More (secret) Leopard details emerge

[Swad]

Our good friend grabberslasher, that crazy cat who's always got something going on, posted a list over at AeroXperience of Leopard features that didn't make the keynote. They’re both interesting and exciting – here's hoping they make the final cut. No, not that “Final Cut”.

• Leopard will feature resolution-independent user interface and there are several functions to get the current scaling factor and apply it to pixel measurements. It is a good idea to use vector controls and buttons (PDF will work fine) or to have multiple sized resources, similar to Mac OS X icon design, so you can scale to the nearest size for the required resolution.
   
  
• Automator includes a new user interface and allows things such as action recording, workflow variables and embedding workflows in other applications.
   
  
• Time Machine has an API that allows developers to exclude unimportant files from a backup set which improves backup performance and reduces space needed for a backup.
   
  
• Carbon, the set of APIs built upon Classic MacOS and used by most 3rd party high-profile Mac OS X applications, now allows Cocoa views to be embedded into the application. This could provide applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office access to advanced functions previously only available to Cocoa applications.
   
  
• Complete 64-Bit support for Intel and PowerPC through all frameworks excluding QuickTime C, QuickDraw, Sound Manager, Code Fragment Manager, Language Analysis Manager and QuickTime Musical Instruments. These modules are deprecated and one should use the modern equivalents instead.
   
  
• Core Animation allows layers to be used as backing stores for a view, windows to use explicit animations when resizing (can be three dimensional, akin to the Time Machine view). Any view can now be put into fullscreen mode and a CoreImage transition effect can be used. Using Core Animation you can create anything including GPU-accelerated Front Row-style user interfaces without having to write OpenGL code. A Core Animation layer can include OpenGL content, Core Image and Core Video filter effects and Quartz/Cocoa drawing content, like views and windows.
   
  
• Quicktime 7.1 is included, and the underlying QTKit framework is greatly improved. There is improved correction for nonsquare pixels, use of the clean aperture which is the "user-displayable region of video that does not contain transition artifacts caused by the encoding process", support for aperture mode dimensions, improved pitch and rate control for audio and a number of developer improvements, like QuickTime capture from sources like cameras and microphones, full screen recording or QuickTime stream recording. Live content from a capture can be broadcast as a stream over the network.
  

Sounds good to me. How about you?

[bwhsh8r]

i like teh 64 bit support, but other than that the rest is kind of lackluster

[Bart86]

i like teh 64 bit support, but other than that the rest is kind of lackluster

 

Why? I've heard that 64bit support actually slows down most apps that don't need it and only benifits a handful of situations that most end users will never experiance.

[cavemonkey50]

Why? I've heard that 64bit support actually slows down most apps that don't need it and only benifits a handful of situations that most end users will never experiance.

 

That's why Apple is providing the ability to run 32-bit apps and 64-bit apps along side of each other.

[Conroe Mac]

But it sounds like progress. I mean... this should be like Playstation to Nintendo 64 right? =)

[grabberslasher]

I wonder if the 64 bit support will be usable on AMD64 or Pentium 4 EM64T machines?

[rogabean]

All sounds more like Win98 to Win98SE to me.

 

It's got a few features, but not worthy a new release.

 

These features so far could have been rolled out for free. WWDC made me sad. There was no revolution here... Leopard so far comes across as a Tiger who decided to paint on some spots.

 

Compare Panther to Tiger. Those feel like two different beasts altogether. I can just look at a Mac and tell which of those two is running without even touching (default background aside)

 

I want that feeling with Leopard. Not a bunch of half ass changes that should have been there already.

 

 

 

[*]Leopard will feature resolution-independent user interface and there are several functions to get the current scaling factor and apply it to pixel measurements. It is a good idea to use vector controls and buttons (PDF will work fine) or to have multiple sized resources, similar to Mac OS X icon design, so you can scale to the nearest size for the required resolution.

 

This is a cool feature. Should have been there already when higher resolution started to become more commonplace anyway.

 

[*]Automator includes a new user interface and allows things such as action recording, workflow variables and embedding workflows in other applications.

 

*yawn* Automator is a top 3 unused OS X Application by most users... being only slightly less used then Sherlock.

 

[*]Time Machine has an API that allows developers to exclude unimportant files from a backup set which improves backup performance and reduces space needed for a backup.

 

Good for devs. Good for end users. Good all around. Nothing revolutionary about this. Overall it still ups the amount of storage space I need. It falls into the same category of why I always turned off XP's "System Restore"

 

[*]Carbon, the set of APIs built upon Classic MacOS and used by most 3rd party high-profile Mac OS X applications, now allows Cocoa views to be embedded into the application. This could provide applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office access to advanced functions previously only available to Cocoa applications.

 

This is good. It won't be really good until(less) devs use it.

 

[*]Complete 64-Bit support for Intel and PowerPC through all frameworks excluding QuickTime C, QuickDraw, Sound Manager, Code Fragment Manager, Language Analysis Manager and QuickTime Musical Instruments. These modules are deprecated and one should use the modern equivalents instead.

 

Good news, but expected news.

