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Apple Seeds Build 12E33a of OS X Beta 10.8.4 to Developers
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I'm not surprised given that the move to a shorter release cycle pretty much means there will be smaller improvements than really large ones thus probably not necessitating the same degree of testing as required in the past via multiple beta releases. I wouldn't be surprised if by the time WWDC rolls around that we see a developer preview which is 95% complete with some final touches being added thus assuming they're not too anal about it they'll probably release it at the end of July/beginning of August.
It appears to be a minor revision which hopefully brings some of the more important fixes to the table but I'd say that any sort of major improvement will probably come with 10.9 which will hopefully bring the driver in line with the Windows version. Maybe I'm the luckiest guy on earth but so far on my iMac (my MacBook Pro non-Retina has an Intel GPU) has been going pretty well so far (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB) but I guess I'll need to hold off judgement till I start putting some more heavy hitting games on it.
I doubt we'll see OpenGL improvements in updates but with that being said Apple has to have a compelling reason to push OpenGL to 4.x through the demands from the gaming companies noting their need for features not currently in the currently OpenGL implementation. One also cannot over look the fact that OpenGL is very much at the core of many technologies thus there is a ripple effect that'll take place if Apple get their implementation not quite right where as in the case of DirectX (Direct3D specifically) and Windows you'll find that next to no system components rely on it other than the token application such as Internet Explorer via Direct2D.
SMB has always been a crap box and AFP is a legacy idea which leaves me to wonder whether Apple's fetish over the Cloud is blinding them to what needs to be addressed on the ground. I mean - if the two protocols are crap then why don't they just take over the iFolder project and create a protocol that they can maintain for both Windows and OS X thus result in a more consistent experience.
As for he rest - for all the faults of OS X, having spent time on Windows the problems I experience with OS pales in comparison to what I experience on Windows IMHO. That isn't to say that "because Windows sucks more than OS X then nothing needs improving" but rather recognising that maybe things aren't as bad as the hysterics make them out to be.
The shut down times have already been addressed - it is by design to give a few extra seconds to allow applications to tidy themselves up. Regarding the video issues, I am not surprised given that many of these issues have only started appearing with the changes bought on by the introduction of Retina hardware which might require a lot more intensive changes rather than just a patch that amounts to a couple of lines of code.
Its not as minor as it has been, all through 10.8.2 and 10.8.3 the changes in driver version was in the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx end of things, and here its a lot larger version change.
when it comes to full driver version yes the next major will most likely be in 10.9 but you will most like never see os x being up to date or even closely near the windows versions. Releasing new drivers on the OS X platform is such a pain in the arse for Nvidia compared to the windows platform where they can and often do pump out a new driver (full driver, no .0000xx version) every 2 weeks. Every time a new AAA game title is released, you see a new nvidia driver to fully support it. Also the fact that OS X doesn't run Direct3D (for obvious reasons) means its a very different ball game to give the same support even for the same applications from Nvidias side.
But like I said, I think most people will take any improvement over none.
EDIT: Also my non-retina macbook pro 2012 is running just fine under 10.8.4 when it comes to graphics!
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How do you know? Did you try this beta?
If Apple improves OpenGL the changelog will never mention "OpenGL", it will mention something around "graphics" at best. They ask testers to focus on graphics drivers with this beta which might indicate OpenGL improvements.
10.8.3 brought OpenGL 4 improvements, 10.8.4 might do the same.
There's no support of OpenGL 4 in OS X Mountain Lion.
By the way, the current version of OpenGL is 4.3.
As usual, my complete incompetence does not allow me to be of much help!
I, too, have 10.8.4.
To get the download, which in my case included Safari, Java (which I don't have), iPhoto, and some software for my Epson printer...I just did the usual Apple icon download.
I'm sorry that I don't know why it didn't work for you.
I hope someone with more tech knowledge than I (which means just about anybody) can help you out.
Again...sorry I can't make any suggestions!
Edit: I'm sure you have already done this, but maybe going directly to Apple download page would work...(?)
