Posted by Scott Laird Thu, 04 Aug 2005 21:46:28 GMT
According to Mac OS X Hints, Tiger has NTFS support, so it can finally read hard drives formatted for modern versions of Windows. I’ve wished that I had this several times over the past three years; it’s nice to know that it’s now there when I need it.
Posted by Scott Laird Tue, 03 May 2005 02:11:04 GMT
This is certainly a skewed sample, but I just ran a quick test, and it looks like over half of the Safari users that have visited this site today are using Safari 2.0. Most the the rest are using Safari 1.3. Considering that Safari 2.0 is only available on Tiger, and Safari 1.3 arrived about two weeks ago as part of the 10.3.9 upgrade, it looks like most of my readers are quick upgraders.
If time permits, I’ll build a little graph later showing the version percentage by day; that should be entertaining.
Posted by Scott Laird Mon, 02 May 2005 20:22:43 GMT
I’ve been thinking a bit about what Apple’s going to do as a followup for Tiger. Assuming that Apple sticks with an 18-month cycle for 10.5 (“Lion”?), then we’ll be getting our hands on it slightly before Longhorn’s release date. Given that, it’s pretty clear that Apple is already thinking about what they want in 10.5 so they can trump Microsoft’s Longhorn offerings in the media. More then any previous release of OS X, I expect this one to be flashy; if Tiger was really an attempt to revamp the developer core of OS X, then I expect 10.5 to focus on the user experience.
A few things that I expect to see:
Improved metadata support. Just like Jon Siracusa has been saying, metadata is important. With Spotlight, we now have a framework for searching and storing file metadata. With 10.5, I expect to see the ability to tag files with specific metadata tags, like project name, priority, status, and so on. This is a feature that was pulled from Longhorn because of time constraints; Apple should be able to jump way ahead of Windows without a lot of work in this area.
Networkable Spotlight. Right now, Spotlight only works on local filesystems. Adding network support for Spotlight searching (and all of the other metadata that goes with it) will finally give people a decent reason to buy OS X servers.
A Finder replacement. Once we have the new metadata engine, we’re going to need a UI for managing it. I’m not sure if Apple will simply provide us with “Finder 2.0,” or if they’ll produce a radical new file manager and then provide users with the ability to revert to the old finder if they don’t want to upgrade. Either way, if Apple finishes their metadata back-end, then the Finder really needs to be updated to match. Since Apple hasn’t really put much work into the Finder since 10.0, and there are boatloads of customer complaints about the current Finder, I think it’s time for it to get re-written from the ground up, with the new version centered around metadata and searching.
More syncing and disconnected support. Windows has supported disconnected operation on network shares for years. That way, you can have a network share for some project, but have Windows maintain a local cache so you can still edit documents while you’re on a plane or otherwise unable to connect to the network. It’s a great feature, and Apple doesn’t have anything even vaguely like this right now.
Full 64-bit support. With Tiger, Apple has some support building 64-bit applications, but you can’t use any of the UI frameworks from 64-bit apps. I fully expect 10.5 to provide equal support for all current APIs from 32- or 64-bit code, and I expect that Xcode will have simple support for building “fat” 32/64 applications. If Apple leaves 64-bit apps out in the cold, then they’re giving Microsoft a big opening, and we’ll see claims that OS X isn’t “a real 64-bit operating system.” By 2007, at least 80% of new PCs and Macs will come with 64-bit CPUs; even if most apps won’t need to support 64-bit address spaces, it’d be a major mistake not to give developers the tools that they need to build 64-bit apps.
Resolution-independant displays. Right now, most UI elements are sized in pixels; that works great when all monitors have roughly the same DPI, but it falls down horribly when displays range from 72 to 300 DPI. Switching from a 100 DPI display to a 200 DPI display currently means that all of your UI elements (menu bar, window decorations, icons) shrink to half of their current size. Tiger has the ability to change this hidden inside the developer tools, but most apps have a hard time dealing with it right now; by the time 10.5 rolls around, I expect the OS to automatically adjust the UI size based on the DPI of the output device; this will let us have HD-resolution displays on 15-inch PowerBooks without needing to ship a magnifying glass with every new laptop.
Posted by Scott Laird Sun, 01 May 2005 14:19:21 GMT
Apparently Tiger’s iCal is more strict then Panther’s, because the .ics files created by my author readings page won’t import into iCal anymore. There are a handful of other issues with the author readings code that need fixed, too, so I’ll see what I can do with it later this afternoon.
