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OS X Snow Leopard Details
JD-1027 writes in to kick off a discussion of OS X Snow Leopard. Apple's stated goal: "Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard's enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality." The technologies: Grand Central to get better use of multiple processors and multicore chips, OpenCL to tap the power of the GPU, 64 bit so we can finally have our 16 TB of RAM, QuickTime X for optimized modern codec performance, and built in Exchange support in iCal, Address Book, and Apple Mail that most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments. We've previously discussed ZFS in the server version of Snow Leopard."
...if this will be a free upgrade similarly to the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1. It would seem hard to justify a purchase price of anything more than $20 that adds only additional stability and developer tools. If anything, this version seems more geared for developers than end-users.
How about NTFS, Apple? About damn time OS X supported read-write for NTFS - hard to bring it into corporate environment when you can't read from a Windows partition. NTFS-3G drivers are stable, they ought to have been integrated with Leopard to begin with.
I'm curious as to whether or not I should wait to upgrade my Tiger to Leopard, or just wait a year for Snow to come out and just upgrade to that. Though, I dunno that I'll really have a terrible need for SnowLeopard given that I have a first generation Macbook...not even a Pro=\.
I'm kinda surprised though to see a new OS release so soon from the original Leopard...Like they said, it's no major jump...I guess saying it's like Windows 98 to Windows 2000...as opposed to XP to Vista. But why am I making Windows analogies in a Mac story? Please don't hurt me!
I'm also curious as to what the price point will be for its release, and if its release will bring a price drop to the original Leopard making it more enticing to people who haven't made the changeover yet.
Isnt Leopard 64 bit already??
And if not, apple is making a 64bit OS this late?
(btw i run leopard.. how do i check if its 64 bit? (core 2duo proc)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
It is rumored that 10.6 is going to be the end of PPC support. I suppose it's time, although there are some PPC machines that are less than 4 years old. Still, as bittersweet as it is, it's probably time to let go of the legacy code and firm up the OS. I'm happy running Leopard on my Frankenmac 1.8ghz (Sonnet upgraded).
A good analysis of this decision can be read at RoughlyDrafted Magazine.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
I am personally through with using Apple's "codenames" for their OS releases. It will never be anything other than "ten point six" to me.
It's almost as if Apple is trying to prove that FOSS projects don't have a monopoly on horrible names.
Yeah... "Leopard"... "Snow Leopard"... that's not gonna cause any confusion, right?
If I have to pay for an imcremental upgrade that doesn't even fully change the name i'll be pissed but they can all it "leopard monkey" or whatever if it's a free upgrade that increases stability and gets me my 16 TB of ram
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I've been trying to find details on Grand Central with no luck. Anyone know of a link to any? Or, does anyone have substantive info on it they'd like to share here? (We won't tell anyone at Apple, promise...)
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
It is about time. We have zillions of programs for every major OS; so why waste time and money on adding features to the OS while third-party already do it? I believe it's a clever idea to enhance the core OS while keeping the outside intact (no new feature). Microsoft tried it with Vista, and they failed miserably. Was the task too big? Maybe. I hope Mac can achieve a complete OS core overhaul in a timely manner. It would set the bar pretty high for other OSes.
Jobs announces he's going to enormously simplify the morass of parallel programming and then also take GPU programming languages far beyond NVIDIA. And he's going to make this all in the core of the OS so it will be ubiquitous.
Oh and one more thing, we've already done it and it's going to be in our next release
Then I read posts about "well what about NTFS or Power PC".
Jebezus! get a sense of proportion here. Yeah NTFS might sell a few enterprise computers. So maybe that matter financially. But apple's doing fine with it's cash flow and we won't be talking about NTFS 5 years from now.
We will be talking about the future of computing which is how to tame and unify alternative and multicore architectures in a way the programmer does not need to worry about.
That's earthshaking if it could be done next year! Now a lot of people have blunted there spears chargin at this one so one needs a healthy dose of skepticism that it could be accomplished in a decade let alone in a few months. On the other hand the one person we know not to scoff at when he says he's going to make something complex really simple, retain 99% of it's power, and deliver it ubiquitously and accessibly is Jobs/Apple.
So doubt and wonder. Pour awe and skepticism. But fuck, don't ask about NTFS when this kind of thing is being annouced. You might as well ask about Zune support in Itunes.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"That doesn't help with dual-boot PCs"
The GP was referring to a 'coporate' environment. It's pretty rare to have dual boot machines, it's either one or the other, with networked resources. If you want to dual boot, your data would still be stored on remote servers and accessed via CIFS/whatever in a corporate environment anyway.
I.O.U One Sig.
Apple has really dropped the ball badly on this one.
Instead of adding new features they are actually doing the right thing, making it more robust and stable. All developers do is cram more and more features into operating systems that we don't need or want. So Apple is finally doing this and everyone is saying, well it's not really worth paying for, I'd rather have another round of features I don't want and more instability. Slashdoters are so skitzo.
I believe that Snow Leopard will just be a Leopard upgrade for those of us who have newer, Intel-based machines. I think that people who have MBP and the like were happy with the boost in performance with Leopard, but were a little upset with some app speed and lack of functionality of the new arch. Leopard still supports PPC, which causes some legacy code to be used, which causes it to be slow. Snow leopaard might not be the next Mac OS, it's just like extra icing for us Intel-Mac owners' cake. Just remember, it's not a new os, it's just a suped-up 10.5.
