Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X Tiger Accidentally Shipped Early
boarder8925 writes "Engadget reports: 'In many places around the world, Mac fans and Apple distributors received a shipment they weren't quite expecting: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger arrived at the door a full eight days ahead of schedule for some lucky folks who pre-ordered. Vendors PCMall/MacMall and ClubMac gave pre-order customers a treat by unleashing the OS ahead of schedule, quickly followed up by a 'recall' of the copies from PCMall.'"
Feature 201: It's early !
This is not a signature.
I just want to know who were the people that returned the copies, so I can laugh at them. somethign like that.
If you are located within 50 miles of Cupertino and listen very carefully (I actually had to turn off my computer to cut the fan noise), you can actually hear Steve Jobs yelling!
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
But Microsoft will ship Longhorn...oh...just a wee bit late, so on average...the world is OK
Torrent please
At least one other "reseller" has received legal threats, but apparently they think they are immune.
It turns out that ut's not an 8 day early copy of OS X, it's a 1 year 8 day early copy of Longhorn.
Beep beep.
What a shame, with all that money and R&D and little old Apple beat MS to the punchline. Now Windows is the last desktop OS that is 64 bit...
Our 64 bit Windows OS Just Works, barely
Makes me want to cry...
Your Average Joe
...that Longhorn will be out earlier than expected? Cool!
I used to work at a video game retailing store, and we used to get shipments of products in well before their offical release date. They would be in plain brown unmarked boxes that would have red tape on them with the offical release date on it. Anyone who even openned the boxes early could be fired. We had Halo 2 the day before the release, and believe me, it would have been nice to start calling up the preorder people and telling them to come get it.
Anyways, my point is, doesn't Apple (or other software companies,) have a similar policy regarding the release of their product and preorders? If not, perhaps they should.
Eh, they release Tiger to a few Mac zealots who early-ordered it, they tell their friends, it gets into the news, creating a marketing buzz... nothing to see here.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Three days old is now "old news"? I'm not sure you understand how Slashdot works. The editors don't break stories, they repost stories and the users comment on it.
Oh, and Steve wears New Balance shoes.
Maybe Microsoft could have something that closely resembles this feature in Longhorn =)
So.. this must be how my girlfriend feels when I.. uh.. arrive ahead of schedule. :|
slashdot!=valid HTML
Anyway, I installed it already, and oh man, it is everything I thought it was going to be. Actually, those ten improvements (Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, etc.) that everyone's talking about are all pretty cool, but the OS really is significantly faster and smoother than 10.3.x. And a lot cool stuff is changed under the surface. Check the man page for cp, etc., and you'll see what I mean.
I have to say, I really am impressed with this release. Every previous upgrade has been a big surprise and a big improvement, and I was skeptical that Tiger would be anything to jump up and down over, but I really have to say that I've been pleasantly surprised with this one.
And no, I'm not sending it back!
Maybe they shipped it out early, so that the store shelves would all be stocked by the time the release date came. I don't think they were supposed to open the box, and start selling the copies as soon as they recieved it.
"The editors don't break stories, they repost stories and the users comment on it. "
Oh they break them. Sometimes into little pieces.
No /. reader would turn their computer off longer than it takes to reboot.
...where I work. We get prerelease CDs from Apple regularly and we send back bug reports regarding their JVM. We always make sure to destroy the CDs by the proper dates. I suppose we should be more careful with them to avoid turning into a Slashdot story like this one.
Most of the stupid JVM bugs specific to OSX that we run into aren't reproducible on the machine running Tiger. Java seems to be really improved in this release.
When they annouced the release for the end of the month I called my retailer to secure a copy. He told me he would have it the following week, and that I could come and see a demonstration, but that he wouldn't sell any copy before the 29, having signed an embargo contract with Apple. I will have mine in 5 days.
LINK to welcome video. LINK to RSS screensaver in OSX
Does anyone know if computers order from apple before next firday come with 10.4 installed?
or does one have to wait to the release date for new macs do have 10.4?
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
Duke Nukem Forever will average everything out when it finally goes gold.
8a428.
- oZ
// i am here.
What's the point of release dates anyhow?
With digital distribution now finally catching on, it would be in the best interest of most companies to release when it's done.. I'd much prefer to download a (legal) burnable disc image than have to wait for a box to show up.
IMHO much piracy is due to impatient souls who simply can't wait for the release. Music is a great exmaple of this. I say when it goes gold, release it. Many of these downloaders would probably pay for it.
www.lonseidman.com
True we don't do breaking news. I recall a story in the past year about a "computer/cat maintenence guide" that linked to a page that hadn't been modified since 02. Some commented how old it was, but was new to me, and a lot of the other readers.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
while they sue themselves for leaking Tiger? Sunny must be pissed as hell right now.
