Mac OS X 10.6 Called 'Snow Leopard', All Cocoa?

[Kar98]

The sooner they learn that the second lead directly to the first, they better off they are.

Says the guy who's got $16 billion socked away.
Or...has he?

[BenRoethig]

I don’t see why anybody would be upset with this.

Honestly, think about it how lean and stable it could be. No more fat binaries compiled for PPC 32-bit, G5 64-bit, x86, and x64. Everything could be one happy x64 binary. They could make the OS better utilize multiple cores since all Core 2 Duos have at least two cores too. No more worrying about legacy hardware either. It would be the best Mac OS ever.

They will still have universal binaries for most Apps for a while to come. What this does effect is how fast snow leopard will run them.

[Manic Mouse]

I guess my point is that Apple are going to have to put a lot of work into making OSX run better.

The rumour is that 10.6 will have no new features, and there are two reasons for this. The first is as to not tick off all the PPC owners who the OS wont support and the second is because they'll be putting all their development R&D into improving the innards of the OS and not adding anything much in terms of what the user sees. I suspect this will mostly involve removing PPC and other legacy code to slim down the OS size (and we can all agree that Leopard is well on it's way to being bloated with it's 15Gb install size, even if languages and drivers take up a good portion of it) and it will also involve optimising the OS as much as possible for Intel processors with their specific quirks and components (such as SSE3 + 4). I'm betting that while the PPC to Intel switch was smooth enough, there is still a lot of work that could be done on the OS to clean it up in terms of Intel support. This was an OS that was primarily developed on PPC for the first 6 years, then ported to Intel don't forget. They may also be putting the hooks for multitouch support into the OS.

As far as I see it all of the above is irrelevant to PPC owners, as all the improvements are either only applicable to Intel machines or for future-proofing the OS. Not that I'm saying the OS couldn't be optimised for PPC machines, but it is probably already fairly optimised for them (having been developed on them from day one) and a lot of effort would be required to "pick those high apples" that, at the end of the day, probably isn't really worth it for Apple when they could spend that time optimising for Intel.

I'm no software engineer however, so it's merely conjecture as to how I see the situation. Snow Leopard will be a clean-up of the OS for current Intel machines and future computers, and would offer very little (over leopard) for PPC users were a PPC version developed. I just don't get why PPC owners would whine about not getting an update that would probably do nothing for them.

[jf8]

Totally disagree here. Keeping around legacy crap is what got Microsoft into trouble. They still have very bad legacy APIs laying around. Developers are lazy, I am a developer so I know how it is trust me.

Maintaing backwards compatibility by merely keeping old APIs around is not the major issue with Windows. Microsoft has continued to develop the same API while keeping backwards compatibility a primary goal. They've designed a new API, .NET, which solves many of the problems inherent to Win32. But .NET is not suitable for all kinds of applications and will not take over as the preferred way to develop most applications (like Cocoa has.) There are some elements of Windows's design that Microsoft has not improved - not all are inherently bad, but some things can simply be done better.

DOS was the foundation for Windows until NT came along...Win2000, XP are all derived from an all new code base. But MS kept the APIs supported from the first versions of Windows (Win16s) on the new codebase. Through virtualization, DOS apps also run, even though XP and Vista have no DOS code.

Backwards compatibility through virtualization hurts nothing. It doesn't impact stability one bit. Windows is a mess because of things it chose NOT to virtualize but run natively on the NT base, like older variants of the Win APIs. Those do nasty things.

Win16 applications are virtualized on Windows NT via ntvdm.exe. 64-bit versions of Windows dropped this capability.

The Classic environment was necessary because Classic applications ran on a significantly different (and inferior) environment. Classic Mac OS was a single-user cooperative multitasking system without protected memory.

Virtualization is not necessary to successfully have different versions of the API - Windows NT has always had support for multiple subsystems. There is a POSIX subsystem which provides a very Unix-like environment (available as an optional install).

[BenRoethig]

I guess my point is that Apple are going to have to put a lot of work into making OSX run better.

The rumour is that 10.6 will have no new features, and there are two reasons for this. The first is as to not tick off all the PPC owners who the OS wont support and the second is because they'll be putting all their development R&D into improving the innards of the OS and not adding anything much in terms of what the user sees. I suspect this will mostly involve removing PPC and other legacy code to slim down the OS size (and we can all agree that Leopard is well on it's way to being bloated with it's 15Gb install size, even if languages and drivers take up a good portion of it) and it will also involve optimising the OS as much as possible for Intel processors with their specific quirks and components (such as SSE3 + 4). I'm betting that while the PPC to Intel switch was smooth enough, there is still a lot of work that could be done on the OS to clean it up in terms of Intel support. This was an OS that was primarily developed on PPC for the first 6 years, then ported to Intel don't forget. They may also be putting the hooks for multitouch support into the OS.

As far as I see it all of the above is irrelevant to PPC owners, as all the improvements are either only for Intel machines or for future-proofing the OS. Not that I'm saying the OS couldn't be optimised for PPC machines, but it is probably already fairly optimised for them (having been developed on them from day one) and a lot of effort would probably be required to do this that, at the end of the day, probably isn't really worth it for Apple when they could spend that time optimising for Intel.

I'm no software engineer however, so it's merely conjecture as to how I see the situation. Snow Leopard will be a clean-up of the OS for current Intel machines and future computers, and would offer very little for PPC users were a PPC version developed.

Yep. All snow leopard is a highly optimized version of leopard for intel machine. With the exception of a hopefully vastly improved OpenGL implementation, there isn't much that would translate. What does could be incorporated into patches for regular leopard. The bloating of the OS by legacy PowerPC code and drivers is what they're trying to fix.

[milo]

And how would a release designed to improve Intel performance and clean up the code-base for those machines be of any use to PPC owners? If 10.6 isn't going to introduce any new features, you're not going to be missing out on anything (that would reasonably affect you).

That's assuming that it will only be optimization and bugfix, with no new features. That's still a rumor at this point.

And either way, my biggest concern is if we start seeing apps that are 10.6 only. As long as things still run on 10.5, it won't matter that much, but if apple stops supporting PPC, why should anyone else keep supporting it?

And your comparison is a strawman as current macs aren't like PPC, which is a dead architecture (at least as far as Macs go).

First, you need to look up what "strawman" means, because that has nothing to do with anything I have said. (for the record, I'm listing an extreme case in order to make a point)

As for the chips, you can define "dead" however you want. Why shouldn't apple optimize for the intel cpus that are in machines shipping now and dump earlier models? There are instruction sets in newer chips that aren't in previous generation macs? If they're going to be cleaning out legacy, why not go all the way and dump earlier intel as well?

[Manic Mouse]

That's assuming that it will only be optimization and bugfix, with no new features. That's still a rumor at this point.

And either way, my biggest concern is if we start seeing apps that are 10.6 only. As long as things still run on 10.5, it won't matter that much, but if apple stops supporting PPC, why should anyone else keep supporting it?

Well this thread is about those rumours, so it would make sense to talk about them. I've made it clear that I'm basing everything I say off those rumours, and if they're untrue everything I've said is obviously rubbish (or moreso than it already is :D).

If it is simply an optimised version of Leopard then there wont be any API differences between 10.5 and 10.6 so why would applications be 10.6 only? Everything one OS could do the other would be equally (and identically) capable of doing.

First, you need to look up what "strawman" means, because that has nothing to do with anything I have said. (for the record, I'm listing an extreme case in order to make a point)

a "straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position)

IMO your statement is a strawman rather than hyperbole, as the situations are subtly (but importantly) different. Not that it really matters, semantics are silly.

As for the chips, you can define "dead" however you want. Why shouldn't apple optimize for the intel cpus that are in machines shipping now and dump earlier models? There are instruction sets in newer chips that aren't in previous generation macs? If they're going to be cleaning out legacy, why not go all the way and dump earlier intel as well?

Firstly because current Intel chips support the older SSE1, 2 and 3 instruction sets as well as the most recent SSE4. And secondly because each instruction set offers different optimisations, so all are useful and optimisations to any of their utilisation will improve future performance. There is no issue of "dumping" earlier instruction sets as far as I understand it as none can be considered as "legacy". Each new version adds on new instruction sets, but all the previous ones are still there. In other words SSE4 is all of SSE3 plus a few new tricks. SSE3 is SSE2 plus a few new tricks etc. SSE4 incorporates all previous SSEs.

This, of course, is entirely different than spending time developing for PPC.

[jf8]

Honestly, think about it how lean and stable it could be. No more fat binaries compiled for PPC 32-bit, G5 64-bit, x86, and x64. Everything could be one happy x64 binary. They could make the OS better utilize multiple cores since all Core 2 Duos have at least two cores too. No more worrying about legacy hardware either. It would be the best Mac OS ever.

There is often little to no advantage to using x86_64 binaries instead of i386 (or ppc64 instead of ppc). Only applications that significantly benefit from 64-bit need to use it at all. Leopard is 64-bit on Intel - it can run 64-bit applications and address >4GB of memory without problems, but most things are only compiled for x86 and ppc. On my Intel Core 2 Duo Leopard system with many applications installed, only Chess and Xcode are compiled for ppc64 or x86_64... and Xcode uses 32-bit mode by default.

And moving to all x64 binaries doesn't really help the operating system use multiple cores. Applications that are multithreaded will perform better when more cores are available, regardless of the instruction set they are compiled for.

[milo]

IMO your statement is a strawman rather than hyperbole, as the situations are subtly (but importantly) different.

A strawman argument is disputing statements that nobody has actually made. Creating an opposing argument that nobody has stated in order to have something easy to dispute. Where did I do that?

[Eric S.]

I don’t see why anybody would be upset with this.

Then you fail to see the viewpoint that a lot of us have.

Honestly, think about it how lean and stable it could be. No more fat binaries compiled for PPC 32-bit, G5 64-bit, x86, and x64. Everything could be one happy x64 binary. They could make the OS better utilize multiple cores since all Core 2 Duos have at least two cores too. No more worrying about legacy hardware either. It would be the best Mac OS ever.

I wonder how much time they spend "worrying" about it. This decision, if it comes, will be a marketing decision, not a technical one. The code to support both architectures is already there. It would take them more effort to remove it than to leave it in. I'm sure the code to optimize for multiple cores is also already there.

Leopard would be supported and maintained for some time anyways the same way that Tiger is.

Which no one is questioning.

Tiger isn’t useless either, my wife still runs it just fine on her first-generation Macbook with a non-x64 Core Duo processor. She isn’t going to care when a new OS comes out that won’t even run on her computer.

Good for her.

