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Apple previews Mac OS X Snow Leopard with QuickTime X - Page 5

post #161 of 183
6/10/08 at 7:43pm
Anand chimes in on OS X Snow Leopard.
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=461
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post #162 of 183
6/10/08 at 8:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac-sochist View Post

Anybody but me think it's possible that when SL is released, it will reduce its footprint by offloading all the Core functions onto proprietary coprocessors designed by PA Semi, that will be built into the new Macs coming out in that time frame?

No way.

What Core functions would they offload? CoreImage/Video? Apple can't do better than nVidia or ATI. CoreAudio? OpenCL on the GPU. CoreData? Ummm, yeah.

First, designing those chips costs lots of money.
Second, timing is a pain. Designing a motherboard is hard enough, designing one with 3 extra chips which have a couple dozen wires costs a lot more money.
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post #163 of 183
6/10/08 at 10:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kim kap sol View Post

I haven't seen any confirmation yet that QuickTime X is a total rewrite.

They don't have to totally rewrite it. They should, at the very least, refactor it into a nice, pretty Cocoa interface and a thread-safe, Core-friendly implementation. They can keep chunks of ugly Pascal-like code as long as they are hidden in methods tucked into classes that the overwhelming majority of OS X programmers will never have to worry about, because the pretty Cocoa interface handles everything.

Then, at their leisure, they can rewrite the old code one chunk at a time.

Note that this is a truly immense undertaking which I'm sure they started some years ago. In fact I would not at all be surprised to hear that they are finding it easier to just scrap and rewrite whole sections of QuickTime code because it's no less difficult, even significantly easier, than trying to refactor highly optimized code that's over two decades old, meant to run in a completely different world.
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post #164 of 183
6/11/08 at 12:10am
It won't be free...that much is certain....at the very least you will have to pay a shipping and handling fee. Will it cost $129? Who knows? Maybe they'll give a discount to Leopard users...some kind of trade-up system. I can see their thinking though with this Snow Leopard thing. VISTA is a joke and Apple can really put the nail in the coffin of it by offering the most optimised and refined OS on the market, not that Leopard is that bad anyway. I'm guessing though there'll be more new stuff in Snow Leopard than they're letting on about right now. Apple would never show their hand this early about an OS release.
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post #165 of 183
6/11/08 at 12:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by s.metcalf View Post

It won't be free...that much is certain....at the very least you will have to pay a shipping and handling fee. Will it cost $129? Who knows? Maybe they'll give a discount to Leopard users...some kind of trade-up system. I can see their thinking though with this Snow Leopard thing. VISTA is a joke and Apple can really put the nail in the coffin of it by offering the most optimised and refined OS on the market, not that Leopard is that bad anyway. I'm guessing though there'll be more new stuff in Snow Leopard than they're letting on about right now. Apple would never show their hand this early about an OS release.

Even if they market the performance aspectwhich they willthere will be plenty of buyers. Though it is foolish that so many computer users that should know better don't see back-end development as worthy of fee if it doesn't doesn't have anything showy attached.
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post #166 of 183
6/11/08 at 12:18am
I agree with that and I would pay $129 in a flash if it meant my computer felt faster and put off the need to buy a new one...

Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

Even if they market the performance aspectwhich they willthere will be plenty of buyers. Though it is foolish that so many computer users that should know better don't see back-end development as worthy of fee if it doesn't doesn't have anything showy attached.
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post #167 of 183
6/11/08 at 8:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

Though it is foolish that so many computer users that should know better don't see back-end development as worthy of fee if it doesn't doesn't have anything showy attached.

It all comes down to point of view - for many it's not whether fixes and optimizations are worth it, it's the idea that fixes and optimizations should have been in 10.5 in the first place and that paying for them is paying for something that's broken, then having to pay again for the fix.

