Latest Tiger builds sport new QuickTime controls, iCal 1.6, Font Book 2.0
Information on recent builds of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" continues to find its way outside of Apple's corporate headquarters, as engineers diligently work to further develop the next-generation OS.
Sources close to the Cupertino, Calif-based Apple Computer have most recently provided AppleInsider with exclusive details on iCal 1.6, Font Book 2.0, and QuickTime 6.6 interface enhancements, which are present in the newest private builds of Tiger.
Screenshots: iCal 1.6; iCal Prefs; iCal Prefs; Font Book 2.0
iCal 1.6
The latest developmental version of Apple's calendar application—iCal version 1.6—will reportedly allow users to search for events and To Do items through a new pop-up menu, view meeting proposals and responses in a single window, and easily update and cancel events from calendars shared over the internet. Likewise, iCal will gain support for grouping of calendars and To Do lists and drag-and-drop reorganization of To Do list items.
Sources also claim that the new iCal will let users transform event items into To Do items by dragging the event to the To Do list, or vice versa to change a To Do item into an event.
Other iCal enhancements include the automatic creation of birthday calendars from dates present in a user's address book, and a new dialog box that will ease printout creation by formatting calendars and To Do items into weekly, daily, or monthly views.
Screenshots: Action Menu; About Font Book; Font Book Prefs; Font Book Prefs
Font Book 2.0
Apple has also focused its energy into the further development of its Font Book application, which allows users to easily preview, install, and manage font collections. A new version, Font Book 2.0, is reportedly speedier and smarter than its predecessor. The application will validate font files prior to installation and let users choose whether it should halt installations after an error, or treat errors like warnings.
The font application will also sport a handy action menu, populated by shortcuts to common tasks. At the base of the menu are options to open the vendor, designer, and license websites related to a selected font.
Screenshots: QuickTime Controls; QuickTime Player; About QuickTime; Player Prefs
QuickTime 6.6 Full Screen Controls
While sources have fully divulged the technical details surrounding the QuickTime 6.6 update that will ship with Tiger, the latest builds of QuickTime player are flashing some fresh eye-candy. Movies presented in full-screen mode are accompanied by a set of semi-translucent, dashboard-like controls that fade in and out of view.
Mac OS X Tiger is currently undergoing private seedings with builds in the range of 8A2xx. Some of the most recent builds have revealed iChat Jabber support, application specific parental controls, Address Book sharing, PDF bookmarking, advanced Energy Saver configurations, Safari RSS feed customization, and a new Graphing Calculator purchased from Arizona Software.
Sources close to the Cupertino, Calif-based Apple Computer have most recently provided AppleInsider with exclusive details on iCal 1.6, Font Book 2.0, and QuickTime 6.6 interface enhancements, which are present in the newest private builds of Tiger.
Screenshots: iCal 1.6; iCal Prefs; iCal Prefs; Font Book 2.0
iCal 1.6
The latest developmental version of Apple's calendar application—iCal version 1.6—will reportedly allow users to search for events and To Do items through a new pop-up menu, view meeting proposals and responses in a single window, and easily update and cancel events from calendars shared over the internet. Likewise, iCal will gain support for grouping of calendars and To Do lists and drag-and-drop reorganization of To Do list items.
Sources also claim that the new iCal will let users transform event items into To Do items by dragging the event to the To Do list, or vice versa to change a To Do item into an event.
Other iCal enhancements include the automatic creation of birthday calendars from dates present in a user's address book, and a new dialog box that will ease printout creation by formatting calendars and To Do items into weekly, daily, or monthly views.
Screenshots: Action Menu; About Font Book; Font Book Prefs; Font Book Prefs
Font Book 2.0
Apple has also focused its energy into the further development of its Font Book application, which allows users to easily preview, install, and manage font collections. A new version, Font Book 2.0, is reportedly speedier and smarter than its predecessor. The application will validate font files prior to installation and let users choose whether it should halt installations after an error, or treat errors like warnings.
The font application will also sport a handy action menu, populated by shortcuts to common tasks. At the base of the menu are options to open the vendor, designer, and license websites related to a selected font.
Screenshots: QuickTime Controls; QuickTime Player; About QuickTime; Player Prefs
QuickTime 6.6 Full Screen Controls
While sources have fully divulged the technical details surrounding the QuickTime 6.6 update that will ship with Tiger, the latest builds of QuickTime player are flashing some fresh eye-candy. Movies presented in full-screen mode are accompanied by a set of semi-translucent, dashboard-like controls that fade in and out of view.
Mac OS X Tiger is currently undergoing private seedings with builds in the range of 8A2xx. Some of the most recent builds have revealed iChat Jabber support, application specific parental controls, Address Book sharing, PDF bookmarking, advanced Energy Saver configurations, Safari RSS feed customization, and a new Graphing Calculator purchased from Arizona Software.
Comments
And I would buy Tiger for this reason alone.
Yet, even after requesting it dozens of times, it's not in the current builds.
