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Apple Delays Leopard to October

SuperMog2002 writes "Apple Insider has the sad news that Mac OS X Leopard has been delayed until October. Apparantly software engineers and QA had to be reassigned to the iPhone in order to get it out on time, costing Leopard its release at WWDC. For now the original press release from Apple can be found on the 'Hot News' part of their site, though Apple did not provide a permanent link to the story. 'While Leopard's features will be complete by June, the Cupertino-based company said it cannot deliver the quality release expected by its customers within that time. Apple now plans to show its developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship the software in October.'"

545 comments

  1. October? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess I'll be dressing up as a Leopard for Halloween this year. I sure hop Flanders it's handing out toothbrushes again.


    warning: The above content may test positive for sarcasm and/or could be a failed attempt at humor and as such should be taken with a pound of salt.

    1. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep. Two and a half years after Tiger was released. Anyone remember when Apple was putting out a major release every year?

      Personally, I wouldn't give up one millisecond of developer time from Leopard to iPhone, but that's because I preferred Apple when it was a computer company, not a "consumer electronic lifestyle" company.

    2. Re:October? by Sam+Ritchie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I remember when people were complaining about Apple putting out a full-priced major release every year.

      I probably would have made the same call. Leopard will be a good product - a competent, incremental improvement on an existing product - but it won't open up any vast new revenue streams like the iPhone (hopefully) will.

      --
      This sig is false.
    3. Re:October? by MsGeek · · Score: 0

      Indeed. This is one more reason to hate iPhone. I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook. It would benefit from native 64-bit Intel code. It's fine with Tiger but it would seriously kick butt with Leopard.

      Oh well...time to get the biggest freaking 2.5" SATA drive I can afford and partition to dual-boot Linux on my MacBook. 64-bit Intel code and 64-bit Intel apps are ready for prime time on Linux. And an October release also means I don't have the downtime to install Leopard when it becomes available...I finish my BA at the end of December so my MacBook will be busy until then.

      This is a major bummer. Thanks a lot, Apple.

      BTW: anyone think this is a way to head off the "Mac nano" aka Apple TV running Mac OS X? This way, you have to be an uber-leet h4x0r to install Mac OS X Tiger on an Apple TV. Once Leopard comes out with its native Intel code it will be dead easy to convert an Apple TV to a full-fledged Mac. So they are delaying the inevitable this way.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
    4. Re:October? by McFadden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I preferred Apple when it was a computer company
      You and me both. It's one thing to announce a delay in the OS (shit happens) but to then go on to state that the reason is because developers have been shifted to the iPhone, is nothing more than a big "Fuck You!" to pretty much every one of their loyal customer base that supported them through leaner times and stayed faithful to the Macintosh.

      I can't blame Apple for going down this road, because clearly they're hoping for another iPod style success. But, it's a crying shame, that just when they're perfectly positioned to take customer share away from Microsoft's crumbling OS empire, they turn their attention elsewhere. (And I'm no MS hater).
    5. Re:October? by limecat4eva · · Score: 2, Interesting

      C'mon, Apple has never been a computer company, especially not the same way as a Dell or a Gateway, or a Commodore or IBM back in the day. It's always been focused on the end-user experience, that which you so casually dismiss as the "consumer electronic lifestyle."

      --
      comma
    6. Re:October? by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      You'll still have to open your AppleTV, repartition the hard drive on another Mac, etc etc. I somehow don't expect the AppleTV to hurt Mac sales all that much, just like OS X hacked onto a PC hasn't dented them thusfar.

    7. Re:October? by gig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > Indeed. This is one more reason to hate iPhone. I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook.

      The iPhone is not to blame. They just wanted to say "iPhone NOT delayed" at the same time as they announce that Leopard is delayed. The first thing I thought when I saw Leopard in October was does that mean iPhone in October, also? It is running OS X Leopard one would assume, not Tiger. So they are saying don't worry you'll get your iPhone.

      You could more easily make the case that the Intel switch caused the Leopard delay. Didn't releasing an entirely separate clone of Tiger on Intel architecture tax their Mac OS X team and QA resources more than building software for the iPhone?

      Anyway, iPhone is going to be nothing but good for OS X. It may double the user base in five years leading to more development money and also greater compatibility. For example, every iPhone user is a WebKit user, so if CEO's are demanding iPhone compatibility from their corporate Web sites then they are demanding Mac compatibility and indeed W3C compatibility also. Right now they want to see it run in Explorer that is not good for anyone.

      > BTW: anyone think this is a way to head off the "Mac nano" aka Apple TV running Mac OS X?

      The CPU in the AppleTV is an Intel Pentium M 1 GHz that has been under clocked so it runs cool because it is the GPU that does all the work in AppleTV, displaying swoopy graphics and decoding an H.264 video stream. You also can't upgrade the RAM, there are many other problems with making this into a Mac. It is only half a Mac at best.

      If you have a copy of Mac OS X and all you have in your Mac hardware budget is $300 then you are better on eBay. Any Power Mac G4 is a faster Mac with many other features also, like Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400/800, multiple USB busses, PCI, optical drive, 2 GB or more RAM capacity, space for four hard disks.

    8. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > C'mon, Apple has never been a computer company, especially not the same way as a Dell or a Gateway, or a Commodore or IBM back in the day.

      Ah, you young squirts don't remember the Apple II, do you?

      Apple used to go head-to-head with Commodore and IBM in the computing arena. The first "consumer lifestyle" product Apple offered was (arguably) the QuickTake camera in 1994-- and it was a miserable failure. Prior to that, Apple only sold computers and software. That makes a computer company, junior.

    9. Re:October? by limecat4eva · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, even the Apple II was the product of a company focused on user experience. To call Apple of any era a "computer company" is like calling AT&T a telephone and telegraph company--technically accurate, but in a way revealing of a mindset that completely misses the point.

      --
      comma
    10. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > No, even the Apple II was the product of a company focused on user experience.

      Yes a COMPUTER company focused on user experience... and even then, they didn't put much emphasis on it until Jef Raskin brought them over to Xerox PARC.

    11. Re:October? by rudlavibizon · · Score: 1

      And I'll be dressing up as Gibbon

    12. Re:October? by noewun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook. It would benefit from native 64-bit Intel code.

      I'm curious how a machine with a 2 gigabyte limit on RAM will benefit from 64-bit code, since the main benefit of 64-bit code is to allow your machine to address more than 4 gigabytes of RAM. Seems to be you're never going to have that issue. Now, while I am being snarky, I'm also asking a serious question. It's possible that you know more than I do about this stuff and that there are some benefits to 64-bit code which do not have to do with memory addressing and of which I am not aware. If that's not the case, then it seems to be that you're not losing anything from having to wait for Leopard, other than a reason to complain.

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    13. Re:October? by RedBear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Two and a half years after Tiger was released. Anyone remember when Apple was putting out a major release every year?


      Sure do. I think that was about the same time when users kept complaining about having to buy another Mac OS X upgrade every year, and when the developers were complaining about having to keep up with Apple's breakneck development pace. Right about the same time I seem to recall Apple announcing that they would be slowing the pace of development to give everyone breathing room from here on out. Let's see, yes I do believe that was right around the time Panther came out or shortly thereafter.

      Leopard will have some neat stuff and a little performance boost on 64-bit machines, but I'm pretty sure you won't die from being forced to use Tiger for another couple of months. I (for one) applaud them for making the decision to finish a proper QA cycle on the software that's going to run my computer, rather than pawning off some barely-out-of-beta crap on us at the last minute.

      Call me when Apple sits on their asses for six years straight without bothering to bring out a single innovation, upgraded hardware or major OS release, while simultaneously attempting to foist a subscription licensing model on you that has you paying a yearly fee for the privilege of getting a "free" upgrade to a new product that doesn't materialize for over half a decade. Call me when Apple puts out a major OS release that isn't faster/better/more feature packed than the last one and doesn't continue to add value for owners of older Apple hardware going all the way back to the first iMac with a Firewire port (1999, that's eight years of Mac models that are officially supported by Apple's most current OS right now).

      Anyway, I'd bet that Apple are just giving themselves some breathing room and we'll probably get a surprise announcement about Leopard being already done and available along with some new Mac models, hmmm, just in time for the new school year to start. Wouldn't surprise me one bit either way.

    14. Re:October? by hcdejong · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh please. You're making it sound as if Tiger will stop working on 1-May-07 and you'll be without a computer for 4 months. Tiger's still a perfectly serviceable OS. Get some perspective.

      They've released 10.1-10.4 on time, and pulled off the Intel transition months ahead of schedule.

      And let's be honest, it's not as if Tiger doesn't stack up favorably to Vista, and Apple desperately needs Leopard to convince people to switch.

    15. Re:October? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, sure it was, just like the Commodore PET (a self contained, off-the-shelf computer that had everything you needed to start with) was a product of a company focussed on user experience...

      I think actually the PET has a better claim to that. The Apple-II's only "user experience" innovation was the decision by Steve Jobs to put it in a "professional" case. Otherwise it was no less complicated (indeed, in some ways it was worse) than the majority of computers developed beforehand, and it certainly didn't present a significantly better experience than those that came around the same time. Customers even had to open the thing up immediately on buying it to add a third party TV modulator just to get video.

      It really wasn't until Lisa that Apple started seriously thinking about "user experience" in any way.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    16. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound like a Microsoft lover...Anyways from what I am hearing and reading leopard will rock when its out. However in recent months I heard apple had a hugh bug list for it. I rather they take the time and address it then release it with a full of holes and a rip off like Vista.

    17. Re:October? by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      > Indeed. This is one more reason to hate iPhone. I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook.

      The iPhone is not to blame. They just wanted to say "iPhone NOT delayed" at the same time as they announce that Leopard is delayed. The first thing I thought when I saw Leopard in October was does that mean iPhone in October, also? It is running OS X Leopard one would assume, not Tiger. So they are saying don't worry you'll get your iPhone. Why exactly would one think that? Which of the announced new features/improvements of Leopard would be of benefit to the iPhone? Improved 64 bit-ness? New features for Mail, iChat? New Dashboard Widgets? Spaces, Time Machine, Spotlight across the LAN, new Xcode?
      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    18. Re:October? by shantipole · · Score: 1

      Damn! I'm a switcher in waiting and am planning on moving all of my Rock and Roll Report stuff to a Mac (blog, podcast, production for radio show, etc). I figured I would pick up my MacBook in June with the brand new iLife suite but now I suppose I will get it sooner rather than later. As a non-geek Windows user currently, how straight forward (or not) will it be for me to upgrade from one version of OS-X to another when the time comes?

    19. Re:October? by byjove · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My thought was that, since Vista is such a dog, Apple has the luxury of not rushing Leopard. At least, I think that's played a role in their decision. Rather than overtax the developer and delivery and not quite smooth release, they can take a breath, because Vista is no great shakes.

    20. Re:October? by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

      Call me when Apple puts out a major OS release that isn't faster/better/more feature packed than the last one and doesn't continue to add value for owners of older Apple hardware going all the way back to the first iMac with a Firewire port (1999, that's eight years of Mac models that are officially supported by Apple's most current OS right now).

      I have a PowerMac G3 B&W (01/1999) and a PowerMac G4 DA (02/2001), both upgraded to SATA but otherwise stock, that are running Tiger just great. Could you imagine trying to install Vista on a circa 1999 pc?

      --
      Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
    21. Re:October? by Hamshrew · · Score: 1

      Brain dead simple. You're given the option to overwrite, or to archive the old system and try to keep your data, which works 95% of the time from what I hear. I didn't have any problems with it either. You should still back up critical documents and such, but that's SOP for an upgrade, right?

      --
      - Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
    22. Re:October? by slughead · · Score: 0, Redundant
      The iPhone is not to blame. They just wanted to say "iPhone NOT delayed" at the same time as they announce that Leopard is delayed. The first thing I thought when I saw Leopard in October was does that mean iPhone in October, also? It is running OS X Leopard one would assume, not Tiger. So they are saying don't worry you'll get your iPhone.

      Uh?
      From Apple:

      iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.


      So yes, the push for an on-time iPhone release apparently cost us Leopard on time.

      This was a stupid move, and I think the stock price drop in store for today will reflect that (after hours trading had AAPL losing $2 already).
    23. Re:October? by NickFitz · · Score: 1, Redundant

      The iPhone is not to blame.

      So why does TFA say:

      iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.

      --
      Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
    24. Re:October? by blootooth · · Score: 1

      Really? I find that hard to believe. I have a AMD 3700+ system running XP and I find it's no faster than my 1.25 G4 Powerbook. My new 2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo running Tiger smokes the AMD.

      Let me be more specific. In booting the mac is faster from "off" to browser launch than the SATA drive based XP machine. By tens of seconds. This on a FUJITSU SATA laptop drive with encryption at the USER level.

      In running a processor and graphics intensive application, let's take WoW for example (especially since that's what I built the PC for). The laptop simply outperforms the desktop. launch times for WoW are lower and loading screens don't persist for as long. The dual cores aren't even coming into play on WoW, but I get better framerates at a higher resolution. This with a RadeonX1600 256 MB laptop graphics solution compared to the tweeked ATI 7500 GT 512MB full-size PCI-e card in the XP box.

      But really, the XP box is not quick. I loath the hour-glass-of-tedious-waiting.

      --
      Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation
    25. Re:October? by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      "It is running OS X Leopard one would assume, not Tiger."

      iPhone doesn't run Leopard or Tiger. It runs its own unique software that uses components shared with mac OS X.

      "You could more easily make the case that the Intel switch caused the Leopard delay."

      I'm anxious to hear you make that case. The Intel switch came and went.

      "Didn't releasing an entirely separate clone of Tiger on Intel architecture tax their Mac OS X team and QA resources more than building software for the iPhone?"

      Who knows. You certainly don't. It can't possibly matter though.

      "It may double the user base in five years leading to more development money and also greater compatibility."

      It *may* do that, but it most certainly won't do that. It's more likely that iPhone customers, if there are any, are already OS X users and that the impact on the OS X "user base" will be small.

      "...so if CEO's are demanding iPhone compatibility from their corporate Web sites..." ...like that will ever happen. The odds of the iPhone having any material impact of the quality of Safari support are 0.

      "Right now they want to see it run in Explorer that is not good for anyone."

      Wanting a website to work in the most popular browser is a natural thing so saying that it is "not good for anyone" is absurd. The concern is whether a site supports browsers *other* than IE. Failing to work in IE would be inexcusable.

      "It is only half a Mac at best."

      Yes, and yet it is more of a mac than many G4s. ;-)

      "Any Power Mac G4 is a faster Mac with many other features also, like Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400/800, multiple USB busses, PCI, optical drive, 2 GB or more RAM capacity, space for four hard disks."

      Clock for clock, a Pentium M destroys a G4. In fact, saying "Power Mac G4" is like saying "jumbo shrimp". USB is point to point. It has no "busses".

      I don't think buyers of a miniature mac are after a tower system with large expandability. Why anyone wants an appleTV I have no idea but I doubt an old plastic PowerMac is an appealing alternative.

    26. Re:October? by sebol · · Score: 1

      >Anyway, iPhone is going to be nothing but good for OS X.
      >It may double the user base in five years leading to more development money and also greater compatibility.

      Improving iPhone mean improving OSX's bluetooth stack, I need A2DP in OSX leopard

      --
      -- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
    27. Re:October? by raddan · · Score: 1

      You're absolutely right. I'm running Tiger on a year-2000 Sawtooth G4, and am still quite happy with it. Every release really did get faster. I wouldn't have spent the dough otherwise.

      Of course, I do have a pile of those software "upgrade coupons" that I've gotten in every Mac OS box release since Mac OS 8.5. And I still haven't been able to do anything with them.

    28. Re:October? by Uncle+Kadigan · · Score: 3, Informative
      Any Power Mac G4 is a faster Mac with many other features also, like Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400/800, multiple USB busses, PCI, optical drive, 2 GB or more RAM capacity, space for four hard disks.

      Not to diss the PMG4, since I've owned several and enjoyed them all, but there are a lot of things you're missing.

      1) The first two PMG4 models (Yikes! and Sawtooth) didn't have Gigabit Ethernet. They also had rather weak power supplies that didn't comfortably accomodate significant expansion (upgraded CPU, upgraded video, four drives, etc.)

      2) Only the 100MHz-bus AGP PMG4s (Sawtooth and GigE) supported 2GB of RAM, and only 1.5 of it was accessible under OS9. Every other AGP PMG4 capped out at 1.5GB.

      3) Only the very last revision or two of the PMG4 had FW800 built-in.

      4) I'm pretty sure no PMG4 shipped with USB2.0. Who cares if you have multiple busses if they're all 1.1?

      5) In practical terms, the ATV CPU is probably about as fast as a dual-cpu 867MHz PMG4, due to the abysmal FSB of the latter.

      6) The later-model PMG4s are still commanding $700-$1K+ with largely stock equipment.

      7) The ATV has a decent GPU that is significantly better than anything that shipped with any PMG4. It also has BlueTooth and 802.11a/b/g/n.

      8) Based on the above, to match the ATV, you'd need a PMG4 with dual 867s or single 1.4 CPU and a host of upgrades that would probably put you well over $1K (Although you would have much better RAM and HDD capacity as well as an optical drive. The PCI slots would be filled with the upgrades.).

      9) Your resultant uber-PMG4 would still be enormous, loud, and energy-hungry compared to the ATV.

      Now, of course this isn't quite a valid comparison, because the two systems aren't really designed for the same purposes. But, if you have a need for a very small, very quiet, very energy-efficient computer, that doesn't need a lot of RAM or CPU power, the ATV looks like a winner. Put its capabilities in perspective: you would have sold an organ for it 10 years ago, or willingly paid $1K-$2K five years ago. It's a pretty neat piece of equipment for only $300.

    29. Re:October? by mixmasta · · Score: 1

      64 bit software on PC's is significantly faster, not because of the number 64, but because of the elimination of several bottlenecks in the 32bit hardware that occurred at the same time by coincidence. 64bit software takes advantage of the more robust hardware.

      --
      #6495ED - cornflower blue
    30. Re:October? by Uncle+Kadigan · · Score: 1
      ...continue to add value for owners of older Apple hardware going all the way back to the first iMac with a Firewire port (1999, that's eight years of Mac models that are officially supported by Apple's most current OS right now).

      Heck, it's even better than that. You can install Tiger on an original 233MHz iMac from 1998 and it'll run just fine, thank you. Well, sure, it's a bit sluggish, but it all works. The trick is just to load the OS on an appropriate HDD while it's in a supported Mac, then physically install the HDD into the iMac. No need for monkeying around with XPostFacto (though that is a pretty useful tool if you need OS X on Old World Macs).

      As soon as I get a copy of Leopard, I'm going to see if this method still works for unsupported systems like the tray-loading iMacs and B&W G3s. Betcha a nickel it will.

    31. Re:October? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm curious how a machine with a 2 gigabyte limit on RAM will benefit from 64-bit code, since the main benefit of 64-bit code is to allow your machine to address more than 4 gigabytes of RAM. Seems to be you're never going to have that issue. Now, while I am being snarky, I'm also asking a serious question. It's possible that you know more than I do about this stuff and that there are some benefits to 64-bit code which do not have to do with memory addressing and of which I am not aware. If that's not the case, then it seems to be that you're not losing anything from having to wait for Leopard, other than a reason to complain.

      Well there are several questions and factors to be considered here.

      How good is the x64 implementation of OSX. Past versions of OSX's x64 support are barely funtional beyond a developer's point of view, as the OS doesn't use the important aspects of the x64 architecture to gain performance.

      If Leopard does provide an outstanding 'fully' implemented x64 version of OSX and not a hybrid as it appears it is going to be, there would be many benefits beyond extended RAM addressing.

      The x64 architecture has many things that open the door for increased performance. There are many modes that doesn't cater to x32 legacy routes that are performance bottlenecks.

      Even though applications running 64bit would in theory consume a bit more RAM, in number crunching applications, jamming 64bits together at a time is far more efficient than jamming two chunks of 32bits together.

      If you look at other OSes with 'good' 64bit implementation, performance is increased for all applications because the OS itself is performing faster. Vista x64 or XP x64 are good examples of this. Even when running old 32bit applications, they perform faster than running the x32bit version of the OSes on the same hardware. And as applications ship in 64bit versions, the performance will continue to increase.

      Everything thinks that the jump from 16bit to 32bit was better because of the RAM addresses and the modes the 386 CPUs offered over the 286 CPUS, but there was a lot of performance gains in just the pure math of dealing with one 32bit chunk instead of two 16bit chunks. I can still remember the debates from back then saying that 32bit was going to be slower even though it offered more features. However, the increase in the amount of data being shoved around easier proved this to be incorrect.

      It is also worth reading up on the x64 extensions in both the Intel and AMD CPUs, as there are many changes when running in native x64 bit mode at the OS level that are very significant when it comes to performance.

    32. Re:October? by Markus_UW · · Score: 1

      First off, your laptop's graphics chipset is WAY newer than that in the desktop, I'd say that's your big bottleneck on the desktop right there... But yeah, the dual-core-ness of the mac shouldn't make much difference, but it'd do something. I have a 3700+ with an X800 and I can run circles around wow. Though my X2 4400+ with a GeForce 7950 GTO kicks that one's ass... Though I imagine that if i were able to not run the bloated POS that is Windoze on my computer, it'd be even nicer and faster. If only more games were ported to MacOS or Linux...

    33. Re:October? by Pope · · Score: 1

      My 7 year old Sawtooth has handled just about everything in your #1: 1GB of RAM, 800MHz processor upgrade, Radeon 8500 in the AGP slot, TV Tuner, M-Audio sound card & Voodoo 1 in the PCI slots, and at one point had 3 HDs running in there as well as a DVD burner, with nary a peep or complaint from the power supply.

      I just take it out every 3 months and blast the dust out, then slap the side back on and keep 'er running. If it ever gives up the ghost, I'm picking up another Sawtooth used and throwing all my upgrades into that. It sees almost daily use as my audio capture/editing station and OS 9 game machine.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    34. Re:October? by RedBear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Damn! I'm a switcher in waiting and am planning on moving all of my Rock and Roll Report stuff to a Mac (blog, podcast, production for radio show, etc). I figured I would pick up my MacBook in June with the brand new iLife suite but now I suppose I will get it sooner rather than later. As a non-geek Windows user currently, how straight forward (or not) will it be for me to upgrade from one version of OS-X to another when the time comes?


      Insert install DVD.
      Restart.
      Hold down C key after the chime to boot from disc.
      Wait.
      Select "Archive & Install".
      Start installation.
      Wait.
      Reboot.
      Live happily ever after.
      The End.

      Apple introduced the "Archive & Install" feature with version 10.2 (Jaguar), I think. It does basically what the older Mac OS installers did, renames your current system folder and installs the new version. I personally have never actually used it yet, what with being OCD about system entropy after years of traumatization at the hands of a certain other operating system that used to require reinstallation every six months in order to maintain performance. I prefer to start from scratch whenever possible, but that's just me.

      From the comments I have encountered online over the last few years it seems that a great many people have used this feature with great success. Many people appear to have upgraded from 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4 or from 10.2 straight to 10.4 without any trouble at all. It is also touted as an easy way to recover from bad system updates. I've read many accounts from people who nonchalantly Archive & Install all the time, anytime they encounter an issue like that. Apparently it's very fast and doesn't break everything, unlike when you're forced to reinstall Windows which usually wipes out your registry and turns into a nightmare. Fortunately all the user data and configuration information is properly separated from the main system folder and they don't use anything as monstrous as the delicate monolithic Windows registry, so things usually don't get broken just because you reinstalled the OS.

      But, more importantly, what is so great about Mac OS X and Mac hardware is that it's so easy to make a complete bootable backup of your entire drive, a clone, onto an external FireWire or USB drive. Then even if something were to go horribly wrong with your upgrade you can just boot from that external drive and clone it back. Voila, you're right back where you started, happy as a clam and ready to try again after you figure out what you did wrong. Try that with a Windows upgrade.

      Also I think that when you use Archive & Install you have the option of going to the Startup Disk preferences and choosing to reboot into the previous system folder. This can be done from any restore or install disc in case the machine won't even boot to the desktop for some reason. It's not a complete reversion since a lot of new applications will be installed with the new OS that may not be compatible with the older OS, but it can be useful.

      In short, I don't think you'll have any trouble upgrading, although I would wait until the first update comes out. There are always a few issues that never show up until a new OS gets installed by millions of people, no matter how much beta testing and QA cycles you go through. Believe me, there will be plenty of people happy to blaze a trail for you and be the first to find any potential issues and help Apple fix them quickly. Even if you do have an issue, if you follow my advice and always do a backup clone on an external drive it is almost impossible to be unable to quickly recover from anything up to and including total hard drive failure, and go on about your business. AFAIC this ability to recover from almost any possible situation without being forced to reinstall applications, reset hundreds of personal preferences or restore user data piecemeal is one of the best features of owning a Mac, and a big reason that I recommend them to most of my clients (I'm a freelance computer tech).

    35. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh well...time to get the biggest freaking 2.5" SATA drive I can afford and partition to dual-boot Linux on my MacBook.
      Why bother? Just install Linux, period. It gives you native 64-bit performance, and, with Beryl and one of the more tasteful themes, you can take advantage of Apple's great hardware to drive a truly beautiful hardware-accelerated desktop that's light-years ahead of Tiger and somewhat more capable even than Vista.

      You can always switch back to OS X when Apple finally catches up with 2006 technology. :P
    36. Re:October? by RedBear · · Score: 1

      Hence the emphasis I placed on the phrase "officially supported". I know you can go a lot further back both with and without hacks like XPostFactor, it's just unsupported by Apple.

      Indeed, I have Panther installed on a circa 1995 Power Mac 8500 that's been upgraded with 512MB of memory (it still has free slots for another 512MB!), a 1GHz G3 processor, an IDE controller, a DVD+-RW dual layer burner, along with FireWire and USB 2.0. I also have a Gigabit ethernet card ready to throw in there. It works quite well, and worked almost as well even before upgrading the processor from the original 120Mhz PowerPC 604! That's like putting XPSP2 on a, what, original Pentium computer? It's crazy cool.

    37. Re:October? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Call me when Apple advertises something that is actually delivered ;-)

      Apple has released PowerPCs G5 in 2003, and announced "64-bit operations". They were, and are, not. Partly, maybe, but by and large: not. If THAT is what you are after, there are plenty of 64-bit Linuxes that work well, Solaris or AIX which are stable and well established.

      Apple has called their desktops "fastest of ..". Of course that was never true. Check the spec.org website for their 2000 and 2006 test results. Get a real machine and and a real OS ;-)

      Apple is acting as if there is "unique" stuff in OS X. Reality is that Apple is craving killer applications so very much, yet: there are none. That is really why they put so much hope into an iPhone. So far, there is no hard reason to buy a Mac with exception of an extremely small group of people, probably working in Multimedia. Otherwise - office work, science, economy -, any Windows or Linux setup will be far more powerful AND affordable at the same time. While OS X is quite sleek, it is nothing but increasingly thin icing on a growing cake. - - "Time machine": all nice, now, there are rsync, Retrospect and harddisk array setups, all in place since more than a decade; so Apple's idea is neither new, nor particularly fresh. "Widgets": give me a break. "Calendar, Address Book": I thought Google was just reinventing that, not Apple. "Spotlight": Google Desktop? Beagle? "iTunes": give me a break; anyone can run mplayer from a terminal.

      Apple is also acting as if "computing" all of a sudden got "easy". It's an act alright, pure advertising. Doesn't mean Internet connections work by themselves, though.

      So, call me, when they actually deliver ;-)

    38. Re:October? by Trumpet+of+Doom · · Score: 1

      No. My circa August 2005 PC can't even keep XP from hanging. I don't know whether that's HP's fault or Microsoft's, but I sincerely doubt that's how XP's supposed to run. On the other hand, my ~August 2003 iMac G4 can handle Tiger just fine, and I think the only time we upgraded the hardware was to put in a different Airport card. I doubt that DDR RAM has gotten overly expensive yet, but I could always check, because we may need more than 256MB at some point. Anyone have any idea about what the memory requirements for Leopard will be?

    39. Re:October? by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1

      Hold down C key after the chime to boot from disc.
      Good advice - just one thing, I think they've actually changed the key to 'd'. For 'dvd' or 'disc'. On some newer models anyways.
      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    40. Re:October? by ickoonite · · Score: 1

      Anyone have any idea about what the memory requirements for Leopard will be?

