The later the better. Exchange and the new Quicktime seem like significant examples of new features on top of this major OS change.
I like the idea of having completely 'featureless' releases every alternate year. Then feature releases on the stabilized OS every other year. Maybe we could get back to OS meaning OS, and not 'bundle of stuff'.
I like the idea of having completely 'featureless' releases every alternate year. Then feature releases on the stabilized OS every other year.
Me too, providing that the performance update is significant enough to warrant its own version.
Quote:
Maybe we could get back to OS meaning OS, and not 'bundle of stuff'.
NO WAY! Having an OS that doesn't require going out to several dozen sites to get apps to do basic functions is a PITA. I think the only thing I installed on my parent's Mac is Perian and Flip4Mac, with Windows I would spend many hours DLing, installing and cleaning up a new setup.
I would suggest that any report indicating a specific introductory time is conjecture. As Apple has published on two sites, it "is scheduled to ship in about a year" (dated June 9, 2008). The question now would be, "How long is about a year?" Some would say that it could lie anywhere between 6 months plus a day to 18 months less a day. In any event, it is somewhere within that period, it depends to what you round time off to, and it is relative.
With software projects such as what this is, I would say that "about a year" means, in the practical sense, anywhere from 11 months to 15 months.
Major software projects tend to slip, not speed up.
The only time in recent memory when Apple released an OS earlier than expected was because they had other, even more major, issues at hand?moving to Intel.
Otherwise, as expected, things slipped.
I just can't see any purpose in rushing such a major upgrade out the door. This may be the most important upgrade Apple has offered for OS X.
I remember when Adobe released PS 5 years ago. It also had little in the way of new features, but was also almost a total re-write. It was also done to clean up the code, add speed, and bring a better foundation for future features. This is what 10.6 is all about.
Some new features will be added, as well, we hope, as well the ones already being worked on, such as RI and ZDF (Apple didn't say that NO new features would be added, just that it wasn't the focus of the release), but will give Apple a much cleaner base to move forwards on, as well as bringing the OS up to the multi-core, hyperthreading world.
If they do this right, it will truly move the OS out in front of Windows, as MS is finding they have the same problems as Apple did when working on Copeland in the late '90's. Apple tried to do what MS tried with Longhorn, which was to bring major new abilities to the OS while maintaining compatibility with current hardware and software. They couldn't do it for several reasons.
But, Apple was able to go out and buy another OS they could build around, while realizing they needed to drop the compatability . They could do that, but MS can't. That's why Longhorn was the failure that Copeland was. MS went back to Server 2003 code, which worked well, and added some features to that.
But, Apple took Next's system, and wrote a "new" OS around it that was more flexible. The modularity of the OS enables them to do this.
The fact that Apple can do 10.6 without breaking most everything around it, shows that their base code was done well.
We should be pleased to give them as much time as they need, and not try to get them to rush it, like kids looking under the tree Christmas eve!
Some of these drivers are very complex, and Apple won't be able to duplicate drivers for all the machines out there. That's the same problem MS had with Vista. Ad MS has far more people to do this than Apple does. Apple will need these companies to do the drivers for their own machines.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abster2core
Are you saying that you haven't made up your mind and are still using Tiger or something earlier?
Yes, I'm still using Tiger. I use quite a lot of different types of apps so fully testing everything could take a bit of time. I was going to do it over Christmas as I'd like to play with the Leopard-only iphone SDK but if Snow Leopard is coming soon, I'd probably rather just skip right over it. Also there may be new hardware in January that I can buy, which will come with Leopard anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
I don't know if this guy is blowing smoke or not but it is interesting that OpenCL seems to favor Nvidia GPU. I would have thought that equal support for AMD/ATI would have been developed concomittantly seing as how Apple's lineup always has a model with ATI graphics.
I thought that perhaps the ATI cards weren't GPGPUs. This document from AMD:
suggests that the HD2000 series and higher should be ok. The old X1600 cards in the old MBPs aren't supported but the two cards in the iMac seem to be.
Someone from Nvidia said that OpenCL and CUDA are pretty close so porting one to the other should require minimal effort. This makes sense for developing as Apple can test CUDA code that has already been done and port it to OpenCL easily.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
I don't think Apple keeps any "official" releases from developers any more than MS does. What MS does though, is telegraph their intentions, as they must do to some extent, considering the environment they're in.
