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Apple to Unveil New Leopard OS in August
Max Fomitchev writes "Looks like Apple is going to reveal its new cool and fast Mac OS code-named 'Leopard' in the upcoming World Developer's Conference in August. Good news for Apple! And terrible news for Microsoft. If 'Leopard' is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient, in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
Way back in the day, Apple code named their boxes by color. From the aforementioned article: So we can speculate that Leopard might not only be fast but also encourage a partitioned Windows installation using boot camp so that it can reference everything within Windows and run Windows apps flawlessly without having to reboot or (more importantly) reverse engineer Windows.
Again, this is just speculation, I've been expecting them to put 'red box' functionality in a release of OS X soon.
My work here is dung.
Seems like a great time to buy Apple shares right now as they are in a dip at around $57. Peaking at around $85 earlier this month with news of this and the new powermacs expected it will definitely be an easy jump if you are looking for a short term investment.
Business Voyeur
I mean c'mon. A day's worth of submissions, and you can't do any better than information that's been on the street for over a week, rewritten by a fifth-grader?
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
Maybe the reason fewer people are taking Slashdot seriously is because Slashdot doesn't seem to take itself seriously.
Hire a f-ing editor to check out and rewrite the most egregious but still post-worthy submissions. No, a real editor, not one of your friends.
Even if it weren't for the fact that this was announced, what, a week ago, it doesn't take a genius to realise that Apple will talk about their next OS at the forthcoming WWDC. It's what they've always done. Duh, that's what it's FOR. And those who care will know about it, and those who don't will ignore it. Just like THEY'VE always done. Fuck me, Slashdot gets lamer every day with shit "stories" like this. And I speak as a nominal Mac fan.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jun/26wwdc.ht ml
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Neither the submission nor the article actually says anything about the OS, yet we're told the Leopard is "cool and fast" without any evidence whatsoever. Yet somehow this magic OS, which we know nothing about, is going to cause "remarkable market share gain next year." Nope, never heard that before.
It seems as if journalists (or Apple proponents in general) have caught whatever afflicted the Linux fan-boys. Every release or change in Apple software/hardware is seen as something that could trigger a whole bunch of Windows users to switch.
Seems a bit out of character..
If they lost that image, I'd certainly consider a mac of some sort
So, basically you choose your computer on the basis of its marketing image, rather than any serious look at what it can actually do, or how it works. You realise how lame that is? Still, it is certainly this sort of attitude that has handed Microsoft its 90%+ market share, so you're not alone.
And in my humble (and the rest of the world's) experience, Microsoft has not made anything that works faster than the previous edition. I dare you to name a product that Microsoft has revised, and turns out faster - I am not talking about more secure (which I accept that Windows 2000 is), but one that runs faster.
Why? Because Microsoft has chosen the option to add in more options, rather than streamline. Can't really fault them for this strategy, since it seems to work for them and most people, but it annoys the hell out of me.
I'm waiting for the release called "Pete Puma"!
Yeeeeeeeeeeee.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
...they release OS X Liger.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I too hate to point out the obvious but...
Thousands of casual computer users are switching. I switched. I know at least 10 people in my age group (20-30) who have swtiched. 10 more who are thinking about it. People looking to buy a new comptuer when they go off to college are looking at Macs more seriously than ever. They do the same things that any casual user is looking for in a Windows computer (email, web, chat, word processing), they look better doing it, and they work flawlessly (and better) with that iPod they got for Christmas.
You're right when it comes to Gamers not switching to Macs, but how many gamers don't have a PS2 or Xbox? You're right when it comes to businesses not switching to Macs, but the home computer market is certainly not worth overlooking.
Mac's marketshare may not be stellar yet, but compare it to their marketshare 5 years ago.
"...we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year." Remarkable market share? Ok, I'm a Mac guy - have been for ... too long, but are you kidding? 3-5% is remarkable?