      At a guess, for a machine with its own video RAM, like your iMac, 512MB. But I'd say that for Tiger too - I can't believe you're running Tiger with 256MB - it's painfully slow.
      iqu :|

    41. Re:October? by McFadden · · Score: 1

      And let's be honest, it's not as if Tiger doesn't stack up favorably to Vista, and Apple desperately needs Leopard to convince people to switch.
      Way to... entirely miss my point...

      Whether or not Tiger stacks up well against Vista is not the issue here. It's about the image it projects of Apple as a company. I'm currently at the point of considering my next purchase. I was seriously considering a Mac Pro, but it doesn't fill me with confidence that Apple seem to see their own product (that I'm interested in), as their second priority right now after a cell phone.

      Missing deadlines is barely an issue for me. Putting out public statements that basically say "we consider the phone more important than the OS release..." *is* an issue if you're an OS customer.
    42. Re:October? by Trumpet+of+Doom · · Score: 1

      Define "painfully slow." As long as it's better than the POS a room over that calls itself a computer, I can take it. There are times that I might wish for more, but I don't run Dashboard too terribly much, and even together, Camino, iTunes and Word v.X don't slow it down a lot unless I'm playing with Flash in Camino. I realize that if I swung by the local Apple Store and test-drove one of the display Macs there, it would blow my mind at how fast it is, but I haven't tried and probably won't until I can actually buy one.

  2. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Apple is teh doomed!

  3. Damn by inKubus · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was just bragging to the office MS pundit that Leopard would be out soon. Then I get Vista'd (tm) by APPLE.

    Vista'd- to be up a creek without a paddle

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
    1. Re:Damn by OrangeTide · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're up a creek you should be able to drift down a creek. but if you're down a creek you'd have to paddle to go up stream.

      Shouldn't it be more like:
      going upstream without a paddle?

      I often wondered if these sayings are correct, if they were corrupted somehow or if just the definitions of things changed over time.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    2. Re:Damn by KrazeeEyezKilla · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Less than 6 months after I finally "make the switch" to a Mac I have encountered a destroyed hard drive on a nearly new Mac Book Pro as well as a destroyed ipod. looks like I waited a little too long to switch since apple now only cares about disposable hardware

    3. Re:Damn by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      I think the idea is that you are going down (shit) creek without any control if you don't have a paddle.

      If I was on shit creek with no paddle I would certainly prefer to be at the bottom of it and not the top.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    4. Re:Damn by MrShaggy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Isn't that what applecare is for?? I think that is bound to happen on any system. You would hope less so, however doa is still doa. There are more because there are more peeps who own them.

      --
      I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
    5. Re:Damn by toadlife · · Score: 1

      Paddles are needed to avoid things like rocks and fallen trees, and they are especially handy when you want to get to shore to avoid the giant waterfall 200 yards ahead.

      --
      I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
    6. Re:Damn by 644bd346996 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You seem to have a very tame definition of "creek." For many of us, a creek is not worth paddling on unless there are deadly rapids. When that is the case, floating down the creek can result in getting caught in formations with a strong resemblance to a front-loading clothes washer. That is an easy way to drown and/or break bones.

    7. Re:Damn by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 4, Funny

      Being at the bottom of shit creek, however, would entail being submerged in shit. Your tastes may vary, of course -- and, of course, there's nothing wrong with that -- but I'd prefer to remain floating on top of the creek, if that's the alternative.

      Of course, my preference would be to stay away completely, all things considered.

    8. Re:Damn by ktappe · · Score: 2

      1. Apple does not manufacture hard drives. Be mad at Seagate or Hitachi or whoever made your failed drive. 2. "Destroyed" is an odd term. Just what happened to your iPod? 3. 6 months is within warranty. Didn't Apple replace/fix the problems?

      --
      "We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
    9. Re:Damn by Ilgaz · · Score: 0, Troll

      Vista stole Tiger features, a 2 year old system. There is no competition with MS on "innovation". Leopard could be shipped in 1 months of time but that way, it will be unstable just like Vista.

      Apple doesn't need to prove anything and thanks to them for not listening to those fanatics on digg.com/fanboy blogs etc..

    10. Re:Damn by OrangeTide · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well I'd call that a torrent or a river. But even a tame creek needs a paddle if you want to go up it.

      Ideally you'd want a paddle either way you go, but at least floating down stream is possible, although somewhat dangerous.

      Also sounds like you've never gone tubing. float on a tube with a cooler floating with you and you don't have to paddle or push yourself off rocks or nothing. just drink beer.

      obviously you pick a flowing body of water that isn't full of whirlpools and torrents crashing against rocks. pretty much any sort of river that a sane person doesn't feel like they need to wear a helmet and vest for.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    11. Re:Damn by Atryn · · Score: 1

      I was just bragging to the office MS pundit that Leopard would be out soon. Then I get Vista'd (tm) by APPLE.
      I was under the impression that Vista wasn't held up for adequate QA and was released with inadequate QA... Yes, both have seen delays, but how many people on slashdot have complained about inadequate attention to QA in the rush to get products out? Isn't this refreshing in at least that respect?

      --
      Come play Moral Decay!
    12. Re:Damn by limecat4eva · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Apple used to cater to people who care about quality. Then came the horde of ex-Windows users, none of whom have especially good taste or discernment, all of whom would lap up whitewashed shit as eagerly as hardware carefully crafted to exacting standards. Witness the availability, now, of MacBooks with glossy screens instead of matte. Indeed, the name "MacBook" itself (rather than iBook or PowerBook) stinks of mediocrity.

      Blame yourself, then, for forcing Apple's hand. You PC users lower the common denominator of Apple's customer base.

      --
      comma
    13. Re:Damn by Trillan · · Score: 1

      All hard drives are disposable, 2.5" drives doubly so.

    14. Re:Damn by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 2, Funny

      For this to be properly Vista'd Apple would need to delay this one more time... ideally a year or more. Then on that third release date they should release a public beta and use that as an excuse to delay the OS another 6 months. Finally, when it's actually released, it should have a ton of problems and Apple should force it upon everyone by making it a minimum system requirement something arbitrary like a new iPod.

      --
      "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    15. Re:Damn by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 1
      Apple used to cater to people who care about quality. Then came the horde of ex-Windows users, none of whom have especially good taste or discernment, all of whom would lap up whitewashed shit



      How's that HyperCard mailing label program coming along? Management's getting nervous.

    16. Re:Damn by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Witness the availability, now, of MacBooks with glossy screens instead of matte."

      I saw this option on the Apple website...

      Can someone give me the pros/cons on the glossy vs. the matte screen finishes? I don't guess I've ever seen the glossy one...it sounds nice looking tho.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    17. Re:Damn by SuperMog2002 · · Score: 1

      In a nutshell, glossy displays have much richer colors, which (in my opinion) produces a much nicer looking picture. However, they tend to reflect lots of glare. I'm good at ignoring glare as long as it's not too intense, so I don't really notice it, but the same glare drives some people crazy. Matte displays sacrifice the extra richness for being much more resistant to glare.

      In any case, if you haven't seen the two side by side, I recommend you do so before purchasing another notebook. If you've got an Apple store nearby, they've probably got a side by side comparison for you to use, or can set one up if they don't. Barring that, any Best Buy or Fry's should have laptops with glossy screens on display, so you can take a look at it and see if you like it. Bear in mind that the lighting in Best Buy and Fry's is very much unlike home lighting, and that the glare you see there will likely be more intense than the glare you would see at home.

      Since this is an Apple thread, I'll throw in that currently all MacBooks ship with a glossy display, while MacBook Pros have matte displays as an option at no extra charge.

      --
      Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
    18. Re:Damn by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      I often wondered if these sayings are correct, if they were corrupted somehow

      The "original" phrase was "Up Shit Creek without a paddle," which makes more sense, since you'd of course want to get out of it as soon as possible and not simply drift with the current.

    19. Re:Damn by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Have you ever considered walking up the banks of shit creek? I mean, if you have to go up it at all, especially without a paddle, it seems kind of useless to stay in the boat. Provided, of course, that you can find a way to get it to the bank.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Damn by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 1

      I don't know if there are banks for shit creek. There might be ATMs, though.

  4. Not delayed, same time as always by Rosyna · · Score: 4, Funny

    Saying it was delayed it slightly inaccurate since Apple has been saying Spring '07.

    1. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by SuperMog2002 · · Score: 2, Funny

      October's in spring?

      --
      Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
    2. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by sokoban · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seasons are opposite in the southern hemisphere.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
    3. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by SuperMog2002 · · Score: 1

      True

      --
      Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
    4. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 1

      If we're dealing with opposites then maybe Apple will not be releasing Leopard in October. ;-)


      warning: The above content may test positive for sarcasm and/or could be a failed attempt at humor and as such should be taken with a pound of salt.

    5. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be one of our friends to the south of the equator...

    6. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by sasha328 · · Score: 1

      October sure is in Spring, well, more like mid spring for us. http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/we ather/.

    7. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by cyfer2000 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I checked the weather channel several minutes ago, snow tomorrow, so I think October maybe at the end of the spring.

      --
      There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
    8. Re:Not delayed, same time as always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      October's in spring?
      In Soviet Australia, spring is in October you!
  5. What's that huge sigh of relief ... by timholman · · Score: 1

    ...that I hear coming from the direction of Redmond?

    Looks like Vista will have a few more months to get its act together.

    1. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by bky1701 · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's that huge sigh of relief that I hear coming from the direction of Redmond?


      Bill Gates had beans today. Nothing for you to see here, move along.
    2. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you look into it, Vista is a grossly superior operating system to Leopard. I can't even believe they're going to release this if they plan on competing, they're years behind.

    3. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Ilgaz · · Score: 1, Interesting

      ...that I hear coming from the direction of Redmond?

      Looks like Vista will have a few more months to get its act together. You may hear a huge sigh of relief from actual Apple users,non fanatics (not saying the other term).

      I would never,ever want Apple to release an incomplete, problematic OS for my Macs and naturally my work environment We are speaking about Intel, the ultimate MS Friend, the "Tel" in Wintel publicly saying "we won't upgrade until SP1 Ships" for new MS Windows. Imagine that.
    4. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Zephyr14z · · Score: 1

      I really don't see Leopard being delayed having much impact on vista sales. Mac users aren't going to jump platforms and adopt vista because they can't handle the wait, and windows users looking to switch probably don't even know what the hell leopard is. I have a friend that just switched to mac from windows, and had to ask me what version of OS X he was running.

    5. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by toejam316 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You KNOW that the moderator system is failing when things like the parent get moderated Insightful.

    6. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by rm69990 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Exactly. From my experience, most "normal" Mac users don't know the difference between a CPU and Powersupply. I upgraded a friend's Mac from Panther to Tiger and it took me a full 20 minutes to explain to her what I was doing because she thought Panther was built-into the Mac and couldn't comprehend how it could be replaced. She actually asked me if I ripped open the computer while she was in the bathroom!

    7. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by jZnat · · Score: 1

      the "Tel" in Wintel Or the "Intel" in Wintel. :P
      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    8. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Stooshie · · Score: 1

      All your mod point are belong to us.

      --
      America, Home of the Brave. ... .and the Squaw.
    9. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by funkyjunkman · · Score: 1

      Corrected: From my experience, most "normal" computer users don't know the difference between a CPU and Powersupply.

    10. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      That's easy. The power suppply is the socket in the wall that you plug the CPU into!

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    11. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      *She* was in the bathroom.. and you were upgrading the OS of her computer?!? Was there nothing else to do ?!? I mean.. you actually have the mythical female friend! Only on Slashdot ;P


      Sorry, could not resist.. nothing personal! ^_^

    12. Re:What's that huge sigh of relief ... by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      Hmmm...I didn't intend that to be funny, but I guess it is kind of funny :-P

  6. It is nice to see... by zoftie · · Score: 0, Troll

    Apple making effort and does show that they are frank that they cannot deliver half baked product, on release day. So they push it back, they don't release some half baked product even though it isn't really the flagship of the company. There many people who like os x but windows is still everywhere. Still I think people don't mind wating for quality product.

    1. Re:It is nice to see... by coren2000 · · Score: 0

      Ya, commitment to quality is good.... however I want a new comp when I go back to school, and school starts in September:(

    2. Re:It is nice to see... by zoftie · · Score: 1

      you can always warez it off the friends, or talk to guy at the store in september, to throw in free upgrade with laptop purchase, they are pretty expensive.

    3. Re:It is nice to see... by rilister · · Score: 4, Interesting

      hmmm. remember OSX 10.0? Quoth Wiki:

      "The initial version was slow, not feature complete, and had very few applications available at the time of its launch, mostly from independent developers. Many critics suggested that while the OS was not ready for mainstream adoption, they recognized the importance of its initial launch as a base on which to improve."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSX

      I also seem to remember a total absence of a DVD player...

      --
      'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
    4. Re:It is nice to see... by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 1
      Hi, I'm unsure of how this delay will stop you from buying the new computer. As far as I know, Apple will still be shipping computers in September. Or are things different up there in the northern hemisphere? I realise we are up to 16hrs in front of you (daylight savings dependant), but I suspect that wouldn't be a deal breaker.




      "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
      and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
      this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
      physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

    5. Re:It is nice to see... by coren2000 · · Score: 0

      Well I could... but I feel silly paying $300 for an OS I know will be out of date in a month.

    6. Re:It is nice to see... by Kenshin · · Score: 1

      In these situations Apple usually provides a free upgrade if you bought your Mac within a certain timeframe.

      --

      Does it make you happy you're so strange?

    7. Re:It is nice to see... by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 2, Informative
      OK, it will still work just fine, still be supported by Apple with free updates for security problems. Additionally, in all probability (if Apple's past behaviour is anything to go by) you will be eligible for a cheap upgrade (anywhere from free to half price) depending on the window around which you purchase the Mac and the OS release date.


      I'm a little concerned that you feel that you are going to be charged $300 (where did you get this price from?) for the OS. Apple has never charged that for an OS (apart from their server software). Besides, you, as a student, are eligble for student discount on all of Apple's products.


      The US education price for Single User OSX is $69, for a Family Pack (5), it is $199. Go to the Apple website and check the store.



      "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
      and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
      this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
      physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

    8. Re:It is nice to see... by iamacat · · Score: 1

      System 9 lacked basic features like memory protection and multitasking. As a result, it crashed and hung all the time, problems largely fixed in Windows 95. By contrast, Tiger is not really lacking anything we expect from today's OS and Vista doesn't have one killer feature over it. In such a situation, delay of a few months is much less dangerous for Apple than screwing up their first entry into a new market.

    9. Re:It is nice to see... by coren2000 · · Score: 0

      CND $249 + 15% tax for the family pack

    10. Re:It is nice to see... by seanyboy · · Score: 1

      Additionally, in all probability (if Apple's past behaviour is anything to go by) you will be eligible for a cheap upgrade
      Since when. My Mac Mini was three months old when Tiger came out. I tried every trick in the book, and I still had to pay full price for the upgrade. As far as I can tell, Apple do not give upgrade prices to operating systems.

      --
      Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
    11. Re:It is nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey Clarabelle, there are *so* many problems with that post.

      APPLE holds onto an OS for too long? See Microsoft for the prime example of that.
      MS has pulled itself together nicely with Vista? It's BROKEN, even a non-geek can see that, which is why few plan to "upgrade"
      Claiming that OS X will need an overhaul is akin to claiming UNIX is dying. (I would have said BSD to be a little more correct, but then, you know, cue the Netcraft jokes...)

    12. Re:It is nice to see... by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 2, Funny
      OK, so, let's just get this $300 clear. When you buy a Mac, you are NOT given a 5 user Family Pack for free, you get a single user licence. If someone is saying that when you buy a Mac, you get a 5 user licence for free, they really shouldn't be buying that cheap 7/11 ice, it just isn't worth it. Make the trip to kids playground, the man there is just so much more aware.



      "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
      and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
      this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
      physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

    13. Re:It is nice to see... by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 1
      Ahh, three months is probably a bit of an ask, a month is more like the reality here. With my last two Mac purchases (1997 & 2004) I received OS update vouchers, and duly received the updates FoC.



      "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
      and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
      this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
      physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

    14. Re:It is nice to see... by solios · · Score: 1

      IIRC everyone who paid real money for 10.0 got 10.1 at an upgrade price as a "We're sorry about that...." on account of 10.0 being BALLS in just about every possible department.

      Of course at the time, everyone and their monkey thought 10.0 -> 10.1 was the same thing as 9.0 -> 9.1, and were blubbering bloody murder about being forced to pay for a "point release." Since then, the proles have gotten it into their heads that "10" is the OS, not a release number.

      I don't care if it's $3.50 with coupon - I'm not paying for an Apple OS until they make Finder suck less.

    15. Re:It is nice to see... by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      hmmm. remember OSX 10.0? Quoth Wiki:

      "The initial version was slow, not feature complete, and had very few applications available at the time of its launch, mostly from independent developers. Many critics suggested that while the OS was not ready for mainstream adoption, they recognized the importance of its initial launch as a base on which to improve."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSX

      I also seem to remember a total absence of a DVD player... There are people in professional World who still has questions about OS X in their minds because of 10.0 horrible,incomplete release. They saw it and never looked again. I really think Apple got their lesson.

      I always see half of the reason behind those evil, paranoid Apple NDA stuff is the 10.0 preview experience too.
    16. Re:It is nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This to me indicates significant problems in the iPhone, and potentail problem in Leopard due to lack of proper attention.

      iPhone runs Leopard. It stands to reason that any major software problem with iPhone would effect Leopard as well. If anything, they're delaying Leopard so that they can devote the proper amount of attention to it, after iPhone ships.

    17. Re:It is nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Obviously, despite what we may wish, MS must be doing something right as it has control of the vast majority of computers in the world. Furthermore, every non geek I know has no problems moving to vista. They are buying computers with vista, and I know a few who are paying to upgrade. As always, it is those of us in the know that know to avoid it. It was the same thing with MS WIndows 98 and ME. A ton of computers were sold with that piece of crap.

      There are so many new things we want to do with computers. A very significant need is true virtualzation. The other nice thing would be greater enterprise support, i.e. an automatic method to deploy and image computers. Technology is moving so fast.

      And they can do this. One this we see with the iPhone is that Apple seems to be seperating the OS into layers. The BSD microkernel, other OSS parts, mostly Darwin, and the proprietary bits. It think the iPhone indicates that the proprietary bits are what will be called OS X, and the other bits might be replaceable. It would also be nice to have a live desktop integrated with .Mac that allows one to automatically configure and work on any mac.

      Nine years into the Mac System software life-cycle Apple tried to make Copland to update the OS and compete with standard features of MS. They could not get it work, and had to buy NeXT. That is historical fact. We now see the same thing happening. Apple could include virtualization instead of the Bootcamp hack. Write a kernel that could virtualize in various OS, including OS X. They did this to get OS 9 to run with OS X. The time to do this is now. They may be doing it. The iPhone may be a test of this technology. Or it could be that Apple is willing to take the living room, and leave the office to MS.

    18. Re:It is nice to see... by dal20402 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Usually about a month to a month and a half out, Apple announces a specific release date for the new OS. Their practice has been to announce, that same day, that anyone who buys a Mac after that day gets the OS upgrade for nominal cost (like $10). You just need to wait for that announcement, which may very well be before or in September for Leopard.

      I bought a PowerBook in April 2005, about three weeks before Tiger came out. A five-minute phone call to Apple got me the new OS for ~$10. Being a cheap bastard I then also installed it on the Power Mac G5 I bought two months earlier (which was not eligible for the upgrade).

      When Leopard comes out I will mend my felonious ways and buy a family pack...

    19. Re:It is nice to see... by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it? For all people bitch about Vista, PCs sold for up to SIX months before it came out were getting "free upgrade certificates".

    20. Re:It is nice to see... by macthulhu · · Score: 1

      Every time I've purchased a Mac, or a new version of their OS, there were coupons in the box for discounts on the next version. If I remember correctly, they also have some deal in place for a computer purchased within 60 or 90 days of a major OS release... allowing you to get the new one for free or really cheap. Maybe they've stopped doing that, but they used to be pretty generous in that department.

      --

      Someday a real rain is gonna come...

    21. Re:It is nice to see... by gig · · Score: 1

      > There are people in professional World who still has questions about OS X in their minds because of 10.0 horrible,incomplete release.

      Yeah, but their numbers are so ridiculously small that they are completely inconsequential. The user base has grown so much since then that the 10.0 users are just not significant.

      It's like monochrome iPod users. Not only are their iPods very elderly, but hardly any were even made compared to color iPods.

    22. Re:It is nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also seem to remember a total absence of a DVD player...
      A serious question, i haven't bought a Windows machine in ages, but a co-worker recently bought a machine with Windows XP and that machine wasn't able to play DVD's either. Windows Media player complained about a missing codec and didn't find anything on the web. Does XP ship with a DVD player?

      It 5-6 years later now, in a time where computers actually standard come equipped with a DVD player.
    23. Re:It is nice to see... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      IIRC everyone who paid real money for 10.0 got 10.1 at an upgrade price as a "We're sorry about that...." on account of 10.0 being BALLS in just about every possible department. The upgrade price being $0.
      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    24. Re:It is nice to see... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Hi, I'm unsure of how this delay will stop you from buying the new computer. As far as I know, Apple will still be shipping computers in September"

      I'm wondering...is there any anticipation of newer models, more power, cpu's...etc for the macbook pro's to be announced in June...?

      If so, does anyone thing this will be delayed along with Leopard till Oct?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    25. Re:It is nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They have probably learned that initial reactions among the tech community persist as gospel for years after any of those problems are solved. It has been about 5 years since I have seen a single blue screen on a windows system, (and that bluescreen was caused by a faulty driver, not a software problem in windows) yet still we hear on /. the OMG Windows bluescreen! LOL!!! jokes over and over. In five years we will probably still hear that driver support on Vista sucks and that its slower and more bloated than XP, even though every benchmark I have seen shows it to be within about 3% of the performance of XP. The same perceptions exist with Linux, in the form of no app support, hard to use, dependency hell, and hardware compatibility, even though most of those problems are much much less apparent these days.

      After the release of Vista, I sure would not want to be in the OS business these days.

    26. Re:It is nice to see... by djfake · · Score: 1

      It's nowhere as long as you think. Maybe a month at most...

      --
      www.itjerk.com
  7. phuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh! I was really looking forward to it.

    1. Re:phuck by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Funny
      Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh! I was really looking forward to it.

      Why so glum? Now you can look forward to it even longer.

  8. All the QA folks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    This means that the iPhone won't suck!

    Phew! I was worried after all the hype.

  9. Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by JimXugle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Screw the iPhone... I'd rather have updated Macs and a shiny new OS.

    Less pieces of shit, more big cats!

    --
    -jX

    Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
    1. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      admit it, you're just tired of feeling ripped off

    2. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by winkydink · · Score: 3, Funny

      The operating system named after pussies that runs on computers used prodominately by men who love cock.

      Well, I have to admit, my cock has grown on me over time.

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    3. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That was my initial reaction, but then I remembered that awesome keynote and was reminded of how damn useful the iPhone would be to me. Let's face it, the iPhone will be the hot device of 2007 along with the Wii, and it will sell millions more than Leopard will.

      Steve Jobs will be demoing a "feature complete" Leapard at WWDC, so we'll know what we're getting and finally get to see the "top secret features." Already, the new dev build that was released today has abolished all brushed metal--every app looks like iTunes 7, even Mail. I don't mind a few months of polish to get everything right. Lord knows Vista could have used it.

      And before the Windows trolls come out of the woodwork to defend the flop that is Vista, a four month delay is a major difference from a four year delay. And Apple is actually releasing successful products in the meantime. :) The iPhone is going to dominate this summer, so may as well give Leopard the fall.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    4. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by anaesthetica · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'd rather have a new OS. But Apple Inc? They're making money hand-over-foot with their "pieces of shit" iPods. A huge amount of revenue. If they can add another huge stream of revenue with their iPhones they'll have expanded their market reach once again. A new OS isn't an expanding market, it doesn't bring in millions of new Apple users. Sure, it's a revenue shot in the arm, as people upgrade and buy new computers. But it's not a real expansion of Apple's business. iPhone = real growth. I'm willing to wait for Leopard to be ready.

    5. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Well, I have to admit, my cock has grown on me over time.

      It used to be smaller than that?

    6. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Quoting the above post:

      > > The operating system named after pussies that runs on computers used prodominately by men who love cock.
      > Well, I have to admit, my cock has grown on me over time.

      Seriously, who the hell modded that informative?!

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Better late than buggy.

      Unlike Vista which was late AND buggy.

      --
      Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
    8. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      But recall that the iPhone is actually running Leopard. They've gained practical experience with Resolution Independence and will be able to tweak the final OS even better. This is confirmed by the latest builds removing the brushed metal UI. That don't scale, but the iTunes 7 interface can easily be zoomed and kept crisp. The iPhone also practically guarantees that later versions of the iMac will come with a multi-touch screen. Remember when that video came out last year and everyone was going nuts over it? We drooled over the picture stretching, and later BAM there it is on the iPhone. Hell they have to redo not only half the OS but also half the apps to work with this. iPhone is just the warmup man.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    9. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by puddpunk · · Score: 5, Funny

      Too Much Informative?

    10. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by autophile · · Score: 5, Informative

      Informative gives you karma. Funny doesn't. :/

      --Rob

      --
      Towards the Singularity.
    11. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would, if I were drunk and/or in the "pissing people off" mood ;-)

    12. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Rodness · · Score: 0, Troll

      A shiny new OS...or is it patch #5 on a seven year old program?
      In the MS world we call them service packs and they don't cost $100.

      Oh right, you mean the same world in which:

      * each OS release by MS is truly just another patch with no real innovation
      * MS systems crash with ridiculous frequency
      * MS systems get owned if they're connected to the net without a firewall
      * MS can't even release 1 service pack per year
      * MS pushes all their patches on one tuesday per month to make it APPEAR that they don't have as many vulnerabilities
      * MS can't even release a new OS that people actually desire, they have to End-of-Life XP to force people to buy Vista
      * and so forth...

      Are those headaches really worth saving $100/yr? Hell yes. You get what you pay for.

    13. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by 313373_bot · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey, your post is informative. Funny should give people some karma, too, maybe 1/10th of a point or something...

      --
      ^[:q!
    14. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The operating system named after pussies that runs on computers used prodominately by men who love cock. Well, I have to admit, my cock has grown on me over time. Seriously, who the hell modded that informative?! A formerly obese guy that's lost weight over time?
    15. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by djdavetrouble · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Better late than buggy.

      Unlike Vista which was late AND buggy.


      Tiger is at 10.4.9 because of bug fixes, not features......

      So apple is guilty too.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    16. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by TheRealPhilKenSebben · · Score: 1

      Best Slashdot post AND reply ever! HaHa - Dangly Bits!

    17. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With all the security issues and the lack of innovations on Windows, users who run Windows are men who love to get a cock up their ass.

    18. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by febuiles · · Score: 1

      Update and shiny? Yes.
      New? Hardly.

      Yes, there are some nifty new features (Spotlight for network folders sounds great) but I haven't felt like I'm updating my OS in a while. Don't know if that's good or bad tho.

    19. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by limecat4eva · · Score: 1

      What the fuck, seriously? What sort of ball-scratching square still thinks it's an insult to call someone gay?

      Oh right, PC users.

      --
      comma
    20. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 1

      Tiger is at 10.4.9 because of bug fixes, not features......

      So apple is guilty too.


      Well, if you want to play the game that way, how many times have your WinXP and Linux machines needed bug fix patches over the last 2 years? More than 9?

      Two years equals 24 times through the "Patch Tuesday" download-install-reboot dance by my counting...

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
    21. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by limecat4eva · · Score: 1

      lol @ flyover country

      --
      comma
    22. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by gig · · Score: 1

      > Tiger is at 10.4.9 because of bug fixes, not features......

      The Mac versions numbers go major.minor.bugfix so by definition 10.4.9 is the 9th bug fix for Tiger. That's why the third number is there ... to track bug fixes. Wall Street does all their accounting every quarter, and about once a quarter Apple updates their OS. After a couple of years, v10.4.0 gives way to v10.4.9.

      On the Microsoft side you have bug fixes coming out every Tuesday, and they have a show-stopper bug every month or so that you simply don't see on other platforms. It is so grim on the Microsoft side that many of the people involved are completely despaired, they don't see a solution. There is really no comparison, and no excuse for the low product quality at Microsoft.

