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125 Comments
- Glenn, on 10/12/2007, -17/+42I totally agree Ireland. Apple have a way of taking existing application and technologies and making them easier to understand, and more simple to use.
Take podcasting for an example... - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -19/+42I don't care, people keep on bringing this up. I can guarantee Apple's solution is easier to customize, easier to use, and just better. Besides there's a ***** load of features to come, people can complain all they want, but Leopard will sell, it will be cool, and I for 1 million will definitely buy it.
- vince1731, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25Pretty much every new feature that apple has going for leopard is an already available application.
Apple just makes it look sexy (hence, leopard) - EGOvoruhk, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25This just looks like a re-write up of the Leopard site on Apple.com
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/
Is there anything new, or useful here? Maybe I missed it - fcodc, on 10/12/2007, -12/+27You know... there's something like Spaces available right now called VirtueDesktops. I recently gave it a spin for a post, and it's awesome. A good substitute until Leopard hits (unless Spaces turns out inferior).
- wordsofwisedumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I would say to look for a dramatically improved Finder for several reasons:
1. It's long overdue.
2. It's long overdue.
3. If Apple added tabs to iChat and not to Finder the world will explode. - wordsofwisedumb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Cubes are very non-intuitive if you have more than six virtual desktops.
- TheCount, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"Mac OS X Leopard is already looking like a huge step forward from Tiger..."
Is this true? I don't see it just yet. - devoinregress, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Think about the space hog the way back mechine will be... I am just seeing the hidden files filling up my computer...
It has taken way too long for virtual desktops to go main stream. At last, why am I not impressed... - DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm curious, does any of these "other" virtual desktop utilities enable you to get an interactive overview of all your desktops, where you can drag-and-drop the little windows between virtual desktops?
- LocalScope, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@rickcarson
I read your post and couldn't help wondering what Windows you were using. I have never had to do more than plug my computer to get an IP or let Windows find my wireless network automatically. As for programs on Windows, I rarely find anything that isn't as simple as: click install.exe, watch blue bar, use program.
Half of your post seems to be "I had to use windows and don't normally use it so I found it tough to do things in". That's a shocker. The fact you used the word "forced" makes me believe you went to the system with a closed mind and probably sat there the whole time complaining you had to use something different. - eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -12/+17Honestly, there's nothing really that new or that exciting about it. Vista, either. Is this really all we have to look forward to? :( I really hope the secret features are more impressive.
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Thats the nice thing about Microsoft vs Apple...
Microsoft haven't finished removing features they originally announced for their next OS...
Apple haven't finished announcing the features that will be in their next OS...
I've stopped telling people the latest reason I like Macs, it is just... I dunno... too cruel.
The flip side of that is that I also no longer listen to their tales of woe and mistreatment at the hands of their abusive OS relationship.
Example: my friend who has been using computers for about 20 years now (and is very tech savvy: he is an engineer) bought a computer a couple of weeks ago, it arrived this week and I went round to his place a couple of days later only to discover that bits of it are still scattered around his lounge (I think they were non-essentials like speakers). He has some fun time ahead trying to configure his network for the new machine.
Am I going to tell him how great my iMac is? No. Am I going to tell him how I just plugged it in and it just worked? No. Am I going to tell him about how I (who knows practically nothing about wireless networking or any other kind of networking) just plugged my Airport Express module into a power socket, plugged the ethernet cable from the router into it and wahoo, my iMac had network access just like that? No. What do you think I am, a sadist?
In the two years since I started using macs my 'Dream System' (top range power mac + two 30 inch monitors) has dropped in price by about $1000, even though I now add in a whole lot of 'doodads' that I never thought were even worth spitting on.
Take bluetooth for instance. I had started to get a bit frustrated with all the cabling required for my G4 mac mini. Sure, I can pack it up into a backpack and haul it round the world, but unpacking it and plugging everything in is a pain in the butt.
With the iMac, which came with bluetooth built in, I went from about 10 cables (and a *serious* shortage of USB slots) to two; power, and mouse cord. The wireless keyboard is great, wireless internet is cool (not blazingly fast I admit, but cool none the less). It is so easy to do what I want.
Now I wish I'd paid the extra $100 for bluetooth on the mini. Ah hindsight.