Well, maybe in so much as how small it is given how good it is, but I don't think that's what you meant when you used "remarkable market share..."
Yes, it requires a (somewhat) beefy 3d graphics card to make full use of Aero Glass. But that's just the UI. Rarely is the UI a system's bottleneck. I imagine that with the revamped TCP/IP stack and memory manager, Vista should yield performance improvements over XP/2003 for a wide range of apps.
Sure it might have some bearing on upgrade OS sales, but does it really sell computers? I mean if you go into a store and try out a new computer, it's always going to be feel much faster than even a 2 year old computer. No matter how bloated an OS is, a new computer with a fresh OS installed on it will always seem fast. I don't see how it's a differentiating factor.
In calendar year 2005 (Q2-4 FY2005, Q1 FY2006), Apple unit sales were 4.7 million.
In calendar year 2005, total PC unit sales were 208.6 million.
Apple's selling plenty to survive as a profitable niche product, sure. But they are competition for Microsoft in the same sense mainframes are.
Well one could go with history and note the fact that EVERY new version of Windows has been a lot slower than the predecessor. Meanwhile every version of OS X has been faster than the predecessor.
If you look at the unit sales of Macs from Apple quarterly reports, you'll see that they is usually significantly larger growth YoY that in the overall PC market. That means growing market share.
Of confirm it by looking at sites browser stats. This one shows Mac userbase doubling in 3 years.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.
I can see why you selected your username. But you'd do better if you didn't overreach yourself with your FUD.
Did the submitter even READ what he wrote?
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
WTF is that? First off, it's wrong. It's very very wrong. Tiger is better than XP now, but did we see 'Apple's remarkable market share gain this year'? No. There is nothing certain about Apple and 'market share gain' no matter how superior their products. Forget 'remarkable'. Second off, it's written so badly I had to go over it three times to make sure it really said what it said.
Really? Not according to this article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/busine
Apple may have lost market share in the late 90's / early 2000's but they are recovering. I believe this a lot of this is due to OS X.
I generally don't trust statistics but I have more faith in these numbers than someone who calls himself MSFanBoi2.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
Once again, the Slashdot editors did a great job, not. This news was released by Apple last month, and the writing quality of this news segment is terrible. Leopard's expected features are built-in virtualization, related with Boot Camp, a new file system (possibly, unsure on this one myself), new finder (hopefully finally not carbon anymore), improved spotlight, dashboard widget editor, improved mail.app, ichat 4.0 with tabbed chatting, safari 3.0, and of course a ton of security fixes, bug fixes, etc. I dont know what exactly will be "new" of course. Will it be cool and fast? We'll have to wait and see...It will obviously crawl around on older Macs (G3s) if they are even supported, but speed along on the new Intel Macs. Market share... With Apple's new Intel Macs, market share is already increasing, but not by much - probably in the range of 0.50 - 1.50% this year. However, through 2007 I expect Apple to gain a few more percent market share, and they might compete more aggressively against Dell and others. Apple will never gain more market share with their software, only with their hardware (unless of course, they license OS X to the PC cloners). Just my take on all this, and my attempt to sort of complete this news post as it should have been done.
Microsoft released their Leper OS years ago
The article had NO MEANING. It was one of those things you say to your buddies while hanging around. "You know, if Leopard is as fast as Apple says so, MS could be in deep [insert colorful adjective here]." Then you're promptly shot down by your friends, reminding you that the masses have a "Crapple" frame of mind because their last experience with Mac OS was with the pizza-box LC IIs running System 7 from back when they were in high school, and they don't care any more.
Not only does this bode poorly for Slashdot's credibility as having important and accurate information, but what does this say about journalism in general, when this passes for a good article. Oh, wait, it's not even an article! It's a blog posting! Do we even know who this Max Fomitchev is? I've never heard of him. This place is slowly becoming a rumor mill full of dupes.
Come back when you've got an article from a credible source, no less than 500 words, with some real analysis, facts to back it up, and maybe a cool graphic or charts or something. Until then, stop wasting my time.
