Leopard's ten new features dissected. It's funny. Apple calls Microsoft a copy-cat, and yet, I feel like I've seen some of these features somewhere before. Is this really the best they had to show off right now?
Repeat after me. Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features...Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features... So what exactly is Thurott disappointed about? Divulged preview features (ie not all) of an OS that hasn't even gone Beta? What the final feature set will end up being is still open to speculation, so as of today, there is no way to know if these are the best features Apple had to show off right now. But the very fact that we were told that "top secret feaures" were not divulged pretty much answers his question. (HINT: The answer is probably no, these were not the best features.]
Despite Apple going to great pains to point out that they wouldn't be showing most of Leopard and offering just a sneak peek (seriously, if you don't understand what sneak peek means, go look it up) people have gone mad decrying "is that all”...
Repeat after me. Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features...Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features... So what exactly are you disappointed about? Divulged preview features (ie not all) of an OS that hasn't even gone Beta? What the final feature set will end up being is still open to speculation, so as of today, there is no way to know if these are the best features Apple had to show off right now. But the very fact that we were told that "top secret feaures" were not divulged pretty much answers your question. (HINT: The answer is probably no, these were not the best features.]
Despite Apple going to great pains to point out that they wouldn't be showing most of Leopard and offering just a sneak peek (seriously, if you don't understand what sneak peek means, go look it up) people have gone mad decrying "is that all?...
What made you think I am disappointed?
I was very pleased with the Leopard preview; it was that prize goof Thurrot that was pissing me off.
What made me respond negatively to the keynote was the overall cockyness towards Redmond before and during the keynote. None of the features previewed during the keynote could be considered a strong competitive advantage at this point from a consumer pov.
I didn't like the execs. showing off Leopards' features either -- Steve Jobs is the only keynote rockstar in my book. Kinda like wanting to see Jenna Jameson in a porno, but only getting the Spice Girls.
I was very pleased with the Leopard preview; it was that prize goof Thurrot that was pissing me off.
My apologies, Atari. I meant to direct my comments towards Thurrot and the people on these forums expressing disappointment in Leopard and not you. I should have made my post clearer (pronouns are not my friend). I'll edit my original post.
I understand it's just a sneak peek but I also sort of agree with knneth. If they are going to claim Leopard as Vista 2.0 then they should at least give us an idea why it's equivalent to the next version of Vista. They didn't do it for me. I think they should have saved those banners for the "real" Leopard keynote.
Apple's relationship with Microsoft has always been pretty strange. I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't pay Apple's taunts any mind they really are playing in different sandboxes.
I disagree about the statement that none of the features offer a strong competitive advantage. Case in point
It's basically the same restore to a snapshot point that they've had for a while. This means it will likely require a reboot like previous versions. That doesn't compare much to Apple's Time Machine which drills down to a specific folder if need be and flows across snapshots to pull just the data within the folder, volume or whatever. No reboot required. That's significant
Core Animation also looks to be superior to what Vista will have. The ability to place graphics or UI widgets onto a 3D plane seperated by layers has elicited "Meh" from many Mac fans but they aren't seeing the forest through the trees. We now have a fully 3D environment complete with animation capabilities built into the core of the OS with layered support. If performance is good on most computers in the next few years you will see some nifty ways of broadening the scope of UI. Vista has some cool stuff for sure but man Apple seems to add just a bit more spice onto their technologies.
One thing is for sure. When Apple does something, they do it well. Spaces, for instance, seems like a really good implementation of virtual desktops. It's another good tool to add to the top row of F keys. The voiceover quality is pretty amazing as well. Spaces is probably the only feature (other than Spotlight improvements) presented that I will use.
I understand it's just a sneak peek but I also sort of agree with knneth. If they are going to claim Leopard as Vista 2.0 then they should at least give us an idea why it's equivalent to the next version of Vista. They didn't do it for me. I think they should have saved those banners for the "real" Leopard keynote.
The whole point of those banners is to get the developers excited beyond belief. Consumers are going to be under-whelmed, however as a developer, I am excited about several different things: the To-Do daemon, the Core Animation, the new iCal functionalities, the new iChat functionalities (absolutely, the screen sharing is FREAKY COOL).
They threw in the other, more customer-centric aspects (Mail, anyone??), to keep everyone guessing. I figure if these elements were not the biggest things (remember, he said the biggest things they were keeping close to the vest), just what exactly is the biggest?? Hell, if the voice reading, the Core Animation, the To-Do daemon, Time Machine, etc are not it, just how big is it??
