WWDC: Leopard Details

[happylittlemac]

I like the new features they draw me in and make me want to use it more than Vista could ever do, but since I'm a kinda still a new Mac user, I've been used to PC's for years, and getting new versions of Windows mostly meant getting a new PC like XP back in 2001 and needing a new PC if I was going to buy Vista. I bought my MacBook 1.83Ghz White back in October of last year and I don't think I'm going to be-able to run 10.5

 

[dpaanlka]

Transparency doesn't automatically equal prettier.

As Vista proved.

does anyone else think that the transparent menu bar looks absolutely disgusting?

Yes, apparently, lots of people, including myself.

I like the way it looks. Not sure when you have a windows open how would it look. This meaning a window occupying the whole screen.

How often does a window on a Mac take up the whole screen?

I sure hope so, cause it is hideous the way it is.

Agreed.

Yeah awful... The menu bar has to be clear to read at all times. Hopefully that can be turned off. Though I can imagine a workaround: Create an image of your preferred desktop at the right resolution, then leave the top xx pixels white! That should do it.

I will also greatly miss the rounded corners on the menu bar. It's just so mac. They should have left them in there. But I guess with transparency it would look weird to have either black or background-coloured pixels there.

Agreed. We should have just not had transparency.

I do. It does not add any functionality or beauty. I think Apple added up to the let's-do-it-flashy-and-let´s-say-it's-new team much more like Vista developers did.

Agreed.

Look. Love it or hate it the semi-transparency of the menubar makes sense. They are visually reinforcing that the menubar is less important than the application window.

the transparency effect just looks half-assed, like they did it just so that they could say that they did something to it

Agreed.

They should do headsets which you can wear so OSX knows where your eyes are looking on your display at any one time. Then drop the opacity to 50% of everything you're not looking at.

Heh...

i had hoped they come up with something like the task bar in windows XP. you can aesily see what windows are there and just get to them in one click.

Umm.. you do know if you right-click on any open application in the dock, it will display a list of it's open windows... right?

 

[Ibjr]

Ichat

Ichat should still have screen sharing. When Jobs was showing the finder off, he clicked on everything, and when he clicked on the macs a button appeared saying, "Share screen." I assume it would share through Ichat's bonjour. So Ichat should still allow screen sharing.

 

[3282872]

I know that the WWDC convention is mostly for software developers, but a part of me was really hoping for new Cinema Displays. This hasn't been mentioned much on Macrumors, so sorry for bringing it up, but I was hoping. Any one know if they may revamp them (rumors that is)?

Also, if you go to the Apple store, then click on the Cinema Displays, there is a blank spot on the top menu bar between Support and the Spotlight box. Hmmm. Probably just a mistake, but curious at least.

 

[philoscoffee]

ZFS in Leopard

I wouldn't be surprised if Jobs dropped any reference to ZFS from his keynote at the last minute as a slap on the wrist to Jonathan Schwartz for leaking this announcement ahead of WWDC. I guess we'll find out soon enough if the new file system (default or otherwise) made in into the Leopard beta...

I'm looking forward to finding out what the other 290 new features are though!

 

[bommai]

Acconding to the statement .... Leopard is 64 bits, so you need a 64 bit CPU to run it.

However you do not need to upgrade your 32 bit applications, they can be run by Leopard in a 64 bit system (core 2 duo, G5, and above).

No G4, no G3, no Core duo, need apply.

Weird that Apple would not permit 5 Mill users or so to upgrade to Leopard.

Leopard WILL run on G4, G5, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo and Xeon based machines. Leopard does quad binary (32-bit ppc/intel, 64-bit ppc/intel). So, it is a 64-bit OS top to bottom. It is ALSO a 32-bit OS top to bottom ;-) Don't panic.

 

[jhande]

Jeez guys, it's a developers conference....

For a developers conference, there was enough up there to get them to think along the lines of ".....hmmmm, how can I integrate that in my program?"

And as far as Leopard itself:

Some other interesting points not mentioned yet (from the Apple site)...

"UNIX certification.
Leopard is now an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX 03-compliant code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance — complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software."

