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SYN · Jul 26, 2003, 08:12 AM

Apparently, Apple has seeded Panther 7B21 to developers... Haven't heard anything about it yet though, except that it's reportedly much faster... So anyone got any juice?

Colonel Panic · Jul 26, 2003, 08:47 AM

7B21 is indeed posted on ADC. I am downloading it.
Slow, slow slow download.....

obviously all under NDA.

SYN · Jul 26, 2003, 09:06 AM

so many questions

when was it posted? is it available only to select+ developers, or student members have it too?

Or is this under nda too ?

Colonel Panic · Jul 26, 2003, 09:14 AM

looks like it was posted last night. don't know if it is accessible to student developers.

3 User CD's for this build. the third is ~85MB.

DaveGee · Jul 26, 2003, 09:23 AM

Just checked and 'free-be' dev accounts (web only account?) don't have access to it.

Oh well..

Dave

JLL · Jul 26, 2003, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by SYN:
Apparently, Apple has seeded Panther 7B21 to developers... Haven't heard anything about it yet though, except that it's reportedly much faster...

Not the download

It's the slowest download I've ever had from ADC.

suthercd · Jul 26, 2003, 09:54 AM

Slow is right. Wonder how many signed on accounts doing a download it takes to drag the speed to 13K/sec. It's usually 600K+.

Craig

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 12:03 PM

Icons for applications now zoom towards you a bit and then fade out when double clicked for launching.

Webscreamer · Jul 26, 2003, 12:07 PM

where did you find this info?!

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 12:23 PM

Chess is now fully 3D, complete with reflections and spinning the board around to any angle

JLL · 12:40 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Chess is now fully 3D, complete with reflections and spinning the board around to any angle

Woohoo - people can stop complaining about the $129 price tag now

Horsepoo!!! · Jul 26, 2003, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by JLL:
Woohoo - people can stop complaining about the $129 price tag now

Hehe...

But seriously though...Panther is going to be one kick ass OS. I don't give a flying flubbadub if people stick with Windows and ever switch to Mac. As long as Apple can keep a solid userbase and impress at least 5% of the computer-using population, I'm set.

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 12:54 PM

Default for zip files doesn't appear to be stuffit anymore, seems to be BOMArchiveHelper. Downloading zip with Safari, it unzipped it and I never even saw the original zip. Everywhere I can right click on folders, files etc and choose "archive" and I get a zip file of the selected item.

Quicktime performance is improved, it now does a lot better at playing the huge AVI file I have than it does in Jaguar. It doesn't play the sound for that video though, even though it does in Jaguar. VLC plays the sound and video for it fine tho.

Smooth scrolling can be switched on/off and doesn't mess up the safari window contents.

Pressing command and up arrow in the finder opens the containing folder of whatever folder you're currently in.

Horsepoo!!! · Jul 26, 2003, 01:02 PM

That's cool...down with Stuffit. Ever since the creator, Raymond Lau, left Stuffit has been a piece of junk.

It was a decent piece of junk in OS 9 but it's a huge heap of junk in OS X.

I'd rather see zip files (a more cross-platform archiving format) and .dmg files (the prefered OS X method of packaging OS X apps) than Stuffit files now.

But is this another step by Apple to kick 3rd-party devs that don't want to improve their apps and bring them up to par with OS X standard in the nuts.

gorickey · Jul 26, 2003, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:

That sounds really close to what Spymac forums are reporting...

JLL · Jul 26, 2003, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Pressing command and up arrow in the finder opens the containing folder of whatever folder you're currently in.

Mac OS has done that for many many years.

MindFad · Jul 26, 2003, 02:16 PM

All sounds awesome. Can't wait for it. I've got my $129 ready.

Skywalkers new Hand · Jul 26, 2003, 03:05 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Icons for applications now zoom towards you a bit and then fade out when double clicked for launching

I don't totally get that one.

ddma · Jul 26, 2003, 03:14 PM

Originally posted by Skywalkers new Hand:
I don't totally get that one.

When you double click on an icon to open something it comes with a zoom effect in currect and pervious OSes as some lines zoom toward you. In Panther, it will have the icon itself enlarge a bit in animation and fading out at the same time over the original icon. Get it?

jessejlt · Jul 26, 2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by ddma:
When you double click on an icon to open something it comes with a zoom effect in currect and pervious OSes as some lines zoom toward you. In Panther, it will have the icon itself enlarge a bit in animation and fading out at the same time over the original icon. Get it?

