The latest build (9A321) of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 is revealing several great features. We gathered all this information found on other reports and forum postings in one article, for you, Mac OS X fans!
Among them, we find resolution independence, support for the ZFS file system, file recovery, a new installer, more screen savers, improved parental controls, QuickTime and Time Machine.
Resolution Independence:
As its name suggests, the Resolution independence feature makes the the size of the user interface's widgets independent of the screen resolution the user has chosen. It's very useful when you have a high definition display on a laptop. Apple has recently [1] filed a patent so as to protect the way Mac OS X deals with this feature.
ZFS support:
ZFS (Zetabyte File System) is a 128-bit file system by Sun Microsystems which is known to be very reliable and intended to the storage servers market. For the moment, support of ZFS on Mac OS X is limited as it is not possible to use it for the boot partition.
File Recovery:
The file recovery feature is available through the Disk Utility allows you to search your lost files by type. You can chose to look for music, videos, pictures or create a custom type. Apple might also let developers create these custom types for you.
Installer:
The new installer mainly brings further configuration for the Time Machine feature. It's also sees some changes in its appearance.
Parental Controls:
The Parental Controls feature which allows users to restrict the use of some applications for their kids is also a bit improved, it can now write logs and provide reports on everything that was done during the restricted session.
QuickTime:
The new version of QuickTime present in the latest build of Leopard gets improved A/V controls by extensively using the CoreVideo API.
More Screen Savers:
Leopard is said to include a few more screen savers, however we couldn't find any screenshot, we'll update if there is any screenshot out there.
TimeMachine:
TimeMachine is also more polished in this latest build, it now detects any "all new" hard drive connected to it and asks you if you want to use it for backup. It's also apparently the subject of many bug fixes in this build.
iChat's answer-machine:
iChat brings a video answer-machine, allowing you to record a short video that will be streamed when you can't answer to your friends ringing you on iChat.
Your friend can also record a video message for you. Instead of recording, you may also drop a movie from the Finder. That's way cooler than Skype!
CoreAnimation Example:
For developers, Apple now provides a great example for the CoreAnimation API, it's actually the iPod nano ad made with iTunes covers.
Overall stability and performance is said to be quite good, though some known and unknown bugs remain.
Here are the sites I gathered the information from, you may find some further information on each feature as well as some screenshots:
- Gallery: New Leopard build reveals OS far from finished, but earning its stripes (ThinkSecret) [2]
- Mac OS X 10.5 9A321 Screenshots & Info, Changes from previous builds (AeroXP Forums) [3]
- ZFS File System Makes it to Mac OS X Leopard (WorldOfApple) [4].
Apple has officially announced during WWDC 2006 that Leopard would ship during Spring 2007. Steve Jobs also told the audience during the WWDC keynote that there were some super-secret unannounced features on Leopard. We don't know if there's anything more to expect than what we see on this build, but we definitely hope so.
I've might have missed some of the features in the build 9A321, so don't hesitate to use the comments to add them. Screenshots and links are also welcome. I may update the article with more details.