Apple puts a freeze on Snow Leopard APIs

[Eminemdrdre00]

Can you taste it? No, we suppose you probably can't. While Microsoft has been happy to share Windows 7 with just about anyone with a taste for danger, Apple has followed the traditional route of development with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, sharing it with developers alone. The good news is that things are starting to coalesce in the run-up to WWDC, with Apple just now informing developers that Snow Leopard's APIs are now frozen, with no more alterations planned before release. That means developers can work on their Snow Leopard-ready applications without much fear of Apple mucking things up with late game OS-level changes, and is a decent milestone towards what should presumably be a summer launch. The latest build also includes Chinese handwriting recognition for Macs with multitouch trackpads, similar to the functionality included in iPhone Software 2.0, and also finalizes the Grand Central architecture, which lets developers address multiple processing cores without all the know-how and complication usually required.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/11/apple-puts-a-freeze-on-snow-leopard-apis-freeing-up-developers/

 

[Sky Blue]

haha, freeze... snow...

 

[Peace]

So I guess this means Apple won't be releasing another seed until WWDC.

Perhaps the much anticipated Marble themed 10A355.

 

[t0mat0]

So I guess this means Apple won't be releasing another seed until WWDC.

Perhaps the much anticipated Marble themed 10A355.

Why not - Apple is master at wording - they say a freeze on changes, but they've change APIs before when they've said that.
Also, in the article Apple is talking no more "programming-oreintated changes". The codec is just audio - would we expect a H.264 change? The GCD tweak will be interesting to follow - at some point, if OpenCL, GCD are actually going to live up to Apple's word on being improvements, the benchmarks need to show this definitively.

So that leaves any non-programming orientated change open. Which as you mention, would still permit Marble.

Just as a quick q - was there a rapid release of builds prior to previous OS betas? There doesn't seem to have been one for 10.6 - whether that will be after WWDC - then give it 2 months...

Beat Windows 7 if they're releasing around Christmas...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/11/windows7-before-christmas

 

[Peace]

I think what's going on now is engineers are gearing up for WWDC presentations and putting paper together in order to help dev's out at WWDC.
Now that the major API's are doing good they can concentrate on WWDC for the next month. Developers now have all the API's they need to develop for SL without worrying about any changes.

Any further changes would most likely be cosmetic and bug related. Something developers really don't have to worry about because they have their own inner circle forums to work out bugs.

 

[jav6454]

Which rings my bells to make me think Apple is planning a Snow Leopard release sometime after WWDC with the earliest being in July and latest release date as back as late November. Although I think Apple may plan an iPhone and Snow Leopard release... that should proof interesting.

 

[ihabime]

Yup, it does seem a bit late to be freezing the APIs if they plan on a WWDC release.

Anyone know what the average time between the API freeze and the release date has been for other OSX releases?