Apple Announces Tiger Release Date 981
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Reviews? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure thing. Here you go:
It's total shit on the Athlon XP 2500+. You can't even get it to boot up. Less functionality than either Linux or Windows.
I hear it works much better on other platforms, specifically Apple-built PPC systems, but you will have to look at other reviews for that information.
Re:Reviews? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reviews? (Score:5, Informative)
A slightly longer answer is No, but you can effectively disable it by simply excluding all or most of your system from the spotlight database.
The spotlight Preference Module contains a Privacy Tab. In this panel, you can add directories which are to be excluded from the index database. Presumably, adding / here would suffice to both save disk space and ongoing CPU costs. However, doing so broadly seems rather pointless. Certainly if you have confidential data on a network accessible volume you would be prudent to omit it. Likewise, if you have a subtree containing a large database, or collection of large files whose content is not usefully presented by spotlight, It might be worth excluding them.
On the whole, though, the incremental cost of maintaining the index is trivial and is correlated to the addition/modification of the files. This, in most environments, is both sporadic and requires negligible CPU and disk resources. If parts of your workflow have a file access pattern which makes spotlight less valuable to you, simply tailor spotlight to meet your needs.
Also, both system wide, and application specific spotlight queries are astonishingly efficient. Performing real time queries and displaying the results uses very little CPU and happens quite quickly. Even long queries (lasting seconds) do not appear onerous, since the result list is updated frequently as the search occurs, and incremental results are available.
The user decides which kinds of data are displayed for searches, and can tailor searches to a subset of volumes or systems when multiple disk (and remote volumes) are mounted.
Anyway, you can tailor the system to index less (or effectively nothing). Doing so, however, is unlikely to be of benefit. The system once primed appears so efficient that you would not save enough disk/time to make it worth your while. I suggest that rather than worrying about how to disable it to save processor cycles, you try it out for awhile and discover how it can save your brain cycles.
Spotlight is not a specific function or program. Rather it is a pervasive system. The base system provides a daemon which creates an initial index of all files, and subsequently handles requests for updating new or modified files. This process runs heavily niced in the background. While you can access a general Spotlight query tool using Command-Space, the real benefit of spotlight is its pervasiveness. Use the spotlight tool in the Preferences app to find out where a particular setting lives. (Note that Windows converts searching for a Windows-centric name will be presented with the Mac-centric counterpart.) Likewise in mail, the finder, and other programs, spotlight is available to help you find the context specific data you seek. Since developers can easily create spotlight plugins to parse data formats and export metadata, expect that most future applications will integrate well with the system.
It is important to note, that I found spotlight to be quite useful for a number of tasks, even though I only used it sporadically for testing purposes. Thus, I am inclined to be favorably biased towards it. On the other hand, I usually use a dual G5 Powermac and a fairly recent G4 17" powerbook. The fact that most of my use of spotlight was on a 400Mhz G3 powerbook suggests that my assessment of its efficiency is likely credible.
As always your time and your mood are the only true measures of a software tool, not my opinion.
Still under NDA (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, some real tests need to be done, but it's looking good so far.
--
Join the Pyramid - Free Mini Mac [freeminimacs.com]
Re:Still under NDA (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect you might have seen a bogus "review."
Tiger is a great OS. But the development builds are not fast.
Re:Still under NDA (Score:5, Informative)
After the one-time full indexing, files will be indexed as they're created on-the-fly.
Re:Still under NDA (Score:4, Informative)
I can "first-and-a-half-hand" report 2 hours to index about 55 GB on a powerbook. After that, it is indeed quite fast.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reviews? (Score:3, Informative)
- Preview now reads Adobe DNG images.
- Preview now reads RAW images.
- Built-in no internet connection needded dictionary.
- Built-in language translator.
- Built-in flight tracker.
- Envelope printing from Ad
FINK with Tiger? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FINK with Tiger? (Score:5, Informative)
Crap (Score:4, Interesting)
Mac OS Up-To-Date Program (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Crap (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been waiting to purchase a mini until the announcement since I knew if you ordered beforehand you won't get a free upgrade. Off to the Apple store I go...
They were cool (Score:4, Informative)
Apple you rock
I just called too.... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple Customer Service
1-800-676-2775
Re:I just called too.... (Score:3, Interesting)
So it sounds like they'll be offering the upgrade on most computers bought this month, possibly?
I use x86 PC myself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I use x86 PC myself... (Score:5, Funny)
Now on with the complacency of the next five years!
Enjoy your wait for Longhorn, the exclusive platform of Duke Nukem Forever.
Re:I use x86 PC myself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where does he say he runs Windows?