Only after posting did I realize it was the "first" and got swept up in the excitement of it all. I promise it won't happen again. :)
Let me get the rest out of my system, so I am not tempted:
o Does it run Linux?
o Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these
o Profit!
o In Soviet Russia, post firsts you!
No docking station mechanism for Macbooks or Macbook Pros.... Apple would rather you buy a 2nd machine (a desktop) and sync between the two, but we all use laptops here at my office and dock them to get bigger screens and such when at the office.
There's no way I can convince management to go Mac without a native docking option...
While Microsoft several times has claimed to "write the operating system from the ground up" they never do. They just keep bloating and never really optimizing. You need more memory, a larger graphics card, faster processor, etc. All the features you don't want and none you need.
I'm glad to see this happen. I want a fast and stable operating system. The operating system allows programs to run on top of it and provides space for that to happen. The operating system itself doesn't need MORE new features nonstop. That's not to say they can't update applications on the operating system still, but those things can be separated. iChat and the OS don't need to go hand in hand for example.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I for one am looking forward to full Exchange support in Mail, iCal, and Addressbook. My employer is an Exchange shop so I currently use MS Entourage. I prefer the Apple applications, for several reasons, not the least of which is that Entourage uses a proprietary monolithic binary file to store user info (such as mail and calendars). Here's hoping that Apple's support for Exchange will allow us to keep our mail/calendar/address info in open formats.
http://blogostuff.blogspot.com/
So Apple is going back to 64-bit x86. Good. The PowerPC machines were 64-bit, and moving to 32-bit Intel after 64-bit machines were out seemed a step backwards. It's disappointing that Apple didn't skip 32-bit Intel; now there will be a whole era of mixed-width code to get through.
For a while there, I was thinking that perhaps Apple would merely *say* they wouldn't release many new features in Snow Leopard, but then turn around and at the last second release a feature-laden OS. But then I realized how hard it would be to do that. Too many third-party developers would have to be in the loop for this to work.
The idea would be to stop Redmond from using Apple as the R&D labs, as many suspect winds up being the case ("Start your photocopiers"), and deny MS even the opportunity to borrow for Windows 7.
The more I think about it though, the more obstacles I see to this. But it would be sweeeeet...
In fact, in all my years of working in corporate environments I have seen a grand total of ONE dual-boot machine and it was custom-built for a specialized purpose involving some discreet simulation software that ran on both Linux and Windows and it was so occasional that the Windows version was needed that it was deemed a waste of money to have two machines, so they decided to dual boot the Linux box. *shrug*
My blog
In terms of interface, Leopard appears to be feature-complete, and I can only hypothesize that Apple is attempting to reassure PowerPC owners that they won't be left behind in that department by giving the next iteration of OS X a related name. And after looking at Apple's Snow Leopard page, I noticed something that I feel may be significant. Has anyone else noticed that nowhere on the page (nor indeed anywhere else) does Apple even mention "10.6"? Why is that? Could it be a suggestion that Apple themselves don't consider Snow Leopard to be different enough to earn the distinction over 10.5?
You see, this attitude of consumers is exactly why companies like Apple and Windows have so far focussed more on building OSes that look good, rather than work well. People want a shiny new thing, not a really efficient, rock solid operating system, because they have got used to crashes, useless error-messages, viruses and spam.
For me, this is the most enthralling idea in the End-User computer market in years. Finally, a company decides it's time to stop adding new eye-candy. Instead, Apple is taking a step back and taking their time to iron out the bugs and add actual innovation.
OpenCL sounds amazing. If it works as advertised, it will give developers who really care about performance the option to tap into the hugely parallel architecture available on the GPU that was inacessible to most of us so far (unless we wanted to learn the obscure proprietary semi-languages of ATI, IBM and nVidia).
Grand Central seems to be just the opposite of this: It will make sure those eight cores we'll soon all have in our machines will actually get used, even if the developers who wrote the programs we run didn't care to think about parallelization.
I'm bying Apple stocks. At a time when Microsoft's developers are once again falling victim to the marketing department (remember when Windows 7 was supposed to be a clean new start?), Apple is taking a bold step in what I think is the right direction.
...is solid as the Rock of Gibraltar on my MacBook. It's a stability improvement over 10.5.2 and a far cry from 10.5.0 and 10.5.1 which I avoided and stuck with 10.4.11. I'd put it right up there with Debian.
10.6 is something I'd be willing to pay for, though. Grand Central and true Intel 64 bitness would be awesome and make this MacBook rock. And as I mentioned earlier ZFS on a multi-disk future Time Capsule appliance would rock my world.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The versions distributed at WWDC already require an Intel machine; not a 64-bit one, though, apparently, since it says "any Intel processor" (presumably making some of the earlier Core based ones ok).
As Apple is endorsing Sun's ZFS, I wonder how far fetched would be an idea to substitute the rather inefficient OS X Darwin kernel by probably the best in the industry Solaris x86 64-bit kernel? Just dreaming...
Remember the instant kill by Wu Shu finger hold?
Apple gave a bad name to the new OSX.
It's actually really nice to have a Mac around when pulling files from a possibly infected NTFS drive. You're not going to pick up anything that will infect your machine, and you can pick and choose through the files you want at your leisure after reimaging your Windows box.
Don't forget that 10.6 drops support for PowerPC CPUs!
The last Power Mac G5s were released in late 2005 and weren't replaced by the Mac Pro until late 2006.
