Apple to ship 2 millionth copy of Tiger; Leopard due by 2007

[AppleInsider]

Apple today announced it expects to deliver the two millionth copy of Mac OS X version 10.4 “Tiger” by the end of this week -- just six week's after the software went on sale to the public.

The figure includes copies sold at retail, copies delivered under maintenance agreements and copies bundled with Mac systems shipped, making Tiger Apple’s fastest selling OS release ever.

Developer support for Tiger is also setting new records with hundreds of developers including Microsoft and Adobe announcing support for Tiger, Apple said. To date third party developers have released more than 400 Dashboard widgets, 550 Automator actions and 40 Spotlight plug-ins for Tiger.

“The response to Tiger is off the charts,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Critics are raving, customers are delighted and developers are creating hundreds of widgets and applications that take advantage of Tiger’s incredible innovations like Spotlight, Dashboard and Automator.”

During his opening speech this morning at the company's annual World Wide Developers Conference, Jobs announced that the next -- and fifth -- major revision of the Mac OS X operating system will be called "Leopard."

“We’re not going to be focusing on it at this conference today, but [...] we intend to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007 -- right around the time Microsoft expects to release Longhorn,” he said.

Jobs promised more information of Leopard (presumably Mac OS X 10.5) during next year's developers conference.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Placebo]

I thought the OS upgrade cycle was slowing down. Thumbs-down.

[icfireball]

Yes, 18 month cycles...from 12 month cycles

[endymionls]

I thought the OS upgrade cycle was slowing down. Thumbs-down.

Not as long as there are 1,999,999 people out there like myself (by the end of this week).

I would venture a guess that the next version of OS X would be the one that will be fully compatible with Intel Processors. Otherwise, all it would be is a figure to go against Longhorn.

[iShawn]

I doubt there will be many switches from Mac to Longhorn, do you think? I know a lot of people come to Mac because they don't have to screw with viri and such. Are we ever going to need to worry about that? I guess after all I could just turn off the Airport connection on the mac... when I don't need it. Most of the mac's use is recording. And I will be with Apple until they (Or I myself) die. Apple's music and video production has amazed me.

[Gmac]

Originally posted by endymionls
I would venture a guess that the next version of OS X would be the one that will be fully compatible with Intel Processors.

Every version of OSX todate has been fully compatible with Intel chips. Did you watch the keynote?

[endymionls]

No, I haven't watched the Keynote yet, since it wouldn't play last night. I should have said the first commercially availble for the Intel line.

[nitriletiger]

While OSX currently works with the new intel chips, it only runs at 80% the power of a 2.6 GHZ Powermac.Apple should use the 3.8 GHZ chips as the best instead of the 3.6. Perhaps the new cell proccessors will increase the speed of that.

I am happy with the updates to the OS that apple is making, at he current rate we should expect OSX 11.0 sometime in 2015.

-Nitriletiger

P.S. I certainly hopw that apple doesn 't use those ugly "intel inside" stickers, using the chips is enough of a step into the dark side and using their stickers would just be stupid.

[Placebo]

Originally posted by nitriletiger
While OSX currently works with the new intel chips, it only runs at 80% the power of a 2.6 GHZ Powermac.Apple should use the 3.8 GHZ chips as the best instead of the 3.6. Perhaps the new cell proccessors will increase the speed of that.

I am happy with the updates to the OS that apple is making, at he current rate we should expect OSX 11.0 sometime in 2015.

-Nitriletiger

P.S. I certainly hopw that apple doesn 't use those ugly "intel inside" stickers, using the chips is enough of a step into the dark side and using their stickers would just be stupid.

You're thinking of Rosetta apps, which run really slow.

From what I saw on the keynote, the Intel comp is running extremely well. Look at how fast the Spotlight results are.

And since when were faster processors "a step to the dark side"? You, as an end user, won't be able to tell the difference between an Intel Mac and a PPC Mac. You won't. At all.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by Placebo
From what I saw on the keynote, the Intel comp is running extremely well. Look at how fast the Spotlight results are.

