Apple previews Mac OS X Leopard - Page 2

Those NDAs: Who does Apple not want you to release it to? It can't be from Microsoft, as they're also a developer. Does MS have a firewall between the MBU and Windows divisions? Did Apple ensure that no one from the Windows division of MS was allowed in?

I don't get it.

Check out the cursor left in the CoreAnimation video... it appears after the first few seconds.


http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html


I for one am very happy to see Spaces... that will make things at home a lot easier (the wife, the kids, the neighbors, G. Bush, etc all want a turn on my Mac). The Mail stationary thingy will be liked by the wife. Backup up with Time Machine looks nice, and even suggests Apple expects all computers to be left on all the time (it works at midnight so the Mac needs to be on, but could be asleep).

Otherwise, not all that impressed, but there is stuff Steve didn't show. We can only hope.

I've never understood what it is about the brushed metal that some seem to dislike so much.

I forgot about that part in my reply.

Though, yes, MS is SUPPOSED to have a Chinese wall between their OS and MBU. That was required after the first settlement with the Feds in the earlier '90's.

Do I believe they actually do?

I disagree with this right here. I haven't had the chance to watch the keynote or the demonstrations about this since I'm at work, but....

Time Machine seems like a improved version of the Windows XP System Restore feature.
Spaces is pretty much linux's virtual desktop concept.
The iChat sharing desktop feature seems to be a pretty similar application to Windows XP's remote assitance feature.

No offense but that quote is pretty misleading, when 2 of the features seem to be taken from Windows XP itself.

You mean you aren't under Steve's RDF!?!?!?

Naturally ...Jobs is the king of hyperbole.

He should be highlighting how OS X has these hot features together rather than imply that Apple added them first or innovated them.

Yup. When he showed those features, I wondered if he borrowed MS's copying machine.

I highly doubt that is the "only" reason. As mentioned, the moving back of WWDC was a signal that there would be no way Leopard would be released in 2006 (and MWSF 2007 would have been really pushing it).

Developers are only getting a feature incomplete preview release at this juncture; it likely won't contain some of the secret stuff alluded to until a later seed appears. That itself presents a problem with the whole general seeding/testing cycle (just basing on prior experience) since Apple has to balance enabling those features to allow for timely testing and feedback. The whole seeding process itself will take several months once Apple opens up the beta to Appleseed testers.

Another thing is the lack of Core 2 based products in the seed population relative to other hardware profiles which could slow the overall process (there will also be Tiger client and server seeds for testing which is going to spread the amount of time out thinly for some). Depending on how well this goes in terms of crushing bugs, there is likely a fair leeway built into the schedule (Spring 2007 being a general milestone target though I presume they will be aggressive in getting to a nominally stable release in addressing major issues by late 2006 in order to determine an approximate release timeframe).

True. Good natured ribbing is fun but there is a thin line before it becomes tasteless.


To me it didn't seem Jobs was saying we are the first to do this. It seems he is touting the easy and intuitive way it works in OS X.

There was a *ton* not touched upon in that curiously minimal and piecemeal Leopard "preview".

I mean, Time Machine and the iChat sharing features were pretty cool, but c'mon.

Anything that touched resolution independence wasn't discussed. No Finder. Not a word about Safari (which we know from Dave Hyatt's post is being prepared for "high-DPI websites"). Not a word about Spotlight's new UI. All this stuff is *so* obviously in the cards for Leopard it practically hurts.

Conspiratorial and RSN isn't my style, but it's not hard to pair those very obvious omissions with Jobs outright saying "look, we can't show you everything just yet" and not figure out that Leopard is going to have a major UI overhaul that, for whatever reason (justifiable paranoia? just plain not finished?), they don't yet want to show.

I agree with that. I just can't figure it. there's nothing there that MS would suddenly feel that they MUST incorporate. They are so far behind already, that all they need, is to try to recode other major areas.

Yet, at the same time, Apple releases the beta version of their new spreadsheet.

Sorry, but I missed that?? do you happen to have a link on that?

Well, it could also be unjustifiable paranoia.

I think more than anything, Apple wants to make sure MS doesn't pull a fast one and changes its visual appearance at the last minute (like they did, if you recall, with XP). Those things are easy to drop in at the last minute, but embarassing to change after releasing (at least until the next major update).

Also, if Apple is attempting something as bold and dramatic as I suspect, they very well simply need more time. Always better to underpromise and overdeliver than vice versa.