Re:I use x86 PC myself... (Score:5, Funny)
What else could he be running? The last guy that actually ran Linux left Slashdot about 600,000 user ID's ago!
Re:I use x86 PC myself... (Score:5, Funny)
That sounds too much like work. I think I'll just keep the old complacency.
Re:I use x86 PC myself... (Score:3, Interesting)
> 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?
Re:Core Image/Core Audio (Score:5, Informative)
I'm gonna make this fast because I'm sick of writing the same comment in every Tiger article. Core Image is Apple's implementation of hardware-accelerated 2D image processing. It's comparable to SGI's ImageVision Library, which you should look up right now.
Core Audio is a hyperlow-latency audio-processing framework.
Neither of these things is in any way related to Direct X, Open GL, or any form of 3D programming.
Re:Core Image/Core Audio (Score:5, Informative)
Mac Mini update? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mac Mini update? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mac Mini update? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mac Mini update? (Score:3, Insightful)
Great... (Score:4, Funny)
Jimmy
I've ordered mine :) (Score:3, Funny)
It is interesting to note that, at least in the UK, Tiger is actually £10 cheaper than the current price for Panther (the previous release). They're also giving those who order now access to an exclusing "Online Seminar", which sounds quite interesting. I can't wait until next month when my copy arrives
Re:I've ordered mine :) (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Adieu to Tray-Load iMacs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Adieu to Tray-Load iMacs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Adieu to Tray-Load iMacs (Score:4, Informative)
Personal very Excited (Score:3, Insightful)
List of New Features (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/newfeatur
Java 5 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Java 5 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Java 5 (Score:5, Informative)
Family Pack Still Exists (Score:4, Informative)
What a deal for multiple computer households. I can't wait. I just wish the free update for new Macs was retroactive to January's announcements.
With correct math (Score:3, Informative)
Just to correct the strange math in the parent post:
Re:Family Pack Still Exists (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as retards like you cheat the system, it makes it HARDER for honest, ethical people.
Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should. Jeez, grow up!
Re:Family Pack Still Exists (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Family Pack Still Exists (Score:4, Funny)
Re:do programmers deserve to get paid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they know that as humans, people will feel cheated for not getting a volume discount and having to have 5 identical CDs and just pirate instead. Apple is simply increasing the profit margin on a box with 1 CD by putting more licenses in it (probably just costs extra ink) and customers get to know they're doing the legal thing and getting a good deal to boot.
Apple envy (Score:5, Insightful)
Spotlight, Dashboard & Automator all look like great additions. I know there are perhaps Windows alternatives, but can any of them claim to be as slick as Apples?
I'm a Windows user, but as time goes on the thought of an mac mini just to give the OS a try becomes more and more tempting.
Get the Mini (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple envy (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Apple envy (Score:3, Insightful)
The decision to not care about security was made more than 10 years ago. The specifics of how windoze has been compromised time and again -- while not necessarily foreseen -- could have been avoided by common sense security practices that were already common in other operating systems.
Re: Apple envy (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re: Apple envy (Score:5, Informative)
Yes you can. Just do a force quit (Command + Option + Esc), select the Finder, and click Restart. The Finder will terminate and restart.
Re: Apple envy (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that's a universal problem with any networked file system, including NFS and SMB.
The problem (as I understand it) is that you have all these network file system calls happening in kernel mode; if one of these calls takes a long time to complete or timeout, the process is stuck in kernel mode and cannot be killed.
The "no kill" problem happens on any OS, including Mac, Linux, and Windows. Try this on Windows: Open notepad, Select File->Open, and type \\google.com\foo. Notepad will hang for 5 minutes, and Task Mananger will not be able to kill it.
Using a network file system over an unreliable network is very painful. I used to blame Windows for this, but it really is a universal problem.
The unique problem with OS X is that there is only one Finder process, and most other applications depend on this process in some way. If Finder gets stuck in a system call and cannot be killed, your desktop becomes quite unusable. Microsoft has mitigated this problem somewhat in XP by running multiple Explorer.exe processes; it's harder to get the desktop and taskbar to hang, but it's still easy to lock up individual Explorer processes.
I access network drives on my Mac all the time without any trouble. But you're right, if the network goes down it is perhaps more of a pain than it needs to be.
Reasons why it is amazingly cool... (Score:4, Informative)
QuickSilver was written by an individual who orignally developed the app for himself and then decided to share it with everyone. I imagine he'll (some day) make it shareware, but it's free till then.
Did you look at the Preview page? [blacktree.com] It gives a nice, simple explanation of some of the abilities of QS.
But I digress
The reason that it isn't described well is because it cannot be easily or simply described.
Instead, let me give you a few details.
