Tiger's 200 New Features 903
An anonymous reader writes "If this hasn't already been posted, Apple set up a page listing,
by software section, all of the new features for OS X.4, or Tiger.
Given that every upgrade touts over a hundred features, it is interesting to see all of the enhancements to this upgrade to see what adopters get out of the box.
There are a lot which are tweaks, some new non-Spotlight oriented features and a few that are interesting, mostly security related features.
2 words: stealth mode.
"
Burnable folders (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is stealth mode pointed out as special? (Score:3, Interesting)
And firewall log?? Hmm, excuse me, but is the news Tiger just got a standard quality firewall or what? That's be more reason to blush than be overjoyed IMHO.
HFS+ CLI file commands (Score:5, Interesting)
Use command line file commands on HFS+ items with proper results -- utilities such as cp, mv, tar, rsync now use the same standard APIs as Spotlight and access control lists to handle resource forks.
Being both a Mac User and a Command LIne Junky. This makes me happy.
Re:Burnable folders (Score:3, Interesting)
The new thing is that "burnable folders" can be at any location in the (user's view of the) file system. At least that's my guess. I'm not familiar with burn:///, but it sounds like it is always in a specific location?
Re:charging for . release? (Score:3, Interesting)
More than anything, XP SP 2 was designed to relieve a huge embarrassment to Microsoft, the security issues. MacOS X has security issues fixed at no charge through software update, so it's really no different.
If early accounts are any indication, Tiger will have significantly improved speed yet again. My ancient 400mhz PowerBook G4 is already faster under Panther than it's ever been and I'm looking forward to further improvements. In the same time period, MS has gone from 2000 to XP, and enormous increases in bloat and dramatic reductions in performance have been the result.
Spotlight is a feature Microsoft was trying to create in Longhorn, and it looks like their version might be cut from the Longhorn release so MS can make its deadline. Again, this is clearly something both Apple and Microsoft were planning to charge for.
Finally, features have been added to Tiger that will allow programmers to substantially speed up their processing of video, which will help applications such as Final Cut Pro. It's pretty cool to see them in the OS so that third-party programmers can use them, not just FCP. So even though buying Tiger + FCP is more expensive than getting FCP alone, I'm confident that these changes will improve third-party software to the extent that it's worthwhile.
So in conclusion I certainly don't think Tiger is in any way comparable to SP2. It's nice that something's free, but it doesn't have the comprehensiveness, new features or speed increases Tiger brings to the table.
D
Entourage/Spotlight (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I'm stuck using Entourage. Does anyone know if Spotlight will be indexing Entourage emails, etc? I sure hope so! My corporation has ignorantly banned Google Desktop search on the windows machines, so I no longer have a way of finding emails I need in a snap. Entourage + Spotlight puts me back in the game on that front.
ACL (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, that is something I've been wanting standard on Linux for a long time (I haven't used Linux in a while now so let me know if it is standard now).
I'm also surprised that the
I would have expected apple to bang the drum a lot more on that feature. But I guess that apples target group aren't that enamored with technical points.
New FontBook, worth every cent if it works... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OK, how about... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd guess it's better. Sounds better, anyway.
Sidenote: MS really need to do more about making their Powertoys part of the OS. All this 'unsupported' nonsense is really childish. They could throw a small amount of cash at some of these apps and get a lot more bang per buck. I kind of wonder what other neat tools are kicking around in MS that never see the light of day, especially now that Apple seem to be adding whistles and bells left, right and center. It's almost Extreme Programming in it's nature - lots of small iterations over time...
You're absolutely right. I was looking for a "Multiple windows" manager for XP (my new job came with a windows box - I'm used to Mac OS and various unices) and I couldn't find a decent one. FInally I discovered that MS actually makes one! It's not great, but it works OK. Might want to advertise that?
I've said it before on here, I think Apple's development model works better than MS's. Apple makes improvements, and ships them. MS makes some imporovements, sees them become obsolete, reinvents them, repeat, and eventually 5 years later they release a completely obsolete OS. Yeah, I'm talking to you Longhorn. Little widgets like powertools don't make it in the core OS with the next service pack....why?
