The Roadmap to Leopard? 152
Alexandros Roussos writes with a link to the site MacScoop, which claims to have obtained a roadmap for the months leading up to Leopard's release. It's a straightforward article, stating how much access individuals outside the company will have access to the product prior to October. "Major build on early August - In a little more than a month, Apple's development team targets a feature-full build. The build that was provided to developers during the World Wide Developers Conference earlier this month is actually not totally feature frozen. Some minor features are currently being finished for the system. These features will arrive in the August build along with user-interface improvements, sources told MacScoop. If you expect major 'wow' features or interface changes, you will be disappointed. What we may expect is additional settings and [some] user interface polish[ing]. Among the most criticized parts of the new user interface [are] the new menu bar and Dock."
Agreed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm also curious about how they are handling mounted volumes. I noticed that they were not on the desktop anymore (yea! I hate using the desktop for anything but wallpaper). It didn't look like they were available in the dock though either. Is the finder sidebar the only place you will be able to find them now? I'd love it if they were accessible via a special stack in the dock, with newly inserted ones showing up on the top. I use DragThing right now to do something similar.
While I'm drifting off subject, I've wondered how the shared volumes will work for large networks. Jobs mentioned that any computer will automatically be found (via netbios or zeroconf?) and will show up in the finder sidebar. What happens if you are on a company or dorm network - hundreds of computers in the sidebar? I'd hope not. Maybe after a certain number of computers, it is replaced with a "see entire network link" where you can browse and/or pick which computers should be in the sidebar.
Re:The menu bar... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reflections from the dock are also very nice. It actually reflects everything, even video.
Re:The menu bar... (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless, I think the translucent menu is a good idea, and one that probably doesn't grab you at first, but takes some acclimation. Also, I think having it be configurable via System Preferences (or at least via defaults), is also a good idea.
Re:Blu-Ray & HDDVD Support? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Multitouch: Already there in Mac OS X 10.4 (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually you have (limited) Multitouch-capability already in OS X 10.4. The MacBooks' and MacBookPros' Trackpads will interpret actions you do with two fingers differently than actions you do with one finger. Examples:
click [one finger] = "left click"
click [two fingers] = "right click" ("control click" for you 1-button-mouse-maccies
drag [one finger] = nothing (unless trackpad-button is depressed, then it's "drag selected item")
drag [two fingers] = scroll horizontally or vertically, depending on direction of drag
The latter function (two-finger-scroll) is actually one of the nicest input-features i've ever encountered, right on par with the scroll-wheel (slightly better even, because it works horizontally too, without having to press any modifier key). I had heard about it and could not quite imagine how this would be good, but once I tried it I was hooked immediately.(*)
I, too, hope that Apple will expand the Multitouch-capabilities of their OS/Trackpads, but the basic functionality is already here.
(*) Yes, I know there were Trackpads before with dedicated strips for scrolling (or software, that would create a "scrolling-area" on your trackpad, but this works without having to think about where you put your fingers (and it works seamlessly in the x/y-directions).
Re:What I'd like to know (Score:1, Interesting)
OSX is Mac OS X, with extraneous bits removed (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct that this approach using a common code base for a mainstream OS and the "mobile version" is not true for Windows. Windows CE/PocketPC/Windows Mobil are radically different animals to the Windows 2000/XP/Vista operating systems that were contemporaneous with them. The early versions were actually forks from the Windows 95/98/ME code base.
This common code base between Macintosh and iPhone will prove to be a tremendous advantage to Apple as the OS X platform evolves. By contrast, Symbian has fractured into at least 3 different systems, Windows Mobile is a forked codebase from an old version of Windows, and there are at least several different Linux forks, each with a manufacturer custom middleware layer on top. It will be harder than people think for other cell phone manufacturers to catch up with, and keep up with, iPhone's OS X.
It's very likely that OS X has a great deal more in common with Mac OS X than you think. In fact, it's very likely to be built from the same source, managed in the very same respository (well, certain modules may have been forked during the secret R&D phase, but if it isn't already, it will be merged back in soon enough). I know that this is a little hard to believe, because there are too many examples to the contrary, which make it seem as if this must be "hard". However, it's really much more labor intensive to do this "wrong", e.g. to fork a code base then try to constantly back-port all the fixes and enhancements you get from the energy going into the main code branch.
If you want to better understand how this can work, examine two things. (1) The distinction between Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server is non existent. It's the only commercial operating system in the world where that's true. (One could argue that any version of FreeBSD or Linux can function equally well as a server and a client, but one could also argue that neither really functions all that well as a desktop/notebook client OS). (2) Consider the way that Cocoa applications are built for both PowerPC an
Mounted Volumes on Desktiop is a Finder option (Score:3, Interesting)