Sources uncover new eye candy, smart font collections, a security certificate assistant, and more in some of the latest development builds of Apple next-generation operating system.
New Tiger builds reveal smart font collections, security additions, more
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Why is it that Apple almost every week shows signs on inprovement on their OS, while Microsoft is busy writing press papers about the same features not making it to the promised longhorn?
No other operating system had this amount of pre-release publicity. Longhorn comes close, but doesn’t match it.
While OS X is a nice OS, it is getting old to have to hear about every little feature that is added to the OS, simply becasue OS X has become the darling of the blogging community. The cognoscenti have all embraced OS X, while average consumers could not care one bit about Apple as an operating system company, even if they love its gadgets.
Why not offer this same amount of hype about the upcoming Linux Releases (Suse 9.2, Mandrake 10.1, Fedora Core 3), particularly when they are almost out of the door.
uuuuhhhhhhhhhh….the average consumer does not care one bit about Linux either………
You are probably right, but they are more likely to be able to test it on their existing hardware for free. OS X requires a huge leap of faith in terms of hardware and software.
And people are tired of the existing choices and the problems of the Windows platform, particularly non-technical users as they are the ones most affected by Windows spyware/virusware fest.
“hy not offer this same amount of hype about the upcoming Linux Releases (Suse 9.2, Mandrake 10.1, Fedora Core 3), particularly when they are almost out of the door.”
For one, most people don’t care, joe user doesn’t use linux or has never heard of it. Furthermore the way you phrased it you pretty much answered your question. you listed 3 distro’s and really a new distro is released about everyweek. Making a big deal about each one would make for bad news. If there was just one linux distro you might see it make a bit more press. If there was just one, with a big released once a year or so with lots of nice features, things would be differant.
I think most of it has to do with the fact that Apple is bring new strides to the computer world that Linux is not. If anything, these news bits are there because these are things that Linux and Windows will later try and copy in some why or another. I’m sure if Linux was making as many or more profound innovations in it’s OS then it would be seen as much as OS X.
Another reason would be because no one is taking the time to put up nice news articles with nice screenshots on stuff linux is doing. If you want to be that person and take that time then by all means, go for it.
Why is it that Apple almost every week shows signs on inprovement on their OS, while Microsoft is busy writing press papers about the same features not making it to the promised longhorn?
The bigger question in my mind is why does someone always bring MS into the fray when posting about an apple OS. Its pointless.
Maybe I’ll start asking on these forums why xcode drags on with no major improvements while .net gets better and better with each new beta release.
Like the OS posting no one really gives a shit.
I’m assuming that you are refering to visual studio, since “.net” isn’t a development environment comparable to xcode. I guess you haven’t read about the new features in xcode 2 have you (which should be released with Tiger, btw)?
I am a windows user but many of the features included with OSX impress me. I like reading about it.
I think most of it has to do with the fact that Apple is bring new strides to the computer world that Linux is not. If anything, these news bits are there because these are things that Linux and Windows will later try and copy in some why or another. I’m sure if Linux was making as many or more profound innovations in it’s OS then it would be seen as much as OS X.
Another reason would be because no one is taking the time to put up nice news articles with nice screenshots on stuff linux is doing. If you want to be that person and take that time then by all means, go for it.
That’s a funny comment given that more than half of what make OS X what it is, is open and free software. Who’s copying who?
Please take a moment out of your busy life to review the OSNews forum rules: http://www.osnews.com/rules.php
perhaps because 99% of the innovation in IT are from apple and 0.001% from linux.
It depends on what you mean by innovation. These days recycling a twenty year old technology in a flashy new box fueled by multi-billion dollar marketing will pass for innovation.
If Linux could do something in the fonts department, that would be fine. To me, poor looks of fonts that make the over-all Linux experience poor is one of the reasons why Linux, I feel has lots to do. Fonts are blurry, and in some cases, even after getting MS fonts, many apps become terribly unstable. Doing without anti-aliasing makes things worse. I have heard that Linspire’s fonts are comparable to those in the M$ world, but I have not had chance to look at them. When will we have clear, crisp, “non-heavy” fonts on Linux?
Well, at least they’re doing that – Microsoft is just copying, and Linux stuck in mud (Whatever happened to the “amazing” new X server that was X.Org 6.8…)
Ben
I was not impressed by the latest OSX after using it on my Ti powerbook. I felt restricted and locked in and not having choices or limited ones. Coming from my personal context of using GNU/Linux since 1998 minor or major updates and upgrades to the os or applications are just there to be installed.I always liked the freedom of it and used it on all my x86 computers as my main os. GNU/Linux has all the programs I need and want and are always there by using apt-get utility on Debian. I use KDE 3.3 with the 2.6.8-1 kernel and love the speed of Linux and of the applications on the powerbook.
