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Snow Leopard to Get Cocoa Finder and ImageBoot
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It's always risky when anyone tried to go into uncharted waters with cutting edge capability. I'd much rather see Apple do that then not. The company is so future focused they are having to think beyond incrementally advancing the OS. I don't think they have a quality control problem a la M$, if anything they are needing to anticipate and deal with totally new issues never seen before and address then in ways that shield the user from even knowing they could have plagued them.
I started with a Mac 128K running 1.1g and have stuck with Macs through all the good and bad in between. The company has really pushed the envelope with Jobs, V2.0 at the helm and the computer/communicator/consumer world is much better for it.
wow lots of apple products are getting visual updates lately. First iPods, then MacBooks, and mac os 10.6 soon.
I would really like the finder to have tabs. Oh, and the ability to make every window's view stay the same. I find it annoying that I have to change the view mode to icons every time I open up a new finder window even though I have set icon view as default. Anyway i can't wait!
I would really like the finder to have tabs. Oh, and the ability to make every window's view stay the same. I find it annoying that I have to change the view mode to icons every time I open up a new finder window even though I have set icon view as default. Anyway i can't wait!
Not trying to act like a Windows Guy, but I haven't heard about a whole lot of features coming for Snow Leopard.
It really does just sound like some kind of Service Pack.
I mean...not even a visual makeover or better yet, theming.
The gap between Tiger-Leopard was bigger then Leopard-Snow Leopard, but I have a feeling that the price will be just the same.
Why should I buy Snow Leopard when I comes out in a few months?
Snow Leopard = 10.5.8 maybe....wouldn't really call it 10.6.
Actually...finder really seems dated compared to Windows Explorer.
It is OS X's weakest link.
It need some serious feature and interface upgrade!!
It really does just sound like some kind of Service Pack.
I mean...not even a visual makeover or better yet, theming.
The gap between Tiger-Leopard was bigger then Leopard-Snow Leopard, but I have a feeling that the price will be just the same.
Why should I buy Snow Leopard when I comes out in a few months?
Snow Leopard = 10.5.8 maybe....wouldn't really call it 10.6.
Actually...finder really seems dated compared to Windows Explorer.
It is OS X's weakest link.
It need some serious feature and interface upgrade!!
Cocoa Finder, indeed a long time coming! Has been rumoured since, what, Panther?
I just hope they can also bear to learn some things from Windows in this respect. A view like 'Tiles' would be nice. With the default window size in Finder (which it is not feasible to change, for a million odd folders one at a time), and with only list view showing modified dates, it could certainly be a lot easier to work with.
Also, even more so, with open/save dialogs. They have improved over the years but there's just no comparison to the Windows ones - OS X doesn't offer any way to sort by kind in them, which is -the- most likely way one would want to sort things in them. More customisability would be really nice.
The Find interface really needs work as well. It was far better in Tiger and I still can't work out what they were really thinking in Leopard. The window isn't wide enough to fit the columns it shows in search results in list view, and it refuses to save changes to size. It's a good thing that the Spotlight menu is usually sufficient.
Conversely I would love to see Microsoft implement spring-loaded folders; but that's the only thing that springs to mind (no pun intended, seriously).
I just hope they can also bear to learn some things from Windows in this respect. A view like 'Tiles' would be nice. With the default window size in Finder (which it is not feasible to change, for a million odd folders one at a time), and with only list view showing modified dates, it could certainly be a lot easier to work with.
Also, even more so, with open/save dialogs. They have improved over the years but there's just no comparison to the Windows ones - OS X doesn't offer any way to sort by kind in them, which is -the- most likely way one would want to sort things in them. More customisability would be really nice.
The Find interface really needs work as well. It was far better in Tiger and I still can't work out what they were really thinking in Leopard. The window isn't wide enough to fit the columns it shows in search results in list view, and it refuses to save changes to size. It's a good thing that the Spotlight menu is usually sufficient.
Conversely I would love to see Microsoft implement spring-loaded folders; but that's the only thing that springs to mind (no pun intended, seriously).
