Earlier this week, Apple Computer provided its developers with Mac OS X Tiger build 8A323, the third widely distributed pre-release version of its next-generation operating system. In a five-page seed note accompanying the build, Apple lists over two dozen known issues with the system, in addition to some fixes and improvements over previous builds.
Inside Mac OS X Tiger build 8A323
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Apple should have the debugging stages of OS X down-pat by now. The article states that Tiger “is in the final stages of development”.
We will see a release date at MacWorld January, And I think a final release by February. If we are very lucky, we will see it at MacWorld!!
I feel that the coming of Tiger will officially show the trounce of Longhorn. Tiger right now is already years ahead of Longhorn after its release.
Now why do put longhorn in there? I am afraid this still will not get me to jump on the Apple wagon, sorry.
Just tested the latest build, there are still alot of work to do on Tiger even though it looks like things are going well. Alot of underlying framworks are still being comb thru. I think we will see it probably in March 24th or sometime… 4th anniversary of Mac OS X
Isn’t Tiger still under NDA?
Public discussions about Tiger are not yet permitted even on the Apple technical mailing lists.
There are many official websites, that Apple is aware of them, that discuss about the releases of Tiger and also post screenshots of them. So discussing Tiger in such a scale doesn’t look to be illegal. See AppleInsider.com and MacRumors.com to see a bunch of such discussions…
NDAs are there to be breached.
If a news-site would breach an NDA they’d never get software or hardware again, but nothing can refrain me from submitting news to sites like theinquirer.net who don’t ever sign NDAs on general principle – and Apple would never get to know who it was. This is a hard fact of life and everybody in the business knows it. NDA – haha..
I don’t want to keep waiting. Tigers release is the day i order an apple computer.
Be patient. Let Apple engineers release a nicely tested Tiger.
I can wait until WWDC in June 05
Isn’t Tiger still under NDA?
Public discussions about Tiger are not yet permitted even on the Apple technical mailing lists.
Ermm, NDA’s are Agreements (that’s where the ‘A’ comes from).
In order for them to apply to you, you have to have signed the (wait for it…) aggrement.
Not that this has any concrete meaning behind it, but Amazon.com is taking pre-orders for Tiger now. I placed my order last week. I just checked into my account, and it says that it is estimated to ship on Feb. 9th, with a delivery date of Feb. 12th-15th.
Who knows how close that will be though…
actully rere :.northwesttechnical.com but not really the point
how bout windows is better because its got users that tend to be less literat bout the wonderful world of IT
(still waiting to order his ibook)
Can someone in two words describe what’s really so new and exciting is going to be in Tiger that isn’t in the current OSX release? No sarcasm, I’m just wondering why everyone is so excited (haven’t been following the OSX development lately).
Just look at apple’s page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/
“Linux.
Just wanted to be the first to mention that in this thread. seems like everyone else is doing it these days.”
Yeah, a lot of ugly OS bashing from all sides here lately. Hope this thread stays clean. There are better places to vent your aggressions:)
On topic: When should one expect Tiger to be released? Is february realistic? Have previous releses been on time?
Spotlight
CoreData
CoreImage
CoreVideo
64bit Kernel
more os x commandline integration
just off the top off my head
@omnivector: a lot of the features you mentioned are geared towards developers, and not the end user. While you missed a couple of the end user features, it looks like the main reason for upgrading would be Spotlight. While Spotlight does sound handy, I’m also wondering if I would use it. I mean, Expose sounded handy too, but I only use the reveal desktop bit. Is it worth spending money for one third of a feature?
Odd, i use expose probably every other minute. I suggest putting expose all on middle mouse button and expose app on button4 if you have one.
So, I resisted buying a G5 machine because what’s the point of a 64 bit processor without a 64bit OS and apps? I firmly resolved that I would not buy a g5 machine until Apple shipped a 64 bit OS.
~pllbbbt!~
The spendy angels of my nature are starting to whisper dreams of 2.5ghz glory into my ear whilst the frugal angels of my nature are reminding me that the current powermac is plenty fast, holds more drives, and that I never buy first-gen hardware …
I’m starting to hear the spendy angels to, but i will wait to see what comes out in January.
I hope Apple takes their time. Keep adding tons of features and Apple magic. Tiger is the going to be the release we live with for a couple of years according to Apple, so I want as much as they can cram in now.
