Leopard
Latest
Leopard Developer Application Technologies Overview
Everyone in the Mac world is waiting for with anticipation! No, I'm not talking about the end of Macheist, I'm talking about Leopard, the next version of Apple's operating system. If you want to get a glimpse of what is in store from us straight from the horse's mouth you should check out the Leopard Developer Application Technologies Overview, the latest in the Leopard Technology Series on Apple's website.This article gives us some insight into iChat Theater, Time Machine, and a slew of other lovely Leopard bits.
Wil Shipley reveals Delicious Library 2 details
Wil Shipley - founder of Delicious Monster, co-founder of The Omni Group with Ken Case and Tim Wood and perhaps one of the most vocal Mac developers - has revealed some details of Delicious Library 2, a much-anticipated follow up to an app that claims a healthy selection of awards (just check the bottom of the product site). In an interview with Jacqui Cheng of Infinite Loop, Mr. Shipley waxes about his companies, charity, MacHeist controversy and - more specifically to this post - what we can expect in Delicious Library 2, and when. New in DL2 will be support for "MUCH, MUCH larger" collections (thanks to what I assume will be the use of Apple's CoreData), smart shelves, a much updated and "snazzier, snappier" UI to align itself with Apple's iApps, lots of tiny updates to sprinkle joy in various places, as well as a couple of features he's keeping up his sleeve. As far as when DL2 ships, Wil gets somewhat suspicious with his answer: "Our aim is to ship the day Leopard ships, as we will be Leopard-only. We don't actually know when that is, which adds an extra element of excitement to this release." Hmm... he know DL2 will be Leopard-only, but he doesn't know when the Big Cat ships? I admittedly don't have much more to go on here, but something about that seems fishy. Apple's statement on Leopard, as far as we know, is still 'Spring 2007,' so we'll just have to see what happens at Macworld in January.
Furry 360 faceplate is ... furry
Xbox-Scene got some pictures of Talismoon's new upcoming furry faceplates. Just like their furry controller sisters, the faceplate comes in leopard and sexy cow print. I'm thinking these will be more user friendly then the furry controller's (sweat + germs = disgusting fur controller), but I'm not overly sure these have that "cool" factor. And I love the disclaimer that reads: "Synthetic fur, please note no animals were hurt in the production of the 'evolve Wild Jungle' edition faceplates". You're not buying these ... are you?[Thanks, GP2S]
New Leopard Build Introduces New Feature, Tweaks
The latest build of Leopard, (9A303) introduced some small but nifty features to the list of enhancements that will ship with the new OS next year. Lets take a look: QuickLook is a new feature which allows users to view a full size preview of any image by right clicking on it, without having to open up the full Preview application. The workflow for creating Dashboard Web Clips has changed. Instead of having to first open Dashboard, users can now create Web Clips directly within Safari. When connecting a new external storage device, Leopard will ask you if would like to use the drive as a Time Machine backup drive. The Spaces switching dialog is now a glossy black. Small news, but news none the less, and we'll take anything we can get until we see some new announcements from Mr. Jobs himself.
iSlayer - Vector, Bitmap, and Resolution Independence
Dashboard developer iSlayer has posted an interesting article examining the implications resolution independence (a new feature in Leopard) will have on icon design. Even before the issue of resolution independence, UI designers have been in two camps regarding the use of bitmap vs vector files for icons. It is in the nature of vector images to scale, but things get a bit out of proportion and wonky- looking after a while. Bitmap images can be tweaked to a designer's heart's content, but that means they have to produce a different image for each possible eventual icon size. iSlayer breaks down the deeper pros and cons of each format, including resource usage and if there is really a need for such high resolution interface components. Definitely a must read for those in, or interested in Mac interface design.
