Tiger - What's Hot? What's Not?

[GodBless]

Now that we are all impatiently waiting for Tiger, I think it is a good time to review what Tiger has to offer. What do you think is missing from Tiger or could have been done better (such as lack of interface consistency and too many bugs)? What do you think will make Longhorn look like it doesn't offer enough (such as Dashboard and Core Image)? I want to hear your views so I can refresh my memory on everything Tiger will be before it is released...

 

[Lincoln]

Speed!!!!

Apart from all the other goodies I am loking forward to some speed improvments. Many sites have been reporting on this, games in particular seem to be gain 5 to 10 fps (as long as you have a fairly new mac). In addition some of the discrete programs (Safari and Mail in particular) have speeded up too. However I think that the best gains will be on G5 based macs.

Its refreshing to find that a new OS speeds up tasks rather than making you by a new PC if it is over 1 year old.

However, I am also looking forward to spotlight and dashboard (will restore some of the functionality that I don't have with the mac that I did with my PC). Finally as we still have some PC's in the house anything that will help with the Mac to PC connectivity will be welcomed.

With all that I have said, until I have Tiger installed on my Powerbook I won't know for sure what if the speed improvments are real or if the extra features are useful or not.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I don't know if there is really anything that I'm upset that Tiger doesn't have. Perhaps resolution independent UI.

I'm hoping that Java 1.5 and OpenGL are improved and continue to improve. I hope that Core Audio is more stable than ever. And I hope Apple minimizes the spinning beachball and makes networking effortless.

 

[munkle]

Here's an interesting article on the speed improvements in Tiger, can't wait!

 

[DaveP]

Here's an interesting article on the speed improvements in Tiger, can't wait!

Wow! Great Article. I was planning on holding off on buying Tiger for a while (most of the new features didn't impress me much). But if the speed improvements are even half of what he claims I'll certainly be buying Tiger early! I think a large increase in speed could convice a number of undecided upgraders.

 

[quackattack]

H.264 video in Quicktime 7 will be fun . I am also looking forward to the usual speed, spotlight, etc.

 

[Tomaz]

I'm really hoping for "on all four corners and edges resizeable" windows, that would be very convenient.

 

[Punani]

I don't know if there is really anything that I'm upset that Tiger doesn't have. Perhaps resolution independent UI.

I'm hoping that Java 1.5 and OpenGL are improved and continue to improve. I hope that Core Audio is more stable than ever. And I hope Apple minimizes the spinning beachball and makes networking effortless.

Actually, Tiger does have resolution independence. It's an option in Quartz Debug. I'm uncertain if this is immediately usable by developers in their programs.

It is probably better left in this kind of "beta" stage due the the fact that it's going to be a rather slow transition from 72 dpi by default.

 

[stoid]

Actually, Tiger does have resolution independence. It's an option in Quartz Debug. I'm uncertain if this is immediately usable by developers in their programs.

It is probably better left in this kind of "beta" stage due the the fact that it's going to be a rather slow transition from 72 dpi by default.

I doubt many developers (especially not any major developers) will jump on this tech just yet. It seems to me that since it's just in beta stage the APIs and such are still so loose that they could still change drastically, in which case the developer would have to go back and readjust all their code anyway. They might work on in-house prototypes, but other than a few novelty apps to show this off, I don't think that we'll see much of this in action.

 

[wordmunger]

I doubt many developers (especially not any major developers) will jump on this tech just yet. It seems to me that since it's just in beta stage the APIs and such are still so loose that they could still change drastically, in which case the developer would have to go back and readjust all their code anyway. They might work on in-house prototypes, but other than a few novelty apps to show this off, I don't think that we'll see much of this in action.

Apple's probably going to have to lead the way in this. If they get all their apps resolution-independent, then people will start so ask why iPhoto and Pages have got it, but Photoshop and MS Word don't. Once we get to the point where we can have 300 DPI screens but still see fonts and pictures at a readable size, we'll never go back!

 

[ravenvii]

Hot: Pretty much everything.

Not: the Finder. Come on, it needs a overhaul!

 

[chameeeleon]

I agree I was shocked that they barely even touched the Finder in Tiger, aside from Spotlight gains and Burnable Folders.
I think that the overhaul of the Finder is being saved for OS X 10.5, so that it can be touted as a major feature to get people to upgrade. Tiger already has its fair share of those (Spotlight, Dashboard, etc).

