Apple's Newest Snow Leopard (10A314) Shows Steady Improvements

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/01/apples-newest-snow-leopard-10a314-shows-steady-improvements/)

Apple seeded developers with the latest build (10A314) of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) today. The latest beta version of Snow Leopard is said to be more stable than previous builds. Specifically, QuickTime X is said to have made significant strides since the previous version.

Apple, however, has not yet deployed the "Marble" user interface (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/13/snow-leopard-to-bring-unifying-marble-user-interface/) changes that have been rumored for Snow Leopard.

An exact release date for Snow Leopard has not been established , though recent rumors have suggested (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/01/snow-leopard-in-september-xserve-in-june-mac-pro-speed-boost-and-more/) it could be as late as September. Apple will likely make further announcements and demos of Snow Leopard at the World Wide Developer's Conference in June (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/26/apple-announces-dates-for-wwdc-2009-june-8th-12th/).

Article Link: Apple's Newest Snow Leopard (10A314) Shows Steady Improvements (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/01/apples-newest-snow-leopard-10a314-shows-steady-improvements/)

[talkingfuture]

I hope we do get a demo in June, I am looking forward to seeing this in action.

[MarkMS]

I hope we do get a demo in June, I am looking forward to seeing this in action.

Same here my friend.

[fastbite]

I hope we do get a demo in June, I am looking forward to seeing this in action.

Dying to get my hands all over it too.

[Bakafish]

It's a bit hard to believe. Obviously Apple's doing a lot of intense work on the OS, and there are surprises waiting for us, but they outlined a pretty limited and achievable feature set that was locked in a long time ago. I'm sure they will ship it when it's ready, but it will be given to dev's (I'm sure at the dev conference) before it gets released to the general public, and that will give us a much better idea about release dates. One of the reason they wait so long to announce the dev conference dates is so they can be sure they are putting this kind of thing in our hands.

It doesn't mean that it won't get pushed out until late in the year, but I wouldn't bet on it. Apple will give dev's a month to get their apps into shape and ship it (assuming there isn't anything terribly dodgy about it.)

[cg0def]

it about time people stop with the speculations. Apple will announce Snow Leopard at WWDC and it will get released a bit after that to everyone. You probably won't see all of the changes in the test releases until WWDC. Also it's not a big deal that there is no marble interface in the new dev release. After all it's a skin that does not really need to be tested by a large number of people and all that is if it really does exist. Either way it doesn't really change anything.

[jabingla2810]

2 random questions, but seems as good a place as any to ask

1) How much does the new OS usually cost. (£ Pounds)

2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?

[iBug2]

There are still lots of performance enhancements need to be made. The release is stable but generally slower than Leopard itself. Lots of work to be done, I don't think this will be ready for June, not at all.

[coolfactor]

it about time people stop with the speculations. Apple will announce Snow Leopard at WWDC and it will get released a bit after that to everyone. You probably won't see all of the changes in the test releases until WWDC. Also it's not a big deal that there is no marble interface in the new dev release. After all it's a skin that does not really need to be tested by a large number of people and all that is if it really does exist. Either way it doesn't really change anything.

Sounds like you are fairly new to the Mac scene? Or maybe you're just new the rumors scene? Anyway, a September release of Snow Leopard would not be unrealistic at all. Leopard (10.5) didn't come out until October 2007. And the Marble interface is much more than a "skin", as you alluded to... it's a very critical aspect of the user experience, so yes, extensive testing is needed.

[coolfactor]

2 random questions, but seems as good a place as any to ask

1) How much does the new OS usually cost. (£ Pounds)

I'm guessing about £89, based on $129 USD.


2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?

During installation, you have 3 options:

1) Upgrade
2) Archive & Install
3) Erase & Install

Both Option #1 and #2 preserve your files. Option #2 is best since it moves the existing system aside and does a fresh install of the system files. Your home folder is not touched.

[coolfactor]

I hope we do get a demo in June, I am looking forward to seeing this in action.

We'll definitely have a demo at WWDC. No doubt in my mind.

[Macmel]

Sounds like you are fairly new to the Mac scene? Or maybe you're just new the rumors scene? Anyway, a September release of Snow Leopard would not be unrealistic at all. Leopard (10.5) didn't come out until October 2007. And the Marble interface is much more than a "skin", as you alluded to... it's a very critical aspect of the user experience, so yes, extensive testing is needed.

Leopard release was delayed until October because Steve had everybody at Apple working like crazy on the iPhone. That's not the case this time and it seems that SL is not going to be as new as Leopard was, compared to Tiger. It is reasonable to expect an early summer release of SL. Take also into account that Windows 7 is also due around that time, so most likely release dates are going to be more influenced by marketing decisions than developing schedules.

[Mackan]

Also it's not a big deal that there is no marble interface in the new dev release. After all it's a skin that does not really need to be tested by a large number of people and all that is if it really does exist. Either way it doesn't really change anything.

People said the same thing before the Leopard release, when there also was a rumour about a new skin. It never showed up in the dev releases, and not in the final release. Maybe it's time we learn something.

And by the way, a new "unifying" skin isn't really exciting. What would be exciting is if Apple supported themes, and even provided some themselves. Although I guess that never will happen, Apple has never been about giving the customer options.

[allbrokeup]

If people could remember that Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.0 9A581 was released on the 26th of October 2007. So, if Apple manage a June/September-y release it would be much earlier than the original Leopard....................I SWEAR on the under the MacRumors Oath that I will not be buying Windows 7.

:D:D:D:D

allbrokeupp!

[mdriftmeyer]

There are still lots of performance enhancements need to be made. The release is stable but generally slower than Leopard itself. Lots of work to be done, I don't think this will be ready for June, not at all.

Debug enabled operating systems are always slower than released OS candidates.

[xUKHCx]

As seems usual these days Worldofapple (http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/04/02/apple-delivers-build-10a314-of-snow-leopard-seed-notes/#more-2970) has posted the seed notes.

Apple has seeded developers with the latest build of the next major Mac OS X upgrade, Snow Leopard.

In the latest build Apple is pushing developers to begin developing using the new 64-bit kernel included with the build. Although rumoured the “Marble” interface is not present in 10A314.

Seed notes can be seen below.


Known Issues

It may take 5-10 minutes to get to the Mac OS X Installer when using a DVD.
Setup Assistant sometimes crashes when migrating users. Please reboot and try again if you encounter this.
iCal, Mail or Safari may hang sometimes due to a backround process (configd) crashing. Please reboot if you encounter this.
If multiple users are editing the same documenut simultaneously over an AFP connection it may result in data loss. Only 3rd party applications that support this behavior, such as database applications, will hit this. Editing files with Finder, for example, is OK.
Finder may crash on 32-bit machines when viewing movie previews through QuickLook, Finder’s column view or the Get Info window.
Changing SSL setting for a Microsoft Exchange 2007 account refetches all of your messages.
Mac Mini’s with a Core Solo CPU will run very slowly.
‘Repair Permissions’ in Disk Utility reports spurious errors.
Portable Home Directory accounts cannot be created.
Switching between Finder windows with Cmd-` does not work in this seed.
The initial Welcome Page in Safari is blank.
The contextual menu for the Finder icon in the Dock is missing some options.
VoiceOver cannot be started in Setup Assistant using Cmd-F5. Workaround:

When you hear “Mac OS X has a built in Screen reader..” press escape.
Press the right arrow 13 times to get to the screen that reads “Congratulations, You have learned how to use..”.
Wait for this screen to finish reading and VoiceOver will launch.
You can then press the right arrow or escape key to return to Setup Assistant with VoiceOver running.


Developer Notes

64-bit
We strongly encourage you to start developing and testing 64-bit versions of your KEXTs. To help you along we’ve included the 64-bit transition guide with the seed.

Launch Xcode in Snow Leopard
Go to Help menu
Select Documentation Viewer
Search for “64-bit Transition Guide”


We’ve also enabled the 64-bit kernel, for development purposes only, in this seed on the following configurations:

165328

Using 10A314 and one of the K64-capable machines listed above, simply boot the Mac with the ‘6′ and ‘4′ keys held down to use the 64-bit kernel. Observe that uname -v reports RELEASE_X86_64. Machines listed as “Default” will run K64 automatically when loaded with 10A314.
You can also set arch=x86_64 in your boot-args NVRAM variable, using nvram(8). When you’re done, you can remove the boot-arg, or if you can no longer boot into an OS to unset it, hold command-option-P-R to zap NVRAM.
If you just want one partition to boot x86_64, edit the file /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and add arch=x86_64 to the kernel flags.
If some functionality is not working and you must revert to using the 32-bit kernel, you can either reboot with the ‘3′ and ‘2′ keys held down or set arch=i386 in your boot-args.

Xcode Changes Since the Last Seed

A new startup screen allows you to open recent projects directly from the startup window.
The list of project templates for New Project has been trimmed and all templates have been updated for Snow Leopard.
The Build Results window has been updated with new options for grouping information.
Code completion now adds opening or closing square brackets where needed.
The tab key can now be used to advance to the next CodeSense placeholder token; ‘Enter’ or ‘Return’ reduces the placeholder to editable text.
“Add Frameworks” now brings up a sheet of relevant frameworks in the current SDK.
Significant performance improvements when building, searching, or indexing due to adoption of Grand Central technology.


Known Xcode Issues

xcodebuild issues build commands as if building all files in the project, rather than just the ones that need to be built. It is not actually recompiling the files, simply retrieving the persisted build results.
Similarly, the build status line may show a larger number of files to be rebuilt than actually need to be.



From http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/04/02/apple-delivers-build-10a314-of-snow-leopard-seed-notes/#more-2970

[twoodcc]

we should at least get a demo in june, if not more. september seems a long time away

[hacksaw-C87]

And the Marble interface is much more than a "skin", as you alluded to... it's a very critical aspect of the user experience, so yes, extensive testing is needed.