Plus, I want Apple to bang out the bugs, optimize, and tighten security. And take their time doing it.
dashboard
Safari 2
Automator
Newer BSD subsystem
they say 150 new features, which, while i’m sure they’ll get to that number, there will probably be 20 worth your while at most.
i’m actually excited about Dashboard (despite it being a Konfabulator knock off). It looks like widgets are easier to create then Konfabulator widgets: http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html
Automator could be pretty awesome too.
i’m sure there will be general speed ups everywhere too, which is always welcome. bring it on, i’m ready for it!
I’m sure the pr0n industry is excited about Tiger. Imagine a 3-way in this format:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/ichat.html
I too am waiting for Tiger to come out. I’ve used linux for quite a while now and love the unix way of life. But the desktop software available for linux is pure poop. I mean… there’ve been great advances and things, but I really appreciate great aesthetics, and I’m sorry, but GNOME and KDE aren’t exactly beauty queens. From what I’ve used so far of OSX, I really love it. I’ve got the money together to make my purchase, but I figure I’ll wait for tiger… maybe by then there’ll be a speedbump or something a little better than what’s available.
~Charlie
for the end user, all apps will be upgraded with useful features, from textedit to addressbook. Voiceover may be hiding a golden nugget with much enhanced voice capabilities. The new iChat will finally catch up with group implementation, and jump ahead with 10 way audio-chat and 4 way video with H.264(Which will be a big deal itself). Fast user switching will be fixed. Quartz 2D Extreme may end the pain of slow window resizing(not sure about this one). Synch engine reworked and expanded. Cutting edge security features (part of the new BSD). Resolution independence will start with tiger, but might not be implemented at the user level. Maximum icon size quadrupled (256X256). Open AL for easier 3D sound support in games. Open GL 2.0 implemented in-system. Tighter Linux compatibility. Better networking on all levels. Rendevous that can cross subnetworks. Hopefully a better theme than the current mix of aqua/metal. I’m hoping they get rid of aqua and replace it with the new Tiger search window theme.
no offense, but that’s really kind of dumb.
1. a 64bit OS is not going to make any difference whatsoever for you unless you have more than 4gb of ram.
2. in many ways, 64bit will slow things down and increase memory usage.
3. os x currently has rudamentary 64bit math lib support for the few applications right now that actually can take advantage of it
4. even if a 64bit os was available tomorrow, none of the applications that can take advantage of it (photoshop, FCP, shake, logic) will be updated with the 64bit memory support.
i am just waiting for apple finally offering proper hinted desktop-gui-fonts AND/OR a proper hinting font-engine (comparable to freetype2, etc)…
But I’m pessimistic,because this isn’t sellable as a killer-feature *cough* for marketing-crapzillas. It would mean that Apple delivered sub-standard tech for years, they would lose their face. Apple never does that kind of stuff…
My spendy angel thinks you’re a big ole meanie and has stalked off in a pout.
My frugal angel thanks you and is building the case to hold out until there’s 64 bit FCP or P-shop. (Who knows, I may have enough money saved for 8 gigs of ram and a 30″ monitor –woot!)
I think that Apple’s going to very swiftly release 64 bit versions of the software it controls, whether Adobe follows suit is another matter.
I also think people behind Fink will start making with the 64 bit compile/ports pretty swiftly, too.
wow.. os x’s fonts aren’t absolutely perfect (to you) and clearly that makes them *years* behind linux. except for all that other desktop stuff that linux still can’t do..
i never got this. os x fonts look fine. what the heck is so wrong with them?
“i never got this. os x fonts look fine. what the heck is so wrong with them?”
I for one can’t stand how I can’t make them smaller. Maybe there’s a way… but I’ve yet to find one. All I can find are individual settings for windows, apps, etc… It would be nice to change the default desktop font to 8 point.
Is there a way or do I need to download a tweaking tool -> yuck.
“I’ve used linux for quite a while now and love the unix way of life. But the desktop software available for linux is pure poop. I mean…”…
Charlie, you’re going to love it over on this side. I was a Redhat/Suse/Gentoo nut for 4 years. Once I got my machine I have to laugh at what I put myself through.
Just being able to drag a installable package to your drive and have it install… beautiful. No more compiling to get the latest app. No more tracking down available packages in Gentoo. No more manually tweaking network settings, samba setting, cups settings… Ahhhh.
