Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger - ** ANANDTECH'S REVIEW POSTED **

[Eug]

According to AppleInsider, Apple has declared build 8A428 as the Gold Master for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

I hope this is true, and it probably is. Sites have for some time been saying that April 1 was the planned announcement date, with the actual on-store-shelves release date to come later. This is just in time for NAB too, and also just in time for iBook, eMac, and iMac updates.

Furthermore, Tiger is a 64-bit OS, and provides finer-grained locking (whatever that means) for quad Power Mac support.

EDIT:

It's out!

Tiger unleashed

EDIT AGAIN:

It's now shipping!

EDIT YET AGAIN:

Tiger is now in customers' hands. Friday, April 22, one week early.

Pic

EDIT ANOTHER TIME:

Anand has posted his Tiger review

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Eug
Furthermore, Tiger is a 64-bit OS, and provides finer-grained locking (whatever that means) for quad Power Mac support.

Processes are less likely to hog the processors.

Over all, I'm not sure I care. I haven't found a feature yet that's a huge draw...

 

[imported_Lucifer]

I am not really looking forward to Tiger. Neither my computers will take full advantage of all its features. My G4 is all stock, except the 2 extra HD's and the additional RAM. Panther works fine for me for now. I may, however, consider purchasing Tiger in the future.

 

[kamper]

Not that most of you care, but what I like is that Tiger will support Tiger. I mean OSX 10.4 will support java 1.5. I'm hoping to get myself a powerbook this summer and I wouldn't be very happy on an os that didn't have a jdk1.5

 

[RichieZ]

when can i get it? They should release it to ADC student members early. They shoudl just setup a torrent and let us have it. We don't need no stinking discs! Thats what the superdrive is for

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
I am not really looking forward to Tiger. Neither my computers will take full advantage of all its features. My G4 is all stock, except the 2 extra HD's and the additional RAM. Panther works fine for me for now. I may, however, consider purchasing Tiger in the future.

Well, for Core Image/Core Video at least we will have Altivec fallback. So even if your GPU isn't up to snuff, you should most of the functionality.

Dashboard is gonna be cool.

The developers are gonna love CoreData. Of course it may be a long time until an important app for you will require Tiger.

Automator might be useful for some.

If you're a video phreak, I wonder if some of the new software at NAB is gonna require Tiger. Maybe, maybe not.

QuickTime 7 gets H.264. Dunno if that's gonna require Tiger, but iChat AV in Tiger supports H.264.

Spotlight will also be quite useful.

And last but not least, the developer guys say it's faster than Panther.

That said, I might wait a while too, at least for my primary machine. Maybe I'll be more comfortable when the 10.4.1 update shows up.

The 64-bitness for me is pretty useless for me.

Originally posted by: RichieZ
when can i get it? They should release it to ADC student members early. They shoudl just setup a torrent and let us have it. We don't need no stinking discs! Thats what the superdrive is for

I suspect it will be on store shelves in a few weeks. Dunno about you student ADC guys though.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The new features are neat, but they don't make me tingle.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
I am not really looking forward to Tiger. Neither my computers will take full advantage of all its features. My G4 is all stock, except the 2 extra HD's and the additional RAM. Panther works fine for me for now. I may, however, consider purchasing Tiger in the future.

Well, for Core Image/Core Video at least we will have Altivec fallback. So even if your GPU isn't up to snuff, you should most of the functionality.

Dashboard is gonna be cool.

The developers are gonna love CoreData. Of course it may be a long time until an important app for you will require Tiger.

Automator might be useful for some.

If you're a video phreak, I wonder if some of the new software at NAB is gonna require Tiger. Maybe, maybe not.

QuickTime 7 gets H.264. Dunno if that's gonna require Tiger, but iChat AV in Tiger supports H.264.

Spotlight will also be quite useful.

And last but not least, the developer guys say it's faster than Panther.

That said, I might wait a while too, at least for my primary machine. Maybe I'll be more comfortable when the 10.4.1 update shows up.

The 64-bitness for me is pretty useless for me.

I just have the stock ATI Rage 128 AGP card in my G4. Hopefully Altivec would help out.

I don't like Dashboard much. Doesn't really appeal to me.

I may find Automator helpful.

I believe Quicktime 7 will require Tiger.

Spotlight would be helpful.

I hope Tiger will be faster. I may consider purchasing it later on. I too, would wait for a 10.4 update before I look into purchasing Tiger.

 

[timswim78]

Do you have to pay to upgrade from previous versions of OS-X to Tiger?

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: timswim78
Do you have to pay to upgrade from previous versions of OS-X to Tiger?