The last revision to the PowerBook line was also released in late 2005. I'm still very happy running 10.5 on my 12" PowerBook G4/1.33Ghz from early 2004.
The last iBook came out in mid-2005, replaced in mid-2006. The last PowerPC iMac was released in late 2005. We have 10.5 happily running on my wife's 12" iBook G4/1GHz from 2003 as our kitchen TV.
It's pretty shitty that Apple is dropping support for machines less than 4 years old, and older machines that run 10.5 very well. It's especially galling that they are dropping support with a release that sounds like it should really be a free service pack or point release to 10.5 anyway.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
there always are. And I am not counting yet another new version of iTunes and Quicktime. I doubt the eye candy will not be present, probably something similar to whatever they add into the iPhone or iTV will come our way. While not giving full functionality it will be similar in look. They will have to have a "demonstration" app that takes advantage of the new features they are 'aiming' at developers. Something to lead them down the path that Apple envisions.
Figure a few more things required to use new hardware and it will become an upgrade if at least on new hardware.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And also you get the new version pre-installed when you buy a new Mac. So why all the moaning? Pointless, in my opinion. I am personally VERY happy there is such a thing as Apple in the world, the only company I know of that actually cares about the user experience. Quit ragging on about "it's not FOSS" and blah blah blah, and instead enjoy the ride. We have a first class ticket to the future. Peace, out.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
If the things we value most in an OS are stability, performance and technical advancement, why are those the very things for which we are least willing to pay?
Self-evidently untrue. In the meantime, until I see the price, I'm going to say yay to improvements and defer my decision to buy.
I just started to use a Mac a little, after leaving it mostly alone for about 5 years. It's not really as simple and intuitive as it once was. All kinds of special Mac knowledge about where to look for buried UI widges, modes that mean you can't always do what worked in some other mode, lots of "Desktop similes" rather than "Desktop metaphor" (eg. you can't deal with the Desktop widget as if it were the real thing, but only in some special virtual Mac way), and generally the exact same kinds of necessary expertise that gives Windows and Linux users "tunnel vision", a narrow skillset only within the apps and features they use.
Maybe it's Apple competing with Windows that's somehow gravitationally moved the Mac experience closer to the Windows one, even as Windows has sucked ever closer to Apple's innovations. But it used to be easy for a beginner (or just an "uninformed expert" like me) to "just do it" with a Mac, with a much shallower, barely noticeable learning curve.
What we need is a GUI revolution. The iPhone offers one, with its multitouch innovations. As does Nintendo's Wii, with its unconventional new controllers. The Mac, like everyone else, is still stuck in a transitional metaphor to an office/desktop physical environment that's now been totally replaced by its simulation on the Mac. That metaphor doesn't really help people use "documents" and "tools" from past experience with the real things, liberating us from them. It's now a trap that constrains us to only the small set of characteristics that both the real and the virtual versions share in common.
I hope Apple will spend the next year "streamlining" MacOS into something more simple and immediately usable, the way Apple has delivered in the past. Because usually Windows, Linux and everyone else follows and improves likewise. But if it doesn't, then I hope that inspires people to do something really new that's really simple, yet delivering the vast power of all our new devices. Because those people will inevitably be the ones to drag everyone else along into the new, simpler paradigm. And probably get rich along the way.
--
make install -not war
Translation: "Let's see if we can distract Mac owners from the fact that the recent Apple developer conference produced no new upgrades, no new hardware, no Jobs-ian announcements on OSX, just iPhonery."
Translation: "We're an iPhone company now"
Translation: "We've put off any serious work on OS X for eleven months"
Translation: "We're hoping to bugfix some of the the low-level tweaks promised for Leopard and finally get them out the door... if we're not too busy with the iPhone."
Translation: "We really might be able to fix those bugs..."
Translation: "Yet another feature, like resolution independent graphics, that didn't make it into Leopard, because we were way too busy with the iPhone. But we might have it for you in a year. Read-only, of course. And not turned on by default. For developers only. And only in beta, of course. Use this feature at your own risk."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What about using something like that under Windows so I can read my HFS+ disks from XP?
I just hate the thought of paying for one more program to make my Mac work the way I want it to.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Great, another chance for Apple to hold my QT Pro editing capabilities for ransom.
:-P
"Pay another $30 for a new QT Pro license, or you won't even be able to PLAY new content! Muhuhuhahahahah!!!"
In regards to the comment about Cisco's clunky VPN client, a better option can be found at http://www.lobotomo.com/products/IPSecuritas/
Admittedly I've only used this to connect to Sonicwall firewalls, but I found the interface clean and it worked for me where other VPN solutions wouldn't even connect.
Sure, Apple is well known for detailing all the mind blowing user features months ahead of their release. Jobs hates to surprise us in his demos. Nothing new here, just move on...
Yea, right. Apple can announce internal systems support goals, wait for Steve's demo at release time for the wow stuff Apple builds on top of these new, improved services.
...is there ever going to be an OS XI?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
16TB is only 44 bits. When will they support the full 16EB?
... does it have batteries included?
What about first inteltosh generation? Will one be able to start Snow Leopard on 32-bit intel hardware? If not - fine for me. Cheap Macbooks follow on ebay :)
Leopard is basically stable and performs well. That doesn't mean that there aren't any improvements that can be made.
