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Mac OS X 10.4 Info?

john123 said:
I second the desire for some built-in GUI customization. I hate using haxies and want a more OS9ish experience.

Gimme what I want, Apple!
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Someone already said it, but the OS9ish experience w/ GUI customization is troublesome. However, try TinkerTool, it lets you mess with some of the options in the dock, etc. that works very well. Also adds the Debug Menu to Safari etc. It's not a full 'remove all chrome' but it does add a little something.
 
I love hearing all these predictions for Mac OS X 10.4. Funny how people forget all the rampant speculation about Mac OS X 10.3 before it was released and the focus on specific features (i.e.: piles/stacks/whatever-you-call-ems), when the real Mac OS X 10.3 was entirely different.

While a new file system would be nice, I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure John Siracusa is, though. :p

By the way, Merlot has never been the codename of Mac OS X 10.4. It was the codename of Mac OS X 10.2.2, and I think ThinkSecret also reported this. The codenames of the big upgrades have always been names of cats from the start... Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, and Panther.

[UPDATE:] Err, nevermind. After perusing the archives at ThinkSecret, it appears that Panther was originally named Pinot. ThinkSecret did indeed report on the 10.2.2 update as being named Merlot, though.
 
Classic MS

GregA said:
Hmmm. NT meant "New Technology". Maybe this will be RNT ("Really New Technology").
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You know what is really beautiful? NT, aka. "New Technology", is based off of VMS and OS/2. The NT Kernel is partially based off of an OS that ran on Mainframes and Minis over 20 years ago.
Classic Microsoft.

I can't wait to see what types of new technologies actually make it into Longhorn, and which are put off for SP1.
 
Look where Apple is going

My 2 pennyworth on what might be in 10.4 is just to look at what markets Apple is sucessful in and what markets they are pushing to do better in.

For example notice that they upgraded the audio and MIDI side of the OS just as they bought emagic?

So perhaps the following might happen:

They seem to like being a supercomputer manufacturer all of a sudden. So perhaps a system level version of Xgrid that's as easy to use (or an extension of) Rendezvous? Suddenly every Mac network becomes a super computer - sort of.

Linking more of the current non iapps to ilife - such as linking ichat to garageband for collaborative on line jamming.

This whole Linux thing needs to be sorted out too. Native running of linux programs within OS X would end this whole debate.

Any of this make sense?
 
Roland said:
This whole Linux thing needs to be sorted out too. Native running of linux programs within OS X would end this whole debate.

Any of this make sense?
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Well, what I would like to see is X11 actually coming with built-in GUI adaptive support for GTK+ (both 1.2 and 2) (w/ Gnome support) as well as KDE support and whatever engine that uses. But, at least for GTK+ this would require to completely change the way the engine works for it to look decent under OSX. I have been doing a lot of skin building for both GTK+ 1.2 and 2 and I have to say both engines do some stuff that is completely ****ed up, excuse my language. Skinning them smoothly Aqua style is an absolute pain in the ass, I doubt this could be easily fixed.
Cheers,

Ahmed
 
:eek: I have heard that OS 10.4 will be known as "Cougar" although the name "Lion" was floating about a little while ago... these names have both been recently registered by Apple, along with other big cats :)
 
dcentity2000 said:
:eek: I have heard that OS 10.4 will be known as "Cougar" although the name "Lion" was floating about a little while ago... these names have both been recently registered by Apple, along with other big cats :)
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"Cougar" is the name that I have heard also. We should have a definitive answer in just about 120 days from now. It will come from no other than Steve himself.
 
SeaFox said:
But I can go buy a copy of Panther, without showing any proof of previous ownership of the MacOS, and install it on a completely blank hard drive on a Mac. Exactly what definition of "upgrade" does this meet?
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Upgrade is derived from "up" and "grade", meaning you are going to a better (up) grade than what you had before. i.e. It only means you have a newer version than what you had before. It does not mean you need to install it over existing code. It's just happens to be that way with other software products.

It costs $129 to get the latest version of MacOS - for everyone. Everyone has a previous version, therefore they are upgrading to the latest version. Not really a difficult concept if you separate it from the actual install code.
 
