New Version of Mac OS X Leopard Leaked 359
the linux geek writes "InfoWorld has an article informing us that an early beta of Mac OS X 10.5 has been leaked. This appears to be the same build Steve Jobs previewed at WWDC, and contains most of the new features, including Time Machine and Spaces." From the article: "Attendees at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) received copies of the beta ware and had to sign legally binding agreements not to let Leopard stray onto file-sharing networks. Perhaps someone didn't read the not-so-fine print? MacUser reports that this version of Leopard is indeed legit, unlike a fake one that was reportedly making its rounds last week. The version of Leopard available on BitTorrent is 4.3GB, containing 93 files."
Oh snap. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh snap. (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you talking about? Jobs probably leaked it himself. Not only does it generate free press for Apple, but it would help ramp up the buzz machine. Jobs can then take that general feedback ("oh, this feature sucks" or "that feature is wonderful!") and redirect it back into the product without having to provide tech support for a beta product!
Just about the right time for it, too. Apple has already revealed the features in this copy, and is obviously at the later stages of development. Which means that they are ready to start polishing, but still have time to yank and replace components if necessary.
One thing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One thing... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not going to be generic. (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has announced that Leopard will be Universal (PPC + Intel) but it'll still require an Intel Mac, it won't run on random Intel hardware.
Re:It's not going to be generic. (Score:2)
Re:It's not going to be generic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their os userbase would expand greatly, their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size, iPods would be unaffected or perhaps grow in sales...
They don't want to deal with all of the calls coming in that joe schmoe cant get it to work on his cyrix cpu or schmo joe can't get his el-cheapo scsi controller working or his $2 video card. Apple wants to keep the perceived quality (and actual quality) of their products high- rather than having reports published about how incompatible it is with some guys random mobo configuration. People currently understand that the machines and OS only works with authorized apple hardware (and from partners), but as soon as you open the floodgates, joe schmoe idiot will go out and buy a copy thinking itll just work on the computer his son set up and it wont. Apple doesn't want to do it half assed.
I honestly don't think it has anything to do with their market share.
Re:It's not going to be generic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which tells you exactly what kind of market share their desktop machines have at the moment. Anything which reduces this further risks making their desktop market share so small it's effectively negligible.
Nah, not for shit IMO. Aside from elitist Charles [penny-arcade.com] geeks people buy Macs now because of Mac OS/X's user interface and the fact that It Just Works. If Mac OS/X was available for commodity PC hardware nobody (again: normal people, not geeks) would spring the extra $$$ for Mac hardware too ("What's the point?", they'd chuckle - "I can be clever and safe a few hundred bucks!") and the Mac hardware platform would die (or at least, be taken very ill).
Of course, penny-pinching consumers would also find that on third-party commodity hardware It Just doesn't Work as well, so Apple (through no direct fault of their own) would also find their IJW reputation going down the tubes.
Their OSX userbase would expand moderately - it's incompatible with Windows, so it's not going to expand "greatly" at any time while 90%+ of all PCs are still Windows, regardless of how great it is.
Their hardware userbase would shrink rapidly - normal users just won't pay over the odds for something they don't perceive as any better. We know OSX has been designed to run on the hardware and vice-versa. Your old maiden aunt buying her first Mac (assuming she isn't tempted away by de-facto standard Windows) will get a choice between OSX-and-Mac, or OSX-and-PC for a few hundred bucks less. In the absence of any real understood difference between them, and bearing in mind they both look and feel the same (OSX), which do you think she's going to choose?
iPod userbase wouldn't change - it's already Mac and PC compatible, so if Apple stopped making Macs tomorrow the iPod sales would hardly change.
That's one reason, yes. The other is that OSX not being Windows-compatible hurts Apple when it comes to attracting new consumers to it. Making the hardware and software one package at least forces users to view Macs as a seamlessly-working package, which they don't mind paying a little extra for. Breaking the package open stops any part of it being perceived as seamless, and virtually ensures penny-pinching consumers will just nickle-and-dime them to death.
No. "People" understand that you buy "a PC with Windows", or you buy "a Mac". Macs are a package, indivisible.
