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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."
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.
So now they have a broweser thats guaranteed to give you repetitive stress syndrome? How is THAT a good thing?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Well, no matter how smart my mailbox is, my mail is still stupid.
I'm tired of people trying to convince me that my breasts need to be larger, when clearly that would only make my penis look smaller.
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.
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!
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
.sig
From the appleinsider link:
Interestingly, sources noted that while the Tiger Finder interface contains no noticeable changes from Panther, Spotlight uses its own sleek window interface design, which is only accessible from windows that are spawned from Spotlight searches. The interface features windows with a smooth, grey-colored titlebar, with sharp webpage-like table results on one side, and an html-style control bar on the other. Details of these new webpage-like Mac OS X windows were first report by sources in an earlier report, though sources described them as Mac OS Finder windows.
If you look at the screen shots you will notice weirdly blue colored bars, but just in that one application. Honestly I thought Macs were supposed to have a consistent UI. If I wanted a mish mash of colors and widgets I would just get a Windows PC.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Why would you pay premium for a closed source operating system and handicapped hardware (one button mouse)?
It's cheaper than XP, it's mostly open (it's not Free, but that doesn't bother me), and my three-button+wheel mouse works just fine, thanks.
Oh, and by the way - 1994 just called. They want their FUD back.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
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
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?
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
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.)
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.
Um. It' s been quite awhile since Apple shipped a drive that won't read DVDs. Even if you can't burn them, you can install with them.
You know what?
Cougar, Lynx, and Leopard. No clue what order they will use, but those seem to be the names for their future releases (through 10.7).
Lion is conspicuously absent.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Since I don't email illiterate people, I'd like my mail program run spell check and grammer check on incoming mail. If it isn't at high school level then it's automatically binned.
-Adam
actually as of a few months ago they had a few other cats trademarked for OS name use.... offhand i think puma, lynx and cougar maybe? i may be wrong on the names, but i know there are a few more in the name pool..... even if theya re never used, they were trademarked for use as a name for an operating system...
yes, i know lynx in the unix shell web browser thingy..... but it can still be trademarked for OS use (i think?). whatever the list consisted of, it was found because Apple trademarked the names.
The deeper answer is that the Mac UI is designed so you don't need to be a geek to understand it. Joe Sixpack knows what smart means but not what virtual means, let alone know that the v in vFolders stands for virtual.
BTW, I've never heard the term vFolders before so I suspect it doesn't have that much mindshare. It looks like a Linux thing.
Where are the free software projects investigating next generation UI concepts? Is Linux too wedded to the old ways of doing things to compete with commercial vendors like Apple? It seems to me that the Linux UI community has been very busy trying to emulate the functionality of yesterday's commercial desktops, when it should be pioneering new approaches and UI innovations, thus leap-frogging Apple and others.
"Kitten"
dinner: it's what's for beer
Lots of people talk about how the Windows version of iTunes is a trojan horse idea, i.e., it gives Windows users a taste of the usability and flexibility of software designed by Apple, and so inspires them to switch. Looks like Apple's been using iTunes as more than a switching device, though - they've been training their user base. Everything's going to be smart in the Tiger, and it won't matter where the files are - just what you want to use, when you want to use it. iTunes is already like this - I can say I want all the movie music by John Williams, in addition to including all the classical titles he ripped off, and it will give it to me in a playlist. So, no massive shift for Mac users or Windows users who have iTunes - they already know exactly how to speed through and take advantage of this UI. Smart.
Shold have known better than to joke about Apple. The mods here who like apple don't appear have much of a sense of humor.
You should have saved the comment for the next piece of KDE software named Kxxx. Long rants about how OSS sucks at naming software always get modded +5 Informative.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
It takes a moment of background story, but this does relate...During the 4th of July celebrations (which for some reason, came on the 3rd of July this year) my sweetie and I joined my best friend and his wife and kids in the park to watch the fireworks. Being the "Evil Uncle" of his son, Gabe, I managed to convince him the previous year that we celebrate July 4th each year to commemorate our fending off the aliens attack on Earth. This year, he and I spoke further on the issue...
GABE: "So, we fought off the Aliens with their own technology?
