Apple Seeds Snow Leopard 10A190 (Mac OX 10.6) to Developers

[iPoodOverZune]

Numerous websites have been reporting that Snow Leopard will be demoed at MacWord '09 in January, along with some benchmark speed comparison data. But it will not be released to the general public until later.

However, they also have stated that Apple is planning to release it BEFORE WWDC '09.

That may be the plan now, but plans for OS releases almost always seem to change. So who knows if it actually will be out before WWDC or not.

Steve said on stage at WWDC '08 that Snow Leopard would be out in about a year, so that could be before or after WWDC '09. A vague wide window.

I would expect a similar comment during MacWorld '09's demos. He'll probably say something like, "it will be out this summer."

The bigger question is how much will people that buy new Macs right now have to pay to upgrade? And if programs also need to be updated to take advantage of the new efficiencies, how much will those upgrades cost?

People who are looking to buy a new Mac soon will want to know those things.

It looks to me just like with Tiger, they may announce sometime early next year, may be even MacWorld 09, and then set the release date for late April (I guess it was 29th April for Tiger). That would be about an year, that Jobs talked about. Just a guess.

 

[TheNorthWaves]

even if they release it in january (or june) I am still probably going to wait until 10.6.4 on-disk before I do the upgrade on both of our macs. Tiger wasn't great until 10.4.4 and leopard wasn't great until 10.5.5, for me. So realistically I won't be upgrading until probably xmas 2009. I'll sip my coffee and watch, thank you. (that is, unless i could get my hands on the developer version because i'm sooo curious, heh)

 

[Mackilroy]

<rant>

Because obviously your anecdotal experience with 10.5 on a PPC Mac is obviously the same experience all PPC users have all. Don't get all sanctimonious about it - using a computer is not a religion, and no everything is the fault of large multinational corporations. Just to compare with you, the G5 PPC iMac my parents use works perfectly with Leopard - no issues at all. On our iBook G4 Leopard also has no issues, and it's over four years old now. Riddle me that, Joker.

 

[koobcamuk]

Because obviously your anecdotal experience with 10.5 on a PPC Mac is obviously the same experience all PPC users have all. Don't get all sanctimonious about it - using a computer is not a religion, and no everything is the fault of large multinational corporations. Just to compare with you, the G5 PPC iMac my parents use works perfectly with Leopard - no issues at all. On our iBook G4 Leopard also has no issues, and it's over four years old now. Riddle me that, Joker.

Ditto. All good here on PPC and Intel. 10.5.5 was one of the best downloads I made this year. I might hold off on 10.6 until at least 10.6.2... but I get so damn impatient.

 

[DARKJ3DI]

hopefully 10.6 will have the same system reqs as 10.5. The fans on my early 2008 MacBook go crazy when more than a third of the processor speed is being used. That's why I only have safari, iTunes and a few other apps open.

 

[PsykX]

/me wants screenshots of new features (yes, there are some)

But most importantly, benchmark comparisons between Leopard and Snow Leopard

 

[Saladinos]

I strongly disagree with the abandonment of PowerPC. Apple should name it SNOW JOB 10.6

Leopard is a bug-ridden dog on PowerPC Macs compared to Tiger and now Apple's answer to that is QUALITY and PERFORMANCE enhancements to INTEL-ONLY Macs? Ridiculous. I'm surprised there isn't already a class action lawsuit over this. The description alone of Snow Leopard almost sounds like an admission of guilt that Apple got it wrong the first go-round with Leopard!

Leopard has to be Steve Jobs' biggest reality distortion field con job yet and I've been using Apple products since 1983.

And yes, I own plenty of PowerPC Macs, and I don't feel that Leopard is a quality product even on my Dual 1.8 G5. We won't even get into how buggy Leopard is on an 867MHz Powermac G4 Quicksilver or my MDD, but yes, Apple certified Leopard to run on those machines. Why is it that my MDD Mac freezes inexplicably from time to time in Leopard or my G5 kernel panics when each of these machines runs flawlessly for months without a reboot in Tiger. Riddle me THAT Batman!

