New Version of Mac OS X Leopard Leaked

the linux geek writes "InfoWorld has an article informing us that an early beta of Mac OS X 10.5 has been leaked. This appears to be the same build Steve Jobs previewed at WWDC, and contains most of the new features, including Time Machine and Spaces." From the article: "Attendees at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) received copies of the beta ware and had to sign legally binding agreements not to let Leopard stray onto file-sharing networks. Perhaps someone didn't read the not-so-fine print? MacUser reports that this version of Leopard is indeed legit, unlike a fake one that was reportedly making its rounds last week. The version of Leopard available on BitTorrent is 4.3GB, containing 93 files."

Comments

Oh snap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stevie J. will be unpleased with this development.

Re:Oh snap.

[AKAImBatman]

Stevie J. will be unpleased with this development.

What are you talking about? Jobs probably leaked it himself. Not only does it generate free press for Apple, but it would help ramp up the buzz machine. Jobs can then take that general feedback ("oh, this feature sucks" or "that feature is wonderful!") and redirect it back into the product without having to provide tech support for a beta product!

Just about the right time for it, too. Apple has already revealed the features in this copy, and is obviously at the later stages of development. Which means that they are ready to start polishing, but still have time to yank and replace components if necessary.

Re:Oh snap.

[rizzo320]

These must be Premier ($3000) members only (those that get the free invite to the WWDC with their ADC membership). I have a select ($500) subscription, and the Leopard preview hasn't showed up yet in the downloads section.

Re:Oh snap.

[niktemadur]

Jobs probably leaked it himself.

I wouldn't doubt it, in fact, I would hope so. Stevie J knows that the cutting edge moves in the outskirts, will never plunk down 300 bucks for the latest OSX, but is up for a challenge and will run it for the sheer fun (and status) of being in the first percentile of users. Much better to have this community on your side as the first wave of feedback. After all, this is where Stevie J comes from originally, so if he's behind it, glad to see he hasn't lost touch with his origins and acknowledges this extremely important demographic, albeit in an under-the-counter manner.

OSX Forums are gonna light up like christmas trees for the next several months, and you can bet Apple is gonna be watching.

The money aspect will take care of itself next year, when Leopard will sell like hotcakes among baby boomers, also status-conscious, but in a different way you understand, mostly interested in a spiffier (read: latest) façade with invisible plumbing. In other words, more features, ease of use with better syncing between iTunes, iPhoto, iWeb and iWhatnot, for their video iPod and their iBlog, baby picture slideshows with Fleetwood Mac and Abba as background music. This is the bread and butter of Apple, recognized as such a couple of years ago in MacWorld.

Re:Oh snap.

[dr.badass]

What are you talking about? Jobs probably leaked it himself.

You're absolutely right. Jobs "leaked" more than four thousand copies to WWDC attendees. Of course, that doesn't mean he told them to put it on P2P networks.

Re:Oh snap.

[AKAImBatman]

Did anyone ever tell you that you're overly critical? (*looks at name*) Oh, sorry. :P

Do you have any scrap of proof

Did I say anything to suggest I did?

beyond your own personal hope that it is?

Now I may not be the sharpest stick out there, but methinks you're trying to imply that I'm using this as an excuse to make myself feel better about running a pirated copy.

*checks iBook*

Phew! Looks like I'm still running my 100% legal version of OS X 10.4 that I purchased (as in, paid cash for) from Amazon to upgrade my aging 10.2 install.

Wait. I just noticed something. You don't think I could get in trouble for downloading these OS patches from Apple do you? I mean, I didn't pay money for them. Could they be... *gasp* unlicensed? I swear, I didn't know anything about them! I mean, the Mac did it by itself! It downloaded the software and asked me if I agreed to the license! Oh God! I didn't know, I didn't KNOW!

[...]

Yeah.

One doesn't need to be engaged in illegal activities to speculate on why someone in authority might want those activities to be occurring. Let's not forget that Windows 3.1 became popular because of rampant pirating. Speculating that a company is harnessing such activities for their benefit is not outside the realm of reason.

Re:Oh snap.

[Swift2001]

$300? What do you know? Or are you just talking, um, through your hat?

It's been $129. I think $199 for a 5-license family pack. (I've never bought one.) Were you think of the Server?

One thing...

[Donniedarkness]

One thing I couldn't tell from the article was whether this was a Mac-hardware-only copy, or if it works on intel-hardware... Any help, guys?

Re:One thing...

[autojive]

It's Universal Binary.

Re:One thing...

[0100010001010011]

It's for Apple supplied hardware only. Although I'm sure the osx86 guys are already working on it.

Re:One thing...

[kripkenstein]

One thing I couldn't tell from the article was [...]

It's odd that you have questions remaining after such a clear-cut article, which lacks no details. Consider the following quote from it:

According to MacWorld, "early reports from people claiming to use the software claim that certain parts of it 'feel' incomplete."

What could be more definite? First, this is 'according to MacWorld', so it's not direct knowledge. Second, these are 'early reports'. Third, these are claims from people claiming to use it (double use of 'claim' originating in TFA). Finally, they use the highly precise terminology of "'feel' incomplete".

After reading such an exact and meticulously-prepared document, I was left with no questions at all. Except perhaps why I read the entire thing.

Re:One thing...

[larkost]

Since people legitimately using 10.5 Developer Preview are all under NDA (since we got it at WWC and they were very meticulous about making sure you knew the conditions under which you were receiving the disks), we really can't be very specific. Since it is out in the press, I can say that the Preview is very focused on Developers, and most of what we need to get working on products so that they are ready for 10.5 when it ships (in "Spring"... whatever that means).

This is not a OS version that most people should be using. It is not ready for release, and there are very obviously places where Apple will be making large changes to the user experience. And from talking to the Engineers at the conference it quickly became obvious (from where they had to stop talking) that what developers have been given is quite a bit behind what Apple has in-house, and was specifically chosen to allow us to do our jobs without giving away everything.

Time Machine really works!

[Pao|o]

Tiger was also leaked a couple of years ago.

Who didn't see this coming? Expect Apple Legal to have a field day with this one. :)

Re:Time Machine really works!

[blindd0t]

They could even start a marketing campaign called "If you leak, iLitigate."

Well,

[Klaidas]

Well, if they gave it out... how could they possibly think that it won't leak? Software, music, movies leak without giving them out. And now, there's the release of an expensive operating system and they give it out...
I mean, how could they be sure that just signing the document would stop anyone? Sharing music, movies, etc. is illegal, but look at ftp servers, emule, torrents, etc.
It the Internet, apple, think different!

Re:Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have given a slightly different copy to everyone present. Just change a few bytes here and there. And preferably, don't tell anyone about it. Then when the software is leaked it becomes easier to pinpoint who it came from. Then you could either present them with the evidence (even prosecute) or just 'forget' to invite them next time.

This method falls down at a few places (e.g. if they give out a hash) but it could be worth a try

Re:Well,

[andrewman327]

It might surprise you, but most people really do follow the "not so fine print." Look at how many people hhave access to Windows source code yet there has only been one well known leak.

This shouldn't really matter to Apple anyway. This will increase speculation about the OS on sites like /. and any publicity is good publicity. The mainstream media will probably not even care about this whatsoever. A quick glance at Google News shows that very few non-geeky news sources have picked up the story.

Re:Well,

[TheGreek]

They could have given a slightly different copy to everyone present. Just change a few bytes here and there.

Prohibitively expensive to do on pressed DVDs, but I've long thought that Apple's seeding servers should do precisely that.

Re:Well,

[Richard_at_work]

They do, dont they? There was a story last year about a student being caught releasing his ADC 10.4 developer seed, with it being tracked back to his ADC account and ultimately him. Distinctly remember a couple of stories on here about it.

Re:Well,

[TheGreek]

They do, dont they?

No.

There was a story last year about a student being caught releasing his ADC 10.4 developer seed, with it being tracked back to his ADC account and ultimately him.

That's because he was retarded enough to upload it from the same host from which he downloaded it from ADC.

Re:Well,

[kiddygrinder]

The difference is anyone who would actually be interested in looking at the windows source doesn't want to see it in case they dirty their eyes and can't work on other OS stuff any more, where as betas of OSX are interesting to the general public. I doubt it's hard to get a copy of the windows source if you really want it.

Re:Well,

[TheGreek]

There are a number of fingerprinting techniques present in this beta. For example, an almost invisible pattern is overlaid on all screenshots.

Not as the result of anything Apple's done. Leopard was distributed at WWDC on pressed DVDs, which makes individual fingerprints rather uneconomical.

This was also true of 10.4 beta.

Again, not as the result of anything Apple did.

Re:Well,

[crashelite]

computers have serial #'s and mac os sends out update requests... most users do the mac registration... translation... its going to be tracable

Re:Well,

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't believe for a minute that they didn't think of that. Out of 4,500 developers at WWDC, it only takes one dishonest person.

I also challenge the notion that the disc was "given". It wasn't a gift. That preview is what developers get for being part of an expensive developer program or as part of an expensive developer's convention. They need that to test and develop their software so it is ready when the OS is released.

Conspiracy? I think so

[i_ate_god]

Apple probably has a dedicated legal team, but who knows, maybe it's been a slow couple of months and job security was looking weak for these apple employed lawyers. They sensed that Apple was going to fire them and use a firm whenever legal services were needed.

So the lawyer's leaked Leopard so that they could then start to target people who are hosting it and/or using it so that they still have work to do and thus, job security.

Or MAYBE I just need to stop doing so many drugs, hmm...

Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[boxlight]

I'm a big Mac fan -- *love* my iMac. But I'm not sure about Leopard. That is, Time Machine and Spaces looks neat. But not neat enough for me to shell out $150 for an upgrade.

Tiger is awesome, those new feature all-in-all are pretty minor improvements.

Now, if Jobs' TOP SECRET stuff is impressive, that may make a difference. But so far, I'm not seeing enough in Leopard for me to open my wallet.

boxlight

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[AccUser]

It depends what you want it for, I suppose.

Personally I was blown away by iChat, in particular the iChat Theater mode in conjunction with Keynote. I know that I have a use for that right now, but to be honest, it was not something that I was looking for until I saw it. It surprised me, but there you go.

I doubt I will upgrade all my machines to Leopard - as you say Tiger is more than adequate for the work I do - but I will more than likely buy a new Mac Pro and a Mac Book Pro when Leopard is released.

Re: Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[eczarny]

Comments like this have been driving me insane. These features were announced at a developers conference. The majority of what Steve discussed about leopard was aimed at said developers. It may not seem like a whole lot of excitement to some. But to those developing on the platform, there is a lot to look forward to. - Garbage collection in Objective-C - An updated QTKit - Time Machine's API - Improved Spotlight - CoreAnimation - Xcode 3 - DashCode - Improved Boot Camp - And more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[UnknowingFool]

Remember all the features that have been disclosed were more aimed at developers. Some of the features have been kept secret. Wait until Leopard is fully disclosed, then to make a decision.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[Ucklak]

Tiger is awesome, those new feature all-in-all are pretty minor improvements.

If you're coming from Tiger. Those of us coming from Panther or Jaguar see major improvements.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[laffer1]

Its only $129 retail for OSX releases unless they decide to raise the price. Compare that to the $199 Microsoft charges for Windows XP Pro upgrade.

You don't need to buy it. I'd just like to point out its an odd release and thus stable. Even releases tend to have more new features but are often less stable. Odd releases tend to be more reliable. If you decided to buy every other release, I'd recommend you get on odd releases. I'm saying this as a Mac user and former OSX sys admin. You will still get major security patches for up to a year after 10.5 ships.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[notjim]

But isn't the point that Apple is a hardware company not a software company, the important thing is to keep the os developing so people will keep buying the computer, not to force or tempt people to upgade existing machines.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[LoudMusic]

I'm a big Mac fan -- *love* my iMac. But I'm not sure about Leopard. That is, Time Machine and Spaces looks neat. But not neat enough for me to shell out $150 for an upgrade.

Tiger is awesome, those new feature all-in-all are pretty minor improvements.

Now, if Jobs' TOP SECRET stuff is impressive, that may make a difference. But so far, I'm not seeing enough in Leopard for me to open my wallet.

boxlight

OS X has never been worth the upgrade in single increments. Nor have most other software packages (Adobe in particular) but there are plenty of people who only upgrade every-other release. Going from 10.3 to 10.5 makes sense.

Additionally, like other slashdotters have commented, it's not what you see that you're paying for. It's what you don't see. Much like a sys admin - it's what you don't see them doing that you're paying the big bucks for.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[rm69990]

If you pay $199, you get a family license, which you can then install on 5 computers in your house. That is one thing I like about Apple. To upgrade 5 PCs from Win2000 to the now 5 years old WinXP, I'd have to pay $1000 (don't you think Microsoft could lower the prices a bit, it's not like XP has really changed all that much recently??? I've never seen a company that can do absolutely nothing with their product line for so long yet not lower prices...), whereas for the only 1.5 year old Tiger, it would cost a fifth of that.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Tiger wasn't the great leap forward that Apple promoted them to be either. I don't think a whole lot of people used more than 5% of any of the "200+ features". Does anyone use Automator? It can do nice things but has very curious short comings, like the inability to loop or branch or conditional execution. Heck, it has the feature to combine PDFs but doesn't offer a way to SAVE those PDFs to a known file name, the combined PDFs end up in the /tmp/ directory. I used the image scaling, renaming and conversion features to do batch image processing, but later I found that iPhoto can do the same thing.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[Gulthek]

I use automator and spotlight every day. Smart folders == teh awesome and Apple+spacebar has become my most frequently used key combination. I've got some nifty automator actions to make lots of little things easier.

Automator's good for image processing if you don't want things other than your own photos to be in iPhoto. I don't particularly want povray images and the like in my iPhoto library.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[muyuubyou]

I'm posting this from a Macbook myself. I've been a mac user for 3 years now, but I'm still primarily a BSD/Linux user who deals with Windows at work most of the time. I haven't bothered to upgrade my older iBook since it doesn't get much use anyway, but I'm a bit surprised about how swiftly mac developers drop support for older versions. Even freeware and O.S. software has this tendency to drop support for older versions in just a couple of months. I'm afraid I will have to upgrade not for the features, but because some pieces of software that are important to me keep on supporting the latest iteration of OSX only. Quicksilver comes to mind. http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[Daniel Dvorkin]

OS X has never been worth the upgrade in single increments. Nor have most other software packages (Adobe in particular) but there are plenty of people who only upgrade every-other release. Going from 10.3 to 10.5 makes sense.

With the exception of 10.0 --> 10.1, which meant going from a godawful beta to a usable OS, I think you're right. Historically (back to the System 7 days, if not before) even-numbered point releases of the Mac OS have been when Apple introduced new features, and odd-numbered point releases have been when those features actually worked right.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[azpenguin]

The one feature in iChat I was really intrigued by was screen sharing. That is something that's got a lot of potential; I work in a creative department and I can see countless scenarios where this would be used. In addition, it would be very handy for quite a few other things, such as tech support or just general questions that someone has about their computer.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[LoudMusic]

With the exception of 10.0 --> 10.1, which meant going from a godawful beta to a usable OS, I think you're right. Historically (back to the System 7 days, if not before) even-numbered point releases of the Mac OS have been when Apple introduced new features, and odd-numbered point releases have been when those features actually worked right.

I'll jump on that bandwagon. But how do you interpolate the second point release increments? Nine dot two dot two ? (:

Re: Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[dcam]

Comments like this have been driving me insane.

You might want to drink a little less coffee.

Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard

[Confuzzled]

I'm a big Mac fan -- *love* my iMac. But I'm not sure about Leopard. That is, Time Machine and Spaces looks neat. But not neat enough for me to shell out $150 for an upgrade.

I can't believe I'm reading this on slashdot. For all the people that say that these are minor improvements I think: are you kidding me?

Backing up is the bane of everyone's existence. You're either doing it religiously (daily, weekly, monthly, full and incremental backups) or you're going to lose data. For some of you it's not a big deal, but for me I'd prefer not to.

Time Machine by itself is automatic _INSTANT_ backup of all your files. You can literally overwrite a file with a save, then retrieve the previous version that you had 3 seconds earlier. Seriously... If you don't get the concept of immediate automatic incremental backup, probably tied into the spotlight notification system, you're either brain dead or you just use your computer for web surfing.

Sure, VMS had it back in the day, but the interface was not exactly easy. This, your grandmother can figure out.

This feature, by itself, is worth $150 dollars to me.

It's not going to be generic.

[argent]

Apple wouldn't release a generic OS X even for developers-only.

Apple has announced that Leopard will be Universal (PPC + Intel) but it'll still require an Intel Mac, it won't run on random Intel hardware.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Anthracks]

I think he probably meant "PPC" instead of "Mac hardware". But yeah, I think the day Apple releases OSX for commodity hardware is the day they go out of business...

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Loconut1389]

no- they definitely wouldn't.. the iPods are generating more revenue than their computers and many people would still buy mac hardware- especially since anything in it would be inherently supported.

Their os userbase would expand greatly, their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size, iPods would be unaffected or perhaps grow in sales...

They don't want to deal with all of the calls coming in that joe schmoe cant get it to work on his cyrix cpu or schmo joe can't get his el-cheapo scsi controller working or his $2 video card. Apple wants to keep the perceived quality (and actual quality) of their products high- rather than having reports published about how incompatible it is with some guys random mobo configuration. People currently understand that the machines and OS only works with authorized apple hardware (and from partners), but as soon as you open the floodgates, joe schmoe idiot will go out and buy a copy thinking itll just work on the computer his son set up and it wont. Apple doesn't want to do it half assed.

I honestly don't think it has anything to do with their market share.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Gulthek]

I'd still buy Apple hardware even if OS X were capable of running on generic boxes.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Shaper_pmp]

the iPods are generating more revenue than their computers

Which tells you exactly what kind of market share their desktop machines have at the moment. Anything which reduces this further risks making their desktop market share so small it's effectively negligible.

and many people would still buy mac hardware- especially since anything in it would be inherently supported.

Nah, not for shit IMO. Aside from elitist Charles geeks people buy Macs now because of Mac OS/X's user interface and the fact that It Just Works. If Mac OS/X was available for commodity PC hardware nobody (again: normal people, not geeks) would spring the extra $$$ for Mac hardware too ("What's the point?", they'd chuckle - "I can be clever and safe a few hundred bucks!") and the Mac hardware platform would die (or at least, be taken very ill).

Of course, penny-pinching consumers would also find that on third-party commodity hardware It Just doesn't Work as well, so Apple (through no direct fault of their own) would also find their IJW reputation going down the tubes.

Their os userbase would expand greatly, their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size, iPods would be unaffected or perhaps grow in sales...

Their OSX userbase would expand moderately - it's incompatible with Windows, so it's not going to expand "greatly" at any time while 90%+ of all PCs are still Windows, regardless of how great it is.

Their hardware userbase would shrink rapidly - normal users just won't pay over the odds for something they don't perceive as any better. We know OSX has been designed to run on the hardware and vice-versa. Your old maiden aunt buying her first Mac (assuming she isn't tempted away by de-facto standard Windows) will get a choice between OSX-and-Mac, or OSX-and-PC for a few hundred bucks less. In the absence of any real understood difference between them, and bearing in mind they both look and feel the same (OSX), which do you think she's going to choose?

iPod userbase wouldn't change - it's already Mac and PC compatible, so if Apple stopped making Macs tomorrow the iPod sales would hardly change.

They don't want to deal with all of the calls coming in that joe schmoe cant get it to work on his cyrix cpu or schmo joe can't get his el-cheapo scsi controller working or his $2 video card.

That's one reason, yes. The other is that OSX not being Windows-compatible hurts Apple when it comes to attracting new consumers to it. Making the hardware and software one package at least forces users to view Macs as a seamlessly-working package, which they don't mind paying a little extra for. Breaking the package open stops any part of it being perceived as seamless, and virtually ensures penny-pinching consumers will just nickle-and-dime them to death.

People currently understand that the machines and OS only works with authorized apple hardware (and from partners)

No. "People" understand that you buy "a PC with Windows", or you buy "a Mac". Macs are a package, indivisible.

"Most people" don't even understand there is a distinction between the hardware spec and the operating system. Hell, remember "most people" still can't program their video recorder clocks right.

As such, as soon as they realise the package is customisable and there's a choice, they'll plump for the cheapest option every time, and Apple much-vaunted reputation for solid engineering (apart from style, their only advantage over MS) flies right out of the window. And once people are used to OSX running on beige boxes and crashing because of dodgy third-party drivers, watch how long their reputation for coolness lasts, too.

You're half right in what you say - the third-party driver issue is a big reason to keep OSX Mac-only. However, there are several other just-as-good reasons as well, like preserving what little share of the desktop hardware market they currently have.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[kimvette]

Yeah, you're right. Licensing an operating system is a losing business model. It'd never work.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[CatOne]

You should check your facts, though -- iPods + iTMS are still not the majority of Apple's business -- the Mac business still the larger portion. It's like $6B for iPods, and $8B for Macs, software, etc.

So over the past 4 years iPods have gone from $0 to $6B and Macs have gone from $5.7B to $8B. Whether these lines will cross in the future I don't know... we'll see. But today, iPods are *not* the majority of Apple's business. And Apple has seen real market share gains (from 2% to 4%) in the last 24 months.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[keytohwy]

This is just completely wrong. Apple's most recent quarterly report accounted for revenue of $1.866B for Mac sales, and $1.497B in iPod sales. Publicly available data here, so why spread bad info?

. the iPods are generating more revenue than their computers

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Loconut1389]

I thought for sure I'd read that. An honest mistake- but either way, if your numbers are correct:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jul/19results .html

this says they gained 32% growth in ipods and 12% in macs, so in the next quarter or two, it -will- be true if trends continue. It says iPods have a share of 75%, but not only can they probably suck up more of the market (amazingly), but they can expand the market as well.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Loconut1389]

I did read it somewhere!

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/9713771 21.html?dids=971377121:971377121&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS: FT&type=current&date=Jan+19%2C+2006&author=Terril+ Yue+Jones&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&edition=&startpage =C.2&desc=IPod+Sales+Boost+Apple's+Earnings

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Loconut1389]

or here as well:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/01/18/apples.holi day.quarter/

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[monoqlith]

It wasn't when Microsoft did it. Apple lost its opportunity. They tried to license the OS again in the mid 90's and it almost killed them. Steve Jobs came in, bought back all the licenses, and established a reign of Apple-only Macs. In order for him to reneg on that decision there will have to be a very compelling reason, such as the not losing all the hardware sales, tight control of licensing restrictions so that clone-makers are guaranteed to make computers that work seamlessly with OS X, and rigorous driver support so that their OS's reputation doesn't get slammed by poor performance and poor hardware compatibility.

Those are big difficulties, so Apple is not going to forfeit their control over the platform that easily. It may happen when they are heading up into double-digit desktop market share, but I doubt it, strongly. For every gain in OS market share, remember, Apple makes billions of dollars in hardware sales. There has to be a promise that their hardware sales will immediately be replaced by licensing sales - not that they would drop their hardware development if they licensed, just that it would be hard to compete with companies like Dell offering computers at several lower price points than Apple. Apple might start having to cheapen its own hardware quality in order to keep up in sales volume, and that might be bad news for the platform.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[HTH NE1]

no- they definitely wouldn't.. the iPods are generating more revenue than their computers

Just because one part of a company generates more revenue than another doesn't mean it can survive losing that lesser revenue stream. You wouldn't dispose of the left half of your body just because you're right-handed.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[reversible physicist]

I thought Steve made a big point at WWDC that their Mac Pro is significantly cheaper than the equivalent Dell configuration. Competing head to head on hardware value seems like it would make it possible to separate hardware and software sales and release OS X to run on generic x86 hardware.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[itsdapead]

Their os userbase would expand greatly, their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size, iPods would be unaffected or perhaps grow in sales...

The problem with trying to sell an alternative OS to PC users is that the vast majority of PC users get Windows pre-installed - and even if you can opt out you don't save much (because of the way licenses are sold). Its always harder to sell people something that they've already got...

Installing an OS is not something the average user can cope with (even though its a no-brainer for the typical /.er) especially if it involves setting up a dual-boot system and problems such as windows being unable to read HFS and OSX not being happy with NTFS. They'd also be in direct competition with Linux (which probably has a head start on the hardware support front).

Maybe if they could produce something like Boot Camp for Windows...?

Sadly, if Apple wanted to get into the PC software business, they'd be better off porting iLife to Windows - and hope that people who liked that would consider a Mac as their next computer. Its worked a bit with iTunes.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Which tells you exactly what kind of market share their desktop machines have at the moment.

12% of the U.S. notebook market share, and a 15% worldwide install base of nearly 20 million according to IDF.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Alos]

.... nobody (again: normal people, not geeks) would spring the extra $$$ for Mac hardware too ...

What extra $$$?? Did you missed the WWDC Keynote? Mac hardware is no more expensive then similarly configured PC's....I agree with everything else on your post tho...

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[pmcc]

Competing head to head on hardware value seems like all the better reason *not* to release the OS independent of the hardware. Why would you pay for a Dell if you could get an equivalent Apple machine for about the same (or less in some cases) and be able to run both OS X and Windows on it natively?

Bridging the gap in initial purchase cost is a huge step forward by Apple to be able to push out more machines and increase market share. Many people always disregard buying an Apple on the basis that "they're too expensive." Now, just recently, that price gap has begun to disappear as long as you aren't digging at the bottom of the barrel (eMachines, barebones Dells, etc) or looking to make your own hardcore gaming rig.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[reversible physicist]

I wonder if Apple can take a big chunk of the OS market without running on other people's machines. Windows and Linux are currently fighting to expand into all possible niches (including handheld devices and storage devices, etc.). If Apple would like to do the same they should probably run on other people's hardware.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[fm6]

Their os userbase would expand greatly

I don't see that. You're assuming there are a lot of folks out there who would switch to MacOS if they could do so without buying a Mac. That doesn't make sense. Macs cost more, but not that much more. The only people who haven't already made the switch are people too poor to spend a few extra hundred on a Mac. Not a big (or profitable) user base.

their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size

You've got to be kidding. Macs have two advantages over the competition: they're easy to use, and they're better engineered. If you can run MacOS on a white box that sells for half the price of any Mac, there goes the usability advantage. And in my opinion, the usability advantage is more important than the engineering factor. 'Cause the main effect of better engineering is to make the machine more powerful — and nowadays, even the dinkiest little POS white box provides more computing power than most users need.

Of course, there's also the coolness factor. Maybe that accounts for a lot of Mac sales. But all of them? Not even close.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Lars T.]

Well, he did say "last quarter".

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Shaper_pmp]

Indeed.

Plus, y'know, I never actually stated that iPods/iTunes were the majority of Apple's market - I merely responded to someone who did.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Shaper_pmp]

Right, which when compared to the 90%+ market-share of Windows is, frankly, squat.

Not to knock Apple - they make a genuinely good machine/OS, and their adoption rate is increasing... however, their position (in terms of market share) is still fragile. They aren't compatible with the de-facto standard, so they have to be careful with their tactics to avoid being squashed by the 800lb gorilla that is Microsoft.

To be sure, Microsoft couldn't easily kill Apple if it wanted to (hell, it hasn't managed to yet). However, Apple could very easily fall on their own sword (eg, by releasing OSX-for-beige-PCs).

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Shaper_pmp]

I don't really follow Mac news specifically, so you may be right. However, comparing (as far as that's possible) www.apple.com to www.dell.com, it looks like either PCs are still a lot less expensive, or the Apple iMacs and Mac Minis come stuffed with free cocaine in little gold-plated boxes...

But if I'm wrong, please do enlighten me... ;-)

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[Shaper_pmp]

Fair play - I retract my comment about cocaine-stuffed Mac Minis.

Does the same hold true for the clueless-user entry-level machines though? I'm at work, so I lack the time to do the comparisons myself. ;-)

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[gig]

> Right, which when compared to the 90%+ market-share of Windows is, frankly, squat.

Who gives a shit when all the fun is happening on the Mac?

So many Windows machines are just typewriters. So many have such short lives due to being so unreliable. The people who are buying Windows right now are the ignorant and the terminally foolish.

Re:It's not going to be generic.

[gig]

> I'd still buy Apple hardware even if OS X were capable of running on generic boxes.

Even if you are a Windows user, the new Macs are much better boxes. You get one Windows driver disc for the whole box, and future driver updates all come from Apple, not from ATI or NVIDIA or any other component manufacturers. Many people have characterized Windows on a Mac as the easiest Windows install and maintenance ever.

Plus you have the option of running OS X, either now or in the future. A user could buy a system and run XP and then when Leopard comes out they pay $129 and switch over to that if they don't want Vista.

A little conspiracy

[MikeRT]

Crazy idea here... maybe the reason Apple doesn't really put any meaningful controls in place for a while other than a piece of paper is that they want a handful of geeks to get ahold of bootleg copies, test them on non-Apple hardware and talk about the results? That accomplishes two things: gets them data and doesn't tip their hand. I wouldn't put such a sneaky way of using people past Steve Jobs.

Re:A little conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Crazy idea here...

Yes, yes it is. Why do these retarded conspiracy theories always get modded up? Even if Apple were intending to sell Mac OS X for third party PCs they still wouldn't care about compatibility on some random hobbyist/pirate's setup. Never mention the effort required to collect the data from random blogs all over the internet.

Re:A little conspiracy

[saltydogdesign]

Yeah, because Apple has a massive documented history of doing things like this, right?

Re:A little conspiracy

[91degrees]

I could imagine them changing their tunes if they got decent saturation of the generic PC market.

What would be the point in testing OS X on generic PCS at this stage?

They were tesing OSX on intel long before they switched.

And why can't Apple do it themselves?

It cost money to test every configuration.

your conspiracy theory is about as credible as Elvis faking the moon landings with help from Tom Jones.

It was Elvis and Lord Lucan.

Re:A little conspiracy

[91degrees]

Hey, I was just coming up with reasons. Doesn't mean I agree with the conspiracy theorists. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Apple have a software only contingency plan.

Re:A little conspiracy

[darkmeridian]

Most of the "pirates" will update OS X Leopard onto their pre-existing Mac systems. Apple does not sell clones anymore, so this means Apple already sold a computer to the pirate, why do they care? Zealots downloading and installing this version probably will buy a new Mac anyway.

Re:A little conspiracy

[Ant P.]

Why search 100000 blogs for that sort of thing when they can just wait on this site and let the attention-seekers turn themselves in?

Re:A little conspiracy

[Overly Critical Guy]

After all, random Slashdot comments are such an incredible source of accurate information, especially for gathering usage stats when testing your flagship software.

I was tempted to download the torrent...

[AccUser]

...but my desire to be surprised got the better of me. I watched the WWDC keynote, and thought that some of the new features looked really nice, and to be honest, I am prepared to wait. I want my experience of Leopard to be without prejudice.