Yes.

Anyways, I'll probably get Tiger for my laptop... by getting a new laptop. Hopefully, that G5 PowerBook will be here by summer...

Dunno when I'm gonna get it for my Cube. I think I'm gonna hold off for the time being. Uhh.. Who am I kidding. I'll probably wait long enough to make sure there aren't any serious bugs for my type of work and setup. If not, I might upgrade sooner rather than later. Fortunately, I do get an educational discount.

 

[ViRGE]

Sweet, between this and XP64, it's been a good week in operating systems. I look forward to the release of this OS, in whatever form it may come.

 

[drag]

Yep, OS X and Windows XP has finally caught up to the same level of native hardware support that Linux had a few years ago.

except.. that Linux can run native in AMD64 (OS X can't) and native in PPC 64 (Windows XP can't).. (and Sparc 64 and Alpha 64, etc).

Not that Linux is the only OS that does this.. NetBSD along with most of the other BSD's can do this.



Not that their is much point to moving beyond 32bits for the next year or so...

Still nice to know that Apple isn't being left behind..

They will have a version for G4's right?? I may buy it...

 

[manly]

They need to announce the release soon and roll out Up-to-Date. :evil:

 

[Sunner]

A 4-way PowerMac makes me tingle

Not that I'd ever actually need a 4-way workstation, but who cares about need, right?

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: drag
They will have a version for G4's right?? I may buy it...

Tiger supports both 64-bit and 32-bit at the same time. The version for the G5 is the same one as for the G4 (and G3).

Caveat: If you want a GUI for your 64-bit app, it will have to be a 32-bit GUI.

Here's an excerpt of Apple's explanation of it: Developing 64-bit Applications

Mac OS X Tiger breaks the limitations of 32-bit computing and allows developers to create command-line applications, servers, and computation engines that can work with mind-blowing amounts of memory. Previous versions of Mac OS X have been able to take advantage of more than 4GB of system memory when running on a G5-equipped Mac, but each application was still subject to the 4GB limit imposed by a 32-bit address space. Tiger obliterates that restriction and allows applications to access a 64-bit address space when running on the PowerPC G5. Better yet, this support comes with no compromise in the ability to run current 32-bit applications.

This is no small feat. Others are trying to bring 64-bit computing to the desktop but have met with limited success. Apple is doing so in a manner that maintains 32-bit compatibility at full speed while providing the headroom to meet application requirements for the next 20 years?even if application memory requirements double each and every year. As well, only Mac OS X will support both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware with a single version of the operating system. From G3 to G5, from iBook to Xserve, there is just one kernel and set of core system libraries for Tiger.

Furthermore, the transition of the Mac to 64-bit computing has been, and will continue to be, a smooth one. This is, in large part, because the PowerPC architecture was defined as a 64-bit architecture with a 32-bit subset from day one. This means that a 64-bit migration strategy has been part of the platform since the PowerPC was first introduced. It is also the reason why 32-bit applications don't have to run in a special compatibility mode as is required on other 64-bit architectures. No penalties. No compromises. In fact, thanks to overall system improvements and fine-tuning, many 32-bit applications will run more efficiently than before.

The focus of Tiger's 64-bit support is to enable C and C++ applications that are most likely to benefit immediately from a larger address space. These include scientific data processing applications, rendering engines, and high load servers. These applications have naturally large data sets. Typically, these applications are faceless?meaning that they don't have a GUI?and are executed from the command line.

To meet this focus, Tiger will ship with a 64-bit version of libsystem?the system library implementing most of the fundamental UNIX APIs. In addition, a 64-bit PowerPC ABI, based on the 32-bit ABI, will be introduced. 64-bit binaries will be contained in an updated Mach-O format that will run on G5 systems with Tiger or later.

It is important to note that in the Tiger release, the support for 64-bit programming does not extend throughout the entire set of APIs available on Mac OS X. Most notably, the Cocoa and Carbon GUI application frameworks are not ready for 64-bit programming. In practical terms, this means that the "heavy lifting" of an application that needs 64-bit support can be done by a background process which communicates with a front-end 32-bit GUI process via a variety of mechanisms including IPC and shared memory.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
except.. that Linux can run native in AMD64 (OS X can't) and native in PPC 64 (Windows XP can't).. (and Sparc 64 and Alpha 64, etc).

Not that Linux is the only OS that does this.. NetBSD along with most of the other BSD's can do this.

Actually, I believe it is. *BSD don't run on ppc64.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: drag
except.. that Linux can run native in AMD64 (OS X can't) and native in PPC 64 (Windows XP can't).. (and Sparc 64 and Alpha 64, etc).

