Apple Announces Tiger Release Date

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

Reviews?

[salemlb]

Anyone have any reviews for Tiger on any hardware platform? I'm sure Ars will have one up (complaining about the finder again) before too much longer. Anything to convince me to take my g3 700 640mb iBook to Tiger in the meantime?

Crap

[grahamsz]

I ordered a mini last night. Will i be able to get them to send a tiger upgrade or will that be another $100.

Mac Mini update?

[rylin]

What I want to know is when the Mac Mini gets updated with a graphics card that CoreImage can use to its full extent.

Adieu to Tray-Load iMacs

[Uire]

According to the new system requirements. [apple.com] old tray-load iMac owners, and probably old Firewire-less iBook owners too, are at the end of the OS line. While sad, this isn't entirely surprising. But, since Firewire seems to be the deciding factor, one wonders what the fate of the newer but still Firewire-less slot-load 350MHz iMacs [apple-history.com] will be.

Java 5

[2starr]

This is great news, but the lack of mentioning Java 5 makes me think that it won't be included right away. That's sad news for me...

Re:Can't Wait

[Kosmatos]

Well, I can. I just received my Mac Mini a couple weeks ago (but ordered it 1.5 months ago) and am not happy to have to pay $129...

I should get this as a free upgrade.

Don't forget Core Data...

[solios]

As discussed in this [drunkenblog.com] Drunkenblog interview. Of the Core fillintheblanks, it's easily the spiffiest.

The other feejurs, imo, are just fluff. Unless they've sunk some serious improvements into mail, ical and iphoto.

I don't want MORE features, I want the features they're shipping to be developed beyond vestigial buzzwords (re: OpenDoc in the OS 8 era).

Re:Crap

[noisymime]

and yet the mini I've been waiting over 8 weeks for (and that according to the website still isn't built) won't come with tiger :(

Re:Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows, you only missed the announcement by a day, maybe they'll give you a discount, or just send it for $10.

By all means do this. Customer service calls cost Apple money, probably more than it costs to send you a free copy, if you call they may just give it to you to get you off the phone.

You'd be amazed what you can get away with just by calling customer service and asking for it.

bonjour?

[circusboy]

I see rendezvous has been redubbed again,

nom de plume or nom du guerre?

(pardon my unpardonnáble french...)

Re:I've ordered mine :)

[zev1983]

I also submitted this story. But just now I found a new feature called Inkwell http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/inkwell/ that apparently lets you use an input device like a Wacom pad to do things like gestures and to "Write anywhere."

I haven't heard of this before so I thought I'd drop a note about it.

Re:I use x86 PC myself...

[Threni]

> While I doubt this is the end of Microsoft, it certainly means they will have
> to get off their asses.

Why - do you predict that the hundreds of millions of Windows PCs are now going to be migrated to this week's Apple product?

iPhoto, iMovie removed?

[helixblue]

Is it me, or does it seem like they neglect to mention iPhoto or iMovie on the Tiger pages (other than integration). Do we now have to buy iLife [apple.com] in order to get these? If so, how lame.

Re:lame naming scheme

[koko775]

Because grandma can't remember 10.4, but she can remember "Tiger". It's that simple. How many times have you asked the typical Windows user what OS they run? They usually don't even know!

Upgrade or clean install?

[kajoob]

As a new mac user that just recently switched from the windows world, I have a question for the mac people....

It's well settled in the windows world that an upgrade of the os is only done as a last resort - the first option is backing up, doing a clean install, then importing all your data. Is the same true for OSX, or will just upgrading tiger be the same as a clean install?

I finally have everything tweaked on my mini and would hate to have to reinstall all my apps etc. TIA.

Re:I just called too....

[Justin205]

And even if you don't get $10 off the mini's price like parent did, $10 for an upgrade isn't too bad.

So it sounds like they'll be offering the upgrade on most computers bought this month, possibly?

Re:Mac Mini update?

[rylin]

On the other hand, apps like CenterStage will probably make use of CoreImage/CoreVideo. Thumbnailing out album-art (probably with a nice and shiny jewel case layer above each?) when browsing songs or similar. Of course, since I don't have a Mini, I don't know how well the Mini would cope with these things. That said, when buying a rig - even if it's for $700 (thanks, .eu), I want it to ba a little future-proof.

Re:Core Data

[Builder]

No, you're not. I'm actually holding off development of a new app because I'm waiting for this.

It will cut my development time by days and I'll be able to have a prototype out the door in a week. I really love the way it hooks into Interface Builder so that even during the dev stage, you can just lob a view to your data in there, and see how you think it will work best for the user.

The fact that you can save to something like sqllite means that it will be trivial to slap a web front end on your app as well.

Re:Still under NDA

[As Seen On TV]

That really surprises me. The feedback we've gotten from developers trying to use Tiger builds, all the way up to A420, is that it's far too slow for everyday use. It's much slower than Panther in those builds because nothing has been optimized. It has a lot of debugging code that makes everything run very, very slowly compared to 10.3.