If apple is planning to offer it at a reduced price, they should say that now, even if they don't offer an exact number. Since it has been $129 for every version but one, that's what people are going to assume until they hear otherwise.
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post #168 of 183
6/11/08 at 10:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

Anand chimes in on OS X Snow Leopard.
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=461

Yup. I agree, only if Apple has actually done it though. Can't imagine what since the combined genius of academia and the billions at Intel, Nvidia, AMD and the industry haven't done it, how is Apple doing it?

If they do it, it's an upgrade of OS-X version 11.0, not 10.6.
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post #169 of 183
6/11/08 at 12:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by THT View Post

Yup. I agree, only if Apple has actually done it though. Can't imagine what since the combined genius of academia and the billions at Intel, Nvidia, AMD and the industry haven't done it, how is Apple doing it?

If they do it, it's an upgrade of OS-X version 11.0, not 10.6.

I've had to temper Job's comments a bit because he's legendary for hyping things a bit "Way beyond the rumor sites" comes to mind.

OpenCL and Grand Central will be welcome additions of developers find them easy and powerful enough to use.
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post #170 of 183
6/11/08 at 12:18pm
If its from Apple, people will wait in line for it, even if it was an empty box with "Apple Air" direct from Steve's office.... the air Steve-o breathed, now only $99, methane included!

I for one look forward to any upgrades or updates to OS X. Its pretty solid and adding better performance is a nice touch. I'm sure Microsoft will consider doing the same thing with Vista, although they may call it System 7.
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post #171 of 183
6/11/08 at 1:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

I've had to temper Job's comments a bit because he's legendary for hyping things a bit "Way beyond the rumor sites" comes to mind.

OpenCL and Grand Central will be welcome additions of developers find them easy and powerful enough to use.

It's an incredible boast yes, but he knows what he's saying. He's been through enough to know the difference (GUIs, OOP with Obj-C instead of C++, iPod, multi-touch). So, they've got some strategy they are using to make multi-core programming easier at the least. Making various tasks parallelizable is a grand challenge that they've probably haven't conquered, but they've got something. It's implicit in the quote about programming for more than 4 CPUs.

Have to wait for the leaks from WWDC on what it is.
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post #172 of 183
6/11/08 at 8:21pm
Sounds alright, but the name, and wanting to make a leaner, faster OS sound like Apple is admitting Leopard was less than stellar, and hoping for a do-over, see Vista -> Windows 7. ( and I like Vista and Leopard, but both felt like they were rushed too soon, not enough real 'new' features, but at the same time, I like them over their predecessors).

As I have a C2D Mini, most of the features in 10.6, as it doesn't have enough power to say so, as it's graphics and RAM capped, but it's a start.

As a current Leopard user, I might pay $30 for it, but otherwise pass.
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post #173 of 183
6/12/08 at 9:25pm
One incredibly annoying thing I wish Apple would fix. How about keyboard navigation of dialog box buttons? How long has OS X been out now and yet they don't have that basic feature that Windows has had forever? The buttons are inconsistent from application to application, sometimes showing a default blue button but often not. Sometimes, it shows a blue border around a selected button and you can change the selection by using the tab key but Enter doesn't do anything! What the hell good is it to select a button from the keyboard if you can't press it from the keyboard? Damn it, Apple, I know Steve prefers using the mouse only, but this is so 20th century. It's especially annoying with Leopard's insistence on "warning" us about downloaded files a la Vista. I downloaded a bunch of flv files. Some warn that they've been downloaded. Some don't. Every warning needs me to use the mouse. When I multiselect a bunch of those files and hit open, the warning interrupts the loading so only some open. At least let me turn the stupid warning off.
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post #174 of 183
6/12/08 at 11:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolchak View Post

One incredibly annoying thing I wish Apple would fix. How about keyboard navigation of dialog box buttons? How long has OS X been out now and yet they don't have that basic feature that Windows has had forever? The buttons are inconsistent from application to application, sometimes showing a default blue button but often not. Sometimes, it shows a blue border around a selected button and you can change the selection by using the tab key but Enter doesn't do anything! What the hell good is it to select a button from the keyboard if you can't press it from the keyboard? Damn it, Apple, I know Steve prefers using the mouse only, but this is so 20th century. It's especially annoying with Leopard's insistence on "warning" us about downloaded files a la Vista. I downloaded a bunch of flv files. Some warn that they've been downloaded. Some don't. Every warning needs me to use the mouse. When I multiselect a bunch of those files and hit open, the warning interrupts the loading so only some open. At least let me turn the stupid warning off.

