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

[nagromme]

Am I the only one excited about the new wallpaper?

I like it better than Leopard's Aurora.


The MobileMe iDisk icon was blue during the keynote, rather than the usual purple (although on Apple's website it's purple).

Where did you notice the new wallpaper? At Apple.com Snow Leopard still shows a variation on the aurora wallpaper. (And a Milky Way design on the disc packaging? Hey, why not.)

Off topic: bonus points for properly identifying it as a night sky with the aurora, and not a nebula or galaxy or space scene (The galaxy on the Leopard box does confuse matters.)

 

[Eidorian]

LOL WUT pear

Anyone that has already bought a Mac and more so with Leopard has already subsidized their upgrade to Snow Leopard.

 

[Hattig]

I'll be holding off on Snow Leopard on my 2.16 GHz Mid-2007 MacBook with GMA950. I want to see if there will be any speed benefits on it.

Can anyone (dev., someone generally smarter than me, etc.) comment on what someone such as myself will experience with Snow Leopard on my machine?

It's $29!

It will improve things - look at Apple's website for more details. I don't know what software you use, you do!

 

[jlanganki]

Well, if Apple went from 25 million Mac OS X users to 75 million Mac OS X users, they can charge a lot less now per copy (hence the price cut).

So if we see 150 million Mac OS X users will Apple cut the price of OS releases to $20? They'll still make the same amount of money in total!

Seems like a good usage of economies of scale.

 

[macuserx86]

Anyone that has already bought a Mac and more so with Leopard has already subsidized their upgrade to Snow Leopard.

That's what he was on about? I honestly had no idea, since he mentioned upgrading from Vista to SL.

 

[flopticalcube]

Well, my GMA950 is...yeah.

Not in OpenCL its not.

 

[Eidorian]

That's what he was on about? I honestly had no idea, since he mentioned upgrading from Vista to SL.

Read, reread, and image macro less.

 

[jaw04005]

iDisk is clearly getting some updates because there is going to be a new iDisk iPhone app in the store.

"The iDisk app — available free on the App Store — lets you view files on your iDisk right on your iPhone. Microsoft Office or iWork ’09 documents, PDFs, video files, and more are viewable in landscape or portrait. Even access Public folders of other MobileMe members with a few taps."

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/more-features.html

 

[V.K.]

no resolution independence?

so nothing about full resolution independence support in Snow Leopard? very disappointing. it's present in very buggy and rudimentary form in leopard but it doesn't look like there is any improvement of resolution independence support in Snow leopard or it would have been mentioned.

 

[nick9191]

Going to make 10.7 and $129 a hard sell.

I would have gladly paid $129, but I'm not complaining.

 

[flopticalcube]

Why is the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB not capable of OpenCL? It's has better graphics capabilities than the 9400M G. I'm not complaining I'm just curious.

I suspect its a matter of supporting current hardware first and then moving backwards as time allows (I hope).

 

[50548]

And you should use Windows 7 before you post ******** you have read on a Mac forum. You are so isolated in your little Mac world you forget that 90% of computer users are using Windows.

$29 + the cost of a Mac is the big difference here. Snow Leopard won't run on my iBook, Windows 7 will run on the 1.6Ghz laptop that I retired because even XP got bogged down.

If Vista users want to use Snow Leopard they are going to have to pay far more than $29 for it. By comparison, the cost of Windows 7 will look far sweeter.

And OS 10.4.11 runs on my iBook G3 500MHz that I bought nine years ago...so what? 90% of computer users run Windows because they are forced to by their employers, or simply because they are poor ignorants that have lived in caves for years...EVERY single person I helped switch over the last year is not even considering turning back to that piece of **** that Windows is...and I mean more than 10 switchers in just 1 year.

As for the $29, quit the ********, please. There is no way anyone can say that this major upgrade is not worth it...and it does NOT require purchasing a new Mac, unless your machine is really that old. And how the hell can you say that Windows 7 is cheaper? Not even the ridiculous starter edition can justify itself. Finally, why don't you try Vista on a Pentium 3, like I do with the latest version of Tiger on my old iBook? Go figure...