I suspect you might have seen a bogus "review."

Tiger is a great OS. But the development builds are not fast.

Re:Apple envy

[jdog1016]

I don't think that anyone is denying that Windows has improved over the last ten years, but the fact is, if you look at the features in Windows 95 (average user experience ten years ago) to the features in Windows XP (average user experience now), there really isn't any significant difference in terms of features and capabilities, at least as far as the average user can tell. And as for the improvements that have been made in usability, security, and overall stability, these aren't really improvements at all--they're bug fixes, issues that should have been resolved ten years ago. Now the same thing is happening again. Windows XP was released in 2001, and since then, no significant changes have been made, and as a result, the user experience is arguably worse than it was ten years ago, simply due to this ridiculous amount of unhindered malware.

So, the problem with service packs is that they aren't real upgrades--they're just patches, bugfixes. A good example is the Windows Firewall--why wasn't it turned on in the first place? And yet Microsoft issuing a service pack to turn it on is an upgrade?

Anyway, just my opinion.

FINK with Tiger?

[bach37]

Any fink developers out there? Will fink be down for the count for awhile, until new binary packages are made for Tiger?

Ah, but there's no benefit going to 64-bit...

[rufo]

One of the interesting things about the move to 64-bit is that unlike going from IA32 to AMD64 on Windows, on Mac OS X there is no speed boost from targetting the G5. All the speed boosts you're ever going to get from compiling for a G5 are there and enabled in Panther; all you get from moving your app to 64-bit is 64-bit addressing, and as such, a slight drop in speed. This will hopefully be offset by the fact that your app actually needs more then 4GB of memory space. This sort of makes 64-bit apps less neccessary/desirable then it does in the PC world.

Re:I've ordered mine :)

[Anonymous Coward]

At least for Panther, my pre-order got to me about three hours before the official launch (day-of).

Get the Mini

[ToasterTester]

I picked up one of the Mini's and they are a blast to work on. The great Mac interface, lots of quality software, and Unix under the hood. Been getting up to speed on Apple development and nice free tools. Plus it is a great central box. You can get a MS Remote Desktop Client, then it has ssh for get to my Unix boxes. So one nice place to work from.

Re:Apple envy

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a game of cat and mouse. The last big leap for windows, from the point of view of the OS, was NT 4.0. 2000 and XP merely expanded everything to the desktop, but there were few real improvement in user experience.

At that point MS was arguable ahead, and Apple was muddled. Now Apple has a nifty new OS, and can play catchup with many features.

The issue really is that all MS effort has to go into maintaining the desktop monopoly, while all Apple effort goes into being cool. For certain people being cool is more interesting than being massively conformist, though nearly everyone wants to conform to some degree.

Re:DVD

[toddestan]

Yes, but does it come with a version that's not a DVD too? Until fairly recently, Apple was still selling computers with just a CD-ROM drive (eMac, and iBooks for the education market). Will these people be able to buy a CD version, or are they just screwed?

Can Mail.app finally subscribe to IMAP folders?

[larse]

Anyone know if Mail.app finally gained support for subscribing to selected email folders? This is the single feature I cannot live without (hundreds of public IMAP folders on the company mail server).

Re:H.323 in ichat

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple should understand that not everybody WANTS an AOL or .Mac account just to do videoconferencing.

Yeah, I mean if I have two machines on a subnet, I should not have to go through a separate server just to videoconference. The two computers should just "see" each other and do some sort of peer-to-peer networking auto-discovery so I could chat that way.

Oh...

Wait...

iChat already does that?

Then Apple should set up a free service in case I am not on the same subnet. Or at least farm that out to another company. But definitely keep it free.

Oh...

Wait...

iChat already does that?

AOL IM accounts are free, and anyone can get one. I am not sure what your complaint is. To do video conferencing over the Internet, you are going to need a central server (for now) with accounts. Apple says you can use either a .Mac account or a free AOL IM account. What else would you have them do?

Re:Dashboard

[pauljlucas]

Dashboard? Innovative? Its just a copy of the many other widget platforms that have been available for quite a few years now.

I doubt it. Have you seen the demos? Nothing else is as polished. And the fact that they can be entirely programmed in JavaScript will mean that lots of people will be able to code them. Dashboard will be the new HyperCard.

Re:Adieu to Tray-Load iMacs

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't have to say adieu to mine. It's merrily running Ubuntu linux, as we speak.

Recently bought, definitely upgrading

[Winterblink]

I recently bought a Mac (about a month or two ago) so I don't qualify for the cheap upgrade as far as I know. But I'm still definitely going to pay for this upgrade.

My experience with OS X has been nothing short of amazing. I look between my Mac and my XP machine and wonder why the heck I'm using the latter, when the former is more stable, easier to work with, and generally a hell of a lot more slick. Everybody who's come by has looked at it and scoffed, but when you sit them in front of it and have them play around, most people are sold on the things.

Re:Developer Perspective

[mihalis]

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

So comparing the two makes no sense whatsoever.