BTW, I installed Windows Vista Beta Preview a couple of weeks ago, just for fun and it confirmed what I had anticipated - I will not be buying an upgrade to Windows Vista, nor will I purchase any machine with it pre-installed.

OS X is a dream to use on the desktop, with various GNU/Linux installations running on all my servers. The machine with Vista on it? Going to install the latest Ubuntu.

Hasta la vista, Vista...

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[ElephanTS]

that's how I felt about Tiger - couldn't be bothered to install it and break a few apps for such (in my mind) minor improvements. However jumping from 10.3.9 (that I've used for years now) to Leopard is something I'm really looking foward to. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives which I couldn't say about Tiger.

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[Rayonic]

BTW, I installed Windows Vista Beta Preview a couple of weeks ago, just for fun and it confirmed what I had anticipated - I will not be buying an upgrade to Windows Vista, nor will I purchase any machine with it pre-installed.

I also install early betas of operating systems and base my purchasing decisions on that experience. So I haven't bought a new OS since 1992.

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[mrchaotica]

So I haven't bought a new OS since 1992.

And Linux was started in 1991. Concidence? I think not!

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[DWIM]

I am prepared to wait [for the official release]. I want my experience of Leopard to be without prejudice.

BTW, I installed Windows Vista Beta Preview a couple of weeks ago, just for fun and it confirmed what I had anticipated - I will not be buying an upgrade to Windows Vista, nor will I purchase any machine with it pre-installed.

Interesting that you want to preserve your experience with Leopard until it is released so you can see it first in its final, refined form, but didn't apply that same attitude to Vista. In fact, you've now passed judgement on Vista, regardless of how well (or not) it will be when finally released.

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[AccUser]

I should have made it clear that I develop software for the Win32 and .NET platforms, so the point of previewing Vista was to get up to speed with new development issues presented by the platform. We have been working more and more on Linux and OS X platforms, and the development experience is much more enjoyable, and that is where I think we are heading as a company.

Personally, I think Microsoft have made a big mistake.

Re:I was tempted to download the torrent...

[amliebsch]

Personally, I think Microsoft have made a big mistake.

Care to be specific? I, for one, would be interested to hear what has made developing for Vista so burdensome as compared to say, XP.

Garbage Collection in Objective C

[argent]

That's the *big* feature. Screw the user interface tweakage, being able to forget about release pools and the rest of the manual storage management twaddle is going to be amazing.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[BasilBrush]

Hey I'd missed that feature. That's certainly going to be a boon to developers. But it's also going to improve the user experience for users. With 512MB of memory every other day Tiger slows to a crawl because it's filled up RAM, presumably with memory leaks. Safari is a bad offender in this regard. Auto garbage collection should clear most of those leaks.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[thefirelane]

Wow... Slashdot is a "Nerd" site, but this is the first I've heard of this feature. I'd mod you +6 if I could. For all the eye candy worship I've seen over the new OS... where on slashdot is the feature list that is interesting to *developers*?

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Wow... Slashdot is a "Nerd" site, but this is the first I've heard of this feature... where on slashdot is the feature list that is interesting to *developers*?

I haven't seen a single consolidated list of all the features, but all of the features shown were aimed at developers, either as demonstrations of what the new APIs support or as features useful to developers. Time Machine, for example, was demoed as an API that can be built into a developer's apps. Other features you might have missed include a full port of DTrace from Solaris, built into the new X-ray profiling software, resolution independent UI, core graphics, quicktime, and core animation features, more parity between carbon and cocoa, a built in grammar checking service for all apps, RSS, multiple clipboards, improved python and ruby tools included, Apache 2, and default inclusion of Subversion.

Most of the coverage on Slashdot has been for end-users, rather than developers, but there has been plenty of discussion elsewhere on development sites for industries using these elements. Heck, the DTrace message boards have been talking about little else for a week now.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[diegocgteleline.es]

Not in the page renderer - Safari uses khtml, aka "konqueror", written in C++.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[TheGreek]

Wow... Slashdot is a "Nerd" site, but this is the first I've heard of this feature.

You must not have been paying attention, then.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[Doctor Memory]

Don't count on it. My company's first commercial Java project had a memory leak that didn't show up until you ran several million rows through it (you know, like a real customer would do, not like we did during testing...). GC didn't save us[1], it probably won't save you.

[1] Half a day spent with JProbe enabled me to find the leak, as well as a solid dozen or so optimizations that improved our execution performance by a solid 15%. Moral: a good tool can pay for itself very quickly. If you need one, get it.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[jimktrains]

> multiple clipboards

They took my request and used it!!! I feel special:D

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[wavedeform]

All I can say is that it's a good thing that the garbage collection is on an "opt-in" basis for applications, and not OS-wide. I use OS X as a music workstation, and anything that gets in the way of real-time performance is bad. Garbage collection is not the friend of good timing. (and neither is preemptive multitasking, for that matter, at least with the current threading model).

There are days that I wish that OS X was built on top of the BeOS, which had a great thread model for media. Of course, Apple as we know it, would not exist had they gone with Be.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[ad0gg]

Umm... If tiger is leaking memory, how about they fix it instead of relying on a garbage collector. I don't know of any modern OS, linux,bsd, even windows server 2003 that leaks memory to the point you notice it.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

My understanding is that multiple clipboards are available to developers for inclusion in their apps, via an official API and possibly for most apps via a service. We still don't know if Apple will use them in their apps or even in the Finder.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[BasilBrush]

Who said anything about Tiger leaking memory? I'm talking about applications leaking memory. That happens on all the OSs you mention. Whether you ever notice it or not depends on how much RAM you happen to have.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[ClockworkSparrow]

Absolutely. Programming in Cocoa/ObjC is an absolute dream with TextMate (http://macromates.com/) and Interface Builder; adding garbage collection would make it even easier. Let's just hope that they find a very efficient collector, as faster == better.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[Durandal64]

Garbage collection can't stop bad programming. It's perfectly easy to write a program in a garbage-collected language which bloats like crazy by simply leaving references to your objects around. Garbage collectors aren't psychic. They clear out an object when no more references are left.

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[GrahamCox]

The Garbage Collection thing is overrated. And people talk about Cocoa's memory management as if it were rocket science. It's not, it's really, really simple. Elegant, even. Most of the time you can more or less ignore it, you don't have to bother too much about autorelease pools and so on. It just works. OK, there are a few rules you need to learn, but they are simple - takes ten minutes. Compared to the learning curve of the whole framework it's a tiny proportion of the time. So if you're a Cocoa developer, you'll need to learn it, so invest ten minutes. If you're not, it makes not one jot of difference to you anyway, so stop touting Garbage Collection as some great coming feature that will magically mean end-user improvements.

I actually find the whole retain/release/autorelease thing trivial, my code doesn't leak, (a bigger likelihood if you get it wrong is that your program will crash, which will usually tell you something's wrong!), and I prefer keeping it lean and mean, without some unpredictable garbage collector cutting in and stealing cycles that I want!

Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C

[argent]

Garbage collection is not the friend of good timing. (and neither is preemptive multitasking, for that matter, at least with the current threading model).

Neither is late binding, but you accept that :).

PS: Preemptive multitasking is the very best friend of good timing, if you have a real-time OS. But the last time we had one of those on the market was when the Amiga was still around. Be? No thanks, I actually compared BeOS, Rhapsody, FreeBSD, and Windows NT on the same hardware (same physical machine)... and while BeOS might have kicked Mac OS 9's butt, it was the most resource-hungry of the four.

Summary

[kevin_conaway]

Since I'm not a mac-head, the summary didn't make too much sense to me.

Spaces: a new application for the Leopard operating system that enables users to group different applications in separate environments.

Time Machine: you can back up and preserve everything on your Mac -- including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents -- without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you've ever backed up.

Re:Summary

[Rik Sweeney]

Spaces: a new application for the Leopard operating system that enables users to group different applications in separate environments

There were going to prefix this with "My" but Tom sent them a Cease and Desist...

Re:Summary

[Eil]

Both of which Unix has been doing for years...

Re:Summary

[derubergeek]

Since I'm not a mac-head, the summary didn't make too much sense to me.

Being a "mac-head" would have no impact on understanding these items...

Spaces: a new application for the Leopard operating system that enables users to group different applications in separate environments.

• Virtual desktops (ala Unix CDE and variants [KDE, OpenPuke^H^H^H^HView, et al)

Time Machine: you can back up and preserve everything on your Mac -- including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents -- without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you've ever backed up.

• Note sure why this is confusing for you, but it's a continuous backup system with a time-scroller that lets you take any file backward in time to a previous version (supposedly).

Glad this article's on Slashdot

[Rik Sweeney]

I've been waiting ages for this to download, now that it's on Slashdot we'll get more seeders!

Listens out for the sound of Bittorrent clients starting up...

Intended

[zoftie]

I think it was intended, this time there will be no big koufuffle, like last time. I don't think steve feels so personal about intel line of apple hardware anymore. Its more biz, less glitz. Hallmarks everywhere that Leopard will available to generics.[hence no agreement, not to release] and thats why he'd let it out in the wild see how many early adopters are there. It is free beta testing as well, since OS X isn't so driver populated as its PPC predecessor. Steve is very deliberate, since he didn't blow up already, it means it was planned. Back in the dark alleys of cupertino.[hey they HAVE release black iBook and iPod].
All I say is woohoo! PC Users may well have a new OS to choose from, complete from office end user.

Re:Intended

[bach_m]

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but nowhere is there any indication that this will run on non-mac hardware. And if you managed to even read the summary, you'd see that there was an agreement to sign.

Re:Intended

[rm69990]

Are you bloody retarded? There is absolutely no indication whatsoever that this release (or the final release) will run on generic PCs (in-fact, from what I've heard, Apple is going to make it even more difficult this time around). The bloody paragraphed size summary right at the top of this page says that there was an agreement not to release it onto p2p networks, and the linked article (not sure why I'm mentioning this, if you can't handle reading a paragraph long summary, I somehow doubt you bothered reading the article) goes into more details on this agreement. I have yet to see Steve Jobs blow up over a leak...that is generally done by Apple's legal department, and if you even had a tiny sliver of legal sense, you would know that they would actually need to find out who leaked it before they sue anyone, so again, there is no indication this was planned....

I always thought reading was more enjoyable than writing personally...I don't understand how everyone on Slashdot finds the former so difficult to do but can blather on for paragraphs when commenting, often making themselves look like total morons.

Re:Intended

[tehcyder]

and if you even had a tiny sliver of legal sense, you would know that they would actually need to find out who leaked it before they sue anyone

You're just being a spoilsport, letting common sense get in the way of a harmlessly insane slashdot brain-dribble.

Serious question.

[LinuxGeek]

I see on the Apple site that I can buy a single OS X license for $129 or a 5-pack family license for $199. The fine print says it is to be used on "Apple-labeled computers". Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners? Also, dosen't it make M$ seem even greedier to not have something like this for XP and Office? Imagine how many pirated copies would disappear if they had a $199 family 5-pack of XP Home.

Re:Serious question.

[topham]

I'd love to see the sales statistics on the Family Pack. I mean it is entirely voluntary purchase as there is nothing preventing someone from buying a single copy and using it on all their computers at home.

Re:Serious question.

[Khakionion]

"Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners?" Oh yeah, I went to an Apple store just yesterday and bought OS X Tiger. They didn't even ask me to whip out my Power Mac to prove I'm not one of those evil "generic x86 owners!" Seriously, wtf? Of course they'll sell it to whoever will buy it.

Re:Serious question.

[Rob86TA]

Apple and MS have different motivation to release a 5-pack.

Apple sells hardware... by letting you install on 5 computers, they are hoping you will buy 4 more computers. $$$ in their pocket.

MS doesn't sell hardware... by letting you install on 5 computers, they have removed 4 purchases the revenue stream. Sure you give more $$$ to Dell, Sony, or the whitebox dealer... and they just sold 4 less copies of XP. That's why there is no 5 pack for XP.

Re:Serious question.

[DJProtoss]

They will happily sell you a copy. It just won't run on generic x86 hardware (unless you hack it, which is a breach of the EULA you bought it under).

Re:Serious question.

[zlogic]

That's the upgrade price. It means that if you have any other version of OSX you can pay $129 or $199 to upgrade that to the newest version. If you have a computer without OSX installed, there's nothing to be upgraded, right?
Apple has the real price of OSX hidden in the cost of hardware, pretty much like Dell, HP and others.
It's like a mobile phone's firmware - you don't know how much it costs (only the upgrade price) and you can't install Motorola software on a Samsung phone.

Re:Serious question.

[gEvil (beta)]

I have two friends (they're roommates) that decided to get the family pack, since it was cheaper than buying two separate copies. If you move in with them, you get a free copy of OS X!

Re:Serious question.

[spitzak]

That does not quite explain it. For both Apple and Microsoft, a "new computer" already includes the operating system, so sales of this is irreleveant to sales of new computers.

Can't think of any real explanation. One is that Microsoft just never thought of it. Or that the bean counters thought that the availability of a "family pack" would reduce sales (like you, I suspect it would actually raise revenue, by a tiny insignificant amount...). Or that Microsoft relies on corporate customers that would only buy 1/5 as many copies and assummes all home users will pirate (though wouldn't a "for home use only" stop those same corporate customers?). If you want the Microsoft-is-evil explanation, perhaps Microsoft knows that everybody will be forced to upgrade, while Apple knows that people can keep using the old system and interoperate just as much as before. Or the pro-Microsoft version of this, which is that Apple users don't need to upgrade because there is no commercial software for it anyway.

Re:Serious question.

[mdobossy]

In past releases, it was completely voluntary, and it doesnt sound like that is going to change in the future. At the keynote, Jobs and Co. were beating up on Vista, and one of the things they pointed out is a disliked 'feature' called activation. So my guess would be that 10.5 wont be introducing any new form of activation. They may, however, introduce a product code to attempt to thwart piracy, but it hasn't been done in the past, from OS 6 all the way up to the latest OS X.

Re:Serious question.

[PsychoSid]

If they are Swedish nurses then I'm in !

Re:Serious question.

[aardwolf64]

It seems like a waste with 5 licenses of OS X. Can someone start a "Family Pack Share Program" where we can sell off our unused licenses? One "family pack" copy of OS X is purchased, and the remaining 4 licenses are sold off to people on the Internet (who are given an image of the CD.) This effectively cuts the price of OS X down to $40, which is very reasonable.

Re:Serious question.

[gEvil (beta)]

I realize this probably won't matter to you, but read the fine print on the family pack.

Re:Serious question.

[Richard_at_work]

Theres no Intel version of the Family Pack, the included DVD is not Universal. Thus it can be argued that the licenses included dont extend to the Intel version, since that isnt the product included.

Re:Serious question.

[gEvil (beta)]

The server versions of OS X (as well as AppleShare IP before that) require a product key. Since Apple uses them and obviously believes in them to some degree, I'm guessing that they don't feel it's something they should bother consumers with.

Re:Serious question.

[aardwolf64]

Yes, I find it stupid that you have to be in the same household...

On a side note, I would never sell "extra" licenses to an OS.

Re:Serious question.

[ElephanTS]

I hnestly think they don't care very much about OSX retail consumer sales. I think they'd almost prefer for the Macs of the world to be running the newest OS available as it makes them look better. They think of the hardware as the dongle for the OS. I've seen loads of 9.2 era iMacs running Tiger very well and really extending the life of the hardware. Users love that! (Especially when they don't pay for it). Apple may lose slightly in the short term but make a bigger sale later.

