“At the Worldwide Developers Conference 2006 in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the public and developers the first public look at Leopard, also known as Mac OS X 10.5–the next version of the Apple operating system, which will be available next spring. Though he made clear there remained many ‘top secret’ features and technologies to the OS, Jobs and other Apple executives outlined a dozen features that will be new and improved over the current OS,” Daniel Drew Turner writes for CNET.
Full article and the opportunity to rate the OS on a scale of 1-10 (registered users) here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Greg B” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Currently, the average user rating at CNET is “Good – 6.7 out of 10.” We think that’s way too low.
Of course it’s 6.7. All the Windows twits are giving it a 1 just out of envy and spite.
Preview? Much more to come? We can only hope.
A lot of discussion about Steve’s appearance and whether he has health issues.
I watched it again and the only thing I see is signs of depression and some embarrassment.
His team sent him out to his weakest ever t-neck & jeans appearance.
The flagship G5 replacement with a very disappointing Intel based tower that produces an embarrassingly low 1.5 times speed improvement for most of the ways most of us use the workhorse and an OS update of tweaks largely already available.
Who wants to pretty up their email with some gay stationery?
But, hope springs eternal. If there are a lot of orders placed for these things, we will get to where we wanted to be with this new stuff sooner than later with a quick turnaround with gen 2. So, ladies and gentlemen, draw your plastic and get yourselves to the store!
The theme of WWDC 2006 was that , ‘ dont upgrade to vista, just switch to mac instead’
Maybe Jobs didn’t feel well that day, but it could have just been a bug, not a life-threatening illness. I think that is sheer speculation.
I like the stationary feature. I am starting up a business and thought immediately that the stationary feature would allow me to quickly add a professional look to emails to my clients. Quick is key. I hope that people develop some amazing templates for mail that will be available when Leopard ships. I want some more elegant ones. That’s another money-making opportunity for developers.
As nice as the frequent “point” updates for OS X are, I wonder if the expected feature improvements in each release isn’t a lot like an addiction. The more updates there are, the higher the expectations and the greater the speculation over the next one, and so on. After awhile, no matter what, almost no improvement is enough to get anyone’s attention, and the “crash”, or disappoinment, sets in.
@ Pete Peterson: Gay stationary, that’s a good one. But you’re right.
Give me something like the iWeb black template instead, not those kitch borders and the like.
Pete, I guess you were hoping to hear an energy sucking heat monster quad 3Ghz G5 introduced eh? No I think we’ll let the Xbox360 have all the G5s they want. I love to see Microshaft lose money.
A 50% speed increase is embarrassing? Hmmm… And the huge price cuts are really sad too eh?
How convenient of you to leave out the speed increases over the G5 Xserve.
Wow, someone pissed in Pete’s Cheerios today. Can’t make that boy happy enough. Depression and embarrassment? Only in your own mind Pete. Too bad they didn’t deliver something you want, so you decide to make it your own personal goal to whine as much as possible in these forums. Do you need a Midol or something, Pete?
I really take exception to the tone of all the FUD manure spreading on Job’s health. It’s one thing to have concern for a beloved CEO, it’s quite another to openly speculate and create uncertainty, fear, doubt…
STEVE JOBS LOOKED FREAKIN GREAT. HE SOUNDED GREAT. He has as much vitality, poise, presence, and boom in his voice as ever. He was strutting and shufflin’ with top energy. HE LOOKED ON FORM! What is your problem, guys? Jeez. He’s bald and thin and healthy, back off!
THE TAG-TEAM WAS EFFECTIVE AND POSITIVE AND DAZZLING. You wouldn’t expect Jobs to droll on for over an hour on all the minutae, that would be more boring than the tag-team which gave color and variety and multiple perspectives.
LEOPARD LOOKED GREAT. I agree with Jay, the regular updates create built-in wow factor expectations over time. I thought Time Machine and Spaces alone were exiting. Time Machine and Spaces alone are going to have Redmond spies swearing and salivating a way to copy them.
