Wow… I want a 30″ Cinema Display! 
Only $5,278.90 from the Apple Australia Education Store! Ouch. Pity I don't have a G5 to run it, though. Maybe I can con Mat into getting one (or two!) for the Dual 2.0GHz G5 he got yesterday. A 20-inch would do me nicely, though, but I'd have to get a VGA - DVI converter for my lowly rev A 12″ PowerBook.
Now, onto Tiger… It's looking pretty good!
Spotlight looks awesome, and if it does all it says it will do, I'll probably be using that instead of LaunchBar or Quicksilver. I bet the devs (especially LaunchBar, since they make money off of it) are pissed. According to Apple, Spotlight (the search technology) will allow you to search the contents of files and the metadata inside files, instantaneously (we hope). What's even cooler is this:
"The metadata engine is available for developers to enhance their applications with additional searching and organizing capabilities. Developers can build importers, so the metadata engine can understand their custom file formats and include those files in searches. "
What this means is I can use Spotlight in an application to quickly search for specific terms, etc, and it's all practically done for me. If I'm developing some custom file format, I can also design an importer so Spotlight can index my files!
There are also Smart Folders (folders based on searches) in the Finder, Mail and Address Book, which will be very, very nice.
Dashboard is looking pretty nice, but as I said before, it's stepping on the toes of Konfabulator (and to a lesser extent, Stattoo) a bit much. I was wondering how Apple would handle the configuration of the gadgets, and it seems they've come up with an interesting way to do it:
"To change the color or font for a sticky note, flip the note around — all Widgets controls are on the back to keep them out of sight until you need them. Configuring your Widgets is fun, too."
Nice!
Automator looks good, but I hardly ever use AppleScript, so probably won't use this much.
The new Sync features look good, too, and I liked this particularly:
"System-wide availability of sync services means that developers can now easily incorporate syncing capabilities into their applications. Tiger’s sync engine is extendable, so developers can go beyond synchronizing calendars, bookmarks and contact lists."
If I'm reading this correctly, it means developers can have access to iSync and everything behind that, allowing them to synchronise files for their own apps, as well as backups, etc. Very nice!
One other thing that has been missing in MacOS X is a way to control daemons and processes that start on boot. It appears launchd is the answer:
"Mac OS X supports a wide range of different network services and daemons. launchd provides a unified framework for starting, stopping and managing daemons, as well as, incorporating init, mach_init, System Starter and related services. Developers can register background processes in one place. Administrators can audit and configure network services in one place. Users can enable services they want or disable ones they don’t want in one place."
The new version of XCode looks very good, as well, and finally adds Java code completion! (Not that I'll be doing any Java programming in the future, I suspect…)
Core Image is looking pretty cool as well, but I can't see any major applications of it…
There are a couple of other new features, such as RSS support in Safari (not that I use it) and better multiple party video- and audio-conferencing in iChat, which I won't use either.
I'm really looking forward to the release of Tiger, even though it's not until '1st half of 2005′. Hopefully Apple can bring out some great hardware between now and then, and bump up its market share!
MacRumors has coverage of the new Tiger features and new Cinema displays. Ars Technica has coverage too, as does Slashdot.
0 Responses to “WWDC News”
Leave a Reply