Leopard Previewed

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif

Also during Apple's WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs previewed Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Among the features demonstrated were:

- 64 bit application support extended throughought the User Interface layer of the OS, allowing "full" 64-bit application development and deployment.
- Time Machine, automatic backup and restoring of files corrupted or accidentally deleted or overwritten by the user.
- Spaces, Apple's implementation of virtual desktops.
- Core Animation
- Enhancements to Dashboard, Spotlight, Mail, iCal and Universal Access
- Boot Camp, and "next generation" Front Row, and Photo Booth bundled

Apple plan to release Leopard in "Spring 2007."

More information can be found at Apple's Leopard Sneak Peek pages.

[sososowhat]

The new HW is fine, but Leopard is exciting! I'll look forward to this as I have all the big cats. Time machine is a great idea; love the additions to iChat & spotlight.

[nagromme]

Wow!

It's amazing how Apple keeps managing BIG updates to OS X. They are moving forward so much more efficiently than Microsoft. Not just polishing little things, but big, useful things. Not to mention some fun ones to attract consumers. I hope the advanced Spotlight features include easy boolean searching.

And now we can all wonder about those OTHER features Steve said they are concealing for now so Microsoft can't make a halfway copy (or attempt to) yet again.

I'm surprised res-independent UI was not discussed, but Apple has already said that is coming, so maybe it's just not polished enough to bother showing yet. (Or maybe it's better to show when new displays come out? Today's new low prices on Cinema Displays might hint at new displays to come later.)

I've been asking for that background-change effect in iChat for years! Adobe Premiere could do that in the 90s, though not in realtime. Too cool!

Now one question... A new Front Row has been mentioned, but what will it have? PVR, tuner-ready for future Macs or peripherals? At first I also wondered about ["from across the room or across the house"... But I bet they're just talking about sharing iTunes or photos from another Mac, which is old news.

PS, congrats to MR's servers for handling the load

[stubeeef]

Just got off the apple website and WOW, some is obviously eye candy, but I LIKE IT ALOT!

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ichat.html

[iJawn108]

Hey nice to see osx will have system restore =D

[Zadillo]

Originally Posted by iJawn108

Hey nice to see osx will have system restore =D

I really hope you're joking, Time Machine is not equivalent to something like System Restore.

[tny]

Originally Posted by Zadillo

I really hope you're joking, Time Machine is not equivalent to something like System Restore.

Actually, from what I saw, Time Machine looks like a combo of System Restore, ShadowCopies (but better), and Backup.

[dernhelm]

Originally Posted by iJawn108

Hey nice to see osx will have system restore =D

YOU MUST BE KIDDING. Have you actually used System Restore to restore a single file? Oh that's right, you can't. All you can do it reset your system back to a point where the file existed.

This is MUCH more powerful, and more like something users would actually want.

System Restore is great for those times when you want to apply a system patch that could be iffy, and you are willing to "snap" a restore point, apply the patch, and roll back if something didn't fly.

But for the normal user, it is much more useless.

[ZildjianKX]

Originally Posted by dernhelm

YOU MUST BE KIDDING. Have you actually used System Restore to restore a single file? Oh that's right, you can't. All you can do it reset your system back to a point where the file existed.

This is MUCH more powerful, and more like something users would actually want.

System Restore is great for those times when you want to apply a system patch that could be iffy, and you are willing to "snap" a restore point, apply the patch, and roll back if something didn't fly.

But for the normal user, it is much more useless.

I'd also like to point out I've never actually gotten XP's system restore to work, I've tried about 10 times over the past 5 years. Maybe I'm the exception, but you really can't rely on it.

[Westside guy]

Originally Posted by iJawn108

Hey nice to see osx will have system restore =D

Time machine isn't even similar to MS's System Restore. Time Machine is basically like having CVS or Subversion underneath the file system. It rocks. I don't believe there's ever been anything like it on a client-type computer (a similar feature was present in the server OS VMS, I believe).

You might want to do some reading about CVS and Subversion.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it wouldn't be surprising to find that CVS/Subversion code is the foundation for Time Machine.

[Tomaz]

Originally Posted by Westside guy

Time machine isn't even similar to MS's System Restore. Time Machine is basically like having CVS or Subversion underneath the file system. It rocks. I don't believe there's ever been anything like it on a client-type computer (a similar feature was present in the server OS VMS, I believe).

You might want to do some reading about CVS and Subversion.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it wouldn't be surprising to find that CVS/Subversion code is the foundation for Time Machine.

Maybe not in a client type computer but it exists in Windows Server 2003 and it is called Volume Shadow Copy.

Of curse it doesn't look as nice !

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by nagromme

I'm surprised res-independent UI was not discussed, but Apple has already said that is coming, so maybe it's just not polished enough to bother showing yet. (Or maybe it's better to show when new displays come out? Today's new low prices on Cinema Displays might hint at new displays to come later.)

I am not entirely clear on what all CoreAnimation does and does not do, but I'm wondering if it and RIUI are not related at some level.... some of its feature set sounds like exactly what one would need to make the RIUI easy to implement.... We'll have to wait and see.

I voted Time Machine. I'm not even sure I'd really use it. But it's a neat idea, and the implementation looks to be nothing less than stunning. When I first saw it, I too thought system restore, but it's clearly substantially more sophisticated and (what a shock) oriented at enhancing your experience doing actual stuff with your computer, rather than at undoing the mess Windows updaters make when they fail to do what they're supposed to.

To me overall it seems like I'll be excited to get my next Mac with Leopard pre-installed but I will not rush out to purchase a copy....

