Resolution Independence Support in Snow Leopard?

[MacRumors]

Roughly Drafted claims to have knowledge of some of the possible new features coming in Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, the article appears to include some degree of speculation making it difficult to tease out what might be actual features.

One of the more interesting possibilities includes the introduction of full Resolution Independence. The groundwork for this feature was included in Leopard, but full implementation was not expected until a later release. The author speculates that the dramatic size reductions in the application sizes could be, in part, due to resolution independence. Besides file-size reductions by eliminating large bitmaps, Apple's research into resolution independence opens the door to ultra-high resolution displays. This could pave the way for Apple's previously rumored high resolution Cinema displays.

The benefit of resolution independence would be the ability for the operating system to scale its user interface smoothly to accommodate higher resolution displays. At present, most displays are around 100 dots-per-inch (dpi), meaning 100 pixels for every inch of screen display. If Apple were to introduce an ultra-high resolution display, it could have a dpi of 200 or 300. The same image viewed on these higher resolution screens would appear 2x to 3x smaller. Simply scaling up bitmapped images to fit the display would result in blocky/jagged images. If instead, they are described as vectors, as Apple is proposing, larger displays could smoothly scale the user interface to the size of the display.

The article also suggests that 3rd party support for the multi-touch trackpads, expanded data detectors, auto activation of fonts, and ZFS support (which is listed in features for Snow Leopard Server) are also coming.

Article Link

[haiggy]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Roughly Drafted claims to have knowledge of some of the possible new features coming in Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, the article appears to include some degree of speculation making it difficult to tease out what might be actual features.

One of the more interesting possibilities includes the introduction of full Resolution Independence. The groundwork for this feature was included in Leopard, but full implementation was not expected until a later release. The author speculates that the dramatic size reductions in the application sizes could be, in part, due to resolution independence. Besides file-size reductions by eliminating large bitmaps, Apple's research into resolution independence opens the door to ultra-high resolution displays. This could pave the way for Apple's previously rumored high resolution Cinema displays.

The article also suggests that 3rd party support for the multi-touch trackpads, expanded data detectors, auto activation of fonts, and ZFS support (which is listed in features for Snow Leopard Server) are also coming.

Article Link

Bring it on!

[geerlingguy]

Resolution independence has been implemented into developer builds, and is even a feature of the developer tools in 10.5. It has to happen at some point. Sooner is better than later.

[KingYaba]

We've been promised this before. But hey, if this comes true then I might, just might actually purchase "Snow Leopard."

[amusiccale]

The connection between resolution independence and new Cinema Displays seems pretty credible to me. And it's about time.

[JonHimself]

I've tried looking at some articles and wiki's about resolution independence but can someone explain in simple terms what it is and what are benefits/negatives of it? Hopefully with some examples of how it could be used because I think I know what it is but I'm not entirely sure I get why it's important or how it will be used.

[happydude]

Originally Posted by JonHimself

I've tried looking at some articles and wiki's about resolution independence but can someone explain in simple terms what it is and what are benefits/negatives of it? Hopefully with some examples of how it could be used because I think I know what it is but I'm not entirely sure I get why it's important or how it will be used.

i think this would help a lot of people (myself included)

[Matthew Yohe]

"Sources also indicate Snow Leopard will expand upon Font Book to provide full Auto Activation of any fonts requested by any application, using Spotlight to track them down"

Font Auto Activation exists now in 10.5, but it is wonky for some.

[InkMaster]

Awesome, a quad-core MacBook Pro with 8 gigs of ram and a 2560x1600 17" display + resolution independence....

Sweeeet!

[fastbite]

So basically, all the stuff we thought we were gonna get with leopard (RI, ZFS etc) is now coming with WL? Yes, makes sense. It will leave everybody else in the dust...
But can I have mine with cream? and also where the frigging hell are the new MBP?.

[abrooks]

Originally Posted by JonHimself

I've tried looking at some articles and wiki's about resolution independence but can someone explain in simple terms what it is and what are benefits/negatives of it? Hopefully with some examples of how it could be used because I think I know what it is but I'm not entirely sure I get why it's important or how it will be used.

