Jaguar SCANNER support!

[simX]

ThinkSecret as usual provides the first look at new features in Jaguar, and scanner support is no different.

Although this report is brief, it includes a great screenshot that shows the scanner support in a nutshell:



Isn't that great?! Image Capture will now be morphed into a scanning application, rather than a digital photo application that iPhoto took over. I think this will be a great thing.

The report states that their source says that there are few drivers included at this point, but that scanner drivers are starting to become available more and more.

I'd like to add one brief margin note: I think it's AWESOME that Apple is working with third-party developers to add drivers for popular devices to Mac OS X right OUT OF THE BOX. This provides an awesome computer experience, because you don't need to install any software when you get a device! Just plug it in to your Mac, provide power, and you're ready to go, with Disc Burner, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Image Capture, and even Ink – Apple has got you covered! Only obscure devices require their own separate drivers.

Still, this is a good thing. Think of it, though: down the road, what if Apple provided it's own mouse drivers right out of the box in Mac OS X 10.5? What about microphone support? The possibilities are endless. Apple is going WAY out of its way to make the user experience with OS X be the best ever, and that is going to be one of the greatest selling points for the Mac in the future.

[serpicolugnut]

Great news for users of OS X...
Great news for scanner manufacturers...

Bad news for Ed Hamrick, who has been the only one to benefit from the current situation, since he is the sole developer of VueScan, which had been Mac OS X users only salvation until the developers recently started delivering drivers/applications.

Still, VueScan will probably find a niche by providing older SCSI scanner owners a way to scan in OS X. I doubt that Apple will waste their time making ImageCapture backwards compatible with SCSI scanners.

One note: I still hope ImageCapture retains the ability to import digital Photos from digital cameras. I love iPhoto, and it works well with my new Canon Powershot G2, but I hate how Photos imported in to iPhoto get buried in an iPhoto library, filed away in some cryptic folder scheme. ImageCapture worked better, by moving the images to the Pictures folder, grouped by when they were imported. Much more logical. Hopefully, Apple will fix iPhoto to do the same. Also, iPhoto won't let me remove the small movie files my digital camera takes. It only downloads photos.

Until then, I import with both.

[toast]

When you get Linux you get a RPM package with thousands of drivers for every piece of stuff you can connect to your Linux station. It has been this way for years.



Up to now Apple did only provide printer drivers (PPD descriptions). That's fine they understood there was enough place on the OSX CD to get some 300Kb drivers Canon or Epson give you on a 650Mb CD with their hardware. Hope this'll save some CDs .

[themacko]

I wonder if this 'new app' is the reason Canon removed their beta drivers for the USB CanoScan scanners. That would be absolutely fantastic if Apple support those scanners in 10.2. It would make me happy.

[rinse]

it would be great if they could make scanning a service that is available in service aware apps...

scan directly to Appleworks, Word, Photshop, Illustrator, iMovie, etc... sounds cool to me.

[roger]

That would be absolutely fantastic if Apple support those scanners in 10.2.

I have never understood why Apple sells certain brands of scanners on their web site that are not supported by OSX. It is very frustrating to the end user to purchase a product supposedly endorced by Apple to find that it doesn't even work properly with the computer.

R.

[hazmat]

Originally posted by rinse
it would be great if they could make scanning a service that is available in service aware apps...

scan directly to Appleworks, Word, Photshop, Illustrator, iMovie, etc... sounds cool to me.

Does Photoshop even support Services?

[rinse]

> Does Photoshop even support Services?

it should be... Apple needs to push this more