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This is heavy.


-THEY FOUND ME. I DON"T KNOW HOW BUT THE FOUND ME

-WHO FOUND YOU?

-THE LIBYANS. RUN FOR IT MARTY!!!

My guess on the "Top Secret features" has to do with next gen Front Row Tivo like functionality and a Movie Service which will most likely be introduced alongside a new iPod Video.

Thoughts?

That site (Technology Pundits) needs an editor.

Naah, it's probably an advanced way to both hide and backup your downloaded porn collection from the missus. Though, I'm a miss and I've got quite the collection myself.

Sarah Aaran. Yes it does.

I still hope for the replacement of HFS+ to ZFS. Already using DTrace so who knows.

The whole "Top Secret" concept is the perfect way for them to hold another event in the coming months.
"Apple: Declassified" will be the image on the invitation to media outlets.
M$ has no time to start their photocopiers as they can't even get the features they promised crammed into their OS, let alone trying to emulate a new feature that they saw Apple developing.

MW=served. Yes, M$, you officially have been.

Amazing, amazing marketing. Just like car dealers.

Nothing in Leopard so far is worth some $130 upgrade. Most of those tricks are freeware, shareware, etc., available all over the place.

As for the MacPro... Apple must have lots of those alum enclosures in warehouses somewhere and, soon as they are gone, we'll see something special in the next gen MacPro.

Will you wait, as you should, or hop aboard like Steve's lemmings always seem to do?

My MasterCard is in my pocket where it will stay until Apple delivers, as they should, some real reason to get excited about a new OS or Intel anything.

I love my MacBook, but this dude is an idiot.

I do think best was saved for last, and i hope we will get a brand new Front Row, redesigned UI and Finder in Leopard. Otherwise, i have no plans to use Time Machine (not enough hard disk space) and Spaces is ugly (we already have Expose). ToDos and RSS in Mail, please we already have Safari and iCal. iChat, while great, whats the point without support for Yahoo and Messenger. Core Animation is great for developers, but not for my inegrated graphics. I like though things added to Dashboard.

Apple must have lots of those alum enclosures in warehouses somewhere and, soon as they are gone, we'll see something special in the next gen MacPro.

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Yeah, right.. Apple and Intel engineers spent all that time and money re-designing the interior of the PowerMac chasis so that they can scrap it once run out of aluminum enclosures... I don't think so. That design will be here for at least several years to come.

The Top Secret parts:

- Totally new Finder. Spotlight BECOMES Finder. Spacial interface via Core Animation, but with all data shown as search results.

- GUI is built with Core Animation in mind. Total 3D interface (while retaining traditional view as a preset).

- Front Row II, with TV recording capabilities, iChat fullscreen, RSS headline browsing and e-book viewing.

Dear Pete Peterson,

For me, it's worth it for Time Machine alone.

Point is, all the items are built in, which saves mucking about with third-party solutions.

Well, the analyst certainly sounds positive...but that is easily the worst-written summary of the keynote I could feasibly imagine.

The spelling/grammar was atrocious. The article failed to capitalise "Leopard" and "Core Animation", and had "stationary" instead of "stationery", as well as having generally bad style.

And more importantly, it completely missed the point (or failed to get it across) for many of the features. In the description of Time Machine, backing up is mentioned almost as an afterthought, in a way that makes me wonder whether the writer actually had any idea what the feature was for. Mentioning integration between apps is all very well, but that's not what the "Complete Package" section was actually about.

He doesn't touch upon half of Spotlight's new features, the quality text-to-speech feature, or Dashcode. Mail's features are described badly. But the big one is Spaces - if anyone who doesn't already know what the feature is could get any idea of it from his description, I'd be amazed.

All in all, decent marks for effort, bonus for positive attitude, but a big 'fail' for actually creating an intelligible or comprehensive summary.

Who here thinks "Spaces" will eventually have instant Boot Camp features. Switching to windows without haveing to shut down or run it virtually. I mean what else can they do to boot camp after version 1.0. If they get it to run correctly then its job is done and over. Vesrsion 1 is all that needs there to be.

I can't wait to see the return of HotSauce/Project X delivered in Core Animation.

Actually, I can't wait to see a Finder replacement delivered in Core Animation.

