[ryarber]

What is the big deal with Tiger. This is the lamest "major" release I've seen from the OS X line. Please tell me where I'm wrong.

Catapult past Longhorn? I think not unless longhorn really $ux.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by ryarber:
What is the big deal with Tiger. This is the lamest "major" release I've seen from the OS X line. Please tell me where I'm wrong.

Catapult past Longhorn? I think not unless longhorn really $ux.

Well...if you think it sucks, you don't need to buy it.

Spotlight, CoreImage (geek under the hood feature), new iChat, new codec, are all really good, IMO. Steve hasn't shown all the features either I bet. Or else it wouldn't be a surprise and MS would add even more of it to Longhorn.

[Adam Betts]

One year before the release and you already said it's lame?

They haven't even show all of the 150 features yet

But Im not surprised that non-technical people aren't impressed by the current feature list because it's geared toward developers at WWDC, not you. To me, I'm very very impressed by the amount of changes they made under the hood.

[thePurpleGiant]

I do wonder though, what features could Apple implement to make you happy? As OS X matures, we already have the majority of features we want. I am very happy with the look of the update, my power with Apple simplicity.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
But Im not surprised that non-technical people aren't impressed by the current feature list because it's geared toward developers at WWDC, not you. To me, I'm very very impressed by the amount of changes they made under the hood.

The feature list they're advertising on the front page of their Web site? Why are they gearing that towards WWDC folks?

[zachs]

There's going to be a ton of little features and little improvements that, while they may not be big enough to include in a keynote or a promo page, will definately help out.

Like in 10.3, how they added iPhoto albums right into the Desktop pane. Or Software Update in the Apple menu. Little stuff like that.

[curmi]

With a year to go, I'm pretty sure there'll be lots of other very useful and cool features. Apple can't show all its cards yet, otherwise Microsoft will use them. Best to keep them secret for a year, then show them - so it takes Microsoft even longer to catch up.

[Krusty]

I'm not underwhelmed yet. Spotlight and on-the-fly, savable queries (like iTunes Smart Playlists) that search both metadata and content. This may completely change the way people use their computer.

Core Image/Core Video. H.264. System level sync engine. 64-bit OS (and Apple released SDKs for all of them so developers can start building applications that utilize these techs).

Seriously, I wouldn't worry too much yet. What Apple has previewed appears to be deeper and stronger "gut level" changes to OS X than in previous releases -- looks like a whole new plateau of core technology changes (Appropriately previewed to developers). I imagine more gee-whiz, consumer oriented changes (and 3rd party apps that use the new tech) will be solidified in the LOOOONNGG wait we have until its release.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
The feature list they're advertising on the front page of their Web site? Why are they gearing that towards WWDC folks?

I should rephrase my sentence... "mostly geared to developers..".

Xcode, Core Image, Core Audio, H.264/AVC, Search Technologies, 3 Major SDKs, Enhanced UNIX Support, etc aren't what interest average OS X users.

Apple want developers to know in ahead first so they can start writing support for Tiger. What benefit would they get by announcing to average OS X users one year earlier?

[ryarber]

I'm not a techie, only a Surgeon. I just watched the keynote and although I don't see anything there that makes me think I have to have Tiger, I can imagine a lot of the apps next year saying "Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Required." I guess that'll make me want to buy it. Although the OS doesn't blow me away with new overt features, the under-the-hood enhancements are intriguing and seem like they might spawn creativity in the developers.

BTW, I'm not trying to troll you guys, only trying to state my perceptions, one of the people who will actually plop down the $129 for Tiger next year as I do with every OS update. As far as what it would take to impress me, I don't know. I'm very happy with Panther and couldn't imagine what they could do to make it better.

