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Mac OS X 10.6 to Debut at WWDC 2008?

It's quite saddening that by the current standards of software marketing and engineering we cannot expect Mac OS to be stable before the .9 or .10 software update.

At 10.5.3, Leopard is still riddled with highly frustrating bugs. This situation has spoilt my appetite to the point that I am hardly excited about what's in store for 10.6.
 
Tallest Skil said:
It's becoming rapidly outdated?
Click to expand...

Bull, all G5s and many later G4s are still quite capable machines. My Dual 1.8 is far from 'outdated' and is still a good performer in Leopard.

Dropping all PPC support would be just plain dumb. I'm not made of money and can't afford to buy a Intel desktop Mac and my needs both professionally and recreationally require a Mac Pro. iMac isn't an option for me.

My G5 as well as others are still perfectly fine at running OS X, especially the higher end ones with high end video cards.
 
Hah! I blogged about this last night (among other things).

I expect it to be talked about, though I really didn't expect developers to get a copy, and I definitely don't expect that it would drop PPC support, simply because of the PA Semi acquisition. They have a substantial PPC knowledge base and product line, and I could see Apple putting PA Semi chips in set top boxes and other devices and running OSX on them.

In other words, there is no way Apple will be dropping OSX for PPC.
 
Macula said:
It's quite saddening that by the current standards of software marketing and engineering we cannot expect Mac OS to be stable before the .9 or .10 software update.

At 10.5.3, Leopard is still riddled with highly frustrating bugs. This situation has spoilt my appetite to the point that I am hardly excited about what's in store for 10.6.
Click to expand...
Like?
 
1) Way too soon. Apple said after Leopard's release that they'll be slowing down a bit.

2) No new features? Stability release? We call that 10.5.4, everybody.
 
socamx said:
Bull, all G5s and many later G4s are still quite capable machines. My Dual 1.8 is far from 'outdated' and is still a good performer in Leopard.

Dropping all PPC support would be just plain dumb. I'm not made of money and can't afford to buy a Intel desktop Mac and my needs both professionally and recreationally require a Mac Pro. iMac isn't an option for me.

My G5 as well as others are still perfectly fine at running OS X, especially the higher end ones with high end video cards.
Click to expand...
It would only be reasonable to drop PPC support if it came out in 18 months or more. Before that, its too soon. Even the last PowerMacs are less than 2 years old. Just can't see it yet.
 
The landmark event in two ways is the intro of multi-touch on all macs. Perhaps the Mighty Mouse will be trumped by a new way to control a mac in Leopard.
 
No way. No new features and drop PPC support? "Security and stability" are features that you shouldn't have to pay to get. If this isn't a sellable upgrade, it may as well just be a 10.5.x release. I can see PPC support being dropped if there are major upgrades to the OS underpinnings, but not if this is just a minor update. Every 10.x release until now has been loaded with impressive features... 10.6 should be no different.
 
bankshot said:
This is ridiculous. How about fixing/polishing Leopard first?
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Leopard will continue to be fixed and polished, with all of that work, plus more all rolled into 10.6. The two developments will be simultaneous, with the last Leopard update coming out shortly before or just after 10.6 shipped. This is the way it has always been, no reason why it will not continue.

bankshot said:
OS X continues to become larger and more complex, which means it should logically take more time to do each successive major update.
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OS X is larger, but it is the engineers job to make sure it is not prohibitively complex to allow for frequent iterations (or at least iterations within the schedule).

I'm a little surprised at the negative responses. The best software is a result of frequent evolution over time.

I'm pleased Apple is moving forward with their 12/18 month release schedule and an early seed at WWDC will fit right in with that.

Ubuntu is on a 6 month schedule, Apple can't go at that speed, but they will not go slow either.

By January people will be ready for a new operating system I'm sure. It will not feel like too soon.
 
If released that soon, that would only fuel PC fanboy's claim that Apple makes you pay for Service Packs.....
 
