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Mac Pro, Mac OS X Virtual Desktops Announced at WWDC
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Aug 07, 2006 01:20 PM
from the and-many-more dept.
from the and-many-more dept.
haym37 writes "Of the many announcements yet to come at WWDC, the first is the announcement of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro contains two Intel Xeons, up to 3 GHz, and is supposed to be 1.6x to 2.1x the speed of the PowerMac G5 quad. It can hold up to 2 TB of internal storage and up to 16 GB of memory. The graphics card can be up to a Radeon x1900 or an FX4500. The case will be the same as the PowerMac." MacRumors.com is providing running coverage from the floor (Note: "[U]pdates will be automatically inserted at the top of the updates section. Do not reload manually."), including another announcement that OS X will include virtual desktops. What a great idea!
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Backslash: More on Leopard, AOL, Reuters and the Universe 117 comments
Read on for some of the most interesting comments and exchanges on a handful of yesterday's Slashdot posts (on the age of the Universe, virtual desktops in OS X, trick photography on the Reuters wire, and AOL's latest privacy gaffe) in today's Backslash summary.
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My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll go through my impressions mostly in order (I'm writing this in TextEdit as I follow the keynote). Not much surprise in the Mac Pro department (although it's nice to hear that they are actually cheaper). The pure 64-bit OS was predicted and is unsurprising. I like the little jabs at Microsoft. It's one thing to say "MS steals from us" but to put up comparison shots is just great, after all the features are just implemented so closely. The price comparisons were neat, but I wonder how long they will hold (I don't think Dell will take it in stride, their prices will get adjusted I'm betting).
I've gotta say I love the idea of Time Machine. I'm glad they put that in there. Considering how little hard drive space the average person uses compared to how much space is in new computers, this is an excellent feature. Now I don't have to use some stupid 3rd party program any more. I question the interface a little though.
They are building Front Row into Leopard. That's kind of neat, although I don't see myself using it right now. Still, if I was in a dorm and had my iMac or something I bet it would be great.
Spaces! Seems like the true virtual desktops that everyone has been asking for. I like the idea that you can pre-create a space and then launch it and it will bring those apps up (if I'm reading about it right). That would be fantastic.
I'm glad they improved Spotlight. It is a tiny bit pokey on my 1.67 GHz G4. To use it as an application launcher is great. I used it that way for a while but it was just too slow, so I started using Quicksilver (although I don't use any of QS's advanced features). The ability to search across your home network is KILLER and would save my parents SO MUCH TIME from how they do things on Windows.
CoreAnimation looks interesting and I bet a few people will do some incredible stuff with it, although it's also one of those features I can see being abused. I found it very interesting they promoted Universal Access. You never hear about that in the Windows world (I know it's there, it just doesn't ever seem to be talked about on mainstream sites).
Moving ToDos into Mail is interesting. The idea that ToDos can be moved into multiple applications and they all talk with the same database is quite nice. I'm sure quite a few people will like the stationary idea, but to me e-mail is best as plain text. I can only see that ending up like looking at my little sister's AIM conversations. You want to talk about eye-bleeding-color-schemes (and they say men have no sense of color). Notes is great too. I've been using the scheme that I've used since I was on Windows (type them out in TextEdit or NotePad and just save 'em). Still, having the pictures in there well and making it look like the iWeb templates is nice. I haven't seen any other e-mail software really try something like that (not that I've looked).
Note: iWeb needs a SERIOUS update. It really proves the "Apple 1.0" theory.
I've got to say, these improvements to iCal and iMail just make me want a new Newton all the more. My Windows Mobile 2k3 device is just so clunky compared to iCal or the Newtons of olde.
Web Clip looks killer. That is just a great feature. I have quite a few sites where I only look at one little portion and to be able to bring up Dashboard and see that portion would be great. Only Apple seems to make it that easy for an end user. Why go search to see if someone has made the widget you need when you can do it yourself so easily? "See Grandma, computers aren't so scary."
Being able to show photos to people over an iChat chat is great.
My only real complaints with OS X as it is now are kind of minor. Dashboard sucks up WAY too much CPU (especially when starting). I'd like to see finder be multi-threaded, you can occasionally see it need it. I'd like to see a special button put on the MacBooks to activate Expose. Using F9-F12 is clumsy when F9 and F10 are already bound to something else and you have to hit "function". Using the screen corners just c
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure it's Dashboard and not the widgets? I installed SuperKaramba and a few changes [revis.co.uk] to the widget files dropped CPU usage from 30%+ to under 1%.
