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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Software Upgrades Apple

Apple Sets Oct. 24th Release For Mac OS X 10.3 696

dricci writes "Yahoo! has posted a press release from Apple, regarding the release date of the next major Mac OS X update, 10.3 ('Panther'). The update will be available 8:00 p.m. on October 24th at Apple Retail Stores and Authorized Resellers for $129.00 US (Family Pack for up to 5 users will be $199). Pretty much the same pricing structure they had for Jaguar. It looks like 'old world' Beige G3 support has been discontinued -- the update requires a Mac with built in USB."
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Apple Sets Oct. 24th Release For Mac OS X 10.3

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:40AM (#7162184)
    Please tell me they dumped am-utils and went to an autofs code base to get rid of the !@#$ symbolic linking in the auto-mounting, and dumped the proprietary auto.master format.

    Please?
  • Re:Countdown clock (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110.anu@edu@au> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:41AM (#7162196) Journal
    Flash aside, this is one important update for Mac users and shows how much code optimization can get you in terms of performance


    Absolutely! I'm not the biggest fan of XBench, but these numbers [hardmac.com] do paint a very impressive picture.

    Regardless, don't forget the cool stuff Apple's adding - Expose is cool, I got a chance to play with a pre-release version of Panther and it's one of those things that you'll begin to wonder how the hell you ever lived without it. The other thing that I'm looking forward to is the on-the-fly, user-friend 128-bit AES encryption. Your computer goes walkies? Least the pricks don't get all your stuff.

    -- james
  • Panther (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:41AM (#7162204)
    I had the chance to preview Panther on a friend's PowerBook (1Ghz Ti /w SuperDrive) recently. I was very impressed to see the speed improvements Panther brings to "older" machines. Imagine that, and operating system that removes bloat and performs better after subsiquent releases! While 10.2 was what I finally considered a 1.0 release of Mac OS X, Panther is a huge leap in usability.

    Expose is so amazing, expect Microsoft to "borrow" it in their next OS release.

  • Rumor sites right (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:41AM (#7162209)
    Everyone loves to bash the rumor sites when they get something wrong... but here we are... rumor sites were spot on with this... so credit where credit is due:

    Panther is GM [macrumors.com]
    October 24th Release for Panther [macrumors.com]
    Oct 8th official announcement [macrumors.com]
    S+H Upgrade price for G5 owners [macrumors.com]
  • Re:Yes, but... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:45AM (#7162245)
    am i the only one that sees the humor in this? mod parent up.
  • by base3 ( 539820 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:51AM (#7162289)
    The OPs analogy was perfect. the 10.2.x updates you describe are hotfixes, and the 10.x are service packs. The difference being that even the big bad evil MS doesn't charge for service packs; and if they did, they'd be tarred and feathered here. But it's OK for Apple to charge for them.

    Mod me down for telling the truth. I've got the karma.

  • Re:Countdown clock (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ranger Rick ( 197 ) <slashdot@racc o o n f i n k .com> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:53AM (#7162313) Homepage
    I've been using the prereleases of panther and it *is* noticably faster, I'd say pretty close to the difference in speed between 10.1 and 10.2.

    Under the covers they've done a lot of work to make prebinding work better, for one thing, and gcc3.3 provides vast improvements in powerpc code over gcc3.1 (even apple's modified version).
  • by Nutcase ( 86887 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:11AM (#7162475) Homepage Journal
    I bought a new powerbook on Friday. Less than 3 weeks from the date I bought, they will be releasing Panther. So far, this is cool. But the fact that the up-to-date program doesn't cover it is not cool. That sucks.

    It wouldn't burn so bad if they hadn't made a specific exception for machines that were shipping back in August. That's like a slap in the face.

    I wonder who to complain to (clearly complaining to /.ers is not the right approach). Squeaky wheel and all that....
  • This is what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BrokenHalo ( 565198 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:16AM (#7162518)
    Shouldn't this be OS X.III ?
  • by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:18AM (#7162544)
    The only problem I find with the support is that the Wallstreet line PowerBooks, especially after adding a 500Mhz G4 upgrade was one of the best lines Apple ever made.

