Included in the announcements are: Near Final Mac OS X Leopard; Safari for Windows; New Mac OS X Server Leopard Features and iPhone to Support Third-Party Web 2.0 Applications.
Apple Unveils Near Final Mac OS X Leopard
Apple has unveiled a near final version of Mac OS X Leopard, the sixth major release of the worlds most advanced operating system. Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features, including a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new way to organise files; an updated Finder featuring Cover Flow and a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application; Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac; Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which easily allow users to communicate even more creatively.
Leopard is the best release of Mac OS X to date, surpassing even Tiger, and will further extend Mac OS Xs leadership as the most advanced and innovative operating system in the world, said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO. We think current and prospective customers are going to love Leopard, and that it will help make the Mac even more popular.
Leopard includes a completely new Dock featuring Stacks, which can help manage a users desktop clutter caused by browser and email downloads. With the click of a mouse, users can instantly fan out the contents of a stack to easily see each item. Leopards Finder has been completely redesigned, adding Cover Flow as an innovative way to quickly browse and locate files and applications. Finders new Sidebar simplifies the organisation of files on a Mac, and adds easy access to shared Macs and PCs on a home network. Subscribers to .Mac can also use the new Back to my Mac" feature to browse and access files on their remote Macs over the Internet. Also new in Leopard is Quick Look, an innovative new way for users to instantly preview almost any file, and even play media files, without opening an application.
With its unique ability to let users travel back in time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media, Time Machine is a revolutionary way to protect your digital life. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac. In the event a file is lost, users can use Mac OS Xs Spotlight to search back through time to find and then instantly restore the file. Time Machine can automatically back up a Mac to an external hard drive connected with a FireWire or USB cable, to a server, or wirelessly to an AirPort Extreme base station with an attached hard drive.
Leopard also includes three new technologies that take full advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware: full native 64-bit support to enable applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while still running side by side with existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers; easy multi-core optimisation and scheduling to take advantage of the latest Intel hardware; and Core Animation, helping developers easily create animated user experiences as amazing as Leopards Spaces and Time Machine in their own applications.
Other new features in Leopard include:
Leopard Mail, offering more ways to customise and add personal style to email than ever before, with more than 30 beautiful stationery designs and layouts that look great on a Mac or Windows PC; Notes, making it as easy to take and organise notes as it is to compose and read emails; To Dos, for creating lists viewed directly in Mail and automatically sync them with iCal; and data detectors that automatically sense phone numbers, addresses and events so they can be easily added to Address Book or iCal;
Leopard iChat with iChat Theater, letting users present photos, presentations, videos and files in a video conference; Photo Booth effects, enabling users to transform their iChat video in real time with fun distortion and colour effects; and video backdrops that allow users to choose any photo or video that makes them appear to be anywhere in the world, or out of it;
Leopard iCal, introducing powerful group calendaring features based on the open CalDAV standard that make it easy to organise and coordinate schedules with other people;
Spaces, giving users a powerful new, clutter-free way to create customised spaces on the desktop with only the applications or files needed for each project, and the ability to quickly switch between them with one click of a mouse or keystroke;
Web Clip, bringing anything that a user wants from a web page to Dashboard as a live widget;
Boot Camp, making it possible to run Windows natively on Intel-based Macs*; and
new development tools, including Xcode 3 with a next generation editor; an all new Interface Builder for easier integration of advanced animation effects into an application; simpler debugging; and support for Objective-C 2.0; DashCode, a better way to create new Dashboard widgets without writing a line of code; and Xray, a new application for optimising application performance.
Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to ship in October and will be available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com.au) and Apple Authorised Resellers for a recommended retail price of A$199 inc GST for a single user license. The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-residence, five-user license that will be available for a recommended retail price of A$299 inc GST. Volume and maintenance pricing is available from Apple.
*Copy of Windows XP or Vista required.
Apple Introduces Safari for Windows
Apple has introduced Safari 3, the worlds fastest and easiest-to-use web browser for Windows PCs and Macs. Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari joins iTunes in delivering Apples legendary user experience to both Windows and Mac users as well as full support of open Internet standards. Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organise tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information. Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at www.apple.com.au/safari.
We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari, said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO. Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safaris superior browsing experience too.
Safari has always been the fastest browser on the Mac and now its the fastest browser on Windows, loading and drawing web pages up to twice as fast as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Mozilla Firefox 2.* The speed of Safari combined with its intuitive user interface lets users spend more time surfing the web and less time waiting for pages to load. Other Safari features now available to Windows users include SnapBack, one-click access to an initial search query; resizable text fields; and private browsing to ensure that information about an individuals browsing history isnt stored.
Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards so users can view websites as they were meant to be seen, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari software updates are delivered seamlessly through Apples Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.
Pricing & Availability
The free public beta of Safari 3 is available immediately as a download at www.apple.com.au/safari, and is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. The final version of Safari 3 will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October.
Apple Announces New Mac OS X Server Leopard Features
Apple has announced groundbreaking new features of Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard that make it even easier for users to set up and manage. Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard Server is the most significant improvement to the server operating system since Mac OS X Server was launched, introducing new features such as a wiki server, making it easy to connect groups over a shared intranet; Podcast Producer, the ideal way to automatically produce and publish podcasts to iTunes or a blog; and Spotlight Server to quickly find content stored on other servers. Leopard Server also includes the new iCal Server, based on the CalDAV open standard that works with Leopards new iCal application.
Only Apple can deliver an advanced server operating system packed with over 250 new features on the same day as our client OS, said Philip Schiller, Apples senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. With no client access licenses, Leopard Server is the most affordable way to bring innovative server features, such as group calendaring and a wiki server, to everyone from small businesses to large educational institutions.
Small businesses and workgroups without an IT department can take advantage of Leopard Servers ability to automatically configure Leopard clients for use on the server, including file sharing, Mail, iCal, iChat, Address Book and VPN. Leopard Server also includes a new setup interface with a built-in Network Health Check, a new Server Preferences application and a server status Dashboard widget.
With the wiki server, groups can easily create and edit collaborative web pages, called wikis, with a few clicks of a mouse. The wiki server also maintains a complete history to restore previous entries and merge or compare different versions. Podcast Producer is the easiest way for anyone to record content, automatically upload it to the server and convert it into a podcast. Using Xgrid, Podcast Producer can leverage Macs on the network to encode the video, and the podcast can then be delivered over the Internet to a blog, iTunes, or even to multimedia enabled mobile phones over high speed wireless networks using QuickTime Streaming Server.
Apple has made scheduling across different calendar programs simple with iCal Server to coordinate events, schedule meetings and track time more effectively. iCal Server uses the open CalDAV standard for integration with leading calendar programs, including iCal 3 in Leopard, Mozillas Sunbird and OSAFs Chandler. In addition, Apple's Directory makes it easy to search for people in an organisation and view their contact information, picture, colleagues, groups and even see a location map.
Spotlight Server takes Spotlights lightning-fast desktop search capability to the network server level. Designed for workgroups with shared documents, projects and files, Spotlight Server delivers search results of content stored on mounted network volumes. Content indexing is done automatically and transparently on the server so searches are always fast and up-to-date.
Leopard Servers core services, including Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, Cyrus, Podcast Producer and QuickTime Streaming Server are 64-bit, allowing users to take full advantage of their 64-bit hardwares performance and processing power and work with larger data sets. Since Leopard Server is fully 32-bit compatible, users can run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively side-by-side. Leopard Server is also optimized to take full advantage of Intels latest multi-core processors.
Other new features in Leopard Server include:
Server Admin 4 with new file sharing and permission controls, tiered administration, and options for organising servers into smart groups;
iChat Server 2 to securely communicate over instant messaging with others on different systems outside an organisations firewall;
External Accounts to enable Leopard users to store their home directory on an external FireWire or USB portable drive;
a new System Imaging Utility that uses a workflow-based editor to create customised images that can include Boot Camp partitions;
Xgrid 2 featuring GridAnywhere for ad hoc distributed computing in environments without dedicated controllers, and Scoreboard for prioritising job distribution to the fastest available CPU; and
QuickTime Streaming Server 6 with support for 3GPP Release 6 bit rate adaptation for smooth streaming when delivering content to mobile phones regardless of network congestion.
Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to ship in October and will be available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com/au) and Apple Authorised Resellers for a recommended retail price of A$699 inc GST for a 10-client edition and A$1499 inc GST for an unlimited-client edition.
iPhone to Support Third-Party Web 2.0 Applications
Apple has announced that its revolutionary iPhone will run applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards when it begins shipping on June 29. Developers can create Web 2.0 applications which look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and which can seamlessly access iPhones services, including making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhones capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.
Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great these applications look and work on iPhone, said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO. Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable.
Web 2.0-based applications are being embraced by leading developers because they are far more interactive and responsive than traditional web applications, and can be easily distributed over the Internet and painlessly updated by simply changing the code on the developers own servers. The modern web standards also provide secure data access and transactions, like those used with Amazon.com or online banking.
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