Mooooo! New animal-themed PSP faceplates coming soon
Talismoon, the same company that brought us the Evolve line of PSP face plates, is gearing up to do something we haven't seen before - fur-themed faceplates. Yeah, you read that right. Cow and leopard-themed PSP faceplates with a fur-like finish will be available soon for $15 a hide."With the Talismoon upcoming range of Evolve 'Wild Jungle' edition for the PSP and Xbox 360, gamers will be treated to extreme levels of comfort thanks to a soft 'like fur' finish, as well as refreshing and unique new look," a press release stated. "Both sets of faceplates for PSP and Xbox 360 will come complete with everything needed for a pain-free install, and each fur faceplate pattern will be unique. Initial stocks will consist of a 'cow' or striking 'leopard' fur finish." I'm not totally sure I want my PSP feeling like a cow when I'm playing a game of Warhammer, but this is just so bizarre, I'm going to have to buy one anyway.[Via PSP-Vault]
TextMate 2.0 will likely be Leopard-only
In what would seem, on the surface, to be an odd move for a text editor, Macromates has stated that TextMate 2.0 will almost certainly be Leopard-only. Allan Odgaard gives some good reasons as to why, though. And it's not just because the Halloween icon will look better with Leopard's resolution independence!Rather than paraphrase him, I'll paste what he's already said quite well:First of all, 2.0 is a free upgrade, so I won't miss out on any upgrade fees from people that want to stay on Panther or Tiger. Secondly, roughly 90% of my users are early adopters and have in all likelihood upgraded to Leopard within a few months of its release, so by keeping compatibility with older operating systems I am catering to less than 10% of my users. Thirdly, it has a significant cost to stay backwards compatible, this price is paid in the form of: Time spent debugging (and sometimes making workarounds for) issues only present on the older OS version. Time spent implementing stuff that Apple offers for free on the new version of the OS. Not being able to make use of features only present on latest version of the OS when it's too impractical to conditionally make use of them. Code complexity, because it needs to do different things on different versions of the OS. Is eliminating those costs worth a 10% drop in sales? You bet they are! The reason why I have kept Panther compatibility for this long has nothing to do with additional sales and all to do with me just not liking to cut people off. I think Allan defends his decision quite well. Much better than Adobe does, in regard to Soundbooth's lack of PowerPC support. There's more to Allan's statement, but you should hop over to his blog to read the rest of it and let him know your thoughts on the issue. To balance any potential backlash, Macromates will surely win a few hearts and minds by the free TextMate 2.0 upgrade. Any other TextMate users out there have an opinion on this?
Leopard Tech Talk
Leopard is a pretty big deal to developers and users alike, and Apple knows this. That's why they are kicking off a series of Tech Talks around North America that are geared towards helping developers, both big and small, to prepare for Leopard.The Tech Talk schedule is as follows: San Francisco, CA: December 1 Portland, OR: December 6 Seattle, WA: December 8 Chicago, IL: December 13 Toronto, ON, Canada: December 15 Los Angeles, CA: January 19 Boston, MA: January 22 New York, NY: January 24 Atlanta, GA: January 26 Session will include 'What's new in Cocoa,' 'Introducing Core Animation,' and 'Printing in Leopard' amongst many others.Space is limited, so register now (if you are an ADC member, otherwise you are out of luck).Thanks, Stephen.
My top X unlikely requests for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Major new features in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard like Time Machine are great, but I've been thinking about all the other aspects of the Mac OS X experience that could use some spit and polish from Apple's engineers. They've done a fantastic job building a damn impressive OS over the years, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvements both big and small (besides: they have to keep their OS product cycle on a good pace). Following is a list of 10 unlikely requests I have for the next version of Mac OS X that might not be worthy of a Stevenote, but they could bring smiles and sighs of satisfied relief to many a user: Removing applications - and all their baggage: Deleting (or "uninstalling") an app on Mac OS X is easy: you just move it to the trash. But what about all the extra data apps create when you use them (databases, media libraries, etc.)? Sure there are 3rd party apps like AppZapper that truly remove the app and all those extras, but I think Leopard needs an integrated, obvious and thorough process for removing apps and their extra baggage (perhaps AppZapper could go the way of CoverFlow?). I can't count the number of times I've been asked how to do it by users both old and new. This method could include a dialog when dragging an app to the trash which asks the user if they want to nuke the 'extra' files like Application Support directories and preferences. I know many apps don't leave much behind, but it all can pile up, and there are at least a few apps that really know how to gobble up the mega and gigabytes. To help everyone get on the same page though, a dedicated System Preferences pane would work best. Don't make me eject an idle drive: This one is always a tricky conversation, and I should disclose up front that I am certainly no developer. All I know is that it seems just a little strange in the year 2006 (or 2007, once Leopard is released) that I still have to eject a flash drive I haven't touched in two hours. Mac OS X is now both smart and pretty - I don't think it should be that hard to implement some kind of smart ejection system that can eject the drive when not in use, but fire it back up when needed. Further, if we set my lazy nerd ambitions aside for a moment, I'm sure this would save the lives of countless finance reports and term papers for all those users who don't understand what 'ejecting' a drive means or why they have to do it.
