Mac OS X v10.4

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Mac OS X version 10.4 "Tiger" is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple Computer's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29 2005 as the successor to Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther", which was released 18 months earlier. Some of the new features include a fast searching system called Spotlight, a new version of the Safari web browser, Dashboard, a new 'Unified' theme, and improved support for 64-bit addressing on Power Mac G5s. Tiger is also the first version of any released Apple operating system to work on Intel's x86 platform, though it is only intended to operate on Apple-Intel architecture machines such as the MacBook Pro.

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" is included with all new Macintosh computers, and is also available as an upgrade for existing Mac OS X users, or users of supported pre-Mac OS X systems. The server edition, Mac OS X Server 10.4, is also available as an installation option on some Macintosh product lines.

Tiger is scheduled to be superseded by Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" around the end of 2006 or early 2007.

Contents

1 History
2 System Requirements
3 New features

3.1 New applications in Tiger

4 Improvements
5 Technologies
6 Interface differences
7 Tiger trademark lawsuit
8 Tiger x86
9 Trivia
10 Version history
11 See also
12 References
13 External links

History

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" was originally previewed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 28, 2004. Later in December 2004, several non-commercial developer releases of Tiger were leaked onto the Internet. As a result Apple sued the file sharers who were distributing Tiger for free by using BitTorrent. On April 12, 2005, it was announced that Tiger would be officially released worldwide on April 29. All Apple Stores around the world held Tiger seminars, presentations and demos.

On June 6 2005, at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Jobs announced that almost two million copies had been sold in the six weeks since Tiger's release, making it the most successful operating system release in Apple's history. It was also revealed that Mac OS X had been engineered from its inception to work with Intel's x86 line of processors in addition to the PowerPC, the CPU that the operating system had always been publicly marketed for. Apple announced plans to release the first x86-based computers in June of 2006, transitioning the rest of their computers to x86 by June 2007. On January 10 2006, Apple released their first iMac and MacBook Pro featuring an Intel Core Duo processor, and announced that the entire Apple product line would be transitioned to Intel processors by the end of 2006. Apple then released the MacBook on May 16 2006.

10.4 is the first version of Mac OS X to be supplied on a DVD rather than on CDs, although the DVD can be exchanged for CDs for an extra cost.

System Requirements

The system requirements for the Mac OS X 10.4 upgrade are a Macintosh with

PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
At least 256MB of physical RAM
A built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
At least 3.0 GB of available space on your hard drive; 4GB of disk space if you install XCode 2 developer tools
DVD drive for installation (CD media available for a fee)

New features

Apple advertises that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger has over 200 new features , including:

Spotlight - Spotlight is a powerful full-text and metadata search engine, which can search everything from Word documents to iCal calendars to Address Book cards, as well as any text within PDF files. The feature is also used to build the concept of smart folders into the Finder. Spotlight will index files as they are saved, so they can be quickly and easily found through a search-as-you-type box in the menu bar.
iChat AV - The new iChat AV 3.0 in Tiger supports up to four participants in a video conference and ten participants in an audio conference. It also now supports communication using the Jabber protocol. A Jabber server called iChat Server is included on Mac OS X Tiger Server.
Safari RSS - The new Safari 2.0 web browser in Tiger features a built-in reader for RSS and Atom web syndication that can be accessed easily from an RSS button in the address bar of the web browser window. An updated version of Safari, included as part of the free Mac OS 10.4.3 update, can also pass the Acid2 web standards test.
Mail 2 - The new version of Mail.app email client included in Tiger featured an updated interface, "Smart Mailboxes" that utilize the Spotlight search system, parental controls, as well as several other features.

The Dashboard allows for miniature applications called "Widgets" to appear and disappear rapidly from the screen.