In my opinion, two years is the useful lifespan for ANY computer regardless of how powerful it was when you bought it.

This statement is just wrong. Two years?? I still use the Power Mac G4 that I bought eight years ago. With upgrades to the CPU and graphics card, adding USB 2.0 and a SATA drive (obviously this was back when Apple built expandable systems), this machine is still eminently usable. (My method was to buy a Mac every other generation. But after the G5 came the switch to Intel, and since I couldn't run Classic mode that left me out. So I have made the G4 last all these years.) And, for example, a dual-processor G5 desktop was no small expense a couple years ago. To say that that should just be abandoned, and for no technical reason, would be insensitive to loyal Mac customers.

Apple probably even sold more non-x64 Intel Macs than G5s anyways.

Possibly, but so what?

G4 probably outsold G5, and I’ve seen Leopard on a high-end G4 Powerbook. Not entirely comfortable, even if it is only a little over two years old.

A stock G4 laptop probably has a bit of a slow disk and somewhat low amount of memory for Leopard. Upgrade those and I expect it would perform just fine.

[louden]

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. This guy still loves his PPC machine, has zero reason to replace it. And he shouldn't have to repplace it just to run 10.6 Apple, us PPC users will upgrade eventually, just give us a little time. You need to support us for just a little while longer!

Just because they come out with a new version, doesn't mean they won't continue to support 10.5 on existing PPC hardware, for at least the time being.

It just might mean you can't upgrade to the latest and greatest. Big deal.

[Manic Mouse]

A strawman argument is disputing statements that nobody has actually made. Creating an opposing argument that nobody has stated in order to have something easy to dispute. Where did I do that?

You implied that my logic would be applicable to current Intel machines. Which is not the case, that is not my argument, and is thus a strawman. Is it not? (Like I said semantics are silly).

[SkyBell]

Leopard would be supported and maintained for some time anyways the same way that Tiger is. Tiger isn’t useless either, my wife still runs it just fine on her first-generation Macbook with a non-x64 Core Duo processor. She isn’t going to care when a new OS comes out that won’t even run on her computer. In my opinion, two years is the useful lifespan for ANY computer regardless of how powerful it was when you bought it. Apple probably even sold more non-x64 Intel Macs than G5s anyways. During the G5 era is when consumers shifted to buying more laptops than desktops, one of the main reasons they switched to Intel in the first place (since there was no way G5 was going in a laptop). G4 probably outsold G5, and I’ve seen Leopard on a high-end G4 Powerbook. Not entirely comfortable, even if it is only a little over two years old.

I understand many people don't care about running the latest OS. I'm one of them. But, I'm going to guess most do care about it, as evidenced by this whole thread. You're right, Tiger isn't useless, it's what I'm running. But, I did have Leopard on my three year old iBook G4 for a while. I missed the way Tiger looked, so I switched. Aside from the wireless problems, and the bit of lag that was caused by me having only 512 MB of RAM, Leopard ran fantastically. G5 is definitely still useable for nearly everything, G4's are still useable for most people. I run Adobe CS3 apps without problems.

PPC is still very usable, and Apple should understand this.

[Manic Mouse]

I understand many people don't care about running the latest OS. I'm one of them. But, I'm going to guess most do care about it, as evidenced by this whole thread. You're right, Tiger isn't useless, it's what I'm running. But, I did have Leopard on my three year old iBook G4 for a while. I missed the way Tiger looked, so I switched. Aside from the wireless problems, and the bit of lag that was caused by me having only 512 MB of RAM, Leopard ran fantastically. G5 is definitely still useable for nearly everything, G4's are still useable for most people. I run Adobe CS3 apps without problems.

PPC is still very usable, and Apple should understand this.

And, if Snow Leopard is just an Intel optimised and cleaned up Leopard, what will it offer PPC users? It seems fairly pointless to me...

[iMpathetic]

An extra word to say while their voices are dripping with newfound lust?

[Kilamite]

I understand many people don't care about running the latest OS. I'm one of them. But, I'm going to guess most do care about it, as evidenced by this whole thread. You're right, Tiger isn't useless, it's what I'm running. But, I did have Leopard on my three year old iBook G4 for a while. I missed the way Tiger looked, so I switched. Aside from the wireless problems, and the bit of lag that was caused by me having only 512 MB of RAM, Leopard ran fantastically. G5 is definitely still useable for nearly everything, G4's are still useable for most people. I run Adobe CS3 apps without problems.

PPC is still very usable, and Apple should understand this.

They don't have to upgrade to 10.6. For Apple to make advances, they need to focus on the future rather than supporting technology from the past.

When 10.6 is released, and if it doesn't support PPC, people with PPC Mac's will still be able to do exactly what they done before. 10.6. being released isn't going to cause all PPC Mac's to die.

The latest software should aim for what the current and future hardware is going to be.

[Riemann Zeta]

I have to believe that this rumour of Apple releasing many different strains of OS X that only work on certain machines is false...but every news source on the web has sure run with it. I hope it is not true, because if it is, it could the stupidest move they have ever made: forking the OS X codebase and trying to simultaneously develop a bunch of slightly different, incompatible variations.

Code forking is a real pain in the ass, a strain on developers and a complete marketing clusterf*ck. I think Microsoft has learned this the hard way with the dozens of different "flavors" of Windows XP and Vista. There is Windows Home Basic, Windows Home Advanced, Windows Business Premium, Windows Server Advanced Web Database, Windows Media TV Center Home Server, Windows for Tablets and Computers with Pens, Windows for Computers Smaller than Laptops That Maybe Have a Pen, Windows Ultimate Extreme Super-Terrific Happy Fun Edition...it's gotten just as bad as video card product lines, with things like the NVIDIA GeForce9 9990XTX Pro GTS-2X Extreme! I mean, after all these years of Windows [Adjective Orgy] Edition, they learned their lesson and are just going back to a damn number: Windows 7.

Having all those different product names and versions and sub-builds is just overcomplicating things. The whole point of Mac OS is that there is a single Mac OS. It runs on Macs. 'Nuff said.

[shaunymac]

I echo some of the PPC users out there, having two, that what is the purpose for apple to stop supporting our macs? Only to have a faster and more stable OS for us on Intel machines? Something about that doesnt quite sound right to me. All of these people that have PPC's and for those that still use them have made apple what they are today. I know that it is invetiable that some macs will not be able to keep up the minimum requirements required to upgrade to the the new and feature packed OS, but if it all possibly, I think it would be wise for apple to continue to support the PPC users. IE, I am able to run tiger on my blue and white g3 :D. For everyone complaining about all of the coding that PPC's require, which I know nothing about, why not put the "snow leopard" or whatever it is on separate discs. If this were to happen, everyone would benefit from the new OS. Just my 2 cents. :)

[SkyBell]

And, if Snow Leopard is just an Intel optimised and cleaned up Leopard, what will it offer PPC users? It seems fairly pointless to me...
Really, it's more about the principle then anything else. "Sorry, this new release has nothing new to offer so it wouldn't put more of a strain on your system in any way, but we've decided to not let you use it anyway."
They don't have to upgrade to 10.6. For Apple to make advances, they need to focus on the future rather than supporting technology from the past.

When 10.6 is released, and if it doesn't support PPC, people with PPC Mac's will still be able to do exactly what they done before. 10.6. being released isn't going to cause all PPC Mac's to die.

The latest software should aim for what the current and future hardware is going to be.
Yes, that is right. I'm not saying that PPC users will be able to do anything less. And yes, Apple does need to focus on the present and future to make advances. But at the same time, they need to focus on the people who bought before the Intel switch, because these people were loyal to Macs even before all of the improvements Intel brought. You can't forget about the people who helped make you a successful company before the "switchers" came along. Sure, a lot of people who were loyal to Apple before Intel came out, have already upgraded to Intel machines. But there's also a lot of switchers mixed in there. People who use PPC, around 90-95% of them were long time Apple users, the ones who were always loyal to the company.

I'm just saying, it would really be a disappointment to long time Mac users if Apple dropped PPC so soon.

[Manic Mouse]

Really, it's more about the principle then anything else. "Sorry, this new release has nothing new to offer so it wouldn't put more of a strain on your system in any way, but we've decided to not let you use it anyway."


But the PPC version of 10.6 (in this scenario) WOULD BE 10.5, which you already have available on PPC. You might as well get Apple to give you a blank DVD with 10.6 written on it by Steve Jobs with a crayon. :)

An OS release focused solely on under-the-hood Intel improvements would be literally pointless on a PPC machine.

Were Snow Leopard supposed to add big new features then I could understand why the PPC crowd are up in arms. But the rumours say it's nothing more than a cleaned up, Intel optimised Leopard.

[milo]

You implied that my logic would be applicable to current Intel machines. Which is not the case, that is not my argument, and is thus a strawman. Is it not? (Like I said semantics are silly).

Nope, it's not.

If I had said that YOU used that logic on intel machines (which you didn't), that would be a strawman. But I didn't say that. You're right, it is semantics...but you still shouldn't make accusations using terms you don't really understand.

And, if Snow Leopard is just an Intel optimised and cleaned up Leopard, what will it offer PPC users? It seems fairly pointless to me...

People are skeptical about this rumor - I think most of the concern comes from the notion that PPC support may be dropped, but there WILL be new features. Do you really think apple would do a major OS release with no new features?

Personally, I think this rumor is wrong (the bit about dropping carbon support has already been disputed), but I'm still concerned about PPC support in 10.6, especially if it ships so soon.

They don't have to upgrade to 10.6. For Apple to make advances, they need to focus on the future rather than supporting technology from the past.

If supporting hardware isn't a priority for apple any more, and the length of support is getting shorter, doesn't that make the purchase of ANY new machine riskier? How do we know that intel won't ship Core 3 in a year or two and apple won't dump support for current machines if it helps them optimize more and slim their codebase? After all, there has already been rumblings that 10.6 could dump support for 32 bit intel along with PPC.

[nuckinfutz]

Folks

The reality is PPC is a dead end and while that doesn't give Apple the right to strand PPC users I think it's a tough decsion to make and next week we'll see exactly what Apple's strategy is.

Yes the tools are there to compile for both but that doesn't obviate the need for tweaking, debugging and optimizing the Intel and PPC portions of your code as a developer.

I want Leopard to continue to be optimized and support PPC and Carbon fully. However I'd like 10.6 to break a bit with the legacy support and pull the platform over the hump and get it moving forward on an Intel/ARM platform. With PPC you'll never see more than a dual core processor. Nehalem next year will deliver up to 8-cores with 2 threads per core.