Personally... I don't care about how fast Spotlight can find something. If I really want to find it, I'll go get a sandwich and come back. Musicians want to know how this will affect with things like Logic and other recording apps. Since software from Apple has been secretly programmed to run on Intel; I assume that means that apps can run on it too from Apple. Assuming...

So. I want to be the first to get a hold of a developer who records music and get some sort of a benchmark of plugins or something. I bet people along with myself at places like macmusic.org and osxaudio.com would pay good money just to know that.

I mean, it's freaking people out. Many are wanting to go and buy the dual 2.7GHz G5's because they know it will be a while until Apple gets it's Intel going.

I don't blame them.

Musician's 2 cents. And artists. And scientists. And anyone who gets that "Disk Too Slow" error.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by nitriletiger
While OSX currently works with the new intel chips, it only runs at 80% the power of a 2.6 GHZ Powermac.Apple should use the 3.8 GHZ chips as the best instead of the 3.6. Perhaps the new cell proccessors will increase the speed of that.

Where'd you find that info?

[Gmac]

Originally posted by endymionls
No, I haven't watched the Keynote yet, since it wouldn't play last night. I should have said the first commercially availble for the Intel line.

Yeah that makes sense - except they plan to ship Intel machines by next summer which would mean they are going to run Tiger. So probably some 10.4.x version will be first commercial for Intel.

[AquaMac]

When the Mac/tel are released you will have the Blue Men riding around on Tigers in the commercials. But then you get that stupid Dong din Dong Din sound.

[ghiangelo]

i find this statement to be the curious one:

quoting Jobs-

“We’re not going to be focusing on it at this conference today, but [...] we intend to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007 -- right around the time Microsoft expects to release Longhorn,” he said."


2007 is also the time frame for Apple to have implimented the complete switch over to Intel across it's product line...

interesting that it coincides with the introduction of Longhorn (?)

Jobs also illustrated a Dashboard widget by counting down the days to Longhorn's launch...

it looks like this is the concern of Apple. the consumer attraction to Longhorn and how Apple is going to compete with it. Apple saw the roadmaps and realized the PPC was not going the direction it needed, while Intel was plowing along with progressively improving CPUs. no doubt at the introduction of Longhorn Microsoft will be presenting it on hardware running at 5Ghz and multicore. is this viable for the PPC roadmap?

at least by 2007 Apple will be able to put on the table a high designed Power Mac with hardware numbers EQUAL to a Longhorn system... i think this is the point of the shift. i would think by then Leopard will possess some visual features not present on Longhorn that will give it a 'cool' advantage over the PC.

[Ferali]

Originally posted by nitriletiger

I am happy with the updates to the OS that apple is making, at he current rate we should expect OSX 11.0 sometime in 2015.

in the steve note he clearly said mac os X 10 is going to last them another 20 years. i am assuming that started in 2001, so we wont see mac os 11 until around 2021.

[iShawn]

Well... people have been waiting for Longhorn for so long they'd take anything. Even XP with new fonts and colors would fool them. And they'd claim it the best ever. No wonder some are a little frightened on the Apple side. I'd be. But also not too worried about it once people get a taste of it's salty beef.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by Ferali
in the steve note he clearly said mac os X 10 is going to last them another 20 years. i am assuming that started in 2001, so we wont see mac os 11 until around 2021.

It would have to take something big to go from 10 to 11. Or maybe...
[hokey spinal tap]Can't you just take 10 and raise it one more? [/hokey spinal tap]

[kcmac]

Originally posted by ghiangelo
it looks like this is the concern of Apple. the consumer attraction to Longhorn and how Apple is going to compete with it.

I would think it would be the other way around.

Tiger has most of the features now that Longhorn is claimed to have and more. Leopard will be even better. How will MS deal with this? They will have to sell something that while good, will certainly be behind Leopard from the get go.