Dashboard - The Dashboard is a new mini-applications layer based on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which returns the desk accessories concept to the Mac OS. These accessories are known as widgets. It comes with several widgets such as Weather, World Clock, Unit Converter, and Dictionary/Thesaurus. More are available for free online.
Automator - A scripting tool called Automator to link applications together to form complex automated workflows (written in AppleScript, Cocoa, or both). Automator comes with a complete library of actions for several applications which can be used together to make a Workflow.
VoiceOver - VoiceOver is an accessibility interface that offers the user magnification options, keyboard control and spoken English descriptions of what is happening on screen. VoiceOver enables users with visual impairment the ability to use applications via spoken commands. It also allows a user to work collaboratively with other users on a single Mac by allowing multiple users give voice commands to scroll text, etc. VoiceOver is capable of reading aloud the contents of files including web pages, mail messages and word processing files. The complete keyboard navigation lets the use control the computer with the keyboard rather than mouse, a menu is displayed in a window showing all the available keyboard commands that can be used.
A complete built-in Dictionary/Thesaurus based on the Oxford American Dictionary, accessible through an application, Dictionary, a Dashboard widget, and as a system-wide command (see below).
.Mac syncing - Though this is not a new feature, .Mac syncing in Tiger is much improved over Panther. Syncing tasks in Tiger are now accomplished through the .Mac system preferences pane rather than the iSync application.
QuickTime 7 - A new version of Apple's multimedia software has support for the new H.264/AVC codec which offers better quality and scalability than other video codecs. This new codec is used by iChat AV for clearer video conferencing. New classes within Cocoa provide full access to QuickTime for Cocoa application developers. The new QuickTime 7 player application bundled with Mac OS X Tiger now includes more advanced audio and video controls as well as a more detailed Information dialog, and the new player has been rebuilt using Apple's Cocoa API to take advantage of the new technologies more easily.
64-bit architecture - Mac OS X Tiger is the first version of Mac OS X to fully support 64-bit computing to take advantage of the PowerMac G5. It also includes backward support for 32-bit programs.
New Unix features - New versions of cp, mv, and rsync which support files with resource forks. Command-line support for features like the above-mentioned Spotlight are also included.
Xcode 2.0 - Xcode 2.0, Apple's Cocoa development tool now includes visual modelling, an integrated Apple Reference Library and graphical remote debugging.

New applications in Tiger

Automator - Automator uses workflows to process repetitive tasks automatically
Grapher - Grapher is a new application capable of creating 2D and 3D graphs similar to that of Graphing Calculator.
Dictionary - A dictionary and thesaurus program which uses the New Oxford American Dictionary. It has a fast GUI for displaying the Dictionary, and allows the user to search the dictionary with Spotlight, to print definitions, and to copy and paste text into documents. Dictionary also provides a Dictionary service in the Application menu, and Cocoa and WebKit provide a global keyboard shortcut (⌃⌘D by default) for all applications that display text with them. The Dictionary application is a more feature-filled version of the Dictionary widget.
Quartz Composer - Quartz Composer is a development tool for processing and rendering graphical data.

Improvements

An upgraded kernel with optimized kernel resource locking, support for 64-bit memory pointers and access control lists.
A new startup daemon called launchd that allows for faster boots.
The printing dialog in Tiger now features a drop down menu for creating PDFs, sending PDFs to Mail, and other PDF related actions. However, the user interface has been criticised for creating a hybrid widget that looks like a plain button but acts like a pop-up menu. This is one of only three places in the entire Mac OS X interface where such an element appears.
Dock menus now have menu items to open an application at login, or to remove the icon from the dock.
The Window menu in the Finder now features a "Cycle Through Windows" menu item.
The Get Info window for items in the Finder now includes a "More Info" section which includes Spotlight information tags such as Image Height & Width, when the file was last opened, and where the file originated from.
Early development of resolution independence. Apple notes that this will be a user-level feature in a future version of Mac OS X. Among the changes, the maximum size of icons has been increased to 256x256. However, the Finder does not yet support this size.

Technologies

A new graphics processing API, Core Image, leveraging the power of the available accelerated graphics cards.

:Core Image allows programmers to easily leverage programmable GPUs for fast image processing for special effects and image correction tools. Some of the included Image Units included are Blur, Color Blending, Generator Filters, Distortion Filters, Geometry Filters, Halftone features and much more.

A new data persistence API, Core Data, that makes it easier for developers to handle structured data in their applications.

:The Mac OS X Core Data API helps developers create data structures for their applications. Core Data provides undo, redo and save functions for developers without them having to write any code.

A new video graphics API, Core Video, which leverages Core Image to provide real-time video processing.

:Apple's Motion real-time video effects program takes advantage of Core Video in Mac OS X Tiger. Core Video lets developers easily integrate real-time video effects and processing into their applications.

Core Audio, introduced in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, integrates a range of audio functionality directly into the operating system.

Interface differences

In every major new revision of Mac OS X, Apple alters the graphical user interface somewhat. In Tiger the menu bar displayed at the top of the screen now features a colored Spotlight button in the upper right corner; the menu itself has a smoother 'glassy' texture to replace the faint pinstripes in 10.3.

Also of note, 10.4 introduces a new window theme, often described as 'Unified'. A variation on the standard, non-brushed metal theme used since the introduction of Mac OS X, this theme integrates the title bar and the toolbar of a window. A prominent example of an application that utilizes this theme is Mail.