Sometimes I feel like its as if Apple barely even tested the PowerPC version of Leopard much and most of the bug fixes I see happening in each update appear to be more Intel-related and Snow Leopard only confirms my early suspicions.

I'm sure if Steve Jobs had his way, he'd have put a PowerPC chip in a coffin at last year's MacWorld. But, I'm sure the lawyers would have warned him Apple would see the mother of all lawsuits and public outrage.

Sure, the PC switchers, iPhone, & iPod sales are making the paychecks now for Apple now, but the people who spent upwards of $4000 on then overpriced PowerPC equipment just a couple short years ago kept Apple in business during the previous decade when things looked bleak.

Show a little compassion Steve Jobs and fix Leopard for all supported Macs, NOT just the ones you currently sell! Is that really too much to ask? I don't think so.

When Leopard was being developed, Intel sent some of their engineers to Apple to help them optimise the code for Intel processors. Intel macs are the optimal platform.

Architecture transitions are very uncommon in the industry. If Apple kept supporting PPC to the level of Intel, products would take longer to bring to release. It's a good decision to focus on the platform that is going to be responsible for Apple's growth in Mac sales. You may not like it, but it's the best decision from Apple's perspective.

Remember that Apple is no different from any other public company - they want to make money. Fixing up a dead platform isn't consistent with that aim.

 

[Eric S.]

Based on timing of Leopard my guess is Snow Leopard Release late January/Early February

What Leopard timing is that based on?

 

[HyperZboy]

Because obviously your anecdotal experience with 10.5 on a PPC Mac is obviously the same experience all PPC users have all. Don't get all sanctimonious about it - using a computer is not a religion, and no everything is the fault of large multinational corporations. Just to compare with you, the G5 PPC iMac my parents use works perfectly with Leopard - no issues at all. On our iBook G4 Leopard also has no issues, and it's over four years old now. Riddle me that, Joker.

I have more than 10 PowerPC Macs and Tiger runs better and more stable on each and every one of them except for maybe 1 or 2 which are lightly used.

Just because granny who checks her email once a month has no problems does not mean Leopard is stable and it certainly has poor PPC performance no matter how you slice it. Sure, if you've got a stock install and just the iLife suite, you're probably happy camper. Try adding dozens of applications and games and add a good chunk of media and files to your hard drive and run several at the same time and Spotlight will grind that puppy to a halt and QUICK! Also, I don't mind an application quitting, but it happens too often and not as nicely as in Tiger. In Tiger I could force quit anything not responding. In Leopard, sometimes, I just sit and stare at the beach ball and Leopard refuses to permit force quitting of an unresponsive app until it crashes on its own. Of course, some blame falls on the publishers of some of these applications, but the MDD freezing issue I'm having and the G5 kernel panics are the worst problems, and these situations don't happen in Tiger. In Tiger, I can run these Macs forever and a day and none of this freezing or kernel panic mess happens. I really suspect Apple is just not doing much testing and fixing of PPC problems. Once Steve Jobs decides to put a fork in something, he tends to mean business.

Unfortunately, this decision hurts some of Apple's staunchest supporters and people who paid a lot more for their Macs than today's PC switcher Mac buyers.
I've been buying Apple products since 1983 but I still call them like I see them and I think Apple still has a LOT of work to do to fix Leopard on PowerPC Macs.

Signed,
The Batman

 

[raymondu999]

No, but what you do get is a free copy of any OS that is released during the year of your ADC student membership. Thats what I did with Leopard. I got discount on the MacPro and then got Leopard for free a few months later.

So if it's gotten this year, people get no free OS?

 

[Eric S.]

Architecture transitions are very uncommon in the industry. If Apple kept supporting PPC to the level of Intel, products would take longer to bring to release. It's a good decision to focus on the platform that is going to be responsible for Apple's growth in Mac sales. You may not like it, but it's the best decision from Apple's perspective.

Remember that Apple is no different from any other public company - they want to make money. Fixing up a dead platform isn't consistent with that aim.