I like that I have this choice if not I would of sold the computer on ebay. Choice I think is a good thing and I am glad we have them but for me my choice is to run Linux. However, that choice was easy to make for me since I have been using Linux since 1998 and I am generally curious about all operating sytems from all makers. However, whatever os a person prefers is ok since I know everyone opinion or preference can not be what I prefer. For me though Linux is a good fit be it on a Apple or a x86 computer.
> While OS X is a nice OS, it is getting old to have to hear about every little feature that is added to the OS, simply becasue OS X has become the darling of the blogging community. The cognoscenti have all embraced OS X, while average consumers could not care one bit about Apple as an operating system company, even if they love its gadgets.
The ‘average consumer’ doesn’t really care about operating systems, per se. Apps, familiarity, etc, but not the underlying technical core, except perhaps when it irritates him/her.
> Why not offer this same amount of hype about the upcoming Linux Releases (Suse 9.2, Mandrake 10.1, Fedora Core 3), particularly when they are almost out of the door.
Because, frankly, new Suse/Mandrake/Fedora core releases aren’t anywhere near as interesting. I say this as a former Mac-hater, and user of linux since ’99. My powerbook should arrive any day now, and I’m looking forward to it.
MacOSX looks quite nice; SuSE/Mandrake/Fedora tend to feel much more ‘same old, same old’. They all have improvements, but a lot of the core shortcomings are barely addressed.
Don’t get me wrong – Linux has been my primary os for 3 or 4 years now – but it’s frustrating to face the same bugs and shortcomings for that long.
I’ve never used MacOSX, but I’ve read a fair amount about it; it’ll be interesting to see where it falls short, and where the hype is justified. [The powerbook is a requirement at my university, which is why I’m getting one, although I’d been planning to get an iBook.]
> Linux doesn’t interest me. I can’t overlook the fact that most of the apps I would need are of beta or even alpha quality just so I can be smug about the fact I am using “free” software.
Which apps do you need?
> I think most of it has to do with the fact that Apple is bring new strides to the computer world that Linux is not.
Disagreed. However, most areas where linux improves aren’t very screenshot friendly. For instance, the new project utopia stack should help linux with pnp quite a bit. Opencroquet is available for linux, and it seems, at least to me, to be quite a big stride.
> If anything, these news bits are there because these are things that Linux and Windows will later try and copy in some why or another. I’m sure if Linux was making as many or more profound innovations in it’s OS then it would be seen as much as OS X.
Woah there. These aren’t kernel-level improvements, as far as I can tell; linux is a kernel. Exactly what the linux userspace is is a much blurier concept than whatever ships with MacOS; what’s shipped is very distro-dependent. Comparing “linux” with MacOS is a bit blurry, unfortunately. There are a lot of interesting linux apps, some apps which clone MacOS features [kompose/skippy/skippy-xd, etc], etc.
To talk about innovations to “linux’s os” doesn’t really make sense.
> Another reason would be because no one is taking the time to put up nice news articles with nice screenshots on stuff linux is doing. If you want to be that person and take that time then by all means, go for it.
Screeshots are good for new KDE/Gnome releases. They’re rather lousy for expressing greater scalability to more CPUs. Apple is great at eye-candy, and at having attractive apps. Linux apps are generally portable to MacOS, even moreso now that it’s a unix[-like system] too. More deep system improvements, as I said, really aren’t very screenshottable.
> perhaps because 99% of the innovation in IT are from apple and 0.001% from linux.
Um. Relatively little innovation comes from operating system vendors. Claiming that 99% does is just silly.
Historically, innovation comes from universities, and research labs like Bell Labs and Xerox Parc. There are innovative apps, like opencroquet; they’re often portable, and irregardless, it’s rarely if ever justified to attribute their innovations to some OS.
Apple is good at marketing, making eye-candy, etc. They’re also good at making/packaging apps in ways that might be more pleasant to use [ie, cups on OSX vs cups on linux].
MacOSX is now basically a unix. Don’t tell me that’s because apple is oh-so-much more innovative than all those unix weenies. Both MacOS [classic and X] and unix-like systems have advantages.
What an innovation is is also a highly blurry thing. Objc, for instance, which Apple has been pushing, is basically a combination of C and smalltalk, each of which are roughly from the 1970s.