Tiger trademark lawsuit

Shortly before the release of Mac OS X 10.4, the computer retailer TigerDirect.com Inc. filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer. The lawsuit alleged that Apple infringed TigerDirect.com's trademark with the Mac OS X Tiger operating system.

The following is a quotation from TigerDirect.com's court memorandum:

Apple Computer's use of its infringing family of Tiger marks to expand sales of products besides its operating system software is already evident -- for example, Apple Computer is offering free iPods and laptops as part of its Tiger World Premiere giveaway. In short, notwithstanding its representation to the PTO that it would only use Tiger in connection with their unique computer operating system software, Apple Computer has in recent weeks used a family of Tiger marks in connection with a substantially broader group of products and services, including the very products and services currently offered by Tiger Direct under its famous family of Tiger marks.

The judge in the case ruled in Apple's favor.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Tiger x86

At the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple would begin selling Mac computers with Intel processors in 2006. To allow developers to begin producing software for these Intel-based Macs, Apple made Developer Transition Kits available for sale which include a version of Mac OS X v10.4 designed to run on x86 processors, which has come to be referred to as Tiger x86 or osx86.

This build includes Apple's Rosetta — a translation process that allows Intel processor versions of the OS to run PPC software with little penalty. This is contrasted with the current Mac OS 9 Classic mode, which uses comparably larger amounts of system resources.

Soon after the Developer Transition Kits began shipping, copies of Tiger x86 leaked onto file sharing networks. Although Apple had implemented a Trusted Computing DRM scheme in the transition hardware and OS in an attempt to stop people installing Tiger x86 on non-Apple PCs, hackers had soon managed to remove this restriction. Recently, Apple has released versions 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 of Tiger x86 with newer safeguards to prevent its use on non-Apple hardware. 10.4.3 has recently been cracked and released to file sharing networks, including the latest 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 builds.

At MacWorld San Francisco 2006, Jobs announced the immediate availablility of Mac OS X 10.4.4, the first publicly-available release of OS X Tiger compiled for both PowerPC and Intel x86 machines.

Trivia

Six weeks after its official release, Apple had delivered 2 million copies of Tiger, representing 16% of all Mac OS X users. By mid-2006, Apple expects Tiger to account for half (50%) of the Mac user base. Apple claims that Tiger was the most successful Apple OS release in the company's history.
When Dashboard was first previewed there was large speculation that it copied the 3rd party software Konfabulator, though there are significant technological differences between the two.

Version history

Mac OS X v10.4.0 (build 8A428), released April 29, 2005 (retail)
Mac OS X v10.4.1 (build 8B15), released May 16, 2005 ([Apple Download Page])
Mac OS X v10.4.2 (build 8C46), released July 12, 2005 ([Apple Download Page])
*Mac OS X v10.4.2 (build 8E102), released October 12, 2005; exclusively for the Front Row iMac G5 released on same date
*Mac OS X v10.4.2 (build 8E45), released October 19, 2005; exclusively for PowerBook G4s released on same date
*Mac OS X v10.4.2 (build 8E90), released October 19, 2005; exclusively for Power Mac G5 Dual and Quad systems released on same date
Mac OS X v10.4.3 (build 8F46), released October 31, 2005 (included in updated retail copies) ([Apple Download Page])
Mac OS X v10.4.4 (build 8G32 for PowerPC, 8G1165 for Intel), released January 10, 2006 ([Apple Download Page])
Mac OS X v10.4.5 (build 8H14 for PowerPC, 8G1454 for Intel), released February 14, 2006 ([Apple Download Page])
Mac OS X v10.4.6 (build 8I127 for PowerPC, 8I1119 for Intel), released April 3, 2006 (Apple Download Page [(for PowerPC)], [(for Intel)])
Mac OS X v10.4.7 (build 8J135 for PowerPC, 8J2135 for Intel), released June 27, 2006 (Apple Download Page [(for PowerPC)], [(for Intel)])

References

External links

History of the Apple Macintosh Operating Systems
Mac OS>Classic Mac OS (History): System 6 · System 7 · Mac OS 8 · Mac OS 9
Mac OS X (History of Mac OS X>History): Public Beta · v10.0 · v10.1 · v10.2 · v10.3 · v10.4 · v10.5
Mac OS X Server: Rhapsody (OS)>Rhapsody · Mac OS X Server 1.0 · Mac OS X Server
Other OS projects: A/UX · Taligent · Copland · Darwin (operating system)>Darwin

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