Tiger Build 8A294 Seeded To Developers

[MacRumors]

In the first major revision to see the light of day outside of the Apple campus since wwdc04, the developer preview version of Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) has undergone some major revisions. According to ThinkSecret, changes have been made to AFP, AppKit, AppleScript, Core Graphics, File System, Finder, Graphics Drivers, High Level Toolbox, Java, Kernel, Launch Services, Mail, Navigation Services, Printing, QuickTime, Text and International, Web Core, Web Services, and Xcode Design Tools, to name a few. Apple's own description of the update points out that there are "too many revisions to list." Apple has said that Tiger would be available in the first half of 2005, and TS is now claiming that it should be expected on or around wwdc05, in late June.

Apple Insider also has information regarding the build, showing new additions such as burnable folders, tighter integration of smart folders with spotlight, and use of a groups view instead of the normal columns view within the smart folders. Additionally, they point out changes to the Apple Developer Connection distribution infrastructure (notoriously slow in the past) which is now reportedly taking around 2 hours to download the entire almost 2 GB DVD image of the new build. AI also states that there is an build of OS X 10.4 Server floating around the Apple campus, but hasn't made its way out to developers yet.

 

[AoWolf]

cool maybe we well get some screens soon.

 

[wileypen]

Maybe I'm nuts, but for the last couple of system updates, I've been less than thrilled when I've heard they're coming. My Mac _works_, for chrissake. Fix the problems, fix compatibility, keep it stable. I can't think of anything from the last major upgrade that actually helps me work, but I have a lot of memories of bugs that were introduced and needed to be fixed.

OS X is getting like Microsoft Word - just keep pilin' on them features no matter how obscure or unnecessary, and usability suffers.

 

[ColdFlame87]

I hope they shed some light on some more major features

 

[Zigster]

Yeah but is it OPTIMIZED for the G5 FINALLY???

 

[pgwalsh]

I wish Tiger was released yesterday, with all it's goodness. Tiger appears to be a seriously feature rich update. I'd really like it to have a big intoroduction and market period before Longhorn is released.

 

[PlaceofDis]

i too would like to know what else Tiger is bringing to the table

but im glad to hear that apple is making progress with the new 10.4, just hope that it wont take until WWDC '05 to get it out of the doors, people are probably going to be disappointed and upset if that happens, although personally i wont mind as long as it is Released by then, just not announcement of a release date....

 

[MacDawg]

TS is now claiming that it should be expected on or around wwdc05, in late June.

Seems like a long time away still.

I like the new features that have been proposed, but it remains to be seen if they can deliver on everything. Of course I have more faith in Tiger than I do in Longhorn!

 

[wdlove]

We have just a little over two months till MWSF. I imagine that Steve will demonstrate some of the highlights of Tiger, take it our for a spin. Hopefully a release date will be made also.

 

[Punani]

Seems like a long time away still.

I like the new features that have been proposed, but it remains to be seen if they can deliver on everything. Of course I have more faith in Tiger than I do in Longhorn!

I'm certain Apple will deliver on what they promised, I think they learned what can happen if one doesn't after Copland.

However, a delay seems less surprising as new builds are released, I think hopes of a January release have been effectively squashed . Though, I believe to some extent, Jobs' main objective is to get out before Longhorn...or at least before the release of Microsoft's WinFS database layer; we may see Mac OS X [Tiger] Public Beta again (Just kidding)!

 

[Mac-Xpert]

Sounds good

I hope Tiger will get the AFP networking back to OS-9 level. With Jaguar on my G4 Dual 867 MHz the connection to our windows 2000 servers afp share was already much slower to browse through folders than on OS-9 on the same machine. When I recently upgraded to the 2.5 GHz G5 running Panther 10.3.4 I was hoping that I could browse through the server a bit quicker. But it turned out that panther is actually a lot worse. It now takes 12 seconds before the 106 items of a certain folder are shown. If I open the same folder on a 450 MHz G4 running Os 9.2.2 it opens instantly.

Does anybody else have this problem with connections to a windows server with a AFP shares? It doesn't happen when I connect to my G4 from my G5.

I hope Tiger will improve this.

I also like to get the finder windows to work in the same way as they did on Jaguar. When I open a folder on Jaguar and type the first few letters of the filename, the finder will jump to that file. On Panther this doesn't work the right way. It only responds to the first typed letter or number, not to a combination of several ones. So when I like to go to for instance a file beginning with 135 and type those numbers, Jaguar will select the right file. But Panther only selects the first file starting with 1 and ignores the 3 and 5. This is very annoying. I hope they will have addressed that as well in Tiger.