Chef Medeski said:
Like?
Click to expand...

The Graphics bug in 10.5.3 (although I haven't updated yet because of another bug in Disk Utility just refusing to partition my HDD), and the bug where Airport keeps dropping the WiFi connection and sometimes can't connect at all on my school network (especially when I need it to the most dammit).

Sebastian
 
flopticalcube said:
Maybe they will just use features that should have made it into Leopard but never did like fast OS switching.
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And ZTF.

Possibly implement more multi-touch features for the trackpad.

ZTF is one thing you would need a new release for.

Plus with a bit of increased speed they could work out another release, it would obviously be smaller but probably a cleanup right before the dump of multi-touch OS in late 2010 or 2011 to match Windows 7.
 
Seeing as how MS is now starting to show signs of the current MacBook/iPhone OSs touch features, I would think a 10.6 Touch announcement would be appropriate right about now before Apple looks like they've been slacking.

Apple has been buying up and developing touch for awhile now and I think they're much further ahead than we think.

One thing to think about is that large touch screens suck, nobody wants to be that close to a desktop or laptop monitor, and they're at the wrong angle. If Apple would do something like an oled touchpad or like a nice wacom I think they might be onto something....

Touch screen, touch keyboard, no mouse.

They've proven that people can type on glass with no tactile feedback and do it very well. The key to this is the auto spell correction, this, above all, will change the way people use computers. Imagine being able to type on glass at the same speed as a regular keyboard with fewer errors (I can now on my iPhone). This is the one feature I miss when going from my iPhone to a computer, although OSX's spell checker is great now, it doesnt auto correct obviuos mistakes. (like the two in the last sentence)

One things for sure... every Mac running 10.6 will have passed the "Lion Certified Compatibility" program without having to bribe someone.
 
PowerBook G5 the Tuesday of WWDC?

My Quad 2.5GHz G5 system will be running for a long time, and is a great performer -- losing Apple's support this soon would be a major disappointment. Either way, I'm planning on not upgrading my machine for another 2 years (have to support my family before updating a perfectly fine machine).
 
Dropping PowerPC support doesn't make sense. If this is just a minor update, what would be the point? More importantly though, it's not clear that x86 will always be the right choice. Intel seems to have stagnated a bit again, but IBM has made some big advancements with the POWER 6 series and has some interesting technology in development. The only serious advantage for Apple to staying with Intel is to give customers access to Windows only software with the ability to boot either OSX or Windows on a Mac. As the Mac market share grows, it may soon reach a point that no significant software will remain Windows only and the need for dual booting won't be so important. If IBM makes a significant leap ahead of Intel, Apple would be in the envious position of being able to leap frog their competition by instantly switching back to PowerPC as long as they have continued to support PowerPC in OSX. There may come a day when the cost of maintaining both versions outweighs the likelihood of needing to switch back, but that day will not come with a minor update of OSX released in less than a year. It would be a short sighted move.
 
I sure hope that Steve doesn't spend too much time on OS 10.6. I am more interested in hearing all about the 3G iPhone.
This is how I think it will go:
"The next version of Mac OS X is <insert name here> but that is in the future...Today we will be focusing on the iPhone, Apple's newest development platform"
 
Maybe they're re-working the kernel to take advantage of Nehalem's multi-threading abilities? We should start seeing Nehalem development boxes very soon...
 
Chef Medeski said:
And ZTF.

Possibly implement more multi-touch features for the trackpad.

ZTF is one thing you would need a new release for.

Plus with a bit of increased speed they could work out another release, it would obviously be smaller but probably a cleanup right before the dump of multi-touch OS in late 2010 or 2011 to match Windows 7.
Click to expand...

maybe it is the full multi-touch OS, just in time for the redesign MBP. And beat windows 7 by a couple months.
 
Will not happen. Tiger had 11 some odd software updates, Leopard still only has 3. Way too soon.
 
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