I’ve found that Apple fans tend to call their system far more innovative than it really is. Just because Microsoft isn’t shipping something as well or as soon that Apple does, doesn’t mean Apple invented it. Just because someone doesn’t know the whole history of a technology doesn’t mean that Apple invented. Apple should be given credit for what they do. Apple fans who insist that Apple invented the keyboard, mouse, and monitor [and yes, they exist, unfortunately], just take attention away from Apple’s real innovations, at best.
charles (IP: —.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com) – Posted on 2004-10-23 09:22:49
If Linux could do something in the fonts department, that would be fine. To me, poor looks of fonts that make the over-all Linux experience poor is one of the reasons why Linux, I feel has lots to do. Fonts are blurry, and in some cases, even after getting MS fonts, many apps become terribly unstable. Doing without anti-aliasing makes things worse. I have heard that Linspire’s fonts are comparable to those in the M$ world, but I have not had chance to look at them. When will we have clear, crisp, “non-heavy” fonts on Linux?
Please, although I am a MacOS X user, these lies *really* piss me off. Download the Freetype source, edit config/freetype/ftconfig.h and enable two options; the patented hinter plus the bit regarding the issue of Microsoft vs. Apple in regards to how fonts are handled. Enable those two options, compile and install, voila, problem solved.
Then again, even when I did use FreeBSD, I tended to stick to Type 1 fonts as I found they rendered VERY well on Xorg – URW fonts are one example of some GOOD fonts – clean, clear and consistant.
Well, at least they’re doing that – Microsoft is just copying, and Linux stuck in mud (Whatever happened to the “amazing” new X server that was X.Org 6.8…)
Dear god, we have another moron who can’t Read The F*cking Wiki (RTFW)?
6.9/7.0 will be when you see composition completed along with Cairo, GTK 2.8 will start utilising these features when it is released.
When a new feature is talked about regarding Windows or MacOS, it’s in plain English WORDS, like “Remote Desktop” or “Dock”.
When parts of Linux are talked about, it’s in cryptic globs like “nglck-4.31b” or “the new src-hveslv.01a”.
The public’s eyes glaze over with this nonsense.
To say the public dosen’t care about Linux might be under esitmated some. I know for a fact bussiness care about Linux. Quite of few bussiness I go to daily/weekly have recently switched to Linux. And others are promoting it. It hasn’t hit main stream but some can argue that Windows is really the only main stream. All though I must say if a mac os was avaliable(sp?) for x86 I would buy. I have alwasy like the os just not the hardware. And the fonts for Linux are a problem. Most are really ugly. The best I seen “out of the box” would be Ubuntu with Gnome 2.8.
http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/797_1098537565_screenshot.png
Never mind the fonts are messed up in the screen shots…
No other operating system had this amount of pre-release publicity. Longhorn comes close, but doesn’t match it.
First, I disagree that there is more hype for Tiger than Longhorn. We’ve been hearing about Longhorn for more than a year. I don’t think Tiger was really talked about until Apple previewed it at the Developer’s Conference this summer.
Also consider the types of stories. Many of the Longhorn stories here have been self-promotion. Microsoft has tried to attract as much attention to thier new, mostly non-existent OS to excite developers and capture mind-share.
Tiger mostly exists now. The developer preview is available today. The story linked to here is from a rumor site which usually has to remove the images a day or two after they’re posted due to complaints from Apple legal. Is that hype, or true interest in what’s being developed?
I’m interested in hearing about the newest Linux distros also, but since the components have already been released, are in use, and have been discussed; the assembling of them isn’t as compelling a story as something completely new.
*sighs*
http://gnome-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=3&id=17089&file1=…
“Please, although I am a MacOS X user, these lies *really* piss me off. Download the Freetype source, edit config/freetype/ftconfig.h and enable two options; the patented hinter plus the bit regarding the issue of Microsoft vs. Apple in regards to how fonts are handled. Enable those two options, compile and install, voila, problem solved.”
Why should someone have to go through that extra trouble? Are most people going to know to do that?
When a new feature is talked about regarding Windows or MacOS, it’s in plain English WORDS, like “Remote Desktop” or “Dock”.
When parts of Linux are talked about, it’s in cryptic globs like “nglck-4.31b” or “the new src-hveslv.01a”.
The public’s eyes glaze over with this nonsense.
—————————————————————
I totally agree. However logical the naming conventions typically found in the open source community might be, they are often (though certainly not always) not very rememberable.