We all care about SJ. That’s not the same as permission to create vile rumors about his health which have NO BASIS in the reality of his performance and presentation. Same goes for the Leopard demo. Back off, guys. It’s a great OS, getting greater.
Don’t hold back on us, Pete. If you were disappointed, just say so. 😀
Jeez, man, I just don’t know what you wanted. Let’s put the Intel Mac Pros in context of G5 towers.
Let’s say Steve came out and said:
“We’ve updated our Power Mac G5’s”
“We’ve gone from 2 Dual-Core G5 at 2.5 GHz to 2 Dual-Core at 3.75 Ghz!!”
“And we’ve increased the bus speed.”
“And we’ve added a bay for a second optical drive.”
“And we’ve upgraded the standard graphics card.”
“And we’ve doubled the standard RAM to 1GB.”
I mean, I’m already salivating…
And then the kicker?
“Oh, one more thing… the price is the same or lower as the previous models we’re replacing.”
Seriously, did you want it to levitate too?
And as far as Leopard goes, I’ll give Apple credit – first, they don’t seem to be adding “bloat” – the features are not ridiculous excuses to get people to upgrade. They are solid things that many people already want to do with their Macs.
If a good incremental backup program isn’t one of the most serious holes in the OS X Software world, I don’t know what is. Nothing against SuperDuper (which I use, and love) but it doesn’t give you incremental saves. And Retrospect has been a joke for so long I stopped laughing.
Time Machine is more than just a backup program, though. It really is a great visual treat. Like CoverFlow (which EVERYONE should download and try!!) it just changes your perception of things. It is a new standard in interface design. Brilliant.
Methinks also that the Core Graphics improvements and other stuff are going to find their way into not only the Finder, but into a lot of the 3rd party software designed between now and when Leopard releases.
Which is the point of the Developers Conference in the first place, no?
Oh, and Xserves that are up to 1/2 the price of comparable (hah) Dells to boot?
What’s not to like, Petey?
“gay” stationary? Gee, how many people would rather have straight, trailer park, beer swilling “straight” stationary? Maybe Windoze users.
The standard config is possibly competitive in price.
But, if you want what you want to do what you need to do with it, you will select the faster processor, lots more memory, another hard drive, a better graphics card, and wireless – at least. Then it costs something north of 6 grand. Competitive? Don’t think so.
Gen 2 will be faster, stronger, better in all these ways AND at less cost.
The marketing plan is to suck in all the “I can’t wait” buyers before moving to what it really should be. Again, I say, go buy lots of these things.
If you think that Leopard is not much more than a “point” upgrade, think about this: What would you have paid for all the free “point” upgrades (7 of them) that have come out since Tiger was introduced?
At some point in time, like next spring for instance, Apple has to get income for all the work that has been going on since the last time it charged for a significant “point” upgrade. And Leopard is that significant upgrade.
I for one think it’s a fair deal and plan on buying Leopard as soon as it’s available.
Vista Preview got a 5.6 rating. See it here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_Beta_1/4505-3672_7-31456587.html?tag=txt
Even with Bob Enderle voting a ten 500 times didn’t help that much.
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Meant to say, the Leopard rating stands at 7.9 right now. (1:30pm EDT)
Pete,
I think you may have offended someone.
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Anyway, what did you mean by SJ having signs
of depression? Just curious. I thought that
he seemed pretty energetic, despite the
appearance. Maybe he is just trying to give his
comrades a little stage time.
Pete, you NEVER, EVER buy the RAM from apple. WAYYYYY too expensive, same goes for the HDs
Most of us know that.
please wait for rev. 2 if you must, but your logic for doing so is flawed
The CNET rating is now 8.1. Better, but not quite accurate. What would it take to get it to 9.5?
the problem is we need gay (designer) stationary…
not the valley girl / cute stuff that was shown.