Same things applies to Photoshop. Adobe doesn't care that everyone has a pirate copy - it increases mindshare and trains the next generation to know the PS way. Later they go on to jobs using it where they DO buy a copy for bigmoney. If Adobe really cared they would have shipped it with a dongle by now. They don't do that because it may mean a crashing market share.

Re:Serious question.

[Doctor Memory]

On a side note, I would never sell "extra" licenses to an OS.

Actually, there was a pretty good business being done on (ISTR) Windows 2000 licenses on eBay. Something about companies having standardized on Win2K, but either couldn't get or didn't want to pay MS for the licenses after XP came out (or their site license had expired), so people who were upgrading to XP were selling their Win2K licenses.

Re:Serious question.

[NutMan]

I've bought the Family Pack several times, to update my laptop, my G5, my daughter's laptop, etc. Yes, I could save $70 by purchasing the single license and copying it on all the machines, but I feel that the extra $70 to be legal is more than fair. Apple has done a good job of adding value to each release, and they need to get something for their work.

Re:Serious question.

[(startx)]

Theres no Intel version of the Family Pack, the included DVD is not Universal.

There's no Intel version of the single 10.4 box either. That's because every Intel Mac sold already comes with Tiger. Since the EULA says you can only run OS X on Apple branded hardware, they have no reason to sell x86 Tiger. All potential customers already have it.

I'm sure the retail 10.5 boxes and family packs will include an x86 or universal version.

Re:Serious question.

[Cloud K]

I think you'd be surprised.

I hold my hand up - I've used my fair share of software that fell off the back of the internet. Let's leave the generic legal/moral arguments for another day. But there are two major things which convinced me to do the Right Thing when Tiger came out:

* Fair pricing. If you're fair with me, I'm fair with you. If you charge me the full extortionate price 5 times for being a loyal and legal customer and legally upgrading all 5 of my family PCs, let's just say I'll be a little miffed...

* Trust. It's a two-way process. It's like, if someone puts out a cookie jar for someone else and says "I know you want to steal one of those cookies, but I'll make you suffer the consequences, and I'll be watching so DON'T DO IT" - the first thing a lot of people will do is try to think of a way to steal a cookie. It's the human instinct to push boundaries and see what you can get away with, and chances are because they were so snotty with you and treated you like dirt, you lost all respect for them. On the other hand, if they said "I'd like you give you one of these, but I can't. I kindly ask that you do not take any" - as an adult at least, I'm much more willing to comply. Yes I know, at the end of the day an illegal act is an illegal act, end of.... but people *will* do wrong. And I think if you treat them like an adult and not like a criminal or a child or both, then you're more likely to combat piracy than any digital protection.

Re:Serious question.

[quantum bit]

Seems like this would be a good case to challenge EULAs in general on. It's not out of the realm of possibility for a jury to decide that a provision saying you can't run software that you legally purchased on hardware that you own is unreasonable.

Apple says I don't have a right to run their software (that they're selling to the general public) unless I agree to their terms. I disagree -- and fair use case law would seem to support me.

Unfortunately I think Apple is too smart to try to enforce the EULA by suing individual users; they know their case is too weak. They'll try to shut down the sites that tell people how to do it by abusing DMCA or some such.

Re:Serious question.

[rm69990]

"Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners?"

I somehow doubt a local computer shop, or even an Apple retail store, is going to make youshow them a receipt for an Apple computer before selling you a copy of OS X.... I can't think of anyway they could possibly tell what kind or brand of computer you have sitting in your office at home.

Re:Serious question.

[rm69990]

Yeah, but the parent's point was that you can buy the single computer license and install it on as many computers as you want (illegally of course). There are no license keys and no activation schemes in OS X whatsoever, and considering Jobs poked fun at those very aspects of Windows during the Conference, I somehow doubt they will be present in Leopard. My Powermac G4 technically isn't licensed for OS X (bought it second hand, other guy had a family pack for Tiger with it installed on the G4, never gave me the box+license) yet there is no way Apple could tell this on their end.

Re:Serious question.

[pkulak]

If you bought four more computers, you would already have 4 more licences. They are just making it easier to upgrade all the Macs in your house.

Re:Serious question.

[Rob86TA]

I was not as specific as I would have liked in previous post as has been pointed out I've made an incorrect statement.

I should have said:

Apple wants to maintain their goodwill, and since hardware is their primary revenue stream, letting you run all your old computers on OS X does that. You are more likely to buy a new Mac from Apple if they keep you happy. They choose to be less profitable on the software to support hardware sales.

MS doesn't want you to be able to easily upgrade 5 computers in your home, because they don't have a hardware business to support with lowered software sales. They want you to say screw it, I'll get Vista and a new computer at the same time, or pay for the upgrade. If they offered 5-packs, you would start to see demand from the OEM's to offer OS-less PC's for consumers to use up the other 4 windows licenses. And that's where the bulk of the Windows sales are coming from. The windows platform also has more inertia, so goodwill from their consumers doesn't matter as much to them. You're going to buy Windows anyway, sooner or later.

Re:Serious question.

[westlake]

dosen't it make M$ seem even greedier to not have something like this for XP and Office? Imagine how many pirated copies would disappear if they had a $199 family 5-pack of XP Home

Dell's entry level XP Home system is on sale for $279 with a !7" CRT, Word Perfect, and a one year warranty included. Dimension B110. XP Home has been the default OEM install for five years.

Retail boxed, MS Office Home (AKA Student-Teacher Edition) lists for $150 with a three-seat license

Re:Serious question.

[Have Blue]

They're "willing" to sell OS X to anyone who walks up with $129 in hand, but the official company line is still that OS X is for Apple-manufactured hardware only.

Re:Serious question.

[creepynut]

Except that when you buy a copy of MacOS, you're really just buying an Upgrade. In order to install it on a PC, you'd need to already own a copy of MacOS. And, if you have that, legally, then you already have an Apple branded PC.

Re:Serious question.

[Rob86TA]

MS may make more per unit on boxed copies, but by volume Dell and the OEMs sell more copies of their OEM version than is ever bought by box, despite the lower markup. The OEM market is where MS makes its revenue, commercial boxes are but a drop in the bucket.

Sure MS would love if users bought upgrade boxes or even full version boxes... too bad they don't, as is evidenced by the large number of 95, 98, ME, 2000 installs that never get upgraded.

Re:Serious question.

[Espectr0]

Apple sells hardware... by letting you install on 5 computers, they are hoping you will buy 4 more computers. $$$ in their pocket.

Bah, totally false. If you "buy 4 more computers", then you get the latest OSX included. So effectively, the 4 other machines are old, and Apple loses almost 520 dollars.

Re:Serious question.

[kmo]

as there is nothing preventing someone from buying a single copy and using it on all their computers at home.

The thing you're looking for that prevents someone from buying a single copy and using it on all their computers is honesty -- something more OS venders should trust their customers to have.

And yes, I bought a Tiger family pack. (And was a little annoyed that it didn't include updated iLife apps.)

Re:Serious question.

[dr.badass]

I see on the Apple site that I can buy a single OS X license for $129 or a 5-pack family license for $199. The fine print says it is to be used on "Apple-labeled computers". Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners?

If you look closely you'll see that the boxed version of Mac OS X is for PowerPC only. They don't currently sell the Universal version except with new Macs. And why would they? They've never sold any Intel machines that didn't already come with 10.4.

Re:Serious question.

[dr.badass]

One "family pack" copy of OS X is purchased, and the remaining 4 licenses are sold off to people on the Internet (who are given an image of the CD.)

"* Family Pack Software License Agreement allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on up to a maximum of five (5) Apple-labeled computers at a time as long as those computers are located in the same household and used by persons who occupy that same household. By "household" we mean a person or persons who share the same housing unit such as a home, apartment, mobile home or condominium, but shall also extend to student members who are primary residents of that household but residing at a separate on-campus location. This license does not extend to business or commercial users."

It isn't "five Mac OS X licenses", it's one license for five computers.

Re:Serious question.

[WuphonsReach]

I've bought the Family Pack several times, to update my laptop, my G5, my daughter's laptop, etc. Yes, I could save $70 by purchasing the single license and copying it on all the machines, but I feel that the extra $70 to be legal is more than fair. Apple has done a good job of adding value to each release, and they need to get something for their work.

And the Family Packs offer us a way to purchase more licenses without feeling like we're paying through the nose for all of those upgrades. So we get to stay legal, Apple gets a little additional money, and everyone is happy all the way around.

Smart business move on Apple's part.

Re:Serious question.

[hritcu]

5-pack is too little. 6-pack would be nicer. Beer for the whole family.

Who would want an early beta.

[jellomizer]

Other then developers who are going to use the brand new features and see if their code will break, who will need or even want an early beta. Having an early Beta of OS X is like having a Production version of Windows, and you know how buggy and anoying that is. Heck Steve Himself wouldn't demo many of the feature wich were labeled "Top Secret" which probably is a code word for too buggy for a SteveNote. As well OS X interface is relitivly small changes for the interface over time, it is not like Windows Beta users who use the Beta version so they can have say 7 years of XP Experience and probably next year say they have 2 years of Vista Experience, because every version moves everything around forcing you to relearn the OS again and again. While I am interested in Leopard when it is released but not now in early beta where is is just slightly less then a Year away from production. Companies don't like Beta Releases because non-Beta Wize users get a hold of it Judge the quality when it is Beta and talk down to it even when all the problems are fixed. It is like a person who used Linux last in 1994 and today are still saying I used Linux and its interface is horible, having to go to a config file to configure your windows manager is so out of date.

Re:Who would want an early beta.

[AccUser]

Having an early Beta of OS X is like having a Production version of Windows

LOL

Having recently tried Windows Vista Beta Preview, I was surprised to see that the user interface had been revamped, but only at the highest level. Dig into some of the dialogs, and you still see the Windows 2000 we all knew and, well, hated less. Personally, I find this very cynical, and am not at all convinced that the efforts that Microsoft indicated that they were putting into Vista have not been realised.

Re:Who would want an early beta.

[argent]

Dig into some of the dialogs, and you still see the Windows 2000 we all knew and, well, hated less.

Well, at least they've gotten rid of the 16-bit parts of Windows Explorer by now. :)

Re:Who would want an early beta.

[Have Blue]

Spot on. I'm using Leopard right now (a legitimate copy I received while attending WWDC) because I'm one of those developers, but it's really not ready for casual use yet. Sure, it's got some new stuff, but it also has all kinds of crazy quirks bugs, and things that got broken from Tiger and haven't been fixed yet- for example, as I type this, Safari is pegging the CPU and adding characters to the text field at a rate of maybe 2 or 3 a second.

The only reason to download Leopard is to brag to your l33t friends. If you want to use your Mac for any real purpose, stick with Tiger.

Re:Who would want an early beta.

[djrogers]

It is like a person who used Linux last in 1994 and today are still saying I used Linux and its interface is horible, having to go to a config file to configure your windows manager is so out of date.

You know what? You're right - I'm guilty of that... I used Linux in June and have been bashing it for config files and a klunky interface ever since. I should either give it another chance or just shut up ;-P

I kid I kid...

Re:Who would want an early beta.

[necro2607]

I would want an early beta!.. ;) I ran OS 8.2d8 on my Performa 5260/120 because I was so excited to try the new/supposedly-great OS 8.5 ... heh.. I also tried Copland, the original failed attempt at OS 8... I couldn't believe how much it sucked after all the totally awesome stuff I had read about in MacWorld etc. - it's no wonder they scrapped it..

I tried quite a few Mac OS betas over the years.. I was just always really interested to see the new features (mostly because previous versions of Mac OS were often touted as the next greatest thing ever, or so I perceived)! ;)

What garbage

[agent dero]

This is absolutely garbage journalism, and there's a lot I take concern with, first off, with how they refer to BitTorrent like it's some sort of unified network. I'm sure I could have gotten Leopard off of Efnet at some point over the past two weeks, does that mean I got Leopard off of IRC? They're just feeding the fire as to why ISPs and *AA's take concern when it comes to BitTorrent the protocol.

Secondly, after the Bono releases a record and it shows up on P2P, does that make it worthy of a new story? Look, people, file sharing is going to happen, as soon as something is digitally encoded, it's chances of being pirated approach 100%. Leopard finding it's way onto a BitTorrent tracker isn't news worthy, it's not even unexpected!

Re:What garbage

[argent]

This is absolutely garbage journalism,

There's another kind?

Re:What garbage

[je ne sais quoi]

Secondly, after the Bono releases a record and it shows up on P2P, does that make it worthy of a new story? Look, people, file sharing is going to happen, as soon as something is digitally encoded, it's chances of being pirated approach 100%. Leopard finding it's way onto a BitTorrent tracker isn't news worthy, it's not even unexpected!

Actually, it does make the news after U2's albums get leaked. See here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/09/u2_album_o nline/ http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1335 and also when the academy version of the hulk movie got leaked it resulted in a major lawsuit for the poster. So stop trolling about this shouldn't be on slashdot already.

Re:What garbage

[AccUser]

Probably more surprising is the length of time it took to appear on P2P, by whatever protocol. With regards to a torrent being available, Demonoid had something to say about that.

Re:What garbage

[bblboy54]

This is absolutely garbage journalism . . .

You must be new here

Re:What garbage

[MECC]

This is absolutely garbage journalism

That's Infoworld, where nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong

Hint: you can tell which ones are robots by looking at the hands.

Re:What garbage

[ozbird]

There's another kind?

Investigative journalism - last seen circa 1972.

Re:What garbage

[FF0000 Phoenix]

Huh? I clearly remember that being posted on http://thebono.slashdot.org/.

Then don't buy it.

[Khakionion]

Seriously. Resolution independence, a versioning filesystem and (finally) a unified UI (I'm basing this off the non-brushed-metal look of iChat Leopard) aren't worth ~$150 to most people. So deal until Lion/Ocelot/Pallas/Kodkod/Neko/whatever, and maybe that will help coax Apple to stop making incremental upgrades that are so...er, incremental. :)

Top Secret?

[Iwanowitch]

Any news on the Top Secret parts of Leopard that were going to baffle us all? Or aren't they included in this build (that would make some sense, actually)?

Re:Top Secret?

[rm69990]

Well, considering Apple provided this build to developers, which is how it got leaked, logic would dictate that it doesn't include the Top Secret features, considering they wouldn't be Top Secret if Apple was handing them out at their Developer's Conference.

Oh, a neat idea...

[argent]

Spaces: Virtual desktop with Exposé eye-candy.

Time Machine: Incremental backups with Exposé eye-candy. The hooks for applications to use Time Machine are a pretty cool idea, I don't think I've seen that kind of capability before.

What Apple needs to add:

Let's call it "Testbed": They could use FreeBSD jails and overlays to give you the ability to run a testbed environment that would looks almost like a virtualised system (like Parallels or VMware) which even "root" couldn't see out of, but without the overhead of virtualization. Plus Exposé eye-candy!

Plus, extend fast user switching to allow you to log in multiple times *as the same user*, giving OS X full virtual console capability.

Combine these with Time Machine, you could actually log into a version of your whole system as it existed a week ago, or two weeks ago... and (pause) with Exposé eye-candy.

Re:Oh, a neat idea...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Time Machine: Incremental backups with Exposé eye-candy.

I think you missed the bigger part of the feature. It is incremental backups, and a complete versioned filesystem. It isn't just the ability to grab a version of a file from yesterday at midnight and the day before at midnight, it is the ability to grab every incremental change to the file, whether it was two saves or two hundred.

Let's call it "Testbed": They could use FreeBSD jails and overlays to give you the ability to run a testbed environment that would looks almost like a virtualised system (like Parallels or VMware) which even "root" couldn't see out of, but without the overhead of virtualization.

