Apple Seeds First Version of Mac OS X 10.5.4 to Developers

[137489]

As a developer myself:

1. the more features you add in, the more code to make those features.

2. the more code you have - the more you have to release when you fix something. Yes it would be nice and I love it when I fix something and the fix was only contained in one program. However, 9 times out of 10... The problem is in one codeset, so you fix that - then you have to change another codeset to properly handle the old data and the new fix. Or, you have another program added in that automatically fixes the problems caused by the first bug.

3. Operating systems are very complex as you also have to take into account the applications running on them. you do not want to (or atleast try not to) release something that breaks other apps or causes other software companies to have major rewrites. thus sometimes the code is a little bloated to handle both the backwards compatibility as well as the new features. It would be nice for streamlined code but, as a developer; trying to be compatible with what is already there makes a lot of "IF x then y else z" statements; which then adds to the number of byes in a program.

Or in the case of visual basic on MS:

Case 1 <execute some code>
Case 2 <execute some code>
Case 3

All these case statements take into account coming across different scenerios.

Continuation of this post:

Also, if you have to write for different hardware (ie, tiger had 2 OS's one for PPC and one for Intel; leapord is one OS for both hardware) which means there are checks that "IF PPC THEN ....... ELSE IF INTEL THEN ........ ELSE CRASH IF HACK END IF"

or again in the case of MS Visual basic:

case 1 <execute code for ppc>
case 2 <execute code for intel>

Which means every fix requires double the code - fix needs to be in ppc portion and a similar fix needs to be in intel portion.

I can see where supporting intel only on 10.6 will reduce the code set, as all the code for ppc can be ripped out (if it was implemented correctly with bloated code, then it could be easily done). I know that is an oxymoron - correctly/bloated code. But then you could just take all the PPC specific code out.

And with all those whining about no longer supporting PPC? Well, it may be time for PPC users to move on. My old 486 ran linux fine, but was not supported by the major linux companies or MS. plus the new features would not run on the 486. What you are asking for is to have a 1960 muscle car (I used muscle car as PPC users tend to feel it had more power) to have AC, reclining seats, bluetooth for your phone, a multi-disk changer, get good gas mileage, but don't change the look or the feel of it being an original 1960 muscle car (every car company is trying to do that with the remake of the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger/Challenger, and I think Chevy is in the process of doing the same). I think this is what apple is trying to do on Intel. give you all the features you want of today - but maintain the classic feel that users really want.

 

[Jonny75]

I think you guys are looking back on the tiger days with rose tinted spectacles..........

No, I use Tiger with Leopard. I'm not doing academic work... just the sort of things the average user does. You know, the Mac target audience! Along side each other, I find Tiger far more stable and Leopard buggy. There are things with Leopard I love, just that they work in theory and not so well in practice, I find. They are all documented on other forums and magazines.

Tiger had it's faults, but by 10.4.3 it was stable and a clear improvement over Jaguar. In my opinion, I can't say the same about Leopard.

I'm glad you have no problems.

My problems and views aren't confined to these forums, read the editorials/articles of MacUser UK, MacWorld, The Guardian, New York Times which have all detailed the problems with Apple's recent software output and rushed feel. And some of this press sticks.

 

[Jonny75]

And with all those whining about no longer supporting PPC?

No I wouldn't whine about that -- all technology has obsolesce and I am aware of that. Perhaps some of the problems of Leopard is that the coding work is spread too thin, and by focusing on Intel machines, there can be more efficient working.

Thanks for your technical/coding input, it explains a lot.

 

[Phil A.]

Continuation of this post:

Also, if you have to write for different hardware (ie, tiger had 2 OS's one for PPC and one for Intel; leapord is one OS for both hardware) which means there are checks that "IF PPC THEN ....... ELSE IF INTEL THEN ........ ELSE CRASH IF HACK END IF"

or again in the case of MS Visual basic:

case 1 <execute code for ppc>
case 2 <execute code for intel>

Which means every fix requires double the code - fix needs to be in ppc portion and a similar fix needs to be in intel portion.