Even when they announce a good new feature, they can't win. Like their version of Spotlight - which as I recall they announced before Apple, though neither company invented it. MS announces first, Apple is first to market. By the time MS gets it, it's like "Oh. great." It seems there isn't much new in Longhorn anymore, and for an OS 5-6 years in the making by the time it comes out, that's not good.
Another cool feature not listed (Score:3, Interesting)
No power management AppleScripting? (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing sorely missing from Panther was the ability to AppleScript power management features. It would come in handy for putting your Mac to sleep after a long task, or to wake it up upon certain conditions.
In order to do that, IIRC, you had to buy a third party extension/dictionary/API. A workaround was also to script at the UI level and simulate clicks in the menus - very inelegant, prone to failure and useless for waking up the machine.
The new features list in TFA doesn't cite this addition. Does it mean users will still have to resort to third-party software for this basic ability? Automator might help, but still it's not the same as a full-fledged AppleScript dictionary...
Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
M$ is making WinFS client/server capable, which is a lot bigger plan.
Reindexing constantly is not needed, that is why kernel hooks for watching file system serve. You just hook on notifications and process when and where changes occur.
Second whing you need is that filetype is supported and provides possibility to describe it self.
Having everything working on client/server is a completely different case. You have to take case of privileges, network locations and client cooperation. If you do something on neighbours computer and store there?
Re:200+? (Score:2, Interesting)
These two new features may be minor to you as compared to Spotlight, but for a lot of users, including switchers, these are very important features that they've been waiting for for a long time.
Something for nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Spotlight
Automator
Core Video
Are not currently available in any other desktop OS (though Linux has beagle). In fact Longhorn won't now have WinFS (perhaps a more flexible solution than Spotlight but unfortunately vapour-ware).
You missed out:
Dashboard
Core Data
Web Core (DOM API accessible in cocoa etc)
xGrid
PDF annotations and forms (plus various preview.app enhancements)
Jabber, H.264 and multiple video IM
etc,etc...
Consider Microsoft's approach - renaming Windows 2000 to Windows XP (now with hideous colours), service packs for bug fixes, a monthly scramble by customers to install updates for remote vulnerabilities before they're exploited, and an attempt to move their customers to a subscription model (which looks like it's failed, but that's their goal).
Compare and contrast with the consistent and regular updates to OS X - major updates which you can *choose* to upgrade to every couple of years, augmented by regular updates every month or so fixing bugs and adding minor features.
I know which world I prefer to live in.
Just why should Apple give this update for free to all its customers, they already update the OS around every month for free? Sounds to me like you're the one who is cheap.
WinXPSP2 vs. OSX 10.4 (Score:5, Interesting)
While those people are right in that they are likely to get modded down by Mac fans, the complaints seldom offer much insight into what is a point release, what is a service pack and what is a full version number. To be fair, the OS vendors, both Apple and Microsoft, don't make it easy on the consumer either.
Apple generally gives out their version of point releases (10.x.x) for free, but those point releases usually don't offer much or any new functionality. (Currently I'm on OSX 10.3.9) which includes a new version of the Safari browser (1.3) but that is unusual. Apple also usually gives out point releases of the various software accompanying the OS for free (iTunes, QuickTime, iSight, iPod, Bluetooth etc) and they provide specific security patches as new exploits become available.(although there are currently about two hanging security issues that Apple really needs to fix)
Apple usually includes quite a lot of new extra functionality in the version upgrades (10.x). In the 10.3 Panther upgrade it was Expose, Fast User Switching, iChatAV and XCode and under the hood new APIs (Cocoa Bindings etc). in 10.4, it's Dashboard, Spotlight, XCode 2, Safari 2, Mail 2, Automator and a lot of new APIs (Core Data, Core Image etc.)
Microsoft is a little less consistent with its OS upgrades, pathces and service packs, but also follows a certain strategy. Generally, Microsoft offers API changes and some minor functionality changes in service packs, but rarely major new features. For example, WinNT went from sp1 to sp6 and actually gained a lot of the functionality that was in the Win98 and Win2k userspace, and NT users got those for free. Active Desktop for example (one can argue about how useful that was). Moving from NTSP6 to Win2k would not have entailed major changes for the common user, but, obviously, there was a lot that changed under the hood. Better security model, more stable, some minor UI changes, better networking etc. Obviously, for a user, it was worth paying for.
