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Tiger Slideshow: Pretty Mac OS X Pictures

RAMMS+EIN writes with a good followup to the recent WWDC preview of Tiger, the next version of OS X. "eWeek has a slideshow illustrating some of Tiger's new features with screenshots. For a textual description, you can visit Apple's Tiger page."

46 of 551 comments (clear)

  1. Tiger says: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Theeeere GREAT!

  2. Old CLI Geezer by 7Ghent · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bah, screenshots. Why, in MY day all we had was a command line. AND WE WERE GLAD!

    1. Re:Old CLI Geezer by RadRafe · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry Granddad, you won't have to give up your precious CLI. Many of Tiger's new features, such as Core Image and the H.264 codec, mean nothing in the Terminal world, but I have heard of at least one - Spotlight, arguably the biggest feature of them all - which has been made to be accesible from the CLI as well as the GUI. There is a place for you shell-lovin' fogeys in Apple's grand plan!

    2. Re:Old CLI Geezer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bah, CLI. Why, in MY day all we had was clams and sand. Back then our calculations had a lot more tolerance, and we liked it that way.

    3. Re:Old CLI Geezer by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Funny

      "...clams and sand" /bin/clamsh

  3. I might switch to mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This looks really nice. Heck I never play games anymore so that would be the only thing stopping me from switching. All I do is email, internet, documents and other related items.

    I am seriously looking at getting a mac with this new OS.

    1. Re:I might switch to mac by Echnin · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I was thinking the same thing last year: I hardly play games, and those Macs sure do look nice (my parents have used Macs for 17 years, all my life, with no sidesteps). So I got an iBook. Haven't looked back since.

      Tiger is due out in the first half of 2005, so there's still quite a while to wait. Oh, and make sure you watch the recording of Steve Jobs' keynote if you have an hour and 40 minutes to spare. It's nice, and watching the new features being demonstrated is much better than just reading about them.

      --
      Lalala
    2. Re:I might switch to mac by mdarksbane · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For the last time:

      There are more games available for mac than you can ever play in one lifetime.

      Yes, you can't build an awesome gaming rig for a cheap, and there are some games that will never make it over. Likewise, you will never be able to play Halo on PS2.

      However, thousands of games are ported/written for mac every year, and while the video cards in most macs aren't anything to brag about compared to PC, they'll still play every game that comes out for them.

      No, not breakout, or even super-breakout. I'm talking Halo, Unreal Tournament 2k4, Battlefield 1942, Age of Empires II, Dungeon Siege, etc, etc, etc. No, you can't play Counterstrike, but there's a lot more to gaming than CS.

      Gah. Yes, buying a mac to do nothing but play games is stupid. However, "I like to play games" is *not* a good reason to not get a mac if the rest of your computing experience is at least as important.

    3. Re:I might switch to mac by hattig · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed. The only issue is that Apple don't give the option of getting a 2 or 3 button mouse instead of the unimouse that they supply by default with a system.

      At least on the PowerBook you can download the hack that makes the trackpad into a 3 button trackpad with scrollwheel action.

      And yes, the menubar at the top of the screen is the sensible option for a fast interface. As long as the items on the menubar actually extend to the top of the screen, of course, so you can whack the mouse up there and click. Hell, Windows still doesn't extend the taskbar items to the base of the screen for some elements, meaning you still have to aim the mouse pointer. The menubar at the top is something that MacOS and AmigaOS both got correct.

  4. I think mac users are spoiled. by JPriest · · Score: 3, Insightful
    People that own PC's don't like to buy software, so most PC software people use is either cracked shareware or adware.

    People that use Linux don't like to pay for software or deal with adware and shareware, so they have free second rate versions instead.

    People on Macs actually pay for software, so Mac software (of you can afford to keep up) outclasses that of of the competition.

    Apple also makes more software than Microsoft, and OSX comes with more free high quality tools. All that power in an OS and it still comes with a real comand shell. For the small market share Apple has, they seem to be doing a fine job of producing quality software.

