So what is after Leopard?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Now that Leopard seems close to going "gold" I was wondering what people on the board thought the next direction might be for Apple OS's. I personally think that eventually they will either release two OS's one for Intel Mac's and one for Power PC's but I don't see any major overhauls changes.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    eventually, power pc will die off.



    also, somtime i see the os gaining support for multi-touch displays.
  • Reply 2 of 22
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rmeyer52 View Post


    Now that Leopard seems close to going "gold" I was wondering what people on the board thought the next direction might be for Apple OS's.



    This question has been asked too many times to count. There has been no new relevant information since the last time it was asked.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rmeyer52 View Post


    I personally think that eventually they will either release two OS's one for Intel Mac's and one for Power PC's but I don't see any major overhauls changes.



    Every second of its existence, MacOS X--and OpenSTEP before that--has been multi-platform. Apple has stated that there will be one MacOS X. The company has put a lot of time and money into ensuring that a single code base will deploy on all supported platforms. With Apple's expansion into non-Macintosh digital devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and Apple TV, it is more important, not less, that Apple's code base remain portable.
  • Reply 3 of 22
    I think Apple will start to move towards improving the current legacy frameworks. We already know they're working on a GCC replacement in CLANG. I figure there will be more movement towards replacing old stuff within the computing chain that have outgrown their usefulness.



    Metadata will continue to be important and perhaps something along the lines of integrating a DB into the filesystem like some ambitious fs projects have moved towards. I don't know really I'm guessing.
  • Reply 4 of 22
    I work in IT and have been using both Mac's and Windows for almost 10 years. What has always baffles me is how mac people are always trying to figure out what Apple is doing or going to be doing.





    These people will also rip Microsoft to pieces because it states ahead of time what is coming down the line. It may not be on time, but you know its coming. Currently the only thing that we know for certain from Apple is that Leopard will be coming out in October, after its initial release was postponed from earlier this year.





    Like I said, I work in IT. It is nice to know that a release is coming due from Microsoft. Depending on when, I might forgo purchasing now for the newer later. But when it comes to Apple, I have to lay my money down and hope that I am not wasting money (i.e. the iphone) when an update is just around the corner, but don't know about it.





    So, what I hope Apple does after Leopard is being more open to its users. Give us dates. Give us details ahead of time. That is what will make me happy.
  • Reply 5 of 22
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    I work in IT ... What has always baffles me is how mac people are always trying to figure out what Apple is doing or going to be doing.



    These questions are hardly coming from Mac-based IT. They are coming from fans who are looking from a scoop where there is none.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    These people will also rip Microsoft to pieces because it states ahead of time what is coming down the line. It may not be on time, but you know its coming.



    Oh, come off it! Microsoft announces lots of things. It doesn't mean that they actually ever ship. Unless you are running Longhorn with WinFS, I would advise you to revise your comments.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    Currently the only thing that we know for certain from Apple is that Leopard will be coming out in October, after its initial release was postponed from earlier this year.



    You know something else. You know that Leopard will work. You know that whatever follows Leopard will also work. And you know that Vista does not work.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    Like I said, I work in IT. It is nice to know that a release is coming due from Microsoft.



    If you are on the IT staff of a company with more than two employees, then you are buying Vista as a testing environment, not a deployment environment. Enterprises typically lag one to two version of Windows behind Microsoft's latest offering for their mission-critical applications. This means that many businesses still have Windows XP in testing. The reluctance of enterprise customers to deploy its current products has been a vexing problem for Microsoft for years now. To date, it has failed to find a solution.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    ... But when it comes to Apple, I have to lay my money down and hope that I am not wasting money (i.e. the iphone) when an update is just around the corner, but don't know about it.



    What does the iPhone have to do with IT? It is well-known that the iPhone is a great personal cellphone. The issues talked about ad infinitum on fan sites have to do with hacking the device. You do not run businesses on hacked equipment.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by walnuts View Post


    So, what I hope Apple does after Leopard is being more open to its users. Give us dates. Give us details ahead of time. That is what will make me happy.