Rawr
Windows is used primarly by people who have to let others (salesmen) make their choices for them. This may be due to a lack of familiarity with computer systems, or more commonly total fear. And you're right, I cannot see this type of person disappearing, or Microsoft stopping their main business practice of preying on these vunerable individuals.
What you fail to recognise however, is that Microsoft never have, and never will, deal with advancement of technology (why bother when you've got Sun, IBM, Apple etc. doing it for you, ten years in advance?).
No... Windows will continue to represent the 'world of computing' to people who don't know what a computer is (and presumably think that Macdonald's make the best food in the world!!).
As for Apple having a 'niche' market share, this is really funny. You could equally argue that more than 90% of people who need a stable and robust system that can process huge files, and have more important things to do then 'patch' their operating system every other week, have already ruled windows out. Remember those of us with an interest in the computer industry spent ten years listening to MS fanboys like yourself claiming that Mac's were 'rubbish' with their windows and newfangled mice and would NEVER replace dos.
Oh, and love the gaming bit. Yeah, mac users will never be able to compete with people who spend $1000 to play 'niche' games on a computer. Yeah idiots like Mac users will probably just have to spend $50 dollars on a gamecube and play stuff created by the world greatest games developers... oh dear. Not to worry Vista should be out soon, so you will be able to spend another $100 on making your email program run more slowly. How the world of technology envies you!!!!
You'd do well to follow your own advice. I've already posted this, but what the heck:
Q1 2001 (roughly 5.4% worldwide) and Q1 2006 (roughly 2.0% worldwide)
You are very much mistaken. XP runs about 5-8% faster on the same processor and RAM as Windows 2000 did. Windows Server 2003 is leaps and bounds ahead of Windows 2000 Server in every category, in some, such as IIS, and file serving, its nearly 4x (not percent) thats FOUR TIMES faster.
Um, you really don't understand market share do you? Please get back to us after reviewing exactly how marketshare works. Please peruse http://www.pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html. Apple's current marketshare of the PC world is now just under 2.0%
Are you seriously trying to say browser stats prove any type of marketshare?
I wasn't aware that "cool and fast" was an OS feature.
With Windows, I know that the step from 2000 to XP is significant because the names are way different. Similar with XP and Vista. But seriously, how can I expect something significant going from Tiger to Leopard?
BTW, I guess I can blame my ignorance, because as a long-time Linux user, I only view Windows and MacOS/X from afar.
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
...that Apple moved to Intel to take advantage of Intel's new virtualization support in hardware. In nearly every case when using a hypervisor on top of such hardware (where there is a ring -1 for the hypervisor) the performance has beat native performance. Or put another way; using a hypervisor for virtualization provides you with virtualization with NO performance hit at all. If anything you get a performance boost. Apple, typically being quite a few steps ahead of the reast of the industry, is very likely going to use this so that you can run Mac OS X Leopard, Windows Vista, and any Linux distro simultaneously with the full performance of running natively. This is the first time in history when you really CAN get something for nothing!!! Not to mention they will likely make it so that you can set up ways to exchange data in a live fashion between VMs. No more incompatibility between OSes ever again. Leave it to Apple to come up with something like this.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I felt the same way until my Windows PC broke and I was forced to borrow and live with a PowerBook for a couple weeks. At first, I hated it, until I got over my Windows habits and started to get used to the new UI. I absolutely hated Apple products, but now I'm more efficient and can't live without 'em. In any case, my advice to anyone thinking about switching is to spend more than just an hour with the thing. Force yourself to use it for a few days and actually be honest enough to give a go at learning how it's supposed to work. It may not fit your needs better, but then again, it might. You'll never know if you only try it long enough to get frustrated or you go into the experience planning on hating it.