Very basically, applications are currently made up of bitmap images which means they contain pixels and are of a certain size. As the pixel density of displays increases these objects get smaller. Resolution independence effectively means that objects aren't defined in pixels and have the ability to increase or shrink in size without losing quality and without multiple versions of the file being necessary.

[!¡ V ¡!]

Originally Posted by abrooks

Very basically, applications are currently made up of bitmap images which means they contain pixels and are of a certain size. As the pixel density of displays increases these objects get smaller. Resolution independence effectively means that objects aren't defined in pixels and have the ability to increase or shrink in size without losing quality and without multiple versions of the file being necessary.

You can simplify it further for those people who just want the bare facts.

Presently the OS GUI is represented as bitmap images.

Resolution Independence will vectorize the OS GUI.

Think as it this way presently the GUI is a Photoshop images, and what is trying to do is make it into an Illustrator image. This way it scale without losing clarity.

[rspeed]

Resolution independence is simply the ability to use displays with extremely high pixel density. This was already supported in Tiger and Leopard in a roundabout way, but the results aren't spectacular (I'll explain why).

The basic idea is to convert all graphical elements of the user interface into vector-based graphics formats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics). Icons, window chrome, buttons, fonts (which have been vector based since before OS X) and so on. When a high-dpi display is connected to the computer, everything on the screen can scale up, preventing it from becoming unusable.

Currently the graphical elements in most applications are stored in raster formats, which causes them to look rather lousy when scaled up. There are also performance issues associated with drawing vectors, but they're likely minor due to all of the work Apple has put into accelerating Quartz.

[manu chao]

Originally Posted by JonHimself

I've tried looking at some articles and wiki's about resolution independence but can someone explain in simple terms what it is and what are benefits/negatives of it? Hopefully with some examples of how it could be used because I think I know what it is but I'm not entirely sure I get why it's important or how it will be used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_independence

In short, compared to current 100 dpi Cinema displays, a 200 dpi display would have menubar only half as high as the menubar is defined in pixels not millimeters. This would make it very hard to read it and that is the reason why we don't have 200 dpi displays yet.

With resolution independence all these elements which are today defined in pixels will be defined in millimeters (or whatever unit you prefer).

[NewGenAdam]

Resolution independence sounds like fun!
But how do filesizes compare? And how do they deal with stuff like circles, and curves?
Hmm I need to do my research.

[benpatient]

um...the "groundwork" was included in Tiger, not Leopard.

It should have been completely implemented in Leopard.

It was originally supposed to be fully functional in Tiger.

A certain OS developer is looking more and more like a certain other OS developer as their complacency grows...I'll believe Apple is going to actually use resolution independence when i zoom in on my screen and everything doesn't go fuzzy and lame.

They could have turned this on for the 1st party and core services a long time ago. It could even have happened in a point update.

My parents can't use my laptop because the dpi is too high and the resolution is decidedly NOT independent.

Don't get me wrong, if it's finally included, I'll be happy. I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5. I think Apple was planning on doing a lot more with 10.5 and they got behind because they didn't put enough resources into it, and instead of having all that Vista mud kicked back in their faces with 18 months or more of delays to leopard, they just cut back on the real core work and concentrated on the "features" for 10.5, holding off on the real meat and potatoes upgrades, rewrites and structural changes because they didn't have time to pull it off without looking stupid. I don't think Apple has been putting as much into their computer OS as they have been into their mobile OS.

We have been relegated to second citizen status. notice how much they will add to a point release (10.5.4) for their mobile users (all this mobileme stuff), but they can't be bothered to fix the problems between Leopard and CS3 that have been documented and isolated as apple problems for over 6 months.

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones. sure, they'll make more money, but it's a very slippery slope they're on now...

[kabunaru]

Originally Posted by benpatient

Don't get me wrong, if it's finally included, I'll be happy. I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5. I think Apple was planning on doing a lot more with 10.5 and they got behind because they didn't put enough resources into it, and instead of having all that Vista mud kicked back in their faces with 18 months or more of delays to leopard, they just cut back on the real core work and concentrated on the "features" for 10.5, holding off on the real meat and potatoes upgrades, rewrites and structural changes because they didn't have time to pull it off without looking stupid. I don't think Apple has been putting as much into their computer OS as they have been into their mobile OS.

