Is Snow Leopard really Snore Leopard?

[dernhelm]

I've still got my fingers crossed for boot support for ZFS.

HFS+ (or whatever it is these days) has just about outlived it's usefulness. The is the release where Apple could switch the default FS to ZFS, and it would be something they could really SELL (this is a under the hood release after all).

Put Apple-designed front ends on the ZFS utilities, and you've got something that blows NTFS out of the water. Without costing Apple much at all. While there's probably some technical reason that I'm missing that makes this harder than it sounds, this still feels like the time to do it.

It would leapfrog them over almost everyone else in the industry.

 

[jaw04005]

To be fair, Apple has not released the marketing specifics for Snow Leopard much less pricing information or when they expect it due.

Snow Leopard reminds me a lot of 10.1 Puma, and maybe it will be priced accordingly for Leopard users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.1

What's unusual about Mac users is that a significant portion of our user base tends to purchase retail operating system upgrades, compared to Windows customers who just wait for their next PC purchase.

Apple knows this, and has made great strides to keep their user base current. You can see this by product offerings like the Mac Box Set.

I'm going to wait until I see compatibility and pricing information before making judgment.

 

[GGJstudios]

If Windows had taken some time early on to improve its foundational architecture, instead of just adding new "bells and whistles" with each release, they probably wouldn't have the bad reputation they have now. Using an automotive analogy, instead of putting in a more energy-efficient, powerful, reliable, advanced-technology engine and drivetrain, Windows offers you a new chrome trim on the instrument panel, 3 new colors of naugahyde seats and a 27-speaker stereo system.

If you expect Apple to operate in the same way Microsoft does, you're going to be bitterly disappointed. Apple is smart to take some time to focus on what's "under the hood" to prepare for the next stages of hardware and software development. Every release of the Mac OS doesn't have to be "exciting." I'd much prefer they do boring stuff like making Mac OS even more bullet-proof to malware and privacy threats and make it more energy efficient and faster, taking full advantage of new hardware technology like Nehalem and beyond. You don't always need a new gee-whiz gizmo to make an OS release valuable.

Apple knows what it's doing, even if YOU don't! That's why they're a multi-billion dollar company with a fiercely loyal customer base, while you're just one person complaining in a forum. Snore all you want. You're likely to miss something important! "You snooze, you lose!"

 

[disconap]

My understanding was that Snow Leopard wasn't going to be $129 for Leopard owners (may be wrong on this, but I seem to remember reading that), and that it's primary focus is rebuilding the OS to be used solely on Intel machines which, if you know anything about the way OSX is structured, is a pretty huge undertaking, as many aspects of OSX are either doubled for the PPC and Intel platforms or are ported. And the ones that aren't either are adapted from PPC structures to work with Intel. Remember the difference between running CS2 in Rosetta and running CS3 natively? That's the kind of stuff we're talking about here. And it's not a small leap.

I remember being in college and having similar thoughts about OS7-OS7.5, and then getting it and thinking "oh THAT'S why". Same thoughts when OS9 came out, as it looked pretty much the same as OS8.5 (but was WORLDS better). I think Snow Leopard will be like that for you Intel Mac users.

And if you want a free OS, Ubuntu is solid, stable, and pretty...

 

[Jakeblu]

Snow Leopard reminds me a lot of 10.1 Puma, and maybe it will be priced accordingly for Leopard users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.1

I found the wiki page very interesting.

Having entered the OSX experience at 10.4 I didnt realise OSX had initially such a poor reputation. How things changed within a few updates.

Steve

 

[disconap]

It's not that it was that bad, it was more that most of us using OS9 didn't see enough incentive to upgrade (I didn't upgrade until Jaguar, and that was only because my laptop came with it). It was prettier and all, but for the average end user OS9 was more stable and more widely supported. And, like Leopard, there were a NUMBER of still in-use machines that had support dropped for them, and networking between OS9 and OSX was a nightmare, so it really wasn't an option for a lot of people back then...

Jaguar (10.2) was the first really solid version, and Panther (10.3) was probably the biggest and best jump in technology so far IMO.

 

[sidewinder]

Please substantiate claim for the plebeians

Read the whole thread.....if you don't understand after doing that, I am not going to waste my time trying to explain it.

