Tiger's Best Features

[GodBless]

I was wondering what people's opinions were on what the best features in Tiger are since MWSF. Here are some questions that I think we should all ask ourselves before we face the Tiger a little later this year:

1. What are your favorite 10.4 features and/or additions and why?
2. Did anyone change their mind about what they thought was good in Tiger?
3. What do you think is lacking in Tiger and could be better?
4. Has anyone heard new news about the latest Tiger developments since MWSF and/or things that have been developed in Tiger but Steve Jobs didn't present during the MWSF keynote? Tell us something that you don't think the rest of us know. Maybe we can piece more of the 200 new features (and their integration) together.

Please share your views.

 

[LimitedEdition]

My favorite feature is it's Amazing Video Powers (tm). It throws around scads of video data like it was nothing.

10.3 has amazing 2D powers with it's quartz PDF rendering engine.
10.4 has amazing video powers.
If 10.5 has amazing 3D powers (for games and virtual reality) it will be the ultimate OS.

 

[anubis]

I was wondering what people's opinions were on what the best features in Tiger are since MWSF. Here are some questions that I think we should all ask ourselves before we face the Tiger a little later this year:

1. What are your favorite 10.4 features and/or additions and why?
2. Did anyone change their mind about what they thought was good in Tiger?
3. What do you think is lacking in Tiger and could be better?
4. Has anyone heard new news about the latest Tiger developments since MWSF and/or things that have been developed in Tiger but Steve Jobs didn't present during the MWSF keynote? Tell us something that you don't think the rest of us know. Maybe we can piece more of the 200 new features (and their integration) together.

Please share your views.

My favorite 10.4 feature is automator. The one thing i've never enjoyed doing on any computer - and wished SOMEONE would address - are those mind-numbing repetitive tasks that you have to do on computers, like download a million images off a web site, rename lots of files, and other crap. I know Applescript has long been capable of doing a lot of the things automator can do, but automator puts a very user-friendly face on things.

 

[GodBless]

Here are my responses to the four questions:

1.
My favorite feature in Tiger is Dashboard. I like the idea of running multiple applications at the same time and having them all visible to use. (Cool graphics too!) I also like the new Mail interface. It's smooth looking! It also looks like Automator will speed up a lot of annoying repetitive tasks. This will be good for getting work done more quickly.

2.
What happened to the big talk about core image and core video? Why did Apple decide that this wasn't very important anymore? Shouldn't it be in the top 5 of the new important features in Tiger? Where is Apple's totally awesome "Fun House" application they presented at WWDC? I haven't seen anything about this anywhere. Is Apple not making these two huge technologies as big as they should be? If not, why not?

3.
I thought Safari's improvement could have been better. RSS is good but I expect better from Apple. I want to see more improvement in the browser then just this.

4.
I recently learned that Tiger supports smart times and dates. If it this is what I think it is then it will be really cool to really see it! I've been waiting for this since I switched from Windoze (2 years ago as of January 30th. Only 6 days away! Almost time to celebrate. )

 

[Espnetboy3]

how did u guys get tiger its not out yet is it ?

 

[Edot]

how did u guys get tiger its not out yet is it ?

The features have been demoed at least 3 times, and most of the major features are detailed on apple's website. Where have you been?! Even though most people have not used it you can still see how the new features will be used, and how they will effect your workflow.

 

[GodBless]

how did u guys get tiger its not out yet is it ?

Not all of us have Tiger. In fact I don't even have Tiger. I just search the internet for information about Tiger. Thats how I get all of my information. Some good resources are this site, Apple Insider (http://www.appleinsider.com), Apple's Tiger web pages (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger) and (http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/) and many other sites that have updated information commonly. There is always new information about Tiger coming out daily. I especially like forums because you are able to read comments from people who actually have the ADC Tiger Developer Kit. They will tell you information that others won't.

 

[atari1356]

My favorite 10.4 feature is automator. The one thing i've never enjoyed doing on any computer - and wished SOMEONE would address - are those mind-numbing repetitive tasks that you have to do on computers, like download a million images off a web site, rename lots of files, and other crap. I know Applescript has long been capable of doing a lot of the things automator can do, but automator puts a very user-friendly face on things.

I agree. I can't wait to give automator a try to see how it can help streamline some of the work I do. I'm also looking forward to Dashboard, but mainly because I want to create my own widgets (not that interested in the widgets it comes with).

 

[Logik]

From a programming perspective i'm really looking forward to seeing what people will do with dashboard. Automator support is something i am very keen in seeing too. CoreImage is going to be a blast to play with, I expect this to make some big splashes in certain areas of video editing, i have a feeling the next final cut pro will become the worlds fastest video editing system in the world because of this, and it's preview system is absolutely going to rock because of it. Spotlight, assuming developers harness this power before or shortly after it's release will surely make everyone's life easier in terms of finding what they're looking for.

Expect my first program to not be released until i've got all the tiger related technologies included.

I didn't even mention that webkit has some very neat additions, and of course coredata... coredata is a welcome addition in my book as well.

We'll be seing some amazing applications taking advantage of this stuff soon enough. I am pumped for this release because it's going to change the way i use my computer and that just excites me to no end.

 

[Daveway]

Dashboard is one of my favorites (see avatar). Besides dashboard my favorites would be H.264 and automator.
H.264 holds so much more than what we are currently being showed. With H.264 Apple has the entertainment industry on a pedestal and this is what i'm most excited about.