I can see where supporting intel only on 10.6 will reduce the code set, as all the code for ppc can be ripped out (if it was implemented correctly with bloated code, then it could be easily done). I know that is an oxymoron - correctly/bloated code. But then you could just take all the PPC specific code out.

And with all those whining about no longer supporting PPC? Well, it may be time for PPC users to move on. My old 486 ran linux fine, but was not supported by the major linux companies or MS. plus the new features would not run on the 486. What you are asking for is to have a 1960 muscle car (I used muscle car as PPC users tend to feel it had more power) to have AC, reclining seats, bluetooth for your phone, a multi-disk changer, get good gas mileage, but don't change the look or the feel of it being an original 1960 muscle car (every car company is trying to do that with the remake of the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger/Challenger, and I think Chevy is in the process of doing the same). I think this is what apple is trying to do on Intel. give you all the features you want of today - but maintain the classic feel that users really want.

I think you're overstating the impact of maintaining support for multiple processor platforms: Certainly from an application point of view (within XCode), all you have to do is set a checkbox to generate the code for PPC and Intel together in a single universal binary. Within the core OS, there may be some cases where you have different code for different platforms (such as any assembler that may be embedded), but within core C code, it's not difficult to use a single code base for multiple processors

 

[137489]

No I wouldn't whine about that -- all technology has obsolesce and I am aware of that. Perhaps some of the problems of Leopard is that the coding work is spread too thin, and by focusing on Intel machines, there can be more efficient working.

Thanks for your technical/coding input, it explains a lot.

Anytime. I have been a developer for years (mostly mainframes and older PC's for large companies that moved at a snails pace). Every update I kept saying to myself - if we could just get off of these old machines we could run X which would give us what we need and then we would not have to do Y which is double the coding for the same thing.

Jonny - I do not know if you have any real development experience or not. But I can tell you as a developer; between the meetings, the code writing, the testing, fixing, retesting, there are a lot of hours that goes into what a user feels is just a simple fix.

I used to be able to fix all my cars myself until about mid 1980's when they started with all the pollution controls, efficiency, did away with carburators for fuel injection, etc (some new cars don't even have spark plugs). Now, I am lost when trying to work on a newer car. Alot goes on under the hood to make it all work with what we want. Am I happier with the new cars? Well that is a catch 22, I like the new features (the comfort, the safety, the efficiency) but the cost of maintaining and the fact I have to go to the dealer because of all that is under the hood to make it happen - just kinda makes me feel helpless at times. No wonder mechanics charge $100/hr labor.

 

[I WAS the one]

people, please... Tiger it's great. Leopard it's great. BOTH are good OSes but they are different cats. If you like the way Tiger works keep using Tiger. If you love how Leopard works keep Leopard. I know a few people that still use Mac OS 9, it works for him and he earns money using his G4 under OS 9. My point is that I don't know why people think they need to upgrade everytime Apple introduce a new OS. You need ti learn Leopard and get used to that new OS if you want to use it for your business, some bugs aren't bugs they are just stuff that you get used to in Tiger and now you haven't in Leopard. Leopard it's not a fix for Tiger, Leopard it's a brand new OS from Apple, you can give it a try or you don't. 10.4.11 it's ready and stable. 10.5.3 isn't but it's getting there. 10.6 will be either an update or an upgrade, we just need to wait.

 

[milo]

I think the fact 10.5.4 is being seeded only ONE WEEK after 10.5.3 shows Leopard is a huge lump of a mistake. Indeed, talk of rapid change to 10.6 suggests Leopard is being abandoned for a re-write of the OS. A tacit admission of failure.

Boo freaking hoo.

All OS releases will have bugs. As far as I'm concerned, the more fast and often fixes are released, the better.

