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Detailed Reviews of Mac OS X "Tiger" Preview
An anonymous reader writes "AppleInsider has been publishing some very detailed articles on Apple's new Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' operating system, which include numerous screenshots of the system. So far the publication has discussed overall installation and Spotlight search technology, Safari with RSS, a new Mail revision with
Smart Mailbox technology, and a websearch enabled Mac OS X Help application."
Here is apple's own "Preview". It contains tons of screenshots and a webcast from WWDC.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
It works under the 'everything is a database' premise for email, with 'smart filters', multiple views, multiple email integration, everything controlled via CSS and much, much more.
It's free as in beer, too.
RinkRat
Is Tiger usable as a daily OS, currently?
No, Safari 2.0 currently does not work with HTTPS sites. Many common apps, including FireFox crash upon execution. Additionally, there seem to be some pretty serious filesystem bugs which can trash your entire hard disk (not just your Tiger partition).
Do I need a DVD drive? My pirated copy of the Tiger DVD crashes upon boot up.
No, you don't need a DVD drive. Visit the following URL for good installation steps:
Install steps
He also has a Tiger FAQ here:
Tiger FAQ
Smart folder and labels aren't quite the same, particularly in that Smart Folders are automatic, and labels aren't. This has both upsides and downsides, but they *aren't* the same thing.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
No, like Window's Help and Support Center, in Windows XP, which also searches the web. The difference is that the OS X Help application is global and applies to all help applications, where in MS's case each app has it's own Help index, and for XP, Office, and Office XP, their own help tools. I'm pretty sure (don't have a copy yet, like you) that in Tiger, any and all apps will be able to search Apple's knowledge base as well as the web for stuff. The difference in implementation between Apple and Microsoft is scope and consistency.
Microsoft's web enabled help applications are selective.
GPL Deconstructed
This is a developer version. The final copy won't be out until probably this time next year. It's probably cheaper to burn 1 dvd instead of 4-5 CDs. I'm pretty sure Apple's developer program has switched to DVDs for a lot of their software distribution. (I remember starting to get DVDs last year before my membership expired.)
Given that it doesn't ship till 2005, I wouldn't get too worked up about cosmetic inconsistencies in the developer preview. The developer release is about getting new APIs out to developers. The look will no doubt be further refined before release.
I find the adaptive filter in Mail to be as goog as a Baysian filter - in fact it's supposed to be a superior adaptive algorithm to bayesian filtering. But it you really want to run a bayseian filter with OS X as well, you can.
It is for us DEVELOPERS. So we can DEVELOP. Sorta' like the development systems I work on here - blue wires, etc. yet it allows me to DEVELOP.
Oh, BTW, did I mention it was a DEVELOPERS release?
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
BTW, Virginia tech found Apple to be the cheapest fastest option when measured against other PCs. What do you know, a cheap, fast, cool supercomputer!
1) Tiger won't be out until spring 2005.
2) Safari 1.3 and Xcode 1.5 will make it to Panther, and Panther will receive at least one more point release (10.3.5). Safari 2.0 and Xcode 2.0 will be Tiger-only, however, as they make use of updated frameworks.
3) If you don't see why you need to upgrade, then just don't - 10.3 will continue to work fine and they will continue to supply you with security fixes.
1) Tiger includes a new indexing daemon, "mds", for this purpose.
2) The daemon only becomes active when it notices that files have changed. The performance loss is minimal.
3) Applications obviously need to make use of the provided APIs. That's what they're for.
Remember some of the most exciting changes are under da hood.
If you don't like it, keep 10.2. This isn't a forced upgrade. Besides Quartz Extreme, there haven't been any earth shattering interface changes since 10.1, and only a few increases since 10.2. Shit, I still compile with compatibility to version 10.0, just in case somebody's still running that three year old OS. Most commercial software is 10.1+ (though many free and shareware tools assume you have 10.2).
New machines get the newest OS. Everybody else can buy it as an upgrade if they like. Where's the problem here? If you aren't willing to pay $130 for a fully 64 bit version of the MacOS with a few extra features, don't pay it.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
You can upgrade from any previous OSX version. The system requrements will probably be the same as Pather, but the Tiger beta has some limitation, like a DVD drive (it will install from an image) and FireWire (probably due to the new migration tool), but it installs just fine on every machine that Panther supported. Some feature will require special hardware, stuff like CoreImage and CoreVideo.
Since Apple continues to opmitize and hone the operating system I would guess that Tiger will be quicker that previous versions och the same hardware. I've noticed significant speed ups on a PowerBook G4/400 compared to the previous Panther install. This is consistent with the history as Jaguar was quicker than Puma (10.1) that was quicker than Cheetah (10.0).
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Wheither XP is more expensive than OSX is up to debate because it varies depending upon the situation. XP home is around, what $99? If you want better conictivitiy, XP pro is $199. Next upgrade is due a long time from now. Most of the time people are expected to have antivirus on a Windows machine: that's $50+ each year. An upgrade in windows can actually require an upgrade in the hardware as well.
Mac OSX costs $125. For a 5 computer licence it's $199. Upgrades happen once per year, but you are not REQUIRED neccesarily to get them. Each upgrade of OSX (thus far) has made speed improvments on the same hardware - if you're okay with the speed now, then an upgrade will only make things better. Of course the hardware is usually[1] more expensive as well.
Which is actually cheaper? As I said, that depends.
[1] An iBook often works out to be cheaper than an equivelant PC laptop.
It doesn't support GPU-accelerated Core Image. CI has a fallback path for hardware that doesn't support fragment programs, which almost certainly involves AltiVec.
Things like Final Cut Pro can already do real-time image and video effects on the CPU, CI is just exposing it as a system library alongside all the traditional bitmap manipulation libraries.
Moreover, it just doesn't make sense to have duplicate information. What happens when I want to delete a message that has been cloned into several folders? Or maybe add or delete something from it? That's why the virtual folder idea is useful. I love having folders that say "Today's Mail", "Yesterday's Mail," and "This Week's Mail."
When I switched my primary machine from XP to OSX, I loved OSX, except for not having a suitable email client. Exceptfor security problems, I loved using Outlook with the Nelson Email Organizer (NEO). NEO added virtual folders and really changed the way I worked. I could file things under "To Do" and also under "Project1", etc. Of course, the security problems with Outlook were impossible to ignore.
Right now, I'm running Evolution at work on a Dell laptop, but it still seems pretty buggy and unpolished. Whenever I get around to getting X working on my Mac, though, I'll probably switch from Entourage. (The MailApp lacks calendaring and Entourage implements it poorly.)
Microsoft's research budget is nearly as large as Apple's annual income.
No, really. For 2003, Apple's income was $6.2 billion. For the same year, Microsoft's R&D spending was $4.7 billion. That's almost exactly 10 times as much as Apple's R&D spending of $471 million
-Mark
From the Apple Human Interface Guidelines:
I think that's pretty strict, and it provides a great way to distinguish between iLife-type applications from other non-"life experience" (that's a technical term) applications. Additionally, I challenge you to find an Apple-made program using brushed-metal that doesn't conform to the above guideline.
Overall, if you actually read the AHIG, you'll find the guidlines make sense and serve a specific purpose; they aren't just some willy-nilly part of the system that changes at the whim of Steve Jobs or some apparently AD/HD influenced designers.
I for one welcome our Apple Human Interface overlords.