ALL I WANT APPLE is the option to have alarms automatically set on new appointments. As a busy exec, I don't always have ical in front of me. I need a reminder.
And it's easy to forget to set the alarm when one's calendar changes frequently. Plus, it's a repetitious pain in the butt to set them.
Come on Apple. Put this one feature in. Every single calendar program on the planet offers it.
This is what we need and need it yesterday.
QuickTime 6.6 or 7 or whatever Apple calls it needs to be:
A COCOA Application, amongst other things
do you believe QT has not been re-written as a Cocoa Application.
Why is this important?
Amongst other advantages, one is, So QT can take adavantage of the Core Audio architecure, which includes (but not only limted) to such things as multiple audio channel ins and outs.
This is also important as it relates to Final Cut Pro and the whole pro video industry "Using" QT as "the file" format.
Apple do it, in Tiger , do it soon, very soon
Appleinsider, can you find this out, it is extremely important if QT 6.6/ 7 will be a Cocoa App and / or tap into Core Audio
Originally posted by jklimeck
On QuickTime 6.6
This is what we need and need it yesterday.
QuickTime 6.6 or 7 or whatever Apple calls it needs to be:
A COCOA Application, amongst other things
do you believe QT has not been re-written as a Cocoa Application.
Why is this important?
Amongst other advantages, one is, So QT can take adavantage of the Core Audio architecure, which includes (but not only limted) to such things as multiple audio channel ins and outs.
This is also important as it relates to Final Cut Pro and the whole pro video industry "Using" QT as "the file" format.
Apple do it, in Tiger , do it soon, very soon
Appleinsider, can you find this out, it is extremely important if QT 6.6/ 7 will be a Cocoa App and / or tap into Core Audio
If you had read earlier AI news bits, such as the article on QuickTime 6.6 (there's a link in the article you just read) and read user experiences, you'd know that QuickTime Player in Tiger *is* a Cocoa app rewritten to use QTKit and that it does indeed use Core Audio (amongst a million other niceties.)
Read up about QTKit here.
Yeah, I just realized this, I saw the link under "fully divulged".
Man I am so glad this is happening, this will make QT so robust and do tons to make QT the format in pro video, broadcast, especially H.264, which will eventually be the standard and oust (that is prevent further incursion) of WMP 9/10.
The QTKit will be great for QT dev on Linux, Windows, etc,
and I am really excited by the new API's for metering, audio extraction and conversion. (the extraction / conversion API's may be borrowed from iTunes), since iTunes is much better and faster at this, or brand new ones, we'll see.
Metering API's will be great, getting very accurate readings of levels, etc.
Very exciting.
Originally posted by jklimeck
kim kap,
Yeah, I just realized this, I saw the link under "fully divulged".
Man I am so glad this is happening, this will make QT so robust and do tons to make QT the format in pro video, broadcast, especially H.264, which will eventually be the standard and oust (that is prevent further incursion) of WMP 9/10.
The QTKit will be great for QT dev on Linux, Windows, etc,
and I am really excited by the new API's for metering, audio extraction and conversion. (the extraction / conversion API's may be borrowed from iTunes), since iTunes is much better and faster at this, or brand new ones, we'll see.
Metering API's will be great, getting very accurate readings of levels, etc.
Very exciting.
Yup...IMO, QuickTime has gotten such a huge overhaul that it might be the biggest Tiger feature, right up there with Spotlight, but possibly more important than Spotlight.
QuickTime was good back in the old days but once Mac OS X hit the scene, QuickTime was starting to look old and dated. The APIs were vague and poorly document and some completely undocumented. Sound Manager was a huge problem and overhead. The threading was poor and caused apps that used QuickTime to stall or even crash (until only recently QuickTime was not thread-safe.)
Starting with QT6.6/7, both developers and end-users will benefit from the heavy rewrite. Developers will get a clean set of APIs. The end-user will get a more pleasant experience viewing QuickTime content in QuickTime Player and other apps that use QuickTime. Content creators will be able to use CoreAudio/CoreImage/CoreVideo frameworks for much better sound and graphics effects, and even use movies as textures in OpenGL.
Mac OS X is a platform. But so is QuickTime. So while news of Tiger is exciting, news of QuickTime is even more exciting since it extends beyond the Mac platform and onto PCs...PC users essentially decide which format becomes the standard.
I can only hope Apple gets the world to adopt H.264. This will pave the way to larger resolution and cleaner-looking video on the web and possibly making streaming video to a TV a reality.
Are they are just hiding the fact that the rewritten QuickTime will debut as version 7.0 come Tiger, or are they saving the 7.0 number for something even bigger?
*Insert dramatic music*
Originally posted by Gavriel
So if Apple has taken the time and effort to make such a significant overhaul to QuickTime/Player in Tiger, why is it still referring to it as 6.x?
Are they are just hiding the fact that the rewritten QuickTime will debut as version 7.0 come Tiger, or are they saving the 7.0 number for something even bigger?