How likely to people think the Marble GUI is to appear? The way people are talking about it almost makes it sound like a cert. Is there any links to the rumours about its appearance. I'd really love a new user inerface, not so fussed about being able to change my own themes but just a fresh looking option other than all the grey would be nice.

[diamond.g]

As seems usual these days Worldofapple (http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/04/02/apple-delivers-build-10a314-of-snow-leopard-seed-notes/#more-2970) has posted the seed notes.

It seems Apple is still having some problems with the 64-bit kernel transition. Hopefully it will be default for all x64 capable machines. Telling devs to do 64-bit ktexts now makes it sound like there may not be 64-bit drivers for everything right out the gate.

[spydr]

Will be demoed in June and shipped in october last week.

[scottishwildcat]

And by the way, a new "unifying" skin isn't really exciting. What would be exciting is if Apple supported themes, and even provided some themselves.

Oh, please no. As soon as you make a GUI themeable, you have to dissect it into themable parts that people can swap in and out with their own versions. That inevitably means losing the ability to tweak the visual design right down to the very last pixel for specific applications or combinations of controls like Apple does in OS X (in much the same way that the best fonts tend to have an extensive kerning table, and provide good ligatures).

Just look at Linux desktops like GNOME and KDE. They've been themable from the outset, so they've had years of practice. And much as I use those desktops and admire their achievements, even the 'best' themes for those look unbelievably clunky compared to OS X. There are always some things that don't theme quite right in some applications, or some new widget that's introduced into the toolkit that doesn't theme at all until every theme author updates their themes.

Themeing is something that works for some individual apps because of their limited scope. But it's just a horrid way to design a whole desktop. In any case, the look and feel of OS X is a big part of Apple's branding, as instantly recognisable as an iPod's clickwheel or the Apple logo itself. So I can't see them wanting to relinquish any control over how it looks.

[awpitchy]

Cant wait!

[nick9191]

2 random questions, but seems as good a place as any to ask

1) How much does the new OS usually cost. (£ Pounds)

2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?
1. Normally £85, but based on the current exchange rate it's looking more like £99.

2. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545

[RichardI]

Man! Things move fast in the Apple world. Too fast maybe. I'm just getting used to Leopard.:o
And I've only had a Mac for two years. If I buy Snow Leopard, it will be the third major OS I've had in two years! I'm not all that enthused about Snow Leopard to be honest. I'm still trying to learn "Mac" from "The Missing Manual Tiger Edition".:p

Rich :cool:

[Wayfarer]

...

[MrCrowbar]

How likely to people think the Marble GUI is to appear? The way people are talking about it almost makes it sound like a cert. Is there any links to the rumours about its appearance. I'd really love a new user inerface, not so fussed about being able to change my own themes but just a fresh looking option other than all the grey would be nice.

Apple OS look have traditionally been made to match the style of the hardware. For some time, the hardware (iMacs, display, Powermac) all had pinstripes, and the OS got it to. During the PPC to Intel transition, hardware was mostly white (iMac, Macbook) with no textures. Tiger and Leopard thus dropped the brushed metal look and small things were refined to make the OS looks "at home" on the current hardware.

Today Apple has the black glass plus aluminum theme going; it started with the iPhone and now you have it on the iMacs, Macbook, Cinema Displays, iPods. Actually, it's weird that the Mac Mini isn't all aluminum with a black Apple logo inside (like the front of the iMacs).

I expect "Marble" to have some black glass and anodized aluminum elements in it. The mockups of the new QuickTime already has the black glass look going. A faint anodized aluminum texture would look good actually, still gray (neutral color is important, the blue WinXP them drives me nuts every time I see it) but with a little grain to it. The blue scrollbar candy could be replaced by black glass. Still stands out (i.e. you don't need to search for the scroll bar slider) but has an updated look. I expect a graphite theme will stay thoug, with less contrast and saturation.

Did Apple do anything with Resolution Independence or does everything still look very off if you change the PPI ratio on command line? It was such a hyped feature for Leopard and I feel it was just abandoned. :-(

[MrCrowbar]

It seems Apple is still having some problems with the 64-bit kernel transition. Hopefully it will be default for all x64 capable machines. Telling devs to do 64-bit ktexts now makes it sound like there may not be 64-bit drivers for everything right out the gate.

I believe 32bit KEXTS will still work, but not as efficiently. So developers can take their time upgrading and old apps can still be used.

[skillwill]

Doesn't matter at all when it comes out. If it takes them until September to get it as good as they can, that's fine with me. As long as Leopard keeps on improving which it does, and looks set to continue doing with 10.5.7 out soon. Looking forward to Snow Leopard but Apple if it's not ready in June or summer please just keep us waiting.

[whitefang]

Where is resolution independence/DPI adjustment???? How can a modern OS not have a DPI adjustment setting?

Windows has had it since Windows 95.

[SBeardsl]

2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?You should ALWAYS backup your data before doing an major OS upgrade, even if you take advantage of one of Apple's 'upgrade in place' options.

(because nothing ever goes wrong with an upgrade if you have a full backup available but if you don't ...)

[walnuts]

So, when Steve first announced Snow Leopard back in June 08 (they may have had the first developer seed then too, I can't remember), how much of the stuff that he talked about (Grand Central, OpenCL, etc.) was actually done? I have very limited knowledge on this, but it seems like they have been doing a huge amount of work on this since Steve's announcement, which is a good thing, but when he announced it, these announcements were really just ideas that had months of work before they were even a beta project.

I guess it kinda devalues the announcement. I mean- he could have said anything- he could have announced any feature in the world and then told his employees to get to work. There's a big difference between "Snow leopard will have this" and "we were thinking of doing this in Snow leopard" and while we took his statements to mean the former, it seems like after all the seed progress that the truth was actually more the latter.

Like I said- I really don't know the technical details about it- does this make sense to the people who understand the technical implications and have worked with the seeds?

[eastercat]

I'm going to wait this one out and let you all be the guinea pigs . . . uh, I mean trailblazers. :rolleyes: It's probably a holdover from when I used windows, but I never buy a new release of an OS.

[MrCrowbar]

Where is resolution independence/DPI adjustment???? How can a modern OS not have a DPI adjustment setting?

Windows has had it since Windows 95.

And it never worked. :-)
Tried making everything smaller for a while so I could fit more in my screen, it was a total glitchfest. Haven't tried with Vista yet though.

[knightlie]

People said the same thing before the Leopard release, when there also was a rumour about a new skin. It never showed up in the dev releases, and not in the final release. Maybe it's time we learn something.

And by the way, a new "unifying" skin isn't really exciting. What would be exciting is if Apple supported themes, and even provided some themselves. Although I guess that never will happen, Apple has never been about giving the customer options.

Themes are awful, and simply add another bloated layer of mess to the OS just as XP and Vista does, both of which still retain the original Windows GUI elements underneath and pile another drawing layer on top. Themes are a bad idea and Apple are wise to avoid them.

Not to mention that a resolution-independent UI as SL is rumoured to have is way more than a "skin."


Where is resolution independence/DPI adjustment???? How can a modern OS not have a DPI adjustment setting?

Windows has had it since Windows 95.

Sure. Let us know when it starts working properly.

[hacksaw-C87]

Themes are awful, and simply add another bloated layer of mess to the OS just as XP and Vista does, both of which still retain the original Windows GUI elements underneath and pile another drawing layer on top. Themes are a bad idea and Apple are wise to avoid them.

I couldn't agree more. I also feel that I never saw a custom made 'theme' online or w/e that didn't luck decidedly tacky. Really glad that Apple have avoided it and we're not inundated by awful 'BRAND NEW THEMES' for the Apple OS. :)

[DELLsFan]

Can't wait either ... :apple:

[BlackLight]

can't wait either...:apple: i just hope there is a upgrade option so i won't loose all my apps. and documents..OH and that i hope that my current apps. won't have compatibility issues......:apple::apple::apple:

[Pika]

I hope Snow Leopard will make Windows 7 his biatch.

[AidenShaw]

And it never worked. :-)
Tried making everything smaller for a while so I could fit more in my screen, it was a total glitchfest. Haven't tried with Vista yet though.

It's pretty good with Vista, better with Windows 7.

Not complete (some apps are brain-damaged and insist on a certain number of pixels), but for the usual case of wanting to shrink things a bit (to fit more) or enlarge them (for vision problems) it's mostly there.

[Hattig]

Where is resolution independence/DPI adjustment???? How can a modern OS not have a DPI adjustment setting?

Windows has had it since Windows 95.

Windows doesn't use it, despite having a setting. Higher resolution == tiny UI elements. Some software like Firefox, etc, might use it for sizes in pt (like they do on my 168dpi netbook making things quite inconsistent) of course, but that's different.

[pohl]

So, when Steve first announced Snow Leopard back in June 08 (they may have had the first developer seed then too, I can't remember), how much of the stuff that he talked about (Grand Central, OpenCL, etc.) was actually done?

Well, from the seed notes, regarding XCode...

Significant performance improvements when building, searching, or indexing due to adoption of Grand Central technology.

This suggests that Grand Central is sufficiently mature for developers who are using the latest seed to benefit. If it's far enough along for XCode to use, that's a good sign.

[SpinThis!]

It seems Apple is still having some problems with the 64-bit kernel transition. Hopefully it will be default for all x64 capable machines. Telling devs to do 64-bit ktexts now makes it sound like there may not be 64-bit drivers for everything right out the gate.
That's pretty much true of any new OS. If your 3rd party hardware (or some software) is older, you may never get 64 bit support at all until you get new software/hardware. Especially developers who don't subscribe to Apple's seeds, it'll be awhile before 64-bit is complete across the whole OS.

Same thing happened/still is happening with Vista. If you want to do 64-bit on Vista, you better scope out hard/soft before you decide to do 64-bit because it's all or nothing (Linux is the same way). At least with Apple's implementation (iirc), 32-bit apps/kexts will run alongside the rest of the 64-bit OS just fine.