Eu,
Re: Why not offer this same amount of hype about the upcoming Linux Releases (Suse 9.2, Mandrake 10.1, Fedora Core 3), particularly when they are almost out of the door.
It’s because most of us in the Linux community would prefer to read reviews on final releases not Alpha and Beta versions. I’ve never really understood why people felt it necessary to write reviews on MS software or Apple software prior to seeing a final release. After all we know the product is still in development and has bugs so it’s best to wait till the developer finishes with the project. People basing their final opinion on software prior to it being released as “final” can cause more harm to sales than good.
If I went out of my way to buy Apple hardware, I would curtainly stick with OS X… all the Linux apps can be installed, Fink – Gentoo – and OpenPackage are working together to get as much of the Free Source world onto the Apple platform.
GNU/Linux offers nothing over it… and it comes with the hardware… You can even install Windows FROM Microsoft if you want… You obviously have money, why not spend a few hundred more and have the entire Desktop world on your Mac. Speeds are good for both.
I don’t have the Money for a decent Apple box though, and GNU/Linux provides good performance with better interfaces and apps on my hardware.
A good OS will continually look at competition. They will continually attempt to improve the system implementing things that they feel would help. They will try to make life easier for the end user and developers. They will make it look easy.
While NO OS developer can be perfect, at least Apple is trying! They are constantly working on the system, improving it, updating security etc.
Apple is in business to sell hardware… They make a damn fine OS that has a long way to go to be perfect. Sure they behave arogantly at times, but more that others? Nope…
At least Apple’s moving in a foward motion, at a steady speed.
all, IMHO
Jb
I’m assuming that you are refering to visual studio, since “.net” isn’t a development environment comparable to xcode. I guess you haven’t read about the new features in xcode 2 have you (which should be released with Tiger, btw)?
Yes visual studio.net, vs.net and all the other names its called. The .net framework as a development platform. The whole loaf of bread.
Yes I have read about the features and its not really anything new. Its more like Apple finally catching up in the dev tools department.
Which reminds me of Operating Systems, MS is trying to catch up with apple in many ways.
If someone were posting about xCode features and how they would help a developer on the macintosh there would be little to gain by pointing out that VS6 or VS.NET probably already does x or y that is going to be new to xCode.
Likewise features going into Tiger have little effect on a windows user, because OS X dosen’t run on that user’s existing hardware.
Instead of people talking about where the MacOS was and how far its come this place is just a dumping ground for the typical ‘whats taking MS so long with longhorn’, or ‘ooo its the m0st advanced OS EVAR!’
I don’t think but a handfull of people here even know wtf they are talking about.
Its more like a circle jerk for trolls.
No no no…
http://www.deviantart.com/view/11629582/
these fonts are far superior!
As nice as subpixel font rendering may look on your screen, it’s probably not a good idea to take a screenshot and post it on the web to show off your fonts. People with CRTs, or LCDs that don’t have the same subpixel color ordering, will see red and blue on the edges of your fonts which looks _horrible_.
Please, take that into consideration before posting your “oh so nice” screenshot.
Just to add my 2 cents on the whole VS.net and XCode arguing… I went to a coding competition yesterday and we were forced to use VS.net if we chose C as a programming language. All I can say is OMFG, people use this for real work?! A development environment shouldn’t just stop compiling a program for no reason. Start another instance of it, and it compiles fine. Go MS!
By Eu:
“While OS X is a nice OS, it is getting old to have to hear about every little feature that is added to the OS, simply becasue OS X has become the darling of the blogging community. The cognoscenti have all embraced OS X, while average consumers could not care one bit about Apple as an operating system company, even if they love its gadgets.”
Dear Eu,
Check the Name of the Site.
A lot of us come here for just this reason:
“to hear about every little feature that is added to the OS”
I don’t have the time to install all of these distros and OSs, hence the need for (wait for it), OS News.
Bet your glad I pointed that out 🙂
The internet is big, go play:
http://www.searchlore.org/
http://www.dailyrotation.com/
hylas
By dinky donuts:
“When a new feature is talked about regarding Windows or MacOS, it’s in plain English WORDS, like “Remote Desktop” or “Dock”.
When parts of Linux are talked about, it’s in cryptic globs like “nglck-4.31b” or “the new src-hveslv.01a”.
The public’s eyes glaze over with this nonsense.”
Exactly, (no flames please) then the app goes on to do (usually) 1 small job so the need to pipe|it to something else … ad naseum. It is tiresome to keep operating in this fashion.
