Mac OSX 10.4 Rumours.

[SPeedY_B]

MacShrine have posted some rumours regarding the upcoming release of Mac OSX 10.4, which is set to be previewed at this years WWDC at the end of June. However I'm not overly convinced by some of the thing's which they have posted..

ADDED EXPOSE FUNCTIONS
Everyone must remember that blue blob the came up if you did a hidden command in the terminal, or how about the black box that everything flies into and you can drag around scree. Remember those? Well they will be real functions in Mac OS 10.4, and selectable in the Expose control panel. It was hidden for a reason you know!

Blob? Box? What? I must of missed those.
However I am guessing that they are talking about some off-screen buffer style objects to do with where the windows are "stored" when Expose'd, at least for the box, I haven't a clue what the heck a blue blob has to do with anything (may need to look this one up). Not overly sure why you would want this enabled as a 'feature' to be honest. Sounds false to me.

SLOWING DOWN RELEASES
After 10.4 is released, which should be August if Apple's schedule is on time (but when is it ever!) There will be a slowdown of software releases, the next update coming in around 1.5-2 years. 10.4 should be thought of as a Public Beta for 10.5 which will be the 'perfect' OS. 10.4 will be avalialble for free, as a way of saying Thank you for paying $129 3 times. EDIT : This was confirmed today when Avie Tevanian said "We're slowing that (pace) down a little bit... because that's not a sustainable rate" today at the SIIA Enterprise Software Summit. "But you'll still see us go really fast."

Obviously this rumour is more viable, due to the fact it's actually been stated by a reliable source, sounds good. I really don't care if it's free or not though, either way I'll be getting it

iSIGHT 2 & iCHAT
The iSight 2 is expected to be released sooner than we expect, but it will be for defiante at WWDC. This new iSight differs from the previous gen because it is developed by OrangeMicro and manufactured by Apple. This will create a driverless iSight that can be used in any app where a webcam is allowed without special drivers. The iSight is slightly different in terms of looks because the back of it is curved and features the new iChat logo. iChat 3 does not differ alot, we will have more info on that soon.

iChat3 will be launched, that's inevitable, whether or not it will actually be at the WWDC will only be seen in time.
With regards to a new iSight, I'm not convinced. No doubt that a new iSight will be launched, I don't think it will be this soon though, there's not a lot that can really be improved with the current model. A few things to hi-light though:
1. What do they mean by driverless? I never installed anything to get my iSight working and it works with every app that a web-cam should.
2. New design? Considering the current iSight was designed to match the G5 PowerMac style, unless they're set to launch a new G5, I have doubts about a new design.
3. I hope to god they aren't even considering putting the iChat logo anywhere on it, it looks perfect as it is now, and I think that putting an iChat logo on it would certainly deter mac users from buying it, and definitely windows users (It works on XP you know! ;P)

REMOTE DESKTOP SHARING
In Mac OS 10.4 you will be able to control another computer remotely (ie. similar to the Windows Remote Assistance) You will have full control of your friends desktop, simply by logging into their account, complete with the Cube effect, and you have full control over the desktop, you can move cursor, open files, delete files....Your friend will have a Window Manager, so they can see what you are doing, and can kick you off if your bad!

Sounds good, Apple have had a "Remote desktop" app for a looong time now, however it was aimed at more corporate/network setups than just "home" use, a nice basic remote desktop feature will certainly be welcomed by all, and the fact it uses the cube is great! I hope this rumour turns out true.

PILES - ICON ARRANGEMENT
Piles has been rumored so many times before for inclusion in Jaguar and Panther, but now finally it will come. It narrowly missed out being in Panther, but the last 9 months have helped create it into an even better feature. You can drag all your icons in any folder, and your desktop, and arrange them into stacks. This stacks can then be placed anywhere in your folder. When you want to un-pile, you can simple do so by RIGHT CLICKING and selecting UNPILE or via the the CONFIGURE FOLDER ACTIONS button in the finder.

I can't take a feature called "piles" seriously, sorry.
Admittedly I've seen screenshots (and even videos) of this feature from back before I even owned a mac, and it's constantly been hailed as the 'next big feature' yet never seems to have made it into the o/s. So we'll have to wait and see if it does this time.

DVD PLAYER 5.0
Apple is sprucing up the DVD Player to mak it like VLC Media Player. It will be able to play every Video format out there and have support for captions too. It seems odd not to implement this into QuickTime Player, but the recent Movie Trailers in iTunes suggest QuickTime may just be turning into a hidden API, not an actual app.

Great! They'll need to rename it from "DVD Player" though won't they? I believe that "Media player" is a taken name though
It makes sense to ship a multi-function player with the o/s though, not too sure about making quicktime just a codec though, it would make sense as it could be integrated into other apps easier that way (Including on the Win32 and *nix platforms!) but Apple do actually make profit from retailing the Quicktime pro player.. We'll see.

That's it, opinion over

 

[~bk]

Interesting rumors.

 

[Grandmaster]

Thanks for sharing...you guys are getting some nice new features.

 

[NetRyder]

I like the last one...an improved "DVD Player" app sounds like a nice addition. If it comes close to VLC in supported formats etc., it'll just be the best video player ever.

Remote Desktop also looks good. Just wondering, since VNC is cross-platform, wouldn't it be possible to run the VNC server on a Mac host and allow Windows/Linux users to access it?

 

[SPeedY_B]

They'll still need to rename it though, can't have "DVD Player" playng my avi's etc, it's wrong I use VLC for all that anyway

As for the remote desktop, the current product is here, but that's a more professional app, I gather they're just going to make it more VNC like.

As for VNC, there's this: http://www.redstonesoftware.com/vnc.html ; I've never actually used it though.

 

[NetRyder]

As for the remote desktop, the current product is here, but that's a more professional app

Oh my! That's a whole seperate beast at $299

 

[SPeedY_B]

Possibly worth it though if you have a big network of macs you need to keep an eye on.

 

[NetRyder]

Possibly worth it though if you have a big network of macs you need to keep an eye on.

Yeah, seems more like a complete remote management suite rather than just a remote control/assistance kind of app, aimed more at network admins than home/casual users, really. Guess VNC would be the way to go at this point for the latter.