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Apple Businesses

Apple Reveals Mac OS X 10.2, 17" iMac, Windows iPod 1073

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more.
Many of the new features have been mentioned here before, including QuickTime 6, spring-loaded folders, integrated Finder searching, better Windows integration, new Address Book, new Mail, Rendezvous, iChat, and Sherlock 3.

The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.

iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.

The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).

Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.

iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.

Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.

iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.

For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.

Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.

The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.

Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.

Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple Reveals Mac OS X 10.2, 17" iMac, Windows iPod

Comments Filter:
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:5, Informative)

    by AtaruMoroboshi ( 522293 ) <Anthony@overwh[ ]ed.org ['elm' in gap]> on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:20AM (#3901767) Homepage
    This is not bug fixes.

    This is an update.

    You did READ what was posted is going to be in 10.2, didn't you?

    If you had watched the keynote like I did (via quicktime), you'd know this is FAR more than a bug fix.

    .
  • Cheaper to Upgrade (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:24AM (#3901807)
    The upgrade for existing users is listed as $19.95. $129 is the full cost.
  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:24AM (#3901809) Homepage
    The upgrade to OS X will cost $19.99 - only if you want the CD for it (I'm assuming it's a CD(s) with minimum documentation).

    If you walk into an Apple store you'll get it for free, or if you really want to download it (through Software Update or otherwise) that will probably work as well.

  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Fugly ( 118668 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:26AM (#3901827) Homepage
    They'll have the $20 upgrade pricing. No need to spaz.
  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:27AM (#3901839) Homepage
    Or I could be wrong - this is what they did last time for OS 10.1, and I'm not seeing anything like this for 10.2.

    My apologies for shooting off my mouth and "assuming facts not in evidence".
  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:2, Informative)

    by dair ( 210 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:28AM (#3901844)
    The $20 charge was only for people who've bought new hardware recently (possibly from today until the release). Everyone else will be paying full price, at least going by what was said today.

    -dair
  • Cost of 17" Imac (Score:2, Informative)

    by abouttime ( 542316 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:28AM (#3901853)
    The one thing I didnt hear in the speach was the price of the new iMac. Just looked at the apple store, its $1999.
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:2, Informative)

    by questionlp ( 58365 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:30AM (#3901877) Homepage
    $129 - Full Version (meaning if you have say Mac OS 9 and want to move up to Mac OS X)
    $19-20 - Update (Already have Mac OS X 10.x), think MS-DOS 6.0 to MS-DOS 6.2

    BTW - I really like the idea of the widescreen iMac, but I'd rather get the TiBook :)
  • by jht ( 5006 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:31AM (#3901884) Homepage Journal
    Good:

    - iPod upgrades and price cuts.
    - iPod for Windows
    - Jaguar before Labor Day
    - All the new software tools
    - Wide-screen iMac!
    - Price cut on the old Superdrive iMac (though that's the original price pre-hike)
    - iSync - way cool
    - .Mac - nice new features

    Bad:

    - The new iMac is still PC100/800 MHz
    - No "upgrade edition" of Jaguar. A $49 or around that version of Jaguar that would only install over an existing MacOS X install would be good. I should get some bonus for being an early user.
    - .Mac pricing. There should be a scaled-back free edition, like the other services providers offer. I expounded on this in a comment on the initial .Mac thread earlier today.
    - No support for either USB 2.0 or Firewire 2 yet. Introducing the new iMac with that would have been nice.

    Indifferent:

    - The iPod accessory kits (pretty much all available in the 3rd party market already)
    - The pricing of the new iMac
    - The lack of changes to the other price points (I was expecting across-the-board iMac price cuts, but no biggie)
  • Darwin on x86 (Score:2, Informative)

    by davids-world.com ( 551216 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:34AM (#3901906) Homepage
    yes, Darwin is available for x86 platforms. However, you'll miss the great Aqua user interface that comes with OS X. You could run KDE3 [kde.org], which is not as much fun...
  • Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:34AM (#3901908) Homepage
    Ummm, at the risk of sounding stupid, what is a 6-to-4 pin cable?

    Some firewire interfaces, notably Sony's iLink and most laptops, don't provide power to the ports. These normally take a four-pin cable rather than a six-pin cable. Six-pins carry the full power.