Posted by Scott Laird Sun, 01 May 2005 13:39:00 GMT
Wow: Tiger no longer includes Internet Explorer. (from John Gruber’s Tiger details page)
It never worked very well, but it’s still surprising to see it go. If you upgrade from a previous version of OS X, then the Tiger installer won’t delete it, but new Macs won’t have it from now on.
Posted by Scott Laird Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:49:53 GMT
According to Apple, Spotlight is supposed to be able to index EXIF data. Unfortunately, none of my JPEGs’ EXIF data has been indexed. Even worse, some of the Spotlight metadata fields are obviously bogus, showing obvious bugs in Spotlight’s implementation.
To test Spotlight’s EXIF abilities, I used a JPEG from my D60 that I had annotated with EXIF and IPTC data using iView Media Pro. Using the mdls command-line tool, I asked for details on one of my images, and saw something like this:
halloween-2004-173.JPG -------------
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 1970-01-02 17:40:06 -0800
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = 0
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "halloween-2004-173.JPG"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501
kMDItemFSSize = 1712816
kMDItemFSTypeCode = 0
kMDItemID = 3341125
kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2004-10-30 21:43:23 -0700
kMDItemUsedDates = (2004-10-30 21:43:23 -0700)Notice that all of the metadata provided is simply generic file data–none of this is image-specific. There is no EXIF data, and no indication that Spotlight knows that this is an image. Also, the kMDItemAttributeChangeDate is weird–it’s not impossible that I’d lost my clock and not noticed for two days, but it’s unlikely.
Worse, after making a minor change to the JPEG and then waiting for the re-indexer to run, the Attribute Change Date became completely bogus, changing nearly every time I ran mdls. Here are a few sample values:
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 1969-12-31 16:00:06 -0800
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 125748-10-16 05:23:09 -0800
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 1976-10-14 07:29:24 -0700I particularly like the way that it jumps from 6 seconds after the Unix epoch to 123000 years into the future and then back into the 70’s again.
Even after telling iView Media Pro to re-write all of the EXIF and IPTC data in the file, mdls still doesn’t show any EXIF details. This is disappointing–I’d hoped to be able use Spotlight to locate images in my photo collection, possibly searching by date, time, focal length, lens, location, subject, and so on.
As I see it, one of two things can be happening here. Either this is a bug in 10.4.0 or Spotlight’s indexing system works in two passes–first indexing files’ existence, and then looping back around to index the data inside the file. It looks like mdimport is still running on something on my box, even though the Spotlight dropdown claims to be finished.
Update: I think it’s running in two passes. If I manually run mdimport on my JPEG, then a bunch of EXIF data shows up in mdls:
halloween-2004-173.JPG -------------
kMDItemAcquisitionMake = "Canon"
kMDItemAcquisitionModel = "Canon EOS D60"
kMDItemAperture = 6
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 2005-04-29 18:49:35 -0700
kMDItemBitsPerSample = 32
kMDItemCity = "Woodinville"
kMDItemColorSpace = "RGB"
kMDItemContentCreationDate = 1903-12-31 16:00:00 -0800
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemContentType = "public.jpeg"
kMDItemContentTypeTree = ("public.jpeg", "public.image", "public.data", "public.item", "public.content")
kMDItemCopyright = "2004 Scott Laird"
kMDItemCountry = "USA"
kMDItemDisplayName = "halloween-2004-173.JPG"
kMDItemEXIFVersion = "2.2"
kMDItemExposureMode = 1
kMDItemExposureTimeSeconds = 0.005
kMDItemFlashOnOff = 1
kMDItemFocalLength = 23
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = 0
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "halloween-2004-173.JPG"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501
kMDItemFSSize = 1712816
kMDItemFSTypeCode = 0
kMDItemHasAlphaChannel = 0
kMDItemID = 3341125
kMDItemISOSpeed = 7.64386
kMDItemKind = "JPEG Image"
kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700
kMDItemPixelHeight = 3072
kMDItemPixelWidth = 2048
kMDItemRedEyeOnOff = 0
kMDItemResolutionHeightDPI = 180
kMDItemResolutionWidthDPI = 180
kMDItemStateOrProvince = "WA"
kMDItemUsedDates = (2004-10-30 22:43:23 -0700)
kMDItemWhiteBalance = 1This still isn’t perfect, though–I’m not quite sure where kMDItemISOSpeed = 7.64386 came from–it’s really ISO 100. Similarly, mdls reports the Aperture as 6 when it should be f/8. On the other hand, the focal length and shutter speed are correct, although it’s sort of weird to see shutter speed expressed as decimal seconds.
