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61 Comments
- viniciusfontes, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37O-oh, that delusional mental disorder that affects Gates is spreading!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27add ram - 2 GB minimum
also try archive and install while maintaining Users and Prefs
and, yes, I am a developer who gets seeds
very little to knock 10.5 right now except iChat sever -- but when its done it'll be a real winner.
NeXT finally comes home... - insidius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23I just hope to god your joking. As for when the presentation was it does not really matter that much. If tiger was realeased with spotlight in 05 then obviously they had already been working on it for quite some time.
How long has it taken Microsoft to even get it's version to market? - ajchavar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22spotlight already kind of works as an app launcher, you highlight the app and hit enter or click it. . .so i doubt they stole that from vista rather than refined something they already had. . .
i'll admit i love apple, but people need to realize its possible that both companies can come up with similar ideas independently. . .making a search tool extand into application launching is a logical step, so why couldn't both companies come up with it separately? because people need to fan the flames and insist that apple steals this or vista steals that. while it may or may not be true, does it matter? if youre happy with your OS who cares? ther is no real reason to bash PCs or Macs, if you don't like one, use the other, if you don't like either, get ubuntu.
/rant - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22I have trouble believing that Windows has been using instant search for years, it takes over a minute to find a file using search in XP, whiel I'll have a whole list in seconds with OSX.
- aristotle0dude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Interesting, maybe you should talk to Jim Allchin who was at the Apple WWDC in 2004:
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=45037
I quote:
'Lenn Pryor, former director of Microsoft's platform evangelism, said Spotlight, the new Mac OS X 10.4 search tool that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs highlighted at the conference, was "amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn-land today." Pryor now works for Skype.
Allchin agreed. "I don't believe we will have search this fast," he wrote in an emailed reply 30 June, 2004.'
They also went on to say:
'Another Microsoft evangelist, Vic Gundotra, who also attended the conference demonstration of Mac OS X (Tiger), noted other impressive components of Apple's operating system, including video conferencing, what Apple calls desktop "widgets" (which Vista ended up calling "gadgets"), and user interface rendering.
"The bits we deliver in 05 September PDC [Professional Developers Conference] must be compelling, even in beta form," Gundotra wrote in his message of 30 June. "UI must be hot. We will be directly compared against tiger." Gundotra recently left Microsoft, and will join Google after a year's sabbatical to abide by a non-compete clause.' - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14It's not difficult to use spotlight as an app launcher now. Here's the sequence...
Press Apple+space
Type 3 or 4 letters
Press Apple+enter
After you do it a few times you can do it pretty quickly.
Next, I really don't care if Apple stole the idea or Microsoft stole the idea. Everyone should have access to features like this. - kinesis8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12@ viniciusfontes & Catullus
It's for advertising revenue. Having you go through 5 separate pages lets them throw a different ad at you each page. Small price to pay considering it is free. - rauz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The whole article on one page:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9011005 - viniciusfontes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@NateB2:
"Also, I haven't tried this in OS X, but can you launch control panels in Tiger (or Leopard)?"
Yes you can.
And if you're in System Preferences (roughly the equivalent of Control Panel), you can type things like "adjust clock" and System Preferences will show you which option you must choose to do that. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Depends on when that presentation was. Tiger was released with Spotlight in 2005, when was the Longhorn presentation?
- fox, on 04/11/2009, -0/+9hope the app launcher will be able to learn like quicksilver. thats really the only thing I use quicksilver for anyway (I know I know, it so powerful and can do so much more).
- unit101, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Spotlight was a logical evolution of Sherlock which existed in OS 9 for years. That's why Apple release indexed searching years before Vista came out. A lot of features in Longhorn that were demo'ed were vaporware like WinFS (real indexed searching) which never even made it to the final release of Vista. Just because you demo vaporware, doesn't mean you thought of it first. Apple actually delivers on their promises, which is what really counts in the end.
- viniciusfontes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I just can't understand why they split articles along several pages. Hey guys, it's the web, not a printed magazine/newspaper!
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Principles of web design 101
If it's too long, most people won't read it.
If your page loads slowly, you're giving the reader opportunity to change their mind and just surf another page.
Splitting pages up allows users to take a break and pick up where they left off very quickly.
The psychology of Internet browsing is pretty interesting. - wphj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Thanks for that. 5 pages?!
- Me1000, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Lets go apple kick vista's ass with leopard!
oh nevermind, they already did with tiger! - jeffgtr, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12It's really fast for me. You might want to run disk warrior
- playerZero, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Not sure why this is being dugg down. I have a MacBook Pro and Spotlight responds pretty well for me. But on my PPC-based Mac Mini it really is pretty clunky. Anyone burying this comment want to give some suggestions instead?
