[rampancy]

There's a blogger by the name of Trinity Rubicon who's posted what they claim to be screenshots of 10.5. Apparently, the evidence from the screenshot seems to suggest that Boot Camp will become more of a virtualization feature when it ships with Leopard. And there's some new FUS animation which is....er...some kind of expanding hole...(why do I think of the infamous goatse.cx site when I see that?)

Anyway, the links to the images are here:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1...rd_img01.0.png

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1...pard_img02.png

I've got the images saved if they go down. Oh, and my apologies if someone's already posted this or if my posting of the links offends Brad somehow...

(EDIT: Upon closer examination, it seems like that "hole" is an effect for a virtual desktop switching feature. Anyway, it all looks like it could all be easily faked, but I suppose there's something worth discussing here...like tabbed finder windows? )

[Partial]

The GUI looks much nicer. I have a hunch this is fake, though.

The idea of virtualization and the goatse-esque switching seems kind of cool, though!

[Brad]

No offense taken here.

But I don't buy 'em, personally.

[World Leader Pretend]

In the "about this Mac" page all it says is 10.5 It doesn't have a sub-number after that like 10.5.0, which I would expect. Either way it looks cool. I like the unified desktop where Windows and OS X are running simultaneously.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by World Leader Pretend In the "about this Mac" page all it says is 10.5 It doesn't have a sub-number after that like 10.5.0, which I would expect. Either way it looks cool. I like the unified desktop where Windows and OS X are running simultaneously.

It wouldn't surprise me if it just said 10.5. It's certainly cleaner and more appropriate.

[Brave Ulysses]

Anyone else think there is a chance that Leopard may be Intel only? Especially since its biggest features will probably be Intel only.

[Partial]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Anyone else think there is a chance that Leopard may be Intel only? Especially since its biggest features will probably be Intel only.

Nope!

[World Leader Pretend]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Anyone else think there is a chance that Leopard may be Intel only? Especially since its biggest features will probably be Intel only.

Universal Binaries are where it's at, my friend. Apple can't abandon the G5, G4, and G3 users out there. There will come a day in the distant future when I may have to retire my iMac G5, but not within the next year!

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses It wouldn't surprise me if it just said 10.5. It's certainly cleaner and more appropriate.

Does anyone know if a clean version of Tiger starts out at 10.4? I would think that people would like to know what subversion their OS is at a glance. I check it after every software update.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by World Leader Pretend Universal Binaries are where it's at, my friend. Apple can't abandon the G5, G4, and G3 users out there. There will come a day in the distant future when I may have to retire my iMac G5, but not within the next year!

Marketing and PR go a long way to convince the masses.

Apple has never been a company to stick to their word or care too much about legacy users. Their aggressive transition schedule and heavy marketing emphasis on Intel only features suggests that they are quickly heading forward and not looking back. 10.5 may very well be universal, actually it probably will be, but I will predict that a large portion of the features are going to be Intel only and PPC users are gonna be paying more for less this upgrade. I think 10.6 will be Intel only though.

[Hobbes]

These are not very interesting fakes.

The new Address Book icon shown in those mock-ups isn't close to Apple quality. The silly peephole "desktop switching" animation is obviously a simple CoreImage effect. Plus, it makes no particular sense why Apple would offer virtual desktops at this point (I'd expect to see some massive Exposé enhancements instead). And if the longest-standing and collaborated rumor has a shred of truth, Leopard will offer something a lot more interesting than a Finder with smoothed metal texture with tabbed windows (yawn).

You can often tell an actual Apple screenshot (or at the least, a well-made fake with some interesting thought behind it) when there's something surprising, a kind of philosophy... genuinely new and interesting going on. Not much here.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Hobbes These are not very interesting fakes. Leopard will offer something a lot more interesting than a Finder with smoothed metal texture tabbed windows. The new Address Book icon shown in those mock-ups isn't close to Apple quality. And that "desktop switching" animation is obviously a simple CoreImage effect. It makes no particular sense why Apple would offer virtual desktops at this point. I'd expect to see some massive Exposé enhancements instead. You can often tell an actual Apple screenshot when there's something genuinely new and interesting going on. Not much here.