"Most people" don't even understand there is a distinction between the hardware spec and the operating system. Hell, remember "most people" still can't program their video recorder clocks right.
As such, as soon as they realise the package is customisable and there's a choice, they'll plump for the cheapest option every time, and Apple much-vaunted reputation for solid engineering (apart from style, their only advantage over MS) flies right out of the window. And once people are used to OSX running on beige boxes and crashing because of dodgy third-party drivers, watch how long their reputation for coolness lasts, too.
You're half right in what you say - the third-party driver issue is a big reason to keep OSX Mac-only. However, there are several other just-as-good reasons as well, like preserving what little share of the desktop hardware market they currently have.
Re:It's not going to be generic. (Score:4, Informative)
So over the past 4 years iPods have gone from $0 to $6B and Macs have gone from $5.7B to $8B. Whether these lines will cross in the future I don't know... we'll see. But today, iPods are *not* the majority of Apple's business. And Apple has seen real market share gains (from 2% to 4%) in the last 24 months.
Re:it could be though (Score:4, Interesting)
People will expect support if there is any hint from Apple that OS X will work on a beige box PC. Doesn't matter if there is some fine print somehere that says "only supported on offical Mac hardware."
As long as Apple maintains the offical line that OS X doesn't run on non-Apple hardware, they will not be forced to do anything. Let the hackers and enthusiast's run OS X on beige boxes if they want. They are not the kind of people to expect support when none is offered and they are unlikely to generate bad press complaining about broken divers or whatever.
It might be nice, however, if Apple allowed OS X to run in VMware so that people could get a "taste" of OS X before switching. A cheap, downloadable VMware Player image would be interesting. I know lots of people who would give that a try.... Linux AND Windows users. The nice thing about that idea is that it is practically guaranteed to "Just Work" like OS X is supposed to. No problems with drivers and whatnot. VMWare would benefit as well.
-matthew
Re:How apple could release OS X for generic x86 (Score:3, Insightful)
Throw it on generic x86 hardware and that's gone. Apple isn't going to do that willingly.
Re:It's not going to be generic. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do they still have that upgrade program? (Score:4, Informative)
I got an upgrade discount from Panther to Tiger. They were available when you purchased the upgrade online, simply by entering your registration info and your hardware's S/N.
In fact, I even missed the purchase cut-off date by about 15 days. I still got the discount.
Re:Do they still have that upgrade program? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do they still have that upgrade program? (Score:3, Interesting)
No. $129 is the full price. The upgrade price is $69, and you can get it from any Apple resaler (just not Apple itself). The upgrade does require the previous version to be installed. I have a copy of the Tiger upgrade (which requires Panther, will *not* install on a Jaguar machine) in my desk drawer right this very second.
Re:One thing... (Score:2)
It's odd that you have questions remaining after such a clear-cut article, which lacks no details. Consider the following quote from it:
According to MacWorld, "early reports from people claiming to use the software claim that certain parts of it 'feel' incomplete."
What could be more definite? First, this is 'according to MacWorld', so it's not direct knowledge. Second, these are 'early reports'. Third, these are claims from people claiming to use
Re:One thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not a OS version that most people s
Time Machine really works! (Score:4, Funny)
Who didn't see this coming? Expect Apple Legal to have a field day with this one.
Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, how could they be sure that just signing the document would stop anyone? Sharing music, movies, etc. is illegal, but look at ftp servers, emule, torrents, etc.
It the Internet, apple, think different!
Re:Well, (Score:2, Insightful)
This method falls down at a few places (e.g. if they give out a hash) but it could be worth a try
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, (Score:2)
Re:Well, (Score:4, Informative)
That's because he was retarded enough to upload it from the same host from which he downloaded it from ADC.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
This shouldn't really matter to Apple anyway. This will increase speculation about the OS on sites like
Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:3, Insightful)
Tiger is awesome, those new feature all-in-all are pretty minor improvements.