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Its not as minor as it has been, all through 10.8.2 and 10.8.3 the changes in driver version was in the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx end of things, and here its a lot larger version change.
when it comes to full driver version yes the next major will most likely be in 10.9 but you will most like never see os x being up to date or even closely near the windows versions. Releasing new drivers on the OS X platform is such a pain in the arse for Nvidia compared to the windows platform where they can and often do pump out a new driver (full driver, no .0000xx version) every 2 weeks. Every time a new AAA game title is released, you see a new nvidia driver to fully support it. Also the fact that OS X doesn't run Direct3D (for obvious reasons) means its a very different ball game to give the same support even for the same applications from Nvidias side.
But like I said, I think most people will take any improvement over none.
EDIT: Also my non-retina macbook pro 2012 is running just fine under 10.8.4 when it comes to graphics!
I'm totally new to the Mac environment and became curious when you said osx doesn't support direct3d. Why don't they? And why do the Mac graphic drivers get updated less frequently? Is it a matter of pc Mac market share and nvidia goes where the market is?
The reason they dont is that Direct3D is a Microsoft technology, so as you can imagine from the beginning of time, there has been and probably never will be support for D3D (or directX) on mac.
Which means mac runs everything using OpenGL.
Now the market when it comes to applications, games etc are all first developed for D3D because of a lot of reasons. the market is endlessly much bigger, easier to code, opengGL gets developed slower (I think) general concern and support for opengl is a lot less overall. An example is Autodesk just released their 2014 series, 3ds max, maya, mudbox etc and most of them now support DX11 in their respective viewports.. but hey! DX11 is a directX technology, which means all that is not supported on mac, maya 2014 for example.
When it comes to new nvidia drivers for mac its all because of APPLE. In theory nvidia could develop and release drivers side by side with the PC, but like everything else apple, it has to go through apple and be authorized etc, think iphone app store, you can't just make an app and upload it. Its a long and slow process.
So you never see any custom or modded nvidia drivers for mac. which is a massive shame because you 100% rely on apple not being in slow turtle mode which they have been the last 20 years.
That's about it
Luckily if its a concern at least you can run bootcamp and thereby windows 7/8 on your macbook pro etc and then of course, because you are in windows you have access to it all. So final words, OS X will probably never support DirectX.
There is now. 10.8.3 introduced the first OpenGL 4.1 extension (ARB_separate_shader_objects) to Mountain Lion.
10.8.4 might add more extensions. Apple clearly have no issue with adding OpenGL support inbetween the major release cycles. It has probably become a lot easier to perform major overhauls of deeper lying architecture (such as the graphics system) now they don't have to worry about the 32bit architecture anymore. They only need to code, test and debug for 64bit now.
Oh no they haven't:
1. About 5% of the time my shutdown gets cancelled by Mail
2. Anytime I manually tell Time Machine to stop on my rig (e.g. because its been sat on having backed up up 90% of what it thinks it needs to backup for multiple hours) then OSX never shuts down - its pull the power plug time
So you can't just tell it to shut down and walk away
It has been addressed - if you spent a few moments reading the various posts on this website you would know that at least half a dozen people have addressed the issue. As for the time machine issues - I can't really speak as I don't use time machine.
My computer supports OpenGL 4.0 on the Windows side, though, and not on the OS X side. Intel has added that support, why can't Apple get more up to date HD4000 drivers. :|
re 1. on the original post Mail cancels shutdown - I can see three threads complaining about the same issue; most recent December 2012 - I don't see any solution in these threads
I never said there was a solution, I said that there is a reason for that and thus cannot be changed; as for shutting down, why shut down in the first place? close the lid and let it go to sleep.
