Mac OS X 10.2.x Jaguar

Sproing! One of the best-loved features of Mac OS 9 pops up in OS X, as spring-loaded folders make their return in Mac OS 10.2.

These and other details about the 10.2 release emerged long before it was known that build 6C115 was destined to be designated the "golden master," or that the final release would keep the code-name "Jaguar" (well, except in Australia and a few other countries where the Ford Motor Company's trademark forbids it).

One of the first widely publicized "leaks" came in the form of a now-deleted "sneak peek" by www.ms-eradication.org in Dec. 2001. It took a detailed look at an early beta of 10.2 (Build 6B11) and provided a number of screen shots, which, unfortunately have since been removed, after the site received a cease-and-desist letter from Apple's lawyers. It noted several key features:

• A revised Finder Preferences panel provides control over spring-loaded folders, file content search options, etc.
• General preferences provide several settings (standard "best for CRT," light, medium "best for flat panel" and strong)  for text anti-aliasing and other new options
• A new "Hearing" panel in the Universal Access System Preferences panel provides the option to flash the screen when an alert sound plays. (Elsewhere, the speech panel can speak alert or dialog texts aloud, if you wish.)
• Another new Universal Access panel, "Seeing," allows for a rather interesting-looking white on black appearance. It also provides a grayscale display option.
• Selecting multiple items in a Finder window now updates the status bar with information about how many items are selected.
• You like customizable Finder toolbars? Now Disk Burn, Eject, etc. actions can be added to the toolbars.
• You can also get information on items directly from the Finder toolbars by adding an "info" item with the Customize" option.
• Contextual menus are beginning to develop now -- for instance, "Open With" is now a contextual menu action.
• Disk images can also be mounted from contextual menus.
• The "beach ball" busy system indicator has an "aquafied" appearance, and the mouse pointer has a drop shadow, at least on systems supporting "Quartz Extreme" OpenGL acceleration of user interface elements.
• The startup screen is very different. You'll be surprised.

The first official look at the feature set of the operating system code-named "Jaguar" came in May 2002, when Steve Jobs officially unveiled the system to attendees at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference.

Accompanied by a coffin on stage, Steve Jobs delivered a mock eulogy during his WWDC keynote for the passing of Mac OS 9. "Today we say goodbye to Mac OS 9 for all future development." Jobs maintains that, from the company's perspective, it's time to drop OS 9. "Mac OS 9 is survived by the next generation, OS X," he said.

Here's a list of highlights as described by Mr. Jobs at the WWDC on May 6, 2002.

• QuickTime 6: touted as "The best MPEG-4 technology," it includes integrated support for AAC, "instant on" streaming, free QuickTime Broadcaster, MPEG-4 encoding. MPEG-2 support is US$19.95 extra. QT6 Pro (saving files, etc.) is US$29.95 extra.
• Sherlock 3: renders pages in HTML for better previews. New channels; new emphasis on channels (Yellow Pages, etc.)
• Along with spring-loaded folders, Jobs demonstrated the Finder's new multithreaded design, integrated search features and automated creation of thumbnail images (a la Windows XP).
• The most surprising revelation was that the new "Quartz Extreme" engine, which accelerates all on-screen video, 2D and 3D graphics via Open GL, will not support graphics cards with less than AGP 2x and 32MB video RAM.  Steve Jobs says "This puts Apple two years ahead of the other guys." However, this means that some Macs only a few months old might already be effectively "obsolete." Some Mac fans were outraged by this limitation. Said one, "I smell a class action lawsuit."
• The Mail application has been significantly beefed up, with new "rules" allowing for sophisticated filtering of junk mail "spam," cross-mailbox searching, auto-merging of multiple mailboxes, colour highlighting, VPN support and other new security features and QuickTime support. Apple says the Mail services will work with Exchange servers.
• 10.2 is "more network-friendly" with Windows systems. The most significant manifestation of this is 10.2's Dynamic IP discovery feature. With it, computers dynamically discover each other and share resources. Apple has proposed the feature, which it calls "Rendezvous" (AKA zeroconf) and says will work with any IP-capable device, as an open industry standard.
• iChat: an (AOL) AIM-compatible chat client. You don't need an AOL account and can use your Mac.com username.
• An integrated Address book, with LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) searching built in. The address book, says Jobs, is accessible "system wide."