Is this going to start up again? See this thread for every possible argument, repeated ad nauseum:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/498339/

 

[HyperZboy]

When Leopard was being developed, Intel sent some of their engineers to Apple to help them optimise the code for Intel processors. Intel macs are the optimal platform.

Architecture transitions are very uncommon in the industry. If Apple kept supporting PPC to the level of Intel, products would take longer to bring to release. It's a good decision to focus on the platform that is going to be responsible for Apple's growth in Mac sales. You may not like it, but it's the best decision from Apple's perspective.

Remember that Apple is no different from any other public company - they want to make money. Fixing up a dead platform isn't consistent with that aim.

I don't totally disagree with your assessment or points, but you missed something...
Apple sold Leopard for these machines, IT'S ON THE BOX and I paid $129 for it. As a legal matter and a moral matter, abandoning Leopard for these machines makes that false advertising and bad company policy.

Maybe if Steve Jobs and Apple hadn't called 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD and said it would concentrate on stability and performance enhancements to LEOPARD, I wouldn't be so outraged. But that's what they said so they deserve to hear the outrage from PowerPC users of LEOPARD that are not going to get what appears to be BUG FIXES, not additional features.

 

[dvince2]

I wonder if they're going to implement fast OS switching for bootcamp? That feature was pulled from leopard... maybe its going to make an appearance here.

 

[nostaws]

Some things were really done better on older Macs and those applications and devices did not make the upgrade cycle through the variations of OSX. So I say, have a crew that deals with those issues. Go ahead and charge an upgrade fee for the benefits, like $19.95 or whatever. With all the Macs out there it would really work. It would discourage filling landfills with Macs for lack of continued software support.

I would pay $20 for an occasional update to 10.4. I am planning on never really upgrading my G5 Power Mac past 10.4.x. But I would like to see some bug fixes and an occasional feature update.

I also have a macbook pro running 10.5.x I really don't have any problems with the software. I was an early adopter, and computer is starting to fall apart.

 

[BornAgainMac]

A quote from Steve Jobs at WWDC 08

"will ship in about a year"

so we will expect to hear a little at MacWorld '09 and I think that at WWDC '09 Steve will say.. "It will be shipping this friday!"

Total guess!

Yea, like 3Ghz in a year. Or check out these really nice Photobooth effects.
I hope it ships before June so he can talk about how many copies were sold in the first month and how it is the biggest release Apple ever had and that Microsoft spends a lot of money on R&D but just copies Google and Apple.

 

[rontheancient]

Apple Seeds Snow Leopard 10A190 (Mac OX 10.6) to Developers

What is up with "OX"?

 

[the mac geek]

I have more than 10 PowerPC Macs and Tiger runs better and more stable on each and every one of them except for maybe 1 or 2 which are lightly used.

Just because granny who checks her email once a month has no problems does not mean Leopard is stable and it certainly has poor PPC performance no matter how you slice it. Sure, if you've got a stock install and just the iLife suite, you're probably happy camper. Try adding dozens of applications and games and add a good chunk of media and files to your hard drive and run several at the same time and Spotlight will grind that puppy to a halt and QUICK! Also, I don't mind an application quitting, but it happens too often and not as nicely as in Tiger. In Tiger I could force quit anything not responding. In Leopard, sometimes, I just sit and stare at the beach ball and Leopard refuses to permit force quitting of an unresponsive app until it crashes on its own. Of course, some blame falls on the publishers of some of these applications, but the MDD freezing issue I'm having and the G5 kernel panics are the worst problems, and these situations don't happen in Tiger. In Tiger, I can run these Macs forever and a day and none of this freezing or kernel panic mess happens. I really suspect Apple is just not doing much testing and fixing of PPC problems. Once Steve Jobs decides to put a fork in something, he tends to mean business.

Unfortunately, this decision hurts some of Apple's staunchest supporters and people who paid a lot more for their Macs than today's PC switcher Mac buyers.
I've been buying Apple products since 1983 but I still call them like I see them and I think Apple still has a LOT of work to do to fix Leopard on PowerPC Macs.

