Spotlight and CoreImage will be worth more than they charge

[ChrisH3677]

Spotlight and CoreImage/CoreVideo have left me breathless. And then there's still heaps of other features.

I've been wanting (and predicting!) Spotlight for years! With Spotlight, you won't even need folder hierarchies for your documents - you won't care where they are saved on your disk. Spotlight is not a threat to LaunchBar coz it could not have possibly provided that level of document indexing. The products that are under threat from Spotlight are Document Management apps, such as the brilliant DevonThink. This sort of thing is planned for Longhorn too and called (so imaginatively WinFS) - but it's two years behind Tiger.

And CoreImageCoreVideo! Wow!! Anyone who develops a graphics/video app is automatically going to have all those filters and other good stuff available - just like the color palette is. That's phenomenal - Photoshop quality filters in any app!

I don't know how I'm going to wait! At least I've got time to save for it - and I got no qualms paying for it - unlike Panther which had nothing as big as either of these.

[SpaceMagic]

Does anyone see this as a bad thing. There will still be buyers of Photoshop, but maybe not as many, when every app has photoshop-near-quality filters built in. Sure, iPhoto will be amazing.

Also, those new Widgets! I think Konfabulator people should sign a petition, for Apple to acknoledge that they are ruining 3rd party developers. I honestly don't know how Adobe and Apple are still friends - first all the video apps were superseeded by Final Cut Pro, now Photoshop too! Yes, they are a business, but they are killing their own support groups.

[gbojim]

I honestly don't know how Adobe and Apple are still friends - first all the video apps were superseeded by Final Cut Pro, now Photoshop too! Yes, they are a business, but they are killing their own support groups.

I think you're confusing the focus of the OS. CoreImage and CoreVideo are base technologies and frameworks like CoreAudio - not application. The only way Photoshop applies in your argument is if Apple releases a Photoshop competitor. I really doubt they will do that. Photoshop is a good app that does the job well. Before FCP, video was really not done well at all.

I agree with you re Konfabulator. Problem is the Konfabulator folks could never get the level of integration in the OS that Apple can.

[SpaceMagic]

It'll all be integrated. So that coreimage will be a menu just like the font menu is in text edit, for example.

So in iPhoto there'll be a filter menu, if they apply it. Not hard if its already integrated in the OS.

Or I could just throw together an app in Xcode, load the filter menu API and bob's me uncle! It'll work. (slightly exaggerated there! but really not difficult).

Just like in TextEdit you click on Colors and thats an OS thing not a textedit thing.

[michaelrjohnson]

Does anyone see this as a bad thing. There will still be buyers of Photoshop, but maybe not as many, when every app has photoshop-near-quality filters built in. Sure, iPhoto will be amazing.

Also, those new Widgets! I think Konfabulator people should sign a petition, for Apple to acknoledge that they are ruining 3rd party developers. I honestly don't know how Adobe and Apple are still friends - first all the video apps were superseeded by Final Cut Pro, now Photoshop too! Yes, they are a business, but they are killing their own support groups.

The power of apps like Photoshop does not lie in a few image filters, its all about the image manipulation options. Such comparable options do not exist in something like iPhoto. That's why people buy and use Photoshop and don't stick to stuff like iPhoto, or Microsoft Photo Editor (Windows). I dont' think Adobe is real troubled by this. In fact, they may be able to use it to power some new features that may not have been possible before.

[Rod Rod]

yup, this will immensely speed up Photoshop. the integration into the OS won't kill Photoshop. even if it's a "simple" task to make a basic photo editing application employing Core Image goodies, that still will not come close to replacing Photoshop's sophisicated layering and color management features.

FCP 5 with Core Video may just finally be as fast or faster compared to VT3 - which is a different breed of app (live video switching and high-end titling) - and which is cool because VT3 is PC-only (although Video Toaster was at one point Amiga only). Newtek won't like this, but at least they never had a Mac version of VT3.

it's going to be nuts.

just be sure you have the minimum video hardware to run Core Image and Core Video, which according to http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html is:

ATI Radeon 9800 XT
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

which means if you have any eMac, any iMac except for the 1.25GHz models, any PowerBook except for the rev.B&C 17", rev.A&B aluminum 15", and rev. C 12", any Power Mac G4, or any iBook, you are out of luck as far as using Tiger's Core Image and Core Video goodies -- and among the above group of incompatibles, only PM G4 is upgradeable.

[Quark]

For anyone with the Preview release of Tiger, can you let me know if all the window resizing and Dock magnification/effects are now run through the GPU via CoreImage?

Currently, if you run the CPU monitor and turn on the Dock magnification/effects and run your mouse over the dock back and forth, you'll see the CPU usage max out.

Also, currently, if you resize a window (like Safari, iCal, etc.) from a small window and rapidly drag the lower right-hand corner to a much larger window, you'll see some severe lag. This happens on all the Macs including the latest dual 2.5Ghz machines.

