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 Copyright © 1998-99 Shiro Wilde |
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Apple finally shipped Mac OS X Server, its high-end server OS, this month. A couple of surprises came with it - a lower price ($499), and an Open Source initiative. Parts of Mac OS X Server have been released as Open Source (named "Darwin"). This means the source is free and open to the developer community to improve, like the Netscape 5 initiative of Mozilla.org. Whilst Apple is hard at work on new iMacs (Rev. D), PowerBooks (Lombard, P1) and potentially even PDAs for the coming months, it has been steadily working on software updates as well. Mac OS Runtime for Java 2.1 was released last month, offering much improved speed as well as compatibility with Sun Java 1.1.6 specifications. ColorSync 2.6 was also released last month, with expanded AppleScript capabilities, and support for JPEG and GIF profiles. QuickTime 4.0 is currently in late Beta - its foremost new feature will be the ability to receive streaming video and audio. Mac OS 8.6 (codename "Veronica"), is also in late Beta. It will be a free update to Mac OS 8.5.x, incorporating improvements to memory handling and multitasking, and some minor enhancements to Sherlock. QT4 and Mac OS 8.6 should appear next month. LucasFilm and Apple teamed up to debut the Star Wars Episode I Trailer in QuickTime on Apple's web site this month, breaking all download records in the process: 3.5 million downloads in the first 5 days. |
Adobe revealed its much-anticipated page layout application InDesign (codenamed "K2") at Seybold this month. The all-new application using the familiar Adobe interface, will ship this summer. InDesign offers nested text and graphic frames, bézier paths, character styles, multiple master pages, document-wide layers, and multiple undo. It has native support for graphics and files from Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat, and reads Quark XPress and PageMaker files. The future of PageMaker is unclear, but it has already been repackaged as the business-oriented PageMaker 6.5 Plus. Adobe's recent acquisition of GoLive has resulted in GoLive 4.0, its new professional-level web design application. The upgrade offers an integrated editor for QuickTime 3 movies, and is expected to ship this month. The consumer-level CyberStudio Personal Edition is to be dropped in favour of PageMill. Acrobat 4.0 has been announced, and should ship in April. New features improve PDF creation and output - annotation, late-stage editing, press-optimised output and support for PostScript 3. A new Web Capture feature can capture web pages or entire sites to a PDF document, complete with images and links intact. Unfortunately this feature will appear later on the Mac than on the PC. Finally, ATM Deluxe 4.5 is currently in beta and expected to ship soon. It will support double-byte fonts and improve font management, copying, and activation. |
Macromedia shipped Fireworks 2 this month, strengthening its web graphics and animation application. The new version improves integration with Dreamweaver 2 and outputs JavaScript HTML for rollovers. Other features include fully editable text and graphic styles, and site-wide find & replace capabilities. Fireworks enables designers to work with bitmaps and vectors in the same environment, and uses the Symbol and Instance model from Flash for creating animations. A Fireworks 2 Trial is available for download. |
MetaCreations has launched Headline Studio, its new application for creating web-based animation and graphics. Contrary to the artistic/design image of the company the emphasis appears to be in using Headline Studio for creating banner ads... Meanwhile, MetaCreations is preparing Bryce 4, its unique 3D landscape creation application. New features include textured terrain export, a new animation preview interface, and SkyLab sky editor. It also imports and exports a much wider range of file formats, including QTVR and RealMovie. |
Microsoft intends to launch Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Mac this summer. This is in contrast to the launch of the Win version this month. The new version will support XML, and apparently Mac-specific enhancements. It also announced that development of Office upgrades will alternate between Win and Mac-only releases - the next, Office 2000 will be Win-only. |
MacSpeech is currently the only company openly developing speech recognition software for the Mac. Whilst several others existed in this area in the past, they have all departed or moved to the PC. This is due in no small part to Apple, who have left PlainTalk SR in an ambiguous state for a few years now. MacSpeech are developing software for release in the next year or two - a beta demo of MacDoIt! is available. They kindly offer the free MacSpeech PlainTalkEnabler to allow owners of iMacs and new Blue Power Mac G3s to use Apple's PlainTalk, which are otherwise incompatible. |
Aladdin continues to address bugs and other issues in its recent upgrade to the StuffIt family of products. It released the commercial StuffIt Deluxe 5.0.2 Update, shareware DropStuff 5.1 and freeware StuffIt Expander 5.1. However, there are still a couple of bugs left, so more updates are inevitable. |
The final word is that Swatch has introduced a new global standard for time. To avoid confusion about time references across time zones, it has come up with the "Beat". It divides the day into 1000 beats (1 minute 26.4 seconds each), which are the same everywhere in the world at any given moment. Of course, Swatch would like you to buy one of their watches to tell the time in beats. A beat clock for the Mac is available, or you can use a converter on the web. |
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OS Runtime for Java 2.1 PPC |
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StuffIt
Deluxe 5.0.2 Update |
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