Update 2: It’s definitely a two-pass thing. After leaving my laptop running overnight, all of my JPEGs now have a full set of metadata associated with them. The ISO numbers and apertures are still wrong, but the rest of the data’s all there. So, it looks like Spotlight tries really hard to get basic data into the DB, and then makes a second pass filling in more details as time permits. Good to know–I haven’t seen this documented anywhere.
Posted by Scott Laird Fri, 29 Apr 2005 21:59:00 GMT
I installed Tiger over lunch today. I’ll have more to say later, but for now, I just wanted to share this:
I guess that explains why Mail was so slow in Panther–138,000 messages will do that to you. Right now, my poor PowerBook is converting mail, installing the developer tools, and indexing for Spotlight. Hopefully it’ll return to a usable speed once that all finishes.
Posted by Scott Laird Thu, 28 Apr 2005 18:33:07 GMT
Ars Technica’s John Siracusa has posted his writeup on Tiger. I haven’t had time to read all of it yet, but the first half is an amazing piece of work. There’s a ton of content in there that is entirely new to me, like the writeup on launchd, Apple’s new open-source daemon-launching code. As usual, he goes to great lengths tracking down all of the metadata changes in Tiger, and for once he likes what he sees, although there’s still a lot of work left to do in 10.5. This is a really technical guide to what has changed under the hood in Tiger; it’s not a “the shortcut for doing Foo in the Finder changed; Apple Sucks” sort of write-up.
One thing that I’m wondering that I haven’t seen anyone address: if Apple is currently on a 18-month OS X release cycle, and 10.4 is out in April 2005, then the next release will be in October 2006, or slightly before Longhorn’s current release timeframe (“before Christmas 2006”). This should be fun.
Posted by Scott Laird Wed, 27 Apr 2005 18:22:27 GMT
It looks like the Seattle Fry’s store will be selling Tiger for $99 this weekend. I suspect that other Fry’s locations will have similar prices, but it’s not at all uncommon for Fry’s to run different promotions in different regions. Take a look at frys-electronics-ads.com; they’ll probably have details within a day or two.
Posted by Scott Laird Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:23:13 GMT
Apple finally announced a ship date for Tiger: April 29th. They’ve kept the same pricing that they’ve used for earlier releases, $129 per copy or $199 for a 5-system “family pack.” Apparently they’ve added a Tiger/iLife/iWork bundle at $249 as well.
Think Secret is also reporting that new PowerMac G5 systems will show up at the NAB conference this weekend. They’re unsure if Apple will use IBM’s dual-core CPUs yet, or just stick with faster single-core processors. There’s some evidence that Apple is getting ready to release 4-processor sysetms, so systems with 2 dual-core CPUs wouldn’t be surprising.
On the PowerBook G5 front, ThinkSecret says that they don’t expect to see them any time in 2005. It’s unclear what Apple will do with their PowerBook lineup if the G5 is still most of a year away. Their current CPU is bus-starved, and cranking up the clock rate (or even using Freestyle’s dual-core G4) probably won’t give them a lot of extra performance.
Posted by Scott Laird Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:21:50 GMT
Last week, a co-worker stopped by my office to ask me what cool new Mac software I’d seen recently. I had to stop and think for a while–I mean, it seemed like I was seeing cool new Mac stuff show up once or twice per month for a while, but recently it’s slowed to a trickle. I can’t think of anything really exciting that I’ve seen since NetNewsWire 2.0 betas started showing up months ago.
I’m not sure if this is all in my head or not, or if there’s some underlying reason (waiting for Tiger? Economy recovered and programmers went back to desk jobs?). Hopefully things will pick up again soon.
For what it’s worth, here are the last few Mac apps that I’ve looked at. Only one of these is really new, the rest have been sitting around for a while but only recently found their way onto my desktop.
Seasonality is probably the coolest new program that I’ve seen in a week or two. It’s a desktop weather monitor that knows about forecasts, history, sunrise and sunset, and weather radar. I played with it for a few minutes yesterday, and it seems to be an improvement over rssWeather.com and NetNewsWire. However, it’s not a $25 improvement, and I don’t care about the weather enough to leave Seasonality running 24x7. So, while it’s cool, I don’t really feel any desire to actually use it.
I keep hearing people rave about TextMate; a lot of people really love using it for their text editor. I spend half of my life in Emacs, but I’d love to switch to something more Mac-centric–I’ve used Emacs for 15 years, but I don’t really feel like I understand it any better now then I did a decade ago. It can do anything, but the barrier for learning each new feature is high enough that I only rarely bother to learn anything new about it. On the plus side, though, Emacs works pretty well out of the box for me, and it’s available everywhere.