I absolutely love Apple and have heavily invested in Apple stock several years ago. I love Apple... did I already say that? So anyone that thinks I am bashing Apple or OS X, I'm not.

Take Care,
Quark

[Daveman Deluxe]

which means if you have any eMac, any iMac except for the 1.25GHz models, any PowerBook except for the rev.B&C 17", rev.A&B aluminum 15", and rev. C 12", any Power Mac G4, or any iBook, you are out of luck as far as using Tiger's Core Image and Core Video goodies -- and among the above group of incompatibles, only PM G4 is upgradeable.

Rev. B PowerBook 12" will also run CoreImage/CoreVideo, as it has a GeForce FX Go 5200.

[Counterfit]

So anyone that thinks I am bashing Apple or OS X, I'm not.
I don't think anyone would think that. It's a legitimate question ;)

And a big w00t as I can run CoreImage and CoreVideo! :D

[7on]

mmmm realtime Filters in Photoshop is a possibility in the next revision. excellent (even though i can't run it on my Raedon 9000).

[Nermal]

just be sure you have the minimum video hardware to run Core Image and Core Video, which according to http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html is:

<snip>

From that same page:

But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac.

[Rod Rod]

From that same page:

so, it'll work, but it'll be choppy like expose´ on a G3, and for video you'll be dropping frames everywhere if you try the kind of real time filters Phil Schiller was doing to those race cars. it seems that if you want real-time goodness you have to go with the "supported" cards.

[thatwendigo]

so, it'll work, but it'll be choppy like expose´ on a G3, and for video you'll be dropping frames everywhere if you try the kind of real time filters Phil Schiller was doing to those race cars. it seems that if you want real-time goodness you have to go with the "supported" cards.

Um... Duh?

My dad is a signal processing engineer and I sat him down to watch the Core Image and Core Video parts of the Keynote. Okay, so I sat him down and tricked him into watching all of it, but still... :p The upshot of this is that he was sitting there and nodding, with this big grin on his face and the occasional whistle of appreciation. Seems that the horsepower to pull the realtime filtering is some serious computing, and he's a little surprised that they managed it at all.

I defy you to find something high end on the PC, say Maya or Lightwave, and put it on four year old hardware. You'll see some 'choppy' presentation there, too.

[Nermal]

so, it'll work, but it'll be choppy like expose´ on a G3

Yeah, I realise that it'll be choppy, I was just pointing out that it'll still work on older systems - didn't want people jumping to the wrong conclusion and thinking that it won't work at all without a new card.

[Danrose1977]

Yeah, I realise that it'll be choppy, I was just pointing out that it'll still work on older systems - didn't want people jumping to the wrong conclusion and thinking that it won't work at all without a new card.

Thanks, because I was doing that jumping! Temporarily my brain began to shout "THIS MEANS WE CAN'T RUN TIGER!!!! :( :( :( " and I was missing spotlight already. Then I read your post..... :)

[Rod Rod]

Yeah, I realise that it'll be choppy, I was just pointing out that it'll still work on older systems - didn't want people jumping to the wrong conclusion and thinking that it won't work at all without a new card.

thatwendingo, no need to "duh" me. :)

Nermal, the thing I'm most concerned with is the possibility (and pretty good likelihood) of render-free print to video, and maybe even render-free MPEG2 / H.264 encoding. what I mean is no need to do a final render before exporting and/or encoding.

that would require the specified hardware, and that would be extremely cool.

[johnnyjibbs]

I would imagine that Phil Shciller used a PM G5 2.5GHz with the only current Mac nVidia 6800 ultra in it to demonstrate those effects. I'm not expecting to get such good performance using those filters on my rev B PB 12" (which has a supporterd graphics card).

However, I'm sure they'll support the ATI 9200 too, as this is used in iBooks and eMacs. Otherwise there'll be an outcry like the G3 OS X thing.

Tiger looks exciting and I am looking forward to it. Although, I'm not sure about some of the GUI. The widgets from Dashboard look out of place and un-aqua like. The title bar has a horrible duo tone look. And many of the pinstripes appear to have gone leaving boring milky white. Also, System Preferences (at least) appears to be aqua but with brushed metal style buttons - these don't work half as well - and the title bar appears to have been removed.

And I disagree with the original poster about Panther. I started with 10.2.7 and then upgraded to Panther and the speed improvement alone was fantastic. Not only do mail and safari and address book work as should, but a lot of things have been fixed, Preview is MUCH MUCH better, the Finder is better (mainly) and there are a lot of new features. Not to mention expose. I also love the Panther look - the subtle pinstripes make Jaguar look jarring by comparison. Try out Jaguar after using Panther for a while - it is horrible!