I'd much rather see jails or containers built into the OS, for all user space programs and, if possible, for VMs by default. They completely ported DTrace from Solaris, maybe containers are next. Still, if it was going to be in 10.5, they almost certainly would have given it to developers to test with their applications by now. Maybe for the next version.

Combine these with Time Machine, you could actually log into a version of your whole system as it existed a week ago, or two weeks ago...

That might be nifty, but I'm not sure it would be that much actual use. Maybe I'm just not seeing the use-case.

Re:Oh, a neat idea...

[Van Halen]

versioned filesystem

A few people have said this here. Where is the evidence?

I initially thought Time Machine was utilizing a new versioned filesystem (perhaps ZFS). But unfortunately all evidence points to "No". It requires an external drive or server dedicated to backups and nothing else (great for laptops... NOT!). It only makes incremental backups once every 24 hours. Sounds very much like a Spotlight type of add-on, where the system keeps a list of the files that have changed since the last backup, then automatically backs up those files on the external drive. It's just an incremental backup scheme and little else.

Is there other evidence for a versioned filesystem? If so, why isn't Time Machine using this, dropping the requirement for an external drive (as well as the only once-daily backups)?

Re:Oh, a neat idea...

[ivan256]

Time Machine: Incremental backups with Exposé eye-candy. The hooks for applications to use Time Machine are a pretty cool idea, I don't think I've seen that kind of capability before.


That's just plain wrong. There is a world of difference between incremental backups or snapshotting and CDP, no matter what Veritas tells you. That is true even if you are snapshotting once per second. How big is the difference? It's the difference between the crash consistant recovery functionality of your app working every time with CDP, or occationally losing all your data with incrementals.

You have never seen any of Time Machine's functionality from a major vendor before.

Re:Oh, a neat idea...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A few people have said this here. Where is the evidence?

Hmm, reading Apple's own literature, it is not clear if it is just a backup mechanism or actual versioning.

I initially thought Time Machine was utilizing a new versioned filesystem (perhaps ZFS). But unfortunately all evidence points to "No".

Leopard uses an HFS based system, and from what I read uses the same kernel hooks as spotlight to track file changes. The reviews I read claimed it included incremental changes between backups, but it is possible they were mistaken or speculating.

My assumption was that the external drive was a requirement for the backups and to store the version changelog, but I could be wrong. We'll just have to wait for a real review to see.

Time machine!

[Rob T Firefly]

This appears to be the same build Steve Jobs previewed at WWDC, and contains most of the new features, including Time Machine

Careful installiong it! As with all leaked software and all time machines, safety is not guaranteed.

Clarification (nitpick)...

[Cjays]

Attendees at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) received copies of the beta ware and had to sign legally binding agreements not to let Leopard stray onto file-sharing networks.

They didn't have us sign anything. Obviously there was an already established legal agreement, but nothing was signed on the spot.

Re:Clarification (nitpick)...

[dfghjk]

Furthermore, would there be any point to an agreement that wasn't "legally binding"?

It's not that surprising that it didn't happen at all. There's no journalistic integrity here.

Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[Hoplite3]

They need to take better care of their cats at apple. That way they can avoid having it leak and ruin the rug.

Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[TheRaven64]

Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?

It's more every 18-months than every year, and the education price gives a steep discount. Unlike MS educational discounts, you get a full version for the educational price (not a license that expires when you leave academia). This means you can resell it, so if you know someone in full-time education then they can get the student price for you. The lifespan of a Mac is about three years (that's the duration of the warranty, and I wouldn't want to run one much beyond that), which means about one upgrade per machine. I bought mine with 10.2, but I got a very cheap upgrade to 10.3, since it was released a few months later ( Skipping OS X releases is not generally a good idea. Apple does a lot of work behind the scenes with each release, and so you tend to end up with limited functionality (fortunately Objective-C provides late binding, so you can actually do this) in applications acquired after the release of the new version.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[Richard_at_work]

A year? I last bought Tiger in April 2005, Leopard will be released in 2007, nothings been released in 2006. By my count, its an upgrade every 2 years.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[gnasher719]

'' Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something? ''

First, it is $129. Second, it is $99.50 if you have two Macs at your home (or one at home, and one kid at university), down to $40 if you have five Macs. And, of course, every Macintosh user has the choice to upgrade as often as Windows users do - last time in 2001, I think, the next time in 2007. Which means going straight from MacOS 9 to Leopard.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[kidtexas]

I personally don't upgrade all my software every release, and OS X is similar. I've skipped releases with Logic, Photoshop, and others because I couldn't justify the cost for the new features. That being said, a new version of OS X comes out about every 18 months. A lot of people buy new computers every 3-4 years, so you're probably only buying 1 or 2 upgrades then you get the newest OS when you buy a new computer. Those who don't are probably happily running 10.3 right now, like my parents.

For that matter, my Mac at work is running 10.3 even though I could get the help desk (hinder desk) to upgrade it to 10.4 at no cost to me. It's an older computer and I just don't need any features that 10.4 offers for my work.

One of the exciting things for me about new releases of OS X isn't always the features that Apple adds for the users, but for the developers. Some really interesting programs will probably come out that only work on 10.5 because they take advantage of new API's. I think Aperture is a perfect example - 10.4 only and it is really nice.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[hpavc]

The time spent dealing with windows annoyances is easily worth it in savings to me. Doesn't take long for the price difference of osx+mac to win+vendor to weigh out - especially with support.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[cyfer2000]

Student price is $69.00, and price from OIT of my university is... $10.00 per DVD, but no paper stuff.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[skingers6894]

Well, it's more like 18 months now and since I get the family pack and have 3 macs it's more like $66 bucks each per 18 months. Spotlight alone was worth that for me last time and I use dashboard at least once a day so yeah, worth it.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[andymadigan]

I end up using academic stuff every once in a while (I'm running ubuntu presently, but sometimes something windows-only pops up). Allow me to quash this bug:

MSDN Academic Alliance --Student Use Guidelines
[snip]

            By installing, copying, or otherwise using the Product, you agree to be bound by the terms of the EULA and the License Amendment. If you do not agree to be bound, do not install, copy or use the Product.

            Installation Guidelines:
      [snip]

            Usage Guidelines:

                    o You may use the software for non-commercial purposes including instructional use, research and/or design, development and testing of projects for class assignment and tests or personal projects. You may not use the Program software for any for-profit software development.
                    o When you are no longer a registered student in a department that is a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance, you may no longer receive updates for your personal use computer. However, <i><b>you may continue to use previously installed software on your computer, provided you continue to follow program guidelines</i></b>.
                    o If you violate the terms of the License Agreement and EULA, the MSDNAA Program Administrator will demand confirmation of removal of the program software on your personal use computer.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[rm69990]

A new version is released every 18 months, and you can skip every other release, so it is more like 3 years, which isn't really all that bad. Oh, and it's $129....

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[rm69990]

Besides my Mini, I'm also running a Powermac G4 which is now almost 6 years old. The Mini is currently having the optical drive replaced after I owned it for a month, the Powermac has never had any problem whatsoever. As long as you keep backups, old hardware can be a godsend. I would have been stuck without a computer for the last week if I didn't still have my Powermac. It obviously isn't very powerful, but 400 MHz is better than nothing...

Plus, old hardware is great for letting your kids screw around on without worrying about them breaking your expensive new computer.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[rm69990]

"For that matter, my Mac at work is running 10.3 even though I could get the help desk (hinder desk) to upgrade it to 10.4 at no cost to me. It's an older computer and I just don't need any features that 10.4 offers for my work."

I've generally found that OS X gets quicker with every release. Tiger runs far better on my Powermac G4 than Panther did once I turn off Dashboard...

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[kidtexas]

I have too. However, this particular machine is RAM limited and the prospects of me getting more RAM are slim.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[rfisher]

I skip releases for my Linux boxen & those upgrades are free.

(Well, I might have been paying for the bandwidth I use to d/l them whether I upgrade or not, but they really aren't free: There's still the time & aggrevation that an upgrade costs, usually without enough benefits to compensate.)

In general, I avoid OS upgrades (beyond patches) as long as possible.

Although, some of the parental control features of Tiger have been making me want to upgrade my one Mac that is still running Panther.

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[payndz]

Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?

In the 11 or 12 years I've owned Macs (having been using them for 16), I've never once bought an OS upgrade, because I haven't felt that I've needed to. My longest-serving desktop Mac was an iMac DV running OS8.6 which I bought in 1999, and it was still running 8.6 when I finally retired it for a Tiger eMac late last year. I also have a 2000 Graphite iBook running 9.2, which I intend to keep using for as long as it stays alive.

Part of my reasoning is financial, of course, but another part is simple blunt pragmatism: if it works, don't fix it. Whatever Steve's Top Secret features for Leopard may be, I can't imagine them being so awesome that I'd feel compelled to upgrade from Tiger. (Hell, I haven't even 'upgraded' from Word 5.1 yet! :p )

Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet!

[Riquez]

Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?

Americans are constant bargain hunters & moan about every dime difference.
Europeans don't care if its $100 or $150 - the difference is small.
This year I spent about $250 already on random bits of shareware, peripherals that I never use & some half read computer books.
This week I spent about $100 on beer, cola, snacks and other stuff that I probably didnt need.
I also pay $120 / year for my webspace/domains/email - it's all singing & dancing, but its only for fun really.

How much do you pay for your internet connection / year?

Give me a break!
$130 or whatever for the latest OS - this is /. don't forget! we are INTO this stuff - is peanuts. Anyone who moans about this,
- jeeeez

Thanks MacWorld!

[iainl]

It's really useful when a news source not only tells me that new pirate software exists, but how to tell the 'good' one from the fake.

Forward this story

[etresoft]

to the developers at Adobe and the MAC BU at Microsoft. Maybe if they can get a beta version of Leopard soon enough they will be able to release compatible software less than a year after it gets released. This while Mac OS X on Intel seems to have really caught them by surprise.

Re:Forward this story

[KugelKurt]

Do you really think that MS and Adobe do not have official Leopard betas?

Re:Forward this story

[mios]

Do you really think the poster wasn't kidding and taking a jab at Adobe and Microsoft for dragging their asses?

Time travellers *strictly* cash.

[argent]

Other then developers who are going to use the brand new features and see if their code will break, who will need or even want an early beta.

Time travellers who went back too far.

On YouTube...

[Simon Simian]

... there are some videos of the GUI.

Mac

[certel]

Who didn't think that this wouldn't be leaked? Everything is leaked now a days.

How is that different from Windows?

[argent]

I'm still running Windows 2000 and have no plans to downgrade* to XP, let alone Vista, until I absolutely have to. As the neighborhood "nice guy who knows about computers" I've found people running Windows 98 and Me. Why on earth do you think typical Apple users are any different than typical Windows users?

Sure, the obsessives and the hardcore gamers (but I repeat myself) track the latest version of the OS, but most people won't even understand your question.

(* Windows XP - Windows 2000 with a few more drivers and better game support, plus gigabytes of ugly eye-candy. Why risk a false positive from the Windows Genuine Advantage inquisition for that? About the only thing that's ever been a problem for me with Windows 2000 is Bluetooth support.)

Re:How is that different from Windows?

[smash]

(* Windows XP - Windows 2000 with a few more drivers and better game support, plus gigabytes of ugly eye-candy. Why risk a false positive from the Windows Genuine Advantage inquisition for that? About the only thing that's ever been a problem for me with Windows 2000 is Bluetooth support.)

Here, here.

I'm in the same situation - and with a cheap shitty $50 USB bluetooth adapter, bluetooth even works with the supplied driver :D

Re:How is that different from Windows?

[rm69990]

Windows service packs generally don't introduce new features (except for the firewall in XP SP2...which isn't exactly spectacular, considering firewalls have been standard on every other OS for a long time). Apple's upgrades always introduce new features that may be worth the money to some people. For instance, I would probably be willing to spend $60 on a stand-alone Time Machine like program. Some of the more feature-full and less buggy virtual desktop solutions for OS X are around $30. I would be willing to pay for iChat because of the new features (video in background, etc). For some users, it isn't worth it, and they simply don't upgrade. For some users, the new features are worth the price.

Windows Service Packs rarely introduce any new features that are noticeable to end users...so your point doesn't really fly.

leopard

[derniers]

one big reason to upgrade to Leopard is that it will be that it will be faster, especially on intel Macs- the eye candy is nice fluff

Yeah, I Know Already.

[CheeseburgerBlue]

Somebody leaked your comment before you posted it.

Re:Yeah, I Know Already.

[certel]

Yeah, I noticed that. =(

Upgrades are more than skin deep

[Dhrakar]

Yah, I certainly agree with that. Don't folks realize just how much stuff has changed 'under the hood' to improve speed, reliability and flexibility? To me, full point upgrades are about much more than just new applications and GUI changes. A good example is Tiger. Folks may have complained that not much changed on the outside, but do they realize that a huge swath of the networking subsystem was updated? These types of updates may be 'geeky' but I think that they are far, far more important than a new version of iMovie (cool as that app may be).

Leopard will help Slashdot

[Dystopian Rebel]

Leopard's system-wide grammar checker will help reduce the pressure on Slashdot's overworked Grammar Nazis. ;o)

Re:Leopard will help Slashdot

[mrchaotica]

Only for the Slashdotters using Safari or Camino, though, because unfortunately Firefox doesn't support Services. : (

Re:Leopard will help Slashdot

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Only for the Slashdotters using Safari or Camino, though, because unfortunately Firefox doesn't support Services. : (

Interestingly enough, another of the new features is the ability to embed cocoa features in carbon code, thus it may be much easier for Firefox to add support for services. Firefox's lack of support for services (something I use heavily) is the main reason why it is not my everyday browser on OS X.

Can you give examples?

[argent]

Skipping OS X releases is not generally a good idea. Apple does a lot of work behind the scenes with each release, and so you tend to end up with limited functionality (fortunately Objective-C provides late binding, so you can actually do this) in applications acquired after the release of the new version.

The only reason I'm running Panther rather than Jaguar on my Mac Mini is because that's what it came with. When I got it I was still running Jaguar... and that was right before the release of Tiger.

The only problem I've found with applications are applications that check the OS version and won't install, or applications that depend on new features. Some developers are pretty amateurish*, yes, but few profession apps (except Apple's) are version-locked.

Can you give examples of applications that misbehave because of incompatible 'behind the scenes' changes in APIs?

(* One application used PHP as a client scripting language to fetch a document from the Internet, rather than using Apple's Cocoa bindings or Apple's provided command line application. Not only that, but they insisted on Apple's install of PHP. I could have worked around it, but given that level of cluelessness I decided I was better off not using that application.)

Re:Can you give examples?

[ChrisFedak]

There were some pretty significant enhancements to Cocoa and the the Core Foundation libraries between 10.2 and 10.3, some of which aren't back compatible to 10.2. Some of these changes are pretty fundamental, like the bindings capability in nibs that allow you to very quickly write simple MVC apps. 10.4 similarly added a bunch of new stuff to the API's, but nothing that seems to have driven apps to require them quite like 10.3 did. I suspect 10.5 will be similar to 10.3, Core Animation will make implementing sophisticated custom controls much simpler and faster to implement. http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Cocoa/AppK itOlderNotes.html#X10_3Notes

No wonder they didn't show off special features...

[gforce811]

I guarantee you that was also one of the reasons Steve did not show off, or even include, the 'special features' that Apple has yet to release to the public. It's already been stated once or twice how all of the features that *are* included have already been shown in one form or another on previous operating systems. So, even if the beta did get "into the wild" (which it did), it's really not that big of a deal.

