Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) Details?

[macridah]

good news for me, i'm a .Mac subscriber. Bad news: might be more expensive than the panther upgrade!

We will soon see by the end of the month ... the truth will be told.

 

[soosy]

The Tiger features are much more exciting than better .Mac integration and a new sidebar. The builds that I saw in late January had vertical dock integration (sort of a dock within a dock) that would slide out. In other words, all of your photo applications could be represented in the main dock by one icon and when you selected that icon, another dock would slide out, perpendicular from it. I was aware that there may be 3rd party applications that do something similiar, but this was really slick. I also saw some really stunning Quartz Extreme effects that are somewhat similar to the "Looking Glass" project that Sun Microsystems demoed a while back. They were not entirely stable (nor were they fast) when I saw them. But I expect Apple has improved the code greatly in the many months since. The depth provided by this effect will advance the way you see and access files. The "brushed steel" look in Panther was not evident at that time, though what I saw was rather stripped-down so I would not be able to comment reliably on that.

Now that's a rumor! Dock does need some rethinking/new features. Quartz Extreme effects ala Exposé would be very welcome (I'm still pretty amazed how smooth Exposé is... and useful). I'm old school and would be happy for brushed metal to begone. Apple should go all the way to themes, they could even feature 10.1 look, 10.2 look, 10.3 look as separate themes...

 

[SiliconAddict]

I haven't noticed anyone complain about the rumored release in October. Obviously this is pure rumor at this point but I think it would be bad news for Apple to do another 1 year release. I honestly don't believe that Apple can do any major revamps to the OS in a single year timeframe. Like it or not Longhorn, great I've got cow on the brain, is going to be out in a year and a half. Apple can't afford to hold back on doing some major housecleaning in OS X. People have made some requests of Apple on this thread and they are all legit requests. People also are constantly following this pattern whenever Apple releases a .x.x release:

Oh I hope they fix X, or I hope Y is now working right.

This smacks of an OS that needs some major fine-tuning and, again IMHO, that can't be done in a year if they are looking to add feature on top of that. I know it would be painful to some Mac users since you've gotten spoiled on yearly updates, but I truly believe that Apple needs to sit down and really focus on getting OS X to a point where there are no external flaws. (e.g. something wonky happens in the GUI or the finder hangs because its not happy with a networked drive or other various external issues.) I know for a fact that MS Windows has flaws that are not so obvious. Just go through their technet website and you can find thousands of tech articles on problems, issues, and other misc crap that happens in Windows but the key is that these failures occur on a much lower functionality level. The GUI in Windows is pretty much rock solid. An example would be MS Lookout. (MS Outlook for those who have never used Outlook.) There is a known issue with Outlook XP and importing outlook pst data files. I can't remember the exact issue but its there. This is not such an obvious error in that its not affecting the overall user experience by dinking up the use of the app or GUI.
Also I think there is one thing that Windows does do better then OS X and this is recover from the previously mentioned weird stuff in the GUI. I've seen some of the weirdest most bizarre things happen with network connectivity in Windows and in most cases (Note: MOST.) the OS recovers from that fumble pretty dang successfully. Over the last year on this board I've gotten the impression that when OS X is operating right its as solid as a rock coated in solid steel. But when it decides to be a pain in the *** it can be a one in a spectacular manner. I think there too Apple needs to tweak their OS. Make it recover from errors more gracefully. OS X is an OS designed to be easy. It should also recover easily and in a timely manner. (No 5 minute beach ball crap.)

I don't know. Maybe not. That's just the way I see it. Your mileage may very on the opinion. *shrugs*

 

[morespce54]

That report was so silly and vague. I can't believe it got front page.

I can give you an inside tip too:

My uncomfirmed sources tell me that Apple will be changing several things in OS X 10.4, codenamed "Tiger". Amongst the changes will be improvements, user interface changes, changes to the Finder, things that go faster, things that look different, different packaging, some new features, something 3D and most exciting of all - some changes to the operating system. There will also be support for new things.

Yay. Now I am an Apple Insider!

Oh geez! Amazing !!!! I can't wait to see this!

 

[Windowlicker]

blablabla *loads of good points* bla bla bla...

OS X is an OS designed to be easy. It should also recover easily and in a timely manner. (No 5 minute beach ball crap.)

I'm totally with you here. the state of osx now is really that I don't really need much anything more of it. now if they just made it some more faster and some more bugfree etc i'd be so happy i'd crap my pants I mean, i already am very satisfied with the OS, but still I get those beach ball things and such.

also there's one big thing they could improve (though i don't know if it's possible): i have selected to sleep the HDs when ever possible -- this because I don't want them to crash in a couple of years. now, almost every time a sleeping HD wakes up when using an app (heck it's even quite usual the app isn't doing any HD intensive stuff ... oh well there's loads of background processes so that must explain it) I get a beachball and I have to wait for a while.