If these folks were to get together (write their piece) they’d have a real app, like this:
http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/
hylas
By some of the definitions written here, or implied here, folks are having trouble knowing what an innovation is. Based on what I have read I would have to come to the conclusion the the car copied the wagon which copied the two-wheeled cart which copied the wheel. Ergo, no innovation.
Gee, Apple added a usable GUI onto a *nix. Must not be anything innovative here. (sarcasm implied). MicroSoft added a GUI on top of DOS. I would also assume that this did not involve innovation.
Safari is based upon some of the software already in existance. They made it easy to use. I call this innovation. They also gave back to the community that offered the starting code for this project.
‘innovation (as in “invention”) n. : a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation’
I’m a OSX user, but I don’t understand about one thing. Did Apple or article say the ‘features’ as ‘innovations’? correct me if I’m wrong.
I went to the website, Apple does say about innovation in their sites. But the article said it is features, it didn’t say about innovation. This “innovation” thing is misleading.
As a hardware company, Apple seems to be doing a lot better at software than it’s hardware. I’m a recent convert to OSX. I’ve been using linux for the past 2.5 years as a desktop. I just like the ease of use that OSX provides for a Unix based operating system. I always had to research anything I wanted to do with linux. With the OSX platfrom, I just do it.
…how Mac OS X (maybe not directly said) is based on 20 year old technology. Does anyone really thing that BSD, Linux or any of the Unix-like operating systems are really the same code that existed 20 or 30 years ago?!
I was reading a FreeBSD fan’s website the other day and he wrote about how it is a direct descendent of the original Bell Labs Unix… and that he preferred it over Linux blah blah…
Frankly, Linus of 10 years ago would not recognize his linux now… nor would the original developers of Unix recognize the variety of kernels that BSD consists of today. (Maybe some of the tools around the kernel have remained more or less unchanged).
Every operating system we use today IS modern. No operating system that spans a decade or more can remain as it was and still compete with the changing landscape of computing!!
I used to think the same way when Apple chose NeXT over Be, Inc. when designing their next generation OS… Then I moaned a little when the first leaks of OS X were around, thinking, “hell, they took NeXTSTEP and tweaked the GUI”. But Mac OS X is NOT NeXTSTEP! They adopted some of the underlying design principles, some of the better GUI aspects and took it from there. But it IS a different operating system… it just uses the continuation of the same framework. And that is what Apple does… they take something good or promising and make it their own, but usually better (usually). Now they are taking attributes straight out of BFS and making them part of HFS. And you khnow what? I am a true BeOS lover but I am thrilled that they are doing this… it makes sense and makes their OS even better.
YIKES! Sorry for rambling. Time for bed.
Mike
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=innovation&r=67
it says that it is the introduction of something new. tell me, what exactly is in OS X that is not new? ok, now subtract off all that and now tell me, why is what is left NOT innovation? it is new, right? it has been introduced, right?
also notice that innovation is relative. it is not a global term. so, when Apple, or MS say they innovate, they are talking about on their part of the market, not on the market as a whole.
certain aspects of OS X are truly new to the market, like using the 3d engine of a graphics card to composite your GUi to take the load off the CPU, or using DisplayPDF (yeah, Display PS is close, but it is different) how about built in system wide spell check? how about system wide built in PDF printing/creation? how about being able to search inside image files like PDFs for meta information? sure spotlight is the similar to BeOS’s live queries, but even Eugenia has said Spotlight has gone further.
innovation is pretty broad, and even Linux and MS innovate. picking at innovations however to make them seem like they are not does not make them any less innovative.
*shakes head*
are fonts what makes people avoid linux? talk about a eyecandy fetish. maybe its best you stay with mac after all then
I think the personal certificate/CA easy to use front-end is an excellent addition. This will give your typical end-user who would never touch OpenSSL on the command line the ability to increase the security of her computer and transmissions to/from her computer.
“*shakes head*
are fonts what makes people avoid linux? talk about a eyecandy fetish. maybe its best you stay with mac after all then
”
Hmmm – we are looking at our computer screens most of the day. Do we really want to look at ugly things? I don’t think so. Especially when we can something that looks really good and _works_ really good too. THAT’s why we use OS X.
As a programmer and IS student, I can honestly say that there are things I like better about XCode than Visual Studio, and there are things I like better about Visual Studio than XCode. That’s not surprising.
I’m only going to touch on one difference between the two that makes all the difference in the world to me (and, I’m sure, to many businesses).
Visual Studio costs a minimum of about $1000. XCode is included with a $129 operating system at no extra charge. Big-time difference.