S-

 

[numbersyx]

Would like to see it when it comes out. If it really is much faster and has a few features, then I'll be happy. Bottom line is that we don't know that much about it yet. I'll be surprised if there's not more to it than Apple's already released - mainly because they know to sell it, there'll have to be an incentive...

 

[madog]

I
It has all the trappings of a big dot release, not evolutionary or revolutionary, just some 'stuff' that may speed up my Mac...gee, sounds like Win 7 to me. You know, lots of marketing buzzwords, some hype thrown in but no 'Ohh!" or 'Ahh!' that Apple is famous for. Instead we are being asked to buy a "Futures":

Yet you fall for things like, "Expose", "Spaces", "Automator", "Time Machine", "Over 300 New Features!", "Revolutionary OS", yet some how you are perturbed about an unreleased, and unused OS that won't have hundreds of things you will never notice or see regardless if they told you about it or not? You're one of those people that paints flames on his Geo Metro and expects it to go faster, and wonders why someone would ever want to add a turbo charger or make any under the hood improvements.


Soooo, what's your point? When this is released is Apple going to kill your family if you don't buy it? Or are you just angry because you don't like the buzzwords they are using this time.

Now, if, on the other hand, Snore Leopard allowed my spring 2008 MBP to access and support 8GB of ram, well, now I could get excited about that.

Also, because this won't update your hardware or limitations of the logic board in your '08 Mac to allow it to access more RAM.... that physical limitation somehow bothers you as well? I know it does me as I've been waiting for Toyota to release a firmware update for my 4Runner to allow it to run on diesel.

You Troll, are Fail. It was fun at first.

 

[Eric5h5]

Actually, the literal meaning of "quantum leap" is the smallest possible leap.

Might want to look up "quantum" in the dictionary. It simply means "an amount"...in physics it means the smallest possible unit, but I don't know why you'd use a physics definition for talking about something that is clearly not related to physics.

--Eric

 

[GGJstudios]

OS X is the Lamborghini Countach

Cute analogy, but the Countach predates Mac OS X by more than 25 years, and predates Apple by a couple years.... not exactly a parallel.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

If you want bells and whistles instead of stuff that actually works, go jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon. They introduce crap like the Aero stuff, BSoDs, and the *awesome* UnC that asks to allow or not allow for pretty much everything. They don't focus on stuff like performance, speed, design. OS X will always be a Ferrari Enzo, and Windows will be some Kia car.

 

[SkyBell]

If you want bells and whistles instead of stuff that actually works, go jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon. They introduce crap like the Aero stuff, BSoDs, and the *awesome* UnC that asks to allow or not allow for pretty much everything. They don't focus on stuff like performance, speed, design. OS X will always be a Ferrari Enzo, and Windows will be some Kia car.

You are aware all that you mentioned is already in Vista, and that Windows 7 is basically the equivalent to SL, right?

 

[NT1440]

You are aware all that you mentioned is already in Vista, and that Windows 7 is basically the equivalent to SL, right?

Wheres the pink lettering?


Windows 7 is NOT the same as SL. Windows 7 is Vista with a fixed image.

 

[SkyBell]

Wheres the pink lettering?


Windows 7 is NOT the same as SL. Windows 7 is Vista with a fixed image.

Retired. (And why does everyone call it pink? It was purple...)

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Snow Leopard is what Leopard should have been. They're both just big bug fixes.

 

[NT1440]

Retired. (And why does everyone call it pink? It was purple...)

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Snow Leopard is what Leopard should have been. They're both just big bug fixes.

What?? where are the massive shortcomings of Leopard? SL is way more than JUST bug fixes.

 

[SkyBell]

What?? where are the massive shortcomings of Leopard? SL is way more than JUST bug fixes.

Optimization, whatever you want to call it. My point is, both W7 and SL don't introduce a whole lot of new features, rather improving on existing ones.

 

[wankey]

Cute analogy, but the Countach predates Mac OS X by more than 25 years, and predates Apple by a couple years.... not exactly a parallel.

The parallels drawn are for Lamborgini's line, not Apple's line.

ie, it's quite up there in Lamborgini's line, similar to how OS X was a giant leap, the coutach was a giant leap in super car design (gull wing doors started with that car)

 

[GoKyu]

Loved the Lamborghini analogy, and just found out about the Reventón, very cool

 

[Sky Blue]

Out of the box support for MICROSOFT(?)(!) Exchange, wow. Welcome to 2005.