You know, it's just amazing to see you and everybody else fall for the old accidental "leak" trick.
This "leak", just like that one is a classic PR trick to get press time. It works, as you can see. Did you even wonder why the "leaks" came all boxed-up (just like the final version) to select individual and companies able to make noise about it?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If you have more than one hard drive or partitions, it's trivial to run the installer from the opened dmg without ever having to burn or run a DVD.
it cuts down on people who don't feel comfortable poking around in the installer packages, but simply putting it on a DVD isn't going to stop anyone who's determined.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Cornell's law site backs him up; unordered merchandise belongs to the recipient. (Interestingly, I had that link handy because one of the free stuff sites accidentally sent me two iPod shuffles instead of one, and I wanted to know my legal status with regard to the second one.)
Damn straight. They repost stories from CNet, New York Times, Blogs and uhh... sometimes SlashDot itself.
Sorry. Sometimes you have to reach for the low hanging fruit...
Sunny
Be my Friend
Now that Apple has released 10.4 early, let's see how long it takes for the jerks at CherryOS to start mentioning that "CherryOS is fully compatible with 10.4, and runs at 120% it's origonal speed!" :-)
Speaking of Cherry, does anyone know when the 'OSS' version of their software is being released? Probably on the same day as Longhorn's
Due to financial difficulties, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
A feature that Microsoft can't copy!
OSX Tiger Came Prematurely
See, that's what I like about Longhorn...He's Mr. Slow-n-Easy...Just like Barry White.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Well as the "moore library issue" and "your information wants to be free" stories show. There's a large number who don't think like that. Todays motto is "what's in it for me?". That's until the consequences of such come home to roost. Then it's "all your fault for me being a bad person." Multiply this with each succeeding generation, and you see were societies heading.
I'm not going to outline how to do it, but from a purely technical standpoint the gist of it is you can completely ignore the "install mac os x" app that you're supposed to use. that app isn't the installer, it just sets the OS X DVD as your startup disk and restarts.
.dmg to your ipod, for example, and boot from that as if it were the installer DVD with all of its abilities. that's the problem with trying to stop piracy through methods like only selling a DVD version - it pisses off people who don't have DVD players and are legitimately trying to buy it, while people who wanted to pirate it are going to find a way to do it anyway, and probably not with much more annoyance than doing it the way it was intended.
this is the case with Tiger, Panther, and probably jaguar (can't remember that far back, but i'd be surprised if it's different), but the actual installer is buried within the installer packages elsewhere on the DVD/dmg. Just by looking at the names it's generally not hard to find the "umbrella" installer that would be launched had you restarted with the DVD.
as is the case with many installers of complex applications in OS X, the "umbrella" installer (as I call it, don't know the real term) is in fact a collection of installers for different components. For example, the OS X CD has individual installers for iTunes, iCal, etc etc, which can be run independently if you do them manually, or automatically from within the "umbrella".
As another reply mentioned (but i'm too lazy to respond to multiple messages), installing without burning/booting with a DVD does mean you need to already have a sperate partition or hard drive to be installed on. A hurdle, but not a huge one.. owning multiple hard drives isn't uncommon.
actually, when you get right down to it there are a hundred ways to trick "anti-piracy" measures like these. You could transfer/expand the installer
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
The new edition will be much snappier.
Sometimes I am not allowed to browse directories I know are there.
/usr, /sbin, /etc, those are hidden so as not to confuse newbies or become a target for people who stupidly delete things they think are cluttering up their hard drive without considering they might be important.
.hidden file in the root directory of the hard drive.
Such as? If you're talking about stuff like
You can get to those directories by doing "Go to Folder..." from the Finder's "Go" menu, or make them visible by editing the
As for a link, check out macosxhints.com.
~Philly
Yup the only thing I enjoy better than "Macs Suck" is the fact that the OS releases \Updates are usually on time and under budget. It lets the "Think Different" company fly in the face of the SOP that the other companies use i.e. Fast, bug free, and on time (pick 2). I was going through some Old Install disks and found a 7.5.3. from 1995 and on 8.1 from 97 (to put this in prespective that was also RH Linux 3.0 and NT 4) SO While I consider Apple a H/W Company those American Coders in Cupertino have been working hard as FizUCK to make an OS/Upgrade that always works never has hurt my Unit or my Data.
However I am on the fence about this upgrade. My Powerbook 500\DVD just got put on the 'unsupported' list and while it will run just fine, I am mighty happy with Ubuntu. I have been leery about feeling like a 'revenue stream'
And of course this accident of fate will make M$ the Last company to get to the 64 bit desktop.