@nycmac247:
2GB RAM to run Leopard, is that what you're saying? Dang, and MS got crap for Vista requiring 1GB. My MBP can only use 2GB, i hope you're not saying that i'm going to be running on the minimum suggested amount! - NateB2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@noahhoward
The NTFS filesystem has supported indexing and instant searching since before 2000, but the functionality was not implemented efficiently in Windows until Vista. The instant search add-on Microsoft released for XP uses this capability. - imcquill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like the mail search feature, but one thing that bugs me, is when you find messages in mail, by default it organizes by 'rank' instead of 'date'. And there seems to be no way to change the default, so everytime you search, you have to go and click 'date' before getting good search results. The 'rank' option seems to be total crap.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's missing a lot more than that. Custom metadata types, full XMP support, embedded metadata, etc. There is a long way to go until OS X becomes really useful for metadata but I am sure it will get there eventually.
As it is, it's too difficult to add metadata to files and the metadata is carried separately from files which makes loss of work adding metadata too easy. For instance, spotlight comments are stored in a database. If the database is deleted, so are the comments. If the files are moved to a different system, the comments don't follow. Picasa, the photo album program from Google, stores keywords you add directly into each file. By contrast, iPhoto stores them in an index. Move your images somewhere else and they don't follow. As an example, consider mp3 files. The genre, artist, year, etc is metadata stored inside each file. If iTunes worked like iPhoto or spotlight, if you copied your songs to your work PC using Windows, you would have nothing but the file name left and you would have to re-enter all the metadata. - NivenHuH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Try to rebuild your spotlight index...
From terminal:
$ sudo mdutil -i off /
$ sudo mdutil -E /
$ sudo mdutil -i on /
Make sure you don't interrupt the indexing process.. that'll cause issues sometimes. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I fyou think desktop search in XP is anything like Spotlight, I question whether you have ever used either operating system.
- zephc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Exit" in the Dock? What? Screenshots?
- TheKeithD, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Well, different strokes for different folks. I personally love Quicksilver. Put my dock on the top, shrunk it, and hid it, to keep it out of view.
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Spotlight does need a minimum of RAM to be speedy. I'd say that 512MB is a minimum, 1GB is a little better if you use more than Safari and iTunes, but 2GB is an overkill.
Also, Spotlight may take a few seconds to return results the first time you launch it after a boot-up, but after that it's extremely quick, and that even on a 800Mhz PPC. I don't know about Vista, but Spotlight is way faster than anything I've seen on Windows.
So anyone saying that Spotlight is slow either has less than 512MB of RAM, or use it so rarely that when they do it's usually the first time after a boot-up. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Spotlight + Apple Mail (search feature and smart folders) make my work life much much easier. Looking forward to the 10.5 enhancements!
- BEDrocko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4you shouldn't need more RAM... the best suggestion I could give you would be to try and rebuild your spotlight index... generically speaking 95% of the problems you'll have with a search tool are going to be rooted in the index rather than the implementation
just google: rebuild spotlight index
you should come up with some helpful sites - HesNikke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ruaz, you made my friends list for that link! :D
- danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This whole who copied who argument is lame. Yes windows desktop search came out for XP about the same time as Tiger. I have had it installed on my XP machine at work for a long time now. Is it as good as Splotlight in Tiger? No for a few reasons. It runs as a background indexing task which makes your XP machine run slow becaue it takes about 3 minutes for the task to actually shut itself off. Spotlight on the other hand once the initial indexing is complete all updates are made to the index using hooks in the OS in real time as files are changed. The vista search looks great just like Spotlight, MS had other things they had to worry about besides getting this feature out as fast as possble. Apple went through the same thing 5 years ago durring the transition from OS 9 to OS X.
- dalesmatrix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For me Ithink they'd be better off buying out quicksilver and including it in the OS, why recreate the wheel when you can aquire it. Best way of launching apps I've seen.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Are you sure spotlight comments are only stored in the spotlight database? As far as I could tell, they are stored in the filesystem metadata for a file.
The nive thing is the filesystem is all set as far as metadata support goes - you can have arbitrary metadata filelds in a file. What is not there yet is a good GUI to reach the abilities the filesystem has. - otomo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Heh, right now the problem is open up XDarwin in the latest seed, right click in dock and choose exit.
Kernel panic every time! The joys of beta.
Spotlight is getting better, but if it seems slow you probably need more ram. OSX loves the ram. - nandabanaotakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Stopped reading after the writer showed he didn't realize that Spotlight can be used as a launcher already by hitting Cmd-Enter.