The same thing happens when I'm accessing a HD. This is normal, I know, but if they could add some kind of a buffer that would give the HD time for say 10sec to wake up -- and thus not giving the lovely colourful ball -- and I could just go on with my work I'd be glad.

hope i didn't make it sound too complicated )

 

[encro]

This article said absolutely SFA.

The PowerPC architecture is a 64-bit architecture with a 32-bit subset. Under most circumstances rewriting OS X for 64bit will very likely result in almost zero improvement over what you already have with 10.2. Threading the Finder and optimizing the system to use hypertransport better will be of more benefit in the short to mid term I believe.

 

[Sayer]

Ditch the Stripes!

Please, please please get rid of the horizontal stripes in the window backgrounds!

You really don't notice it that much these days due to Panther's (and Jaguar's) more subdued theme, but in certain areas all I see are stripes. Its distracting and looks terrible compared to other OSes.

The "theme" of the Pro Apple apps should be made System wide as a "Pro" optional install.

This "Pro" theme should replace Metal was well, there is simply too much of a difference in how a "Metal" window works vs. an Aqua window i.e. you can drag a Metal window from any unused portion of the content area, there is no defined "header/title bar" area so sheets appear to come from nowhere.

Metal is jarring to see in comparison to the "normal" Aqua/white windows.

Oh and how about giving Carbon developers the same snazzy UI elements that Cocoa has, at the same time Cocoa gets them? This has happened so many times in major releases it is now obviously deliberate. There is no reason at all why a Carbon app's window resize "thumb" has to be a white square other than as an obvious "THIS IS A CARBON APP!" giveaway.

Carbon metal windows look the same as Cocoa metal windows, it is not a technological impossibility to make both Carbon and Cocoa visually consistent.

If Carbon is so "bad" then why bother adding anything new to it at all and just publicly announce it to be the middle-ware that it is currently heading towards via the NeXTies-in-charge anyway?

Key word here: Consistency - something OS X has always lacked from DB to Public Beta to Panther. I don't care about spinning 3D cubes or complex animations for showing a sheet if the overall OS is disjointed in its UI and plays favorites with certain elements over others that are just as useful and viable.

 

[encro]

i have selected to sleep the HDs when ever possible -- this because I don't want them to crash in a couple of years.

You are actually shortening the life of your HD by doing what you are doing

Spin Up... Spin Down... Spin Up... Spin Down...

Your drive will probably fail quicker than a HD that is constantly in motion because of all the extra wear and tear that you are forcing upon it.

 

[jwhitnah]

THe sooner they replace brushed metal with something attractive, the better.

Aqua of old was very nice.. and then apple go and replace the GUI with the panther monstrousity

Actually, Metal rules!

 

[jwhitnah]

You are actually shortening the life of your HD by doing what you are doing

Spin Up... Spin Down... Spin Up... Spin Down...

Your drive will probably fail quicker than a HD that is constantly in motion because of all the extra wear and tear that you are forcing upon it.

If the computer is only powered on during the time he is using the machine, I agree. If the computer is powered 'on' 24/7, I disagree.

 

[QCassidy352]

certainly nothing to get excited about... yet. We'll know soon enough.

 

[bathysphere]

i think a good way to solve this would be a window that appears if someone else's logged (if the account has apps open) asking the users password. when entering it (or them in case there's more accounts open) the computer would shut down just like if you'd have entered all the accounts and logged them off.

of course another possibility would be that the adminstrator could shut down even if someone had processes going on in their accounts.

this is exactly how it works right now, i run multiple accounts on my g5 and if i want to shut down or restart my computer and there is another account open, a dialog prompts me for my admin password. i've never had to log into another account to shut down or restart.

Just to make things clear, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, etc, are NOT upgrades of the sort. You DON'T have to upgrade or even update to the new version. No one is forcing you, and 99% of the software for Mac OS X runs on 10.0. These are more technically full versions of the operating system. You can go straight from mac os 9 to 10.4 when it comes out. You can do the same from 10.2 or .3. So, people who think that you're buying a small update, you're not. It's a full fledged operating system.

people should stop saying this. it's stupid.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

The doc stuff sounds like they are implementing bits of Mecca (Openstep 4.0 RC1) that never saw the light of day (Mecca was a complete rewrite of NeXTSTEP that was severely curtailed by Steve when at NeXT we were changing directions).

I have a copy of Mecca. Lots of ideas in there have yet to surface.