Like other companies, they give developers releases as sure as they feel that they are stable enough for general testing. MS doesn't hand out a final release any quicker to its developers than does Apple.
It's only in the last weeks that even Apple knows for sure whether release is imminent. That gives little time for final work no matter who it may be.
What the heck does that mean? Early 2008 MacBook Pros are compatible with Snow Leopard, but Late 2008 MacBook Pros are not?
That's quite plausible. Releasing new hardware and developing Snow Leopard are presumably two quite separate development efforts, so it's possible that if new drivers are needed for the late-2008 hardware that they simply haven't made it into SL yet.
I don't know if this guy is blowing smoke or not but it is interesting that OpenCL seems to favor Nvidia GPU. I would have thought that equal support for AMD/ATI would have been developed concomittantly seing as how Apple's lineup always has a model with ATI graphics.
Nvidia was first to adapt their platform to OpenCL. That's it. The AMD streams API will be OpenCL compliant ASAP. Intel has been working with Apple, like the other two for quite some time, after Apple got the design and implementation from the ground up and Cocoa APIs mature in-hous, first.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
Yes, I'm still using Tiger. I use quite a lot of different types of apps so fully testing everything could take a bit of time. I was going to do it over Christmas as I'd like to play with the Leopard-only iphone SDK but if Snow Leopard is coming soon, I'd probably rather just skip right over it. Also there may be new hardware in January that I can buy, which will come with Leopard anyway.
I thought that perhaps the ATI cards weren't GPGPUs. This document from AMD:
suggests that the HD2000 series and higher should be ok. The old X1600 cards in the old MBPs aren't supported but the two cards in the iMac seem to be.
Someone from Nvidia said that OpenCL and CUDA are pretty close so porting one to the other should require minimal effort. This makes sense for developing as Apple can test CUDA code that has already been done and port it to OpenCL easily.
What I like about AMD moving to OpenCL compliance:
I have simply skipped Leopard. I'm still on 10.4.11 - and from looking at my friend's adventures with Leopard to this day, Tiger is STILL more stable. And frankly there are no features of Leopard that I'm salivating over.
you wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Same here. I also find the graphics to be a bit to in my face. Drop shadows, dock etc. Same the iphone SDK is Leopard-only. Yet another example of Apple forcing upgrades on people.
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
I have simply skipped Leopard. I'm still on 10.4.11 - and from looking at my friend's adventures with Leopard to this day, Tiger is STILL more stable. And frankly there are no features of Leopard that I'm salivating over.
[...]
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
Just to clarify, I've used my friend's Leopard running MBP on many occasions, so it's not just watching. We've worked side by side for many hours on many occasions and anyhow, I do think that even just watching can be educational - like I don't have the Wi-Fi dropping issues on my 10.4.11 that he has constantly... and this is the OS not a hardware flaw. This is just one example, but there are plenty others. I was impressed by Jaguar, Panther and Tiger. I have been supremely unimpressed with Leopard. I'm skipping it, and hoping SL is the bees knees.
1) You always have the option to not buy it until it has matured a bit and reports are showing that it's quite stable.
You're missing the point. This is supposed to be a cleanup of the OS on top of the few new under the hood additions. The whole idea of this OS is to modernize the OS for todays computing and to clean up all of the crap (including bugs) its built up over the years. To release an OS with major bugs when there's no reason to rush at all is just foolish. I'm actually glad they didn't specify a date and I hope they don't for quite a while. You shouldn't have to wait for it to be usable. It should be usable from the start. I don't mean it should be 100% perfect as there's no way to test all of the real world possibilities, but major issues should not be part of this release at all. There's no excuse. Apple loves to pick on Microsoft for its bugs, but its not like Apple never does the same thing. The last 3 initial OS X releases (10.3. 10.4, and 10.5) have all had at least 1 major bug in them that shouldn't have existed. Most of them dealing with data loss issues.
You're missing the point. This is supposed to be a cleanup of the OS on top of the few new under the hood additions. The whole idea of this OS is to modernize the OS for todays computing and to clean up all of the crap (including bugs) its built up over the years. To release an OS with major bugs when there's no reason to rush at all is just foolish. I'm actually glad they didn't specify a date and I hope they don't for quite a while. You shouldn't have to wait for it to be usable. It should be usable from the start. I don't mean it should be 100% perfect as there's no way to test all of the real world possibilities, but major issues should not be part of this release at all. There's no excuse. Apple loves to pick on Microsoft for its bugs, but its not like Apple never does the same thing. The last 3 initial OS X releases have had at least 1 major bug in them.