All the while, Microsoft also offered generally free upgrades to its bundled applications, such as IE, Outlook and WMP, although there was an outcry about the mp3 quality and MS' charging for better quality.
But can the same be said for the Win98SE to WinME upgrade? WinMe had a terrible reputation and was seen by many as an excuse by Microsoft to generate revenue.
And the Win2k to WinXP move, while also having some big under the hood changes (firewall, signed drivers etc), mostly had big UI changes (themes) and Fast User Switching, Automatic Updates (also in 2kSp3 onwards) etc. For the user, and the developer, it was probably worth the price. Since then Microsoft has offered two service packs, both free. SP1 had no visible change but fixed some glaring security and stability issues. During this time Microsoft has released literally hundreds of security patches, thankfully, free.
Now comes the part to argue over. XPSP2 offers a new security center and a firewall on by default. It also upgrades IE. SP2 is free. BUT, the security enhancements for SP2, including the IE upgrade, are not available for Win2k. Microsoft was getting a terrible rap with WinXP up to SP1. It was almost impossible to install a new machine on the net (activation) without getting hit by some of the rabid attacks going on within a few minutes. Microsoft HAD to do something, and, if they had charged for SP2, there would have been an even bigger outcry by an extremely digruntled public.
My personal opinion about Microsoft is that Microsoft, in a way that only Microsoft does well, decided to use the opportunity to both garner some lost respect by including the new security features, but also enforce upgrades amongst its userbase by excluding Win2k. This, I think, is something that Microsoft specialises at, prodding its userbase with new features, but including a catch somew
Maybe I'll get in trouble saying this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:2 words: (Score:4, Interesting)
I even SAID that Apple doesn't necessarily deserve credit:
BeOS had their database functionality first, but they died. Xerox had their WiMP interface first, but they never released (licensed only to Apple of course!)
Networking wasn't new, but it was experimental and Apple made it both easy and integrated.
CGA counts as color, but Apple introduced 24 bit color to a consumer level device.
3d acceleration was done first by SGI, in $10k devices, then by VooDoo Graphics in $600 video cards, but no 'common' or 'commodity' OS has implemented until Apple did in 2001.
Perhaps you're bitter, but you have to also understand Apple HAS done things, just like Microsoft has, and SGI, and Linux, and all the other companies out there.
The biggest thing people seem to have issue with is Apple's iPod.
The iPod did three things that no other mp3 player did before:
Density. 5gb in your pocket. Predecessors include Creative, with 20gb in a Mac mini sized device and the Rio with 64mb in a lighter sized device. Apple's was 5gb in a cigarette pack sized device.
Usability. Apple's device could be used by one hand. Creative, with 13 buttons (maybe it was 11) could not. The use of iTunes and a database meant, also, you could access thousands of songs with only a thumb and a forefinger. Finally the adoption of Firewire, over USB1, meant you could fill the thing up in 5 minutes, instead of 5 hours.
Style. Apple cared enough to make it look good. People don't like wearing ugly clothes, driving ugly cars, or wearing ugly watches, so why would they want an 'ugly' mp3 player?
Re:WinXPSP2 vs. OSX 10.4 (Score:3, Interesting)
Was it? I've eventually backed Windows XP out of every machine that came with XP installed, because it doesn't seem to have any useful functionality not already provided by Windows 2000. The big difference between 2000 and XP is the boobytrapped registration mechanism, and that's got negative value.
I suspect I'm going to be forced to upgrade to XP at some point, and accept the increased hardware requirements and decreased reliability, but I'm damned if I'm going to let anyone tell me it's worth the price. It wouldn't be worth the price even if it was free.
Re:Too expensive.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I expect this one to be a milestone in OSes (Score:5, Interesting)
What would really rock is if someday Apple had the guts to actually drop the desktop metaphor and introduce some non-overlaping full screen realestate using workspace and application management. Something like blender has - only more accessable of course.
