Slashdot Mirror
Tiger's 200 New Features
An anonymous reader writes "If this hasn't already been posted, Apple set up a page listing,
by software section, all of the new features for OS X.4, or Tiger.
Given that every upgrade touts over a hundred features, it is interesting to see all of the enhancements to this upgrade to see what adopters get out of the box.
There are a lot which are tweaks, some new non-Spotlight oriented features and a few that are interesting, mostly security related features.
2 words: stealth mode.
"
From the list:
Use command line file commands on HFS+ items with proper results -- utilities such as cp, mv, tar, rsync now use the same standard APIs as Spotlight and access control lists to handle resource forks.
Being both a Mac User and a Command LIne Junky. This makes me happy.
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
One of the new features is that Mail.app supports Exchange servers - but I have a feeling this is just imap support and won't handle meeting invites, etc.
So, I'm stuck using Entourage. Does anyone know if Spotlight will be indexing Entourage emails, etc? I sure hope so! My corporation has ignorantly banned Google Desktop search on the windows machines, so I no longer have a way of finding emails I need in a snap. Entourage + Spotlight puts me back in the game on that front.
..as advertised. This is what graphic artists have been waiting for, a font manager that's STABLE with thousands of fonts. Suitcase is, but the interface is pitiful. FontAgent is easy to browse, but unstable with lots of fonts and if you turn on WYSIWYG in some views. There's been a big hole in the font management area for a long time now. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/fontbook/
I notice quite a lot of the usual complaining about Apple charging for a point release of an operating system where Microsoft would give it for free.
While those people are right in that they are likely to get modded down by Mac fans, the complaints seldom offer much insight into what is a point release, what is a service pack and what is a full version number. To be fair, the OS vendors, both Apple and Microsoft, don't make it easy on the consumer either.
Apple generally gives out their version of point releases (10.x.x) for free, but those point releases usually don't offer much or any new functionality. (Currently I'm on OSX 10.3.9) which includes a new version of the Safari browser (1.3) but that is unusual. Apple also usually gives out point releases of the various software accompanying the OS for free (iTunes, QuickTime, iSight, iPod, Bluetooth etc) and they provide specific security patches as new exploits become available.(although there are currently about two hanging security issues that Apple really needs to fix)
Apple usually includes quite a lot of new extra functionality in the version upgrades (10.x). In the 10.3 Panther upgrade it was Expose, Fast User Switching, iChatAV and XCode and under the hood new APIs (Cocoa Bindings etc). in 10.4, it's Dashboard, Spotlight, XCode 2, Safari 2, Mail 2, Automator and a lot of new APIs (Core Data, Core Image etc.)
Microsoft is a little less consistent with its OS upgrades, pathces and service packs, but also follows a certain strategy. Generally, Microsoft offers API changes and some minor functionality changes in service packs, but rarely major new features. For example, WinNT went from sp1 to sp6 and actually gained a lot of the functionality that was in the Win98 and Win2k userspace, and NT users got those for free. Active Desktop for example (one can argue about how useful that was). Moving from NTSP6 to Win2k would not have entailed major changes for the common user, but, obviously, there was a lot that changed under the hood. Better security model, more stable, some minor UI changes, better networking etc. Obviously, for a user, it was worth paying for.
All the while, Microsoft also offered generally free upgrades to its bundled applications, such as IE, Outlook and WMP, although there was an outcry about the mp3 quality and MS' charging for better quality.
But can the same be said for the Win98SE to WinME upgrade? WinMe had a terrible reputation and was seen by many as an excuse by Microsoft to generate revenue.
And the Win2k to WinXP move, while also having some big under the hood changes (firewall, signed drivers etc), mostly had big UI changes (themes) and Fast User Switching, Automatic Updates (also in 2kSp3 onwards) etc. For the user, and the developer, it was probably worth the price. Since then Microsoft has offered two service packs, both free. SP1 had no visible change but fixed some glaring security and stability issues. During this time Microsoft has released literally hundreds of security patches, thankfully, free.
Now comes the part to argue over. XPSP2 offers a new security center and a firewall on by default. It also upgrades IE. SP2 is free. BUT, the security enhancements for SP2, including the IE upgrade, are not available for Win2k. Microsoft was getting a terrible rap with WinXP up to SP1. It was almost impossible to install a new machine on the net (activation) without getting hit by some of the rabid attacks going on within a few minutes. Microsoft HAD to do something, and, if they had charged for SP2, there would have been an even bigger outcry by an extremely digruntled public.