... somebody other than Bill Gates can afford 16 TB of RAM
Think global, act loco
I work in a multi-OS educational environment and see the weaknesses of all popular OS's in a short-exposure, high-contact learning context. The one area OS X really falls down is in the area of file-system and application navigation. I often see a student coming from Windows become comfortable managing both their files and applications with Linux (GNOME or KDE) far faster than they do with the Finder/OS X interface. While perhaps being a tired metaphor, the application tray, where any application minimised or otherwise can always be found (regardless of virtual desktop) works: they have per-application visual contact with what is active in their desktop session, uncomplicated by a dock doubling as a menu of popular applications.
After years of complaints from OS 9 and OS X users about the Finder Apple should confess to the difficult reality that - for many, not all - it is a major bottleneck to ease-of-use and therefore adoption. Students of mine - in general - spend far too much time second-guessing OS X where file and software management is concerned. Why are users' *losing* software and files so often that they need a *Finder*? Why are they so dependent on Spotlight that OS X might as well house all files in a flat-file-system? Why does the parent-window of an application still dominate the core navigation context even when minimised? This stuff confuses and frustrates people far too often I think.
It may not be the case for pro-users but I see students of mine spending far too much time clicking and dragging windows around in the course of trying to find and get stuff done on OS X.
My 2 clicks.
We always will be as long as Apple doesn't provide a built-in way to stop dropping dot-file turds all over shared resources. And thumbs.db are so much better.
At least they didn't call it "Loving Leopard" or something like that...
Translation: "It's a slow news day, let's start a pro/anti-Apple flamewar to increase advertising revenue."
FTFY
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
It has been circulating around for a while if you work in the right place. OpenCL is heavily based on CUDA.
Don't believe the hype.
Let me introduce you to my good friend, the comma: ,
As the person responsible for a 4,400 desktop environment and as someone who deeply, deeply dislikes Microsoft, I can tell Apple in one sentence how to get Mac OS X into my environment....
Let me run it on non-Apple hardware.
I have a collection of Dell Optiplexes, HP dc7700 desktops, and a bunch of MPC 4x4 all-in-one systems. I would gladly, and with executive support I believe, pilot a Windows to OS X project on a few hundred systems within a quarter of that ability coming available.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Articles actually outlining features on Snow Leopard & SL Server and what they mean for users:
WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint
Apple's Mobile Me Takes On Exchange, Mobile Mesh
That settles it, I'm moving to Korea!
All these Mac Operating Systems are for Pussies.
I'm an Apple admin (thank god) and talk like yours is getting really old.
Everyone has that one thing that keeps them from buying Apple products. ("real" video card in iMac, video camera on iPhone, etc.)
You already have an option. What's wrong with:
I have a collection of Dell Optiplexes, HP dc7700 desktops, and a bunch of MPC 4x4 all-in-one systems. I would gladly, and with executive support I believe, pilot a Windows to Linux project on a few hundred systems within a quarter of that ability coming available.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I have a collection of Dell Optiplexes, HP dc7700 desktops, and a bunch of MPC 4x4 all-in-one systems. I would gladly, and with executive support I believe, pilot a Windows to OS X project on a few hundred systems within a quarter of that ability coming available.
Your problem is, like most people, you fail to realize that Apple is a hardware company.
Yes, they make OS X, and that's why people buy their hardware, but that's not where they make their profits. If they let people run OS X on non-Apple hardware, they'd go belly up very quickly.
Personally, I'm tired of the "I'm tired of" crap I hear from people who claim to be Apple admins. Maybe when you get out of school and join the real world, you'll understand the realities of that world, until then, you and your tiny little shop should shut the hell up when you don't have anything valuable to add.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
It fit on something smaller than a dual layer dvd
I didn't have to reboot every time I updated quicktime
I could install an application I just downloaded without being asked if I was sure I wanted to
I didn't get a blue screen of uselessness while installing upgrades.
That would be really advanced.
No way!
Error: this custom sig failed to load. Please update your user preferences. If this message still appears, please contac
> Translation: "We've put off any serious work on OS X for eleven months"
Pshaw. Means they're just done screwing with the interface for a while. They have a stable and useful user experience in 10.5.3. It'll get a few tweaks along the line, 10.5.3 changed Spaces considerably. They're also talking about major architectural changes to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of the hardware. You may not care about optimizing for multiple cores or offloading processing to the GPU, but the bioinformatics people who run racks full of Xservs in a compute farm were dancing in the aisles at WWDC.
>most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments
Licensing full Exchange support sure as hell will. The return of VB support in MS Office a year or so after 10.6 comes out will also help enormously. The Active Directory support keeps getting better and better every release too. With, again, more stuff licensed from Microsoft Apple will be able to play in the enterprise.
It's easier to be funny when you have a clue.
I'll give you the bug fixes though. Adding a new hardware platform did disrupt 10.5 and increased their bug rate as Apple tries to manage a common codebase for two very different platforms. Arguably, 10.5.3 represents where Leopard should have been at release, and could have been but for the iPhone. They're late, but catching up.
10.5.3 is full ready for use if you haven't switched yet, Check the remaining issues before committing though, there are (always) some bugs left.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
For the follow-up to Leopard to focus on under-the-hood improvements without changing the UI and user experience dramatically has precedent in Mac OS X Tiger for Intel. Apple did Tiger with many new user features, then Tiger for Intel was made to look completely identical to the user, but it brought with it dramatic under-the-hood differences. Leopard and Snow Leopard are the same thing again.