Intel will be delivering Larrabee their discrete GPU product which will offer a derivative x86 intruction set for shaders and offer GPGPU functionality.

That doesn't really matter if you have a Quad G5 and want good support so I agree...Apple has to hand this next transition well and keep both sides happy.

[milo]

But the PPC version of 10.6 (in this scenario) WOULD BE 10.5

That's what the rumor says, but I don't buy it. It really makes no sense if you think about it. Apple is really going to release a new OS, tell intel folks they need it (and should pay for it) but at the same time tell PPC folks that it's the exact same thing as 10.5 so it's unnecessary? That's too ridiculous to even imagine.

10.6 being intel only is only acceptable to a PPC user if there are no new features, or anything else to break compatibility with 10.5 apps. But there's no way I believe that will be the case.

[Manic Mouse]

Nope, it's not.

If I had said that YOU used that logic on intel machines (which you didn't), that would be a strawman. But I didn't say that. You're right, it is semantics...but you still shouldn't make accusations using terms you don't really understand.

Listen buddy, no need to be snarky. Firstly, you DID say that it was my logic, here's the direct quote.

To take your philosophy to an extreme, why support any machines beyond the ones currently for sale? After all, the other ones are all "dead", right?

And secondly, as I've already quoted:

To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position

Which is exactly what you did. You said you were "using my philosophy" and then stated an altered, extreme view of it to refute it. And you yourself have just admitted that this would be a strawman. Your quote matches the wiki definition of a strawman exactly...

[BenRoethig]

And, if Snow Leopard is just an Intel optimised and cleaned up Leopard, what will it offer PPC users? It seems fairly pointless to me...

Taking the Mac platform forward is pointless? The newest PowerPC machines are three years old. Should we be forever held back my them?

[SkyBell]

An OS release focused solely on under-the-hood Intel improvements would be literally pointless on a PPC machine.


OK, call me stupid, but it took that one sentence, the way it was worded, to get me to understand what people are talking about here. I was under the impression that Snow Leopard would be all around security improvements. Somehow didn't get the memo that the only difference would be Intel improvements.

Well, my fault, though I still think that the next "major" OS release should be PPC, at least G5, supported.:)

[SkyBell]

Taking the Mac platform forward is pointless? The newest PowerPC machines are three years old. Should we be forever held back my them?
Actually, the PowerMac G5 was manufactured and sold up until August 2006. So they're around 2.5 years old. And very powerful, with the fastest running at 2.7 GHz. (Still fast, no matter what you say.) They're not "holding you back". There's a little extra code to support them. So what. Where's your evidence that OS X would be significantly faster without that code?

[Manic Mouse]

Taking the Mac platform forward is pointless? The newest PowerPC machines are three years old. Should we be forever held back my them?

I meant offering a PPC version of an Intel optimised release would be pointless lol!

OK, call me stupid, but it took that one sentence, the way it was worded, to get me to understand what people are talking about here. I was under the impression that Snow Leopard would be all aroundsecurity improvements. Somehow didn't get the memo that the only difference would be Intel improvements.

I would imagine any security improvements would be rolled into 10.5.x updates, would they not? In fact aren't security updates separate altogether from OS updates? I'm not sure, either way making people pay for security updates would be a bit mean of Apple. Most of the improvements in 10.6 according to these rumours would be Intel only, so a PPC version would be a bit of a rip-off. No new "features" would mean 10.5 would be able to do everything 10.6 will.

[iMpathetic]

Actually, the PowerMac G5 was manufactured and sold up until August 2006. So they're around 2.5 years old. And very powerful, with the fastest running at 2.7 GHz. (Still fast, no matter what you say.) They're not "holding you back". There's a little extra code to support them. So what. Where's your evidence that OS X would be significantly faster without that code?


:D

The fastest G5s were dual dual-core 2.5GHz models.

[nuckinfutz]

Good GOD Nehalem is FAST (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3326)

Fck it folks.

I want Nehalem. Sell your PPC this year!!!

[iMpathetic]

And, if Snow Leopard is just an Intel optimised and cleaned up Leopard, what will it offer PPC users? It seems fairly pointless to me...

Yeah, I think that it's now almost pointless to be whining about PPC support in 10.6. When the new OS is actually released, the very newest PPC machines will be three years old. Apple isn't going back to PPC, all their machines sold now are Intel, and Intel machines are speedier clock for clock to boot.

For Apple to waste time and money supporting PPC, they'd have to be monstrously stupid.

[SkyBell]

:D

The fastest G5s were dual dual-core 2.5GHz models.

My bad, the revision before the last had the single-core 2.7.

For Apple to waste time and money supporting PPC, they'd have to be monstrously stupid.

Or care about their loyal mac users. God forbid them doing that. :rolleyes:

[dam0dred]

Apple needs to leave PPC behind. If you don't like it, too bad.

One of the biggest hurdles with Vista was trying to make it backwards compatible with years and years of outdated Windows apps. Do we want that to happen with future Apple OS releases? Onward and upward. :)

[milo]

Ouch, someone is getting testy.

Your logic is that Apple shouldn't support PPC because they no longer sell it.

Apple also no longer sells a number of intel configurations. I pointed out that you are applying your logic to PPC but not to intel.

I never said that you applied your logic to intel, in fact I SAID I was the one taking it to the next step.

I'm sorry you're not capable of understanding what a "strawman" is. Maybe you should just play it safe and not use the term?

Taking the Mac platform forward is pointless? The newest PowerPC machines are three years old. Should we be forever held back my them?

See, now THERE's a strawman argument, perfect example. Despite the implication, nobody here has argued that apple should support PPC "forever". We all agree that apple should support hardware for some length of time after they stop selling it. The only debate here is how long that time should be.

To answer the question, at some point the fastest PPC machines will be too slow to run the latest OS well, at which point owners will want to upgrade. I'd argue that's when apple should stop supporting them.

The fastest G5s were dual dual-core 2.5GHz models.

And fast machines they are.

For Apple to waste time and money supporting PPC, they'd have to be monstrously stupid.

Apple supported PPC with 10.5, was that stupid as well? After all, it was supporting a dead platform.

Is it still stupid if dropping that support pisses off customers and loses customer goodwill and trust? And if some users abandon the platform? Or put off purchases as long as possible since they don't feel like they can count on support for very long? Or get the cheapest mac since we've seen that the notion of buying the fastest in order to have it useful as long as possible no longer applies?

Seriously, I can't believe that people totally write off the whole idea of keeping customers happy (and loyal).

[milo]

Apple needs to leave PPC behind.

I don't think anyone disputes that. The argument here is WHEN they need to leave PPC behind. Really, they NEED to do it with the next major release, and not the one after that?

[iMpathetic]

Or care about their loyal mac users. God forbid them doing that. :rolleyes:

Apple isn't Jesus, it's a company that has to make money to continue running.

Do you think Ford is going to continue making parts for the Model T? Hell no.

Did Microsoft release Vista Ultimate Pentium 4 Edition? No.

If you mac users are so loyal to Apple, why are you whining about progress for the company and the products?

EDIT: And, notice my sig. I'm running an iBook G4 with Tiger. That's PPC, y'all. I don't hate PPC or its users, and customers should be happy, but come on, why spend company time and money on support for machines that were sold when 50% of Apple employees probably didn't even work there?

[Eric S.]

OK, call me stupid, but it took that one sentence, the way it was worded, to get me to understand what people are talking about here. I was under the impression that Snow Leopard would be all around security improvements. Somehow didn't get the memo that the only difference would be Intel improvements.

Well, my fault, though I still think that the next "major" OS release should be PPC, at least G5, supported.:)


But see, that's exactly the argument they will use: "10.6 adds nothing for PPC, therefore it's Intel-only." But then when that "next major OS release" come around it will be "we already dropped PPC support back in 10.6." You certainly wouldn't expect them to put it back in once they take it out would you?

Even if there are "all around" improvements, they'll simply put out a 10.5.x that will cover whatever PPC users can't get in 10.6.

[dam0dred]

I don't think anyone disputes that. The argument here is WHEN they need to leave PPC behind. Really, they NEED to do it with the next major release, and not the one after that?

Why does it matter so much to you? If you're that set on sticking with a PPC machine then Leopard will be fine for you for the next several years. I'm sure that whatever you need to do on your computer will be quite possible even if you don't have the latest OS or newest versions of apps that require 10.6.

Meanwhile the rest of us want Apple to make their software the best it can possibly be and not waste their time and resources on outdated tech.

[madmax_2069]

And I'm guessing you have an original graphics card in the Sawtooth that does not attempt Core Image effects? Original hard drive too? Try adding additional hard drives and see how Leopard reacts. You won't be happy, trust me.

And, I'm sorry, but the "Performance is comparable to Tiger" comment on PowerPC Macs, especially G4s is unbelievably laughable and I own lots of Macs, some Leopard supported, some not but nonetheless with Leopard installed. From my experience, I just find that too hard to believe. Sorry.


Sorry i hate to burst your bubble and i do think there is allot more people out there that will as well, just cause you dont think it can or will dont mean it is. I own a DA G4 (almost all stock) besides the extra 120gb HDD and a little above 768mb ram. the only thing i see running slower in Leopard then in tiger is the DOCK other then that leopard performs about the same for me as tiger does.

this is on a DA G4 533 with a Geforce2 MX AGP videocard. even if a Sawtooth has a old rage video card the faster CPU can make up for allot but not all.

Oh BTW do you even have a old G4 to try Leopard on ?

[milo]

Apple isn't Jesus, it's a company that has to make money to continue running.

Of course.

But they make money from customers buying things. And that happens when customers are happy and they like the company.

Continuing support for machines that are still fast enough to be useful may not make much money for Apple in the short term, but if it keeps customers happy, those customers will come back and buy more down the road.

Apple doesn't make money on 10.5.1 or .2 or .3, do they? But despite the fact that they're not Jesus, they still release them, when they could just say screw the customer once they've sold a machine or OSX 10.5 disk.

And really, comparing a quad G5 to a model T? Seriously? If anything, cars are a great example of companies CONTINUING support. They do it because it keeps customers happy and it makes customers comfortable to buy a car when they know they will be able to get parts for a while after the model is discontinued.

If you mac users are so loyal to Apple, why are you whining about progress for the company and the products?

Nobody is opposed to progress. We just don't agree that dumping PPC now is the only way to get progress.

Why does it matter so much to you? If you're that set on sticking with a PPC machine then Leopard will be fine for you for the next several years. I'm sure that whatever you need to do on your computer will be quite possible even if you don't have the latest OS or newest versions of apps that require 10.6.