    Basically, he's saying that it's easier to plug in your Sony DV gear now.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • by TexTex ( 323298 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:35AM (#3901918)
    Actually, the upgrade price of $19.95 is for people who have purchased a Mac after today that came with OS X 10.1. The Apple stores will probably be selling the most current versions right away but other distributers have that surplus of boxes sitting in the warehouse.

    Current 10.1 users on old machines are stuck with the $129 price.

    Seems rather odd they're actually making you pay for upgrading something new you've just bought. Usually Apple floats a 3 month grace period. Figure if you're buying a new machine, the OS should be new as well. Guess not.
  • Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:35AM (#3901924) Homepage Journal
    A lot of Wintel boxes (especially laptops) only have a 4-pin variant of the Firewire port, that doesn't provide power to the bus. All Macs use the full 6-pin version that powers the bus and recharges the iPod directly.

    So an adapter's needed for the Windows version else they may not be able to connect.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:37AM (#3901934)
    with the 17" imac coming in at £1,649.00 in the UK, yet the US price being $1,999.00 which is £1,274.54. So why the £374.46 price difference? UK compaines manage to sell goods to the USA at pretty much the same price as the domestic market-and if they do not there is troble.

  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:3, Informative)

    by lunenburg ( 37393 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:37AM (#3901935) Homepage
    I think you might be - what I took from the keynote was that the $20 upgrade pricing is ONLY for people who buy new Mac hardware between today and 8/24. Anyone else will have to pay the $129.
  • by Krashed ( 264119 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:40AM (#3901960) Journal
    Firewire has two different types of cables, the 4 and the 6 pin style. 6 pin is quite a bit larger, is used on all modern Macintoshes and can get quite a bit of power to the device. 4 pins is smaller but can't get the power to the device. Most pc's use the 4 pin variety but Apple stuck with the full sized 6 pin on both the Mac and the iPod so you can power and yes, charge the ipod from the Mac's power supply. With Windows they supply a more standard 4-6 pin cable which means you need a seperate way to charge it since one connector doesn't not have the 2 pins for power. Apple usually comes through and supplies an adapter to charge from the wall outlet.
  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:3, Informative)

    by CynicTheHedgehog ( 261139 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:42AM (#3901971) Homepage
    It's $20.00 only if you purchase your iBook on or after July 17, 2002 (today). So people like me, who bought one two months ago, are screwed.
  • by Walker ( 96239 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:42AM (#3901978)
    I just went to the education Apple Store online. You can preorder 10.2 and the price is listed as $69. As I haven't paid since 10.0 (And got a huge discount because of the Public Beta/Education double dip) I am not complaining much.

    With that said, giving a $20 upgrade only from people ordering today is not enough time for an OS that ships in a month. Any software vendor that ships an upgrade gives upgrade pricing to everyone that bought within the last 3-4 months. Apple should at least follow that model.

  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:2, Informative)

    by kusako ( 562647 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:45AM (#3902003)
    The web site [apple.com] says you only get the update if you purchase a Mac after today.
    Besides that, I had to pay 49 Euros for my "free" update from 10.0 to 10.1
    But my, they probably have to generate cash flow somehow.
    Staying with 10.1 is probably only an option if Apple continues to support it with security updates, which I doubt.
  • by TomHandy ( 578620 ) <tomhandy AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:47AM (#3902016)
    If you have a Mac, and open the box for it, you will notice that you have three Mac OS Up To Date Coupons (I have an iBook with coupons that say I bought my iBook with OS 9.2 and OS X 10.1 installed. There are three coupons and when you use them you only have to pay $20 for the upgrade, not the full retail price. I don't see what people are getting so worked up about. When I bought my Dell with Windows ME preinstalled, I had to pay full price to get Windows XP for it. This is a heck of a lot better.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:47AM (#3902021)
    The linux kenrel itself depends on a number of GNU C Extensions (features that are in GCC but not in the C standard) - and it also (stupidly) depends on particular optimisations gcc performs.

    On Mac OS X, things depend on one very large gcc extension - "Objective C" (an object-oriented extension to C, conceptually similar to C++, but, unlike C++, actually good.), rather than lots of small ones. Changes to ObjC seem to be integrated in large chunks, driven only by Apple and GNUStep, so a cutting-edge gcc tends to be required to get the latest, Apple/GNUStep critical changes. There is little dpendency on particular gcc optimisations in the darwin kernel - hence, while darwin performance may be lower than Linux, you don't get a week-long flamefest on LKML and gcc-list whenever gcc changes something like you do with Linux.