If the widgets for Dashboard are also written by non-programmers they may be suffering from the same problems of polling too frequently. Why on earth do you need to update a display of how much hard disk space there is available every 100ms anyway!
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's appears to be a versioning file system, rather than a "save everything in a hidden partition every x days" hack.
But thanks for letting us know how great XP is.
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:4, Informative)
Time Machine is more akin to the Backup.app offered with
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
Time Machine (from what we've seen) is granular to individual files, and works transparently in the background every time you change a file.
Sheesh. You may as well claim that iTunes is an imitation of WMP.
Re:My keynote thoughts so far... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's inventing something and then there is skillfully integrating it into a GUI that's easy enough to use that your mom can (and will) use it. An implementation may be the bee's knees in terms of what it can theoretically do, but if it's too hard (read: not click-and-drool dead simple) to use, then for 95% of the people out there it might as well not exist.
That said, I wonder how Time Machine will affect system performance for developers... will I need to disable it to avoid losing all my drive spacing to useless copies of obsolete object files? And if it does its synchronization action every day at midnight, does that mean that it won't work on my Mac that I power down when I leave the office?
Photocopied! (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad about natural virtualization in OS X though. At least VM Ware is now coming to the party.
Re:Photocopied! (Score:5, Informative)
In all fairness, Leopard's Spaces implementation [apple.com] looks like a quantum improvement on other virtual desktop managers I've used. (Granted, it's been awhile since I tried any since I was never very satisfied.) None of the other VDMs I recall were quite "Mac-like" enough--by that I don't mean flashy and animated, but easy to use and understand.
They borrowed some design ideas from Exposé, it looks like; you can view all four of your desktops at once; you can drag-and-drop windows from one to the other; and they all use the same Dock instead of using different Docks for each desktop, which is the one thing I always wanted.
See also Leopard's Time Machine [apple.com]. There's a dozen ways you could make this kind of backup-restore tool just as functional; you could probably make it flashy and animated a dozen different ways as well. Leopard's approach uses just enough flashiness to make it easy-to-use.
I'll take a better kbd driver for Windows XP (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a mac fanboy but (Score:5, Insightful)
It just seems like they are stretching with Leopard. They promoted the hell out of tiger before the WWDC where it was first shown off, and for good reason. I personally will be sticking with Tiger till my next mac, which won't be till 2008 provided my powerbook doesn't get stolen.
Sounds like a nice GUI for versioning though (Score:5, Insightful)
I was actually pretty glad to see Time Machine as the file versioning coming in Vista was the one thing I was wishing I could get in Leopord, and did not expect to see.
Re:Sounds like a nice GUI for versioning though (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, everytime you saved a file you'd get a new version; if I saved file.ext, I actually got something like file.ext;17, and accessing file.ext would get the latest version, in this case 17. You had commands to purge files or entire directories - that is, delete everything but the latest version.
And this at a time where a 40MB hard-disk was a beast the size of a washing machine. I can't believe I had to wait about 30 years to get this nice little feature back... oh wait, we just got a preview, I'll have to wait a little longer to get my hands on it.
Re: Copying Scorecard (Score:5, Funny)
Xerox Parc: The GUI, +1 Brilliant
Apple II: The Usable GUI on a home computer, +1 Informative
Apple II: Hierarchical File System, +1 Interesting
Apple II: 3.5" Floppy, +1 My Favorite
MS-DOS: Directories, -1 Redundant
Macintosh: QuickTime, +1 Interesting
Macintosh: 44khz 16-bit sound, +1 Funny
Microsoft: Windows, -1 Offtopic
Microsoft: MPC standard (attempt at multimedia), -1 Overrated
Macintosh: SCSI, +1 Fast
Macintosh: 68030 multitasking, +1 Useful
Microsoft: Windows 3.1, -1 Redundant
Macintosh: Apple Menu, +1 Informative
Microsoft: Windows 95 Start Menu, -1 Redundant
Microsoft: Windows 95 Recycle Bin, -1 Offtopic
Macintosh: PowerPC, changing processor architectures, +1 Gutsy
Microsoft: Windows NT Alpha, -1 Unsupported
Macintosh: OS X, +1 Drool
Microsoft: Windows 2000, -1 Bugfix
Macintosh: BSD utilities included, and the OpenDarwin project, +1 Insightful
Microsoft: TCP/IP stack, -1 Stolen
Macintosh: Spotlight, +1 Useful
Microsoft: Windows Vista, -1 Nothing To See Here, Move Along
Okay, and the preliminary scores are:
Xerox Parc: +1
Apple: +12
Microsoft: -10
And for the record, I don't own a Mac. (*shakes wallet, hears two nickels rub together*)
Does somebody want to reply to this with a more comprehensive and accurate list? I've gotta go watch "The Pirates of Silicon Valley."
