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."

Comments

Not much news...

[nordicfrost]

It seems like most of these features were explained at Jobs' keynote address at WWDC. The automatic knowledgebase search in Help was new tho. Can't wait until I get my hands on my developer copy.

Smart Folders == Labels?

[billstr78]

It looks like Apple caught on quickly to the Gmail label paradigm shift away from folders and has put "smart folders" into Mail 2.0 for 10.4.

IMHO labels and smart folders are long overdue for mail. They've been usefull in iTunes for months and just make good sense data that does not belong in only one bin.

Re:Smart Folders == Labels?

[Hes Nikke]

ok, heres my way of redeeming myself (yes i know i'm also replying to myself)

Apple had this feature (save searches for later use) in the ill fated Copland preview in the mid 1990's. in fact i got the impression that apple was resurrecting many features from Copland during the WWDC keynote (see Automator)

photocopiers?

[Down8]

Just one of those pot-kettle-black things, I guess: ...websearch enabled Mac OS X Help application.

You mean like Office2003? And even OfficeXP, I think.

I'm just sayin'...

-bZj

Upgrade questions

[hotspotbloc]

Do you need Panther to use the Tiger upgrade or will any version of OS X work? Are the hardware requirements, both minimal and recommended, the same as Panther?

or in Evolution

[asv108]

I've been using "VFolders" in evolution for at least two years or so now. I wouldn't be surprised if outlook has had such a feature for a long time. Although Google is responsible for inventing a whole slew of tech, smart folders is not one of them.

Fantastic Idea!

[CommanderData]

You know, that's a really smart idea! Of course it would need a few tweaks- Maybe calculate the percentage of mistakes and trash it above a certain value (for the friends who make the occasional spelling mistake).

The best part is, if spammers start using spell-check and correcting their mail before sending (changing V1@gr@ to Viagra) it will be caught by the spam filters instead! It's a win-win situation, less spam and correct spelling...

before anyone starts on Dashboard

[falcon5768]

I have taken a look at it and currently own Konfabulator, and my honest impression is this.

While dashboard might or might not be a konfabulator clone, it does it MUCH better than konfabulator could ever do it.

One of the nasties of using konfabulator aside from the hideous amount of prossesor usage it seems to take and its tendancy to kill your system if your not online and using a widget that grabs online feeds, is the fact that well, every interface is different between widgets and sometimes they either dont work, or are hard to move around or close. The new version of Konfabulator fixed some of this, but its still bad. Apple has changed this, by not only making the moduals easy to close or move, and forcing them to keep simular preference interfaces, they also added the expose powered hide feature.

Honestly I dont hate Konfabulator and wish it well, I think its creator is a ass as to the fact that he doesnt care about the fact that both Apple and Microsoft did it first and he was just reimplementing a old idea.... beleiving the PR all the media outlets put out about it being this amazing app, but he did create it and i think more importantly he renewed interest in a feature a lot of us didnt use back in the OS 6/7 Win98 days.... Here is hoping the modual makers can bring their work to Dashboard with minimal fuss.... cause honestly those are the people who made konfabulator shine, not the guy who made it.

Re:before anyone starts on Dashboard

[foregather]

I was rather swayed by this piece (with the most interesting point summarized below for the mentally slashdoted)

http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_k on fabulator

---
"Konfabulator = (Custom XML format) + (Custom JavaScript engine)

Dashboard, on the other hand, is based on WebCore, the underlying open source layout and scripting engine behind Safari. Dashboard gadgets are indeed scripted using JavaScript, the same language used by Konfabulator, but Dashboard uses the JavaScript engine that's built into the system. And for UI layout, Dashboard gadgets are specified using HTML and CSS -- using the same rendering engine as Safari.
. . .
Do you see how huge this is? How it opens the door to gadget development to anyone with web design experience? Indeed, I've read the preliminary Dashboard developer documentation (generously provided by a source attending WWDC), and it is outstanding from the perspective of making gadgets easy-to-create.

The idea that Dashboard is derivative because it's scripted via JavaScript is missing the point. Dashboard isn't using JavaScript just to use JavaScript -- it's using JavaScript because Dashboard gadgets are little floating Web Kit views."
---

The article also argues, and offers documentation in support of the position, that you can trace the idea for such widgets all the way back to the first "desk accessories" like the puzzle and calculator from 1984. Then combines both points to paint Dashboard as a natural outgrowth of fundmental Apple ideas.

While Konfabulator is an implementation of similar concepts, they were not the inventors of them and their chosen means of implementation makes their software practically useless to Apple from the buy-and-incorporate perspective.

Other Ideas Borrowed from GMail

[fupeg]

One of the most interesting things in the articles:

But lets not forget that Mail 2.0 is also 100% compliant with Apple's Spotlight search technology. Spotlight searches instantly search not only Mail headers, but the complete contents of Mail messages as well, displaying results to the user in a matter of seconds.

This is one of the great strengths of GMail. Searching through thousands of mail messages is trivial and useful. Seems like a great addition to Mail. You get great email searching without the ads...

Re:Most inconsistent user interfaces

[bnenning]

Press Command + Option + B. Note the source list to the left.

That's *really* a stretch. The purpose of a web browser is to browse the web, not manage a list of bookmarks. That reasoning can be applied to just about any app (Mail uses a source list of mailboxes; Xcode uses a source list of project files, etc). Safari and iChat are metal because Steve wanted them to be; then the HIG were retroactively changed to make it a vaguely justifiable choice.

Re:Most inconsistent user interfaces

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I challenge you to find an Apple-made program using brushed-metal that doesn't conform to the above guideline.

Apple Remote Desktop v 2.0.

Good pic if you haven't seen it yet. I think it's 100% stupid, too, and I don't mind the metal on most apps, really; but for an Enterprise Admin tool, it adds "pretty" when you really need better efficiency.