Is Tiger really going to be that great?

[thequicksilver]

I didn't want to make this post before Tiger was released, but having used a recent beta over this last weekend I felt compelled to ask - what's so great about this new OS?

I'll add now that I used Tiger on a friend's iMac G4 1 GHz, so while I can't compare directly with my iBook, general performance should be somewhat similar.

I've seen the demos made in the last three keynotes of this new OS, and obviously there's a few 'big' new features on it that some of you will be highlighting, so I'll give my take just to show where I'm coming from.

• Spotlight - I don't see how this will affect most people's Mac experience. I'm not allergic to search, because I use Butler almost all the time on my iBook to search for stuff. As a sample, I compared Butler's searching speed on my system to Spotlight's on his. Searching for 'Entourage' (as I don't have it in my Dock, it's a rarely used part of my Office 2004 package) in Butler saw it found as soon as I'd typed 'en'. Spotlight took about five seconds to find it.

Problem is, what it also found was examples where I'd typed Entourage in emails, and indeed gave three emails I'd sent to friends as the 'top search result'. Either way, Spotlight with its 'revolutionary' search engine gave a much less satisfactory result than a piece of $18 donationware.

I know Spotlight can do other things, such as finding text inside Word docs and pdfs, but, quite honestly, is this something your average Joe Public is going to need? (Please tell me if it is).

• Core Image/Video - The iMac didn't support either of these, so I can't comment on the performance of this. I think this should be a very cool thing as long as there's some killer apps to use the technology properly.

• Safari RSS - I just don't get the RSS thing. RSS is for blogs and news sites primarily, right? Ok. What is the main feature of this kind of site? Much of the content is already on the front page for you to see. So why the need to syndicate it? Just visit the damn site. Even easier, just have a bunch of sites of a similar genre in a folder on your browser's toolbar and choose the open in tabs option.

I'm sure Safari 2.0 will offer one of the best RSS experiences there is, however. Not a reason to get a new OS, however.

• Mail - Smart Mailboxes? I've been doing the same thing with message rules for over two years - rearranging messages by content on arrival to different mailboxes. Why is this that different?

Incidentally, the new toolbar buttons are grotesque. HTML composing is good, but long overdue - should have been here in Panther when they added Web Kit HTML viewing.

The movement of photos from emails to iPhoto is pretty cool, but I don't know if I'm the only one that gets this, but everyone that sends me photos in emails zips them to make it quicker to send. Which kind of invalidates the option.

• Dashboard - People have said that it's not like Konfabulator at all - I'll tell you what, it is. It's also pretty poorly executed - you can't even close a widget without opening the tray at the bottom to add more. I would hope this (lack of) functionality will be removed by the final version.

For me, this is thoroughly inessential. For the things that are there - Calculator, Address Book, iCal, that kind of thing - I always have them running anyway and just click the Dock icon, and I'm sure most people who use these on a regular basis do the same. Why is that any harder than pressing F12?

By the way, the 'cool rippling effect' is not a selling point.

• Quicktime 7 - It's coming out for Panther too, folks.

• H.264 - Remember Pixlet? I'm not saying it's going to disappear of the radar as Pixlet did, but it's not going to change most of our Mac lives like the advertising might suggest.

• Automator - I didn't have chance to use this, and do think it could be a very useful app.

• iChat AV - The text interface is identical to the one in version 2.0. The video chat doesn't affect me, I use Skype for audio chats, and therefore the app is useless to me.

Those are most of the major changes Apple have heralded on their website and in their keynotes about Tiger to date. I've posted this to get some thoughts about Tiger in general, and also my opinions. Am I being overly harsh? Is my Mac usage so abnormal that this update which is essential to everyone else is just by chance of little interest to me? My hands on experience with Tiger has - I admit - been less than an hour. So if there's anything I've missed, do tell.

Just to say so, the apps I use most on my Mac are iTunes, one of several browsers, Mail, Adium, Skype, iPhoto. My feelings are that general net use and digital photography is a pretty typical consumer's use for a computer, which is why I'm so curious about everyone seemingly thinking Tiger's so essential. I know it's a beta, but we know it's going to be out within three months, and is therefore most of the way towards completion.

Thanks for listening.

 

[daveL]

Given that you weren't even looking at the latest seed, let alone the final release, I'm not sure what your post is intended to convey, other than Tiger's features are not compelling to you. So great, don't buy it.