 

[*]Core Animation allows layers to be used as backing stores for a view, windows to use explicit animations when resizing (can be three dimensional, akin to the Time Machine view). Any view can now be put into fullscreen mode and a CoreImage transition effect can be used. Using Core Animation you can create anything including GPU-accelerated Front Row-style user interfaces without having to write OpenGL code. A Core Animation layer can include OpenGL content, Core Image and Core Video filter effects and Quartz/Cocoa drawing content, like views and windows.

 

Core Animation has got to be the ONLY thing I am truly pumped about. I may be a huge OpenGL supporter, but Core Animation is a good thing. Of course being that my primary machine is my hacked Dell and my older G3's... and I don't QE/CI support on any of them... this isn't going to help me yet.

 

[*]Quicktime 7.1 is included, and the underlying QTKit framework is greatly improved. There is improved correction for nonsquare pixels, use of the clean aperture which is the "user-displayable region of video that does not contain transition artifacts caused by the encoding process", support for aperture mode dimensions, improved pitch and rate control for audio and a number of developer improvements, like QuickTime capture from sources like cameras and microphones, full screen recording or QuickTime stream recording. Live content from a capture can be broadcast as a stream over the network.

 

Again... Software Update should have pushed this.

[embries]

Why? I've heard that 64bit support actually slows down most apps that don't need it and only benifits a handful of situations that most end users will never experiance.

 

Actually, not really. If applications were 64bit native then they would be faster than their 32 bit counterparts. The problem is that most 64 bit "native" applications rely on 32 bit pieces somewhere in their code. i.e the application is 64 bits, but one of the dependencies is 32 bits, or a crucial library is 32 bits, so the whole thing is bottlenecked by the 32 bit part. That's why for the most part people say stick with 32 bits, so your processor is not switching back and forth.

[asap18]

Dont forget about the dramatic speed increases of almost 100% on intel and significant increases of powerpc in Leopard

[bwhsh8r]

Actually, not really. If applications were 64bit native then they would be faster than their 32 bit counterparts. The problem is that most 64 bit "native" applications rely on 32 bit pieces somewhere in their code. i.e the application is 64 bits, but one of the dependencies is 32 bits, or a crucial library is 32 bits, so the whole thing is bottlenecked by the 32 bit part. That's why for the most part people say stick with 32 bits, so your processor is not switching back and forth.

 

 

This is true, you will not nececarely see much of a benifit (ie firefox x64) because it does not utilize the extra ram alotted to it, but in most fully written x64 progs you will see a speed increase, like the x64 hl2 vs x86, ran both, and can vouch that the x64 blazes past... the x86 loads alot slower (same system, just dif os xp mce or xp x64) and you will see a bost on anything that is system intensive. and ps. you will never see a decrease in performance unless the x64 version was written quite porrly and then that would be a code issue, not becasue its 64 bit app

 

 

max

[drcreek]

Automator news - This is what i wanted from automator!

 

Complete 64-Bit support for Intel and PowerPC - Now lets see a few more 64-bit chips in some iMacs!

 

Now what else are they hiding?????

[Jeezoflip]

Common folks. This is Apple. Im sure they have a whole string of {censored} planned. They just can't really give it away. Im sure they will have alot more features then what we know of.

[cyrana]

Common folks. This is Apple. Im sure they have a whole string of {censored} planned. They just can't really give it away. Im sure they will have alot more features then what we know of.

I agree, and it's certainly not worthy of people making 98 to 98SE comparisions.

[rogabean]

I agree with the fact that Apple most likely has a lot more tricks up their sleeves when it comes to Leopard, and I do apologize for the 98 to 98se comparison.

 

I'm just a bit dissapointed with the info they have given so far, that's all.

 

We'll see as more info gets released.

[enb14]

So it now will have x64 and 32 bit parts but what about drivers (kexts), are they going to be 32 and 64 as well?

[drcreek]

I think we'll get a load more of {censored} tinglingly good features announced as soon as the final version of vista starts getting pressed. They are just waiting for redmond to turn off the photocopiers. :smile:

[dtm3dd]

Yeah - if you watch the keynote you can see that Steve almost seems frustrated (I think he even lets out a little sigh) - before making a joke out of it - about not announcing their hidden features.

[grabberslasher]

High resolution (vector?) UI present in current build: 

 

[hoyanf]

seems like not many of u ere are on 64 bit systems...

 

u shuld try other nix's... start from scratch to built a 64bit sys...

as far as i know till todate most drivers are still 32bit... my encounter on linux there are none binary drivers fully 64bit's...

[jape]

So it now will have x64 and 32 bit parts but what about drivers (kexts), are they going to be 32 and 64 as well?

Yep, that's fun.

Microsoft failed: 64-bit win apps can't link with 32-bit libraries, so the kernel itself can't run 32-bit drivers.

Linux "failed": 32-bits apps are chrooted, in usual Unix fashion. Forget about 32-bit kernel modules.

 

But Apple said that they did it, and that 32-bit kexts will be usable on 64-bit system. I hope it's true.

[RockoTDF]

*yawn* Automator is a top 3 unused OS X Application by most users... being only slightly less used then Sherlock.

 

I think the thing about automator is that so few people have any idea how to use it, and even I, a seasoned computer user cant get some of the example workflows (like renaming songs in iTunes to start with Upper Case letters) to work. Im sure its a great and really useful application but so few have any idea how to use it.