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Mac OS X 'Snow Leopard' to Focus on Performance, Quality

mdriftmeyer said:
They are for GPUs.
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Yes but wouldn't it be interesting if Apple defined the CPU (namely Intel) as "Modern" as well?

I tend to get a little uneasy about Apple integrating GPU tech into the OS. I like it but they have such a poor track record of putting decent GPU into their models.
 
javierbds said:
If I have to wait 7 years for a new OS release, I hope my 'pusher' gives me some speed from time to time ... I moved away from XP as I found it stagnant (if only the first acceptable release from Redmond for end users), just to live in Tiger (on both sides) ... The only interesting thing for me on MS on the last decade has been to follow how well they improved on Java (.Net). And it seems MS still has a lot to 'learn':
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/what-microsoft-could-learn-from-apple.ars
In short, MS still makes easy stuff doable by a 7 year old and hard stuff almost impossible ... But I'm sure that's the right thing for their demographics. :p

As Intel has a tick (new fab process) - tock (new arch) for hw, it seems Apple is doing it too:
- Tiger (new arch): People still do not realize how impressive this transition has been.
- Leopard (new features): Some of them unfinished as new infrastructure is missing. Middle ground for new platform(s) (iPhone).
- Snow Leopard (new infrastructure): I bet this release (even though it will still support PPC) will make people want to upgrade their hw for sure!

The OS builder has to build infrastructure to use and make available what the hw makes possible, and then app devs have to use what the OS and frameworks provide to build great applications ... I'll bet Snow Leopard will provide a dev's dream environment, but it may take some time for some end users to notice (some end users do not even realize that some features were already available on earlier iterations, because they where not so visible ...).

I am enjoying being on OS X (less than 4 years yet) much more than I have enjoyed MS's environments in 20! I pay to use OS X, they pay me to use/develop for other OSs.

So, where are all those guys who said the new OS release would come in January? :rolleyes:
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You said it so well. Thanks. The idea of a tick-tock model for Intel and (apparently also) for Apple is exactly what I was thinking.
 
It's not just a bug fix, they are re-architecting the innards.

One job of the operating system is to allow programmers to best leverage the hardware, and computer hardware has changed in recent years. I am talking about multi-core. This was not around when OS X was originally architected in 2000.
 
I'm sorry if this has been answerd, or if it is a really bad question but....

How powerful is a GPU?
What does Apple mean, "Theoretically" 16TB of RAM?
Will the UI be any different?
Will there be any new features?
 
aLoC said:
It's not just a bug fix, they are re-architecting the innards.
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So if they are re-architecting the innards, is this still not enough for the OS 11 designation? Seems like it would be a lot to just go from 10.5 to 10.6
 
mac-er said:
So if they are re-architecting the innards, is this still not enough for the OS 11 designation? Seems like it would be a lot to just go from 10.5 to 10.6
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OS 11 isn't coming until at least 2015. When OS X was first announced in 1999, SJ said it was going to be the core of Apple's OS "for the next twenty years".
 
bobertoq said:
I'm sorry if this has been answerd, or if it is a really bad question but....

How powerful is a GPU?
What does Apple mean, "Theoretically" 16TB of RAM?
Will the UI be any different?
Will there be any new features?
Click to expand...

in terms of gigaflops, GPUs have much higher output than CPUs, I believe. as for the 16TB of RAM, it is "theoretical" because it would cost thousands and thousands (maybe millions?) of dollars for that much RAM. even today's most powerful Mac Pro can only support 32GB of RAM... we're talking 16TB

according to most rumors, the UI and features will be identical to 10.5
 
Okay, no geek either, Bob, but this is how I simplify it for myself:

bobertoq said:
I'm sorry if this has been answerd, or if it is a really bad question but....

How powerful is a GPU?
Click to expand...
The graphics can be pretty powerful. It of course depends, but since everything you see on screen have to pass through it, it matters a lot. Also, if more of the renderings you see can be calculated there, and since the cards are getting bigger and bigger it will matter.
Also, since the "normal" CPU seems to have somewhat stagnated, this (and the HDD) is the next place one can up the speed.

What does Apple mean, "Theoretically" 16TB of RAM?
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Because, as of yet, no computer on the market can hold 16 TerraBytes of RAM. I don't know how much OS X can handle as of now - I think it's 16GB.
Think of SD-card readers. The old ones can only read up to 2 GB formatted in a certain manner whereas the new ones can theoretically read cards up to (can't remember either) 32, 64, or is it 132 GB. Quite a lot. However, that is a theoretical GB, as there aren't any SD-cards out that big yet. It's about futureproofing, basically.

Will the UI be any different?
Click to expand...

Noone knows. Apple haven't spoken about the UI as of yet.

Will there be any new features?
Click to expand...
Same as above. Nothing has been said yet.
 
stainlessliquid said:
Im mostly wondering why the hell its taking them around 2 years to come out with a service pack. This thing should be out this fall, not summer/fall 2009. What are they going to do with regular leopard updates now? Ignore them? Purposely leave things unfixed to sell 10.6?
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I suppose that's why Apple recently released 10.5.3 and then almost immediately seeded 10.5.4? :rolleyes:
 
I don't think OS X has too much bloat.

- Expose and Spaces are just window management features.

- Time Machine is not bloat because backup is the kind of system wide administrative task that belongs in the OS.

- Dashboard. This is arguably bloat, but there seems to be a demand for little widgety things. And having the OS recoognize them and manage them as a separate class of app is better than just ignoring them and forcing people to hack.