ME: "Why...ah, yes, as a matter of fact, we did."
GABE: "So aliens have laptops too?"
ME: "Yes, well, sort of. Actually, no..."
GABE: "Arrrgh!"
ME: "See, they captured an alien ship back in the 50's and reverse-engineered the operating system."
GABE: "Hmmm...And they used it to blow up the aliens?"
ME: "Not quite. See, it takes money to fund these sorts of top-secret government wossnames. So what they did was eventually market the operating system in the private sector, as a competing OS. However, since it was the government that gave out the OS in the first place, they decided to keep it close to home, in federally funded areas... like Schools."
GABE: "You mean..." his eyes went wide "Apple Computers are made by aliens? Oh no!"
ME: "No, Apple Computers are made by Apple. However, their OS was originally hacked from an alien spaceship. That's why they never managed to produce clones like the PCs."
GABE: "And we made the aliens blow up with an Apple computer?"
ME: "No, we just used their technology to remove their shields, so that our weapons could blow them up."
GABE: "Did we use alien weapons?"
ME: "Nope, just good old fashioned American-made missiles and stuff."
GABE: "Good," he nods sagely. "Cause next time, we might not be so lucky."
ME: "Indeed. And THAT'S why we celebrate the 4th of July, every year."
MY FIANCE: "Just for the record, Sweetie, our kids are never going to be home-schooled by you."
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
I just wanted to note that Tiger has a lot of very cool stuff under the hood that is taking place that will be a boon for developers and by extension customers (of course this stuff is still currently under NDA).
It will be a great OS release... one that I feel will become a must have for every Macintosh user (with supported hardware). At least I hope it will be a must have because I really want to use some of he features that will exist to help speed the development and richness of applications.
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...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
It's cheaper than XP
This one is not entirelycorrect, if you want to stay up to date. The yearly upgrade cycle so far made OSX quite more expensive than XP if you started with the first released version on both. And if you're talking OEM, XP might be actually cheaper now.
Granted, if the software would be the only difference, OSX would have XP beat hands down. However, if you're out to buy a cheap and reasonably fast computer, Apple is not exactly in the top 10 choices (emphasis on both cheap and fast).
Adapting the old saying: cheap, fast, cool - pick two.
There's only one upgrade a year, if that. The last upgrade was in late 2003 and the new upgrade is in early to mid 2005.
Six year cycle at one upgrade a year is $774. However, during that time you're likely to buy at least one new Mac, which would eliminate the need for one of the upgrades.
If you're really keeping your computer for six years, that's a solid testimony to the quality of the Mac platform. You really need a new PC for every new major version upgrade since the system requirements change so radically. It's torture running Windows XP on a low-end machine designed for 2000. I bought a used two year old 400mhz PowerBook G4 about a week ago and am very impressed by how well it runs in Panther. It was a slowpoke in the version of MacOS X available at the time, but now it's a more than acceptable performer for most things I need to do with it.
The reality is that the Mac platform's pretty cost-effective if you want to keep your machine running well. The horrors of dealing with Windows virus attacks easily make up for the price difference between Mac and PC.
D
Probably because iTunes uses Smart Playlists. "vFolder" is pretty uninspiring. Is it a "fifth generation" folder? Is it shaped like a 'V'? Will it be used in litigation? Is it associated with a verb, or action? Is it an assistant to a real Folder? Will it bring Victory? Does it does it refer to the designer's first experience of love, rolling around in a meadow, surrounded by violets?
I love it when marketing drones (or programmers) think adding "Smart" to reflect new technology is valid. The mail technology described isn't "smart".
"Smart" would be a filtering system that recognizes senders based on last name, and realize that people named "Smith" are probably in my family. "Smart" would automatically recognize messages about the Bernoulli account after a few back and forths and organize them by sender and time (kind of like how I have my filing cabinets). When it matches a personal assistant, it's "smart".
Please do not pretend to be a girl on the Slashdot. It gets the nerds all hot and bothered.
Let's see here. The yearly upgrade cycle of Mac OS versus the every-other-year upgrade cycle of Windows. Granted, the next windows (desktop) version won't be out for a while now, but Tiger is in 2005, when Panther was 2003.
