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Mac OS X "Tiger" Enters Final Candidate Stage
Orangez writes "Apppleinsider.com reports that 'Tiger' reaches the final candidate stage. 'With massive software projects such as Tiger, Apple will sometimes seed several final candidate builds before one is declared gold master...'" The final release has widely been speculated to be in the next month or two.
Not every user has $129 to spend on OS upgrades every 12-24 months... but on the other hand, not every developer has hundreds of hours to waste implementing functionality on 10.2 that you get 'for free' on 10.3. Given the incredible new features for developers in 10.4, I'd expect there to be a lot of Tiger-only software.
Hell, I've been waiting for Tiger to even start writing a shareware app I'm planning. Some of the new stuff, particularly Core Data and the improved SeachKit, are going to save me absolutely huge amounts of time and make my app better. Sure, it'll be Tiger-only, but I'm willing to trade off compatibility for quality and convenience. Otherwise I'd be a Windows user....
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If you price out similarly configured ibooks and dells, you will see that the price is not all that different. Add to the fact that as a student, you can get a discount on the laptops (about $150-200 IIRC), and it's a little sweeter. But, there is nothing on the low end of latptops that the mac can compete with in price. A celeron based laptop for $499 will always beat out an iBook, pricewise. OTOH, you have to use a celeron laptop....
It seems to me that Apple are doing versioning right.
The way it should work is x.y.z
z: Bug fixes
y: New features
x: Backwards compatibility break
Since 10.4 appears to have new features, but not break backwards compatibility, it's the right version.
However don't expect all the bells and whistles with only 32 Mb of video ram.
I have a Mini with a 20" Cinema Display and expose is already choppy (Courtesy of the 1600*1050 display).
I've read Tiger will require 64 Mb of Video Ram for all the cool "Core Video" features.
Does anybody know if they managed to get these features working on the Mini? Apple would be shotting itself in the foot if a 2005 machine could not run their 2005 OS
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I actually see it the other way round.
;)
Granted, I bitch and whine all the time about how crap Apple's default graphics boards are so primitive compared to the latest and greatest, and because of that OS X gaming won't be on the cutting edge.
However, for the UI stuff that doesn't require constant high framerate + 3D rendering + physics + AI, these GPUs should be completely tits for Quartz Extreme.
That is to say, for nongaming purposes, these GPUs are essentially desktop accelerators and feature enablers. Even the lowly FX5200 and Radeon 9200 w/32 or 64MB RAM is fine for this.
If Tiger ends up pushing more work onto these (for Macs) underworked GPUs, the UI will actually _speed up_. And the lowest-spec Mac (Mac mini) will have enough GPU to handle Quartz Extreme handily, while those with older AGP Macs should still be able to find 32/64MB QE cards fairly cheap.
And to be quite honest, one of the main reasons I built a dual celeron back in the day was to have all my KDE candy run more responsively.. I have no problem dedicating a cpu towards UI vanity
If you're writing an new OS X app now, you'd be crazy not to use Core Data and Bindings -- they'll literally save you hundreds of hours.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, but it's worth pointing out you've got to know your target to make this determination. A lot of users, particularly in the academic arena, are hanging on to Jaguar or stuck (in the case of IT departments with no budget) with Jaguar.
One of the first feature requests I received was for Jaguar compatibility, and that was in December. Some of them are likely waiting for Tiger, but some of them will stick with Jaguar (and have said as much). And we'll see the same thing with Tiger -- some people will be all over it the first day, and some people will stick with or be stuck to Panther, leaving you without Core Data, depending on your target market.
If the app in question was more complex, I'd probably release a final version for Jag and launch into using bindings -- writing glue code is boring, boring, boring. Key-value observation all the way, baby!
So for all the developers new to the Mac platform: put out feelers before you commit to one set of technologies. The new stuff is cool (I'm very excited about the changes in Tiger), but it's not going to get you any love (or cash) if 50 or 60 percent of your audience isn't using a compatible version of OS X. If you're targeting academia at any level, support backwards as far as you can without ripping your hair out.
And it's worth learning how to check the user's version of the OS and bail out gracefully if you're not supporting that version. Despite clearly stating the original system requirements as Panther, I had a dozen users contact me in the first week of release to tell me it didn't work when run on Jaguar. I have no idea where they got the impression it should work, but a dialog box could have saved me a lot of time.
Hmm- Insightful note, and generally true, except.... Since "All Operating Systems are essentially emulators", I'd tend to claim that it still is truly backwards compatible. Classic mode is what I would call a "Quasi-Emulator"- it's sufficiently embedded into OSX that its performance does not suffer the common emulator problems.
In the same respect, Windows XP is backwards compatible to DOS, so it's not a Mac vs. PC argument.
Just keep in mind that buying a Mac Mini doesn't give you a license to put Tiger on your iBook. Not that anyone's stopping you, but if you don't care about proper licensing you might as well just pirate it in the first place. :-)
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
If you think about it, it's almost like a concession to Windows's application model.
Wait! Wait! Hear me out.
On Windows, every app gets its own menu bar. Essentially, every app lives in its own self-contained window. I find this very irritating for 90% of applications (SQL Server, I'm looking at you). On the Mac, by contrast, every app gets essentially full control of its space, including the system's one menu bar, when the app in particular is focused. This, I like.
90% of the time.
But what about apps that really are one window apps. This isn't like iTunes, or iPhoto, because these apps have menu bars, and separate palettes. I mean, apps like Stickies, or a calculator. Furthermore, why do I need the calculator sitting in the Dock, when it's just one window, that I don't need to see most of the time?
Enter Dashboard. Basically, it groups all of these one-window-apps into one place, and lets that particular area come and go as easily as Expose does. Your one-window-apps live in one giant container app, which is then treated like any other multi-window application.
Anyway. I think it's neat. I'll be buying Tiger as soon as it's available.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.