With Tiger they said "come get Tiger" and with Tiger for Intel they said "come get Intel". With Leopard they're selling Leopard and with Snow Leopard they'll sell a larger number of processors and more memory than Leopard can support. One release they sell the software then one release they sell the hardware. They don't have to worry if Snow Leopard in-a-box doesn't sell all that well, because Snow Leopard in-a-Mac will sell really well, it'll be designed to drive new Mac sales. They already mentioned ungodly amounts of RAM in their first PR about Snow Leopard.
I've got five Macs. My daily driver is an 8GB, 8-core Intel Mac Pro. My carry along a is loaded dual-core Macbook pro. Both are typically running linux, windows, and OSX all at once. I write graphics software for a living. Powerful graphics software, written at the metal level. I'm all for multicore/multiprocessor at the OS level; the easier, the better, and likewise, multi-machine for even bigger jobs. However, this does not change the fact that Apple is mostly doing iPhone work, and that not adding obvious consumer-level goodies to OS X will cost them dearly -- which they don't care about, because -- wait for it -- they're all about the iPhone now. I meant the post to be funny, all right, but only because it's true.
The very idea that low level improvements and bugfixes precludes feature addition at the GUI/high level is absurd, and if anyone at Apple had half a brain focused on the Mac, they'd never have said anything like that, or even implied it.
OS "features" can be as simple as adding a nice set of programs to the stable. Things like a decent personal finance manager. Wouldn't affect system stability one whit, but it'd increase the value of the Mac to the first time buyer by quite a bit. How about a nice, basic paint program? Or a set of kids coloring books / tools? A basic expert system? Lots of middle to high end users could use one, and heck, they're not that difficult to write. I wrote one in python that, minus the knowledge base, isn't even 10k and you'd be blinking amazed at how much it knows about rocks and minerals, and how well it can generalize and leap to conclusions. How about including a language teacher? How about a finder with a decent feature set? Something like... Pathfinder - buy it, maybe tweak it, and ship it. That would be @#$%^&*$ awesome. Heck, I'd probably pee right down my leg if they simply shipped a working, color version of midnight commander (a findery thing for shellfolk.)
See where I'm going here? Put an expert programmer in a corner, say "make a COOL one of these apps" and leave them be. In a year, if you don't have something really cool, the programmer should be shot. Total investment, one programmer's salary. Put ten programmers to ten tasks, watch em decently, and in a year, you'd have ten new selling points that had ZERO to do with OS stability, etc. Or just reach out the the Mac community and buy a few things, again, there are tons of them out there and I can assure you that many of them could be had for what amounts to peanuts. And also as we know, Apple's got more than peanuts in its pocket, and dropping a few million on programmers and/or acquisitions isn't a problem if they simply want to. So when they say "no features for you", what they're telling you is, "we're not going to exert ourselves on your behalf." They're not saying why... but just wake up and smell the iPhone marketing, man.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It should be noted that this is "A Quantum Leap". Quantum particles are extremely small particles so this obviously refers to a very small change.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Uh... not really, no.
Anyone building software on the Mac can change this setting to 10.4 (and greater) in about 1/10 of one second. The reason an application requires 10.5 is because it is built using features that you want, which didn't exist prior to 10.5.
What's wrong with Quicken?
+++OK ATH
Uh... [checks Applications folder to be sure] aside from the fact that it doesn't come with OS X, and so it's not adding value to OS X for Apple, you mean? [looks around suspiciously] Is this a trick question?
[heads off to Google what's wrong with Quicken]
[back from Google] Well, they definitely had problems with Quicken 2006, but it looks like the R2 release fixed them. Is that the answer you were looking for? [waves hands like Jedi]
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm revealing my age here, when I say that my first unix based OS was NeXTstep.
One of the things I liked about Next was that an application kept to itself: Wherever you installed it, everything was in a directory "ApplicationName.app" This made uninstalling easy. It also meant that installing an application on a network file system made it available to all NextStations on the local network. (In some cases a 'dwrite global applicationname value' was needed for licensing for individual machines.)
Apple has not insisted on this. While many applications will work this way, now files are also stuffed into various Library directories. Uninstalling applications manually is no longer trivial.
Furthermore, some applications insist on writing to their own program directory.
I wish that apple and other OS's would implement a new security model regarding file spaces.
1. There are three file spaces: OS, Application, and user. Each can be divided.
2. The OS space consists of the distro along with applications from the distro vendor. For Windows the OS would include WordPad, but not Office (sold separately) For Mac it would include Mail, but not Aperture. For linux it would include
2a. The OS space has at least the following three subsections:
3. User space.
By default user space has a directory for each user, with access restricted to and controlled by that user. This is pretty much the way things are now.
3a. User space/group space. Methods for collaborating and sharing documents.
4. Application space.
app space is done on 1 top level directory per vendor. Acrobat reader goes in
The key here is that the adobe installer does not have write privileges outside of the
Just as user smith can't write to user jone's files, nor should Adobe be able to write to microsoft files.
This implies that some program equivalent to Next's 'buildservices' needs to periodically run to pick out what programs provided services for other programs.
