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.

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."

Re:One thing...

[autojive]

It's Universal Binary.

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,

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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...

[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!

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

[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.

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...

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...

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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?

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

On YouTube...

[Simon Simian]

... there are some videos of the GUI.

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.

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.)

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

[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.

"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"

[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.

They are

[orasio]

Swedish nurses. Jan and Bjorn.

Re:They are

[PsychoSid]

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

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.

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.

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: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: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: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.

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.

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

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: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: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:Apples

[Overly Critical Guy]

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

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.

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

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.