Microsoft Windows users have platform envy.
Wait a second. Gay = Designer? When did this happen. I did not recieve the memo on this. Why the hell am I out of the loop once more. Is the gay mafia behind this?
The “top secret” things coming with Leopard are going to be overhyped and we will all be disappointed.
Actually it’s PC’s that are gay.
Don’t you remember the old IBM
company songs?
‘IBM, Happy men, smiling all the way.
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Oh, what fun it is to sell our products night and day.
IBM, Watson men, partners of TJ.
In his service to mankind — that’s why we are so gay.’
8.3 now. sweet.
Steve Jobs is fine. “Slim and trim” at 30 translate into “gaunt” at 50+, especially with some greying and balding. He is taking real good care of himself after an unexpected health scare.
Now, if we want some speculation, who combed that new guy’s hair? Who selected his wardrobe? His presenting work was excellent, but I couldn’t help thinking that he is the used car salesman in the south-eastern part of north-western New Hampshire on his way to a duck pins tournament.
What gives? Inquiring minds need to know!
I just give it a 10 and it askme to confirm that 10 because 10 is only for perfect scores. any way, I give it the 10.
I wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand my post about point upgrades. I buy all of them; and I’ll pre-order Leopard. I’m just saying that the frequency creates a greater desire for improvements and a corresponding disappoinment when it is perceived that the value of the upgrade is not there.
Hate to say it, but Jobs looked like he has been wasting away… he’s lost at least 30lbs since last keynote
maybe it’s some diet the docs have him on, but his duds were hanging off him – hope he’s okay
If it goes 8.5. I will piss my pants. I shit you not. And I will post a video of said pissing on You Tube for the enjoyment of golden shower enthusiasts world wide. Or maybe I’ll just fire up my 8500 and enjoy 8.5 since that’s what it’s running at the moment.
We have hit 8.3! Damn this is getting good.
If you want to see the WWDC ’06 intro video of the “PC Guy” in high quality, go here…
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/wwdc2006/video/
I wish Apple would make a high quality archive of all of their past commercials and other videos…. hell, just place them in iTunes as a free download. Everyone loves a free download.
I watched it again and the only thing I see is signs of depression and some embarrassment.
Knowing the way Apple works, I’d venture to guess SJ had been up for 48 hours prior to the keynote, both practicing and negotiating last-second deals that’d affect the keynote. If you worked that hard & some killer cool deal fell through, you’d look depressed too.
As for appearances, I’ll take a skinny stubbly old hippie Jobs over a fat fuck fruitcake Ballmer any day.
And IMO it’s a Good Thing SJ has other Apple staffers in the keynote; it shows that Apple is more than just Steve.
Based on the significant increase in the amount of anti Apple FUD showing up on this forum lately (read Pete Peterson, et al), I’d say Apple is firing on all cylinders right now.
Still whining Pete? My offer for you to go away still stands. Care to take it?
8.4
I am moments away from pissing my pants. I jsut drank 64 oz of dew to faciliate the pissing of the pants.
Pete/Macdude.
Just off yourself already, you’re so damn depressing. All you do is bitch and moan about everything Apple. What’s the point?
Are you really that unhappy of a person that your only form of entertainment is to complain about the products of a computer company?
In the myriad of names that you use on this board, I’ve never once heard you say something positive or constructive.
Colonel
You own/manage this space? Why should I go away?
Please say, without sophomoric generalities, what it is I am saying with which you find fault.
My voice in these discussions is driven by a desire to encourage smart consumer behavior that resists Apple’s amazing marketing machine and focuses on the fact that we buyers control the market and we get what we demand.
Do you not agree that Apple already has the next gen machinery in the wings but, like car salesmen, are holding back to see just how many suckers are ready to part with their money before they deliver what they are really capable of?