BTW, there's lots of stuff in Tiger under the hood, like an updated kernel with improved multi-processor support, etc. But I'm sure none of that would be of interest.

 

[kettle]

Spotlight is something Joe Public should have had years ago but will only now realise the enormity when they use a system without spotlight.

 

[DavidLeblond]

I'd get Tiger for the faster OpenGL alone, if indeed OpenGL performs the way Apple claims it will.

 

[Fredstar]

No Tiger won't be all that revolutionary or that great to some, but to others it really will be and will add to this already great operating system, and it will save a lot of people time and just make your user experience that much better. Tbh i can't think of many other things they could have added to make Panther much better but Tiger does just that - adds awesome, innovative features to make working and using a Mac that much better. Also i wouldn't judge Tiger till you have the final version installed on your computer.
I had a quick play with a friends beta version of Tiger, he is a ADC member and developer, and i got a quick chance to try out spotlight and dashboard and a few other kewl things. Here is a list of things in Tiger that will make a difference to my user experience.

Spotlight - A lot of people will find this really useful and a huge time saver, especially as i am building my website at present- jpgs are everywhere and sometimes Finder can be quite slow, and i can't find stuff as well as Spotlight obviously. For example today i couldn't actually remember where i put this important pdf and it actually took me a good 10 mins to find it eventually in some obscure folder. I named it something off the bat and finder can't find content within a pdf. With spotlight i would be able to do it instantly. Thousands of others will just find it incredibly useful.

Dashboard - Konfab uses quite a lot of cpu resources, Dashboard doesn't use much at all and is just kewl to use. While Konfab is good, i think Dashboard will be awesome.

Quicktime 7 - looks kewl, could signal itunes movie store, who knows, i would love to download movies from itunes.

iChat AV - Awesome. Simply awesome, when i am up at University it will be such a nice feature, for example when mum is at home, bro is at uni, grandparents are in Holland, having a three way ichat will just be awesome.

Mail - I like the new interface, spotlight searching is a lot better (present one isn't refined enough), smartfolders are a kewl idea

Automater - I think this will be the biggest time saver, although i didn't get to use it properly.

I really do think all the new features are features we will take for granted once we have Tiger and won't be able to live without in a operating system. For some, Tiger's features might not improve their user experience, but for most i think it will - hell for £99 it is well worth it.

 

[Logik]

I didn't want to make this post before Tiger was released, but having used a recent beta over this last weekend I felt compelled to ask - what's so great about this new OS?

I'll add now that I used Tiger on a friend's iMac G4 1 GHz, so while I can't compare directly with my iBook, general performance should be somewhat similar.

I've seen the demos made in the last three keynotes of this new OS, and obviously there's a few 'big' new features on it that some of you will be highlighting, so I'll give my take just to show where I'm coming from.

• Spotlight - I don't see how this will affect most people's Mac experience. I'm not allergic to search, because I use Butler almost all the time on my iBook to search for stuff. As a sample, I compared Butler's searching speed on my system to Spotlight's on his. Searching for 'Entourage' (as I don't have it in my Dock, it's a rarely used part of my Office 2004 package) in Butler saw it found as soon as I'd typed 'en'. Spotlight took about five seconds to find it.

Problem is, what it also found was examples where I'd typed Entourage in emails, and indeed gave three emails I'd sent to friends as the 'top search result'. Either way, Spotlight with its 'revolutionary' search engine gave a much less satisfactory result than a piece of $18 donationware.

I know Spotlight can do other things, such as finding text inside Word docs and pdfs, but, quite honestly, is this something your average Joe Public is going to need? (Please tell me if it is).

Butler searches your applications, it's generally called a "Launcher" with a few bells and whistles. Quicksilver does the same thing, it allows you to easily launch and find simple files based on the name or names in address book or what have you. Great if you have "specific" information. Spotlight is NOT a launcher big guy, it's a search engine on your computer. Totally different use. Sure it will find those applications but it is NOT a launcher. It's also searching your entire hard drive, not just your home folder based on file names and address book information or bookmark information. Different uses. Butler has a job, Spotlight has a job that slightly overlaps but is far more than you might expect.

Why will average joe need this? Well they won't need it, but seeing as it allows you to find just about anything will certainly make it useful.