    --
    Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
    1. Re:I think mac users are spoiled. by MBCook · · Score: 5, Interesting
      This is something that I've been thinking about recently. After having to rebuild my PC after a hard drive crash, I realized how little software I actually use on any regular basis. Windows and Office (which I got "free" with my computer) are the only pieces of pay software that I use on any regular basis. I use VMWare some (which I own) and I have AV software and such, but those are all utilities that I don't really USE, they are just THERE. And in many cases (like DiskKeeper) they are only there to fix inadaquices in Windows (sorry, I can't spell ;).

      Other than that, I use IE, and WinZip, and Acrobat Reader, etc. Past that, I use OSS for most of my needs. This includes the Gimp, Cygwin, and such.

      Other than the odd games, there is only one piece of software I remember really WANTING in the last few years. Only one that I was excited about.

      OS X

      In the past few years, I haven't come across any piece of software that I have wanted so much that I couldn't get free. I wanted to program? GCC was great. A good shell on Windows? I've got Cygwin. Etc, etc, etc. OS X just looked so great. Then my brother got a PowerBook, and I've gotten to use OS X once or twice. I want it even MORE now. I already resolved a year or two ago that my next computer would be a Mac so I could get OS X. There are other reasons, but they all pale in comparison to my want for OS X.

      I don't mind paying for software when it's worth it. But so often, it's not worth the asking price. That's why I rent 95% of the videogames that I play. They just aren't worth the $60. Only when I KNOW that I really want the game, that it will be good, will I buy it. The titles that describes more than any other are Nintendo titles. Almost everything else I rent first (if I ever buy it at all). I don't mind paying for software at all, it's only fair that the people who make great stuff get money so they continue to do it.

      The problem is that so little these days seems worth the money people want. The ones I hate the most are things like AV software. Stuff I shouldn't need, but I'm basically forced to buy.

      I want OS X. It's worth it. It's head-and-shoulders above everything else out there.

      I'll pay for software, but it's got to be worth it to me. OS X is so worth it, I'll switch platforms to get it. Now that's good software.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    2. Re:I think mac users are spoiled. by generic-man · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Get off your high horse. For all the utilities on VersionTracker that cost $20 to register, there are tons of serial numbers floating around on the web. I know plenty of Mac users who feel entitled to use all their software for free -- including Mac OS X itself.

      --
      For more information, click here.
    3. Re:I think mac users are spoiled. by dmaxwell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hate to be the smartass to point this out to you but the guts of your perfect OS are based "free second rate stuff" and are even compiled with "free second rate stuff".

  5. New Feature: Spotlight by OneNonly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd been thinking about this for years - having a "SQL" like file system - and now Mac are in bringing it to the masses! Well, close anyway.. Spotlight uses metadata from all the files on your system to help you easily locate (search) for what you are after, no matter what type of info it is (contact, or PDF, or text file..)

    You can seem from some of the pics on the page shown just how easy it will be to use spotlight. . At the top of every finder window - type the "keywords" and you're there.. Being able to store your "searches" will make this *really* powerful..

    Once Tiger comes out I'm seriously considering moving to a Mac platform.. . I never thought I'd see the day... :'(

    1. Re:New Feature: Spotlight by OneNonly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I didn't say it was new.. I said it was being brought to the masses :) This is a Good Thing!! And I'd assume (not having used BeOS) that it does it differently (allowing all types of files to be browsed interactively through a real time search..)

      The obvious advantage is that it takes less time to find what you're after - but when hundreds of thousands of users start using this on their desktop, what will be next.. ? Perhaps a move away from straight hyperlinked navigation on the web - perhaps real time searching (as opposed to search engine type searching) for moving around websites may be possible.. ? I would *love* this.. So often I have to drill down through 10 levels of a website to find what I'm after, when a simple Go To: "geforce4 driver linux" or "contact address map" would give me want I wanted straight away...

      More exposure to this sort of facility through something like OS X will only spur on development in other areas.. Bring it on :D

    2. Re:New Feature: Spotlight by Molz · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It should be interesting at the types of files Apple will have it recognize out of the box. MP3, AAC, MP4, and mov files seem to be the most obvious.