Look at it from the opposite point of view...if a company takes many months to release fixes, then I guess that means it must have not been that bad?

As far as I'm concerned, faster releases just mean they're getting better at getting fixes done fast and getting them out the door. To be honest, I'd love to see more quick releases using a 10.5.3.1 model (and that goes for all apps and OSs)...but then the accusations would really fly...how dare apple improve their OS so often?

And with all those whining about no longer supporting PPC? Well, it may be time for PPC users to move on. My old 486 ran linux fine, but was not supported by the major linux companies or MS. plus the new features would not run on the 486.

We all know that machines get obsolete after a while. But generally it's because the machines are old enough that they no longer are good enough to run the latest and greatest. The "whining" as you so condescendingly put it is because if the rumor is to be believed, Apple will be abandoning machines that are perfectly capable of running the latest software well, and dropping support for machines after a much shorter time than they usually do. It's silly to try and compare PPC to 486 or a 1960 car, these machines are fairly recent.

People don't expect support forever, they just expect it for a reasonable length of time, and 3 years is on the short side.

 

[LoCarbHotrod]

How does apple do it? How do they get so much done simultaneously? Don't they only have like 1/5 the size of Microsofts workforce?

They got guys working on 10.5.4.
They got guys working on 10.6.
They got guys designing new products, which include Apple displays, laptops, imacs, possibly mac minis, and ipods.
They got guys doing their advertisement.
They got guys working on little bugs and updates for iLife, iWork, Aperture etc.
And they got guys working on the iPhone and anything else I forgot to mention.

Such stellar communication with other departments and all throughout apple. Hats off to them.

 

[137489]

I think you're overstating the impact of maintaining support for multiple processor platforms: Certainly from an application point of view (within XCode), all you have to do is set a checkbox to generate the code for PPC and Intel together in a single universal binary. Within the core OS, there may be some cases where you have different code for different platforms (such as any assembler that may be embedded), but within core C code, it's not difficult to use a single code base for multiple processors

Maybe overstated but in reference to your "set a check box to generate"... What then goes on under the hood for whether that checkbox is set or not (if checked then xxx else yy),... Remember all programming languages get ultimately broken down into some sort of assemply. be it with a compiler or the OS doing it for you.

that is what is nice about VB on MS (ok maybe a bad example bringing MS into this argument, but for the sake of example....) I can create my screens graphically, write code in simple statements. but I have compile into a executable. Visual Studio (which is a bunch programs in itself), then takes my code and re-renders it making decisions based on the hardware I am on, etc. Look at why on the side of every box of software (no matter what platform you have) there are system requirements.

Yes there are nice applications that have check boxes for whether to include something or not - but that application also has code you do not see that then compiles it to include both sets and thus why code sets are larger.

I think enough said on this.....

 

[dogbait]

Many thanks bignumbers and shervieux for your replies. I overlooked the fact that Tiger kept the PPC/Intel updates separate and Leopard combined them.

 

[morespce54]

What? Seeding 10.5.4???
What happened to the 10.6 seeds?

 

[Small White Car]

So you admit Leopard is getting serious attention. Agreed? Yes, well my point is why is it needing so much attention? A tacit admission of coding problems?

Ugh, right.

And the fact that Adobe is working on Photoshop CS4 is a 'tacit admission' that Photoshop CS3 has coding problems?

Talk about an illogical leap of logic.

Indeed, talk of rapid change to 10.6 suggests Leopard is being abandoned for a re-write of the OS.

It suggests no such thing. You're the first person I've seen to suggest this. You said you're just stating opinions and people should respect that, but how can we do that when your 'opinions' are actually made-up facts? That's not what an opinion is.

Saying "I don't like McDonalds" is an opinion. Saying "McDonalds food has dirt in it" is not an opinion. That's pretty much what you're doing, so don't get out of annoyed when people challenge that.

 

[mags631]

Which means every fix requires double the code - fix needs to be in ppc portion and a similar fix needs to be in intel portion.

