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Apple to Release first Tiger Update

Ninj4Bytes writes "AppleInsider is reporting on the first update to Mac OS X Tiger. The update is reported to address 'over three dozen componets, with an emphasis on improving general stability and reliability'. The patch is listed for a mid to late May release."

19 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Good by Winterblink · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tiger overall is a great upgrade from Panther. It's got some really neat new features and there's bound to be several of them that anyone will use. That being said, important new core features like Spotlight are not working as advertised for many users. Other things, like Quartz 2D Extreme which is desigend to offload almost all the UI work to the GPU, was buggy enough to be disabled in the Tiger release. There's a lot of work there that's relatively unfinished, and I think it's great that Apple's making motions to get things in order mere weeks after its release.

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
    1. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      FYI, Core Image is not Quartz Extreme. Core Image is a toolkit that developers can use to create various visual effects like motion blur and such. Quartz Extreme is a new way for the OS to handle the GUI.

      Core Image will not be used at all until there are new applications that actually make use of it.

    2. Re:Good by Shanep · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have the 1.42GHz mini with the 80Gb drive and 1GB RAM.

      I type in "theo de raadt", just for some obscure example which I figured would get some results, since I'm subscribed to misc@openbsd...

      Somewhere between a quarter of a second and perhaps a half a second of finishing typing his name, the results are up (386 total).

      If I type in "network", same deal. A split second I've got results (1134) and then another split second later they're broken up into 9 categories.

      I am impressed. I've used programs like iSys before, however this is integrated from the desktop all the way to the command line.

      At first I was put off by seeing results come up as a type and this caused me to type slower and make mistakes because I was distracted by that and would look at them before they were as meaningful as they could be. I've since learned to just force myself to concentrate on completing the phrase and then looking.

      --
      War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
    3. Re:Good by Kplusplus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most likely you never let Spotlight finish indexing your entire HD at first install of Tiger. It's a very low priority background task, so the fact it hasn't hit all your files yet isn't surprising. As to those elements not being searchable, they most certainly are, I added spotlight support to the Colloquy IRC client and know this to be a fact.

      Here is a screencap from when I was testing:
      http://matrixpointer.com/screens/xenon_spotlight.p ng

      --
      -"I'm one of those Mac people that will break a bottle on the bar and hold it to your throat for bad-mouthing my system"
    4. Re:Good by kronin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also, there's a distinct difference between Quartz Extreme (which is enabled, assuming your graphics card supports it) and Quartz 2D Extreme (which is currently disabled).

    5. Re:Good by dr.badass · · Score: 4, Informative

      Clearly shown in the sample (and indeed demoed by Steve Jobs himself at various keynotes) are the keywords assigned to the photos in the iPhoto software. This has never been searchable on my system, even after a rebuild and repair of permissions by the install disc.

      I haven't experienced this problem myself, but here are some things you might try, in Terminal:

      mdimport -L will list all of your Spotlight importers -- there should be one for iPhoto, but if there's not, then that's your problem. I don't know why you wouldn't have it, though.

      mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/iPhoto.mdimporter will force Spotlight to reindex everything that that importer can index.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    6. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Spotlight is decidedly not the instant search it claims to be.

      The 4200RPM drive is definitely a limiting factor, as is the bus speed. It's closer to instant on a G5 of any kind, with the much higher bus speed. I reccommend using Smart Folders when possible, as updating searches is much faster than performing a fresh query every time.

      Also, as applications begin using Spotlight internally, you'll find it much more useful. App designers can limit the search to certain data, rather than the truly massive amount searched by the menu bar Spotlight, resulting in massive speed boost.

    7. Re:Good by doggkruse · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is an easy way to enable it. Open /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist and change Quartz2DExtremeEnabled to yes.

  2. Re:This is pretty common... by MrPerfekt · · Score: 2, Informative

    They did this with 10.3 too, it was 2-3 weeks if I recall..

    --
    I just wasted your mod points! HA!
  3. Re:Let's hope they fix Dashboard by ksdd · · Score: 2, Informative

    This hint at MacOSXHints may help.

  4. Re:Let's hope they fix Dashboard by crawdad62 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just go to ~(username)->Library->Widgets and drag them out.

  5. Inaccuracy alert! by avalys · · Score: 4, Informative

    You should check your facts before you accuse other people of spreading FUD. If you read the very article you link (at ArsTechnica), you will see confirmation that Quartz 2D Extreme is disabled in Tiger.

    From the second to last pair of paragraphs in your link...

    "There's one final barrier to hardware-accelerated bliss. Quartz 2D Extreme is disabled by default in Mac OS X 10.4.0. That's right, the whiz-bang new technology you just read all about is not actually used in Tiger unless it's explicitly enabled using the Quartz Debug application. Even then, it only applies to applications that are launched after it was turned on. It also appears that Q2DE is re-disabled when you quit the Quartz Debug application.

