Jobs Previews Displays, Tiger at WWDC

DonaldGelman writes "Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display capable of displaying a resolution of 2560x1600. The display requires a new Nvidia card with 2 parallel DVI connections. The display is going to retail for $3299 in August, and the Nvidia card for around $599." Jobs also announced new 20- and 23-inch displays, for $1299 and $1999 in July. All three feature a new aluminum enclosure, and DVI. Also from WWDC...

Jobs also previewed Tiger, with Spotlight (fast iTunes-like searching in all apps, and systemwide), Dashboard (Konfabulator-like widgets combined with Exposé for fast showing/hiding), Automator (visual AppleScript, combining prewritten actions into scripts), H.264 code for QuickTime (high definition scalable video from MPEG), iChat AV conferencing (up to 10 for audio, four for video), RSS reading in Safari, Core Image and Core Video (realtime filters at the core OS level), and system-wide Sync Services. All of this is extensible (except for iChat conferencing), with SDKs available for developers. There's a lot here, and a more detailed description is forthcoming. Tiger will be available in the first half of 2005.

iPod SDK!

[American AC in Paris]

Dear Steve,

Could you give us an SDK for the iPod? We've been very good boys and girls this year, and we promise to be nice with it.

Thank you,
AAiP

P.S.: It'd be really cool if you could make it your "Oh, and one more thing..." We love it when you do that.

Re:iPod SDK!

[iJed]

Hey we've being given an iSync SDK this year. You can't have everything! ;-)

Re:iPod SDK!

[code shady]

Forget the iPod SDK, i want the iSync SDK.
I think it would be much much cooler to be able to write my own conduits to keep the information on my palm in sync with all the apple applications (iCal, Address Book, Mail, a bunch of others)

please, please, pleasepleaseplease! open up the iSync SDK!!!!

Re:iPod SDK!

[hondo77]

Behold! [apple.com]

Re:iPod SDK!

[Otto]

Most of the iPod's data files have already been worked out to a great degree. Not everything, mind you, but most of it. All the important bits, anyway. It just takes a bit of searching around.

I wrote a set of C++ classes for dealing with the iPod's data files, and with the help of Aero, we've refined it to cover just about everything in a plug-in for foobar 2000 called foo_pod [hydrogenaudio.org].

We're almost there with real, live updating, smart playlist support now (which no other third party iPod-capable app has yet, that I know of). Just a few minor things left to be done on the back end, and the interface sounds like it is coming along nicely. :)

There's very little an actual SDK could add at this point. When the iPod is connected to the computer, it just appears to be a hard drive to the computer. No special communication channels we can find at all.

Re:iPod SDK!

[dasmegabyte]

If Slashdot thinks that nobody will buy it, it is almost guaranteed that the display will be on backorder for the next six months.

This is because Slashdot is a community for people who don't realize that "doing something nobody else does" is worth it to many consumers.

Re:iPod SDK!

[dasmegabyte]

Wait -- you're claiming that slashdot, the community which buys every consumer device regardless of its original intent solely to take it apart and install Linux on it, knows the "true value of things?"

I'm sorry man, but in a capitalist society, the "true value of things" is set by how much people will pay for them. People will pay more than the selling price to get their hands on an iPod Mini. Most people won't even pay MSRP for a Creative Zen. This is because the iPod Mini is not, as you suggest, "worse" than most major mp3 players, but because it is better in every way the counts for a consumer device. It is easy and quick to learn, load and use. It has sufficiently long life and sufficiently good sound quality. It is small but sturdy and controllable with one hand. There are only two connectors to hook up and few external controls to break. It looks clean and nice(and isn't the least bit shiny, mind you). And it has a great warranty.

How is it worse than other players? Each of its competitors fails in one or more of the above strengths. Some have more features but a hideous interface. Some have a nice interface, but are too delicate. Only the cost, which enough people seem willing to pay to make it foolish for them to charge less, is consistantly "worse" than its competitors...but if you care so much about cost that you're willing to buy inferior goods, go get whatever RCA device they're selling at WalMart and give up the pretense that you want a hi-tech device. Price and quality are, aside from some really good deals, mutually exclusive -- because any company that cares enough to make real quality gear should be smart enough to charge for it.

Re:iPod SDK!

[daviddennis]

I think you greatly underestimate its appeal. It's expensive, but huge screen real estate is worth it. I have the 23" display right now, and there's little doubt that I will eventually (within a year or so) get the 30".

Video editors and - especially - motion graphics designers use every pixel of those huge screens. And they have the bucks to buy them, too.

The Cinema Display started at $3,999 in its time and it was a bestselling product. This display is actually cheaper than the original!

D

Re:iPod SDK!

[Anonymous Coward]

With such a huge screen, could this be an indication of a move into the family room? Or, AirTunes and Airport Extreme could be integrated with AirVideo using H264 and all Apple would need is a set top box (with DVI, similar to El Gato's Eye Home) and bam... a user would have access to all content on their mac in another room on their "TV" or any other display hooked into a set top box, with remote of course. Using that bandwidth couldn't they set up dumb clients that could run applications off a family server as well? Crazy theories are fun!

Re:iPod SDK!

[daviddennis]

You could do that, and it would be a Good Thing, but I think a $3,800 screen isn't that likely to appeal to the average householder.

Or maybe not. Here's a 30" flat panel TV [epinions.com] that runs for $3,500 and has pretty low resolution. The Apple display makes that unit look like a joke, at least in resolution terms.

D

Re:iPod SDK!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Video editors and - especially - motion graphics designers use every pixel of those huge screens.