[dernhelm]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

I am not entirely clear on what all CoreAnimation does and does not do, but I'm wondering if it and RIUI are not related at some level....
I voted Time Machine. I'm not even sure I'd really use it. But it's a neat idea, and the implementation looks to be nothing less than stunning.

These were my top two as well. I just didn't have quite enough information on how Core Animation is actually set up to vote for it. It's also hard to get real excited about a developer-enabling feature, but it could certainly lead to some cool apps. It's also great that they're eating their own dogfood and using it to code Time Machine.

Time machine was my vote mostly because of its wide appeal. This looks awesome, and if it is as effortless as it sounds, may even be a reason to buy some NAS storage and hook it up at home. The demo I saw was simply amazing.

Great work apple. Now get those Core 2 Duo chips in the iMac and I'll be all set.

[61132]

gosh, the finder looks the same I dont want the brushed metal anywhere anymore!! Also, they should just integrate address book/ical/mail into one app!!!

[DMann]

Originally Posted by sososowhat

The new HW is fine, but Leopard is exciting! I'll look forward to this as I have all the big cats.

In nine months or less......... we'll have those
Top Secret features in our machines - too bad
for Redmond they won't be revealed until then.
Core graphics and Quartz Extreme will be amazing.
Love Time Machine, Spaces, etc.

[CellarDoor]

Originally Posted by DMann

In nine months or less......... we'll have those
Top Secret features in our machines - too bad
for Redmond they won't be revealed until then.
Core graphics and Quartz Extreme will be amazing.
Love Time Machine, Spaces, etc.

Is this a poem? Lovely.

[zooniverse]

love the new features so far. Hopefully a UI refresh will be one of the top secret features to finally get rid of the dated brushed-metal finder etc...

[rye9]

Personally.. I wasnt too thrilled with the features shown.. some i liked tho.. but some i didnt care for.. time machine is amazing however.. and spaces is nice too. All in all i cant wait to get my hands on it next year.

[shrimpdesign]

Features I want:

-iChat screen sharing (awesome idea!) and video effects
-Spaces (finally a Apple OS-level implementation)
-Time Machine (I want a friggin wormhole on my computer!)

I wish they'd show us the Top Secret features.

But seriously, so one even saw Time Machine coming. That was a surprise!

[runninmac]

Wow! Just about everything was bad ass! Time Machine seems awesome, so many times I have saved over a document and didn't have a back up. Now all I need is an external drive.

Were they serious when they said they were saving the best feature for later?

[Enigmac]

Remember guys, these are only a few of the MANY features that Leopard will have to offer... including the top secret one. Steve made that clear.

Apple is doing a great job concealing everything else from M$. Spring 2007 is the release date. Expect to see new finder, along with an in-depth look!

Wow, for the first time... I actually feel sorry for poor boy Gates. He's in for a good ol' beating!

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

I dont think the "Top Secret" stuff is really top secret. I think Apple needs some more time to develope a few things before releasing them out into the public. No reason to release buggy apps.

Remember, WWDC was pushed back this year. THey aren't done with Leopard just yet.

[Super Dave]

Originally Posted by AtHomeBoy_2000

I dont think the "Top Secret" stuff is really top secret. I think Apple needs some more time to develope a few things before releasing them out into the public. No reason to release buggy apps.

Remember, WWDC was pushed back this year. THey aren't done with Leopard just yet.

They certainly aren't done, but they're announcing it within the same length time frame as they did with Tiger if I recall.

I actually believed him on the "Top Secret" stuff. Every vista build changes, so it's good to not let too much out of the bag until Vista is either interface frozen or released.

David

[Cameront9]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/accessibility.html

From this site:

Closed captioning
QuickTime currently supports closed captioning by including a text track alongside audio and video content. But improved QuickTime support will automatically display the CEA-608 closed captioning text standard in analog broadcasts in the U.S.

-----

Anyone think this means support for Closed Captioning in iTunes video downloads? As a hearing-impaired Mac-User, the lack of subtitles/captions in the TV shows is the one thing keeping me from buying a bunch of them. I hope they address this issue soon...

As for the rest of the stuff:

1) Time Machine--cool name for a cool idea. However, I use a Powerbook, and my External HD is in another room. It's not connected all the time. I wonder how this setup will work? And like others, I initially thought "System Restore," but then I realized how different this is, and how Useful. But how far back can you go? I have files on my computer that are almost 10 years old....Will time machine be able to find stuff that was deleted years ago (I do mean AFTER time Machine is installed...I obviously don't expect it to find stuff deleted before TM was installed).

2) Mail. To-Do implementation looks neat, and themes might be fun for a Christmas letter. But I really don't care about HTML mail.

3) iChat. "Share the Screen" looks awesome, if it works well. So does being able to do a slideshow while chatting with someone...

4) Spaces. I've gotten so used to Expose, I can't see Virtual desktops being that big a deal to me. But It's a good feature for those who want it.

5) Dashboard. From the previews, it seems like Dashcode will be available as part of the OS?

6) Spotlight. Over-the-network searches sound great.

7) iCal. More networking features are great, but most of my friends/coworkers have PCs, so moot point for me.

8) Accessibilty: See above about Closed Captioning. Anything that helps Hearing impaired users is great.

9) 64-bit. Kind of Obvious?

10) Core Animation: Will my 1.67 G4 Powerbook be able to utilize this in any way?

Overall, great Keynote, I thought. the only people that should be disappointed are the ones claiming all kinds of crazy stuff, as always.

[Fotek2001]

Not a glimpse of the Finder...!