Leopard status

chevy

chevy

Marvelous Da Vinci
Staff member
Mod
I know we have several developped on macosx who play with the different Leoprad pre-releases.

I wonder how mature it is and if there is any chance we really get it by June.
 
Apple hasn't seeded too many builds to developers so far. Hearing from several (3rd party, not Apple) developers, the most recent build (already a couple of weeks old by now) has still had quite a bit of issues, but generally works alright.

From past releases (10.4 and earlier) we know that Apple internally is quite a bit ahead of what ADC Select and Premier members get to test, so we don't really know the _current_ state of Leoaprd. 9A377a is certainly _months_ older than what Apple's working on internally.

The really interesting stuff is that Steve Jobs has promised a couple of secret features for Leopard that still haven't surfaced in developer builds. The question is: What can they be. They can't be core system features, because those would have been put to the test for developers also. So those are probably set. What Steve probably meant was applications and add-ons. Things like iChat. When iChat was new (only an example!), that didn't have any effect on 3rd party developers testing the core OS. Similarly, Apple hasn't talked about iLife '07 and iWork '07 so far. Although it would seem like a stretch to call these "Leopard features", Apple might put iLife into Leopard, i.e. it would only run on Mac OS X 10.5, use its new features (Core Animation etc.) and come free with the OS (instead of free with new machines as has been the case with iLife '06 and earlier).

My _guess_ is that Apple will release Leopard some time _before_ WWDC in June. A May date is not totally out of question, although that would mean we would see more frequent seeding in the next couple of weeks. Final Candidates would have to appear near the end of April at the very latest for a May release.

Any talk of Leopard being late as in "later than June" however, are totally off in my opinion.
 
The question is relatively hot for me as I consider buying Parallels, but I don't want to buy something that I shall not be able to continue to use (or ever may not need) when Leopard is launched.

I'll wait until June...
 
I think we can assume that Parallels will certainly update their application to run on Leopard. Apple has _stated_ that they don't turn BootCamp into a virtualisation application. Although the person saying this might have been misinformed or lying, I actually don't think Apple will put too much effort into it, because both BootCamp and Parallels are already _here_ and work fine. I don't think Apple wants to emphasize the fact that you can run Windows on a Mac even more. Apple's aspect here is to make the driver-CD you get from BootCamp work as seamlessly as possible with Windows XP and Vista.

The only thing still _missing_ from current virtualisation environments like Parallels is true graphics virtualisation, which AFAIK is actually impossible, because the graphics chips simply don't have such features. So with current technology, all you can do is put a layer on that give the best possible performance. I'm sure work _can_ be done here, but I actually doubt Apple will do it - and we know Parallels is working on it.

But waiting for more information (or the OS itself) at this point certainly is the smart thing to do - unless you truly _need_ to run Windows side-by-side on that Mac right now.
 
fryke said:
The only thing still _missing_ from current virtualisation environments like Parallels is true graphics virtualisation, which AFAIK is actually impossible, because the graphics chips simply don't have such features.
Click to expand...

[off-topic]will this mean therefore, that possibly nVidia or ATi may produce graphics cards with onboard virtualisation support, like Intel has started doing with it's processors? i'd certainly like to see that, and there is a fair bit of demand for it, a google search on recent virtualisation stories and the big hoo-ha about Vista's EULA is indicative of that....

[/off-topic]
 
Yep, there's been talk that both nVidia and AMD/ATi are working on such features. Theoretically, fully virtualised hardware would enable use to _fully_ run Windows, linux and Mac OS X side-by-side. There could even be support for that at the EFI stage. Imagine a boot-loader that rather than asking you which OS to boot, which OSes to boot at the same time. ;) But as has been said: That's off-topic future-talk, because current hardware simply can't do it.
 
I would love that BootCamp and Parallels improve and can use the same disk, so that I could buy only one Windows license.
 
Thanks for the info.

<off-topic> If you haven't done so yet, spend 2 hours in a theater to watch "Das Leben der Anderen", it is really worth the time. </off-topic>
 
chevy said:
Thanks for the info.

<off-topic> If you haven't done so yet, spend 2 hours in a theater to watch "Das Leben der Anderen", it is really worth the time. </off-topic>
Click to expand...

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's movie debut focuses on the horrifying, sometimes unintentionally funny system of observation in the former East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly don't always think loyal to the party line.

Looks good.

/back to topic

I really, really want an update to our GUI. Also, AFAIK, there haven't been many changes in developer builds to the Finder... isn't it inexorability that the Finder gets some major updates? I'd be damned if all the hype Jobs created with his "hidden features" was *more* applications.
 
yeah i think the last thing the mac community wants is more bloated apps. we want something tangible that says something to the Vista fanboys obsessed with their newfound graphical ability.
 
I have _that_ already. Whenever someone's just used Vista, let them move a few icons around a Tiger desktop, and they'll notice how everything feels more solid, working etc. Vista feels "dreamy, hazy" kinda, and most of the time you really _want_ to do smething, the screen darkens like a kernel panic and asks you whether you're human and really want to complete the task.
 
This may be a stupid question, but as an owner of a G4 ibook, will leopard run on it or will I need to get an intel machine?
 
junkboyoh said:
This may be a stupid question, but as an owner of a G4 ibook, will leopard run on it or will I need to get an intel machine?
Click to expand...

Leopard should run on it, but the G4 would probably be considered as the bottom of the barrel for support. I could be wrong. We won't know for sure though until it's actually released.
 
i would be surprised if G3 iBooks couldn't officially run it. Tiger runs absolutely flawlessly on my 700mhz G3. and i mean, seamlessly fast. Leopard is just another extension of the same OS...
 
Yes, but Apple quite clearly simply defines a cut-off date for supported machines. They _could_ say that the G3 processor simply isn't supported any longer. Most of the flashy new graphics features wouldn't run on the machines, anyway - and new apps should theoretically be compatible with 10.3.9-10.5.x unless they specifically require things like CoreAnimation etc.

We'll see when Apple posts the requirements officially on apple.com ... :)
 
This is going to go under 'things I would like to see in Leopard' but what if Apple was working on a Front Row for the Finder? I mean it has a slick interface and navigating music is rather easy. Seems to fit but maybe text files and such wouldn't work.
 
Looking at the Leopard screenshots, the Finder looks exactly the same like in Tiger, so you don't see anything new...
 
To be honest, for quite some time I had been expecting Leopard to be a bit of a disappointment. It was hyped up at the preview, but we were told that other features were secret. Being a pessimist, I immediately expected this to mean that it would all be a bit of an anti-climax (as releases of some previous versions of OS X have been in some people's eyes). Some recent articles on sites such as Think Secret, however, seem to raise my hopes:

Think Secret said:
Leopard is shaping up to be a more significant release than anyone expected, with much more to come than any of the developer builds have led on," one source said.

Also scheduled for a June release now are new versions of Apple's iLife and iWork suites, which will pack extensive Leopard-dependent features. Sources say Apple continues to toy with the idea of bundling one or both suites with the new operating system free of charge in an effort to further play up the extra value and features Mac OS X offers over Microsoft's new Windows Vista.
Click to expand...
Doh, now I might look forward to Leopard much more than I did previously!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top