VMWare Fusion 3 review

Macnn provides a review of VMWare Fusion 3. Performances are great, except for recent games, despite support for DirectX9 and shaders (up to 30 times less fps than in BootCamp). Parallels (version 4 available, and version 5 soon) is probably better in that aera (there is also to consider the rendering quality, that can differ fom game to game between the two virtualizers).

iMac : displayPort input and DVI / no BluRay

New iMacs miniDisplay port now also works as an input, which allows to plug a MacBook (or another computer fitted with such output technology). We can even plug a DVI-based older computer (including the MDD G4 ) using a convertuer (Atlona DVI to Mini DisplayPort Converter, priced 179$). The converter manages source resolutions up to 1920*1200 (that is exactly the MDD G4’s Radeon 9000 Pro limit). Apple is also expected to unveil such adapters.

About the new 27 inches iMac display, a BluRay player would have been a logical feature, and price difference (500$) with a similar MacPro (performance-wise) could confirm rumor about removal of that drive at the last time (in order to put pressure on royalties deals). Then originally the iMac featuring BluRay would have been priced close to the MacPro, and the pros would then have choosed the MacPro (they don’t need a BluRay drive). Without that peripheral, the new quad core iMac reduced price could blend pros choice.

Finally Apple should introduce a lower-priced entry-level MacPro (not more than 2000$) to avoid pros looking toward to the new iMac.

New mac mini / server

Besides new iMac and the new unibody MacBook, Apple updated the mac Mini, with faster processors (2.26GHz to 2.66GHz), and an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M that now onboards 256 Mb also on the entry model (599$, 2 Gb of ram and still 160 Gb hard drive). The later model (799$) includes 4 Gb of ram (and still 320 Gb of hard drive). The disks still are 5400 rpm, however the mac mini keeps its firewire 800 port.

A new model with Snow Leopard Server and two 500 Gb hard drives (still 5400 rpm) has been added, and is priced 999$ (that is an interesting alternative to XServe).

New imacs : LED/HD/QuadCore/MagicMouse

Apple presented new imacs, fitted with HD LED backlit (1920 by 1080 pixels on the 21,5 inches, and 2560 by 1440 pixels on the 27 inches) et quad core processors as an option on the 27 inches model (Core i5 2,66 Ghz or Core i7 2,8 Ghz, with Turbo Boost technology to overclock a core if others aren’t in use, and Hyper-Threading on the Core i7).

The 21,5 inches model keeps a core duo 2 processor, at 3,06 or 3,33 Ghz (are also available on the 27 inches model), and onboards a NVidia 9400M chipset, or an ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256 Mb. The quad core models are provided with the Radeon HD 4850 with 512 Mb (the HD 4670 with 256 Mb is also available on the Core i5) . Hard drives (SATA) range from 500 Gb to 2Tb and are 7200 rpm.

These new iMac are bundled with the new Magic Mouse (multitouch), that can also be purchased separately (69$) for all macs under Leopard (10.5.8 required).

Best attractive configurations are the 3,06 Ghz 27 inches model (core 2 duo, 4 Gb of ram, 1 Tb hard drive) with ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB option (1699+150, that is 1849$), and (more) the 27 inches Core i5 (same configuration as the previous, however with a 2,66Ghz quad core, for 1999$). This later model logically offers about same performance as the entry level quad 2,66 Ghz MacPro (Xeon processor, however NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, only 3 Gb of ram and 640 Gb of hard drive), that is priced 2499$ (that is 500$ more, despite the imac providing a 27 inches display).

Snow Leopard Uniform Type Identifiers

In Snow Leopard Apple replaced classic types/creators by the new UTI (Uniform Type Identifiers)technology in order to manages types and store those managed by applications. The naming scheme reminds Java’s pacakges one, and then starts with com.companyNamefor proprietary formats (or formats groups). The public prefix is used to define standard formats : public.rtf, public.xml, etc. An identifier can be associated to many old files extensions (for example public.html manages .html, .htm, .shtml, .shtm, and text/html MIME type).
Identifiers are hierarchically linked, however contrary to Java package they do not have to share the same prefix : then com.sun.java-source extends public.source-code, that extends public.plain-text, and then public.text, public.data, up to public.item.

Resolution Independance : from 10.4 to 10.6

The Resolution Independance technology, introduced initially in MacOSX 10.4 and then slightly enhanced in Leopard, remained disabled by default since, due to controls overlapping concerns when upscaling (the UI scale factor can still be modified for a particular application using Quartz Debug tool). The fact is that, for the technology to be efficient, all image resources have to be replaced by vector ones. Such step has been worked on for Snow Leopard (that allows system size shrink and still 512 pixels icons display in the Finder). Global enabling in the system could then be added in a future update.

Apple provides a documentation on this technology, however it wasn’t updated yet since Snow Leopard release :

Mac OS X v10.4 introduced preliminary support for resolution independence, but the implementation was very limited and many visual errors occur. Mac OS X v10.5 adds further support and the implementation has been refined.

Most Cocoa applications, and Carbon applications that use compositing mode, should be capable of being resolution-independent when running on this release. However, resolution independence is still a developer-only feature in Mac OS X v10.5 and is not yet intended for end-user adoption.

Article on Grand Central Dispatch Blocks

Apple provides an article about programming with Grand Central Dispatch’s Blocks :

Block objects (informally, “blocks”) are an extension to C, as well as Objective-C and C++, that make it easy for programmers to define self-contained units of work. Blocks are similar to — but far more powerful than — traditional function pointers. The key differences are:

• Blocks can be defined inline, as “anonymous functions.”
• Blocks capture read-only copies of local variables, similar to “closures” in other languages

This is kind of functionality is common in dynamically-typed interpreted languages, but has never before been widely available to C programmers.

Dispatch queues and dispatch semaphores are also presented.

WebGL support in WebKit

WebGL support seems to have been added recently in WebKit (and additional tests).

Grand Central now open source : libdispatch

Apple now provides Grand Central APIs in open source (libdispatch). It requires a C compiler that supports “blocks”.

Snow Leopard : new Finder and security

Many very positive articles about Snow Leopard emerged in the online Press these last days (and are referenced at Apple site), among those the NY Times one. We discover here some less known new features :

Icons can now be 512 pixels (several inches) square, turning any desktop window into a light table for photos. You can page through a PDF document or watch a movie right on a file’s icon. (see this video).

You can now record your screen activity as a movie — fantastic for tutorials. (video here).

When you rename an icon on an alphabetically sorted desktop, it visibly slides into its new alphabetic position so you can see where it went. (typical example of Core Animation implicit animation mode).

About security, the XProtect component do not just ask confirmation when opening a downloaded application for the first time : it now also maintains a list of known trojans (two at this time), and displays a warning message if we click on a package that contains one of these. However it only works if the image/package has been downloaded with a software that sets the com.apple.quarantine extended property (see details at Sophos site). Then this protection isn’t yet available for content downloaded using BitTorrent, or for files accessed through an USB key or network sharing.

Snow Leopard will ship August, 28

The AppleStore did close for some hours and just reopened : MacOSX 10.6 Snow Leopard release date is confirmed, it will ship starting August, 28, that is some weeks ahead of expectations !

iPhone 3GS : Full HD video out

The iPhone 3GS may be capable of playing full HD videos (1920*1080p), despite being restricted (by software) to 640*480 (same with previous models). The iPhone 3G can handle decoding of 480p (854*480, exactly the resolution of my old projector), and output it through a component cable (49$, provides 480p from an iPod touch 2, but 480i – interlaced – on iPhone 3G).