But it isn't just hardware, it is software as well, lets start with configuration and packaging of programming tools. This is at least an order of magnitude better on the Mac than on a Dell. Recently on the piece of work I bought the (refurbed = cheaper) iMac for, they provided the permanent staff with new Dells. I was up and running and productive in a couple of hours. Over the entire course of the project my total tools setup was 0.5 hours (including things I'd never used before, such as one particular database and its administration tools) + 1 day for Netbeans (an axe of a related kind which I will spare you the grinding thereof). The windows guys on their Dells spent about three weeks configuring them, and still hadn't gotten some of the basic tools (e.g. Ant) to work. On the iMac, Ant works. I have no idea where it is intalled or what its configuration parameters are, because it was already there out of the box. How sexy is that? On the Dells they still don't have their java classpaths nailed down quite right. On the iMac the JDK 1.5 came as standard (actually I think it was a software update really early in the project but hey, I no complain).
For the Mac basically it boils down to this: either the tools are out there, packaged and good to go, or they aren't. If they aren't, then *substitutes that are* are available. Just take the path of lowest resistance, it is all good.
Whereas on Windows, everything you want is out there, but they all come 'ready to configure'. The Good Lord help you if you accidentally download the Windows 2000 version instead of the XP version (for instance), because until you figure out that mistake, you're going to be fiddling with the configuration wondering why it doesn't work.
As for the 'usability' of the operating systems, I've used both. Recently I got forced at work to use XP (on a remote machine) where I couldn't just set the start menu back to classic. Finding things in the menu has been hard for me. But I noticed today that the start menu tries to adapt to what you are doing (I think), it changes things to try to make it better for you (this is, in theory, a very cool thing). Whereas on the Mac... things stay where you put them.
One of these is in practice, much easier to work with than the other. Let me rephrase it this way: on the Mac you can customise it in all sorts of amazing ways, according to your own whims and work practices - and things stay where you put them.
Whereas on Windows, things move around seemingly at random, and don't necessarily stay where you put them.
Still confused about which one is much less frustrating to work with? Here's a hint, it ain't the one coming out of Redmond.
As for another common complaint on Digg, games. Well, I'm a heavy gamer and I don't have any problems getting my 'fix' on the Mac. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Guess what so do mac users. They are all available as third party add-ons, Leopard just looks to be much more elegant, user friendly, and hopefully stable.
- kigabit, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Well, I'm usually an avid Windows fan, but I have to say that Apple certainly has a knack for making applications efficient and intuitive. It's nice to see a clean interface like what Apple produces in contrast to the everyday bloat I encounter in Windows.
- gharding, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The only thing that will change the way I work is if Finder comes with a ***** refresh button. I don't think adding comic strips to the dashboard is going to change the way I work.
- pupppet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8"and with many top secret features yet to come, how's Leopard going to change the way you work?"
So are we supposed to sit around imagining how these unknown features will change the way we work? What is the point of this article? - chongli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4danielwsmithee:
If you'd looked at the screen more carefully, there is also an option labeled "Automatically".
This, presumably, would back up files as they are changed.
Without this option, Apple would not be able to claim that you are protected from accidentally hitting 'Save' instead of 'Save As...'.
Here is the screenshot:
http://techpedia.org/t/Techpedia-Pages/Image4.html - signal15, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Don't get me wrong, but Spaces is hardly an Apple innovation. Virtue Desktops and CodeTek (not working on Intel yet) have been available for Mac for some time. However, they've been available in Unix ever since FVWM, which I believe came out in 1993 or 1994.
I got hooked on them back then, and I can't live without them now. It's nice that they are finally integrated into the OS, one less thing for me to mess around with installing and updating all the time. Hopefully they will have a "sane" configuration system for paging using the mouse, like one that relies upon mouse acceleration rather than time spent on the edge of the screen. - JimMacFly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Is the whole "spaces" debate really a debate ? Yes apple took the idea from other distribution and yes they made it better by offering the drag and drop possibility.