Now, if Jobs' TOP SECRET stuff is impressive, that may make a difference. But so far, I'm not seeing enough in Leopard for me to open my wallet.
boxlight
Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:3, Interesting)
[1] Half a day spent with JProbe enabled me to find the leak, as well as a solid dozen or so optimizations that improved our execution performance by a solid 15%. Moral: a good tool can pay for itself very quickly. If you need one, get
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:2)
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:5, Informative)
Wow... Slashdot is a "Nerd" site, but this is the first I've heard of this feature... where on slashdot is the feature list that is interesting to *developers*?
I haven't seen a single consolidated list of all the features, but all of the features shown were aimed at developers, either as demonstrations of what the new APIs support or as features useful to developers. Time Machine, for example, was demoed as an API that can be built into a developer's apps. Other features you might have missed include a full port of DTrace from Solaris, built into the new X-ray profiling software, resolution independent UI, core graphics, quicktime, and core animation features, more parity between carbon and cocoa, a built in grammar checking service for all apps, RSS, multiple clipboards, improved python and ruby tools included, Apache 2, and default inclusion of Subversion.
Most of the coverage on Slashdot has been for end-users, rather than developers, but there has been plenty of discussion elsewhere on development sites for industries using these elements. Heck, the DTrace message boards have been talking about little else for a week now.
Re:Garbage Collection in Objective C (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I was blown away by iChat, in particular the iChat Theater mode in conjunction with Keynote. I know that I have a use for that right now, but to be honest, it was not something that I was looking for until I saw it. It surprised me, but there you go.
I doubt I will upgrade all my machines to Leopard - as you say Tiger is more than adequate for the work I do - but I will more than likely buy a new Mac Pro and a Mac Book Pro when Leopard is released.
Then don't buy it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:5, Informative)
Upgrades are more than skin deep (Score:2)
Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:2)
Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:2)
If you're coming from Tiger. Those of us coming from Panther or Jaguar see major improvements.
Re:Big mac fan not sure about Leopard (Score:2)
You don't need to buy it. I'd just like to point out its an odd release and thus stable. Even releases tend to have more new features but are often less stable. Odd releases tend to be more reliable. If you decided to buy every other release, I'd recommend you get on odd releases. I'm saying this as a Mac user and former OSX sys admin. You will still get
Leopard will help Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Leopard will help Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Only for the Slashdotters using Safari or Camino, though, because unfortunately Firefox doesn't support Services. : (
Interestingly enough, another of the new features is the ability to embed cocoa features in carbon code, thus it may be much easier for Firefox to add support for services. Firefox's lack of support for services (something I use heavily) is the main reason why it is not my everyday browser on OS X.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A little conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A little conspiracy (Score:2)
I was tempted to download the torrent... (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, I installed Windows Vista Beta Preview a couple of weeks ago, just for fun and it confirmed what I had anticipated - I will not be buying an upgrade to Windows Vista, nor will I purchase any machine with it pre-installed.
OS X is a dream to use on the desktop, with various GNU/Linux installations running on all my servers. The machine with Vista on it? Going to install the latest Ubuntu.
Hasta la vista, Vista...
Re:I was tempted to download the torrent... (Score:2)
Re:I was tempted to download the torrent... (Score:5, Funny)
I also install early betas of operating systems and base my purchasing decisions on that experience. So I haven't bought a new OS since 1992.
Re:I was tempted to download the torrent... (Score:4, Funny)
And Linux was started in 1991. Concidence? I think not!
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Since I'm not a mac-head, the summary didn't make too much sense to me.
Spaces [apple.com]: a new application for the Leopard operating system that enables users to group different applications in separate environments.
Time Machine [apple.com]: you can back up and preserve everything on your Mac -- including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents -- without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you've ever backed up.
Re:Summary (Score:4, Funny)
There were going to prefix this with "My" but Tom sent them a Cease and Desist...
Oh, a neat idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Time Machine: Incremental backups with Exposé eye-candy. The hooks for applications to use Time Machine are a pretty cool idea, I don't think I've seen that kind of capability before.
What Apple needs to add:
Let's call it "Testbed": They could use FreeBSD jails and overlays to give you the ability to run a testbed environment that would looks almost like a virtualised system (like Parallels or VMware) which even "root" couldn't see out of, but without the overhead of virtualization. Plus Exposé eye-candy!
