Releasing the Tiger

Despite concerns raised by conservationists and animal rights activists led by an elusive group calling themselves "The Search for the Longhorn", a beloved fruit company in Cupertino, California has announced April 29, 2005 for the release of the Tiger.

That's right, Apple will soon ship its newest operating system Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. Even though I know it'll be months before I can afford it, I'm still excited. I think several new features/technologies offer some real new potential for folks working in their academic office or their church office. Among the new features, I am most excited about:

1. Applescript & Automator - The additions to Applescript are a nice showing. I'm quite pleased with the new XML Suite, and also the Applescript Utility which will make it easier for me to help others get involved with using scripts. Automator is Apple's new macro functionality complete with a user interface. It seems to have taken some cues from Quickeys, and improved upon the drag-drop sequencer concept. I'm anxious to see the inter-application limitations (can it read selected text only from "Services"-implemented applications, etc.? And I'm still fuzzy on the relationsip between the two... will there be an Applescript sequence you can drag into an Automator workflow (like you find in Quickeys)?
2. Spotlight - The new smart-searching capabilites for this searching feature is highly anticipated. Having what you need at your fingertips is a tremendous gift.
3. Dashboard - It's an extension to Exposé that puts little mini applications or other content up on the top layer of the screen. I'll have to pony up on my javascript, but I think there is some real potential for widgets ready-to-hand (with apologies to Wittgenstein) of great value to bible scholars and pastors. At some point, I'd like to facilitate some brainstorming regarding this potential.

Update: Apple has a semi-exhaustive list of the over 200 new features/enhancements in Tiger. Have a look at it here.