Case in point. On Monday, Steve talked about what the new MacPro is capable of, then put something much less up as the ‘standard config’ and counted on us not knowing the difference.
It’s not whining. Is chosing between being lemmings or smart customers.
Trevor
One name, one guy, faithful Mac customer since 1984 (I’ve got a lot of practice with this). Sorry if I am spoiling all the fawning that is the practice around this forum, but Apple can do better – but we have to be smart enough to make them deliver.
Just sounds like FUD to me Pete.
Sorry if that assessment is too “sophmoric” for you.
Fyi, I’m not a developer, but I thought the Leopard preview was reasonably impressive, without giving away too many of the jewels to would be thieves.
First iteration of new hardware less that impressive relative to future iterations? Well, yeah, duh! Is that point worth ranting about?
I don’t think so.
I think the new MacPro and XServe is a great value, and of course will get better over time. The real story is that Apple has very impressively completed the Intel transition in far less time than promised. This fact is more important than the details of any specific model in my view.
Again, I think Apple is firing on all cylinders and all the negativity here is a direct result.
8.5 out of 10. Good work fellas and ladies, if any there might be.
@Pete
Just what is this magical next gen hardware Apple is deliberately holding back? Those nonexistant intel chips that are better than what’s in the Mac Pro? I don’t get what you’re saying. The chips they offer in the Mac Pro are basically the fastest ones available right now. For a standard config it has plenty of power… the whole point of BTO options is to add more if you need to. I’ve configured it several ways and compared to Dell etc. and it is consistently cheaper to get the Mac Pro.
As for leopard, I was also disappointed insofar as none of the features really appealed to me personally, but I recognize that many of them could be incredibly valuable to other people. I suspect that the features still to come will be ones more appealing to me, such as a Finder UI upgrade or front row upgrade. Judging leopard at this point is just foolish.
Do you not agree that Apple already has the next gen machinery in the wings but, like car salesmen, are holding back to see just how many suckers are ready to part with their money before they deliver what they are really capable of?
——————
Pete/Macdude,
Of course Apple is working on what’s next, they have to. That’s how all retail company’s work.
The point is, that currently, these Woodcrest chips are the best Intel has to offer. And Apple is selling it for $1000 less than the comptetition.
And before you bitch and moan about graphics again, please realize that not everyone needs graphics power. I am an audio proffesional, I need processing power, not GPU power. So for my needs, the stock GPU is just fine. I’ve been using PowerMacs since the G3 and have never upgraded my GPU. If someone does need a better GPU, there are six choices available.
I don’t see how you can go on and on about how Apple has wronged the world, by introducing what is probably the best value in the history of computing….
We got a 64 bit machine with an extra optical bay, 2 additional HD slots, a double wide PCI, extra ports, double the amount of RAM, tons of BTO configuations, tons of BTO options, the best and most efficient processors currently available from Intel, and at a price about $1000 less from the competition.
There’s not much to complain about there buddy.
Sometimes you just need to view things like a glass half-full instead of half-empty. Negativity breeds negativity.
lighten-up, be happy, you’ll live longer.
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Colonel, Trevor, Joe
I appreciate and respect your follow up explanations and clarifications.
We all agree that Apple is leading progress in machinery and OS.
My belief is that marketing ploys are denying us more bang for our bucks and that Apple, in spite of doing a lot, can do more sooner but deliberately hold back – like American car manufacturers – to create obsolescence and latest model envy.
Dunno. Not really a compelling reason for me to go out and spend $130 on it, with what I’ve seen so far.
Help me out. From a consumer standpoint, how will the 64 bit OS help? What applications use this?
clyde
“Help me out. From a consumer standpoint, how will the 64 bit OS help? What applications use this?”
Leopard will be 64 bit from top to bottom, in Panther only the UNIX layer was 64 bit (even on the G5) this is what enable things like Time Machine. All applications will be able to access more memory, be much faster and have increased functionality. I can’t wait to try it on my iMac G5!