Personally, this can only mean one thing, and one thing only: Completely new and revamped Finder. Ground up, I mean the whole enchilada. End result is it is going to be a very interesting 6 months or so.
Side note: It would not surprise me if Apple said at MWSF07 that Leopard was shipping TODAY. That would be like beating Vista up in a fist fight, then finishing them off with a sledge-hammer.
You know the problem with doing Keynotes and new product intros at WWDC is precisely what we're seeing here.
It's a Developers J-O-B to know the "nuts and bolts" of these technologies. They are intimately familiar with the features, and more aptly missing features, of the API that fuel app development.
Thus when a preview of of OS X comes Apple is really focusing on the developers first and foremost and then adding a bit for consumers. Of course you're going to use the technologies that Apple has developed because their built in apps are more "Proof of Concept" and it is third party ISV that will go beyond what Apple has done with the bundled apps.
Having seen the Knowledge Navigator video (as pointed out by Ireland) I think the voice reading may be more interesting than we think. Its too bad we're still decades away from natural language processing and good voice recognition (my office mate uses dragon so I'm semi familiar with whats out there).
Amusingly my first job as an intern was doing voice recognition on a Apple ][.
This guy doesn't deserve a response. I'm as big of an anti-apple troll as can be and I freely admit this guy's a dumbass.
Leopard is straight up amazing. First of all, unlike windows vista, leopard WILL HAVE ALL THAT'S ADVERTISED.
Second, his ranting about "oh this isn't new, it can be found *here*".. well that's great but it's never been done in just 1 OS before. You have "spaces" in linux and "time machine" in Windows Server, but where do you have them both, and in a CONSUMER OS?
The iPod wasn't new technology. In fact, it was, and still is, over-priced old technology... however, it has all the features you want in just 1 unit with a good form factor.
I was unimpressed with Tiger.. The only reason I bought it was software optimization that was not present in Panther and I'm still PISSED OFF I had to pay for (Spotlight being a minor feature to me). However, Leopard is a different story. This OS has real features that real people will use.
There is not another OS that will be out at the same time as leopard that will have these features. Until Vista comes out, Leopard will be on its own--maturing and getting more and more bug-free.
By the time Vista comes out, 10.5.3 will probably have closed all the problems anybody has had. Vista will be fixing bugs until 2009 at least, especially considering that it's a total rewrite. Leopard is just a fixed-up version of OS X, which will be 6 years old. OS X is based on Unix and Next, which are decades old. OS X is already a mature and proven technology, and Vista has yet to be a newborne.
No product is ever perfect at version 1.0, operating systems least of all.
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Leopard's ten new features dissected. It's funny. Apple calls Microsoft a copy-cat, and yet, I feel like I've seen some of these features somewhere before. Is this really the best they had to show off right now?
Repeat after me. Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features...Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features... So what exactly is Thurott disappointed about? Divulged preview features (ie not all) of an OS that hasn't even gone Beta? What the final feature set will end up being is still open to speculation, so as of today, there is no way to know if these are the best features Apple had to show off right now. But the very fact that we were told that "top secret feaures" were not divulged pretty much answers his question. (HINT: The answer is probably no, these were not the best features.]
Thomas Fitzgerald.net: Couldn't have said it better myself..
Despite Apple going to great pains to point out that they wouldn't be showing most of Leopard and offering just a sneak peek (seriously, if you don't understand what sneak peek means, go look it up) people have gone mad decrying "is that all”...
Repeat after me. Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features...Apple said they did not reveral "top secret" features... So what exactly are you disappointed about? Divulged preview features (ie not all) of an OS that hasn't even gone Beta? What the final feature set will end up being is still open to speculation, so as of today, there is no way to know if these are the best features Apple had to show off right now. But the very fact that we were told that "top secret feaures" were not divulged pretty much answers your question. (HINT: The answer is probably no, these were not the best features.]
Thomas Fitzgerald.net: Couldn't have said it better myself..
Despite Apple going to great pains to point out that they wouldn't be showing most of Leopard and offering just a sneak peek (seriously, if you don't understand what sneak peek means, go look it up) people have gone mad decrying "is that all?...
What made you think I am disappointed?
I was very pleased with the Leopard preview; it was that prize goof Thurrot that was pissing me off.
I didn't like the execs. showing off Leopards' features either -- Steve Jobs is the only keynote rockstar in my book. Kinda like wanting to see Jenna Jameson in a porno, but only getting the Spice Girls.
