Report of Reunion on new Intel iMacs

Over in the ReunionTalk Forums, a member reported that Reunion 8.0.6 runs just fine on the new Intel-based iMacs. Bob White reported that it was “pretty close to twice as fast as it was on the G4 eMac that I’ve been using. Charts pop up like a lightning strike.”

In the same thread, a member of the Leister Pro technical support team reported that Reunion 9 will run natively on Intel-based Macs.

This corresponds with an iMac review by Ars Technica that was mentioned earlier last week, concerning applications running under Rosetta.

Report on Intel-Powered Macs, Rosetta

Ars Technica has posted a review of the new 17-inch Intel Core Duo-powered iMac.

There has been discussion about older Mac OS X applications that are not Universal Binaries, running on the new Intel-powered Macs, especially genealogy applications. I don’t think we have too much to worry about, going by this review.

Of particular interest to us, is page four:

As Hannibal pointed out, Rosetta has a few advantages that earlier translation and emulation technologies lacked. First and foremost is an extra processor core. That allows the translation to run on one core while the application thread executes on the other core, meaning that the translated code will have a short distance to travel. In addition, it’s integrated into the operating system, so there’s no need to emulate drivers. Graphics and UI elements do redraw quickly.

Overall, I’m very impressed with Rosetta. Aside from Unreal Tournament 2K4, I’ve not run into a single application that was unusable on the iMac. Some were definitely slower on the Core Duo iMac than on the iMac G5. Launching typically took a bit longer, and I would usually get the dreaded spinning beachball for a couple of seconds once the application launched. Afterwards, it was smooth going.

Some tasks like Photoshop filters were definitely slower going on the Core Duo iMac than on the iMac G5. But using applications such as Microsoft Office felt so smooth that I really didn’t get the feeling that there was some sort of translation at work.

Something like Photoshop filters are going to be fairly hardware intensive, because they need the CPU power, while things like Microsoft Office, or in our case, genealogy applications, once they are launched, are going to be as fast as we are, because they will be waiting on input from us. If you are using an older Mac genealogy application, that was not written to run under Mac OS X, you will be out of luck - the Classic/MacOS 9 environment no longer functions under Intel versions of Mac OS X. Somebody may write an emulator or something else to change that in the future, but for now, it’s a no-go.

Read more

MacFamilyTree 4.2.6

MacFamilyTree 4.2.6 is now available for download. This update to the Mac OS X genealogy application adds minor fixes and improvements. It is also a full Universal Binary - it will run on both Intel and PowerPC computers running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher (Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel-based computers).

It can be downloaded from here.

iLife ‘06, .Mac Updates

Last, but not least, iLife ‘06 has been released - with some updates that maybe of interests to some Mac genealogists. Along with it, an update to .Mac to allow for improved integration between the two.

iLife ‘06 updates:

iPhoto - Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9
* Improved performance
* Support for up to 250,000 photos
* Photocasting allows you to share albums with other iPhoto users through .Mac
* Full-screen mode (editing/comparing of images)
* iWeb compatability (see iWeb below)
* In addition to ordering photo books and prints through iPhoto, you can now order greeting cards and calendars.

iWeb
* New web/blog application for iLife ‘06 - besides functioning as a blog/homepage software, it allows you to easily share photos through the web using iPhoto.
* You can set photo albums to be public or private through iPhoto, and you can automatically update your website through iPhoto.

iMovie
* New themes, effects, upgraded audio support, and multipe-projects open at the same time.
* Exporting video to an iPod.

iDVD
* Wide-screen menus
* Support for 3rd party/OEM DVD Burners
* New DVD creation mode (”Magic iDVD)
* Better photo slideshows

iWork ‘06

iWork ‘06 was released with some major enhancements to Pages (Apple’s word processor/publishing application) and Keynote (Apple’s presentation application). Although a spreadsheet application was not added, spreadsheet functionality was increased. Among the changes:
* Ability to create more sophisticated/compex documents and presentations, including spreadsheet-like tables
* 3D Charts
* Image editing (similar to iPhoto)
* Masking tools added
* New ways to view the documents as you create them, as well as the ability to control the viewing angle for presentations
* Improved Mac OS X Address Book compatability
* Dozens of new themes

iWork ‘06 is available now for $79 through the Apple Store.

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