I've explained myself plenty of times already, but I'll say it again - my biggest concern is that there will be app updates that will require 10.6. And with the apple "pro" apps I use, there's no question that I'll need the latest, the current versions have many issues that are barely tolerable.

[SkyBell]

Apple isn't Jesus, it's a company that has to make money to continue running.

Do you think Ford is going to continue making parts for the Model T? Hell no.

Did Microsoft release Vista Ultimate Pentium 4 Edition? No.

If you mac users are so loyal to Apple, why are you whining about progress for the company and the products?

EDIT: And, notice my sig. I'm running an iBook G4 with Tiger. That's PPC, y'all. I don't hate PPC or its users, and customers should be happy, but come on, why spend company time and money on support for machines that were sold when 50% of Apple employees probably didn't even work there?
Good God, you're totally missing the point. Obviously, Apple is going to drop PPC at some point. Apple NEEDS to drop PPC at some point. But the next OS release? That's too soon. You're example of the Model T is ridiculous. They don't make parts for it because it's nearly (or over) 100 years old! Your example of Vista? That was a mistake Microsoft made, Apple does not need to follow other companies mistakes. (In case you didn't know, Vista does run on Pentium 4's, I got it to run on mine.:rolleyes:)

But see, that's exactly the argument they will use: "10.6 adds nothing for PPC, therefore it's Intel-only." But then when that "next major OS release" come around it will be "we already dropped PPC support back in 10.6." You certainly wouldn't expect them to put it back in once they take it out would you?

Even if there are "all around" improvements, they'll simply put out a 10.5.x that will cover whatever PPC users can't get in 10.6.
Hmm, excellent point. Back in the game I am. :D

[dam0dred]

I've explained myself plenty of times already, but I'll say it again - my biggest concern is that there will be app updates that will require 10.6. And with the apple "pro" apps I use, there's no question that I'll need the latest, the current versions have many issues that are barely tolerable.

If you're a pro user surely it would maximize your efficiency with your work by having an up to date and fast machine? Combine the money you'll make selling your G5 on eBay with your increased productivity and your new Intel Mac will pay for itself in no time.

You're just being stubborn. :D

[milo]

If you're a pro user surely it would maximize your efficiency with your work by having an up date and fast machine? Combine the money you'll make selling your G5 on eBay with your increased productivity and your new Intel Mac will pay for itself in no time.

Actually, getting an intel wouldn't help my efficiency at all. Even selling a G5, for the work I am doing now, switching to an intel box would just be money down the toilet (and why spring for another expensive machine when Apple support for it may not be all that long? After all, once the box is sold, it's stupid and a waste of money for apple to keep supporting it, right?).

My current machine is more than fast enough. The bottlenecks that are holding me back are purely software limitations. And I still have a few things I need to run that aren't universal yet, so an intel box, even the fastest one available, would be worse in some ways.

[SkyBell]

If you're a pro user surely it would maximize your efficiency with your work by having an up to date and fast machine? Combine the money you'll make selling your G5 on eBay with your increased productivity and your new Intel Mac will pay for itself in no time.

You're just being stubborn. :D

Not necessarily. A lot of PPC machines are as fast, or faster then Intel machines in some areas of performance. And there are quite a few other reasons to choose PPC over Intel.

[unwinded]

Then you fail to see the viewpoint that a lot of us have.



I wonder how much time they spend "worrying" about it. This decision, if it comes, will be a marketing decision, not a technical one. The code to support both architectures is already there. It would take them more effort to remove it than to leave it in. I'm sure the code to optimize for multiple cores is also already there.



Which no one is questioning.



Good for her.



This statement is just wrong. Two years?? I still use the Power Mac G4 that I bought eight years ago. With upgrades to the CPU and graphics card, adding USB 2.0 and a SATA drive (obviously this was back when Apple built expandable systems), this machine is still eminently usable. (My method was to buy a Mac every other generation. But after the G5 came the switch to Intel, and since I couldn't run Classic mode that left me out. So I have made the G4 last all these years.) And, for example, a dual-processor G5 desktop was no small expense a couple years ago. To say that that should just be abandoned, and for no technical reason, would be insensitive to loyal Mac customers.



Possibly, but so what?



A stock G4 laptop probably has a bit of a slow disk and somewhat low amount of memory for Leopard. Upgrade those and I expect it would perform just fine.

Well Good for you. I'm glad you find your 8-year-old computer still useful. You probably could have sold it ages ago and got something better for all the money you spent on upgrading. And the problem with a G4 laptop isn't slow disk and low memory, it is a slow processor.

I'm sorry that a select few of you seem highly offended by the thought of Apple "abandoning" loyal Mac customers by producing an Intel-optimized version of Leopard. I'll bet you protested the Intel transition too, right? It's hard to feel bad for you guys after reading your highly defensive and rude responses. Now it is my turn.

Power PC Macs are a thing of the past. If you purchased one at all in the second half of 2005 through 2006 then you would have known full well that Apple was abandoning that platform and therefore it is your own fault. If you purchased them prior to that, well no offense but you have an older computer with a limited upgrade path (hardware-wise).

My lampshade iMac still has Panther on it because Tiger made it slower. (good for me, right?) Maybe it can't run some of the latest apps, but why would I want to run them on it anyways?

"Gee, I'm going to run the Leopard-only version of Handbrake on my dual 1.25 G4 Power Mac. Oh wow look at that, it only takes 10 hours to rip this 90 minute movie.... "

[iMpathetic]

Not necessarily. A lot of PPC machines are as fast, or faster then Intel machines in some areas of performance. And there are quite a few other reasons to choose PPC over Intel.

And I'm so glad a dual G5 will beat a MacBook Air.

Other reasons... such as?

Like, seriously, guys, this whole "PPC is faster" stuff is so 1999. :D


Good God, you're totally missing the point. Obviously, Apple is going to drop PPC at some point. Apple NEEDS to drop PPC at some point. But the next OS release? That's too soon. You're example of the Model T is ridiculous. They don't make parts for it because it's nearly (or over) 100 years old! Your example of Vista? That was a mistake Microsoft made, Apple does not need to follow other companies mistakes. (In case you didn't know, Vista does run on Pentium 4's, I got it to run on mine.)

Why is it too soon? Won't their loyal customers be pissed with 10.7?

Those were not meant to be accurate, they were meant to illustrate a point/concept. I know making parts for the Model T is ridiculous, it's just that's what the whole PPC thing is like. (again, not in terms of years elapsed since sale.)

By the way, I know Vista will run on a Pentium 4. Not well, though. Although, I'm sure that, on some forum in the deep darkness of the Internet, somebody's whining about how slow Aero is on their P4.

Oh, one more thing.... any proof that it's a mistake? Just because XP can run on a Pentium II doesn't mean it's not left behind. Microsoft is just being more... um.... conservative with their requirements.

On the other hand, show me a Quicksilver running Leopard smoothly, and I'll show you me, shaking on the floor, immobilized by mirth.

Yeah, basically, if it's not a G4-equipped AlBook or iBook, it's going to run Leopard crappily.

[Block]

Though it'd be kind of harsh to either make 1/3 of your user base upgrade or stay behind in an operating system release, it does make somewhat sense what Apple is doing.

Apple seems to like the notion of users keeping their computers for roughly 3 years (I say this because of AppleCare lasting 3 years). It has been 3 years since the newest PPC machines were released, and so it would be a good time to "upgrade."

Also to note that, PPC users shouldn't be too concerned with this update. As it is only speed increases and stabilities meant to be optimized for Intel, there is no benefit for a PPC user to get it. It appears that it is providing NO new features, so it isn't like PPC users are missing out on anything by not getting it. And there isn't much for Apple to optimize for PPCs anymore, since they've pretty much been optimizing them for a very long time now and nothing has changed (whereas Intel is coming out with new technologies and thus Apple has to optimize for them to accommodate them into their OS).

[Riemann Zeta]

Did Microsoft release Vista Ultimate Pentium 4 Edition? No.
Zuh? Vista runs perfectly fine on Pentium 4 machines. It will even run on Pentium 3 machines too--not well, but it will still technically install. The Aero Direct3D 10 drawing layer just needs a GPU that doesn't suck and has a lot of VRAM. And most importantly, it needs GPU drivers that don't suck, which is a real rarity in the computer industry.

Having different, slightly incompatible versions of an OS, developed in parallel for different types of machines is exactly what Apple hoped to avoid with OS X. At least I thought they hoped to avoid it. Remember the lunacy that was System 7.X.Y.Z?

And even if the feature set between the co-existing 10.6.X and 10.5.Y architecture-specific builds is similar, Apple will still confuse a lot of people and piss a lot of people off by not enabling them to use the latest, greatest software. The simple numerical difference will piss people off, even if the two operating systems are virtually identical on the surface. Moreover, it seems people assume that because Leopard has some insofar unresolved bugs that it is irreparably flawed and deserves to be completely rewritten from scratch without a single bit of old code. I think it was just rushed to release.

[iMpathetic]

Zuh? Vista runs perfectly fine on Pentium 4 machines. It will run on Pentium 3 machines too--not well, but it will still technically install.

Yeah, same with the Model T.

JUST MAKING A POINT... :p

I do get it though, and I was about to delete it, but when I was typing it, my friend who was on my bed reading saw it and laughed so hard he fell off the bed.

[Eric S.]

I'm sorry that a select few of you seem highly offended by the thought of Apple "abandoning" loyal Mac customers by producing an Intel-optimized version of Leopard. I'll bet you protested the Intel transition too, right?

No. not at all. If that's where Apple thinks the technology is going then fine. After all, this isn't the first time we've been through it; there was 68K to PPC before this. But I do hope that Apple continues OS releases for these machines while they are still viable technology.

Power PC Macs are a thing of the past.

Apparently that opinion is not shared by everybody. They will be a thing of the past at some point, like all technology. But I wouldn't say that day is today.

If you purchased one at all in the second half of 2005 through 2006 then you would have known full well that Apple was abandoning that platform and therefore it is your own fault.

Fault? Do you think that the first offerings of the Intel platforms were worth buying? I would never buy the first generation of new architecture. And I really don't see an Intel system I would want to buy today, at least as far as desktops go, because Apple doesn't offer a midrange.

[SkyBell]

And I'm so glad a dual G5 will beat a MacBook Air.

Other reasons... such as?

Like, seriously, guys, this whole "PPC is faster" stuff is so 1999. :D



Why is it too soon? Won't their loyal customers be pissed with 10.7?

Those were not meant to be accurate, they were meant to illustrate a point/concept. I know making parts for the Model T is ridiculous, it's just that's what the whole PPC thing is like. (again, not in terms of years elapsed since sale.)