OSX is just beautiful. I can’t see why Linux folks like to bash it. Once you see expose work for the first time, fast user switch, plug in your camera and watch iPhoto launch with a ‘import’ button just waiting for you to click…
Elegant, powerful, and user-friendly… all with a BSD core. Gotta love it!
“Charlie, you’re going to love it over on this side. I was a Redhat/Suse/Gentoo nut for 4 years. Once I got my machine I have to laugh at what I put myself through.”
I also used Suse/Redhat/Gentoo for about 3 years. I made
the switch about 10 months ago and haven’t looked back. I purchased an iBook and have been extremely satisfied in every respect except for one thing….
Sometimes I get bored because there’s nothing for me to fix. I actually have to use my computer for productive work. Part of the fun of Gentoo linux was always having something else to get working/tweak/fix. Luckily I’ve been exploring the UNIX underbelly of OS X and now have many things to keep me occupied.
The fact that I can run all my favorite linux apps on OS X definately helps – and Xcode/Cocoa development rocks. The apple developer resources are really very polished.
Just my 2 cents.
“I for one can’t stand how I can’t make them smaller. Maybe there’s a way… but I’ve yet to find one. All I can find are individual settings for windows, apps, etc… It would be nice to change the default desktop font to 8 point.
Is there a way or do I need to download a tweaking tool -> yuck.”
Click your desktop, and hit apple-j . It brings up the desktop settings, which let you change the icon size, text size, and some positioning stuff. On my 17″ powerbook, the smallest desktop font I can use is 10 point; I don’t think anything smaller would really be readable, to be honest.
OSX is just beautiful. I can’t see why Linux folks like to bash it.
I’ve never heard much except praise for OS X even from Linux people. I know I’ll be looking at it for my next computer purchase when I graduate.
Apple uses a lot of OSS so I don’t think anybody really hates them except a few weirdos.
You are overgeneralizing by saying “Linux folks” like to bash it. Simply untrue.
wow.. os x’s fonts aren’t absolutely perfect (to you) and clearly that makes them *years* behind linux. except for all that other desktop stuff that linux still can’t do..
i never got this. os x fonts look fine. what the heck is so wrong with them?
—> in general, freetype /= linux, but this font-engine is often used in combination with linux. Plus i never said that os-x fonts are years behind linux, i just pointed out that they aren’t as good as technically possible today. Yawn. XP’s desktop fonts are crispier, too.
If someone never use crisp fonts that person may never have a problem with X’s fonts, bc humans get used to things, even weak stuff. But that’s not the point. X’s rendering is sub-optimal.
Whoever is interested, have a look at this: http://smithz.org/x/os-x-blurryhell-beta.gif
it describes what’s the problem, at least for me and other enthusiasts, who care and know what kind of quality is possible.
freetype2 for example offers hinting, that allows all chars to be rendered the “good” way. (by “good” i mean the “good” examples, see gif) …
I want to add, i don’t use linux – i just tried several times. But I’ve collected and read tons of font/font-rendering information and documentation, because that was and is still my #1 issue with OS X.
I don’t post here, because I have some personal problem with OS X, i just can’t stand technically inferiour solutions and people who obviously doesn’t know enough about the issue cheer up and say something like “it’s good enough” … I want OS X to offer the BEST solution, not a “good enough” crap.
ps. Another other issue is limited control over sizes on desktop and more specific choices for e.g. menus WITHOUT haxies… But that’s another story.
On my 17″ powerbook, the smallest desktop font I can use is 10 point; I don’t think anything smaller would really be readable, to be honest.
And that’s because the rendering engine fails completely at those smalls sizes.
OS X fonts look acceptable at 12pt and bigger, anything below is eyecancer-o-rama.
Deactivating AA for sizes below 12 leads to *cough* mediocre bitmap-fonts, which also show sub-optimal hinting and spacing, some chars a glued together, etc.
The only solution would be richer font-preferences for desktop, offering specific choices for listview-fonts, sizes, etc.
I too was a linux user (Red Hat) for a few years. While I learned a lot in that time, I don’t every think I’ll go back to linux for the desktop. I switched to OSX about 10 months ago. I see a lot of people in the computer industry switching also. Luckily, I still do work with Linux and AIX at work.
ps- Andi, I never knew I had so many font problems with OSX. I always thought the fonts looked good. Is Apple aware of this issue? Perhaps email them.
hm, most OS X users don’t have a problem with the fonts.