    Please. This is just my-record-player-is-better-than-your-CD-player BS. I had a Lombard, and it was a piece of shit. In your hands it looked, felt, and sounded like a plastic toy. The CD drive door broke. The rubber feet fell off within a month. The case scratched -incredibly- easily and the letters on the keyboard wore off within 2 years. One screen clutch broke, the hard drive died inside of 3 years, the battery within 3 went to half-capacity, and Apple stopped selling new Lombard batteries shortly thereafter. The screen was horrible- in any kind of sunlight, for example, all you saw was green plastic w/ a hint of something in the way of a screen. Half the keyboard doesn't work anymore, the screen has a white line down one side- and to top it all off, the video cable to the screen is toasted; the display went from occasionally flipping out to requiring 2 minutes of adjusting the screen angle, to just not working period.

    I now have a revision-1 17" powerbook. It's awesome. Fit+finish is excellent, and everything in the design screams attention-to-detail. The case appears to be very durable(I do have a few small scratches on the bottom however). The screen is terrific in strong light, even direct sunlight hitting it. Gigabit ethernet is fast as hell, airport reception is fantastic, better than my Orinocco Gold card, which was widely considered the standard. In almost every way, my 17" PB kicks the living shit out of your Wallstreet, including battery life...the one exception being weight(so get a 12 or 15"). So do yourself an enormous favor and start using a computer built this decade.

    My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8, and with Panther right around the corner, it looks like it'll never get fixed. That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update." Um, no- and as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

  • by MarsCtrl ( 255543 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:22AM (#7162574) Homepage Journal
    The OPs analogy was perfect. the 10.2.x updates you describe are hotfixes, and the 10.x are service packs.
    No, I disagree.

    Microsoft's updates can be catagorized into three things: 1) Service Packs, 2) Critical Updates (such as the latest IE bugfixes), 3) Non-critical updates (such as improved foreign language support, Media Player Upgrades, etc)

    Apple's updates can be similarly catagorized: 1) Mac OS X Updates (i.e, 10.2.x), 2) Security Updates (such as the one I received on 8/14), and 3) Non-critical updates (such as the Java 1.4.1 update)

    There is a direct correlation between the two in their catagorization. The only difference is in how they express their version numbering; Microsoft tends to be slightly more liberal in their updates of the major version. Just because Microsoft didn't refer to Windows XP as "Windows 5.1", are they more justified in charging for a periodic upgrade than Apple progressing from 10.2 to 10.3?
    The difference being that even the big bad evil MS doesn't charge for service packs; and if they did, they'd be tarred and feathered here. But it's OK for Apple to charge for them.
    If there's one thing to be learned from the 10.2.8 update, it's that Slashdot won't hesitate to gang up on Apple for doing something stupid. Unlike other companies, however, Apple doesn't make a business out of it.
  • by watzinaneihm ( 627119 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:30AM (#7162627) Journal
    They finally seem to have a solution to the "too many windows open" (not apple specific, I have not even used one) problem. I hate to have to hold down Alt-Tab (i like to use the keyboard) and then look around to find which window I want to switch to. Because of this, I tend to have a max of two or three windows open at a time. No OS really helps here, though in Linux I use multiple desktops to group tasks of similar kind (Desktop one for work, two playing music, three for a root login in case I want to mount NFS etc. ) and I can easily switch when the windows hierrarchy looks like a tree.
    Take a look at the Apple solution called Expose [apple.com]. They use F9 to cascade all windows (like opera), another key to grey out all windows of other apps than the one you are using. Press F10 and all photoshop apps are highlighted while all other apps fade into grey. In linux Gimp could benefit from such a feature.
  • by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:42AM (#7162710)
    Dude, you must have beat the shit out of that thing. I carried my lombard around for 3 years, and it still looks like new. The little rubber feet did fall off after the third DVD I played, but other than that it was a quality machine. It's not a TiBook, but it was an excelent machine compared to the others on the market at the time. I still use mine every day, but I find it's too heavy to carry around without serious justification.
  • by Pius II. ( 525191 ) <PiusII@nospAM.gmx.de> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:48AM (#7162764)
    But X window and native and (relatively) fast PDF support are already available for Jaguar. XCode is definitely available for Jaguar, too, although probably not for non-developers. So, the features you are asking for are there.
    Plus, it was widely known that Panther would come, and probable that there would be no cheap updates for folks who bought Jaguar prior to the release announcement (because it was like that with the last updates, too).
  • Illegal? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:51AM (#7162786) Homepage
    My problem is that Apple broke Bluetooth in a MAJOR way with 10.2.8,

    err....really? Works fine here on a 12" Powerbook/Nokia 3650 combination. In fact, with the iCal/iSync updates out today my machine just become a lot more useful as it now sync calendars with any Series 60 device (which includes the 3650).

