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

[nuckinfutz]

I'm not paying $129 for such a lousy incremental upgrade like 10.6 .... Apple charges for features that are standard in most other OS'es. It touts stuff like Exchange support, support for 16GB RAM and more stability. WTF Apple??

If you consider the new iPhone, stuff like 3G, Contacts Search, Exchange Support, Bulk Mail Management are all touted as features??? A scientific calculator is one of the features. .. really Apple???

Apple is in the business of conning people with substandard hardware and software these days. I'm seriously starting to lose faith in them.

Then please don't pay the money. We don't even know what Apple intends to charge for Snow Leopard and you've already flown off the handle. If you feel like you're being conned sell your Mac on eBay. You'd have to be a fool to compute on a platform you have no faith in right? www.ebay.com

I love the Snow Leopard idea. Microsoft could learn a lot from this if it turns out well - less f***ing around trying to cram in a million new (and buggy) features and ending up with a complete mess like Vista, and just concentrate on polishing up what's already there for a little while.

I bet they'll come up with something new to get people to part with their hard-earned though.

Yes I think so but I'm not sure that Appe's going to charge $129 for Snow Leopard. The benefits (or at least the features we know about currently) are going to benefit primarily Mac Pro owners (OpenCL and Grand Central). I could easily see Apple delivering these features plus a few goodies that would appeal to everyone for $49 or less.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Maybe they would have G6 or G7 already

Actually, look at IBM's POWER6 line. Though these are meant for servers, boy do they ever pack a wallop. IBM's forthcoming POWER7 looks even more impressive.

That said, I somehow doubt Apple would have been willing to invest in those, especially since Apple originally stated that one reason for switching to Intel was thermal profiles.

That said... being a developer I agree with what everyone else has said about Grand Central and OpenCL - these will make new programs that take advantage of them absolutely FLY, and have some benefits for older programs as well, though not as dramatic.

 

[DsurioN]

So then I assume that a copy of leopard would be required? What if you have tiger and you want to buy snow leopard?

I guess they'll just start selling snow leopard in stores instead of leopard

 

[Riemann Zeta]

From the way that Apple is describing this "Snow Leopard" release as having "a much reduced footprint with a 64bit kernel" it seems like it will be 64bit x86 only. This is a little mind boggling, as everyone with less than 4GB of RAM gains absolutely nothing from a pure-64bit OS, other than the ass pain associated with needing new, signed 64bit-only kernel-level drivers. Sure, I could run a pure 64bit Windows 2008/Vista system, but why would I unless I had a desktop with >8GB RAM? I can't think of a single client-side application (save perhaps video compression algorithms) that shows a gain in performance from using those extra bits.

For serious balls-to-the-wall servers, having a pure 64bit OS can be really advantageous, but unless regular client-level laptops start shipping with over 8GB of RAM, I can't see the benefit. Isn't running a 32bit App in a straight-64bit OS actually slower than running that same App in a native 32bit OS?

 

[nuckinfutz]

From the way that Apple is describing this "Snow Leopard" release as having "a much reduced footprint with a 64bit kernel" it seems like it will be 64bit x86 only. This is a little mind boggling, as everyone with less than 4GB of RAM gains absolutely nothing from a pure-64bit OS, other than the ass pain associated with needing new 64bit-only kernel-level drivers. Sure, I could run a pure 64bit Windows 2008/Vista system, but why would I unless I had a desktop with >8GB RAM? I can't think of a single client-side application (save perhaps video compression algorithms) that shows a gain in performance from using those extra bits.

For serious balls-to-the-wall servers, having a pure 64bit OS might be advantageous, but unless regular client-level laptops start shipping with over 8GB of RAM, I can't see the benefit.

Or they could have simply removed the PPC code. And actually it's false that users w/o 4GB of RAM do not see a benefit. When Intel moved up to 64-bit support in their processors they double the amount of registers so there is potential for better performance beyond memory addressing.

 

[knightlie]

I'm not paying $129 for such a lousy incremental upgrade like 10.6 .... Apple charges for features that are standard in most other OS'es. It touts stuff like Exchange support, support for 16GB RAM and more stability. WTF Apple??