Automator- I think the thing I was most impressed with is the new workflow app.
iChat- don't use it. I bought an iSight, but don't use it. Actually bought two because Apple makes it and I have to have it.
RSS in Safari- lukewarm.
Dashboard- Will have to try Konfab to see how I like it. One cool thing they should do with those clocks he had on the widget screen is have them flip over to show the current weather and a 5 day forecast for the locations you choose with the clocks. Also, someone should develop a widget showing weather radar.
CoreImage/Video- Don't know enough about it to say one way or the other, but doesn't look like something I'd use.
Spotlight- I don't have any trouble now finding files on any of my 5 hard drives. Of course, four are stuffed with video.
h.264- They have to support it. Think it will be available in QT7 for Panther?

Overall, very few things there for me.

[nbnz]

Out of the new features in the "Sneak Preview" (remembering there are many more as yet unknown enhancements)...

Spotlight - fantastic, definately good for me (and I'm organised!)
iChat - only use text chat now so not a biggie
Safari RSS - great!
Dashboard - some look helpful as long as it's not a resource hog
Automator - great, can't wait to try this out
Voiceover/.Mac sync/UNIX/XCode - don't care

Not underwhelmed but I would need more reason to buy than what's on offer so far.

[Graymalkin]

ryarber:
If you're a surgeon you might appriciate what developers will be able to do with CoreImage in the medical imaging field. Using CoreImage and its hardware accelerated filtering MI apps would be able to manipulate even large images in real-time. Being able to filter and composite images on the fly could really benefit the field. While you might not need it to add some contacts to Address Book it might be really useful for filtering an x-ray to better make out some feature that isn't quite clear in the original image.

I was pretty impressed with the new iChat capability. The new conferencing features with the iChat server in OSX Server is likely to be very big with the business market. Video conferencing is one of those cool technologies that very few companies can make work properly. As it stands iChat AV works pretty well. My friends and I use it mostly for audio since none of us have iSights (want to sell one cheap?). I could imagine it'd be pretty useful to conduct secure meetings over VPN links between remote offices all over the internet.

Spotlight, Automator, and Smart Folders are going to make a huge splash in the desktop publishing business where workflow is a high priority. A lot of pre-press offices have a lot of workflow issues because they employ a lot of graphics arts types and not so many gearhead types. The thought of using AppleScript to automate and streamline their workflow is an alien concept to many pre-press folks (not all obviously). Spotlight is just a better interface on top of the indexing and search system Finder's had since OS 8. Spotlight to find recently added images or articles or some such could be very useful. Smart Folders are just an awesome implementation of that idea I've been waiting for since OS 8!

[hmurchison2001]

Tiger has ushered in new technologies. These are changes in the core of how we use computers. I've noticed that people keep looking at Tiger features as though they are applications. They cannot see functionality and assume they don't or won't have a need for it.


Tiger is implementing core changes. Spotlight is the vehicle for the new Metadata indexing system. AVC is the new engine that powers iChat and will enable much better quality video. Core Image/Video are so vital to nextgen application design it baffles me how someone cannot get it. The ability to keep your app small and utilize efficient core functionality is a drastic shift from todays process. Perhaps many haven't seen the keynote and Phil's preview but no one utilizes computers without having a display device. Core Image/Video therefore can be used every minute your computer is running.

64bit is huge. The current Powermacs support up to 16GB of RAM. The Kernel has been updated for more efficient SMP.

There are going to be a lot of little functions that improve but won't be noted.

By the time Tiger ships we'll know a lot more and I seriously doubt that users will find Tiger to be a lame update. Launchbar and Quicksilver are nice but Tigers indexing system looks like it'll pull the most minute of data.

This was definitely a developers show. They oooh and ahhhed right on queue with the cool stuff.

[Simon]

Somehow I'm quite happy with people being "underwhelmed".

Panther is very mature. I like the idea that we are leaving behind yearly update cycles.

I rather have them iron out the little quirks and bugs and add few (but good albeit) features than have them re-write the OS every year and introduce new bugs/break other software every time.

I think it's time for them to focus more on apps than on the OS: AppleWorks 7 comes to mind.

[xe0]

under-whelmed?
Yes.