Absolutely. The 30" display is big enough to have a full-size HD window with plenty of round around it for UI stuff like your timeline.

On a 1920x1200 monitor, you either have to work in proxy view (ugh) or you have to live with a tiny strip of UI at the very bottom. The 30" screen fixes this.

Re:iPod SDK!

[NanoGator]

"Could you please stop making stuff that only 2 people in the world will buy? (i.e. that $3500 30" Display that requires a special graphics card)"

A.) It'll drive down the price of current LCD's.

B.) It's not for you Mr. Sixpack, it's for us artists. We plunk down $3000 -- $4000 once in a while for stuff like this.

Re:iPod SDK!

[NanoGator]

"B.) It's not for you Mr. Sixpack, it's for us artists. We plunk down $3000 -- $4000 once in a while for stuff like this."

Just wanted to apologize to everybody. That sounded elitist. I didn't mean for it to.

I'll add a lil more info here: The ability to see that many pixels on the screen is VERY important. Imagine trying to work at theater resolution (>2,000 pixels...) and only seeing a small chunk at a time, or seeing it downsized to where some of the detail is lost. That's problematic. Monitors that can run at >1,600 pixels are hard to come by. So if Apple is successful here, it'll drive prices down. Either we snag the Apple monitor, or the lower budget places get more bang for their buck.

That's why I was offended at the previous poster's comment. I wasn't trying to say "Im better than you", but rather "you're not the only person in the world". Sorry I didn't communicate that more clearly the first time.

Re:iPod SDK!

[Pieroxy]

Their market shares doesn't stop at a vague percentage. Their market share is much more than 2% in three domains:
1. Editing
2. Digital imaging studios
3. Medical imaging

And incidently, those are markets where people (or companies) are likely to spend $3500 in big screens.

It looks like M. Jobs is not that stupid after all. It looks like it's a good think he is leading Apple and not you.

Re:iPod SDK!

[ScottGant]

You left out the biggest market share...the multi-billion dollar-a-year printing industry. Macs totally and completely rule this still.

After all these years, Macs still run that industry. Sure, there are people that use PC's in the industry, but they are very few and far between.

But, from what I've seen in my travels around printing, it's dying a slow death thanks to online content. Packaging is the place to be in printing/graphic arts now adays...just FYI for you youngsters out there looking to get into the industry.

Re:iPod SDK!

[bursch-X]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...

Slashdot?

Microsoft...

[smaug195]

Let the copying of Tiger features into Longhorn... begin!

Re:Microsoft...

[sam_doshi]

Actually I think Apple are already on to this: See here [gizmodo.com]

Re:Microsoft...

[eyeball]

Apple thought of this already. One of the banners at WWDC said "Introducing Longhorn" as well as a few other jabs at MS.

Re:Microsoft...

[gl4ss]

you got it wrong, the longhorn dev cycle is nearing the point at which they will silently start dropping years ago announced features.

yes I'm trying to be funny/sarcastic().

Re:Microsoft...

[dasmegabyte]

What, you mean like the indexing of all content based on meta data?

Of course, Longhorn's implementation of this by filesystem is completely different from Apple's implementation of it (creation of XML files which are then compiled into a fast, easy to read database)...but the end result will be transparent to the user. It's a chicken-and-egg thing. Apple started indexing content by metadata in Sherlock and the iLife apps. Microsoft says, "yeah, well we're gonna build it into our OS!" So Apple breaks out the Sherlock system and integrates it into the GUI...thus making it LOOK like an OS.

Off topic, check out which site they chose for the screenshot of RSS in Safari [apple.com]. Cowboy Neal is famous once again!

Re:I think the important part

[dasmegabyte]

nuts. I was hoping MS would force us to drop to dos and a do a

dir select *.* from files where artist like '%Dylan%' and type IN ('AAC','MP3','M4P','M4A')

Re:Microsoft...

[cpt kangarooski]

No, a lot of those choices were made during the 80's, when no one else was doing anything like what Apple did, at least not to a significant enough degree to matter.

SCSI was adopted in 1985 for the Mac Plus. ATA was just being developed at about that time, and certainly was no standard (nor all that good).

The single mouse button was settled on sometime prior to mid-1981. The reasoning was basically that the three button mouse on the Xerox Alto had been confusing -- none of the buttons had any standard uses, apparently, and they were called the Red, Yellow, and Blue buttons, but the mouse had black buttons. A one button mouse simplified use and documentation.

As for multitasking, the Mac was never really designed to do that to begin with. So it was always something of a hack. That being said, most personal computers didn't multitask, or likewise had cooperative models, at the time these decisions were made.

You youngsters -- you don't realize that a lot of important things happened in the 70's and 80's that still strongly influence what we've got now.

Re:Microsoft...

[dasmegabyte]

Apple's had a bunch of failures [kernelthread.com]. It's called "research and development." Whenever things get too complex and wierd to support the current appbase, they get the kuybosh and whatever's left is folded into the mainstream. In fact, I'm sure in about ten years we'll start hearing tales of all the cool OSX/iLife/iTMS/iTunes related functionality we'll never see, because it was just too wierd.

You may joke...

[lxt]

...but the actual promotional banners Apple are using at WWDC for Tiger have the strapline "Redmond, start your photocopiers".

Although ironically, Steve Jobs noted in the keynote speech that he "ran into Bill Gates a few weeks ago and his company
feels that their relationship with Apple is better than ever."

I think there's some pics of the banners at macrumors.com...

Re:Microsoft...