See Spotlight takes metadata... data within a pdf, a word document, your address book information, your iphoto albums, your itunes data, your bookmarks, then finds any and all informatino on those files. So you can search for mp3's that contain "blah" and are bitrate >= 192kbps. You can also find all photos TAKEN on 2/16/03 between 5-10PM. All documents containing a keyword or phrase, an email containing "x" or all emails from friend@blah.com

all within one little search engine. I'll get into a bit more on this later since another question of yours is based on this.

• Core Image/Video - The iMac didn't support either of these, so I can't comment on the performance of this. I think this should be a very cool thing as long as there's some killer apps to use the technology properly.

Final Cut Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro, etc will all use this. Will photoshop? Well we'll see but i'm wondering. Either way it'll make FCP and all of Apple's video editing suite much more attractive than they already are. You'll see this taking more of a importance later on as people start upgrading to new machines that are all capable of this technology, don't expect great new features right away, it'll happen though. then you'll wonder how you lived without it.

• Safari RSS - I just don't get the RSS thing. RSS is for blogs and news sites primarily, right? Ok. What is the main feature of this kind of site? Much of the content is already on the front page for you to see. So why the need to syndicate it? Just visit the damn site. Even easier, just have a bunch of sites of a similar genre in a folder on your browser's toolbar and choose the open in tabs option.

I'm sure Safari 2.0 will offer one of the best RSS experiences there is, however. Not a reason to get a new OS, however.

I'm not convinced with Safari RSS. It lacks a lot of great utilities that make it useful but also does some things i want. True smart folders are one of those things i want. Real time indexing of my RSS feeds, what it lacks is an ability to save those favorite items from an RSS feed, sorta like bookmarks. I'd rather use a 3rd party rss reader with smart folders included. NewsFire sorta supports this, but it's implemented in his own way, not with real smart folders from within Spotlight (oops, i hinted at something here.. next)

• Mail - Smart Mailboxes? I've been doing the same thing with message rules for over two years - rearranging messages by content on arrival to different mailboxes. Why is this that different?

Incidentally, the new toolbar buttons are grotesque. HTML composing is good, but long overdue - should have been here in Panther when they added Web Kit HTML viewing.

The movement of photos from emails to iPhoto is pretty cool, but I don't know if I'm the only one that gets this, but everyone that sends me photos in emails zips them to make it quicker to send. Which kind of invalidates the option.

Big thing here is that you get nondestructive folders for your email. You use smart folders to find information. It uses spotlight so now you can create smart folders within mail for constantly used searches this might be more relevent in a business world but i can certainly use this. I want a folder of all emails containing photos, sent between x and y, and sent by someone contained in my address book. I want all emails from mailinglist z based on year b. It doesn't MOVE my emails to afolder, it creates a "visual" folder that i can delete later but won't harm my emails per say just a quick search.

• Dashboard - People have said that it's not like Konfabulator at all - I'll tell you what, it is. It's also pretty poorly executed - you can't even close a widget without opening the tray at the bottom to add more. I would hope this (lack of) functionality will be removed by the final version.

For me, this is thoroughly inessential. For the things that are there - Calculator, Address Book, iCal, that kind of thing - I always have them running anyway and just click the Dock icon, and I'm sure most people who use these on a regular basis do the same. Why is that any harder than pressing F12?

By the way, the 'cool rippling effect' is not a selling point.

Dashboard will grow, you get the same thing from konfab but you get more too. It allows you to use just about any technology in OS X if you want. This will make it a lot more versatile than konfab. Give it time it'll probably grow on you.

• Quicktime 7 - It's coming out for Panther too, folks.

eh.. true. but quicktime 7 will be hardware accelerated in Tiger.

• H.264 - Remember Pixlet? I'm not saying it's going to disappear of the radar as Pixlet did, but it's not going to change most of our Mac lives like the advertising might suggest.

Again.. just a progression of technology.. might not be useful for YOU but others are ranting and raving about it because they'll use it.

• Automator - I didn't have chance to use this, and do think it could be a very useful app.

Puts the power of applescript into anyone's hands. major kick ass feature.

• iChat AV - The text interface is identical to the one in version 2.0. The video chat doesn't affect me, I use Skype for audio chats, and therefore the app is useless to me.

ah but it uses H. 264 and has much higher quality (depending on your webcam.. isight is just all around better than most) and just looks cool and works between macs.