You don't know Apple users are the biggest bunch of whiners out there, they complain about everything.I notice a lot of users bashing Apple for "poor quality control" and saying that osx has not been really stable since panther. I came from M$ a few months a go and osx is heaven compared to it. I think you've been treated too good by Apple
Finder rewrite in cocoa sounds good though. Hopefully it has tabs.
Agreed. The current behaviour isn't very intuitive.
If I enter search terms in a search field in a window, one would expect it to be searching within that window by default. If I wanted a system wide search I would just use the Spotlight menu option which is always onscreen anyways.
I am glad Apple is taking the time to focus on quality, speed, small footprint, and "plumbing" for the next OS X update.
Apple has been doing some amazing things on the innovation front, but quality has really been suffering. Shipping beta quality software and hardware has been a sad reality of the past couple of years.
But I hope Apple is super smart and really nails quality--both in the products and in the culture.
With Apple's innovation combined with a culture of high quality, the company would be unstoppable.
We need to return to the days of "it just works," and lots of clever details in their products. I can't wait.
Apple has been doing some amazing things on the innovation front, but quality has really been suffering. Shipping beta quality software and hardware has been a sad reality of the past couple of years.
But I hope Apple is super smart and really nails quality--both in the products and in the culture.
With Apple's innovation combined with a culture of high quality, the company would be unstoppable.
We need to return to the days of "it just works," and lots of clever details in their products. I can't wait.
GPU support?
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/
Here's a bit of info from Apple about Snow Leopard for those who haven't seen it.
My question is: Could the "Grand Central" technology possibly extend to the new NVIDIA GPUs and allow for simultaneous use or is it just limited to the CPUs? I can't help but feel like it's a waste having two GPUs but only using one for "Performane Mode."
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/
Here's a bit of info from Apple about Snow Leopard for those who haven't seen it.
My question is: Could the "Grand Central" technology possibly extend to the new NVIDIA GPUs and allow for simultaneous use or is it just limited to the CPUs? I can't help but feel like it's a waste having two GPUs but only using one for "Performane Mode."
What?
I'm seriously mystified by this comment. Where is anything said about Windows in this story?
Rewrite? Shudder...
Remember, iMovie 08 was a complete rewrite of iMovie HD. And look where that got us. A totally useless interface that only video newbies would appreciate. Which, in turn, also shut down an entire Plug-in industry that put their trust, effort, and capitol into the Apple signature iLife application--let alone those who payed for such plugins.
I'm all for cleaning up code and going on diets to prevent bloat. But don't go and give us a completely new way of doing things... AGAIN!
Remember, iMovie 08 was a complete rewrite of iMovie HD. And look where that got us. A totally useless interface that only video newbies would appreciate. Which, in turn, also shut down an entire Plug-in industry that put their trust, effort, and capitol into the Apple signature iLife application--let alone those who payed for such plugins.
I'm all for cleaning up code and going on diets to prevent bloat. But don't go and give us a completely new way of doing things... AGAIN!
Disagree. It needs feature downgrade (removal) and interface upgrade. Remove the junk nobody uses, trim it down and make it work cleanly again. Or better yet, decide on one single interface motif and run with it.
Not trying to act like a Windows Guy, but I haven't heard about a whole lot of features coming for Snow Leopard.
It really does just sound like some kind of Service Pack.
I mean...not even a visual makeover or better yet, theming.
The gap between Tiger-Leopard was bigger then Leopard-Snow Leopard, but I have a feeling that the price will be just the same.
Why should I buy Snow Leopard when I comes out in a few months?
Snow Leopard = 10.5.8 maybe....wouldn't really call it 10.6.
Snow Leopard is not just a Service Pack. Just because there are very few or no new visible features, doesn't necessarily imply it's just bug and performance fixes. Apple itself has stated that this isn't a major visual feature update... "more than a change in spots, it's a change in focus" (paraphrased).
They are introducing a major overhaul to the underpinnings of the OS... so that all the visual lipstick that has been added since Panther can perform better. And, they are introducing some really interesting Software technologies that developers can make use of, such as Grand Central, and OpenCL. Not to mention QTX, and next version of Webkit with the faster JS engine.
