Apple Snow Leopard – What’s Coming?

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Nov 27, 2006
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If you’re wondering what’s the deal with Apple’s next OSX release, version 10.6 AKA Snow Leopard, then CNET’s got the hookups for you. Click on through to get a run down on what’s coming and why it matters.

According to rumors, the release of Mac OS X 10.6, Apple's operating system also known as SnowLeopard, might arrive a bit early. Though Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would hit stores in September, tech blogs became overly excited when it was whispered that it might be ready to debut on or about August 28.
 
This is not a complete overhaul of Mac OS X. Rather, it's a series of small to medium-sized improvements, what Apple calls "refinements."

And what people in the real world call "service packs".
 
Ahhh, Apple squeezes off another steamer right onto the faces of their eager customers.
 
I have no problem with Snow Leopard other than the abandonment of PowerPC hardware. It's like if Windows 7 didn't support early Core 2 CPU's or chipsets before the P35/X38. PowerPC was all Apple had no more than 3 years ago.
 
I have no problem with Snow Leopard other than the abandonment of PowerPC hardware. It's like if Windows 7 didn't support early Core 2 CPU's or chipsets before the P35/X38. PowerPC was all Apple had no more than 3 years ago.

Closer to 4 now (January 2006, first Intel-based Macs appeared), but that's the price of progress.

Besides, "shiny cool and awesome" only lasts so long... gotta keep buying, yanno. If people stopped buying the new stuff Apple shoves out, keeping something they bought years ago and just expecting everything to work with new updates, etc, Apple would have gone under years past.
 
And what people in the real world call "service packs".

Care to point out which Windows service pack reduced OS footprint by 6GB and rewrote the entire Windows Explorer? Just curious, I think I missed that one and would love to download it. :rolleyes:
 
And what people in the real world call "service packs".

And get for free.


Care to point out which Windows service pack reduced OS footprint by 6GB and rewrote the entire Windows Explorer? Just curious, I think I missed that one and would love to download it. :rolleyes:
New firewall
Vastly improved WiFi (WPA)
Improvements to IE6
Bluetooth
DEP (Huge One)
Security Center
Revamp of Windows Update

All that was XP SP2. Much more (for free) than what you're getting in Snow Leopard. Not to mention around that time was IE7 as well, which completely broke away from having Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer integrated as well. Again- for free.
 
Care to point out which Windows service pack reduced OS footprint by 6GB and rewrote the entire Windows Explorer? Just curious, I think I missed that one and would love to download it. :rolleyes:

Yeah its pretty tough to keep the OS size down when you support all of three different hardware configurations and boast a single feature-set...
 
I can't wait for it to ship. Work replaced my old Sempron / XP system with a Macbook last fall and I've enjoyed the experience.
 
Oh jeeze, guys, get over yourselves. Development for this stuff, weather it's "service pack" material or not, costs a lot of money. It's not like the developers of the OS only get paid to work on stuff when the OS is brand new, and then all the sudden work for free because the new updates to the OS are service pack material.

It still costs tons of money to develop, and should therefore cost a little bit of money for us to use. If you don't want a service pack that costs money, then, uh, don't buy it, maybe? :tardfacesmileyhere:
 
Oh jeeze, guys, get over yourselves. Development for this stuff, weather it's "service pack" material or not, costs a lot of money.
I won't disagree with that at all. But the point is, Microsoft doesn't charge for service packs, which is all this thing is. Yea, there will be some Mac followers out there that will try to tell you how their yearly release is entirely justified as a new OS... But the fact is this stuff is minor fixes that the rest of the world calls Service Packs, and gets for free.

Further along those lines, to everyone's :rolleyes: at Phide's comment is this... It's been proven with Windows Mojave that Vista's name is tarnished. You would have to be a damned fool to think Microsoft was going to throw a bunch of new features into Vista for free. Nay, they wanted to mash out a new and improved OS with a new name.
Not to mention all the huge improvements to it (More than what's in this Leopard Service Pack). We're just going back to the same FUD we had with Vista. Those too inept, cheap, or not able to have been using Windows 7 will simply knock it all day long.
 