What's the big deal with it ? If you copy something without doing anything or you make it worse, sure you can be blamed but if you add something nice and useful I think it's kinda great. - priceless721, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7yeah when was the last time windows packaged anything useful WITH the operating system? You can use a mac os right out of the box when i put windows on a new comp i have to download dozens of programs to make it work right
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@delmonte:
"I'm curious, does any of these "other" virtual desktop utilities enable you to get an interactive overview of all your desktops, where you can drag-and-drop the little windows between virtual desktops?"
Yes, enlightenment has had this feature since around version 0.13 or 0.14 which was around 1997 or 1998 if I recall correctly. The pager showed updated snapshots of each windows, and you could move them around each virtual desktop.
Enlightenment also had a large virtual desktop, where each screen was part of a much larger desktop. With edge flipping, you could just slide your mouse and your screen would scroll to the next part. However while some people liked that feature, I kinda found the edge flipping annoying :)
Plus, E0.17 seems to be coming along nicely. Check it out at http://www.enlightenment.org - mikeoh, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15Spaces... cmon sure its easy and intuitive but its not a new feature. Unix and Linux users have had it for years. A mail program with notes, todos and integration with a calender, revolutionary... not. Outlook, Kontact, Evolution have had these for years. TimeMachine... backups again not revolutionary. All these features have existed before and when Apple puts then in its becomes revolutionary.
You must be blind if you are willing to pay for an upgrade for these features. Unless their 'secret' features are really revolutionary, Leopard will be seriously, seriously weak.
Use a proper operating system like Linux. - dogonwheels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Agh. Why are people so concerned about the disk space usage for Time Machine? It's clearly not going to store copies of *everything*, just the deltas. And I don't believe most people have their working set (i.e. the files that change on a day to day basis) taking up most of the disk space! You ain't going to change your MP3s or ripped DVDs very often - and they (If you're anything like me) take up a hell of a lot more than any 'document' that you work on.
Our CVS repository at the place I work, for example, is 30gb. That's 8 years of 30 people working on big chunks of software. Mainly source code, admittedly, but still!
Sigh. - Rickard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It's not. The consensus among articles I've read and my own opinion is that the what they showed at WWDC was pretty thin. I mean, he spent 5 minutes demoing fricken e-mail templates.
- m00dy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3im sure some dev will come up with an addon to force timemachine to start backing up only when your external drive plugs into your firewire port
- mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Fluxbox/Gnome/KDE/etc else has virtual desktops built in. Its available as a PowerToy for XP. I am actually surprised that OSX has taken this long to get it. When I had my mac, virtual desktops was one of the biggest things i missed from my Linux and Windows systems.
- Jeffrey903, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Thanks for explaining that. I missed the article and I understand. So basically how I hoped it would work is very similar to the way that it does.
- caliform, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3As you _might_ have noticed, the iPod doesn't have speakers. The quality of it's audio output is wholly dependant on the headphones or speakers you plug into it. Solution: plug iPod into your Bose Radio!
I am not even responding to your OS-specific post because it's just blown out of your ass. - Deegz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Almost every new feature in Tiger was available in Panther in some way or another, no dought the same will be true for Leopard. But the fact it's "Built In", is what's impressive to me. I peronally hope they intergrate Default Folder X's recent folder features, and other things the real world can use...
Still, this means we will never have to pay those shareware fees again, leaving us with the next question, can these great application developers survive..... - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Time Machine does not do backups in real-time. There was digg article earlier showing the preference pane for iTunes. You set a time (i.e. Midnight) to perform a backup every day. A backup is performed of all the files that have changed. If for whatever reason the drive you have set to use as a backup is not available all that will happen is when you come to your computer in the morning it will have a dialog stating that it was unable to perform the backup.
Time machine is really just a nice user interface to Backup.app that you can currently get with a .Mac membership. Hooks were put into the sytem to be able to use the interface (it works in iPhoto). - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5 That is because it would not be intuitive on a Mac to rotate on a cube because that is already used for fast user switching.
- caliform, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh god, enough with the cubes already. It's purely visual appeal, not usability or the other values Apple tries to work into the applications. It's intuitive to see a desktop slide out of the screen and making way for another as it gives a sense of space and direction. Besides, as I don't see Core Image making it's exit any day soon (as said in the Keynote, Core Animation will be able to use Core Image transitions (for non-mac using developers: like the cube)) you will be able to use it in Spaces, it just won't be the default transition. Thank god.
- ericeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think so many people are used to getting things done right with Apple that they get totally blind-sided by any flaw no matter how big or small. A few people make note of the flaw, the fanboys kick into full gear with solutions fixes and/or excuses, and than the Windows users go and bash the fanboys for 'not accepting' the flaw. It's a vicious cycle.
- trulymadly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2its probably implemented with a journaling filesystem. for certain kinds of files this won't waste much space.
- mrdubU, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Just sold my last PC. This is so!!!! cool!!!
Apple just brings it all together in one simple app that makes me wonder why people would want to buy any thing else.
I teach comp apps to 1st-12th grades at three schools and every time I have to use windows it just makes me mad! It could be done so much easier on a mac that it takes up most of my time trying to fix the xp errors. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sorry typo "iTunes" should be "Time Machine."
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Lest we not forget that XGL/Compiz appeared AFTER Apple's lovely innovations in that area.
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9@jinno
Unfortunately if you bash apple here on digg, you will get modded down regardless of how true your comment is.
And yea a lot of what Apple has introduced in Leopard has existed before in XP and in window managers for Unix. What Apple does do however, is make it look good in a prepackaged cookies kind of way. - hangtown, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I was going to mark this down for restating nothing new compared to the information we already got from the keynote until I realized the author of the blog is a 14 year old. I hereby cut him some slack and admit he does a great job of writing for a 14 year old. Naturally he's from New Zealand and has never had to endure the American education system, nor does he have the maturity of a 5 year old, which our 14 year olds generally have in this country in recent years.
Actually he's got a nice looking site, and if he keeps writing, he's going to make a career of it someday by my guess. - avatarpalin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The cube does look pretty sweet.
- Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Exactly what I was thinking. At this stage in the announcements we really don't know enough about what is coming to make much of a determination of the full impact. Sure, Spaces will be useful and Time Machine will add a nice security blanket in case things go wrong, but neither really radically changes things so I'm expecting, at this stage, business as normal.
From my side the announcement that excites me the most is Xcode 3.0. The details on the web site, particularly with reference to Objective-C 2.0 and it's garbage collector (YAY!!!), means that I've looking forwards to this more than any of the consumer features at this time. - d2nd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@danielwsmithee
You are completely right, there is NO reason why somebody else couldn't come up with something. But Apple did it first, and have effectively set a standard that almost every podcast follows. Competitors could create their own format that supports these additional features, but would content creators use it? What incentive would they have to create these new format files when there is already the widely accepted Apple format? For whatever reasons, podcast creators still focus on being displayed in iTunes.
So in short Im complaining that Apple created such a successful podcast format that it has become a defacto standard with no real competitors.
Zune will have wifi, so PC-less podcasts updates should be possible (a great feature), but it looks like the large screen will be used to display the same tag info as any other normal mp3... weak - n00bst3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Ubuntu actually does a pretty good job of this already.
- tigerpaper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1panther, tiger, leopard, lion, sabertooth....
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2What drives you Windows users nuts is not having a decent OS update in 5 years, dealing with spyware/viruses, and the fact that Windows is no where near as good as Mac OS X.
- goodcompany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not to dis VirtueDesktops, but half of the settings in the application prefs don't actually work, and it's development cycle seems almost as stalled as Desktop Manager (the project which VD had taken it's code base from).
Spaces is not a new idea, but neither was the iPod. It will be great to see it refined and at the same time simplified. The ability to drag apps across desktop...sorry,..."SPACES" is awesome, and being able to lock an application to a specific space is also sweet. I for one welcome my new SPACES overlord. - caliform, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed, as the tone in this keynote seems to be "Tabs, tabs, tabs" and I assume they don't want Redmond using a tabbed Windows Explorer before they see to it that Finder becomes usable.
- jrsims, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1About three years ago, I would agree. These days, new PCs have disk space to burn. An application like Time Machine now makes sense.
- mrdubU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well if everybody here thinks that they or it was there before Leopard you are in the minority, because most and I mean 99.9% of the real world that are not geeks do not know or have not used these apps from any source.
If you want to play with an OS get Windows, and if you want to get work done get a mac.
Sorry you just cannot see it from one who teaches the next gen of geeks. -
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