The point updates are to clean up bugs and optimize that version. Don't be fooled, this is a major update to OS X. Perhaps the biggest, most complex effort Apple has put toward an OS update since moving to OS X from OS 9. Revamping the OS down to the core is much more complex and time consuming than simply adding a new app to the install or making some superficial feature for a current app.
Think about this: If what you are saying were true, then why aren't the point updates getting this cleaned up code and bug fixes? Why aren't the beta builds stable and usable if it's just cleaned up code and bug fixes?
That's like putting the cart before the horse. We have to have GPUs and better yet, display output devices capable of scaling up their pixel dimensions, on-the-fly. Hell, we can't get decent panels inside monitors w/o starting at > $700 for a 20" panel.
The point updates are to clean up bugs and optimize that version. Don't be fooled, this is a major update to OS X. Perhaps the biggest, most complex effort Apple has put toward an OS update since moving to OS X from OS 9. Revamping the OS down to the core is much more complex and time consuming than simply adding a new app to the install or making some superficial feature for a current app.
Think about this: If what you are saying were true, then why aren't the point updates getting this cleaned up code and bug fixes? Why aren't the beta builds stable and usable if it's just cleaned up code and bug fixes?
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point. The decade and more in-between was the pacification and business realities of the day Steve didn't count on when himself, Avie, Forstall and the rest of us at NeXT were discussing at the last official NeXT company meeting.
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point. The decade and more in-between was the pacification and business realities of the day Steve didn't count on when himself, Avie, Forstall and the rest of us at NeXT were discussing at the last official NeXT company meeting.
OS's are the most difficult undertaking of all. Being the underpinning for all computer uses, it's got to do the right thing, and do it well.
I remember when NT first came out. It was severely criticized for (among other things) taking up 300 MB of HDD space, and requiring too much RAM, though I've forgotten that number.
Today, we can laugh at those numbers. The OS has become so complex, it's difficult to know how anyone can understand exactly what's in it.
FreeBSD, for example, has code that no one today knows. Code that has been there since the early '60's. Some things may never get straightened out.
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
It's my personal opinion after having used Leopard extensively on someone else's machine. I'm not understanding why you have a problem with this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Like other companies, they give developers releases as sure as they feel that they are stable enough for general testing. MS doesn't hand out a final release any quicker to its developers than does Apple.
That's right but the problem was the same there. Developers didn't get support ready for the Vista launch, it was only after end users made complaints that drivers didn't work that the 3rd party developers went and fixed them.
This could be the same story when Apple brings out SL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
What I like about AMD moving to OpenCL compliance:
is that Apple will have a far larger pool of GPUs to draw upon.
But all Nvidia GPUs since the 8 series are OpenCL compliant up to and including all the ones they are developing now. AMD/ATI have been a bit late to the party.
That's right but the problem was the same there. Developers didn't get support ready for the Vista launch, it was only after end users made complaints that drivers didn't work that the 3rd party developers went and fixed them.
This could be the same story when Apple brings out SL.
That's something I'm concerned about.
But it depends on how Apple is doing this. They give attention to different aspects of the development each time they work on a new beta. If the spend more time on the aspects of the driver integration into the OS early enough on, then, if the manufacturers are members of the developer connection, they will be able to start work early.
If Apple feels that it must leave that part of the OS 'till late in the process, then they won't have much time.
No matter how that works out, the more time Apple takes, the more time they will have to understand what they have to do.
I'm pretty sure that even by now, there is enough info from Apple about the driver situation that they have a very good idea of where their development efforts should be headed.
The problem, as I can say with some experience, is that many companies don't WANT to start any serious work until they receive an almost final, ready to go version. That's often what slows down third party development. They're afraid that they will have to re-do some of their work from last minute changes. Not every developer, of hardware in particular, has a large team of people who can do this work, and more companies than one might think, outsource driver development to companies that specialize in it, so there is a disconnect there.