It actually works great. Space bar is the key you use to select controls that are highlighted with a blue border. Buttons that are solid blue mean that Return is set as the keyboard short cut. It is a convenience to have the most likely choice already set to the Return key, so when you have a window with an OK button you just have to press Return. Just because it is different than Windows doesn't mean it's broken.
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post #175 of 183
6/13/08 at 7:50am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolchak View Post

Damn it, Apple, I know Steve prefers using the mouse only, but this is so 20th century.

I hate to be contrary, but... no?

I use a Mac and an XP box at work. I've found that keyboard navigation on the Mac is easier, more consistent, and faster. Try running Lotus Notes sometime if you want the true meaning of "everything must be done with a mouse". O. M. G. It's truly insane. Eclipse isn't much better, out of the box. Half the &*(%# functionality is done through toolbars and contextual menus, no keystrokes available. Grr.

Now, as to your problem:

Return/Enter triggers the solid blue button, if there is one. This is the default button in all cases. Esc or Cmd-. triggers the Cancel button, if there is one. These are the norms across all apps that haven't gone out of their way to break them.

In apps written using Cocoa, Cmd-[some letter] triggers the button that starts with [some letter]. So if you see 'Cancel', 'Fly', 'Spider', and ['Mosquito'], Esc triggers Cancel, Return triggers Mosquito, Cmd-F triggers Fly and Cmd-S triggers Spider. What happens if there are two buttons with the same name, you ask? Hit your power button briefly, and up pops the power dialog - Restart, Sleep, Cancel, Shut Down. Shut Down is default, and highlighted, Return triggers it. Cmd-s triggers Sleep.

In apps written using Carbon, anything goes. Some devs have added 'proper' functionality, most haven't.

So it's kind of a crapshoot, but you can get through most dialogs in most apps with the keyboard only.

(And if you turn on access for assistive devices in Universal Access, you can control *everything* with the keyboard, but I'll let someone else dive into that if they want, or, you can google your heart out. )
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post #176 of 183
6/16/08 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by THT View Post

Yup. I agree, only if Apple has actually done it though. Can't imagine what since the combined genius of academia and the billions at Intel, Nvidia, AMD and the industry haven't done it, how is Apple doing it?

Academic efforts like (here I'm dating myself) PARLOG have been obsessed with eliminating all possible inefficiencies by building in ways to handle every edge case. Apple, a hotbed of New Jersey design if ever there was one, will design an API that handles the general case well enough and maybe a couple of the more common edge cases if they can be modeled transparently behind the pretty Cocoa interface. For the rest? Well, if you really need to squeeze every drop out of 8 cores then drop down into CoreFoundation and wade into classic C++ threading Hell [edit: There are three intermediate options: Specialized classes like NSTask, classes that do their own threading optimized for their own purposes, and good old NSThread and friends].

Many attempts at threading have been bolted on to languages like C and C++ that predate threading. Objective-C is not perfect in this regard either, but if the threading can be hidden behind Cocoa APIs and the asynchronous communications implemented via bindings, then Apple can bypass the limits of the C language and tie their implementation to Cocoa (which is not a luxury that any hardware manufacturer or academic would indulge in). The result is not optimally efficient. It does not handle every or even many of the more perverse exceptions that come up. It's not even something that the developer needs to be aware is happening unless they are designing something like a bleeding-edge video game or hydraulics simulation software.