Care to point out which Windows service pack reduced OS footprint by 6GB and rewrote the entire Windows Explorer? Just curious, I think I missed that one and would love to download it. :rolleyes:

Not to mention a top-to-bottom 64-bit rewrite (10.5 is a combination of 32 and 64 bit apps), OpenCL for simplified GPU processing in standard applications (Apple developed that was given away to everyone else), Grand Central for simplified multicore coding, and as you said a completely rewritten Finder (Windows Explorer), standard apps like Mail, QT, and complete integration with Microsoft Exchange (something you still need to buy for a new Windows installation).

Or what Microsoft might call "Windows 7". (And charge you handsomely for it, too)

Pretty much. I'm running both Windows 7 and Vista and while I think it is a worthwhile upgrade, the move from one to the other really isn't that big, basically tightening up the UI. Performance isn't really that much better TBH, anyone that thinks otherwise probably would have bought the whole Windows Mojave experiment also (hint: Vista wasn't that bad!). Its a far smaller than the upgrade from 10.3 to 10.4, or 10.4 to 10.5, anybody that is complaining about the Snow Leopard upgrade while lauding the move to Windows 7 is out of their mind. I think they're both great.

Service pack my ass. :rolleyes:
 
im not really an apple fan, but phide wins the point on this one, rolleyes != real counterpoints :)

No, every single person who responded with a rolleyes comment knows exactly why each and every one of them responded with rolleyes. It wasn't even really worth responding to.

It'd just like me saying John Wayne was in Top Gun.
I'd get a rolleyes from that one, just based on the sheer stupidity of the comment. There's really no explanation or counter argument needed.
 
I won't disagree with that at all. But the point is, Microsoft doesn't charge for service packs, which is all this thing is. Yea, there will be some Mac followers out there that will try to tell you how their yearly release is entirely justified as a new OS... But the fact is this stuff is minor fixes that the rest of the world calls Service Packs, and gets for free.

Further along those lines, to everyone's :rolleyes: at Phide's comment is this... It's been proven with Windows Mojave that Vista's name is tarnished. You would have to be a damned fool to think Microsoft was going to throw a bunch of new features into Vista for free. Nay, they wanted to mash out a new and improved OS with a new name.
Not to mention all the huge improvements to it (More than what's in this Leopard Service Pack). We're just going back to the same FUD we had with Vista. Those too inept, cheap, or not able to have been using Windows 7 will simply knock it all day long.

actually, dropping PowerPC support, and making 64-bit the default is enough to make snow leopard a bigger update than just a "service pack",

the openCL and grand central stuff are also *huge* pieces of new technology that more than justify a new OS release....

seiously, just because Windows XP lasted 6 years doesnt make microsoft such a great company.... considering what apple is doing with snow leopard, and how you consider it to just be a "service pack", you have set your bar for a new OS release pretty damn high...

so then, was windows xp just a service pack for windows 2000? was 2000 just a service pack for NT4?? was 98 just a service pack for 95? etc etc.....

fact is, even with a high bar for what should be considered for a new OS release, snow leopard delivers some impressive new technology, and it just as justifiable, actually way more so, than Windows 7.....
 
I won't disagree with that at all. But the point is, Microsoft doesn't charge for service packs, which is all this thing is.

Not a single one of the prior OS X upgrades have been anything close to as insignificant as the bug-rollups that prior Windows service packs were. The exception was XP SP2, and that was a necessary band-aid for a broken security model until Vista came along.

You're honestly comparing the inclusion of Windows Firewall with automated multithreading, GPU processing, a complete 64-bit rewrite, a rewrite of all included applications (including the Finder) and a 6GB smaller footprint? XP SP2 is insignificant compared with any of the prior upgrades, even one as relatively small as 10.6.

I know you've full on drank the Redmond kool-aid but holy crap.