All bitchiness aside I think I will pony up the bucks on a Mini.
130 for the OS and 150 for the iLife and iWork bundle take me more than half the way to the base model mini.
--Shaddup and support your local PBS station Plan for it
What it boils down to is that it is *not* illegal (in sweden) to tell people *where* you get ahold of illegal material.
It is also *not* illegal to host the location (physically speaking) where illegal activities take place.
In other words, if I run a bar, and Joe The Pimp sells his Bitches in my bar, I'm not the one in trouble.
I'm not sure who their legal counsel is, but since the Pirate Bay people are related to Piratbyrån (group of activists), I'm fairly sure it's not advise from mom/dad.
If there wasn't a serious backing of the statements made by Pirate Bay, I think Piratbyrån would stay very far away from them.
He means, it overheats unless you buy a $300 after-market fan for it.
Oops, no. That was true of the Mac Plus. This is the New Era (tm).
If Apple really wanted to cut piracy on Tiger, they would include a sticker on the disc that says "Don't steal Tiger."
um no.
:p.
/Users/seunghun/Pictures/iPhoto/something but it cannot be resolved because it's been mounted on /Volume/iMac. So the whole path is /Volume/iMac/Users/seunghun/Pictures/iPhoto/someth ing. So the symlink is broken when mounted under other computer. But you should still be able to back it up. CpMac fails in this situation.
CpMac and cp are totally different. try man CpMac... two options. -r and -p... and the behaviors when copying directories are different between cp and CpMac also. (subtlely but importantly.)
CpMac is a very simplistic program existing just because of the HFS+ quirks. It's not very sophisticated while cp (from freeBSD source tree) is full featured and has a pedigree
Like i passingly mentioned in my previous post, CpMac fails when copying broken symlinks.
try this:
ln -s nonexistant_file link
this works:
cp -Rp link copy
this does not
CpMac -r -p link copy
this was an issue when I was trying to back up my MacOSX partition. There is a symlink to
That's part of it, but you really want to know the real reason? Swapping CDs sucks. Seriously. That's the real reason we put Tiger on a DVD.
Here's the one and only thing you need to know to understand Apple: Our goal is to make using your Mac a pleasant experience. Anything that takes away from that is our enemy. That's why we've historically even had an iffy relationship with some of our biggest software vendors. When Word 6 came out, I'm told that the level of anger around campus almost reached the point of violence. (That was before my time here.)
Bottom line: When you're installing your new OS, having to swap CDs sucks. So we're shipping DVDs. Anybody who doesn't have a DVD drive -- which is something like three out of four Mac owners, believe it or not -- can get CDs from their local Apple store or from the Web site.
(And don't think we didn't have long and heated conversations about whether it sucks more to have to swap CDs or to have to mail-order CDs. That one went back and forth a lot.)
extracting Longhorn as we speak
<wrmachine> lame
<psaux> your mom
<wrmachine> see, i don't install beta anything unless i'm beta testing a game
<wrmachine> nor do i install software i don't intend to use
<psaux> I'm installing it in Virtual PC
<psaux> I want to see what's done right and what's done wrong, so that I can give the verbal smackdown to people who are all bitching about things they don't know what they're talking about
<wrmachine> ya i figured it'd be on a virtual pc, but still
<wrmachine> laaaame
<wrmachine> my mom made banana bread
<psaux> does your mom want to help me test my longhorn?
<psaux> it's stable and fast, and it can stay up for months without a problem
<wrmachine> i bet it'll crash as soon as i boot it
Windows expand to fill either the window dimensions or enough space to fit all their contents without scrolling, whichever is smaller (some apps don't widen their windows to fill the whole width of the screen).
/Applications, ~/Applications, or /Network/Applications whose name matched appname (without ".app"; e.g. "open -a Firefox" will open Firefox). Lastly, "open -e file" will open that file in TextEdit. Good for editing files text/config/ascii files by hand, but note that TextEdit will always render HTML and rtf (and maybe now MS Word) files, so if you want to beat on those you'll need something else.
Also, the open(1) command is your friend. "open filename" with open that file using whatever the registered application for it is (just like it was double-clicked in the finder). "open -a appname" will try to find an application in
Someone else who replied told you about how cmd-tab and cmd-backtick work; also, you should learn to love the flexibility of hiding entire apps versus minimizing windows. And if you want to minimize (or expand, or close) all of an apps windows at once, hold option and click the relevant box.