What made you think I am disappointed?
I was very pleased with the Leopard preview; it was that prize goof Thurrot that was pissing me off.
My apologies, Atari. I meant to direct my comments towards Thurrot and the people on these forums expressing disappointment in Leopard and not you. I should have made my post clearer (pronouns are not my friend). I'll edit my original post.
What made me respond negatively to the keynote was the overall cockyness towards Redmond before and during the keynote. ...
In the USA, we have a saying:
If you can back it up, it ain't bragging.
I disagree about the statement that none of the features offer a strong competitive advantage. Case in point
Here is Vista's Restore
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...ne/backup.mspx
It's basically the same restore to a snapshot point that they've had for a while. This means it will likely require a reboot like previous versions. That doesn't compare much to Apple's Time Machine which drills down to a specific folder if need be and flows across snapshots to pull just the data within the folder, volume or whatever. No reboot required. That's significant
Core Animation also looks to be superior to what Vista will have. The ability to place graphics or UI widgets onto a 3D plane seperated by layers has elicited "Meh" from many Mac fans but they aren't seeing the forest through the trees. We now have a fully 3D environment complete with animation capabilities built into the core of the OS with layered support. If performance is good on most computers in the next few years you will see some nifty ways of broadening the scope of UI. Vista has some cool stuff for sure but man Apple seems to add just a bit more spice onto their technologies.
Bring on the Top Secret stuff!
I understand it's just a sneak peek but I also sort of agree with knneth. If they are going to claim Leopard as Vista 2.0 then they should at least give us an idea why it's equivalent to the next version of Vista. They didn't do it for me. I think they should have saved those banners for the "real" Leopard keynote.
The whole point of those banners is to get the developers excited beyond belief. Consumers are going to be under-whelmed, however as a developer, I am excited about several different things: the To-Do daemon, the Core Animation, the new iCal functionalities, the new iChat functionalities (absolutely, the screen sharing is FREAKY COOL).
They threw in the other, more customer-centric aspects (Mail, anyone??), to keep everyone guessing. I figure if these elements were not the biggest things (remember, he said the biggest things they were keeping close to the vest), just what exactly is the biggest?? Hell, if the voice reading, the Core Animation, the To-Do daemon, Time Machine, etc are not it, just how big is it??
Personally, this can only mean one thing, and one thing only: Completely new and revamped Finder. Ground up, I mean the whole enchilada. End result is it is going to be a very interesting 6 months or so.
Side note: It would not surprise me if Apple said at MWSF07 that Leopard was shipping TODAY. That would be like beating Vista up in a fist fight, then finishing them off with a sledge-hammer.
It's a Developers J-O-B to know the "nuts and bolts" of these technologies. They are intimately familiar with the features, and more aptly missing features, of the API that fuel app development.
Thus when a preview of of OS X comes Apple is really focusing on the developers first and foremost and then adding a bit for consumers. Of course you're going to use the technologies that Apple has developed because their built in apps are more "Proof of Concept" and it is third party ISV that will go beyond what Apple has done with the bundled apps.
Amusingly my first job as an intern was doing voice recognition on a Apple ][.
Vinea
Leopard is straight up amazing. First of all, unlike windows vista, leopard WILL HAVE ALL THAT'S ADVERTISED.
Second, his ranting about "oh this isn't new, it can be found *here*".. well that's great but it's never been done in just 1 OS before. You have "spaces" in linux and "time machine" in Windows Server, but where do you have them both, and in a CONSUMER OS?
The iPod wasn't new technology. In fact, it was, and still is, over-priced old technology... however, it has all the features you want in just 1 unit with a good form factor.
I was unimpressed with Tiger.. The only reason I bought it was software optimization that was not present in Panther and I'm still PISSED OFF I had to pay for (Spotlight being a minor feature to me). However, Leopard is a different story. This OS has real features that real people will use.
There is not another OS that will be out at the same time as leopard that will have these features. Until Vista comes out, Leopard will be on its own--maturing and getting more and more bug-free.
By the time Vista comes out, 10.5.3 will probably have closed all the problems anybody has had. Vista will be fixing bugs until 2009 at least, especially considering that it's a total rewrite. Leopard is just a fixed-up version of OS X, which will be 6 years old. OS X is based on Unix and Next, which are decades old. OS X is already a mature and proven technology, and Vista has yet to be a newborne.
No product is ever perfect at version 1.0, operating systems least of all.