[tritone]

Apple certainly doesn't seem cowed by Microsoft. There were three big banners at the WWDC dissing MS. One said "Redmond, start your photocopiers," One said "Introducing Longhorn" (above an image of a Tiger CD), and one "Redmond, we have a problem. Curiously, pictures are onPaul Thurrott's decidedly anti-Apple blog. [internet-nexus.com]

Re:Microsoft...

[jford235]

banner pictures [gizmodo.com]

Slashdot and CowboyNeal on the Apple site!

[llamafirst]

So, how did CowboyNeal and Slashdot.org get into the image at the top of this page on the Apple site? Sucking up to Slashdot, perhaps? :-)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/safari.html [apple.com]

Also, those who are FIREFLY fans will note the movie is mentioned in the post...

Spotlight != LaunchBar

[Watts Martin]

At least, that's not quite the way I read it, although there's obvious functionality overlap. It looks like Spotlight is taking advantage of the metadata search system in Tiger -- this sounds to me a lot like an implementation of BeOS's beautiful search functionality. (Panther is there in the speed, but BeOS allowed all that useful metadata searching that Panther's system doesn't -- Tiger's apparently does.)

One difference from Konfabulator

[Anaphiel]

In the most recent build of Konfabulator, with the "Konspose" feature that Apple seems to be aping, all of your widgets stay visible at all times, and hitting the Konspose key brings them to the front and screens the rest of your apps behind a textured background.

In Apple's version, the widgets are hidden until the dashboard is activated, at which time they slide to the foreground.

In my opinion, Apple's solution is a lot more elegant, and one I'd actually use. It's a subtle difference, but it's different. I also applaud the addition of the widget launcher... much better than having all widgets running at all times.

The argument is really about whether this is a rebirth of Apple's old Desk Accessory application type or just a ripoff of the Konfabulator widget idea, or some hybrid of the two.

Re:Microsoft...

[ljavelin]

Sorry, but Konfabulator simply isn't worth a "overflowing wheelbarrow of cash". I wish I could say it is. But it isn't.

Just like menubar clock. It's a great idea, almost natural. But does that mean it's worth a ton of money? No.

The real money is, and should be, in real user-centric applications, like spreadsheets, word processing, graphics processing, etc. Typically OS vendors move into "utility" space, but NOT into application space. The exception is Microsoft, which dominates both. Apple only dominates when there is a "missing or poorly supported piece", such as Keynote and Safari.

Re:Microsoft...

[Trillan]

Konfabulator is just desk accessories, using Javascript instad of C. Sorry, that refinement is not worth a wheelbarrow of cash. I have every sympathy for Arlo and Perry, but it just isn't that unique an idea. I mean, Mac has provided desk "widgets" without Javascript in 1984... and Windows did it with Javascript in 1998.

On the other hand, Spotlight sounds nothing like Launchbar. TFG. Have you actually tried Launchbar?

Wheel Barrel of Money?

[tyrione]

For what? For writing some cool widgets that acess interfaces Apple published allowing for that functionality to be capitalized on by themselves and any one else?

You're acting like this Service is something that would take years of design/development to produce when these add-ons were sitting around Apple Engineering for years as fun experiments for core engineers. How do I know this? When I worked there they had plenty of 'cool' prototype ideas just waiting to be added into the OS. How do you think they are able to always add 150 new features with each new full version?

What's next? Pay everyone who contributed to the development of XML now that Apple is integrating it into their OS? That seems to be a bit more impressive, just like the new MPEG-4, Part 10 Codecs.

To those who ask "What's WWDC?"...

[tcopeland]

... it's Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference [apple.com].

Re:To those who ask "What's WWDC?"...

[Kenja]

I prefer to think of it as What we Would have Done with Copland.

SHHHH....

[Frac]

If it's quiet around you, you can probably hear the collective screaming of the Longhorn team from Redmond WA that sounds like "AGHGHGHGHHGHHHHHH!!!!"

"Peter, did you copy all that down?"
"I got only the first half before I fainted. You?"
"I got most of it. Ok, the Longhorn features spec meeting is Wednesday morning, we have two days to put all that new Tiger stuff in!"

Re:SHHHH....

[eyeball]

If it's quiet around you, you can probably hear the collective screaming of the Longhorn team from Redmond WA that sounds like "AGHGHGHGHHGHHHHHH!!!!"

"Peter, did you copy all that down?"
"I got only the first half before I fainted. You?"
"I got most of it. Ok, the Longhorn features spec meeting is Wednesday morning, we have two days to put all that new Tiger stuff in!"

Wow, it's going to be such a long time before Microsoft copies OSX Tiger, and Linux gets around to copying Microsoft Longhorn. Attention Linux developers: cut out the middle-man and start copying Tiger directly.

Re:SHHHH....

[sammy baby]

Believe me, Apple is running that joke into the ground [gizmodo.com] (note the picture).

Screen Shots on Cinema Displays

[umrgregg]

For those of you wondering where the pictures on the cinema displays came from it's the Jungfrau Region of Switerland. The valley is the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Now if I could only get the display to go with the picture...

Safari RSS Screenshot

[Apollo]

A nice Safari RSS screenshot [apple.com], starring our favorite site.

Yum

[transient]

Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display

Can you say "purchase order?" I'll take five.

Good move to DVI

[Dark Paladin]

Apple tends to succeed better when they adopt the standards (USB, Firewire, etc) rather than go it their own (ADC over DVI, for example).

I've been contemplating one of these screens, but never wanted to commit because I couldn't just slap in a KVM for my other machines (mainly the Windows 98 Box fo' Games and my wife's Windows 98 Box fo' Work Crap). Now, I don't have any excuse!