Actually the screen shot's lack of something over the top and instead just a refinement of small user interface elements leads me to believe this is more genuine than fake.

Especially since all of your arguments are simply hypothetical.

Who knows if its real or not but I do like what I see. Although I would prefer a different transition between desktops. Preferably the cube effect eventhough its used for multiple users.

[Fahrenheit]

hmm interesting. I dont know how you would get such a finished looking product this early though.

[ghoti]

That "hole effect" is a terrible idea, I doubt that they would do that. You can do virtual desktops much better and more logical using the rotating cube or some other directed animation, that will give you a sense of the layout of the whole thing. Tearing a whole into your desktop? WTF?

This doesn't look real, it doesn't show anything that would be of interest. The virtualization is very unlikely, and the hole effect is a five minute job in PhotoShop. I'm usually very gullible, but not even I believe this one

[aranhamo]

There's no reason to ever go Intel-only. If apps are all Universal Binaries, then Apple could always switch architectures again if they want to. They could even add support for other architectures besides x86 and PPC. Making apps Intel-only only restricts their options, just so they can save a little space on the size of binaries.

The fact that some features are Intel-only, like Bootcamp, is a limitation not of Apple's software, but of Windows in this case.

Regarding the pictures, something about them tells me they're fake. However, I would love to see multiple desktops. I don't really care about running IE 7; I've never needed any Windows-only apps to run on my Mac. I just wish iWork had a good spreadsheet application.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Anyone else think there is a chance that Leopard may be Intel only? Especially since its biggest features will probably be Intel only.

Nope.

Jobs said it would be available for both PPC and Intel and that Apple wouldn't be dropping support for PPC products for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, it wouldn't make economic sense to abandon the potential revenue from millions of existing PPC Mac users.

[Hobbes]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Actually the screen shot's lack of something over the top and instead just a refinement of small user interface elements leads me to believe this is more genuine than fake.

WWDC is in 6 weeks. Apple has been preparing for its first Longhorn/Vista-competitive release for almost two years (possibly longer). Leopard is very close to being publicly demonstrated.

Just my gut feeling here, but those screenshots aren't it. They're not even shots from some very early build. They're a bunch of competently Photoshopped but fairly shallow mock-ups. There's very little of interest.

[Windowsrookie]

Originally Posted by World Leader Pretend Does anyone know if a clean version of Tiger starts out at 10.4? I would think that people would like to know what subversion their OS is at a glance. I check it after every software update.

I just reformated my powerbook last night. It says 10.4

[halo1982]

Anyone notice that the address book icon has a date on it as well, pointing to a combined iCal/Address Book possibly?
Maybe they're fake, maybe not, but it makes for some interesting speculation!

[chucker]

Yeah, I hope Apple doesn't do that. The separation of PIM application is a good thing™. I've found Apple's recent trend to merge stuff back together to be unfortunate.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Brad Nope. Jobs said it would be available for both PPC and Intel and that Apple wouldn't be dropping support for PPC products for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, it wouldn't make economic sense to abandon the potential revenue from millions of existing PPC Mac users.

Jobs says a lot of things when convenient and especially when it means not losing sales during a transition period.

All of that changes and means nothing when it becomes more convenient for Apple to do the opposite.

Perhaps it was premature for me to suggest Leopard will be Intel only but I would not be surprised to see the following release be Intel only.

[shatteringglass]

I have a feeling they are fakes. If you look at the Dock in the 'shots, the spacing and alignment of the icons seem "off." Unless this is a 10.5 refinement where Dock icon spacing is bigger.