Unless of course, MS chooses to push back Longhorn a little more and grab some more Apple goodies.

[ghiangelo]

Originally posted by kcmac
I would think it would be the other way around.

Tiger has most of the features now that Longhorn is claimed to have and more. Leopard will be even better. How will MS deal with this? They will have to sell something that while good, will certainly be behind Leopard from the get go.

Unless of course, MS chooses to push back Longhorn a little more and grab some more Apple goodies.

Microsoft possesses over 90% of market share world wide. Apple Mac Os has between 3%-4% market share... it is Apple that has most to lose. the company can't afford a 2% loss. that is half of it's business and a loss of that much would seriously hurt Apple. for Apple to double it's share would be a massive feat. whereas a 2% loss on the side of Microsoft would be managable and not place the company in jeopardy.

Apple is in a precarious situation. they currently have the better Os on the market yet EVEN NOW Apple is fighting to compete with the current XP, a glorified NT. for 2 years now a fast functional Os X has been available and still Apple struggles to budge from their share position. in 2007 Apple's product position is going to be LESS advantageous with a Longhorn that has similar 'advanced' Os features as compared to the differences between the two presently. 2 million sales of Tiger is only a representation of installed Os replacement, not new market. the most fundamental advantage Apple will have with Intel is hardware parity. this might explain why AMD was over looked, Apple needs to be as 'even' with WinTel systems as it can be. any hiccup in Intel development will also affect the PC world equally. Intel dominates the processor market. AMD hovers at 10%, making them vulnerable.

Apple needs growth in order to create cushion and movement and it needs every competitive angle it can get. an under developed PPC road map doesn't cut it.

i think it is a good thing for Apple to adopt Intel. i'm sure Apple will have unique modified component aspects to their line up like they always have had, if not entirely new expanded varieties of iMacs and Power Macs. Apple industrial design is unsurpassed and it has nothing to do with the CPU. but right now Apple just has to position itself to compete.

[kenaustus]

Personally I'm not that worried about Apple's market share. They make the market share they have profitable and not too many computer companies can say that. They also are growing their business, which is just as important.

One of the factors related to moving a PC user to Macs is the need for the PC user to have someone (a Mac user or knowledgeable salesperson) to spend enough time with them so that they can understand what a Mac (OS X) is all about. The Apple Stores are excellent in this regard and growth in the number of stores will only help.

As for Longhorn, I believe that might actually help Apple. Every new Win OS requires more horsepower and current user of inexpensive systems are likely to be very unhappy with it when they give it a try. Apple, on the other hand, seems to be able to make old Macs work even better with each new release of OS X. If MS is not very careful they may well turn off a lot of users when Longhorn arrives.

[TenoBell]

I was a bit bummed and mourned the end of Power PC.

But now that I can see clearer where things are headed. Going Intel is an interesting choice, and just maybe crazy enough to work.

It seems Intel is open to the idea of innovating hardware that works with Apple’s elegant software. Apple will be able to share with Intel the beauty of software/hardware integration, while Apple will have access to Intel’s massive manufacturing. Apple will be able to use Intel supported motherboards, which should mean using more standard PC cards and memory. No more need to wait for Mac supported stuff we use the same as everyone else.

Virtualization will allow a Mactel to run Windows or Linux on the same machine. But no other machine will be allowed to run OS X.

I can imagine Apple will not be selling the Mactel’s any cheaper than Power PC, so Apple will need to produce clearly more powerful, functional and superior x86 machines.

OS X and Windows will now stand toe to toe on the same hardware. Apple will need to clearly demonstrate OS X is a faster and more user friendly interface than Window’s.

I can imagine by 2007 the Apple product landscape should look more something like this.

All lap tops and desk tops should be 64 bit - dual core. All products should have integrated wireless connection (WiFi and Bluetooth). All products should have more standard graphics cards that can support Quartz Extreme 2D and MPEG 4 HD. All products should be able to play BlueRay HD/ HD-DVD optical media.