By the way, I know Vista will run on a Pentium 4. Not well, though. Although, I'm sure that, on some forum in the deep darkness of the Internet, somebody's whining about how slow Aero is on their P4.

Oh, one more thing.... any proof that it's a mistake? Just because XP can run on a Pentium II doesn't mean it's not left behind. Microsoft is just being more... um.... conservative with their requirements.

On the other hand, show me a Quicksilver running Leopard smoothly, and I'll show you me, shaking on the floor, immobilized by mirth.

Yeah, basically, if it's not a G4-equipped AlBook or iBook, it's going to run Leopard crappily.

The Quciksilver went up to 1.42 GHz, ample power to run Leopard smoothly. There's a guy on this forum who uses a 500 MHz TiBook with Leopard as his main machine, and he says it's fairly quick.

An article I read claimed that a dual-G5 was faster then an Core Duo 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro, in some ares of performace. Not overall, but in some places, the G5 beat the MBP.

Microsoft screwed up with Vista, in more ways then one. It can barely run on two year old computers. There's something wrong with that in my mind. Apple sdhould not follow microsoft in that respect.

Many people, like me, can't afford new Macs, but we want to run the latest somftware, because our machines are perfectly capable of doing so. That's my entire point in this argument.

[Eric S.]

By the way, someone compared PPC systems to the Model T. According to Wikipedia, Ford produced the Model T for 20 years. ;) And I bet they made spare parts for them for a while longer, too.

[Kilamite]

If supporting hardware isn't a priority for apple any more, and the length of support is getting shorter, doesn't that make the purchase of ANY new machine riskier? How do we know that intel won't ship Core 3 in a year or two and apple won't dump support for current machines if it helps them optimize more and slim their codebase? After all, there has already been rumblings that 10.6 could dump support for 32 bit intel along with PPC.

Where did I say supporting hardware isn't a priority?

And that wouldn't happen. And an upgrade to say Core 3 isn't the same bach as going from PPC to Intel. PPC is different architecture. I'm sure 10.6 would be 32 and 64bit on the same disc and install in the same way Leopard does.

[BrentT]

If 10.6 isn't going to have many new changes from Leopard, maybe it should be called Mo' Leopard.

[marclapierre13]

You have to be kidding me. So they are telling me, when 10.6 comes out, I will be paying for an operating system that is not newly revamped, but just a STABLE and FASTER 10.5?! Shouldn't I have got that when 10.5 came out? I feel like its tax time, when the government comes to take more money from me. I do applaud them on fixing the stability and speed flaws on leopard compared to tiger, but I don't feel as if we should pay for it. IMO, they should have delayed 10.5 until it was stable and faster, like it should be.
I dont have a big problem with leopard, except the odd problem, but i find it sad that in jan. 2009, i will be getting a more stable and faster version of the OS that I paid for.

[cms2]

http://www.tiikoni.net/background/snow-leopard_1024x768.png

that is a beautiful animal. I doubt the finished product will be called "Snow Leopard," but then again, what the heck do I know? :confused:

Also, a quick question, is there an easy way to know if an application is cocoa or carbon? Thanks in advance!

[tgildred]

I kinda like the ring of 10.6 Battle Cat

10.6 Cringer

[AidenShaw]

Win16 applications are virtualized on Windows NT via ntvdm.exe. 64-bit versions of Windows dropped this capability.

If you look more closely, the "16-bit subsystem" of 32-bit Windows NT has been changed to the "half native bit-width" subsystem in x64 NT.

In Windows 64-bit, the environment for 32-bit applications is in many ways the same as the virtual environment for 16-bit applications on 32-bit Windows NT.

After 13 years, the need for emulating a 16-bit environment was basically non-existent - so Microsoft redefined the emulator to be the 32-bit on 64-bit environment.

[AidenShaw]

An article I read claimed that a dual-G5 was faster then an Core Duo 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro, in some ares of performace. Not overall, but in some places, the G5 beat the MBP.

I would expect that for almost any application that has significant I/O, a desktop will beat a laptop with a faster CPU.

[jmadlena]

You have to be kidding me. So they are telling me, when 10.6 comes out, I will be paying for an operating system that is not newly revamped, but just a STABLE and FASTER 10.5?! Shouldn't I have got that when 10.5 came out? I feel like its tax time, when the government comes to take more money from me. I do applaud them on fixing the stability and speed flaws on leopard compared to tiger, but I don't feel as if we should pay for it. IMO, they should have delayed 10.5 until it was stable and faster, like it should be.
I dont have a big problem with leopard, except the odd problem, but i find it sad that in jan. 2009, i will be getting a more stable and faster version of the OS that I paid for.

For one, this is just a rumor. There isn't any facts really to back up the legitimacy of this claim. Also, it doesn't mention pricing. I know this isn't a perfect parallel to the current situation, but Apple offered 10.1 as a free upgrade to all 10.0 users; they could do it again.

Point is, don't get mad (or sad) at Apple for something they haven't done.

About the topic in general, I feel that if 10.6 has greatly improved speed and stability, it might warrant a cost. We buy a new computer because it is faster (aka better), but we don't expect Apple to give it to us. Apple will take care of 10.5 up until 10.6 is released.

[DiamondMac]

In addition, I doubt anyone will get screwed by sticking to Tiger or Leopard even when Snow Leopard comes out.

I plan on sticking to Leopard on my Desktop and Tiger on my laptop

[louden]

It will be interesting to see how they envision how different the stack is for iPhone to mac development, and where any new devices will fit in.

The ad for the WWDC shows two bridges - like there's two paths to follow. That would mean that any new tablet would need to go one way or the other.

[xbjllb]

I think that this time the rumour sites have overdone it. Today we are reading that 10.5.4 will be ready by June 12th...
It's getting ridiculous...
I dont believe that Mac OS X 10.6 will be ready by January 2009. It will be by the end of the year. Leopard is still new, let's not forget that...
Power PC support won't go away so simple...
I don't know which idiots bring such rumours but they are definitely fake.

Man, are YOU ever right! They won't even have Leopard tweaked to perfection at 10.5.5 or 10.5.6 until LONG after January.

NO WAY is 10.6 going to be out then.:apple:

[xbjllb]

I can see it now!

Snow Leopard, 10.6.1... optimized for performance and speed!!

No spotlight, no time machine, no pages, no stacks... on off switches for all Leopard features!

Optimize your system (to 10.3.9 Panther. Which didn't author, burn, or play Blu-ray, either.)

Back to the future with :apple:

[iMpathetic]

By the way, someone compared PPC systems to the Model T. According to Wikipedia, Ford produced the Model T for 20 years. ;) And I bet they made spare parts for them for a while longer, too.

Um, for the eighty kabillionth time, I wasn't trying to make that accurate, I was trying to use it to illustrate my point.

:rolleyes:

[beast]

Maybe "Snow Leopard" will be a mobile operating system that supports multi touch....

[teknikal90]

Maybe "Snow Leopard" will be a mobile operating system that supports multi touch....

i agree.
snow leaopard will be a refined leopard with added advanced mutitouch capability....
i hope my penryn MBP will support it!

[Manic Mouse]

Many people, like me, can't afford new Macs, but we want to run the latest somftware, because our machines are perfectly capable of doing so. That's my entire point in this argument.

The problem is that you're looking at this from your perspective, not Apple's. You're saying that Apple should do what's best for you, but Apple will do what's best for Apple. It may not be worth Apple's time spending time and resources developing a PPC version of 10.6, regardless of whether your machine could run it or not. They're under no obligation to support an obsolete architecture, your Mac will function just as well the day you bought it.

Apple don't care for you (or any of their customers), they only care for themselves unfortunately. They will do what will bring in the most cash, and force users to upgrade. They will only keep customers happy enough to keep them upgrading (which is why I suspect we saw a PPC version of Leopard at all).

It 'aint pretty but it's business. Same for everything else electronic...

[Blue Velvet]

'this focus on performance and stability'


The way I see it this smells like a marketing-led leak to manage expectations downwards at this early stage... and maybe throw a little sand in the eyes of the Windows 7 team.

Steve Jobs' 'secret features' remark over-egged the pudding. Leopard has been slightly underwhelming and somewhat fraught with problems, just on the basis of its delay and the ongoing wireless issues.

By letting this kind of news out already, through trusted sites as Ars, the rumours community are far less likely to get stoked up about things, and Apple can try and keep things focussed on the story they want to tell us i.e. the iPhone and other portable networked gadgets.

By now, most of us aren't expecting much in the way of new features from 10.6 and anything will be seen as a bonus, and so upon eventual release, word of mouth will eventually carry a large burden of the marketing without having to lavish a heap of money and time by telling us how wonderful it's going to be.

[Manic Mouse]

'this focus on performance and stability'


The way I see it this smells like a marketing-led leak to manage expectations downwards at this early stage... and maybe throw a little sand in the eyes of the Windows 7 team.

Steve Jobs' 'secret features' remark over-egged the pudding. Leopard has been slightly underwhelming and somewhat fraught with problems, just on the basis of its delay and the ongoing wireless issues.

By letting this kind of news out already, through trusted sites as Ars, the rumours community are far less likely to get stoked up about things, and Apple can try and keep things focussed on the story they want to tell us i.e. the iPhone and other portable networked gadgets.

By now, most of us aren't expecting much in the way of new features from 10.6 and anything will be seen as a bonus, and so upon eventual release, word of mouth will eventually carry a large burden of the marketing without having to lavish a heap of money and time by telling us how wonderful it's going to be.

It could also be that any new features are not clearly evident to users in the same way that stacks and spaces are. Things like using ZFS as the filesystem, having true resolution independence, putting cocoa-touch in OSX or other under-the-hood improvements.

[iMpathetic]

The problem is that you're looking at this from your perspective, not Apple's. You're saying that Apple should do what's best for you, but Apple will do what's best for Apple. It may not be worth Apple's time spending time and resources developing a PPC version of 10.6, regardless of whether your machine could run it or not. They're under no obligation to support an obsolete architecture, your Mac will function just as well the day you bought it.

Apple don't care for you (or any of their customers), they only care for themselves unfortunately. They will do what will bring in the most cash, and force users to upgrade. They will only keep customers happy enough to keep them upgrading (which is why I suspect we saw a PPC version of Leopard at all).

It 'aint pretty but it's business. Same for everything else electronic...

Exactly what I was going to say:D

.. if I had that idea.

But, that's basically the summary of what I think, so good job!

[Eric S.]

Um, for the eighty kabillionth time, I wasn't trying to make that accurate, I was trying to use it to illustrate my point.