From people I've spoken to tell me that part of that problem ws related to MS. They were insisting that THEY do all the driver development for a long time. That's one of the reasons why there was pretty much no third party drivers available at launch, and for months after. Then, MS just gave the whole thing up to third parties, which caused more confusion. Only later did they coordinate between themselves and the third parties, which made things work more smoothly. Also, because their 64 bit drivers had to be ok'd by MS before they could get used, to make sure they adhered to the DRM, it put another layer between the companies and the user.
We're seeing something like that with apps for the iPhone, with delays in the apps gettng into the store.
Hopefully, Apple will have learned from what happened with Vista, and has streamlined the process.
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point.
Could you expound a bit more about this? What is it about 10.6 that signifies a "starting point?"? Is it the promotion of Cocoa as the only framework going forward?
I'm looking for more innovation in software coming from Apple. Lately they've hyped their innovation but largely it's been cosmetic IMO. I think they've done some good things in all areas but I'm looking for more positive hits to Clarke's 3rd law.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
That's like putting the cart before the horse. We have to have GPUs and better yet, display output devices capable of scaling up their pixel dimensions, on-the-fly. Hell, we can't get decent panels inside monitors w/o starting at > $700 for a 20" panel.
You didn't really answer his question.. Personally, i haven't seen any mention of Resolution Independence in either of the 3 seeds of SL so something's fishy here.
Also, in regards to your reply, i'm not sure how it is relevant.
I currently stare at a 22" Dell LCD next to my 15"MBP and if i drag a window and put it in the middle of the 2 screens so that i see half on one side and half on the other, it looks like like the MBP side is about 20% smaller.
RI is supposed to know the size of each pixel on each screen and adjust the size of the window automatically so if i drag it in the middle like i just did, the window will look perfectly equal on either screen. This can ALL be implemented in software as already Apple knows what size the pixel is on both the MBP and the external monitor. I don't see what's taking them soo long to implement this much MUCH needed feature
Comments
I like the idea of having completely 'featureless' releases every alternate year. Then feature releases on the stabilized OS every other year. Maybe we could get back to OS meaning OS, and not 'bundle of stuff'.
I like the idea of having completely 'featureless' releases every alternate year. Then feature releases on the stabilized OS every other year.
Me too, providing that the performance update is significant enough to warrant its own version.
Maybe we could get back to OS meaning OS, and not 'bundle of stuff'.
NO WAY! Having an OS that doesn't require going out to several dozen sites to get apps to do basic functions is a PITA. I think the only thing I installed on my parent's Mac is Perian and Flip4Mac, with Windows I would spend many hours DLing, installing and cleaning up a new setup.
I would suggest that any report indicating a specific introductory time is conjecture. As Apple has published on two sites, it "is scheduled to ship in about a year" (dated June 9, 2008). The question now would be, "How long is about a year?" Some would say that it could lie anywhere between 6 months plus a day to 18 months less a day. In any event, it is somewhere within that period, it depends to what you round time off to, and it is relative.
With software projects such as what this is, I would say that "about a year" means, in the practical sense, anywhere from 11 months to 15 months.
Major software projects tend to slip, not speed up.
The only time in recent memory when Apple released an OS earlier than expected was because they had other, even more major, issues at hand?moving to Intel.
Otherwise, as expected, things slipped.
I just can't see any purpose in rushing such a major upgrade out the door. This may be the most important upgrade Apple has offered for OS X.
I remember when Adobe released PS 5 years ago. It also had little in the way of new features, but was also almost a total re-write. It was also done to clean up the code, add speed, and bring a better foundation for future features. This is what 10.6 is all about.
Some new features will be added, as well, we hope, as well the ones already being worked on, such as RI and ZDF (Apple didn't say that NO new features would be added, just that it wasn't the focus of the release), but will give Apple a much cleaner base to move forwards on, as well as bringing the OS up to the multi-core, hyperthreading world.
If they do this right, it will truly move the OS out in front of Windows, as MS is finding they have the same problems as Apple did when working on Copeland in the late '90's. Apple tried to do what MS tried with Longhorn, which was to bring major new abilities to the OS while maintaining compatibility with current hardware and software. They couldn't do it for several reasons.
But, Apple was able to go out and buy another OS they could build around, while realizing they needed to drop the compatability . They could do that, but MS can't. That's why Longhorn was the failure that Copeland was. MS went back to Server 2003 code, which worked well, and added some features to that.
But, Apple took Next's system, and wrote a "new" OS around it that was more flexible. The modularity of the OS enables them to do this.