No, it does not work that way at all. Sorry.

 

[137489]

Many thanks bignumbers and shervieux for your replies. I overlooked the fact that Tiger kept the PPC/Intel updates separate and Leopard combined them.

Easier to do if you do not have both hardware in front of you.

 

[jalagl]

i'm actually surprised by this as a lot of people i work with tell me that 10.5.3 has fixed a ton of their problems with 10.5.2. maybe Apple is being proactive and wants to get the fixes out faster than how long 10.5.3 took.

- Leopard and wifi does need work. I'd imagine they are working on it. As you yourself say, the Store Genius's have problems with users with problems that need OS fixes. Which i'd imagine would be part of what developing 10.5.4 would include, which you call a "huge lump of a mistake"

I've had tons of problems with Leopard and Wifi, HOWEVER, it is now working flawlessly after the 10.5.3 update. Actually, after the update, I haven't had any problems of any kind (other than the occasional VLC crash - I'm not sure it is related, though). The other issue I was having with Leopard was the DVD Player crashing my MacBook. That was also taken care of by 10.5.3.

Having said that, it was a VERY FRUSTRATING experience to buy a brand-new MacBook in January, and not be able to use it properly until late May. Specially the Wifi issues - I kept doing the workarounds almost every day, and it was irritating to say the least. The last month or so I ended up using the MacBook only for university work (writing papers and creating Keynote presentations), read my email on the iPhone and ONLY did the workarounds and connected if I had to email something to somebody. I also started using my old Powerbook again, which doesn't have any problem when running 10.4.X (with Leopard the fans would NEVER slow down and the CPU was constantly at 100% utilization).

Having said that, Leopard is a great OS once everything works. I just hope 10.6 is stable and well-tested from the begining.

 

[Jonny75]

Ugh, right.

And the fact that Adobe is working on Photoshop CS4 is a 'tacit admission' that Photoshop CS3 has coding problems?

Talk about an illogical leap of logic.



It suggests no such thing. You're the first person I've seen to suggest this. You said you're just stating opinions and people should respect that, but how can we do that when your 'opinions' are actually made-up facts? That's not what an opinion is.

No, no, no, no, no! Read it.

Of course Apple should work on new versions, but what is clear is that there were huge numbers of problems with 10.5 evidenced by all journalists, the traffic on all Mac sites including Apple and here and feedback from Apple Stores.

My point is that the number of bug fixes is disproportionate to simple fixes to develop the OS - which I commend and welcome. No, it is the fact that issues not seen in OS X through to Tiger are suddenly problematic in Leopard. Apple is addressing them, but there is a serious quality control issue when an OS, Pages, iWeb, iMovie are all released to the public and the general feeling from users, reviewers (Mac and general press) is that these are Beta releases, packaged as complete. Apple tried to get a march on Vista and rushed out Leopard. In truth, Leopard 10.5.3 works where earlier releases were works in progress.

I want progress. Apple are working on products way in advance of what we see, I know that. But manufacturers generally regard new versions to be superior and build on previous successes. And should not be released until they do so. Not slip backwards.

It is not illogical to believe this. It is business sense. Some on here look at all this from a computer-geek point. I am looking at it as business. You can be ideal all you like, but there is a growing business/finance press reputation of Apple products being rushed out and not finished, a contrary position to their past. This could harm them, as well frustrating new marketshare (adopters). You missed the point.

In business remember: have a good experience, you tell another; have a bad you tell 5. Please read posts calmly and objectively and don't be so naive to the general marketplace.

 

[137489]

No, it does not work that way at all. Sorry.

I won't argue with you. However I worked in some companies where the mandated practice is to duplicate entire code sets for the same functionaility on the differnt hardware or OS's; rather than just a one line check for that particular command. so the fix has to be implemented twice. I hated doing updates for those companies as it meant double the work, double the testing, and douple the size of a release.