:rolleyes:

But it more accurately illustrates my point.

The problem is that you're looking at this from your perspective, not Apple's. You're saying that Apple should do what's best for you, but Apple will do what's best for Apple. It may not be worth Apple's time spending time and resources developing a PPC version of 10.6, regardless of whether your machine could run it or not.

It's not regardless; it could run it. But they don't have to develop a PPC version, they already have it. This is a common code base; essentially all they have to do is recompile. It requires some testing resources, true, but they're already set up for that. To support an existing customer base, some with systems less than three years old, it's not that much of a stretch.

I don't see why people who do not have PPC systems should really care about this. Do you really think it harms Intel system development? Because I don't see that it does at all.

[Blue Velvet]

It could also be that any new features are not clearly evident to users in the same way that stacks and spaces are. Things like using ZFS as the filesystem, having true resolution independence, putting cocoa-touch in OSX or other under-the-hood improvements.


Which are all great but it's difficult to market these types of benefits to a general non-technical audience... so if 10.6 is going to be something like this, then a retail price of maybe 40-60% of Leopard's price or even a free release seems more likely.

Either way, I strongly believe that this is a Apple-sanctioned 'leak' to shape the story at this early stage because if expectations are lowered, then a potential Vista-type situation, in marketing terms, can be more easily avoided. They're promising evolution, not revolution, and if it does turn out that they're really planning something big, then the 'wow is now' will be generated by consumers, rather than by a top-down advertising-led message which Microsoft tried to sway minds with.

Apple's machines and devices may be not as good as they or we think they are, but their marketing and message-management is pretty sophisticated. I think their fingerprints are all over this one.

[Manic Mouse]

It's not regardless; it could run it. But they don't have to develop a PPC version, they already have it. This is a common code base; essentially all they have to do is recompile. It requires some testing resources, true, but they're already set up for that. To support an existing customer base, some with systems less than three years old, it's not that much of a stretch.

I don't see why people who do not have PPC systems should really care about this. Do you really think it harms Intel system development? Because I don't see that it does at all.

So all they have to do is press a button, to recompile the code for PPC? If it's that simple then there's no reason they shouldn't do it. For some reason I just can't imagine it being that simple to have it working flawlessly on a different architecture but I'm no software engineer. Could MS do the same with windows were they to switch to PPC?

[miniConvert]

I think the idea of having Snow Leopard as a sort-of maintenance release is pretty great. It's time to concentrate on optimisations for the x86 architecture, and to clean up how things like iTunes, Safari and especially QuickTime hook into the OS... a reboot shouldn't be necessary for installing updates to any of those three.

With Vista being a bit of a snail (running on like-for-like hardware with XP) I think Apple have seen an opportunity to promote themselves as the fastest, most stable mainstream OS. I don't think Leopard's numbers versus Vista would be that amazing, which is why a tuned up Snow Leopard release might be necessary.

[BenRoethig]

So all they have to do is press a button, to recompile the code for PPC? If it's that simple then there's no reason they shouldn't do it. For some reason I just can't imagine it being that simple to have it working flawlessly on a different architecture but I'm no software engineer. Could MS do the same with windows were they to switch to PPC?

You can compile for multiple platforms, but it isn't going to be as fast as a piece of software optimized for a specific platform unless you put in a lot of extra time, money, and effort.

[Eric S.]

So all they have to do is press a button, to recompile the code for PPC?

Essentially, yes. But really they don't even have to do that. I'm sure their build process already automatically creates both versions.

If it's that simple then there's no reason they shouldn't do it. For some reason I just can't imagine it being that simple to have it working flawlessly on a different architecture but I'm no software engineer. Could MS do the same with windows were they to switch to PPC?

Apple isn't switching to PPC; they already have both versions, and they've had PPC longer than Intel so it is even more stable. I am a software engineer, I have worked on Unix OS development for 28 years, and I currently work for a company that produces a version of Unix for two different architectures (not Apple, but you might be able to guess which). It works this way: there is a small amount of code that is architecture-dependent (PPC vs. x86, in Apple's case) and a much, much larger code base that is common, a little of which is platform-dependent (like MacBook vs. iMac vs. Mac Pro). The code that is specific to PPC has been around for ages, longer than the x86 code, and by now it is thoroughly debugged. All of the new features are implemented in common code. There will be some differences based on platform, but those will probably affect the Intel platforms more than PPC.

Testing is the major resource that has to be committed to continuing the PPC line. But it's not like they have to ramp that up from scratch; it just means continuing their current process. I would guess that Apple's main manufacturing and burn-in and systems testing is done overseas, and those assembly lines are already in place.

There are no technical reasons, as far as I see, for Apple to drop PPC at the present time. If they do, it is driven by marketing - simply the desire to force customers to purchase new hardware in order to get the latest OS features. (I know the rumor says that the next OS will not introduce new features, but we'll have to wait and see about that.)

[Eric S.]

You can compile for multiple platforms, but it isn't going to be as fast as a piece of software optimized for a specific platform unless you put in a lot of extra time, money, and effort.

But that's a separate issue. Optimizing performance on Intel platforms can be done whether or not support for PPC is maintained, it's the same amount of work in either case. Architecture-specific optimizations are going to be done either in the architecture-specific code, which separate anyway, or in the compiler itself, which has different versions for PPC and Intel. Most of the code is architecture-independent, and by its very nature any changes there should apply equally to both.

[SkyBell]

The problem is that you're looking at this from your perspective, not Apple's. You're saying that Apple should do what's best for you, but Apple will do what's best for Apple. It may not be worth Apple's time spending time and resources developing a PPC version of 10.6, regardless of whether your machine could run it or not. They're under no obligation to support an obsolete architecture, your Mac will function just as well the day you bought it.

Apple don't care for you (or any of their customers), they only care for themselves unfortunately. They will do what will bring in the most cash, and force users to upgrade. They will only keep customers happy enough to keep them upgrading (which is why I suspect we saw a PPC version of Leopard at all).

It 'aint pretty but it's business. Same for everything else electronic...
Yes, you are correct, Apple is in the business world, and their goal is to make money. But, perhaps it's just me, It seems Apple has always been the one to take the extra step. They've nearly always done something unexpected for the benefit of the consumer. More so in the eary 00's, but now as well.

I don't think Apple is just going to drop PPC, just like that. It just seems so un-Appleish. At the very least, I think they'll announce that 10.6 will not be PPC, instead of just springing it on us when they launch it.

[Mal]

At the very least, I think they'll announce that 10.6 will not be PPC, instead of just springing it on us when they launch it.

That's why it's speculated that it would be announced on Monday at WWDC, with the fact that it doesn't support PPC very clearly stated. It's still quite a ways away regardless, January at the earliest, so they wouldn't exactly be springing it on you at launch.

jW

[Manic Mouse]

Yes, you are correct, Apple is in the business world, and their goal is to make money. But, perhaps it's just me, It seems Apple has always been the one to take the extra step. They've nearly always done something unexpected for the benefit of the consumer. More so in the eary 00's, but now as well.

I don't Apple is just going to drop PPC, just like that. It just seems so un-Appleish. At the very least, I think they'll announce that 10.6 will not be PPC, instead of just springing it on us when they launch it.

We shall see on Monday. I'm so excited!!! :D

[jf8]

If you look more closely, the "16-bit subsystem" of 32-bit Windows NT has been changed to the "half native bit-width" subsystem in x64 NT.

In Windows 64-bit, the environment for 32-bit applications is in many ways the same as the virtual environment for 16-bit applications on 32-bit Windows NT.

After 13 years, the need for emulating a 16-bit environment was basically non-existent - so Microsoft redefined the emulator to be the 32-bit on 64-bit environment.

It is not the same, except in the name "Windows on Windows". Win16 applications on Windows NT all ran in one process, ntvdm.exe.

Win32 i386 processes still run on the x86-64 Windows kernels, with no virtualization. There is only some translation necessary: registry calls are translated and requests to load DLLs are redirected to a 32-bit only folder. This is hardly different than any other OS's support for running 32-bit programs on a 64-bit kernel.

So all they have to do is press a button, to recompile the code for PPC? If it's that simple then there's no reason they shouldn't do it. For some reason I just can't imagine it being that simple to have it working flawlessly on a different architecture but I'm no software engineer. Could MS do the same with windows were they to switch to PPC?

For well-written software, it really is that simple. Just rewrite the architecture-dependent parts of the kernel and add drivers. Windows NT was once supported on MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC, although it was rarely used on those platforms. It was also ported to other platforms. Today, it runs on i386, x86-64, and ia64 platforms.

[louden]

Yes, you are correct, Apple is in the business world, and their goal is to make money. But, perhaps it's just me, It seems Apple has always been the one to take the extra step. They've nearly always done something unexpected for the benefit of the consumer. More so in the eary 00's, but now as well.

I don't think Apple is just going to drop PPC, just like that. It just seems so un-Appleish. At the very least, I think they'll announce that 10.6 will not be PPC, instead of just springing it on us when they launch it.

As Apple gets bigger, this kind of thing will happen more and more often... Next thing you know your V1 iPod nano won't work with iTunes.

If you get a company to try to always make everything backwards compatible, it never works out that well, and you end up with a company like Microsoft, where neither the old nor the new stuff works very well.

[3.1416]

It works this way: there is a small amount of code that is architecture-dependent (PPC vs. x86, in Apple's case) and a much, much larger code base that is common, a little of which is platform-dependent (like MacBook vs. iMac vs. Mac Pro). The code that is specific to PPC has been around for ages, longer than the x86 code, and by now it is thoroughly debugged. All of the new features are implemented in common code. There will be some differences based on platform, but those will probably affect the Intel platforms more than PPC.
Right. But my understanding (and I'm not an OS developer, so correct me if I'm wrong) is that the details of the CPU can affect the optimal way to write code that isn't inherently platform-specific. For example, PPC has more registers than x86, but (I believe) x86 is more efficient at accessing memory. So a C function that uses lots of temporary variables may be better for PPC, while a revised version that uses fewer temporary variables and more memory reads may be better for x86. What if a significant number of 10.6 optimizations involve changes like that? In that case what is a performance increase for Intel Macs would actually be slower for PPC Macs. Keeping both versions around substantially increases maintenance and testing costs, and Apple may quite reasonably decide that it's not worth it.