[MShock]

I really want to know an update on ZFS. Is it present? Is it integrated with Finder, FileVault, TimeMachine? Did it integrate well with the 64-bit kernel?

SL offers a lot of room to integrate ZFS into the system, especially with all the work to redo drivers for the kernel.

[0racle]

we should at least get a demo in june, if not more. september seems a long time away
Has Apple ever released a public beta of OS X? Most likely the only way you're going to get a demo of Snow Leopard is the same way you'd get the Developer previews, or possibly by going to the WWDC.

September isn't that far away.

[jholzner]

So, when Steve first announced Snow Leopard back in June 08 (they may have had the first developer seed then too, I can't remember), how much of the stuff that he talked about (Grand Central, OpenCL, etc.) was actually done? I have very limited knowledge on this, but it seems like they have been doing a huge amount of work on this since Steve's announcement, which is a good thing, but when he announced it, these announcements were really just ideas that had months of work before they were even a beta project.

I guess it kinda devalues the announcement. I mean- he could have said anything- he could have announced any feature in the world and then told his employees to get to work. There's a big difference between "Snow leopard will have this" and "we were thinking of doing this in Snow leopard" and while we took his statements to mean the former, it seems like after all the seed progress that the truth was actually more the latter.

Like I said- I really don't know the technical details about it- does this make sense to the people who understand the technical implications and have worked with the seeds?

He actually said very little about it at all. And so far, it has what they said it would.

[jholzner]

Has Apple ever released a public beta of OS X? Most likely the only way you're going to get a demo of Snow Leopard is the same way you'd get the Developer previews, or possibly by going to the WWDC.

September isn't that far away.

They offered a public beta of the very first release (10.0) way back when, but it wasn't free. I think they charged 30 bucks or something. I remember buying it. Wasn't much to it back then but It sure was cool...and slow. I think they then knocked 30 bucks off the purchase price of the final release for those who bought the beta.

[Riemann Zeta]

I think the fact that the real OS kernel is still considered experimental and has to be specifically activated by a multi-finger salute on each bootup is a clear sign that 10.6 is still very early in development. Something must be really problematic for pure 64bit mode; I wonder what the snag is?

[Stridder44]

I hope Snow Leopard will make Windows 7 his biatch.

Clearly you have not yet used Windows 7.


I really want to know an update on ZFS. Is it present? Is it integrated with Finder, FileVault, TimeMachine? Did it integrate well with the 64-bit kernel?

SL offers a lot of room to integrate ZFS into the system, especially with all the work to redo drivers for the kernel.


x2. Anything new with ZFS or is it supposedly still only offered on the Server edition?

[ELMI0001]

Let's pretend Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are released at the same time and the big secret behind Snow Leopard is that it now runs on PC's giving PC users a chance to upgrade to OS X instead of Windows 7.

On a realistic note; whenever it comes out I will buy it. I can't wait.

[rented mule]

Has Apple ever released a public beta of OS X?

Yep. It charged 30 dollars for it too.

[hugodrax]

I am gonna wait Snow Leopard out. It looks like a huge amount of changes under the hood. Probably better to stick with regular Leopard and wait till Snow Leopard reaches 10.6.5

[iBug2]

Safari is running 64 bit in latest seed, (can't remember if it did run 64 bit in previous seed) and is using multi threading to render pages, for example large pictures render part by part now, 8 parts, each rendering independendly etc in an 8 core machine. Like cinebench multi CPU render. I'm not sure if it's about grand central or just some under the hood enhancements to Safari.

iTunes is still 32 bit though.

[kastenbrust]

I hate the way people keep moaning on about how similar its going to be to Leopard and not really worth the upgrade, if you actually test the developer releases you'll see basically no 32bit software runs on it at all, so there are some pretty major changes, although funnily PPC software runs quite well. The main thing for me is that Little Snitch doesn't work so I cant continue testing the SL developer seeds at the moment.

[nuckinfutz]

Good to see that the 64-bit kexts are being tested. Bodes well for a Aug/Sep release. I imagine that getting the kernel nailed is the first step to layering on Grand Central and everything else up the chain.

Really a new UI can be delivered at WWDC or later and that would give devs a month or two to update their apps appearance and hammer out compatibility.

[gnasher729]

2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?

When installing a new OS, you should do the same thing that you do anyway: Use Time Machine to have a backup on an external drive. One day your internal drive will fail. The question is not _if_ it will fail, the question is _when_. That day, you will be lost without a backup.

Installing MacOS X will not intentionally delete anything in your home directory. There is always the possibility of some bug, which is why you should have a backup.

[gnasher729]

I really want to know an update on ZFS. Is it present? Is it integrated with Finder, FileVault, TimeMachine? Did it integrate well with the 64-bit kernel?

SL offers a lot of room to integrate ZFS into the system, especially with all the work to redo drivers for the kernel.

There was a heated discussion a while ago on slashdot about the extfs4 file system and what problems user have with it, and in the middle of that there were two posts about ZFS. One post saying how great and wonderful ZFS is, followed by another post saying that it is only great and wonderful until you actually start using it, and then it doesn't actually work.

[Bye Bye Baby]

When? When? When?

[BTW]

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow! :D

[Fastshutter]

Let's pretend Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are released at the same time and the big secret behind Snow Leopard is that it now runs on PC's giving PC users a chance to upgrade to OS X instead of Windows 7.

On a realistic note; whenever it comes out I will buy it. I can't wait.

We can dream, can't we? If that happened I would purchase Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition for my windows apps and buy OSX, & Final Cut Pro for my Apple fix. I'd move my iTunes & iPhone off of my PC and run it off of OSX where it belongs. I'd install both operating systems on my brand new Dell.

It would be a great day for me.

*wakes up*

Never going to happen. :mad:

[dernhelm]

I'm not interested in Marble unless it will _really_ be resolution independent. Another UI motif where half the apps aren't migrated over to it, is simply pointless. If it were truly resolution independent, that might be another thing entirely.

As far as ZFS goes, I would love to see it enabled on all Macs (not just servers) but it doesn't sound like something Apple is interested in doing. I'm not sure why, unless they feel there is some issues with it. I used it in "beta form" on solaris 4 or 5 years ago, and even then (although being a PITA to set up) there weren't a lot of issues with it once you got it going. And it was so easy to add/remove disks from a storage pool.

I haven't really played with it since then, but I would think that 4 years of open source development would have ironed out the worst of the bugs. I guess it still isn't bootable except on Solaris, but I'm not sure that that is such a big deal anyway. People looking to build a home server could really benefit from ZFS...

[theheadguy]

I don't mean to rain on this parade, but an honest question. Ok, and a small rant. Ranting is allowed, isn't it? :: puts on a protective vest ::

Why does everyone seem so welcoming of the amount of time it has taken to make this much progress (ie 'not as buggy') on the same OS, few large changes, and written entirely in Cocoa? Now please, before I am burned at the stake as a heretic, just consider some things. You have one of the most successful software and hardware companies in the world with cash oozing out of all crevices; Grand Central, an idea I'm sure they thought of years ago but officially announced last year; and oh, a marble look. Of course there is more too it, but am I the only person who thinks this is painfully slow development? :confused:

I'm know the the arrows have already been lit; lift up your bows and fire away.

[iBug2]

About ZFS, the latest snow leopard server build does not support ZFS systems anymore, so ZFS is out of the picture for now. Maybe temporarily.

File Systems
The creation and use of ZFS storage pools and file systems are no longer supported.

IMPORTANT: Before installing Mac OS X Server, you should back up all of your data, as ZFS volumes will be inaccessible following installation.

[gmcalpin]

Why does everyone seem so welcoming of the amount of time it has taken to make this much progress (ie 'not as buggy') on the same OS, few large changes, and written entirely in Cocoa? Of course there is more too it, but am I the only person who thinks this is painfully slow development? :confused:
"Painfully" is subjective. Hell, even "slow" is.

If they take their time with it, it will work better straight out of the gate. That's why we're "welcoming" with the development time. Some of us don't want it NOW, we want it RIGHT.

And as you said, there is more to it. A LOT more to it.

[ChrisA]

I hope we do get a demo in June, I am looking forward to seeing this in action.

For end users it will be a very dull demo. Almost all of the new features are said to be internal. What will show are trivial things like what color is used in the frame around a window or one more option added to a pull down menu some place.

How many end users really would want to sit through a demo of the important new features like Grand Central and Open CL. That's the kind of demo where they put Objective C header files up on the screen and talk about how to use the new functions in your code. Great stuff really, and the whole reason to go to a developer's conference but not much use for end users.

This is one OS upgrade that will not be worth buying on release date. The whole purpose of SN is to give developers the tools they need. It will be some time until the developers do make use of the new stuff in SN. I'll wait to buy SN until one of the applications I use needs it.

I'm still wondering how they are going to market this to end users if all they have for them are cosmetic changes to the user interface. Maybe they will charge less than the normal $129.

On the other hand Apple may have ready on SN's release date a new version of their iLife suit or some other software that is ready to go. They could release SN as part of a bigger product release. They are going to have to have some kind of end user visable apps that actually use the new features or they will have a heck of a marketing problem

[jholzner]

iTunes is still 32 bit though.

I believe iTunes is still a Carbon app so they will have to port it over to Cocoa if its going 64 bit. They seem to be porting just about everything in SL over to Cocoa so I'm guessing iTunes will make the jump soon.

[Saladinos]

I'm getting a little worried about my SR BlackBook's ability to run 64-bit OSX. It's capable (hardware wise), but from the list, it doesn't look like Apple are going to bother writing the new drivers for it.

If that's the case, it is unacceptable. It is certainly possible for Apple to do, given that they made all the hardware. You'd expect a Windows PC bought at the same time to run Windows 7 and probably version 8 as well. I expect my MacBook to run Snow Leopard and probably the next 3 or 4 updates to OSX. Yes, it will not run it all as fast and some hardware-dependent features may be disabled, but if it has the hardware (as it does for 64-bit), I expect it to be used.