How long have knowledgable users of Windows, Linux and Mac OS dreamed of easy cross-program automation via visual graphical pipes. Once again it's OS X that's years ahead of anything else.
gcc4 autovectorization for altivec (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Typical (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:WinXPSP2 vs. OSX 10.4 (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the flaw is right there.
1) This isn't a point release, it is a major release. Consider the "10" as fixed, like the "2" in Solaris. Would you expect Sun to give Solaris 2.10 for free, since it's just a point release from 2.9 (or by extension, 2.0)?
2) What goes into a release is arbitrary, what consitutes enoughto make a point release is arbitrary, the cost is arbitrary. The GUI subsystem is optimized and faster, which is rare for a Windows release to feel faster. How much is that worth? The real test is whether Mac owners agree with the cost of the upgrade, Windows upgrade costs are to a great point, comparing Apples and oranges and somewhat irrelevant.
Re:Burnable folders (while in the real world) (Score:3, Interesting)
I just switched to Mac, but let's not be making stuff up about PCs to make 'em seem better - they already win in many other ways.
Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
gcc 4.0? (Score:2, Interesting)
Another hardware phase-out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple did it again when they released Macs that can no longer boot into OS 9. The workaround: use Classic.
And again with Panther, which requires a G3 with built-in USB, forcing many legacy Mac users to use XPostFacto as a workaround.
Then came iLife '04, which refuses to install certain iLife applications if you don't have a G4 processor. Third-party processor upgrade cards were the workaround.
Considering that all of Apple's current lineup of computers have optical drives that support DVD-ROMs, perhaps Apple is also, in its own way, gently nudging it's market to move away from data CD-ROMs to DVD-ROMs.
Especially when you consider the installation scheme for the retail version of Panther -- 3 CDs must be swapped if you want to install everything and iLife '04 & Classic aren't even included.
The retail version of Tiger may likely need only the one DVD (since iLife '05 isn't included) for the OS + XCode2.
While the "Apple Store visit for CDs" may be an inconvenient workaround, at least there is one. It beats buying a Mac-bootable Combo- or SuperDrive and installing it.
Re:Spotlight (Score:2, Interesting)
My bible for this argument is basicly here: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia [well.com]
People are lazy, People are stupid and the system is not scalable to larger enterprises without problems.
People being lazy is possibly the greatest problem: Very few people are going to sit down and add descriptions to all their photographs, documents and video footage. Currently Metadata is common in Music only. I don't claim to know why this is, but my best guess is it's probably because it is not a visual file and there's no way of previewing it without watching. (As opposed to seeing a thumbnail of a document/movie/picture.) If the system is incomplete and any single file doesn't have metadata added, the system is effectively useless because as with anything which is unreliable, it will fall into disuse and there will be less incentive to add metadata to files, so less people use the feature due to decreased reliability and the sitation continues to snowball.
People not knowing everything about their content is also a problem. Meta data can only identify what we know as it is added by humans. If i was confronted by Java Source Code for a program, I wouldn't be able to read it and I would not know what to describe it as.
A Meta data based system also scales up badly to network/internet size solutions. Not only is the first problem amplified the larger the system is (more people being lazy, also less confidence that everyone will do their bit in adding metadata) but an inherent problem is that in a webwide Meta data system, people have hidden agendas, and they lie. The largest web-scale meta data implemantation we have at the moment is META tags in web page markup. I don't think I need to explain why these are often ridiculed - people lie. META tags are often abused by sites to get more hits: adding Britney Spears, XXX, pr0n etc will boost a page's rank. (This is often misguided, as more hits may occur, they they will not be relevant and leave the site straight away, however this is besides the point - they still input incorrect metadata into the system.) The problem has got to the stage where Google really doesn't pay all that much attention to META tags in comparison to the page's actual content and a monitoring of it's popularity with visitors searching for a certain subject.
This last point might not be a problem with Spotlight currently, as a systemwide index it's not affected by it - however on an enterprise level there are instances where it could be a problem even over a LAN or WAN and afterall, the Internet is just computers connected together so this metadata is really useless on a larger scale in the same way that METAtags are now almost redundant in HTML, or or the RIAA has been able to spoof meta data on P2P networks to fool fileswappers.