Those are most of the major changes Apple have heralded on their website and in their keynotes about Tiger to date. I've posted this to get some thoughts about Tiger in general, and also my opinions. Am I being overly harsh? Is my Mac usage so abnormal that this update which is essential to everyone else is just by chance of little interest to me? My hands on experience with Tiger has - I admit - been less than an hour. So if there's anything I've missed, do tell.

Just to say so, the apps I use most on my Mac are iTunes, one of several browsers, Mail, Adium, Skype, iPhoto. My feelings are that general net use and digital photography is a pretty typical consumer's use for a computer, which is why I'm so curious about everyone seemingly thinking Tiger's so essential. I know it's a beta, but we know it's going to be out within three months, and is therefore most of the way towards completion.

Thanks for listening.

Finally, give it a chance, a lot of the technologies in Tiger will be taken advantage of within the next year by a lot of developers. They'll think something amazing up and put it to good use. Give them time to progress here and i'm betting you'll go "you know, that's a really good idea. If you aren't impressed. wait, then upgrade later when you feel it's worth it to you.

 

[Applespider]

Interesting post - here's my take on a few of your comments.

Spotlight - I'm not sure its primary purpose is looking for apps. I use Quicksilver for launching little used ones which is very fast and wouldn't envisage using spotlight for that. I have a reasonably tidy HD with a pretty obvious file structure but every so often I still have an 'argh' where the heck is x moment. Hmm, did I read it in an email, did I save the pdf somewhere? I'm hoping that Spotlight will make those 'argh' moments fewer.

Dashboard - I'm looking forward to widgets. Konfabulator never really played nicely with my PB. I do use the Calculator and things from Sherlock occasionally but not enough to have them auto-open or keep in the Dock. I've used them more since I started using Quicksilver since it's quicker to open them. Having them at the touch of a button will be useful

I don't think a lot of 'power' users will find these functions that useful (aside from Automator). It's the consumers who don't understand how to customise their Macs to have weather forecasts in the menu bars or want to intall Quicksilver or Butler, have no idea how to set a rule in Mail and just save absolutely everything in their 'Documents' folder that will have most use for these features.

 

[Mr. Durden]

I don't think a lot of 'power' users will find these functions that useful (aside from Automator). It's the consumers who don't understand how to customise their Macs to have weather forecasts in the menu bars or want to intall Quicksilver or Butler, have no idea how to set a rule in Mail and just save absolutely everything in their 'Documents' folder that will have most use for these features.

Agreed. But I also think there are a lot of people out there, myself included, that would rather have some of those customizable features included in the OS, as opposed to adding them themselves. I have very few extra helper apps that I have personally added to my OS, just because for some reason I don't like putting them on my system unless they are from Apple. Not logical, I know.

 

[brap]

• Spotlight - I don't see how this will affect most people's Mac experience. I'm not allergic to search, because I use Butler almost all the time on my iBook to search for stuff. As a sample, I compared Butler's searching speed on my system to Spotlight's on his. Searching for 'Entourage' (as I don't have it in my Dock, it's a rarely used part of my Office 2004 package) in Butler saw it found as soon as I'd typed 'en'. Spotlight took about five seconds to find it.

You have to remember "Butler" will be configured to look in folders x, y and z first - X as applications... it's a launcher, after all. Spotlight searches everything - and to be fair, your dodgy beta isn't going to be particularly optimised.

Personally, I want spotlight NOW.
For my dissertation I have a catalogue of hundreds of pdf articles from multiple journals, and it's killing me remembering which author said such text in what article, especially when you're analysing arguments! With spotlight, I could do a search of my metadata for, say, Pietro Torrigiani - and each article mentioning him would be produced; likewise I could look up 'William and Mary quarterly' and it'd pull out articles from said journaI. I often remember snippets of sentences, and then spend ages looking for where they are!

So yeah, the implications for me in particular -- and probably a good many people in education -- will be huge.

 

[NinjaMonkey]

To me the best part about Tiger is all the cool programs developers will be writting for it.

Sure Spotlight may not have much use to you as just a search utility but it is more than that. Spotlight is more than just that little icon in your menubar. Developers will be able to add more functionality to it overtime with plugins.

Dashboard as well will be more usful when we see what people come up with.

Automator is just fantastic. This for me is a killer app. And yet again I'm interested in what kind of workflows others come up with.

The new Mail just comes down to personal preference. I like the new look, lots of other people don't. It has some nice new features and thats good enough for me.