Mac Tablet 1.5 – 1.8 Ghz

iBook 2.0 -2.3 Ghz

PowerBook 2.5 – 2.8 Ghz

Mac mini 2.5 –2.8 Ghz

iMac 3.0 – 3.2 Ghz

PowerMac 3.5 – 4.0 Ghz

The Mac Tablet as a super light (less than 3 pounds) ultra thin (little more than an inch) storage and display device. Has a single core, built in wireless connection, support 1 GB of memory, 60 GB HD.

The iBook and PowerBook both have 64 bit dual core CPU and graphics cards that support Quartz Extreme 2D and MPEG 4 HD playback and encoding. The largest iBook is a 15 inch wide screen with SXGA (1280x1024) resolution. Have 100 GB HD and up to 2 GB of RAM.

The top end PowerBook has a 19” HD (1920x1080) screen, 150 GB HD and support 4GB of RAM. Graphics card that supports MPEG 4 HD 1080 24P.

Mac mini has 64 bit dual core processors supports 4 GB of memory, 150 GB HD. Graphics card playback and encode MPEG 4 HD 1080 24P.

iMac has 64 bit dual core processors, support 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HD. Largest iMac has 23” screen with HD (1920x1080) resolution. Graphics card supports Quartz Extreme 2D and MPEG 4 HD encoding and playback

The top PowerMac has 64 bit quad processors, 16 GB of RAM, PCI –X and PCI-Express slots, internal RAID, support for double graphic cards (Nvidia SLI, ATI Crossfire) and 3D graphics cards. Pushing dual 40” QXGA (2048x1536) monitors.



To think about it this way makes it exciting.

[rwahrens]

Originally posted by iShawn
I doubt there will be many switches from Mac to Longhorn, do you think? I know a lot of people come to Mac because they don't have to screw with viri and such. Are we ever going to need to worry about that? I guess after all I could just turn off the Airport connection on the mac... when I don't need it. Most of the mac's use is recording. And I will be with Apple until they (Or I myself) die. Apple's music and video production has amazed me.

What makes you think just moving to Intel would make Mac OS X more vulnerable to viri? That's a function of the OS and its inherent security or lack thereof, NOT the hardware!

Of course, eventually, Mac OS X will probably get hit by something - I read yesterday that there is a trojan horse that targets the same unix kernal apple uses for X - and infects the Apache server - AND Apple has already released the patch to cover it. So, yes, we will, and really, are. But Apple has a much better track record in responding to this stuff than M$, and, by the way, generally ship their OS more locked down than the Evil Empire does.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by rwahrens
What makes you think just moving to Intel would make Mac OS X more vulnerable to viri? That's a function of the OS and its inherent security or lack thereof, NOT the hardware!

Of course, eventually, Mac OS X will probably get hit by something - I read yesterday that there is a trojan horse that targets the same unix kernal apple uses for X - and infects the Apache server - AND Apple has already released the patch to cover it. So, yes, we will, and really, are. But Apple has a much better track record in responding to this stuff than M$, and, by the way, generally ship their OS more locked down than the Evil Empire does.

Good to know.

[BriJQ84]

Hold up a sec here.... Vista is slated for December 06' right?

WWDC was in October as I recall...

If WWDC is in October again this year...there's no way Apple will get Leopard out around the same time as Longhorn.

I think we're looking at another special event or a really weird year as far as WWDC goes.

[gregmightdothat]

Originally posted by BriJQ84
Hold up a sec here.... Vista is slated for December 06' right?

WWDC was in October as I recall...

If WWDC is in October again this year...there's no way Apple will get Leopard out around the same time as Longhorn.

I think we're looking at another special event or a really weird year as far as WWDC goes.

WWDC has been in June the past few years.

[FrenchMac]

Originally posted by BriJQ84
Hold up a sec here.... Vista is slated for December 06' right?

