Other Leopard Improvements: Multicore Support

[arkitect]

All I want for my $129 is for my entire machine, all applications, to NOT freakin' completely lock up for several minutes when the Finder suddenly can't find a previously-mounted network volume. Is that too much to ask?

We can only dream can't we? 😱

 

[Neuro]

Apple's applications such as Mail, Address Book and Font Utility have been updated to be multicore ready

Oooh!, I've been waiting for multi-core support in Address Book and Font Utility for.....um.....minutes. 🙂

A nice fast Finder is definitely the best update they could possibly have done though. Looking forward to no more SBOD!

 

[Stridder44]

All I have to say is QUICKTIME better be multicore. Damn well better be.

I would bet on it. If not initially (for whatever reason) then at least in an update later.

 

[Kaptajn Haddock]

Does Aperture offer multicore support?

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

Have you ever noticed how long it takes to launch Address Book, iCal, and Mail? Multi-Core addressing will help them to open as quickly as, let's say, TextEdit. Address Book, iCal, and Mail are integrated with each other, and this slows them down considerably. Multi-Core addressing will be highly welcome with these apps, as well as the proapps; FCP, Logic, Photoshop, and iLife & iWork suites. Even bloated Word could benefit from multi-threading, but I don't imagine MS will put that much effort into it.

Those apps are already compiled to make use of multi cores/processors. Apple have supported multi cores/processor support since OS8/9. Address Book, iCal, and Mail, DCP, Logic 7.2, PS etc support multi core/processors. Apple have now included MPI 2.0, which makes it easier for developers to use many cores/processors. Nothing really new to this, move along, Apple marketing at its best.

 

[thecritix]

forgive my ignorance, but why do i need multicore support for mail, address book or font utilty?

seems a bit o.t.t to me..?

 

[Evangelion]

forgive my ignorance, but why do i need multicore support for mail, address book or font utilty?

seems a bit o.t.t to me..?

It makes things faster. There are various subprocesses in those apps do that could be split to different cores/processors. Making things faster is a Good Thing (tm).

Partially off-topic, but I discovered this article when following an unrelated discussion about Linux and it's scalability. A revealing quote:

With the operating system, the practical limit is hit when a highly specialized, light-weight, and dedicated operating system customized for a specific hardware architecture must be used over a general purpose one. Today, SGI uses the same general purpose Linux kernel whether running with 2 or 1024 processors -- which is incredible and a testament to the excellent design and work by everyone within the Linux community.

We've already successfully booted Linux in the lab on 1742 processors, at which point we encountered more internal kernel issues that will need to be addressed, so it's an on-going process and impossible to predict the upper limit for Linux, given its impressive track record.

1024 processors ought to be enough for anybody 🙂. Well, excluding SGI of course.

 

[elppa]

To all the people that are saying stuff like this....WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? Do you have power PC machines? Because I have a Blackbook 2.0 CD 2GB 80Gb and I have never beachballed in the finder...

I'm the same, until I try to connect/disconnect to any disk over a network.

 

[Much Ado]

forgive my ignorance, but why do i need multicore support for mail, address book or font utilty?

seems a bit o.t.t to me..?

The more of the OS that's Multi-Core, the better. You can never have OTT performance 😉

And huzzah! My G5 lives on!

 

[Digital Skunk]

Oy. Just another reminder that I need to ditch the G5.🙁

Yeah... my Single Chip Dual Core G5 is starting to show its age... when I can afford CS3 then I will make the move to the MacPro and keep the G5 as my server or something... When it comes to UB apps my MacBook Pro is a little snappier than my tower... that isn't good at all. 🙁

This, by itself, makes Leopard an amazingly upgrade, and a great incentive to upgrade that G5. Sell it on eBay with apps pre-installed 😛
Now, why didn't Steve draw more attention to this during the Keynote?

Yeah... I think he wanted to concentrate more on the fluff stuff. I had to dig around the website to find out how "back to my Mac" or whatever worked. Then I just watched the keynote and thankfully he talked about it just shy of half way through. That feature is making it all the more harder to ditch that worthless .Mac but if I can do the little cute things .Mac offers and access my machine from anywhere over the Internet "EASIER" than ever then it may just be worth it for a little while.

Does Aperture offer multicore support?

I REALLY HOPE SO! One of the few apps that runs a bit smoother on my G5 than on my MBP although it is UB. I really hope that we see an Aperture 2.0 that just runs a bit smoother and takes up less resources and is very core aware.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Those apps are already compiled to make use of multi cores/processors. Apple have supported multi cores/processor support since OS8/9. Address Book, iCal, and Mail, DCP, Logic 7.2, PS etc support multi core/processors. Apple have now included MPI 2.0, which makes it easier for developers to use many cores/processors. Nothing really new to this, move along, Apple marketing at its best.