  • And the rest of us? (Score:3, Informative)

    by neema ( 170845 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:47AM (#3902022) Homepage
    The iPod news is great. Especially if it were to have happened a few months ago when I actually purchased the thing.

    I appreciate the response to what the market wanted. But half of the indication that the market wanted a Windows version iPod was that some people (read: me) bought it and worked around the mac-only restriction. Are there not going to be any updates?

    Interesting enough, my wheel has deteriated a bit, and when I wrote CS for Apple telling them about it, they said that what I was describing was "not a common problem" and that it didn't "inhibit use of the iPod" so it really wasn't a problem. I wonder why they released a touch-sensitive, non-moving wheel if it wasn't such a common problem.

    The reason working with Apple is a hassle is because of releases like this. While I would shit my pants to be able to switch my iPod with one with a touch sensitive wheel... fine, that's understandable. Such is the progression of technology. But a carrying case? It's not exactly an "industry first", as Apple likes to say about most things they do. Why not throw it out there when I had purchased my 10 gig beforehand? When I had purchased my Nomad II MG before this mp3 player, it came with a case. Not a good case, mind you, but it still came with it. That was appreciated.
  • by Corvus ( 27991 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:55AM (#3902099) Homepage
    Another step forward for python. See Apple - Mac OS X - Feature - UNIX [apple.com]

    Oh yeah, ruby too.

  • by nelsonal ( 549144 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:56AM (#3902107) Journal
    The stock is down on last night's earnings release. Mangement's expectations for gross margin and sales, spooked quite a few investors.
  • by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @11:56AM (#3902114) Journal
    Um. I have a 3-year-old iMac at home. It's got 256 MB of RAM in it, and it runs OS X 10.1.5. I use it for surfing and email, of course, using OmniWeb and Mail.app, but I also run iTunes and iPhoto almost every day. I wouldn't want to edit movies on it, of course, but for everything else I want, it works very well. I'm looking forward to iChat, iSync, and (especially) iCal in the next few months, 'cause I'm sure those will all run perfectly well, too.

    So I really don't know what the hell you think you're talking about.
  • Dont like it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:00PM (#3902159) Homepage Journal
    If you dont like the .mac fees, let apple know here [apple.com] This is a general discussion forum for the new .mac service.
  • by amRadioHed ( 463061 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:01PM (#3902162)
    Just one little interesting tidbit i noticed that is getting kind of lost in the noise: Did anyone else notice the little note on the Jaguar page? Apparently the 10.2 developer tools use GCC 3.1!
    Not terribly interesting considering that Apple released the dev tools with GCC3 a couple months ago.
  • Re:so I have to pay? (Score:2, Informative)

    by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:05PM (#3902190)
    I don't think so. Anyone who bought a mac before *today* is probably going to have to pay full price (almost like you never bought OS X to begin with).

    According to the Apple UpToDate [apple.com] site, you can pay the $19.95 upgrade for users who bought a mac after July 17, 2002, or today. Chances are you can go into an Apple Store, show proof of purchase, and get the 10.2 disc, but that might not be possible since it seems like they're restricting the upgrade pool.

    From what I remember, this is different from what they did with 10.1 (another pretty significant upgrade). I think 10.1 authorized everyone who bought OS X to get an upgrade, but I might be wrong. I do remember walking into CompUSA and seeing a stand full of 10.1 upgrade disks though.

  • 17" is wide profile (Score:4, Informative)

    by inkfox ( 580440 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:05PM (#3902192) Homepage
    Bonus cool points:

    Not only is the display 17", at 1440 x 900 with square pixels, it's wide aspect. This is far better for movie playback.

    I'm seriously tempted to get one just for watching DVDs.

  • Quartz Extreme (Score:1, Informative)

    by arielb ( 5604 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:19PM (#3902294)
    Funny how nobody here seemed to mention Quartz extreme: http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.h tml
  • by Dan Crash ( 22904 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:25PM (#3902340) Journal
    Check out their homepage [apple.com]. The slightly effete but expressive classic Apple Garamond font has been replaced by a plain, rather ugly version of Adobe Myriad Roman [216.239.35.100]. Say it ain't so! But it is.