This is worrying because Apple don't typically leave machines until later. If they don't start work on it early on, they're more likely to just cut support.

[iBug2]

I the only person who thinks this is painfully slow development? :confused:

I'm know the the arrows have already been lit; lift up your bows and fire away.

On the contrary, under the hood changes are most of the time more time consuming than adding features. Rewrite of the entire code in cocoa is also quite a big job. This is not a minor upgrade. If anything, it's an even major upgrade than Leopard over Tiger.

[iBug2]

I believe iTunes is still a Carbon app so they will have to port it over to Cocoa if it's going 64 bit. They seem to be porting just about everything in SL over to Cocoa so I'm guessing iTunes will make the jump soon.

Yes it will, among all the apps I tried, iTunes was the only 32 bit one. So it seems like they are getting there.

[nuckinfutz]

I don't mean to rain on this parade, but an honest question. Ok, and a small rant. Ranting is allowed, isn't it? :: puts on a protective vest ::

Why does everyone seem so welcoming of the amount of time it has taken to make this much progress (ie 'not as buggy') on the same OS, few large changes, and written entirely in Cocoa? Now please, before I am burned at the stake as a heretic, just consider some things. You have one of the most successful software and hardware companies in the world with cash oozing out of all crevices; Grand Central, an idea I'm sure they thought of years ago but officially announced last year; and oh, a marble look. Of course there is more too it, but am I the only person who thinks this is painfully slow development? :confused:

I'm know the the arrows have already been lit; lift up your bows and fire away.

The development is slow most likely because the same team that develops OS X for Macs is also working on the OS X for iPhone. It's reasonable to assume that they've split the team with some working on Snow Leopard and some working on the iPhone SDK 3.0. Once the iPhone work is done they can all work towards polishing Snow Leopard and preparing it for release. The fact that they're testing the 64-bit kernel right now is good.

An Aug/Sept delivery is perfect for Apple and consumers because mainstream Nehalem systems will be shipping and we could see late year refresh for iMacs delivering quad core systems which will benefit from Snow Leopard.

[mAc-warrior]

Never going to happen. :mad:

Damn good thing too. If it did Apple would go out of business because people wouldn't buy Macs, and eventually you'd be stuck running just Windows again. Defeats the entire purpose doesn't it?

--mAc

[dagamer34]

For end users it will be a very dull demo. Almost all of the new features are said to be internal. What will show are trivial things like what color is used in the frame around a window or one more option added to a pull down menu some place.

How many end users really would want to sit through a demo of the important new features like Grand Central and Open CL. That's the kind of demo where they put Objective C header files up on the screen and talk about how to use the new functions in your code. Great stuff really, and the whole reason to go to a developer's conference but not much use for end users.

This is one OS upgrade that will not be worth buying on release date. The whole purpose of SN is to give developers the tools they need. It will be some time until the developers do make use of the new stuff in SN. I'll wait to buy SN until one of the applications I use needs it.

I'm still wondering how they are going to market this to end users if all they have for them are cosmetic changes to the user interface. Maybe they will charge less than the normal $129.

On the other hand Apple may have ready on SN's release date a new version of their iLife suit or some other software that is ready to go. They could release SN as part of a bigger product release. They are going to have to have some kind of end user visable apps that actually use the new features or they will have a heck of a marketing problem

The one thing Apple will probably demo is Exchange 2007 support, and for Mac users that have Entourage 2008 right now (business users and universities), they'll buy Snow Leopard on that point alone!

[dernhelm]

About ZFS, the latest snow leopard server build does not support ZFS systems anymore, so ZFS is out of the picture for now. Maybe temporarily.

File Systems
The creation and use of ZFS storage pools and file systems are no longer supported.

IMPORTANT: Before installing Mac OS X Server, you should back up all of your data, as ZFS volumes will be inaccessible following installation.

Yuck.
This doesn't sound good at all.

[loveturtle]

As far as ZFS goes, I would love to see it enabled on all Macs (not just servers) but it doesn't sound like something Apple is interested in doing.
What makes you think that? ZFS will be available to everyone. Just like it is right now. Most people aren't smart enough to use it though, That's fine with me. I still get ipfw too.

I really want to know an update on ZFS. Is it present? Is it integrated with Finder, FileVault, TimeMachine? Did it integrate well with the 64-bit kernel?

Yes. As of the last release (10a286?? I forget the build..) there's zpool version 11 which integrates with finder MUCH nicer than what we have on 10.5
I only tried it for about 15 minutes but a couple of the things I noticed were.

a) the root pool isn't mounted at all. kind of strange, Solaris and FreeBSD don't act this way. Apple specific but it works. If you do a zfs list the root pool doesn't even show up. Only datasets created on the pool show up. I can see why Apple would want to do this.

b) Finder doesn't get confused about dataset names and doesn't think every single one of them is a separate volume (wowthx).

Of course zpool version 11 supports case sensitive property so you can have a dataset that is case insensitive and one that is case sensitive and they can share the total space of the pool. FINALLY. **** I wish I had that on 10.5 right now..

One post saying how great and wonderful ZFS is, followed by another post saying that it is only great and wonderful until you actually start using it, and then it doesn't actually work.

I know that like 80% of my posts are me complaining about people who don't know what they're talking about always spewing misinformation but seriously...come on.

You have no personal experience what so ever but you heard something from some random person on a slashdot forum once so it must be true? Forget the Solaris sysadmins who have been using it for years! What the hell do they know? Some biased, idiot, ubuntu user on slashdot claims it doesn't work! It must be true!

We use ZFS on almost all of our machines at work and have for a few years now. We have this cute little 1u running sxce. It used to have four 250gb disks (two two-disk zfs mirrors). Very simple configuration.

So we decided to swap the little 250gb for some 500gb. While the machine was running I replaced all four drives (one by one, slowly letting them rebuild). When it was over I had replaced all disks in a running system without ever shutting it down and grew the FS at the same time without any interruption of services. This includes the root mirror that the os was installed on.

On my 10.5 Mac Pro I have a mirrored zpool of two little 320gb disks. I finally decided that I need more space but I have no money (Thanks IRS!) and I'm not at all concerned about data integrity (I have a fileserver) so I quickly converted my mirror to a stripe
http://loveturtle.net/~turtle/from_mirror_to_stripe.png

Same thing on my FreeBSD fileserver a few months back when I got a couple more 500gb disks I wanted to add.
http://loveturtle.net/~turtle/growing_zpool.png

ZFS seems to work fine for me...But what do I know? I need to start hanging out on slashdot forums and switch to Ubuntu.

[ChrisA]

2 random questions, but seems as good a place as any to ask

1) How much does the new OS usually cost. (£ Pounds)

2) When installing it, will I have to back up my stuff on an external, or will installing it not delete anything?

1) In the past Apple has charged $129 but with SN there will be few "user facing" new features so we all are wondering if Apple can ask the same $129 price this time.

2) You mean you have not already done that? I'd think if you have data you'd already have multiple backups with at least one copy stored off site. If not you WILL loose it eventually.

[nuckinfutz]

The one thing Apple will probably demo is Exchange 2007 support, and for Mac users that have Entourage 2008 right now (business users and universities), they'll buy Snow Leopard on that point alone!

I think Apple could demo a lot of stuff to get people excited. Performance is always exciting. Assuming that Final Cut Studio has been announced by WWDC I'd love to see a Snow Leopard build of FCS3 running and leveraging Grand Central and OpenGL/OpenCL and using 8GB of RAM.

I'd love to see Cocoa Touch apps for the desktop and Location Aware services for Macbook/Pro

I'd love to see a Quicktime X that plays back video content effortlessly.

I'd love to see Marble and a more unified GUI and Core Animation used in the system more.

People don't respond to feature lists (unless they're geeks) they respond to seeing cool stuff demoed and being educated on why such technologies are cool.

[Boneoh]

...
On the other hand Apple may have ready on SN's release date a new version of their iLife suit or some other software that is ready to go. They could release SN as part of a bigger product release. They are going to have to have some kind of end user visable apps that actually use the new features or they will have a heck of a marketing problem

Most likely the pro apps e.g. Final Cut, Logic...

These are the types of apps that most likely will benefit from Grand Central, possibly OpenCL.

[nuckinfutz]

ZFS seems to work fine for me...But what do I know? I need to start hanging out on slashdot forums and switch to Ubuntu.

Great post lt. ZFS is fine. Apple pulls stuff from builds and then put'ems back (or not...iSCSI...sigh) at their discretion.

[Jayomat]

sorry for the newbie question, but what is ZFS? thx;)

[AidenShaw]

sorry for the newbie question, but what is ZFS? thx;)

For most questions about background, simply go to

http://wikipedia.org

and type "zfs" (or whatever) into the search box. Most tech terms are covered.

[nuckinfutz]

sorry for the newbie question, but what is ZFS? thx;)

128-bit filesystem
Supports checksum
Data compression
Snapshots
RAID
Pooled Storage

and more. It can hold more storage than you'd ever hope to afford.

[flopticalcube]

Still no word of fast OS switching. I guess it truly is gone. :(

[iBug2]

For end users it will be a very dull demo. Almost all of the new features are said to be internal. What will show are trivial things like what color is used in the frame around a window or one more option added to a pull down menu some place.

How many end users really would want to sit through a demo of the important new features like Grand Central and Open CL. That's the kind of demo where they put Objective C header files up on the screen and talk about how to use the new functions in your code. Great stuff really, and the whole reason to go to a developer's conference but not much use for end users.

This is one OS upgrade that will not be worth buying on release date. The whole purpose of SN is to give developers the tools they need. It will be some time until the developers do make use of the new stuff in SN. I'll wait to buy SN until one of the applications I use needs it.