We have been relegated to second citizen status. notice how much they will add to a point release (10.5.4) for their mobile users (all this mobileme stuff), but they can't be bothered to fix the problems between Leopard and CS3 that have been documented and isolated as apple problems for over 6 months.

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones. sure, they'll make more money, but it's a very slippery slope they're on now...

Like I always said and always will, blame it all on the iPhone.

[nagromme]

I don't think res independence has much to do with app size. UI bitmaps are very small, and vector data can sometimes be quite complex. I'd expect a few KB difference here and there, not adding up to much.

I'd say bigger factors are probably reduction of unnecessary language resources, Xcode changes (compiling to smaller, more efficient executables), and/or the dropping of the PPC half of Universal Binaries. (Counteracted in part, maybe, by some apps having dual binaries for 32- and 64-bit CPUs.)

Originally Posted by benpatient

I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5.

I don't know about the "should," since OS X is already so far of other OS's, and I certainly wouldn't "blame" the iPhone, which is the best thing to happen to grow the Mac computing platform in ages (look at all the Windows developers now loving Xcode). But the good news is you WILL NOT have to pay $129. No price has been stated, but whatever it costs, you won't be forced to buy it. If certain apps come to depend on it in late 2009 or 2010, you won't even be forced then: the Leopard versions of those apps will keep working.

Originally Posted by benpatient

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones.

Where are your numbers on that? Macs remain the biggest segment for Apple--and iPods and iPhones are converging with Macs, not moving farther away. iPods even run OS X these days, as of course does the iPhone, resulting in new features being developed for Macs (Core Animation for one) and an ever-bigger "halo" of Mac sales.

But I would say it's CONSUMER Macs that are the biggest backbone. Not creative companies. But fear not, they remain an important market, and one look at Snow Leopard is all you need to be assured that Apple cares about performance in ways that will benefit pro creative apps more than anything else.

Change is scary--but don't fear the "new" iPod and iPhone. If anyone imagines an Apple with no iPod and iPhone, and believes the Mac computing platform would be better off in that case, then they are seeing only a tiny part of the picture.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by nagromme

I don't think res independence has much to do with app size. UI bitmaps are very small, and vector data can sometimes be quite complex. I'd expect a few KB difference here and there, not adding up to much.

I'd say bigger factors are probably reduction of unnecessary language resources, Xcode changes (compiling to smaller, more efficient executables), and/or the dropping of the PPC half of Universal Binaries. (Counteracted in part, maybe, by some apps having dual binaries for 32- and 64-bit CPUs.)



I don't know about the "should," since OS X is already so far of other OS's, and I certainly wouldn't "blame" the iPhone, which is the best thing to happen to grow the Mac computing platform in ages (look at all the Windows developers now loving Xcode). But the good news is you WILL NOT have to pay $129. No price has been stated, but whatever it costs, you won't be forced to buy it. If certain apps come to depend on it in late 2009 or 2010, you won't even be forced then: the Leopard versions of those apps will keep working.



Where are your numbers on that? Macs remain the biggest segment for Apple--and iPods and iPhones are converging with Macs, not moving farther away. iPods even run OS X these days, as of course does the iPhone, resulting in new features being developed for Macs (Core Animation for one) and an ever-bigger "halo" of Mac sales.

But I would say it's CONSUMER Macs that are the biggest backbone. Not creative companies. But fear not, they remain an important market, and one look at Snow Leopard is all you need to be assured that Apple cares about performance in ways that will benefit pro creative apps more than anything else.

Correct. It has nothing to do with application sizes. Cocoa versions of those applications using/re-using shared cocoa frameworks by many applications will drastically move custom frameworks/libraries out of those applications and into the /Frameworks pathway.

Dictionary going from 10MB -> 2MB tells me they have moved out a system-wide database for words to make it useable across all applications that are written to the framework in Cocoa that have the calls to leverage the RDBMS.

