Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'Poll options? Probably not' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Poll options? Probably not
Authored by: newbill123 on Jun 07, '07 03:44:51PM

The poll asked what will be the biggest "surprise" Leopard feature revealed by Jobs on Monday June 11th? I didn't see any I really liked though.

100% resolution independence
That's already announced and non-secret isn't it? Of course, there's no way you'll make everything vectors and core graphics recipes (you wouldn't want the speed hit), but the line has been drawn on legacy Quickdraw drawing code. No compatability environments. No life support. You might not write the code and make the artwork to have good looking apps, but this is coming soon.

A brand new Finder!
Sort of. My guess is that they'll announce three new features in the Finder. They won't dump it in favor of a "new paradigm", but they might rewrite it for one reason or another. That kind of thing is generally used to justify why they weren't able to implement these three new features before now. What are the features? No idea, but Steve likes threes.

Built-in Windows/Linux virtualization support
Support: likely. Virtualization itself: Very unlikely. Right now Apple benefits greatly by having two competing virtualization products in the Mac marketplace. Apple would be crazy to short circuit this with their own product or by picking a "winner". Apple might offer some hooks that these products could "plug in" to something in the kernel or Apple's frameworks. A standard virtualization UI? Access to something in the Boot Camp partition? Using ZFS or time machine hooks? Apple can offer standards and hooks into Mac OS X that won't destabilize the Mac side of things, but they aren't going to offer virtualization themselves.

Dictation-capable voice recognition
Possible, but not by itself. This isn't a feature users are screaming for, but it might be one of the legs of a universal access / handicapped accessibility push to get more acceptance in businesses. It's not like Apple to have a secret feature be just an improvement of something already there though.

iLife'07 ('08?) bundled
iWork'07 ('08?) bundled
Maybe but unlikely to be announced at WWDC. Front Row and Photo Booth integration had developer impact last year. You could use these interfaces in your apps. Bundling deals might not be announced until October so there's something to rekindle the fire when Leopard is actually put on the shelves.

Multi-touch interface support
Very desirable, but why wait til now to announce since the big secret (the iPhone) is out of the bag? With only a few months left until release, Developers aren't going to be able to use this technology. Apple probably still wants total control of it in this embryonic stage anyway. I bet the tech is being put into Mac OS X, but I doubt the initial release of Leopard is the date. I'd love to be proved wrong on this one though.

Some unknown new application
If it has Developer impact, sure. A developer tool (like Xray), a basic app that demos a new feature of the OS (like PhotoBooth or Front Row), or an app (like TextEdit) designed to be a developer's starting point. If it's strictly an end user app, it'll be kept under wraps until October or whenever Apple wants to pump the bellows to get the "buying" fire started in October.

Spotlight will search for phrases
Technically, I think it can do this now. Tiger's interface kind of stinks though. This could be a feature touted if Apple decides to overhaul the Spotlight user interface.

zfs is the new default file system
Doubtful. It may be the "default data file system" or "default backup file system", but I doubt it will be the "default bootable file system". ZFS is fairly new to booting, so it's a questionable move to make everyone use it. Also, if you're going to ask people to reformat their hard drives to use ZFS you'll want them to have a good backup. Time machine is a good backup tool, but that only comes with Leopard once you have it installed. Apple may change the default disk format in 10.6 fairly painlessly when people will be better about backing up and be used to the tools, but it's questionable if it happens with Leopard's release.

10.5 is actually OEM'd Vista Ultimate
Not unless they raise the price by $400 and sign their future away to Redmond.

I'll post my thoughts on what the new features might be (in a response to another post soon).

Whatever they are, I bet they will be big news.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Poll options? Probably not
Authored by: aquarajustin on Jun 08, '07 07:22:47AM

newbill123,

The Leopard installer kicks off Time Machine before it touches your system.



[ Reply to This | # ]