Apple Announces Tiger Release Date

GatorMarc writes "Well, it's official. Tiger will be released into the wild on April 29th with more than 200 new features, including Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, VoiceOver, Safari RSS, Core Audio, and Core Image." Additional commentary available on ThinkSecret and MacWorld.

Please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

how this will increase my productivity ?
will it fill in XLS spreadsheets for me, or write that appraisal so i dont have to ?

I use x86 PC myself...

[amliebsch]

But congratulations to Apple for what sounds like it will be another quality release. I personally don't plan on switching any time soon, but it pleases me to see some strong competition re-entering this marketplace. While I doubt this is the end of Microsoft, it certainly means they will have to get off their asses. The complacency of the last five years is over.

Personal very Excited

[monkeywork]

As a recent "switcher" I've enjoyed OSX and this update improves on pretty much all the items I use day to day. I'll be purchasing it as soon as it arrives.

Re:Crap

[GizmoToy]

If by last night you mean April 12th (after midnight), then you'll be able to get it for $10 shipping and handling. Otherwise, you're gonna have to call and talk them out of it. In fact, I'd probably call today and let them know. Who knows, you only missed the announcement by a day, maybe they'll give you a discount, or just send it for $10.

I've been waiting to purchase a mini until the announcement since I knew if you ordered beforehand you won't get a free upgrade. Off to the Apple store I go...

Apple envy

[CCelebornn]

The more I see of MacOS X and the more features they put in there, the more I realise just how slow devopment on the Windows platform is. Think of the progression thats been made from Apple, then compare that to Windows. The last great leap was done with Windows 2000 IMO: but even then for the desktop users there was nothing really knew.

Spotlight, Dashboard & Automator all look like great additions. I know there are perhaps Windows alternatives, but can any of them claim to be as slick as Apples?

I'm a Windows user, but as time goes on the thought of an mac mini just to give the OS a try becomes more and more tempting.

Re:Crap

[the_2nd_coming]

cancel your order and replace the order.. if you call up you should be able to get this done easily.

Re:In in!

[argent]

I'm especially looking forward to Dashboard

Why? It's pure eye-candy.

I'm looking forward to whoever is the first to liberate Dashboard applets from the stupid Dashboard layer and let them intermingle with the rest of the world.

Re:Mac Mini update?

[pastpolls]

Can you explain to me what you are doing on a Mac Mini that requires CoreImage or CoreVideo? Seems to me like these APIs were designed for video and image editing professionals, who is not the target audience for a mini.

Core Data

[stang7423]

Am I the only one excited about the core data technology? In every write up of Tiger I have seen so far have not mentioned this new technology.

I mean come on. It gives you save, undo and redo functionality for free, no extra coding. Plus if you make good use of cocoa bindings in interface builder you could build a complete simple application with out writing a single line of code manually. That is pretty freaking sweet.

Maybe its just the geek in me but I think its cool. Plus you can save in multiple different file formats, binary, xml, or sqllite.

More Here: http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coredata.h tml [apple.com]

Then you are a dumb ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this right:

I could have sworn that I read somewhere that Apple will give you a free upgrade if you bought your Mac within two months before the release date of the new OS

Getting a free upgrade was part of your strategy, but you didn't check it out with the Apple Store sales person or atleast call Apple's 800 sales number to confirm? You just went on what you thought you remembered?

It doesn't even sound reasonable for Apple to offer a 60 day reach back on a free upgrade. Makes NO sense at all. Not to mention, there is no precedent for this in Apple's past (or MS for that matter).

Yeah you spent a lot ($3800) on a computer and the best you can do now is see if your week-and-a-half old computer can be returned, repurchased, and qualify for the free upgrade. If so, then perhaps they will save everyone the return trouble and give you a free upgrade.

Re:I use x86 PC myself...

[devphaeton]

Enjoy your wait for Longhorn,

Where does he say he runs Windows? ;)

Re:Apple envy

[gl4ss]

I'd rather have them upgrade Finder to be something more usable, non-blockin, non-piece-of-crap than any of those features.

Re:Panther Upgrade

[Reaperducer]

I could have sworn that I read somewhere that Apple will give you a free upgrade

Yeah, that'll hold up in court.

There has to be a cut-off somewhere, and no matter where that cut is made, someone is going to be hurt. This time it's you. I guess that's what happens when you make financial decisions based on internet rumors.

Re:I use x86 PC myself...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... he's hoping Microsoft will "get off their assess" and release an update to his Slackware distro?

Re:I use x86 PC myself...

[amliebsch]

No, of course not, but Apple has always been a "substitute good" for a MS-WinPC. It's just been the case for a long time that it was not sufficiently better to overcome the network effect advantage of Windows. Now, it may be starting to reach that point. People who are purchasing new systems are going to give Apple more consideration. Microsoft will have to fight back if it wants to keep these customers.

Re:Family Pack Still Exists

[Anonymous Coward]

We buy it because in doing so we HOPE Apple won't go to the obnoxious lengths Microsoft has in protecting themselves against piracy.

As long as retards like you cheat the system, it makes it HARDER for honest, ethical people.