    23. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by jZnat · · Score: 1

      What does it matter if your karma is already maxed out and has been for several months (if not years)?

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    24. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by lababidi · · Score: 1

      And all this time I've been wasting potential karma modding things that are informative as funny. No wonder my Karma rank is "confused."

    25. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by the_humeister · · Score: 1

      That's what "underrated" is for dammit!!!

    26. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I agree with the last 2 points you have, but the rest of the post is blatant trolling of a mac fanatic. This isn't 2000, we aren't all running Windows 98 or Millennium. I should mention that you guys didn't have OSX at that point either. Let me dissect this

      * each OS release by MS is truly just another patch with no real innovation ME to 2000 was an innovation. We saw a new era of a stable windows and NT on home desktops.

      * MS systems crash with ridiculous frequency This is a ridiculous troll. I am no fan of Windows and I recently took it off my computer but to suggest that is just being a blatant Mac Troll. Also keep in mind that if Microsoft controlled the computer too there would be less crashes as most of the crashes are from hardware issues. Microsoft does a pretty decent job of supporting the tons of hardware out there. It could be much better but you're just trolling.

      * MS systems get owned if they're connected to the net without a firewall 2001 called, they want their Service Pack 1 XP systems back.

      Are those headaches really worth saving $100/yr? Hell yes. You get what you overpay for.
    27. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 1
      Right, the new dev build. There's not enough of an NDA around it to prevent pics of or descriptions of the UI changes getting out, but the same NDA is still magically preventing "us" finding out all the "top secret features"?

      Or if there's no NDA, but all the dev members are keeping mum because they don't want to buzzkill Steve?

      I'm confused.

    28. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      okay, you're trying too hard. Stop.

    29. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck, seriously? What sort of ball-scratching square still thinks it's an insult to call someone gay? The Mac user above you?

    30. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      It can be argued that the comment contains Too Much Information and I don't want to have to judge whether that man's penis is Underrated or not, thank you.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    31. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      iPhone = real growth.

      There's potential, but there's no guarantee. It'll probably do better than the original iPod did, but after the early adopter phase, it's up in the air.

      The biggest problem with this deal is that Apple PR denied this delay only two weeks ago!

    32. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

      The operating system named after pussies that runs on computers used prodominately by men who love cock.

      After our discussion a few months ago when you were using this as your sig, I checked out your website. You seem to be quite an intelligent and insightful guy, so I can't quite figure out your extreme disdain for arguably the best desktop OS ever.

      --
      Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
    33. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by Wudbaer · · Score: 1

      Good that Apple never releases security updates and fixes for OS X that don't increase the version number...

    34. Re:Mod Me down, but I have something to say: by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      I am not making a qualitative or quantitative analysis of who has more bugs,
      just pointing out that the delay will not produce a "bug-free" release.

      --
      music lover since 1969
  10. Oh no! by pizzach · · Score: 0

    I hope this isn't the start of the end for apple.

    --
    Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
    1. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had exactly the opposite feeling. . .

    2. Re:Oh no! by x_MeRLiN_x · · Score: 1

      You hope this is the start?

    3. Re:Oh no! by Oliver+Defacszio · · Score: 1

      No, the end of the start.

      --

      -
      Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
    4. Re:Oh no! by x_MeRLiN_x · · Score: 1

      That's what I meant to say. To think I sat here refreshing waiting for the minimum time between clicking reply and submitting the form to elapse when I knew I should have checked my post for obvious errors. :(

  11. Sounds a lot like Vista by orlinius · · Score: 1

    I hate that Apple announces the same kind of delays Microsoft had with Vista.

    I hope the iPhone is really worth it.

    Maybe next time they can hire/train more developers; Apple sure can afford them financially.

    --

    A hungry bear does not dance!
    1. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by largesnike · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The thing I've found about development is that you can't just throw more at a product. This is Microsoft's problem. They have hundreds and hundreds of developers. Every 5 developers needs a team leader, every couple of team leaders need analysts and project managers, project managers need to have meetings to discuss release schedules, then there's compatability concerns and merging issues. The whole thing becomes an incredibly hard-to-steer buraucracy, where five or six dedicated developers would have sufficed.

      Companies can only really focus on a few products, regardless of size, you just can't be everything to everybody, because the friction of beuracracy will just slow to standstill.

      I think Apple are right to stagger development like this, it shows patience, understanding and maturity.

      --
      "Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
    2. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by rizzo320 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hate that Apple announces the same kind of delays Microsoft had with Vista.


      Same kind??? Your math is a little off. 4 months (Leopard) does not equal 3 years (Vista). :-)
    3. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate that Apple announces the same kind of delays Microsoft had with Vista.


      Longhorn^W Shorthorn^W Vista was delayed by a year or two, and major features were stripped. 10.5 is being delayed a couple of months (of course we don't really know all the planned features yet).
    4. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Too bad that's what Apple seems to be doing.

      Apparantly software engineers and QA had to be reassigned to the iPhone in order to get it out on time...
    5. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

      Maybe next time they can hire/train more developers; Apple sure can afford them financially.

      Yes, but can they afford them existentially?

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    6. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      Leopard being delayed 4 months isn't nearly as bad as Vista being delayed for...4 years. Also, Apple isn't stripping promised features and delaying at the same time, like what happened with Vista.

    7. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by sammybarber · · Score: 1

      There is a blog around somewhere mentioning MS's source control for Vista. Once you make a change, it gets committed to the next level for testing, which then gets merged with other similar project changes, then it goes up to the next level and gets merged with more changes at that level. It was taking up to 6 months to get a change put into the actual current build, which is not a small amount of time if you want to release an OS every couple of years. Imagine, fix one small bug and wait 3 months for it to get to the build. You'd have to think Apple would be a little more nimble than that, but it's still near impossible to fully control a project of that size.

    8. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      people that say this is bad really totally lack an understanding of software development. You CANNOT allow devs to promote code rapidily into the current tested code stream. It must be checked and rechecked, this is not some little project with a couple of thousand lines of code, there are 10's of millions. Any change can have unknown or unintended ramifications. This migration process while perhaps a little long for MS is by no means bad or unusual, I would be far more scared if Apple DIDN'T take similar precautions.

    9. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Every 5 developers needs a team leader, every couple of team leaders need analysts and project managers...

      Or you could be like Google, and pretty much just say, "Here's your project, go." Or you could be like open source -- here's the projects you can be working on, just make sure you do some work while you're clocked in, and be on the mailing list with others in the same project.

      It does not take a beaurocracy to manage a software project.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    10. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by random0xff · · Score: 1

      "The thing I've found about development is that you can't just throw more at a product." But these are two products right?

    11. Re:Sounds a lot like Vista by Jimithing+DMB · · Score: 1

      If your developers are writing code that is so bad that it needs to go through 5 levels of review before it is considered acceptable then you need new developers.

  12. Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by wnknisely · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Leopard's delay isn't that big a deal for most of Apple's regular users. Tiger works well enough. There isn't all that much in Leopard that I'm really looking forward to having.

    I can wait comfortably for another quarter if it means that Leopard will be released as a better operating system than was Tiger when it was released initially.

    The bigger concern would seem to me to be the developers who've pegged their next release on feature that are Leopard only. They're going to lose out on four months worth of income. Hopefully the new features in Leopard, especially the under-the-hood suff makes developing so much easier that it's going to be worth it for them.

    In the meantime, I'll download a nightly of webkit (safari is the only real annoyance I have on my Mac) and get on with my work.

    --
    In illa quae ultra sunt
    1. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Reminds me of when my boss starts yelling at me for missing a deadline and I let them know it's no big deal because what I was working on really sucked...

    2. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There aren't many major features missing in Tiger, but there are a lot of little things that Apple should just release as OS updates but saves to put in the new release. Things like A2DP and Java 1.6 (release, not beta) would be great to see before October.

    3. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by sootman · · Score: 1

      I'm in the opposite boat. I hate Tiger--no use for Dashboard; can't stand Spotlight--but there are some features in 10.5 that'll make Spotlight's severe shortcomings worth living with and I've been holding off on buying a Mac Pro until 10.5 comes out. I was hoping to get a Mac Pro this summer with 10.5, iLife 07 (?), and better performance/lower cost/both than the current lineup (I'm thinking 2.66 GHz for less than $2000 with my company's discount) but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. Just enough to make the wait annoying--my new home "office" is almost done and I was hoping to replace my G5 and my wife's PC (and a few other computers) with a nice Intel Mac and Parallels. Looks like I'll have to live with a crowded desk a little longer.

      And for all those who are saying "Ooh, delayed, ZING! Just like teh Vista!!!!!11" I have only this to say: Compare ~4 months to ~4 years. Leopard is only 1/12 like Vista. :-) And I bet they won't use the delay to strip out half the new features, either. Also, unlike MS, they've got a pretty good track record of making their dates--unlike the comedic farce that was the Longhorn saga. I'm sure El Jobso did the math and figured out they'll make more from a gorgeous $500 phone than a nice-but-not-world-changing $130 OS. What's MS's excuse--they just had to ship two generations of Xboxes first?

      As for the iPhone, it's pretty, and I'm lusting after one, but I have no use at all for it. I've got a 60 GB video iPod that I don't watch movies on, so the widescreen video playing isn't a selling point for me. I don't use coverflow in iTunes so that's another non-point. I don't SMS so much that I need my conversations stored in a pretty manner. I get so little voicemail that the visual aspect will be worthless to me. (I rarely have more than unheard 1 voicemail, and since my phone shows 'missed calls' before 'new messages' I pretty much always know who the new message is from.) I'm interested in the Internet features, but if it doesn't come with a reasonable data plan, I'll never use it when I'm not in 802.11 coverage. The automatic screen rotating is a nice feature but not exactly something I need to shell out five bills for. And while the sliding and two-finger-zooming interface is nice, I'll need to see it in person to see if typing on a virtual keyboard is better than the QWERTY layout on my Nokia 6820. But man, it looks nice. I'll probably get one in late 2008/mid 2009 when they're $249.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    4. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh but at least now developers will get four months to work with the "Top Secret" features before it's released. And it will still ship in spring... to developers.

    5. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by SLOJava · · Score: 1

      Well, it should be a big deal...I've been delaying my next Mac purchase until Leopard is out, so now they will be without my money for a few more months. Gotta be a lot of people like me out there...

    6. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Indiana+Joe · · Score: 1

      There isn't all that much in Leopard that I'm really looking forward to having.

      Speak for yourself. I'm waiting for multi-threaded OpenGL on the PPC machines.

      --
      I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
    7. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by servognome · · Score: 1

      Well, it should be a big deal...I've been delaying my next Mac purchase until Leopard is out, so now they will be without my money for a few more months. Gotta be a lot of people like me out there...
      I'm with you. Though Santa Rosa based Macs with LED backlighting might convince many people to buy now then upgrade the OS later.
      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    8. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Mspangler · · Score: 1

      "I've been delaying my next Mac purchase until Leopard is out, so now they will be without my money for a few more months."

      Me too. Resolution independence is the killer feature for me. If I'm going to get an iMac, then I'd like to be able to read the screen. I keep my current 17" screen at 1024X768 so I can read it. I want 12 point text 12 point, and I also want 96 or 108 dpi, whatever the pixel density on the monitor works out to. That will do more good than anti-aliasing (blurring to me)the font.

      Spaces might be nice, the rest is eye candy. KDE is good enough. Anything better is nice but not essential.

    9. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Dani+Filth · · Score: 1

      I'm looking forward to Spotlight search in Safari and tabs in terminal (like Konsole has). Bring on the family pack so I can resurrect that old pedestal iMac too.

    10. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by idugcoal · · Score: 1

      Erm, I think he made it pretty clear he was speaking for himself...

    11. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Trentus · · Score: 1

      I've been waiting till I've saved up double what I need to get a macbook pro (I'm a trainee who get's paid peanuts and am going to university next year. Don't wanna feel like I blow it all on one thing). I'd estimated by the time I have that much, 10.5 would be out. Now I'm gonna need to wait a little longer.

    12. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but some people are waiting for Leopard to come out before they buy a new Mac. Tiger came out two months after I bought my iBook. Tough luck, I was without Java 5 (which is a problem at a Java-centric university). I want to make it better when I buy my next Apple notebook... But the fact that I have to extend the lifetime of my overworked little iBook by another four months does not exactly fill me with happy thoughts.

      Well, at least I can be pretty sure that they'll have bumped the MBP specs until then.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    13. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by miller701 · · Score: 1

      Unless they've fixed the color depth issue with LCD back lights, you certainly won't see them on MB Pros.

    14. Re:Leopard Delay - no big deal for most users by metamatic · · Score: 1

      Me three. Still using an 800MHz G4 iMac here... Planning to buy something new when 10.5 comes out.

      Well, I guess I have longer to think about it...

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  13. Perhaps its worth the wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IMHO I'd rather wait for a software release to meet an organizations quality standards versus a sales or stockholders driven timeline. With this experience of having developers exposed to both the Lepoard and iPhone OS, hopefully future customers may experience well tested interfaces or communication between the two products later in October.

  14. New Finder... by goodcow · · Score: 2, Informative

    They'd better use this delay to implement a new Finder given how absolutely terrible the current one is.

    1. Re:New Finder... by bladx · · Score: 1

      It doesn't seem that absolutely terrible when I use it.

    2. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You need to read the info on Leopard. The finder is a complete rework and should be one of the bigger improvements. Thet've even implemented across network support, Just depressing it got pushed back. I was waiting for it to install XP on my Mac but now I may have to go Bootcamp. Upgrades aren't as scary in the Mac world. Late last night my main PC got trashed when I did a video driver upgrade. It's taken me all day to get it partially functional and I still don't have the network running. That's from a bloody video driver. Makes me love the Mac all the more. You don't have to say a prayer and drink a fifth of whiskey everytime you do an upgrade.

    3. Re:New Finder... by kramulous · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I'm new to mac .... what is so crummy about the Finder in Tiger? I've had some difficulties using it, but always penned it as user error. What was good about previous implementations?

      --
      .
    4. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sorry, I'm new to mac .... what is so crummy about the Finder in Tiger? I've had some difficulties using it, but always penned it as user error. What was good about previous implementations?

      It has terrible usability design, with two "modes" (a Windows-esque 'browser' mode, and a Mac Classic 'spatial' mode), neither of which work correctly. The Spotlight UI, in particular, is almost criminally complex and quirky... a Linux/Windows user might not notice it, but to a Mac Classic user it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. People used to Classic are driven spare by the Command-N keyboard shortcut that used to create a new folder, but now creates a new window-- even in Spatial mode (which makes no sense.)

      If you have make the horrible error of trying to open a network drive when the network it's on is no longer available (you know, like the huge number of people who use wifi on their laptops), Finder will freeze for minutes at a time. Finder will also freeze for several minutes if you have the audacity to drag-and-drop files to the desktop from some applications. DotMac will also freeze Finder for several minutes if it attempts to sync itself while on an un-reliable network. There's no multi-threading whatsoever.

      Opening a window with a large number of images will frequently crash Finder as it creates thumbnails. And no, it's not a corrupt image file, because if I do the same view in Windows, Windows will create the thumbnails in seconds with no errors. When Finder's image previews do work, generating them is super-slow.

      It's still missing features that were in Mac Classic, like tabbed folders. (Although to be fair, they have added Labels back in and Pop-Open drag&drop.) Text clippings are nearly useless, as you can no longer drag them directly into a word processor/edit field (like in OS 9), nor can you select and Copy text from them. Oh, and Finder will silently delete the contents of old Mac Classic text clippings, so I hope you didn't have a bunch of important passwords in one or anything... oops!

      If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it.

      It's just bad. Given, a bad Macintosh file browser is still as good as the average Linux or Windows file browser, but that's not much of an excuse, especially for us old-school Mac users. I'd be happy if they fixed some of the more blatant bugs and added tabbed folders, even if it's not a total re-write.

    5. Re:New Finder... by soricine · · Score: 1
      I realise it's become something of a trope to complain about it, but the Finder is not terrible.

      Most complaints about the Finder centre on network performance (hangs on network disconnections, for example), or on a perception of flawed spatiality. The former is a localised, admittedly serious, problem. The latter is mostly a philosophical difference.

      For informed arguments about the problems of the Finder, see:

      http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars

      http://daringfireball.net/2003/04/siracusa_on_the_ finder

    6. Re:New Finder... by bladx · · Score: 1

      Sometimes you have to start moving past old things... (like OS 9).

    7. Re:New Finder... by 7Prime · · Score: 1

      I would say that there are some problems with it, but the basic functionality of it is just fine. They sorta broke a lot of their design rules with the windows, though... very minor things like the fact that the window shifts position when the collapse button is pressed, but they still irk me.

      Only thing I really want to see is files and folders open with the Enter key, enough of this command-O bullshit! It's the ONE thing about Windows that I like better, it makes folder navigation so incredibly fast.

      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
    8. Re:New Finder... by chebucto · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Good list. I would add:

      - No way to force Finder to use a single view mode (eg, open all windows in list view)
      - Clicking & holding the mouse while using list view:
      - - If you click over top of a file, and then move the mouse, you will drag the file
      - - If you click in the whitespace directly to the right of the file, and then move the mouse, you will select whatever file's whitespace the cursor passes over
      - The 'show disk size / free space' on the desktop only seems to update itself when you reboot
      - Finder will try and generate previews of movies, if you are stupid enough to click on them while in column view. If you click on a +700mb file, this can take awhile. Oh, and it makes you wait until it finishes
      - As far as I can tell, it is impossible to force finder to always calculate folder sizes. This is related to the list-view problem: the scheme for defining how a folder is presented is exceedingly complicated, and there is _no_ way to force global settings on all folders.
      - The rules defining how windows are ordered (from 'top' to 'bottom') are broken. One of two things _should_ happen: either all windows owned by the active application should sit on top of whatever else is being drawn (the macos classic way); or, individual windows should remain disconnected from other windows owned by their application. Instead, the current macos has a cumbersome mix of these two methods, resulting in behavior that is infrequent yet infuriating.

      That about all I can think of now

      --
      The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
    9. Re:New Finder... by Paperkirin · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll agree with most of that, but the cmd-N = new window, not new folder is just the Finder fitting in with the rest of the OS, where it almost universally performs this action. I admit that it doesn't make much sense in the pseudo-spatial mode, but then, what does?

      (Hint: Open Apple Menu > System Preferences...; Click Keyboard & Mouse; Switch to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab; click the + button below the list; choose Finder for the application, type 'New Folder' in the Menu Title box, and press cmd-N in Keyboard Shortcut. Lather, rinse and repeat for 'New Window' (note lack of the word 'Finder', the only difficult thing about this) and shift-cmd-N.

    10. Re:New Finder... by iamacat · · Score: 1

      Why do you spend so much time in Finder? It's not so bad if you just double click on applications or documents that you want to open. If you want to make systematic changes to many files, perhaps the right solution is an Automator action or a shell script rather than a general-purpose directory browser.

    11. Re:New Finder... by angrymilkman · · Score: 1

      what is wrong with it? it works splendid here. The only thing that could be improved is being able to right click on files found.

      --
      ...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
    12. Re:New Finder... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I actually like the windowing :)

      It's nice to have one of my web browser windows visible and one of my editor windows visible at the same time when referring to APIs and such... Another time I use this is when adding a bunch of pictures to a Photoshop window... I can keep just one Finder window visible and drag things into the Photoshop window from it without all of the other Finder windows obcuring the Photoshop window.

      When I need the whole application at the front, I click on the dock icon or Command-Tab...

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    13. Re:New Finder... by diamondsw · · Score: 4, Informative
      Let me sum up:
      1. The Finder opens new windows in browser mode, which upsets those of us (myself included) who prefer spatial browsing. However, in day-to-day use I don't find it to be a problem. There simply aren't that many folders I'm still opening for the first time.
      2. Networking in the Finder just sucks - I have no idea why it's not spun off into a separate thread or process, but it can bring down the UI if it disconnects.
      3. No problems with thumbnails here, and I go through a LOT of them. For... research purposes, yeah. Even partial or corrupt ones have no effect (although until 10.4, they could crash the Finder, so this may be old information). Windows is snappier because it caches the thumbnails, and can end up with them being out of date. Thumbs.db, anyone?
      4. Tabbed folders - missed them for about 5 minutes, then discovered the Dock. Could you dig down through multiple levels of folders with a click like you can with the Dock? No. And with Leopard, they're spring loaded finally.
      5. Clipping support. Yes, they were useful, but this is the best you've got?
      6. You most certainly do NOT have to "prod" the Finder to show new files. Kernel file notifications were added in 10.4 and work fine. Go ahead, open a window then "touch foo" in the terminal - the file will appear as soon as you hit enter.


      So, it has some networking issues, and it really shouldn't default to opening new windows in browser mode. Otherwise, it's just fine. Despite the whining, it has made a lot of progress since 10.0.
      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    14. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [...]a Linux/Windows user might not notice it[...]

      If you have make the horrible error of trying to open a network drive when the network it's on is no longer available (you know, like the huge number of people who use wifi on their laptops), Finder will freeze for minutes at a time. Finder will also freeze for several minutes if you have the audacity to drag-and-drop files to the desktop from some applications. DotMac will also freeze Finder for several minutes if it attempts to sync itself while on an un-reliable network. There's no multi-threading whatsoever.

      Opening a window with a large number of images will frequently crash Finder as it creates thumbnails. And no, it's not a corrupt image file, because if I do the same view in Windows, Windows will create the thumbnails in seconds with no errors. When Finder's image previews do work, generating them is super-slow.

      If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it. Yeah, us Windows&Linux users would never notice that. And by never notice, I mean never tolerate.
    15. Re:New Finder... by 7Prime · · Score: 1

      Ummm, have you used OS9, lately? I mean, I liked it back in the day, after using the OSX Finder, Classic feels damn clunky. Sure, the OSX Finder isn't perfect, but the OS9 Finder was no beauty either, in fact, I think pretty much every feature added after 8.0 was useless crap, and symbolized everything as to why Apple was really failing during the mid 90s.

      Tabbed Folders - WORST IMPLEMENTATION EVER! I thought they looked cool at first, and then I tried them, and oh man. They go completely counter to Apple's basic design philosophy, they make for a lot of useless clutter, and there's no precident on how they should be used efficiently. I'm glad they got rid of those, very glad.

      Open in New Window - I railed on Microsoft when they first came up with the "open in exiting window" idea, but ya know what? I've gotta hand it to them (yes, I know, this was originally implemented in some Linux builds, but I hadn't used any yet), they were right to have done so. I never find myself clicking on the little oval in OSX to do classic-style window management.

      Bottom line, Classic was good for its day, but and OSX finder definitely has room for improvement, but saying that OS9s Finder was better than OSX is just kidding yourself

      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
    16. Re:New Finder... by Shawn+Parr · · Score: 1

      If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it.

      While most of your post is correct, the above quoted passage is not. This was corrected in Tiger. In any previous OS X you would be correct, but you were responding to a post specifically asking about shortcomings in the Finder for Tiger.

      Every Tiger Machine I have used (which is many, from the B&W G3 up to my Macbook) has the following behavior. Open a Finder window, then open terminal and cd into that directory. Now create a file, I used touch just to double check. Be amazed as the icon appears in the Finder window just as soon as you hit enter, or save your file in whatever editor you are using.

    17. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opening a window with a large number of images will frequently crash Finder as it creates thumbnails. And no, it's not a corrupt image file, because if I do the same view in Windows, Windows will create the thumbnails in seconds with no errors.

      To be fair, Windows keeps a thumbnail cache (Thumbs.db) in each folder.

      Text clippings are nearly useless, as you can no longer drag them directly into a word processor/edit field (like in OS 9), nor can you select and Copy text from them.

      The latter part I agree with, but the former isn't true. It may be your word processor that's at fault. I use text clippings this way all the time.

    18. Re:New Finder... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      You need to read the info on Leopard. The finder is a complete rework and should be one of the bigger improvements.
      Didn't they claim they rewrote finder or some non-sense in 10.3 (there were some fixes to finder -- but definitely not a rewrite)? How is this going to be any different?
      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    19. Re:New Finder... by Confuzzled · · Score: 1

      If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it.

      Not true, at least if you're running Tiger (10.4.9 PPC Mac). Here's what I just did:

      • Opened my user folder in the Finder.
      • In Terminal.app typed: "touch file": immediately it shows up in the window behind it (the Finder window that is now in the background).
      • Typed "rm file": it also immediately disappears in the window behind it.

      This is probably because of the spotlight notification API, the same thing that allows Smart Folders.

    20. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      No problems with thumbnails here, and I go through a LOT of them. For... research purposes, yeah. Even partial or corrupt ones have no effect (although until 10.4, they could crash the Finder, so this may be old information). Windows is snappier because it caches the thumbnails, and can end up with them being out of date.

      It may be old information. Frankly, I don't sort large folders of images in OS X anymore because I've had such horrible experiences with it in the past.

      And Windows is snappier even when you don't consider caching. Windows is snappier generating them in the first place over a fileshare from my Mac... it's frequently finished before OS X is, even when OS X has a head start. And unless Windows is psychic, there's no way it could have seen those images before the network connection was made.

      Thumbs.db, anyone?

      Huh? What does this mean?

      Tabbed folders - missed them for about 5 minutes, then discovered the Dock. Could you dig down through multiple levels of folders with a click like you can with the Dock? No. And with Leopard, they're spring loaded finally.

      No, but you could easily do that in the Apple menu since Mac OS 7, so it's not like the Dock is giving you something revolutionarily new.

      I used the tabbed folders as drag&drop targets, so I have all my handy apps ready to drag stuff too. You could pop up one folder containing documents, drag the file to another folder containing apps, drop it on the target, and poof all the folders neatly file themselves away and you have your document ready to go. Plus the tabs never got covered up by apps, so they were always handy to use. And you didn't have to wait the .5 seconds the Dock makes you wait before it opens the folder up.

      Whether or not you personally found them useful, you had to admit that it's pretty fishy for version 10 of a product to have far fewer features than version 9 of the same product. Apple should have at least gotten back to feature parity before adding things like 'Smart Folsders'. Which, while fancy, I find a lot less useful than tabbed folders were.

      Clipping support. Yes, they were useful, but this is the best you've got?

      Did you not read it? Deleting my list of passwords? Silently, without even giving me the courtesy of an error message? You seriously find this acceptable behavior? (Thankfully, I had a backup, but it was a huge pain trying to get those clippings copied into something OS X likes. I had to use Classic mode on a borrowed laptop.)

      I know OS X can read resource forks. There's absolutely no excuse for Finder not automatically converting the old-style text clippings into the new-style ones.

      And of course, you can't do as much with the new ones as you could with the old, so it's another case of version 10 of the product having fewer features than version 9.

      You most certainly do NOT have to "prod" the Finder to show new files. Kernel file notifications were added in 10.4 and work fine. Go ahead, open a window then "touch foo" in the terminal - the file will appear as soon as you hit enter.

      "touch" works, yes. I think that's as far as Apple actually tested it.

      When a makefile creates files while building a downloaded package, they often don't show up. Same with un-gzipping files. And some other operations. I concede that it works in more cases in 10.4 than it did in previous cases, but it still doesn't work 100% of the time like any modern file browser should. (Note: I experienced this just last week while compiling the GD library for use with PHP.)

      Otherwise, it's just fine. Despite the whining, it has made a lot of progress since 10.0.

      And despite the progress, it still doesn't work as well as the Finder that came with OS 9 did. Seriously.

      Look, I love Apple products, and I'm not saying Finder is a bad program. What I'm saying is that it's the worst program Apple ships. Given Apple's high level of quality, it's still pretty good.

    21. Re:New Finder... by G-funk · · Score: 1

      Finder has many many problems, but the ones that bug me the most are the lack of the "right click, new file", and "command prompt here"... I'm sure these can be done easily with QS, but apparently I lack the voodoo required to figure that effin thing out. Having to hit apple-i to find out how big a file/directory is smokes pole, too.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    22. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Ummm, have you used OS9, lately?

      Yeah. I had to use it on a borrowed iBook a few months ago to get back some data that OS X deleted from my text clippings.

      I thought they looked cool at first, and then I tried them, and oh man. They go completely counter to Apple's basic design philosophy, they make for a lot of useless clutter, and there's no precident on how they should be used efficiently. I'm glad they got rid of those, very glad.