      According to this page the file types it supports out of the box are:

      • Plain text
      • RTF
      • PDF
      • Mail
      • Address Book contacts
      • Microsoft Office Word documents
      • Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets
      • Keynote presentations
      • Photoshop images
      • Applications
      • Folders/directories
      • Video and audio files:
        • MP3
        • AAC
        • MOV
      • Images:
        • JPEG
        • GIF
        • TIFF
        • PNG
        • EXIF

      Now I would have thought they would include MPEG4 files on that list, but I suspect they will be supported anyway. It's a pretty impressive list of files out of the box I think, and since from all indications, spotlight will be very extensible, I would expect this list to grow very fast as the community starts adding support for favored file types.

      --
      Can I Play With Madness?
  6. Private Browsing looks cool... by The+Lord+of+Chaos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Looks like you can turn on and off a private browsing feature.

    Sure beats creating a second firefox profile and clearing all your privacy info just to go surfing for pr0n...

  7. Pr0n surfing feature... by netsrek · · Score: 5, Funny

    heh. Apple know pr0n is what everyone really uses the internet for... Private Surfing Mode

    --

    i don't read slashdot anymore.
  8. The real juicy stuff isn't in the screenshots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like 64bit support, and the return of metadata. While Tiger is sure to boast some nice GUI improvements, such as Dashboard, some of its greatest strengths are not visible in pictures.

    Jaguar seemed pretty polished to me, and Panther is simply the bomb. Tiger, I think, is going to be utterly and undeniably HOT. And consider this: It's not coming out for probably almost another year, and MANY more goodies will likely be unveiled in that time.

    Who said Apple was really just a hardware company? I don't think so -- they are a computer company, and that means hardware and software, at least as far as they're concerned. And the synergy is simply amazing.

    1. Re:The real juicy stuff isn't in the screenshots by SilentChris · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Jaguar seemed pretty polished to me, and Panther is simply the bomb. Tiger, I think, is going to be utterly and undeniably HOT."

      Oh God. Can we talk objectively for once? This nonsense of admonishing everything Apple creates on Slashdot is getting a little insane. And this is coming from someone currently typing on an iBook.

      Apple makes very good UIs. They also tends to come out with some hardware hits (iPod) and misses (tie-dye iMac anyone)? They're a corporation like everyone else. They remain silent on security issues, continue to charge an arm and a leg for software updates (10.3, despite what some people felt, wasn't worth $100), and steal from the few developers that actively support the platform.

      The fact that I'm hearing people say "I'd pay $100 just for Dashboard" is absolutely nuts. Look at what you're getting. Think sensibly for once.

  9. Most important "new feature" by radicalskeptic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Those are all great, but to me, I want to know if Tiger has another "new feature": Does it make my computer feel faster?

    Pretty much every previous release of MacOS X has brought speed improvements, and I want to know if Tiger will continue that tradition. Not all of us can afford G5s at the moment, and a speed increase would really make it shelling out another 80 bucks or so (.edu discount) worth it.

    --
    WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
    1. Re:Most important "new feature" by mj_1903 · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yes it will provide more speed increases. Lets take a look at some of the areas:
      • Improved compiler (GCC 3.5) which can create better PPC code, especially for the G5
      • Improved Quartz Extreme. The core image API that was demo'ed included QE enhancements and performance increases.
      • Some of the iApp's such as Mail, Address Book and iCal have seen significant rewrites
      • Improvements to SMB and most networking protocols
      Obviously that is not an exhaustive list, but you can find more info on Apple's website.
  10. new features by dncsky1530 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most interesting thing is that this is the third Mac OS X release to include more than 150 new features.

    Apple is already anticipating Microsoft will copy them, just check out the Shirts from WWDC!

    Also notice how little features each windows released comes with, even though they are released every 3 years. Well according to MS 'longhorn' will be more stable, of course only if you have 2 gigs of RAM.

  11. OldER-than-CLI Geezer by nusratt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bah, CLI?! Why, in MY day all we had were punch-cards. AND WE WERE GLAD to be rid of patch-boards and blinkenlights!

  12. Old CLI Geezer-Toggle Terror. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    " Bah, screenshots. Why, in MY day all we had was a command line. AND WE WERE GLAD!"