Yup. Been a developer since 10.2. Been using the DP's and beta's of 10.7/8. Not been impressed. Apple used to take their time with beta releases on a weekly or biweekly basis for 10.X updates, now we're getting ~4 DP's as "updates" during testing. Initially we had to burn and reinstall all beta OS X updates before 10.7 (this is for 10.X releases mind you, beta releases for 10.X.x updates generally fixed issues with 3-4 beta's, not 12-14 as 10.8.3). This allowed for a clean install over a 1-1/2 year period, which was better in ascertaining issues instead of simply throwing on a DP update. Then again, the beta's usually had much more significant changes and additions with each release (such as ZFS in Leopard beta's, "Answering Machine" in iChat, etc). Since Serland's departure after Snow Leopard, Apple has been rushing their OS X releases, and it shows.
It hasn't. The default time out time for all kinds of daemons and services is 20 seconds. They just stop responding, so after 20 seconds they are killed anyway. They screwd something so bad that the real fix i think will be 10.9 or whatver comes next.
In fairness though when it came to ZFS it made little sense given what ZFS is designed for - try using ZFS on Solaris running on a 32bit machine with less than 4GB of memory and you'll know why. With that being said I am hoping that maybe shorter release cycles will be less features added but for those features to be more comprehensively tested.
1. Could be changed, e.g. time out the synchronisation with mail server(s) and re-sync on next start up
- Apple seem to choose not to.
- See the other threads to note this is quite a common frustration.
2. Yawn on the why close down
- Because I need to/want to - after all its my machine to use as I wish
- See any number of other threads on merits or otherwise of this
3. Its not a laptop so it doesn't have a lid to close
Amen. The only benefit to ZFS (at the time) was handling large volumes. Finder/HFS+ needs some tweaking, especially as more households have media servers and large backups (which would benefit from Wireless ac and improved SMB/AFP). Heck, my 3TB bay in my Mac Pro for "Time Machine" is 2/3 full with the initial backup. I have to exclude a ton of folders, especially working folders as it'd overload the drive.
Agree on the release cycles needing more time for stability improvements. Returning to beta's for 10.X releases that require clean installs would be wise. This allowed for less third party app's and updates over earlier releases to possibly conflict with any OS X features being tested. As developers, we don't use beta's for work, mostly for bug reporting and testing any OS X app's we are developing for the GM release. If you're using beta systems for your main OS, not wise. Plus, I enjoyed new beta's as there was always something new. I remember MacRumors before 2006/7 having front page threads with a cool new feature as OS X updates developed. Good ol' days
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IMHO if they need to replace HFS+ (assuming their Core Storage back end and HFS+ doesn't work out) then I'd sooner they use an existing file system using conventional ways of doing things. HammerFS from DragonFlyBSD seems to be pretty good or maybe approaching Symantec and whether they're willing to see Apple VxFS.
Agree on the release cycles needing more time for stability improvements. Returning to beta's for 10.X releases that require clean installs would be wise. This allowed for less third party app's and updates over earlier releases to possibly conflict with any OS X features being tested. As developers, we don't use beta's for work, mostly for bug reporting and testing any OS X app's we are developing for the GM release. If you're using beta systems for your main OS, not wise. Plus, I enjoyed new beta's as there was always something new. I remember MacRumors before 2006/7 having front page threads with a cool new feature as OS X updates developed. Good ol' days
It'll be interesting to see what forms 10.9 and future releases take as with WWDC outlining changes being made and the future direction. I hope that we see LLVM developed further, the new C++ library made the default on on OS X plus other low level features.
Great points all around (esp. VxFS). I sincerely hope 10.9 focuses on more on core issues and stability than social integration (aside from improvements with iCloud, which would benefit from cross platform access such as Skydrive).
When is WWDC? Usually June, right? I should know this lol
Good question. I don't know the answer. Ever since Oracle/Sun licensed it or such, it lost traction at the time Leopard was testing it out in the beta's. I know ZEVO (acquired by GreenBytes last year) was gaining interest for ZFS in OS X.
Honestly, I don't know what would be a good replacement/update for HFS, but something should be done.
As for OpenGL 4.0 support, it seems 4.0 had nada and only shading is supported in 4.1, leaving much to be desired.
There really is no such thing as jailbreaking OS X.
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I'm sure there is but it's only for VIP developers and Apple engineers.