Re:I'm a mac fanboy but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm a mac fanboy but (Score:3, Funny)
Expect that bug to be fixed in the next major upgrade 11.0
While I'm impressed with what Apple is offering... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:While I'm impressed with what Apple is offering (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:While I'm impressed with what Apple is offering (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there is the free built in video conferencing, desktop sharing, and remote access made possible with iChat.
And on top of that is the network capable Spotlight, allowing a private network to access public files from any machine... a great reason to have a second machine
Data is:
1) No longer trapped on a single machine (think end users who require floppies and CD-Rs to transfer files)
2) Data loss is less of an issue (think end users to delete whole directories by accident)
3) Remote access is easy (think end users who don't know how to use the Control Panel to update their settings)
Why criticise? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just hope they get around to copying window shading, window tabbing and focus on mouse as fast as possible.
Re:Why criticise? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm very very pleased with finally getting virtual desktops. I've been using Desktop Manager [berlios.de] and will continue to until I g
Re: Why criticise? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Why criticise? (Score:3, Interesting)
The one thing that worries me about Spaces is that the website implies tha
Re:I agree (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously you have no idea what Spotlight does. It's a search feature, and they intend to make it more convenient to search for applications. It is NOTHING like the start menu, which basically just presents you with a list of files (and thus boils down to just another take on the Mac OS 7-9 Apple menu, speaking of photocopying OS features).
I'd guess the "recent items" feature they were referring to pushes more recently used items to the top of the list when you search.
Damn... (Score:5, Funny)
Best Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Steve is smart NOT to show off every little detail of 10.5. Look at Microsoft, they promised so much in Longhorn/Vista, then take things out.
Did I read correctly? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was hoping he's say the high-end will not be available until October (since I'm planning my Mac as a late-Oct birthday present to myself) and will sport a double-dose of the quad-core chips Intel is releasing in Q4.
But hey, dual 5150s for $2500? I think I might just buy that baby and an extra flat panel instead.
Minor Quibble... (Score:5, Informative)
The outside of the case is almost the same as the G5 case...the inside is completely different, and has a pretty sweet setup for the drive bays, not to mention the 8 ram slots and room for a full length graphics card.
Apple pages (Score:5, Informative)
and the mac pros are here [apple.com]
i noticed nothing was said about the finder.. shame.
Re:Apple pages (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that omission seems rather conspicuous. It's almost as if Apple has something to hide.
Oh wait, Jobs said they do!
My money's on significant improvements to the Finder, and they didn't want to show it off because they don't want Microsoft stealing it yet. I'm hoping they fix network integration; I have all kinds of weird problems accessing SMB volumes, and FTP has never really worked at all. But I'm sure there are all kinds of UI improvements they've been working on, that they want to keep under wraps. I certainly hope so - Lord knows there's room for improvement in that area!
Who fired Apple's industrial design team? (Score:3, Insightful)
who fired their design team? I mean, Apple hasn't released a new form factor since the Mac mini... two years ago now, nearly? And I understand that there are technical challenges with making the transition to Intel, and that the Mac Pro is all new on the inside even if its little different on the outside.... but... Apple's products used to be items to be lusted over because of their looks alone.
The only new look from the Intel transition is the MacBook (not Pro) and... its almost uninspiring. Its like they took an iBook and flattened it a little... and while it is a pretty sexy form factor, its not like the days of yore when the PowerBooks were new and beautiful (and now you can get the SAME enclosure, almost unaltered, in a MacBook Pro, 3 years later), the iMac went from cute to beautiful, etc.
And I don't buy that Apple's worried about scaring away people with new form factors with the Intel transition - I mean, would anybody REALLY be that surprised by a new physical enclosure? I mean, really?