Ok, can someone please explain if osx is better than linux? Could osx become a linux os?

i dont really know much about linux?? if osx isnt a better os, will it become a better os than linux? am i talking rubish here?

someone educate me!

jay
 
j_maddison said:
Ok, can someone please explain if osx is better than linux? Could osx become a linux os?

i dont really know much about linux?? if osx isnt a better os, will it become a better os than linux? am i talking rubish here?

someone educate me!

jay
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Simply, OSX is based on BSD which is the UNIX version that came from Berkley. Linux uses some similar shared code but was created by Linus Torvalds who wrote Linux as his own version of UNIX, using free libaries under FreeBSD, etc.
There are numerous variations of Linux including versions that work on the Mac's PPC chips (Yellow Dog Linux).
So, while Linux and OSX share some things including X11 (it's installed w/ Panther) they will not coverge because most Linux distros (versions) work only on x86.
 
10.4 Database File System and Filemaker??

FileMaker 7 released today now allows rich media types for it's data - they mention pdf files, graphics, music, and word documents.

I imagine that if Apple is smart they would use their Filemaker DB expertise for any file-system database they end up using.

Can anyone see a relationship there?
 
GregA said:
Can anyone see a relationship there?
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I don't see any significant connection. Other databases that already handle rich media types wouldn't be suitable either. I suspect Apple's file system group is working on something else.

If anything, I'd have thought FileMaker 7 would be used with PowerSchool 4.0 but apparently Apple's staying with 4D.
 
wdlove said:
"Cougar" is the name that I have heard also. We should have a definitive answer in just about 120 days from now. It will come from no other than Steve himself.
Click to expand...

Well, IMO it should be called Tiger (well they missed Elephant, Nashorn :( ) Then we can have TigerII (a.k.a. Royal Tiger)(has two verions "Production turret" and "Porsche turret" and finally "Maus" (ah well, maybe also Jagdpanter and Jagdtiger somewhere between)

(Sorry guys, this catname game is floating around for so long time and I couldn't stop myself :p )
 
ffakr said:
You know what is really beautiful? NT, aka. "New Technology", is based off of VMS and OS/2. The NT Kernel is partially based off of an OS that ran on Mainframes and Minis over 20 years ago.
Classic Microsoft.
Click to expand...

The exact same thing is true of OS X. RSX-11M and VMS were even written for the same hardware family as Unix =)
 
hayesk said:
Upgrade is derived from "up" and "grade", meaning you are going to a better (up) grade than what you had before. i.e. It only means you have a newer version than what you had before. It does not mean you need to install it over existing code. It's just happens to be that way with other software products.

It costs $129 to get the latest version of MacOS - for everyone. Everyone has a previous version, therefore they are upgrading to the latest version. Not really a difficult concept if you separate it from the actual install code.
Click to expand...

seafox was right.

apple's os price model is the same as most every other commercial software model used in the past number of decades. with those, you pay some extraordinary price for the initial package, and any smaller additions to it, also known as upgrades, cost a fraction of that base price. sometimes a credit is given to those with just-barely-out-of-date versions of the same package.

with os x, $129 is the price of the initial package, and any further point-point releases are both downloadable and free. it's only fair seeing as how most of them are for maintenance and don't add entirely new functionality to the system, but they do in my opinion qualify as upgrades as much as patches. all people see however is $129 repeated over and over, not thinking about the work apple programmers put into it the rest of the year. you should be glad we're not talking about sgi boxes here.

can you upgrade 10.1.5 with a 10.2.8 installer? of course not. there's a large enough gap between 10.1 and 10.2 to qualify the latter as an entirely separate package. apple has long since abandoned their version seven and eight era "half-way" releases, 8.5 and so forth, which naturally costed less due to their nature. also, i don't see the point of a credit system for owners of previous packages because each new mac comes with some version already. nobody would have reason to pay full price because everyone would qualify for a credit.

with that said, i do think the current annual charge is a bit steep. all apple should do is decrease this, not throw a wrench in the model. $75 to $99 seems more reasonable to me. if i recall, os 8 was $99.
 
mangoduck said:
SNIP

with that said, i do think the current annual charge is a bit steep. all apple should do is decrease this, not throw a wrench in the model. $75 to $99 seems more reasonable to me. if i recall, os 8 was $99.
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I think I would prefer a new OS at least 18months-2years between releases.