Here's the list of OS X code names:
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Apple has a contract with Microsoft, signed way back in 1997, that gave them rights to use the Windows API through 2002 (see here about two-thirds of the way down). Windows XP came out just before that contract ended, so theoretically Apple has access to the XP API.
Despite that, you're probably right that it would be easier and safer to require a real Windows install underneath. Apple has always been about things Just Working, and using the real Windows code is the surest path to that.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
""Why aren't you using the normal win32? I want to use your app on my Mac!""
Yes, when MS got complaints from both users, they would rush to reconsider.
No seriously, are you trolling, or do you not understand the numbers here?
I suspect that has something to do with the fact that, with Apple, you constantly have to upgrade your hardware as well as your software. It's not like you can go back and install OS X on your 1998 PowerPC 740 and expect it to run faster than the OS it originally came with.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What I'd like to see would be some sort of 'red box' for Linux. I've yet to find a program that I want to use that WINE runs well, much less flawlessly. I'd have no problem paying for a Windows installation, I just want to avoid all the problems that go along with it. A Virtual Machine isn't the environment I'd like to be working with, but something like the red box would be pretty cool with Linux. Linux development would keep up because most Linux users wouldn't want to touch Windows if it can be avoided.
Faster on the same computer, you tit.
The first OS X (Cheetah) was released in 2001
The current OS X (Tiger) is compatible back to the slot loading iMac of 1999.
ANY computer that was bought for any version of OS X can still run the current version of OS X.
"Meanwhile every version of OS X has been faster than the predecessor."
OK, I AM an apple fanboi, and that's just not really my experience. Yes, 10.1 was faster than 10.0, and 10.2 was faster than 10.1 (and 10.3 was, maybe, snappier than 10.2). But aren't these really optimizations that weren't yet completed in a massive rewrite?
In my experience, 10.4 is NOT faster than 10.3 on the same hardware (Mac Mini G4 and iBook G4 - really the same computers). At my employment (school), we use approx. 4 yr-old iMacs. These babies were truly suffering under the load of 10.3 last year. I shudder to think of their responsiveness under Tiger this fall.
Actually, I'd say that implementing Win32 on Mac OS X would be a way that Apple could screw Microsoft, but good. A second implementation would freeze it: "Why aren't you using the normal win32? I want to use your app on my Mac!"
This was already tried with IBM OS/2 and it failed, and IBM was even requiring that users have a real copy of Windows. The future is vitualization and being able to run any version or patch of Windows. BootCamp is cool but it is temporary.
> Apple has always been about things Just Working, and using the real Windows code is the surest path to that. ?!
I know we are trying to assume the new MacOS will be much lighter/faster, but as someone who has Vista running on one machine and MacOS (The new intel core duo mac mini) on another, my impression has been that MacOS is the slow resource hungry operating system, and by comparison Vista is quite snappy.
;))
The Windows machine is more than twice the clock speed of the economy mac mini, but even with this in mind I can't help but get the impression the MacOS is abnormally sluggish.
I am not traditionally a mac user (or a windows user for that matter) and people who are more familiar with Apples history tell me that the lack of a 'snappy' feeling in the GUI is just something you get used to, and not representative of the efficiency of the O/S... but i'm not sure that I buy into that.
Anyway, Let me go ahead and make my points very clear:
1) Vista is really not sluggish in the sense we are talking about here. Especially if you get the new RTM (post beta2) builds from MSDN. In fact it is much snappier than any Mac/Gnome/KDE desktop I have worked in on similar hardware. (Perhaps this is becuase the windows GUI is so ugly
2) Current MacOS IS sluggish, maybe its becuase of all that silly anti-aliasing and frequent x86 emulation, I really don't know, but if they make a new O/S which solves this problem there would be ALOT of people more willing to use it, especially if they can get some damn native applications available for x86.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
A lot of posters on Slashdot are entirely missing the point. The Macintosh is not *meant* to appeal to people like us, the nerds, the geeks, the IT guys who love to hack about. The point of a Mac is that it's stylish, runs well, works, and is headache-free (or at least is *supposed to be*). The Mac is meant to appeal to the everyman, including power users who may want some customizability, it is NOT meant to appeal to the hardcore techies.