Although not all of the capabilities built into 10.2 are expected to be used by every user, there are a number of other improvements under the hood:

• "Inkwell" handwriting recognition, works in any OS X app that uses text, "even Terminal." The Ink Preferences panel only shows up after attaching a graphics tablet and rebooting.
• The Quartz engine allows visually impaired users to zoom in or out at will. A screen reader will read any selected text aloud. Apple promises "full keyboard access."
• Darwin has been updated to version 6.0; GCC to 3.1
• 10.2 is based on FreeBSD 4.4 (OSX 10.0/10.1 was based on FreeBSD 3.x)
• Obzorg.org notes some changes, "not necessarily for the better," to the Terminal app. Most notably, notes Ars Technica, there are spacing problems with certain fonts, including the classic Monaco 9.
• Obzorg.org also notes that many applications will launch more quickly as the OS now handles prebinding in a far more intelligent manner. If an application, it says, is launched that isn't already prebound, the OS will update prebinding on its own so future launches will be quicker.

Installing and Configuring
Jaguar has a new "archive and Install option that allows users to perform a clean installation, while preserving old system folder preferences and contents. There's also an upgrade option and a clean installation option. Owners of a Mac with a SuperDrive should choose the upgrade option, as Jaguar does not include a copy of iDVD. However, if you need to extract iDVD from your set of System Restore disks, this is not difficult to do, provided that you have a few gigabytes of free disk space. MacInTouch has details.

It's worth mentioning that, in our tests, the "junk mail filtering" feature of the Jaguar Mail client didn't prove all that effective initially. By default, it launches in a training mode, where you can characterize mail as "not junk." With these prompts, the Mail program hones its mail rules, leading to improved accuracy for subsequent analyses.

At least one of the touted features of Jaguar didn't work at all in our tests. During a demonstration of the new version of Sherlock included in Mac OS X 10.2, Steve Jobs and Apple VP of Marketing Phil Schiller showed how the Movie search function can find local theatres and movies, displaying show times, locations and even previews of movie trailers. However, this feature didn't work at all for our local (Western Canadian) region; we suspect many other users outside metropolitan centers in the U.S. will experience similar results from this and other location-based searches, such as the new Yellow Pages search feature that promises to provide driving directions from the location that you specify as your home address.

Pricing
On July 17, the operating was given it official name: Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. At his keynote speech at Macworld Expo New York, Steve Jobs revealed a few more key features of the system, and pegged the price at US$129, with NO discount for upgraders (!).
 

• Apple VP Phil Schiller took the stage to demonstrate the "Rendezvous" zero-configuration device discovery protocol. Steve Jobs confirmed that HP, Lexmark and Epson have already committed to supporting Rendezvous and, HP has since stated that "many" of its firmware-upgradeable printers (a list that is known to exclude the HP 1200n printer and 17x series of print servers) will be upgradeable to support this feature.
• Schiller also demonstrated a cool feature of the multi-threaded Finder that allows desktop images in the background to change at user defined intervals -- while you work. This feature, too, requires Quartz Extreme acceleration for full functionality.
• Later, Steve Jobs demonstrated Mac OS X 10.2's prowess at connecting to digital phones and other wireless devices via another new tool called "iSync." It is not part of the OS, but will, says Apple, require Mac OS X 10.2. iSync is slated to be release as a free download starting in Sept.

Although early reports suggested that those who bought Mac OS 10.1 after Mac OS 10.2 had been announced on July 17 would still have to pay full price for the upgrade to 10.2, Apple apparently reconsidered this policy and revised its Mac OS X Up To Date program to allow post-July 17 purchasers to update for US$19.95. Educational customers pay US$69 for the full version.

