1. WWDC 2004: Eye of the Tiger.
- Author
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Cochran, Shannon
- Subjects
- *
COMPUTER software , *COMPUTER systems , *COMPUTER software industry , *COMPUTER industry - Abstract
The article examines the 2005 version of Mac OS X-v10.4, code-named Tiger, from Apple Computer. Inspired by the iTunes interface, Spotlight search feature of Tiger brings some contextual intelligence to its task, it knows enough to present a user searching for firewire with the Airport control panel, or a user searching for wallpaper with the Desktop preferences interface. It can sort through image files and return only the portrait-formatted ones. It can call up all of Pixar's movie clips, no matter what names they are saved under, by finding Pixar in the copyright metadata. Spotlight is powered by a metadata search engine, which is accessible to third party programs as well. The engine continuously indexes metadata for all files, so that searches can be performed with near-instant speed. Full content search takes longer, but is also supported. Another potentially revolutionary new feature of Mac OS X v10.4 is Automator, a visual scripting environment and personal automation assistant that works like a robot inside the computer. Automator provides an interface for users to string specific actions together into workflows, which can then of course be saved and executed upon demand. With the Panther release of Mac OS X, Apple introduced the Core Audio system, which integrated audio functionality such as reverb effects or MIDI editing into the operating system, for use by all Mac OS X applications. Tiger follows this up with Core Image and Core Video, which similarly make visual filters, transitions and effects available to all applications.
- Published
- 2004