Dr. Solution -

DTrace, Time Machine and the Spotlight improvements are making some people suspicious that Leopard is using ZFS. I hear rumblings that it wouldn't be necessary to use ZFS to do these things, but it would make it easier.

Does anyone have word if ZFS support is in Leopard.

Under the hood enhancements are the biggest part of Leopard. IT's A TRUE 64 BIT OS FOLKS! That alone is worth $130. Time Machine, Spaces, Mail and especially the iChat enhancements certainly make Leopard a compelling upgrade. Then there's the Top Secret stuff.

BB:

IChat IS compatible with Yahoo Messenger, and works with MSN through a third party app called Mercury Messenger for the Mac.

Yea, this was only some crumbs from the cake, the frosting is yet to come. Mmmm..mmmm..mmmm it's going to be really good. If you don't know what I'm talking about it's the "Top Secret" stuff that Steve made clear would stay that way for a while so Redmonds copy machines don't add it to OSX version 2, ahh, I mean Vista.

Time Machine rocks!!

Look at all the Rob Enderle articles in the right-hand sidebar! Yeah, this is a real professional-like website, all right.

Peter,

Do you back up your data regularly?
Yes, I thought so...

OK, all this ZFS stuff is new to me. I went and read a Sun http://www.sun.com/2004-0914/feature/ article on it. One question: will all this 64 bit checksumming and data self correction be much of a speed hit?

I think there are people who wouldn't spend $100 for what they consider a minor upgrade to OS X who would probably drool all over themselves at a "upgraded" revised tail light on a $50,000 new car.

Time Machine Rocks. Yes. But think about Core Animation. Apple showed just one possibility, with flat album art moving through space. What are the other possibilities? What can developers do with this technology?

Imagine a rich 3d app sitting on top of a flat os gui. It ain't going to happen. Apple will be the one to use Core Animation to the max to show developers what is possible and inspire some truly great apps.

It's an exciting time. Of course some older hardware will be incapable of dealing with this.

I can't even enjoy the ripple effect on my aging G4. Oh well.

What the hell is everyone bitching about? It was a PREVIEW, a TEASER, that in turn means NOT the whole OS. People are like “well I wouldn’t pay $130whatever for that”…. You’re a moron…. They only showed 10 features… OMG.

Carlos Net:

English - the endangered language. It beats me why computer savvy people who know, or ought to know, that one lousy missing comma in code can make a program fail take such a cavalier approach to the syntax and spelling of the English language. I refuse to read a statement that has so many errors; the author is insulting his audience to have so little regard for grammatical excellence. And that goes for some of the people who post mangled grammar to MDN.

I am so glad Apple is keeping most of Leopard secret. Not that Redmond would have the time to incorporate anything in Vista at this point, but they would start coding for the next version of windows after that, or at least make some preparations to copy. Leopard will be the one-two punch. What we know is the jab. What we don't know will be the round-house right that sends them to the canvas.

I am so jacked about the idea that Microsoft will be caught totally unaware with about 70-80% of Leopard's features.

To continue my analogy, the gloves are off. Apple has been very reserved in the past with regard to its relationship with M$. Now there seems to be a war brewing. I don't think Apple took kindly to the blatant rip-off job from Tiger. They showed no shame whatsoever. Now Apple is saying, "See if you can keep up." We aren't doing you any favors anymore.

Tiger is alreay ahead of Vista and has features that MS copied and is touting as "innovation"

Time Machine looks awesome. However all of the info on the Apple site points to it being an application, not a new filesystem. In fact, it looks an awful lot like the versioning system at work in Aperture, with a new interface.

Now, if it really is based on a full implementation of ZFS we're getting an incredibly powerful filesystem that most people won't be able to utilize on the desktop. Leopard server, on the other hand, will become a major player...

Over 99.9% of the computer-usin' population don't have a clue what the advantages of a 64-bit application is over a 32-bit one.

A 32-bit word isn't just twice as big as a 64-bit word, but it is 4.3 billion times bigger. It is all the difference between doing something 4 different ways and doing it 18 billion different ways.

