Apple’s Snow Leopard update for OS X is a major update, despite the fact that it doesn’t tout “300 new features” like the last one. For $29, there’s no reason to expect anything but bugfixes, but in fact this is probably the most important OS X update for years. While Leopard essentially completed the OS, which was in need of completing since it was introduced, Snow Leopard pushes it into the future.
The technologies being introduced in Snow Leopard are for making your mac leaner, faster, and more capable of pretty much everything you already do. So let’s just recap what exactly these very abstract-sounding features are in case you need to explain it to a clueless friend or family member.
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Goodness, that’s cheap. Apple is releasing OS X Snow Leopard this September for only $29. Yeah, $29, but only for Leopard users.
Poor MacDrive. The latest hot tamale of a rumor says that, starting with Snow Leopard (10.6), Windows users will be able to access Mac files without the use of any special software. You’d mount the Mac as you would any other Windows machine.
Yup, WWDC will run from June 9-12, more or less as that one guy predicted a few weeks ago. It’s at that Moscone West place, where Apple usually likes to hold its big rally-round-the-flag meetings
Apple may, just may, unveil Marble at this year’s WWDC, which may, just may, be in June. Marble is thought to be the code-name for a new user interface that may, just may, debut with Snow Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X.
A bit of a Snow Leopard update for y’all this fine (?) Friday afternoon. A gentleman at the Baltimore Sun—wow, is it really like The Wire?—has OFFICIALLY PREDICTED that Apple’s WWDC will begin on June 7, which is a Sunday. Therefore, this gentleman says, we can expect to see the official unveiling of Snow Leopard the following day, on Monday, June 8. Does that mean you’ll be able to head over to your local Apple Store and buy the boxed copy on that date? Perhaps, friends!
It’s been a matter of speculation for some time whether Quicktime Pro would be included with Snow Leopard, and now it appears to be a solid yes. This has been a long time coming, especially with the video editing push by Apple over the last couple years. Other UI changes are minor, but it’s always been said that Snow Leopard is an under-the-hood update.
I’m really pumped for this one. Leopard was a sham update compared with this.
Hey, party people, let’s go nuts OK? Der Snow Leopard is out and it’s sehr gut! Not many changes to be seen, but the techno music in the background makes this the best beta version OS X demo video I’ve seen all morning.
Ah, a clean install of Mac OS 10.4. Loverly. Think I’ll just download the latest nightly Minefield build and… MOTHER OF GOD!
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How long does it take to create a standard in the tech industry? Let’s put it this way: we’re still waiting for the final word on videotapes (die, Betacam, die). So when you hear that a universal interface between applications and computing hardware has been hammered out in six months, you better be impressed. A team with members from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel among others has finished putting together the base for OpenCL, a language designed to allow programmers to take full advantage of the parallel processing units standard in almost every PC these days
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Can’t wait for the next iteration of OS X? Well, it’s coming in Q1 2009 which means you still have about 2 more months to sit on your hands and think happy thoughts. Apple’s Director of Engineering of Unix Technologies Jordan Hubbard said that the OS would launch Q1 2009 which places it in the January-March timeframe.
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Both Microsoft and Apple have important operating system releases dropping soon in OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7. If previous experiences have taught us anything, the tech crowd will cheer at the minor feature bumps Steve Jobs announces and grumble at anything out of Redmond. The Onion did a fine job compiling some of the expected features and comparing it between the two upcoming operating systems in the standard Onion charm – including the multi-touch support heavily discussed. Got to love The Onion.
If the last time you talked about how many bits something had was when you got a Super Nintendo, you’re probably as puzzled as I once was about the whole shift to 64-bit computing. Isn’t that the computing power of a Jaguar, not a Snow Leopard? No, silly goose. It’s very technical and I don’t pretend to understand it all the way, but essentially the 32-bit architecture that has been in place for years in x86es limits the maximum amount of RAM you can have, and its effectiveness.
64-bit architectures are available but not widely taken advantage of, and Apple aims to change that somewhat with Snow Leopard.
Read more at Apple Insider, and keep an eye on it because there are two more installations of the extended article to come.
The first shots of Snow Leopard, Apple’s new operating system that should be here in about a year, are now starting to appear online. On a German site, of all crazy things! Anyhow, the biggest news from the released screen shots is the existence of a mysterious “Save as Web Application” menu item in Safari. What this does is save the Web site—let’s say Gmail, for example—and somehow saves a copy of it for use offline and on the desktop. In other words, it saves a Web site and turns it into a locally executable application. We’re officially going backwards, functionality-wise.
All that, of course, is idle speculation. “Save as Web Applcation” could well mean something entirely different in Apple Speak.
The rest of the screen shots, and there’s a lot of them, just show updated versions of apps like Quicktime.
via Apple Insider
Snow Leopard, or OS X 10.6, went out to developers at WWDC yesterday, and one glaring aspect that worries some is the fact that 10.6 is made specifically for Intel-based Macs, meaning that G5 won’t run it. In fact all PowerPC-based Macs are left out in the cold.
This was bound to happen, though, as Apple’s switch to Intel processors has been complete for many months now, but this makes it official. And realistically, would any G4 or G5-based machine run 10.6 well enough to even warrant the effort? I’ve got a dual-proc 2GHz G5 that barely runs 10.5, so I wouldn’t even try Snow Leopard, but some of you are gluttons for punishment.
Somewhat lost in the iPhone 3G hype/madness yesterday was Apple’s announcement of the next version of Mac OS X, to be called Snow Leopard. The big news: rather than promise wiz-bang new features along the lines of Spotlight or Time Machine, Apple says it will focus on “enhanc[ing] the performance” of the operating system. Says an Apple senior vice president:
We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more. In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.
Still, there are a few new things to look forward to. Grand Central will supposedly make it easier to take advantage of today’s multi-core processors. There’s also native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007! If I were the IT guy of a Fortune 100 company, that’d probably excite me; MobileMe should take care of all my syncing issues.
Look for it in about a year.
