Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Shipping in September: $29 for Leopard Users

MacRumors · Jun 8, 2009

Apple today announced that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will launch in September and will be priced at only $29 for current OS X 10.5 Leopard users. Alternatively, a $49 family pack will also be available. Meanwhile, Tiger users with Intel machines will be able to purchase a Mac Box Set containing Snow Leopard, iLife '09, and iWork '09 for $169 for a single license or $229 for a family pack.

"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."

Apple offered a preview of Snow Leopard at today's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, highlighting many of the next-generation operating system's features. Apple touted a streamlined installation process (45% faster and 6 GB smaller) and speed improvements for a number of applications including Mail, Safari 4, and Spotlight. Snow Leopard also brings support for Microsoft Exchange Server to Mail, iCal, and Address Book.

Finally, Apple promoted Snow Leopard's ability to use Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL standards to allow applications to more fully harness the power of multi-core processors and to take advantage of graphics processing power for general purpose computing.

Apple also announced the launch of Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, scheduled for release in September at a price of $499, including unlimited client licenses on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Article Link: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Shipping in September: $29 for Leopard Users

Eidorian · Jun 8, 2009

I'm still wary of the upgrade game but $29 is an easy sell for current Leopard users.

flopticalcube · Jun 8, 2009

$49 for the family pack. Giving it away. I was going to wait this time but now, who cares.

themoonisdown09 · Jun 8, 2009

Eidorian said:
I'm still wary of the upgrade game but $29 is an easy sell for current Leopard users.

Yeah, me too. I'm wondering how this will work. Will they make you show a receipt?

t0mat0 · Jun 8, 2009

Will microsoft change their release date or pricing structure? $29 is a good price for Leopard users. Especially once they show benchmarks... No need for receipts - i'd imagine it's a disc that upgrades your system that's running Leopard.

philbeeney · Jun 8, 2009

Intel only. No Snow Leopard for my PowerBook which is a bit of a bummer really, although $29 is a superb price.

ImNoSuperMan · Jun 8, 2009

What about those of us using tiger, stupid enough not to upgrade to leopard and go straight to 10.6. How much do we have to pay? If it`s 29 + 129 for leopard then I m gonna kick myself so hard...... I could have just bought the damn thing when it was launched and simply upgraded it now.

nagromme · Jun 8, 2009

More goodies than I expected today. My favorite*: exposé spring-loading from app-to-app in the Dock. I do that all the time with the space bar (and no Exposé) in Leopard, but now it's just a drag-and-drop.

I'm curious to see how working in an Exposéd window is. Sounds like it could be very nice.

But... "no news is bad news" re resolution-independence? I can see waiting for the next BIG update (10.7 Stoat) before creating a whole new UI. But I'd love to have the current one be res-independent, after so many years of partial progress in that direction. (Or maybe "working in an Exposéd window" IS a sign of good news re res-independence?)

* OK, maybe the price is my favorite thing.

GimmeSlack12 · Jun 8, 2009

themoonisdown09 said:
Yeah, me too. I'm wondering how this will work. Will they make you show a receipt?

??? That doesn't matter.
It's simply up to you to buy what you need. If you try to install the Upgrade disk without Leopard it just won't work. Seems easy enough.

jdechko · Jun 8, 2009

I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a retail upgrade disk that checks to see if Leopard is installed prior to installing.

EDIT: Or it could run some machine ID check to validate the install. (just for clarification of a later post of mine

)

Apple OS X Snow Leopard Page said:
Upgrading from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.

If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available), which is a single, affordable package that includes Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard; iLife ’09, with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD; and iWork ’09, Apple’s productivity suite for home and office including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Eidorian · Jun 8, 2009

flopticalcube said:
$49 for the family pack. Giving it away. I was going to wait this time but now, who cares.

Quite true. It's disposable income for the single user and family.

themoonisdown09 said:
Yeah, me too. I'm wondering how this will work. Will they make you show a receipt?

The installer will do a check similar to the "bad machine" check it already does. What worries me is what about a clean hard drive.

There are hoops you can jump through using upgrade discs on Windows but I don't want to experience that from Apple.

aaquib · Jun 8, 2009

Wow, and to think, I was ready to pay $129.

$29 is a remarkable price and I'll be at the :apple:

Store with my money day one

BigTRQ · Jun 8, 2009

If this release is anything like Leopard's, the "upgrade game" won't be a hassle. I happened to buy my MacBook a week before Leopard was released. I paid for shipping, and got the disc. All the "upgrade copy" does is check for an earlier OS to be installed (in this case, Leopard, or Snow Leopard if you're re-installing that). After that, it's just like the full version, with all the normal choices for installation included.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

swiftaw · Jun 8, 2009

So, is Upgrade the only option I wonder, or will an Erase and Install still possible?

I guess we'll find out in a few months.

jdechko · Jun 8, 2009

Eidorian said:
What worries me is what about a clean hard drive.