They've already previewed what their approach is going to look like: NSTask solves the problem of distributed computation by resurrecting the batch queue, of all things. It's simple, works well enough, and hides the complexity from the developer.
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post #177 of 183
6/16/08 at 10:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorph View Post

Academic efforts like (here I'm dating myself) PARLOG have been obsessed with eliminating all possible inefficiencies by building in ways to handle every edge case. Apple, a hotbed of New Jersey design if ever there was one, will design an API that handles the general case well enough and maybe a couple of the more common edge cases if they can be modeled transparently behind the pretty Cocoa interface. For the rest? Well, if you really need to squeeze every drop out of 8 cores then drop down into CoreFoundation and wade into classic C++ threading Hell [edit: There are three intermediate options: Specialized classes like NSTask, classes that do their own threading optimized for their own purposes, and good old NSThread and friends].

Many attempts at threading have been bolted on to languages like C and C++ that predate threading. Objective-C is not perfect in this regard either, but if the threading can be hidden behind Cocoa APIs and the asynchronous communications implemented via bindings, then Apple can bypass the limits of the C language and tie their implementation to Cocoa (which is not a luxury that any hardware manufacturer or academic would indulge in). The result is not optimally efficient. It does not handle every or even many of the more perverse exceptions that come up. It's not even something that the developer needs to be aware is happening unless they are designing something like a bleeding-edge video game or hydraulics simulation software.

They've already previewed what their approach is going to look like: NSTask solves the problem of distributed computation by resurrecting the batch queue, of all things. It's simple, works well enough, and hides the complexity from the developer.

From your viewpoint, you must be disappointed Apple hasn't provided you with a pornstar sex life and fat bank account requiring you only to put your name on an application before it ships out making you another billionaire the world doesn't need.
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post #178 of 183
6/17/08 at 7:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

From your viewpoint, you must be disappointed Apple hasn't provided you with a pornstar sex life and fat bank account requiring you only to put your name on an application before it ships out making you another billionaire the world doesn't need.

What? This is like complaining that any OS provides useful core services and framework code. Or are you some wierd programming luddite that only codes assembly because high level languages and OS frameworks are for pansies?

Apple can develop a good 80% solution for reducing threading complexity for the same reasons that MS can. They have their own research arms and are not shy about hiring from academia or buying companies with talent and useful IP.

The only other folks in that same game are IBM and Sun. Intel, AMD, nVidia dabble in software and while Intel has some great compilers this is a tad out of scope for them.
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post #179 of 183
6/17/08 at 7:45am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

From your viewpoint, you must be disappointed Apple hasn't provided you with a pornstar sex life and fat bank account requiring you only to put your name on an application before it ships out making you another billionaire the world doesn't need.

.... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh that was cute.

Now, did you have a point, or were you just trying to get attention?
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post #180 of 183
6/17/08 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea View Post

What? This is like complaining that any OS provides useful core services and framework code. Or are you some wierd programming luddite that only codes assembly because high level languages and OS frameworks are for pansies?

Apple can develop a good 80% solution for reducing threading complexity for the same reasons that MS can. They have their own research arms and are not shy about hiring from academia or buying companies with talent and useful IP.

The only other folks in that same game are IBM and Sun. Intel, AMD, nVidia dabble in software and while Intel has some great compilers this is a tad out of scope for them.

Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Intel and others are doing the heavy lifting for you.

It's a business case for you to become a third party developer and develop the rest to make compelling solutions.
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post #181 of 183
6/17/08 at 5:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Intel and others are doing the heavy lifting for you.

GOOD. That's why I would choose one as a development platform over another if the market sizes was comparable.

Quote:
It's a business case for you to become a third party developer and develop the rest to make compelling solutions.

And your point is what in relation to Amorph's post?
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post #182 of 183
6/21/08 at 6:28pm
I'm willing to bet now that QuickTime X isn't a complete rewrite. It's probably going to be wrapped in Cocoa butter. This disappoints me to no end.
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post #183 of 183
6/21/08 at 6:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kim kap sol View Post

I'm willing to bet now that QuickTime X isn't a complete rewrite. It's probably going to be wrapped in Cocoa butter. This disappoints me to no end.

I wonder if Apple is mainly going to leverage GC and OpenCL to get much faster conversion and authoring among it's A/V apps. I hope it's a complete rewrite from the ground up, too.
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