OS Leopard

[Lomoco]

Post what part of OS Leopard that you like the most here:cool:

[Lomoco]

I personally like the time machine and core animation

[cscgal]

Is Leopard out?

[jbennet]

what is leopard?

[cscgal]

It's the new version of OS X which is apparently not out yet ... maybe people have betas? I dunno.

[Lomoco]

The full version is coming out this spring, but apple developers can go and download the pre-version of it at the developer connection site at developer.apple.com you can also watch the demo of it at apple's website under quicktime.

[cscgal]

Thanks for explaining that. Is the Apple Developer thing just like MSDN where you need an expensive subscription?

[Lomoco]

Yes. People can get beta's if you submit a developer application form to apple. Once you are a developer, you can download pre-releases of software (and OS's) to try them and test them for bugs, user-friendlyness, and other things that testers test.

[Lomoco]

Of course, you are not allowed to re-sell it, post screen shots of it, or re-distribute it in any way to the public. (Companies like to keep their privacy)

[Lomoco]

No. If you already have a .mac account, you can log-in with your .mac info and have access to the developers connection place

[Lomoco]

Subscription doesn't cost anything and if I'm wrong, it definitely isn't much. I'm going to check it out more

[Lomoco]

You can get a student membership for $99. I haven't looked into it much, but if you have a .mac account, you can log-in to the developer's connection place and download pre-releases of software (not accessible by the public)

[Lomoco]

They send you a bunch of developing tools to get you started

[Lomoco]

Oh... you do have to get a membership. You can get the one for $500 and that will enable you to develop leopard. Or you can download the beta leopard I think without a membership. Just a cheap subscription (includes a .mac subscription). I haven't looked into downloading leopard yet because I don't want to mess up my G4 laptop which isn't made to handle leopard. Download it if you dare (and if you can) and have fun!

[John A]

If you want to see the Leopard demo, head over here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

Leopard doesn't look terribly much different than Tiger - it still uses Aqua, Mac OS X's glossy interface. However, Apple touts a lot of base program that come with Leopard as the "improvement" over Tiger. Examples include Time Machine, and automatic and continous backing up system, a much-improved version of iChat, and of course my favorite, Xcode 3.0.

However, I feel Leopard has some things lacking which I would really like to see implemented:Skins for Aqua. Why does everyone have to stick to the same GUI? We should be able to make our Macs look like Vista if we want!
Virtual machines. Apple should at least include a built-in virtual machine for running other operating systems.
Apple implementing their own version of Wine that's built right into the OS X core. They've actually had access to the Windows source code, so it could be done.
Can't think of anymore at the moment.

As for Apple developer accounts, it basically works like this:

You can get a basic account for free. All you need is an Apple handle (which can be created by signing up for a 60-day trial of .Mac) to create the account. Using this account allows you to download software such as Xcode, .Mac SDK, but nothing really special.

The really special stuff such as Leopard are only available to paid accounts of ADC, or else everyone would be creating free accounts to try out Leopard. ;) But yes, it's basically Apple's version of MSDN, with basic information freely available, and paid accounts getting special previews of upcoming software.

[Junyah]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Does anyone know what the minimum hardware requirements for Leopard are?

[John A]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Does anyone know what the minimum hardware requirements for Leopard are?

Apple hasn't posted any official requirements (at least not to the general public), because they're likely going to make some modifications to the operating system which could affect the performance of it on slower machines.

I've read a little bit of user's experiences with it, and there are some guidelines:No slower than a G4 processor :p
DVD (doesn't have to be a burner) drive
Firewire 400 port required
256 MB of RAM on PowerPC Macs, 512 MB on Intels
At least 10 GB of disk space (more if you install extras)
That's the very minimum. You'll probably want more RAM, as well as a decent graphics card. Leopard will of course, run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. I'm not entirely sure on this, but I believe that Leopard will come as a universal binary disk that will install on both architechtures. (I could be wrong.) For optimal performance of Leopard, you should have either a G5 or an Intel processor, and oodles of disk space.

[Junyah]

Thanks fer your helpJoe ... I was on another mac site amonth ago and they were just speculating on what the final prognosis was as for hardware requirements. I know I won't have any problems with my new machines ... it's the ibook G4 and the Mac Mini G4 .. I worried about ... but those have become secondary machines for me and I'm happy and the kids are happy with them running Tiger and ilife/iwork '06.. the old machines are like 'Ohana (family members) to us.

Oh! I GOTTA BRAG .. My daughter(16) and nephew(9) took apart the ibook and mac mini and put bigger drives and a gig of memory. I had to keep them from taking apart the imac and Macbbok pro. THEY ALSO PUT TOGETHER ONE MEAN GAMING PC They took their Xmas Money and allowances and went to Fry's and Best Buy. KIDS ARE AMAZING THESE DAYS! Surfing, Hula and Computers ...what more could a dad ask for!

[John A]

My daughter(16) and nephew(9) took apart the ibook and mac mini and put bigger drives and a gig of memory.

I do have to admit that taking apart Macs (with the exception of the Mac Pro) are quite a bit harder than regular PCs. I would imagine that upgrading the iBook was relatively easy, but the Mac Mini was probably difficult.

I've helped take apart a friend's Mac Mini for upgrading some RAM modules. And I can say: it's not easy. First of all, you need some crazy putty knives to pop the case open, which took us like half-an-hour because we didn't know what we were doing (we didn't have the user's manual with us, so we had to rely on a Popular Science article on it).

Adding the RAM modules wasn't too hard, although it was a little bit buried. The Mac recognized it, so that part was easy. Then trying to get the case back on... that was harder than taking it off. We couldn't get it completely closed in the end, so there was a 1/4 in. gap once we were done. We finally concluded that Apple didn't exactly *intend* for users to upgrade a Mac Mini.

With the latest Mac Minis, Apple has only made it harder. You have to take out a fair bit of stuff to even get at the RAM modules, and the hard drive is even more complex. In short, if you can choose what you want as a build-to-order option on Apple's website, do it. It's much, much easier. ;)

[Lomoco]

If you want to see the Leopard demo, head over here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

Leopard doesn't look terribly much different than Tiger - it still uses Aqua, Mac OS X's glossy interface. However, Apple touts a lot of base program that come with Leopard as the "improvement" over Tiger. Examples include Time Machine, and automatic and continous backing up system, a much-improved version of iChat, and of course my favorite, Xcode 3.0.

However, I feel Leopard has some things lacking which I would really like to see implemented:

• Skins for Aqua. Why does everyone have to stick to the same GUI? We should be able to make our Macs look like Vista if we want!
• Virtual machines. Apple should at least include a built-in virtual machine for running other operating systems.
• Apple implementing their own version of Wine that's built right into the OS X core. They've actually had access to the Windows source code, so it could be done.

Can't think of anymore at the moment.

As for Apple developer accounts, it basically works like this:

You can get a basic account for free. All you need is an Apple handle (which can be created by signing up for a 60-day trial of .Mac) to create the account. Using this account allows you to download software such as Xcode, .Mac SDK, but nothing really special.

The really special stuff such as Leopard are only available to paid accounts of ADC, or else everyone would be creating free accounts to try out Leopard. ;) But yes, it's basically Apple's version of MSDN, with basic information freely available, and paid accounts getting special previews of upcoming software.

Of course there are still some hidden features in leopard that no-one knows about except the apple team. You may be suprised:)