There are hoops you can jump through using upgrade discs on Windows but I don't want to experience that from Apple.

Hopefully there will be a check similar to the way that the Machine-specific restore discs use. Maybe if your machine ID matches a list of known machines that shipped with Leopard then it would install.

(Not condoning it, so hopefully this is okay but) I know it would be easy for hackers to substitute a list of all intel macs and compile a pirated copy installable on any compatible machine, but Apple hasn't really been concerned with piracy to the extent that MS has. So I don't see them sacrificing user friendliness just to fight a few hackers.

nit · Jun 8, 2009

jdechko said:
Apple OS X Snow Leopard Page
Upgrading from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.

If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available), which is a single, affordable package that includes Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard; iLife 09, with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD; and iWork 09, Apples productivity suite for home and office including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

A dumb ass question i'm going to asking but does that mean i don't need a original copy of Leopard to have snow Leopard??

airlights · Jun 8, 2009

I'm sorry for asking such a lame question, but if Snow Leopard ships in September, that means if I want to wait until it's preinstalled on my future MBP I should wait to purchase until Sept too? Ah, dumb question, I know.

Eidorian · Jun 8, 2009

jdechko said:
Hopefully there will be a check similar to the way that the Machine-specific restore discs use. Maybe if your machine ID matches a list of known machines that shipped with Leopard then it would install.

You'd have to include all those Tiger models that came with Leopard drop in discs a well.

You can go even further back with some refurbished models getting Leopard drop-in discs.

themoonisdown09 · Jun 8, 2009

Eidorian said:
The installer will do a check similar to the "bad machine" check it already does. What worries me is what about a clean hard drive.

That's what I'm talking about. I always to a clean install when I upgrade to a new OS (even though I know you don't have to, I just prefer it this way). What will happen then?

Maybe the initial install, it will check to see if you have Leopard. If so, then you can choose to do a clean install. Once you have Snow Leopard installed, if you insert the disc in the next time, it will know you have SL and no worries.

Willis · Jun 8, 2009

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/

Shiny

Also, in regards to the upgrade price, I think what Apple will do is ask for the serial number of you Mac or off the product box. Doing so enables you to get the discount.

OR, they can have a Full Retail version and an upgrade box.

OR, possibly an iTunes download?

jdechko · Jun 8, 2009

nit said:
A dumb ass question i'm going to asking but does that mean i don't need a original copy of Leopard to have snow Leopard??

Possibly. If you bought a mac with leopard preinstalled, then no, you wouldn't need a retail disc.

airlights said:
I'm sorry for asking such a lame question, but if Snow Leopard ships in September, that means if I want to wait until it's preinstalled on my future MBP I should wait to purchase until Sept too? Ah, dumb question, I know.

Apple has an up-to-date program for their OS. Any computer purchased between now and then qualifies for it. $10 to upgrade to the newest OS. Not as big of a deal for a $30 upgrade, but they always seem to run it so $10 instead of $130 is a nice discount.

stridemat · Jun 8, 2009

Willis said:
http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/

Shiny

Also, in regards to the upgrade price, I think what Apple will do is ask for the serial number of you Mac or off the product box. Doing so enables you to get the discount.

OR, they can have a Full Retail version and an upgrade box.

OR, possibly an iTunes download?

Can't imagine through itunes. It would be a huge file to download. It will have to come on a disk.

EmperorDarius · Jun 8, 2009

Really great. Surely gonna get it. I just hope that programs like Adobe's and Apple's professional programs will work with it...

tyr2 · Jun 8, 2009

I'd been pondering if they would do 10.6 cheaply. It really makes sense to me. There aren't a ton of end-user facing upgrades (ok exchange support looks amazing), but developers will be keen to start using the new features without fear that they're restricted to a small user base. For $29 users won't find it difficult to justify the upgrade, once 10.6 only apps start appearing.

jdechko said:
I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a retail upgrade disk that checks to see if Leopard is installed prior to installing.

I really hope it doesn't do this. Otherwise whenever you need to reinstall it you'll have to install 10.5 first. That's not going to make the install %45 faster.

I won't be surprised if it's just an honesty thing.

jdechko · Jun 8, 2009

Eidorian said:
You'd have to include all those Tiger models that came with Leopard drop in discs a well.

You can go even further back with some refurbished models getting Leopard drop-in discs.

Oh, absolutely. I never meant for my possible solution to be the be-all-end-all solution. It just seems to me like it would be the broadest-reaching most user-friendly one (IE, the anti-microsoft way of doing things).

tyr2, I didn't necessarily mean "upgrade" in that way, but reading that now, I understand your point and I edited the post you quoted. Even with windows, an upgrade disc can be used for a clean install. One would simply be required to prove that he or she owned a valid license from a product eligible for upgrade. The other possible thing, as I mentioned a few posts down, is that it may run some other checks to see if the machine is valid for an upgrade. But I really have no idea.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Shipping in September: $29 for Leopard Users

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