Well, let's go back some years to find swedish inventor Håkan Lans creating PC color graphics, a useable computer pointing device, safe flight control (through something resembling "P2P GPS") - who has tried to hinder his creativity? US government agencies and major US corps.
Let's move on and find Ericsson software engineers creating AXE telephone switches, Bluetooth etc. Keep up, and we find Lavasofts Ad-Aware helping out most n00bs from getting the most out of skunkware. Pointsec, a swedish company producing the industry top class encryption sw (note: biggest customer is teh US military!). Yes, KaZaA and Skype are also created by swedes, ironic - isn't it!
Oh, did you know who actually made most of super-US bimbo Britney Spears smash hits? A swede called Max Martin. Go figure!
The more you know, the less you need. [Admin added: from me.]
Actually the first of the setup screens comes up when the startup video cuts to black, letting the music play you in to the setup process.
I don't really know what orking is, but a cow-orker is not someone I'd associate with.
Packaging.
If they produce one box with DVDs and one box with CDs, that's two different products to produce, pack, ship, track sales and take up shelf space. Combine this with the Family Pack, and you're up to four.
Under this current system, you walk into an Apple store with your DVD, pay the $10 and they hand you the CDs instead. Probably from behind the counter, rather than sitting on the shelf, where it also confuses the customers ("What? I wanted the DVD, not these CDs! Wrong package!"). See Full-Screen vs. Wide-Screen DVDs for examples of this confusion.
Overall, I think it makes sense for Apple.
75% of the mac population don't have dvd's
Care to cite that?
I saw that very same sticker at the Zoo the other day. I don't know why they even bother, people are gonna do it anyway!
% mkdir
% ls -dF
I got a Mac at work a few weeks ago, a Powerbook G4 or something, probably about one year old.
I call troll.
If you have a one year old PB G4,or a PowerBook G4 or at all, it says so on the computer. Under the screen. In center. You would be blind not to see it, deliberate troll or a retard to call it "a Powerbook G4 or something" when it clearly says "PowerBook G4" on the computer.
No, he's basically right. I mean, if you ignore the fact that he seems not to have actually read my comment. There are forty million Macs out there in active use, according to our market-research guys. Something like three out of four of those sold without DVD-reading drives in them.
Now, something like three out of four OF THOSE can't even run Tiger anyway. It's not like somebody's going to go running Tiger on a Power Mac 9600. So it's not like we're saying that three out of four Tiger buyers will have to do the media exchange thing. Corporate tells us that they estimate it'll be closer to one in twenty. Which is fine.
But it all boils down to this: We put Tiger on a DVD instead of four CDs because we wanted to. That's all there is to it.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
No. A customer who wants something stupid should not be catered to. Allowing them to continue to exist is about my limit.
Because for something like 19 out of 20 buyers, those CDs would have been a complete waste.
We just got criticized, unjustly, in the press by an environmental group because we don't pay to recycle our customers' computers. Imagine the field day they would have had if we'd shipped out 50 million unneeded CDs.
Basically, yeah. The reason people buy things rather than making them themselves is so they can trade money for convenience. Here at Apple, we've established a reputation -- mostly, but not entirely, deserved -- for making the right decisions. If you buy an Apple product, be it a thing or a piece of software, you can be pretty darned confident that it will have been done right.
According to last quarter's financials, we're doing pretty well in the marketplace. Our year-over-year sales went up by something like 40%.
You draw your own conclusions.
I've already answered all these questions. I'm going to answer them again just for you because you were oh so friendly.
1. If you want to exchange by mail, you have to pay shipping.
2. I'm really not all that interested in whether you got the memo about in-store exchanges or not.
3. We're not putting CDs in separate packages because the cost associated with manufacturing and stocking a separate SKU is amazing.
4. We're not putting CDs in with the DVDs because something like 19 out of 20 of the people who buy Tiger will not use the CDs, meaning those CDs would be a complete waste.
First they rip-off BSD
I believe you greatly misjudge the situation. Do you think FreeBSD is worse off because of Mac OS X?
In any case, do you know Jordan Hubbard is an engineering manager at Apple?
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Oh yes they are! If you upgrade the processor to a G3 or better, you can use XPostFacto you can run OS X on ancient powermacs. You can even run Jaguar on a fast PPC 604 with this terrific patch!
I plan to buy a copy of Tiger and load it onto my hot-rodded Frankenmac 7600 just as soon as it's practical.
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Oh, did you know who actually made most of super-US bimbo Britney Spears smash hits? A swede called Max Martin. Go figure!
Oh, sure. You swedes are great at all that stuff, but who do you need to actually provided the bimbos? America, that's who!
Hey, wait a sec...