So, every 6 months or so, I download a new copy of TextMate to see if it’s the right editor for me, and end up deleting it about 30 minutes into the trial. It looks really cool, and they seem to be adding some really nice Subversion integration into it, but I can’t stand the way it handles indenting. My brain seems to have fused with XEmacs’s indent handling–when editing languages like C, Ruby, XML, or HTML, XEmacs changes the meaning of the Tab key from ‘insert a tab’ to ‘indent this line correctly.’ Obviously, this requires a level of syntax-awareness that most editors don’t posess. TextMate knows enough about syntax to do color highlighting and folding, but that’s about it. While the function folding UI is cool, it’s just not enough for me to justify paying $50 or so for the program.
SubEthaEdit is kind of the epitome of “cool OS X editor,” largely because it’s designed from the ground up to use Rendezvous to allow collaborative editing over the network. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have any native support for traditional version control tools, and its indentation support isn’t any better then TextMate. Since SubEthaEdit is free for non-commercial use, I’ll keep a copy around, but I just can’t see myself using it for writing code.
Growl is a tool for displaying asynchronous notification messages on OS X. People have used it for a number of different uses, but the one the most interests me is GrowlMail, which sends Growl pop-ups every time new mail arrives. I’ve been using Mail.appetizer for a while now, but it seems to cause more problems then it fixes–since it runs inside of the main Mail process, it’s prone to blocking whenever Mail gets slow, which means that I have notification windows hanging around that I can’t get rid of easily. Also, since I installed it, I’ve noticed that Mail is much more prone to crashing. I don’t have a lot of patience for dead mail clients, so I yanked Mail.appetizer out and replaced it with GrowlMail; hopefully it’ll help a bit.
Posted by Scott Laird Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:48:05 GMT
When ThinkSecret announced last week that OS X 10.4 (”Tiger”) will ship in April, there was a fair amount of skepticism. A number of people suggested that there were too many bugs in the current developer seeds, and Tiger wasn’t ready to ship yet. Since then a few other reports have surfaced, including one from eWeek that seems to confirm at least the timeframe, if not the exact days that ThinkSecret listed.
Today, ThinkSecret followed up with a new report, saying that Tiger development is rapidly winding down and suggesting that many parts of Tiger are already complete and ready to ship:
Multiple sources also report witnessing at least one Tiger “wrap party” at One Infinite Loop earlier this month, and several members of the Tiger development team are presently on vacation, sources say, generally a sure-fire sign that their portion of development has been completed.
Personally, I’ve been drooling over Tiger since it was first announced last year, and can’t wait to get my hands on the new release.
Posted by Scott Laird Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:15:13 GMT
Think Secret, apparently undeterred by Apple’s ongoing lawsuit against them, claims that Apple will officially announce Tiger, the next release of OS X, on April 1st, and start shipping the upgrade in the middle of the month. Apple is also expected to upgrade their current iMac G5s and eMacs in the same timeframe.
Posted by Scott Laird Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:57:09 GMT
Engadget reports that Amazon is taking pre-orders for OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”), claiming that it’ll ship on March 31st, 2005.
Apple hasn’t officially announced anything, so odds are this is an Amazon snafu.
Posted by Scott Laird Wed, 30 Jun 2004 18:47:05 GMT
Dave Hyatt (the guy behind Apple’s Safari browser) just posted a few more details on Apple’s new ’Dashboard’ feature that they’re pushing as a part of Tiger:
I wanted to blog briefly to clear up what the widgets actually are written in. They are Web pages, plain and simple (with extra features thrown in for added measure). Apple’s own web site says “build your own widgets using the JavaScript language”, but that’s sort of misleading. The widgets are HTML+CSS+JS. They are not some JS-only thing.
That actually makes me feel a lot better–Apple has been widely accused of pilfering the design from Konfabulator, even though Apple had similar features in the old Mac OS from the very beginning.
If you look at Dashboard as a way to turn quick-and-dirty web apps into real desktop applications, it suddenly looks very different from a straight Konfabulator rip-off. In fact, it really looks more like an interesting attack on XAML and Avalon, two of Microsoft’s additions to Longhorn. The underlying technology is different, but the fundamental goals are almost the same–allow people to develop both web and desktop applications using the same tools. The implementation differences reflect the basic difference between Apple and Microsoft’s approaches–XAML/Avalon is a ground-up replacement for HTML and the traditional Windows programming model, while Dashboard is really just a small tweak to something that already exists.
Update: As usual, John Gruber says it better then I can.
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