    They started it with the eMac, but I assumed it was some education-only market differentiator. Apparently not. There's a little more at Mired [mired.com].

    Personally, I think it's a terrible change. And a stupid one. They'd built a huge amount of brand identity with Apple Garamond, to the point where anything written in it reminded you of Apple. The new font has no personality at all. Is that what they were going for?

    P.S. The Myriad Roman link is a Google cache of a page that 404's now.
  • by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:29PM (#3902391) Journal
    The ipod warranty [apple.com] has been improved to one year, up from its much criticized 90 day warranty. The ipod service page [apple.com] doesn't reflect this new warranty yet... out-of-warranty repairs cost an amazing $256.

    Yesterday I read an article in a major newspaper (NYT, WSJ, or washington post - sorry, couldn't find link) describing how many high tech things (including the ipod) didn't come with suitable warranties -- for example, dell just changed from a 3 year to 1 year warranty.
  • by anothy ( 83176 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:30PM (#3902411) Homepage
    Unix from AT&T had a similar problem. they kept calling it "System N" and incrementing N. when they hit "System V" (the first to use a roman numeral, i think), they started pushing the tagline "consider it standard" to combat the fears of people noting that there was no official standard for Unix, unlike pretty much everything else the Bell System did. and, lo and behold, people sorta took AT&T's word for it!
    the problem was, it worked so well they couldn't increment N any more, because "System V" was the standard (and thus whatever came next wouldn't be).
    so the went to "System V Release 2" and got through about SVR4 before that got "stuck" as a "standard" with the various splits and unification efforts in the unix community. so they did "SVR4.1" and so on. then they started adding letters when that got stuck.
    many commercial unixes will still tell you they run a "SVR4.3x" (i think) kernel. it wasn't until SCO (the then-owners of the original Unix strain) did UnixWare 7 (i think) that they incremented to SVR5.

    just a bit of Unix history.
  • by Trinity-Infinity ( 91335 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:43PM (#3902542) Homepage
    The FAQ says it will start deactivating original iTools accounts that have not paid starting in Sept. There's also a blurb about what steps to take to save your email to disk and that you should notify people your address is no longer valid.

    To me that is == no more email for us :(
  • by dhovis ( 303725 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:53PM (#3902636)

    I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard Steve say that the new features would be available to existing iPods. Since the new ones are not shipping yet anyway, I doubt that the new firmware is fully ready yet anyway.

    They did this once already (iPod 1.1 added vCards, for instance)

  • by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:53PM (#3902637) Homepage Journal
    I've used VNC (not much, but a little) under OS X, and it works fine. There's really nothing more to say, it does exactly what you'd expect.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @12:56PM (#3902658)
    You can't use the same iPod on two Mac's either. It's the pound of flesh Apple paid to the copyright gods, to make sure that the iPod wasn't seen as a music stealing device instead of a music playing device.

    The implementation is that one iPod is linked to one computer and you can't use it to trade music from computer to computer. Of course there are hacks to get around this, but iTunes won't let you synch up music to your Mac if the music on the iPod was downloaded from another Mac. I assume the same thing will be true with the Windows version.
  • by M'Barr ( 149352 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @01:07PM (#3902756) Homepage
    You most likely can use the same iPod on windows without using the Apple/MusicMatch software. Remember, you can't use the same iPod on 2 Macs, really, either.

    If you access the iPod on the PC, you should be able to use XPlay [mediafour.com], for much less than a new iPod.

    Matthew
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @01:14PM (#3902834)
    There are a few features that are to be added that seem to be consistently overlooked. One is the addition of the CUPS printing system. I'm hoping that this will fix many of the printing problems.

    The other feature that I'm looking forward to is IPSEC and PPTP support. It will be nice to have VPN support builtin.
  • by ntk ( 974 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @01:29PM (#3902967) Homepage
    I haven't looked for a complete list of what you get on a normal install, but you can safely assume a fairly vanilla BSD kit, including development tools: emacs, perl, gcc, etc. It's all free with MacOS X, as it should be. The supplied versions aren't always the most up-to-date, but that's what fink [sf.net] is for.