Re:Since it has a Time Machine....

[PsychoSid]

Comes with a free Delorean and some top quality nuclear fuel

OK, OpenGL eye candy...

[argent]

Exposé eye-candy...doesn't make any sense.

I think of all the OpenGL eye candy in Panther and Tiger (including Dashboard and the Fast User Switching cube) as "Exposé eye-candy". I know Exposé is not used for all of it, but it makes for a nice sound bite.

Core Animation, Exposé, the rest of the stuff... it's all wrappers around stuff openGL hackers have been doing for years.

I'm actually kind of worried about the way Apple's moving away from enhancing OpenGL to wrapping it in a proprietary API, starting with Core Image. It feels like they're trying to reduce application portability and setting us up for replacing OpenGL with something proprietary... or even some kind of wrapper that would let them use DirectX support in video cards to reduce their dependance on card manufacturers making custom Apple cards. It'd be logical and sensible from Apple's viewpoint, but it would hurt cross-platform developers.

Re:OK, OpenGL eye candy...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm actually kind of worried about the way Apple's moving away from enhancing OpenGL to wrapping it in a proprietary API, starting with Core Image.

This is just a matter of what works best as part of OpenGL itself and what works best as part of the implementation tools. I'm actually hoping Sony and Apple hang tight on the OpenGL thing. We all know there will be a single dev kit for Windows and Xbox, I'd like to see a competing one for Windows, Mac, Playstation 3, and Ninetendo. Sony is certainly pushing things that way and a lot of the 3d modeling industry has jumped on board. I just hope Apple and Nintendo can play nicely.

...or even some kind of wrapper that would let them use DirectX support in video cards to reduce their dependance on card manufacturers making custom Apple cards.

There is currently no reason for card manufacturers to make separate mac models except for two things. One, mac support powered DVI, unlike everyone else, so the boards need to handle that feature. Two, they make more money by selling a mac version at a higher price. All the cards already support OpenGL and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Heck, ATI already released one 3D card for both platforms and it seems likely they will continue in this vein.

Re:OK, OpenGL eye candy...

[DarkJC]

Wrong in a way. On the new Intel Mac's, the seperate video cards are needed for EFI support.

Re:OK, OpenGL eye candy...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Wrong in a way. On the new Intel Mac's, the seperate video cards are needed for EFI support.

You can put multiple firmware systems on a single ROM, just like ATI did with the 9600 Pro. Windows simply ignores the non-bios firmware.

"Voluntary purchase" is completely wrong metaphor

[chiark]

Well, it depends if you're confusing "entirely voluntary purchase" with "question of legal license" really, doesn't it?

Just because there's no technology preventing someone from doing it - thankfully - it doesn't mean people will break the license agreement...

Carry on with your "voluntary purchase" idea and why bother to buy the OS at all - after all, you can get it from all good torrent sites, and if you've got mac hardware you've already paid for the os, so why pay for it again, eh?

I dunno, but at a guess perhaps people just like to be legal?
(this being slashdot, I'm sure someone will point out that this isn't a metaphor at all ;-) )

"leaked"

[tomstdenis]

Yeah I'm sure. It was "leaked." As in, Apple wants more press so they do what they do with every other release and accidentally get a beta out the door.

Can we stop pretending to be gullible and just call it what it is?

Tom

Re:"leaked"

[cowscows]

Why do people insist on making things more complicated than they need to be. There are droves of hardcore mac fans who salivate over things like OSX updates. Demand. A bunch of copies were distributed to a bunch of developers following WWDC. Supply.

Wherever there is a supply and a demand, people will get a hold of those things. Apple didn't have to have some super secret plan to leak a version onto the internet. They know full well as soon as they let a copy out of their "labs" that they've basically lost control of it.

Do they mind the publicity? Probably not. Did they expect this to happen? Definitely. Was this leak the clumination of some behind the scenes planning? Nope. Why would Apple waste their time with something like that when there's an approximately 100% chance that one of the developers will leak a copy?

Re:"leaked"

[paintswithcolour]

"Can we stop pretending to be gullible and just call it what it is?"

Sure, you have definitive proof then?

How does believing in a whole load of speculative replies to this article make me less gullible?

Re:"leaked"

[smenor]

Seems like cowscows is just applying Occam's razor - there's no need for a conspiracy when it's something that's bound to happen spontaneously, even if Apple wanted it leaked (and I don't think it's even remotely given that they do).

Also, if Apple did leak it, don't you think they'd do it in a single disk image rather than split over 93 files?

Re:"leaked"

[dr.badass]

Yeah I'm sure. It was "leaked." As in, Apple wants more press so they do what they do with every other release and accidentally get a beta out the door.

Right, because there is no chance in hell that any one of four thousand WWDC attendees could have possibly uploaded a copy on their own. No chance in hell. It must be a secret corporate conspiracy to get buggy, incomplete software in the hands of end users, because that's good for business.

Here's a simpler explanation: anything that can end up on BitTorrent, will end up on BitTorrent.

Re:"leaked"

[tomstdenis]

If Apple was so concerned over leaks they would tighten the reigns. The fact that pretty much all of their OSes get leaked in advance [same happens to MSFT] speaks volumes of their security or motives [or both].

Tom

They are

[orasio]

Swedish nurses. Jan and Bjorn.

Re:They are

[PsychoSid]

Blond, uniforms and OSX. I wouldn't let gender stop me.

Do they still have that upgrade program?

[paranode]

I just bought a MacBook about a month ago. Not sure how long it will be till this is out but it would be nice not to have to pay full price for the upgrade. I know they used to have something like that.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[lowe0]

This'll be out in Spring (probably early spring, as I'd expect Vista around then as well). That's probably too long for upgrade coupons.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[metamatic]

Apple hasn't done any discount upgrades for OS X since the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1. They'll expect you to pay full price.

Which is why I'm waiting until 10.5 to buy a new machine.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[Teilo]

Um, wrong.

I got an upgrade discount from Panther to Tiger. They were available when you purchased the upgrade online, simply by entering your registration info and your hardware's S/N.

In fact, I even missed the purchase cut-off date by about 15 days. I still got the discount.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[larkost]

Every computer that is (legally/reliably) capable of running MacOS (X) already has a copy, so every MacOS X retail box is an upgrade. There is no "full" version like there is for Windows. But Apple does not put in the upgrade file checks to look for older versions so people get confused. $129 is the "upgrade" price.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[King_TJ]

Apple, to the best of my knowledge, has been offering upgrades to OS X for anyone who purchased a new Mac within 30 days before a new OS's release. Typically, they even go to some effort to make sure your newly purchased Mac does, indeed, have the latest OS X version in the box with it. (When I bought my G5 tower, Panther was just announced. Of course, the G5 towers in stock all still had Jaguar bundled with them, so the Apple Stores were slipping Panther install kits in all the boxes before they went out the door.)

But yeah, I don't think there's any other specific "upgrade price plan" for users wanting 10.5. If you're soon to be in the market for a new Mac, it's not a bad deal to just wait and get 10.5 bundled with it. (A lot of people bought Mac Minis right after Tiger started coming bundled with them for that same reason. It wasn't a very expensive computer in the first place, and looked like an even better value if you were otherwise going to go out and spend $129 for a Tiger install DVD.)

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[prockcore]

But Apple does not put in the upgrade file checks to look for older versions so people get confused. $129 is the "upgrade" price.

No. $129 is the full price. The upgrade price is $69, and you can get it from any Apple resaler (just not Apple itself). The upgrade does require the previous version to be installed. I have a copy of the Tiger upgrade (which requires Panther, will *not* install on a Jaguar machine) in my desk drawer right this very second.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[Pfhor]

And thanks to:

http://litpixel.com/mac/articles/UpdateCDHack/inde x.html

You can still turn any upgrade cd/dvd into a Full Install. Done it for many systems that I didn't have any OS on the drive.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[metamatic]

Yeah, sure, if you happened to have bought the OS within a certain time limit before the next version, there was an upgrade. But there was no general upgrade program, and there's no guarantee of future time-limited upgrade programs.

Re:Do they still have that upgrade program?

[argent]

No. $129 is the full price. The upgrade price is $69, and you can get it from any Apple resaler (just not Apple itself).

Except that the upgrade isn't always available. It's not an upgrade like an upgrade copy of Windows XP is... it's a special deal for people who bought a Mac "close enough" to the new release. My Mac mini missed by a few weeks, for example.

How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[argent]

Think about how Apple prices OS X.

Various analyses and estimates of Apple's margins on Macs have been posted, and they seem to make about 40% margin on the hardware... compared to the razor-thin margins Dell gets. Since the main reason people buy Macs is for the software (yes, a few people have been buying them for the style and running Linux or (now) Windows on them... but in general it's the software that makes it a Mac), you can say for the sake of argument that the "full price" of OS X is 40% of the price of a Mac... from $200 on the Mac Mini to $1000+ on the Mac(book) Pro.

I'm not convinced that Apple's margins on the high end are as high as 40%, and Apple does toss in things like iLife and Garage Band, so let's say that they get $400* "for OS X"... on average, when someone buys a Mac.

Then the $130 price of the retail version is in spitting distance of Microsoft's upgrade price for Windows (Professional, since Apple doesn't sell a Mac OS Home).

So, what if Apple sold "Mac OS X Pro" for $400, capable of running on generic x86 hardware, and the existing retail OS X would be licensed as an "upgrade" for Pro as well as for Apple hardware. That way, whether someone bought a Mac or bought a Wintel box and slammed OS X Pro on it, they'd still be making the same profit.

The usual objection to this is that it would end up on BitTorrent.

"But, Doctor Evil, That Already Happened".

If they cared THAT much about people running pirated OS X on Wintel boxes they wouldn't have released the Intel kernel.

* Don't nitpick the number. It could be $500, or $350, or $487.43... I don't care, I don't have to care, Apple knows how much it is and they'd be the ones to pick the price. :)

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[NSIM]

I find the 40% margin figure extremely high and frankly I don't think it's possible. To get 40% on the Dual Core XEON Macs, they would have to be building the base model for ~$1500 including parts, labour, software (Some amount for the R&D involved in building OSX and its applications.) I haven't seen Intel's CPU pricing to vendors for a while, but I'd surprised if they see much change out $500 for each processor, motherboard another $150 at least, chassis similar amount, PSU isn't going to cheap (I'd guess at least $150 considering the stuff its got to provide power for.) So that's $1450 without even thinking about graphics, memory, disk, and the manufacturing costs. Knowing the hi-end PC manufacturing biz I'd be surprised if they were seeing better than 15% given how good the pricing is on the new boxes.

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[pboulang]

Yes, like you, Apple just goes in and pays retail.. Great analysis, skippy!

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[C0rinthian]

Macs have a reputation for being very stable, and working very seamlessly. Just watch the new Apple ad's to see how they re-inforce this image. It's one of their key selling points.

Throw it on generic x86 hardware and that's gone. Apple isn't going to do that willingly.

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[NSIM]

No, those are prices I would expect them to being for components, my estimates are based on several years work at hi-end PC manufacturer where my job included pricing and forecasting for hi-end systems, so knowledge of component pricing was a requirement. Street price for a single 5150 CPU is in the $730+ for each CPU, FBDIMM memory carries a significant premium over run of the mill DDR etc, Tell me, what's your estimate based on Skippy?

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[pboulang]

I'm sure you are more accurate than most with your final figure of about 15% profit per as best case scenario at this time. Apple will make that up with much higher margins in two ways: 1) Always have a higher end workstation in place so people can glom onto the lower end stuff and be happy with brand ownership ("look, I have the same brand as the fastest freakin' thing you can buy") so take less margins on these machines and make it up in the iMacs and 2) As costs decrease, pricing remains the same, raising margins. From #2 and the fact that Intel made a deal to be sole supplier of CPUs and that labor costs to put these things together are practically nil ($1/hour?), I suggest that FUTURE margins, like around the time Leopard comes out, the margins on MacPros will be more around 30-35%.

Now, I didn't mean to step on your purse. My "Nice Analysis, Skippy" was in fact a complement.. and the "You" was a You as in Joe public and I wansn't clear on that :)

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[NSIM]

I agree that they are probably making better margins on the low end boxes, but it's higly unlikely that they are making good enough margins on those to raise the overall margin to 40%, same goes for the higher end configurations, good margins, yes, but not selling enough to realy raise overall margins to 40%. As to the idea that you can make it up later in the life of the product, yes in a perfect world that's true, but this aint that world. The problem is that as component prices go down, they down for your competition as well, that means you must either reduce prices or increase the configuration to stay competitive. Typically what happens is that price of the next CPU in Intel's line drops to the point where there is little gap between that processor and the low-end, so you up the processor in the base configuration. Apple's volumes on components like disk will be tiny compared to DELL so they can't command the same sort of pricing power with suppliers that DELL has. Nor can they demand that the suppliers warehouse the inventory next to DELL's manufacturer plant in their own facilities and bare all the risk of price drops, that's what DELL does! Apple is to certain degree protected from all this because you can't go and buy a DELL with OSX, if you want OSX then Apple hardware is the only game in town and that's why they will not ship a generic OSX release. BTW, I know Apple has had some trouble with using very low cost labour in China, but I'd be very surprised if they are getting manufacturing costs at $1/hr. Bare in mind that DELL is widely beleived to have squeezed just about all the costs out of PC manufacturing and will benefit from much higher production volumes than Apple and they can't 40 point margins on hardware these days. 40% was the sort of margin we looked for on RISC workstations and the like in the mid-90s, the days when you can get anything close to that on Intel platforms are long gone.

Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86

[gig]

Your margins are way too high.

Hardware is always razor-thin.

Also keep in mind that Apple has to support the whole box even if it is a software problem, whereas Dell ... ha ha ha.

Syntactical enhancements

[5plicer]

According to Apple's site, Objective-C 2.0 also features enhancements to the syntax. I'm excited to find out what these are!

Simple!

[lisaparratt]

Microsoft uses technology to keep people honest.
Apple uses trust to keep people honest.

Re:Simple!

[dfghjk]

Apple doesn't face the massive piracy issues that MS does and has no need to take such measures. If Apple decided to sell OS X for generic PC's you can bet they'd end up with registration.

Apple is the only company to use DRM to a lock its OS to its hardware. Where's the trust?

Re:Simple!

[CrackedButter]

Since you cannot buy a mac without the OS what is the issue here? Unless of course you didn't want to buy a mac but wanted the OS...

I don't think so

[CrimsonScythe]

I think the Apple lawyers will be too busy to be able to go and have a field day. At most, I think they'll have the time to have a movie-night, but barely even that.

Blame ATI and nVidia

[metamatic]

You're welcome to do raw OpenGL if you want. The problem is, developers want a nice easy way to (for example) draw a line of specified thickness from point (x1,y1) to point (x2,y2).

OpenGL theoretically offers that, but in practice the drivers provided by the video card vendors are riddled with bugs. On some machines you get an antialiased line; on some you don't. On some machines you get a line of the correct width, on some the lines are always 1 pixel wide.

So Apple does what they have to do. They build their own Core Graphics API which provides a call to draw an anti-aliased line of set thickness. Core Graphics then does whatever dicking around with quads and textures is necessary to implement that on top of the crappy driver code delivered by ATI and nVidia.

I am

[pavon]

I am definately going to upgrade. I skipped over Tiger, as none of the improvements aimed for users mattered to me - my files are better organized than my house, so spotlight wasn't a big deal, and I am comfortable with applescript, so didn't care about automator. Dashboard looked spiffy but not really worth the upgrade. The new development features looked sweet, but I don't do any Mac development professionally, knew I wouldn't have time to play with them on my own, as a big deadline was approaching.