Not that Linux is the only OS that does this.. NetBSD along with most of the other BSD's can do this.

Actually, I believe it is. *BSD don't run on ppc64.

:Q NetBSD missed an arch?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: drag
except.. that Linux can run native in AMD64 (OS X can't) and native in PPC 64 (Windows XP can't).. (and Sparc 64 and Alpha 64, etc).

Not that Linux is the only OS that does this.. NetBSD along with most of the other BSD's can do this.

Actually, I believe it is. *BSD don't run on ppc64.

:Q NetBSD missed an arch?

Pretty sure hey're working on it. In other news OpenBSD added hppa64 today.

 

[hopejr]

I'm looking forward to Tiger, coz then I can get my work done developing using Voice Over. I don't have access to the Tiger machines at work, because of the NDA, so I can't get my work done - really annoying. I'll prolly get myself a Rev. B iMac G5 with Tiger.
Tiger is quite quick compared to Panther on equivalent 64-bit hardware with a decent graphics card. Not so much on the eMacs though.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: hopejr
I'm looking forward to Tiger, coz then I can get my work done developing using Voice Over. I don't have access to the Tiger machines at work, because of the NDA, so I can't get my work done - really annoying. I'll prolly get myself a Rev. B iMac G5 with Tiger.
Tiger is quite quick compared to Panther on equivalent 64-bit hardware with a decent graphics card. Not so much on the eMacs though.

I wonder if the speedup is mainly due to the GPU, and not the G5 so much.

One guy has done a review of Tiger 8A420 and says it sped up everything quite a bit on his 17" PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz with Radeon 9700.

"I certainly expected Tiger to be faster than Panther on the G5 Macs. After all a lot of people are talking about the 64-bit architecture of Tiger and the 64-bit processor of the G5. Some are saying that until third party applications are built to take advantage of the 64-bit OS there will be no speed increase. Clearly this is not so, even our G4 processors are seeing remarkable speed increases across the board.

I suppose you can judge the amount of speed increase in Tiger by my own annoyance of Panther. If I was unhappy enough with the performance of Panther that I went back to a Tiger beta it says a lot about the new OS. I am not the kind of person that enjoys using beta software, mostly because the glitches in beta software can be unexpected and hinder my work. I installed Tiger thinking I would run it for a day or two and then go back to Panther. Instead, I kept it on the PowerBook and only moved back to Panther due to a glitch that wouldn?t allow me to run a shareware app I use daily. I went back to Tiger because of the speed, period."

Note that the gold master is not 420 though. It's 428. I'd expect the official Tiger release announcement to be made this coming week.

 

[arsbanned]

Will the Mac Mini support the features offered in Tiger? Obviously not the 64 bitness, but other than that what won't it support? I wish they'd release a mid-level headless machine that actually has some power. Not $1,599 and not $499. $899 would be just right.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It doesn't look like the Mac mini will support core image. I don't plan on running Mac OS X on the mini anyhow.

I can't figure out how to find out what video card I have in my powerbook though. I can't find a part number anywhere, and there's no place on the website to look at previous models.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
Will the Mac Mini support the features offered in Tiger? Obviously not the 64 bitness, but other than that what won't it support?

Well, we won't know all the details until the NDA lifts of course, but it sounds like almost all the features of Tiger are pretty much offered on the Mac mini, but they will be slower, cuz the GPU is not "DX9-class". i.e. Core Image will fall back to Altivec on the CPU.

However... Motion (an app, not part of Tiger) won't even launch on the Mac mini, because it requires such a GPU. However, it would be a bad idea to run Motion on a Mac mini anyways. I do know that a couple of transitions in Keynote 2 won't work on a Mac mini either, again because of the GPU. But then again, having seen those two transitions, it's doesn't really matter, because they're not very useful transitions.

All the mainstream stuff works just fine on the Mac mini though.

I wish they'd release a mid-level headless machine that actually has some power. Not $1,599 and not $499. $899 would be just right.

Agreed. I'd buy a $999 headless iMac.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It doesn't look like the Mac mini will support core image.

See above.

I can't figure out how to find out what video card I have in my powerbook though. I can't find a part number anywhere, and there's no place on the website to look at previous models.

Apple icon --> About This Mac --> More Info... --> PCI/AGP Cards

OR

http://www.info.apple.com/support/applespec.html

 

[n0cmonkey]

Hmmm, searching on the device ID shows my video as an ati mobility radeon 9700...

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Hmmm, searching on the device ID shows my video as an ati mobility radeon 9700...

From what I hear, with that GPU, Tiger would give you a nice performance boost.