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should. Jeez, grow up!

Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics!

[As Seen On TV]

You're missing something massively important. The reason why we chose not to release 64-bit versions of the UI frameworks is that they run much slower than the 32-bit versions.

User interface code is really pretty messy when you get right down to it. You're doing a lot of abstraction, moving a lot of pointers and integers around. On exactly the same G5-based computer, a 64-bit UI is going to run considerably slower than a 32-bit UI because of cache exhaustion. Because you're using pointers that are twice as big as you need them to be, you can only fit half as many of them in the various caches that are there to speed up your computer's performance. That effectively cuts your caches in half.

So we had two choices: Either waste a ton of developer time releasing 64-bit-clean versions of the UI frameworks and then tell our developers not to use them, or just don't ship them at all.

Believe me, the Final Cut Pro and Shake teams were pissed off about this. Their expectation was that they'd be able to release 64-bit versions of their applications by NAB. But a 64-bit version of FCP with 64-bit Pro Kit is less interactive than the 32-bit version on the same hardware, for very marginal gains in actual utility. FCP is already very good at making use of up to 2 GB of RAM when dealing with hundreds of gigabytes of data on disk; adding 64-bit support would have helped few and hindered many.

Re:Developer Perspective

[mihalis]

Q: How does it compare with Delphi or VS.Net?

A: You do know that Xcode only runs on the Mac, right? You can't compare these things. They don't run on the same platforms.

I have to disagree with this point. Development environments can definitely be compared across systems. Not at the fine-grain level perhaps, but on the overall experience.

I'll give an example :- I maintained parts of an application that ran both on Solaris and on Windows for many years. Although all kinds of neat development environments can be assembled from freely available tools, or even bought (e.g. Sun's various IDEs) on Solaris, Visual Studio definitely had an edge. The Windows-only developers had a productivity advantage. Pre-compiled headers, fast intel cpus, very fast tools, including really good source code browsing with cross-referencing etc. It's all built in for a reasonable price, so everyone used them. On Unix some people had pretty good tools, some people used vi and print statements, and it showed.

desk accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

quite a few years indeed.. since the days of desk accessories in '84, on the original mac OS. they aren't copying, they're re-implementing.

Re:do programmers deserve to get paid?

[pyros]

Why not pony up $650 and buy 5 individual copies then? By buying the family pack, you are "depriving" Apple employees of $450 that they would have made if you paid for each license individually.

Because they know that as humans, people will feel cheated for not getting a volume discount and having to have 5 identical CDs and just pirate instead. Apple is simply increasing the profit margin on a box with 1 CD by putting more licenses in it (probably just costs extra ink) and customers get to know they're doing the legal thing and getting a good deal to boot.

Re:Apple envy

[TomSawyer]

Since most of these cover things that weren't around yet or problems 10 years ago, it's disingenous saying that they should have been resolved 10 years ago.

The decision to not care about security was made more than 10 years ago. The specifics of how windoze has been compromised time and again -- while not necessarily foreseen -- could have been avoided by common sense security practices that were already common in other operating systems.

Re:Core Image and Mac Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the -1, incorrect mod when you need it?

When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you'll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of operations.

Core Image-capable graphics cards include:

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL

I don't see the Mini's ATI 9200 in that list, do you? That'd be because Core Image won't use a ATI 9200 for hardware acceleration.

Is it just me ...

[roubles]

... or do they still not have support for multiple workspaces (aka virtual desktops) ?

I thought this was way up on the requested features list ... apparently not.

But seriously, isn't is about time ? Solaris, KDE, Gnome have had this support for ages.

Bad Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

People think George Bush is dumb because he's not articulate; just like Stephen Hawking.

That's a suprisingly bad analogy. Stephen Hawking is remarkably articulate with his speach synthesizer. The tone is rather robotic but it's at least correct grammer.

Re:Apple envy

[TomSawyer]

1. Read my prior post where I reported that in 2001, Microsoft sent its developers for intensive security training.

Last I checked, 2005 - 10 years < 2001, which leaves your first argument as "hey, M$ should be commended for playing catch-up."

If I had a habit of recklessly falling asleep with a lit cigarette I wouldn't expect high praise when I decide to quit smoking after the house is in flames. Especially if others kept warning me about what a bad idea falling asleep with a lit cigarette is.

As for your second point, complexity and popularity alone are not valid excuses for M$. There are plenty of more complex, more visible, and more mission critical operating systems that don't reach for their proverbial knees when a hacker, let alone a script kiddie, comes knocking at its door.

Re:Developer Perspective

[As Seen On TV]

You're never, ever going to choose between Xcode and Visual Studio. Ever. You're never going to sit down and ask yourself, "Gee, should I use Xcode or Visual Studio?" Instead, you're going to have made some other decisions like "Should I write this program for the Mac or for the PC?" and those decisions will dictate whether you use Xcode or Visual Studio.

So comparing the two makes no sense whatsoever.

The only possible motivation for anybody to want to compare them would be to come to the conclusion that one or the other sucks, which is just childish nonsense.

Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics!