I'm still wondering how they are going to market this to end users if all they have for them are cosmetic changes to the user interface. Maybe they will charge less than the normal $129.

On the other hand Apple may have ready on SN's release date a new version of their iLife suit or some other software that is ready to go. They could release SN as part of a bigger product release. They are going to have to have some kind of end user visable apps that actually use the new features or they will have a heck of a marketing problem

It's worldwide developers conference, so demo being dull for end users doesn't mean much, as long as it's not dull for developers.

[STSNorthstar]

I want a file system that can natively be written to and read from by Windows and Mac without a 4GB file size cap.

Basically FAT32 without the cap. Don't tell me to format HFS and instal MacDrive on Windows or Paragon on a Mac. I do these things with my machines, but I work on several computers that arent mine and its really annoying to install the software each time.

I dont know if ZFS is windows compatible, but is it is, I'll be at the Apple Store in a camping chair.

[Boneoh]

Debug enabled operating systems are always slower than released OS candidates.

Hmm. Just curious if there is any guestimate as to performance of debug vs. release build performance. :confused:

[machead1980]

Any update on Q2DE??

This must be the most overdue OS feature ever in OS X...

[corinhorn]

Personally, I don't care if Snow Leopard has a new GUI or not. Leopard's GUI is fine for me.

I love how so many people think Vista is great because of how pretty its AERO interface is. Pretty ≠ Functional. I would much rather have Apple focus on getting the insidey-parts working well, then worry about the paint job. But apparently, there are people whose lives will be over if Apple keeps the same GUI.

[Jacksteruk309]

Personally, I don't care if Snow Leopard has a new GUI or not. Leopard's GUI is fine for me.

I love how so many people think Vista is great because of how pretty its AERO interface is. Pretty ≠ Functional. I would much rather have Apple focus on getting the insidey-parts working well, then worry about the paint job. But apparently, there are people whose lives will be over if Apple keeps the same GUI.

I agree they should concentrate on the internals. However, I think it's time for them to just change the scroll bars and buttons system wide to the iTunes and iLife grey style instead of the aqua style.

[polaris20]

I agree they should concentrate on the internals. However, I think it's time for them to just change the scroll bars and buttons system wide to the iTunes and iLife grey style instead of the aqua style.

I agree. GUI isn't a huge concern for me, but continuity throughout the UI is nice, and a little less distracting when it's done well.

[bigpics]

Not much talk about the "disloyal opposition" in this thread, with the first head to head release of major new OS rewrites from both Apple and MS since, well, when?

Vista came out 6 mo's before Leopard, and its problems tarnished MS's already tattered OS rep helping Leopard become, by contrast a big hit.

Before that, OS X 10.0 (really a gamma at best release) came out about eight months before XP. MS was rushing to cover up Win Me, and Apple was struggling to show it could stay relevant.

XP was "good enough" to hold mind share, and Cheetah wasn't that complete or fast (alas, they used up the fastest cat on the slowest release) and asked the base to go thru a wrenching transition to redefine "Mac computing." But last I heard, they made it thru, LoL, and otherwise, Apple had the stage to itself for almost 6 years, gaining tons of cachet.

Things are very different for both companies today - and this time the big releases are head to head like Ali and Frazier. And one thing Apple could not have predicted when they predicted the release a year ago is that MS would actually make significant progress with Win 7, which has excellent buzz in a number of influential computing communities (if not this one!).

MS is also going at Apple more aggressively of late for many reasons, including Apple's resurrection but also because they feel they've got their best follow-on product maybe ever, and their ads indicate they feel Apple's vulnerable to a pricing argument in a deep recesssion.

So it's become more important to Apple that there are NO glitches of note in Snow Leopard, as well as all the fit/finish/new technologies stuff providing a better experience, with major momentum on the line. And more than to MS, because everyone already knows there are glitches in MS OS's - they only need a B+ to keep nearly all their current share, while Apple needs an A in this showdown to get more people to choose $1400 MacBooks over $500 HP's. All the big apps need to be working smoothly too, even if in the form of required upgrades.

And from a marketing perspective, SL also will very likely include a few "and one more things" along with its replumbed, rewritten and upgraded internals. A few oohs and ahhs then, even if they turn out ultimately to be less than a paradigm shift (like Expose, Spaces and other things that wowed me, but which few general buyers use).

So whatever the release date, first, a lot of "strategery" is going on in both Redmond and Cupertino - about who goes first and when, about the rollout events, about the marketing and advertising strategies, etc., and second, a lot of lights are burning late and many, many caffeinated beverages are being consumed at both, though I'm betting as usual, they're sweating the details better to the south.

[Boneoh]

With regards to MS vs. :apple: post by bigpics, IMO few people are really OS switchers, meaning back and forth again from win to mac to win or vice versa. Mostly tech geeks, like us folks here at macrumors. It's a small slice of the pie.

More importantly for MS are two factors. First, the OS is bundled into a huge fraction of the new PC sales. Second, the lackluster adoption of Vista will find many jumping from XP to Win 7. A lot of those XP PCs will wind up skipping Vista in favor of Win 7, especially in the corporate world.

Given that OS X is only applicable for new Mac purchases or existing Mac upgrades, the market share will remain small and relatively status quo.

[TheAshMan]

Oh, please no. As soon as you make a GUI themeable, you have to dissect it into themable parts that people can swap in and out with their own versions. That inevitably means losing the ability to tweak the visual design right down to the very last pixel for specific applications or combinations of controls like Apple does in OS X (in much the same way that the best fonts tend to have an extensive kerning table, and provide good ligatures).

Just look at Linux desktops like GNOME and KDE. They've been themable from the outset, so they've had years of practice. And much as I use those desktops and admire their achievements, even the 'best' themes for those look unbelievably clunky compared to OS X. There are always some things that don't theme quite right in some applications, or some new widget that's introduced into the toolkit that doesn't theme at all until every theme author updates their themes.

Themeing is something that works for some individual apps because of their limited scope. But it's just a horrid way to design a whole desktop. In any case, the look and feel of OS X is a big part of Apple's branding, as instantly recognisable as an iPod's clickwheel or the Apple logo itself. So I can't see them wanting to relinquish any control over how it looks.

The Linux themes can look clunky, but some do work very well. Since Apple has full control, they could just have a limited few. They already have 2 options in System Preferences > Appearance, why not just add a couple of more items and/or colors there? I would much prefer toned down brushed metal (as in Tiger) than the dreary, drab gray in Leopard. --Yes, I know it is supposed to bring focus to the content within your apps, but I don't like it and wish we could have a little choice.

[TheAshMan]

Not much talk about the "disloyal opposition" in this thread, with the first head to head release of major new OS rewrites from both Apple and MS since, well, when?
...
So whatever the release date, first, a lot of "strategery" is going on in both Redmond and Cupertino - about who goes first and when, about the rollout events, about the marketing and advertising strategies, etc., and second, a lot of lights are burning late and many, many caffeinated beverages are being consumed at both, though I'm betting as usual, they're sweating the details better to the south.

Great post, you capture the history very well. I would argue that despite the perceptions of Vista out there, OS X is the one that has to make big strides. Windows 7 is getting very positive buzz for a reason, the beta works faster on my work machines with the same hardware that ran Vista. It is already very stable and fast and has a number of nice improvements over Vista. I would say that OS X passed Windows XP overall somewhere around Panther (2004?) and the iLife suite made it even better, but at this point, Windows 7 with the Live cloud features bests OS X Leopard easily. iLife is still a great set of apps, but I would give the overall edge to MSFT. I could be wrong, but my guess is MSFT releases Windows 7 to gold disk on July 7 (the date is 7/7, so that would be nice for marketing) which would mean seeing it on new PCs in Sep-Oct time frame. I can't see them missing the Christmas season again for OEMs like they did with Vista, that cannot happen. Not sure what that means for Apple, would they want to wait until after 7 comes out, or do it before? No matter what Apple does, Windows 7 will have positive spin and reviews, so they may be better off if SL comes out first. Hopefully they will give us a lot to like. I think Leopard clearly suffered with a resource strain at Apple having to compete with the iPhone platform. Hopefully maybe some of that could swing back the other way and strengthen Snow Leopard. We will see.

[AidenShaw]

Hopefully maybe some of that could swing back the other way and strengthen Snow Leopard. We will see.

10.6, though, is the first 64-bit kernel release from Apple. It's already obviously late (why no 10.6 demos at MWSF'09???).

Clearly Apple messed up with the failed attempt at using a 32-bit kernel with 64-bit odds and ends - after so publicly making fun of Windows 64-bit, their face is covered with egg as they struggle to get a true 64-bit system to market.

Apple will be lucky to get 10.6 out by the (northern hemisphere) winter shopping season.

[techfreak85]

10.6, though, is the first 64-bit kernel release from Apple. It's already obviously late (why no 10.6 demos at MWSF'09???).

Clearly Apple messed up with the failed attempt at using a 32-bit kernel with 64-bit odds and ends - after so publicly making fun of Windows 64-bit, their face is covered with egg as they struggle to get a true 64-bit system to market.

Apple will be lucky to get 10.6 out by the (northern hemisphere) winter shopping season.

naw. they will get it out by the end of october at the latest.

[nuckinfutz]

I would say that OS X passed Windows XP overall somewhere around Panther (2004?) and the iLife suite made it even better, but at this point, Windows 7 with the Live cloud features bests OS X Leopard easily. iLife is still a great set of apps, but I would give the overall edge to MSFT. I could be wrong, but my guess is MSFT releases Windows 7 to gold disk on July 7 (the date is 7/7, so that would be nice for marketing) which would mean seeing it on new PCs in Sep-Oct time frame. I can't see them missing the Christmas season again for OEMs like they did with Vista, that cannot happen. Not sure what that means for Apple, would they want to wait until after 7 comes out, or do it before? No matter what Apple does, Windows 7 will have positive spin and reviews, so they may be better off if SL comes out first. Hopefully they will give us a lot to like. I think Leopard clearly suffered with a resource strain at Apple having to compete with the iPhone platform. Hopefully maybe some of that could swing back the other way and strengthen Snow Leopard. We will see.