The fact that Apple can do 10.6 without breaking most everything around it, shows that their base code was done well.
We should be pleased to give them as much time as they need, and not try to get them to rush it, like kids looking under the tree Christmas eve!
Some of these drivers are very complex, and Apple won't be able to duplicate drivers for all the machines out there. That's the same problem MS had with Vista. Ad MS has far more people to do this than Apple does. Apple will need these companies to do the drivers for their own machines.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
Are you saying that you haven't made up your mind and are still using Tiger or something earlier?
Yes, I'm still using Tiger. I use quite a lot of different types of apps so fully testing everything could take a bit of time. I was going to do it over Christmas as I'd like to play with the Leopard-only iphone SDK but if Snow Leopard is coming soon, I'd probably rather just skip right over it. Also there may be new hardware in January that I can buy, which will come with Leopard anyway.
I don't know if this guy is blowing smoke or not but it is interesting that OpenCL seems to favor Nvidia GPU. I would have thought that equal support for AMD/ATI would have been developed concomittantly seing as how Apple's lineup always has a model with ATI graphics.
I thought that perhaps the ATI cards weren't GPGPUs. This document from AMD:
http://ati.amd.com/technology/stream...User_Guide.pdf
suggests that the HD2000 series and higher should be ok. The old X1600 cards in the old MBPs aren't supported but the two cards in the iMac seem to be.
Someone from Nvidia said that OpenCL and CUDA are pretty close so porting one to the other should require minimal effort. This makes sense for developing as Apple can test CUDA code that has already been done and port it to OpenCL easily.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
I don't think Apple keeps any "official" releases from developers any more than MS does. What MS does though, is telegraph their intentions, as they must do to some extent, considering the environment they're in.
Like other companies, they give developers releases as sure as they feel that they are stable enough for general testing. MS doesn't hand out a final release any quicker to its developers than does Apple.
It's only in the last weeks that even Apple knows for sure whether release is imminent. That gives little time for final work no matter who it may be.
What the heck does that mean? Early 2008 MacBook Pros are compatible with Snow Leopard, but Late 2008 MacBook Pros are not?
That's quite plausible. Releasing new hardware and developing Snow Leopard are presumably two quite separate development efforts, so it's possible that if new drivers are needed for the late-2008 hardware that they simply haven't made it into SL yet.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...9&postcount=53
I don't know if this guy is blowing smoke or not but it is interesting that OpenCL seems to favor Nvidia GPU. I would have thought that equal support for AMD/ATI would have been developed concomittantly seing as how Apple's lineup always has a model with ATI graphics.
Nvidia was first to adapt their platform to OpenCL. That's it. The AMD streams API will be OpenCL compliant ASAP. Intel has been working with Apple, like the other two for quite some time, after Apple got the design and implementation from the ground up and Cocoa APIs mature in-hous, first.
This is a worrying aspect of Snow Leopard. If it ends up like Vista, it's not going to go down well. The longer they keep the official release from developers, the harder this process will be though. A lot of developers will test and update drivers once the system has gone public because only then do the customers need the support. If Snow Leopard takes a while to come out and it's still broken, people will overlook the benefits and declare that all it does is break device support.
Yes, I'm still using Tiger. I use quite a lot of different types of apps so fully testing everything could take a bit of time. I was going to do it over Christmas as I'd like to play with the Leopard-only iphone SDK but if Snow Leopard is coming soon, I'd probably rather just skip right over it. Also there may be new hardware in January that I can buy, which will come with Leopard anyway.
I thought that perhaps the ATI cards weren't GPGPUs. This document from AMD:
http://ati.amd.com/technology/stream...User_Guide.pdf
suggests that the HD2000 series and higher should be ok. The old X1600 cards in the old MBPs aren't supported but the two cards in the iMac seem to be.
Someone from Nvidia said that OpenCL and CUDA are pretty close so porting one to the other should require minimal effort. This makes sense for developing as Apple can test CUDA code that has already been done and port it to OpenCL easily.
What I like about AMD moving to OpenCL compliance:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...127451,00.html
is that Apple will have a far larger pool of GPUs to draw upon.