Plus, extend fast user switching to allow you to log in multiple times *as the same user*, giving OS X full virtual console capability.
Combine these with Time Machine, you could actually log into a version of your whole system as it existed a week ago, or two weeks ago... and (pause) with Exposé eye-candy.
OK, OpenGL eye candy... (Score:2)
I think of all the OpenGL eye candy in Panther and Tiger (including Dashboard and the Fast User Switching cube) as "Exposé eye-candy". I know Exposé is not used for all of it, but it makes for a nice sound bite.
Core Animation, Exposé, the rest of the stuff... it's all wrappers around stuff openGL hackers have been doing for years.
I'm actually kind of worried about the way Apple's moving away from enhancing OpenGL to wrapping it in a proprietary A
Blame ATI and nVidia (Score:3, Informative)
OpenGL theoretically offers that, but in practice the drivers provided by the video card vendors are riddled with bugs. On some machines you get an antialiased line; on some you don't. On some machines you get a line of the correct width, on some the lines are always 1 pixel wide.
So Apple does what they have to do. They build the
Re:Plan9 ideas (Score:3, Informative)
Glad this article's on Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Listens out for the sound of Bittorrent clients starting up...
Intended (Score:2)
Re:Intended (Score:3, Insightful)
Serious question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Serious question. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see the sales statistics on the Family Pack. I mean it is entirely voluntary purchase as there is nothing preventing someone from buying a single copy and using it on all their computers at home.
Re:Serious question. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Serious question. (Score:4, Funny)
They are (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Serious question. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Serious question. (Score:2)
Re:Serious question. (Score:2)
Re:Serious question. (Score:2)
Re:Serious question. (Score:3, Informative)
"* Family Pack Software License Agreement allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on up to a maximum of five (5) Apple-labeled computers at a time as long as those computers are located in the same household and used by persons who occupy that same household. By "household" we mean a person or persons who share the same housing unit such as
"Voluntary purchase" is completely wrong metaphor (Score:2)
Just because there's no technology preventing someone from doing it - thankfully - it doesn't mean people will break the license agreement...
Carry on with your "voluntary purchase" idea and why bother to buy the OS at all - after all, you can get it from all good torrent sites, and if you've got mac hardware you've already paid for the os, so why pay for it again, eh?
I dunno, but at a guess
Re:Serious question. (Score:4, Interesting)
I hold my hand up - I've used my fair share of software that fell off the back of the internet. Let's leave the generic legal/moral arguments for another day. But there are two major things which convinced me to do the Right Thing when Tiger came out:
* Fair pricing. If you're fair with me, I'm fair with you. If you charge me the full extortionate price 5 times for being a loyal and legal customer and legally upgrading all 5 of my family PCs, let's just say I'll be a little miffed...
* Trust. It's a two-way process. It's like, if someone puts out a cookie jar for someone else and says "I know you want to steal one of those cookies, but I'll make you suffer the consequences, and I'll be watching so DON'T DO IT" - the first thing a lot of people will do is try to think of a way to steal a cookie. It's the human instinct to push boundaries and see what you can get away with, and chances are because they were so snotty with you and treated you like dirt, you lost all respect for them. On the other hand, if they said "I'd like you give you one of these, but I can't. I kindly ask that you do not take any" - as an adult at least, I'm much more willing to comply. Yes I know, at the end of the day an illegal act is an illegal act, end of.... but people *will* do wrong. And I think if you treat them like an adult and not like a criminal or a child or both, then you're more likely to combat piracy than any digital protection.
Re:Serious question. (Score:5, Informative)
Apple sells hardware... by letting you install on 5 computers, they are hoping you will buy 4 more computers. $$$ in their pocket.
MS doesn't sell hardware... by letting you install on 5 computers, they have removed 4 purchases the revenue stream. Sure you give more $$$ to Dell, Sony, or the whitebox dealer... and they just sold 4 less copies of XP. That's why there is no 5 pack for XP.