[BlueRabbit]

The Finder window looks fake to me. It's a normal Finder window, with a Safari tab and bookmarks bar, in an iTunes-like interface. I can see the Finder switching away from brushed metal, but there's no reason for a bookmarks bar, especially with the sidebar already there. Tabs I could see, but they wouldn't be nearly as useful in the Finder as in a browser.

[AsLan^]

I would be happy if they just tore out the finder and replaced it with Konqueror

[chucker]

Originally Posted by AsLan^ I would be happy if they just tore out the finder and replaced it with Konqueror

Replace bad with worse?

[aranhamo]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Perhaps it was premature for me to suggest Leopard will be Intel only but I would not be surprised to see the following release be Intel only.

Why should they ever make it Intel-only? If they keep it Universal, then if they're ever dissatisfied with Intel, they can switch back to IBM or Freescale. Or they can add other architectures and switch to SPARC processors if they feel like it, without disturbing developers or users very much. It puts them in a position of ultimate flexibility.

[aranhamo]

Originally Posted by chucker Replace bad with worse?

That's called "change for the sake of change." As someone who uses Konqueror on a daily basis, I sincerely hope Apple never uses it.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by aranhamo Or they can add other architectures and switch to SPARC processors if they feel like it

And ask developers yet again to compile for another architecture? (Despite their name, "Universal Binaries" aren't "universal"; they're only PowerPC and x86.)

[AsLan^]

I actually think Apple will continue to use fat binaries for years and possibly even discover a way to make even fatter binaries.

My reasoning for this is that Apple has a vested interest in taking up your hard drive space, the more they take up on a new computer, the more likely an inexperieced individual (whilst being prompted by a skillful salesperson) will opt for a profitable BTO HDD upgrade option.

[aranhamo]

Originally Posted by chucker And ask developers yet again to compile for another architecture? (Despite their name, "Universal Binaries" aren't "universal"; they're only PowerPC and x86.)

No, they just update XCode so that it adds a code section for other supported architectures when you build a Universal Binary. In every place I've worked, we've always done builds on a daily basis. There would be no change in work flow or the build process. The only additional work would be tweaking the code (just as they do now to run on both PPC and x86), plus testing on the new platforms. At the very least, they have support for both PPC and Intel right now; there's no reason to ever drop support for PPC.

Why would they push Universal Binaries for only a year or two and then tell everybody, "Okay, now we're all going to build for Intel-only. No more Universal crap."? What would they gain from dropping PPC support?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by AsLan^ I actually think Apple will continue to use fat binaries for years and possibly even discover a way to make even fatter binaries.

The architecture is there. The fat binary mechanism supports binaries in multiple different formats, in different architectures, etc. This has been possible for years; there's nothing new to "discover". I just don't think it's gonna happen.

Then again, there's the whole LLVM thing going on…

Originally Posted by aranhamo No, they just update XCode so that it adds a code section for other supported architectures when you build a Universal Binary. In every place I've worked, we've always done builds on a daily basis. There would be no change in work flow or the build process. The only additional work would be tweaking the code (just as they do now to run on both PPC and x86), plus testing on the new platforms. At the very least, they have support for both PPC and Intel right now; there's no reason to ever drop support for PPC.

Yes, builds happen on a daily basis, but as you point out yourself, you need to test on all platforms, plus there's the whole optimization thing. E.g., iTunes is AltiVec-optimized on PowerPC and SSE3-optimized on Intel. It's not just a matter of ticking a checkbox in Xcode. Yes, Apple has made it very easy, but in practice, there's still a lot of stuff to adjust, especially in huge crufty terrible-quality apps like Photoshop. So, third-party developers are not gonna be too pleased about "hey guys, remember that Intel thing? now we want you to do the same again with yet another architecture — you already have practice by now!".

Why would they push Universal Binaries for only a year or two and then tell everybody, "Okay, now we're all going to build for Intel-only. No more Universal crap."? What would they gain from dropping PPC support?

Nothing. It's not gonna happen.