 

[risc]

I've got a developer friend who's working with the current build but because he's under a NDA his only comment on the subject was "Tiger makes Panther look like crap!" - that's good enough for me. The moment I can pre-order it I will!

 

[nuckinfutz]

theQuicksilver

Your "review" was so poor and devoid of any redeeming qualities I am saddened that I can't get the 2 minutes back that I used reading it. Please don't ever review another beta application again. Some people get it...some don't. Obviously you just "don't" get it.

The people above have pointed out why the features are special to them. You don't see this but somehow I doubt the average Mac user will employ your lackluster attitude towards Tiger.

 

[thequicksilver]

There've been some good replies so far - enjoyed reading them.

DaveL - my post was meant to do exactly that - convey my opinion. That's the idea of internet forums isn't it? I posted my opinion and asked for those of others. Criticising me for doing that isn't fair game. I'm not badmouthing Tiger, I'm saying it's probably not my cup of tea. Fair enough?

One other thing I must address - while I may have inferred it, I did not intend to say that Butler is better than Spotlight. What I was saying is that search, for me, isn't that big a deal. I only use it to launch obscure apps. I do keep my hard drive tidy and tend to know where everything is, so maybe this is why, but some of the examples Jobs gave - for example 'Show me all 600dpi CMYK images with a filesize of over 1MB' - aren't really the kind of search most folks will be doing. Most of us search for filenames, dates they were created. Some may want to search the contents of documents, I'm just not sure it's that many. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but just saying it as I see it.

Spotlight's a great pro feature, I completely agree. I just don't see why most people find it compelling to the tune of £99, that's all.

Exposé has changed the way I use my computer since Panther came out, and I think it's absolutely fantastic. Just don't see anything in Tiger that will do that for me - yet.

And, just to emphasise once again - I know it's a beta.

 

[thequicksilver]

theQuicksilver

Your "review" was so poor and devoid of any redeeming qualities I am saddened that I can't get the 2 minutes back that I used reading it. Please don't ever review another beta application again. Some people get it...some don't. Obviously you just "don't" get it.

The people above have pointed out why the features are special to them. You don't see this but somehow I doubt the average Mac user will employ your lackluster attitude towards Tiger.

Just to clarify something:

o·pin·ion
1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof

It was not a review, I did not claim it was a review. How the hell could I post a review after 60 minutes on a machine I'm not used to?? It was quite clearly opinion.

I'm lost for words by your first paragraph, so I'll leave that there.

 

[Bear]

I feel (as in it is my opinion) that some people will upgrade to Tiger right away, some will upgrade when they finally get a new machine and some will upgrade only when the software they want to run requires Tiger.

thequicksilver who originated this thread sounds like he might be in one of the later two categories unless he finds something in Tiger that he absolutely needs. At least with his original post, he was fairly clear on what he was posting and why.

In truth, to me it doesn't matter when someone upgrades to Tiger. All that matters is that they have a decent experience and that the copy of Tiger is licensed.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

There've been some good replies so far - enjoyed reading them.

DaveL - my post was meant to do exactly that - convey my opinion. That's the idea of internet forums isn't it? I posted my opinion and asked for those of others. Criticising me for doing that isn't fair game. I'm not badmouthing Tiger, I'm saying it's probably not my cup of tea. Fair enough?

One other thing I must address - while I may have inferred it, I did not intend to say that Butler is better than Spotlight. What I was saying is that search, for me, isn't that big a deal. I only use it to launch obscure apps. I do keep my hard drive tidy and tend to know where everything is, so maybe this is why, but some of the examples Jobs gave - for example 'Show me all 600dpi CMYK images with a filesize of over 1MB' - aren't really the kind of search most folks will be doing. Most of us search for filenames, dates they were created. Some may want to search the contents of documents, I'm just not sure it's that many. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but just saying it as I see it.

Spotlight's a great pro feature, I completely agree. I just don't see why most people find it compelling to the tune of £99, that's all.

Exposé has changed the way I use my computer since Panther came out, and I think it's absolutely fantastic. Just don't see anything in Tiger that will do that for me - yet.

And, just to emphasise once again - I know it's a beta.

I think you're being harsh. Also, if it doesn't fit your needs, that's fine. Others will find features great, useful, and cool. Spotlight is awesome (with lots of files, it makes finding stuff so much faster. While I don't have Tiger installed on my main hard drive where most of my file clutter is, it's great), and I love using Dashboard. While my iMac doesn't support CI, I'm happy with the other advancments such as QT 7, and Automator, all are useful for me.