As a Mac users I don't really see anything in Win 7 that I believe will sway people who are familiar and Mac and like Apple's approach to computing and inversely I couldn't say there's anything in Snow Leopard that would make a Windows fan jump to a Mac.

I remain unconvinced that cloud services will benefit Microsoft or Apple. Neither is as adept and handling web technology as Google. Apple's attack is going to come with the iPhone and whatever mobile platform they cook up. The iPhone /iPod touch is spurring development of OS X features that trickle down to the desktop/laptop Mac OS X version. So in that regard it's not really about Win 7 vs Snow Leopard it's about iPhone/ iPod touch and it's ancillary items as a lure to get people looking at Macs if they need general purpose computing.

People tend to think the it was Vista's misstep that caused people to switch over to Mac but in fact the migration was already happening due to the buzz and mindshare propagated by the iPod.
10.6, though, is the first 64-bit kernel release from Apple. It's already obviously late (why no 10.6 demos at MWSF'09???).

Clearly Apple messed up with the failed attempt at using a 32-bit kernel with 64-bit odds and ends - after so publicly making fun of Windows 64-bit, their face is covered with egg as they struggle to get a true 64-bit system to market.

Apple will be lucky to get 10.6 out by the (northern hemisphere) winter shopping season.

It won't be that hard. They've jettisoned PowerPC support. Once the dev teams finishes with the iphone SDK they have but one major target to hit and that's Intel. It should be cake for them. The hardest part was finally admitting that Carbon needed to die and that all development efforts should go to Cocoa.

[MShock]

Yes. As of the last release (10a286?? I forget the build..) there's zpool version 11 which integrates with finder MUCH nicer than what we have on 10.5
I only tried it for about 15 minutes but a couple of the things I noticed were.

a) the root pool isn't mounted at all. kind of strange, Solaris and FreeBSD don't act this way. Apple specific but it works. If you do a zfs list the root pool doesn't even show up. Only datasets created on the pool show up. I can see why Apple would want to do this.

b) Finder doesn't get confused about dataset names and doesn't think every single one of them is a separate volume (wowthx).

Of course zpool version 11 supports case sensitive property so you can have a dataset that is case insensitive and one that is case sensitive and they can share the total space of the pool. FINALLY. **** I wish I had that on 10.5 right now.

Thanks for the update! Those features sound pretty sweet! I'm a laptop user, I think opensolaris is just the **** for backing up data on an external and I also think its the **** for efficiency and data integrity.

Sounds like the kinks are being worked out, is ZFS bootable on SL? And why would the root pool not be mountable? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but then again, I could be missing something really obvious...

[loveturtle]

Sounds like the kinks are being worked out, is ZFS bootable on SL? And why would the root pool not be mountable? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but then again, I could be missing something really obvious...

I don't know if it's bootable. There's no option to install on zfs or use zfs with diskutility. Like I said, I only played with it for about 15 minutes. I suppose one could open the terminal on the install cd and create a zpool and see if it lets me install. I'm hoping that's something they get ironed out for the release! The zpool doesn't show up if you hold option on boot to view bootable disks. Would it need an EFI update for that? Or maybe just some magic on the disk with the root pool? I don't really know how that works.

I don't really know why they would change the root pool behaviour like that. I can only imagine it's to encourage the use of creating datasets to put your data in.
I imagine that since most people wouldn't (and really shouldn't) be using the root pool to put data on there's no reason to have it show up in Finder. The easiest way to make it not show up in Finder is to just not mount it. Makes sense to me I guess.

Though they could simply just change the mountpoint property to legacy by default so that it's not mounted...but what ever. I'm just glad to see substantial work being done in the area!

[skellener]

Microsoft is still exploring ways to bring its Office suite of applications to the iPhone.I sure hope not.

[gathart]

I'd love to see Cocoa Touch apps ... and Location Aware services for Macbook/Pro.

Not sure if this will rock my boat. Bit like the gps function on iphone? Bit i am not going to use my macbook pro - when it arrives - as some kind of an gps.

[zombitronic]

Great post lt. ZFS is fine. Apple pulls stuff from builds and then put'ems back (or not...iSCSI...sigh) at their discretion.

iSCSI would be great. I'd be thrilled to see this in Snow Leopard. For the time being, I found a free iSCSI initiator (http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/product_detail.php?t=more&pi=11) for 10.5.

[SpinThis!]

I'm hoping that's something they get ironed out for the release! The zpool doesn't show up if you hold option on boot to view bootable disks.
ZFS is definitely promised for Mac OS X SL server but Apple doesn't really mention anything for consumer SL. I'm guessing it will probably end up being included as an "unadvertised" (read unsupported) feature for those who want to play around with it but Apple's official stance would to get the server edition. I can see the logic there—ZFS is really still new and the average Mac OS X user probably doesn't need ZFS unless they have crazy storage requirements.

[nuckinfutz]

ZFS is definitely promised for Mac OS X SL server but Apple doesn't really mention anything for consumer SL. I'm guessing it will probably end up being included as an "unadvertised" (read unsupported) feature for those who want to play around with it but Apple's official stance would to get the server edition. I can see the logic there—ZFS is really still new and the average Mac OS X user probably doesn't need ZFS unless they have crazy storage requirements.

+1

Consumers need to migrate to more shared storage solutions before they need or will understand why ZFS is ideal.

[MShock]

+1

Consumers need to migrate to more shared storage solutions before they need or will understand why ZFS is ideal.

In defense of the consumer, and SL's general design philosophy of smaller and more efficient / being able to take FULL advantage of hardware, ZFS makes a lot of sense. The compression features, efficiency of snapshots and clones, and faster I/O are vastly superior to HFS+. Even if these are transparent or unnoticeable to the end user / consumer, I'm sure there would be some level of benefit.

Of observation to all these posts, it sounds like ZFS won't be completely integrated into the system by release time. I'm sure there is a reason for that, like the ability to boot, integration with FileVault (which would need a major rewrite) and Time Machine. I bet the server solution is a milestone, especially with the new finder integration. It would be cool as a developer option on the client release for sure. It just doesn't make sense to make ZFS the default filesystem without complete transparency - which is why its isolated only to the server? I know my Toshiba laptop works great on OpenSolaris, and is really fast. With the non transparency issues of the current SL implementation, it may be best for only SL Server to have it...

Just food for thought....

[nuckinfutz]

In defense of the consumer, and SL's general design philosophy of smaller and more efficient / being able to take FULL advantage of hardware, ZFS makes a lot of sense. The compression features, efficiency of snapshots and clones, and faster I/O are vastly superior to HFS+. Even if these are transparent or unnoticeable to the end user / consumer, I'm sure there would be some level of benefit.

Of observation to all these posts, it sounds like ZFS won't be completely integrated into the system by release time. I'm sure there is a reason for that, like the ability to boot, integration with FileVault (which would need a major rewrite) and Time Machine. I bet the server solution is a milestone, especially with the new finder integration. It would be cool as a developer option on the client release for sure. It just doesn't make sense to make ZFS the default filesystem without complete transparency - which is why its isolated only to the server? I know my Toshiba laptop works great on OpenSolaris, and is really fast. With the non transparency issues of the current SL implementation, it may be best for only SL Server to have it...

Just food for thought....


Assuming Apple's still enthralled with ZFS I think of ZFS for consumers as being a 10.7 feature. We're talking 2011 here and the availability of 2.5 and maybe even 3TB drives so the ability to thwart data corruption is very important.

That also gives Apple time to do the necessary integration. ZFS enabled Time Machine would be very nice if Apple could leverage ZFS snapshots and for backing up individual files.

Things are just starting to heat up. Low cost NAS that don't perform like crap. Windows Home Server showing that enthusiasts "do" want to start centralizing their media. Cloud storage and computing.

The next few years are going to be absolutely amazing.

[MikeTheC]

I'd like to add some thoughts to this, and direct them toward those feeling a bit impatient with Apple's "apparent lack of progress"...

What I think you folks need to understand is that you are expending your energies on the wrong target. This is not about Apple being slow to release 10.6 with thus-and-such feature set; rather, if we're being truly honest, it should more rightly be with the results of Apple's "save it for later" strategy which has, no doubt, resulted in a pile of features, concepts, and specific items from which largely they intend to build a new OS.

I don't say that to be critical of Apple, but simply to point out that, in any organization, there's only so many hours in a day, so many people and office spaces you can have, and one's ability to produce is also affected to one degree or another with both competing projects as well as external pressures.

Steve said at his last MWSF that Snow Leopard was going to involve a significant overhaul and would mark a transition for Apple from focusing on so-called "userland" features to "underpinnings" features. Steve as much as said they've focused on bells and whistles at the expense of efficiency, modernization, and possible stability. And that, actually, is something which should (rightfully) place this whole thread's conversation into a totally different context.

You have to understand that this development cycle is about a lot more than an OS release. Grand Central, OpenCL and much of the rest, while they exist at the OS level, are not really OS-release-centric so much as they are platform-centric. A lot of the stuff involves concepts not previously present in Mac OS X (or, in some cases, on virtually any other OS). What this means is that there's a fair amount of progress to be made and ground to be broken before you even get to the point of figuring out how you're going to build 10.6, much less how you're going to include A, B or C into 10.6.

Every company has "rainy day" projects. Every company. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that, hypothetically, some of these RDPs date back even to NeXT's acquisition by Apple. We don't know, and because we don't know, we're in no position to judge truly and properly what Apple's progress really is (meaning where they are on the "dragging their heels" to "shooting like a missile" scale) and I really think it does both us as members of the community and Apple something of a disservice to pass judgement without first being able to take this into account.