:: I get better entertainment value from a PC because it supports better quality sound output (true surround support), HD support, true PVR/Media Center capabilities, and of course, Games which is a Billion Dollar industry Apple has soundly ignored. ::
1 - Macs do have surround sound support, and when's the last time a shite Dell box had optical audio out?
2 - PVR/Media Center is a dream of the geek. The rest of the world uses TiVo, this is *not* a feature that Apple is concerned with simply because it's a hardcore feature that 99.99% of the Mac-using population will NEVER touch. You're complaining about a Toyota not having a big-block V8.
3 - Games are a legitimate issue, but the primary Mac audience is not very game-heavy. As their market share increases, particularly with college-age students, this will correct itself. Macs are *capable* of running games (very much so in fact), it is simply that the market share and demographics are not encouraging for porting things over, but that is changing.
Being in college right now, I can see the takeover of the Mac proceeding quite rapidly. 4 people close to me have just switched in the last month with the release of the MacBook (the only truly affordable Mac laptop), and many more have entirely forgotten about Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and the like, and are hell-bent on a Mac when their existing PCs expire. Apple may not be gaining large marketshare in the office, or with older folk who are already tied to their PCs, but if you check out the college market, you will find that Apple has been eating it up over the last year or two.
Heck, I'm an engineer (of the mechanical sort), we LOVE our PCs. The fact that any of us are switching is a testament to Apple's marketing of OSX/Macs to the college crowd. As these college kids graduate and move into the workforce, they will bring the Mac marketshare with them.
I know I'm getting a Mac for the parents soon, simply because it's easy to set up, more foolproof than any other OS out there, reasonably secure, more or less immune from viruses and spyware, and my mother enjoys the bouncing bar at the bottom of the screen more than obscure "Start" menus that don't appeal to a non-technical mind.
You are very much mistaken. XP runs about 5-8% faster on the same processor and RAM as Windows 2000 did. Windows Server 2003 is leaps and bounds ahead of Windows 2000 Server in every category, in some, such as IIS, and file serving, its nearly 4x (not percent) thats FOUR TIMES faster
Since your post is in line with what I was going to say, I decided to just add a couple of things and then add my other two cents directed at the others reading these posts.
To add to the facts you present, if a computer system has 64mb of RAM or greater (not unreasonable for the last 10 years) then WindowsXP is faster than Win95, Win98, and WinME.
This is significant as the Win9x models used assembly optimiation and also due to the nature of the OS architecture, there is a lot 'less' going on in the Win9X OSes. (i.e. Security, Object passing, way processess are handled, etc.)
Vista ALSO has a chance to best WindowsXP on performance on equivalent hardware, again RAM being a key. I would estimate that if you system has 256mb of RAM Vista will again out perform even WindowsXP. (In our internal testing, non-official, post Beta 2, many applications, and this includes games, applications on Vista run 10-25% faster than they do on WindowsXP.)
The Vista performance can be attributed to several sound differences, the new memory allocation system, how paging works, the new caching systems, the new network stacks, and even the GPU drawing offsets.
Just a quick example of Vista's jump in performance can be seen on identical systems running WinXp and Vista and doing even basic tasks as Web Browsing (even non-IE), Vista will display the page in 1/10th the time WindowsXP will. Also with the Vista Video model, scrolling and display of the page is smoother, especially when animations/flash in involved.
Vista could hit the market and not be faster than WinXP in 'every' regard, but I would not be surprised that the numbers we are seeing are accurate to the final version, with the possibility of the final version of Vista even surpassing WinXP in many areas.
Here are my thoughts on this topic that are not an addition to the post I am responding to...