5. In a general setup, no user should be able to execute a file in a directory they have write access to. Some mechanism for installations, and for developers needs to be made, but as a general rule this would go a long way to intercept malware. For users (as opposed to developers) having executable code in their directories is not a benefit.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Let's face it. The economy is in the dumps. Why would most people want to spend ANOTHER $129 for just a "Suped Up" version of Leopard? Snow Leopard will NOT sell as many copies as Leopard. Also, despite my strong love and respect of OS X, I switched about a year ago to Ubuntu Linux. I have it running on all my Macs in addition to OS X. I love it and prefer it. I even managed to install a better looking and functioning 3D Dock and a set of Widgets. Linux uses the Compiz-Fusion Window Compositing Technology which blows away OS X's Aqua and Windows Vista's Aero. Its makes Spaces, Expose, Stacks, Core Image, & Quartz Extreme that are in O/S X seem not just months, but years and years behind. Its flat out boring and stale. More and more Macs users are discovering Linux, especially Ubuntu Linux, and installing it on their Macs. Steve Jobs is distracted by that damm iphone and too content with OS X since He thinks it is a better O/S than Windows. He does NOT realize FULLY the threat that Linux is to Apple. Linux is the sleeping giant or bear that lurks just around the corner.
OS engineers do not write "cool apps". We write the kernel and libraries that enable other people to write "cool apps".
All the "features" that you're talking about aren't part of an operating system, and thus have no place in a discussion of how easy or hard it would be for Apple to add significant features to a future OS. They are applications. It's possible that an apps team at Apple might write them and include them for free with the OS, but they aren't part of the OS in any meaningful way.
When an OS vendor says that they're focusing on stability and performance, they mean that the engineers who work on the system libraries and kernel aren't going to spend their time making it do fundamentally new things, they're going to focus instead on making it do the thing it already does faster and more correctly (which may require a complete rewrite of huge sections of code).
This has essentially nothing to do with the sort of "features" that you're talking about. Trivial little toy applications are neither here nor there.
yep, once again, I get to the bottom of the comments, and nothing good.
My suspicion is that they're keeping their options open and directing media attention where they want it most: They can always announce extra features later, but they don't have to.
Look at the WinFS debacle -- if MS hadn't made a big deal about it, they wouldn't have been hoist with their own petard when they had to remove it.
Basically, Apple gets media coverage focused on the iphone beyond any advertising budget ever. They have a release planned which might not have reasons for end users to upgrade (developers have many more reasons to switch) but Vista gives them breathing space to do housecleaning.
If you wanted to be mean, you might say that they could work on new features, deliberately leave them out of snow leopard, and then take a GIGANTIC DUMP on the release of windows 7 by releasing them then.
But for that to happen, you'd need someone really ruthless in charge. Everyone knows Jobs is a fluffy little bunny who wants to be friends with MS...
<sarcasm>Oh, suuuuure.</sarcasm> That's why Apple has shipped as part of an OS release... Garageband. iMovie. iPhoto. Mail. iChat. iCal. iDVD. iWeb. Grab. Omni Outliner. Comic Life. XCode. Calculator. Safari. Address book. DVD player. iTunes. Stickies. Preview. Dictionary. That's why Appleworks was shipped for so long (until the lack of Unicode and proper maintainance killed its coolness... you don't keep up, you end up behind the curve.)
And as for "toy apps"; a good example of why you're completely in the dark here is brought to the table by comparing user features of CocoaTech's Pathfinder and Apple's Finder. In that comparison, unquestionably, the toy is Apple's finder - Pathfinder is a beauty. Finder is an app missing some very important features. Like being able to refresh a directory share. You'd think that (cough) "OS engineers" would know better than to create something that depends upon volumes controlled by other systems remaining static, but nooo...
So don't presume to lecture me about "trivial little toy applications." On the one hand, I wasn't talking about barely-sufficient apps like Finder, except as examples of OS FUNCTIONALITY that are substandard; on the other, the usability of the system out of the box directly depends on the apps that ship as part of the OS. Apple knows that, although you clearly don't.
There's a difference between being technically part of the OS, and part of the OS release, certainly, but at the user level, the things that matter beyond reliability are what enables them to get things done. Apps are the meat and potatoes of that, and they always will be. Apps that ship with the system set a minimum level of capability everyone with that release has. They add features in a way that is at least as important as any low-level capability, and often, quite a bit moreso.
For instance, Appleworks let me create and use a basic, but extremely useful, spreadsheet. When Apple stopped shipping Appleworks, the usability of the system out of the box took a huge step backwards. Now I not only can't do that on a new machine unless an old machine (upon which I still have a legal copy of Appleworks) is also handy, I have to go out and spend more money on something. Gee, thanks. Thanks a bunch. See? User experience, right out of the box, depends on what's IN the box. How hard is that to understand?
I distinctly remember Jobs demonstrating Garageband, being just completely all happy about it. Just a "toy app", according to you, but to Jobs, it was very clearly a "sell this release" feature. And in fact to me -- I'm a musician, among other things -- it was. Garageband is about 1000x more important to me than, for instance, ZFS. Jobs knew that, and he used it at the time to sink a nice, sharp marketing hook right into me and people like me. And here I am today, owner of multiple Macs, and actively developing software for the machine as well. So... maybe you ought to align your views with management before you jam your foot all the way down your throat, eh?
No? You think OSX would be anywhere near as usable without Finder or a similar app? You think Grab isn't essentially basic OS functionality? I don't think "operating SYSTEM" means what you think it means. I think you think it means OS kernel. But it doesn't; it really never has. Not since CP/M and Flex shipped with directories full of loadable commands, anyway.
When Jobs -- or anyone, really - says "OS X v5.X", the legions of Mac users don't think "kernel!"... no sir, they visualize everything that comes on the install disk(s). Because that, my all-too-tightly focused friend, is what comprises that particular release of "the OS."