As well, notes MacInTouch, Apple has quietly announced a maintenance program for Mac OS. For less than US$70/seat/year (minimum 10 seats) Apple offers a 3 year maintenance program that will provide you with the latest version of the Mac OS each and every time there is a major release.

Amazon.com briefly offered a US$50 rebate on Jaguar orders. The rebate, however, was pulled shortly after its announcement on July 5. (U.S. orders only; details.)

Educators in Canada are now being included in Apple's “X for Teachers” program, which offers a free copy of Mac OS X version 10.2 to "every" K-12 teacher. Read more....

Availability
Mac OS X 10.2, shipping in at least some new computer boxes from Apple Stores since August 12, hit retail shelves Aug. 24. It is worth mentioning that Mac OS 9.x is no longer part of the package, at it was with the 10.0 and 10.1 releases. The upgrade kit shipped with computers includes two discs (OS build 6C115 and an "iApps" disc, containing iTunes 3, iChat and the other new applications); retail packages include three discs  (OS, iApps and developer tools); see the CD contents section of Apple's OS X features list for details.

A Server version of Jaguar shipped on Aug. 24th. An update to Mac OS X Server 10.2.4 was released on Feb. 24, 2003. It, too, is detailed on Apple's site.

Compatibility
Apple machines sold since Nov. 1, 2002 can't be booted with retail packages of Jaguar "original release."

Jaguar represents a significant overhaul to Mac OS X, with a radically redesigned Find command, multi-threaded Finder, the new "Quartz Extreme" graphics architecture, and other big changes (not all of which are superficially apparent, such as the switch to the GCC 3.1 compiler). This has led to a number of compatibility issues, affecting a wide cross-section of products. Think Secret has an extensive list of third-party Jaguar 10.2 incompatibilities. Elsewhere, MacFixIt notes a few more examples:
 

• Mozilla 1.1 and 1.1a: crash whenever a page containing Java applets is accessed.
• Lexmark Z65 printer: can't print. (The company has since released an update to address this issue.)
• Third-party 802.11 wireless cards are not compatible. We did, however, successfully configure an Apple Airport Base Station from an iBook running Jaguar and an Apple Airport card; we then connected a PC running Windows XP and an Orinoco WaveLAN card to the wireless network.
• Dantz Retrospect requires an update to at least version 5.05.536. The older 4.0 version, which previously ran under Classic is now incompatible. (as with all the items here, check the manufacturer's website for updates.)
• Deneba Canvas 7 has screen drawing problems.
•  

Users also report problems with Roxio Toast (can't read DMG files), various third-party modem, mouse and printer drivers, and many other devices and software packages relying upon low-level interaction with the operating system.

In fact, because of the change to GCC 3.1, it is likely that many kernel and device drivers will be rendered at least partially incompatible until they are recompiled using Apple's new developer tools.

See the links below for more details.

For Further Reading

• OS X comparison - A feature comparison of OS X versions 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2. [Updated Sept. 7, 2002]
• Ars Technica: John Siracusa reviews Mac OS X 10.2. It's a worthwhile read.
• "OS X 10.2 Screen Shots" RAILhead Design [May 12, 2002]
• More screenies [May 12, 2002]
• "Mac OS X 10.2 (Build 6B11): Sneak Preview" Microsoft Eradication Society
• "Mac OS X 10.2 in Early Development: Jaguar Hits 6B11" Think Secret
• "10.2: Aqua Goes Sproingy" As the Apple Turns
• "WWDC Keynote report" MacCentral
• "Cat's Out of the Bag: Notes on Jaguar changes and performance" obzorg.org
• "Inside Jaguar: An exclusive sneak-peek at new updates, part one and part two" Think Secret [July 5, 2002]
• Think Secret: Third-party Jaguar 10.2 incompatibilities (list) [Aug. 9, 2002]

Think Secret also has details on the Finder and System Preferences, iChat, Mail and Address Book, Sherlock 3 and Ink, other applications and utilities, scanner support, Jaguar system sounds and miscellaneous items, and has answered reader questions, including a second Q&A.

Graeme Bennett can be reached at Gra...@MacBuyersGuide.com