Apple Opens Leopard’s Cage Tonight
October 26, 2007 —
Barring a collapse of the space-time continuum, Apple is expected to release its long-anticipated “Leopard” update to its Mac OS X operating system at 6:00 pm local time.
Mac OS X version 10.5 had been delayed by the company’s move earlier this year to focus development resources on pushing the iPhone out the door at the end of June. That decision has presumably been validated by the apparent success of the device, although with an iPhone SDK expected in February, the post-ship vacations for Apple’s own developers will undoubtedly be brief.
The Leopard client software incorporates new search and user interface features, such as Spaces, which allows users to create multiple desktops. Browsing through a folder of unorganized documents will no longer be the same experience, as the new Quick Look option provides a full-screen preview of a file. The Time Machine backup tool provides users with a simple set of tools for backing up, restoring and migrating data.
Leopard Server includes new tools for creating podcasts and wikis. The new iCal Server, an open, standards-based calendar server that requires no client licensing, is part of the package. It implements the WebDAV-based CalDAV specification, which is supported in iCal 3.0.
Apple’s Xcode IDE has been updated for this release, with performance improvements that the company claims allow it to load source code four times faster than previous versions. The updated Interface Builder adds new behaviors that developers can add to an application with a drag-and-drop, while Xcode’s text editor contains enhancements designed to help developers write cleaner code from the start. Xcode also allows project snapshotting, for brainstorming ideas that might not be ready for a source control system.
The new Dashcode widget editor provides simple tools and a library of JavaScript code snippets, GUI controls and templates, with the hope that even nondevelopers might be tempted to dive into the world of widget building. The code editor is optimized for JavaScript, and Dashcode’s project manager and debugging tools may allow neophyte code slingers to feel like pros.
In a manner similar to that of Apple’s GarageBand music editor, the new DTrace-based Instruments debugger provides a timeline view of an application. It can inspect CPU and process behavior, monitor file, memory and network activity, and expose the processes of Mac OS X’s OpenGL driver. The timeline view allows developers to visually compare the behavior resulting from changes with the original code, exposing memory or performance problems. If the existing Instruments tools aren’t quite right for a particular job, developers can use Instrument Builder to create their own.
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