      So because you personally couldn't figure out how to use them efficiently, they should be removed? I didn't realize you were king of the universe.

      If you care, I found a way to use them efficiently and it took me ages to get used to working without them again. For me, tabbed folders was one of those features like Expose where once you get used to it, you keep looking for it on other computers and sigh in disappointment when you realize it doesn't work on all computers. It just became part of my workflow, and I was never more productive.

      I'm not so much an egotist to say that any feature I can't figure out how to use efficiently should be removed. (I've never figured out Labels, for instance.) But I think it's reasonable to expect version 10 of a product to have feature parity with version 9 of the same product.

      Open in New Window - I railed on Microsoft when they first came up with the "open in exiting window" idea, but ya know what? I've gotta hand it to them (yes, I know, this was originally implemented in some Linux builds, but I hadn't used any yet), they were right to have done so.

      I have no problem whatsoever with Apple *adding* this feature. My issue is that in the process, they completely screwed up the spatial window management we had before and haven't ever fixed it. If you like browser-style file management, then great! But the users who like spatial file management are up a creek with no paddles to be found.

      Bottom line, Classic was good for its day, but and OSX finder definitely has room for improvement, but saying that OS9s Finder was better than OSX is just kidding yourself

      I was much more productive with Classic's Finder than I've ever been with OS X's. In the end, that's all that matters to me.

    23. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      I posted this in another reply. "touch" works, yes. Using a makefile to compile something doesn't, much of the time. (It's not 100% failure, but it's not 100% success, either.) I experienced this bug just last week while compiling GD for use with a PHP project I was working on. Apple may claim it's fixed, but it's not.

    24. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Good job misquoting me.

      Nobody should tolerate the crappy network performance and other bugs in Finder. My statement about Windows and Linux users was specifically about messy UI design.

    25. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Well, in spatial mode, a window is a presentation of a folder and therefore a folder *is* a window, and therefore Command-N makes sense to make new folders. And to get even more pointlessly picky, Command-N means "New Document" which may, or may not, mean a new window as well. (Typically it does, but there are applications where it does not.) Given that meaning, creating a folder also makes sense.

      That all said, it's not a huge deal and I've gotten used to it. It still bugs me, but I can cope... the network problems are the big beef I have, really.

    26. Re:New Finder... by Shawn+Parr · · Score: 1

      I just downloaded the most recent GD from libgd.org in .tar.gz format. When I did the tar -xzf the finder window updated as close to real time as I could tell. It had a subfolder, and it was not possible for me to highlight the folder before the tar process completed.

      I then ran configure and make, the Finder kept up with both. I could see the file total jumping up and down very quickly, although since I did no due diligence for the GD build it did happen to fail. Maybe there could have been some file creation at the very end it could have puked on, but based on what you said you did, and my experience, I have to say either something is not right with your system, or mine is blessed.

    27. Re:New Finder... by kinabrew · · Score: 1
      I really missed tabbed windows when OS X came out. In the classic Mac OS, you could drag files over those tabs to have the tab windows spring open a la spring-loaded folders. The dock has never supported spring-loaded folders.

      The classic Finder was also anal-retentively consistent, whereas OS X's Finder isn't. I've been complaining about the problems with OS X's Finder ever since OS X came out. It has a bunch of issues:
      • The first finder window opened after login never displays more than one column, and the column is always incredibly thin. This has been the case on all four Macs I've owned which ran OS X.
      • There's no way to specify a specific number of columns per window or have all column view windows open full screen-width instead of the default size. This means every previously-unopened window opens with the same default settings, not the ones I like.
      • There's no way to prevent the sidebar from changing sizes whenever I resize a window.
      • Until the Leopard betas, there was no way to Finder's icon spacing or column view's sort order.
    28. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      A bug is a bug.

    29. Re:New Finder... by grrrl · · Score: 1

      Only thing I really want to see is files and folders open with the Enter key, enough of this command-O bullshit!

      If you want to navigate the Finder with the keyboard, use the damn arrow keys. CMD-DOWN goes into a Folder, or you know, OPENS files. CMD-UP goes up a level (like backspace on Windows - like that key usage makes any sense!)

      Left/Right of course navigate you in column view.

    30. Re:New Finder... by kinabrew · · Score: 1

      Windows keyboard shortcuts are incredibly difficult to remember because they're not consistent. While some Windows shortcuts may seem easier at first glance, their inconsistencies make them harder to remember overall. I find that infuriating when I use Windows. Apple o is consistent with the rest of the programs on the Mac OS in that it opens files, and it's always been that way. On a Mac, if you want to use the keyboard to input a command, it's usually the apple key and the first letter of whatever you want to do. Like to "Quit", you hit Apple q rather than Alt F4.

      On A Mac, Enter/Return is the button you hit on a Mac to rename a file. If you're trying to remember that, remember that enter is used when you're inputting text. If Apple were to use the enter key to open a file, what (consistent) keyboard command would you suggest they use to start renaming that file?

      On Windows, you hit F2 to start renaming a file. "Alt f4" and f2 don't mean anything unless you've memorized the commands. I started on Macs and Windows a decade ago when I was in seventh grade, and until this year, I didn't even know that I could hit f2 on a Windows machine to start renaming a file! And I have a degree in computer networking!

      Here's another demonstration. On a Mac, if you want to type umlauts, accent mark, or eñes, you hit option and [the letter the mark normally appears over] and then a letter. Option e and then e produces é. Option n and then n produce ñ. Option u and then u produce ü. On Windows, typing a u with umlauts or an e with an accent mark is an impossible task to remember because it doesn't fall into a consistent pattern. On the Mac, ü, ñ and é take a second to remember. As do á, ä and ã.

      Consistency is the key, and Windows is inconsistent.

    31. Re:New Finder... by John+Newman · · Score: 1

      "touch" works, yes. I think that's as far as Apple actually tested it.

      When a makefile creates files while building a downloaded package, they often don't show up. Same with un-gzipping files. And some other operations. I concede that it works in more cases in 10.4 than it did in previous cases, but it still doesn't work 100% of the time like any modern file browser should. (Note: I experienced this just last week while compiling the GD library for use with PHP.)
      FWIW, you're right about this. 'touch' works, but not much else. I spend a lot of time in the Terminal, and a lot of time clicking back and forth to refresh folders when I switch to Finder. Files created by Perl scripts certainly don't trigger any event-monitoring mechanism.
    32. Re:New Finder... by quacking+duck · · Score: 1

      The rules defining how windows are ordered (from 'top' to 'bottom') are broken. One of two things _should_ happen: either all windows owned by the active application should sit on top of whatever else is being drawn (the macos classic way); or, individual windows should remain disconnected from other windows owned by their application. Instead, the current macos has a cumbersome mix of these two methods, resulting in behavior that is infrequent yet infuriating. While occasionally cumbersome, I've gotten used to it and actually prefer it to both Classic *and* Windows methods.

      Under Classic Mac OS, you could never have windows disconnected from the app.

      Under Windows, a window is *always* disconnected from the app. In XP they implemented a method of "grouping" similar tasks, but meant clicking a task group always *required* you to read and select the window you want. Task grouping is among the first things I disable when I log into a PC for the first time.

      OS X blends the two--if you click on the app's Dock icon or cmd-tab to it, it brings all of its windows to the front, with the last window you were in top-most. If you want to select a specific window of an app (like Windows' grouped tasks), you still can by right-click on the app's Dock icon.
    33. Re:New Finder... by gig · · Score: 1

      > Finder has many many problems, but the ones that bug me the most are the lack
      > of the "right click, new file", and "command prompt here"...

      Both of these can be done with AppleScript, just using the built-in tools. A "command prompt here" script is available on Apple's site for many years now. It is easy to write that yourself though because both Finder and Terminal are scriptable.

      The Finder is not only completely scriptable but also recordable. You can open Script Editor, press Record, switch to Finder, so a bunch of stuff, go back to Script Editor and hit Stop and what you did in the Finder will be written in the script.

      > Having to hit apple-i to find out how big a file/directory is smokes pole, too.

      Set the window to List View and in View Options make sure that the Size column is showing, and click "calculate all folder sizes" or whatever it is called.

      Another approach is to select an item and press Command+Option+I and a context-sensitive file inspector will be displayed that will stay on top and show you info for everything you touch in Finder as you work.

    34. Re:New Finder... by WasterDave · · Score: 1

      If you have make the horrible error of trying to open a network drive when the network it's on is no longer available (you know, like the huge number of people who use wifi on their laptops), Finder will freeze for minutes at a time.

      Sadly that's not the finders' fault. It has more to do with insisting on having drives mounted as kernel devices when all I wanted to do was copy one damn file from one damn machine. This is the one area where OSX has always sucked much worse than that peer networking (and unc file conventions) that appeared as part of Windows 95.

      Unfortunately, and despite the efforts of things like Fuse, I don't see Apple fessing up to their file sharing sucking dogs balls in order to fix it. And not to forget, this would take engineers off some damn phone project as well.

      Mind you - there's a startup in there... make file sharing for OSX that doesn't hugely suck.

      Dave

      --
      I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
    35. Re:New Finder... by trick.one · · Score: 1

      Two words: Path Finder

    36. Re:New Finder... by gig · · Score: 1

      > And despite the progress, it still doesn't work as well as the Finder that came with OS 9 did. Seriously.

      I'm sorry but that is just plain wrong.

      I loved Mac OS 9 in the day but you are suffering from nostalgia related insanity.

      If the only improvement in Mac OS X Finder was that it can't crash the whole box, that is enough.

      However the X Finder also has packages/bundles, is more reliable when scripted, is able to identify arbitrary downloaded files better, you can easily open a folder with 10,000 files in it, or use 256 character file names, or Unix permissions, or multiple users. You can have an AppleScript app quietly driving Finder in the background, renaming files or whatever, and still work in another app.

      The X Finder has its flaws but Mac OS 9 Finder was not ideal either. It's deep integration with the kernel felt good to the user until it's deep integration with the kernel caused it to crash the box so it was always a mixed bag. Finder purists will direct you to System 6 for a "real" Finder experience.

      > clipping support

      Text clippings on 9 or X use both a different text encoding and a different line break character, and they have a filename extension now also ("textClipping"), but in the Finder you can still refer to them as "clippings" in your AppleScripts so that is how the convenience was implemented, at the expense of someone with numerous old text clippings to convert. The free TextWrangler from Bare Bones can convert your clippings to new ones.

    37. Re: New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A computer is to use. If usability suffers, as it did from classic Mac OS (and yes, 9 was getting progressively crappier in spite of the new features), then something is wrong, horribly wrong. Your defense of it, especially the lost clippings, is indefensible. You are a selfish and unthinking person, a...a...I hate to say it, a fanboy. Sorry, but it sure seems that way.

      It is harder and slower to use Macs now. And w/o the Human Interface Police basic interface elements like selecting text are different, and nearly always dumber, than it used to be. If the text selection interface is elegant, the developer is old school.

      Firefox especially drives me nuts. If there was Adblock and Noscript for Opera I'd be there so fast....

    38. Re:New Finder... by appleprophet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Try using it for accessing network resources...

    39. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I won't claim that the Finder is the best thing since sliced bread, you are attributing several Mac OS X bugs to problems in the Finder. For example, the craptastic networking in the Finder is actually a problem with how the underlying filesystems are implemented. Network mounted drives are implemented in Mac OS X as filesystem plug-ins. The Finder sees them as any other drive. But when the drive goes away, the ENTIRE FILESYSTEM locks up while the network operation IN THE KERNEL hangs. It's not the Finder's fault. The same thing will happen to any application that tries to read from/write to a file on a remote volume. You can't simply "spin a new thread" for the file I/O because the entire filesystem has gone out to lunch.

      And manipulating files from the CLI has been fixed in Tiger using kqueue. Files show up instantaneously when I create them in them outside of the Finder. In fact it can be quite annoying...we have a build machine that does builds nonstop. If you happen to leave the Finder window open, you'll see the build folder change constantly as the Finder adds and removes the files created by the build script.

      As a person who interacts with Apple engineering very often, I can tell you what their engineers tell me. They have a saying on the Finder team: "The Finder is not a unit test!" They say that because the Finder is where bugs in Mac OS X are seen most frequently, and are mostly blamed on the Finder team.

    40. Re:New Finder... by noewun · · Score: 1

      Windows user might not notice it, but to a Mac Classic user it's like fingernails on a chalkboard.

      This Classic user has been using Macs since 1989 and I don't find it 'fingernails on a chalkboard'. In fact, I find the column view to be amazing, and do almost all my Findering in that. It's especially wonderful for moving around in deep server hierarchies, which really shows the limits of a spatial system.

      People used to Classic are driven spare by the Command-N keyboard shortcut that used to create a new folder, but now creates a new window-- even in Spatial mode (which makes no sense.)

      Actually, this makes perfect sense, and corrects an inconsistency which has been in Apple's GUI since the beginning: in every other instance Apple-N creates a new document. Since a Finder "document" is a window, this is now more consistent. We we just used to the old consistency.

      I know there's a lot of talk about Fix the Fucking Finder, but I have never understood what people were complaining about. Once I found the column view I never went back, and on the few occasions I still work in OS 9, I find the Finder to be clunky.

      Given, a bad Macintosh file browser is still as good as the average Linux or Windows file browser

      I find both Windows Explorer (or whatever it's called) and the Finder-like apps in Gnome, KDE and XFCE to be very clunky and feature-poor when compared to the OS X Finder. I still do most of my file maintenance in Linux with the command line, because there are so many things Nautilus and friends can't do, or do very poorly.

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    41. Re:New Finder... by gig · · Score: 1

      > Only thing I really want to see is files and folders open with the Enter key, enough of this command-O bullshit!

      Command+Down to go down on a file or folder.

      Command+Up to come back up for air.

      Command+O is a generic open, it works in this case but you are not navigating the Finder so much as just sending an Open command to that file. Like wearing work boots for a sprint it is no wonder you feel slow.

      Also make sure to notice you can open multiple items at once which is much faster than opening things one at a time on Windows. In List view your selection can span multiple folders.

      Another old school Finder feature is Command+click on a window's title bar to see a menu with the whole path.

      Finder is also scriptable and recordable. You can use Script Editor to record yourself performing actions in Finder and it will write those actions out as AppleScript which you can run or modify. Everything you can get at in Finder is available as an object.

    42. Re:New Finder... by zzen · · Score: 1

      If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it. I'll give you all the other short-comings, but this one simply is not true anymore. Ever since kernel upgrade in Tiger the Finder picks up new files (from CLI and elsewhere) IMMEDIATELY.
    43. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    44. Re:New Finder... by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Files created by Perl scripts certainly don't trigger any event-monitoring mechanism.

      The event-monitoring mechanism is called "EVFILT_VNODE kqueue events", and the mechanism in xnu that generates them has no idea whether the file was added to a directory by a Perl script or not. If the events are getting lost, or if the Finder isn't updating the window when they're delivered, that has nothing to do with whether the files were created by a Perl script.

    45. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      anecdote vs anecdote..

      Last upgrade I did for my PC (entire box, case included, only kept 2 HDDs and the PSU) went without a hitch, and I didn't even bother reinstalling Windows. Just stuck the drive in, powered up, and after a couple of driver changes/updates and a reboot or two, I was back up and running.

    46. Re:New Finder... by Dal+Platinum · · Score: 1

      Also make sure to notice you can open multiple items at once which is much faster than opening things one at a time on Windows.

      While you're there, you may also notice that you can open multiple items at once in Windows too, and strangely enough, it's faster than opening things one at a time on another OS, Windows included.

      And no, I'm not really defending Win Explorer here, I don't even use it myself anymore. I switched to a 3rd party version (Directory Opus), and it blows explorer out of the water.

      The recording/scripting feature sounds pretty sweet though.

    47. Re:New Finder... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Kevents are available in OS X, but they are not widely used. The Finder still uses polling to check for updates, and Spotlight uses the searchfs system call.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    48. Re:New Finder... by Balthisar · · Score: 1

      >> You most certainly do NOT have to "prod" the Finder to show new files. Kernel file notifications were added in 10.4 and work fine. Go ahead, open a window then "touch foo" in the terminal - the file will appear as soon as you hit enter.

      I haven't tried the touch foo, but I don't use touch for much. I still do have to prod Finder to show files, and usually I do the grandparent's method of create new folder and then delete it. Sometimes clicking on the enclosing folder brings it back, but it's definitely not instant like in System 9. At least in Windows I can hit F5 for a forced refresh.

      --
      --Jim (me)
    49. Re:New Finder... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sadly that's not the finders' fault. It has more to do with insisting on having drives mounted as kernel devices when all I wanted to do was copy one damn file from one damn machine. There is nothing wrong with having drives mounted by the kernel. The problem is that the disconnection mechanism in XNU sucks. If a drive disappears while there are no open file descriptors pointing to it, then the disconnection should not matter at all. There are three situations that can occur when a device underlying a mounted filesystem disappears that can occur:
      1. No file descriptors open. In which case, just silently unmount it. If the user tries to access it again, then a userspace app (e.g. The Finder) can try to re-mount it.
      2. File descriptors open read-only. In which case, unmount it and return an error the next time an app tries to read from the file descriptor. This can then be handled in userspace (e.g. trying to re-mount, and notifying the user if it fails).
      3. File descriptors open read-write. In this case, you should retain the cached copy of the file. Try to re-mount. If this succeeds, replay the journal and then finish writes if you are in a consistent state. If you are not in a consistent state, you have a problem, so notify the user and let them try to fix it (save elsewhere, etc).
      OS X does none of these right.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    50. Re:New Finder... by metamatic · · Score: 1

      You missed one.

      In OS 9 you could drag a file to the desktop while you were working on it. When you were done, you selected it and chose "Put away" from the menu, and it went back to wherever it belonged before you dragged it to the desktop.

      This was an awesome tool for keeping your hard drive organized. It is totally missing from OS X.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    51. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Text clippings on 9 or X use both a different text encoding and a different line break character, and they have a filename extension now also ("textClipping"), but in the Finder you can still refer to them as "clippings" in your AppleScripts so that is how the convenience was implemented, at the expense of someone with numerous old text clippings to convert. The free TextWrangler from Bare Bones can convert your clippings to new ones.

      Let me see if I understand this correctly.

      Finder silently deleted my data because ... AppleScript can refer to text clippings as "clippings?" WTF? I have no clue what you're trying to tell me here.

      Regardless of what technological improvement was made, there is no excuse for silently deleting a user's data. I don't know why I even have to say that; isn't that a given for ALL computers EVERYWHERE?

    52. Re:New Finder... by ZERO1ZERO · · Score: 1

      I miss this function too. I still drag things to the desktop to work on, but now I just leave it there. Hence why my desktop is completely cluttered.

    53. Re:New Finder... by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Kevents are available in OS X, but they are not widely used. The Finder still uses polling to check for updates

      Not as of Tiger, on file systems that support kevents. Not all do - NFS, for example, doesn't.

      and Spotlight uses the searchfs system call

      Presumably you mean fsevents. searchfs can only search based on certain properties, not on, for example, the file contents, and only works on some file systems - it doesn't work on NFS, but Tiger happily indexed the stuff under my NFS home directory at work.

    54. Re:New Finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> what is so crummy about the Finder in Tiger? [...]

      > It has terrible usability design [...]

      Oh, and the dock also still sucks!

    55. Re:New Finder... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      This Classic user has been using Macs since 1989 and I don't find it 'fingernails on a chalkboard'. In fact, I find the column view to be amazing, and do almost all my Findering in that. It's especially wonderful for moving around in deep server hierarchies, which really shows the limits of a spatial system.

      I'm not complaining that they added non-spatial browsing modes. If you like column view, great!

      But to break the spatial browsing mode in the process of adding is is bad. I don't get why the Apple fans replying to my post don't agree that:
      1) Removing features from version 10 that were present in version 9 is bad.
      2) Breaking features in version 10 that worked well in version 9 is bad.

      When you sum it all up, that's all I'm complaining about.

  15. Uhhh, right, compared to the new microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or may i say even linux?

    I think apple OS development comes along quicker than either. Or at least it seems like it to me, and I am a linux/pc user. From what i heard of Vista, microsoft just reinvented the apple like interface, and dropped any other feature that would even bare mentioning reguarding a new "operating system". (such as their new filesystem).

  16. The real reason for the delay - I totally swear! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    iPhone delays are just an excuse; the REAL reason is that Apple needs a bit more time to finish implementing their new super-secret killer OS features...

    ... Palladium ! ... UEFI support ! ... Monad ! ...and finally, WinFS !

    Once these features are in place, Vista will pale before Apple's new code-named-Leopard OS, secret-code-named-Longhorn OS! Mwuahahaaaa!

  17. Better late than buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone following news of recent developer builds of Leopard could have predicted that it wasn't near being ready. No sign of the announced "top secret" features, and mile-long bug lists. Good that they're willing to take the PR hit (oops! they jabbed Microsoft about delaying Vista, didn't they?) instead of release a pile of crap in June.

    Interesting that they had to pull engineers off OS X to the iPhone. Most likely, they needed to get the iPhone done in time to meet contractual requirements with Cingular, and there wasn't enough time to hire new staff and train them. It can take months to get even the brightest new hires up to speed and productive, so this is understandable. Especially when training new hires means some of your existing staff is dedicated to that instead of real work. So, in keeping with the dropping of "Computer" from their name, Apple just put the computer stuff on the backburner and took the quick route of using existing, knowledgeable engineers.

    Too bad they didn't do better long range forecasting for staffing needs a year or two ago...

    Wonder what this'll do to Mac sales, as many people were waiting for a Leopard release before buying? Will people still wait 6 more months, or will they buy now? Will they go PC to spite Apple for the delay?

    1. Re:Better late than buggy by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Keep in mind: Apple pre-announced the iPhone since they were filing FCC documentation, which would have let the cat out of the bag (sort of). Now that everybody + dog knows about the iPhone (and has seen the buzz and excitement over it), you can bet other companies are working on something similar. If they don't release it on time and bug-free, it will be a punchline, much like Newton.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:Better late than buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll wait. Part of my Mac-purchasing plans have included:
      (a) Waiting for Dual-core chips. (check)
      (b) Waiting for 64-bit Duos. (check)
      (c) Waiting for new OSX revision. (pending)

      The extra bonus is that there will likely be another hardware refresh in there somewhere, so I'll be even better off waiting just a little while longer.

    3. Re:Better late than buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, I'll just use windows to spite them

      WTF?

    4. Re:Better late than buggy by Yaztromo · · Score: 1

      Wonder what this'll do to Mac sales, as many people were waiting for a Leopard release before buying? Will people still wait 6 more months, or will they buy now?

      As someone who is in this very situation, I'm probably going to wait until WWDC to see if they have any hardware announcements between now and then for the model I'm looking at (the top-end MacBook to replace my 12" PowerBook).

      In essence, my plan isn't changing at all -- I just won't be getting a new OS with my new machine. As I'm keeping the 12" PowerBook (it's becoming my girlfriends machine), we'll just buy the Leopard Family Pack when Leopard is released and upgrade both systems at once.

      That's not to say that I'm all that happy about todays news -- I'm not. But then again, I'm not going to die in the meantime either, and my PowerBook will keep functioning just fine.

      Yaz.

    5. Re:Better late than buggy by not-enough-info · · Score: 1

      Interesting that they had to pull engineers off OS X to the iPhone. Though, IMO, this does lend some credibility to what SJ said about the iPhone running Mac OS X. Honestly I thought that was a load of bollox. But, after the aTV hacks and this, I'm somewhat more optimistic wrt actually seeing more Mac OS X out there.
      --
      ---k--
      </stupid>
    6. Re:Better late than buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. The dev builds gave a big hint when the expiration date for Leopard Server Seeds moved out to October. I actually stopped paying attention to all of the Apple rumor sites because they are clearly "out of the loop" and unable to predict much of anything.

    7. Re:Better late than buggy by gig · · Score: 1

      The iPhone is more of a priority because Mac sales are the very best they have ever been, while iPhone sales are zero. There is nothing at all broken on the Mac right now that needs fixing. Sales are up.

      If for some reason this announcement did lead to a dip in Mac sales, Apple could offset with a Product: Red MacBook or iMac. Leopard is not just a disc in a box like Vista.

  18. Delay and sales by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A lot of people are going to say that this is going to cost apple sales, and I think if we'd been left in this uncertain situation it might have. But I know personally this has _removed_ a barrier to getting a new Mac. I just didn't want to get shafted when leopard came down the pipe two weeks after we bought this mac. Since that's gone, I'll be ordering one soon.

    1. Re:Delay and sales by mmeister · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Even developers were totally in the dark as to when the OS was set to ship. Developers were really shaking their head with the instability of the seed releases and the supposed release date of Mar, Apr, May, Jun 07. When a seed release is so bad that it stops a developer from doing ANY work, you know it's not coming out in 3-4 weeks.

      I think there are a number of developers sighing in relief that reality hasn't become *too* distorted.

    2. Re:Delay and sales by duffbeer703 · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think it will help sales overall. The back to school crowd will buy whatever is out in August, and an October release will mean big Christmas promotions.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    3. Re:Delay and sales by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      First time Mac buyers don't know enough to care about any upcoming changes. If they are considering a Mac now, it is based on the current build of the OS, not some future "might-have" functions.

  19. No surprise, really... by Y-Crate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This was pretty obvious from as early as Mid-March. We knew there would be "secret features" coming, and none of them have thus far appeared in any of the betas.

    Apple isn't retarded, and it is highly unlikely that they would have dumped them in the laps of developers a matter of weeks prior to the final release. That being said, I will go into nerd rage spasms if they don't fix Finder this time around and spend their efforts doing some stupid .Mac integration or comparable bullshit feature that ignores the rotting elephant in the room.

    1. Re:No surprise, really... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They've gone, what, 5 releases without fixing (much) in Finder; what makes you think they'll fix it this time around? Wasn't it 10.3 where Apple claimed they were re-writing Finder from scratch, and we ended up with almost the exact same mess of poor usability and terrible bugs we were using before? Hell, I'd be happy if it just didn't utterly freeze for minutes at a time when your network got disconnected-- it's like the Finder programmers never heard of wifi!

      It's sad when the one application that is hard-coded to run on every boot for every user is the worst application Apple makes.

    2. Re:No surprise, really... by donutello · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's new features as much as quality. Apple has been going months between Leopard seeds and the quality of the seeds has been dismal. Judging by the number of issues I saw in the last seed, I'm not at all surprised that they are slipping the release.

      --
      Mmmm.. Donuts
    3. Re:No surprise, really... by blibbler · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't want to defend the Finder in 10.4, but the Finder included in 10.0 sucked so much harder than the current version. On a G4, when resizing a "column-view" window, it would only refresh every couple of seconds or so. IIRC, this wasn't fixed until 10.2. There are still large complaints with the Finder (especially the networking one you mentioned) but it is unfair to say there haven't been improvements.

    4. Re:No surprise, really... by preggie_greggie · · Score: 1

      They've gone, what, 5 releases without fixing (much) in Finder; what makes you think they'll fix it this time around?

      The fact that Apple had a job posting up for a finder engineer last year:
      http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/1/26 /2673

    5. Re:No surprise, really... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you use PathFinder, you can run with Finder turned off. For $35 to a third party company you can get quite a full featured and stable extension to the standard OS X file browser, stuff like tabbed browsing, in-browser previews of HTML/XML files or txt files without the .txt extension, or hex versions of files. Mounting/unmounting is supposed to be improved with it as well.

    6. Re:No surprise, really... by convolvatron · · Score: 1

      an aside. can someone tell me this 'finder' actually is. i'm
      a unix person who has been using mac osx for..say three years
      now. its great. but people keep talking about this 'finder' thing
      as if its an essential part of the os. is it just the dumb thing
      than manages the dock. the thing that manages the stupid modal
      'active application state'? the silly little file browser?

    7. Re:No surprise, really... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe I'm just an old dog who's no good and new tricks, but I hate the "browser"-type stuff. I want a 100% fully spatial Finder, like we had in every single version of Mac OS until 10. It wasn't broken, and it shouldn't have been "fixed."

      If they wanted to add a browser mode in addition to the normal Finder mode, that would be fine with me-- as long as they didn't break the normal Finder mode in the process.

    8. Re:No surprise, really... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      The Dock is managed by a process named (for some strange reason ;) "Dock." Open up Activity Monitor and you can see it listed.