What size zoom are we talking about? What I mean by that, is if we have an icon set at 128 x 128, and you double click on it, will it zoom to something greater than 128 x 128? If so, can you estimate the size? I wonder if this means we're going to have to re-render icon sizes.
Also, does this mean that the zoom lines are completely gone now?
Did Apple provide any kind of documentation for the new seed?
jesse ;-)

Skywalkers new Hand · Jul 26, 2003, 03:53 PM

Originally posted by ddma:
When you double click on an icon to open something it comes with a zoom effect in currect and pervious OSes as some lines zoom toward you. In Panther, it will have the icon itself enlarge a bit in animation and fading out at the same time over the original icon. Get it?

Sounds a bit odd as what if your icons are already at 128.

I'd like to see it in action though.

sniffer · Jul 26, 2003, 05:23 PM

It's really great to be updated on what is coming. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 05:33 PM

Originally posted by Skywalkers new Hand:
Sounds a bit odd as what if your icons are already at 128.

I'd like to see it in action though.

MacOS X's Quartz Engine are really powerful. They scale any graphic (both up and down) WAY better than Photoshop's engine.

Download xDock and set your Dock Icon to 512x512 and you'll see how good the quality is.

Also since the icon will fade out at big size, you won't really notice the quality though.

Webscreamer · Jul 26, 2003, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
MacOS X's Quartz Engine are really powerful. They scale any graphic (both up and down) WAY better than Photoshop's engine.

Download xDock and set your Dock Icon to 512x512 and you'll see how good the quality is.

Also since the icon will fade out at big size, you won't really notice the quality though.

Any other cool updates?

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 06:34 PM

Zipping was really fast, couldn't even see the CPU usage go up when running top to check. Could easily open other Finder windows at the same time, as I could also do while waiting for an iDisk folder to come up (the apple software one).

By the way, keep in mind that this new build is mainly bug fixes, not new features so we should have something more to look forward in next build

Sharky K. · Jul 26, 2003, 06:35 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
By the way, keep in mind that this new build is mainly bug fixes, not new features so we should have something more to look forward in next build

disable smooth scrolling not a big feature?

iFix Rene · Jul 26, 2003, 07:33 PM

sorry, but can someone enlighten me to
as what smoothscrolling is?

thnx

Wevah · Jul 26, 2003, 07:46 PM

Default for zip files doesn't appear to be stuffit anymore, seems to be BOMArchiveHelper. Downloading zip with Safari, it unzipped it and I never even saw the original zip. Everywhere I can right click on folders, files etc and choose "archive" and I get a zip file of the selected item.

Quicktime performance is improved, it now does a lot better at playing the huge AVI file I have than it does in Jaguar. It doesn't play the sound for that video though, even though it does in Jaguar. VLC plays the sound and video for it fine tho.

Smooth scrolling can be switched on/off and doesn't mess up the safari window contents.

Pressing command and up arrow in the finder opens the containing folder of whatever folder you're currently in.

What about .tgz, or something?

Adam Betts · Jul 26, 2003, 07:46 PM

Originally posted by iFix Rene:
sorry, but can someone enlighten me to
as what smoothscrolling is?

thnx

In Jaguar, when you scroll (using mouse scroll wheel, arrow keys or click on arrow box), it will jump one line. In Panther, it will scroll smoothly without any jumps.

Windows XP have this behavior enabled by default

johnnylundy · Jul 26, 2003, 08:51 PM

Anyone aware of alternate servers for the ADC ftp-ing? This is ridiculous, 3 kb per second...

Kenneth · Jul 27, 2003, 01:41 AM

Originally posted by johnnylundy:
Anyone aware of alternate servers for the ADC ftp-ing? This is ridiculous, 3 kb per second...

You may want to pick another severs (location)

Superchicken · Jul 27, 2003, 04:12 AM

Sounds sweet I like the idea of icon zooming and junk

Sharky K. · Jul 27, 2003, 04:38 AM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
In Jaguar, when you scroll (using mouse scroll wheel, arrow keys or click on arrow box), it will jump one line. In Panther, it will scroll smoothly without any jumps.

Windows XP have this behavior enabled by default

This is nice looking but Apple is implementing it the wrong way now. The biggest problem is scrolling with scroll wheel. You got the feeling the scrolling is not as fast as your scroll wheel and if you want to scroll a lot such as here at macnn scrolling goes fast-slow-fast-slow-etc... Apple could implement this well but for now it is horrible.

Angus_D · Jul 27, 2003, 10:46 AM

Originally posted by Colonel Panic:
looks like it was posted last night. don't know if it is accessible to student developers.

Probably not, student developers don't get a seed key.

3 User CD's for this build. the third is ~85MB.

Whee... That must make it, like, 1.5GB? Multiply that by a few thousand developers, and Apple's not going to be doing too well on the bandwidth front. Perhaps it's high time they moved imercury[1-5] to Akamai?

Either that, or they should write an encrypted swarming download client based on BT for distributing seeds. That'd be amusing.