 

[jdechko]

I wouldn't know. I don't use Windows

Consider yourself lucky. A few months ago I had to refresh a laptop for my father-in-law. I had an XP upgrade disc that would have been fine, except during the install, it got hung up. When I tried to redo the install it couldn't find it. We couldn't find the restore discs (which would have made the whole thing easier to begin with) and I had to do some things to get it to recognize the install. Yay for the mac way.

iDisk is clearly getting some updates because there is going to be a new iDisk iPhone app in the store.

"The iDisk app — available free on the App Store — lets you view files on your iDisk right on your iPhone. Microsoft Office or iWork ’09 documents, PDFs, video files, and more are viewable in landscape or portrait. Even access Public folders of other MobileMe members with a few taps."

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3...-features.html

Heck Yeah! How did I miss this before? I am glad I didn't spend the $1.99 on QuickOffice Files. And this better be free. After all, we are spending $99/year. The least they can do is give us a $0.99 app (in addition to all of the other services we get, of course. )

 

[Hattig]

So, any moronic comments on how "expensive" Apple products are? What is MS doing now, offering its ridiculous Vista patch fix for free? We already have the most advanced OS in the world...for 29 bucks, SL is just gonna widen that lead.

WINDOWS 7 IS DEAD. AND I DON'T CARE.

Think about it - since 2007 Apple have increased their active marketshare to 75 million people, from 25 million - according to the keynote.

In 2007 that meant Apple could rely on say 10 million people to buy the OS upgrade (2/5ths).

Now I'll assume that 10 million people are still on PowerPC, so we have 65m active Intel users. If 2/5 of them bought the upgrade it's 26 million copies ... but it's $29, so 4/5ths will buy it - 52 million copies.

10m * $129 = $1.29b revenue (certainly more than development costs, licensing costs, ongoing costs, and other costs of developing Leopard since Tiger)
52m * $29 = $1.508b revenue (ditto)

Apple can afford to sell the upgrade cheaper - they might say they're doing this because it is a refinement, but there are enough new features (beyond things that should have been there in the first place) to argue that Apple could have sold it for $99, or $79, or $49 ... and $49 would have sold like hotcakes too.

Basically, Apple is a hardware company, and is happy to not grossly profit from the software that enables their hardware. Getting 50m people onto Snow Leopard will be a boon for software development, and applications will move to support it and use its features very quickly.

 

[tedson]

I am willing to bet that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work for any Intel mac, including ones that are currently running Tiger only without checking for a current Leopard install.

The reason I say this is it would be a complete pain in the ass to have to install 10.5 first before installing 10.6.x every time you reformat your hard drive. In addition, there were not that many Intel mac models released before they come out with 10.5 and most of those people probably upgraded to 10.5 by now so relatively speaking there would be few Intel Mac users still running Tiger.

I don't think they'll annoy the majority of their customers with some weird checking just to nab those few Tiger users trying to skip an upgrade.
Yes, Apple says Tiger users should buy the box set but they figure that you'll want the current version of iLife and iWorks as well but I see no indication they will sell a 10.6 Tiger only upgrade.( OS only without iLife and iWorks) for $129 or whatever.

 

[50548]

Think about it - since 2007 Apple have increased their active marketshare to 75 million people, from 25 million - according to the keynote.

In 2007 that meant Apple could rely on say 10 million people to buy the OS upgrade (2/5ths).

Now I'll assume that 10 million people are still on PowerPC, so we have 65m active Intel users. If 2/5 of them bought the upgrade it's 26 million copies ... but it's $29, so 4/5ths will buy it - 52 million copies.

10m * $129 = $1.29b revenue (certainly more than development costs, licensing costs, ongoing costs, and other costs of developing Leopard since Tiger)
52m * $29 = $1.508b revenue (ditto)

Apple can afford to sell the upgrade cheaper - they might say they're doing this because it is a refinement, but there are enough new features (beyond things that should have been there in the first place) to argue that Apple could have sold it for $99, or $79, or $49 ... and $49 would have sold like hotcakes too.