      Finder is the name of Mac OS's file browser. It's roughly equivalent to Explorer.exe on Windows, except Explorer manages both the taskbar and the file browser, and Finder only manages the file browsing. Like Explorer, it's a pretty essential part of the OS... it's the first thing everybody sees when they log in, it manages filesharing connections, disk mounting and unmounting, and various other things (like DotMac syncing.) I think it also controls logging in and out, but I may be wrong there.

    9. Re:No surprise, really... by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      is it just the dumb thing than manages the dock. the thing that manages the stupid modal
      'active application state'? the silly little file browser?


      It is the silly little file browser.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    10. Re:No surprise, really... by diamondsw · · Score: 1

      Apple has NEVER claimed they're rewriting the Finder. Go ahead, back that one up. The only ones who have ever made such a claim are the rumor sites.

      Meanwhile, the Leopard Finder does include a lot of enhancements, including View Options that make sense (default is to modify the current window only, and the dialog as a whole is just better), QuickLook (no more need for Preview), spring-loaded Dock (easy file access and filing), adjustable grid (make it as tight as you want to), and no more nags on changing filename extensions, if you so desire. Lots of tweaking and polish. That alone says to me that the Finder isn't going through any major rewrites. Of course, I would have said the same thing when I loaded up Mac OS X DP2 (kudos to anyone who remembers what I mean by that).

      Hopefully more fundamental issues like network multithreading will be handled as well, and the default window type won't be a browser, but those can be accomplished relatively easily. The Finder itself is in no need of a rewrite, with all of the time, bugs, etc that would entail.

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    11. Re:No surprise, really... by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      Apple isn't retarded

      Apple is both retarded and inspired at the same time, like an idiot savant.

      Just look at the keyboard shortcuts.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    12. Re:No surprise, really... by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      Would anyone else care to ellaborate on what is so BAD about the finder? I know everytime my wife closes the lid on our MacBook, the finder on my iMac craps out for 20 seconds as the MacBook dives off the network. Other than that, though, the FINDER is what makes a Mac so much better than XP.

    13. Re:No surprise, really... by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      it would only refresh every couple of seconds or so.
      And this is inferior to having to manually refresh list views in by hitting the F5 key in Windows XP? I don't recall the issue back in 10.2, and in anycase, it is no longer an issue now.
    14. Re:No surprise, really... by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      I want a 100% fully spatial Finder, like we had in every single version of Mac OS until 10.
      "Icon" view isn't good enough for you? I don't really see how Icon view is any different than it was with OS 9 (or OS 6 for that matter).
    15. Re:No surprise, really... by appleprophet · · Score: 1

      He means visually. As in, you would resize the window and instead of a smooth, live resize, the window would only be drawn in the new position every few seconds. The refreshing issue that you are talking about is still present, especially on network drives. There is absolutely no way to manually tell a finder window to refresh its contents, which makes it a pain to debug remote scripts on your web server, for instance, if they create or rename files.

    16. Re:No surprise, really... by superposed · · Score: 1

      There is absolutely no way to manually tell a finder window to refresh its contents

      Actually, this can be done with a little fiddling. You can add an applescript to the toolbar:

      try
      tell application "Finder" to update items of front window
      end try

      This works well for local files, but may not update views of samba shares.

      Or you can use a context menu extension called nudge, which may work better for network shares.

      There's also an interesting discussion of the issue here.
    17. Re:No surprise, really... by Y-Crate · · Score: 1

      They've gone, what, 5 releases without fixing (much) in Finder; what makes you think they'll fix it this time around? Desperate hope, and nothing more.

      Their attitude for the past six years has been along the lines of "We've got an amazing new way to share your iPhone's SMS messages with iWeb, who cares about the Finder?"
    18. Re:No surprise, really... by Y-Crate · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's new features as much as quality. Apple has been going months between Leopard seeds and the quality of the seeds has been dismal. Judging by the number of issues I saw in the last seed, I'm not at all surprised that they are slipping the release. I'll agree that it is a combonation of both.

      Personally, I'm just sick of Tiger and want an update already. I'm just glad that the shareware community has done a lot to help counteract Apple's inability to keep up the pace. OmniWeb being the most notable example of this. Bugs aside, it's far ahead of Safari in almost every possible way. Hell, even the graphical tabs become an enjoyable thing after a few days.
  20. Considering the secret features aren't in yet... by artifex2004 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't see how anyone thought past December or January that it would be ready for June.
    Assuming there really are big new secret features, like Jobs promised, anyway, they would require extensive testing including all kinds of real world testing in developers' systems, new SDKs, etc. Guess what we've seen so far?

  21. Clearly The End.... by MidKnight · · Score: 0

    I think I'll take this opportunity to predict the demise of Apple, Inc. In fact, I hear Michael Dell is going to buy the company and give the money directly to the shareholders, or something like that....

    Seriously though: Apple has made no bones about the fact that it's focusing more and more on lifestyle computing at the expense of their traditional computing product lines. This has to be one of the more extreme examples of that fact: Apple would rather ship a phone than keep their operating system schedule.

    Plus, I'd guess they're not feeling too much heat from the Vista release, so why rush it? The current OS (Tiger) is, in my opinion, still way out in front in terms of features and usability.

    1. Re:Clearly The End.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey how do u know tht dell might be buying off apple.....if u actually know then can u tell where u got the info...

    2. Re:Clearly The End.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if u actually know then can u tell where u got the info...
      Info can be found here.
    3. Re:Clearly The End.... by fireslack · · Score: 1

      Seriously though: Apple has made no bones about the fact that it's focusing more and more on lifestyle computing at the expense of their traditional computing product lines. This has to be one of the more extreme examples of that fact: Apple would rather ship a phone than keep their operating system schedule.

      I would much rather see Leapord arrive on time than the iPhone ever see the light of day. But, in their defense, Apple is, and always has been, a hardware company that makes their own software. Everything they do points directly to this fact.
      --
      This sig only exists because you are observing it.
  22. Hi, I'm a Mac by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hi, I'm a Mac.
    And I'm a PC.

    <squeaky kid voice> I'm an iPhone play with me watch this oh I got a boo-boo make it better daddy let's play catch can I have some ice cream can I can I huh huh oh look a kite I wanna kite mommieee!

    Steve Jobs: Damn I forgot how much attention new products need.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Hi, I'm a Mac by shawnce · · Score: 1

      Apple may just have the balls to put up a commercial like that... I would applaud it they did.

    2. Re:Hi, I'm a Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn, you forgot to close your squeaky kid voice tag - the entire rest of the page is now really annoying.

  23. I wonder.... by BigCanOfTuna · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder how much of an influencing factor in Apple's delay was due to the slow market uptake of Vista. Would Apple still have delayed the release if MS was seeing more sales in their new product? I'd like to think Apple is above that, but business is business.

    1. Re:I wonder.... by BlowChunx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It works both ways you know. If they thought it was good enough, they would push Leopard out trying to put a stake through the heart of the undead OS named Vista. Market share counts in pushing share price up. Software delays don't.

  24. You know what this means... by ZakuSage · · Score: 1

    No Java 6 runtime support on OS X until October... :(

    1. Re:You know what this means... by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Informative

      :hint: Get a free developer account from Apple at http://developer.apple.com/

      You need it to report OS X/Apple Software bugs anyway.

      It is a preview release btw. Don't forget to send the reports and respect Apple NDA.

    2. Re:You know what this means... by macmastery · · Score: 0

      Hint: You can't get Leopard seeds with a free account.
      Hint: Try it before you suggest it.

    3. Re:You know what this means... by serber · · Score: 1

      Hint: who said anything about Leopard?

      --
      Sometimes bad things happen.
    4. Re:You know what this means... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have to at least purchase the software mailing, and then you'll get seeds, SDK's, etc.

    5. Re:You know what this means... by Cochonou · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be more explicit: you can download Java 6 preview for Mac OS X releases with a free developer account.

    6. Re:You know what this means... by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Lets add, currently (right at this moment), I don't recommend that preview release to PPC based Macs.

  25. Marketing Ploy... and a good one! by jhfry · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am willing to bet that the June developer release, with it's "top secret" new features will give users something to lust over for a few months while Steve Jobs talks it up in the media. Possibly giving users pause over buying their new Vista machine in favor of waiting for a new Mac.

    Have you ever noticed how well this works for movies, and music for that matter? Release a movie/song to a small segment of the market (critics, private screenings, etc) in order to create some buzz... then talk about it for a few months... finally releasing it to the consumer and watch it sell like hotcakes on the day it's released. Then they will use the skewed release figures to further market it, saying it was the fastest selling OS of all time, or some bullshit like that, making everyone think that they need to have it since everyone else is getting it too.

    You will constantly be thinking about how great it will be to finally get your grubby hands on this OS for months... salivating over reviews and screen shots on any number of review sites until finally you see a rack full of it at your local computer store. Where you will buy it up, take it home, and do nothing more than your doing today with your computer, but it will look prettier.

    This all hinges on the idea that Leopard is truly the huge improvement that it's claimed to be... but even if it's not, Apple is a marketing machine and the average user will buy into the hype.

    To summarize, Apple could release in June, and probably release a damn fine piece of software. But they want to make us wait, make us want it more, have it consume us... then we will actually think we are getting something so much better than we have today!

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    1. Re:Marketing Ploy... and a good one! by shmlco · · Score: 1

      Going the other way, the only thing that making people wait six months for an iPhone did was raise expectations to a nearly unsupportable level, and give competing phone makers six precious months to work on their software and interfaces.

      And for a different take on preannouncing, go look up on what happened with some guy named Osborne.... ;)

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    2. Re:Marketing Ploy... and a good one! by dedazo · · Score: 1

      Possibly giving users pause over buying their new Vista machine in favor of waiting for a new Mac.

      Oh yeah, that seems like a good plan. Of course when Microsoft does the same thing it's an outrage.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    3. Re:Marketing Ploy... and a good one! by westlake · · Score: 1
      I am willing to bet that the June developer release, with it's "top secret" new features will give users something to lust over for a few months while Steve Jobs talks it up in the media. Possibly giving users pause over buying their new Vista machine in favor of waiting for a new Mac.

      HP's TouchSmart is a good example of a first-generation Vista PC. If HP has the sense to upgrade the CPU and add a mid-line DX10 card it will look even better.

      Windows users tend to like lots of options in hardware, long-term stability in software, and the down and dirty pricing of the OEM bundle of Vista and MS Office. Which is why the Geek wastes everyone's time when he talks retail list or rambles on incomprehensibly about the "Microsoft Tax."

      Buzz. Have you ever noticed how well this works for movies, and music for that matter?

      Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Remember Snakes on a Plane?

    4. Re:Marketing Ploy... and a good one! by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      If the product is ready, it makes NO SENSE at all to delay its release. What company sits on something for a quarter when it could be making money for them the entire time? A lot of you despise Apple's success, and are simply overanalyzing the situation. The product isn't ready yet, because Apple has too many projects and not enough employees. It is that simple.

  26. OS X, way beyind the times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After seeing when can be done with Linux with Xgl & compiz, and from what I've seen of doze vista, OS X is looking and feeling rather dated. Wow, Jobs adds a few minor applications and backup tools, plus multiple desktops. Big fscking deal!

    I have a mac pro, plenty of processing power, and the dumbest desktop available. The shit won't even let me resize a window from anywhere other than the bottom right corner, assuming I'm even allowed to resize the poxy things.

    Steve Jobs, are you listening? Your OS is VERY FSCKING DATED. Stop jerking off to iWankProduct and catch up!

    1. Re:OS X, way beyind the times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a mac pro, plenty of processing power, and the dumbest desktop available. The shit won't even let me resize a window from anywhere other than the bottom right corner, assuming I'm even allowed to resize the poxy things.
      And that is the way it is MEANT TO BE. Do not complain about what they do RIGHT.
    2. Re:OS X, way beyind the times by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      And that is the way it is MEANT TO BE. Do not complain about what they do RIGHT.
      I hate the fact the window frames have the window controls (zoom, close etc) on the LEFT.
      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    3. Re:OS X, way beyind the times by Dal+Platinum · · Score: 1

      So you are saying that being able to resize a window from, say, the top-left is WRONG?

    4. Re:OS X, way beyind the times by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

      Good God, can I find ONE MS fanboy with a pair?!?

      Every flamebait post that I found in this thread was AC. If you want to flame, use your name and take your lumps like a man. I flame MS/Windows/Gates every fscking chance I get, which is why I'll probably never get to a +2 good karma modifier.

      --
      Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
  27. Slashdot's double standard, as always. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Microsoft delays Vista = Microsoft sucks!
    Apple Delays anything = I'm glad they're taking the time to make it better.

    1. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vista was delayed four years, and Microsoft pulled many of the major features they promised.

      Apple is delaying Leopard by four months, in order to include the major features they promised.

      See the difference?

    2. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by blueadept1 · · Score: 1

      Yep yep, double standard. I don't even see it as a new OS either, it is merely a (omfg) "service pack" with new features, much as Fiji will be. After all, it is still OSX. So who took longer to make a new OS? Microsoft at five years (xp released oct 01) or Apple at seven years (and counting- osx released 2000)?

    3. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not entirely. Changes in OS X since 2001 have been substantial under to hood but subtle on the surface. The Mac OS has been very consistent since 1984. I suspect that a Mac user who time-travels from '84 could be very comfortable with Mac OS X within a few minutes. All versions of Windows have been very abrupt changes, for better or for worse. A user of Windows 1.0 who time travels to the present and uses Vista wouldn't recognize it as Windows at all.

      I think that Windows users mistake the consistency of the Mac OS for lack of innovation. It's consistent for a reason: it works. The most jarring change (or metamorphosis) was Mac OS 9.2 to Mac OS X.0. As a Mac user, I *might* mistake the schizophrenic nature of the Windows interface as Microsoft's inability to get the UI right...

    4. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by Locklin · · Score: 1

      Apple Delays anything [several months]= I'm glad they're taking the time to make it better.
      Microsoft delays Vista [several years]= Microsoft sucks!
      *lines reversed
      --
      "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
    5. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by gig · · Score: 1

      > Microsoft delays Vista = Microsoft sucks!
      > Apple Delays anything = I'm glad they're taking the time to make it better.

      It isn't a double standard because both are based on their reputations. Apple ships stuff that is very high quality, higher in quality than their competitors, so if they delay something, it is easy to believe that it is because they want to make sure something it up to their high standards. Microsoft sucks, and their products suck, their executive felons suck, so if they delay something, it is easy to believe that it is because they suck.

    6. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

      Delays suck, regaurdless which company is doing it.

      That being said, you can't really complain about Vista's delays being laughed at while Apple's isn't. Vista was delayed a LONG LONG time, I believe years. Plus, even with Vista's major delays Microsoft still had to cut out a lot of interesting features (new filesystem, a few other neat things, etc).

      I'm kind of annoyed, I was holding off on buying a new computer until Apple released Leopard and a new round of iMacs. I gave my brother my old Powerbook last year for college and have recently wanted to get back into OSX.

      Oh well, hopefully their current estimate is correct.

    7. Re:Slashdot's double standard, as always. by BlackSnake112 · · Score: 1

      windows lack of consistent UI is probably more due to lack of planning or following a plan through. If ms actually decided to do abc and follow it through to completion they might be able to save some face. Instead ms changes mid stroke** and has plans that seem like they were written in mud rather then stone. Which (to me anyway) points to bad people in management.

      I was looking forward to vista being a new OS not XP service pack 3 with UI changes.
      Or at least let people decide if they wanted to try vista how it was originally planned.

      **changing mid stroke can be a good thing. But everything I can think of involves two people and they are.. well.. wait this is slashdot, think porn...

  28. I'm just gonna stand here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And clap

    *Claps*

    Down to a tee

    1. Re:I'm just gonna stand here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/Just a link so I can download a free game. Meh.

    2. Re:I'm just gonna stand here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:I'm just gonna stand here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    4. Re:I'm just gonna stand here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  29. This must be fake by GerMac+Addict · · Score: 2, Funny
    1. Re:This must be fake by slashwritr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      is merely a hack of Apple's site. You do realize what you're saying, don't you? That Apple's site got hacked? Wouldn't that be even more embarrassing than Leopard being delayed?
    2. Re:This must be fake by GerMac+Addict · · Score: 1

      Not my business if it's embarassing for Apple. It just looks weird, and the text doesn't read like other Apple hotnews articles.

    3. Re:This must be fake by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 1

      I thought the same thing when I read the news earlier today. The news story is not linked to any PR page. I found that very strange, so I decided to check the rss feed. The rss feed doesn't have the announcement on it. It does seem odd that the hot news page is changed but the rss feed is not changed to reflect this. Now, it could be a simple human error, but it does strike me as strange that they are using a web app that doesn't do it automatically. Also, not having a PR page is also odd. I don't think news like this would be done without a better PR spin.

    4. Re:This must be fake by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      Phishing is not hacking a site. Anyone can post a fake version of a website, if they can get you to type in or click THEIR URL instead of the real one.

    5. Re:This must be fake by slashwritr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except it's not phishing when the URL reads: http://www.apple.com/hotnews, and when you get to said URL via a link on www.apple.com. Seriously, though, why try proving it fake? So Leopard is delayed. It's not the end of the world.

    6. Re:This must be fake by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      I wasn't claiming the Apple story was a fake, I was merely stating that there are a lot of phishing scams that give the appearance of a legitimate link.

  30. Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by The+Breeze · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apple just can't seem to match Microsofts's superior delay history. Microsoft has already astounded the world by an amazing THREE YEAR delay in the original Vista release date and the actual delay; this impressive delay is one of the longest delays for a product that actually eventually made it out of the front door instead of dying...

    And here's Apple, trying to out-do Microsoft, and the best then can do is delay Leopard for three lousy months - and technically speaking, it's not much of a delay since the original release date was "Spring 07".

    I mean, come on, Apple. Surely you can break something in Leopard to force a longer delay. Microsoft wins, hands down. Apple still lags way behind MS on viruses, as well. With my Windows machine, unpatched, I have THOUSANDS of viruses that can infect my machine if I want to. Apple just doesn't give me that ability. Maybe they just don't care.

    1. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      Microsoft has already astounded the world by an amazing THREE YEAR delay in the original Vista release date and the actual delay
      That's nothing, I heard around December 2006 that Duke Nukem Forever is still in the works.
      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    2. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: 1

      Actually, I remember Mac fanboys in May 2006 claiming that Leopard would be released Sept 06 (see news:alt.mac.sys.advocacy (or whatever the exact url is)). I remember Jobs himself saying that Leopard would ship the same time as Vista. The "Spring 2007" date was already a delay. The delay has now been extended.

      --
      -- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
    3. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by Maserati · · Score: 1

      Actually, Vista hasn't really been released yet. They just went from Release Candidate to Paid Beta. It doesn't count as "released" until SP1 comes out, and Apple will probably beat that date by a comfortable margin.

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
    4. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by toejam316 · · Score: 1

      Epic is completely destroying them, as is Valve, with Duke Nukem Forever and Team Fortress 2. Although Epic may just be lying to try and generate hype.... Who knows. All I know is that Vista's delays pale in comparison to Prey, Team Fortress 2 and Duke Nukem Forever.

    5. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by Llywelyn · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall they were making those claims with exactly zero evidence from Apple whatsoever.

      Comparing this to the constant cycle of delays and dropped features that vista went through is disingenuous.

      --
      Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
    6. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by master_p · · Score: 1

      Neither can defeat 3dRealms in delays...

    7. Re:Apple lags behind Microsoft, AGAIN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for such a low ID, I'd have expected more effort.

      Explain what the 'amusing' names are for all the OSX versions between 10.4.0 and 10.4.9, please. Oh my god, software needs patching! that means it is just a beta! omgomg.

      meh.

  31. Apple's Shift by vertigoCiel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple really meant it when they removed "Computer" from their name. So far, they've released the AppleTV, the corresponding 802.11n base station, and are holding back OS X for the iPhone. The only computer update was the rather delayed 4 Core/Processor Mac Pro. Looks like Apple's focus is now firmly on multimedia and entertainment devices rather than computers

    1. Re:Apple's Shift by postmortem · · Score: 1

      Why would they have 'computer' title when all they do is design the case?

    2. Re:Apple's Shift by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be DUAL quad core for 8 cores total...actually.

    3. Re:Apple's Shift by heraclitus23 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      AppleTV is a computer---it even has a perl plugin. And the iPhone runs OS X. It is less that Apple has abandoned computers and more that Apple has generalized what computers can do and how they fit into peoples lives. Call them computing devices rather than computers if you like, but they all use OS X which is why there was the delay. They pulled OS X softwarae engineers away from Leopard development to work on the iPhone.

    4. Re:Apple's Shift by timster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why do you refer to the iPhone as a "multimedia and entertainment device"? And most people would agree that a wireless networking product is a "computing" thing.

      Honestly, I think Apple wants to push computing a little more -- give us better computers in our pockets and our living rooms, not just better computers on our desks. Sure, a living room computer will be optimized for living room stuff, like watching shows and movies, and a pocket computer will naturally be very different from a Mac Pro.

      But it's still computing, even if you call it a phone. I think they dropped the "Computer" because they want people to think beyond the box-on-a-desk.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
    5. Re:Apple's Shift by shinma · · Score: 1

      The "rather delayed" 4 Core/Processor using an unannounced and commercially as-yet-unavailable CPU?

      --
      Shinma
    6. Re:Apple's Shift by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      Sigh. I've never seen such concise ignorance before. Congratulations.

  32. Not surprised... by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

    The new features are pretty cool, but it seems to me it needs many months of testing to get right, expecially time machine. Also, getting it all to work within processor and memory limits looks pretty hard.

  33. Debian is known for their quick release schedule by Propaganda13 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Apple OSX - 1999 and still on point releases
    MS Windows - 2001 for XP, now on Vista
    Debian - 2002 for 3.0, now on 4.0

  34. distributed computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about a distributed computing engine so I can use all my macs together wirelessly to render a Hollywood style movie about leapards with Final Cut Pro HD for display on my Apple TV. Then I'll sell my awesome movie on itunes and make Apple a bagillion dollars by telling all my friends about it - which will be easy with the newly improved mail.app(tm) and iphone(tm). Everyone will watch it on their ipod pico HD hooked up to their newly released 50" cinema displays.

    But seriously... how about letting me share computing resources. would it kill you Apple?

    1. Re:distributed computing by chris234 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Xgrid. Next question?

    2. Re:distributed computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, yes, I know xgrid. But how about something that doesn't require a server operating system or a hack.

      I am thinking more along the lines of not needing any special configuration (more like sharing via bonjour. either turn it on or turn it off in the sharing preferences pane.)

    3. Re:distributed computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't Apple QMaster which comes with an industry standard video compositing program called Shake from Apple (part of Final Cut Studio) already do this? Not multi-system load distributed video rendering, but still render farming nonetheless.

  35. Windows fan reaction by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Windows fans everywhere, admiring the pretty Macs in the window: "If only our biggest complaint was having to wait two and a half years instead of just two years for a new OS release."

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  36. They're delaying Leopard for the iPhone???? by argent · · Score: 1

    Either they're using that as an excuse, or they've been huffing the Reality Distortion Field through used crack pipes.

    I mean... sheesh. That'd be like is Microsoft delayed Windows 2000 for Microsoft Bob.

  37. I'm actually happy with this announcement. by rizzo320 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a person who works in higher ed, I hate the fact that lots of new things are announced around the WWDC during the summer. The demand is there from the customers (professors, students), but not enough testing time. I know the world doesn't revolve around higher-ed, but its still a pain.

    With a release date of October, I'll have many months to test and play around with things before rolling it out. And since we only buy computers in the July/August timeframe, I won't be taken by surprise when they come with Leopard pre-installed. Heck, they'll be at 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 by Fall 2008.

    I don't believe they will loose a lot of sales because of this announcement. A lot of students are getting Macs at the back-to-school time of year specifically because of Leopard- they are getting them because of the total package and the "it just works" mentality. That's not going to change despite the delay. And for those who were going to wait, they now have to make the choice continuing until the October release or biting the bullet and getting a new computer before then.

    I'm sure many are cursing up a storm because of this, but at the same time, I bet a lot of support folks like myself are breathing a sigh of relief. Besides, we now know EXACTLY when it will be released (October), not just a general esitmate (like Spring 2007). That's ALOT coming from Apple.

    1. Re:I'm actually happy with this announcement. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You "work in higher ed" and you think that "ALOT" is one word? Hell, you even capitalize it to make sure nobody fails to notice that you're an illiterate. What do you do in "higher ed," clean toilets?

    2. Re:I'm actually happy with this announcement. by sofla · · Score: 1

      And for those who were going to wait, they now have to make the choice continuing until the October release or biting the bullet and getting a new computer before then.

      Buying early isn't a big deal. Apple used to (probably still does, I just can't find the link right now) have an "Up To Date" program, whereby you would be entitled to a free OS upgrade if you bought a new system within X many months prior to the new version of the OS coming out. They've been running this program for years, I can't imagine they'd stop now. Worth checking into (as in ask the rep, or call Apple, before you buy) if you're really chomping at the bit to buy a new system.

    3. Re:I'm actually happy with this announcement. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      loose


      Since you work in higher ed, you should learn the difference between lose and loose, it will serve you in good stead.
    4. Re:I'm actually happy with this announcement. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work in higher ed too. A dean sent me a couple emails, on the weekend, becuase he was having problems with something. He used the term "alot" several times in his email.

      This guy is well known around the world. And he is very highly regarded inside and outside of his field. So although "alot" irks me to no end, I understand that some people just have it wired in their head that way and there is no turning back. It's kinda like a cigarette addiction, I guess. It feels good to some.

      I could shit on you or him for using "alot", but I realize that use of "alot" has nothing to do with over-all intellegence or capability.

      Keep on truckin'.

    5. Re:I'm actually happy with this announcement. by rizzo320 · · Score: 1

      I work in higher ed too. A dean sent me a couple emails, on the weekend, becuase he was having problems with something. He used the term "alot" several times in his email.

      This guy is well known around the world. And he is very highly regarded inside and outside of his field. So although "alot" irks me to no end, I understand that some people just have it wired in their head that way and there is no turning back. It's kinda like a cigarette addiction, I guess. It feels good to some.

      I could shit on you or him for using "alot", but I realize that use of "alot" has nothing to do with over-all intellegence or capability.

      Keep on truckin'.


      Thanks for not shitting on me. I appreciate it. I've noticed that a lot of the grammar Nazis usually post as cowards (including the three who replied to my comment), so, I don't even see their corrections. I guess grammar is important, but not important enough to loose karma.

      That being said, I do know that "alot" is not a correct usage. I also know the difference between "lose" or "loose". When you're typing fast, those things tend to pop up. I preview before posting, but most times its to check for HTML and URL's. In this case, I was just careless in checking my grammar and spelling before posting. I'm not too concerned with impressing the Slashdot community with impeccable grammar. Most of the time, I just hope my writing is clear enough so that it can be understood. I write e-mails, reports, and memorandums on a daily basis, and I spend a lot more time checking grammar and spelling in those documents than I do here.
  38. Apple needs to stop pulling this crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple management really likes playing this game where they reassign engineers to get 'hot' products done. They did this when Aperture was late. Then they pulled people off Leopard to fix up Intel-transition bugs. By late 2006 Leopard development was barely getting started, and then they pulled people to work on iPhone. Is it any surprise Leopard is late? Not only Leopard is late, but also iLife, iWork, etc.

    Needless to say, the engineers at Apple are getting pissed at being asked to work overtime and constantly being reassigned to different projects. And with Apple stock up 10x over the last few years, many of them can afford to leave. I know several who have left. If you don't believe me, start looking at resumes of people applying for Mac development positions...

    Apple management really needs to get their priorities straight. They've lost many of their best engineers recently, and if they don't get things back on track, they're not going to be able to deliver anything at all.

  39. Will this run on AMD? by Alaria+Phrozen · · Score: 3, Funny

    So I see my OS choices in the next five years as: Windows Vista, Mac's OS X, or some Linux variant.

    I don't really want to do another Windows. As long as the Mac has Blizzard's support with games like WoW, I may actually be able to abandon Windows. I've tried Debian, Red Hat, Fedora, and Ubuntu. Let's just say I'm an idiot and I'm good at breaking X without knowing how to fix it. I've got a stable, backed up Linux virtual machine that I'm very happy with, and I can use that to write papers in TeX and do assignments for my uni courses; but I don't really feel comfortable with performing any kind of minor or even cosmetic surgery on Linux. I'd really like to, but after breaking each distro with minor config changes...

