Apple Nearing Completion of Snow Leopard?

[Riemann Zeta]

I highly doubt that this one is true. The betas that have been released are clearly not ready for prime time--for example, the 64bit kernel still requires one to boot into 'experimental mode' with Option+6+4 on every bootup. Unless Apple has been purposefully giving developers builds that were compiled 6-8 months ago, I can't see 10.6 being released before fall.

Also, considering how truly well-coded, flashy and optimized Windows 7 is, Apple is going to have a hell of a time convincing regular users to drop $129 on something that looks identical to OS 10.5. An 'optimized kernel threading model' isn't something that jumps out and bites the average consumer as being sexy, new and cool.

 

[tobyw7]

seriously?? all you care about is the interface.. just the way it looks, rather than the gr8 way it would feel??

If it gets the people buying it, then what difference does it make Obviously.... the whole OS is what most people like about Apple!

And it being easier to use compared to Windows.

 

[Stridder44]

I don't like the marble look anyways! It's way too simple and plain.. especially the scroll bar.. it's just a blue gradient.

That's because you've never actually seen the marble interface due to the fact it doesn't even exist (to the consumer) yet.

With MicroSoft's track record, I'll give Win7 a try after SP1 or SP2.

Said that guy who has never tried Windows 7. You probably think XP is somehow better than Vista too I'm guessing.


Snow Leopard will most likely be Intel only. I can't wait to hear the thousands of posts saying "WTF!!!! This is the downfall/end of Apple!!1!1" and "that's it, I'm going to kill my family" followed by lots of faces.

 

[tobyw7]

You probably think XP is somehow better than Vista too I'm guessing.

Oh, it is!

 

[Eric S.]

I highly doubt that this one is true. The betas that have been released are clearly not ready for prime time--for example, the 64bit kernel still requires one to boot into 'experimental mode' with Option+6+4 on every bootup. Unless Apple has been purposefully giving developers builds that were compiled 6-8 months ago, I can't see 10.6 being released before fall.

Plus Apple was burned by perceptions that Leopard was not ready for prime time at its release. One would expect that they would want SL to make a better initial impression.

Snow Leopard will most likely be Intel only. I can't wait to hear the thousands of posts saying "WTF!!!! This is the downfall/end of Apple!!1!1" and "that's it, I'm going to kill my family" followed by lots of faces.

Haven't we already seen those posts for a year, ever since the Intel-only reports first surfaced at last year's WWDC?

 

[MrCrowbar]

seriously?? all you care about is the interface.. just the way it looks, rather than the gr8 way it would feel??

That's what she said.

Seriously, usability usually increases with decreasing looks. Most Pro Software is ugly as sin with confusing colors and lots of controls. But once you got the hang of it, it beats everything else, even if it has less "features" that comparable stuff.

EDIT (don't wanna waste a post for this):

 

[Peace]

I highly doubt that this one is true. The betas that have been released are clearly not ready for prime time--for example, the 64bit kernel still requires one to boot into 'experimental mode' with Option+6+4 on every bootup. Unless Apple has been purposefully giving developers builds that were compiled 6-8 months ago, I can't see 10.6 being released before fall.

You have obviously never worked with a real developer build of SL.

For one thing you don't hold down the option key while holding 6+4 to boot into 64-bit mode. And it's not "experimental".

Internal builds are always ahead of dev. release builds. Trust me I know.

Currently the "supposed leaked build" is 10A354 right ?

I can guarantee you there are other builds around that you are not privy to.

 

[gadgetgirl85]

Oh, I sure hope its soon! I want to buy my new imac with SL on it

 

[milo]

You probably think XP is somehow better than Vista too I'm guessing.

Well, in certain ways, it IS better, specifically performance. And benchmarks bear that out. Or maybe MS has finally improved vista enough to catch up and I haven't heard about it, but that wasn't the case for at least a year.