Oh, and by the way:

AJ · Jul 27, 2003, 11:57 AM

ROTFWL

Hash · Jul 27, 2003, 03:02 PM

Any detailed info on bug fixes? Previous build was really hard to call useful.

Webscreamer · Jul 27, 2003, 03:18 PM

You know... right now we shouldn't even care about what bugs are being fixed currently, as long as they know they need to be fixed. I just want them to keep adding cool little things that make our life better. its really early in development for US to be worrying about these little stupid bugs being fixed.

Thats my two cents.

Go Apple.

trusted_content · Jul 27, 2003, 03:23 PM

With everybody complaining about slow downloads....

I'm reminded of why BitTorrent was actually created ( this exact situation ).

Musti · 04:08 PM

Originally posted by Webscreamer:
I just want them to keep adding cool little things that make our life better. its really early in development for US to be worrying about these little stupid bugs being fixed.

Adding "little things" to an operating system that will be released in two months, when everyone including Apple says or implies features are pretty much frozen and it's time to get rid of the bugs?
"Really early in development"?? "..early for US to be worrying about these little stupid bugs"? This OS will be released in months, not years, and Apple should be really worried about bugs if they want to increase their share of OS X users.

Adam Betts · Jul 27, 2003, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by Musti:
Adding "little things" to an operating system that will be released in two months, when everyone including Apple says or implies features are pretty much frozen and it's time to get rid of the bugs?
"Really early in development"?? "..early for US to be worrying about these little stupid bugs"? This OS will be released in months, not years, and Apple should be really worried about bugs if they want to increase their share of OS X users.

You're forgetting one important thing:

Cocoa + xCode = Extremely Fast Development Time

DaGuy · Jul 27, 2003, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by Musti:
Adding "little things" to an operating system that will be released in two months, when everyone including Apple says or implies features are pretty much frozen and it's time to get rid of the bugs?
"Really early in development"?? "..early for US to be worrying about these little stupid bugs"? This OS will be released in months, not years, and Apple should be really worried about bugs if they want to increase their share of OS X users.

I think I see your point and for the most part I agree with you but...

1. Jaguar is already a very solid OS, so focusing on performance and little details makes a lot of sense for Panther. That extreme attention to detail is what differentiates Apple from the others.

2. A solid OS is necessary for increasing market share but not sufficient.

ambush · Jul 27, 2003, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
You're forgetting one important thing:

Cocoa + xCode = Extremely Fast Development Time

I've been using xcode for 2 weeks now, and really, I not that great. I mean. I thought it was going to be the next big thing in Cocoa Coding. But it's not, IMO. I wish PB would be included in the new tools

Mediaman_12 · Jul 27, 2003, 05:34 PM

Originally posted by trusted_content:
With everybody complaining about slow downloads....

I'm reminded of why BitTorrent was actually created ( this exact situation ).

It makes you wonder if Apple couldn't create a special ADC download app, that works in a similar way to BitTorrent, as 1000's of Dev's downloading huge files from there servers is getting to be a sort of regular thing now.

JLL · Jul 27, 2003, 05:41 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
It makes you wonder if Apple couldn't create a special ADC download app, that works in a similar way to BitTorrent, as 1000's of Dev's downloading huge files from there servers is getting to be a sort of regular thing now.

Because it's not a very professional service if you have to rely on your customer's computers.

ADC usually have tons of bandwidth, but this seed might convince Apple to use Akamai for ADC too.

Webscreamer · Jul 27, 2003, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
You're forgetting one important thing:

Cocoa + xCode = Extremely Fast Development Time

Very true.

What I MENT to say: they WILL fix those bugs...and its not the end of the world if they arn't fixed in this 7B21. Just so people don't start getting in a big panic when they find their little bug they found wasn't in this build yet.

Fair enough to say?

Plus! From past experience what Apple does, the release will probably be December 31st. I have not heard even any rumors ship dates as of yet...

Richard5mith · Jul 27, 2003, 06:16 PM

The build is solid. Not a single crash in two days and only one noticeable bug.

Webscreamer · Jul 27, 2003, 06:50 PM

Have they added a new Background yet? ;p just curious!

Also, have they changed any icons or visual enhancements as such? If so, screenshots would be great!

DBvader · Jul 27, 2003, 07:53 PM

"From past experience what Apple does, the release will probably be December 31st"

i thought i remembered reading that apple said the ship date wouldnt be December 31st, or anything that late...but that it would be at the end of the year

Webscreamer · Jul 27, 2003, 08:03 PM

My next *stupid* question is why are all these people and sites talking about this being "PRE" alpha. Are they dumb?!

clarkgoble · Jul 27, 2003, 11:48 PM

XCode does sound cool, but let's be honest. Compilation speed usually isn't the limiting factor for development. The problem is debugging speed. I don't want to sound like a broken record but that's where Apple's extremely weak.