[glances at Finder] Yes... yes, I see that can be a problem for some of you. Perhaps you should learn.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Part of your fascinating post reminds me of OpenDoc (System 7.5 +) using the old framework of "Publish and Subscribe" which I thought had always been ignored unnecessarily.
OpenDoc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc
~hylas
Well, no, not really. Disk fragmentation of the type that people complain about with NTFS is not a necessary part of a filesystem like ZFS, or even NTFS, really. NTFS allows itself to fragment to the point of performance degradation, and relies upon the end user to (1) learn what the fuck is wrong, (2) find some tool to fix it, (3) run that tool. Like other modern file systems, ZFS need not be that flipping brain dead.
Isn't that why we have third party development? Imagine enabling anyone to make any number of kick ass applications for you, all you have to do is support a stable base.
I don't see why Apple should waste time on silly apps like a basic drawing application when there's plenty of 3rd party apps if you really want it. Did you go to WWDC? It doesn't really sound like it otherwise your post probably would be full of more truths rather than just assuming Apple is only focusing on the iPhone right now. There was equal representation between iPhone and Mac sessions. The reason Apple is marketing the iPhone right now is because it is so new.
Personally I don't actually believe the 0 new features stuff because for obvious reasons, the application teams for the Mac aren't going to be sitting on their ass until Snow Leopard comes out. Stuff is of course going to be changing even if they're not really promoting it right now.
"moar features" is the philosophy behind most Linux distros, and that's not a bad thing. Having damn near every application written for your OS either on the disc or in the standard repositories is great. Apple is working under the guiding hand of a benevolent dictator who has a Philosophy and a Plan. That's not a bad thing either. Apple's basic strategy is to produce a consistent, unified user experience. Having random programs, however cool, sitting around detracts from the gestalt Apple is aiming for. See the iPhone software store for an example of Apple's controlling ways - a lot of people hate that sort of business. Maybe a widget that searches the various Mac repositories (I miss SunSite) for freeware and open source software and installs just like, say Synaptic, does would be popular.
But that's besides the point. Snow Leopard is about the OS. Kernel stuff like a whole new schedule to make multiple cores transparent to applications, shared library optimization, using the GPU as an extra processor for extra power. All the services needed by application developers. Putting a programmer on "go make something cool" takes a headcount away from the OpenCL team. 10.4 added a lot of APIs developers can use. 10.5 was interface and user experience focused. 10.6 looks to be kernel focused. The current architecture of OS X is more than adequate for general use computing, but has some serious flaws for some high performance tasks. There's horrific overhead in thread spawning for example. Lastly, some of these OS improvements really are end-user cool features. I mentioned the bioinformatics folks earlier. There are hundreds of thousands of OS X machines deployed in scientific roles and other compute-intensive industries. Easy access to every core is way cool to the Xgrid and budget supercomputer crowd. Don't forget that Apple used to sell a cluster-in-a-rack of Xservs specced out as a compute farm in a short, wheeled rack. It had a SKU and was semi-configured to drop into a datacenter and start running calculations.
Apple does not want to compete with its application developers. A consumer computer that can do "everything" out of the box ends up without a healthy ecosystem of commercial developers. Apple does put out some software that competes with existing stuff, look at what Final Cut did to Adobe Premier. This is usually a hardball business move (cf. Adobe Premier) or to prop up otherwise missing categories (office software, workgroup databases, pro audio). There's talk of that around iPhone developer applications, but I think Apple is early enough in the ramp-up stage of the iPhone software thing that they're just screwing some applications up. Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. They'll get over it. Although anyone who has made an enemy at Apple may be in for a protracted application process.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
So... you're saying that Apple would be better off spending it's resources making simple/cheesey userland programs, which any company can do, than deep intensive upgrades to the underlying system, which only Apple can do?
Brilliant. Elegant new system to allow developers to make use of parallelization? Fuck that! I want coloring books!
For those with a working memory, just last year, Apple put off the Leopard release to October because of the Iphone 1 release. That really hurt me at the time, and I haven't gotten over it. I was surprised when the announcement of Snow Leopard was so far out. That is a Microsoft thing. I am thrilled for them that the new iPhone firmware is built from the Mac OS source code. I would be more thrilled if they would move the Mac OS source code along. Considering that Vista is so stalled out, this would have been a great time for Apple to make strides and leave MS behind. Then again I think MS owns 1/3 of Apple's stock, and they may be playing nice. Not that MS has ever played nice with them.
Apple will need to hire all of the very best to create anything that will have universal appeal. I doubt they are "sun-like" enough to give it away for everyones sake. If it turns out to be an Apple specific technology, it will be nice for committed Apple targeted applications, but end up "yet another" non-portable toolkit. If it turned out to be an implementation of the Threaded Building Blocks with an Apple specific set of value added accessories, that might be tempting. Something big is going to have to happen to get everyone on board.
When the hardware vendors decided they couldn't go any further with CPU speed and that multi-cores were the new direction, they placed a bet that an industry-wide solution to parallel programming would emerge. Intel throwing in TBB is a start. I wish there was as much money and interest in solving this problem as in building the hadron collider. I hate to have to add this problem to the "only God can fix this" list where I have already placed the middle east conflict.