The Tiger features are much more exciting than better .Mac integration and a new sidebar. The builds that I saw in late January had vertical dock integration (sort of a dock within a dock) that would slide out. In other words, all of your photo applications could be represented in the main dock by one icon and when you selected that icon, another dock would slide out, perpendicular from it. I was aware that there may be 3rd party applications that do something similiar, but this was really slick. I also saw some really stunning Quartz Extreme effects that are somewhat similar to the "Looking Glass" project that Sun Microsystems demoed a while back. They were not entirely stable (nor were they fast) when I saw them. But I expect Apple has improved the code greatly in the many months since. The depth provided by this effect will advance the way you see and access files. The "brushed steel" look in Panther was not evident at that time, though what I saw was rather stripped-down so I would not be able to comment reliably on that.

 

[denm316]

Horrible Rumor...not really "page 1" worthy

I hope Apple does add themes, it would be a cool cutomization feature. Also cant they add back the see-through windows, like when you clikc the top of the window it becomes transparent, I dont want another app to do this, I want it built in

 

[nmk]

Here is what I am looking for in 10.4:

• Fix the finder: After four year sof OS X, the finder is sadly, an embarrassingly large blemish on a great operating system. Besides missing many features which us prosumers have been requesting for years (Smart Folders ala iTunes, metadata file system) and bugs that make it quite unusable at times (lack of multithreading, file sharing crashes), Apple needs to sit down and decide what the finder is, and what it is not. Is it going to be a Windows Explorer clone with ever increasing but pointless Internet integration, or is it going to be a simple, elegant, stable way to access and manipulate the file system? Since I can’t put it better my self, I suggest everyone check out John Siracusa’s criticisms and solutions for the finder. This should be priority #1 for Apple.

An absolutely superb article. This is a must read for anyone that is unhappy with the current state of the Apple finder. The author does a superb job of maintaining the best aspects of a spatial interface finder, while implementing powerful file management technology necessary for the vast amount of storage in todays PC's. I believe that Apple will probably implement some of the technologies mentioned in the article. More specifically, they will probably introduce smart folders (ala iTunes) on an OS wide level. I also believe that the rumored metadata support in Tiger will allow Apple to implement some of the file browser features mentioned in the article. However, I expect the implementation to be clumsy (in comparison to what the author proposes) based on Apples current efforts with the OS X finder. I think the best thing Apple can do currently is hire this guy and put him in a very senior position on the OS X 10.5 Finder development team.

 

[bathysphere]

also on the theme of, uh, themes, i have to agree with people who mentioned a 'pro' theme based on the pro apps. i would love to see osx look a bit more like dvd studio pro or the other pro apps, it's so much easier to look at, and much more efficient space wise.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

Just to make things clear, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, etc, are NOT upgrades of the sort. You DON'T have to upgrade or even update to the new version. No one is forcing you, and 99% of the software for Mac OS X runs on 10.0. These are more technically full versions of the operating system. You can go straight from mac os 9 to 10.4 when it comes out. You can do the same from 10.2 or .3. So, people who think that you're buying a small update, you're not. It's a full fledged operating system.

it may be a full fledged OS, but if there arent many major changes since the previous full fledged OS, it's not worth the $... to anyone.

 

[adamjay]

i'll pay for it as long as i get the same 20% GUI increase as i did with Jaguar to Panther

 

[legion]

This will make OSX faster on a G5, but still use 32-bit memory addressing.

That should be 48 bit addressing

 

[legion]

After all, isn't Cocoa/NeXTStep/OpenStep the original object oriented application framework?

No. OOP roots are SIMULA, then SmallTalk, then C++, followed by a host of others including Cocoa/Objective C
(Cocoa is based on C and SmallTalk)

 

[Damek]

.Mac integration? No use if .Mac is no use to you.

3. I could care less about .mac

If you could care less, why don't you?

Me, I couldn't care less about .mac.

Seriously, though, I agree. .Mac would be cool if I had a bunch of Macs and used a Mac at work, but I have to use a PC at work, and only have an iBook. I paid the ~$70 intro price for .Mac when I bought the iBook because it sounded like it might be useful, but frankly, all of the features are not quite worth it for me:

1) Email - I already have a permanent email address (my own domain)

2) hosting - see above; my own domain. Yeah, copying files to the iDisk might be easier, but honestly, I'm just used to FTP, and I know I can do it from anywhere. the iDisk WebDAV stuff is less... ubiquitous... and I'm just not used to the concept of syncing.

3) iDisk - see above re: FTP for hosting. Also, for accessing files from other computers, it's easier to just carry around my iPod with the few files I regularly use than to install the .Mac iDisk util for Windows when I need it. Now if only I could set up iSync to have a certain local folder always synced with one on my iPod, so I don't have to copy files manually & remember which ones I've updated....

4) Virus protection - I installed it, but it seemed like more nuisance than benefit. I mean, it starts up every time I start the computer and wants to check it. I know OS X isn't virus-free, and as its popularity grows it'll probably get more viruses, but at the moment there's no need for my lil' iBook to have a virus checker on it, at least I don't feel there is.