Sure, there are issues to be sorted out - MacBooks yellowing, MBPs burning at corona-like temperatures... but I feel like these are start up issues that would be the same whether Apple played it safe with new form factors or not.
So it looks like OS X is less about the new shiny than before, and their hardware's less about the shiny than before. Before, OS X and Apple's hardware were both technically advanced AND beautiful - why is Apple just saying "job's done, lets move on" with the beauty aspect?
Tim
Re:Who fired Apple's industrial design team? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who fired Apple's industrial design team? (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple adopted the G3 in the PowerMac, they kept the Beige style case for a generation before releasing the B&W G3 case.
When Apple adopted the G4 in the PowerMac, they kept the G3 style case but changed it's color to silver
When Apple moved to the G5 PowerMac they moved to a new style case, but now that they have switched to Intel they kept the G5 style case (at least for now)
When Apple released a new iBook, it was with a G3; it was upgraded to the G4 with no real changes, and then when they moved to the Intel CPU it remained essentially the same, with only the keyboard being brand new.
The PowerBooks tell a similar story, moving to Titanium with the G4, then aluminum for several generations, the keeping the aluminum with the switch to Intel.
There is a reason to not redesign something: Less bugs, less cost, higher reliability. Wait until they work out all the kinks with the new CPUs, motherboards, and electrics, then introduce a new case with new problems.
30" Cinema Display price reduction (Score:5, Informative)
Time Machine == ZFS ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time Machine == ZFS ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect they may still be gnawing on ZFS for a future version, but for now it would appear the "Time Machine" is built on top of HFS+, since there is no talk of reformatting your drives to take advantage of the new feature.
As well, the keynote mentioned
Re:Time Machine == ZFS ? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.h
"Time Machine will back up every night at midnight, unless you select a different time from this menu."
That's not a versioning file system, alas.
What does this mean for current machines? (Score:3, Insightful)
all well... no since in worrying too much about something that might not be an issue and that you have no control over.
Ooooo I want one! I want one! (Score:5, Funny)
*checks wallet*
Uh, I want a Mac mini. With fries and a chocolate milkshake, please.
world wide DEVELOPER conference (Score:5, Insightful)
"xcode 3.0 released today"
k2r
And... iCal (Score:5, Insightful)
Here comes iCal, doing everything that Sunbird should have done several years ago. Here is the first chance at an "Outlook killer." Mail 3 & iCal = notes, to do, free/busy scheduling, auto scheduling, resource scheduling..
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ical.html [apple.com]
The year of Linux on the Desktop? No. It's the decade of OS X taking over the desktop.
Re:Underwhelming.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Core Animation? Maybe nice, I'd have to see. It sounds like they're really going after Adobe with that one though; I hope it doesn't backfire...
Mail stationary? I hated that 'feature' in Outlook Express a decade ago, and I can't imagine not hating it today.
The most disappointing thing was the lack of Core 2 MacBooks. I was planning on ordering one this evening. The Mac Pros look nice, but I can't imagine buying a desktop in 2006.
Re:disappointed -- rumor sites are their worst ene (Score:3, Insightful)
+1, Insightful
This is a developer's conference, not E3.
Remember that the WWDC is for developers (Score:3, Interesting)
If you downgrade the Mac Pro to the 2.0GHz configuration (two 2.0GHz dual-core Xeons), you save $300. If you downgrade the 250GB hard drive to 160GB, you save another $50, bringing the cost to $2,149. Still a little more expensive than the base $1,999 Po
Re:FP? (Score:4, Informative)
Let me write a paper to explain why this is on-topic(*sigh*).
While the summary of the Article states what Apple is adding, it specifically points fun at Virtual Desktops. The link for Virtual Desktops goes off to the Wikipedia page which shows us tons of applications and even information that Apple just announced this(go Wikipedia). So, the parent is saying... why the heck are we giving Apple a hardtime for implementing Virtual Desktops when "our" open-sourced version of OSX(GNUStep) have not been updated nearly as aggresively with the new functionality.
This is a very relevant post because this is insightful in regards to the Article Summary. How can we say, "thats a great idea... point to existing example", without saying... "man... i wish the community would implement some of these other things in OSX such as Spotlight, Dashboard, Expose, etc etc etc". I wish that GNUStep could at least compile my Cocoa applications.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What? No SLI configurations available? (Score:3, Informative)