    Of course you were glad. Hands got tired of flipping toggle switches.

  13. Re:They said that Linux users are spoiled? by bsartist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I used OSX I'd want a minimual install option

    If you used OS X, you'd know that such an option already exists. Just click on the "advanced install" button and deselect the packages you don't want. Couldn't be simpler.

    --
    Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
  14. automate pr0n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Private surfing mode is not the only is the great pr0n surfing feature in Tiger. During the keynote, to introduce devs to Automator, the presenter built a script to "download all the pictures over a certain size" from a webpage.

    Heh

    1. Re:automate pr0n by acceleriter · · Score: 5, Funny
      . . . the presenter built a script to "download all the pictures over a certain size" from a webpage.

      Do you mean size in pixels, or does this OS have some mad AI :)?

      --

      CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

  15. Spam? by pyrrhonist · · Score: 3, Funny
    Is eweek advocating spam with this picture?

    Seriously the pipeline goes Address Book --> Mail Merge --> Group Mailer.

    WTF?

    --
    Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
  16. The new hardware is sexy too by Twid · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tiger looked really neat, especially the search/metadata functions, but the most amazing display at WWDC was this:

    Two 30" 2560x1900 widescreen displays being driven by a new custom Nvidia 6800 Ultra

    It looked practical too, there was a demo with Final Cut Pro running with several tools up on the right, and the HD video up on the left. Seemed like a pretty useful setup.

    I checked, and a "nicely equipped" dual monitor dual g5 came up to just under $12,000 on the apple store. Seems like a lot to most of us, but that's chump change for a high-quality HD video editing kit.

    Also, I got about 50fps on Unreal Tournament 2004 running at 2560x1900 with all settings at maximum. :)

    --
    - "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
  17. Re:CALLING ALL APPLE FAGGOTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My computer got 25% faster between 10.2 and 10.3. That's a service pack?

    Windows 2000 = WinNT 5.0
    Windows XP = WinNT 5.1

    Is that a service pack too?

    Yeah, I know, don't feed the trolls...

  18. Re:I'm still hoping for a more snappy interface... by joel8x · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Totally true - I remember getting support calls from users wanting me to "tune up" their systems and if the user was a PITA, I would just change the registry settings for menus to be as fast as possible so that when they clicked on the start menu it would immediately pop up and they would always be impressed.

    The appearance of a faster interface is just that - an appearance. Thats why when you boot XP the desktop will load really fast, but the HDD keeps spinning for a good while after. Same thing with Outlook - it will load the application window way before it finishes connecting to the server(s).

    --
    Sound waves should be free!
  19. Re:I'm still hoping for a more snappy interface... by crayz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    XP is snappier in some ways, but it's also easier to totally grind it to a halt. OS X almost never gets to the point of a frozen UI

  20. Re:YOU FUCKING FAIL IT! by The+Phantom+Buffalo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.

  21. Re:I'm still hoping for a more snappy interface... by Moridineas · · Score: 4, Informative

    Slow directory listings are usually bad registory settings cauwed by the installation of some annoying program.

    On one of the PCs at work, right clicking on a folder would sometimes take like 20 seconds ot show up--it was insane. I ran regclean, and now it's instantaneous. If XP has a problem, it's cruft in the registry.

    OTOH, you might want to take a look at my other post in this article--among professionals, a signifigant number have stuck with OS9 because osx gui etc and overhead is so much heavier than in os9 that programs like photoshop, illustrator, quark, etc run a lot slower.

  22. Re:But boy... by acceleriter · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Now, if MS were to offer something similar, you whackos would be screaming for anti-trust violations...

    Maybe that's because Apple hasn't repeatedly abused the trust of its users and its software doesn't call home without the user's knowlege or consent?

    --

    CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

  23. Re:Get an eMac by bedouin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would you spend $800 an a 1.25 Ghz (!) machine and even more for 512 MB ram (!!) to do email, internet, documents, etc.? If the "etc" is not too heavy, any second-hand $200 PC or $300 laptop is enough.

    Because OS X doesn't run on x86 laptops from 1998, and that's what he wants to run?