I have simply skipped Leopard. I'm still on 10.4.11 - and from looking at my friend's adventures with Leopard to this day, Tiger is STILL more stable. And frankly there are no features of Leopard that I'm salivating over.
you wrote:
Same here. I also find the graphics to be a bit to in my face. Drop shadows, dock etc. Same the iphone SDK is Leopard-only. Yet another example of Apple forcing upgrades on people.
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
On you comment to FineWine's statement, i.e.,
I have simply skipped Leopard. I'm still on 10.4.11 - and from looking at my friend's adventures with Leopard to this day, Tiger is STILL more stable. And frankly there are no features of Leopard that I'm salivating over.
[...]
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
Just to clarify, I've used my friend's Leopard running MBP on many occasions, so it's not just watching. We've worked side by side for many hours on many occasions and anyhow, I do think that even just watching can be educational - like I don't have the Wi-Fi dropping issues on my 10.4.11 that he has constantly... and this is the OS not a hardware flaw. This is just one example, but there are plenty others. I was impressed by Jaguar, Panther and Tiger. I have been supremely unimpressed with Leopard. I'm skipping it, and hoping SL is the bees knees.
1) You always have the option to not buy it until it has matured a bit and reports are showing that it's quite stable.
You're missing the point. This is supposed to be a cleanup of the OS on top of the few new under the hood additions. The whole idea of this OS is to modernize the OS for todays computing and to clean up all of the crap (including bugs) its built up over the years. To release an OS with major bugs when there's no reason to rush at all is just foolish. I'm actually glad they didn't specify a date and I hope they don't for quite a while. You shouldn't have to wait for it to be usable. It should be usable from the start. I don't mean it should be 100% perfect as there's no way to test all of the real world possibilities, but major issues should not be part of this release at all. There's no excuse. Apple loves to pick on Microsoft for its bugs, but its not like Apple never does the same thing. The last 3 initial OS X releases (10.3. 10.4, and 10.5) have all had at least 1 major bug in them that shouldn't have existed. Most of them dealing with data loss issues.
You're missing the point. This is supposed to be a cleanup of the OS on top of the few new under the hood additions. The whole idea of this OS is to modernize the OS for todays computing and to clean up all of the crap (including bugs) its built up over the years. To release an OS with major bugs when there's no reason to rush at all is just foolish. I'm actually glad they didn't specify a date and I hope they don't for quite a while. You shouldn't have to wait for it to be usable. It should be usable from the start. I don't mean it should be 100% perfect as there's no way to test all of the real world possibilities, but major issues should not be part of this release at all. There's no excuse. Apple loves to pick on Microsoft for its bugs, but its not like Apple never does the same thing. The last 3 initial OS X releases have had at least 1 major bug in them.
The point updates are to clean up bugs and optimize that version. Don't be fooled, this is a major update to OS X. Perhaps the biggest, most complex effort Apple has put toward an OS update since moving to OS X from OS 9. Revamping the OS down to the core is much more complex and time consuming than simply adding a new app to the install or making some superficial feature for a current app.
Think about this: If what you are saying were true, then why aren't the point updates getting this cleaned up code and bug fixes? Why aren't the beta builds stable and usable if it's just cleaned up code and bug fixes?
Any progress on Resolution Independence?
That's like putting the cart before the horse. We have to have GPUs and better yet, display output devices capable of scaling up their pixel dimensions, on-the-fly. Hell, we can't get decent panels inside monitors w/o starting at > $700 for a 20" panel.
The point updates are to clean up bugs and optimize that version. Don't be fooled, this is a major update to OS X. Perhaps the biggest, most complex effort Apple has put toward an OS update since moving to OS X from OS 9. Revamping the OS down to the core is much more complex and time consuming than simply adding a new app to the install or making some superficial feature for a current app.
Think about this: If what you are saying were true, then why aren't the point updates getting this cleaned up code and bug fixes? Why aren't the beta builds stable and usable if it's just cleaned up code and bug fixes?
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point. The decade and more in-between was the pacification and business realities of the day Steve didn't count on when himself, Avie, Forstall and the rest of us at NeXT were discussing at the last official NeXT company meeting.
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point. The decade and more in-between was the pacification and business realities of the day Steve didn't count on when himself, Avie, Forstall and the rest of us at NeXT were discussing at the last official NeXT company meeting.
OS's are the most difficult undertaking of all. Being the underpinning for all computer uses, it's got to do the right thing, and do it well.