A good windows comparison would be the difference between Windows 98 and Windows 2000. Visually, they looked the same, but underneath, the NT kernel was much more stable and had lots of security and performance features that the DOS based Win98 lacked.
Personally, I think Tiger - Leopard was a lackluster update, and did not include many real OS features other than Time Machine support + Quick Look. Coverflow on Finder & Spaces? I don't think so. It was mainly a marketing push to get a new version out the door when Vista launched, with some visual pizazz. I am really looking forward to Snow Leopard now... a leaner and faster leopard with real under the hood changes.
This is really very compelling. Especially from a testing perspective, the ability to simply boot into a clean Panther, Tiger, or Leopard install, from a Boot image on the disk - wow. That just makes everything so much simpler. You could always target external HDs and/or CDRom devices, etc. But it always felt like a kludge. Having the images on disk just alleviates a lot of the pain.
I'm also interested in the ""massive rewrite". Massive rewrites are always compelling for a developer, but should cause end-users to shudder in horror. We'll see how tight Apple's development process really is. Massive rewrites are often the cause of bug regressions - especially corner case bugs that appeared months/years ago. For a simple app, this risk can often be acceptable, but for an OS, that could be a different matter.
Rest assured, that while us end-users are seeing Snow Leopard as a "feature-low" release, Apple engineering is seeing it quite differently.
Not trying to act like a Windows Guy, but I haven't heard about a whole lot of features coming for Snow Leopard.
It really does just sound like some kind of Service Pack.
I mean...not even a visual makeover or better yet, theming.
The gap between Tiger-Leopard was bigger then Leopard-Snow Leopard, but I have a feeling that the price will be just the same.
Why should I buy Snow Leopard when I comes out in a few months?
Snow Leopard = 10.5.8 maybe....wouldn't really call it 10.6.
Actually...finder really seems dated compared to Windows Explorer.
It is OS X's weakest link.
It need some serious feature and interface upgrade!!
There are major advances coming in Snow Leopard. First, it's becoming 64bit, which is a fairly large jump from it's 32bit origins. Secondly, it's being designed to be more multithreaded, meaning the entire kernel has to be rebuilt to allow for better performance of not only the OS, but other apps. Support for GPU acceleration is also in the works, along with new disk formats, better support for SSDs, etc. So, there is a lot under the hood being re-coded, re-designed, etc. While there will be performance enhancements, what Snow Leopard does is give Apple a new and improved foundation to build off of. I'm not sure how much time is being put into the GUI and related changes, but the under girding has the potential of being truly impressive.
For the person who mentioned opensolaris, I still maintain my stance the Apple is gaining a lot of advice and help from Sun Microsystems regarding OS X. From ZFS and multithreading support, etc. Solaris really is a great OS, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more and more overlap of features and functionality between the two. This is NOT to say that Apple is stealing code, etc. but just to say that I think the feature set and vision that Sun has for solaris bears much similarity to that which Apple has for OS X.
Tell that to 5 companies that used to make plugins for iMovie.
Tell that to the hundreds of users that bought those plugins.
Tell that to any developer who trusts Microsoft more than Apple because their software stays backward compatible for at least more than two years at a time.
I talked to a developer who made this great utility for GarageBand, but stopped updating and supporting it. I asked him why and he said, "I got tired of having to reinvent it every time Apple chose to completely rewrite their code."
Really excited about 10.6!
Someone wanted to call it more a 10.5.x update than a real new 10.6... ARE YOU NUTS???
Snow Leopard seems a HUGE new OS. Open CL, Grand Central, Cocoa Finder, "Real" Exchange support, QuickTime X....
Someone wanted to call it more a 10.5.x update than a real new 10.6...
ARE YOU NUTS???Snow Leopard seems a HUGE new OS. Open CL, Grand Central, Cocoa Finder, "Real" Exchange support, QuickTime X....
I'm still running a g4 PB, and I think SL is the most compelling reason for me to upgrade, not just because it probably won't run on my machine, but because the promise of stability and performance gains appeal to me. The jury is still out, but I have high hopes that 10.6 will be full of features that I'll actually use.