Purring ALONG
Aug 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Doug Eisengrein
Apple's latest incarnation of Mac OS X, Tiger, is aptly nicknamed. Tiger is fast, efficient, lively and colorful. According to Apple's Website, Tiger is already the quickest-selling operating system in the company's history. In this piece, Remix lifts the hood on Mac OS 10.4 and takes a peek at some of the workings that have helped to render Tiger Apple's most intelligent, cross-platform-friendly and multimedia-savvy OS to date.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Many thought they were witnessing the Holy Grail of audio in the original rollout of Mac OS X, when Apple first introduced Core Audio. Accessed via the Audio MIDI Setup, this system-level driver technology blissfully replaced the pesky-but-necessary third-party middle child of OS Classic, OMS, while allowing multiple applications to simultaneously access a single audio/MIDI interface. Well, many were mistaken, because they are actually witnessing the Grail now. Tiger has added support for multiple interface usage, including device aggregation. This not only allows for the simultaneous use of multiple applications that can be assigned to their own discrete hardware interface but also fundamentally increases the total number of potential physical input and output channels that a single application can use. The device-aggregation feature allows you to use multiple interfaces of like sampling rate together as if they were one device. For example, if you have an eight-in, eight-out device and a two-in, four-out one, by choosing Aggregate Device in your chosen app's preferences, you now have easy access to 10 inputs and 12 outputs. Also, Core Audio now supports 24-bit, 192kHz audio natively, and a robust new audio “container,” called Core Audio Format (CAF), has also been introduced. CAF is a 64-bit file format that allows for essentially unlimited storage capacity and can store any type of uncompressed or compressed audio data. CAF has been implemented into QuickTime 7, as well.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The upgrades in Tiger get right down to the basics. In the beginning, there was the Finder, then came Sherlock. But, now, Apple has truly gotten the built-in search client right with Spotlight. Spotlight is essentially Tiger's new Finder, and aside from being integrated right into select Tiger apps and locations such as Mail, Address Book and System Preferences, it is accessed either in the classic way (by selecting Find in the desktop File menu or by pressing Apple + F) or by clicking on the magnifying-glass icon that has been added to the top-right corner of the menu bar (accessible from within any application). Essentially, Spotlight performs a search on your entire computer in real time; it finds matches literally as fast as you can type. You can customize Spotlight's search parameters (Tiger labels it Privacy) by excluding certain categories, directories or even entire drives. Spotlight not only searches by file name but also finds all matches by metadata such as keywords, words within documents or e-mails; it also looks within Contacts, Events & To Do's, bookmarks, keywords, HTML and more.
The Spotlight shortcut in the menu bar narrows the displayed search results to the top 20 most recently accessed items, and you can choose Show All from the top to open Spotlight's main window and display all matching items. To the right of Show All, the total number of matches is displayed numerically for reference. If you open Spotlight's main window, found items are grouped in organized categories such as Images, Contacts, Documents and Folders, and you can group, sort, view by date and limit the displayed items. Each item's date is displayed to the right of the name next to an “i” button that can be clicked on to get more information. The extra information provided on each item depends upon its type — folders, for example, display their path on the drive; the number of items stored inside; and when they were created, last opened or modified. Images and PDF files have thumbnails displayed. But best of all for audio folks is the little QuickTime-style transport that is displayed for each audio file. From within Spotlight, you can preview all audio files that have similar names, and anyone who has ever sifted through a bunch of audio files named “bassdrum1,” “bassdrum2” and so on will appreciate this feature.
F IS FOR FUNCTIONAL
Never have the F9 through F12 keys on the QWERTY keyboard been so appealing. Unless you are a power user, you may have never even pressed any of those keys in your life. Although the F9, F10 and F11 keys were extremely useful features added in the past Mac OS X version, the new star is the F12 key. A press of F12 opens a world of its own, Tiger's new Dashboard. Like the F9 and F10 keys, F12 dims the desktop and opens Dashboard's various applets, dubbed Widgets. Widgets are basically tiny, self-contained applets that are based on basic Web languages such as HTML, Javascript and CSS. Many of these — such as the flight tracker, the world clock, the language translator and the address book — may prove extremely useful to traveling musicians. Another handy built-in Widget is the iTunes player, which lets you control playback of iTunes without opening the main application. Aside from the many other Widgets that are already available as free downloads, I predict users will see an abundance of development in the Widget department. Fellow audio-coding nerds, are you listening?