 

[iBug2]

I highly doubt that this one is true. The betas that have been released are clearly not ready for prime time--for example, the 64bit kernel still requires one to boot into 'experimental mode' with Option+6+4 on every bootup. Unless Apple has been purposefully giving developers builds that were compiled 6-8 months ago, I can't see 10.6 being released before fall.

That's incorrect. For the last several developer builds on ADC, 64 bit boot is standard, you need to "special" boot at 32 bit if you like.

 

[matticus008]

And as I just asked, is it really known for sure that it's intel only?

It won't be known "for sure" until the first customer has the box in his hand. People clinging to nothing won't even believe an Apple announcement at this point.

Nobody knows but there weren't a lot of evidence in the seeds that suggest PPC will be there.

There was, and continues to be, no evidence of PPC support anywhere in Snow Leopard. The early releases contained a number of Universal applications that simply had not been rewritten. None of the major new code has been or is equipped with PPC versions (Quicktime, Finder, GC, OpenCL).

Source? Sounds like nothing but more of the same speculation we've had for months.

Technically, everything is speculation, because Apple has not officially introduced the OS. When it does, it will not be possible to miss it. Until then, nothing anyone can say is "concrete", but the situation has not changed from the beginning, with the development of major features that do not support PowerPC architecture as implemented, developer previews that simply will not and cannot run on PPC, an Intel-only kernel, and no new PPC code anywhere in the system. Anyone who needs a bigger hint than that is just fooling himself.

And shortly after that was leaked, it was revealed that all those smaller apps did have the PPC code

Source? It was "revealed" that some of the Leopard binaries were still present, and Leopard binaries are Universal. That does not provide any support for Snow Leopard being Universal. It just shows that parts of the OS had not been touched from the Leopard base.

Saying that Snow Leopard apps "have" PPC code is misleading at best and perpetuates this ridiculous rumor. As far as it is known, PowerPC is out. There is no indication that it will be present.

They can't. But we have no idea when the OS will actually ship, and with 10.5 they initially released it to devs intel only then released a PPC version later.

Source? The 10.5 beta, released over a year before the final in mid-2006, was not Intel-only. There were no developer releases prior to that. Snow Leopard is planned for release in less than a year and is still Intel-only.

 

[Stridder44]

Well, in certain ways, it IS better, specifically performance. And benchmarks bear that out. Or maybe MS has finally improved vista enough to catch up and I haven't heard about it, but that wasn't the case for at least a year.

And that year was 2008. Welcome to last year! Care to join us in the present?

Oh, it is!

You should try using it for more than 5 minutes on a machine that isn't 7 years old, but be sure to take off your tin-foil hat first.

 

[armoguy94]

nothing personal but you haven't seen the marble interface.

Is that not it? That theme is what I'm talking about. Sort of like what is in Apple's pro apps, and now transitioning to their iLife; no?

 

[iBug2]

Is that not it? That theme is what I'm talking about. Sort of like what is in Apple's pro apps, and now transitioning to their iLife; no?

That's just an artist sketch. Nobody knows how it'll look like.

 

[MikhailT]

Is that not it? That theme is what I'm talking about. Sort of like what is in Apple's pro apps, and now transitioning to their iLife; no?

That is not Marble. That's just a screenshot of some current Apple Pro software. The Mac Media is assuming that Marble will be based on something like that but it is not Marble. There is no evidence or any single bit of information about the Marble interface or even if Marble exist. Marble is just some name somebody came up with.

 

[Peace]

Is that not it? That theme is what I'm talking about. Sort of like what is in Apple's pro apps, and now transitioning to their iLife; no?

No. That is not what marble looks like.

 

[Chronos1976]

No. That is not what marble looks like.

I hope you're right. For me, Leopard got Aqua about right (finally) and I'd be happy to stick with that interface. I don't want something dark and depressing to look at (my mood is influenced by colours (certain yellows actually cause my mood to plummet as well)).

I spend a lot of time in front of my computer and the reason I switched to Mac in the first place was because of the cheery Aqua elements - I'm hoping there is one more Macbook Pro update before SL because I want to upgrade to a 17" uMBP before Aqua disappears...