Will I buy Tiger?
Hell yes

[RevEvs]

just to echo a few things said elsewhere.

theres a whole year until its out...

we only saw a few features...

Apple arent going to sit about for a year and just polish up what we saw, there are a lot of things that are going to change. Steve even said when he showed the widgets that they were just examples of what yoou can do, im sure they will be very much more polished in 12 months.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by RevEvs:
just to echo a few things said elsewhere.

theres a whole year until its out...

we only saw a few features...

Apple arent going to sit about for a year and just polish up what we saw, there are a lot of things that are going to change. Steve even said when he showed the widgets that they were just examples of what yoou can do, im sure they will be very much more polished in 12 months.

Yeah...I hope those widgets were just whipped up rapidly and that they'll look a bit more OS Xish at 10.4's release.

The calculator is really the worse one out of the bunch.

[JayTay]

To be honest I wasn't overly wowed by Panther when it was first announced either but when you look at the list of features that Panther brought (http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/) it's easy to see a similar list of improvements yet to come from Tiger as well.

[Sven G]

I agree that the few Tiger features demoed at WWDC are rather "basic" (although new: that's obvious), indeed...

... So, Steve (or who reads these forums also for him)... what about some more important features, and also bug-fixes (or "feature"-fixes, according to points of view) - such as:

- definitively fixing the Finder, in all its aspects;

- integrating the Finder, Safari and the other iApps into one consistent container, possibly on a system-wide level (sofar, only partial achievings on this front);

- fixing the odd and inconsistent windowing behaviour in OS X (a heritage from the Classic days, still), which makes, among other things, window maximising a Russian roulette (still depends on the individual apps, etc.);

- the Dock: for God's, Buddha's, Marx's, Gandhi's, and Bakunin's sake (I hope I've satisfied most people, here) - Steve & Co., please enhance the Dock, together with Expos� (they really are part of one unitarian whole, if one can say so, also together with the "traditional" Menu Bar);

- the Mac (global) Menu Bar and the Apple Menu: enhance them in a positive way, if necessary also in a Start-Menu-like way - the current Apple Menu is way too elementary, IMHO (maybe the menus could be enhanced also with NeXT-like options, such as vertical menus, and even Windows-like ones, such as individual "window menus", and so on...);

- and, finally (others will add more possible features, of course), some more global consistency in the interface (themes, optionally, of course), and, maybe, some more powerful customisation options, even at the user-skill level (see basic, intermediate and advanced "desktops", etc.);

- Expos�-, Dock- and Menu Bar-integrated multiple desktops, built in for user convenience (more than the Dashboard, especially for power users);

- and so on (please add more, folks)...

If Tiger is only - I hope not! - what has been demoed at WWDC, a lot of people (even Steve himself) will definitely be disappointed - even the potential Longhorn "switchers"...

[Eriamjh]

All I want is speed speed speed on the same HW.

How about fixing all the bugs that have accumulated over the years?

How about a few drivers for other CD/DVD-RW/+RWs?

How about a better Open or Save file Dialog box, one where I can read the whole filename?

[Krypton]

If you watch the keynote video the search demo is very impressive.

I especially like the part where he looked up a place name and it showed a PDF map that had that place name on the map - not in the label/filename.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Sven G:
I agree that the few Tiger features demoed at WWDC are rather "basic" (although new: that's obvious), indeed...