Partly price (yearly suggests trying to geenrate an annual revenue stream).

Partly the pain/risk of installing

Partly the support tech books and magazines, whose shelf life makes them questionable value if they need to be replaced each year

Partly the general problems that seem to be occuring with OSs that are not fully mature suggesting they need more testing time -> how many people would trust filevault at this point?

Partly because I would prefer Apple spent more time on iLife and especially Appleworks, although I think they have struck a secret deal with M$ not to compete with Office for a few years
 
Flickta said:
... My preferred bug is a drag-multiple-items-on-a-desktop-then-have-finder-relaunched bug. I often save many articles to later read them and move to trash or to pages folder. And guess what? I'm irritated by Finder not allowing me to do this. Many more bugs there are...
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I get that Finder relaunch bug on occasion, too.
I didn't know anyone else was getting it. I thought maybe it was my PowerBook G3 showing its age, and lack of memory (I'm limited to 256MB because my lower RAM slot is faulty. I really need a new Mac! But I digress...)
My workaround is to open another Finder window and navigate it to Desktop. I then do my group drags from there instead of the actual Desktop. Kind of a pain, but it works. Logging out and back in usually ceases the behavior, also.
In the end, I agree that it should be fixed.
 
aswitcher said:
I think I would prefer a new OS at least 18months-2years between releases.

Partly price (yearly suggests trying to geenrate an annual revenue stream).

Partly the pain/risk of installing

Partly the support tech books and magazines, whose shelf life makes them questionable value if they need to be replaced each year

Partly the general problems that seem to be occuring with OSs that are not fully mature suggesting they need more testing time -> how many people would trust filevault at this point?

Partly because I would prefer Apple spent more time on iLife and especially Appleworks, although I think they have struck a secret deal with M$ not to compete with Office for a few years
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Of course you could get away with only buying every other release, hence getting a double step up with each $129. Most programs only require 10.1 currently anyway and Jaguar users are not left much in the dark so that wouldn't be a problem.
 
johnnyjibbs said:
Of course you could get away with only buying every other release, hence getting a double step up with each $129. Most programs only require 10.1 currently anyway and Jaguar users are not left much in the dark so that wouldn't be a problem.
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Sure. That would save money and hassles, but for me they aren't the main issue.

Buggy software is a big issue, a few more months could save a whole bunch of hassles and bad press.

I would love it if Apple Works had extensive enough features and cross compatability that I could remove Microsoft and all its viruses etc from my life.
 
scooby said:
Well, IMO it should be called Tiger (well they missed Elephant, Nashorn :( ) Then we can have TigerII (a.k.a. Royal Tiger)(has two versions "Production turret" and "Porsche turret" and finally "Maus" (ah well, maybe also Jagdpanter and Jagdtiger somewhere between)

(Sorry guys, this catname game is floating around for so long time and I couldn't stop myself :p )
Click to expand...

I'm very anxious to have Apple use the code name Tiger. Maybe they will use it on 10.5. The coat for a tiger is really sleek.
 
I would prefer if Apple had an 18 month development cycle for OS's as well, but not because of the price. The way that it is right now, there are two many versions to support for your software development (although almost everyone I know is either running 10.2 or 10.3). WWDC last year seemed more about how use the *new* features in 10.3 instead of using what is already available in 10.2.
 
10.4 New Feature

Here are two features that should go on 10.4:

The option to use OS 9 - style Program Switcher in the menu bar (OS X's dock consumes too much space and it's a hassle to try to get rid of it)

More network printer compatibility - I can not get my HP psc 1210 to run on my Network and it sucks big time.
 
a_iver said:
4. Mac OS X wouldn't exist if Linux was never born. When Steve Jobs broke away from Apple, back in the day, he got in a Linux group called NeXtStep. After a while Apple eventually bought their operating system. They slapped a pretty GUI on and modified a few things, and thus Mac OS X was born.
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I am suprised no one has pointed out this is not even close to being remotely correct.

NeXT predated Linux by years. The original NeXT computers ran a BSD environment on top of Mach. MacOS X is based upon FreeBSD and not Linux.
 
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