Mac OS X 10.5 features filter out

Stephen Withers
Monday, 29 January 2007 06:21

Your IT - Home IT

Unannounced features of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X 10.5 - aka Leopard - are being discussed on various Mac rumour sites, and at least one has been the subject of a DMCA take-down order.

Some of the ideas being bandied about come as no surprise. LoopRumors tops its list with Apple TV integration, with the latest suggestion that it will be possible to stream the Mac's desktop to a TV via the new wireless device.

Similarly, iPhone integration is also mooted, but its nature is left open.  I'll be surprised if the iPhone can't be used as a remote control, at least for iTunes and Apple TV. Software such as Salling Clicker has proved there is a demand for 'phone as a remote' capabilities.

I'd also like to see the iPhone usable as a cordless handset for the Mac - ideally, this would be a general-purpose capability, with the iPhone showing up as an input and output device in the Sound system preferences. Otherwise Apple might just as well build an iChat client for text and voice into the iPhone.

Talking of iChat, suggestions that the next version will include video recording and possibly a video answering machine began circulating last year.

Late last week, BabyGotMac posted some Leopard information including screen shots of the revamped Terminal program, parental controls, screensavers, Spotlight and Quick Look (a feature already disclosed by Apple that provides previews of files found by Spotlight).

However, the site's hosting provider received a take-down notice so BabyGotMac removed the images and the more prominent sites that had mirrored them followed suit. I was able to find copies of the screen shots without too much trouble, but for obvious reasons I'm not going to provide the links here.

MacOSRumors offers some interesting tidbits, including improved handwriting recognition (spurring speculation about possible tablet-style devices from Apple), limited Blu-ray support, drivers for SLI (Nvidia's Scalable Link Interface that allows multiple graphics processors to share the rendering load for a single display), and anti-spam/anti-phishing features for Mail and Safari (I wonder whether they will require a .Mac subscription for complete and ongoing protection?).

Perhaps the most interesting suggestion was that Leopard's release date has slipped to mid June: "the very limit of the definition of 'Spring'". If you use the traditional seasonal definitions (the ones involving solstices and equinoxes), I suppose that just qualifies. But it is only a rumour.