ThinkSecret.com is reporting that, according to “reliable sources”, the new iMac should hit shelves on August 7th and will be ensconced in a brushed aluminum enclosure. The site is also toying with the idea that the new iLife suite might be released early to coincide with the new iMacs’ debut. General consensus up to this point has been that it would be released in October alongside the new Leopard operating system. While an early release of iLife would be a nice surprise, it might be an odd choice on Apple’s part since one would think that the new versions of iLife and iWork would be coded to take advantage of Leopard’s bells and whistles. Then again if the new iLife doesn’t require Leopard to run, an early release might not seem so odd after all. Save the date: August 7 for new iMac, iLife to emerge early? [ThinkSecret.com] → Read More
Leopard will soon be purring on a Mac near you, but I bet you didn’t know that its window corners are rounded. Nor did you know that the contextual menu (when you right-click something) has additional entries in it like “Automator” and “Send [picture] to Bluetooth device.” Did you know, smarty pants? APC Mag compiled a list of 10 things “you didn’t know about Leopard” and while I’d wager that you do, in fact, know more than a few of them, you really do have to respect the attention to detail that APC paid. I never even looked at the corners of my windows before! What I learned: iCal doesn’t suck as much as it does on Tiger. That’s a Godsend because my calendar is totally booked, if you know what I mean. Ten things you didn’t know about Leopard [APC Magazine] → Read More
ZFS is in, ZFS is out… OK, so now we know that ZFS file system support is in Mac OS X Leopard. The read/write support was just seeded to developers according to reports online and no one but complete nerds will notice unless Apple makes it the default file system. The WWDC build of Leopard still has journaled HFS+ as the default file system. Man oh man, nothing like writing about file systems early in the morning to start the day. ZFS Read/Write Developer Beta for Leopard [MacRumors] → Read More
The WWDC build of Leopard is all over the Internet and judging by the numerous, illicitly obtained screenshots and video walkthroughs, you can tell it’s still a little rough around the edges. Apple will look to rectify this in the next several months, finishing up development in early September. The Leopard development roadmap has allegedly leaked online, so we can give you a month-by-month breakdown of what’s scheduled to happen. By early July, Apple will have ironed out Airport, UI, API and Dev Tools issues, to be proceeded by the final, feature-complete build in August. Then Apple will focus on quashing the remaining bugs before the whole project goes gold several weeks later. That puts Apple on track for a late October release for its newest operating system. Mac OS X Leopard internal roadmap revealed [MacosXrumors via Mac Rumors] → Read More
http://admin.brightcove.com/destination/player/player.swf Stacks Like many of you, I’ve chosen to refrain from downloading the leaked Leopard Beta because I’d rather wait for the full-fledged version to be released before pirating it. (DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse piracy!) Anyways, the demo given at WWDC just didn’t whet my appetite and I’m sure most of you will agree. But someone leaked a handful of OS X 10.5 videos. I hope these aren’t taken down before you get a chance to sink your teeth into them. → Read More
It looks like the WWDC beta of Leopard was leaked onto the Oink BitTorrent Web site. (I’m not about to download it, though, that’s for sure.) Here’s a screen shot. And another. And another. That last one made me laugh. Oops! Nobody’s completely downloaded the 6GB file yet, but the site’s forum is red hot with activity and the file already has 205 comments. Choice lines about the leak in recent days have included “this is f*#$ing ridiculous. i want leopard, and i want it now. hurry, before some heads start to roll” and “Please do not talk about this torrent file outside of OINK.” Someone should notify Apple. → Read More
The WWDC build of Leopard still hasn’t leaked onto the Internet (aside from, perhaps, some super-private BitTorrent trackers), but Wired has a mini-review of the beta. Keeping in mind that Leopard isn’t scheduled to come out until October, Wired basically gave it the Thumbs Up. The brightest spot seems to be the new Finder, which makes browsing around your file system easier. The iTunes-derived Cover Flow view, believe it or not, makes browsing around your files fun. To me, this is fun, but whatever… → Read More
Apple appears to have used its goons to prevent the unauthorized leak of the newest Mac OS X Leopard beta, build 9A466. Jerks. Someone posted the beta onto the Oink BitTorrent site on Thursday and within six hours “ninjas got to [him].” Users on various Internet sites have taken that to mean that Apple’s lawyers had contacted the leaker, forcing him to kill the torrent. That we don’t know for sure, though. It’s not surprising, really, seeing as though Apple sued Tiger leakers during that operating system’s beta period. What all this means is that if you’re waiting for the beta to leak (which is illegal, by the way), you’re going to be waiting a little while longer than you might be used to. One site, MacMate.org, seems to know something that the rest of don’t, however… Source: Usenet, shady forums, etc. → Read More
Ever since Macworld I’ve been frothing over Leopard and WWDC definitely didn’t help my obsession either. I daydream about Stacks, Spaces and Time Machine. My behavior is quite strange, but I just can’t help it. Anyways, October is a long ways away, but Amazon is willing to help out your cravings with pre-orders for the greatest OS EVER. Are you excited yet? Amazon → Read More