TUAW Podcast #13
This week's podcast involves Dan Pourhadi and the C4 developer shindig he attended, those exclusive Leopard screenshots we nabbed, iPod viruses and the corporate blame game, and we round off with Apple's preliminary 4th quarter earnings results. Dan and I kept things short this time around, as the podcast rounds off at just over 20 minutes and 18.6MB.As usual, you can grab the podcast via a direct link, our podcast RSS feed or in the iTunes Store podcast directory. Enjoy the show.Update: It seems there's a bug in our iTS feed preventing from getting this latest episode, though our other links for accessing the podcast are working just fine. We'll keep you posted.
Videos of Leopard's 'live preview' in action
Musings From Mars has posted some revealing videos of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's upcoming 'Quick Look' feature, which allows the OS to preview many different types of media, including audio and video, with unprecedented ease and power. MFM has created a YouTube playlist of three videos, all demonstrating different abilities of this new feature.Note that in the first movie, the Finder has an unmistakably different look to it, and this blogger would go so far as to wonder if it could be an early sign of an update to everyone's favorite file manager to hate. The second video demonstrates something peculiar that isn't quite apparent from simply watching it: once one video was playing in the preview pane, MFM began clicking on different videos in the Finder, which caused the preview pane to instantly start playing each new video, but picking up at the same point in the timeline - not beginning each video from square one. The third video is a basic demonstration of the preview pane's ability to preview movies even at full screen - unshackling Mac OS X users from the cramped chains of the Finder's tiny preview when in Column view.Now we don't have any way of verifying these videos, but if they are real, they're some appetizing examples of what is hopefully a shiny new Finder in Leopard.Thanks KurtUpdate: Leland, the author of the movies from Musings From Mars, stopped by to let us know that the interesting look of the Finder in the first video is in fact the work of Uno, and not evidence of a fancy new Leopard Finder.
Screenshots from the latest Leopard build
These little birdies just keep sending me stuff. First it was screenshots of the as yet unreleased SlingPlayer, and now I find some screenshots of the most recent Leopard build (the next version of OS X). As you can see above previewing files in the Finder has gotten an overhaul, with text files previewing text in their icon (sweet, but mostly useless unless your icons are really big, like in this screenshot).Read on for a few more tidbits.
Rumor: portable user accounts coming in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard?
A new Apple patent uncovered by PC Pro hints at the possibility of portable user accounts making their way into the Spring '07 release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. For a quick break down: the long-standing rumor has been that this would allow a user to keep their account - the entire home directory, applications, media, preferences, you name it - on an external storage device like an iPod, and simply plug that device into any Mac and log in with access to all of their stuff. The possibilities are pretty juicy, and for once the language in the patent is fairly straight-forward, if not a little repetitive: "The multi-user computer system, eg. through its operating system, locates user accounts not only in local storage of the multi-user computer system, but also in any removable data storage attached to the multi-user computer system."While this particular rumor has been in the wind for a few years now, we don't have anything else specifying that it is for sure arriving in Leopard. This could be yet another unused patent, or it could be slated for 10.7 for all we know. As usual, we'll keep our ears out.[via Slashdot]
Chris Pirillo on why Vista will only help increase Apple's market share
Chris Pirillo is the quintessential Windows fanboy. Why then does he make such a strong case that Apple will only be aided by Microsoft's Vista? In the current issue of Computer Power User, Chris nails Microsoft on all the reasons Microsoft's current and upcoming offerings are simply too little, too late. From Firefox making inroads on Internet Explorer's turf and Google toppling MSN Search to Vista's exorbitant pricing scheme and release candidates failing to impress, Chris says he's finally almost ready to leave Microsoft behind and make the switch with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. On Leopard, he says "it looks clean and elegant. It comes with all the software and services the average user could ever want. It runs on the same hardware. A system will be able to dual-boot between OS X and Windows, and pricing is no longer astronomical. But most importantly? With its UI inconsistencies, Vista feels completely schizophrenic, and that's enough of a reason for anybody to leave Windows in the dust-just like they left MSN Search and IE." Welcome to the table, Chris. We've been saving a seat for you.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A283 seeded to ADC members
Mac Rumors is reporting that Apple has seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (build 9A283, for those keeping track) to Select and Premiere ADC members, the first major seed since preview versions were given to the devs at WWDC 2006 in August. Interestingly, this build is meant to be a fresh install - not simply an upgrade over the previous version. Mac Rumors also has a roundup of at least some of the major changes from the WWDC build: new Parental Controls preference pane for content filtering, apps, and curfews Significant user interface changes to iCal 3D audio cues to indicate locations of items on the screen in the VoiceOver screen reader Basic editing in Preview I can't help but hope one of those 'significant' UI changes to iCal includes a new 'unified' look to bring it more in line with their move away from the ill-fated brushed metal.[via digg]
Sims 2 wins best Mac game award
Aspyr Media's latest newsletter features a summary of the company's participation at last month's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, where they took home the Best Mac OS X Game award for The Sims 2. Also recognized in the Apple Design Awards was runner-up Wing Nuts 2: Raina's Revenge from Freeverse. While Apple isn't doing much for Mac gaming on the hardware front, Aspyr discusses their plans for using OS X Leopard's XCode developer toolset in future Mac game releases. You can download the Universal Binary update for The Sims 2 here.