Yea, there will be some Mac followers out there that will try to tell you how their yearly release is entirely justified as a new OS.
'

I've run both OSes side by side since 2002. Again, to say that any of the upgrades were service packs, especially when you consider that 10.4 and 10.5 amounted to larger upgrades that the move to Vista or especially Windows 7, is laughable. Forget the flat out lie that the releases are "yearly". :rolleyes:
 
actually, dropping PowerPC support, and making 64-bit the default is enough to make snow leopard a bigger update than just a "service pack",
Using that logic, Microsoft could release Windows 8 next month by simply dropping 32 bit support...
 
The whole concept of Snow Leopard being a "service pack" - and where it started - stems from Apple's own admission in an event during a question and answer period (can't remember the specific date or event) that "Snow Leopard will be a bug and performance fix for Leopard," and of course that's not an exact word for word quote but it was what the guy said. I saw the words come right outta his mouth and of course after that he sorta cowered away from the mic, leaving it for someone else to take questions but, even so...

That's what the Apple people I've discussed Snow Leopard with have all stated themselves in their own language. Leopard was pooched from the gitgo but they didn't have much to fall back on, so they jumped on it fast right on the heels of the launch itself and Snow Leopard got rolling.

The only difference to me between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple did actually have at least one person that works for 'em - and not some damned press jockey either - come out and say "Ok, we know Leopard is lackluster and buggy, so we're going to fix that with Snow Leopard and make the OS Leopard should have been in the first place."

Or words to that effect... :)
 
Using that logic, Microsoft could release Windows 8 next month by simply dropping 32 bit support...

But that really is the beauty of the Apple marketing machine! They can REMOVE functionality and their zealots will still call it a new feature worth paying for! :D
 
I won't disagree with that at all. But the point is, Microsoft doesn't charge for service packs, which is all this thing is. Yea, there will be some Mac followers out there that will try to tell you how their yearly release is entirely justified as a new OS... But the fact is this stuff is minor fixes that the rest of the world calls Service Packs, and gets for free.

Well sure, but just because one company does something, doesn't mean the next will follow suit. Me? I would never, EVER pay for a service pack. I mean, not unless it fixed some sort of MAJOR, life-threatening flaw in the OS. But still - other people would be willing to pay just to get the latest 'n' greatest. The fact that the "upgrade" is $29.99 means they understand it's not some new OS.

Further along those lines, to everyone's :rolleyes: at Phide's comment is this... It's been proven with Windows Mojave that Vista's name is tarnished. You would have to be a damned fool to think Microsoft was going to throw a bunch of new features into Vista for free. Nay, they wanted to mash out a new and improved OS with a new name.
Not to mention all the huge improvements to it (More than what's in this Leopard Service Pack). We're just going back to the same FUD we had with Vista. Those too inept, cheap, or not able to have been using Windows 7 will simply knock it all day long.

Can you give some sort of comparison as to what's new and worth paying the $129 and up for in Windows 7 versus the $29.99 that Snow Leopard will cost? I don't quite see anything in either that justify the price.
 
Using that logic, Microsoft could release Windows 8 next month by simply dropping 32 bit support...

Except they couldn't do it a month because they'd have to rewrite huge portions in true 64-bit. Despite being "64-bit," a lot of the stuff in Windows Vista/7 x64 is still running in 32-bit WoW.

And yes, programmers have to be paid to do all that work, even if it's "just a service pack."
 
re: responses to Phide's posts

No, every single person who responded with a rolleyes comment knows exactly why each and every one of them responded with rolleyes. It wasn't even really worth responding to.

It'd just like me saying John Wayne was in Top Gun.
I'd get a rolleyes from that one, just based on the sheer stupidity of the comment. There's really no explanation or counter argument needed.

Phide, nilepaz, SirKronan, a couple other people here are those that make consistently intelligent, well thought out, and well balanced posts. I don't always agree with what they have to say but they make well argued points, are willing to change positions if proven wrong, and are generally pretty smart guys.

