Some of the less publicized features of Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” are beginning to emerge as developer sources compile notes from Apple’s recent World Wide Developer Conference and preliminary tests of the next-generation operating system. Although the majority of the features are based on additions to less apparent and underlying technologies, the advances will aid developers in producing more feature rich and streamlined applications in shorter periods of time, sources said.
Mac OS X Tiger to add OpenGL enhancements, PDF Kit, SQLite
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I heard that openGL was just ratified, http://www.theregister.com/2004/08/10/opengl_2/ ,
will that be adopted by tiger?
I’m sure it will be.
I wondered the same thing myself when I read this.
A bit iffy. It might have to wait for a 10.4.x release to be incorporated, based on what the rumour sites are saying about the Tiger timetable.
This is technically all rumour territory, but it sounds quite plausible…
Apple once again proves that MacOS X is the premier developer platform. From its fully object oriented NeXTSTEP derived API to these new ADO and Avalon-like developer features, Apple has once again beaten Microsoft to the punch and made development strides at at least four times the pace of Microsoft, if not faster! We’ve already seen the new iChat AV doing more than any Avalon demo to date. Apple is truly the next generation platform, and I hope we see more heterosexuals in the world wake up to the beauty of the MacOS X design and aesthetic and free their inward homosexual by buying an excellent Macintosh computer system!
That was most most peculiar trolling I’ve ever seen. Bravo!
I wouldn’t count on OpenGL until we hear it from the horse’s mouth.
As a Mac developer, and as a person who loves the Mac with a passion, it’s hard to objectively discuss weaknesses, when the desire for zealotry is so great. but let’s be honest: openGL on the mac isn’t what the marketing proclaims. It’s not bad… it’s just not great. It’s certainly not on par with windows.
I’d like to be able to say that Apple’s conservative with OpenGL on OS X: not releasing features or drivers until they’re correct, but my experience has been that the drivers and functionality are both late, and half-baked.
Perhaps it will get better. Apple seems to focus on the aspects which are most beneficial to the GUI, and the whole core-image hoo-hah can’t do anything but help.
But about OpenGL 2.0 — let’s not get our hopes up. It’s a big step, even if much of the functionality already exists.
Well, I’ll get my hopes up anyway. But I won’t hold my breath.
@Shamyl
openGL on the mac isn’t what the marketing proclaims. It’s not bad… it’s just not great
That’s odd. I tend to hear the opposite from Mac game developers.
These guys always end up impressing me! Tiger will be massive and powerful! I look forward to it’s release.
I’m using SQLite for a project at work, and I’m very impressed. Lightweight, fast, and reasonably compliant all sell me. There have been a couple moments when I’ve wished it was PostgreSQL, but when you need an embedded database, SQLite is a wonderful tool. And it’s public domain too.
From the description I got on the website, it sounds like Tiger is going to be borrowing more features from BeOS than just the powerful searchability of its file system. The Core Image API reminds me of the Translation API that allowed BeOS apps to be completel oblivious to the type of image that they are processing. Core Image is more powerful though because it lets you do image effects like blurs as well.
http://www.blindmindseye.com/archives/000427.php is a quick list of new features in Tiger
For the lazy, here is the product page on Apple’s site for Core Image:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html
Core Image is nothing like the translators in BeOS.
The translators in BeOS where basically like QuickTime filters: you could take an image, put it through corresponding translator, and get a bitmap image out.
CoreImage, OTOH, is an image modification API. You read the image with another API (say, QuickTime), and then you apply filters to it. The image is stored directly in video memory, (like a texture), so the filters can be texture shaders. That should allow for rather astonishing performance (and, BTW, is a by-design application of OpenGL, see e.g. the antique ARB_imaging extension [which by no means does the same thing, but also uses OpenGL for images instead of polygon pushing]).
My personal question regarding CoreImage would be: will it be able to work with CMYK images? How, since AFAIK the shading language is built for RGBA?
Pretty messed up that a comment relating homosexuality to a brand of computers is allowed to stay and a simple comment that simply says ‘wtf dude?’ is removed. Did I miss something relevant in the article related to sexual preference