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Looking Ahead to Tiger, Powerbook G5s

Posted by michael on from the save-your-pennies dept.

sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is running a preview of Apple's newest version of OSX, Tiger, after Jobs said it was still on track for a q2 2005 release (long before Longhorn...)." And an anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that Powerbook G5s will ship in Q2 2005."

5 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too hot? by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It could be that they are using the new freescale dual core G4 chipsets with on die memory controllers and 1mb L2 cache. They are supposed to be really really good with power consumption too.

  2. Smart Folders by your_mother_sews_soc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I just installed the latest Tiger Preview last night. It seems to be just like Panther in many respects. I can't say I was wowed by the all of new features since:
    • I didn't spend much time using it
    • I'm never that excited by new features until I learn their value through use over time.
    That said, there is one new feature that really impressed me: Smart Folders. They are part of Spotlight and are very similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes. In essence they are "virtual folders" that you define using rules. I set one up to list all of my images. It works in conjunction with the indexing provided by Spotlight and seemed to be very fast. I think this one new feature will be the standout in the next release.
    --
    My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
  3. Re:Too hot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One data point: Apple employees get an email about once a quarter with things they can buy at a discount - informally called "qpromo". The current qpromo is selling off all sizes of Powerbooks. Generally, qpromo is used to sell off something that's about to be upgraded or revved. For example, I bought my 15" titanium Powerbook through qpromo, and a month or two later they brought out a titanium Powerbook with a higher screen resolution and a faster processor. The next time titanium Powerbooks appeared on qpromo was just before it was replaced by the aluminium 15" Powerbook. The presence of all sizes of Powerbooks in qpromo hints strongly at either a speed rev or a totally new processor.

  4. Re:Question by Sophrosyne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It does have to do with fixes found in panther that were not in jaguar- they are not just minor fixes, and they affect many aspects of the OS. There are API fixes as well.
    Although the naming scheme is the same, Panther is it's own O.S.- some developers can write apps that function on both operating systems- but they don't have to.
    Apple would have to maintain two very different versions of Safari. Safari on panther is a little different as Apple has split Safari from Webcore- leaving webcore available for any application to use.
    Safari 1.0.3 does work, and it wouldn't be practical for Apple to support 2 versions of Safari on two different O.S.es. Firefox may be the best alternative to Safari.

  5. eye candy by mbbac · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The much-touted features Spotlight and Dashboard may end up just another layer of eye candy, further moving Apple away from its halcyon days of interface design based on good science, rather than style.
    What is this guy thinking? Spotlight has very, very little to do with eye candy. The only way you can associate it with eye candy is the way it was implemented in System Preferences where search result icons are highlighted with a quite literal spotlight. Other than that it does the vast majority of its work behind the scenes. And where it does have a GUI, it is a straight-forward interface that is based on science and lets user find files and documents in a fraction of the time it would normally take.
    --

    mbbac