Looks like EOF is being used more and more.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by nagromme

I don't think res independence has much to do with app size.......
I'd say bigger factors are probably reduction of unnecessary language resources, Xcode changes (compiling to smaller, more efficient executables), and/or the dropping of the PPC half of Universal Binaries. (Counteracted in part, maybe, by some apps having dual binaries for 32- and 64-bit CPUs.)

All you'd need to see drastic reductions in size is a "smart installer". Even if the binaries where identical if the instaler only coped the "corect" binary code (either Intel or PPC but not both) ad the lenaguages that you selected

[bugfaceuk]

Originally Posted by benpatient

um...the "groundwork" was included in Tiger, not Leopard.

It should have been completely implemented in Leopard.

It was originally supposed to be fully functional in Tiger.

A certain OS developer is looking more and more like a certain other OS developer as their complacency grows...I'll believe Apple is going to actually use resolution independence when i zoom in on my screen and everything doesn't go fuzzy and lame.

They could have turned this on for the 1st party and core services a long time ago. It could even have happened in a point update.

My parents can't use my laptop because the dpi is too high and the resolution is decidedly NOT independent.

Don't get me wrong, if it's finally included, I'll be happy. I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5. I think Apple was planning on doing a lot more with 10.5 and they got behind because they didn't put enough resources into it, and instead of having all that Vista mud kicked back in their faces with 18 months or more of delays to leopard, they just cut back on the real core work and concentrated on the "features" for 10.5, holding off on the real meat and potatoes upgrades, rewrites and structural changes because they didn't have time to pull it off without looking stupid. I don't think Apple has been putting as much into their computer OS as they have been into their mobile OS.

We have been relegated to second citizen status. notice how much they will add to a point release (10.5.4) for their mobile users (all this mobileme stuff), but they can't be bothered to fix the problems between Leopard and CS3 that have been documented and isolated as apple problems for over 6 months.

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones. sure, they'll make more money, but it's a very slippery slope they're on now...

Oh come on, you are confusing "supposed to be in Tiger according to some rumours" with "Apple planned to deliver it in Tiger".

As some who uses CS3 every hour of every day to make a living, on Leopard, I've had nothing more serious than glitches which to be honest, given it's only CS3 that's doing it, I lay the blame at Adobe's door. All that said, it's nothing that has stopped me being as productive as ever and has certainly never lost me work.

Would I pay for more efficient use of my disk space, more efficient use of memory, 16TB of addressable space, and faster running apps? I can state, as a creative professional, that this would be a fantastic release. Faster, smaller, more stable.

If some of this is a result of the iPhone, then bring it on.

[benpatient]

Originally Posted by bugfaceuk

Oh come on, you are confusing "supposed to be in Tiger according to some rumours" with "Apple planned to deliver it in Tiger".

As some who uses CS3 every hour of every day to make a living, on Leopard, I've had nothing more serious than glitches which to be honest, given it's only CS3 that's doing it, I lay the blame at Adobe's door. All that said, it's nothing that has stopped me being as productive as ever and has certainly never lost me work.

Would I pay for more efficient use of my disk space, more efficient use of memory, 16TB of addressable space, and faster running apps? I can state, as a creative professional, that this would be a fantastic release. Faster, smaller, more stable.

look up "indesign back channel" and follow the first link. Adobe has worked with Apple to fix the catastrophic problems that some Leopard users have with CS3 that cannot be fixed short of buying a new machine, and Apple has told adobe that they aren't doing anything wrong, that Apple needs to implement some changes to 10.5, and that it will happen "eventually." That was public knowledge when 10.5.1 was the current release. One of the smaller Nav Services bugs was patched with 10.5.3. There are still several more unresolved. The word Tim used on his blog was "no trivial" changes that Apple needs to make to meet their own development spec. Since this problem can happen on an 08 Mac Pro (and it has to me), and 08 Mac Pro's don't officially support 10.4 in any capacity, if you get one of these bugs with CS3, then you're just flat out of luck. I did eventually fix my problem, but it required throwing away the Apple-supplied hard drive and installing CS3 on another one that i got from Newegg. Apple tested the drive and found nothing wrong with it, but formatting it to all zeros and reinstalling CS3 didn't stop the random, frequent InDesign crashes on save/close/place. there is currently "no timeframe" for these fixes. Of course for all I know, the timeframe for the fixes is 10.6, next year, for $$$.

and the iphone can go jump off a bridge.

