Detailed Reviews of Mac OS X "Tiger" Preview 467
An anonymous reader writes "AppleInsider has been publishing some very detailed articles on Apple's new Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' operating system, which include numerous screenshots of the system. So far the publication has discussed overall installation and Spotlight search technology, Safari with RSS, a new Mail revision with
Smart Mailbox technology, and a websearch enabled Mac OS X Help application."
Most inconsistent user interfaces (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, sources noted that while the Tiger Finder interface contains no noticeable changes from Panther, Spotlight uses its own sleek window interface design, which is only accessible from windows that are spawned from Spotlight searches. The interface features windows with a smooth, grey-colored titlebar, with sharp webpage-like table results on one side, and an html-style control bar on the other. Details of these new webpage-like Mac OS X windows were first report by sources in an earlier report, though sources described them as Mac OS Finder windows.
If you look at the screen shots you will notice weirdly blue colored bars, but just in that one application. Honestly I thought Macs were supposed to have a consistent UI. If I wanted a mish mash of colors and widgets I would just get a Windows PC.
Re:Why?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's cheaper than XP, it's mostly open (it's not Free, but that doesn't bother me), and my three-button+wheel mouse works just fine, thanks.
Oh, and by the way - 1994 just called. They want their FUD back.
Re:Most inconsistent user interfaces (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:v^HsmartFolders (Score:3, Insightful)
The deeper answer is that the Mac UI is designed so you don't need to be a geek to understand it. Joe Sixpack knows what smart means but not what virtual means, let alone know that the v in vFolders stands for virtual.
BTW, I've never heard the term vFolders before so I suspect it doesn't have that much mindshare. It looks like a Linux thing.
Will Linux ever catch up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are the free software projects investigating next generation UI concepts? Is Linux too wedded to the old ways of doing things to compete with commercial vendors like Apple? It seems to me that the Linux UI community has been very busy trying to emulate the functionality of yesterday's commercial desktops, when it should be pioneering new approaches and UI innovations, thus leap-frogging Apple and others.
iTunes as a Teaching Tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:v^HsmartFolders (Score:3, Insightful)
You should have saved the comment for the next piece of KDE software named Kxxx. Long rants about how OSS sucks at naming software always get modded +5 Informative.
Re:Smart Mailboxes. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will Linux ever catch up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Much more under the hood... (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be a great OS release... one that I feel will become a must have for every Macintosh user (with supported hardware). At least I hope it will be a must have because I really want to use some of he features that will exist to help speed the development and richness of applications.
Re:Why?! (Score:3, Insightful)
This one is not entirelycorrect, if you want to stay up to date. The yearly upgrade cycle so far made OSX quite more expensive than XP if you started with the first released version on both. And if you're talking OEM, XP might be actually cheaper now.
Granted, if the software would be the only difference, OSX would have XP beat hands down. However, if you're out to buy a cheap and reasonably fast computer, Apple is not exactly in the top 10 choices (emphasis on both cheap and fast).
Adapting the old saying: cheap, fast, cool - pick two.
CSS "recently approved"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple also continues to improve Safari's compliance with web standards, fixing a number of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and rendering bugs and supporting more of the recently approved CSS 2 standard.
For all the talk of "web standards", CSS is actually a recommendation, not a standard. Tim Berners-Lee makes it very clear that the W3C was founded to produce recommendations and not to be a standards body in his book, Weaving The Web.
Furthermore, the CSS 2 recommendation was approved over six years ago [w3.org], and the CSS 2.1 specification [w3.org] has not yet been approved as a recommendation (it's still in candidate recommendation stage).
Re:Can't Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Six year cycle at one upgrade a year is $774. However, during that time you're likely to buy at least one new Mac, which would eliminate the need for one of the upgrades.
If you're really keeping your computer for six years, that's a solid testimony to the quality of the Mac platform. You really need a new PC for every new major version upgrade since the system requirements change so radically. It's torture running Windows XP on a low-end machine designed for 2000. I bought a used two year old 400mhz PowerBook G4 about a week ago and am very impressed by how well it runs in Panther. It was a slowpoke in the version of MacOS X available at the time, but now it's a more than acceptable performer for most things I need to do with it.
The reality is that the Mac platform's pretty cost-effective if you want to keep your machine running well. The horrors of dealing with Windows virus attacks easily make up for the price difference between Mac and PC.
D
Re:Why?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows retail is pretty dang expense (for the full NON-oem version). Likewise, the hardware requirements seem to go up quite nicely with each Windows release. Panther runs pretty well on hardware thats a few years old already (so long as its a G4 or later G3).
Don't get me wrong, if you want to constantly upgrade with either system, it's going to cost you a pretty penny. But why upgrde so often? Jaguar is still supported now, and Panther will still be supported when Tiger comes out.
But I agree that Mac OS needs to slow down a little. While they throw a LOT of stuff in each revision, it gets pretty pricey.
Re:v^HsmartFolders (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Most inconsistent user interfaces (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will Linux ever catch up? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't require a slick UI. I also don't require air conditioning, diet cola, or a high speed internet connection, but they sure make my life nicer and easier.
Re:Search, Indexing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why RSS if Safari is still "buggy?" (Score:4, Insightful)
My suggestion is that you run the "problem" pages through the W3 Validator [w3.org] before suspecting a particular browser's implementation.
Re:Will Linux ever catch up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Been running it for about a week (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn ungrateful end users always expecting flashy crap to get them excited. Why do you have a copy of the developer preview anyway? You don't sound like a developer to me.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:research & development (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that so much of OS X is built upon the NeXTStep code base, and that the NeXTStep code base was (from what I understand) amazingly well-designed from a software engineering point of view, and that Objective-C really is an incredibly powerful, easy to use object-oriented extension of C, I wonder of the rapid output of new stuff from Apple research is just proof of what can happen when you've got well-engineered software libraries with good RAD tools in the hands of extremely capable programmers.
That's not intented to read like an Apple fanboy post (although it does). But it does seem that Microsoft "innovation" moves more slowly than Apple. And some of Microsoft's innovation just, well, sucks eggs. (MFC, anyone? Bob?)
Re:"Smart" buzzwords (Score:3, Insightful)
For example: People named "Smith" may well not be in my family, since Smith is a common last name. Furthermore, so what if they are? Maybe I don't want to have a "My Family" category, and a non-annoying program wouldn't assume that I do.
Re:Most inconsistent user interfaces (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm...Let's see...
Safari?
Re:What is it with men and lesbians (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet if some sheepish computer dork tried to ask you out, you'd call him a nice guy and say no way. If you go out with assholes, you get the asshole treatment. There's not a whole lot to figure out here.
And no, I'm not posting this as some sheepish computer dork who's afraid of women. I'm posting this as someone who's tired of people complaining about their lot in life when they create the situations. It's not too hard to find a guy who at least pretends to care about you, ya know. If every guy you go out with has the same problem, perhaps it's time to start looking at other types of guys?
Re:This is why it is called a DEVELOPERS release.. (Score:2, Insightful)
You'll note that my post is about Tiger questions people will probably ask and your reply has nothing to do with my post.