 

[bluesloth]

Just to say so, the apps I use most on my Mac are iTunes, one of several browsers, Mail, Adium, Skype, iPhoto.

So, basically you are saying that if you don't actually do anything productive with your computer, that Tiger might not be the biggest upgrade in the world. Wow. I am stunned. "I could already find the song I wanted in iTunes, so what it so cool about Spotlight."

 

[rendezvouscp]

Just to note on H.264 and Pixlet, Pixlet is and was great at it's introduction. For clean, spectacular movies (especially animation) Pixlet is wonderful to export to. However, seeing the Pixlet was made for a certain audience, its uses were somewhat "limited."

H.264 is not this way. It can be used across many, many different platforms, for almost any use. That's what makes H.264 so great. I know that as soon as QuickTime 7 is released, I'll be making use of it for my own personal storage and for my website.

Maybe those features aren't all that spectacular to you, but with the things I do on my Mac, Spotlight, Dashboard, H.264, Mail, Safari RSS, and Automator will make a big difference in my productivity.
-Chase

 

[wrldwzrd89]

For the way I use my Mac, the new iChat AV alone is worth purchasing 4 copies of Tiger (actually, I'll be buying 3 copies - one of them will be a family pack). I video chat frequently with my family members, who all use or have access to a Mac.

Spotlight will be a tremendous asset to me. I collect music in all sorts of formats; I frequently need to search for a particular file, and I don't always know where I put it (despite going through quite a bit of trouble to organize my collection of these files so that this doesn't happen). With the appropriate plugins for the formats I work with, Spotlight will save me from agonizing over where the particular file I need happens to be located.

 

[iMacZealot]

Alright, I have some things to clear up here.....

First, Dashboard looks faster than Konfabulator. When I downloaded Konfabulator, it ate almost all my RAM and was very slow on this iMac. Also, When you open something via the dock, such as an application, the applications has to open up and take up more RAM, take longer time to load, etc, etc.

Second, Spotlight will probably be useful to "Joe Public." Apple's thinking on this was that if you have, let's say, an iMac G5 with a 160 GB hard drive that's 70% full, you'll want to find files, unless if you want to search for it manually. Also, I, too, downloaded Butler, but it was slow for me and I never used Butler. However, I will probably use Spotlight once I get my iMac G5 this summer. (fingers crossed)

Now, it sounds like you're okay with Panther and that it slakes your needs, although for some of us, we're looking forward to Tiger. My advice is that you don't buy it because it sounds like you're fine with Panther.

 

[maya]

The Short and Sweet reply: YES.


Though these features should have been implemented long time ago into the Mac OS, its better late then never *cough*longhorn*cough*.

Curious to see what 10.5 will have to offer?

 

[Fredstar]

The Short and Sweet reply: YES.


Though these features should have been implemented long time ago into the Mac OS, its better late then never *cough*longhorn*cough*.

Curious to see what 10.5 will have to offer?

Yeh same, imo i can't think of anything off the top of my head of a way to improve Tiger - i am sure they have already brain stormed a load of kewl add on features for 10.5. Shouldn't be around for another 1.5-2 years probs.
Tiger + Synergy + Quicksilver = A unrivalled computing experience imo

 

[MacSA]

• Core Image/Video - The iMac didn't support either of these, so I can't comment on the performance of this. I think this should be a very cool thing as long as there's some killer apps to use the technology properly.

Sad thing is....most of Apples current hardware isnt going to be able to take full advatage of this feature.....and I suspect a good proportion of future Apple hardware wont either (Mac mini/eMac/iBook)

 

[maya]

Sad thing is....most of Apples current hardware isnt going to be able to take full advatage of this feature.....and I suspect a good proportion of future Apple hardware wont either (Mac mini/eMac/iBook)

I can understand Apple using year+ old GPU cards in they budget computers, however what's the issue with they "Power" line. I mean a PowerBook still using a 9700. Sad indeed.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I can understand Apple using year+ old GPU cards in they budget computers, however what's the issue with they "Power" line. I mean a PowerBook still using a 9700. Sad indeed.

The 9800 Mobile won't physically fit in a PowerBook. I don't know if any of the more advanced mobile GPUs will fit.