Windows retail is pretty dang expense (for the full NON-oem version). Likewise, the hardware requirements seem to go up quite nicely with each Windows release. Panther runs pretty well on hardware thats a few years old already (so long as its a G4 or later G3).
Don't get me wrong, if you want to constantly upgrade with either system, it's going to cost you a pretty penny. But why upgrde so often? Jaguar is still supported now, and Panther will still be supported when Tiger comes out.
But I agree that Mac OS needs to slow down a little. While they throw a LOT of stuff in each revision, it gets pretty pricey.
vFolders isn't a linux thing. It's an XEmacs VMail thing. It was a concept popularized with Linux via the Evolution mail client which borrowed heavily from the earlier work of VMail and it's approaches.
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.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Personally, I can't wait for the Thundercats version... Thundercats Ho!!!
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.
Actually, the rumor is that Tiger will only be available on DVD.
I have a shitty sig!
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
I should preface my comments with this -- I'm new to OS X (IT/developer working in creative environment), so my experience with Safari may not be totally up to snuff. Correct me if I terribly skew off track with comments about Safari.
;-)
That said, I'm wondering if Apple has improved Safari to be more compatible with websites. And if not, why not before doing this RSS application?
When I do testing of websites with Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on my PC, I run into some "damn you Internet Explorer"-specific pages that limit the features that I see with these alternative browsers. However, when I use Safari (which I thought was loosely based on the Mozilla project's browser engine), I see even more rendering problems than in the other two browsers.
Do I just need to spend more time with Safari, or are there still major issues with how it renders some pages and code? And if the latter is true, was it wise for Apple to add another Safari-esque feature with this RSS application when they need to fix some rendering issues with what could be a really sweet browser?
It's sad, but on many pages that work fine in Mozilla 1.x and FireBird 0.9 on a PC, I have to send designers who want to see their work BACK to IE for Mac so that the pages properly render what they designed. Of course, my code could just really suck too.
IronChefMorimoto
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!
Well, as you figured out yourself, Smart Folders are just dynamic search queries. The e-mail physically remains at the same place. Think of Smart Folders as a way to store search queries that you do frequently.
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.
For example, if I receive e-mail that contains at least one e-mail address containing mycompany.com, then I want the mailer, upon selecting Reply, to auto-set the From header to my work e-mail address rather than my home e-mail address. (All my e-mail routes my my home Linux server and is split into mailbox files by procmail.)
Anybody know of a GUI mail client with rules like Pine's? (Oh, and it has to be able to support IMAP over SSL and SMTP AUTH too.)
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
emacs is already a text editor.
I don't think Apple would use Safari
Internet Safari is already a web browser.
I don't think Apple would use iTools
iTools is already a Suite of server applications for macs.
I don't think Apple would use Apple
Apple is already a record label.
I don't think Apple would use System 9
System 9 is already a the name of an OS by Microware.
Anymore out there ;)
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
Well, for one there really isn't any precidence for the way Apple is implementing smart folders. BeOS had something like this, but I'm not sure if the feature was as powerful. The "smart folders" name is derived from the iTunes "smart playlists". So since they are inventing this feature, they can call it whatever they want. Perhaps they should call them "fuck you troll" folders.
Remember some of the most exciting changes are under da hood.
Yeah yeah graphics, search, safari... Can we PLEASE Finally fix the HUGE bug where you can't print from Adobe (or any other app that uses PICT rather than PDF) to Linux CUPS queues? Its been in the dev tree since before the last relase...
Contrary to all rules of CUPS when Apple ported it to OSX they decided to add client side filters which means when you send a job to a shared queue hosted on a linux box, the local printbox hangs and the linux box either bounces the job or prints garbage.
For details go here
Please!?!
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
- Use the Spotlight SDK to write a plugin that parses the app's file format and metadata. This allows the global Spotlight feature to index and search the contents of files created by that app.
- Use the Spotlight API to integrate Spotlight into its own interface, letting the user search from the app directly.
As to how many apps will support this, I'd guess that plugins will be far more common that built-in searching, since they are not an integral part of the app and could even conceivably be written by third parties if the original developer doesn't bother to.Incidentally, if you're willing to wait 6 months after the release of a new Apple OS, you can usually get it for half price. You can get the previous release for even less (just saw 10.2 for $20). Or get four of your friends together and buy a "family" license (5 licenses with one DVD for $250 or so).