What other OSs have Exchange support out of the box?

 

[diamond.g]

What other OSs have Exchange support out of the box?

None, not even MS's own OS has Exchange support. You have to get Outlook to get Exchange support. What is more telling is people touting that as a good thing. I thought Apple was the harbinger of open standards. Why would they support MAPI (and why would you guys be happy to line MS's pockets even more)?

 

[GGJstudios]

(gull wing doors started with that car)

Not true. Mercedes-Benz introduced gull-wing doors in 1952, and the scissor-style doors used on the Countach were introduced by Alfa Romeo in 1968.

 

[polaris20]

I have to tell you, I have read the threads about Snow Leopard and I just can't get excited about it. I am now calling it Snore Leopard. Why?

Well..

It has all the trappings of a big dot release, not evolutionary or revolutionary, just some 'stuff' that may speed up my Mac...gee, sounds like Win 7 to me. You know, lots of marketing buzzwords, some hype thrown in but no 'Ohh!" or 'Ahh!' that Apple is famous for. Instead we are being asked to buy a "Futures":
-------------
“A Quantum Leap”. No solace required. Billed as changing it’s focus, “taking a break from adding new features” and building on Leopard

* Delivering “a new generation of core software technologies” to
- streamline Mac OS X
- enhance Mac OS X, including improving quality.
* Reduce the OS footprint
* Out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal (using the Exchange Web Serices protocol).
* “Grand Central”
– A set of technologies to improve performance
- Makes “all of OS X multi-core aware”
- Optimises Mac OS X it for “allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors”
- Helps developers, by making it easier for them to create programs that can effectively use the power from multiple cores and processors.
* Extension of 64-bit technology in Mac OS
- Allowing up to a theoretical 16TB maximum of RAM (No word on what type)
* Quicktime X
- Streamlined platform for modern media and internet.
- Optimised support for modern codecs
- More efficient media playback
* Through Safari, delivering fast Javascript (e.g. implementing this through MobileMe)
* OpenCL (Open Computing Language)
- A language to help developers use the power of GPUs (graphics processing units) and redirect it for general purpose computing.
- In other areas, OpenCL is akin to GPGPU.
* ZFS - Not mentioned on the normal SL page, but confirmed for the SL Server edition here
- Read & write support for the 128-bit ZFS file system
- Features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, snapshots.

If you don't see the potential benefits in performance and/or functionality brought by the bolded, then more power to ya; stick with 10.5.

To me they're quite significant.

As for the Windows 7 comparison; if 10.6 is faster than 10.5 as Win7 is to Vista: count me in! The 7 beta is far, far faster than Vista. Not even in the same league. If Apple pulls this off with 10.6, it will really kick ass.

None, not even MS's own OS has Exchange support. You have to get Outlook to get Exchange support. What is more telling is people touting that as a good thing. I thought Apple was the harbinger of open standards. Why would they support MAPI (and why would you guys be happy to line MS's pockets even more)?

Outlook licenses are included with Exchange CALs, and as such "having to get it" is as easy as installing it.

Why is it a good thing? Because people work for companies, and a huge percentage of companies run MS networks......including Exchange.

 

[wankey]

Not true. Mercedes-Benz introduced gull-wing doors in 1952, and the scissor-style doors used on the Countach were introduced by Alfa Romeo in 1968.

Well who am I to argue with a car enthusiast.

 

[RoninXI]

Optimization, whatever you want to call it. My point is, both W7 and SL don't introduce a whole lot of new features, rather improving on existing ones.

No Win7 fixed things that they left broken in Vista so they could release it. Snow Leopard is removing PPC support which will speed it up, use less disk space, and run into less compatibility problems left from having to support PPC and Intel at the same time. It is also adding support for more CPU cores, something not needed in Leopard and honestly still not since other programs were using the cores Leopard was not.

SL is NOT a fix it is an improvement due to new hardware and a couple of additions. Win7 is a fix for problems they should have fixed before it was even released. I still think Snow Leopard got it's name because it is a "clean"(no PPC) version of Leopard.