    Anyway! The actual question!

    I read in other articles and on Wiki that Leopard will run on x86 Intel style CPUs, and that this particular version you're actually allowed to run on non-Apple specific hardware. I also read that it wouldn't be running on AMD. That doesn't make sense as I thought deep down the only difference was optimizations, and even AMD gets to have those if it's old enough. MMX, SSE1&2, etc.

    Can someone please clarify this? Will I be able to run Leopard on my OEM self-built AMD 64 3000+ based machine?

    1. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple answer no, because i'm running a 3800+ dual core and so all your processor are belong to us!

    2. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read in other articles and on Wiki that Leopard will run on x86 Intel style CPUs, and that this particular version you're actually allowed to run on non-Apple specific hardware. I also read that it wouldn't be running on AMD.

      Wherever you read that was dead wrong. Apple has no intentions to ever let OS X run on non-Apple-branded hardware. That's where they make their money -- the software is just the largest incentive to buy their hardware. It's the same way with the iPod & iTunes.

    3. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      No. Absolutely not. Running OS X on anything but an Apple computer will (in all likelihood) never be allowed by Apple. It's been said many times before, but Apple is in the hardware business, not really software. OS X is really there to sell Apple computers, not the other way around. Sure, Apple makes a few bucks releasing a new version and when people upgrade, but by an large the margins are much, much higher on their hardware then software.

      Apple has *no* desire to make OS X available on generic machines. Aside from the resulting stability issues due to trying to support 10,000,000 different hardware combinations, it would just cannibalize their existing hardware sales.

      Yes, there are hacks out there to let people run OS X on Intel/AMD hardware. No, it's not legal.

    4. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Movi · · Score: 1

      No. OSX only runs on Apple computers. Now you _can_ hack it and run on any PC (provided the hardware is copatible), but this is not supported, endorsed or even seen legal by Apple. Actually, you can't do that legally with Tiger either, since you can't buy a boxed Intel version of it, and the PPC ones dont work on Intel. With Leopard, thats going to change (its a universal disc, that boots up on both PPC and Intel Macs) and provided you do buy a boxed copy, then crack the kernel in some way and make it work, id say youre in a very grey zone, not to mention that in the US youre braking the DMCA. Buy a Mac and be done with it, its really worth it.

    5. Re:Will this run on AMD? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      MACs are expensive. Yes there are perfectily good reasons for it, quality, control, etc but the bottom line is it is more money out of my pocket.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    6. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Timbotronic · · Score: 1

      Yes, there are hacks out there to let people run OS X on Intel/AMD hardware. No, it's not legal.

      Interesting point here. When Leopard comes out and you can buy an Intel native version of OSX quite legitmately - it will be perfectly legal to run it on non-native hardware in pretty much every country other than the US. Reverse engineering is not a crime where I live.

      --

      One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there

    7. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Movi · · Score: 1

      Only when yo compare them to bottom line machines from Dell. But do you have such a design with Dell? Wheres the nice remote? The magnetic plug (if you use a laptop like me), the everything-built-in? The small form-factor?. For example its only fair to compare Macbooks to the more expensive Sony VAIOs, and then price-wise apple wins. But if you want a cheap-o machine, then you probably will see them as expensive. But after 2 iBooks, one Dell and one HP i know as far as portables go, Macs are the only way to go (at least for me). The more money spent on apple is for me well spent.

    8. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Cadallin · · Score: 1

      Um, I'm a Mac User, but I'll say this: The Lenovo Thinkpads are every bit the equal of Apple Macbook Pro's Hardware quality wise. Of Course, Thinkpad's carry a price premium too. Also, I've never used a Fujitsu Toughbook, but for they charge for them, they ought to be solid machines.

    9. Re:Will this run on AMD? by stewbacca · · Score: 1

      The Lenovo Thinkpads are every bit the equal of Apple Macbook Pro's Hardware quality wise
      I want what this guy is smoking...
    10. Re:Will this run on AMD? by dreamer-of-rules · · Score: 1

      Ditto. I switched my boss from a Dell laptop to Thinkpad, and even as an avid Mac fan, I'm impressed with the Thinkpads. They seem like Cyberpunk versions of Mac laptops-- all black, hard edges, rugged plastic, streamlined, and solid. I'd recommend them to any one who needs a Windows-only laptop. (We've had to replace the motherboard on it after only six months, but with the warranty, they sent someone out to fix it onsite. If it breaks again, I reconsider my recommendation. First one's free.)

      --
      Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
    11. Re:Will this run on AMD? by gig · · Score: 1

      > I read in other articles and on Wiki that Leopard will run on x86 Intel style CPUs, and that this particular version
      > you're actually allowed to run on non-Apple specific hardware

      No.

      Leopard itself is "Apple-specific" ... it is part of an Apple product.

      There is a cardboard box with disc in it for Mac OS but it is an updater for a previous version of the OS only. It is like a firmware update for PlayStation3, it is not useful for other hardware, even if your hardware has some similar components.

      Similarly, you cannot install Mac OS on an XBox even though its PowerPC CPU is also used in some Apple hardware. Other components are not the same.

      > Will I be able to run Leopard on my OEM self-built AMD 64 3000+ based machine?

      No.

      You should use system software that is designed for that machine such as a Linux distribution or other off the shelf commodity OS.

    12. Re:Will this run on AMD? by gig · · Score: 1

      > Interesting point here. When Leopard comes out and you can buy an Intel native version of OSX quite legitmately
      > - it will be perfectly legal to run it on non-native hardware in pretty much every country other than the US.

      No, you're wrong. The disc-in-a-cardboard-box is an updater only. To legally use it you have to already own Mac OS X. Same as I can buy Photoshop CS3 update for $199 quite legally because I own Photoshop CS2 but if you don't own CS2 you have to pay $649 to use Photoshop CS3 legally. It has nothing to do with reverse engineering. It's software licensing ... it doesn't even have to make sense.

      The "full version" of Mac OS X that is analagous to Windows Vista Ultimate ($399) is a Mac mini ($599) or any other Mac. Once you have that full version you can purchase the updater package and legally apply it to the previous version in order to update it. The reason there is a retail box at all is because Macs last 3-5 years and operating system releases are 2-3 years. The schtick is that an OS update takes 20 minutes and is like getting a whole new Mac. The reason it takes 20 minutes and works 99.99999% of the time is because it is more like a firmware update than what you expect if you are a Microsoft victim.

    13. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Budenny · · Score: 1

      The question is, how they are going to stop it running on non-Apple branded hardware?

      As to the legality, once you can buy a retail copy, whatever the Eula says, you are within the law in running it on whatever you want. You may be violating the Eula but it does not have the force of law.

    14. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Budenny · · Score: 1

      "Yes, there are hacks out there to let people run OS X on Intel/AMD hardware. No, it's not legal."

      Its perfectly legal. It just violates the Eula. Not the same thing.

    15. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Budenny · · Score: 1

      And why exactly would it cannibalize their existing hardware sales?

      Do you see the weird and twisted logic here. It is insisting that the reason people buy macs is the superior integration of hardware and software, and the better quality hardware, while also arguing that if buyers had a choice they would run X on generic hardware in a flash and cannibalize (interesting marketing term that) the existing hardware sales.

      It makes absolutely no sense. Just like someone else arguing on this thread that a Mac mini is actually the same kind of buy as Vista Premium. No its not, one is hardware+OS, the other is an OS.

    16. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The question is, how they are going to stop it running on non-Apple branded hardware?

      Trusted Computing, aka TPM. Clearly, you haven't researched what you're talking about.

      The *only* version of OS X that anybody has managed to get running on a generic box is the 10.4.3 kernel that was given out on development machines prior to the initial Intel release. None of the kernels since then have worked on generic hardware at all. There's no reason to believe that 10.5 will be any different.

    17. Re:Will this run on AMD? by Cadallin · · Score: 1

      The outsides are plastic, the innards are protected by a magnesium alloy casing. That's only true for the thinkpad-branded Lenovo notebooks, which may be why the other reply to my post thinks I'm insane. I like them and I recommend them to anyone who requires a Windows based portable.

  40. The Apple reality distortion field strikes again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Microsoft delays Vista: "Typical crappy Microsoft! They can't even release their OS on time! Ha ha!"
    Apple delays OS X: "This is an excellent idea, it will ensure quality and I didn't want it now anyway. Apple is awesome!"


    And apple zealots wonder why no one takes them seriously.

  41. Bugs me by pavon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tiger works well enough. There isn't all that much in Leopard that I'm really looking forward to having.
    See I'm the opposite. I passed on Tiger because it all seemed fairly ho-hum to me. I didn't really care about Spotlight, Dashboard or Automator, and while the new developer API's looked cool, I realized that between school and work I wouldn't have much time to play with them.

    On the otherhand Leopard has had me excited. I have been wanting virtual desktops on OS X since it came out, the the third party implementations have all be lacking, so I am very excited about Spaces. I am also quite interested in Time Machine as I have never seen a backup system easy enough for my parents to use, and have never seen any backup system that makes it as slick and easy to find the correct revision of a backed up documents.

    In addition, several of the apps I use are getting outdated as the developers no longer support Panther (including some Apple ones). And to top it all off, I'd like to get a new machine and was naturally waiting for Leopard to come out so I don't have to pay another $150 dollars in 6 months. So the delay is somewhat of a big deal to me. That said I would much rather have stable software than an early release date. That goes for anyone, not just Apple.
    1. Re:Bugs me by wenchmagnet · · Score: 1

      "Time Machine" for Windows. Perhaps not easy enough for a grandmother to use but definitely easy enough for the average PHB.

      http://www-306.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/co ntinuous-data-protection/

      There is a free trial too...

    2. Re:Bugs me by TiggsPanther · · Score: 1

      In addition, several of the apps I use are getting outdated as the developers no longer support Panther (including some Apple ones). And to top it all off, I'd like to get a new machine and was naturally waiting for Leopard to come out so I don't have to pay another $150 dollars in 6 months. So the delay is somewhat of a big deal to me.

      I'm in a similar position. I got my iBook just before the free-upgrade date, and Tiger just didn't have enough extra features in it to justify the extra outlay... at the time.

      I'm now getting to the point where Panther is missing a few features that would be useful, and developers are as you say starting to phase out Panther compatibility. Because I don't want to be in the same position next time around, I have been waiting on Leopard before upgrading and then doing a double-jump. I can't afford to update twice, but hanging on for pretty much half a year sorta bugs. Especially when the delay is stated be be down to the iPhone which [a] has not yet got a confirmed date/provider (unless it's very well-hiddenon Apple's website) and [b] will be way outside of my price-range anyway. And I'm sure I'm not the only person in this position - along with those wanting new machines soon-ish.

      Yes, I'm sure that the delay will be worthwhile and yield a polished final product. But personally I think they're shifting resources in the wrong direction. People have been waiting on (and waiting for) Leopard before the iPhone was even confirmed. So anyone waiting for the upgrade and not interested in super-duper-ultra-phones is going to feel just a little bit let down right now. Leopard will be worth the wait (I hope), but that doesn't make the wait any less infuriating at this point in time.

      --
      Tiggs
      "120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
    3. Re:Bugs me by di0s · · Score: 1

      That said I would much rather have stable software than an early release date. That goes for anyone, not just Apple.

      Well shit, that means that Duke Nukem Forever should *never* crash when it comes out! wink, wink...

  42. Re:Linux by Drishmung · · Score: 1

    Good idea. Which do you recommend: Lenny or Sid?

    --
    Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
  43. Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh)... by ernest.cunningham · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple Inc was renamed in January from Apple Computer Inc to Apple Inc to signal Apple's migration from just a computer company to a digital lifestyle device company.

    The prioritising of getting the iPhone out over getting Leopard to its loyal fan base is not only a slap in the face of Apple's computer users, but I think a mistake on their behalf.

    Reason 1.
    There are a heap of people out there holding off mac purchases until leopard is released. I know my old work (I just left 2 weeks ago) are holding off buying a new suit of macs until Leopard is released because they do not want to have to purchase leopard separately for every machine, then have to roll out etc. This would be disruptive. There is also a couple people at work who are holding off buying new machines for their personal use until leopard is released.

    Reason 2.
    iPhone will only be launched initially in the US. Leopard is released worldwide, and therefor a larger userbase to satisfy.

    Remember, the press release says that the OS has been delayed to deploy the engineers on the iPhone project. So if they had not done so the iPhone would have been delayed, but Leopard would have been finished earlier. it is not about quality control on the OS for the delay. I just hope this is not a trend where the computer business lags/stagnates because of a focus on getting their lifestyle devices out the door.

  44. Re:Mac Loonies Are Just Precious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ha Ha! You use Windows!!!

  45. This user.... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 1

    Leopard's delay isn't that big a deal for most of Apple's regular users. Tiger works well enough. There isn't all that much in Leopard that I'm really looking forward to having.

    I can wait comfortably for another quarter if it means that Leopard will be released as a better operating system than was Tiger when it was released initially. They managed to break a whole range of features with Tiger including Windows networking interoperability which kept me from getting on with my work until I found out what they had done to screw up Samba and how to work around it. Mind you, they did fix a lot of these bugs pretty quickly. I can't say I'm not looking forward to Leopard, the Spaces feature looks interesting and the backup engine may be a mundane feature but it will be very useful. As for Spotlight, it is the one feature of Tiger I thought I would never use but now find myself using all the time. The addition of boolean operators may not seem like a big deal but it will make Spotlight much more usable since it will enable me to drastically narrow down searches. It also appears they've made some changes to the Finder. Any improvements in that department are welcome although one hopes that one of those 'secret features' will be scrapping the damn thing altogether and replacing it with a new one. Another feature in OS.X I'd like to see replaced or at least drastically overhauled is the Preview app. For some reason whenever I have two monitors connected to my MBP and start Preview, half the app window is placed on the upper monitor. Oh... and finally... here's hoping they have managed to have Dashboard kickstart in the background right after login and not on first launch, I have a few widgets I use a lot and waiting for Dashboard to load is annoying to say the least. I shouldn't have to download a hack to do this.
    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  46. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by linguae · · Score: 5, Interesting
    1. Apple didn't piss off IBM. IBM wasn't able to keep up with its schedule for PowerPC G5 chips (we were promised 3.0GHz PowerPC G5 chips by 2004, but to this day, they never materialized and the fastest the G5 went was 2.7GHz). Plus, notebook computers are a major source of Apple's marketshare, yet IBM wasn't able to produce a G5 for them. The G4 was also starting to get quite long in the tooth. I'd still lust over a PowerBook G5, but it is impossible to stick a G5 in a notebook barring an incredible change in architecture.
      I'm personally also not too fond of the Intel switch, myself. Don't get me started on the x86 (little endian, lack of registers, CISC instruction set, etc.). However, Apple had very little choice but to switch. Besides, Intel's Pentium M and Core chips were getting very great performance for their power consumption, which is another factor. Plus, my complaints of the x86 comes from an architectural standpoint. But they do the job, and I like my Core Duo in my MacBook, thank you very much.
    2. I emphasize with you here. However, I am not opposed to Apple branching out into other products. Apple's experience with usability and quality can go wonders in other electronics. Now if only they'd release an RPN calculator....
    3. Apple's OS development pace is slowing because much of the low-hanging fruit of removing OS 9 and improving OS X has already been complete. Apple now has to work harder with each release because all of the major issues in OS X have been solved. We've came a long way since OS X 10.0. However, I agree that Apple better not rest on their laurels. Apple has rested on their laurels before in the mid-90s (*cough* Pink *cough* Copland *cough* Gershwin *cough*), which led to Microsoft's 95% marketshare.
    4. Now, this is where I agree. I, as well as many other OS X users, could (or couldn't, in Britain) care less about a phone, media center box (iTV), or even a portable music player. I'm not interested in a "digital lifestyle." I want to buy high quality tools that allow me to do my work as a computer science student. They're the only place where you can buy a laptop loaded with an easy to use Unix with support for certain required proprietary software packages. That is why I am a Mac user. Apple already has the technical lead, and a spring release of Leopard would have made Vista look bad. But by waiting another six months, this gives Microsoft some time for Vista to get used more and even release a service pack that allows them to take the lead. Why would Apple sacrifice its flagship product over a phone that has nothing to do with what Apple is known for?

    Once again, I have no problem with Apple branching out to consumer electronics. However, I seriously hope that Apple doesn't forget about the Macintosh platform, which is the impression that I'm starting to get. At MacWorld, there were no Mac announcements. The only hardware update that we've received since November was the new 8-core Mac Pros. Where is iWork 2007 (or even iLife 2007 for that matter)? I don't want the Mac to go the way of the old pre-Fiorina HP calculators; heavily demanded, great quality products that are no longer made (of the same quality) simply because the company wanted to rebrand itself. I've seen these trends in the technology industry before. The Mac is the heart of Apple. I know it's wrong to be attached to products, but I like my Mac a lot. It makes my job much easier, and I can't imagine having to go back to Windows, Linux, and BSD. Where will I go if something happened to my Mac and you can't get another new one? I think this is the sentiment of some of us Mac users.

  47. Hrm..... by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 1

    iPhone had better have 100% of demand availability on release, otherwise this wouldn't be worth it. I would have thought a delay on the iPhone would be better than on Leopard.

    I, for example, would have bought a Leopard Family Pack the day of release, but not an iPhone. And iLife (whose delay rumors blame on requiring Leopard.) Heck, if iLife gets delayed until October, I'll just wait until NEXT January for iLife '08, rather than buy iLife '07.

    --
    Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
    The purpose of that site was not known.
    1. Re:Hrm..... by miller701 · · Score: 1

      I think they'll call iLife '07 iLife Leopard Edition to get away from the year business (it's so late ninties, isn't it?)

  48. I already have a phone by lowe0 · · Score: 1

    Screw the iPhone. I already have a phone, an iPod, and a PDA. I'd rather have Leopard in June and the iPhone can come out whenever it feels like.

    1. Re:I already have a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It feels like coming out now.

  49. Re:Mac Loonies Are Just Precious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (Fyi, I am the anon who clapped)

    I use sabayon- cos its shiny. Thus I feel fully justified in laughing at everyone :D

  50. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by LionMage · · Score: 4, Informative

    Piss off IBM so much they dump Apple as a customer and force Apple to run to PASemi, AMD, and then finally Intel

    I realize this has already been modded flamebait, but I just had to point out that Apple dumped IBM, not the other way around. I challenge anyone to cite a credible source that says otherwise. IBM wouldn't deliver the kind of chips Apple wanted (G5 chips usable in mobile applications) without Apple forking over a substantial amount of money to help IBM finish the development cycle. That's assuming IBM ever made much headway on that effort to begin with.

    (In fairness to IBM, they couldn't justify making the G5 a high priority and soak up all the R&D costs to make it low-power and fit within a laptop-appropriate thermal envelope. They couldn't justify that because the volume of systems that Apple ships is simply not large enough for IBM.)

    Also, while it's true that Apple shopped around to both AMD and Intel, they never sourced processors from AMD, so it's a bit misleading to say that they ran "to [...] AMD, and then finally Intel."

    As for delaying the OS because of the iPhone, I don't see that as a major problem. OS X 10.4 is still competitive with Windows, even Vista. There's no reason to rush Leopard (10.5) to market, and the users wouldn't stand for a rushed OS product since, you know, they tend to rely on the stability of their Macs for productivity and so forth. The company has finite engineering and QA resources, and since they pre-announced the iPhone, the clock is ticking on that product. They don't dare slip the iPhone schedule or the competition will eat their lunch, and the iPhone will be stillborn. The consequences of this logic should be obvious.

    As a general rule, the buying public is more tolerant of software delays than hardware delays.
  51. Re:Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of course, so is sun.

    i mean, they went from 4.3 to 1.0 to 2.0-2.6 then suddenly they were on 7! (er, maybe 2.7 or 5.7 depending on which part of the operating system you look at).

    operating system versions are silly -- just look at the linux kernel, 2.6, just where it should be.

  52. Re:Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What if I want something that works?

  53. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > but I just had to point out that Apple dumped IBM, not the other way around.

    The IBM exec who appeared on stage with Jobs at the original G5 unveiling keynote gave an interview where he made it clear that:

    1) Apple was a nightmare to work with
    2) Apple consisted of only 4 percent of IBM chip sales but a huge percentage of hassle compared to other customers
    3) The decision to dump Apple was made once IBM landed the supply contracts for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft's consoles.

    Once IBM let Apple know they were being dumped:

    1) Apple frantically ran to PASemi but they were not interested in working with Apple and rejected their offer to become the new supplier

    2) Apple is only rumored to have talked with AMD

    3) Apple finally turned to Intel as their 'first choice'

    Jobs standing up on stage at a WWDC and spinning getting dumped by IBM doesn't change reality. No matter much the Apple faithful want to believe they weren't dumped.

    But, hey, how bout those Intel SPEC scores! Gotta love that marketing compiler of theirs!

  54. Big Deal... by Jerry+Rivers · · Score: 1

    ...a whole four months late. That will seem like a hiccup in a year from now.

    --
    The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
  55. Re:The Apple reality distortion field strikes agai by aristotle-dude · · Score: 1

    When I heard that MSFT was going to release Vista with features missing, I was urging them to delay it further rather than releasing an incomplete product.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
  56. Not Fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    According to the Leopard page on the Apple site, it says a release date of October 2007. http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/

  57. I agree by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    My wallet for one is happier with the delay. Especially since many other things, like iLife and iWork, will probably be updated around the same time.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a fucking idiot.

  58. Date by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's obviusly the marketing guys who's delaying it. They just want to release it 10/5.

    1. Re:Date by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Or even better, release it in May, on 10.5.!

    2. Re:Date by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

      Or even better, release it in May, on 10.5.!

      Huh? How do you get May from 10.5? Everyone knows that 10.5 is October 5th.

      (If you read this as something other that a light jab at Americans, myself included, then you read it wrong.)

      --
      Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
  59. Rumor Damage Control? by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 1

    Just a thought here, but considering how crazy Mac zealots tend to get around events like WWDC and MacWorld (particularly when a popular rumor goes bust), could it be that Apple is simply using the iPhone excuse to misdirect our attention away from Mac OS 10.5's progress? Or, on the other hand, could it be that Apple intentionally kept the 10.5 hype in play just long enough to ensure they didn't face any last-minute surprises with the iPhone... using 10.5 as a sort of "consolation prize" to would-be early iPhone adopters?

    In either case, it's an interesting tactic that protects them from post-event community backlash on both fronts.

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8
  60. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by MightyYar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have no idea which of you is right, but I can tell you who is "foaming at the mouth". Do you have a mirror handy?

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  61. I prefer "Inciteful" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    So many posts are modded "Informative" when they really should be modded "Inciteful"

  62. not such a big deal by sentientbrendan · · Score: 1

    10.5 is a fairly incremental release for apple, with not a lot of major features. Keep in mind that in the time it took vista to ship, something like 4 or 5 releases came out from apple. This is because the difference between 10.2 and 10.3 is only as big as you'd expand from a second point release, a few new cool features that people will pay for, and not much else.

    1. Re:not such a big deal by Maserati · · Score: 1

      Actually, 10.2 to 10.3 was a major upgrade. 10.3 had major performance improvements, the UI and interface elements settled down some and the Cocoa API picked up some neat new features. 10.3 to 10.4 wasn't much of an upgrade. I use Spotlight regularly (needs work on the UI, but the results are terrific) and Dashboard only rarely. The new APIs in 10.4 are nice, but not essential. The performance boost wasn't much either.

      I'm looking forward to 10.5. Something like Time Machine *is* essential. Working, easy automated backups is a dream of mine. I'll make 'em pay for the server space it'll take :-) Faster would be gravy.

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
    2. Re:not such a big deal by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Considering that most of the new features haven't been announced yet, I don't know what your opinion is based upon. They have announced certain features like Time Machine which are important to developers but most of the user features have not been announced yet.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  63. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 1
    And I empathise with your emphasize too ...........



    "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
    and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
    this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
    physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

  64. Re:Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Propaganda13 · · Score: 1

    I totally forgot about Sun, but I remember when a bunch of Linux distros were jumping numbers to compete on version numbers. We're more advanced than Linux X because we have a bigger number. I don't agree about the kernel number though because of that damn experimental branch. Microsoft decided to sidestep this whole mess back in 95 then sidestep the year issue by using names. Since Microsoft has a slow release schedule random names work fine, but an organization with a quicker schedule should use an alphabetical naming convention like Ubuntu does. That way the average person knows which version is newer.

  65. Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by skingers6894 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I want Leopard, I really do, but honestly Tiger is a great OS and I can live a few months more with it.

    The IPhone however, we need to be great.

    For those of you that think iPods, AppleTVs, and iPhones are supplanting the Mac for Apple, you clearly weren't listening to Jobs from the early days of his return.

    He said that digital lifestyle was the future and the Mac was the centre of that.

    Every time someone buys one of these digital lifestyle devices and find they work better on the Mac, they will consider a Mac for their next computer.

    Back in the 90s Microsoft effectively killed the Mac in enterprise by releasing good Windows Office and bad Mac Office.

    Digital lifestyle is Apple's MS Office.

    Don't sweat it - the Mac stays.

    1. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Back in the 90s Microsoft effectively killed the Mac in enterprise by releasing good Windows Office and bad Mac Office.

      I don't think I've ever seen a "good Windows Office".

      Come to think of it, I've never seen a "good Windows ".

    2. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: 1

      "Mac users need iPhone"?
      I'm a Mac user and couldn't care less about iPhone.
      I'd much rather have Leopard. (Especially since I'm still running Panther, having decided to skip Tiger.)

      --
      -- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
    3. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by Poorcku · · Score: 1

      The IPhone however, we need to be great.

      This is just creepy; who in the world talks about the producing company in terms of "we"? If you work for Apple, that is one thing, anything other than that is just not normal.

      --
      I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
    4. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by gig · · Score: 1

      > Every time someone buys one of these digital lifestyle devices and find they work better on the Mac, they will consider
      > a Mac for their next computer.

      There are more iPhone benefits than just that. The Mac is the development platform for iPhone and iPod and AppleTV ... they are making a market for the MPEG-4 media that is generated on the Mac. The Web will become more compatible with WebKit faster due to the iPhone (another way of saying this is the Web will become less MS compatible and more W3C compatible). The fact that iTunes set the jukebox media standard to MPEG-4 instead of WMA benefits the Mac also. The fact that there isn't a non-Mac DRM out there shutting out the Mac instead.

    5. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by skingers6894 · · Score: 1

      I meant "we" the Mac users. Sorry if it is confusing, it is hidden away in the title and entire context of my post. Cryptic I know.

      Who in the world asks "who in the world" except people who are trying to make a big deal out of something insignificant like someone identifying themselves with a group of users because they are in fact one of those users?

    6. Re:Mac users need iPhone more than Leopard by walter_f · · Score: 1

      Every time someone buys one of these digital lifestyle devices and find they work better on the Mac, they will consider a Mac for their next computer.

      Oh yes, the so called "halo effect" hypothesis.

      With 100 millions (or so) of iPods sold, this should have had some notable effect on Macintosh sales.

      According to published market research data, Mac market share sky rocketed from 2.5 per cent in 2005 to 3.1 in 2006.

      So most buyers of Apple's lifestyle devices may consider buying a Mac, and consider, and consider, and... finally buy a Dell or an Acer.

      Apple's conclusion? Let's launch another gadget...

      Walter.

  66. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

    "Apple didn't piss off IBM. IBM wasn't able to keep up with its schedule for PowerPC G5 chips (we were promised 3.0GHz PowerPC G5 chips by 2004, but to this day, they never materialized and the fastest the G5 went was 2.7GHz)."

    IBM "wasn't able to keep" is wrong, IBM didn't want to keep their promise. They sold their only remaining end user business to Chinese.

    They really don't want the stupid gamer FPS races or stuff like that. For that, there is Cell processor. Only way to impress IBM on end user chips is: Order 100M of them. They have totally focused on enterprise/services/mainframe software etc. now. For that segment , you probably know the Power6 is shipping with sort of maniacal 5.6 Ghz speeds and comical performance/watt ratios.

    Mhz was a nice excuse for Steve Jobs but even that time, Mhz thing was already over.

    In fact I always got confused how come people actually could have imagined PPC970 on laptop :) I am staring to my Quad G5 now and it really needs some imagination.