This is quite a contrast to Windows -- the Windows 2000 Upgrade is still in the $190 range 4 years later.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
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.)
They do maintain indexes fot Spotlight serach and in file content search.
t lighttech.ht ml
It will drag the system somewhat since this file will be wquite large and there wll be frequent read/writes to it, but the OS seems to do this quite transparently and I havn't noticed any noticable drag. OSX does multitask quite good and my computer mainly sits idle anyway.
Spotlight is an API that developeras can use istead of building theri own search tool. Old apps will not automagically benefit from Spotlight.
Mor info on spotlight:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spo
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
It appears from this photo of the install screen that the current system requirements for Tiger are:
G3, G4 or G5 processor
a DVD Drive
builtin Firewire
128 MB Ram
2 GB disk space
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
Damn ungrateful end users always expecting flashy crap to get them excited. Why do you have a copy of the developer preview anyway? You don't sound like a developer to me.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Given that so much of OS X is built upon the NeXTStep code base, and that the NeXTStep code base was (from what I understand) amazingly well-designed from a software engineering point of view, and that Objective-C really is an incredibly powerful, easy to use object-oriented extension of C, I wonder of the rapid output of new stuff from Apple research is just proof of what can happen when you've got well-engineered software libraries with good RAD tools in the hands of extremely capable programmers.
That's not intented to read like an Apple fanboy post (although it does). But it does seem that Microsoft "innovation" moves more slowly than Apple. And some of Microsoft's innovation just, well, sucks eggs. (MFC, anyone? Bob?)
My four-year-old iBook (9.2.2) is even more stable, reboots needed months apart rather than weeks or days.
Macs are more cost-effective in the long term, partly because the hardware and OS don't need upgrading as frequently, and partly because you don't have spend half your time installing patches and fighting viruses and worms...
You must think in Russian.
No, on both counts. Quotes were taken from Dell and other PC companies as well as Apple. Apple quoted list price and still beat the other quotes. And 2 other Big Mac super computers have been ordered for other organisations since.
Every time I get a new boyfriend, it won't take long before he's asking if I'd be willing to try a threesome with "some hot bi-girl he just met".
And yet if some sheepish computer dork tried to ask you out, you'd call him a nice guy and say no way. If you go out with assholes, you get the asshole treatment. There's not a whole lot to figure out here.
And no, I'm not posting this as some sheepish computer dork who's afraid of women. I'm posting this as someone who's tired of people complaining about their lot in life when they create the situations. It's not too hard to find a guy who at least pretends to care about you, ya know. If every guy you go out with has the same problem, perhaps it's time to start looking at other types of guys?
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
No shit, where in my post did I say it wasn't for developers? I actually got that it was a developer release from the name "Developer Preview" and "World-Wide Developer Conference", that it was presented at, pretty nifty eh?
You'll note that my post is about Tiger questions people will probably ask and your reply has nothing to do with my post.
If you receive an email from your bank regarding your recent registration to access your home mortgage online, which folder do you file it in? Home? Finances? Registrations? Smart Folders solve the problem. That email can appear in multiple folders at once.
Aliases don't solve the problem because you have to decide which folder to store the original file in. If you delete a folder containing the alias, you're fine. But if you delete the folder containing the original, you're screwed.
Use iPhoto keywords for a while, and you'll understand why smart folders are superior to traditional folders.
2005. some time.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Run in a terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Then use hte debug menu to import them
...and that's all there is to it.
Also, for applications that just use files, Spotlight will still be able to find these documents based on filename and other metadata. For my personal use, I predict that I will use Spotlight all the time for searching files, contacts, e-mails, and maybe songs/photos (which will all be supported since I just use the Apple applications for these tasks), and so whether or not 3rd-party apps support it will not be a big factor to me.
I don't know much about Automator, their new GUI-based batch system, but I'm guessing that it will be much more widely-used than AppleScript. You'd think there would be a way to write shims to let Automator talk to apps that have AppleScript bindings and leverage that capability for more users.