sprocket i/o

So, I had the chance to play around with a beta build of the next release of Mac OS X earlier this week. It’s only 5-6 weeks away from final release, so I think it’s going to be pretty similar to the version that actually ships. Here is a view of the default desktop showing off the quick-view feature with a RAW file:

Since the beta has been very well covered at other places, such as Think Secret, I’ll just highlight a few things that stood out to me:

• Bad choice for a default background.. causes the pseudo-transparent menubar to be pink!
• Spotlight appears to be significantly faster
• Installer does not work if volume has 770 permissions
• Downloads are now kept in ~/Downloads. Downloaded programs prompt the first time you run them instead of as you download them.
• Migration tool lets you import settings from other volumes!
• Widespread use of filesystem ACL’s. All of the default directories in your home directory are now marked as

  group:everyone deny delete

• Network availability on wakeup is now instantaneous with the 3rd party NIC used
• Time Machine appears to require a second disk?
• Terminal Preferences no longer suck.
• Safari Web Clips are awesome, but Safari does not open some Google Spreadsheets of mine.
• GimpShop crashes at startup, all other 3rd Party Apps tested seem to work.
• New System Preferences icon reminds me of NeXTstep
• Minimal bugs, looks almost ready to ship.
• Editing remote files via Cyberduck does not work
• Still no new voices in the Speech dialog

For you open-source geeks, I compiled a list of what versions some of the open-source packages included have been updated to:

Overall, seems as big of a change as 10.4 was. I’m going to buy it without a doubt.