Games - Mac OS X v10.5

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	Games - Mac OS X v10.5

Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" is the upcoming sixth major release of Mac OS X for Apple's Macintosh computers. Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated during his keynote speech on June 6, 2005 at the Worldwide Developers Conference that Apple intended to release Leopard at the end of 2006 (when Microsoft was orignally planning on releasing Windows Vista) or early 2007 (the new release time for Vista). Leopard will support Macs with both PowerPC and Intel processors, although by release, Apple may only be selling Intel-based Macintosh computers.

Processor

Leopard will still be available for PowerPC machines, as well as new Intel machines. It is not known if both the PowerPC and Intel versions will be a single disc using Universal Binaries, but evidence so far suggests this will be the case. The Apple DVD developer install kit took advantage of this feature, meaning a user can install the operating system on either a PowerPC or an x86 system using the same disc. Universal binaries allow software manufacturers to make one binary which is compatible with both platforms, greatly easing the transition to the Intel architecture.

Rumors/Speculation

Apple has confirmed that they will be previewing Mac OS X v10.5 at WWDC 2006 which will be held in San Francisco on August 7 – August 11.

Meanwhile, rumor sites are predicting key features of Leopard. They suggest that the new OS will feature a redesigned Finder that relies almost entirely on Spotlight search technology. The new Finder would help users search through the metadata of their files (name, file type, creator, creation date, modification date, associated keywords, size, etc.) in real time, as they currently can in iTunes. Along these lines the Finder might display files and their metadata in much the same way as iTunes displays songs; with the ability to quickly sort on and modify that data.

A more ambitious rumor is that Apple plans to gather secondary metadata through a number of analysis techniques. For example, analyzing the tone and pitch of an MP3 to determine the genre, using speech recognition to extract the lyrics from a song, using OCR to index and search images, or analyzing a photograph to determine if it was a night or day shot, etc.

It has been suggested that performance was not the entire reason to switch to Intel. When Apple first began Mac OS X (codename: Rhapsody), they were already planning to make it compatible with x86, including a project called Red Box. Now that x86 Macs are actually shipping, speculation has intensified that the Red Box will become reality, allowing Mac users to run Windows applications directly in Mac OS X, without emulators. Hence a Win32 API mapping subsystem may also be included in Mac OS X v10.5 if Microsoft decides not to sell a VirtualPC like software that would allow Macs to run Windows software.

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