... So, Steve (or who reads these forums also for him)... what about some more important Features and bug-fixes (or "feature"-fixes, accordine to points of view) - such as:

- definitively fixing the Finder, in all its aspects;

- integrating the Finder, Safari and the other iApps into one consistent container, possibly on a system-wide level (sofar, only partial achievings on this fornt);

- fixing the odd and inconsistent windowing behaviour in OS X (a heritage from the Classic days, still), which makes, among other thibgs, window maximising o Russian roulette (still dpends on the individual app, etc.);

- the Dock: for God's, Buddha's, Marx's, Gandhi's, and Bakunin's sake (I hope I've satisfied most people, here) - Steve & Co., please enhance the Dock, together with Expos� (they are parte of one unitarian whole, if one can say so, also together wth the menu bar);

- the Mac (global) menu bar and the Apple menu: enhance them in a positive way, if necessary also in a Start-menu-like way - the current Apple menu is way too elementary, IMHO;

- and, finally (others will add more possible features, of course), some more global consistency in the interface (themes, optionally, of course), and, maybe, some more powerful customistaion options, even at the user-skill level (see basic, intermediate and advanced "desktops", etc.);

- and so on (please add more, folks)...

If Tiger is only - I hope not! - what has been demoed at WWDC, a lot of people (even Steve himself) will definitely be disappointed - even the potential Longhorn "switchers"...

The Apple menu is not too elementary at all...and the Dock should not be bloated with features...it should remain simple.

I'm not sure what you mean by integrating the Finder, Safari and iLife into one container but I disagree. If you mean that these should be integrated into the OS and not distinct apps, you've got zero understanding of where Apple has been heading in the last 4 years.

Apple is providing developers new and interesting frameworks to use for their apps. These frameworks are the foundation of many Apple apps and this is why they integrate so well with one and the other. One shouldn't be locked into using Safari or Address Book. They shouldn't be part of the OS.

Starting with 10.4, I see the Finder becoming less and less useful and less and less intertwined with the OS. I see the Finder becoming just another app that you can launch to browse your HD...just like iTunes is used to browse your music. I see Spotlight becoming the new way of finding and launching files. With proper metadata in place in 10.4, saving your files in different folders or locations of the HD will become much less important and more of a thing those clean-freaks do.

My mom will probably still use the Finder to neatly organize her stuff in little folders.

I'll just throw all my documents in the Documents folder and let Spotlight find the documents. Would it be unreasonable to think the Open/Save dialog to have Spotlight to filter files? Can you imagine getting iTunes-like filtering for free in existing apps via Open/Save dialogs?

I won't need the Finder anymore. I may use it occasionally to create smart-folder to group certain files together...but the Finder will become another app to manipulate files.

The underwhelming feeling felt by some people only stems from not understanding some of the things 10.4 is bringing to the table.

[rogerkylin]

My 2 cents...

If the OS had some really great new features every 6-12 months, it seems like the whole thing would just get bloated.

I understand that some of the new technologies are under-the-hood, but those are probably some of the most difficult, and for the long term, important ones to include. If the basic OS is not mature, the whole thing will never be great.

Finally, I for one, am extremely excited about the 64-bit support as I've been waiting to adress lots of memory for a while...

[jszrules]

An AppleWorks overhaul would be nice, so Apple can stop being so dependent on M$.

Also hoping they put the Favorites folder back in the 'Go' Menu which they removed during the Jaguar->Panther upgrade.

Other than that, Tiger looks good, and I'm sure some of those little improvements everyone wants will be discovered once its out in 'H1 2005'.

[sambeau]

Err. He-lloo!



This was a preview to developers at a developers conference.

What was mostly on show was stuff for developers.
Wait a few months and you'll start seeing some stuff that'll wow the average surgeon-in-the-street.

The meta-data searching will (in my opinion) change all of our lives.
Sad for Arlo and Perry but must admit really want OS level widgets..

Adobe are gonna have to do some work on Photoshop too to take a leap ahead your what your average shareware developer could now knock together in a few months

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
TI'm not sure what you mean by integrating the Finder, Safari and iLife into one container but I disagree. If you mean that these should be integrated into the OS and not distinct apps, you've got zero understanding of where Apple has been heading in the last 4 years. [Etc.]

No: just some form of "starting point" feature, or an Entourage/Kontact/etc.-like container app which "manages", so to say, your individual applications.