"Self-Tuning TCP.
Leopard gets the best possible bandwidth from either broadband or narrowband networks by optimizing buffer sizes according to the local resources and connection type. Starting with a larger window helps TCP with ongoing dynamic optimization. This is especially valuable when connecting to high-bandwidth/high-latency networks like Verizon’s FiOS, which previously required specialized tools such as Broadband Tuner."

"Autofs.
The brand-new multithreaded autofs filesystem layer keeps track of which paths are actually located on remote AFP, SMB, or NFS fileservers — even across symlinks — and automatically mounts the appropriate server. The Finder and other applications needn’t wait for one mount to complete before requesting another. Now you can specify automount paths for your entire organization using the same standard automounter maps (e.g., NIS) supported by Linux or Solaris."

Those three really caught my eye, and I can't wait to see what else is hiding under the hood.

BTW: They won't steal the thunder away from the 29th. Afterwards..... we'll see.

All in all the keynote was pretty much as I'd expected (and thankfully, almost nothing about iPhone), and the underpinnings absolutely awesome.

 

[aLoC]

Some other interesting points not mentioned yet (from the Apple site)...

Good finds. Also the ability to sandbox apps mentioned in the Security section sounds good. Maybe for each of your apps in /Applications you can say whether you want it to be able to write to the filesystem, or access the network, etc.

 

[Counter]

'Daddy, do you think 50% opacity for the menu bar or 30%?'

'It's up to you son, you're the big lead developer today!'

 

[TheAnswer]

From the images of the new finder on the Apple site it appears that the screen sharing feature previously touted to be included in ichat is now part of the finder.

It seems to suggest that any connected system can be remotely controlled (assuming correct permissions i assume) by clicking on a button in the finder !

Check my post above...

Sounds great! Fingers crossed! Although, the way I read it, it kinda sounds like only computers sharing a router can be accessed. Hopefully there is an easy workaround for accessing over the net.

 

[nockamura]

From the images of the new finder on the Apple site it appears that the screen sharing feature previously touted to be included in ichat is now part of the finder.

It seems to suggest that any connected system can be remotely controlled (assuming correct permissions i assume) by clicking on a button in the finder !

It seems you're correct. This feature is now in the Finder. According to Apple.com "By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it".

 

[bentoon]

Dissapointed....


UbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntuUbuntu

 

[Taylor C]

Is it me ... not hearing of it before ... or is it something new as well ?

Leopard Server

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/

The CD looks much nicer ;o)

The transparent menu bar actually looks pretty nice in that screenshot. I think they made a bad choice of which wallpaper to show it off with--that definitely looks a lot better.

 

[2nyRiggz]

Stacks/Grid is nice actually but the menu bar 3D looking dock....no. I would rather them just get rid of the semi transparent background. Hope they give us the option to change it.. Quick look also seems impressive but thats about it for me.


Thats all I will say until I see it in action....So far its "ok"




Bless

 

[andiwm2003]

Quote:
Originally Posted by andiwm2003 View Post
i had hoped they come up with something like the task bar in windows XP. you can aesily see what windows are there and just get to them in one click.



Umm.. you do know if you right-click on any open application in the dock, it will display a list of it's open windows... right?

i know but it works like this: right klick on application, waiting for 1 sec, looking at list and finding window of interest, selecting it and hoping you don't miss the click, window comes up. need a second window ,well, do everything again.

in windows: click, done. one of the few features i like in windows.

 

[corto]

yeah, still the coolest OS..

Nice one Steve!
The major productivity feature is bootcamp!

We got the point: if you want more productivity, go xp. This is all 'bout coolness..

 

[Todd H]

Leopard WILL run on G4, G5, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo and Xeon based machines. Leopard does quad binary (32-bit ppc/intel, 64-bit ppc/intel). So, it is a 64-bit OS top to bottom. It is ALSO a 32-bit OS top to bottom ;-) Don't panic.

Thank goodness! I was frantically googling "How to upgrade iMac Core Duo to Core 2 Duo." Let's just say I'd rather not go through that.

 

[bigwig]

Finder does search? Bleh. Just get rid of .DS_Store. Pretty please with a strawberry on top.

 

[inkswamp]

Nothing so far has impressed me that much.