[micvog]

However, I'm sure they'll support the ATI 9200 too, as this is used in iBooks and eMacs. Otherwise there'll be an outcry like the G3 OS X thing.

My understanding is that it is a hardware limitation of the ATI RADEON 9200; IIRC it was the lack of PS2.0 but I can't find the link so FWIW. My guess is you will not see GPU-level support of Core Image on the 9200 or any other card not listed at Apple's site.

[johnnyjibbs]

My understanding is that it is a hardware limitation of the ATI RADEON 9200; IIRC it was the lack of PS2.0 but I can't find the link so FWIW. My guess is you will not see GPU-level support of Core Image on the 9200 or any other card not listed at Apple's site.
So this means people will stop complaining about the "crappy" nVidia 5200 installed on my machine then!!! :) ;) :D

[negrito]

hello...i'm a graphics artist and also enthusiatic about apple. i watched the keynote and i couldn't believe what i saw! coreimage just blew me away! it also blew away all my colleagues crowded around my mac. we began to applause when this guy showed us filtergalleries with realtime non destructive manipulation.

i can't believe that adobe won't change all its filters to coreimage (imageunits) format! if they really love what they do they can't ignore this one!

chapeau apple!

[sockeatingdryer]

That is really ****ed up that they are not supporting the eMac's and iBook's video cards for CoreImage.

A) Some of us just bought our machine, and now we're being told that our machine won't support a major feature of the next OS revision only a few months after? What, are we supposed to just pop off and get a new one? OK, a student is just made of money these days... we have helicopters and private yachts, too, Steve.

B) If it's a severe "hardware limitation" (which I doubt it is), then it's wrong to cripple the machines like that, putting in a pitiful card (according to their standards). Isn't that illegal, like "intentional obsolescence" or something like that?

[Daveman Deluxe]

sockeatingdryer: CoreImage scales down for older cards. However, I want to know why it's so bad that CoreImage requires powerful graphics hardware to do its thing to the fullest. Are you saying that Apple should dumb down its software just to satisfy the lowest common denominator?

Apple came up with something awesome. Why should Apple refuse to release it just because not everybody that purchased a new computer recently can use it? The new 30" display won't work with a brand-new eMac either--hell, it won't work on my three-month-old PowerBook. Should I complain too?

Apple has made CoreImage as widely available as possible. However, CoreImage requires pixel-level rendering support from its cards. That's the best the software engineers at Apple can do, and that's not a reason to get pissed at Apple.

[sockeatingdryer]

sockeatingdryer: CoreImage scales down for older cards. However, I want to know why it's so bad that CoreImage requires powerful graphics hardware to do its thing to the fullest. Are you saying that Apple should dumb down its software just to satisfy the lowest common denominator?
No, and that wasn't the point of what I said. Maybe if you looked at 'B,' you would see that I'm a little perturbed about the fact that they put in a graphics card that wouldn't support Core in not 1, but 2 models when they knew that a few months later an OS revision would need something a little more powerful. So, no, 'dumbing down... to the lowest common denom' was not necessary. The iBook, and particularly the eMac (which has been using the same VRAM amount for the past 2 years) should have had a better graphics car for necessary architecture in the recent future.

Apple came up with something awesome. Why should Apple refuse to release it just because not everybody that purchased a new computer recently can use it? The new 30" display won't work with a brand-new eMac either--hell, it won't work on my three-month-old PowerBook. Should I complain too?
Well, if I'm not mistaken, the (advertised) point of buying an eMac is to have an all-in-one machine. What do you think is the purpose, if I'm wrong? Also, this is not just eMac-specific. Most models (other than the 17/20 iMac, higher-end, new-new PowerBooks, and G5) are being cut out.

Apple has made CoreImage as widely available as possible. However, CoreImage requires pixel-level rendering support from its cards. That's the best the software engineers at Apple can do, and that's not a reason to get pissed at Apple.
Again, Apple knew that a certain OS revision in the near future would require a certain video card for an important new architecture. Yet, they put in a lower card than what was required. Uh-oh! That verges on 'intentional obsolescence.' So, no, Apple did not make CoreImage as widely available as possible. They just cut-out every model except the latest revisions, and two models from the latest revisions.

And, no, I'm not 'pissed at Apple.' Just a little ticked off and confused as to why they would cut off a large portion of their user base from having the full experience of enjoying the new OS revision. People bought these with that in mind: planning for the future & enjoying the new OS

[nuckinfutz]

Again, Apple knew that a certain OS revision in the near future would require a certain video card for an important new architecture. Yet, they put in a lower card than what was required. Uh-oh! That verges on 'intentional obsolescence.' So, no, Apple did not make CoreImage as widely available as possible. They just cut-out every model except the latest revisions, and two models from the latest revisions.