Man, you are really over-emphasizing the so-called Apple way of doing things; it's not all that revolutionary, after all: why didn't they implement a completely new version of OpenDoc, for example? In that manner (I hope they still plan to do it), we could get rid of the "applications", etc. paradigms completely. If you want no Finder, then, neither, do you want other "apps" - at least, IMHO.

Tiger seems to be only a quite partial achievement, sofar: hopefully, there are much more things still kept secret... (?)

[rogerkylin]

Originally posted by jszrules:
An AppleWorks overhaul would be nice, so Apple can stop being so dependent on M$.

Also hoping they put the Favorites folder back in the 'Go' Menu which they removed during the Jaguar->Panther upgrade.

Other than that, Tiger looks good, and I'm sure some of those little improvements everyone wants will be discovered once its out in 'H1 2005'.

I don't think it is a matter of Apple being dependent on Microsoft as much as people/jobs being dependent on microsoft. In many industries, Word/Excel/PowerPoint documents are considered a standard format. So no matter how great Appleworks is, there will still be a need for Office.

[Angus_D]

While I was definitely underwhelmed by the marketing features, there's a LOT of really nice technology in Tiger from the developer standpoint.

[ambush]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
While I was definitely underwhelmed by the marketing features, there's a LOT of really nice technology in Tiger from the developer standpoint.

Yes.... it's such a big difference from Panther, Jaguar.

Incredible. And they're powerful APIs, not just new.. UI elements like NSSearchField and NSSegmentedControls.

Very exicitng indeed.

Going on my 4th beer.

[vertex]

Peesonally I couldn't care less about the 'my OS is better than yours' type arguments. Fact is, both MS and Apple are honing in on similar technologies, the argumets of old are going to whither away. So long as they both let me run my apps to the best of their abilities, I'll be happy.

What Apple showed is what Longhorn has, and in some ways what XP has. Same goes with Longhorn, Panther has some of its abilities. Whatever 150 new features Apple has up their sleeves, it's going to change my life as much as opening a can of coke.

I haven't got time for people who wave act like they've seen the second coming, MS fanbois, or Apple zealots.

[redJag]

Originally posted by sambeau:
Adobe are gonna have to do some work on Photoshop too to take a leap ahead your what your average shareware developer could now knock together in a few months

ahhh hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. joking, right?

[DannyVTim]

Originally posted by Sven G:
No: just some form of "starting point" feature, or an Entourage/Kontact/etc.-like container app which "manages", so to say, your individual applications.

Man, you are really over-emphasizing the so-called Apple way of doing things; it's not all that revolutionary, after all: why didn't they implement a completely new version of OpenDoc, for example? In that manner (I hope they still plan to do it), we could get rid of the "applications", etc. paradigms completely. If you want no Finder, then, neither, do you want other "apps" - at least, IMHO.

Tiger seems to be only a quite partial achievement, sofar: hopefully, there are much more things still kept secret... (?)

OpenDoc? MS killed off OpenDoc years and years ago. What does opendoc have to do with anything since is was basically a standard for URL handling across platforms? I'm missing your point here.

I think apple's prefered app for managing apps is and always will be the finder. Why don't they simply put the applications folder in the dock by default. And then create a more robust doc with multiple tabs for various application sets.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Sven G:
- definitively fixing the Finder, in all its aspects

Could you possibly be any less specific?

- integrating the Finder, Safari and the other iApps into one consistent container, possibly on a system-wide level (sofar, only partial achievings on this front);

"Two apps a day keeps bloat at bay". Turning the Finder, Safari, and the iApps into a single monolithic "The App That Does Everything" is not the proper approach. Use small tools that do one thing and do it well, and provide integration points so that they can work together to perform tasks none of them could do alone.

- fixing the odd and inconsistent windowing behaviour in OS X (a heritage from the Classic days, still), which makes, among other things, window maximising a Russian roulette (still depends on the individual apps, etc.);

God no; the intelligent zooming (not maximizing) is one of the great things about OSX's windowing behavior.