 

[danielwsmithee]

eagerly waiting for 10.6 to pep up my late 06 macbook that's still running tiger (i skipped leopard). you'll see alot of leopard skippers with core 2 duo macs in line for day one. hope it's sooner rather than later, as less and less apps are supporting 10.4 nowadays.

and for those wanting a free 10.6? yeah right. if apple discounts at all, it will be 90-100 bucks for upgrade disc and the normal 130 for full install discs.

There is no such thing as full install vs. Upgrade discs there is just discs.

 

[SpitzerCR]

snow leopard .. possible new macs it never ends.

just LET IT OUT already so i can make my purchasing decisions..

 

[ziggyonice]

I really just want Apple to put more on the Mac, rather than now just treating it as an afterthought. Maybe it's just because of all the iPhone hype, but I miss the days of when it was really Mac rumors we were all excited for. Hopefully WWDC will change things. Because as much as I love my iPhone, I love my Mac too.

 

[FoxyKaye]

Generally speaking you have to wait until the 2nd update for any given operating system before most bugs are ironed out. That means OS X 10.x.2 or Windows SP2. Seems to be the magic update that most major OS upgrades require before things are smooth sailing. Anyone getting in on a .0 or .1 version of any major OS X update needs to be ready for a little unpredictability.

Unpredictability is one thing, major installation oversights and service failures is quite another. Leopard simply didn't have enough QA behind it at launch - Apple was already running late on delivery, had taken people off of OS X and put them on to the iPhone OS, and when it hit there were no end of problems. Some of which still exist today - anybody trying to run Software Update Server in Leopard Server, or for that matter has chased around the ARD issues that come and go with Leopard Server knows this.

Likewise, there were innumerable issues with the Leopard workstation installer that a little more attention from Apple could have prevented.

I'm not looking for the perfect OS, I'm looking for Apple to care about its products.

 

[McDughf]

I still don't know why they recycled the name. it sounds so bad... everything to this point has been mono syllable names, why change it. ...

Wow, The Irony; You Do Realise NONE Of The Versions Of OS X Have Mono Syllable Names?

0. Chee-Tah
1. Pu-Ma
2. Jag-U-Ar
3. Pan-Ther
4. Ti-Ger
5. Le-O-Pard or Leo-Pard

But To Answer You Question, I Recall Someone Saying That Snow Leopards Are A Tougher, More Hardened Evolutions Of Leopards - Hence The Analogy...

 

[MikhailT]

There is no such thing as full install vs. Upgrade discs there is just discs.

There are two discs, the restore discs that comes with your mac and is locked specifically to your models and there's full retail disc. No upgrade or anything that.

Wow, The Irony; You Do Realise NONE Of The Versions Of OS X Have Mono Syllable Names?

0. Chee-Tah
1. Pu-Ma
2. Jag-U-Ar
3. Pan-Ther
4. Ti-Ger
5. Le-O-Pard or Leo-Pard

But To Answer You Question, I Recall Someone Saying That Snow Leopards Are A Tougher, More Hardened Evolutions Of Leopards - Hence The Analogy...

They are also my favorite big cats, one of the most beautiful animals in the world and they are nearly extinct which makes me a sad panda.

There was an episode about the Snow Leopards in the Planet Earth, I suggest everybody to watch it, especially on blu-ray.

 

[McDughf]

Silly Brit. Jag-uar is two syllables

This Is So Ironic Its Not Even Funny...

Syllables Are Sub Words That Are Accented By Vowel Sounds Or Phonetics,
Such As:

Jag - You - Are

 

[brop52]

Wow, The Irony; You Do Realise NONE Of The Versions Of OS X Have Mono Syllable Names?

0. Chee-Tah
1. Pu-Ma
2. Jag-U-Ar
3. Pan-Ther
4. Ti-Ger
5. Le-O-Pard or Leo-Pard

But To Answer You Question, I Recall Someone Saying That Snow Leopards Are A Tougher, More Hardened Evolutions Of Leopards - Hence The Analogy...

You mean Jag-Uar.