5) Homepage - see above. Also, I'm used to typing my own HTML. And I don't do much of anything on my website anyway. I'm interested in this iBlog tool, though, might make things a little easier. And iPhoto's autogenerated HTML. But those don't need .Mac.

6) Syncing Addressbook & Bookmarks; sharing iCal data. Useless when my iBook is the only Mac I use. No other computer can access this synced data with ease, and I don't really need it to anyway. Far more interested in synching my Calendar, To-Do & Contacts to my iPod and phone...

7) Backup - I think I might miss this, but I haven't actually used it yet. I can always backup my data manually anyway, just fire up Toast Lite and drag my Documents & Pictures folder over & burn a DVD or CD. Not that much more difficult.

8) iCards, training, special downloads - this stuff is nice, but not worth getting an account for. When the main course of the meal is no big excitement, the dessert is irrelevant.

Anyway, I know this is a thread about Tiger, but I wanted to get that off my chest about .Mac.

I can see it being useful in a more Mac-filled world, but for those of us for whom our Mac is a vacation from an otherwise Windows-filled world, and/or who already have our own domains or hosting/email solutions, .Mac isn't really worth it. It's not a bad deal, but not significantly better to warrant relearning how I handle my email & website, and telling my friends & family my new email address and that sort of stuff.

 

[impierced]

How would you be able to drag things to the trash can????

With a point, click and drag. Same way it was in System 6, System 7, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. Also the same way it is in all versions of Windows.

 

[Damek]

This sounds pretty cool and is something I could really use. My dock is getting way too big. As I said in my previous post, I would still like multiple docks; the ability to put one on the left side, one on the right, one on the bottom, etc.

The expandable-dock-icons feature sounds cool, but with Quicksilver, I find myself going to the dock less and less anyway... I'm a recent switcher, and with Windows I was always pressing the "Windows" key to open the Start Menu, and then a couple of letters to open the Programs Menu and start whatever application I want. The Mouse is nice, but the keyboard is faster once you get used to it (or at least I prefer to use it). Quicksilver effectively brings 3-4 key application starts to my shiny new iBook, as well as providing a bit more functionality such as opening specific documents without having to navigate to them in the finder, performing Sogudi searches the moment I think of them without having to go open Safari and then enter the seach...

Apple could do worse than to make Quicksilver part of OS X. Actually, scratch that - they could add a smiliar feature but do it half-arsed, like Microsoft usually does, and like Apple did with Sherlock (versus Watson).

 

[socbyset]

Just to make things clear, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, etc, are NOT upgrades of the sort. You DON'T have to upgrade or even update to the new version. No one is forcing you, and 99% of the software for Mac OS X runs on 10.0.

I am not sure that 99% of os X apps will run on 10.0. i think the figure would be much lower.. I see software that says "requires 10.2" or some such in its requirements farily often..

no, no one is forcing you.. that is true. That doesn't mean that their prices are reasonable. I think that ~$130 per year is a bit much to stay current. (even if they slow down the pace a bit as they are saying.)

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Regarding Cocoa priority over Carbon.

You aren't grasping this concept yet. Cocoa is the foundation and future direction for the entire System.

The more they phase parts of the OS as built with Cocoa the more they will phase out Carbon.

Please, please please get rid of the horizontal stripes in the window backgrounds!

You really don't notice it that much these days due to Panther's (and Jaguar's) more subdued theme, but in certain areas all I see are stripes. Its distracting and looks terrible compared to other OSes.

The "theme" of the Pro Apple apps should be made System wide as a "Pro" optional install.

This "Pro" theme should replace Metal was well, there is simply too much of a difference in how a "Metal" window works vs. an Aqua window i.e. you can drag a Metal window from any unused portion of the content area, there is no defined "header/title bar" area so sheets appear to come from nowhere.

Metal is jarring to see in comparison to the "normal" Aqua/white windows.

Oh and how about giving Carbon developers the same snazzy UI elements that Cocoa has, at the same time Cocoa gets them? This has happened so many times in major releases it is now obviously deliberate. There is no reason at all why a Carbon app's window resize "thumb" has to be a white square other than as an obvious "THIS IS A CARBON APP!" giveaway.

Carbon metal windows look the same as Cocoa metal windows, it is not a technological impossibility to make both Carbon and Cocoa visually consistent.

If Carbon is so "bad" then why bother adding anything new to it at all and just publicly announce it to be the middle-ware that it is currently heading towards via the NeXTies-in-charge anyway?

Key word here: Consistency - something OS X has always lacked from DB to Public Beta to Panther. I don't care about spinning 3D cubes or complex animations for showing a sheet if the overall OS is disjointed in its UI and plays favorites with certain elements over others that are just as useful and viable.