- the Dock: for God's, Buddha's, Marx's, Gandhi's, and Bakunin's sake (I hope I've satisfied most people, here) - Steve & Co., please enhance the Dock, together with Expos� (they really are part of one unitarian whole, if one can say so, also together with the "traditional" Menu Bar);

"One unitarian whole?" I didn't think the Mac had any religion.

Ahem. Once again, you haven't bothered to provide any kind of specifics here.

- the Mac (global) Menu Bar and the Apple Menu: enhance them in a positive way, if necessary also in a Start-Menu-like way - the current Apple Menu is way too elementary, IMHO (maybe the menus could be enhanced also with NeXT-like options, such as vertical menus, and even Windows-like ones, such as individual "window menus", and so on...)

The single best menubar implementation in any GUI anywhere must be kept intact. Its "elementariness" is its greatest strength: it does what it's supposed to, no more, no less.

- and, finally (others will add more possible features, of course), some more global consistency in the interface (themes, optionally, of course), and, maybe, some more powerful customisation options, even at the user-skill level (see basic, intermediate and advanced "desktops", etc.)

Again, how can you expect Apple to do what you want if you won't tell them what you want? Do you even know what you want, or are you just blindly throwing out a request for more gee-whiz eyecandy?

[hmurchison2001]

I'm amazed that people haven't seen the writing on the wall re the Finder.

It's DEAD people.


Apple is not going to pore a bunch of effort into the Finder when in 2-3 years we'll all be searching for out data via Spotlight technology. What can the finder do for me when I can easily search for keywords and browse the relevant results?

The beauty of Metadata is it transcends directory structure. It doesn't matter if you keep your files neatly organized in folders or you toss everything into a flat folder. Metadata will find the files you seek. It basically obsoletes the finder.

[MOTHERWELL]

Originally posted by hmurchison2001:
I'm amazed that people haven't seen the writing on the wall re the Finder.

It's DEAD people.


Apple is not going to pore a bunch of effort into the Finder when in 2-3 years we'll all be searching for out data via Spotlight technology. What can the finder do for me when I can easily search for keywords and browse the relevant results?

The beauty of Metadata is it transcends directory structure. It doesn't matter if you keep your files neatly organized in folders or you toss everything into a flat folder. Metadata will find the files you seek. It basically obsoletes the finder.

I agree. I hardly ever use the Finder. I hardly use the doc anymore either, now that I have Butler.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by hmurchison2001:
I'm amazed that people haven't seen the writing on the wall re the Finder.

It's DEAD people.


Apple is not going to pore a bunch of effort into the Finder when in 2-3 years we'll all be searching for out data via Spotlight technology. What can the finder do for me when I can easily search for keywords and browse the relevant results?

The beauty of Metadata is it transcends directory structure. It doesn't matter if you keep your files neatly organized in folders or you toss everything into a flat folder. Metadata will find the files you seek. It basically obsoletes the finder.

Precisely. I wouldn't be surprised if by 10.5 Apple decides that the Finder should be like any other app and only launched on demand and quittable when you don't need it.

The Finder is now becoming like iTunes or Address Book...but instead of specializing in music or contacts, it has no specialization. It's going to remain a global file browser but only to people that still want to store things neatly in a hiearchical manner.

For the rest of the world that know what's best for them, Spotlight will do all the heavy work of finding the files you need.

Starting with 10.4, I may just put all my files into the Documents folder.

The Finder was amazing back in the days when we had to use floppy disks and extensive use of removable media to store a few dozen files. Everything was easy to find because hard drives and floppy disks weren't big enough to allow for endless storage. But today? We've got music, we've got videos, we've got pictures, we can store all our documents on the HD, we've got e-mail...this stuff is way too much for a hierarchical browser to remain efficient.

The Finder is indeed dead. The Dock and Spotlight will soon become the best way to use Mac OS X with very moderate use of the Finder for certain things.