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

You assume a fair bit here. Actually, I am choosing between XCode, Visual Studio and various other development environments right now. I would like to learn some new languages and techniques, and I'm interested in both XCode, Visual Studio and other very very different "environments" like "Processing" (web site [processing.org]). I have both PCs and Macs, and with MSDN Universal (from work) there's no cost differential between XCode and Visual Studio. I would just like a comfortable dev environment for my own personal programming projects. I got as far as running some XCode wizard (the screensaver one I think) and couldn't quite see how to do stuff in C++. I'm familiar with Visual Studio 6.0 for C++, but not Visual Studio.NET, so there would be a fair bit of relearning even if I chose the Microsoft platform. I had a quick look at Processing last year and that seems like fun, and if I have to learn something, why not something completely different like that.

If I decide to go the Java route there are a bunch more alternatives and once again PC vs. Mac is an issue, but for my own personal projects I use whichever I want as the mood takes me (my most recent project was in C++ using raw Xlib for graphics on SPARC/Solaris).

Re:Core Data

[jwthompson2]

Core Data has the potential to be a huge aid in development, especially if it is as easy to switch between XML and Binary as Apple claims. I'm also looking forward to tweaking some of my existing apps to use it. One question that I haven't got an answer to though. Will there be anyway to backport the functionality, any ADC Premeirs out there know if Core Data's .framework will be embedable and able to be targeted to pre 10.4 versions of OS X?

If so, YIPEE...if not, ok...

Re: Apple envy

[gl4ss]

Finder is a piece of crap on an os that is otherwise high class - having the basic file browser be something that has a habit for getting totally stuck is not acceptable(with network drives - and and to add to the insult that is finder is that you can't terminate it like a regular program and could be in a situation where you don't get even to a console and can't shut down the OS even, leaving the only choice to be to take out the battery when you're on a lappy). I have to use network drives quite often, drives with hundreds of files at times - so finder is not "perfectly usable" at this point of time! and i'm pretty scared of what it was before the current release as i've been told that it was even worse before..

so yeah, right now a better way for me to increase my happiness in my mac is not to buy tiger, but to buy path finder as replacement for the finder.

anyways.. my question was not just flaming away on how crappy the finder is right now... I posed the very valid and important question: IS FINDER ANY BETTER IN TIGER?

The un-sung hero - TextEdit

[SuperKendall]

One of the things really improved in this release that gets no press is TextEdit.

Already better than WordPad or Notepad (primarily because you can operate either ina normal or rich text mode), it has a lot of great enhancements - you can read Word files more easily (I think it comes with table support now and can read XML files saved out by Word), you can do bulleted lists, and even better you can save as HTML with CSS support! So Tiger now has a nice and very simple HTML editor included.

TextEdit could probably handle something like 80% of the documents people ever work on now.

Dashboard, Speech, and a PVR

[chia_monkey]

I think Apple is poised to make quite an entry into a PVR market in some capacity. I keep looking at Dashboard and think how simple it would be to control your TV, DVD player, iTunes, etc with that. Hm...imagine now training the Speech part of Tiger to work hand-in-hand with the Dashboard components. Oh sweet mother of all things holy...now you're controlling iTunes or your PVR (Mac Mini with Eye TV?) with your voice? Yum...yum I say.

Re:Family Pack Still Exists

[eclectic4]

No, you grow up!

*exits 2nd grade playground*

In reality, Apple's decision to not be total bastards with regard to it's OS registration/usage/upgrading/, etc... is that it's mainly a hardware company. Microsoft is a software company. Too add, Microsoft can be bastards about making those extra bucks, because the vast majority of the entire world's user base is using it's software. It's just far too good to pass up because pissing off your customers while being merely "fiscally responsible" won't hurt them that much. They will gain far more than they could ever possibly lose, in other words.

Apple, however, is in the hardware business (That is, as far as the OS goes. To my knowledge, Apple only sells one app [apple.com] over $999). The more people that are using their machines with the latest OS the better for them. Throw in the hippy free-loving attitude of its users (along with Apple's knowledge of that), the fact that they only hold 3% of that user base (no need to stifle it any more!), and the explanation is even clearer.

I don't know. I realize the damaging effects of piracy. I would never condone it and often criticize others for it. I merely wished to point out that many Mac users have been swapping and installing OS's on machines since the beginning of the platform. And believe me, Apple knows it. You couldn't possibly make it as easy as it is to install on more than one machine (there isn't one technical reason that stops anyone from doing so, not one. No serial number, nothing. Just install anywhere, anytime) without realizing it. I think Apple rides a very fine line, and is good at it, by charging what they do for their updates.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Recently bought, definitely upgrading

[strikethree]

Sorry about replying to myself, but after my previous whinefest, I figured Apple deserved this:

I chose options on the phone to get my in touch with a real live human being instead of a recording and Apple is sending me Tiger next day shipping for FREE. (I probably should not have mentioned the free part). They do treat their customers well.

strike