[solipsism]

For those who still are confused by vector graphics right/option-click the Flash ad at the top or bottom of this page and zoom in a few times. You'll see that the test and images stay nice and crisp as it gets larger.

Originally Posted by Bokito

I wonder if Apple is going to include (Application) SVG icons. Work has been done on these icons in the early days of Leopard, but it seems Apple later pulled this. SVG icons would allow unlimited scaling, but it is a processor intensive technique.

If IR is included as the default I would think that they would, even though their current solution of having multiple sized icon images (16px^2, 32px^2, 128px^2, 256px^2, 512px^2) seems to work pretty well.

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Dictionary going from 10MB -> 2MB tells me they have moved out a system-wide database for words to make it useable across all applications that are written to the framework in Cocoa that have the calls to leverage the RDBMS.

I was thinking the same thing regarding the massive app size reductions.

Originally Posted by benpatient

um...the "groundwork" was included in Tiger, not Leopard.

Any major update requires groundwork. This stuff doesn't get built in a day.

It should have been completely implemented in Leopard.

You can turn it on via Terminal without having developer tools installed.

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor x

x = The magnitude larger or smaller you wish to make it. 1 is the default and normal resolution, 2 would make it 2x as large, .75 would reduce the default size by 25%. Get it? Try it out, you'll see that it wasn't close to being ready, which is a clear indication that it shouldn't have been turned on it Leopard. I bet it will be one of the last things Apple gets right in Snow Leopard, if it is on by default.

It was originally supposed to be fully functional in Tiger.

Just like ZFS was supposed to be fully functional in Leopard despite the glaring fact that it wasn't even a bootable file system and other major issues at the time? I'll need so proof that Apple stated that RI was coming in Tiger to believe that.

I'll believe Apple is going to actually use resolution independence when i zoom in on my screen and everything doesn't go fuzzy and lame.

I hope so, because I use screen zoom very often.

They could have turned this on for the 1st party and core services a long time ago. It could even have happened in a point update.

Turn it one yourself to see why it's not ready.

My parents can't use my laptop because the dpi is too high and the resolution is decidedly NOT independent.

My parents recently got a new imac after years of being on a WinPC. While the text is the approximate same size, going from a 15" display to 20" doesn't make it look awfully smaller. I tried the RI in Leopard, but there were too many things that didn't work right. I then tried changing from the native resolution. Apple should not even offer them in the Display area as they are useless. Anyway, they got accustomed to the larger screen. I did increase the text in Mail Preferences which worked well and I installed WebKit (now in Safari 4) so I could enable Full Page Zoom.

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDebugFullPageZoomPreferenceKey 1

Note: You have to need have Safari 4 or a newer Webkit version.

I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5.

You don't have to buy anything; and being on these board you'll know exactly what you'd be getting in 10.6 should you decide to buy. There is no reason to upgrade if you don't want or need what an OS is offering. Just check out Vista and people moving back to XP. I'd think people would be happy that Apple is trying to un-bloat their OS.

I don't think Apple has been putting as much into their computer OS as they have been into their mobile OS.

Not true. About 60% of the WWDC was developer classes were devoted to Mac OS X. The iPhone did cause some delay to Leopard, but it's also helped Apple with Leopard when they scaled down Leopard to put into the iPhone.

We have been relegated to second citizen status.

Most people who feel like 2nd-class citizens make a change, if they can. If you really feel that way then you can move to Window or Linux. There are no border patrol to stop you, no midnight curfews or underground railroads to traverse. Just switch your OS. You can even your same Mac HW to do it.

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones. sure, they'll make more money, but it's a very slippery slope they're on now...