Wha? I missed that one.

If if that was the case, though... Apple will be playing catch-up to MS in the Office Suite dept. for a *long* time to come. They really don't have to worry about keeping that stuff under wraps.

Sure. Here it is.

http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html

iWork, where this will likely end up, is more of an Appleworks replacement.

It's not that I disliked it THAT much -- I think it is ok, but here are the two problems:

1) It is not consitantly used
2) It looks bloated, thick, and heavy.

Yes, it should have been consistent. But, it never looked dark on any of my monitors. But, then, all of my monitors are calibrated.

I agree also. In fact the Leopard Preview on Apple.com shows nothing about Spotlight or iCal. With a redesigned finder I would expect new UI's for other applications.


I think its mostly showmanship as you described before. And its pretty annoying to blame it on MS. A little ribbing is funny but its going too far.


Is this what you are talking about. I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be Apple or not but it doesn't really say what company it comes from.

http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html

Apple really should sell iWork with every new Mac the way they do iLife. I don't think it really competes with office.

But that's not by Apple.

They had better not ship anything even remotly close to what was shown today at a $129 pricepoint, heck it isnt worth $20...

I Want:
consistant look and feel
the ability to turn off spotlight and dashboard for older macs

and the 800LB Gorilla that Apple is ignoring
FIX THE F(antastic) FINDER!!!!


Do that and I will write a check...

Everything about the design feels very Apple even the web page.

They aren't ignoring it, they just aren't showing what they are doing.

Melgross don't fret over the lack of discussion reguarding resolution independence. I don't believe that showed up in Steve's WWDC keynote last time around. That was in the Graphics and Media State of the Union presentation. It will be those more focused workshops where the under the hood enhancements are discussed.

I for one am very eager to learn more about Objective-C 2. Here's what the blurb on Apple.com had to say:


I'm anxious to see how they managed garbage collection, and what syntax changes they made. Objective-C is a great language, but it was starting to show its age. Glad to see them sprucing it up.

Yes and it is needed badly in my opinion. This is cool.


We saw this coming for a long time. Virtue, etc. Its a love-it-or-hate-it app.


Is this using built-in existing ARD technology? Im excited about this.


Sort of. Apple cant reinvent the wheel all the time.

Maybe Steve will do the opposite to Vista and push the release date forward instead of back. MWSF 2007: 3rd Demo (2nd in Paris) We said Leopard would probably ship in Spring... That was a white lie. Leopard is in fact shipping today for $129. Get a copy and start using the 300+ amazing features, some of which you have seen here today. One more thing... The new Phone, tablet, iPod type thing that can cook a Full English.

And exactly how much of that $129 are consistent look/feel and the ability to turn off Spotlight/Dashboard worth to you? \

How will "time machine" archive all of those states of your OS and apps, files?? wont that take up HUGE amounts of HD space???

Where does it say that Xcode 3.0 is getting released today? I've been listening and reading, but not hearing or seeing it.

Oddly, Xcode 2.4 is shown for download on the ADC Xcode page but I don't see it on the downloads page in the Member Site. Will 2.4 be a stop gap and we'll have to buy Leopard to get the 3.0 features? As with Kickaha, I am really looking forward to it, so the sooner the better.

Time Machine looks amazing. How easy to use and intuitive does that look? I would imagine it's detecting the changes, as Backup currently does. So a big first copy, then lots of incremental ones, detailing changes. Of course if that is how it's done, it just makes searching through the individual system states even more incredible.

The rest of the stuff looked cool. I'm glad they're putting effort into Accessibility, it's okay for folks without disabilities to sit there and say it's fine for me or whatever, but everyone should be able to use computers. Spaces looked okay, I've used virtual desktops before, the key now is clicking an app in the dock takes you to the screen with that app in.

Lets face it, Apple has been very under promising lately and significantly over delivering on their promise:

• Tiger to ship by 2h 2005 (IIRC), launched end of April, 2 months ahead.
• Ship Intel macs by WWDC 2006, ~6 months ahead.
• Move to Intel by end of 2007 was the first quote WWDC 2005, 16 months ahead.

The features list will grow. There are killer apps. This is the release that will compete directly with Windows. No smoke, no mirrors, no different platforms to hide behind. It's Windows vs. Mac OS X. Vista vs. Leopard.

Yup...snapshots always do. Thankfully HDD are getting cheaper and cheaper.

Not so much dark really as thick and heavy.