    Also, the Mac OS development environment (which includes updates to NeXTStep's really-quite-impressive development environment, Interface Maker and Project Builder, full API docs etc) is a free download. I believe it's included on the harddrive (as an installable package) on new machines.

    Your best bet is to check developer.apple.com [apple.com]. Signing up as a developer is free, although you have to pay $700+ to get stuff like advance betas of the OS, WWDC proceedings on DVD.

  • by frankie ( 91710 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @01:29PM (#3902971) Journal
    now i'm just pricing some G4s.

    Do not buy a PowerMac until the new models come out -- either in mid August [thinksecret.com] or early September [seyboldseminars.com].
  • by l-ascorbic ( 200822 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @01:32PM (#3902999)
    ...much as i wish it were. There was no mention at all of discounts for those of us with software coupons. It's full price for everyone except those who bought the computers today or later, presumably to stop people holding off on buying new hardware.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @02:02PM (#3903229)
    Things will change with Jaguar(10.2), so I've broken this up:

    10.1
    ----
    - Perl 5.6.0 is included in the base install, with a fairly minimal library set. Perl is at /usr/bin/ leaving you free to build a later Perl if you want. Perl 5.6.1 is buildable on 10.1 and can be installed to /usr/local/ without problems. Some config muckery is required to build 5.6.1, notes are available on various websites. Perl 5.8.0rc3 builds out of the box on 10.1.

    - Niether Python nor Tcl/Tk are included with 10.1 although both are available from community sites in both source and installer formats.

    - GCC is not included in the 10.1 base install, but instead in the "Developer Tools" installation. If you buy a new machine you won't get the Dev Tools in the box, but you can register with Apple as a developer (for free, the basic developer membership) and download an ISO of the CD for free. The dev tools also include ProjectBuilder and InterfaceBuilder (showing their NeXT inheritance).

    - Their "clumsy" Terminal emulator is the old NeXT terminal, and is about as xterm compatible as I need (and far better than many terminals I've tried over the years). I conclude that you haven't tried it and are simply guessing that you won't like it (if I'm wrong I apologize and I'd love to know what you think is missing from Terminal). That said, if you want it you can get xterm prebuilt (along with a full X install from source or binary) from the Fink project (http://fink.sourceforge.net). apt-get to your heart's content.

    Jaguar (10.2)
    -------------
    - Perl 5.6.1 is included. Python is included (not sure about version). Ruby is included. Not sure if Tcl/Tk is included, but again its almost sure to be available from community sites.

    - Terminal is reported improved even more. See http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/unix.html

    - All the free dev tools (including GCC3) will be available as a part of Jaguar, probably as a separate download again.

    As for the rest of it... Well, the free dev tools are very good. I suspect coming from a Linux world they will meet your needs. Some folks prefer the CodeWarrior dev tools which still require separate purchase. Mostly these are folks from Mac backgrounds (including myself) who have used CW for years and like it.

    To find out what's included in the Darwin (UNIX) layer of MacOS a poke around the Darwin site is likely in order http://developer.apple.com/darwin/. If you want you could even install on X86 and try it out (although obviously this won't be the same as the experience of MacOS X which includes both Darwin and the higher level items like ProjectBuilder).

    More generally, the Apple developer site http://developer.apple.com/ is a good resource for developers. Third party developer sites such as http://www.stepwise.com/ are also invaluable.

    Information on portability of common UNIX tools to OS X is usually dictated in part by the opensource community for that tool. So for example, you really should check the Perl porters list/site for details on Perl port.

    For projects which are not porting to OS X on their own the Fink project(http://fink.sourceforge.net) is likely your best bet.

    Hope this helps,

    Bas
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @02:27PM (#3903425)
    I suppose you mean well, but I have to say that I found the tone of your post pretty annoying.

    You bash the platform for a number of purported deficits, and yet you claim (and demonstrate) a complete lack of knowledge about it.

    I suppose I should just let it go, but what really frosts me is how you seem to feel that you are far too "l33t" a badass unix stud for any toy system to satisfy, and yet you obviously aren't willing to invest even the tiniest effort to investigate the actual facts. Do you even realize how asinine that combination of arrogance, ignorance, and ineptness really is? Would you think it appropriate if someone trashed Linux/Perl/GPL/whatever with the same pathetic incompetence?