In Vista, you must have the special 64-bit version of Vista for your 64-bit processor AND a real 64-bit application. If you run a 32-bit application (as most applications current are), 64-bit Vista must convert it, process it, and then convert it back. You can't always run 32-bit aps and 64-bit aps at the same time without a further slowing down.

Leopard runs the 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively and both can be run simultaneously without any loss in speed. It does it all without user intervention or knowledge, none of this information has to be known by the user to make it all work smoothly. This is a really HUGE accomplishment within the computer industry.

The Vista world is still very confusing, especially if you want to work in the new 64-bit world.

Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Vista x64 (64-bit version)


The following is from http://www.tech-recipes.com/microsoft_vista_tips1426.html ...

--start quote--

What's the problem with installing Vista x64 on a 64-bit system?

1. Most hardware does not currently have 64-bit drivers.
2. In Vista x64, any driver that is not properly signed will not be able to enter the kernel and will fail to load.
3. Vista x64 currently does not backward support most x86 (32-bit) drivers.
4. Vista x64 does not support 16-bit software.
5. Very little x64 software currently exists.

Conclusion:

Most users with 64-bit hardware should install the 32-bit (x86) version of Vista.
Vista x64 is the turning point for operating systems as they transition to 64-bit. Currently, however, the majority of users will be very disappointed by installing Vista x64. The lack of 64-bit drivers for most current hardware will be very disappointing and frustrating to most users. Why push for 64-bit now anyway? The performance gains promised by 64-bit will not be seen for years until 64-bit compiled versions of software is the norm.

--end quote--


It's VERY inexpensive to pay just $129 for Apple's unified, easy to use, state-of-the-art operating system and being able to install it regardless which Mac you own, what device drivers and software you have, and how you might use it in the future. Especially when compared to the "fun" of trying to figure out which of the many versions of Vista you should use, and then trying to make it work.

I think there is a mis-conception that "MOST OF LEOPARD" has been kept secret. I'm sure there are a few major features that haven't been shown to us. But for the most part, I believe we saw the meat and potatoes of Leopard. Apple wouldn't waste their time doing the keynote if all they were going to show us was the minor things....

64 bit, core animation, Time Machine, Spaces, revised mail, iChat, iCal, Spotlight, and Dashboard. These are major features folks. Don't expect the impossible. There is probably at least one more "top secret" major feature, and a lot of very minor ones still coming.

"Nothing in Leopard so far is worth some $130 upgrade."

Yeah, yeah, same old song. "Nothing in Tiger is worth the upgrade." "Nothing in Panther is worth the upgrade." So don't get it! I'm not planning on upgrading my 1GHz G4 PowerMac, which will be 4 years by the time Leopard comes out. Don't really see the point. (I think I'll get a Core Duo Mac mini for Leopard.)

I've now got to come up with the $$$ (and reason) to get the MacWorld conference pass, so I can at least see the keynote on remote screens...that's probably going to be Leopard Preview Part Deux, no need for a flashy extra media event. Steve's going to want to reward the loyal faithful, so Apple will keep things under the vest until then.

And I'm still hoping that Steve will have "one more thing" at MacWorld: "Leopard is available today!"

Secret Features (I hope):

Improved Dashboard - dashboard folders or something like "Spaces".

Improved Finder - speed and tabbed interface.

Improved Spotlight - better searching criteria and better implementation of virtual folders. Time Machine seems to be Spotlight based.

Improved iChat - the "whiteboard" feature is in there! Steve just didn't talk about it yesterday (as far as I can tell - I haven't been able to see the SteveNote yet).

FrontRow - TiVo-like recording capabilities.

iTunes - Lyrics search with a karaoke mode.

I think we'll find out about all the secrets in January. This preview release can go to anyone who registered for WWDC. The real preview release will come out to top-tier developers later this fall.

My 2 cents (plus more!)

64 bit, core animation, Time Machine, Spaces, revised mail, iChat, iCal, Spotlight, and Dashboard. These are major features folks. Don't expect the impossible. There is probably at least one more "top secret" major feature, and a lot of very minor ones still coming

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Amen brother, I mean seriously, look at the features of Tiger: Dashboard, Spotlight, Automator, Safari RSS. Without the top secret stuff, we've already seen as many new features in Leopard as we did with Tiger.