- Boot Camp - this is not bloat because it's not part of the OS, it's a separate partition.

- Front Row. This is the only thing I definitely think is bloat. 10-foot interfaces belong on TV sets not computers.

Edit: but I would like a system preference that is just a bank of switches to turn all these things on or off completely.
 
aLoC said:
I don't think OS X has too much bloat.

- Expose and Spaces are just window management features.

- Time Machine is not bloat because backup is the kind of system wide administrative task that belongs in the OS.

- Dashboard. This is arguably bloat, but there seems to be a demand for little widgety things. And having the OS recoognize them and manage them as a separate class of app is better than just ignoring them and forcing people to hack.

- Boot Camp - this is not bloat because it's not part of the OS, it's a separate partition.

- Front Row. This is the only thing I definitely think is bloat. 10-foot interfaces belong on TV sets not computers.

Edit: but I would like a system preference that is just a bank of switches to turn all these things on or off completely.
Click to expand...

Bloat is not about there being actual apps. It's how those apps are implemented and how cumbersome the code is.

bigwig said:
No computer running OSX, you mean. An SGI Altix maxes out at 128 TB.
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I meant a "mainstream os".

What the hell is the SGI Altix supercomputer running? Some neato embedded linux?

When I say "the fuel price is going up and up", I'm not talking about titanium dust (it burns explosively), even though titanium apparently has fallen in price recently.
Of course I meant mainstream OS's. XP, Vista OS X, and some of the more "mainstream" linux-distributions.
 
ZFS in Snow Leopard Server

I am very excited about this!

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard/

ZFS
For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.


But this footnote does not give confidence:

"All features on this page are subject to change."
 
aLoC said:
I am talking about multi-core. This was not around when OS X was originally architected in 2000.
Click to expand...

That's really funny, considering that one of my first projects out of grad school in 1983 was to work on the VMS port to the new multi-core VAX systems.

SMP (AKA "multi-core") has been around since before you (most likely) were born.

The difference, though, is that 25 years ago "multi-core" usually meant "2 cores". Now low-priced "multi-core" systems have 4 to 8 cores, and soon 16 to 32 cores.

The operating systems are pretty good at handling multi-core (in the 8 to 16 to 32 core sense) now, but applications and system libraries need a lot of work. Some applications will never run better on an 8 core system than they run on a 2 core system. Others might be lucky to get 3 or 4 core performance from an 8 or 16 core system.

In any case, improvements in the OS handling of multi-core will mostly benefit new applications. Don't expect older apps to suddenly run much faster on 10.6.
 
queshy said:
LMAO, imagine how much Apple will charge for 16 TB of ram? hahahahah
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"Oh, but it will be of a better quality than the crap they put in dells, lenovos and that 'far east' crappola".

It hurts to even think about it.
 
i think its a rebuild of leopard almost from the ground up. I just hope that most of the software like vm, aperture and others work with it without you having to go and buy new versions. That would suck and would make me keep my current OS. Also, it may have system requirements that are high enough to block all the crappy machines and thats' why it will work better.
 
I'll throw my 2¢ into the pot. I think this is absolutely the right way for Apple to go with OSX--an update that's about substance and not flash.

Honestly, I don't really think of it as paying for a service pack (I'm guessing we'll have to at least pay something for this). As others have pointed out, service packs are more about tacking patches on to fix problems, this update sounds more like a massive rewrite of much of the existing code. That's a totally different class of update imho.

I also don't think Apple will abandon it's work on periodic 5.x updates as Snow Leopard is still a good ways off and very well could be delayed. Those fixes are going to be additions to the existing code though (probably focused on stability, security and minor performance improvements), not the rewrite that will likely result in large performance improvements. I'm sure they've got a few surprises tucked away too.

As far as mail being a crappy app, I've really got to disagree with you there. Sure there are clearly issues with it, but when you look at it's complete integration with osx and other services like .mac it's pretty sweet. For example, you can use automator and applescript to do all kinds of crazy things with your mail app, that really aren't even remotely possible with other mail programs. The way it handles incoming photos is pretty nice, and if you've never messed with rules, than you're missing out bigtime. I would like to see a bit more consistency with how my calendars, to-do-lists and other things are managed, perhaps snow leopard will refine this a bit.
 
Actuary said:
I am very excited about this!

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard/

ZFS
For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.

But this footnote does not give confidence:

"All features on this page are subject to change."
Click to expand...

Read and write support for ZFS is a most significant feature. This alone, would make the upgrade worthwhile.
 
Performance optimization is what we need from Apple!

It's the right approach Apple is taking. The hardware advancement is still ahead of software. It is also time Apple look into multi-core and multi-thread optimization for OSX in order to take advantage of current and future multi-core platforms. With properly tuned OSX, the new Snow Leopard will run faster, scale better even on existing hardware. One of the feature Apple might want to look into is how to take advantage of VT from Intel Core based CPU.
 
Tosser said:
What the hell is the SGI Altix supercomputer running? Some neato embedded linux?
Click to expand...
Altix runs a version of Linux optimized for SMP (1024 cores) and NUMA. SGI contributed the SMP and NUMA mods to the Linux code base.

ZFS only for Server? How lame.
 
bigwig said:
Altix runs a version of Linux optimized for SMP (1024 cores) and NUMA. SGI contributed the SMP and NUMA mods to the Linux code base.
Click to expand...

Yup, that was pretty much above my head, lol. But as far as I understand, they actually contributed with the necessary code to run what they needed. Thanky :)
 
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