    In a nutshell, though, the answer is yes. Perl? Yes. GCC? Yes. X11? Yes. MYSQL? Yes. Apache/PHP? Yes. Ruby? Yes? POV-RAY? Yes. GIMP? Yes. NetHack? Yes. Whatever does not come preinstalled is readily available not only from Apple, but from the standard distribution channels for the specific tools. In fact, if you look around you will see that most popular apps have OS X on the regular build tree -- run the nightlies all you like.

    Anyone who is interested in learning more about the Unix infrastructure of OS X might want to check out the following starter list:

    Darwin [apple.com] - Darwin is a complete open-source BSD distribution. Apple makes both the source and extensive documentation available for free. It does the same for a number of other major apps, such as the QuickTime Streaming Server. This does not include the source to things like the Aqua and the user-experience GUI, but it is everything you would get in a regular Unix...because it IS a regular Unix.

    Apple Developer Program [apple.com] -- For the price of a free registration, you can download the latest tools (e.g., gcc3, ProjectBuilder), APIs, and sample code directly from Apple. These tools include "generic" Unix favorites as well as a number of extremely powerful OS X-specific tools.

    Fink [sourceforge.net] -- The major source of convenient ports using the Debian dpkg and apt-get tools. There are other systems, but Fink makes installing things such as X11, KDE, Gnome et al a snap and has over a thousand of the top apps ready to roll. Don't forget Fink Commander [sourceforge.net], which gives you a convenient Aqua interface to the Fink tools.

    O'Reilly's OS X Developer Center -- O'Reilly needs no introduction, but their OS X developer articles and resources are an excellent source of information for developers of all levels.

    Stepwise [stepwise.com] -- Scott Anguish and the Stepwise folks cut their teeth on NeXT, but they continue to offer gurudom to the OS X community. They regularly detail how to use the latest ports and patches, and know a ton about Cocoa and Mac development.

    MAc OS X Labs [macosxlabs.org] -- Though their focus is on using OS X in higher education, they are a decent resource for OS X-related development and integration.

  • by Krashed ( 264119 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @02:29PM (#3903445) Journal
    Just read Apple's knowledge base. If you turn off the Automatic iPod update in the iTunes control panel, you can COPY the music to the iPod from several Macs. You cannot copy the music back to the computer though without third party software.
  • by SPYvSPY ( 166790 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @02:47PM (#3903579) Homepage
    The online petition to oppose the new .Mac charges is available at here. [petitiononline.com]

    My 2 cents: The email accounts should remain free. The rest can be value-add fee-based.
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:16PM (#3903807)
    but that's not really a fair comparison. That's more akin to MacOS 8 -> MacOS X.

    Not really. Practically nobody upgrade to SE or ME. The people who had them got them with new boxes. And if you bought your box from one of the major vendors within the last few months before XP was released you probably also got a coupon for a free upgrade. My friend got one from his Dell laptop.

    The $129 install will install on a bare hard drive. Try that with WinXP...

    Um ok. I have done it several times. What is your point. The XP Upgrade allows encourages you to install on a fresh hard drive. You just need a Windows 98 disk handy (or 2K,ME, etc.)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:25PM (#3903872)

    I just called the Apple store at 1-800-my-apple, and the rep told me that the upgrade proof of purchase coupons you get when you buy a new machine will not apply to this upgrade, so it's $129 across the board, (unless you buy your machine starting today, and it doesn't already have Jaguar installed).

    She told me Apple is taking comments from (potential) customers to gauge their reactions, and that it could possibly result in changes to the plan. (Remember that the upgrade isn't actually available until August 24...plenty of time for them to change the pricing policy).

    In my case, I told them I was a "switcher" who has bought two new macs (an iMac and an iBook) in the last four months, and I was very unhappy that I'll need to pay $260 to upgrade them to 10.2. I suggested that they should at least honor the coupons and give a price break for them.

    Call them and tell them what you think...maybe we can make a difference.

  • by Krashed ( 264119 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:35PM (#3903959) Journal
    5 to 8 weeks for the PC version from store.apple.com

    2 to 4 weeks for the Mac version from store.apple.com
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:2, Informative)

    by sandman935 ( 228586 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:35PM (#3903961) Homepage

    Back up...