 

[aswitcher]

Yeah, H264 is going to be big. I use VLC for many things now because QT doesn't handle them. I really hope that changes and I can use my Mac default player for .avi etc

I think widgets/gadgets are going to be huge. With some simple tools I think I will be able to pull together all the sorts of things I like to have at hand via bookmarks into a much nicer and quicker format. I have so many ideas for cool widgets I wonder if there will be an option for multiple widget/gadget screens to cycle through.

RSS in the browser has great potential. I also would love to see a site sucker, so I can grab a site to a few levels, and read it on the train or at work later. If that were built into the browser, I would be impressed.

I hope iChat gets more than AOL...MSN would be great. IRC support would be might fine as well.

A decent firewall GUI is hopefuly going to happen.. Apple will one day begin to fall foul of hackers/viruses, and I want them to stay ahead of the game. Something like little snitch would be great as well.

A graphical network tool (cable, wifi etc) would be great, showing networks quickly and shared relationships etc at a glance, traffic volumes etc

A front end tool to the back end like onyx is overdue.

Better intergration with .Mac is going to be great. Here's hoping the 250 meg limit gets another bump to justify the yearly cost.

 

[Blue Velvet]

As well as the widgets

I am also interested in seeing:

• A much improved FontBook
• Improved and easier networking
• A revised GUI

 

[Bear]

For me, I'm interested in Dashboard and the Dictionary application.

I'm hoping they didn't break Mail with all the added features.
I'm also hoping Font Book becomes more useful.

Also XCode 2.0 looks interesting.

 

[Diatribe]

1. Definitely Dashboard, Spotlight and Automator.
2. I think the Voice Over setting with the customizable voices will be neat too, as I have some things set to use this. (iChat usernames for example)
3. I think the dictionary in it sucks. It is all right for the regular things but if you're using it for multiple languages, like me, then it's just annoying. It doesn't even know the names of some Apple apps...
Another feature I think would be great is something somebody else brought up some time ago. He worded it somehow like this:

Allow "easy networking" between two computers. In plain English, a networking application with an OS X GUI that allows drag-and-drop file networking between two machines connected by a single ethernet reversable cable, a firewire cable, bluetooth, etc. But let's not enhance Network Utility. Let's make a simplified app for this, which would enable all the necessary sharing preferences and the IPs...so simple that all you have to do is connect the cable, open the application and everything is ready for network transfers.

Two other additions I'd like to see:

- automatic undo delete from trash that puts the files back where they were
- Being able to change the background picture at certain times not just intervalls and be able to specify as many pictures/times as I want like the options for smart lists (for a night/day rhythm for example)

4. Don't know a whole lot more than the rest of you.

 

[Blue Velvet]

- automatic undo delete from trash that puts the files back where they were...

Yes, definitely.

Forgot that one... and could we have more a attractive labelling scheme, please?

 

[robbieduncan]

Allow "easy networking" between two computers. In plain English, a networking application with an OS X GUI that allows drag-and-drop file networking between two machines connected by a single ethernet reversable cable, a firewire cable, bluetooth, etc. But let's not enhance Network Utility. Let's make a simplified app for this, which would enable all the necessary sharing preferences and the IPs...so simple that all you have to do is connect the cable, open the application and everything is ready for network transfers.

Does this not already work (at least between Macs assuming that file sharing is turned on)? You attach the Macs and they discover each other through Rendevous?

 

[Diatribe]

Does this not already work (at least between Macs assuming that file sharing is turned on)? You attach the Macs and they discover each other through Rendevous?

File sharing is kinda buggy and it doesn't auto-detect what kind of connection you're using either. A one stop network sharing app/place would just be really nice.

 

[Daveway]

I just don't think Spotlight is all that a great deal for me. I don't have millions of files on my computer. I think the search in finder is quite fast already.

 

[Punani]

I just don't think Spotlight is all that a great deal for me. I don't have millions of files on my computer. I think the search in finder is quite fast already.

Spotlight will definitely be interesting. I don't think one needs a dozen files to see its power to aggregate almost every file on one's Mac. If for example, I wanted all my file regarding my PLS 205 class (i.e. emails, documents, etc.), I could use the system-wide Spotlight search and find what I was looking for without having to open each application and/or directory to search and possibly miss it because I mis-labled the file.

Pages has an a tab that allows the writer to insert metadata as "Comments", "Keywords", "Author", and "Title".

 

[settledown]

Panther Finder is not fast

If you search for a file in Panther's Finder it is not fast. I sometimes wait 30 seconds for a complete search. Spotlight's speed alone is a must have, forgetting the depth of search.

Finder searching I guess depends on your HD size, the number of files you have, and other things, so we may all have different perceptions of the search speed of Panther's finder....

Spotlight makes this go away...

I wonder how long it takes for that initial Spotlight index of your drive? If it is anything like panther's....better bring a lunch

 

[shidoshi]

Lord almighty do I need Spotlight, and it is by far the feature I was most wanting to see from 10.4. My only real hope/concern is that the ability to add metadata manually is really flexible. For example, I want to go through the thousands of images I have on my computer, and give each of them a wide variety of tags for easier finding.

My disappointment with Tiger is that Apple still isn't doing enough with the Finder. They really need to get off of their ass and put more work into the Finder. For example, Column view is horribly rough. I'd love to see things like file info like you can have in Icon view, sort items in a column by different criteria (kind, date, etc.), have images preview themselves in column mode without having to manually click on one and bring up the preview column, etc.

 

[xsedrinam]

Is there hard info on the projected retail price? Like another $129 for install disks. Same number of disks as Panther?
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