The two big user features anounced for Leopard on the other hand, are both very important to me. While expose is much nicer than a window list, I often have over 50 windows open when working on some projects, and have been dying for X11-like virtual displays to group them (the third party ones I tried didn't hack it). Timeline looks very convenient, and more importantly, it looks like a backup system easy enough for my parents to use. I have been meaning to get them a mac ever since the intels came out (they have one or two windows programs they can't do without), but this clenches it.

Re:Plan9 ideas

[leoval]

It is nice to see that Plan9 ideas keep flowing into mainstream OS's. Fossil+venti has been around for several years now (one of the best things of Plan9 btw).

Re:Who cares?

[rm69990]

Are you nuts? Have you seen the resale value for Macs on Ebay? Assuming your Mac is a G4, you could have probably got ~$175 or 200 for it on eBay, and there are people willing to pay that much for them. For a G3, around $75 for it.

Re:Does the copy have all the apps?

[Dysantic]

That's awesome... you're asking if a leaked version of an OS, essentially a stolen copy, has specific apps and is easy to uninstall...?

Well, I guess that's safe to ask when you post as an anonymous coward.

Torrent link

[dark-br]

I just hope you have a swedish IP address ;P

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/hashtorrent/35126 76.torrent/APPLE.MAC.OSX.LEOPARD.V10.5.WWDC.PREVIE W-BETAOSX.3512676.TPB.torrent

Don't get your hopes up...

[pedantic bore]

I'm all for garbage collected languages -- they save me a lot of work -- but it's essential to remember that the algorithms they use to detect garbage use strict algorithms and cannot read the mind of the programmer!

As long as you've got a live reference to something, it won't go away. If you don't clean up your references, the referants are going to clutter up your world. It's nice that one foo = NULL can replace free'ing everything foo points to, item by item, and then foo itself... but it doesn't remove the need for the programmer to make sure that no dangling pointers to foo don't leak out.

Re:Who cares?

[chowhound]

Where do you live? (Reaches for car keys)

And who didn't see this coming, really?

[frdmfghtr]

You can have legally-binding documents lining the walls, but anytime you release software out of your immediate, physical control, it's going to leak, either intentionally or unintentionally.

The only sure-fire way to keep anything from leaking is physical separation from the rest of the world.

Anybody want to speculate that this was really a "controlled" leak to drum up interest and anticipation for Leopard, or am I all wet?

Re:And who didn't see this coming, really?

[smenor]

Anybody want to speculate that this was really a "controlled" leak to drum up interest and anticipation for Leopard, or am I all wet?

I'm willing to bet it's not. The release is still ~7 months away and any hype that comes out of this leak will have died down by then. Also, I don't see Apple splitting it over 93 files rather than a single disk image (unless that's 92 technotes and 1 disk image, and I'd seriously doubt that).

Re:And who didn't see this coming, really?

[tehcyder]

or am I all wet?

Is this like "hot" or "cold"?

New phrase to me (except in the "I am a horny blonde teenager not an FBI agent, please send me your address" sort of way).

Re:And who didn't see this coming, really?

[Paladeen]

The torrent contains roughly 93 evenly sized RAR files, which, when joined, form a single disk image.

Debunked!

[Van Halen]

The up-to-date program has always been available only if you bought your Mac after the OS release date was announced. That's always been less than 30 days.

For reference, Tiger's release date of April 29, 2005 was announced on April 12, 2005 (18 days, inclusive). Macs purchased on April 11, 2005 or before were not eligible for Tiger's up-to-date program. Panther's release date of October 24, 2003 was announced on October 8, 2003 (17 days).

30 seems to be a nice round number that's easy to remember, so people toss it around as fact instead of checking for themselves. I've seen a number of people on various forums get burned by this, assuming they'd be ok buying within 30 days of the rumored (but not yet announced) release date. If you want the next OS release for cheap via this program, don't buy your new Mac until the OS release date is officially announced. Let's debunk this myth!

Re:Debunked!

[King_TJ]

Ok... but that policy seems a bit counter-productive for Apple, because buyers always have the ability to return a product within 30 days. (I realize Apple charges a restocking fee in many cases, but with the PowerMacs in the past, they were waiving that. So a user discovering he/she bought it a week too early to qualify could just return the whole thing, and buy it again, getting the newer OS and causing Apple more hassle than it's worth.)

Re:Apples

[Overly Critical Guy]

As opposed to the still-$250 Windows XP Professional.

Re:Does the copy have all the apps?

[niktemadur]

Wait til it's done. Then you don't have to fix what ain't broke.

My thoughts precisely. I can always understand people wanting to try out the latest of anything, but I'd always rather wait until the stabler versions come around. Rule of thumb: never go for the any version of 10.X.1, always wait for 10.X.5 at least. With Apple Support the way it is described in most OSX Forums (bad to worse), why put yourself in a position for potential grief for weeks on end? Furthermore, this is not taking into account that the GGGP post is talking about OSX as warez, with no warranties involved.

My wife is running her iBook with 10.3.9 flawlessly, she doesn't need Dashboard, I told her that she, ahem, don't have fix what ain't broke. I'm running Tiger on my iMac only because it came in the box, I'm up to 10.4.7, and have no intention of switching to Leopard until it's up to at least 10.5.7. By which time, Cheetah or Ocelot or whatever it's gonna be called, will already be floating around.

Attack of the 30-day myth!

[Van Halen]

Again, 30 days persists as a completely false myth. With Apple, it's 14 days:

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespoli cies.html

Re:Attack of the 30-day myth!

[King_TJ]

Well, if you buy your Mac from a local CompUSA store, it appears to be a 21 day return policy, as noted on their web site here:

http://www.compusa.com/terms.asp#in-store

And now . . .

[ElephanTS]

[drum roll]

There were rumours that Bit Torrent would be integrated into Leopard. In reality it looks like Leopard's been integrated into Bit Torrent.

Thanks, I'll be here all week

[bread roll]

Apple saw this coming

[BWhaler]

I think that Apple gave the developers a very old build especially designed for WWDC. The Top Secret features point to unreleased features, UI, and potentially hardware. So, all functionality and low-level information which point to these products must be missing. As we saw from the iPhone references discovered in the last iPod update, Apple is aware that people will be sniffing around for clues. Also, Apple knew this was going to happen. It's inevitable. Sure, they will sue and write nasty letters to protect their IP, but it's still inevitable. So, what is out in the wild is probably--and hopefully given the keynote--and a very limited preview of Leopard. The preview seed gives developers just enough to test their application and get cracking on some of the new API's--SpotLight, Time Machine, etc.

public key enctyption and some software

[kwerle]

Encrypt the DVDs to however many keys you have consumers. Give away a USB keydrive with enough software to decrypt, tag, and install the image. Each USB drive has a unique key.

USB drives are pretty cheap, and can be quickly "burnt".

The Looks are Trivial

[Prien715]

I think WinXP is ugly as sin as well, but it's a silly thing to grip about since I can make it identical to Win2K/Win9x in less than a minute. The ease of security updates (auto-update vs "Did I check this week?") makes it worth it to me.

It's about as valid a complaint for an expert user as "I don't like the default background on Dell's Win98 CD so I updraded to a generic version of Win95".

Re:There Is Only One Thing I Want...

[kylearin]

VMware has announced an upcoming beta of their MacOS product. Maybe it will be faster? http://www.vmware.com/news/releases/mac.html

Re:it could be though

[misleb]

That's easy enough for them to address-no support on anything but mac hardware.

People will expect support if there is any hint from Apple that OS X will work on a beige box PC. Doesn't matter if there is some fine print somehere that says "only supported on offical Mac hardware."

ut I also doubt they will do it at this time, but eventually they will, as open source keeps chipping away at all aspects of the computer environment. Might be some many years down the road but eventually they'll do it. They've shown that they will make hard decisions, with good, bad or "meh' as the outcome, but they have proven they can alter their business direction. Most likely it will occur once their OS will boot due to third party enthusiast's work on random x86 hardware, which it eventually will do in a non painful manner. I don't think they'll be able to prevent that, so their hand will be forced.

As long as Apple maintains the offical line that OS X doesn't run on non-Apple hardware, they will not be forced to do anything. Let the hackers and enthusiast's run OS X on beige boxes if they want. They are not the kind of people to expect support when none is offered and they are unlikely to generate bad press complaining about broken divers or whatever.

It might be nice, however, if Apple allowed OS X to run in VMware so that people could get a "taste" of OS X before switching. A cheap, downloadable VMware Player image would be interesting. I know lots of people who would give that a try.... Linux AND Windows users. The nice thing about that idea is that it is practically guaranteed to "Just Work" like OS X is supposed to. No problems with drivers and whatnot. VMWare would benefit as well.

-matthew

Microsoft's business model aint easy

[DECS]

Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against Microsoft when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

Actually Microsoft has failed repeatedly in expanding their Windows business model (MS software + parter hardware) into new areas. They've failed in making any money on SmartPhones and PDAs, they've floundered with Tablets, Oragami, TV set top boxes, and Media Center home convergence, and they failed miserably in trying to play the same game against the iPod with WMA licensing.

What has Microsoft done recently? They've started playing Apple, building their own hardware + software combination, the very same tactic everybody though Apple couldn't pull off, but which has kept the Mac alive. Other platforms, which tried to take the licensing path, didn't go anywhere: BeOS, NeXT/OPENSTEP, Solaris/Intel for the desktop, among others. Apple also applied this successfuly with the iPod.

Microsoft has decided they really want to own platforms the way Apple does, so they have more control over the fit and finish, and aren't at the mercy (or indifference) of hardware partners.

Witness:

the Xbox and Xbox360 - no licensing on others' hardware!

the Zune - abandons hardware partners to take on the iPod itself - no licensing!

Do you supose Microsoft has a plan, or that these new turns in any way reflect the dismal failure of previous efforts to license software out?

An overview of Microsoft's directions is presented in mythbuster articles in RoughlyDrafted Magazine:

The Microsoft iPod-Killer Myth
According to proponents of this myth, Microsoft is out to kill Apple's iPod with a player they will design and build on their own. Once it arrives, they expect Microsoft to clean up not only the music player market, but also online music sales, leaving Apple on the sidelines. They're wrong, here's why.

The Microsoft Invincibility Myth
According to proponents of this myth, Microsoft's expertise in building software platforms ensures that everything that Microsoft does will turn to gold. This supposed invincibility is used to prove how Microsoft will eventually dominate all new markets, from online music stores to the iPod, and how advances by Linux and Apple's Mac OS X will never make any significant impact on PC desktops. They're wrong, here's why.

Re:it could be though

[zogger]

Good point with the virtualization, might work. But..if people got it working there on their beige boxes...why would they want to drop one to three grand to get about the same thing on ac hardware? A small percent speed bump? Seems iffy, but ya, might be interesting. I'm not interested in it, but I know a lot of people would be. I ran apple hardware for over a decade, but then I discovered linux and the GPL. I'll struggle by with that, and build my own systems. I *used* to pay the premium but I see no big reason to do that now, I don't have any critical "mac only" apps to run. Windows was never an option for me really, not a lot of interest since DOS on a 286 days, man I hated that crap, switched to mac first time I tried, I mean I bought the box on the spot...but that was then, this is now. I like GUI, and sure am glad a lot of smart devs decided it might be a good idea to use it with linux. What you can get now is *plenty* good enough for my purposes. If there was a 200-300 buck new mac, just a plain jane tower that was upgradeable, I might try it again, but not for more, no real purpose nor need, and I build my systems on the cheap.

Re:Does the copy have all the apps?

[voxel]

So what if Leopard only hits 10.5.5... and is stable then.

What is Leopard is stable on 10.5.1 and maybe hits 10.5.2...

I love the way you think.

Re:Apples

[Overly Critical Guy]

Nobody forced me to buy any OS X upgrades, and since I got on the bandwagon with Panther a few months before Tiger came out, I've only paid $120.

OS X also has "free patching." Big difference between that and a major version upgrade. Frankly, I don't mind the idea of paying money for new features almost every year in my operating system, rather than letting it stagnate for six years with little more than some SP2 security changes and a "Media Center Edition" spin-off. I mean, re-read your sentence:

So that's 650 dollars to keep your OS up to date compared to just 250 for XP.

Paying $250 for XP isn't exactly keeping your OS up to date, sir. Tiger = a year old. XP = going on six.

Re:Apples

[mibus]

Nobody forced me to buy any OS X upgrades

I have a three-year-old iBook with OS X 10.2. I love(d*) it, and 10.2 worked well. Unfortunately, there is a growing number of apps that simply don't support 10.2 any more. I wanted a new version of MPlayer OSX recently - nope. Skype? Nope.

I'm not going to say I have a problem with Apple's method - if I used OS X much (I primarily use Linux on it) I'd jump out and buy a newer OS X, no problems. It just sucks that support for a platform is dropped so rapidly by ISVs - who would think of dropping support for even Win2k, let alone XP or an OS even newer?

At least in Linux-Land, the upgrades are always free ;)

(* G3/800MHz iBook - currently getting its fifth logic board installed)

Re:Does the copy have all the apps?

[niktemadur]

What is Leopard is stable on 10.5.1 and maybe hits 10.5.2...

Even as I'm hoping you're eventually proven correct, the continuing saga of OSX so far implies otherwise, it's always taken several updates to hone it down properly.

Before OSX, the story gets a bit convoluted. For example, while OS8 didn't officially go beyond 8.5 or 8.6, I can't remember which, OS9 was pretty much a straightforward continuation of OS8, the only added feature being the ability to run simulated on OSX, virtually useless for many of us back then, wary to install a radically different OS in our creaky 350 MhZ, 128MB RAM, 5GB HD jalopies. Furthermore, OS9 was a nasty affair in its' first couple of releases - no new features, stability shot to hell.

Also, take Apple hardware as an example, specifically, the flat screen iMac G5. When the first batch was released, there were two suppliers of power sources, and one had a tendency to overheat and combust while in Sleep Mode. Three months after purchase on average, first a nasty whiff of electrical fire and melted plastic, then fzzzzt! I was about to buy one in those days, but did extensive research on the Mac forums, and this problem was a main topic everywhere. Instead, I hung on to my extensively modded Blueberry iMac for a few more months. The second batch of iMacs addressed that problem, I made my move, and it's been relatively smooth sailing ever since.

However, the empirical lesson remains: never get the first batch that comes from Apple, hardware or software, not when it's that expensive, and not when for that price, their notorious customer support leaves something to be desired.

Re:Apples

[Overly Critical Guy]

If Windows updates were rolling out as rapidly as OS X at its price, ISVs would more quickly require newer versions. That said, 10.2 came out in 2002. That's four years ago, which sounds like a reasonable length of time to abandon support.

Heck, Halo 2 for PCs will require Vista for absolutely no reason other than to force upgrades.

Re:it could be though

[misleb]

Good point with the virtualization, might work. But..if people got it working there on their beige boxes...why would they want to drop one to three grand to get about the same thing on ac hardware? A small percent speed bump?

The performance of a desktop OS inside VMWare can never compete with the real thing. It would be a lot more than a small speed bump to get Apple hardware. Come to think of it, that may be an argument against releasing a VMware image. People might get the impression that OS X is slow when they run it in virtualization.

And $3000? Are you kidding me? How long have you been out of the Mac market? Maybe if you're looking for a quad core tower or the high end MacBook Pro you will shell out three grand. Although even the base quad core (Xeon processors) Mac Pro is only $2500 http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=AFBB8654&nclm=MacPro An Intel Mac Mini is under a grand and it is plenty fast. And the iMacs are not too shabby either. This would cover 80% of PC users easily.