As for the whole debate about OSX 'getting' faster, people really aren't using OSX on the same hardware that it was released on. 10.4 is a dog on a system that 10.2 runs rather well on. RAM upgrades often make a difference, but with the increasing complexity of OSes, this is becoming true of almost ALL OSes.
Also when you look at OSX, it is still a very immature OS when you get beyond the MACH/BSD core. This would leave room for a lot of improvement, but sadly unlike Microsoft where update and Service Packs for XP have been free for the past 6 years, Apple makes users drop out $99 bucks for even 'optimiation' and set of bug fixes.
I know people say that 'new' features are added in each 10.x release, but if you look at these 'features' you should notice that the SAME LEVEL of features, especially the applications bundled are nothing different than 'free' add-on Microsoft has been providing with WindowsXP. (WindowsXP has actually had new applicaiton level features available for free from Micorosft since its release than even OSX, yet MS hasn't charged a single user for these new 'features'.
I don't hate Apple, and I use OSX, but the mindset of many Mac users borderlines on a neurosis of protecting their 'beliefs' rather than 'exposing' themselves to the truth.
One area this manifest is that people make fun of XP for not releasing a new version since 2001, yet this is far from the truth. With SP1, SP2 and the free application downloads like photostory or the new movie maker, etc Microsoft has continued to provide VERY COMPERABLE upgrades and new features for XP over the years waiting for Vista.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple here, the XP updates, features, and security fixes are and always have been free. Microsoft doesn't slap a new name on XP and try to scam $99 out of their users every year. This is
When that happens, try this:
Click on the desktop (to give focus to the Finder)
Under the Apple Menu, select Force Quit and select the non-responsive app to terminate it.
Microsoft never implemented any of Apple's APIs. What they did do was infringe on some software patents held by Apple, but you don't need to implement an API to do that.
Microsoft is not pushing Vista, at least no more than any previous operating system, possibly less. The betas for Vista have been good, but Microsoft has officially delayed the operating system, clearly not seeing this as something that must go out now whatever the cost.
There is a hurdle to be crossed if Apple implements Win32, and that's that it's a huge PITA to implement. The Wine people have been trying to get this running for decades. They'll get close, and then Windows will move forward again. Some features, (DirectX, hard to implement as you point out, is one of them), have never been properly implemented. Even once implemented, a Windows application will need to be installed (not the case for a Mac app), it will require some massaging of the APIs to get something that even vaguely fits into the same desktop as traditional Macintosh applications, it will, in short, be half-arsed. Imagine what the WINE people have had to go through. Now apply Steve Job's perfectionism, and Apple's lack of time and resources, and ask how Apple can possibly come up with code by themselves that will work.
They'd be better off just licensing Win32. The real thing. Or applying the OS/2 approach, and allowing users to install Windows using a custom installer and a replacement module or two. Or ignoring the issue altogether, because whatever they do is going to have incompatibilities, and Apple will get it in the neck for releasing a shoddy product every time a program fails to install and/or run properly. If Apple will not release Mac OS X for generic hardware because of some supposed risk of being blamed for bad third party drivers, how likely is it they'll try EMULATING WINDOWS?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Without access to internal APIs, doing it entirely through blackboxes.
XP is done. There may be tweaks, but the API is frozen.
I mentioned DX because of firmware differences between Mac/PC video cards from the same vendor.
You're assuming it has to live in the same partition/filesystem as OS X. Bootcamp shows it doesn't. Moreover, Classic and X11 have given their dev team upwards of five years' experience dealing with sandboxes.
With considerably fewer years to do it. If we assume Red Box dates back to 1997, that means XP in 2001 was an incremental change for them, not a sea change. Codeweavers, in contrast, did everything through reverse engineering.
Have you SEEN the Finder?
Cite references to either imaginary factor?
Assuming Red Box exists in a workable form, it's been in the works since 1997. Rhapsody was all about getting Classic/Win apps to run natively inside it on the processor-relevant platform, as well as creating a framework to run natively inside Windows itself. Do some homework.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on