Re:Serious question. (Score:2)
Can't think of any real explanation. One is that Microsoft just never thought of it. Or that the bean counters thought that the availability of a "family pack" would reduce sales (like you, I suspect it would actually raise revenue, by a tiny insignificant amount...). Or that Microsoft relies on corporate customers that would only buy
Re:Serious question. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Serious question. (Score:4, Informative)
There's no Intel version of the single 10.4 box either. That's because every Intel Mac sold already comes with Tiger. Since the EULA says you can only run OS X on Apple branded hardware, they have no reason to sell x86 Tiger. All potential customers already have it.
I'm sure the retail 10.5 boxes and family packs will include an x86 or universal version.
Who would want an early beta. (Score:5, Insightful)
Time travellers *strictly* cash. (Score:2)
Time travellers who went back too far.
Re:Who would want an early beta. (Score:2)
LOL
Having recently tried Windows Vista Beta Preview, I was surprised to see that the user interface had been revamped, but only at the highest level. Dig into some of the dialogs, and you still see the Windows 2000 we all knew and, well, hated less. Personally, I find this very cynical, and am not at all convinced that the efforts that Microsoft indicated that they were putting into Vista have not been realised.
Re:Who would want an early beta. (Score:2)
Well, at least they've gotten rid of the 16-bit parts of Windows Explorer by now.
What garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, after the Bono releases a record and it shows up on P2P, does that make it worthy of a new story? Look, people, file sharing is going to happen, as soon as something is digitally encoded, it's chances of being pirated approach 100%. Leopard finding it's way onto a BitTorrent tracker isn't news worthy, it's not even unexpected!
Re:What garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
There's another kind?
Re:What garbage (Score:2)
Time machine! (Score:2)
Clarification (nitpick)... (Score:5, Informative)
Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet! (Score:2)
Seriously, though. $150 a year for your OS. It seems a bit shady to me. Do you apple fans have plans to skip eve/odd releases or something?
Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet! (Score:3, Informative)
It's more every 18-months than every year, and the education price gives a steep discount. Unlike MS educational discounts, you get a full version for the educational price (not a license that expires when you leave academia). This means you can resell it, so if you know someone in full-time education then they can get the student price for you. The lifespan of a
Can you give examples? (Score:2)
The only reason I'm running Panther rather than Jaguar on my Mac Mini is because that's what it came with. When I got it I was still running Jaguar... and that was right before the release of Tiger.
The onl
How is that different from Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, the obsessives and the hardcore gamers (but I repeat myself) track the latest version of the OS, but most people won't even understand your question.
(* Windows XP - Windows 2000 with a few more driv
Re:Mom, the leapard leaked on the carpet! (Score:2)
Thanks MacWorld! (Score:3, Funny)
Forward this story (Score:3, Interesting)
On YouTube... (Score:2, Informative)
"leaked" (Score:3, Interesting)
Can we stop pretending to be gullible and just call it what it is?
Tom
Re:"leaked" (Score:3, Insightful)
Wherever there is a supply and a demand, people will get a hold of those things. Apple didn't have to have some super secret plan to leak a version onto the internet. They know full well as soon as they let a copy out of their "labs" that they've basically lost c
Re:"leaked" (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, because there is no chance in hell that any one of four thousand WWDC attendees could have possibly uploaded a copy on their own. No chance in hell. It must be a secret corporate conspiracy to get buggy, incomplete software in the hands of end users, because that's good for business.
Here's a simpler explanation: anything that can end up on BitTorren
Torrent link (Score:3, Informative)
http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/hashtorrent/3512
And who didn't see this coming, really? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only sure-fire way to keep anything from leaking is physical separation from the rest of the world.
Anybody want to speculate that this was really a "controlled" leak to drum up interest and anticipation for Leopard, or am I all wet?
And now . . . (Score:5, Funny)
There were rumours that Bit Torrent would be integrated into Leopard. In reality it looks like Leopard's been integrated into Bit Torrent.
Thanks, I'll be here all week
[bread roll]
Apple saw this coming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apples (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apples (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, Halo 2 for PCs will require Vista for absolutely no reason other than to force upgrades.