I ran apple hardware for over a decade, but then I discovered linux and the GPL. I'll struggle by with that, and build my own systems. I *used* to pay the premium but I see no big reason to do that now, I don't have any critical "mac only" apps to run. Windows was never an option for me really, not a lot of interest since DOS on a 286 days, man I hated that crap, switched to mac first time I tried, I mean I bought the box on the spot...but that was then, this is now. I like GUI, and sure am glad a lot of smart devs decided it might be a good idea to use it with linux. What you can get now is *plenty* good enough for my purposes. If there was a 200-300 buck new mac, just a plain jane tower that was upgradeable, I might try it again, but not for more, no real purpose nor need, and I build my systems on the cheap.

Wow, the exact opposite of me. I used PCs almost exclusively for what must be 20 years. I never did much with Windows on my own computers. I went right from DOS to Linux about 12 years ago (my God, have I been using Linux that long!?). About a year ago I took a job at an art college where my desktop is a Mac. I was tempted to install Linux PPC on it (I'm sysadmin, I can run whatever I want)... but I decided that i would give OS X a serious try.

So far it has worked out really well. I think I am a "switcher" now. I haven't rejected Linux. I still use Linux and FreeBSD for servers, but I just can't get myself away from the elegant design of the OS X desktop (and the hardware itself). It is just so slick. I think it is totally awesome that I can install a program simply by dropping it in /Applications. No hassle with packages and dependencies. No worrying about where an application is putting files. Upgrade Firefox? Just drag a new version into /Applications.

After 20 years of fscking with PC hardware (jumpers, IRQs, incompatable chipsets, funky drivers, etc), this is a well earned break. I used to build PC system. And I built my current Mac. I went out and bought a used G4 tower (AGP graphics), installed a 1Ghz upgrade module that I got a good deal on, and installed a modded NVIDIA Gefore 3 from a PC. I'm good to go for now. I've actually got a 2 Ghz P4 PC sitting here that hasn't been seriously used in months. I'd rather use the Mac even if it is like 1/4 the speed. I do a lot of Ruby on Rails development and I just love Textmate. ;-)

The "upgradability" of a plain jane PC tower is overrated. I've found that any time I do an upgrade lately on a PC, I end up just gutting it. New CPU, new motherboard (because new CPUs use different sockets), new RAM (because new motherboards use different RAM), new video card (AGP is obsolete), new harddrive (because, hell, why not?

Anything Better then Vista/Longhorn

[Liger-Zero]

I Look forward to seeing/beta testing this new version, frankly ANYTHING is better then Vista and Longhorn (for all you MS Zombies, I am a MCSE+Security and MSA and a Corporate Beta tester for both versions, so this isn't just Microsoft bashing, but emprical comments based on EXTENSIVE lab testing) Apple seems to have a much better way of doing things to include their Server Version of OS X which is rock solid and I love over Redhat and Fedora. I would like to see how the new version wil handle IPv6, since Micrsoft does an awful job, not to mention that their OWN programmers don't know their own stack. I am also curious if the new version of OS X will run on the intel chip or is it just on the RISC chip.

Re:Apples

[topham]

If you look at the under-the-covers changes Apple made to the available frameworks you would understand why developers have been moving to the latest and greatest versions.

All the users think they should or shouldn't upgrade based on the obvious changes to the OS; meanwhile Apple keeps adding frameworks to die for.

Re:Apples

[mibus]

Oh, I'm fully aware of that; the first thing I did when I got OS X was install the dev tools :). It's just a shame that on the occasion I want to use OSX, half of the apps I want to run, don't.

"All that remains is bestial..." - Roderigo.

[argent]

Macs have a reputation for being very stable, and working very seamlessly.

As someone whose first Mac was an original 128K model, let me just say that this reputation is more often undeserved than deserved. :P

Re:"All that remains is bestial..." - Roderigo.

[gig]

> As someone whose first Mac was an original 128K model, let me just say that this reputation
> is more often undeserved than deserved. :P

All you have to do is take a job in a Windows shop for about three months and see how the other half lives.

If something actually ends up working on MS Windows, even after days of fucking with it first, then users celebrate. It is high fives all around. You are supposed to expect stuff not to work and once it's working you tell everyone involved that they are a righteous fucking genius.

The thing with the Mac is that there is this actually quite large community of very non-technical users who are doing amazing stuff. If you are getting help desk style calls from friends who have PC's and then they switch there will be a point where you will call THEM and say "hey, what's up are you still using your computer?" and they will point you to a Web site with a slideshow and five movies on it and tell you how much fun they are having now that they finally know how to share their digital photos and movies after they shoot them.

Every geek has their favorite Mac OS X bug that is haunting them, but on the whole what Apple has done in the past few years is amazing. They not only vindicated their own ideals of very tight system integration and ease of use and "computers for everyone!" but they also did a world of good for UNIX, especially "desktop UNIX". The fact that they could change their whole OS and since then their processor architecture and yet still have the easiest system speaks to the fact that they are designing their stuff right. No matter what technologies come along or how the industry changes we can expect Apple to still be making good products because their philosophies and execution are sound.

Re:"All that remains is bestial..." - Roderigo.

[argent]

All you have to do is take a job in a Windows shop for about three months and see how the other half lives.

Which has bugger all to do with my comment, since the subject was all about the value of running OS X on generic hardware rather than Macs, but before I get into that let me say that I've been a UNIX and Windows system administrator for 20 years (so take your sob stories about having to deal with idiot Windows users ans shove them where the sun don't shine... I'm sure I can top them all). And of course I've had to support Mac users as well, being the token non-Windows guy (Mac, Amiga, UNIX, BeOS, you name it), so I know that your characterization of Mac users is overstating the case (at the least).

But to get back to the point, Apple's reputation for hardware quality rests on the wilingness of Apple's best users to put up with utter crap like the Powermac 6000 "series", or Rev A G3s and iMacs, or the Powermac 8100 case, or the many other "Road Apples" apple has strewn their way. To bring things up to the present day... Apple's current crop of laptops, including my own Macbook Pro, are horrible. There's nothing special about Apple hardware, and there's no reason to assume that installing Leopard on a Thinkpad instead of a Macbook, or a good-quality white-box clone instead of a Mac mini, will set the user up for a fall.

These were all pre-Intel studies.

[argent]

I find the 40% margin figure extremely high and frankly I don't think it's possible.

You're probably right. Of course if the margin is lower my argument is better. :)

40% on the low end is easy...

[argent]

I agree that they are probably making better margins on the low end boxes, but it's higly unlikely that they are making good enough margins on those to raise the overall margin to 40%

Easily.

I had built a better computer than the original Mac mini for $300 about the time the mini came out, without the price advantages of integrated components, paying retail for everything. Faster CPU, more memory, more disk space, faster disk, better video, ... and it ran FreeBSD too.

Re:40% on the low end is easy...

[gig]

> I had built a better computer than the original Mac mini for $300 about the time the mini came out, without the price
> advantages of integrated components, paying retail for everything. Faster CPU, more memory, more disk space, faster disk,
> better video, ... and it ran FreeBSD too.

- can you edit movies on it out of the box, including FireWire for my camera?
- does it work with an iPod out of the box?
- does it work with every digital camera on the planet out of the box, including photo management interface?
- does it burn video DVD's out of the box?
- does it do WYSIWYG blogs out of the box?
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth out of the box and so easy my grandmother can use them?
- can it run Photoshop?
- does it have a 10-foot interface (e.g. Front Row) and a remote?
- does it have both analog and digital video out?
- does it have both analog and digital audio out?
- is it about the size of an external optical disc drive?
- does it have a three-year all-inclusive warranty for an extra $150 so I can take it into any Apple Store any time in the next three years and they'll make it work right again if it stops?
- does it have award-winning industry-leading design and style?
- does it have a premium cutting-edge graphics and multimedia layer in addition to kickass UNIX guts?
- is it so easy to use that anybody can use it?

You get a lot in a Mac mini for around $500.

The looks are the trout in the milk.

[argent]

I think WinXP is ugly as sin as well, but it's a silly thing to grip about since I can make it identical to Win2K/Win9x in less than a minute.

You can't remove the extra code, XP still has a bigger footprint than 2000 no matter how you set the options. It also contains code deliberately designed to prevent it working if it decides you're violating Microsoft's copyright... not just at install, but every time you boot. My trust in Microsoft's good will and competence doesn't extend far enough to make me accept that kind of restriction lightly.

The ease of security updates (auto-update vs "Did I check this week?") makes it worth it to me.

I routinely turn off auto-update on every application or operating system that I use that has it. Again, it's a matter of trust: my lack of trust in them not using me as an unpaid test monkey. I install updates immediately only if I know I need them, otherwise I wait for the screams. For many people, I realise, making an informed decision about accepting an update is an unreasonable expectation, but it's not rocket science.

I'm not just talking about service packs.

[argent]

Windows Service Packs rarely introduce any new features that are noticeable to end users...so your point doesn't really fly.

I'm not just talking about service packs. I'm talking about users.

I'm using Windows 2000. I know people using Windows Me and Windows 98. I only upgraded from IE 5.5 to IE 6 because Windows Update required it. I'm still using Windows Media Player 2.0. I suspect that there's still some of the DOS-5-based diagnostic boxes I set up at my last job still in use.

I'm still using Panther, and I was still using Jaguar when Tiger came out, and the only reason I'm not still using Jaguar is because I upgraded from a desktop G4/433 to a Mac mini and it came with Panther. Heck, the machine I use for scanning photos is still running OS 9.1.

Re:I'm not just talking about service packs.

[rm69990]

Not sure if you are the original poster (original was Anon), but I did put at the end of my first paragraph "For some users, it isn't worth it, and they simply don't upgrade. For some users, the new features are worth the price.", which is essentially what you just said.

Also, the anon poster said Microsoft doesn't charge for service packs. Apple and Microsoft charge for the exact same thing. Microsoft released Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), released free service packs for it, and then released a paid upgrade (NT 5.1 a.k.a. Windows XP), with its own free service packs. Apple released Mac OS X 10.3, and then released numerous "service packs" (10.3.1, 10.3.2, etc), and then released a paid upgrade (10.4) with its own free "service packs" (10.4.1, 10.4.2 etc). Just because Microsoft and Apple use different terminology doesn't make it any different. And just because the development pace at Microsoft is glacial doesn't mean Apple is doing something wrong by releasing new OS X editions every year and a half. Maybe Microsoft needs to pick it up a notch, instead of resting on their laurels and letting their main product stagnate while chasing after numerous markets where they are hopelessly outnumbered and even losing market share in (they lose share every month to Google for instance)?

Re:I'm not just talking about service packs.

[argent]

This is the sum total of the message I responded to:

>Why on earth do you think typical Apple users are any different than typical Windows users?

Cause Windows doesn't make you pay for service packs. Duh.

What I'm saying is that service packs, paid upgrades, new versions, new operating systems, what have you... MOST users only upgrade their OS when they get a new computer and it comes with a new version of the OS. That is, "typical Apple users" aren't any different from "typical Windows users".

The only reason more people have become fanatic about tracking Windows service packs is because Windows has so many deep and unfixable security holes (ActiveX, desktop/browser integration, the confused service and network model) that Microsoft's come to depend on bandaids to "fix" them, and you can really suffer from leaving the bandaids off.

Mac users don't have that problem.

So the whole "Apple charges for upgrades" thing is a red herring.

Missing the point.

[argent]

And people talk about Cocoa's memory management as if it were rocket science. It's not, it's really, really simple. Elegant, even. Most of the time you can more or less ignore it, you don't have to bother too much about autorelease pools and so on. It just works. OK, there are a few rules you need to learn, but they are simple - takes ten minutes.

It's not that it's rocket science, it's that it's drudge work. 90%* of the time you don't need to pay much attention to it, but that same 90% of the time is the 90% of the time the compiler could do a static analysis of the code and eliminate run-time garbage collection anyway. 90% of the remaining 10% of the time, where the compiler can't do it, that's when you have to care about it, that's when garbage collection matters.

It's no different than the choice to use late binding in Objective C. 90%* of the time, the compiler can use static analysis to avoid actual runtime lookups, and 90% of the remaining 10% you'd need to create a wrapper class in an early bound language anyway... and make the other 90% of the code slower because it's a lot harder for the compiler to statically analyse when it can unwrap a wrapper.

* 90% of the time when someone says "90% of the time" they don't mean exactly nine tenths, they just mean a number close to 100%. Except in Discworld novels.

Re:Missing the point.

[GrahamCox]

It's not that it's rocket science, it's that it's drudge work

Well, it can be. I must admit I get a bit bored writing setter methods which are always the same. But then again, it takes a few seconds, and it's done, so I can forget about it and move on. I don't believe any language or framework could ever eliminate drudge work completely, and compared to C++, Cocoa/Obj-C is very productive in this respect. There's a lot of boiler plate stuff the the IDE could help out with but currently doesn't - expanding a header definition of a class into the skeleton implementation, writing getter and setter methods for you and so on. I'll take any of these handy editor-level features over runtime garbage collection any day.

Re:Missing the point.

[argent]

I don't believe any language or framework could ever eliminate drudge work completely, and compared to C++, Cocoa/Obj-C is very productive in this respect.

I'm not sure why that's so impressive. That's like comparing a Coke to a cup of drain cleaner.

The point I was making isn't "Objective C is bad", it was that "Garbage collection is a real improvement". And it's a real improvement to the language, not just the IDE.

It's like I said "Hey, Apple's come out with Rum & Coke", and you're going "So what, Coke's better than drain cleaner... and besides, I'd rather they improved the cup." You don't like rum in your Coke, don't put it in, but that's a silly quibble.

Reclaimer, spare that tree!

[argent]

Ah yes, dangling pointers and circular references...

Reclaimer, spare that tree!
Take not a single bit!
It used to point to me,
Now I'm protecting it.

URL?

[argent]

I think you missed the bigger part of the feature. It is incremental backups, and a complete versioned filesystem. It isn't just the ability to grab a version of a file from yesterday at midnight and the day before at midnight, it is the ability to grab every incremental change to the file, whether it was two saves or two hundred.

I definitely missed that. URL?

I'd much rather see jails or containers built into the OS, for all user space programs and, if possible, for VMs by default.

Well, I didn't mean to imply that only this application could use jails.

That might be nifty, but I'm not sure it would be that much actual use.

You don't have a teenager, I take it?

Yes. Odd releases...

[cappadocius]

Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?

Yes, back when releases were more frequent. 10.0 came with my computer and I bought 10.2 and 10.4 because those were the releases with features I wanted.

You'll notice, however, that releases have gotten less frequent. When Steve says "5 releases in 5 years" he means "4 releases in just over 3 years, plus this last one." Now that releases are more like 18-24 months apart, I think more Mac fans will be willing to hash out the money for each one.

Good god, did you miss the point.

[argent]

I'm not saying "OS X isn't worth paying 40% more". Quite the contrary.

I'm saying "There's a 40% premium on Macs... which means that's what OS X is worth".

Everything you listed, that's all down to OS X. It's not the hardware that's doing it, it's the software.

I built that machine before the Mini came out, then I bought a Mini. Because the software made the otherwise mediocre and (if you don't count the software) overpriced hardware worth it.

Anyone know the date?

[dr_paxli]

I'm wanting to buy a macbook or a macbook pro (depending the ability to play games on the MB vs the MBP). I don't want to have to cough up for a new os so would happily wait but, of course, no indication of when it will be out. I bought my G5 three weeks b4 the Intels come out and am getting v annoyed at Apple for this kind of behaviour.