Only on MacRumors do you have people so full of such high expectations as to undermine the impressive display of Leopard that Steve Jobs put on today. You just saw the future of the consumer/home OS and there's little doubt that it leaves its primary competitor (Windows) so far behind that it's almost sad. Every feature Steve showed was classic Apple--simple, efficient and intuitive.

What does it take to impress you anyway? Does the Pope have to come out on stage and bless Leopard before you raise an eyebrow?

 

[dpaanlka]

The transparent menu bar actually looks pretty nice in that screenshot. I think they made a bad choice of which wallpaper to show it off with--that definitely looks a lot better.

Wow that certainly did make it look a lot better. What is with that grass background anyway.

i know but it works like this: right klick on application, waiting for 1 sec, looking at list and finding window of interest, selecting it and hoping you don't miss the click, window comes up. need a second window ,well, do everything again.

in windows: click, done. one of the few features i like in windows.

I have literally no idea what you're talking about. When I click the menu comes up instantly, and I can see every window listed by the name of the window. There is no more chance for somehow messing it up than there is in Windows.

In addition to that, when I squeeze my side mouse buttons all my windows are Exposé-ed into view and I can instantly select which one I want in a visual way. Why can't Windows do that.

 

[57004]

According to WHAT statement? I haven't seen this anywhere. Apple needs to be more clear about this, but since they talk about 32 bit support it sure sounds like it will run on 32 bit machines. Heck, Apple is still selling 32 bit machines today. And they only updated the laptops to 64 a few weeks ago.

No, all laptops have been c2d (64bit) since last November (Edit, I said September but I was wrong). The mac mini has been the only 32-bit Mac in the lineup since then.

 

[0098386]

This is so going to get lost in the haystack of comments, so it should probably have embedded Spotlight support anyways. Plus I've literally been out all day so forgive me if this is a cliche comment.


In many ways Vista has benefited Mac. Perhaps Apple thought that a minority of people liked the visual style of Vista, and that by taking transparencies in a GUI and applying them in a much better designed way - that they will stick one in Vistas eye. Sort of like the master teaching the student that he cannot teach himself.
I love the new look everything. It's beautiful. I had no idea they could have done this, this looks more like OSXI than a regular update.

the new Front Row looks ossum. I was considering getting an TV, looks like I won't need to!

Just looking through other apps - I'm seeing this consistent design. Spaces is something I'll be using LOADS. I used to have a similar program on the PC but it wasn't fluid at all, just too cumbersome to use.
Time Machine too. It sounds very useful to me, as I've lost files in the past.
F
Full 64 bit? Good stuff.

And the total and absolute icing on the cake is that Leapord will run faster than Tiger, if previous Apple updates have been anything to go by. Obviously theres a drop off point, I doubt it'll run as good on my PowerBook and I doubt 10.6 will run great on my C2D iMac.
I didn't they could make Bootcamp better, but the new "sleep mode" Bootcamp is yet another perfectly sounding good idea. Between Hibernate and this I'll be able to jump back into my work on any OS.

This is why I give Apple my money. This is why we have a multitude of Macs in a previously PC house.

But October?! Gah!

 

[Project]

So does anyone else think that the coverflow interface is horribly overrated? I played with it once or twice in iTunes and haven't looked at it since. It's pretty and all, but unless everything has a preview its totally useless. I cant use it in iTunes because half my music doesnt have cover (even with their "get cover art" feature) and I don't have hours to drag and drop from Amazon (or want to mess with any 3rd party apps). In the finder its going to be worse. Whats the point of flipping through a pile of generic Quark document icons? Unless they magically figured out a way to preview something besides picture files and PDFs.

Strangely, I think it might lend itself better to the Finder than iTunes albums. The way you could flip through your PDFs and then use Quick Look to move through the individual pages was superb

 

[relimw]

you can pull them out or put them in... kinda hard to explain basically if you have 2 safari windows open you can drag a tab to the other and condense the windows or you can pull a tab out say if you were wanting to keep an eye on that tab with out having to flip back and forth

Not revolutionary.
Mozilla browsers can already do that and you don't have to use beta software.

 

[Manfred]

Apple Stock Takes a Dive Today

I gather that there was a lot of yawning before Jobs finished his talk today. Early on in his talk, Apple stock was up over a dollar, but it closed down $4.30 for the day. I hope the rest of the week is kinder to AAPL than today was.