Also, Steve said that Leopard will include the next generation of Front Row, but didn't talk about the changes.

Loganson is correct.

Microsoft will probably freeze any enhancements to SP1 of Vista around January of next year based on the results of beta-testing and the feedback of corporate customers. SP1 will be essential to the rollout of Vista, even though image development will happen during the SP0 phase.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Microsoft still 'owes' the corporate community the release and development of XP SP3 (SP3 & Vista, who'll be able to spot the difference?) which has largely been put into deep freeze as Microsoft switched developers over to Vista. This is a situation which cannot last forever and it's fair to say that a large volume of software engineers will have to swap back to SP3 at some point in the next year or so.

By delaying the full news about Leopard until January, Apple effectively stops Microsoft from trying to plagiarize the major highlights until SP2 at the very earliest, a release which shouldn't/probably won't occur until the summer of 2008 at the earliest and probably won't happen until the spring of 2009 if XP SP2 was any guide.

By that time, Apple will probably have released Bobcat or whatever and so the dance goes on…

Ahhhh..... I like the sound of Bobcat!

Notice that the finder was mostly unchanged in the keynote. Apple has 9 months to debug and impliment the new finder.

Apple has been saying that each OS upgrade has 150-250 new features. Apple will probably break it down to more specifics in the count so that, really, we saw more like 80 new features. That leaves a lot of other features to reveal. They may or may not be as heavy as what we have seen. I have a guess that some of the best is still under wraps, or why keep it secret?

Time machine is an okay IDEA, but for all its requirements on the system is it worth it? How many times have you wished you had something you threw away? I can count it on one hand.

Don't forget Ruby on Rails, which will be included on Leopard. ROR is THE hot web technology based on the fabulous Ruby scripting language, which is a totally object oriented message passing scripting language (like Smalltalk, but with more familiar syntax). Ruby shares a lot of similarities to Objective C, the language in which OS X is written.

ROR is displacing Java in many shops for web development. It is a big winner.

I know what else might be left in the dust; anybody with non-Intel machines. According to an Apple source, Leopard will not run on anything but Intel. Don't know how much he really knows about it but that's the word we got. So if you plunked down good money for a G5 last week, you may be stuck with Tiger...

According to an Apple source, Leopard will not run on anything but Intel.
_________________

According to a developer posting on appleinsider.com, Leopard will run on all g4, g5 and Intel based machines. Core animation will obviously be cripled on machines without the graphics power.

The developer was posting from WWDC. But even so, it doesn't take much common sense to realize that with 90% of Apple's installed base still on PPC architecture, there is no way in hell they would release an Intel-only OS. There wouldn't be enough people to sell the software to, to make it profitable.

trevorMac,

I believe you're wrong on that. Somebody posted requirements for Leopard on here the other day, and it included G4's and G5's. A quick survey of the Apple website did not reveal anything on requirements though. Either for or against your statement.

Intels are such a small subset of Apple's installed base (particularly their high end machines like the Quad G5s) that it would be stupid to cut off 80% of their customer base at the knees.

That said, its likely that some features like Core Animation may be disabled on the lower end G-series processors due to horsepower limitations, but most of the real meat should work fine for all but the oldest machines.

Apple's installed base is roughly 20 million users.

Last quarter they shipped 1.3 million Macs and about 1 million the quarter before. Of those 2.3 million Macs, 75% of them were intel based. That equates to 1.8 million Intel machines out of 20 million users. Apple isn't developing a brand new OS for less than 10% of it's installed base. Trust Logic.

I agree on all the above points. In fact I expressed utter disbelief when my peer gave me that information. He got it from an Apple sales rep who stated that he didn't need the 36 month software maintenance agreement because he would not be able to run any new OS on the G5's he is buying (needs Classic support, don't ask...).

And if G5 and G4 procs are supported I would hope for his sake that Classic is supported as well!

Well, the Leopard preview runs on my G4 and the Read before install explicitly mentions G4, G5 and Intel Macs and recommended RAM and free disk space.

trevorMac, either your peer is a liar or he got it all wrong or the Apple sales rep was a truly lousy one. I opt for the first two combined.

ZFS and new Finder coming to Mac OS 10.5 folks. I've seen the future and the future is now!