    Apple announced details on Leopard months ago. An ADC membership gets you development builds if you need them. What more do you need?
  • Reply 6 of 22
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    The next OS will be Intel only. And I have a feeling it wont be named after a cat - just a hunch.
  • Reply 7 of 22
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mrpiddly View Post


    eventually, power pc will die off.



    also, somtime i see the os gaining support for multi-touch displays.



    Leopard does have this if you count the iPhone, but I suspect there's another secret version of Leopard in the labs. We will see Apple's ultra-portable hopefully sometime in 2008, it will be a 10" tablet with multi-touch, no hardware keyboard, and hey, it will run some kind of version of Leopard.
  • Reply 8 of 22
    Hopefully the iPhone and iPod touch will eventually support a less closed version of OS X and become a real Newton sucessor. I don't see apple releasing a UMPC, just iPod-size and Laptop-size computers. Oh, and I think the Mac Mini will die soon, as will PowerPC support.



    Ireland, I'm pretty sure they're all going to be cats. It just wouldn't be right otherwise.
  • Reply 9 of 22
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IJaK


    Ireland, I'm pretty sure they're all going to be cats. It just wouldn't be right otherwise.



    It's not a right and wrong thing. It's a marketing thing. Who knows, Apple's next OS could be OS 11.
  • Reply 10 of 22
    mcarlingmcarling Posts: 1,106member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    The next OS will be Intel only. And I have a feeling it wont be named after a cat - just a hunch.



    It's a safe bet that 10.6 won't be released for PowerPC and that it will be named after a cat.
  • Reply 11 of 22
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mcarling View Post


    It's a safe bet that 10.6 won't be released for PowerPC and that it will be named after a cat.



    I'd expect that 10.6 will be supported by some of the later G5 systems.



    Also, I think Apple may be nearing the end of the whole OS X branding as we know it today. We might squeeze out another cat release, but I think Apple is cooking up some new branding...
  • Reply 12 of 22
    Lion, obv. :T
  • Reply 13 of 22
    Is it accurate to say that there are separate teams in Apple working on the various operating systems? A Tiger Team and a Leopard Team? Once the Tiger Team releases 10.4.11, will they close the books on Tiger and transition to the OS after Leopard to begin building it? I really don't know how the development cycle works and am trying to get a better understanding of it.



    Thanks for listening.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    nevenneven Posts: 54member
    While there are probably people working solely on Tiger or solely on Leopard, there's probably a whole lot of personnel overlap just as there is a whole lot of code overlap.
  • Reply 15 of 22
    Apple will produce there last OS called Liger, which will eventually take over the world with its advanced AI. Then proceed to eat Steve Jobs
  • Reply 16 of 22
    The future of the MacOS will arrive in 1993 with Taligent. Nope.



    1995 and OpenDoc? Not so much.



    Perhaps 1996 with Copland. Nope. Should have kept NuKernel, though, it was noticeably better that XNU/Mach.



    1999 with Rhapsody? Nah, Adobe didn't like it.



    2007 with Leopard's complete UI refresh using Core frameworks to make a stunning looking operating system? No, we got windows that looked the same and transparent menu bars.







    Actually I think Taligent's model was very cool:



    Taligent Human Interface Guidelines covers more or less what Taligent would have been about (though at that point in time it was an application layer atop an OS).



    A Person was a person, of course, existing in (or addable to) your global address book.



    A Place was a combination of a folder synced to everybody else's folder, crossed with web app development (or SubEthaEdit) and structured towards the task/project. It didn't have to be collaborative, but it oriented towards that.



    A Thing was everything not a Person or Place, such as appliances (printers), documents, applications, and so forth.



    So Taligent, already, was well away from the dominant window/folder & application-centric model that's been on since 1984 and continues today.



    Like OpenDoc it was document oriented, with different applications being able to be stuck together to do things (your Camino browser might have the NewsFire RSS module, (or your NewsFire RSS might have the Camino browser module) but mine might have Vienna?or an HTML editor) though I should point out that Taligent wasn't as grandiose as OpenDoc in the document-centred model.