Basically the opposite of the kinds of posts you make.
 
It wasn't even really worth responding to.
So...why did you? ;)

I'd get a rolleyes from that one, just based on the sheer stupidity of the comment. There's really no explanation or counter argument needed.
Well, let me throw it at you differently so we might get a more meaningful discussion going here: What does Windows 7 offer over Windows Vista that is so remarkable? What does Snow Leopard offer over Leopard that is, in your opinion, so incredibly unremarkable? What justifies the $219 upgrade price for 7 Ultimate (a whopping $190 more than the Snow Leopard upgrade)?

So far, I'm fairly satisfied with my Windows 7 experience, but a new, revolutionary OS this is not. 7 seems to be as grand a leap over Vista as Snow Leopard is over Leopard, yet Microsoft charges substantially more than Apple does for the pleasure of its "service packs".
 
Forget the flat out lie that the releases are "yearly". :rolleyes:

I wouldn't really call it a lie although 10.5 really broke that pattern.

Lets see both 10 and 10.1 were released in 2001 with 10.1 being a paid upgrade from 10(only 30 bucks if I remember right).

10.2 was released in 2002 as a full upgrade

10.3 was released in guess what 2003 as another full upgrade

10.4 did take a little longer and came out early 2005 although it was announced in the middle of 2004.

10.5 was announced in like 05 although it didn't come out until 2007.

10.6 will be out in 2009.

In what 8 years we had 7 releases of the operating system? All of them paid upgrades which is a little unfair as most people would have gotten a few of them with new machines as they upgraded.

I am looking forward to the upgrade for my test mini. I want to play with some of the new features.
 
In what 8 years we had 7 releases of the operating system? All of them paid upgrades which is a little unfair as most people would have gotten a few of them with new machines as they upgraded.

I am looking forward to the upgrade for my test mini. I want to play with some of the new features.

10.1 was a free upgrade, it had to be because 10.0 was basically a beta version of the OS running in parallel with OS 9.

Everything since 2005 has followed a two year release cycle.

Here is the upgrade breakdown I've had with seven years of Mac ownership, starting with the first Mac I bought and kept for five years (the longest I've kept a single computer).

I bought a Powermac for Final Cut Pro in September of 2002, OS 10.2 included. I upgraded it to 10.3 and then 10.4, the latter of which is still the biggest improvement I've seen in an OS in terms of UI enhancements and under-the-hood performance (my 2002 machine ran better-than-new). All in, two upgrades over five years, a grand total of $260.

I replaced that Powermac with a 24" iMac in November of 2007, OS 10.5 included. In a few weeks I'll upgrade to 10.6. Over the course of seven years of Mac ownership that brings my total OS cost to about $290.

The cost of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7, exceeds that amount for most people over the same time period. It doesn't for me because I use my friend's MS employee discount. :cool: I save a ton there, so buying extra licenses for Boot Camp and VMs is no big deal at all.

Either way, the argument about yearly OS X upgrades and the price involved isn't that bad considering that upgrades have been every two years since 2005 (which is before Mac sales really took off), and most people will also replace machines often enough where they'll get the latest OS included with their new machine.

I've seen some people argue that Mac users have to buy every copy of OS X from 10.0 through 10.6, which brings cost of ownership to over $800. It is a ridiculous and completely false argument coming from someone that has been on the platform since 2002. It just doesn't work that way in the real world, I'm sorry.
 
One last thing I forgot to mention is that I also owned Macbooks at the same time period (G4 Powerbook from 2003-2008, Macbook Pro from 2008 till now). Those same OS X upgrades do not carry CD-keys, so I was able to upgrade both my desktop and my notebook for the same price.

So after OS 10.6 drops next month, that will be $290 to upgrade multiple machines over the course of seven years. You cannot do that with Windows, unfortunately. Again, I get my Windows licenses for super cheap, if not then I'd have a real problem with their pricing.
 
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