Sometimes you have to do that because of system calls are different. Are you a developer? Do you look at what is under the hood to get to the binary and assembly level (languarge the machine actually understands, not the english-like or code we write in)? I am glad I only had to do that a few times and abandoned that years ago since software companies write apps and OS's to create programming languages that break it down for me, so it looks like I am only clicking a checkbox.

I am done with this argument. non-developers and non-system people do not know what it takes under the hood. I do not care what platform - in the end it all boils down to code to make it work for specific hardware, and code to interpret pretty code (as in the case of Visual studio, Java, etc). you have code in the OS or firmware that breaks down your pretty code to run the hardware. Some do it more efficiently than others.

 

[137489]

No, no, no, no, no! Read it.

Of course Apple should work on new versions, but what is clear is that there were huge numbers of problems with 10.5 evidenced by all journalists, the traffic on all Mac sites including Apple and here and feedback from Apple Stores.

My point is that the number of bug fixes is disproportionate to simple fixes to develop the OS - which I commend and welcome. No, it is the fact that issues not seen in OS X through to Tiger are suddenly problematic in Leopard. Apple is addressing them, but there is a serious quality control issue when an OS, Pages, iWeb, iMovie are all released to the public and the general feeling from users, reviewers (Mac and general press) is that these are Beta releases, packaged as complete. Apple tried to get a march on Vista and rushed out Leopard. In truth, Leopard 10.5.3 works where earlier releases were works in progress.

I want progress. Apple are working on products way in advance of what we see, I know that. But manufacturers generally regard new versions to be superior and build on previous successes. And should not be released until they do so. Not slip backwards.

It is not illogical to believe this. It is business sense. Some on here look at all this from a computer-geek point. I am looking at it as business. You can be ideal all you like, but there is a growing business/finance press reputation of Apple products being rushed out and not finished, a contrary position to their past. This could harm them, as well frustrating new marketshare (adopters). You missed the point.

In business remember: have a good experience, you tell another; have a bad you tell 5. Please read posts calmly and objectively and don't be so naive to the general marketplace.

From a business perspective - I see your point. From a development perspecitive - work is never done and is ever increasing. you just have to draw a line and say ok, this release fixes x or implements x, we are still working on y.

after 20+ years in various levels of I/T, I see the frustrations on both sides. I/T is one of the most loved, hated, frustrating, and stressful occupations to be in.

my old high-school professor (I went to a Career/techincal highschool that taught at the college level) used to say, if you are looking for applause and a congratulations on your work and like to see the end product - Data Processing (term before I/T was used) is not the career for you, there are many late nights and frustrations. However, if you like meddling in things and trying to push to the limit, and don't career there is never any reall rewards or a true sense of 100% satisfaction, then Data Processing is not the place for you.
After 20+ years, I see these new commercials on TV advertising college courses and pointing out the glamor of I/T (to get people into the field). they do not show you want goes on in the background or what it takes, and college courses are only the tip of the iceberg. Most people are trained to be consultants or users, not what it takes to put it all together to make it work. been there, done that.

 

[twoodcc]

well that was quick. glad to see this though

 

[Kelmon]

Bravo

I think the fact 10.5.4 is being seeded only ONE WEEK after 10.5.3 shows Leopard is a huge lump of a mistake. Indeed, talk of rapid change to 10.6 suggests Leopard is being abandoned for a re-write of the OS. A tacit admission of failure.

Leopard has been a disaster for users, breaking machines, frequently crashing (and ruining the previous excellent stability record of OS X) and being pathetic with wifi.