Just like (most) everyone else here, I'm a human being, I have needs, wants and desires, and yes, amongst those is for Apple to finally release 10.6. However, I understand (on a philosophical level if not on an intimate technical one) what's going on, what's at stake, and as much as I hate to wait, I'd rather have a better, more stable OS which in turn is based on more stable and mature overarching concepts, even if it meant waiting until Q3 or Q4 of 2009, or Q1 of 2010.

Obviously Apple can't afford to delay their release too much; they have a very legitimate business agenda which requires there be a product to sell. The longer this takes, the more it costs and the longer they have to wait to start making back their investment money. I'll bet everyone inside Apple is just as anxious to get this OS out as we all are anxious to buy a copy. But give Apple a break, some of you folks, ok?

[bigpics]

As a Mac users I don't really see anything in Win 7 that I believe will sway people who are familiar and Mac and like Apple's approach to computing and inversely I couldn't say there's anything in Snow Leopard that would make a Windows fan jump to a Mac.

I remain unconvinced that cloud services will benefit Microsoft or Apple. Neither is as adept and handling web technology as Google. Apple's attack is going to come with the iPhone and whatever mobile platform they cook up. The iPhone /iPod touch is spurring development of OS X features that trickle down to the desktop/laptop Mac OS X version. So in that regard it's not really about Win 7 vs Snow Leopard it's about iPhone/ iPod touch and it's ancillary items as a lure to get people looking at Macs if they need general purpose computing.

People tend to think the it was Vista's misstep that caused people to switch over to Mac but in fact the migration was already happening due to the buzz and mindshare propagated by the iPod.
The great Win/Mac wars may indeed be slowly dying down after decades. All the major OS's are mature enough to do reasonably reliable and stable work that hadn't even been conceived of back in the days of the Apple II and DOS, and while continuous improvement will occur - and maybe someday a whole paradigm shift will bring the focus back - the real action's moving elsewhere.

1. To the web. As one data point, I read a column yesterday by a tech press writer who's moved from iPhoto to Picasa and there are increasingly compelling web alternatives to so many programs, beyond the iLife stuff and Google docs and web mail, social networks, calendaring, storage - and massive amounts of entertainment and knowledge - that will eventually meet 90% of people's needs 90% of the time with relatively middling hardware, again, except for niches. It's inevitable - constantly bigger, faster pipes and better plumbing and pumps will mean that for most using PC's the OS will mainly be the program that hosts their web browser(s). Even fast, graphically rich games are in sight.

There's nothing to stop Google, for example, from making good money by selling an OS that's basically Chrome with hooks to hardware, bypassing MS, Apple AND Linux. Which a recent article I read hinted strongly at.

Sun had it right, in the language of the time, if 15 or so years early: "The network is the computer." Except "the network" turned out to be the net and its OS is the web (currently at about Web 2.1?), an OS so big it's not only not owned by any one party, public or private, but only partially by a group of consortiums.

This doesn't mean Apple still doesn't dream of 10-15% personal computer market share - every point's measured in the billions and the PC as a concept still has massive mind share, so there's still lots of 'puters to be sold.

But that's the other area of action "nuckin'futz" zoned in on:

2. The terminal of choice in the future to access that system will increasingly look little like a Dell or iMac or MacBook - and much more like iPhones, netbooks and classes yet to debut. Completely mobile, lightweight, ubiquitously connected wireless devices will rule and "full-powered" computers - eventually even full notebooks - will be an ever-less frequent sight in homes.

And I totally agree that iPods/Phones have done much more to sell Apple computers (while making a ton themselves) than Apple computers have done to sell pods and phones.

I also agree that neither MS or Apple will be the heavyweights of web presence, even though the huge success of iTunes and the App Store are nothing to sneeze at, and not Apple's last foray into major new net ventures.

I do follow MS's Live efforts and while they're throwing in everything including the kitchen sink, not a bit of it impresses me outside of the enterprise bits that will probably keep their cash flow going. There are better alternatives to all the consumer parts. I've kept a Hotmail account for umpteen years because it works well enough to handle all the non-personal stuff and accounts I've set up without cluttering up my separate personal account, and despite several and continuing re-writes, the best I can say, in comparison to gMail, is that it sucks less than it used to, but remains leagues behind Google, and, for that matter, since I went web before I went Mac, I've yet to discover a use for Apple Mail or iCal, while the pieces of MobileMe that have some interest (to me) can be cobbled together from other sources, with most of the pieces free.

But I do believe it's deep in Apple's genes that their success is based on staying relevant by sussing out emerging trends and seizing on them with energy and fresh, appealing approaches, so, unless they lose their way under new leadership when it comes, they will find a way to be a major player in areas still on the drawing boards.

3. The other key pieces of the action are convergence, input and output. An iPhone in your hand is a phone, iPod, computer, media center, book reader, gaming device and more without a mouse or physical keyboard in sight. Even as miniaturization, battery life, better software, user interface improvements and experiments and net everywhere make it continuously more useful at all these tasks.

And in another form of convergence, cell networks, POTS and cable companies are all gradually being reduced to being primarily different forms of nodes on the net, rather than being distinguished by their original exclusive forms of content transmission.

This is why traditional Mac sites are no longer about Macs vs. PC's, to the dismay of many of we long-time propeller heads who by default claimed the leading edge, but are dominated by the iPhone, the maybe NewtonBook, etc., etc. The TWIT podcast is now more about Twitter than technology in general.

These devices are also going to be where new ways interacting with our devices and the ways they can interact with us will be pioneered. Voice control (and response) will finally become natural and integral (and remain optional since there are settings where it would be cumbersome) but won't be the only interfaces.

Consider a hardware example: you bring your fifth gen iWhatever into the house and set it down on an induction pad. Whatever you were doing is now displayed on a monitor or HDTV of your choice, including sound, ready to accept input from whatever devices - keyboards will continue to exist, e.g., TV remotes, mice, whatever, connect to every other digital device in the home, gather and store whatever stored info is relevant (whatever's not already on the web); and it will also interface with cars, your job network and more - replace credit cards too (another convergence), e.g.

And so forth and so on. From now on it will take more than an evolutionary OS update - however cool all the new SL tech is at doing things better - to cause a seismic shift in the digital world again. And Snow Leopard v Win 7 may be the last big OS battle to get even nearly this much ink.

Alas, those were the days, my OS friends.

And yeah, I'm a windbag.

[MikeTheC]

I wonder how the lo-fi and low-tech folk feel about all of this, and whether or not it's too late to join their ranks... :eek: ;)

[failsafe1]

I just got an email as others have I am sure from Apple giving me a $30 of Leopard upgrade. This makes me wonder is SL is sooner than later and they are trying to clear out old stock? The email also had an offer for a Time Capsule making me wonder about the 2TB upgrade photo.

[pohl]

I just got an email as others have I am sure from Apple giving me a $30 of Leopard upgrade. This makes me wonder is SL is sooner than later and they are trying to clear out old stock?

It could also mean that they want to minimize market fragmentation by encouraging straggling Tiger users to upgrade. I'm sure Leopard has been doing well, especially compared to the XP/Vista split, but it couldn't hurt to entice as many as possible away from Tiger.

[inkhead]

The big deal about snow leopard is it's fast. Really, really fast. Finder is threaded properly. stuff is offloaded to the GPU. 32bit prefs don't work or ktext if you boot in 64bit mode.

It's so fast on a modern computer that apple had to artificially slow down the coverflow view in the finder because it went to fast with the GPU ;-)

It's all about the beauty underneath.

[diamond.g]

The big deal about snow leopard is it's fast. Really, really fast. Finder is threaded properly. stuff is offloaded to the GPU. 32bit prefs don't work or ktext if you boot in 64bit mode.

It's so fast on a modern computer that apple had to artificially slow down the coverflow view in the finder because it went to fast with the GPU ;-)

It's all about the beauty underneath.So what is the point in having a 32bit mode if the drivers don't work in the 64bit mode?

[nuckinfutz]

Man! Things move fast in the Apple world. Too fast maybe. I'm just getting used to Leopard.:o
And I've only had a Mac for two years. If I buy Snow Leopard, it will be the third major OS I've had in two years! I'm not all that enthused about Snow Leopard to be honest. I'm still trying to learn "Mac" from "The Missing Manual Tiger Edition".:p

Rich :cool:

Snow Leopard won't be too much of a change for you. It's mainly the behind the scene stuff but there will probably be a few new UI changes here and there. I can't wait for it because I want the software to actually catch up with the hardware. For once.

Nuk

[macaliseme]

So what is the point in having a 32bit mode if the drivers don't work in the 64bit mode?

1) There are 32bit Intel CPUs out there.
2) Most of the applications out there are still in 32bit mode.
3) Learn how a kernel works, the need for 32bit mode etc. - once you do that then it will be face palm time.

[SydneyDev]

It's inevitable - constantly bigger, faster pipes and better plumbing and pumps will mean that for most using PC's the OS will mainly be the program that hosts their web browser(s). Even fast, graphically rich games are in sight.

Who is going to drive this big transition though? Not users. Users don't care about platforms, they care about whether a program does what they want or not. They will therefore not flock to the web, but to whatever program meets their needs, regardless of platform.

What about companies - will they drive it? They don't care about platforms either, they care about profits. But maximizing profit depends on where a program is in it's life cycle.

If they have an idea for a new program, they want to get it out there quickly at low cost and see if people want to buy it, and dump it if not. This is where the web shines, you can use HTML/CSS/JS to do a quick prototype and distribution is easy - just publicize a URL.

But if a program does prove successful, and becomes long life - maximizing profits depends on having a clean code base that cheap to maintain and improve. This is where the web platform does not shine (not yet anyway). Javascript is a deliberately loose language, and once a program gets past a certain size you want a more disciplined language to result in cleaner code, such as those typically available on a desktop platform.

The smart company will add web technologies to their toolbox, but not move exclusively to it. They will use the web for rapid prototyping followed by desktop versions of anything that catches on (e.g. Google Maps -> Google Earth). Horses for courses.