Yeah... like that freaking iPhone right... ever single day a new crappy rumor about stuff we already know about. I'd rather hear about Leopard and the tens of other things Apple should have been working on that we already know are on their way... like that new iPod or redesigned iMacs and Mini towers.

forgive my ignorance, but why do i need multicore support for mail, address book or font utilty?

seems a bit o.t.t to me..?

So it can run FASTER!!! Weeeeeeee 😀

Sorry for the double post 🙁

 

[ISMPlus]

forgive my ignorance, but why do i need multicore support for mail, address book or font utilty?

seems a bit o.t.t to me..?

No, it's not. If you use these on a daily basis and get 80+ emails a day with images and what not - like me - , then no, it's not o.t.t. I'm sick of that beach ball!! ...maybe that's why they made look so freaking cute, knew you'd see it quite often till they fix the issue.

And yes, I beach ball in Finder too on a daily basis... 3 mins to time-out?? what??? 😱 Way too long. I was wondering why they had upgraded these machines... I have not seen a major difference from my old PB G4. Multi-Core and threads are soooooo welcome.😛

 

[Mundy]

Umm....multiple cores in Mail and Address Book? That's like needing 8GB of RAM to run Word "faster". 🙄

Trust me, back in the days of Microsoft Word 6.0, some people probably did max out their RAM to make word processing bearable... 🙄

 

[meagain]

It seems that consumers/shareholders who follow WWDC, now expect it to be a showcase like MacWorld, e.g. announcements of new machines and accessories. This is partially Apple's fault, as WWDC has been used as a platform to present the first G5, new displays, Intel migration announcement, etc. The hype about 'Top Secret Features' also raised expectations way off the charts. The fact remains, this is a developers' conference, not an Expo. It might have helped if Steve had spent more time touting the new Cocoa, multi-threaded, revamped Finder, Multi-Core optimization, Core Animation, further refinements made to Time Machine, etc. This would have drawn more attention to the greatness of Leopard's 'under the hood' capabilities, and assured everyone that the best is yet to come. Overall, the Keynote was far from disappointing in light of the awesome and massive improvements made to OS X.

Correct. For me (new to Macs), I didn't have expectations for a Developer's Conference. Didn't know Steve lets loose hardware, etc. at these things so my expectations were low till a day or 2 beforehand when they ramped up a bit. I was also dissapointed at no hardware/phone news but once I saw the keynote video and played with the video demos - whoa. I'm excited again.

I'm confused as to why people are borderline jumping off bridges due to that keynote. 🙂

Stacks!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Foxglove9]

I use an old G5 single core 1.8 machine, with 2.5gb ram and I never had a beachball. Well except in Safari but I usually have to force quit because it locks up permanently.

I even run heavy Photoshop, Indesign, Quark, and sometimes 3-5 other small apps at the same time and never have any problems. Maybe I'm lucky?

Either way, it's great news about multicore support. Getting more and more excited about buying a new mac and running Leopard.

 

[Counter]

To all the people that are saying stuff like this....WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? Do you have power PC machines? Because I have a Blackbook 2.0 CD 2GB 80Gb and I have never beachballed in the finder...

Yeah I've never ever beachballed in finder.

But is everyone saying the beachball is gone- period?

That would be clutch.

-=|Mgkwho

Yeah, I have a G4 400 running Panther and it doesn't beachball in the finder.

It takes a second to resize windows, open folders etc, but it doesn't beachball in the finder. Or in Mail, although it may as well do in there as it is pausing.

 

[MrCrowbar]

Multi-Threading is big, people!

Apparently they updated/changed/rewrote the scheduler, the piece of the OS that delegates tasks/threads to the CPU. The old one works on multi-cores, but is not really optimized for it.

My Finder only really beachballs when I do network sharing stuff, i.e. connect to a network share. If they fixed this, that's great.

PS: I believe the machine used for the keynotes was the biggest Mac Pro available maxed out RAM, maybe even an unreleased one with faster CPUs. Still the Finder would have beachballed with the network shares on Tiger.

I for one welcome our new multi-threaded overlords. 😛

 

[rtdunham]

Dude, Apple has lots and lots and lots and lots of cash. 8-core Mac Pros have NOTHING to do with Apple Inc.'s solvency. Seriously how could you not realize that?

I think the point (right or wrong) was that apple sought sales to prop profits for the quarter to sustain stock prices. It was not a comment addressing cash flow.