HOLLYWOOD ON THE CHEAP
For you multimedia jockeys and bedroom movie producers out there, the basic QuickTime 7 player is included with Tiger. And even though it can do some cool stuff — such as sending files to Bluetooth devices and zooming to half, actual or double size via hotkeys — for a reasonable $29.99, you can upgrade to QuickTime 7 Pro from Apple's Website. Apple whets your visual appetite by adding some of Pro's additional features to the menus, with unmistakable marks of “Pro” next to them; the company was even sly enough to leave the menu items and corresponding key commands active, so if you try them, you will be conveniently invited to upgrade then and there.
Although it is an optional upgrade, QuickTime 7 Pro warrants some attention. It allows for the viewing of movies and previews in full-screen size; the creation of H.264 video with Apple's new codec; the creation of 3G files for mobile devices; and, perhaps coolest of all, multichannel audio creation and exporting with support for AIFF and AAC audio formats. A much-needed and hip new feature is found in the full-screen viewing mode: The instant you move the cursor, a remote control dynamically appears, allowing you to play, stop, pause, fast forward and rewind, as well as revert to actual size or change the position of the viewer on the screen. The Movie Properties panels have been completely redesigned, resulting in a streamlined and more efficient movie-editing experience. In addition, new hotkeys have been added for the creation of in and out points; this also renders QuickTime 7 Pro a vitally more productive tool.
STREAMLINE AND SHARE
Tiger's new Automator feature brings everyone one step closer to that looming fetish for becoming robots. Automator is like AppleScript on steroids: Wrapped in a sweet user interface, it allows you to create and save multiple-action Workflows for repeat use. The UI contains a library of usable applications in one pane, a list of available Actions in another pane, a description field that explains all Actions as they are selected, and a large Workflow pane to which you can simply drag and drop actions in the sequential order of when they should occur. After all pieces are in place, you can rearrange the order by simply moving an Action up or down in the chain. Each Action allows you to specify relevant parameters, such as where to save files or how loud to make the output volume. You can save these custom Workflows anywhere on your Mac, but they will all show up in the Automator Library in a default folder called My Workflows. If you do a lot of batch audio-file processing, for example, Automator bundles the multitasks involved into a single action that is then instantly accessible and totally automated.
Do you have both a Mac and a Windows ma-chine in your studio? Are your audio files too large to e-mail between machines on a regular basis, or are you spending too much time and money on CD and DVD transfers? Tiger provides the means to seamlessly network with file-sharing-enabled PCs and Windows-based servers. The OS' new networking capabilities provide for a no-software-installations-required experience by Windows machines. Macintosh shares show up just like a typical server in Windows' Network Neighborhood, so you can just drag and drop files between machines instead of burning DVDs or CDs or uploading and downloading to FTP servers. On the Mac side, PC servers simply show up in the Finder and can be accessed through the Network icon. In addition, Tiger supports the VPN (virtual private network) protocol and includes a VPN client for remote network access. Another welcome cross-platform upgrade is Tiger's implementation of standard zip-file compression and expansion. Third-party compression utilities (such as Stuffit) are, at last, no longer required. To zip a file or folder, just select it and choose Create Archive from the File menu, or (if you have a multibutton mouse) right-click on the target file or folder and choose the same command from the pop-up menu. Unzipping is as simple as a double-click on any zipped archive.
With Tiger, Apple has added some long-needed — not to mention unique and thoughtful — new functionality. This robust, stable Unix-based OS brings users several steps closer to compatibility with “the rest of the world” of other operating systems while seriously continuing to push the envelope of flair that is truly Macintosh. Whether you are a networking geek or a creative freak, I suspect Mac OS 10.4 has something in it to keep the corners of your mouth turned toward the sky for quite a while. The biggest hurdle to upgrading may be to not have too fun while you try to work!
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