For example, if I select a document on my desktop, I can pick "e-mail" then select from my address book who to e-mail [blacktree.com] (just by typing part of their name) and QS will launch mail, start a new e-mail and attach the file I selected. You can even FTP this way too [blacktree.com].
All that said, you cannot really understand how QuickSilver will improve your OS X experience until you use it. I cannot live without it and often find myself wanting a Windows version as well. Give it a try - it's a drag/drop install and is removed just as easily.
I recommend the plugins [blacktree.com]: Mail, Clipboard (adds multiple clipboards), iTunes, Flashlight, Dictionary, Address Boook and Calculator. Most of these can be installed automatically when you run the app the first time if you choose.
Don't forget Core Data... (Score:3, Interesting)
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).
Department (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. Version 10.4.1 should be called Tiger Uppercut.
Re:Department (Score:3, Funny)
Soon to be followed by 10.5: Apple Hadoken
Core Data (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one excited about the core data technology? In every write up of Tiger I have seen so far have not mentioned this new technology.
I mean come on. It gives you save, undo and redo functionality for free, no extra coding. Plus if you make good use of cocoa bindings in interface builder you could build a complete simple application with out writing a single line of code manually. That is pretty freaking sweet.
Maybe its just the geek in me but I think its cool. Plus you can save in multiple different file formats, binary, xml, or sqllite.
More Here: http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coredata.h tml [apple.com]
Re:Core Data (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Core Data (Score:4, Interesting)
If so, YIPEE...if not, ok...
Re:Core Data (Score:4, Insightful)
If you adopt the MVC (Model-View-Controller) style you can see that the first piece has been Interface Builder, which eliminated the need to write code for the View in an excellent way.
In 10.3 Cocoa Bindings (accessible via Interface Builder as well) eliminated the need to write code for the controller functions for the values setters/getters through they Key-Value technology (obviously you still need to write the parts that do some actions).
With Core Data now you do not even need to write anymore a BIG part of the Model, the data containers. This makes you able to limit in most cases your coding work to the actual elaboration of data, avoiding the storing/retrieving part which is the most boring, and as Apple demonstrated, can be generalized in most cases.
64-bit doesn't include graphics! (Score:4, Informative)
While that's all well and good and the Unix Way, its disappointing that graphical apps should be hamstrung in such a way. If you need big memory access and OpenGL, you've got quite a few hoops to jump through. As a linux weenie who made the switch, I'm saddened by crumbs we keep getting as Apple strings us along towards 64-bit land. Linux has been 64-bit for a very long time now and even Microsoft's 64-bit XP is fully 64-bit including graphics.
At least my G5 is still the 'world's fastest personal computer'.
Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics! (Score:3)
It might have been a bit neater if they had kept the pointer size for Cocoa / Carbon (does anyone sane use Carbon?) as 32-bit, and provided a 32-b
Ah, but there's no benefit going to 64-bit... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics! (Score:5, Insightful)
User interface code is really pretty messy when you get right down to it. You're doing a lot of abstraction, moving a lot of pointers and integers around. On exactly the same G5-based computer, a 64-bit UI is going to run considerably slower than a 32-bit UI because of cache exhaustion. Because you're using pointers that are twice as big as you need them to be, you can only fit half as many of them in the various caches that are there to speed up your computer's performance. That effectively cuts your caches in half.
So we had two choices: Either waste a ton of developer time releasing 64-bit-clean versions of the UI frameworks and then tell our developers not to use them, or just don't ship them at all.
Believe me, the Final Cut Pro and Shake teams were pissed off about this. Their expectation was that they'd be able to release 64-bit versions of their applications by NAB. But a 64-bit version of FCP with 64-bit Pro Kit is less interactive than the 32-bit version on the same hardware, for very marginal gains in actual utility. FCP is already very good at making use of up to 2 GB of RAM when dealing with hundreds of gigabytes of data on disk; adding 64-bit support would have helped few and hindered many.
Re:64-bit doesn't include graphics! (Score:5, Informative)
Please note that "64-bit" encompasses two completely different things:
Note that you can already use 64-bit registers and do 64-bit math. This is more of a compiler issue than an operating system issue. (The only change needed to the kernel is to save the full contents of the registers on context switching, rather than only the low 32 bits.)
What would 64-bit pointers give you if you could use them?
How many apps actually need to address more than 4GB of RAM at once? Usually they're only doing that if they are dealing with big files. A process using 32-bit pointers can do this using mmap() and if used correctly the kernel can load the whole file into RAM (if possible) and just adjust virtual memory tables so that the same chunk of 32-bit address space points at different parts of the file as needed. The app just has to make the right mmap() call to cause the kernel to shuffle around the virtual memory mappings to change which physical page is mapped onto which virtual page in that process's virtual memory.