Seriously, bravo! Quality Control seems to have gone out the window with Apple and I've noted a distinct deterioration in quality products over the past 5-years since I switched. Tiger, for me, was quite unstable on release when compared to Panther (I can't compare to Jaguar since I switched at 10.2.8), but Leopard is still annoying me with bugs (see my earlier post) 9-months later. That the next update is being released so soon does seem to suggest a panic release and, given the noise being made by Adobe users, I can understand why it is being done. I'd be quite happy if these updates were being to make the system better, but they're being released to fix bugs that shouldn't have been there in the first place. The release version of Leopard was terrible. For a company that makes its own hardware and quite a lot of the software, there is no reason why the release version of an Apple OS should not be damned close to rock-solid. In this respect I entirely agree that 10.5.3 is the first version that looks like what should have been in the box on Day 1.

I honestly really like what Leopard is trying to deliver, but I think it's been a bit of a mess. If it wasn't for the fact that I am too used to some of the features in Leopard to go back, then I'd go back to Tiger. Mind you, with Tiger I'd contemplate going back to Panther, which I still think was the strongest release of the Mac OS X so far.

Perhaps with the iPhone Apple is spreading themselves too thinly, particularly in the Mac OS X area, and this is why overall quality is suffering.

 

[GT500Shlby]

So will we have to pay for 10.6 like we did for 10.5 or will it just be a major update?

 

[Phil A.]

Maybe overstated but in reference to your "set a check box to generate"... What then goes on under the hood for whether that checkbox is set or not (if checked then xxx else yy),... Remember all programming languages get ultimately broken down into some sort of assemply. be it with a compiler or the OS doing it for you.

that is what is nice about VB on MS (ok maybe a bad example bringing MS into this argument, but for the sake of example....) I can create my screens graphically, write code in simple statements. but I have compile into a executable. Visual Studio (which is a bunch programs in itself), then takes my code and re-renders it making decisions based on the hardware I am on, etc. Look at why on the side of every box of software (no matter what platform you have) there are system requirements.

Yes there are nice applications that have check boxes for whether to include something or not - but that application also has code you do not see that then compiles it to include both sets and thus why code sets are larger.

I think enough said on this.....

Your original post read as though you were saying developers had twice as much work to do to support PPC and Intel, which is why I said it was overstated. If you're now saying that you really meant that the resulting compiled binaries will be larger, then I would agree with you more (although it's important for people to remember that Universal Binary apps are not twice as large as single architecture apps because most of the size in an application is taken up by resources, etc that are common across all architectures. Similarly, some UB apps actually have 4 architectures in them: 32 bit and 64 bit PPC and 32 bit and 64 bit Intel, but they aren't 4 times as large as single architecture apps).
Having said all that, I'm still confused by your comment about the "if..then..else" statements: This reads as if the created app makes decisions at runtime based on the architecture. In fact, the compiler creates separate executable binaries, one for each architecture, that are then bundled into the app bundle. In effect, you have multiple compilers running on the single source file generating different compiled apps.

 

[rhett7660]

Perhaps with the iPhone Apple is spreading themselves too thinly, particularly in the Mac OS X area, and this is why overall quality is suffering.

I have wondered about this also. There seems to be a lot of focus on the iPhone. However I can see it making more money for apple, but it is leaving kind of a sourer taste in some of the long time apple OS users.

I think it is great they are working on a new version already. They are not sitting down and taking a break.

 

[snberk103]

How does apple do it? How do they get so much done simultaneously? Don't they only have like 1/5 the size of Microsofts workforce?

They got guys working on 10.5.4.
They got guys working on 10.6.
They got guys designing new products, which include Apple displays, laptops, imacs, possibly mac minis, and ipods.
They got guys doing their advertisement.
They got guys working on little bugs and updates for iLife, iWork, Aperture etc.
And they got guys working on the iPhone and anything else I forgot to mention.

Such stellar communication with other departments and all throughout apple. Hats off to them.

Presumably they have a woman or two working too? Thats how they get all that stuff done...

 

[Eric S.]

It could well be 10.5.9 will feature NONE of the code of 10.5.0 through updates.

Uh, yeah. It will be a 100% replacement of all the OS code? And yet somehow all of the new code will just work and be bug-free?