 

[rtdunham]

While I agree what steve showed was mostly fluff you have to look at it from a marketing standpoint. Most AVERAGE users aren't going to know what the hell a multithreaded finder means but they will notice how it looks. As much attention as these events get from the press they have to show the features that appeal to their biggest marketshare.

fwiw, i asked a friend who's a developer what he thought of the keynote, saying i thought it was underwhelming. he replied

"Take into account that this was a developers event. Things that wowed the developers (like how easy it is to add the new Core Animation to apps) would be too geeky for the press. There were also some things not in the Keynote that were also WOW!"

sorry, he didn't elaborate. but i think we're seeing some of those things reflected in this thread. Personally, i'm still disappointed by the lack of more things in Leopard that will alter my computing experience. I'm hoping by the time it's released my opinion has changed.

 

[ShavenYak]

Yeah, I have a G4 400 running Panther and it doesn't beachball in the finder.

It takes a second to resize windows, open folders etc, but it doesn't beachball in the finder. Or in Mail, although it may as well do in there as it is pausing.

Okay, to everyone who keeps saying they don't get beachballs in the Finder... note that those complaining are talking about accessing network volumes. I challenge any of you who think there's not a problem to do the following:

1. Connect to a network drive on another computer
2. Browse files on that drive
3. 'Turn off Airport, unplug your ethernet, or shut down the other computer
4. Attempt to do anything in the Finder

If you don't get a beachball, I'll kiss your... hat. Furthermore, it's highly likely that your machine will be totally unresponsive for a minute or more while Finder slowly comes to the realization that the network drive is gone. In fact, the machine and all applications will probably stay unresponsive until you click 'Disconnect' on the dialog that eventually appears saying the drive is inaccessible.

Windows (at least, 2000 and XP) handles this somewhat better. At worst it's just the one Explorer window that locks up - and even that only happens if you actually keep trying to access the network drive. Sometimes you'll immediately get a dialog saying the drive is inaccessible.

What worries me is that I'm not sure just making Finder use two cores is going to fix the problem. After all, it locks the whole system up now. Even if Finder isn't optimized for multiple cores, it seems like the scheduler should be letting other apps use the core Finder isn't hogging. Makes me think the issue is some sort of system resource that Finder locks and doesn't let go of until the network timeout happens.

Could any WWDC attendees reading this please take the beachball challenge above on your shiny new Leopard beta and let us know what happens?

 

[MacVault]

Dashboard as one of Leopard's 10 New Features?

Can someone enlighten me as to why Steve used Dashboard as one of Leopard's new 10 "Top Secret" features? Was it just a filler for something else they don't want to announce yet? Or is there really something new about Dashboard in Leopard?

Also, isn't iChat in Leopard suppose to have a "Remote Desktop" type feature? Why did Steve not mention this during the iChat demo? Seems like he mentioned it at MWSF 2007.

 

[Evangelion]

fwiw, i asked a friend who's a developer what he thought of the keynote, saying i thought it was underwhelming. he replied

"Take into account that this was a developers event. Things that wowed the developers (like how easy it is to add the new Core Animation to apps) would be too geeky for the press. There were also some things not in the Keynote that were also WOW!"

If they keynote was aimed at developers, why did they waste time (again) going through those "cool" PhotoBooth-effects you could use in iChat? Are developers interested in that stuff? I honestly have not figured out any real use for that feature, apart from goofing off. But why would the advertise that to a bunch of developers?

 

[MacG]

Is the G5 a 64bit processor? - will that benefit from the 64bit nature of leopard?

The G5 is a 64-bit CPU so yes, it will benefit from Leopard. But I see your machine is an iMac G5. 64 bit only matters once you go above 4 gigs of RAM and you can't put that much in an iMac. So no benefit to your machine. I'm in the same boat!

 

[MrCrowbar]

If they keynote was aimed at developers, why did they waste time (again) going through those "cool" PhotoBooth-effects you could use in iChat? Are developers interested in that stuff? I honestly have not figured out any real use for that feature, apart from goofing off. But why would the advertise that to a bunch of developers?

Those keynotes are the only events were there's press and all. The WWDC is a week long and there's tons of sessions where the developers can go to to learn about in depth stuff and ask questions. Most of which would be considered geeky and boring by most people, even IT professionals because it's really advanced and Mac centric.

Leopard is especially great for developers, everything gets easier and way more powerful which results in less programming and better software. Expect lots of Leopard only software. The improvements for developers are nothing less than phenomenal in Leopard. I can't go into details here (NDA...) but I think WWDC attendees will agree. Don't expect them to post on here before the weekend tho, the schedule for the sessions is very packed and they paid a lot to go there so it's understandable they want to suck up all they can in there.

 

[CoreWeb]

If they keynote was aimed at developers, why did they waste time (again) going through those "cool" PhotoBooth-effects you could use in iChat? Are developers interested in that stuff? I honestly have not figured out any real use for that feature, apart from goofing off. But why would the advertise that to a bunch of developers?

They showed the Photobooth effects both because they wanted to impress people, and because developers will apparently be able to make their own as of Leopard.