[kman42]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the idea that we will have no need for the Finder. What if I want to group things that wouldn't necessarily appear together in a search? I have lots of documents that logically fit together by project but don't share a single common word except that they are inside a common folder. How would spotlight keep those files together? Also, how would it keep things out of a group that I don't want? By its very nature it will produce 'false positives'.

I want a particular set of ten files next to each other because I need access to all of them when I am working on that project. There is no way that Spotlight can accomplish that unless I can arbitrarily tag the files in some way (which I do now by putting them in the same folder).


kman

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by kman42:
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the idea that we will have no need for the Finder.

I agree; they just need to change its name to Organizer or Browser

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by kman42:
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the idea that we will have no need for the Finder. What if I want to group things that wouldn't necessarily appear together in a search? I have lots of documents that logically fit together by project but don't share a single common word except that they are inside a common folder. How would spotlight keep those files together? Also, how would it keep things out of a group that I don't want? By its very nature it will produce 'false positives'.

I want a particular set of ten files next to each other because I need access to all of them when I am working on that project. There is no way that Spotlight can accomplish that unless I can arbitrarily tag the files in some way (which I do now by putting them in the same folder).


kman

What people mean is that there will be no need for the Finder to be open all the time. Most apps in 10.4 will allow smart grouping or normal (manual) grouping. Address Book will have this, Mail too. The Finder will just be another app that does this.

Doesn't prevent people from having the Finder launched 24/7. I've got Mail, iTunes, and Address Book opened 24/7.

But the preferred method of finding files once Spotlight hits the scene will be typing in a relevant keyword in the Spotlight search field and getting everything related to that keyword.

This is the equivalent of searching for something using the search field in the Finder, Mail, Address Book, iTunes, etc. but combined under one roof (and hopefully very fast).

[Graymalkin]

Are some of you people unaware that you can do content indexing right now in OSX? Jaguar supports only volume-level indexing but Panther supports folder-level indexing. Select a folder or volume, Get Info, and select the Content index panel. Build the index of a folder and it will be fully searchable from within Finder's Find function (Command + F, File -> Find). Once you've indexed a folder you can search through its contents and add as many criteria to said search as you'd like. Go ahead and search for all documents mentioning IBM that were updated in the past week. Finder will do that right this second for you.

The content indexing goes way back to the days of OS 8 when it was introduced with Sherlock. Since then the content searching and indexing feature has migrated into Finder. Spotlight is little more than a better interface than the one provided in Finder currently. Smart Folders are just search criteria that Finder saves. I keep just about everything that isn't a music, image, or movie file in ~/Documents and update my index occassionally. When I need to find a particular file I just use "Content includes: something" as my Find criteria.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by DannyVTim:
OpenDoc? MS killed off OpenDoc years and years ago. What does opendoc have to do with anything since is was basically a standard for URL handling across platforms? I'm missing your point here.

I think apple's prefered app for managing apps is and always will be the finder. Why don't they simply put the applications folder in the dock by default. And then create a more robust doc with multiple tabs for various application sets.

OpenDoc. What I meant was essentially that applications should evolve towards being components/modules/plug-ins/etc., rather than individual, self-contained entities: OpenDoc was certainly a step towards that. Of course, with more and more basic technologies becoming part of the system at the core level, apps tend to more and more plug into these same core features: so it should eventually be a quite "natural" evolution, so to say...

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Could you possibly be any less specific?

"Two apps a day keeps bloat at bay". Turning the Finder, Safari, and the iApps into a single monolithic "The App That Does Everything" is not the proper approach. Use small tools that do one thing and do it well, and provide integration points so that they can work together to perform tasks none of them could do alone.

God no; the intelligent zooming (not maximizing) is one of the great things about OSX's windowing behavior.

"One unitarian whole?" I didn't think the Mac had any religion.

Ahem. Once again, you haven't bothered to provide any kind of specifics here.

The single best menubar implementation in any GUI anywhere must be kept intact. Its "elementariness" is its greatest strength: it does what it's supposed to, no more, no less.