It’s just me and few other enthusiasts. The fonts *look* good at the first sight, but readability is not as good as it can be IMHO… Looking good and readability are two different things IMHO.
Plus they’re not as good as it technically could be done. That’s what it’s all about…
But don’t get me wrong, it works and this is no catastrophy, “just” an issue for detail-minded ppl like me.
Err, i’ve given feedback to Apple a few times, I’m sure deep inside Apple they know about this issue, but they don’t really care because so few people moan about it.
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wow its true! Doesn’t show in my safari address field like in the example, tho.
okay it rendered perfectly once it was posted, but it didn’t in my text entry field. Any other complaints about OS X that i can check out? How about the incomplete printing system. Its good for regular printing, but for pros it apparently is a step back from OS 9 still. Do you concur?
“You are overgeneralizing by saying “Linux folks” like to bash it. Simply untrue.”
I would indeed say its an overgeneralization. Sorry if I’ve offended anyone.
“Click your desktop, and hit apple-j . It brings up the desktop settings, which let you change the icon size, text size, and some positioning stuff. On my 17″ powerbook, the smallest desktop font I can use is 10 point; I don’t think anything smaller would really be readable, to be honest.”
I didn’t know the settings were there in the Finder. Thanks for the tip!
Utter silliness in some of these posts.
Pay close attention Mac and Linux folks:
YOU ARE ON THE SAME TEAM.
Different OS. Yes. But you have a common enemy and a common cause.
Reading some of these posts is similar to when Visa and Mastercard used to fight it out. Only when did they figure out to attack AMX together did they enjoy massive global growth and brand power.
Your enemy is Microsoft.
And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if some MSofties are the ones making some of these posts to keep misdirecting people from the real pigopoly in the industry. They did it to IBM with OS/2, so it wouldn’t be the first time they applied disgusting tactics like that.
Folks, you’re both about choice and innovation. The ways you get there are different, but you share the same values.
A win for Linux is a win f
Utter silliness in some of these posts.
Pay close attention Mac and Linux folks:
YOU ARE ON THE SAME TEAM.
Different OS. Yes. But you have a common enemy and a common cause.
Reading some of these posts is similar to when Visa and Mastercard used to fight it out. Only when did they figure out to attack AMX together did they enjoy massive global growth and brand power.
Your enemy is Microsoft.
And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if some MSofties are the ones making some of these posts to keep misdirecting people from the real pigopoly in the industry. They did it to IBM with OS/2, so it wouldn’t be the first time they applied disgusting tactics like that.
Folks, you’re both about choice and innovation. The ways you get there are different, but you share the same values.
A win for Linux is a win for Mac. And vice versa. But MS loses both times.
I have desktops running both, though I prefer to use the linux desktop on a day to day basis. I totally disagree with the comment that linux programs are total crap. quite the opposite! I often times find myself wanting to be able to install linux apps on OSX, but there’s a lack of porting going on for XonX, Xdarwin, what-have you. fink and some sourceforge apt repositories have a select few handfulls of linux apps, but nothing compared to what one could find running Debian PPC.
Yes the installation process is nice in OSX drag and install. but that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if there’s a lack of software available to install. IMHO keep the native OSX install process the way it is, it works great. Just integrate better with the rootless X server so existing linux PPC apps can be installed via fink or apt, without having to wait for a special port to be hacked.
Kady Mae, I’m with you on the G5. I’d be more than happy with the current iBook G4 (14″ if I can swing it) or a second-hand Power Mac G4.
I’ll only buy or make an Athlon64 system if I can run a 64-bit OS on it (only have Linux distros to choose from, AFAIK, at the moment).
The reason you get varying results between characters has to do with OSX’s text kerning, and since proper kerning will never fall on exact pixels, you will get varying renderings of characters.
I never noticed the difference before.
I just opened TextEdit and set the font size for Arial to 8, the text is close to unreadable.
I did the same thing in NotePad on XP and the text is still fine. I took it down to 7, still no problem.
I’ll give credit where credit is due, even though Apple seems to have a lot more control of fonts, ie. Kerning, Ligatures and so forth, XP certainly renders the fonts better.
To fix the problem about fonts looking bad when the font are below 9 points go to the Appearance in System preferences, change turn off text smoothing for font sizes and make it 4 and smaller. fonts will now be readable and very small sizes.