[jf8]

Right. But my understanding (and I'm not an OS developer, so correct me if I'm wrong) is that the details of the CPU can affect the optimal way to write code that isn't inherently platform-specific. For example, PPC has more registers than x86, but (I believe) x86 is more efficient at accessing memory. So a C function that uses lots of temporary variables may be better for PPC, while a revised version that uses fewer temporary variables and more memory reads may be better for x86. What if a significant number of 10.6 optimizations involve changes like that? In that case what is a performance increase for Intel Macs would actually be slower for PPC Macs. Keeping both versions around substantially increases maintenance and testing costs, and Apple may quite reasonably decide that it's not worth it.

Why make comments about things you don't understand?

If such a hypothetical function existed, it woud be trivial to have multiple versions of it compiled conditionally.

[cheekybobcat]

What happens when Apple runs out of jungle cats to name their OS?!

[Tosser]

What happens when Apple runs out of jungle cats to name their OS?!

Sea mammals and fishes: Orcas, sharks and things like that.

[jeremyrader]

Sea mammals and fishes: Orcas, sharks and things like that.

With Apple heading towards mobility and "something in the air", I'd expect raptors (predatory birds): Eagle(s), Kite(s), Hawk(s), Harrier(s), Falcon(s), Owl(s), although I think they'd shy away from the Vulture family...

[Flying Llama]

With Apple heading towards mobility and "something in the air", I'd expect raptors (predatory birds): Eagle(s), Kite(s), Hawk(s), Harrier(s), Falcon(s), Owl(s), although I think they'd shy away from the Vulture family...

I actually perceived Apple's "something in the air" as their next OS release :apple: 10.6 Flying Llama

[Digitalclips]

Oh come on I like OSX11.1 - Chihuahua (Cross marketed with the new Disney Chihuahua film of course :P )

I think MS have cornered the market on having an OS that is a dog ;)

[avigalante]

Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/5014251/source-os-x-106-snow-leopard-will-support-powerpc-chips) is now claiming that their source (tipster/insider) has chimed in with some new information that suggests the PPC architecture will not be dropped.

Again, this is not official and is subject to change given the arrival of developer builds in OS X 10.6.

[IVIIVI4ck3y27]

Essentially, yes. But really they don't even have to do that. I'm sure their build process already automatically creates both versions.



Apple isn't switching to PPC; they already have both versions, and they've had PPC longer than Intel so it is even more stable. I am a software engineer, I have worked on Unix OS development for 28 years, and I currently work for a company that produces a version of Unix for two different architectures (not Apple, but you might be able to guess which). It works this way: there is a small amount of code that is architecture-dependent (PPC vs. x86, in Apple's case) and a much, much larger code base that is common, a little of which is platform-dependent (like MacBook vs. iMac vs. Mac Pro). The code that is specific to PPC has been around for ages, longer than the x86 code, and by now it is thoroughly debugged. All of the new features are implemented in common code. There will be some differences based on platform, but those will probably affect the Intel platforms more than PPC.

Testing is the major resource that has to be committed to continuing the PPC line. But it's not like they have to ramp that up from scratch; it just means continuing their current process. I would guess that Apple's main manufacturing and burn-in and systems testing is done overseas, and those assembly lines are already in place.

There are no technical reasons, as far as I see, for Apple to drop PPC at the present time. If they do, it is driven by marketing - simply the desire to force customers to purchase new hardware in order to get the latest OS features. (I know the rumor says that the next OS will not introduce new features, but we'll have to wait and see about that.)

I think the point is that if they're rewriting much of the OS in this build to be optimized for Intel and redoing it as Cocoa native, I think the general idea is that Apple is *NOT* merely maintaining a build of the OS but essentially rewriting it to be Cocoa native. For that reason, there is little benefit for Apple to write whole new parts of the OS for compliance with PowerPC and then optimize said new parts when you're talking about a platform that is deprecated. There are no *NEW* PowerPC machines coming out, there is little desire to write new hunks of code for the old machines when your focus is to move forward. They have maintained code... that is exactly what Leopard is. It's code that is PowerPC-capable and that has been maintained and optimized. With the dawn of 10.6 though, that apparently won't be the case. Rather than get bent out of shape about 10.6 and it's directions... assuming they're true (and it makes sense to me), just hope that if there are any niggling issues that they get fixed by the time the last build of 10.5.x gets released. In other words, get your bug reports in to Apple.

The whole point people are missing is that Apple is *NOT* going to just up and shelve compatibility with Carbon apps. More importantly... They're *NOT* going to render an update to 10.4+ or 10.5+ that makes their update patch *brick* the legacy machines. People are already crying foul about their PowerPC machines not getting the latest bleeding edge code when the reality is, Microsoft and every other software company deprecates hardware as they consider it valid to do so. If the amount of work to rewrite and then maintain code for a platform that is longer for sale is deemed inefficient, it's only logical to scrap it. Those machines will operate as-usual with the current OS that is on them. Apple has been doing this for quite awhile, some beige hardware couldn't run OS X without hacks... some newer PPC colored hardware couldn't run newer versions of OS X (i.e. the G3) even if they could run older versions. You may call this as Apple leaving people high 'n' dry, I consider it a matter of Apple doing what they need to do. I've gotten burned by Copland, Gershwin, and Rhapsody giving way to OS X and it's lack of support for any of my beige hardware. I was able to deal with it...

Moral of the story... this isn't a case of being orphaned. I know everyone would love to be able to stick with older hardware for years upon years upon years but in Apple's defense, if Motorola and IBM had been on their A-game the odds of that happening would've been diminished as well just as they have, it just would've stayed on PPC. Face it, both companies took years to make "minor" improvements. Intel, supposedly on an inferior platform, was able to eat Motorola and IBM's lunch and eventually... it got both kicked to the curb. Intel is delivering where the others failed.

Had the G4 and G5 scaled better than they did, as well as the G3 did for quite awhile, we'd probably still be on PowerPC. The fact we're not is because the industry passed them by. I had a PowerPC mini and from the moment I got it up until the end, it was a solid machine but it wasn't anything that I'd remotely call "speedy". Even with 1 Gig RAM the machines felt like they were merely adequate. By contrast, my dad's new Intel mini (Core 2 Duo) is pretty darn fast. Other than the most strenuous of tasks, it feels about on-par with my 24" iMac. Even there, for what he does... it's very solid and an above-average performer for his needs.

Moral of the story... if you don't need a new machine, don't buy one. Yet at some point Apple is going to have to draw the line, deprecate what needs deprecating, and do what they can to improve the API's and move programmers in the right direction. As even was noted at Google's I/O, one of their execs. said that programmers tend to be "Lazy" because they try to build on new features rather than do what is necessary to revamp the core foundations and weed things out themselves. John Nack of Adobe had previously stated if Adobe hadn't pushed Cocoa-64 on them as their only solution for the future, he doubted Adobe would've ever ported their apps. to a completely Cocoa framework, which would've left Apple supporting and maintaining 2 separate API's concurrently when they're better off with one streamlined API. Otherwise, you have the situation that Windows developers have where they're left with ancient API calls tied to applications that are still relevant circa 2008, or multiple ways of doing the same thing via the same API sets and having to debug how or why things work better or worse in others or how one applications use of a specific call can conflict with others. It's a freaking mess and a big part of why Microsoft has a team looking to streamline the API's.

This doesn't render your machines obsolete, it merely means that going forward there's going to be improvements to hardware and software that you might not be able to use. That is inevitable anyhow, as people with AGP Macs can't use PCI-E cards. People with machines that don't support 4+ Gig of RAM can't fully leverage a 64-bit app. People with Penryn Macs today are not going to be able to use Nehalem's DDR3 RAM. Yet... if you truly *NEED* those things you will save for and buy them as you need them. I ran on beige hardware for years using OS 9 daily long after OS X shipped. I don't miss OS 9 in the least, but... I used what I had 'til I could get something new.

Far as my opinion on what Apple is to do with 10.6... I wager that they probably will release a copy of 10.6 for developers at WWDC. I wager that the build shown at WWDC will show few new features, but mainly be a major rewrite of the non-Cocoa pieces of the OS and a considerable overhaul for speed and performance as per the rumor mill. I also wager though that by the time the system launches in January that there'll be a bunch of functionalities and features added. I could even see Snow Leopard being the codename for the developer release while the final 10.6 release could even be called something else.

[czarthp]

wow! 10.6. must suck to be a pro tools user. this will set pro tools compatibility with mac operating system back another year. Pro tools still ain't officially compatible leopard yet. glad I use Logic! :D

[crab applette]

Newbie here and sorry I didn't ( couldn't sit through all 24 pages :eek:) but could this change also be due to the 64 bit Creative Suite 4 coming out in cocoa?

From the NAPP conference this year it was also mentioned that "Apple informed Adobe that it was was dumping carbon".

Mind you many of the PS users/instructors at this conference are Mac users.

Of course I have concerns especially since I use Adobe for digital photography.

[Tilpots]

May have been mentioned, but anyone find it curious there was a big article in this months National Geographic about Snow Leopards?

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/animals/images/800/snow-leopard.jpg


Gotta think it's not coincidence..:rolleyes:

[xbjllb]

wow! 10.6. must suck to be a pro tools user. this will set pro tools compatibility with mac operating system back another year. Pro tools still ain't officially compatible leopard yet. glad I use Logic! :D

Wow, must suck to be Apple and lose market share of pro musicians, pro studios, and semipro musicians because ProTools just happens to be the standard.

Of couse Apple could care less; they're leaving all their pro app users in the dustheap of history because they're going to be selling a gadzillion iPhones, iPods, and iGadgets.

Here's a question for ya and the geniuses (including Steve) at Apple:

Name ONE maker of the most popular transistor radios in the 60's that's still around.:apple:

[psychofreak]

Newbie here and sorry I didn't ( couldn't sit through all 24 pages :eek:) but could this change also be due to the 64 bit Creative Suite 4 coming out in cocoa?.CS4 is 32bit Carbon, not 64bit Cocoa.

[xbjllb]

May have been mentioned, but anyone find it curious there was a big article in this months National Geographic about Snow Leopards?

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/animals/images/800/snow-leopard.jpg


Gotta think it's not coincidence..:rolleyes:

There are no coincidences; only corporate mind-***ers.:apple:

Thanks for the incredible advertising photo though! No one can deny it's stunning.

[BillyBobBongo]

Gotta think it's not coincidence..:rolleyes:

Not really....since I'm adamant that this won't be the name of the next OS. ;)

The use of a name with two words just doesn't sit right....Panther, Jaguar, Leopard, Snow Leopard. Not only does it not have any 'punch' it seems weak from a marketing point of view to use a name so similar to that of the former OS.

But yeah....a top photo!

[bobriot]

It's NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.

Cougar and Lynx are the only two names unused by Apple that they have trademarked. Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Lynx, and Cougar. Lynx for 10.6, Cougar for 10.7 or vice versa, then on to OS 11.