    Nothing wrong with a 1.2ghz G4 by the way, though I hate to get into the whole 'megahertz myth' argument, so maybe next time.

    My dad bought an eMac a few months ago. The extra $200 for a system that runs OS X makes up for the hours I'd have to spend removing spyware, patching, and keeping anti-virus definitions up to date. Not to mention those wonderful moments when nothing but a complete reinstall will do.

  24. Hell yeah. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 4, Interesting
    They mentioned "Smart Folders", a feature that in BeOS was called a Query. You could set up a query, which is basically a search that looks through filenames and attributes (meta-data), and I don't remember if you could search through the file itself, too, but you could save these things as a query, they behaved just like directories, except that their contents would update live based on other events in the file system.

    And that was a very extremely useful feature of BeOS. I'm glad the idea lives on in Tiger.

    Oh yeah, and the under-the-hood shit they mentioned like ACLs is pretty exciting.

    I hope you can access their "smart folders" as directories on the file system. That would make it possible to script all kinds of crazy and weird shit. Hell yeah.

    Oh yeah, and one more thing. Their automator thing looks pretty awesome. Drag a bunch of events from a library of events into the damn thing, set some damn parameters, and you can save that setup if you want... it's kind of like scripting, but without any scripting syntax. Smart... very friggen smart.

    Oooooooooooooooooooooh well.

  25. what about Linda? by microcars · · Score: 4, Funny
    I hope it comes with Video Chat with Linda like in the screenshot.

    Teach Me Tiger!

    --
    I like microcars
  26. Re:Spotlight by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The idea is to make it so that the computer takes care of organizing files for you, so that you don't have to.

    Also, you can make special "views" of files for specific tasks. For example, you can have all the files associated with a certain project in a saved search, when they are actually organized in a different way (say by file type)

    More concrete example: You're working on a video. You have source footage, audio tracks, and images in ~/Movies, ~/Music, and ~/Pictures, respectively. These were created by various co-workers, and not all of them are being used for the current project. Spotlight would let you create views for "show me all the files associated with my project" and "show me all the files created by $this_other_guy", etc.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  27. when you hire the BeFS designer... by drewness · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apple hired a bunch of Be engineers when the company went out of business and the assets were sold to Palm. And amongst the people they hired is Dominic Giampaolo, designer of the Be File System. Now Mac OS and HFS+ are getting things like journaling and Query like features. It's quite nice. Apple seems to be getting the best of several worlds by buying NeXT and hiring lots of former Be people and Jordan Hubbard from FreeBSD.

  28. HFS and Command-Line Support by HSpirit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps the most significant improvement is what seems to be the integration (finally) of complete HFS+ file-system functionality into the mainstay command-line apps such as cp, tar, rsync etc:

    Tiger provides a standard, Darwin-level API for managing resource forks, filesystem metadata, security information, properties and other attributes in a consistent, cross-platform manner. For example, common UNIX utilities such as cp, tar and rsync can properly handle HFS+ resource forks.
    It's been a long time coming, but I think finally we have a fully scriptable Mac at all levels of system administration.
  29. Konfabulator vs. Dashboard by rjung2k · · Score: 3, Informative
  30. Re:Get an eMac by wheany · · Score: 3, Informative

    Virii is not a word.

  31. Re:Dashboard by killjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually Macs are a developers dream. They come with Xcode and a gui builder bundled for free. Xcode is a pretty good IDE and the next version (tiger) will be even better. The interface builder is awsome. They also let you program in java and objective-C. Using pyobjc you can even do python development. On top of all that they provide you with a very rich API that takes care of all the hard work.

    What they have done now is to make it even easier for ordinary people to write little applets.

    If you are kid learning to program I can't think of a better platform for you to learn on.

    --
    evil is as evil does
  32. For an Alt-Tab replacement by AnEmbodiedMind · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you want behaviour like windows' Alt-Tab, go to System Preferences, Keyboard and Mouse, Keyboard Shortcuts, and create a short cut for:

    "Focus window (active) or next window" to something. This gives you the iterate through windows, rather then iterate through apps functionality you are probably after.

    I have it set to "Option ~"

    Pretty much like Alt Tab on windows. I use it all the time.