Aqua is dead, long live Aqua!
Apple seems to use iTunes as a test-bed for new user interface design styles, and iTunes 7 brings with it an almost complete overhaul the Aqua look we have all grown to love/hate/tolerate. While on the surface, the iTunes 7 interface may seem very similar to that of previous versions, there are a few very distinct differences that I think forebode greater system wide changes to come in 10.5 Leopard. Since the initial version 10.0, OS X has gone through a variety of system-wide interface changes while still keeping some very important aspects of the original Aqua UI. First we lost the pinstripes, then we got brushed metal, and most recently, we see the move with most applications to a "unified" interface. With iTunes 7, Aqua is gone for good. Glossy radio buttons, scroll bars, control buttons and track information windows are all gone; replaced by sleek utilitarian sand-blasted metal. I think this is the first significant peek we've had into the rumored complete redesign of the OS X UI for Leopard. I, for one, welcome this change. While the glossy days of old were an exciting way to draw new users–indeed, it was part of way I switched– it quickly became an eyesore for many; designers in particular. The introduction of the Graphite visual style fixed a lot of issues graphics professionals had with the bright colors of the interface clashing with their work, but everything was still not dandy. For pro and power users their Mac is not only a computer, it is the tool of their trade, and something they use day in and day out to get things done, and while no one wants to work in a badly designed, ugly UI, minimalist utilitarianism is sometimes the key to reducing distraction. Of course, much of this is personal opinion, but it is an opinion I know is shared by at least a small core group of Mac die hards. What's your take on the new interface? Is it just a fluke, or a hint at things to come?
DS mod for promiscuous gamers
We love seeing what you folks are doing with your DS Phats now that just about every color imaginable has been released (or is in the process of releasing) for the DS Lite. We've covered countless other nifty mods for the hefty handheld, and now we see a flickr user has decided to add a bit of an animal aspect to their DS Phat mod.While leopard print has been associated with sexual promiscuity in the past and remains a stereotype of Latino culture today, we feel such an original mod cannot go without praise as it is a fresh and fetching design for the handheld. Kudos to flickr user Luc_is_god for the sweet mod.Be sure to check out these other fine mods: DS Phat light mod Koopa mod Game and Watch mod Old School mod Tank mod Famicom mod
Parallels now supports Mac Pro, Leopard, and Vista
I was just talking to someone about how neat it would be if I could install the latest Vista built in Parallels, he agreed and hoped that his Mac Pro would soon be able to run Parallels in 64 bit mode soon (he has it hacked to run in 32 bit mode at the moment). Imagine my glee (yeah, I get gleeful over software updates) when I saw this post on Parallels blog.Parallels Desktop for the Mac can now run on Mac Pros with up to 3.5 gigs of RAM (things get funky with more RAM), it supports running the developer previews of both Leopard and Vista, and USB support has been improved. Get the full details here.This update is free.
Found Footage: Tab features in Safari 3
We've seen video previews of some of Safari 3's features (the upcoming Leopard version) before; thought that particular video is no longer available - three guesses as to why. Here's another one you should probably check out before Apple's legal team starts firing off C&Ds: it's a demonstration of Safari 3's ability to drag and drop tabs throughout the bookmarks bar (finally!), as well as dropping them into their own new window entirely. While other browser have jumped the gun on these features, and you can have them in Safari with the help of Saft and SafariStand, it's nice to see these features being built in by default for all users to appreciate - though we bet Hao Li, Saft's developer, might not share the joy in losing one of Saft's key selling points.