    98 to 98SE was FREE. I got the disk directly from Microsoft for the cost of shipping and the CD... $7.

  • by Creepy ( 93888 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:42PM (#3904005) Journal
    You're saying Microsoft doesn't charge a lot for a development package? Last time I checked, Visual Studio was $600.

    Yes to all your tools questions. XFree86 runs on top of OS X, either in Rootless or Rooted mode (separate screen or local screen). If you've ever used Cygwin on Windows, you'll know what rootless X-Windows are like. Rooted is just like linux, with your window manager and everything. Speaking of Window Managers, Gnome, Enlightenment, fvwm, fvwm2, and quite a few more are available. I haven't seen a KDE port yet (probably because of QT), so that isn't available. If you're feeling extremely zealous, you can run a window manager on top of OS X and arrange your iconbars and stuff so it is usable.

    It is also possible to run Gnome on top of OS X, with Gnome's title bar underneath the OS X menu bar. I had to move the mac icon bar to the right side, but I don't believe the latest versions of gnome require this.

    Python comes as both a Fink module (essentially a debian package manager file, so probably a tarball as well) and a Framework, depending on how you aquire it. Jaguar is supposed to include Python. Perl is on all distrobutions. TCL/TK can be downloaded and installed.
  • by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @03:48PM (#3904048) Journal
    Hmm. It seems from your post that you might not know exactly what Bluetooth is. It's not about your computer showing you who's calling on your cell phone.

    I have a Bluetooth cell phone. It's an Ericsson something-or-other; don't recall the specific model number. It has a phone book in it, like all cell phones. If I want to store a number in it, I have to key it in, and then key in the name, and then save it. Mildly annoying.

    Instead of doing that, I just Bluetooth contacts from my PDA over to the phone. It's wireless, so there's nothing to carry around. And it works between the PDA (an iPaq) and the phone (an Ericsson) with no special setup or anything. If I have a contact in my PDA, I can put it in my cell phone in about three seconds.

    But there's more. I also have a Bluetooth headset. It sits in my ear and I can talk on my cell phone, without dangly wires. It's a pain in the ass to get in your car while you're on a cell phone, because you have to thread the wired headset through the seat belt just right, or risk getting all tangled up. Me, I just carry my phone in my pocket, no muss, no fuss.

    I also use Bluetooth to sync my PDA to my laptop. No more serial cables or cradles to mess with.

    My friend has a Bluetooth inkjet printer for his PC. He lives in Sydney, so I don't know if that stuff is available here in the US or not. But I was there when I bought it. Pull it out of the box, plug it into the wall socket for power. About three clicks and the PC found it, and two clicks later he was printing. It was amazingly cool, and useful too!

    As a short-range peripheral interconnect, Bluetooth has a lot going for it. Bluetooth support under Windows is great when it works, but it requires third-party software and isn't as transparent as it could be. I'm really looking forward to iSync, because it'll let me extend my little Bluetooth LAN to include my iBook (my laptop of choice; the ThinkPad belongs to my employer) and my iMac at home.

    Don't poo-poo Bluetooth, or any other new technology, out of hand just because you don't know anybody personally who uses it. Just as you're saying that it isn't automatically cool, I'm saying that it isn't automatically useless, either.
  • by TWR ( 16835 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @04:11PM (#3904225)
    Until Jobs, Gates, or Nealy can get on stage and say "This is the Nokia 3425, Ford Tunester, and Kenmore Neat-n-Shit and you can go to the store and buy them right now." These demo's are just Marketing/PR to make all the geeks love them.

    Is this good enough for you? Look at www.apple.com/isync . It lists several cell phones that work with isync.

    The idea is a great one. Enter the addresses/phone numbers/schedule on your Mac, then automatically sync with you iPod (yes, iPod)/Palm/Cell phone. This is very, very cool stuff. Made me think about getting a new cell phone for a half-second.

    -jon

  • by Thorkytel Ant-Head ( 593092 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @04:30PM (#3904404)
    Senior Jobs just got one of his engineers to make a BlueTooth cellphone that could talk with his address book thingy. I doubt Nokia is going to. Until Jobs, Gates, or Nealy can get on stage and say "This is the Nokia 3425, Ford Tunester, and Kenmore Neat-n-Shit and you can go to the store and buy them right now." These demo's are just Marketing/PR to make all the geeks love them.