 

[iindigo]

I agree I was shocked that they barely even touched the Finder in Tiger, aside from Spotlight gains and Burnable Folders.
I think that the overhaul of the Finder is being saved for OS X 10.5, so that it can be touted as a major feature to get people to upgrade. Tiger already has its fair share of those (Spotlight, Dashboard, etc).

GUI-wise the Tiger Finder is improved in that Finder windows are now more compact and take up less space. I'll post a screenshot later to show what I mean -

 

[BornAgainMac]

I bet part of the reason of the speed increase was that it was compiled using the new IBM compiler that was talked about at least a year ago. It was suppose to be more optimized to create more efficient executables. Also going back to areas that were rushed to market from prior versions could have been rewritten for better performance. That is maybe why we saw major bugs reported with the beta.

What's Hot: Dashboard, Spotlight, Quicktime 7, Automator
What's Not: That free game (Chess). (Sorry that is all that can think of)

(No announcement today, I guess Apple will wait until all the Pope news is completed)

 

[chameeeleon]

GUI-wise the Tiger Finder is improved in that Finder windows are now more compact and take up less space. I'll post a screenshot later to show what I mean -

You've got me intrigued - I'm not exactly sure how they can make them take up less space without changing the appearance, so I'm eager for your screenshot.
...As long as it won't put you in danger of violating anything.

 

[GodBless]

Here's an interesting article on the speed improvements in Tiger, can't wait!

This is the kind of post I was looking for. Thanks!

 

[ravenvii]

You've got me intrigued - I'm not exactly sure how they can make them take up less space without changing the appearance, so I'm eager for your screenshot.
...As long as it won't put you in danger of violating anything.

Me too! *BUMP*

 

[chameeeleon]

Lol, I was wondering if anyone was ever going to get back to answer this one. The bump was much-needed.

 

[shidoshi]

The Finder, by far, is one of the most embarassing parts of OSX. Four versions in, and the Finder is still pretty much crap. I really wish Apple would get serious about it, and put some real work into it.

 

[iindigo]

Here's the comparison I promised. Sorry about the delay -

The Finder, by far, is one of the most embarassing parts of OSX. Four versions in, and the Finder is still pretty much crap. I really wish Apple would get serious about it, and put some real work into it.

Actually, in Tiger the Finder is much faster - I'd estimate at least 70-80% faster, if not more. It seems Apple has used Tiger to fix bugs in the Finder rather than add features to the Finder.

 

[The Black Rock]

Hey iindigo, how did you prepare that picture? I 've been trying to do that with some other images for a comparison for something else. What program do you use to put the semi-transparent titling on there?

Is it Omnigraffle?

 

[Soulstorm]

The Finder, by far, is one of the most embarassing parts of OSX. Four versions in, and the Finder is still pretty much crap. I really wish Apple would get serious about it, and put some real work into it.

I would seriously like to know what makes you believe that Finder needs major improvements. It can surely get faster (and it did, with 10.4) but it IS fast. 50% faster than it was with 10.2.

And seriously, the finder's features are so many, that you are not going to use them all.

The way you say it seems that you prefer Windows OS better that the Mac OS.

Apart from that, by reading the article from the link provided above, I noticed that Apple still follows the same strategy as they do the last 3 years.

Every time they make something new, they stick with the useless details, and other minor improvements over some product, but they do not give people to understand the ESSENCE of the update. To speak more clearly:

They talk about dashboard, new quicktime, etc. But they do not mention the OpenGL improvements, CoreImage and CoreVideo and the speed gain over Panther... The same thing happened with the upgrade from Jaguar to Panther. I was expecting much less from this upgrade (some upgraded safari and some new features) but what I got was an almost new operating system, in terms of speed increase and new features.

Why do they do that? Perhaps they think that speed increase and internal system improvements is not the kind of information people would be interested in?

I know I would be.

 

[iindigo]

Hey iindigo, how did you prepare that picture? I 've been trying to do that with some other images for a comparison for something else. What program do you use to put the semi-transparent titling on there?

Is it Omnigraffle?

Nope, I used Photoshop CS. The transparent background is a black shape with 60% opacity, text is Lucida Grande with a drop shadow.

 

[The Black Rock]

Nope, I used Photoshop CS. The transparent background is a black shape with 60% opacity, text is Lucida Grande with a drop shadow.

Thanks I'll try to remember that.

 

[Catfish_Man]

I doubt many developers (especially not any major developers) will jump on this tech just yet.

Most of them won't have to. Cocoa apps and modern Carbon apps will, in general, get UI scaling "for free". However, some of the older Carbon apps will likely have to do some work to get support for it.