  67. I wuld like to point out by geekoid · · Score: 1

    That vista was YEARS late and didn't deliver the promised 3 pillars.
    OS X release is going to be a few months late. When it is years late, then you can bitch about the double standard with some merit.

    Yes, I am sure there would still be apologists even if it was 9 years late, but overall I think a few month delay in on OS release is no big deal, not matter who it comes from.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  68. ZFS by Powerdog · · Score: 1

    Maybe they'll have a chance to integrate a way to boot from a ZFS partition, so some of us could go all-ZFS. Delays don't have to be all bad.

  69. Not likely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One of the things that make gadgets desirable is scarcity, think how much coverage Nintendo has gotten by not being able to keep up with demand. If every story you see is how no one can get an iphone it makes the iphone that much more desirable and means when you see one you'll buy it. Apple is really good at that game..

  70. Apple is yesterday's news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux is the future.

  71. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by timster · · Score: 1

    Setting aside the question of why you're believing one company's execs over another, how does your sequence of events mesh with the fact that Apple had been developing OSX for Intel for years? You're making it sound like Apple was surprised about the switch, when in reality it's clear that they were prepared to do so at any time.

    You have a point in a sense, that IBM chose not to develop a chip that could compete with Intel's current offerings, but that's as far as it goes. IBM would be quite happy to sell Apple Cell processors today, if Apple were interested in purchasing them.

    --
    I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
  72. Re:... you have GOT to be kidding me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same kind of delays as Vista??? What inverse Kool Aide have YOU been drinking? A. they haven't cut features. B. ... it's in the SAME YEAR as their stated release date.... who in God's name would call that a "Vista like" delay?

    That's like calling a redlight a Duke Nukem like delay...

  73. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

    exactly, but remember IBM was not exactly part of Freescale the Motorola/Apple/IBM venture. IBM was shipping some cool Power5 stuff a full generation ahead of Apple's G5 stuff, but simply didn't want to share with Apple's part of the business. IBM was spending time developing the 3.2 GHZ multicore for Microsoft or the Cell for Sony. It's sad because it pretty much means IBM's server processors will wither away... I'm an iSeries fan, but without some low end Power PC Mac hardware to practice on, they'd have never got Linux for free for big iron POWER5 processors. Xbox and PS3 don't count because those guys don't want their hardware cracked in a manner useful to continuing Linux development.. yellow dog makes a product, but reliance on dev kits from Sony means it will never be community driven. We lost Alpha when DEC went under, we lost MIPS as a serious player when SGI slowed down.. ARM is still viable simply because it's cheap, not to mention the half a dozen other "hobby" CPUs out there. IBM could have had the market sown up to make a comeback on the home desktop... the Java/Power combo on Macs and consoles and Servers would have been a tough nut for even Intel to crack. But they threw it away for a quick buck from some of the most capricious and ignoble companies out there that regularly screw their "business partners" over.

  74. Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Divebus · · Score: 1

    Sheesh... that's like saying "Microsoft is still shipping Windows" like it hasn't changed as much over time as OS X. As an earlier poster said, "10" is the operating system and the number after the point is a major release version. I'd equate the update of 10.0 -> 10.1 with Win3.1 -> Win95, 10.2 would be Windows 98, 10.3 would be XP (just Win2K in a colorful clown suit) and the two year old 10.4 would be Vista. It only took 6 years for Apple to best 12 years of Microsoft.

    Microsoft won't have an answer to 10.5 for several more years.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    1. Re:Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Dal+Platinum · · Score: 1

      10.0 is a closer match to Windows 2000. As in, a huge change from the previous version, like from OS 9/Windows 9x forwards.

      Mac users try to downplay anything before OS X, so can't Windows users do the same?

      Much like the early Mac OS releases, early Windows releases were like 'OS Practice' for both companies. OS X and Windows 2000 are huge milestones for both companies. They both represent the time when both companies 'got it'.

    2. Re:Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Divebus · · Score: 1

      I was thinking in terms of features, usability etc. But you're quite right about the technology of it. MacOS 6/7/8/9 (Classic) was more akin to Windows 3.1 technically even though functionally the Classic MacOS was well ahead of Windows 3.1 and even Windows 95 in many ways. By the time Windows 98 was everywhere, MacOS 9 was feeling long in the tooth but was still functionally better. It didn't take half a day to install a CD-ROM on a Mac. I remember those times on the PC. Install a CD-ROM, lose the printer. Fix the printer, lose the network card. Fix the network, lose the CD-ROM.

      OS 10.0 was technically closer to Windows 95/98, which started taking components from NT, but we all knew 10.0 was not ready for prime time desktop use. It wasn't a coincidence that OS 10.0 shipped with developer tools - Got a printer? Write your own damned driver! However, once that technical playing field was leveled with Windows 2000 (NT4) and the rapidly advancing OS X, I'd give OS X the current edge starting with the first usable version (10.2) in 2002. I'd give Vista and OS 10.4 about the same credit except OS 10.4 works better- it doesn't keep asking me inane questions.

      --

      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    3. Re:Debian is known for their quick release schedul by Dal+Platinum · · Score: 1

      Well put. I can agree with that.

  75. I hope SOMEONE does by davidwr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone? Anyone?

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  76. ITYM AppleTV on regular screens... by argent · · Score: 1

    The iPhone is about $350 too much to be a killer product, even if it was a killer product otherwise. And I don't see it being a killer product to begin with. Touch screens on phones suck dirty swamp water through clogged pores.

    AppleTV is priced to sell a lot of units, but there's a hidden cost to it - most people will need to buy a new TV for it. It needs to work well on regular screens without a hack to really take off.

    1. Re:ITYM AppleTV on regular screens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AppleTV is priced to sell a lot of units, but there's a hidden cost to it - most people will need to buy a new TV for it. It needs to work well on regular screens without a hack to really take off.
      It does work on regular screens as long as those TVs have component inputs. [Apple]TV has a 480i mode.
    2. Re:ITYM AppleTV on regular screens... by gig · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > The iPhone is about $350 too much to be a killer product

      It is the same price as a $299 smart phone plus $199 iPod nano. At $299 that is a very cheap smart phone, and the iPhone has the whole nano built-in plus free video playback. The service will also be cheaper than other phones because there is no hardware discount as with other phones.

      The thing that people keep skipping over is the Web browser. It's a full desktop Web browser with Web applications support in the palm of your hand. To get that kind of Web browsing you have to go to a MacBook at $1100. Maybe it is only current WebKit users who can appreciate how good this is.

      The biggest thing is the software, though. Where other phones have Flash Lite the iPhone has OS X. They can add features painlessly that other phone and handheld computer manufacturers can only dream of.

      > AppleTV is priced to sell a lot of units, but there's a hidden cost to it - most people will need to buy a new TV for it.

      First, that hidden cost is the cost of TV in 2008. Everybody needs a new TV. It has nothing to do with AppleTV. If you buy a Blu-Ray or HD DVD you will need the same new TV.

      > It needs to work well on regular screens without a hack to really take off

      Second, it has component outs. These are "DVD era" video outputs, and they work on any TV that has component inputs, which is most everything from the 21st century. This is just downplayed because this kind of "old TV" picture looks so much worse than newer systems which are "computer-ready".

    3. Re:ITYM AppleTV on regular screens... by argent · · Score: 1

      AppleTV has a 480i mode.

      If you don't mind watching your programs in "squashed mode". I guess you could pretend you were watching movies on TV back in the '60s, when they used to broadcast them in anamorphic format. Way retro, dude... cue up Barbarella and have a toke...

  77. Re:The real reason for the delay - I totally swear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Monad is already released. It is called Windows Power Shell.

  78. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by wtmcgee · · Score: 1

    That's the first thing I thought when I read the news earlier this evening. While I'm not all that concerned with waiting a few more months, it does show the shift in Apple's priorities as of late.

    --
    *** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
  79. oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's as if millions of users cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

  80. Difference Engine... by argent · · Score: 2, Funny

    Pity Babbage's customers. He delayed the Difference Engine to get the Analytical Engine out, and it never shipped!

  81. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Frumious+Wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On the really Big Iron, IBM doesn't care either, because they have AIX. Yes those machines will run Linux, but they'll run other, more tightly-controlled, highly-optimized, technologies as well. It's all scale, and at the low end, Intel/AMD has the scale. At the higher-end, then Power + proprietary OS + services becomes competitive. Home desktop is uninteresting because the margins are too thin, product cycles short, and the after-market services non-existant.

    The other side is that they still have low-end, 1-4 core Linux-compatible systems, which clock in starting at $3K each. Most of these compete nicely against Itanium or late Alpha systems, and outpace Opterons. In the HPC arena, nothing else has the floating-point chops except the IA-64, and it's not clear that Intel/HP have the guts to push it hard enough to compete. The Power systems are not going to wither away, especially as they gain an increasing foothold in High-performance systems, as well as being the core of IBM's Z-series main-frames and smaller systems. IBM has decided on the customer size it wants to deal with, and unsurprisingly, that size is large, with margins. They're returning to their roots. You'll probably see Sparc and IA-64 dropped long before Power is.

    --
    the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
  82. Does Anyone Think The Explanation Is Fishy?? by Black-Man · · Score: 1

    "borrowed QA and software engineering resources from the Mac OSX team".... uhh... that violates one of Joel on Software's rules. You don't add more people to a project which is in danger, it just adds to the problems. Beware 1st gen iPhone buyers.

    1. Re:Does Anyone Think The Explanation Is Fishy?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where exactly did Joel work again? /sarc

    2. Re:Does Anyone Think The Explanation Is Fishy?? by gig · · Score: 1

      The reason this might be an exception to that rule is that iPhone runs OS X same as the Mac. It might be more like pulling some Mac Pro testers away to test MacBook Pros.

    3. Re:Does Anyone Think The Explanation Is Fishy?? by khendron · · Score: 1

      Fishy? No, I don't think it is fishy. It might be stretching the truth, but it *is* plausible.

      In my experience, if there is one part of a development cycle where extra bodies have a positive impact, it's in the QA/bug fixing stage. It is while features are still under development where adding more people doesn't help all that much.

      --
      Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
  83. XCode3 :( by GrEp · · Score: 1

    I'm kind of annoyed you have to shell out over $1000 for a developer CD just to get XCode3 running. Why not just allow Leopard pre-orders to ADC online members? Put in a CAPTCHA that makes you write a simple Java function if they don't want the general public buying it yet ;)

    --

    bash-2.04$
    bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
  84. My Theory by dreemkill · · Score: 1

    Apple's fiscal year starts in october..

    iPhone's are expected to be the new hotness in summer months, and will potentially carry them in to fall/winter..
    then right as the new fiscal year begins, another product launch of a (highly?) anticipated product hits the shelves.. new OS, and more than likely new machines (speed bumps, or a new line, im guessing a 10-12" macbook, flash based, etc. etc., im sure you've seen the rumor sites) which will then be the healthy spike for the beginning of the year. if you drop it all in june, whats to look foward to? a 2.2GHz macbook?

    thats what i think the real reason is.

    --
    dreemkill.
    1. Re:My Theory by egghat · · Score: 1

      Nope.

      The iPhone will come out in Europe near the end of the year and in Asia even later. So that's a lot of (worldwide) momentum built in.

      Bye egghat.

      --
      -- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
  85. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, is Digg down for maintenance?

    Your abuse of the English language shows that chances are YOU are closer to eight than the poster you're attempting to insult.

    And work on that spelling, champ. You'll be able to spell "about" in no time!

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  86. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by Petra_von_Kant · · Score: 1
    And I want it known that Australia does not have a state called New Zealand (although Bondi goes damn close unfortunately, eh bro?).



    "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
    and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
    this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
    physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

  87. Re:Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then you'd already be using windows.

  88. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by sofla · · Score: 1

    Y'know, if I were trying to pass off my personal recollection of events as a "credible source" (as in "challenge anyone to cite a credible source that says otherwise", in the parent post), I certainly wouldn't have posted as an Anonymous Coward. I might have, oh I don't know, cited a transcript of the speech I'm quoting, maybe put a name to this mysterious IBMer, a date to the keynote, a place to the stage. Just because you know someone who knows someone who's brother's younger sister's boyfriend overheard some people who were walking near the building where the conference may or may not have been taking place, doesn't make it true.

    Not that it really matters a rat's arse who dumped who. Its as if Slashdotters somehow believe there is an objective reality when it comes to corporate politics.

    At least Moto hasn't been dragged into this thread yet. Er, oops.

  89. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go back to OSNews you stupid bitch.

  90. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by rm69990 · · Score: 1

    Explain to me why exactly IBM was still supplying Apple with chips up until the release of the Mac Pro, over a year after the Intel announcement, if Apple was "dumped" as a customer? When you dump a customer, you dump them, you don't tell them you're going to dump them and then wait a couple years to do so. That fact right there shows how illogical your argument is.

    Oh, and you're the one dishing out insults instead of arguing like a grown-up, so who is "frothing at the mouth"? Pot, meet kettle.

  91. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by rm69990 · · Score: 1

    Nice try. Even OS 9 supports two-button mice, and Apple has been shipping 4 button mice with 360 scrolling for quite a while now. If you're going to troll, at least make it entertaining. Thanks.

  92. Re:The Apple reality distortion field strikes agai by El+Gruga · · Score: 1

    Microsh*t delayed Vista for more than 2 YEARS - this is a 3 month delay. Get over yourself, Ballmer Bois.

  93. Leopard Delay by Vskye · · Score: 1

    Fine with me. I'm sick of software getting released early with bugs. I've alpha tested software that's more stable than a certain OS that's came out lately. (cough.. Vista) And a personal plug towards APC, their software blows on OS X, hell apcupsd works fine.

    --
    Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
  94. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by rm69990 · · Score: 1

    Maybe not on the desktop side of things, but the G4 which was the only suitable PPC chip for laptops was SLOW! There is simply no comparison between a Core 2 Duo and a G4. The G4 isn't just beat on MHz, but also on number of cores, overall speed, BUS speed (the G4 maxed out at 167 MHz if I'm not mistaken) and numerous other things. Before the switch I wasn't interested in Apple laptops for this reason. Apple's explosive growth in laptops in the marketplace pretty much confirms this.

  95. How can that be.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ooo....how can that be...will all MS bashers now pee in their pants...?

  96. You bring the average smugness back up. by HornWumpus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Keep up the good work.

    But lets face facts. Discerning users never used MacOS prior to OSX. It sucked worse then Windows 3.0 in every way.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:You bring the average smugness back up. by limecat4eva · · Score: 1

      Eh, no. If you preferred Windows to the Mac even back in Apple's darkest days, I don't know how you can lay any claim to taste.

      --
      comma
    2. Re:You bring the average smugness back up. by falconwolf · · Score: 1

      But lets face facts. Discerning users never used MacOS prior to OSX. It sucked worse then Windows 3.0 in every way.

      I used both Macs and PC when Windows 3.x came out. I used 3.x and DOS before that in programming classes I took but for everything else I used Macs, whether it be word processing, drawing, or Quark Express. And I would rather of had used Macs in programming as well.

      Falcon
  97. Listen to these guys whining about their finder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should try to use a UNIX system...oh, wait.

  98. hardware problems by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    Less than 6 months after I finally "make the switch" to a Mac I have encountered a destroyed hard drive on a nearly new Mac Book Pro as well as a destroyed ipod. looks like I waited a little too long to switch since apple now only cares about disposable hardware

    Funny, the first computer I bought was a used Mac SE30 I got in 1992 and I didn't have a hardware problem with it until the floppy drive died in 2000. Well it wasn't expandable but that's not some much a hardware problem really but a design problem. On the other hand I've bought two brand new PCs, a Gateway in 1997 and an HP PC in 2000. Both the motherboard and the hdd died in the first year on both. Between this and MS's policy of treating buyers of Windows as criminals my next computer will be a Macbook Pro.

    Falcon
    1. Re:hardware problems by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      My Mac SE/30 (purchased in January 1989, although I had to wait several weeks to get it) worked perfectly for 14 years. By the end it was running NetBSD rather than MacOS, but it still worked fine.

      What did it in? It eventually got to be too slow to do anything useful, even with the 50Mhz 040 accelerator upgrade. As far as I know, if I pull it out of the box and boot it up, it will still work perfectly, I just haven't played with it in a few years.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  99. glossy screans by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    Witness the availability, now, of MacBooks with glossy screens instead of matte.

    Do you work much in graphics? The new glossy screens for Macnbooks are great for graphics work. The problem with them though is glare, you don't want the sun to shine on the screen from behind you when viewing one. I'd rather have to put up with this when working on editing photos, it's relatively easy to avoid glare.

    Falcon
  100. Remember NeXT by simpl3x · · Score: 1

    OS 10 was still more interesting. And, the future was most certainly brighter than the color NeXTs

  101. Re:The Apple reality distortion field strikes agai by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    Considering I don't really see any comments like the ones you give as examples, I would think perhaps YOU are the zealot.

  102. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I agree with almost all of your points, but with a few minor quibbles toward the end:

    a spring release of Leopard would have made Vista look bad.


    Apple doesn't have to do anything for Microsoft to look bad with Vista. Microsoft is doing a great job of making themselves look bad all on their own. XP was released in 2001. Since then, Apple's released 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4... and 10.4 is already technically superior to Vista, XP, and every other OS that's come out of Redmond. Microsoft delayed Vista numerous times over a span of something like FOUR YEARS, and delivered a stillborn, feature-gutted, annoying, buggy turd that they have to force people to buy by withdrawing XP off the market. How's Apple need to do anything to make Microsoft look bad?

    by waiting another six months, this gives Microsoft some time for Vista to get used more and even release a service pack that allows them to take the lead.


    OK, first, Microsoft already has the lead... in marketshare, if not in technical merit. Microsoft isn't worried about whether Vista will allow them to take the lead, they're worried about if Vista will allow them to continue to keep a stranglehold on the commodity x86 desktop OS market. Unfortunately, Apple's not competing against Microsoft directly. Apple insists on allowing their OS to run only on Apple hardware. If you don't have Apple hardware, your choices are Microsoft, or Linux/BSD, (discounting something more obscure and perpetually incomplete, like BeOS or ReactOS). If you have Apple hardware, your choice expands slightly to include the above + OS X, and you'd be pretty silly to buy Apple hardware and not run OS X on it.

    Apple marketing loves to make digs at Microsoft because the only difference at this point other than chassis veneer is the operating system, but really Apple competes with other OEMs who sell complete systems, ie hardware with a preinstalled OS -- Dell, HP, etc., not really against Microsoft. It's just that the only basis these days for Apple's differentiation with the Wintel OEMs is what OS the hardware comes bundled with. So while it looks like Apple and Microsoft compete against each other, it's more like they compete in parallel markets -- like track and field runners keeping to separate lanes on a track, not like boxers going head to head beating on each other. But in any event, the current release of OS X already beats the pants off of Windows on technical merits.

    Leopard failing to release in 1Q07 doesn't make me any more or less likely to wipe Tiger from my Apple hardware so I can switch to Vista, and it doesn't make me any more likely to go out and buy Leopard to install on my HP laptop. If I buy new hardware from an OEM vendor this year, my choice is likely to be between buying Apple/OS X and building a whitebox and running Ubuntu, as I simply won't consider buying a Vista system at this time, if ever.

    However, I seriously hope that Apple doesn't forget about the Macintosh platform, which is the impression that I'm starting to get. At MacWorld, there were no Mac announcements.

    Well, the thing is, iPhone and AppleTV do both run OS X. And who do you get to develop OS X for these platforms but OS X developers? It's not a question of abandoning the Mac platform, it's a question of expanding the OS X installation base to encompass appliances and smartphones as well as traditional desktop systems and servers.

    The only hardware update that we've received since November was the new 8-core Mac Pros.


    The 8-core Mac Pro is stupendous -- you can't even run XP on an 8-core system, period -- you'd need Windows Server Enterprise Edition for that. OS X runs happily on 8 cores without any special uber-expensive edition license... as long as those 8 cores reside in hardware that came from Cupertino, of course.

    The other product lines are all running Core 2 Duos at speeds which haven't changed much because clock speeds have stagnated around 3GHz for the last 3 years. So what's there to complain about? What do you envision going into the next revs for the iMac, Mini, and MacBooks that's ready go to today and anything more than a CPU speed stepping right now?
    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  103. Hmmm by hitmanWilly1337 · · Score: 1

    Testing a new product extensively, not releasing it until its ready...
    Sounds like MS should take a page out of Apple's book, at least what they haven't swiped already.

  104. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the fastest the G5 went was 2.7GHz

    Shucks, that's faster than my C2D iMac at 2.16GHz. There must be a Megahertz myth. You know, one where Intel chips are actually faster than PPC chips at the same speed.

    Of course I have no idea why I'm responding to someone who wants an RPN calculator from Apple.

  105. You say lies. by solios · · Score: 2, Informative

    Mac Office was - and IS - always ahead of the Windows version. Mac Office was - and is - feature-complete and (in my exprience) full compatible with its most recent Mac equivalent. For f*cks SAKE, it was released on the Mac FIRST. Before Windows ever shipped.

    What killed the Mac in enterprise is interoperability. Mac Office only "sucked" in that respect because it followed MacOS developer guidelines - filetype and creator code in the resource fork, no .tla. So even IF a Mac user was smart enough to format a floppy for Windows (or worse, pony up the cash for a DAVE license), they still had to manually pin a .doc onto their Mac Office document for the windows version to read it. I've gone through Hand-hold The Cognitively Impaired User HELL on this point alone at least a dozen times before OS X hit. Combine that with the fact that you can buy/build a basic Data Entry Box that'll run Windows and Excel for half the price of a Mac that'll do the same thing (NOW - more like 4-8x the price back in the day), and you can see where this is going.

    Office suite interoperability was hindered more by adherence to platform APIs than anything else - it wasn't until OS X that Apple said "f*ck it, let's ADAPT" and went to great lengths to make interoperating with Windows as much of a non-issue as possible.

    The OMFGOFFICE "problem" (which is really one of user education - yourself emphatically included) aside, I'm tickled pink that TextEdit (the Mac equivalent of notepad) can read every .doc I've ever thrown at it.

    1. Re:You say lies. by skingers6894 · · Score: 1

      Don't take my word for it read this account from a MACBU guy who worked on Word 6.0. It sucked.

      http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2004/02/ 26/80193.aspx

      Including this about Word 6.0 for Mac

      "Starting from the Win Word 2.0 code base presented a couple of technical problems for those of us on the Mac side. The first was that it was written to the Windows APIs. Solving this problem isn't simply a matter of writing a layer that emulates the Windows APIs on the Mac."

      The API's my friend - were Windows ones.

      I say lies? I need education you say? I think not.

      OMFG Pwned! Emphatically even.

      And yes I do all my 300 page technical proposals in TextEdit too. Everyone does. I'm surprised they sell any Mac version of Office at all with TextEdit around. In fact I find stickies does most documents just fine without the bloatware of Textedit required.

    2. Re:You say lies. by Budenny · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      What killed the mac in enterprise was

      overpriced hardware
      unreliable hardware
      underperforming hardware
      single source hardware

      Yes, it was a hardware company. And a terrible one. That's what killed OS9 even when it was way more advanced than its Windows competitors.

    3. Re:You say lies. by TilJ · · Score: 1

      I'm a fan of TextEdit, and it's great that it can open basic .doc files. But it can't reliably and accurately read "every" .doc file. I just tried a simple report template created in Word 2002 (3 levels of headings, simple 2 column tables) and a briefly skimming it turned up a few obvious problems:

      * No headers or footers
      * Table of contents broke
      * Pagination, especially on pages with tables (which are significantly stretched vertically), is changed

      --
      "The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept
    4. Re:You say lies. by solios · · Score: 1

      You would pull out the steaming mess that is Word 6 as your example. :P Might've helped to bring that up the first time.

      Newer and older versions of office are less of an issue in that respect - but the fact is, it started on the Mac, and the application's refusal to save with a .tla by default seriously hindered interoperability.

    5. Re:You say lies. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could go on at length about how stupid filename extensions are - and the only thing stupider being mandatory extensions... but my number-one gripe about usability in Mac OS X/Finder is this:

      It allows applications to jump to the foreground.

      I can't count the number of times I've been typing something and had an application jump in front and mess up my typing, or pop up a dialog box in front of my current application, instead of doing what it's supposed to - bounce in the Dock to get my attention.

      In Mac OS 9 and earlier, this was never a problem. What a massive interface faux pas for Apple to allow this in their "modern" OS.

  106. "cmd+f" on safari leo is a big deal to me. by plasmacutter · · Score: 1

    I use the search dialogue to scan pages in safari too often to count, and the new cmd+f that was demonstrated.. which actually greys out everything but the words youre looking for, would save me a lot of time, frustration, and eye strain when dealing with the lovely wall-o-text so many people like to clobber you with on thier websites.

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  107. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by gig · · Score: 1

    > There are a heap of people out there holding off mac purchases until leopard is released.

    That may be true, however Mac sales are the best they have ever been. There may be a case for delaying Leopard just simply to avoid rocking the boat.

    In the same way that the first year of Mac OS X was all about Unix people, the first year of Intel Macs seems to be all "Intel people". More than 50% of Macs sold at the Apple Store for the past year were to people who had never bought a Mac. That is why there is such a buzz about Windows-on-Mac and Parallels and Fusion ... lots of people right now with both an Intel Mac and a house full of Windows and Windows software.

  108. If I may quote Steve Jobs by ablaze · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago." (Fortune, 1996-02-19) - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Jobs

    That's exactly what happens at the moment. I think it's sad, nevertheless, you can't say Mr. Jobs doesn't keep his promises. The iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV are obviously the next great things.

  109. WTF ? $1000 ? by Builder · · Score: 1

    Where on earth do you get those numbers ?

    An ADC select membership gives you 1 year's membership and that includes all Leopard builds (client and server). Sure, you have to download it, but I can't see that accounting for the other $500.

    1. Re:WTF ? $1000 ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My problem with this whole thing is that my developer account expires in Octorber, I have been keeping it up for two years waiting for Leopard and now I will probably be stuck buying a copy. This sucks!

    2. Re:WTF ? $1000 ? by GrEp · · Score: 1

      My bad. I was glancing at the price with WWDC ticket included. Question:
      Does the student membership come with XCode3, or is that just part of the "Leopard early start kit"? If so I am flinging out the credit card ASAP.

      --

      bash-2.04$
      bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
  110. 32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by wild_berry · · Score: 1

    I disagree with both of you. His MacBook will benefit from the extended register range in AMD64 (over x86) and his software should be a bit smoother for that.

    1. Re:32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by noewun · · Score: 1

      AMD64? But the Core 2 Duo is an Intel chip. Or is there something I am not understanding?

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    2. Re:32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by Guy+Harris · · Score: 2, Informative

      AMD64? But the Core 2 Duo is an Intel chip. Or is there something I am not understanding?

      You're not understanding that wild_berry meant "EM64T", err, sorry, "Intel 64" rather than "AMD64", or meant "x86-64" rather than either of them. :-)

      Speaking of 64-bit x86, has anybody tested any real-world applications to see whether the extra space taken by 64-bit pointers (and longs) ever outweighs the extra registers you get in 64-bit mode?

    3. Re: 32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by Dolda2000 · · Score: 1
      I don't quite get it. When you speak of "extended register range", you refer to the fact that the registers are 64 bits wide, right? In that case, how would he benefit from that? Unless he's running computational code that regularly deals with integers >= 2^32 (which I don't think one does on a MacBook), I really don't see how his software would become smoother by 64-bit registers. Rather, one could claim the opposite, since every int and pointer becomes twice as large as before, and therefore requires twice the memory transactions and twice the memory space, the latter of which could quite potentially lead to more swapping, and definitely exhausting the CPU caches quicker.

      Maybe I just don't get it, but in that case I'd really appreciate an explanation.

    4. Re: 32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't quite get it. When you speak of "extended register range", you refer to the fact that the registers are 64 bits wide, right?

      No.

    5. Re:32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      I disagree with both of you. His MacBook will benefit from the extended register range in AMD64 (over x86) and his software should be a bit smoother for that. Well, not quite. Because both Tiger and several apps already make use of those extra registers.
      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    6. Re: 32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by kangasloth · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's usually not the register width that gives you the boost, but the register count. AMD doubled both the width and the number of general purpose registers when they designed x86_64 (aka AMD64, aka IA32e). Arstechnica has a detailed overview (jump to page 3 for relevant slide and it's accompanying explanation). You are right about the larger pointers being a liability when it comes to memory bandwidth, but the size of your basic C99 "int" remains unchanged. If you want a 64-bit integer, you'll have to ask for a "long int" on x86_64, or a "long long int" on modern i386, or better yet, an "int64_t" on any architecture that supports it.