    You operate from a false assumption; Jobs did get on stage and demonstrate an actual Bluetooth product that you can go to the store and buy right now. It's the Sony Ericsson T68 phone. It's Bluetooth enabled. It syncs with computers. You can buy it today. And when iSync is available in September (note: actual release date, not a vaporware "technology demo"), then you will be able to do everything that Steve demoed.

    In short: You don't know what you're talking about.
  • by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @05:36PM (#3904886) Homepage

    I think it's interesting how people are calling Jaguar just a "bug fix release" or "service pack" even though there are a TON of new features and archetecural improvements running behind the scenes.

    Apple is one of the few non-Unix companies that still cares about a semi-consistant versioning scheme:

    v A.B.C
    A=Major release number, new paradigms, etc...
    B=Minor release number, incremental improvements
    C=Bug fix release

    In the past, Apple has bumped the minor release to x.5 when some sort of major incompatability occurred (ie, OS 8.5 was the first to require a PowerPC Mac). They didn't do that here, but I wonder people would be as bent out of shape about it if Apple *had* called this Mac OS X 10.5. Or maybe Mac OS X 2002? Compare the product on a feature-level, not a numeric level.

    Apple usually isn't willing to inflate a version jump for marketing purposes:

    - Mac OS 6 to 7 was a giant jump in terms of structure.

    - Mac OS 7.1.1 to 7.5 wasn't quite as big, but did greatly expand the "experience" with new technologies (and doubled the distribution size).

    - Mac OS 7.6.1 to 8.0 had a major UI overhaul, mutli-threaded Finder, and major architectural re-writes.

    - Mac OS 8.5 began life as 8.2 until it hit beta and it was decided that it would be PowerPC only. (Even though it was 8.6 that deserved the monkier thanks to the new microkernel.)

    - Mac OS 9 was Mac OS 8.7 until a beta as well, although that was probably to help maintain a clear separation between OS 9 (designed to work with X) and 8 (not).

    - Even though OS X is in roman numerals, it's still numerically just OS 10.x.

    Compare this to Microsoft (and, by following MS's example, a majority of the Windows software out there) which gets away with murder by renaming a bug patch according to the current year and can charge an arm and a leg for it. Even MS realized that Windows 98 was just Windows 4.1 (and Office 98 contains Word 7.0).

    Could someone please tell me where the hell Windows Media Player 8 went though?
  • by call -151 ( 230520 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @06:26PM (#3905164) Homepage
    At this link [petitiononline.com] there is a petition going to ask Apple to reconsider the $100/year fee for those who thought Apple was serious when they said "email address for life".
  • price (Score:2, Informative)

    by Twister002 ( 537605 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2002 @06:48PM (#3905290) Homepage
    Why would I want to spend $369 dollars for a bluetooth headset [mysimon.com]
    when I can spend $29.99 for a non-bluetooth headset [officemax.com]?

    or $399 for a bluetooth HP color inkjet [officemax.com]
    When I can spend $129.99 for a non-bluetooth HP color inkjet [officemax.com]?

    I don't think I'm inconvenienced by $200 or $340 to have a cord.

    I think my sig more than says it all about these new announcements from Apple.
  • by Optikal ( 462280 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @12:24AM (#3906620)
    The US currently uses 3 main networks: AMPS, CDMA, and TDMA (PCS). GSM is slowly coming around.
  • Re:$129?!?!?! (Score:3, Informative)

    by DavidRavenMoon ( 515513 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @01:18AM (#3906784) Homepage
    Or if you've already used the THREE upgrade coupons that come with your mac when you buy it...

    Why would you have used all three? And on what?

    My G4 came with OS 9.0.4. I was able to get 9.1 with a coupon, but not OS X.

    So I bought OS X 10.0, and used one of the three coupons in that to get 10.1.

    You can not go from 10.1.x to 10.2 for $19.95 unless you just bought a new Mac that came with 10.1 and has the coupons. I heard the words come from Steve Jobs' mouth myself. So the left over coupons are useless anyway.

    But then Windows 95 to Windows 98 was a paid update, and it's still Windows 4...

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