(Looks at price tag.)

Well, I guess I still have one....

Re:Good move to DVI

[technothrasher]

Apple tends to succeed better when they adopt the standards (USB, Firewire, etc) rather than go it their own

Not to be nit-picky, but Firewire doesn't really illustrate your point. Apple didn't adopt Firewire. Apple invented Firewire instead of using the standard (USB).

Re:Good move to DVI

[smileyy]

Different technologies. Apple needed to be able to do high-speed isochronous data transfer. Try taking input from a video camera over USB (especially USB 1.0, which was all there was when FireWire came out).

Re:Good move to DVI

[solios]

True, but USB still sucks for video. Namely, USB bandwidth (including usb2) is BURST. Meaning that's the most you CAN get out of it, if you're lucky, and not for long. Firewire bandwidth is SUSTAINED- meaning it's There. All the time.

You can chain four ATA-100 drives in firewire enclosures into one daisy-chain running into a single firewire jack and you'll barely saturate the bus. Compare to USB, which can't be chained. :-|

Re:Good move to DVI

[John Newman]

The real reason they dropped ADC was that they realized there was a limit to how much power you could push through the video card, and the 23" display was right about at that limit. If you check Apple's tech specs, you'll see that the 30" display has a 150W power supply - it simply needs a separate cord and brick. And once you're resigned to having two cables, it makes little sense to nitpick about having three. I like how they've at least bundled them at the monitor end, though.

right-on rumor [thinksecret.com]

Longhorn like requirements!

[iJed]

The new advanced video technologies (core image) seem to have longhorn like requirements:

ATI Radeon 9800 XT

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

ATI Radeon 9600 XT

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

Seems some current Mac models will not support this! You can bet there will now be users who think that 10.4 will not run on their machine just because core image/video does not. They just won't get the advanced new graphics.

Re:Longhorn like requirements!

[Libertius]

"The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac."

Speed

[scrotch]

I'm hoping that the increases in speed seen in the last upgrades continue for "older" machines. I'm assuming so based on what Apple has posted on their website, but a lot of that is G5 performance info.

I'm hoping that the "instant search of everything" feature, which I'll almost never use if my current searching is any indication, won't bog down the system while indexing everything.

All in all, not too revolutionary. Which is just fine with me. I think Panther is damn nice and would rather they spent time cleaning up and helping developers make their apps more reliable than anything else.

10.4 Server

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Not announced on stage, but previewed off, is 10.4 Server [apple.com]: includes 100% 64bit libs, ACLs, iChat server, SUS. Also includes NT migration tool, improved email, and a one-click SOHO setup. Nice bump.

Jabber based iChat server

[Libertius]

"You can now host your own iChat server. Instant Messaging serves as a vital means of communication for organizations of all sizes, so it's useful to deploy and run your own private and secure IM server. Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, using SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy, and Kerboros for authorization. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs."

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/

Apple Did It Again!

[RAMMS+EIN]

So, they did it again. They released the new version of their software, and it has real new features that really enhance the experience and could really compel me to buy it. Hopefully they have also fixed some of the issues I had with especially Safari (unusable while loading slow page) and iChat (goes bad after receiving voice chat invite behind firewall).

Uh-Oh - Konfabulator

[Dark Paladin]

Remember Watson? Remember how Sherlock 3 basically became Watson?

Remember Konfabulator [konfabulator.com] with all of its widgets? Well, now Tiger's going to have Dashboard [apple.com]. I wonder if it will accept Konfabulator widgets (which I've been using) or if there will be an "import" program? And Konfabulator 1.7 just added Expose-like features (press F8 to get your Widgets in front - useful).

Granted, Apple had something like this back in the older Mac days (or so I've read here and there), so it's kind of like they're "bringing back" something old into the new - but if you're an Apple developer, it seems as though there's always the fear that your favorite app will get assimilated into the next version of OS X.

Granted, I like OS X (my work is buying me a new Powerbook in about a week - yay me), but it does kind of make you go "Hm".

Most important: 64-bit

[homb]

Well finally OS X will have 64-bit pointers and long longs.
I've been waiting for that feature for a while now and to me that's the most valuable thing, along with Xcode being updated to take advantage of the LP64 model.

Up until now, the 64-bit G5 processor was rather wasted.

HFS+ support, SQLite, etc.

[This is outrageous!]

Three bits I found interesting here [apple.com]: in Tiger,

• UNIX utilities such as cp, tar and nsync can properly handle HFS+ resource forks
• command-line access to Spotlight
• new Open Source libraries for XML transformations (libxslt [xmlsoft.org]) and data persistence (SQLite [sqlite.org])

What would Tony say?

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display capable of displaying a resolution of 2560x1600

Jobs also previewed Tiger

There Grrrrrrreaat!

Geezus, people...

[HarveyBirdman]

You're correcting the grammar of a tiger.

Sheesh!

nVidia SLI

[mhesseltine]

Aha! So this is why nVidia has been working on the 2 card video load balancing system.

Fortunately...

[stienman]

Fortunately they also announced these products to the development teams today.

In other news, starbucks stores around the Apple campus are open 24 hours a day over this summer...

-Adam

Apple drops MSFT stock price

[Random BedHead Ed]

Hey, check out the Dashboard page here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html [apple.com]

On the simulated Dashboard you can have all sorts of nifty mini-programs called Widgets. One of Apple's sample programs is a stock price table, and they're up 7.36 percent. Microsoft is the only stock on the fictional list that's down. Direct link to the image here [apple.com].