You have NO IDEA what the cost will be.

Apple is in the business of conning people with substandard hardware and software these days. I'm seriously starting to lose faith in them.

WTF are you talking about? Conning people?

Has it occurred to you that you don't HAVE to buy Snow Leopard, but could easily wait until the subsequent release, which will presumably incorporate the improvements of 10.6 as well as the uber kewl new features you seem to be demanding?

 

[Cloudane]

The cynic in me says if they're not persuading people to part with $129 by offering new features, they'll instead "force" people to pay it by releasing {some awesome new product/software} and making Snow Leopard the minimum requirement. I know they do free upgrades occasionally but it tends to be the "subscription model" stuff.

Still, you never know. Apple have a knack for surprises

Edit: Hahaha I dread to think what they'd charge for 16TB of RAM. They'd probably literally charge an arm and a leg just for thinking about it, and call it equivalent trade.

 

[sharky05]

LMAO, imagine how much Apple will charge for 16 TB of ram? hahahahah

Don't worry - you can buy 3rd party RAM for about $50

 

[Rorikynn]

Stop Whining

PPC in Macs is dead. Get over it. The sooner Apple makes the transition the better. Most PPC chips can't provide the performance most users need nowadays, anyway.

The idea behind Snow Leopard is a good one. Apple is choosing to modernize their OS core and clean up the crud. Let them do it and stop whining. In the end it will benefit us OS X users with improved security, performance, and scalability; even if you skip 10.6 altogether.

You people whine about how leopard is slow and buggy. So then when Apple decides to do something about it by taking a leap forward, in typical Apple fashion, you bitch and moan about that too. Oh, yes I see it already...
[Annoying whiny voice]
"But Rorikynn, this should be done in 10.5.x point releases. *whiny voice slowly trails off*
[/Annoying whiny voice]

Well instead of patching over the source of the problem they are most likely going to the source and cleaning that up. The way it is suppose to be done in the first place. And yes, they will continue to release 10.5.x updates to patch and fix this and that.

The cost. Hmm, the cost. Who cares. We are an entire year away from seeing it. If its free, great. If not, well you make the decision to spend the $129 (or whatever) for yourself (and mostly likely bitch and moan about it in the forums).

So put a cork in it.

 

[archer75]

From the way that Apple is describing this "Snow Leopard" release as having "a much reduced footprint with a 64bit kernel" it seems like it will be 64bit x86 only. This is a little mind boggling, as everyone with less than 4GB of RAM gains absolutely nothing from a pure-64bit OS, other than the ass pain associated with needing new, signed 64bit-only kernel-level drivers. Sure, I could run a pure 64bit Windows 2008/Vista system, but why would I unless I had a desktop with >8GB RAM? I can't think of a single client-side application (save perhaps video compression algorithms) that shows a gain in performance from using those extra bits.

A 64bit OS does improve performance even for 32bit apps. And by quite a bit. Windows has even been benchmarked, 32bit vs 64bit both with 32bit apps and 64bit does show definate improvements. Apps and Games. Memory management is far more efficent in 64bit operating systems. Even if you have less than 4gb of ram.
I run 32bit Vista, 64bit Vista and Leopard so I can see the speed all around. 64bit Vista is certainly faster and more stable than 32bit. 64bit Vista is faster for WoW than Leopard. Leopard is faster in some other stuff.

 

[flopticalcube]

<rant>

So put a cork in it.

I hope people will ignore this rant and continue to argue the pros and cons of continued PPC support in 10.6. Everyone is entitled to an opinion except the one that says you are not.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I hope people will ignore this rant and continue to argue the pros and cons of continued PPC support in 10.6. Everyone is entitled to an opinion except the one that says you are not.

While it would be nice to have PPC support the bloat that it cause the OS with the extra libraries is becoming an untenable situation for those of us on Intel. Either Apple needs to eschew PPC support or deliver a seperate compile of just PPC Snow Leopard. I'd like my space back on my hard drive and a more lean and mean system.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

While it would be nice to have PPC support the bloat that it cause the OS with the extra libraries is becoming an untenable situation for those of us on Intel. Either Apple needs to eschew PPC support or deliver a seperate compile of just PPC Snow Leopard. I'd like my space back on my hard drive and a more lean and mean system.