  111. AppleTV and iPhone are computers by LKM · · Score: 1

    How are the iPhone and AppleTV not computers? They even run OS X.

  112. Re:Linux by LKM · · Score: 1

    I'm using windows. Both Linux and Macs have windows. Oh, you mean Windows! Windows works? Since when? I must have missed the memo ;-)

  113. ATTN: SWITCHEURS ! by bytesex · · Score: 1

    I see our resident 'switcheur' troll is absent today. Why is that, I wonder ? It must be the beautiful weather - I bet he's out on the beach with his beautiful friends.

    --
    Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
  114. I wonder by StarKruzr · · Score: 1

    if they considered a dual-core G5 design.

    --

    +++ATH0
  115. What games? by StarKruzr · · Score: 1

    Where is all this well-documented?

    --

    +++ATH0
    1. Re:What games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Starkruzr is nothing more than a liar, and its proven below in his own statements.

      Do not pay attention to him (he said he was a woman here and it turned up he was caught by others showing he was not and only then did he admit his lies):

      "Also, I never said I was from Staten Island. You did. I never said I was the girl in that picture either, you did." - by StarKruzr (74642) on Thursday March 29, @06:16PM (#18536049)

      I never said you were a girl, YOU did, lol! Here is the posting where you did:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227475&cid=184 94155

      Then, after he was proven he was a male, and not female, did he try to weasel out of his lies above:

      "Okay, seriously. Let's drop the act. Okay? Yes? Let's quit pretending. I am quite male. I only said I was female to mess with your head." - by StarKruzr (74642) on Monday April 02, @08:18PM (#18581257)

      What a goof.

  116. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Jacob+Moogberg · · Score: 1

    I agree with you on almost all points. I'd just like to add a few details concerning the Apple/IBM situation.

    From what I've understood, Apple wasn't an insanely great customer to IBM chip division and adopted a non-commitment policy. For instance, IBM had plans of a low-wattage version of the G5 for laptops but Apple wouldn't make a big initial order - that would have justified investment from IBM - even if this chip would have been a no-brainer for PowerBooks. They would just order something like a 10,000 sample. As Apple was IBM's main customer for this branch of PowerPC chips, it was pissing them off and they did only a half-baked job on the development of such a chip, as there was no proved marked outside of Apple for it. After the renewal of the vows that the tailor-made for Apple G5 chip was, they couldn't agree on a long-term common strategy.

    Besides, development costs for chips still increase exponentially, even for specific versions of existing chips. Apple could have gotten a good G5 chip to put inside PowerBooks but they had no long-term guaranties that IBM could bring a competitive G6 or G7 series in time. The 3 GHz G5 failure (a promise originally made by IBM) proves they had legitimate reasons to doubt. IBM was certainly a more able chipmaker than Motorola/Freescale but the situation could have turned into another G4 fiasco, which had cost Apple hundreds of millions in delayed sales or switch to more powerful Windows PCs. Even if Apple sold twice as many computers as they did, and adopted a more cooperative attitude towards IBM, they might not have gotten much more competitive chips from them in due time, especially if costs for the next generation increase twofold.

    Apple was indeed very lucky in switching to Intel chips at the right time, when the iPod cash cow was in full effect, Leopard was greeted favorably on its own terms and Intel beat its own development estimations for the Core series. It even took place in the middle of a slowdown in the industry caused by the Vista delays. The switch was caused by a reasonable estimation of the chip industry but the timing was mostly luck. The bastards...

  117. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

    Apple's experience with usability and quality can go wonders in other electronics. Now if only they'd release an RPN calculator....

    Get them to support Terminal on the iPhone, and then type dc followed by "return". :-) Or, if you don't care whether it's a handheld calculator, just do that on your Mac.

  118. Final testing? by trifish · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing

    A beta copy to do final testing?

    (That sort of reminds me of those trolls who insisted that beta versions of Vista were out there long enough for nVidia to release compatible drivers as soon as Vista goes gold.)

  119. Re: More Registers makes happy SIMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I have direct experience with writing x86-64 code on osx, and i can tell you the compilers (icc and gcc) seem to visibly sigh with relief when handed all those extra registers. My experience has been with SSE2 code. In my case, 30% improvement, just by switching to x86-64. My loops were definately stalling due to register pressure / swaps. Tight loops, highly optimized. Probably see the same thing in non SIMD code, but you're probably only going to see it tight loops.

  120. Vista Effect? by Lethyos · · Score: 1

    Allowing for a romp in speculation with the assumption that Leopard contains a great many changes and outright overhauls (not just in frameworks but for end-users concerns as well), then it is possible Apple has “bitten off more than they can chew.” As Microsoft made a similar attempt over the past six years, we might now call this the “Vista Effect”.

    Solid and consistent software releases tend to be incremental, adopting smaller (read: less significant) changes that require less vetting to be made reliable and considered trustworthy. Apple may be attempting a moon-shot with Leopard and could simply lack the resources—iPhone or no iPhone—to make it possible.

    For this reason, I believe all the complaints about Apple dropping the “Computer” and focusing on phones and set top boxes are empty and irrelevant. This could all just come down to the misguided, albeit noble goal of trying to do too much too fast. I think it is also likely Apple wanted to take a longer crack at Leopard and expected to do this from the outset. They have such clout with the people who enjoy their products (myself included) that nearly any blunder will be forgiven once new releases roll out and credit cards get swiped.

    --
    Why bother.
  121. [ot]32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by wild_berry · · Score: 1

    AMD64 is a processor architecture like i386, mips, alpha and powerpc. 'i386' is Intel's 32-bit x86 architecture; AMD created the 64-bit x86 architecture in the Opteron and Athlon64, which has been adopted as an industry standard called AMD64, with Intel making compatible chips. They say that their AMD64-compatible chips have EM64T, which stands for Extended Memory 64-bit Technology. As a name, 'EM64T' overlooks the inclusion of extra programming registers in the CPU which rectify a lot of the legacy issues of i386. Your Core 2 Duo has EM64T capability.

  122. Re:Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ubuntu is your best bet in that case. But if you want something that works, why would you be looking at Windows or Mac OS X?

  123. Re:October? ISV's Will Be Annoyed by Douglas+Goodall · · Score: 1, Interesting

    As a software engineer, I am looking at this news as bad for third party software vendors trying to support the Mac marketplace. However exciting the release of a new phone is, the new phone is a product for Apple, that is a closed architecture. There will not be third party software for the phone in the near future. Independent software vendors writing software for the Macintosh platform have been counting on the June release of Leopart as the timeframe for the next wave of Mac software. Companies that are especially intent on the release date purchased membership in Apple's advanced leopard availability club which was not cheap. They did this to help assure their timely release of their software. I personally was waiting for the Leopard release in June to pick up a Mac Pro 8-core system for Leopard development. Waiting around for a few extra months for the new operating system impacts a lot of people who already have invested in the market opportunity of the Leopard release. Selling computers and the operating system are the main business of Apple. Putting their phone needs before their computer user's needs is selfish, IMHO. I think this decision was a big mistake.

  124. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by samantha · · Score: 1

    1) Why on earth would anyone delay purchase of an Apple machine until the new OS version comes out? There is no large hardware dependency as there is with Vista. I doubt it is the cost as a new Mac OS variant is not much more than $100. Mac OS X upgrades are notoriously simple to install. So why would this delay of hardware purchase make any sense?

    2) Perhaps there is a bit more meat to Leopard than you think making it more than worth the wait regardless of iPhone. The company has other ideas about priorities than you do. Time will tell if it was the right choice. But I doubt that delaying Leopard a few months is make or break for Apple. Apple is on a roll.

    Digital lifestyle is not just stylish new toys. It is the fuller integration of computation in our lives to increase not just our enjoyment but the richness, depth and reach of all that we do. I don't think it is reasonable to contrast this as less important and more frivolous than revving the OS. For Apple as a company I think that failing to deliver a product that has generated huge press as iPhone has would be much more of a blow than postponing the next OS release by a few months. If both could not be solidly completed as per the original schedule then slipping Leopard was obviously the right call.

  125. Ignorance is cross-platform by Cybrex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mac users are no worse than Windows users. I say this as someone who just yesterday had to explain to a supposed MCSE how to click and drag to select a group of items on his XP desktop.

    No, I'm not bullshitting, lying, or exaggerating. I'm also not leaving out any extenuating details. The guy is really that dumb, and half of our users are as bad or worse. In my experience a "normal" computer user, PC or Mac, refers to their computer as either "the hard drive" or "the box part", and thinks that if you replace their monitor they'll lose all of their desktop icons.

    --
    Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
  126. You haven't looked at the iPhone's competition. by argent · · Score: 1

    It is the same price as a $299 smart phone plus $199 iPod nano.

    For less than that I can get a brand new unlocked Treo or Pocket PC smart phone with a real keypad I can use with any GSM carrier. I can get 4GB of flash for about $50.

    The service will also be cheaper than other phones because there is no hardware discount as with other phones.

    Outside the US that's true, but it's not going to be available outside the US. Inside the US, well, lock-in is the name of the game. If you get an iPhone you're locked to one carrier, you've got no leverage to work for discounts.

    The thing that people keep skipping over is the Web browser.

    This might sound strange from me, given how much I love to trash Microsoft, but Pocket Internet Explorer is a killer application. It's a well designed handheld browser, and the biggest difference between it and the desktop IE is that it works better with good CSS-compliant websites and doesn't use Microsoft's "Typhoid Mary" security model.

    I haven't used a recent handheld version of Opera, but it's another option.

    To get that kind of Web browsing you have to go to a MacBook at $1100.

    I've got a Macbook Pro. Safari doesn't thrill me... I use Camino.

    But if that's what flips your switches, Nokia uses Webkit too.

    The biggest thing is the software, though.

    Yep, either Windows CE or Palm OS are years ahead of the iPhone here. Even Nokia's oldschool Symbian phones have a decent software ecosystem.

    And there's also a robust accessory ecosystem for them, like there is for the iPod.

    Running OS X? It's running a Darwin-based OS that's locked so you can't add software to it. If you want a phone where you have to depend on a single vendor for your software you can get one a LOT cheaper than an iPhone. Hell I think it's kind of cheating to even call it a smartphone until they fix that.

    Everybody needs a new TV.

    *snort*

    If you don't mind paying twice as much for less phone, you're not even in the market I'm talking about.

    These are "DVD era" video outputs, and they work on any TV that has component inputs, which is most everything from the 21st century.

    So long as it's widescreen. Most non-digital TVs in the US aren't.

  127. So Hard To Wait by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    To all the Apple users who can't wait to spend $150 for a 0.1 level upgrade to your operating system: I feel your pain. Really, I do.

    If it will make you feel better, send the money to me instead. I promise to spend it as wastefully as possible - because I care.

  128. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by MightyYar · · Score: 1

    I have to defend a fellow RPN user :)

    I think you are a little late in the "megahertz myth" discussion, which was going on several years ago. Intel jumped sides with the Pentium M mobile processors and has since followed suit with the Core series. The megahertz myth debate was won by the Apple/AMD crowd, while the Pentium 4 approach has been abandoned... so of course the newest processors from Intel are more cycle-efficient. Beyond that, they have a faster bus.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  129. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Jon+Pryor · · Score: 1

    Don't get me started on the x86 (little endian, lack of registers, CISC instruction set, etc.)

    Why not?

    What's wrong with little endian? Aside from the fact that network-byte-order is big endian, I see nothing wrong with it. In fact, little endian has an advantage, at least in theory: arbitrary sized arithmetic. You could always add two numbers together, a byte at a time, check the carry flag, and then progress to the next byte, for *any* size number. This would allow trivial addition of multi-gigabyte numbers in very little assembly.

    Lack of registers is largely rectified in AMD64/ie32e, in which 16 GP registers exist. Sure, it's not the 32 registers of PPC (or the 128 of Itanium), but it's sufficient for most code. It really doesn't matter anyway, since the CPUs keep track of dozens of registers internally as part of the internal register renaming system...

    CISC? You must be kidding. Sure, the instruction set is CISC, but the internals of x86 CPUs have been RISC-like since the Pentium, with a hardware instruction decoder that converts legacy x86 instructions into internal RISC-like instructions. It's largely a non-issue today. (Yes, the hardware decoder takes up more die space, but it's a fixed size, and a constantly shrinking amount of die space as the dies keep getting bigger with Moore's law.) Plus, CISC acts as a sort of compression scheme, so that CISC programs are smaller than the equivalent RISC programs, resulting in lower memory pressure when loading/executing the code -- all good things when memory keeps getting slower and slower relative to the CPU.

    There's really nothing fundamentally wrong with x86. If there were, it wouldn't be used as widely as it is (because if it were fundamental it couldn't be easily fixed).

  130. The iPhone Is The Computer by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The iPhone is probably running a version of Leopard, as effective use of its 160-dpi screen probably needs the resolution independent display technology from Leopard. Apple's strategy of using Mac OS X on their appliances like the Apple TV, and on the iPhone, as well as on their computers will serve them very well over the next decade as computing devices evolve. I'm actually quite excited by the likely evolution of the Macintosh that will be made possible by the development of the iPhone. This minor bump in the road doesn't represent anything more significant. The iPhone isn't a grand conspiracy to abandon the Macintosh platform, it's the first installment of the future of really truly remarkable computing devices. The iPhone is the computer.

    What is this "advanced availability club"? Are you referring to ADC? Not really all that expensive. ADC memberships. In any case, your timing arguments are just silly. If you were planning to wait until June (e.g. for the final Leopard release) to "develop for Leopard" then Leopard timing obviously isn't critical to your plans, just just wait until October to buy your 8 core machine. Maybe RAM prices will come down a bit by then even and you'll come out ahead.

    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:The iPhone Is The Computer by Douglas+Goodall · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think the iPhone is a conspiracy to abandon the Macintosh. I do think that right now, with the release of Microsoft's flagshit operating system (Vista), doing a good job on the desktop is important. I am more convinced of that than I am that the iPhone is the computer. I am an operating system guy, and I recognize the value of portable Mac OS X. I do think though that the iPhone is missing crucial features/benefits and costs too much. Without 3G, the connectivity speed doesn't meet my needs. I think it costs too much, by several hundred dollars. ATT/cingular just spent a ton of money rolling out 3G that the phone doesn't support. What's with that? The market place may prove me wrong, and it won't be the first time :-)

  131. resolution independent display by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 1

    It's very likely that resolution independent display technology from Leopard is required to take full advantage of the iPhone's 160 dpi display. This is the key feature that discerning technology analysts look at when speculating on which vesion of Mac OS X runs on the iPhone. Has anybody done a uname on the Apple TV yet? What kernel is that running?

    Leopard Technology Series for Developers .

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    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:resolution independent display by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Apple TV is running MSDOS I think. This is what I got:

      >C:\uname -a
      >'uname' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
      >operable program or batch file.

    2. Re:resolution independent display by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      It's very likely that resolution independent display technology from Leopard is required to take full advantage of the iPhone's 160 dpi display. This is the key feature that discerning technology analysts look at when speculating on which vesion of Mac OS X runs on the iPhone. Has anybody done a uname on the Apple TV yet? What kernel is that running?

      Leopard Technology Series for Developers . Err, why not just use a larger font and icons? The iPhone isn't able to run anything but the apps that come with it, and they can easily be written to use an interface that is perfect for the 160 dpi display (while they are adapted to fit into 320 by 480 pixels).
      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  132. Re:The Apple reality distortion field strikes agai by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

    Microsoft delays Vista: "Typical crappy Microsoft! They can't even release their OS on time! Ha ha!"
    Apple delays OS X: "This is an excellent idea, it will ensure quality and I didn't want it now anyway. Apple is awesome!"

    And apple zealots wonder why no one takes them seriously.


    Second comment I've read like this, again posted as AC. Now either you're intelligent enough to know how ridiculous the statement is and are just being antagonistic, or you actually believe it. Either way, man up and attach your name to it. There's a reason they call it "Anonymous Coward" as opposed to just "Anonymous".

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  133. Rebate for OSX on Intel by psydeshow · · Score: 1

    Wait, this is interesting. If I go buy a Mac Mini, wipe the hard drive, and install Windows, can I get a rebate for my unused OS X license?

    And if not, how is this different from Linux users seeking rebates for the OEM Windows they don't use on their new PCs from DELL et al?

    Point would be to buy the Mac now, sell back the Tiger license, and run Win or Lin until Leopard is released.

  134. The sound of the future by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised how difficult it seems to be for people to grok this, but the iPhone a computer. By some measures it will probably be the best Macintosh ever made. It's blazing the trail to the future of high resolution multi-touch displays, integrated into your daily life in ways that are truly useful to you. Today's PC simply isn't all that useful to a lot of people, but their cell phones are.

    Geek imaginations seem to have been hobbled a bit by a decade or two of monopoly-induced stagnation in the technology industry. Steve Jobs said it first, but people don't realize how much faster progress could have been. The pace in the past few years has been picking up, thanks largely to Apple and Google lighting a fire under the industry.

    Others have speculatd that iPhone will probably double the user base for Mac OS X within a few years. That estimate is way, way low. It's clear that Apple intends to base nearly all of their future appliances, like the Apple TV and iPhone are now, on Mac OS X. The iPod line will migrate to OSX over time. Is the new Airport Extreme Base Station running OSX? If not, future versions probably will be, given the direction that product is heading. The next 100 million iPod (iPods? iPodi? iPodden?) will be running OSX. That's four or five times the current OSX user base in probably 3 years or so. That will be good for the platform as a whole, and all you luddite backward-facing "I want my old fashioned desktop PC" nerds will benefit, too.

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    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:The sound of the future by McFadden · · Score: 1

      It's blazing the trail to the future of high resolution multi-touch displays, integrated into your daily life in ways that are truly useful to you.

      Jesus... I've heard some scary fanboy shit before, but that's a classic.

      Did you get that out of the brochure, or did Stevie Jobs have you scream it as he rammed a pole up your ass and made you his bitch?
  135. Re:October? ISV's Will Be Annoyed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Independent software vendors writing software for the Macintosh platform have been counting on the June release of Leopard as the timeframe for the next wave of Mac software.

    I'm working for a company that hopes to release a new Mac product in the near future. Leopard has been a concern for us, but we've known that Tiger (10.4) systems will be a significant portion of the install base for our product launch. The Leopard delay actually will help us, because we can now focus on Tiger compatibility and test for Leopard this summer. Core Animation isn't that critical a feature for most ISVs, and that's the most significant change that Apple has yet revealed.

  136. Apparantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Apparantly", you should use a spell checker.

  137. That's just great... by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 2, Funny

    The next version of OS X is being delayed because of a fucking cellphone. That's only going to be released in the fucking USA.

    And people ask me why I hate cellphones...

  138. Fred Brooks... by Rhys · · Score: 1

    Mythical Man Month. Read it and you can avoid making silly statements like, "just hire more developers."

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  139. Re:Date tomfoolery poppycock absurdittyfullness! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because that would really be 10/05/2007 [or 05/10/2007 for those damn, logical brits] and not 10/5. You can drop all the numbers you want but you would be wrong and also a fool for doing so.

    I bet your one of the people who held off having a baby on 06/06/2006 because somehow, in your tiny brain, you thought that it was really 6/6/6 and somehow that meant your child was going to murder you in your sleep on the sixth hour of the sixth day of his sixth year.

    "Hey, lets all do some pointless shit because of some arbitrary number that some jackass made up."

    '
    Your life and by extension everyone else's is worthless.

  140. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

    but the G4 which was the only suitable PPC chip for laptops was SLOW!

    My experience definitely confirms this. My first Mac was a 17" PowerBook with a 1.5GHz G4 that I've had for a couple of years now. Someone recently gave me a PowerMac G3 B&W running at 350MHz. I figured it would be fun to play with a bit, but that's about it. After popping in 512MB of memory I had lying around and a clean load of Tiger, I was really surprised at how fast it was. Since then I've built a PowerMac G4 733 DA using SATA HDs, and it smokes my PowerBook.

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    Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
  141. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by MyOtherUIDis3digits · · Score: 1

    Now that I read it again, I guess your post was comparing G4 (in general) to Core (in general), where my example is more G4 on a laptop vs G4 on a desktop. So, um, nevermind then.

    Shutting up now...

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    Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
  142. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by easter1916 · · Score: 1

    Now Ernest, I can understand your frustration as a Kiwi with being lumped in with the Aussies. But I can do you one better; I'm Irish, worked in Frankfurt for years. In conversation with a colleague there, Volker, one day, he said something to the effect about 'you British'. I pointed out to him that the the Republic of Ireland is NOT part of the UK, and hasn't been for almost 90 years. He disgested this, then said, 'Oh, I didn't really understand that. But you lot are very similar anyway, and you all live on that ONE island...' I was gobsmacked. He never noticed that there are two islands right there, Britain and Ireland.

    Pretty funny.

  143. Apple TV by freedomlinux · · Score: 1

    Fact: There is not a great deal of skill involved in hacking an Apple TV to run OS X
    Fact: The Apple TV contains a 1GHz Pentium M processor, which does not support SSE3
    Speculation: OS X 10.5 may require SSE3 instructions, requiring SSE3 emulation on the Apple TV.
    Any thoughts on this (esp. developers)?

  144. Re:Apple's priorities are no longer the mac (sigh) by ernest.cunningham · · Score: 1

    1) Why on earth would anyone delay purchase of an Apple machine until the new OS version comes out? There is no large hardware dependency as there is with Vista. I doubt it is the cost as a new Mac OS variant is not much more than $100. Mac OS X upgrades are notoriously simple to install. So why would this delay of hardware purchase make any sense?

    Well it makes perfect sense when you are in a business environment where you need to roll out suites of macs. You are not just talking about rolling a single upgrade here. You are talking about the migration of each users machine to the new machine, which when you have to have IT staff who would otherwise be earning the company $110 an hour , and disruptive to the users having to use that machine not earning the company money. On top of that when Leopard comes, you are handing over more cash for each machine, then you have to roll out the new OS, and any software updates on the machines again. Now everybody is on g5 iMacs or newer, but we want to roll out 24 inch iMacs across the board instead of the 17's. Apple will just have to wait a few more months to get our cash.

    American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu has specifically commented on this. In a note to clients on Thursday, Shaw Wu said the buying pause will likely result in sales of between 1.37 million and 1.5 million Macs, significantly less than the 1.6 million units sold during the company's fiscal first quarter ended December. See http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/12/appl es_mac_sales_see_slight_pause_ahead_of_leopard.htm l this link for more details.

    2) Perhaps there is a bit more meat to Leopard than you think making it more than worth the wait regardless of iPhone. The company has other ideas about priorities than you do. Time will tell if it was the right choice. But I doubt that delaying Leopard a few months is make or break for Apple. Apple is on a roll.

    Ok, lets not get it confused here.... Apple specifically said they took engineers off Leopard development to get the iPhone done, and that was the reason for the delay. So had they not done so Leopard would be done in time. And yes it is OBVIOUS that apple has other ideas about priorites than I do otherwise I would not be here annoyed about it. And no a few months will not make or break apple, but it will annoy many of apple's customers such as myself.

    My company is an Apple Select member and have access to the leopard builds etc, and get to see first hand the lack of advancement in leopard. In discussion, myself and fellow testers put the buggy builds down to apple pulling code with their "Secret features", this is not the case, and obviously wishful thinking.

    As for the delay of the OS itself, Apple fans are getting to taste a little of the Vista sauce for themselves right now, me included.
  145. MacOS by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    My Mac SE/30 (purchased in January 1989, although I had to wait several weeks to get it) worked perfectly for 14 years. By the end it was running NetBSD rather than MacOS, but it still worked fine.

    My SE/30 ran System 7. I've also got a Powermac 7300/200 which runs System 8. It lasted me several years, from 2000 'til early last year when it wouldn't bootup. Now I'm planning on getting a Macbook Pro and was thinking about setting it up to dualboot, OSX and Linux, Ubuntu maybe. But Windows will be barred. If I have to run a Windows app, and I haven't found a Windows app for which there is not an equivent app for Macs, I'll tryout Crossover. There was one I wasn't sure I could find a replacement for, XMLSpy, but a few other /.ers pointed me to <oXygen/> XML Editor.

    Falcon
  146. Priority would go to Charles Babbage. by argent · · Score: 1

    As Microsoft made a similar attempt over the past six years, we might now call this the "Vista Effect".

    Or the Copland effect, for the delays and cutbacks in Mac OS 8?

    Or the Rhapsody effect, for the delays in Mac OS X?

    Or the Babbage Effect, for the delays in the development of the Difference Engine as it became the Analytical Engine?

    Unless there's a hell of a "Just One More thing" waiting in Leopard, though, there doesn't really seem to be all that much in Leopard over Tiger. It ain't no moon shot. It's not even a chaser.

  147. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by Curate · · Score: 1
    Your post is a lot of Windows bashing, all of it emotion-driven and without facts to back i up. I want to refute one of your major points because it is entirely wrong:


    The 8-core Mac Pro is stupendous -- you can't even run XP on an 8-core system, period -- you'd need Windows Server Enterprise Edition for that. OS X runs happily on 8 cores without any special uber-expensive edition license... as long as those 8 cores reside in hardware that came from Cupertino, of course.


    Microsoft actually change their licensing policy a few years ago, when dual-core processors were looming. They now license per "processor", meaning per physical package, rather than per core. Personally I have no idea why they did this, but it strikes me as generous. I'll take it. Read about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx. The end result is that XP Pro systems CAN run 8 cores if it's in two quad-core packages like the Mac Pro you mentioned. And even lowly XP Home can run 4 cores in a quad-core package. This is stated plainly in the FAQ at the above link. Now I don't know how many people out there have quad-core packages, but I'm sure lots have dual-core. I don't even have a dual-core so I can't confirm. But can somebody out there confirm that they are running a dual-core successfully with XP Home, or even two dual-cores successfully with XP Pro? Anyone running quad-core?

  148. [ot] 32 legs good, 64 legs - get slip-on shoes by wild_berry · · Score: 1

    I don't quite get it. When you speak of "extended register range", you refer to the fact that the registers are 64 bits wide, right?
    No, love.

    Let's start with this quote from Hannibal at Ars Technica (from http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/x86-64. ars):
    In the case of x86-64, it's the added registers and other changes that actually account for better performance on normal apps like games.

    While I must admit I'm not an expert on the i386 or AMD64 architectures and am willing to be corrected, I know that i386 has eight named 32-bit registers -- actual places that the processor can store each datum it is working on -- while AMD64 has 16 named 64-bit general-purpose registers and eight named 128-bit vector registers for Single Instruction, Multiple Data stuff, which is more commonly known as SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 and is comparable to the PowerPC AltiVec stuff. The more convenient on-the-processor storage you have (like more pigeon-holes for data) the easier it is to keep the CPU doing useful work and keep track of that work.

    I assume that doubling the size of the int or float is an issue for cache exhaustion, but would assume that AMD's and Intel's engineers have the issue under control. Perhaps the reason that the dual processor AMD64 chips only have 512KiB of L2 cache is to do with chip yields and room on the silicon dies, or perhaps there isn't sufficient speed improvement to show a need for a larger cache -- I'm not sure.

  149. Re:Welcome To The New Apple by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

    WOW, I can't believe the markup between a p5 520 and the i5 520 my company uses (nearly identical hardware).... OS400 costs A LOT!!!

  150. Hi, Alex! by StarKruzr · · Score: 1

    Have you tried dying of AIDS? Maybe you should!

    --

    +++ATH0
  151. Take your paranoia meds starloser/pinochio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=230833&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=18847517 [slashdot.org]

    You're dying, very slowly at slashdot, Pinochio. Cowards and liars (which you are caught in the act of doing there above in your own words) die a 1000 deaths. I'm not apk, and I see you are caught lying there as well as shown as a crappy reviewer of a program, because you say it gains somebody nothing, but yet you say clock cycles are saved, and you missed many good points about this program like safety and thoroughness as well as a design that has stood the test of time on several windows versions iterations builds. You and your fellow arstechnica forums members (Jeremy Reimer and Jay Little) are exposed there as well as liars and weak technically like yourself also. Birds of a feather, do stick together (liars, blowhard big talkers with nothing of worth noted to their credit in computer sciences, and 'trollers' that can't take being trolled also), at artechnica, lol.