Basically, Apple is a hardware company, and is happy to not grossly profit from the software that enables their hardware. Getting 50m people onto Snow Leopard will be a boon for software development, and applications will move to support it and use its features very quickly.

Absolutely; their pricing is just genius, considering the mass adoption by developers of the winning combo Mac/iPhone/iPod...after all, millions and millions more are gonna buy Macs just to live the flawless computing experience that only Apple offers.

In fact, Apple is about to become even more of a leader in the IT segment...there is no stopping this behemoth train anymore.

1 - Number ONE in smartphones;
2 - Number ONE in media players;
3 - About to become the biggest personal computer maker in the world again, after the worldwide success of the Apple //;
4 - Best OS in the world.

What else?

 

[Eidorian]

And OS 10.4.11 runs on my iBook G3 500MHz that I bought nine years ago...so what? 90% of computer users run Windows because they are forced to by their employers, or simply because they are poor ignorants that have lived in caves for years...EVERY single person I helped switch over the last year is not even considering turning back to that piece of **** that Windows is...and I mean more than 10 switchers in just 1 year.

10.4 on a iBook G3 500 Mhz isn't a pleasant experience and lest we forget 10.4 is hitting 4 years old as well.

As for the $29, quit the ********, please. There is no way anyone can say that this major upgrade is not worth it...and it does NOT require purchasing a new Mac, unless your machine is really that old. And how the hell can you say that Windows 7 is cheaper? Not even the ridiculous starter edition can justify itself.

We've already subsidized our upgrade price with our purchase of Apple's hardware. They can afford to "give away" Snow Leopard for a $29 upgrade for Leopard users.

You either bought a Mac with Leopard (drop-in/preinstalled) or you bought Leopard itself.

Finally, why don't you try Vista on a Pentium 3, like I do with the latest version of Tiger on my old iBook? Go figure...

Leopard on an old PowerPC750cxe.

Absolutely; their pricing is just genius, considering the mass adoption by developers of the winning combo Mac/iPhone/iPod...after all, millions and millions more are gonna buy Macs just to live the flawless computing experience that only Apple offers.

In fact, Apple is about to become even more of a leader in the IT segment...there is no stopping this behemoth train anymore.

1 - Number ONE in smartphones;
2 - Number ONE in media players;
3 - About to become the biggest personal computer maker in the world again, after the worldwide success of the Apple //;
4 - Best OS in the world.

What else?

1 and 2 can be safely ignored since we are only talking about Snow Leopard and computer hardware here. Was there a need to bring up the iPhone and iPod in this discussion?

While you can become the biggest computer vendor for 3 you're still looking at Windows grip on the market.

4 is subjective.

 

[bobertoq]

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.

I think they'll just sell an upgrade disk and a Snow Leopard disk. So if you already have 10.5 you can pay 30 dollars for an upgrade disk and it will check if you have Leopard or not, if you don't it won't install.

 

[shotters-nation]

Any information about Hybrid-SLI with 9400/9600 Nvidia cards under snow leopard? with OpenCL?

 

[hugodrax]

Ugh, damn. Now that is just disappointing and lame

I am good to go on my 06 mac pro I just upgraded to a 4870.

 

[Aquaporin]

I am disappointed that my ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT is not supported, but I guess I did buy my iMac almost a year ago.

 

[Sky Blue]

What else?

Most blindly devoted fanboys?

 

[doctoree]

I can't believe this, 29 Dollars for an OS that is so advanced and polished.
Look at what Vista Ultimate costs...

 

[gnasher729]

That's what I'm worried about too. Sure, it's great right now, but what if, in six months, I have a hard drive crash, install a new HD and want to install Snow? Will I have to buy a whole new copy? Will I have to go through the process of finding then installing Leopard then upgrade it to Snow? It seems like it is potentially a lot of headache...

That's what Time Machine is for.

If I lost my hard drive and had no backup, the cost of the OS would be not my biggest worry.

 

[flopticalcube]

I am disappointed that my ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT is not supported, but I guess I did buy my iMac almost a year ago.

Hopefully this will be remedied in a future release because the hardware is capable.