    That's practically illegal- "we broke it, so just buy the update."

    Or go back to pre-10.2.8 for free. Assuming it's broken of course, as stated above I haven't seen any evidence for that. Happy to be proved wrong if you can point me anywhere.

    ...as a result, I think I'll be downloading Panther, not buying it.

    Now, if you're looking for something that really is illegal...

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • by valkraider ( 611225 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:51AM (#7162795) Journal
    I have the same problem! Mine arrived the 3rd, ordered it the day they announced them. What bothers me is that all the G5s get the upgrade FREE, but the NEW Powerbooks are NEWER than the G5s!!! And the laptops are not even considered...grrr.

    No bother anyway though, cause my laptop will fit under the family pack that I have to buy for my older machines anyway, it's just the point of it all. They should say - anyone with a computer that SHIPPED with 10.2.7 should get a free (or $20) 10.3 upgrade.
  • by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:55AM (#7162832) Journal
    When I bought my last laptop, Office 2000 was on the horizon, and I was upgraded three months later when it was released. Maybe my case - 5 weeks - is pushing it, but did they really have to screw everyone who bought a laptop yesterday?

    Three years ago I switched completely to Linux. I wanted a unix machine that was well integrated because I was tired to trying to get Red Hat to do simple stuff (example: native MP3 support was discontinued because of license issues, DVD playback). RH is great - I've bought 2 copies retail and my desktop runs RH8 for work, but I just didn't want to do admin chores while on my own time.

    The pdf support is supposed to be "the fastest of any machine ever"... probably marketing hype, but I use a lot of large postscript files and render speed is important.
  • X11 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@ColinGregor y P a lmer.net> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @11:24AM (#7163238) Homepage
    I'm suprised no one has mentioned the native X11 support in 10.3. That's what's going to make me switch from a win/linux dual boot dell to an ibook or powerbook.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @11:37AM (#7163384)
    The brushed metal finder is still there. Yuck!

    It's not too late to sign the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/stopugly/ [petitiononline.com]
  • by babbage ( 61057 ) <cdeversNO@SPAMcis.usouthal.edu> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @03:38PM (#7165742) Homepage Journal

    I'm curious about that too. My brother is a teacher, and I'm curious what he would have to do to take advantage of the discount. Possibly, nothing.

    It used to be that companies would offer steep discounts on software for educational customers, but you would have to verify your credentials in order to get that discount (e.g. buy from a campus bookstore, and have to present your student ID at purchase time, etc).

    Now though, at least some companies seem to be a bit more lax about this. For example, I regularly see the student edition of Microsoft Office XP advertised in the local newspaper & area stores for around $100 to $150, while the full version -- which I almost never see advertised -- can be more than double that. The student version only has part of the suite, but it's the part that most Office users would want anyway -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. My fiancee bought a copy of this edition when she got her computer a year ago, and the clerk at the register didn't do anything at all to verify if she's actually a student. I assume that most of the people buying this edition of Office aren't actually students, but the fact that it apparently sells much better than the full edition has encouraged Microsoft to avoid slaying this particular golden goose.

    Maybe the same is going on with Apple. As far as I can tell, they don't do much or anything to enforce the restrictions on the educational discount program. Maybe they see it as a small leak that allows for a bit higher sales than they would have gotten had such a program not been available; that is to say, if they started enforcing the "are you really a student or educator" rule more closely, they might lose too many sales to be worthwhile.

    *shrug* In any case, I'm going to have to talk to my brother, and find out if he's interested in buying an operating system that won't run on any computer in his house... :-)

  • Re:This is what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bi()hazard ( 323405 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @07:43PM (#7167398) Homepage Journal
    Your point is correct, but you mistyped the quote. I just ran it by highlighting part of your comment and using speech in 10.2.8, and it said:
    "After all, why would they call the oh es Mac oh es ten ten point three if the ex really meant ten?"

    Yeah, mac os ten ten point three. Aren't they cute?

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