[Enrique1218]

So basically, the full potential of the G5 sitting in the consumer iMac and maybe the Power Macintosh won't be realized for quite some time. Damn, not even pro apps like FCP or Shake is going used it soon. That is a real disappointment because what's the point of having a 64-bit processor if it is not being used in the lifetime of the computer. I sure hope dual-core processors offer something better than this.

Re:I just called too....

[WIAKywbfatw]

OK, even if that is the case - which I'm perfectly happy to concede without argument - who's fault is that?

Anyone who's even vaguely familiar with Apple - anyone who's read any Apple Expo news, anyone who reads any Apple magazines or websites, anyone who reads the Apple stories on Slashdot - knew full well that Apple were going to be realising Tiger soon. And, anyone who fit into that category also knew full well that they weren't guaranteed a free upgrade, and that how much they were going to have to pay for it would depend on when they bought their Apple machine in relation to the official launch/announcement date for Tiger.

How hard is it to put off your Mac purchase for a few weeks if you're that concerned about saving yourself the upgrade cost? If money's that important - and having Tiger as opposed to Jaguar is as well - then can't buying that new machine wait a few more days?

Come on, who's fault is all this? Apple's? How? They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they said anyone who bought their machine in the last year was entitled to a free upgrade you'd still have someone who'd bought their machine 366 days ago posting here about how pissed off he felt at the injustice of it all.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Moofie]

Have you used Expose? I find it much better than virtual desktops (which I think are available in any number of third-party utilities).

Re:Dashboard

[rampant mac]

"Dashboard? Innovative? Its just a copy of the many other widget platforms that have been available for quite a few years now. Calling dashboard innovative is like calling Internet Explorer 1 groundbreaking. If anything it continues Apple's tradition of taking the ideas of successful mac shareware apps and including a copy of the app free in the os ala MS."

I tend to agree that it's not innovative, nor revolutionary. It is evolutionary, because it's a 21st century update of Desktop Accessories [wikipedia.org], which precluded Konfabulator by about 20 years.

Current Apple Theme -- Allow Users to Create

[ghutchis]

I think you hit on one "theme" that I see in a lot of what Apple is doing right now on the software-side. They have so much software designed to allow users to easily "create."

So their developer tools and AppleScript (and now CoreData and Automator) allow a user to easily create custom applications. It helps that the developer tools are included with the OS. My mom might not care, but it sure helps me!

GarageBand -- create music easily.

iMovie, iDVD -- create movies easily and export to DVDs.

Heck, even Keynote now has features to make interactive kiosk presentations.

The list goes on, of course. But so much seems to be putting the power into the user's hands to become a content creator, not just a consumer.

Re:Core Data

[brainnolo]

Core Data was the missing piece in the puzzle.

If you adopt the MVC (Model-View-Controller) style you can see that the first piece has been Interface Builder, which eliminated the need to write code for the View in an excellent way.

In 10.3 Cocoa Bindings (accessible via Interface Builder as well) eliminated the need to write code for the controller functions for the values setters/getters through they Key-Value technology (obviously you still need to write the parts that do some actions).

With Core Data now you do not even need to write anymore a BIG part of the Model, the data containers. This makes you able to limit in most cases your coding work to the actual elaboration of data, avoiding the storing/retrieving part which is the most boring, and as Apple demonstrated, can be generalized in most cases.

Re: Apple envy

[Smurf]

Sorry, but that hasn't been my experience (and judging by the other responses I'm certainly not alone). Maybe you have an additional issue in your installation that most of us don't have?

The next time the Finder hangs on you, try switching to another application (command+tab, Exposé, click other window or dock icon, whatever). *Then* try to invoke the Force Quit window (command+Option+esc or from the Apple menu). In the worst cases that works for me.

Regarding restarting the machine (if you really need to, but in my case that has never been Finder related), try holding the power button for several seconds.

Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics!

[tim1724]

Well, you seemed to be complaining that Tiger wasn't going to fully use your G5. I was pointing out how it does so. You can do 64-bit math, and you can do 64-bit addressing if you really want to (but you won't). Plus you can use all the other good stuff the G5 provides (such as faster speeds than the G4).

Of course, it's possible that someone might want to use 64-bit addressing even on a machine with less than 4GB, for example if one wanted to mmap() lots of files simultaneously. They wouldn't all be allocated physical pages of RAM at the same time, but it would work. Although a bit silly. :-)

Don't forget, the G5 has a significant lead over the G4 in terms of clock speed, in addition to a much better bus. (The G4, even if it could be made to run faster, doesn't have nearly enough bandwidth on its bus to feed instructions and data to the CPU.) So there are very significant advantages to running a G5 instead of a G4.

Dual core is easy to take advantage of .. just be sure to run more than one application simultaneously (which is always the case anyway in Mac OS X .. there are lots of background processes running at all times). The kernel's scheduler will take care of distributing processes between the different cores, keeping them busy. No programs have to be modified at all. (Although an individual program will run much faster if it is multithreaded, as then that single program will be able to use more than one processor core at the same time. Single threaded programs won't see any change, except that there will be less competition for CPU time as other processes can run on the other cores instead.)