And, no, I'm not 'pissed at Apple.' Just a little ticked off and confused as to why they would cut off a large portion of their user base from having the full experience of enjoying the new OS revision. People bought these with that in mind: planning for the future & enjoying the new OS

I don't think any of us really know if Apple had planned Core Image from a ways back or not. I've heard reports that Core Image/Video may have been added to Tiger after work was underway on Motion. It doesn't matter though because the beef is not with Apple but with ATI and Nvidia. To hit a price point Apple needs graphics within a certain pricerance. It's just unfortunate that ATI and Nvidia did not have appropriate shader support in their cards at that level. Apple's not going to put in the same card that the Powerbooks use. This was not intentional at all. It's a bummer for users of eMacs and iBooks who have visions of reat time effects but don't worry by the time Tiger comes out and Core Image apps are out in force you'll be ready for a new computer possibly. If not you have something to look forward to with your next computer.

[sockeatingdryer]

Not to sound difficult/overly contradictory (too late, prolly), but I would think Apple would know what was in Tiger two months before they demoed it. The eMacs and iBooks were refreshed then two months before WWDC. As for putting the blame on ATI and Nvidia, one would think that there are alternatives that would have supported CoreImage, for sure. The eMacs needed a graphics overhaul in the first place. No one expects them to put PowerBook cards in them, but they have been using the same amount of VRAM for 2 years. Most people have complained about the overly weak cards they've been putting in the eMac/iBook lines. I say 'overly weak' because that is the only thing crippling the eMac. The iBook... well, it has some other things. That said, I love my eMac and it's the greatest I've used (other than my grandad's 1.5GHz 15" PowerBook), and I love those iBooks. Not to completely nullify your point (which is valid), but Apple knew about CoreImage and what it required when they were refreshing the lines.

[Anarchy99]

i was planning on an emac around christmas time but il wait a little longer if the up the emac a little what are the chances of a new emac line in that time frame

[Daveman Deluxe]

sockeatingdryer:

I find it unlikely that a sub-$1000 computer of any kind would have a graphics card that offers pixel-level programming, which is required for the full effect of CoreImage. Dell doesn't. I'm pretty sure hp doesn't. Alienware certainly doesn't. ;) The point is that CoreImage requires pixel shading to render CoreImage's real-time effects to their fullest. Cards with pixel shaders are expensive.

For that matter, Tiger doesn't REQUIRE such a graphics card to run. Indeed, CoreImage itself doesn't require that graphics card to run--it scales down the effects for weaker video cards.

Furthermore, the eMac, starting at $799 has a Radeon 9200 in it. That's VERY GOOD for a sub-$1000 computer. The iBook offers the Mobility Radeon 9200, starting at $999. Again, that's quite good--most (all?) desktops and laptops in these ranges on the PC side have integrated graphics.

Apple decided to include a feature in the next operating system that is a serious boon to those whose graphics hardware can handle the load. However, not all current models have that graphics hardware because it's NOT CHEAP. Why shouldn't those who have the graphics hardware be able to use it? The other options are thus:

a) Don't include CoreImage, even though there are a lot of folks that have the graphics hardware to run it at full throttle;
b) Include graphics hardware in all new computers that can fully exploit CoreImage, while either raising prices or lowering profit margins.

Do either of these two look like good solutions to you?

[JFreak]

demo doesn't equal release.

when apple RELEASES tiger next year, i suspect that most - if not all - apple hardware that will then be "current" lineup, will have supported graphics card installed. come on, people... it is more than six months earliest. if someone really NEEDS those new technologies, he will likely be buying a new one anyway at that time if he for some reason doesn't already have such an apple hardware that is supported. most likely does, though.

come on, folks, it took a long time for coreaudio to reach mainstream. it will take two years for coreimage and corevideo to reach the people using emacs, too. i mean the software that is cheap enough (free) for a regular joe to buy. at that time apple surely has hardware support for everyone. no problem there. and pro people who need it today were able to buy supported hardware yesterday. so no problem there either.

only problem: whiners. want something? go buy it. nothings is free.

[X_Ranger]

The power of apps like Photoshop does not lie in a few image filters, its all about the image manipulation options. Such comparable options do not exist in something like iPhoto. That's why people buy and use Photoshop and don't stick to stuff like iPhoto, or Microsoft Photo Editor (Windows). I dont' think Adobe is real troubled by this. In fact, they may be able to use it to power some new features that may not have been possible before.

That's right michaelrjohnson! Adobe could leverage the core applications if they wanted to. Jobs said as much.

[Wardofsky]

I think spotlight is a great thing for how tidy your Mac is to be honest.
I've been using LaunchBar for a good while now and it's the main reason my dock is so empty, just hit Apple+Space type in a few letters hit enter and what you need is launching.

I've soon tons of people with every single app crammed in to the dock, Spotlight looks so refined and Apple like so it should be one of the greatest features Tiger will give us all.

Now all I have to search for is Yosemite...