Vista is now slated for 08-31-2006.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by FrenchMac
Vista is now slated for 08-31-2006.

Which means whatever Apple shows of at WWDC isnt gonna make it into Vista until at least SP1.

Nice.

But then again, Vista will have been on the market for ~6 months at the release time. Personally I think Apple has to go head on with MS for this one.

[Anders]

I hope they plan for a August 31st release.

Leopard must be a feature release since Apple claimed the APIs are fixed. If that is right the OS people at Apple have had a lot of time to come up with new and/or improved features to woo the audience and press.

Perhaps an reintroduction/improving of Tigers most promising features, Widgets, Automator and Spotlight, could do the trick for the Apple-ignorant audience.

And right now it seems like bad tactics to have exported Garageband, iMovie et al to a seperate suite. It makes it harder to claim it is part of the OS. Could have made a VERY good selling point. Perhaps they should reinclude it into the OS for the 10.5 release only...

[Aquatic]

Right. Perhaps for a month they could package iLife 06 in with Leopard.

[gregmightdothat]

Originally posted by rwahrens
What makes you think just moving to Intel would make Mac OS X more vulnerable to viri? That's a function of the OS and its inherent security or lack thereof, NOT the hardware!

Of course, eventually, Mac OS X will probably get hit by something - I read yesterday that there is a trojan horse that targets the same unix kernal apple uses for X - and infects the Apache server - AND Apple has already released the patch to cover it. So, yes, we will, and really, are. But Apple has a much better track record in responding to this stuff than M$, and, by the way, generally ship their OS more locked down than the Evil Empire does.

I'm not positive about this, so if I'm fudging details, I'm sorry

PPC processors store executable code and data in separate places in memory, whereas Intel chips lump it all together. This means that Intel chips are more vulnerable to buffer overflows, which is one of the main entry points viruses use.

That said, I'm not the least bit concerned, because Apple seems to be making security a top priority.

Edit: Wow, I already replied to this thread without reading half of it... and replied to it again later... oh well

[cuencap]

Are Vista and Longhorn the same thing...?

I'm confused...

[BriJQ84]

Yes. Vista and Longhorn are the same thing. The name was changed from Longhorn to Vista though so officially it's called "Windows Vista". My bad for the confusion.

[blue2kdave]

Originally posted by BriJQ84
Yes. Vista and Longhorn are the same thing. The name was changed from Longhorn to Vista though so officially it's called "Windows Vista". My bad for the confusion.

This is wrong. They are not the same thing at all.

[Anders]

Explain, bitte.

[Telomar]

Originally posted by blue2kdave
This is wrong. They are not the same thing at all.

Microsoft disagrees with you.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by Telomar
Microsoft disagrees with you.

Interesting. I didn't know this either, I just assumed they decided to change the name. Damn shame though:

You'll need Windows Media Player to view the video.

Oh well, should have seen that coming.

[nowayout11]

There was no name change per se. Longhorn was always a codename.

Windows Vista is the official name for the next version of Windows (and they ARE the same thing).

[blue2kdave]

Originally posted by Anders
Explain, bitte.

I am confused. Is the argument since they are both windows releases they are the same? I guess I was saying that they are different in the same way that 10.3 and 10.4 are different. I also thought there was a great deal of new code. But, hey, I think its a semantics argument.

[Anders]

As stated above Longhorn was a codename. Vista will be the name itis sold under.

Just like the relationship between Puma and Mac OS X 10.1

[cali4nr]

Originally posted by blue2kdave
I am confused. Is the argument since they are both windows releases they are the same? I guess I was saying that they are different in the same way that 10.3 and 10.4 are different. I also thought there was a great deal of new code. But, hey, I think its a semantics argument.

Lets try to end your confusion. Longhorn is code name of the OS that Microsoft has been developing for years. As seen in the press release linked to above, the OFFICIAL name will be VISTA.