Nice to see Apple's sense of humor. And in fact this sort of functionality is a real smack in the face to Redmond, who have updated little on their desktop (XP) in three years, while Apple has had three release cycles that have been better each time.

Metadata

[RAMMS+EIN]

I have been asking myself how long till Apple would put metadata to good use, and if it would be before WinFS and Reiser4. Well, it looks like the answer is here [apple.com].

still no virtual desktops?

[Colonel Panic]

No mention of virtual desktops in Tiger, so for now we have to assume it isn't going to get them.

Seems like a no-brainer to at least include an option for virtual desktops if you would like to use them.

Oh well, at least there's Desktop manager [sourceforge.net]. Still it would be great if this were built-in.

Re:still no virtual desktops?

[Dixie_Flatline]

I was a big fan of virtual desktops when I was using Linux, and I have 8 (EIGHT!) virtual desktops here at work. At home, I haven't even bothered to look for something to handle that since expose. I find Expose cooler, more convenient and faster to use than multiple desktops. Get a mouse with a few extra buttons, and bind the expose commands to those extra buttons. It changes the whole experience.

Apple is 1337!

[metalligoth]

If you look at the calculator in the Dashboard demo [apple.com], you'll notice it says 1.337!

I love a company with a sexy UNIX based OS and a sense of humor.

8 million pixels? Chump....

[Ancil]

Hell, if you want to spend some real money, buy one of these babies [viewsonic.com].

3840 x 2400. 9,216,000 pixels for about $6,300. Per pixel, that's cheaper than buying two 30" Cinema displays.

Re:8 million pixels? Chump....

[John Whitley]

I've seen this display (actually, IBM's Roentgen display, the immediate predecessor of the Viewsonic model). It is utterly fantastic, with some caveats.

It was originally designed to have the resolution and quality needed for certain xray diagnostics and other image-sensitive telemedicine applications as a primary market (thus the Roentgen name -- the discoverer of X-Rays). One of the demos I saw used a modified version of (IIRC) Framemaker to display a document with footnotes with a 4pt physical size. The serifs on the font were clearly visible, with no eyestrain (due to the monitor, anyways ;-) or blockyness. The detail on high-res museum art scans was astonishing.

HOWEVER, this is roughly a 200dpi display -- current operating systems simply aren't designed for screens with pixel density this high. GUI widgets and text are often ridiculously small.

That, plus the original display required a four-head graphics card (or cards w/ four total outputs) to drive it. Looks like the newer Viewsonic uses four separate DVI-D connections.

Gotta Love Wall Streets Reaction

[tyrione]

Most people up on stocks knows that Merrill Lynch was predicting new iMac announcements at WWDC.

They don't announce them and like pouting children Wall Street responds by punishing the stock down nearly $1.25.

I personally think Steve loves to poke at them once in a while.

I expect the iMac to be announced closer to August in time to hit a big splash with the Education sector once again.

Am I the only one...

[AusG4]

Am I the only one who is could care less about Tiger and more about XCode 2? I hope not. I'm not that much of a loser, am I? :)

Two words, one hyphenated:

auto-vectorizing compiler.

For those wondering what this is ... what really sets the G4 and the G5 apart from the P4 and Opteron is the presence of the VMX/Altivec/Velocity Engine unit (to use AIM/Motorola/Apple nomenclature). This unit allows you to process up to 4 32-bit values (128-bits) at the same time with one instruction (Single Instruction, Multiple Data).

Intel CPU's do have this technology as well, although it's half the width (64-bits at a time, rather than 128-bit).

When Apple posts benchmarks showing their machines to be faster than x86 machines, the benchmarks almost always make heavy use of these SIMD instructions... and rightly so. A vectorized application can be enormously fast compared to it's analog floating point/integer application.

The problem is that the SIMD instructions are relatively tough to use... you have to be very careful when taking advantage of them, otherwise your applications could actually run -slower-.

With the auto-vectorizing version of GCC included with XCode 2, we could start to see see some very respectable performance coming out of Macintosh applications in the future. Obviously you probably won't be able to simply recompile your application, but surely taking advantage of the auto-vectorization will be far easier than writing to the standard vec_x functions.

Re:Am I the only one...

[WasterDave]

I wouldn't hold your breath. I've used intel's "auto vectorizing" compiler, and truth be told it doesn't auto vectorise shit. You need to write your loops in such a way that there's no way it can bail before the end of the loop, and ... I can't remember ... other stuff. Point is that I found it both easier and faster to use the built in MMX primitives (it was integer math) and go back to using gcc.

Altivec has another problem. The data structures *have* to be aligned on a 16 byte boundary. Note that this is not a "runs really slowly if it's misaligned" thing, this is a "comes to a complete screeching halt" thing. Moving between Altivec and scalar registers is also incredibly slow - it's necessary to write the data to memory then read it back in, meaning you need to move at least one cacheline in the process.

On the plus side, when you do get it right, Altivec f'kin screams along. You can do almost anything with it and be bandwidth limited on a G4. Dunno about a G5 - there are some _more_ limitations to using altivec on a G5 too.

Look into the gcc primitives, it's surprisingly easy.

Dave

Re:Am I the only one...

[barawn]

Intel CPU's do have this technology as well, although it's half the width (64-bits at a time, rather than 128-bit).

The MMX registers are 64 bit, although they're not the main limitation of the MMX implementation. For some inane reason, Intel decided to use the floating point registers for integer data (namely, MMX registers) and so MMX doesn't require additional registers to be added. However, since you're absconding with the floating-point hardware, you can't do floating point math at the same time, and you have to save the state of the floating point hardware before you switch to MMX. In other words, MMX was... "interesting", but in the end, not that useful. After all, for one thing, it eliminated your floating point capability unless you wanted to context-switch out. (AMD's 'improvement' to that was 3DNow! which was basically "MMX that you can use for floating point as well!" - okay, better, but ... it still kinda sucked).