Nothing could be bigger. Apple always uses an incremental build number right up to the last minute. This will definitely be at least a 7.0 release. But to show how much has changed, Apple should call it QuickTime X 10.0.
Originally posted by webmail
It's still a stupid looking interface. Why not redesign the entire player. It's so '90s
My guess is that the intent of this interface originally was that of branding. It had to stand out from the plethora of players on the market. Especially on Windows.
*But* I think it works quite well and with this overhaul I think it looks much nicer, being true brushed metal and dropping the superfluous Apple/QuickTime-logos for a cleaner look.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Nothing could be bigger. Apple always uses an incremental build number right up to the last minute. This will definitely be renamed to at least 7.0. But to show how much has changed Apple should call it QuickTime X 10.0.
That was pretty much what I thought. Oh well, back to land of baseless and far-fetched speculation for me, I guess.
- It has a BAD reputation on Windows and Linux. Most of it not deserved, but bad still the same. I know people who were *PISSED* that installing iTunes also installed QT... they didn't realize that iTunes uses the functionality of QT for music playback - they thought QT was only for video, ala WMA. Most people have no idea what it really is, they only know it for video playback.
- Apple is not referring to the video and image libraries as anything to do with QuickTime, you'll notice. They are now CoreImage/Video/Audio. This *IS* QuickTime, but they're not calling it that. Even the SMTP timecoding is in there, it seems, which surprised me. I figured that QT would be the timecoding layer and CV/I/A would be the manipulation layers, but it seems that they're tied. Will be interested to see how that pans out.
- The way CV/I/A are written, to Quartz Extreme, makes portability of these libraries almost impossible. So... now what? Will QuickTime be rewritten on every platform, but use CV/I/A on MacOS X only, for a better user experience? In which case, everyone else will bitch even more highly about how poor QT is. D'oh.
It's a quandry. I'll be interested to see how it pans out.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Actually, I'm not sure what they're going to do with the QuickTime brand.
- It has a BAD reputation on Windows and Linux. Most of it not deserved, but bad still the same. I know people who were *PISSED* that installing iTunes also installed QT... they didn't realize that iTunes uses the functionality of QT for music playback - they thought QT was only for video, ala WMA. Most people have no idea what it really is, they only know it for video playback.
Frankly, it only has a bad reputation with people that know computers and the anti-Mac people that analyze Apple's ports with a magnifying glass...forum-type people. Most people think QuickTime is fine. Just like most people must think Windows Media Player on Mac is fine.
People that have gripes with QuickTime have gripes with the Player. And, personally, the QuickTime Player on Mac sucks just as bad as the PC QuickTime Player. I hate the QuickTime Player on Mac. If the QuickTime Player were a live person, I'd punch him in the face.
I don't know what Apple's going to do either since QuickTime 6.6 is now making full use of Mac OS X's potential and is probably more Cocoa than Carbon now.
There is definitely going to have to be a split codebase starting with QuickTime 6.6...and killing QuickTime for PC would be killing QuickTime. So Apple will definitely keep QuickTime alive on the PC...but will probably not have what QuickTime on Mac has.
I'm assuming QT PC will get the new codecs such as H.264 but will never make use of the Mac OS X Core* frameworks.
Quicktime is so very important. I do think they'll dub this QT7 when it comes out. There are just too many changes that easily warrant the upgrade in moniker.
I see QT as becoming more of a "Traffic Cop" than ever and being smart about farming out chores to more efficient tools(ie Core A/V or DirectX on PC). Apple does have its hands full here and like Kickaha says, I'm interested in how this pans out as well. I'm also excited for what this means for upcoming versions of iLife and the Production Suite.
I see 2005 as a big year for Apple software. Everything seems to be coming in place for Apple to branch out. I'm glad because my livelyhood will depend on it.
I like to keep my iTunes window as small as it can do while still displaying the play list, but then there is very little space on the sides for my long list of playlists. I also have a bunch of related playlists which would work best together in a single group. As far as old iPod compatibility is concerned, I'd be happy if it just sent out a flat list instead of the tree.
Regarding QT, I am really glad that a reprogrammed version is coming so that it'll be thread safe! What I'm really looking for is bugless previews in column view so that things still select properly (somewhat fixed in a recent X update) and no ghost images when things change and the preview moves position for no reason. Also, not using the whole CPU to play a preview mp3 will be a joy!
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Nothing could be bigger.
Well, it could go up to 11..... </nigel>
But for simple applications like audio streaming and lower bit rate video, I think WMP is just fine.
Originally posted by Kickaha
The way CV/I/A are written, to Quartz Extreme, makes portability of these libraries almost impossible.
Why do you assume this?
I'll bet money that Apple has a pretty portable API layer that it could (if so desired) move across any operating system.
You have to remember that most of what makes OS X so cool is really above the "OS".
The GPU programming aspects may be portable, which would be a major win for Apple on Wintel, but... that's a big maybe, and now you're getting into the plethora of graphics cards and driver hell that is Windows support.