Signed,
The Batman

I do computer support for a team of designers, they are half and half Power PC and Intel, all running Leopard and they all run without problems. This is with dozens of applications installed and multiple apps running at once (InDesign, Photoshop, etc.)

The PowerPC machines were bumped to Leopard after extensive testing, and we found that there was no difference between Leopard and Tiger in terms of stability and speed.

Now, this is a production environment, and a mass deployment environment where there is a single Leopard PPC image that is slapped on with a set of standard applications. Even in this environment, the variation between machines does not cause any problems or require speciality images. Our machines range from Gigabit G4s to the last G5s.

Not trying to prove you wrong, just giving you a different perspective.

 

[dAlen]

I strongly disagree with the abandonment of PowerPC. Apple should name it SNOW JOB 10.6

On the other hand I think Apple should have dropped Power PC back when they introduced OSX - whoops, they didnt have Intel macs out then yet.

We complain when Apple gives us a slow trickly of updates, with weak or missing features - which we have to pay for - yet if they were to go forward to deliver dynamic new updates we would complain that we are getting left behind.

Its understood that someone does not want to feel outdated all of a sudden, but lets face it...Intel has been out over a year, (well over), but even giving it a year of support was long in the tooth. (Hey Im typing this on my Powerbook 667 mhz)

But see, the reality is that my book will do what it will do, and will never benefit, like a newer machine, from any amount of updating.

So, Apple - kill 32 bit support - kill Power PC support - etc.
When I update this book of mine, I dont want it to seem like some small update. (With as old as this beast is, even the macbook will feel like a pro machine now!) HA!

Peace

dAlen

edit: Dont want them wasting resources on developing for legacy systems...lets face it - you put Intel in the machine, IBM is legacy at the moment they do it!

 

[BigTRQ]

I've not kept up with the development of Snow Leopard. So for me, a Mid-2007 BlackBook owner (2.16 GHz C2D, GMA950 graphics, running 10.5.5 now), what will be the benefits of 10.6 (if any)?

 

[hayesk]

Sweet cant wait, just a question couldnt somebody get the 500 dollar developer kit and get snow leopard releases without even developing lol.

Yes. But is it really worth it to run beta or alpha quality software? And don't forget the NDA precludes you from talking about it.

 

[mathcolo]

I'm really looking forward to the improved HD space in Snow Leopard. With only a 120 GB hard drive, I'm being choked.

 

[hayesk]

I wonder if they're going to implement fast OS switching for bootcamp? That feature was pulled from leopard... maybe its going to make an appearance here.

I doubt it. Fast OS switching means both OSes are booted - that means a virtual machine for one of them. Bootcamp is just a bootloader, not a virtual machine like Fusion or Parallels. Other than having to pay extra, why not just use one of those products?

 

[raymondu999]

Yes. But is it really worth it to run beta or alpha quality software? And don't forget the NDA precludes you from talking about it.

Don't they get an actual release if they sign up just around the snow leo launch?

 

[hayesk]

I don't totally disagree with your assessment or points, but you missed something...
Apple sold Leopard for these machines, IT'S ON THE BOX and I paid $129 for it. As a legal matter and a moral matter, abandoning Leopard for these machines makes that false advertising and bad company policy.

Uhm... what are you talking about. You bought Leopard and you got Leopard. They are fixing the bugs that were in the product - hence there's 10.5.5 right now, and likely to be many more updates.

Maybe if Steve Jobs and Apple hadn't called 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD and said it would concentrate on stability and performance enhancements to LEOPARD, I wouldn't be so outraged. But that's what they said so they deserve to hear the outrage from PowerPC users of LEOPARD that are not going to get what appears to be BUG FIXES, not additional features.

You have no idea what Snow Leopard is. It is not simply 10.5.6 renamed. Perhaps you should do some research before ranting.

In a nutshell, Snow Leopard is new software technologies that enhance the performance of Intel Macs. It is not fixes bugs that are in Leopard. It's brand new code that hasn't been written before that takes specific advantage of the Intel hardware. It's not that hard to understand.

 

[Beric]

I still think "Snow Leopard" is a remarkably poor choice for a name.