The lucky devils who got a dev version of OS X Leopard posted some tidbits and were quickly DESTROYED by legions of Apple lawyers. They are now circling the planet in a Kryptonian Phantom Zone but their words remain: • Mail is really great, seems super fast • Spotlight much more responsive, no pauses as you type • Safari seems faster and now has that styled text editor as in FireFox (used in blogger for example) • New Finder, not as new as I had expected, seems solid and sensible. • Coverflow everywhere, yeah, whatever.. • Quickview is useful I think, certainly seems fast. • Time Machine looks like it works really, really well. → Read More
Could Apple be throwing its support behind both Blu-ray and HD DVD? We already know that Apple is a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, but according to a WWDC attendee’s post on the Mac Rumors forum, Leopard’s DVD player now has HD DVD settings in the preferences menu. Could someone please leak the new Leopard beta already? Pretty please? WWDC: Leopard Details [Mac Rumors via AVS Forum] → Read More
If you spent your time yesterday under a rock (lol1) you would have missed Steve Jobs’ keynote. (Good thing, too, because it stunk.) But, for your viewing pleasure, Apple just posted the whole dog and pony show on its Web site. Relive great moments like, uh, when the EA guy comes out in his pajamas and describes Need For Speed: Carbon as a “car game” and when some application crashed right in the middle of His Steveness speaking. WWDC 2007 Keynote Address [Apple] → Read More
TUAW just dug up “private mode” in the new Safari 3 beta, a feature that deletes downloaded files, keeps no cookies, and doesn’t hold onto passwords or personal info. As someone who enjoys certain types of sites now and again — OK, every 15 minutes — it’s nice to know this is out there. It will definitely save on lawyer bills during the divorce settlement. To find it, click Safari—> Private Browsing. Boom. Super secret. Tiger Bits: Safari’s Private Browsing [TUAW] → Read More
I have some crushing news for you: ZFS will not be the default file system in Mac OS X Leopard. That’s as of today, June 12, 2007, at least. A senior marketing fellow for Leopard said, unequivocally, that “ZFS is not happening,” which flies in the face of what Sun said last week. Leopard is on track to use the HFS+ file system, dontcha know? The real test will be when some do-gooder leaks the Leopard WWDC beta onto Usenet or one of those torrent sites I’ve been hearing about lately. Until then, we’re still completely in the dark. Apple Says No Sun File System For Leopard [InformationWeek via Mac Rumors] → Read More
We learned a lot today about Apple’s up-and-coming OS, Leopard. That being said, nothing we learned was really Earth-shattering. All the rumors of built-in Windows integration, teleportation rays and disease curing were bunk. In fact, almost nothing that was rumored came to fruition, and that’s the rub: there just wasn’t much new stuff announced. That doesn’t mean, however, that it was a bust. As it’s a developer’s conference, the bulk of the speech was about Leopard, not various hardware. That was to be expected. And of Leopard we heard much, but more importantly, we saw much. While I wasn’t allowed video on the floor, I took a few key photos. And, luckily for you, the reader, I have a descriptive and detailed verbal pallet. → Read More
“It turns out we were almost all wrong.” A concerned public servant once said about the existence of illicit weapons in a certain Middle Eastern country. That same quote now applies to Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference 2007, where nearly every single rumor that circulated around the Internet was completely wrong. No new iMacs; no new iPods; the 17-inch iMac and Mac mini are still for sale; nothing. These rampant and apparently baseless rumors are beginning to hurt Apple’s image, methinks. → Read More
Our monkeys at WWDC have just reported back a series of cool features in Apples OSX Leopard, which is slated for release in October. Without further ado, here’s the list in no specific order: → Read More
Alright, I’m not diving that far into this, but here’s the deal: WWDC is approaching, Jobs will speak about OS X Leopard, and will most likely unveil the “top secret” features Apple has kept under wraps. But these secrets could blow away the idea of an operating system as we know it. See, the next incarnation of OS X might be animated is what I’m trying to tell you and it’s making us all very excited. The secret sauce is Apple’s Core Animation. Powerful just like Quartz (Apple’s Quartz that is), Core Animation will allow programmers and developers to really do some amazing visual stuff, which in turn will change the way programs for OS X are made. Leopard is said to have a few nice APIs to develop with and that they’ll end up “changing the way programmers think”. Sounds groovy, Apple. Get a move on and unveil those top secret features already. Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple’s New Animated OS [Wired] → Read More
Sun opened its big, fat mouth today and announced that Apple’s upcoming Mac OS X Leopard will use its ZFS file system as its default. (Macs currently use HFS+ with journaling enabled as the default file system.) A full list of ZFS’ advantages can be found on Sun’s site, but this one caught my eye while quickly glancing over it: All operations are copy-on-write transactions, so the on-disk state is always valid. There is no need to fsck(1M) a ZFS filesystem, ever. Every block is checksummed to prevent silent data corruption, and the data is self-healing in replicated (mirrored or RAID) configurations. If one copy is damaged, ZFS will detect it and use another copy to repair it. Oops, now big Papa Jobs is gonna be angry. Video Announcement [Sun via Mac Rumors] → Read More
If Apple’s official e-mails are to be believed then we should see Leopard in all its glory at the WWDC next month. The key phrase from the e-mail—feature-complete version—implies that all of Leopard’s so-called secret features that many think Apple has yet to reveal will be there. New Finder? New GUI altogether? Something else no one else has come up with? In a little more than a month we’ll find out for sure. Apple WWDC [Apple] → Read More
