I didn't spend too much time bugging the guy who was doing Tiger demos. I did learn that for photos, Spotlight indexes the metatdata that you see when you do "get info" on an image (like the comments box for example). It looks like Tiger has expanded this, because I noticed a "keywords" box in the get info dialog. I'm not sure if this data is passed around in EXIF, but I suspect that it is. So, because of this, I think that some of the Dashboard demo that Steve did was "smoke and mirrors". Most normal people aren't going to have awesome metadata associated with their pictures and movies, so those things won't show up in Spotlight searches. I grilled the guy, but it doesn't appear as if Apple is providing any awesome way for entering in metadata. At least, the guy that I talked to could only offer up some lame Applescript excuse...
Dashboard appears to be everything that was demoed, however. I think the only problem I'm going to have with it is going to be the with the function key that I bind it too. My powerbook only has two function keys that I don't need to hit Fn for first (F11 and F12). I'm currently using both of those for expose, so I'm going to have to come up with something hip for Dashboard. I quizzed the Apple guy about adding new widgets. He said that since widgets are powerful, that Apple is only going to make it easy to install ones that they have certified. But, it is possible to install non-certified widgets - you just have to drop them into the correct directory, and they'll work. Oh, and the eye candy around this feature is mind blowing. I saw some of it in the keynote, but there is even more that I saw when I was getting the in-depth look today.
They still haven't fixed my biggest beef with Mail. I like to use nicknames for people (like 'dad' for example), and there isn't a clean way to do this in Mail. Also, when you do type the first few letters of someone's name, there is an intolerable lag before it fills in the e-mail address. This still remains in Tiger (although it is much harder to out-type it on a 2.5Ghz G5).
The last thing that I found out is that the upgraded iChat AV in Tiger is backwards-compatible with that in Panther. So, my dad and I won't have to upgrade in lockstep in order to still chat. :)
-Andy.
Posted by andyr at January 12, 2005 10:10 PM