I remember when NT first came out. It was severely criticized for (among other things) taking up 300 MB of HDD space, and requiring too much RAM, though I've forgotten that number.
Today, we can laugh at those numbers. The OS has become so complex, it's difficult to know how anyone can understand exactly what's in it.
FreeBSD, for example, has code that no one today knows. Code that has been there since the early '60's. Some things may never get straightened out.
So you based your expert opinions watching somebody else's Mac running Leopard?
It's my personal opinion after having used Leopard extensively on someone else's machine. I'm not understanding why you have a problem with this.
Like other companies, they give developers releases as sure as they feel that they are stable enough for general testing. MS doesn't hand out a final release any quicker to its developers than does Apple.
That's right but the problem was the same there. Developers didn't get support ready for the Vista launch, it was only after end users made complaints that drivers didn't work that the 3rd party developers went and fixed them.
This could be the same story when Apple brings out SL.
What I like about AMD moving to OpenCL compliance:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...127451,00.html
is that Apple will have a far larger pool of GPUs to draw upon.
But all Nvidia GPUs since the 8 series are OpenCL compliant up to and including all the ones they are developing now. AMD/ATI have been a bit late to the party.
That's right but the problem was the same there. Developers didn't get support ready for the Vista launch, it was only after end users made complaints that drivers didn't work that the 3rd party developers went and fixed them.
This could be the same story when Apple brings out SL.
That's something I'm concerned about.
But it depends on how Apple is doing this. They give attention to different aspects of the development each time they work on a new beta. If the spend more time on the aspects of the driver integration into the OS early enough on, then, if the manufacturers are members of the developer connection, they will be able to start work early.
If Apple feels that it must leave that part of the OS 'till late in the process, then they won't have much time.
No matter how that works out, the more time Apple takes, the more time they will have to understand what they have to do.
I'm pretty sure that even by now, there is enough info from Apple about the driver situation that they have a very good idea of where their development efforts should be headed.
The problem, as I can say with some experience, is that many companies don't WANT to start any serious work until they receive an almost final, ready to go version. That's often what slows down third party development. They're afraid that they will have to re-do some of their work from last minute changes. Not every developer, of hardware in particular, has a large team of people who can do this work, and more companies than one might think, outsource driver development to companies that specialize in it, so there is a disconnect there.
From people I've spoken to tell me that part of that problem ws related to MS. They were insisting that THEY do all the driver development for a long time. That's one of the reasons why there was pretty much no third party drivers available at launch, and for months after. Then, MS just gave the whole thing up to third parties, which caused more confusion. Only later did they coordinate between themselves and the third parties, which made things work more smoothly. Also, because their 64 bit drivers had to be ok'd by MS before they could get used, to make sure they adhered to the DRM, it put another layer between the companies and the user.
We're seeing something like that with apps for the iPhone, with delays in the apps gettng into the store.
Hopefully, Apple will have learned from what happened with Vista, and has streamlined the process.
10.6 is the first release that Steve promised us at NeXT, after the merger back in the spring of 1997. It just took 12 years to actually reach this starting point.
Could you expound a bit more about this? What is it about 10.6 that signifies a "starting point?"? Is it the promotion of Cocoa as the only framework going forward?
I'm looking for more innovation in software coming from Apple. Lately they've hyped their innovation but largely it's been cosmetic IMO. I think they've done some good things in all areas but I'm looking for more positive hits to Clarke's 3rd law.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
I want to see more WOW stuff.
That's like putting the cart before the horse. We have to have GPUs and better yet, display output devices capable of scaling up their pixel dimensions, on-the-fly. Hell, we can't get decent panels inside monitors w/o starting at > $700 for a 20" panel.
You didn't really answer his question.. Personally, i haven't seen any mention of Resolution Independence in either of the 3 seeds of SL so something's fishy here.
Also, in regards to your reply, i'm not sure how it is relevant.
I currently stare at a 22" Dell LCD next to my 15"MBP and if i drag a window and put it in the middle of the 2 screens so that i see half on one side and half on the other, it looks like like the MBP side is about 20% smaller.
RI is supposed to know the size of each pixel on each screen and adjust the size of the window automatically so if i drag it in the middle like i just did, the window will look perfectly equal on either screen. This can ALL be implemented in software as already Apple knows what size the pixel is on both the MBP and the external monitor. I don't see what's taking them soo long to implement this much MUCH needed feature
Adi