I find it strange that something that worked good in the previous system all of a sudden doesn't work in the right way anymore in the next version of the OS. Shouldn't they only change and/or add things that need to be improved and leave the working parts alone.

Just my thoughts...

 

[t300]

Has MacRumors lost some of it's credibility? News has been not only late, but nothing really exlusive and taken from AppleInsider or ThinkSecret? Perhaps it's time for some additional posters to work on the front page of MacRumors.Com

 

[Photorun]

I'm with Zigster

What with all but the portables being G5 by the time it's released (yes, eMacs soon to be too) it'd be nice to have X sail using mostly 64 bit. I'd even be willing to have one OS built for G4 and another built for G5 just so us G5 owners can finally take off the fuel governer and charge ahead full blast with 64 bit goodness, REALLY bringing our favorite forum word "snappy" to new heights.

Can't wait to see some screen grabs for the five seconds Apple legal will allow them to be up.

 

[AmigoMac]

Developers, developers, developers...

(EDIT: Wrong Thread??)

Nevermind, I'm really happy with the work done for tiger, I've read a lot of things about this cat and can't wait to have it in my hands, of course after the release I will be getting a machine.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Hmmm.. the features keep trickling in slowly. I'm still not set on some of the GUI - looks too Windows-like. I noticed the simple Finder has lost the pinstripes in the status bar. I wonder if Tiger will have any pinstripes at all... Also, is the columns mode still there? Notice the horizontal lines on the Finder view button on the toolbar.

Burnable folders sound like a novel idea but I don't think I burn media THAT often... Still, if it doesn't get too much in the way of other stuff, it's a welcome addition. Seems like Spotlight and its related features are the main thing with Tiger. The others are just icing.

 

[mdetry]

OS X must beat Longhorn by a Year

OS X new version should beat Longhorn by a year. By doing so it will have a very good edge to tempt Switchers. If Apple manages to get all this updates in time and without stability sacrifice, they will really have used a big oportunity to grab Press and Momentum to the MAC.

This would put pressure on Microsoft and Microsoft will only delay and delay Longhorn or take out many features...

Hopefully this togeher with the IPOD success will make inroads to get MAC a steady increasy in % market. Although many MAC fans think that they do not mind % of market it very important for the overall future of MAC.

 

[guet]

New Features

Maybe I'm nuts, but for the last couple of system updates, I've been less than thrilled when I've heard they're coming. My Mac _works_, for chrissake.

If it works, and you're happy with it, then don't buy the upgrade, is that so hard?

i too would like to know what else Tiger is bringing to the table...

Well, let's see, there's a whole new file system meta-data layer, with an API via Searchlight, which will be the basis of a lot of new 3rd party products.

There's konfabulator style widgets for your desktop.

There's Core Data, which will make a huge difference to developers, making it easier to store and access all kinds of data in standard ways, and easier to pass that data between applications. Not to mention it includes direct SQL support in the OS for the first time (though in a limited way).

xCode 2.0 (could do with being improved, so I hope it's better than 1.5).

h.264 video in Quicktime.

Then there's Core Image with a slew of impressive visual effects which apps can easiliy hook into and which degrades gracefully on older hardware.

Automator, making it easier to produce applescripts.

RSS support in Safari.

Support for Jabber in iChat.

Built in Jabber and blog servers in 10.4 Server.

I'd say that's sufficient progress for 1.5 years, wouldn't you? Now we just have to be patient and wait for it. They're not going to add new features with 4 months to go before release, from now on in it'll all be testing and tweaks.

 

[Punani]

If it works, and you're happy with it, then don't buy the upgrade, is that so hard?

I think this issue has been driven into the ground.

I think it's not so much wanting new features, it's the fact that such applications like Safari are so deeply embedded into the operating system via WebKit, this it is impossible to get even minor updates with it if you're not using the latest version and Apple is trying to encourage people to upgrade anyway.

In addition, a lot of smaller developers seem to write off the old releases once they get their stuff to adopt the new features. Examples include Colloquy and Quicksilver (Sort of).