[diamond.g]

1) There are 32bit Intel CPUs out there.
2) Most of the applications out there are still in 32bit mode.


Which has very little to do with drivers. You should be able to run 32bit programs just fine in Snow Leopard x64.

Almost everyone here made fun of MS's divide in the drivers between x64 and x32 and lo and behold Apple can't bridge the divide either. To top it off they probably won't have a smooth transition. Especially if x32 kernel drivers won't work in x64. They are in the same position MS was in with XP x64 and Vista x64.

[Nibbbling]

Sun had it right, in the language of the time, if 15 or so years early: "The network is the computer." Except "the network" turned out to be the net and its OS is the web (currently at about Web 2.1?), an OS so big it's not only not owned by any one party, public or private, but only partially by a group of consortiums.

...

2. The terminal of choice in the future to access that system will increasingly look little like a Dell or iMac or MacBook - and much more like iPhones, netbooks and classes yet to debut. Completely mobile, lightweight, ubiquitously connected wireless devices will rule and "full-powered" computers - eventually even full notebooks - will be an ever-less frequent sight in homes.


Web 2.1, hehe. Please don't give that horrible buzzword any more credence than it already has.

People have been waffling on about digital convergence and mobile computing for well over a decade, but the bottom line is this: who wants to write their CV on an iPhone?

The desktop computer isn't going anywhere.

[bigpics]

Web 2.1, hehe. Please don't give that horrible buzzword any more credence than it already has.

People have been waffling on about digital convergence and mobile computing for well over a decade, but the bottom line is this: who wants to write their CV on an iPhone?

The desktop computer isn't going anywhere.Actually you make my point in your last line. The only place desktop computers are going is down in market share (and now unit sales) - with a bifrucation between those who can't afford even cheaper laptops and those with a legitimate need for more power than they can get (or afford) in a notebook. So desktop computers will be around for decades, they'll just be less and less common.

There are also other subclasses of desktop users - those who don't like notebook keyboards, pointing devices and screens - and a large subclass of corporations who are still based around bringing workers to computers rather than computers to workers - but the day of the desktop as the main computer in most people's life has already passed.

Notebooks/laptops were the heir apparent and their market share has zoomed acccordingly based on their increasing functionality, decreasing price, etc. But it turns out that while you may not want to write your CV on an iPhone, most people certainly can on a 10-12" netbook on the cheap, with fewer hernias/mile on trips to the coffeeshop or across the campus to do your facebooking, YouTubing, eMailing, IM'ing and light note-taking.

And notebook share of the total market (including netbooks, but not iPhones and their ilk) is now shrinking as well to this new pretender.

So I'll grant you that ergonomics are not going anywhere - anyone with any serious writing or imaging to do is going to want comfortable, responsive input devices and be able to see their work at a sufficient size - and these things will soon connect seamlessly to iPhone sized devices - but I'll repeat that most things that most people now (or or two years ago, more precisely) think of needing/using computers for will primarily be done on devices that won't much resemble today's towers or notebooks, and within five years, even netbooks.

[Macmini1234]

i hope they let out a free beta on their website ...as of april 25 all they have is developer and invester betas

[Goona]

Apple was already growing before Vista, attributing Apple's success to Vista is laughable, it's mostly due to the imac and ipod which has led Apple to the position its in now. Sure Vista helped, but it's due to way more factors.

[str1f3]

The great Win/Mac wars may indeed be slowly dying down after decades. All the major OS's are mature enough to do reasonably reliable and stable work that hadn't even been conceived of back in the days of the Apple II and DOS, and while continuous improvement will occur - and maybe someday a whole paradigm shift will bring the focus back - the real action's moving elsewhere.

1. To the web. As one data point, I read a column yesterday by a tech press writer who's moved from iPhoto to Picasa and there are increasingly compelling web alternatives to so many programs, beyond the iLife stuff and Google docs and web mail, social networks, calendaring, storage - and massive amounts of entertainment and knowledge - that will eventually meet 90% of people's needs 90% of the time with relatively middling hardware, again, except for niches. It's inevitable - constantly bigger, faster pipes and better plumbing and pumps will mean that for most using PC's the OS will mainly be the program that hosts their web browser(s). Even fast, graphically rich games are in sight.

There's nothing to stop Google, for example, from making good money by selling an OS that's basically Chrome with hooks to hardware, bypassing MS, Apple AND Linux. Which a recent article I read hinted strongly at.

Sun had it right, in the language of the time, if 15 or so years early: "The network is the computer." Except "the network" turned out to be the net and its OS is the web (currently at about Web 2.1?), an OS so big it's not only not owned by any one party, public or private, but only partially by a group of consortiums.

This doesn't mean Apple still doesn't dream of 10-15% personal computer market share - every point's measured in the billions and the PC as a concept still has massive mind share, so there's still lots of 'puters to be sold.

But that's the other area of action "nuckin'futz" zoned in on:

2. The terminal of choice in the future to access that system will increasingly look little like a Dell or iMac or MacBook - and much more like iPhones, netbooks and classes yet to debut. Completely mobile, lightweight, ubiquitously connected wireless devices will rule and "full-powered" computers - eventually even full notebooks - will be an ever-less frequent sight in homes.

And I totally agree that iPods/Phones have done much more to sell Apple computers (while making a ton themselves) than Apple computers have done to sell pods and phones.

I also agree that neither MS or Apple will be the heavyweights of web presence, even though the huge success of iTunes and the App Store are nothing to sneeze at, and not Apple's last foray into major new net ventures.

I do follow MS's Live efforts and while they're throwing in everything including the kitchen sink, not a bit of it impresses me outside of the enterprise bits that will probably keep their cash flow going. There are better alternatives to all the consumer parts. I've kept a Hotmail account for umpteen years because it works well enough to handle all the non-personal stuff and accounts I've set up without cluttering up my separate personal account, and despite several and continuing re-writes, the best I can say, in comparison to gMail, is that it sucks less than it used to, but remains leagues behind Google, and, for that matter, since I went web before I went Mac, I've yet to discover a use for Apple Mail or iCal, while the pieces of MobileMe that have some interest (to me) can be cobbled together from other sources, with most of the pieces free.

But I do believe it's deep in Apple's genes that their success is based on staying relevant by sussing out emerging trends and seizing on them with energy and fresh, appealing approaches, so, unless they lose their way under new leadership when it comes, they will find a way to be a major player in areas still on the drawing boards.

3. The other key pieces of the action are convergence, input and output. An iPhone in your hand is a phone, iPod, computer, media center, book reader, gaming device and more without a mouse or physical keyboard in sight. Even as miniaturization, battery life, better software, user interface improvements and experiments and net everywhere make it continuously more useful at all these tasks.

And in another form of convergence, cell networks, POTS and cable companies are all gradually being reduced to being primarily different forms of nodes on the net, rather than being distinguished by their original exclusive forms of content transmission.

This is why traditional Mac sites are no longer about Macs vs. PC's, to the dismay of many of we long-time propeller heads who by default claimed the leading edge, but are dominated by the iPhone, the maybe NewtonBook, etc., etc. The TWIT podcast is now more about Twitter than technology in general.

These devices are also going to be where new ways interacting with our devices and the ways they can interact with us will be pioneered. Voice control (and response) will finally become natural and integral (and remain optional since there are settings where it would be cumbersome) but won't be the only interfaces.

Consider a hardware example: you bring your fifth gen iWhatever into the house and set it down on an induction pad. Whatever you were doing is now displayed on a monitor or HDTV of your choice, including sound, ready to accept input from whatever devices - keyboards will continue to exist, e.g., TV remotes, mice, whatever, connect to every other digital device in the home, gather and store whatever stored info is relevant (whatever's not already on the web); and it will also interface with cars, your job network and more - replace credit cards too (another convergence), e.g.

And so forth and so on. From now on it will take more than an evolutionary OS update - however cool all the new SL tech is at doing things better - to cause a seismic shift in the digital world again. And Snow Leopard v Win 7 may be the last big OS battle to get even nearly this much ink.

Alas, those were the days, my OS friends.

And yeah, I'm a windbag.

I think the idea of the cloud OS is overrated. We are decades away from really considering this a potential reality. We are still fighting cable companies to not have a data cap on usage. Most places in this world don't even have high-speed access or access of any kind. The US has large patches where you can't get high speed access. Applications are getting more complex and are demanding better hardware. Programs like photoshop require far more bandwidth than even the fastest provide today. Storage is still too expensive to host in large amounts and consistently access. We are still having problems with privacy rules.

I think there can be a happy medium between the desktop and the cloud but not everything is meant to be in the cloud. The power user will still require something native but the casual user may get by with web apps. The mac vs pc wars will continue for the forseeable future because of this.

As for the movements of the respective OS's, it has to to with two things:

1. Products are getting smaller and smaller. If an apple tablet would come out running snow leopard, it would have to be very lightweight

2. In order to build for future versions of the OS, the foundation has to be solid. The trouble for windows is that it has so much legacy code while snow leopard is going the extra mile to get rid of it with lack of PowerPC support. Ptograms are going to depend more and more on the GPU and multiple core CPUs that the OS needs to be streamlined.

I really can't wait for snow leopard because of the speed improvements and the updates to QuickTime. I really hope they mange to cut some of the fat out of iTunes also. This has been needed for the past 5 years.

[dhowden]

I've been looking forward to 10.6 for ages, not for a new UI (which I'm yet to be convinced will happen) but because I use Exchange at work :(.

They do seem to have been stretching this release out a bit, and I know that this sounds a bit ridiculous, but could they be trying to avoid another Schiller Macworld?

Maybe they are waiting for Jobs to come back so that he can go on stage and work his magic. For the media/press, it will appear quite lame (no glitzy new features), but the presence of Jobs will provide enough buzz - especially if it is his first public appearance after moving back into the driving seat...