Re:200+? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you read the overview page or read any of the thousands of reviews around the net you'll get the major features. Of course, everyone here already knows them...
This is exactly the kind of detailed list that geeks should appreciate. All the Apple haters want to spin it as propaganda, but those of us seriously considering the upgrade might like to know these things. For instance, I don't consider OpenEXR support in Preview to be a major feature by any stretch, but it's something I'll use every day.
Now if they said 200+ new features and didn't list them then there would be a problem. Let the people judge for themselves I say.
Re:Typical (Score:1, Interesting)
I am not a geek, but a supervisor of geeks. I buy what they recommend. I skim Slashdot now and again to see how you - the expert computer community thinks. More and more, they (you) recommend Apple, for more and more applications and situations. Why would I pay their salaries if I didn't pay attention to their expertise? If a car engineer told me that yes, Mercedes DOES build their cars tremendously well, woudn't I listen?
Re:gcc 4.0? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Automater! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Spotlight (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to blow anything out of proportion, but think of Spotlight as being kind of like the first bitmapped graphics. What we're doing with it right now is cool. But what's really important is what it enables us to do in the future.
GPS-based locational metadata is just one example. Automatic speech-to-text transcription for audio recordings is another. (You wouldn't believe what vector processing can do for speech-to-text. I saw a demo where a high-quality, noiseless audio recording of an unaccented speaker was transcribed at 20x real-time on a single 2.0 GHz G5.)
Example: You're doing a multi-party teleconference. A recording is made of that teleconference (each angle), and separate audio tracks are recorded for each participant. In real time, your computer transcribes each voice track and stores it as ancillary content on the recording, content that Spotlight indexes for you. At any time, you can type "meeting in San Jose" into Spotlight, and it'll take you right to the angle and track on which your co-worker Laurent talked about next week's meeting in San Jose.
Think about more detailed logging. Right now your computer logs only the most rudimentary events, stuff that is of no interest to human beings. What if it could log everything? Right now you can say "Show me that file I worked on yesterday at two o'clock." But what if you could turn that around and say, "When and for how long did I work on this file?" That's vitally important to anybody who does billable work. Imagine if, through metadata and logging, your computer could automatically produce your time sheet for you?
Another type of automatically generated metadata we're experimenting with is relational metadata. Let's say you've got a picture of your dog on your computer. You e-mail it to your sister Jan. Your computer notes this as metadata on the photo so later you can ask your computer to show you what pictures you've sent to Jan.
Address Book is one area where relational metadata is pretty important. In Address Book, you put Jan and your brother Harry into a group called "Family." Both Jan and Harry, in their contact records, get metadata describing them as being members of the "Family" group. So later you can ask your computer to show you what pictures you've e-mailed to members of your family. Or received from members of your family. Or what pictures you've e-mailed to SOME members of your family but not ALL.
Let's say you take that picture of your dog and drop it in a Pages document, then export the document as a PDF and mail it to your sister Jan. The computer records, as metadata, the fact that that picture of your dog is related to Jan. It knows that put associated the picture with that Pages document, that the Pages document was associated with the PDF file, and that the PDF file was associated with an e-mail to Jan.
Now combine it with a gestural interface. Take two files, any two files. Say it's a PDF representing an invoice and a Photoshop file representing a poster you designed. You drag the invoice over the Photoshop file and a marking menu appears, giving you the option of establishing a relationship between the two files. If you want you can annotate the relationship. If you don't, you don't have to. The computer will simply note that a relationship exists.
Now extend that idea. Instead of it being two files, it can be two ANYTHING. Drag a contact from Address Book to a Pages document; up pops a marking menu asking you if you want to establish a relationship. Or an song from iTunes to a picture of your girlfriend. Or your daughter's birth certificate to her birthday in iCal.
The possibilities that Spotlight opens up are pretty inspiring. It's not just a desktop search tool. Yes, it makes that possible, but bleah. That's 20th-century thinking. That's you working in the way the computer wants. What's more important about Spotlight is the fact that it's an enabling technology that lets the computer work in the way you want.
There's some pretty exciting stuff coming in the next few years.
Discontinuous selection (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it is just me, but I like being able to do that!