For the love of god, stop playing guessing games. It's all common sense.

What about Bagpuss?

[BillyBobBongo]

What about Bagpuss?

We have a winner! :D

[johngordon]

My 2 cents on OS 10.6..

Stability and security are of course important...

But not even Apple can market a 10.6 release that focuses almost exclusively on those things, as all it really sounds like to most consumers is a finished version of 10.5.

And who wants (or expects) to pay for 10.5 and then again for a finished version called 10.6?

[t0mat0]

My 2 cents on OS 10.6..

Stability and security are of course important...

But not even Apple can market a 10.6 release that focuses almost exclusively on those things, as all it really sounds like to most consumers is a finished version of 10.5.

And who wants (or expects) to pay for 10.5 and then again for a finished version called 10.6?

Totally agree. WWDC might give us more of an explanation. I think the sources talking about Snow Leopard might be coming from the wrong angle slightly. Users expect security and speed updates as part of there 10.5.x updates, same as Windows XP/Vista users kinda expect speed updates from Service packs, and security updates from monthly updates. You'd think Apple would be bringing more to the table in Snow Leopard than what is currently being reported.

[petvas]

I believe that the rumours of "Snow Leopard" are total false. There is no such thing...
I guess we'll see in a couple of hours, but I get the impression that almost everything we read the last weeks about the WWDC is just the imagination of all rumour sites together!

I believe that Mac OS X 10.6 will not even get mentioned this year. Next year will be the year of 10.6.

This year will focus on Leopard and the iPhone. Nothing else! That's common sense. It's too early for a new OS. I think that 10.6 will be released by the end of 2009/begin 2010, not earlier.

[cms2]

What happens when Apple runs out of jungle cats to name their OS?!

Types of beans! 10.6 Chickpea. Or cheeses: 10.6 Gargonzola. The possibilities are, indeed, endless. :apple:

[rhett7660]

I believe that the rumours of "Snow Leopard" are total false. There is no such thing...
I guess we'll see in a couple of hours, but I get the impression that almost everything we read the last weeks about the WWDC is just the imagination of all rumour sites together!

I believe that Mac OS X 10.6 will not even get mentioned this year. Next year will be the year of 10.6.

This year will focus on Leopard and the iPhone. Nothing else! That's common sense. It's too early for a new OS. I think that 10.6 will be released by the end of 2009/begin 2010, not earlier.

Is this sarcasm? If not, you might want to look through some of the wwdc threads.

[petvas]

Well, we only heard that it exists! Did I miss something???
I am very surprised that Snow Leopard was not a part of the Keynote...

[BenRoethig]

Well, we only heard that it exists! Did I miss something???
I am very surprised that Snow Leopard was not a part of the Keynote...

The Mac got pushed back to the second tier presentation. Not as cool as the iphone.

[petvas]

Well, I love the iPhone but I find that the OS should be the star. After all, without the OS the iPhone would be nothing...
Apple should have a separate special Event for the iPhone.

[Locker]

Well, we only heard that it exists! Did I miss something???
He said he'd give developers a sneak peek "this afternoon" - hence: in the sessions.

I believe that the rumours of "Snow Leopard" are total false. There is no such thing...
I guess we'll see in a couple of hours, but I get the impression that almost everything we read the last weeks about the WWDC is just the imagination of all rumour sites together!

I believe that Mac OS X 10.6 will not even get mentioned this year. Next year will be the year of 10.6.

This year will focus on Leopard and the iPhone. Nothing else! That's common sense. It's too early for a new OS. I think that 10.6 will be released by the end of 2009/begin 2010, not earlier.
Is this sarcasm? If not, you might want to look through some of the wwdc threads.
I don't think it was, as it was posted before the Keynote. Been proven wrong now any-how! I must admit I was a little surprised!

[petvas]

I was definitely wrong. I didnt expect to hear about 10.6 so soon. I still dont think it will be ready by Macworld 2009...We ll see I guess..

[BenRoethig]

I was definitely wrong. I didnt expect to hear about 10.6 so soon. I still dont think it will be ready by Macworld 2009...We ll see I guess..

If the rumors are true, MWSF is very doable. Remember, this isn't your traditional tons of new feature OS update. This is a massive bug fix/ optimization update similar to 10.1.

[smartalic34]

I know Apple has a tendency to be conservative on release dates... i.e. the Intel transition, but http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/ says that 10.6 should be out about a year from now...

[MartiNZ]

Yeah I read that, and thought it quite interesting. I prefer the idea of it coming in January, and being cheaper. However, this is trying to fix what became of Leopard even with the six month delay at the hands of the iPhone, so I'd say they should take their time!

Having said that, the new iPhone seems rather underwhelming ... maybe they have been more so working on OS X this time ;).

[DMann]

Yeah I read that, and thought it quite interesting. I prefer the idea of it coming in January, and being cheaper. However, this is trying to fix what became of Leopard even with the six month delay at the hands of the iPhone, so I'd say they should take their time!

Having said that, the new iPhone seems rather underwhelming ... maybe they have been more so working on OS X this time ;).

Agreed. As far as weighing competitive pricing over extra parts/features, the iPhone 2 is will pave its way into the masses with the advantage of being thinner, lighter, having GPS functionality and location-centric programs, and the enormous wave of new apps, games, and utilities which will continue to set this phone apart as a true handheld OS X desktop.

[negan1]

Cocoa, according to the WWDC iPhone 3G "explanation" & preview, Cocoa means touch.
Wouldn't it be awesome to have an iMac with a touchscreen?
Google up the images for the iMacs with a popout tablet pc that has mac osx on it to do everything touch.
its quite amazing
I think thats the case about cocoa.
My opinion however.

[Dale_Nx26]

[QUOTE=ilflyya;5528400]It will be really funny now if you're wrong. Curb the language :eek:

HAHAHAHA Guess he IS wrong. It really IS "snow leopard". Now, I want to hear from that guy again.

[chukronos]

It's NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.

Cougar and Lynx are the only two names unused by Apple that they have trademarked. Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Lynx, and Cougar. Lynx for 10.6, Cougar for 10.7 or vice versa, then on to OS 11.

For the love of god, stop playing guessing games. It's all common sense.


Hello? You there? Haven't heard from you in a while. Any more great knowledge you want to enlighten us with?

[MacSimoPark]

Hello? You there? Haven't heard from you in a while. Any more great knowledge you want to enlighten us with?

*Chuckle*

Snow Leopard it is!
And here's evidence:

[ArtOfWarfare]

Cocoa, according to the WWDC iPhone 3G "explanation" & preview, Cocoa means touch.
Wouldn't it be awesome to have an iMac with a touchscreen?
Google up the images for the iMacs with a popout tablet pc that has mac osx on it to do everything touch.
its quite amazing
I think thats the case about cocoa.
My opinion however.

Yeah, I want a 60" wall mounted touch screen iMac. :cool:

Maybe Apple is starting to relax on OS X. They consider it finished... what more features could they need? Now they're shifting their attention to be more on the hardware that use them. I think we're definitely going to see a touchscreen computer before long...

maybe that rumored tablet/iMac combo will finally materialize along side Mac OS 10.6 at WWDC? Maybe that's what 10.6 will feature more... it'll be a touchscreen OS. Sure, the other Mac Intels can run it and benefit from the speed boost and stuff, but the real thing is going to be the UI featuring either a touchscreen or motion sensing...

[Tosser]

Yeah, I want a 60" wall mounted touch screen iMac. :cool:

Ah, yes, that wouldn't grow old the minute you actually had do some work with/on it.

about OS X:
They consider it finished...
Now there's a scary thought.

but the real thing is going to be the UI featuring either a touchscreen or motion sensing...

Motion sensing? It get's worse and worse.

How about a voice-only controlled OS? Now, there's something for the open-office plan or for doing audio and video.

People should stop watching matrix and all those B-science fiction series - it makes them think it's better to be slow, as long as it looks fun.

Please think about ergonomics before suggesting 60" touch screens and motion sensing. Huge arm movements with your limbs (this case your arms) extended for hours on end is really, really bad for you.

[AJ1BostonMASS]

I just wanted to send an email to everyone who commented this forum

hi... also

It's NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.

Cougar and Lynx are the only two names unused by Apple that they have trademarked. Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Lynx, and Cougar. Lynx for 10.6, Cougar for 10.7 or vice versa, then on to OS 11.

For the love of god, stop playing guessing games. It's all common sense.

FAIL!

[Mal]

I just wanted to send an email to everyone who commented this forum

hi... also



FAIL!

You resurrected a 1+ year old thread for that?

Heh.

jW

[Hexley]

You resurrected a 1+ year old thread for that?

Heh.

jW

Can you think of a better reason to restart an old thread? :eek:

[Tallest Skil]

Can you think of a better reason to restart an old thread? :eek:

A post with actual content, perhaps?

[Eric S.]

A post with actual content, perhaps?

Why break with tradition? :rolleyes:

[macintoshtoffy]

am I being excessive if I would dream of a day when members of this forum can be subjected to a public flogging/executions for posting stupid **** to this forum?

[AJ1BostonMASS]

A post with actual content, perhaps?

that could be. But on this thread? Kinda hard to do.

I just looked up snow leopard cause I had a question about it. Saw this and it made me laugh.

It was all in good fun.

[AJ1BostonMASS]

am I being excessive if I would dream of a day when members of this forum can be subjected to a public flogging/executions for posting stupid **** to this forum?

My thoughts are why not just delete these threads that are so old.

[macintoshtoffy]

My thoughts are why not just delete these threads that are so old.

How about this babe; stop going back several pages and failing to read when the last post was made. It isn't the role of moderators to stop posters from being stupid.

[AJ1BostonMASS]

How about this babe; stop going back several pages and failing to read when the last post was made. It isn't the role of moderators to stop posters from being stupid.

I knew when the last post was made. June of 08
thats why i did what i did....duh

[xbjllb]

It's NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.

Cougar and Lynx are the only two names unused by Apple that they have trademarked. Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Lynx, and Cougar. Lynx for 10.6, Cougar for 10.7 or vice versa, then on to OS 11.

Lynx was too close to Linux. BUT... thanks for resurrecting a thread close to the one (if not THE one) where I said they needed to concentrate on getting rid of the bloat instead of adding useless extra eye candy features that got in the way of performance.

:apple:

[doctoree]

Speed and stability are really what's needed. I applaud Apple for focusing on the bread and butter of the OS instead of trying to tack on more flashy features to sell the sizzle.

I join the applause! It's also great to get a faster computer for about half the prize of a Mighty Mouse.

Doc