My personal opinion about Microsoft is that Microsoft, in a way that only Microsoft does well, decided to use the opportunity to both garner some lost respect by including the new security features, but also enforce upgrades amongst its userbase by excluding Win2k. This, I think, is something that Microsoft specialises at, prodding its userbase with new features, but including a catch somew
I hope I'm not blasting my NDA saying this, but we've been using seed builds for a while and the one thing that I think many people will be pleasantly surprised with is the sense of responsiveness/speed. I'm using a spanking new G4 laptop and using Tiger on it makes it feel like I have an ever faster machine (which is what I said about 10.3!). Everything is more responsive; screen redraws, directory listings, quicktime videos, etc. It's on-par with my AMD64 box with XP in terms of GUI resposiveness now!
-_-
I actually expect this release to be a milestone in GUI operating systems. Not only is inter-programm communication fully developed, it also gets a easy to use point-and-click interface to access these functions (Automator).
What would really rock is if someday Apple had the guts to actually drop the desktop metaphor and introduce some non-overlaping full screen realestate using workspace and application management. Something like blender has - only more accessable of course.
How long have knowledgable users of Windows, Linux and Mac OS dreamed of easy cross-program automation via visual graphical pipes. Once again it's OS X that's years ahead of anything else.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
We're talking about highly advanced stuff here. It exists only in labs. So it's way too early to talk about specifics.
I don't want to blow anything out of proportion, but think of Spotlight as being kind of like the first bitmapped graphics. What we're doing with it right now is cool. But what's really important is what it enables us to do in the future.
GPS-based locational metadata is just one example. Automatic speech-to-text transcription for audio recordings is another. (You wouldn't believe what vector processing can do for speech-to-text. I saw a demo where a high-quality, noiseless audio recording of an unaccented speaker was transcribed at 20x real-time on a single 2.0 GHz G5.)
Example: You're doing a multi-party teleconference. A recording is made of that teleconference (each angle), and separate audio tracks are recorded for each participant. In real time, your computer transcribes each voice track and stores it as ancillary content on the recording, content that Spotlight indexes for you. At any time, you can type "meeting in San Jose" into Spotlight, and it'll take you right to the angle and track on which your co-worker Laurent talked about next week's meeting in San Jose.
Think about more detailed logging. Right now your computer logs only the most rudimentary events, stuff that is of no interest to human beings. What if it could log everything? Right now you can say "Show me that file I worked on yesterday at two o'clock." But what if you could turn that around and say, "When and for how long did I work on this file?" That's vitally important to anybody who does billable work. Imagine if, through metadata and logging, your computer could automatically produce your time sheet for you?
Another type of automatically generated metadata we're experimenting with is relational metadata. Let's say you've got a picture of your dog on your computer. You e-mail it to your sister Jan. Your computer notes this as metadata on the photo so later you can ask your computer to show you what pictures you've sent to Jan.
Address Book is one area where relational metadata is pretty important. In Address Book, you put Jan and your brother Harry into a group called "Family." Both Jan and Harry, in their contact records, get metadata describing them as being members of the "Family" group. So later you can ask your computer to show you what pictures you've e-mailed to members of your family. Or received from members of your family. Or what pictures you've e-mailed to SOME members of your family but not ALL.
Let's say you take that picture of your dog and drop it in a Pages document, then export the document as a PDF and mail it to your sister Jan. The computer records, as metadata, the fact that that picture of your dog is related to Jan. It knows that put associated the picture with that Pages document, that the Pages document was associated with the PDF file, and that the PDF file was associated with an e-mail to Jan.
Now combine it with a gestural interface. Take two files, any two files. Say it's a PDF representing an invoice and a Photoshop file representing a poster you designed. You drag the invoice over the Photoshop file and a marking menu appears, giving you the option of establishing a relationship between the two files. If you want you can annotate the relationship. If you don't, you don't have to. The computer will simply note that a relationship exists.
Now extend that idea. Instead of it being two files, it can be two ANYTHING. Drag a contact from Address Book to a Pages document; up pops a marking menu asking you if you want to establish a relationship. Or an song from iTunes to a picture of your girlfriend. Or your daughter's birth certificate to her birthday in iCal.
The possibilities that Spotlight opens up are pretty inspiring. It's not just a desktop search tool. Yes, it makes that possible, but bleah. That's 20th-century thinking. That's you working in the way the computer wants. What's more important about Spotlight is the fact that it's an enabling technology that lets the computer work in the way you want.
There's some pretty exciting stuff coming in the next few years.