go with theirs. According to the preview Dashboard will have its on SDK kit. That said, it may be possible for people to develop simultaneously for both Dashboard and Konfabulator, but that depends more on the backend engine.
I really LOVE Konfabulator, but that said, Apple has already addressed the one biggest issue I have with it--desktop clutter. Sure its cool to have the weather, newsfeeds, post-its, etc. all providing you continous data on your desktop, but they also just clutter up your desktop, having them exist off-screen and come on with a function key is a perfect idea. A bring the widgets out to play, now put your toys away concept.
You're right, I don't think spotlight seems like LaunchBar - but it does remind me a lot of Quicksilver. But that doesn't mean these are new ideas...
They are using Dual-link DVI.
Go to the web page Apple.com
They are using a special NVIDIA card:
" The groundbreaking new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra delivers the industry's first 16-pipe superscalar architecture and support for the world's fastest DDR3 memory to raise the bar for 3D graphics performance. The specifications of the GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU, are stunning: Using over 220 million transistors it supports a 256-bit interface for an effective memory bandwidth of 35.2 GB per second which delivers 600 million vertices, 6.4 billion textured pixels per second. The GPU is built on an AGP 8X board and includes 256MB of DDR3 memory for use in the most demanding graphics applications. It is the first card available to support the DVI standard dual link digital signal specification from the two DVI ports it features . This capability is required to drive the new 30-inch LCD, high resolution Apple Cinema HD display. The combination of a GeForce 6800 Ultra with a dual processor Power Mac G5 driving two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays is the definitive tool for the creative professional. "
It uses the DVI standard.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room." -President Muffley "Dr. Strangelove"
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Yes, it's such a shame that Apple "ripped off" an idea that they developed in the first place! Talk about bad apples on the part of the Konfabulator folks. They rip off Apple, hope no-one calls them on it, then flip out when Apple puts the functionality back into their OS because they discovered that people found it useful.
To the Konfabulator folks: deal. Or innovate. Don't rip off an idea a company implemented over ten years ago and complain when they implement it again.
In Apple's version, the widgets are hidden until the dashboard is activated, at which time they slide to the foreground.
In my opinion, Apple's solution is a lot more elegant, and one I'd actually use. It's a subtle difference, but it's different. I also applaud the addition of the widget launcher... much better than having all widgets running at all times.
The argument is really about whether this is a rebirth of Apple's old Desk Accessory application type or just a ripoff of the Konfabulator widget idea, or some hybrid of the two.
How is it copyright infringement? Unless apple copied/stole the code from Konfabulator, it's perfectly legal.
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
For what? For writing some cool widgets that acess interfaces Apple published allowing for that functionality to be capitalized on by themselves and any one else?
You're acting like this Service is something that would take years of design/development to produce when these add-ons were sitting around Apple Engineering for years as fun experiments for core engineers. How do I know this? When I worked there they had plenty of 'cool' prototype ideas just waiting to be added into the OS. How do you think they are able to always add 150 new features with each new full version?
What's next? Pay everyone who contributed to the development of XML now that Apple is integrating it into their OS? That seems to be a bit more impressive, just like the new MPEG-4, Part 10 Codecs.
I completely disagree - the only thing unique about Konfabulator was the sexy look, and much of that is inspired by OSX itself.
ControlStrip on the classic Mac OS, DesktopX, and many other projects have provided lightweight "applets" in various ways for years. In fact, these are also quite similar to the menu bar applets on OSX, though now liberated from the cramped menu bar.
What are the "rights of small developers"? Which aspect of Konfab is unique in the scope of computing? This reeks of the Watson/Sherlock "controversy", but only in that a developer creates a relatively sexy but not novel UI, and Apple eventually adopts a similar approach to solve the same problems for its users.
It's hard to define where Apple should stop and third-party tools should begin. I see people confusing superficial similarities for innovation being crushed - at what point does Apple stop improving OSX and require its users to buy third-party products?
There will no doubt be others crying about the RSS aggregator, but again these are similar solutions because they are solving the same problems for users. Should Apple just stick to the desktop and the Dock and leave all future goodness to shareware authors?
I love shareware on OSX, I support it religiously, but at some point there has to be an acknowledgement that OS vendors will encroach as user needs are identified. I would love to see Apple develop a grant program or something similar, to honor those developers who lead the way, but I don't think it's an option to just hold back the OS.
Compare it to a new LCD TV. At least here, it turns out that the 30" display is only $500CDN more than a 30" LCD television. Apple's not charging an outrageous price, even if it is high. Apparently, the market is willing to bear that kind of price.
I've seen this display (actually, IBM's Roentgen display, the immediate predecessor of the Viewsonic model). It is utterly fantastic, with some caveats.
;-) or blockyness. The detail on high-res museum art scans was astonishing.
It was originally designed to have the resolution and quality needed for certain xray diagnostics and other image-sensitive telemedicine applications as a primary market (thus the Roentgen name -- the discoverer of X-Rays). One of the demos I saw used a modified version of (IIRC) Framemaker to display a document with footnotes with a 4pt physical size. The serifs on the font were clearly visible, with no eyestrain (due to the monitor, anyways
HOWEVER, this is roughly a 200dpi display -- current operating systems simply aren't designed for screens with pixel density this high. GUI widgets and text are often ridiculously small.
That, plus the original display required a four-head graphics card (or cards w/ four total outputs) to drive it. Looks like the newer Viewsonic uses four separate DVI-D connections.
Konfabulator is not an original idea at all, sorry. Classic Mac OS had desk accessories since 1984, Windows 98 had its Active Desktop (which nobody ever used because it was too unstable, but did much the same thing). The only thing new here is using Javascript, and Windows did that almost a decade ago.
I have sympathy for Perry and Arlo, but I'm not about to vilify Apple over bringing DAs into the 21st century.
I was a big fan of virtual desktops when I was using Linux, and I have 8 (EIGHT!) virtual desktops here at work. At home, I haven't even bothered to look for something to handle that since expose. I find Expose cooler, more convenient and faster to use than multiple desktops. Get a mouse with a few extra buttons, and bind the expose commands to those extra buttons. It changes the whole experience.
Most people up on stocks knows that Merrill Lynch was predicting new iMac announcements at WWDC.
They don't announce them and like pouting children Wall Street responds by punishing the stock down nearly $1.25.
I personally think Steve loves to poke at them once in a while.I expect the iMac to be announced closer to August in time to hit a big splash with the Education sector once again.
Am I the only one who is could care less about Tiger and more about XCode 2? I hope not. I'm not that much of a loser, am I? :)
... what really sets the G4 and the G5 apart from the P4 and Opteron is the presence of the VMX/Altivec/Velocity Engine unit (to use AIM/Motorola/Apple nomenclature). This unit allows you to process up to 4 32-bit values (128-bits) at the same time with one instruction (Single Instruction, Multiple Data).
Two words, one hyphenated:
auto-vectorizing compiler.
For those wondering what this is
Intel CPU's do have this technology as well, although it's half the width (64-bits at a time, rather than 128-bit).
When Apple posts benchmarks showing their machines to be faster than x86 machines, the benchmarks almost always make heavy use of these SIMD instructions... and rightly so. A vectorized application can be enormously fast compared to it's analog floating point/integer application.
The problem is that the SIMD instructions are relatively tough to use... you have to be very careful when taking advantage of them, otherwise your applications could actually run -slower-.
With the auto-vectorizing version of GCC included with XCode 2, we could start to see see some very respectable performance coming out of Macintosh applications in the future. Obviously you probably won't be able to simply recompile your application, but surely taking advantage of the auto-vectorization will be far easier than writing to the standard vec_x functions.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2