Why are you writing an article on upcoming/advanced features if you don't know the basics? - sleepwalkers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@jamesacklin: I hated Quicksilver at first, too, but it really is an app that's so powerful it takes a week or so of you forcing yourself to use it to get used to it and really love it. Over the past few months, I've started to use Quicksilver and I'm not looking back. You can do a lot of little tasks (changing permissions, easily manipulate iTunes, run shell scripts, etc.) easier under Quicksilver than it would doing them on their own. It doesn't necessarily do anything new or unique, just makes it easier.
Just install Quicksilver, disable your Spotlight hotkeys, and have Quicksilver take them over. You'll quickly grow to love it, I promise you. - logicnazi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hope they fix spotlight to make it easier to use with the command line. Right now it is difficult (I still don't know how) to configure spotlight to search all the various unix style directories you might keep command line utilities in (/usr/local/bin etc..). I realize this shouldn't be a feature enabled by default but it is too hard to tell spotlight to index what you want. As a result I am still using locate even though mdfind would be a much nicer solution. What would really be nice is if you could have separate domains so that all these unixy files could be searched seperatly (mdfind -domain unix). There is probably some clever trick to do this now (mounting them as some weird drive?) and I would love to hear it if someone knows but it should be easier.
A bit more documentation on writing spotlight importers would be nice as well. Still overall I'm always impressed at the way OS X software is designed. - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or he should reset Spotlight index using Onyx. This had made my Spotlight way faster for me.
- kinesis8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ jamesacklin
I felt the same way too, but it's really one of those programs where you have to leave it installed for a few days so that it slowly grows on you. It's the only way I launch apps now. I still use Spotlight for searching docs, but for opening apps, folders, and handling files, Quicksilver is the way to go.
If you're still skeptical about the usefulness of Quicksilver, compare the speed of launching an app through Quicksilver and then through Spotlight. You may or may not catch it at first, but now that I've used Quicksilver long enough, there is definitely a noticable speed difference that easily favors Quicksilver.
The simple fact that the upcoming Spotlight in Leopard automatically selects the application top hit means Apple is taking it in the right direction. - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know that Quicksilver would be all that much faster - did you know about Apple-Enter that selects and runs the top item in Spotlight results (which I have set as applications)?
- ThreeDee912, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1FindByContent Indexing was back in Mac OS 7, which was released around 1994. Apple really didn't do anything with it until OS 10.4.
- SlpingInsomniac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Leopard 10.5 system requirements
You must have a Macintosh computer with:
an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
a DVD drive
built-in FireWire
at least 256 MB of RAM for a Power-PC based Mac and 512 MB for an Intel-based Mac (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)
a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
at least 6 GB of disk space available, or 8 GB if you install the developer tools
a quick google sear returned http://theplaceforitall.com/105requirements.html - viniciusfontes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quick Look looks very promising. It's the only thing Spotlight lacks, in my opinion.
- M4cb0y, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't understand what's new about the recent items 'feature'. Isn't it already in the Apple menu?
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, I will say this. I have tried several tools and methods and have still not managed to add metadata to a file in OS X and have it still existing if the file is moved to a Windows partition. I've spent many hours trying to find a solution. Until metadata can be maintained when a file is moved from system to system, I consider it to be incomplete and not worth investing time in. I can understand that there are downsides to embedded metadata. Each addition requires the file to be saved. Consider the time required to change the genre of an album in iTunes as an example. But there should be the option of creating embedded metadata as well as non-embedded metadata.
- ramaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As long as they change the default search category to the *file name* rather than the contents of the file, I'll be good.
Spotlight in Tiger is irritating because of this. Nine times out of ten when I am searching I already know enough to guess parts of the file name. No need to dig up a large pile of irrelevant files. Having to manually select "name" from the menu every time is annoying and seems to miss the whole point of fast searching.
(If any of you have found a way to change this preference in Spotlight, so that the first results to appear are matching filenames rather than file contents, please post it - I couldn't find it. Thanks!) - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In my opinion, on fast systems, Spotlight is just as good of an application launcher as Quicksilver. It's more useful in this role on slower systems because much less data is indexed. Also, many users will find Quicksilver to be too complicated.
- dynamitedude, on 01/23/2009, -0/+0I love my mac, I do all kinds of stuff with it.
http://www.fharefinancestreamline.com - kinesis8, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3*deleted*
- BEDrocko, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2There's a difference between copying a feature and implementing it. Case in point: Apple's Mac OS and the soon to follow Windows OS... Apple implemented it, Windows copied it; Mac OS worked, Windows didn't. Much like Vista... if Apple were really copying as you claim, their implementation would have just sucked. It really doesn't matter much whether a feature is a copy or not. The real question is which implementation is better, and if you've tried to run Vista with full graphics and features functions with 1GB of RAM you'd know what horrible implementation is.
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