AltiVec didn't have those limitations - it was very, very improved over MMX.

SSE, however, *did* add 8 new registers, and 128-bit wide objects, for floating point. So an x86 processor with SSE extensions does have 128-bit vector abilities, albeit in floating point. Vectorized integer math is a little rare (hence why MMX isn't that useful anyway) so AltiVec and SSE are actually pretty comparable. AltiVec does have 32 registers (which makes sense, of course, given PPC's 32 register scheme), whereas SSE only has 8 registers. I'm sure some comp. eng. person can come along and tell me why it's efficient to have vector hardware that's the same depth as your register hardware (as x86 has 8 registers and 8 SSE registers, and x86-64 has 16 SSE registers, and 16 normal registers)

(SSE2 basically said "OK, MMX really blew - now you can just use the SSE registers for integer as well.")

When Apple posts benchmarks showing their machines to be faster than x86 machines, the benchmarks almost always make heavy use of these SIMD instructions... and rightly so.

When Apple used to post benchmarks. A modern G5 can keep pace with top end Athlons and P4s anyday, without any specialized benchmarks. Be nice to Apple - the days of the "G3 is 50% faster than a Pentium II using Photoshop's 'G3K1ckZA$$' filter on a mostly-red image of a cow... on Tuesdays!" are over, thank God. And if you had vectorized code on the x86 (using SSE), the comparison wouldn't be that unequal, unless it was heavily biased towards the PPC's obvious strengths (high register count). Then again, it's not like the x86 has any real strengths anyway...

But anyway, my point was that the SIMD implementation on x86 isn't really very different than on the PPC, once you count SSE. SSE is register-starved compared to PPC, sure, but so is x86 in general. x86-64 removes that last limitation (mostly, 16 registers is still starved compared to 32, I guess) but I doubt there would be a big performance jump going from 16 128-bit registers to 32 128-bit registers. There's not a ton of code that could efficiently utilize that. There is *some*, sure, but not a lot.

Re:Now this is exciting...

[FirstTimeCaller]

I knew I picked a bad week to not be rich.

Re:Now this is exciting...

[NaugaHunter]

If their high-end Mac starts at $3K, the iMac base is $1300, the lowest iBook is $1100, and the eMac is $800, what do you consider MID-RANGE?????

This is about as insightful as saying BMW can't compete with a used Hyundai.

To lessen the Flamebait aspect, quality costs money or time. If you want to build your own hot-rod in the back yard over a year that's great, but don't go pooh-poohing my brand new Corvette over it.

Re:Now this is exciting...

[hackstraw]

I think the i-line [apple.com] of products or e-line [apple.com] of products might be more what your looking for. Or you could just settle for something else [dell.com].

Re:Now this is exciting...

[dasmegabyte]

NEWSFLASH!!! Most consumer goods come out of the same plants as other goods. And yet, the quality is vastly different between them. The VALUE is in the design, not just of the outside, but of the inside. If you spec out a monitor with substandard parts in an inefficient layout, your Chinese fab will deliver a monitor with those parts in that layout whether it's right or not. After all, they have your reconditioning contract, too.

Take the hook off a Mac desktop and compare the internals to any PC desktop. Looks the same -- from three feet away. Get any closer and you realize how different the "commodities" really are.

If you don't care about such things, fine. Use what you want to use. Just realize that you can throw together eggs, ham and butter and still make a shitty omelette.

Re:Okay

[pi8you]

Apple's basically gone and done their own version of the coolness that is Konfabulator [konfabulator.com], little widgets that do a variety of things.

Re:Okay

[GraWil]

It seems even the Konfabulator authors are surprised [konfabulator.com] by this. Even as a mac fan, I think it is reprehensible.

Re:Okay

[allgood2]

I would say there are more Konfabulator users that were surprised and or upset than its developers. The Konfabulator idea has been around for a long time, since early 90's. It's just that Arlo and crew had the best implementation around that I've ever seen.

If Apple wants the developers code, it will purchase. Its done so with Soundjam (which became iTunes) and other applications. If your idea just furthered their idea, then obviously they just go with theirs. According to the preview Dashboard will have its on SDK kit. That said, it may be possible for people to develop simultaneously for both Dashboard and Konfabulator, but that depends more on the backend engine.

I really LOVE Konfabulator, but that said, Apple has already addressed the one biggest issue I have with it--desktop clutter. Sure its cool to have the weather, newsfeeds, post-its, etc. all providing you continous data on your desktop, but they also just clutter up your desktop, having them exist off-screen and come on with a function key is a perfect idea. A bring the widgets out to play, now put your toys away concept.

:| Damn it Apple.

[Aqua OS X]

Konfabulator was a very original piece of software. I can't think of anything else like it. Apparently, Arlo can't as well... and he once worked as a UI designer for Apple.

Dashboard is practically a direct rip-off of Konfabulator. It comes with similar default "widgets," widgets are transparent and glossy, and new widgets can be developed with JS.

Moreover, Apparently Konfabulator is very popular at Apple and Pixar (lots of registered Apple and Pixar users). Schiller supposedly loves the damn thing.

I have no problems with Apple adding something like this into MacOS. However, once they start stomping on the rights of small developers, that's fucking low. This is the second time they've done this, and this time it's an even more blatant case of copyright infringement.