Again, how can you expect Apple to do what you want if you won't tell them what you want? Do you even know what you want, or are you just blindly throwing out a request for more gee-whiz eyecandy?

Most of these things have been discussed over and over again.

For example, things that currently don't work optimally in the Finder are FTP, global view settings, and so on.

Starting point "app"? See, for example, the excellent Crm4Mac, which integrates standalone apps into "one unitarian whole" (no religious pun intended! ). Think about, for example, a Mozilla suite which doesn't load monolitically, but builds its interface upon Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, NVU, etc. From the "visual" point of view, personally, I find Entourage's integrated interface much more productive than having to use several individual apps (although Entourage is a self-contained app, which is a partially negative thing, of course).

Elementariness, etc.? Well, here things obviously depend on individual opinions, also: what is lacking, is some form of "power user" interface option, which Apple could very well provide without too much effort; also, switchers from Windows should feel a little more comfortable.

And so on...

(Of course, I'm going to post some concepts to Apple feedback, as a web forum is not the best place for details on this front, probably.)

[Graymalkin]

Crm4Mac doesn't link the different apps into a unitarian whole, it's just using the data those apps manage for contact management and scheduling. There's no need for an Address Book component when there's already an Address Book framework available. The framework is much more robust than having an OpenDoc style component. The OpenDoc component is only really useful if I want to use a GUI based container to view the AB data. The framework which is display agnostic can be easily used in a CLI app or from a web service or some such. I'd rather have the usage agnostic framework than a component any day.

[sambeau]

Originally posted by redJag:
ahhh hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. joking, right?

Didn't you spot the huge smiley?

[JKT]

Originally posted by Millennium:
<snip>God no; the intelligent zooming (not maximizing) is one of the great things about OSX's windowing behavior.<snip>

Which would be true if it worked consistently in all apps... iTunes, TextEdit and Preview are examples where the zoom button doesn't work as it should (that is, cycling between default size, user created size, intelligent size and or full screen size). With iTunes that is partially forgivable as it has a unique requirement for a minimal controller size, but in TextEdit (especially) and Preview?

[Randman]

I think people are too jaded these days..

My initial impression was higher than when Panther was first introduced and I love it as it's sooo much better than Jaguar, imo.

[Charles Reader]

Why not make the Dock a widget? As a widget it would get it off the screen unless you actually needed it for something which would please a lot of people who need ALL of their screen real-estate.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Charles Reader:
Why not make the Dock a widget? As a widget it would get it off the screen unless you actually needed it for something which would please a lot of people who need ALL of their screen real-estate.

What about Dock stuff that gives graphical feedback like CPU meters, mail's new message count, etc. ? Those things should not just appear after I press F12.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally posted by ryarber:
Catapult past Longhorn? I think not unless longhorn really $ux.

Considering what we know so far about Longhorn, Mac OS X is already better than that. So yes, making OS X better than it is now will naturally widen the gap.

As for my personal favorite, I'm pleased with Core Image and Core Video. I'm pleased, but not overwhelmed. This is the kind of solution people who deal with image processing expect from Apple, and it's actually baffling to me that they didn't have this already. However, this is better than what's generally available on PCs. One of the best image proccessing libraries on the PC side is Intel's IPL. But since it is from Intel, it's optimized to use the CPU instead of the GPU. That's a big deal when you're trying to apply 5 or so filters, plus at least a dozen image substractions (think frame differencing and background differencing) all on live video coming in from an image capture device. Who would use that? Well machine vision folks for one.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
I keep just about everything that isn't a music, image, or movie file in ~/Documents and update my index occassionally.

This points out one of the things that Jobs didn't mention during the keynote. From what I understand, Spotlight only requires that you index a drive once. After that it indexes individual files as they are created/modified.

Note: I can't be 100% on this myself, as I didn't attend WWDC and don't have a copy of Tiger. However, this is what I've read on a few blogs that some developers who work for Apple run.