If you do need 64-bit addressing for some reason (although it's extremely rare for it to be actually necessary, nearly everything can just mmap() files instead), then fork off a separate process and let it do whatever needs to be done with that huge amount of RAM. Use your favorite form of IPC or shared memory to talk to that process.
What does Tiger give us that's not already in Panther? Well, all apps will see some performance improvement as various system libraries now use 64-bit operations for arithmetic where appropriate. Processes using 64-bit pointers now have some important libraries available, most notably libsystem (Apple's combined libc and libm) which was not available for processes using 64-bit pointers in Panther. Not all libraries are available in 64-bit versions (Carbon and Cocoa, for example) but there's no good reason for them to be. There's no good reason for it. Apps run slower when using 64-bit addressing on current systems, so only those rare processes which really need the extra addressing space should be using it, and user interface code certainly doesn't fall into that category.
Apple's information on 64-bit computing in Tiger is available here [apple.com].
So you see, the full capabilities of your 64-bit CPU are being used. 64-bit math is up to the application writer to use the appropriate compiler options (and in Tiger the system libraries will also use 64-bit math internally) whereas 64-bit addressing is already used by the kernel (even in Panther) to handle virtual memory, allowing the use of more than 4 GB of RAM (although most processes will use 32-bit addressing and will thus be limited to only 4GB each).
Liger (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Liger (Score:3, Informative)
Upgrade or clean install? (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Upgrade or clean install? (Score:5, Informative)
That's actually the method I used to upgrade my Powerbook from Jaguar to Panther, and it worked almost flawlessly. (The only issue was that my Palm HotSync Manager stopped working, but a reinstall of the Palm software fixed that.) I'd personally say it's the best way to cleanly upgrade your system and maintain your current settings.
If you want more info on Archive and Install (as of Panther), just click here [apple.com].
Just my $.02...
Re:Upgrade or clean install? (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't know what's in there, app reinstalls work just as well.
Re:Upgrade or clean install? (Score:3, Informative)
This takes your
Note, that your
Then, when the OS installs, it replaces any items
DVD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DVD (Score:5, Interesting)
Info about Widgets (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.dashboardlineup.com/ [dashboardlineup.com]
Recently bought, definitely upgrading (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
The un-sung hero - TextEdit (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Core Image and Mac Mini (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Core Image and Mac Mini (Score:4, Informative)
Then you are a dumb ass (Score:3, Insightful)
I could have sworn that I read somewhere that Apple will give you a free upgrade if you bought your Mac within two months before the release date of the new OS
Getting a free upgrade was part of your strategy, but you didn't check it out with the Apple Store sales person or atleast call Apple's 800 sales number to confirm? You just went on what you thought you remembered?
It doesn't even sound reasonable for Apple to offer a 60 day reach back on a free upgrade. Makes NO sense at all
Re:Panther Upgrade (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Panther Upgrade (Score:3, Informative)
Failing that, you have a 30-day money back guarantee with a new Mac, so you can always send it back and get a replacement with Tige
Re:Please explain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:bonjour? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:lame naming scheme (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mail.app subscriptions? (Score:4, Informative)
What's the problem? If you go to "Advanced" settings for an IMAP account, there's a box that you can check for:
"Automatically synchronize changed mailboxes"
Works OK for me...
Re:Rendezvous axed... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:iPhoto, iMovie removed? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still no Java 1.5? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can't Wait (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Developer Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
A: You do know that Xcode only runs on the Mac, right? You can't compare these things. They don't run on the same platforms.
I have to disagree with this point. Development environments can definitely be compared across systems. Not at the fine-grain level perhaps, but on the overall experience.
I'll give an example :- I maintained parts of an application that ran both on Solaris and on Windows for many years. Although all kinds of neat development environments can be assembled from freely available tools, or even bought (e.g. Sun's various IDEs) on Solaris, Visual Studio definitely had an edge. The Windows-only developers had a productivity advantage. Pre-compiled headers, fast intel cpus, very fast tools, including really good source code browsing with cross-referencing etc. It's all built in for a reasonable price, so everyone used them. On Unix some people had pretty good tools, some people used vi and print statements, and it showed.
Re:Python GUI apps on the Mac (Score:5, Funny)
If only there were a way to run Perl or Python on OS X...
Re:JPEG2000 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dashboard (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to agree that it's not innovative, nor revolutionary. It is evolutionary, because it's a 21st century update of Desktop Accessories [wikipedia.org], which precluded Konfabulator by about 20 years.
Re:In in! (Score:5, Informative)
Taft
How to answer (Score:4, Funny)
I would tell you, but how do I know you're really harlows_monkeys?