I think the problem is that, while you certainly are not being forced to upgrade, it's not really practical to do so. A OS release every 2 to 3 years would have been more reasonable to go instead pumping out one about once a year which, for the most part, seems to have just annoyed a lot of people. The rapid release pattern seems to have resulted in some-what buggy initial GM releases (At least from what I'm reading) and general frustration among people who had just gotten used to the new additions to OS X and were tweaking it.

 

[Windowlicker]

I also like to get the finder windows to work in the same way as they did on Jaguar. When I open a folder on Jaguar and type the first few letters of the filename, the finder will jump to that file. On Panther this doesn't work the right way. It only responds to the first typed letter or number, not to a combination of several ones. So when I like to go to for instance a file beginning with 135 and type those numbers, Jaguar will select the right file. But Panther only selects the first file starting with 1 and ignores the 3 and 5. This is very annoying. I hope they will have addressed that as well in Tiger.

I tried out this (on panther) and it works just fine for me :Q weird.

 

[munkle]

I'm excited by the new features being touted in Tiger and am hoping that it will be released before June (pushing the first half the year promise a bit there Steve!). Sometimes I just don't think people realise what a big step forward Tiger is, it has nothing to do with the eye candy features etc, it's the technologies that are being introduced and incorporated into Tiger that makes it such an important release. Hopefully we'll get a release date at MWSF.

 

[number9]

I know a lot of people may have seen this already, but over at Cafe Macs, they have a pretty detailed summary of all the new features people have reported showing up in each build of Tiger. It seems to be updated frequently, and I definitely found out alot of either completely new features, or just more in depth explanations of features that people have talked about. There are also a decent amount of screen shots. Again, i'm sure alot of people have seen this already, but I thought it was worth mentioning

here is the link
http://www.cafemacs.com/index.php#t368

 

[jsw]

I've been playing with it for a few days now, and this new build is vastly improved from the June release.

Initial impressions?

(1) Dashboard is eye candy, nothing more, and it really is Konfabulator repackaged and incorporated into the OS. Yes, it's nice to press a button and have a calculator and stickies and whatever on the screen. Yes, I'll use it. No, it isn't compelling. To me.

(2) Spotlight is mind-boggling. Period. At least to me. The speed and completeness of the searching - and this is a pre-release - are astounding, and I love the interface. Killer.

(3) Automator is the single greatest thing - to me - in Tiger, bar none. It's not just a GUI on top of AppleScript - it's a very intuitive way to do some very complex stuff with your Mac. Workflows can be saved, sent to friends, etc. AppleScript, in it's 'new' form, will finally appeal to the great unwashed masses.

Generally, I think it's a compelling upgrade and has lots of other cool features (iChat conference calls, etc.). It clearly isn't ready for prime time, yet, but I was able to use it for an entire day and play around quite a bit with no major issues.

 

[mfessenden]

What with all but the portables being G5 by the time it's released (yes, eMacs soon to be too) it'd be nice to have X sail using mostly 64 bit. I'd even be willing to have one OS built for G4 and another built for G5 just so us G5 owners can finally take off the fuel governer and charge ahead full blast with 64 bit goodness, REALLY bringing our favorite forum word "snappy" to new heights.

Can't wait to see some screen grabs for the five seconds Apple legal will allow them to be up.

I thought Tiger was a 64-bit OS? Is that not true?

 

[maya]

WoW, saw the new feature set of "burnable folder". Neat very similar to the contextual menu that Toast offers.


Tiger is going to be hugh for all those I do not want or see any reason to buy it.

Think about this Tiger is a living OS in a sense, it updates and tracks all the information on your HDD. And you can access it with SpotLight. And we are talking about everything, emails, text files, iChat messages, etc...

Plus you have other goodies such as "Automator", and network support.

And please people do not compare Dashboard to Konf, this is just getting to be a tired subject.

Konf uses javascript and Dashboard uses gadgets/widgets that are made with html and or CSS.

Looking forward to Tiger for an early release with as little bugs as possible

 

[logicat2001]

Maybe I'm nuts, but for the last couple of system updates, I've been less than thrilled when I've heard they're coming. My Mac _works_, for chrissake. Fix the problems, fix compatibility, keep it stable.

wileypen,

There are two different groups working on two different projects: engineers working on the current release and engineers working on the next release. Consider that 10.2 has reached revision 8 and 10.3 has reached revision 5. They are working on fixing bugs. They are working on fixing compatiblity and stability issues. These groups are doing two different things.

What's the problem then?

Best regards,
Logicat