If Apple had developed Konfabulator, and Arlo had developed dashboard 1 year later, Arlo would've been nailed by Apple's legal department.

Why should we even attempt to develop platform specific utilities and software for OS X? If it becomes popular, Apple is going to snag it, make money off of it, and not compensate the original authors.

Re::| Damn it Apple.

[jlaxson]

How is it copyright infringement? Unless apple copied/stole the code from Konfabulator, it's perfectly legal.

Re::| Damn it Apple.

[Binary Boy]

I completely disagree - the only thing unique about Konfabulator was the sexy look, and much of that is inspired by OSX itself.

ControlStrip on the classic Mac OS, DesktopX, and many other projects have provided lightweight "applets" in various ways for years. In fact, these are also quite similar to the menu bar applets on OSX, though now liberated from the cramped menu bar.

What are the "rights of small developers"? Which aspect of Konfab is unique in the scope of computing? This reeks of the Watson/Sherlock "controversy", but only in that a developer creates a relatively sexy but not novel UI, and Apple eventually adopts a similar approach to solve the same problems for its users.

It's hard to define where Apple should stop and third-party tools should begin. I see people confusing superficial similarities for innovation being crushed - at what point does Apple stop improving OSX and require its users to buy third-party products?

There will no doubt be others crying about the RSS aggregator, but again these are similar solutions because they are solving the same problems for users. Should Apple just stick to the desktop and the Dock and leave all future goodness to shareware authors?

I love shareware on OSX, I support it religiously, but at some point there has to be an acknowledgement that OS vendors will encroach as user needs are identified. I would love to see Apple develop a grant program or something similar, to honor those developers who lead the way, but I don't think it's an option to just hold back the OS.

Not original at all

[Trillan]

Konfabulator is not an original idea at all, sorry. Classic Mac OS had desk accessories since 1984, Windows 98 had its Active Desktop (which nobody ever used because it was too unstable, but did much the same thing). The only thing new here is using Javascript, and Windows did that almost a decade ago.

I have sympathy for Perry and Arlo, but I'm not about to vilify Apple over bringing DAs into the 21st century.

Re:Okay

[RickHunter]

Yes, it's such a shame that Apple "ripped off" an idea that they developed in the first place! Talk about bad apples on the part of the Konfabulator folks. They rip off Apple, hope no-one calls them on it, then flip out when Apple puts the functionality back into their OS because they discovered that people found it useful.

To the Konfabulator folks: deal. Or innovate. Don't rip off an idea a company implemented over ten years ago and complain when they implement it again.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Okay

[TomorrowPlusX]

As sarcastic as it sounds, it's true. The Desk Accessories weren't *real* apps, just little buggers running in an early 1980's kind of multitasking mode.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macinto sh &story=Puzzle.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detai l=medium&search=Desk%20Accessory

So yes, it's a rip off of Konfabulator. But Konfabulator was a rip off of Apple's original. Sort of like how Apple did labels in pre-OS X and Unsanity provided them as an APE module. Then Apple re-integrated them in OS X.

What matters here is it's still an opportunity for 3rd parties to provide a superior alternative to a basic function provided by Apple. Watson is better than Sherlock. xPad is better than stickies. Camino is better than Safari. ( of course, these are all arguable )

Ho hum. I don't really care. But from a usability standpoint it's a *great* idea to have my sticky notes *appear* ( rather than fly away ) when I move my mouse cursor to a certain corner. I like the sound of that, since I use stickies all the time.

Re:see konfabulator

[edalytical]

No, this will probably help the Konfabulator people. Up until today I had no idea Konfabulator existed. Now that this is an Apple sanctioned technology people are going to go looking for new widgets. All the Konfabulator developers have to do is rewrite the widgets with the new APIs and they'll instantly expand their potential user base from the small minority of user that had heard of them to everyone who runs Tiger. Sound like a good thing to me.

Now on the other hand all this looks surprisingly similar to my own application Watch It. [verticaleye.net] But I'm just going to rewrite it-- no bitching here. I was even thinking about writing a calculator using the same basic design, transparent and resizable. But I thought no one would use it so I haven't created the application which would be trivial. Now, however, I might reconsider writing it, because there are going to be a lot of users still using Panther and earlier after this comes out.

You missed the important part.

[Anonymous Coward]

These new displays are:

1. Larger

2. Use DVI instead of ADC, so you don't have to have mac hardware to use them.

Re:You missed the important part.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 30-inch needs DVI Dual-Link [ddwg.org] (DDL), instead of Single-Link. The docs and presentations are really directed towards people who would be buying a mac to use this with. The 'Apple Display Technology' PDF that's linked on their website about the new displays says you can use the 30-inch on a WIndows PC if the card there handles DVI Dual-Link.

The dual-port DVI card lets you connect two 30-inch displays to one machine. The 30-inch display doesn't use both DVI ports on the card.

Re:Why do they keep doing this.

[Trillan]

I really hate reading this panic "they're stealing!" attitude every time.

Let's do a review here, okay?"

• 1984: Apple introduces desk accesories. Little programs that go anywhere on the desktop and can be run in parallel to other applications.
• 1986-ish: Apple introduces Multifinder.
• 1990-ish: Apple introduces System 7, and deprecates DAs.
• 1998: Windows 98, complete with active desktop and on-desktop widgets.
• 2000-ish: Apple introduces Mac OS X. Widgets now go in the dock.
• 2002-ish: Apple moves widgets to the menu bar.
• 2003-ish: Konfabulator is born.
• 2004: Apple moves widgets to the desktop and adds javascript.