    Why develop something as impressive as Quartz 2D Extreme and then leave it turned off by default? My inquiries to Apple have gone unanswered, so I can only speculate about the reasoning behind this decision. My best guess is that all of the bugs could not be excised from Q2DE in time for Tiger's launch date, and that it will be enabled by default in a subsequent update--perhaps as early as version 10.4.1."

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    This space intentionally left blank.
  6. Re:This isn't the type of post that belongs on /. by Winterblink · · Score: 4, Informative

    100% of the stories posted on Slashdot don't belong on Slashdot, depending on your perspective. For instance, I don't give a flying fuck about most of the *nix stories posted here, so I:

    a) don't read them
    b) sure as hell don't post in them about how they don't belong on Slashdot

    Now I do this because even though from my perspective I come here for other types of geek news and errata, other people do come here for those types of information. In case you didn't realize, there's a handy feature found in your user profile on Slashdot that allows you to remove items from being shown on your homepage (example: Apple-related news). Give it a try.

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
  7. Re:This is pretty common... by Chief+Typist · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a simple reason for this -- after the release is declared final, and the GM disk image is created, there is still testing going on.

    During the time that the GM disk is being pressed and shipped, the people in the QA department are finding bugs and engineers are fixing them.

    Apple then distributes the fixes with Software Update after ADC members have time to test the seed (giving them a week or two to do it.)

    -ch

  8. Re:Works for me. by Winterblink · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've tried commenting mine through iPhoto, adding keywords in iPhoto, and using the new "spotlight comments" feature in Finder. For me, the spotlight comments ended up being the only way I could get spotlight to find it, but that particular item is pure metadata on the file itself, not through the iPhoto application where I've been annotating my photos so far. Hopefully the patch fixes, this. :)

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
  9. Re:Mea Culpa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I am totally perplexed by this and wonder why, when Jobs demoed Q2DE in action during a dashboard demo where Q3DE "splashed" the widgets on the desktop, Apple made the decision to disable the technology.

    "Quartz 2D Extreme" is a term used only in a debugging utility -- it isn't something they've demoed to the public. It's not even that interesting -- it just makes some 2D operations faster. Quartz Extreme (the feature introduced in Jaguar) introduced hardware-accelerated compositing, which enabled new functionality, like Expose. "Q2DE" doesn't enable anything new.

    Core Image, a distinctly different technology, is the thing that enabled the "splash" effect. It *is* enabled on appropriate hardware. On a non-Core Image card, it is disabled. Perhaps you should read the rest of the Ars article?

    However, Core Image works partially on "non-Core Image" hardware, just not in real-time, and not for all possible effects. It's still incredibly fast for the amount of work it does.

    What the heck is going on in California?

    Typos are being made, that's all. The Radeon 9600 has the requisite shader support. You'll note they say "Core Image-capable cards include". It isn't a complete and eternal list. It's just easier to say "These cards" instead of "cards that support ARB_FRAGMENT (or whatever it is)". The 9600 supports Core Image.

  10. Re:No AntiVirus for Tiger by solios · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Mac hasn't HAD a non-Word Macrovirus virus since the Autostart Worm, which turned itself off on 25 December 1998 (iirc).

    Unless you count SevenDust, but that's a Classic MacOS virus. :P

    MacOS X needs AV like a horse needs a fifth leg.

  11. License Update? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    I consider the brand new Consent to Use of Data in the 10.4.0 License to be broken. Did anyone besides me even notice that Apple had slipped it in there? It's not in the 10.3 License. The new snoop clause they added is wide enough to drive a Mack truck full our personal data through. I wonder if they'll be patching the terms. Maybe they'll make it a little more user protective.

    See the new 4. Consent to Use of Data clause here. While the link is to a sample license, clause 4 is the same as the license included with the Tiger media.

    It would seem that Apple can now collect data on 3rd party Applications and Peripherals you install. And then can share it with unnamed subsidiaries. And just what is "related information" to say Quicken for Mac? For the sake of argument assume Apple is benign and is just going to collect what it needs to implement the Software Updates, and never stores the data or uses it for any other purpose. Why not word the license like that?

    Are there any lawyers out there using Macs? How does this impact you client confidentiality? Or doctors, could this cause a HIPPA violation?

    Software Updates don't need this liberal a Consent. Remote support might, but it should have it's own per incident consent form, and not be applied to all users.

    Come on Apple, you're not supposed to be like this.

  12. Re:I hope this isn't the start of a bad trend by paulymer5 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The product was not necessarily rushed. It means that Apple did not stop testing the system since it went gold. A company that declares its software done and then never tests or upgrades it again is far worse than a company that says "let us fix a few things that somehow slipped by."