I have yet to see the keynote (Apple's site won't show it because of too many visitors), but in a few things I've read, Steve Jobs has made reference to things that are yet to be announced as far as Leopard. Big things. I hope this is true because as is, its not worth the $120.

Your 3TB of HDD in the Mac Pro will handle it with no problem

And yet Apple acusses others of being copycats and tells them to start their photocopiers. Oh, the irony.

Microsoft kills Virtual PC for the Mac.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/08/07/vpc/index.php

consistant look and feel $50, although it should have been kept consistant all along
the ability to turn off spotlight and dashboard for older macs: $0 It should have been a DB/Spotlight feature in Tiger


and the 800LB Gorilla that Apple is ignoring
FIX THE F(antastic) FINDER!!!!
If done right (cleaner UI, better speed, better handling of nfs/smb shares and better FTP), $50


And the new multi-desktop thing is really cool, lets say $10 shareware price...

iChat (sans the keying which is really slick) is doing now what I did with netmeeting in Windows 98...so that has a whopping value of $0 Freeware...but I will be generous and add $20 for keying.

I'm still not clear how that works. A lot of the Apple programs like Mail have gone over to being really file-based where every message is in its own file. My guess is that it'll do some kind of incremental backups of files when they change, and then in the application there's a way to filter the data by date.

But, despite someone saying this doesn't use/require(?) .mac, where exactly is it backing up the files to??? A backup system is totally useless if it stores the backups on the same drive.

Time Machine is way beyond System Restore. And that's discounting the user interface, and the assumption that it works. Go read about it some more. Rather than dig out my own words, here's a comment from a "Fanatic Realist" on another web site with which I agree:

"Saying that Time Machine is a competitor to System Restore is to wholly misunderstand the nature of System Restore and an insult to some of the more imaginative Windows ISVs like Altiris.

Time Machine is actually a competitor to Altiris' Client Recovery Solution (which was acquired as part of the Previo acquisition). CRS allows a user or systems admin to roll back either the operating system, an application or the data (so long as it was a static document) on a given client system (so long as that system was/is a Windows system).

Time Machine improves on the concept of most client recovery solutions by, as is the way with many Apple OS developments, having a published API that directly allows Apple and third-party ISVs to incorporate Time Machine functionality into their applications so long as, presumably, they adhere to the Core Data persistence mechanics."

And he/she raises some interesting questions as follows:

"1) Will Time Machine have a server version available in Leopard Server?

2) Is Time Machine likely to be capable of dealing with 'transactional' data, from applications such as 4D, Oracle or Sybase Adaptive Server. Logically, there's no reason why such apps should not generate logfile dumps on a regular basis that can be integrated into Time Machine either allowing a company to 'rollback' or - more helpfully - recover in the event of systems failure or data corruption.

3) Are Apple providing - via stealth - a mechanism that allows backup software developers (like EMC Dantz) to easily create plug-ins for apps that either don't like being open when being backed-up or - for commercial reasons (like 24/7 web storefronts) - can't be shut down for an indeterminate period whilst the data is secured."

Jobs says it stores the backups to another disk attached to the computer or to a disk on the network.

I find it odd that you guys are debating based on very little knowledge of the "nuts and bolts" of Leopard and UI that hasn't been announced yet. Seems like a waste of time.

OS updates are also about changing the plumbing to enable better functionality of the apps using said plumbing.

I'm pretty damn interested in what Apple's NOT telling the public about. I find it interesting that they are saying little about

Quart Extreme and 2D enhancements
Updates to Core API
No finder updates
Nothing on Automator
Nothing on Applescript

etc


Apple has much more to divulge but for now they are just whetting the appetite a bit. It's up to Mac users to read between the lines a bit more. Some of you have grown so dependent on Thinksecret and AI to provide you info about what's coming you haven't built up skills of your own.

Leopard is going to be a nice OS just as Tiger was. The pieces are falling into place we just have to be patient.

You can backup to an external HD or a OS X Server.

What will eventually happen is that Apple will bring this snapshot service into OS X Server and they will employ some version of du-duplication in the future. That means that file pointers will replace duplicate copies of workgroup shared files. If someone modifies the file then a new copy is saved but if no changes exist between muliple copies then the pointers save a bunch of space. Microsoft uses this and saves Terabytes of data. Your results will of course vary.

If Apple had better iSCSI support then could offer a Disaster Recover add on that would create these snapshots on another server connected over the WAN.