Frankly, Konfabulator was a low hanging fruit. It didn't really introduce anything except using Javascript, it just tied together a batch of old technology with a very old Apple idea. It's common sense to realize that Apple would move widgets back onto the desktop and add Javascript support once they realized how well it would work out. About the only thing you can really take issue with is Apple's decision to use Javascript.

Re:Why do they keep doing this.

[Damek]

You're right, I don't think spotlight seems like LaunchBar - but it does remind me a lot of Quicksilver [blacktree.com]. But that doesn't mean these are new ideas...

Re:Why do they keep doing this.

[MoneyT]

There are two main differences that I see between Konfabulator and Dashboard, and they're important to me.

1) Konfabulator costs money. It's a nice app, it really is. I used it for a while, but it's not to me, worth the $25 they want for it.

2) Konfabulator doesn't hide itself until I need it. It's always there, sitting on the desktop or flaoting above everything else. Dashboard appears only when I want it to and then goes away.

Well that is the problem when you make OS Tools.

[jellomizer]

When you make tools that enhance the OS, For any OS. You suffer the risk that the OS maker will use it in the next version. In general this is better off for the consumers. Because they don't have to search for a tool that they don't know that they need, then pay extra money for it. But if your tool enhances the interface (Apple's bread and butter selling point), they will take it (if they can) or buy it (if they have to) to put it in their software to make it better.
So if you want to make a living off your tools you better copyright or paten it, so Apple will need to pay for it to put it in their next OS.

Well

[sulli]

You should simply never buy anything, and that way you'll never have that problem.

Re:Is it just me...

[Radon Knight]

Also, for the developers here, Apple's Core Image [apple.com] technology sounds pretty cool. Basically, Core Image means that any developer can write code that offloads image processing work to the GPU without knowing anything about how to program the GPU. It's an abstraction layer that allows real-time image manipulations. Instead of applying a filter to a graphic in the GIMP and then having to wait as it munches through it in the CPU, the application of a filter can be offloaded to the GPU which will then burn through it, giving much faster (in many cases, real-time) previews.

That's a pretty neat innovation, in my book. Is it major? Well, no, probably not. But it doesn't take a whole lot of stand-alone "hey, neat!" innovations before they start to add up to something substantial.

Re:Sent to Apple Feedback

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for Konfabulator, which I never really found useful, but LaunchBar is already facing stiff competition from QuickSilver [blacktree.com], a free and considerably more intuitive work-alike.

I don't know where you get the idea that Apple is replacing these programs. When they released Safari, did everybody stop using other web browsers? Does nobody use Entorage or MailSmith or Eudora just because Apple includes Mail? Are people going to stop using NetNewsWire just because you can read RSS feeds in Safari now? Don't people use VLC dispite QuickTime?

crushing the very developers that make people switch to the Mac because of the cool things that shareware developers do.

I don't know about you, but I switched because of the things that Apple had developed.

Re:A suggestion

[Have Blue]

Rotating the display is supported on Macs on the Radeon 9800; the retail cards can do it out of the box, the OEM cards require a driver hack.

Re:Problem with nVidia dual-channel DVI

[iplead5th]

They are using Dual-link DVI.

Go to the web page Apple.com [apple.com]

They are using a special NVIDIA card:

" The groundbreaking new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra delivers the industry's first 16-pipe superscalar architecture and support for the world's fastest DDR3 memory to raise the bar for 3D graphics performance. The specifications of the GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU, are stunning: Using over 220 million transistors it supports a 256-bit interface for an effective memory bandwidth of 35.2 GB per second which delivers 600 million vertices, 6.4 billion textured pixels per second. The GPU is built on an AGP 8X board and includes 256MB of DDR3 memory for use in the most demanding graphics applications. It is the first card available to support the DVI standard dual link digital signal specification from the two DVI ports it features . This capability is required to drive the new 30-inch LCD, high resolution Apple Cinema HD display. The combination of a GeForce 6800 Ultra with a dual processor Power Mac G5 driving two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays is the definitive tool for the creative professional. "

It uses the DVI standard.

Re:dpi?

[proj_2501]

It's not all that standard, but there is a reason for it. Typographic points are 1/72 of an inch. To help with cracking into that market, Mac displays have traditionally had about that resolution.

It's a similar rationale for having the Amiga's clock rate as the NTSC clock.

Re:Core Image...

[cmacb]

"To change the color or font for a sticky note, flip the note around -- all Widgets controls are on the back to keep them out of sight until you need them."

Sounds like Sun and Apple are finally taking computer users to the next level with 3D interfaces. It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft comes up with.

Microsoft has this idea covered already. Each copy of Longhorn will come with a colorful selection of Post-It notes that can be affixed onto the back of your monitor. I think they already have the pattent application in the works too. Admit it... the people at Microsoft are just too smart for the rest of us.

Re:but but...

[cosmo7]

i know some jackass always says it, but I'm not paying $129.95 for the latest upgrade.

Apple doesn't include any activation or copy protection system in OS X, so it just takes one alpha geek to buy a copy and then it filters down when people see something cool and ask them to install it on their Mac, usually proffering beer and liasons with loose women in gratitude. Remember, most Mac users, like most Windows users, don't have much idea what version of the OS they're using.

I suspect this is part of Apple's distribution strategy, otherwise they'd at least ask for a serial number or something.

Re:Cost too dam much.

[Dixie_Flatline]

Compare it to a new LCD TV. At least here, it turns out that the 30" display is only $500CDN more than a 30" LCD television. Apple's not charging an outrageous price, even if it is high. Apparently, the market is willing to bear that kind of price.