I've been ranting about this for years, hardware has come farther than software, but we still keep getting new hardware and the software cannot keep up. I hate to go there but look at the closed platforms (Sony, Xbox+Nintendo) Especially the original PS. Games that came at the end of the PS life were so much better than the games that came out early in its life, but guess what? it was all on the same hardware. Coders have gotten sloppy and demanded that hardware companies give them more, rather than taking the initiative and optimizing there code. I will give in however that without alot of the newer hardware we could not have some of the great features. This move by Apple is by far, by far the best thing i've heard about in years. I don't care if they want me to spend another $120 bucks to get it. I will be.
Those looking for new features, expect them in the iLife/iWork/Mobileme packages that are sure to have an update along with the new OS.
Apple/MacOS WAS and IS the platform for the future.
You're pretty mouthy for somebody running such a tiny little shop, pal. If you have executive support for Mac OS X, then start a serious pilot using Apple hardware. You'll like it, if your brain has any flexibility left in it. You'll also realize that even though you think Dell hardware running a crap OS is cheaper than Apple hardware running a fantastic OS, you are wrong. Admitting this fault is your first step on the path to a job that sucks less. Admit that you're wrong, then get to work.
Uhm... let me think about that a second... hrm... no, no Linux really isn't a threat to Apple.
So they've finally decided to go 64 eh? That makes them the latest mainstream OS to do that. Although they an still become the second successful 64 OS, if you see what Windows has done.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
I'm pretty sure you're not the first one to propose that. I think GoboLinux does something like that. But the obvious problems don't outweigh the benefits. You'll have to redesign all programs and it'll make so much things so much harder to work with.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
There are hints here and there, that Apple has been working on the technologies which will sum up to "Grand Central" for quite a while.
Take a look at NSOperation class reference which appeared with Leopard.
Also, consider the thread farming rumors which briefly flurried a while back. (The smart money is on implicit parallelization).
Finally, the more you learn about LLVM, the easier it will be to read the tea leaves for Mac OS X. Look for stuff on Clang and OpenCL. Speculation on vmkit and SVA is less solidly grounded, but probably even more fun.
I really do not understand people who are obsessed with docking stations. By and large, docking stations suck. I don't get this in the same way that I do not understand people who like to eat Lutefisk. Well, no, that really isn't it, either. It's more like I don't understand chocolate covered insects. What a waste of good chocolate.
But if you must have a docking station, you can have a docking station. BookEndz.
Yet another totally false and bogus, "My #1 Reason for Not Buying a Mac".
Idiot.
Nah, he was complaining that there were no good personal finance apps. Just because there never was one direct from Apple, doesn't mean there aren't any... that's all I was saying.
+++OK ATH
Actually, I'm fairly comfortable saying that. Deep underlying changes, complete rewrites... those are great ways to break the living heck out of a system that is mostly working very well. Whereas adding tools for the end-users (even kids) that don't yank the entire rug out from under every program in the system and replace it with a brand new rug which may be slippery, a fire hazard, contain uncounted numbers of weevils, and - by accident of course - is missing the rubber backing so you slip on it every time you step on it...
But really, I'm not worried about it. You know why? Because what I actually think we're going to get a year from now is an announcement that there's new iPhone software available. Perhaps accompanied by the news that there's a new iPhone, too. If we do get an OS X that has been substantially rewritten internally, I will (a) be astonished, and (b) let you test it for a couple of years before I make even the slightest move to upgrade. Because momma didn't raise no fool.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
[points at Aperture(cough-Lightroom)... points at dashboard(cough-Konfabulator)... points at Garageband(cough-entire industry of similar apps)]
Truly, if it isn't useful out of the box, it really isn't as nice a thing to have at all. Apple knows (or at least, knew) that. Think about what they put in the box, or what they have: Garageband. iMovie. iPhoto. Mail. iChat. iCal. iDVD. iWeb. Grab. Omni Outliner. Comic Life. XCode. Calculator. Safari. Address book. DVD player. iTunes. Stickies. Preview. Dictionary. Appleworks. At various times, they add iWork and other programs and suites. They know these things help sell the OS, and they know why: because it's usable out of the box.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Dude, don't be an ass.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
If someone isn't smart enough to figure out the Finder, they probably shouldn't be using a computer.
First of all a payed Update on stability and security will be stupid. Then again, most consumers do not even think of upgrading to a securer and stable version if costing anything. That could be one reason for charging something and selling it as a new version with new features... Oh yeah: the $120 upgrade fee was not for the reflection on the bar or the navigation through folders, but more likely for time Machine, the 500x faster spotlight, the better integration of 3rd party software, mail 3.0, quicklook and so on... there are a lot of features there that were worth paying for. I have to tell all the nice people out there, that say one is better than the other... It depends on what you want to do with it... for games it might be windows, for graphical stuff like photos and video-editing it might be MacOSX and Linux for geeks ;) I'm sorry for all the linux lovers out there but there is no copy of linux that anyone can be used so easily (after set up by someone) and without too much effort like windows and Mac OSX... sure if you are good with Computers you have more control about installing smth on Linux since it is only the kernel. But I have to say... So far the only browser I know of passing the ACID Test (if we talk standards here) ist Webkit for Safari. Firefox, Opera, and IE failed... well IE failing was expected (IE 8 only getting 13/100). So in my opinion, the biggest mistake made so far by developers is, that no OS so far supports all the standards that are to be applied. No... not even Linux distributions! Would be nice if everyone could include 100% all those standards... would make it much easier for all of us ;)