In 1986 that was teh case as it was the de facto standard for creative professionals, but that was because of the software. nowadays it's just a personal preference as they all have pros and cons. The average consumer, not the business sector, has been Apple's prime concern and these iPhone and iPod users (and the Apple Stores) ahv helped sell more Macs than ever. Apple is very concerned with this segment of their business, othewise they wouldn't be doing the things they are doing with Snow Leopard or Mobile Me.

[bobertoq]

Originally Posted by benpatient

I'll believe Apple is going to actually use resolution independence when i zoom in on my screen and everything doesn't go fuzzy and lame.

That'd be awesome

[akac]

Originally Posted by benpatient

um...the "groundwork" was included in Tiger, not Leopard.

It should have been completely implemented in Leopard.

It was originally supposed to be fully functional in Tiger.

A certain OS developer is looking more and more like a certain other OS developer as their complacency grows...I'll believe Apple is going to actually use resolution independence when i zoom in on my screen and everything doesn't go fuzzy and lame.

They could have turned this on for the 1st party and core services a long time ago. It could even have happened in a point update.

My parents can't use my laptop because the dpi is too high and the resolution is decidedly NOT independent.

Don't get me wrong, if it's finally included, I'll be happy. I'm just going to be really, really annoyed if I have to pay 129 dollars for 10.6 if all the "new features" are things like RI and ZFS and other stuff that we should have had with 10.5. I think Apple was planning on doing a lot more with 10.5 and they got behind because they didn't put enough resources into it, and instead of having all that Vista mud kicked back in their faces with 18 months or more of delays to leopard, they just cut back on the real core work and concentrated on the "features" for 10.5, holding off on the real meat and potatoes upgrades, rewrites and structural changes because they didn't have time to pull it off without looking stupid. I don't think Apple has been putting as much into their computer OS as they have been into their mobile OS.

We have been relegated to second citizen status. notice how much they will add to a point release (10.5.4) for their mobile users (all this mobileme stuff), but they can't be bothered to fix the problems between Leopard and CS3 that have been documented and isolated as apple problems for over 6 months.

I thought creative professionals were the backbone of Apple's business? Now it's ipods and iphones. sure, they'll make more money, but it's a very slippery slope they're on now...

The ignorance shown in these posts is incredible.

Resolution Independence
First of all, RI is in Leopard now and it works wonderfully. It has nothing to do with the Zoom feature. Zoom will never use RI in real-time for many reasons. I have used apps that are 100% full RI in Leopard. The operating system and AppKit, etc... supports RI 100% in Leopard today. It works. What is not supported yet are thousands of applications that just look bad when RI is on. Even most of the built in apps don't look good, though they've gotten better with each point release. I've used Leopard in RI mode for a few days last year. It was usable.

ZFS ZFS was never a Leopard feature. Meaning Apple never said - oh one of the great features of Leopard is ZFS. Somebody posted about ZFS in the seeds when they found that leopard had read support and when Apple posted a read/write update for Leopard for people to test. But its never been a Leopard "feature". Believe me you don't want a file system to be put in too early. Its good Apple is first putting it in Server. That means Client may not get ZFS in the UI until 10.7 just like HFS+ Journaling didn't show up until a few releases later.

And the *bs* about OS X being second class and its all because of the iPhone is pure *bs*. Its because of the iPhone that all these great new tech like OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch and QuickTime X are coming to OS X. Its because of the need to optimize things much more that Snow Leopard is getting an overhaul in its ability to handle future computing.

The vast problem I see on these boards and it drives me *crazy* is how people who have no idea how computing works make opinions and comments that make no sense in the real world, but then get spouted by other people who don't have a clue as fact. Of course the beauty of the Macintosh is that people can use it effectively and efficiently without knowing anything about how they work, but then you get people who read Rumour sites and start taking everything there as gospel, you get people who think that stripping PPC binaries will make OS X and its apps use less RAM or run faster, and many other fabricated ideas with no basis in reality.

So to sum it up. RI is not a user technology. Its in Leopard. It works now. Unfortunately most apps don't look so hot with it on. Here is a screenshot with it set to 2.00 and 1.25 settings and iChat. ZFS you won't see in OS X until 10.7. Its in 10.6 Server only.