    In Taligent you would have created a document of whatever sort and then just sent it to a person. (At least if it incorporated PowerTalk, no email would have been required.) Likewise you'd never have to save something unless you explicitly wanted a copy, and if it had gone the Newton's soup way (as I think it would have had to) then all applications can access all other applications data?though this probably would have required standardized data formats which might be tough to get with Microsoft in the picture.







    So is a document-centric operating system with no need to save, and applications talking to each other of interest? It would have to be OS XI, certainly, not a point update, and since OS X is still basically NeXTSTEP[1] it would be a big change.





    [1] In how you use the window/folder/document linked to application-centric idea. Though at least Services mean it's a touch beyond the original MacOS. Seriously though despite being much prettier, faster, more usable, and so forth how we interact with out computers has only been challenged (at least somewhat) by Taligent & OpenDoc's model, and by NewtonOS's rethink. Windows/OS X/Linux all still the same basics as they've always been: the original MacOS.
  • Reply 17 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    I think Apple will start to move towards improving the current legacy frameworks. We already know they're working on a GCC replacement in CLANG. I figure there will be more movement towards replacing old stuff within the computing chain that have outgrown their usefulness.



    Metadata will continue to be important and perhaps something along the lines of integrating a DB into the filesystem like some ambitious fs projects have moved towards. I don't know really I'm guessing.



    No. Actually what you have read is that apple will use VLLC with GCC to produce more optimized and faster built code bases.



    From Chris Lattner's Slides:



    What is the LLVM Project?

    Two primary components:

    • Mid-Level Optimizer and Code Generator

    – Standard Suite of SSA-based optimizations

    – Scalar optimizations, loop optimizations, load/store xforms, etc.

    – Codegen support for many targets:

    – X86, X86-64, PPC, PPC64, ARM, Thumb, SPARC, Alpha, IA64, MIPS

    • llvm-gcc front-end for C/C++/ObjC/Ada/FORTRAN/...

    – Based on GCC 4.0, translates from GIMPLE to LLVM IR.

    – Uses GCC frontend with LLVM Optimizers and Codegen

    – Drop in compatibility with GCC: make CC=llvm-gcc



    The Virtual Machine that is LLVM allows Apple to get more bang for buck out of GCC.
  • Reply 18 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Electric Monk View Post


    a document-centric operating system with no need to save, and applications talking to each other of interest? It would have to be OS XI, certainly, not a point update, and since OS X is still basically NeXTSTEP[1] it would be a big change.



    Then there is the issue of backward compatibility and teaching people how to use a computer all over again.
  • Reply 19 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by talksense101 View Post


    Then there is the issue of backward compatibility and teaching people how to use a computer all over again.



    Oh I know. I think the mid 90s were pretty much the last time you could come up with a new operating system that functions differently (NewtonOS, Taligent, OpenDoc?though the latter two were application layers eventually).



    However I find the idea of it very compelling, so I figured I'd throw it in here.
  • Reply 20 of 22
    tkntkn Posts: 224member
    There is so much stuff that can be done:



    1. They could add a true gaming API akin to DirectX.



    2. They could start adopting XFS as standard for Server and maybe even desktops depending on how big HDs are.



    3. Start using metadata more extensively so that the Finder replaces a lot of apps, like iPhoto and iTunes.



    4. They could add tagging style metadata to everything and start cross-linking matched files.



    5. Start incorporating advanced document management into the filesystem itself with built-in versioning and comparisons.



    6. Maybe they will finally let you rename stuff and manipulate files in Save dialogs!



    7. Portable "Home" so that when I log into a mac anywhere, it shows my own desktop and my own files.



    8. Peer-to-peer address books that stay current automatically.



    9. No more .DS files.



    10. Hell, with Wimax and whatever comes out of the 700MHz, maybe your iPhone will act as a true extension.



    11. Wiimotes! or some other gesture based interface, this would be a much better solution than a touchscreen on a desktop.



    12. More wireless media options than the AppleTV.



    And that is just off the top of my head.
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