It seems people just don't understand...
PPC (and Intel, for that matter) code takes up only 1-10% (in extreme cases) of the space a typical Universal Binary requires. Where does the rest come from? The resources. Look inside a typical application, and you'll see that a significant chunk comes from .strings files that contain language translations. Another large chunk consists of media files - almost all apps these days use them in some shape or form. In fact, if you look at an application like GarageBand, the media consumes 99.8% of the space. The remaining 0.02% is comprised of PowerPC code, Intel code, and other small resources.

 

[AidenShaw]

not

Uhhh, Hibernation on Windows takes power also.

"Hibernation" copies all memory and CPU state to the %SystemDrive%\hiberfil.sys file.

You can pull the power cord (or remove the battery), and still restore the original state.

This is the same as "shutdown" as far as power consumption goes.

In Windows, "Sleep" keeps the data in main memory alive, using a small amount of power. (In vista, "Sleep" also does a "Hibernate" - the memory and state is copied to hiberfil.sys as well as being kept alive in RAM. If you unplug a sleeping Vista system - you can still restore the state from the hiberfil.sys.)

All ATX power supplies drawn some small amount of power for standby use (WOL, even the power switch needs to be powered). So, in truth, both hibernate and shutdown do use a little bit of power.

 

[Eric S.]

From the way that Apple is describing this "Snow Leopard" release as having "a much reduced footprint with a 64bit kernel" it seems like it will be 64bit x86 only.

I missed where they said "64-bit kernel." Where was that?

While it would be nice to have PPC support the bloat that it cause the OS with the extra libraries is becoming an untenable situation for those of us on Intel. Either Apple needs to eschew PPC support or deliver a seperate compile of just PPC Snow Leopard. I'd like my space back on my hard drive and a more lean and mean system.

Do you have some kind of tiny hard drive? Leopard uses about 16GB in my system.

 

[AidenShaw]

Either Apple needs to eschew PPC support or deliver a seperate compile of just PPC Snow Leopard.

... yes, copy Microsoft's system of delivering x86 and x64 code on separate DVDs.

 

[milo]

Something funny I just noticed. Apple is claiming that the 16TB is 500 times what is available today. Yet they claim for Leopard 10.5 right now...

"64-bit addressing of up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory and 4 terabytes of physical memory"

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/64bit.html

That would be a 4x increase in ram, not 500x. So is 10.5 not delivering what they say it does? Or are they just trying to give us the things in Leopard again and hope nobody notices they aren't new?

 

[nuckinfutz]

It seems people just don't understand...
PPC (and Intel, for that matter) code takes up only 1-10% (in extreme cases) of the space a typical Universal Binary requires. Where does the rest come from? The resources. Look inside a typical application, and you'll see that a significant chunk comes from .strings files that contain language translations. Another large chunk consists of media files - almost all apps these days use them in some shape or form. In fact, if you look at an application like GarageBand, the media consumes 99.8% of the space. The remaining 0.02% is comprised of PowerPC code, Intel code, and other small resources.

I think those numbers might be a tad low. I may give Monolingual a try or Xslimmer but I'm not touching the PPC code because I think that'll cause instability. We'll see but those who have removed PPC code (even at their own peril) have reported larger space savings.

I missed where they said "64-bit kernel." Where was that?

Do you have some kind of tiny hard drive? Leopard uses about 16GB in my system.

80GB. I know I need to buy another drive but right now I'm saving for a decent LCD first. LOL

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I think those numbers might be a tad low. I may give Monolingual a try or Xslimmer but I'm not touching the PPC code because I think that'll cause instability. We'll see but those who have removed PPC code (even at their own peril) have reported larger space savings.

Monolingual does NOT just remove PPC code. It also removes unneeded language translations - stripping these is what results in the significant space savings. Remember, in Leopard the language translation files consume about 1.3 GB by themselves (this, according to the retail Leopard installer). Per application installed on a default system, this works out to about 1.3 MB per translation (Someone check my math - there are about 50 applications and OS-level services installed with Leopard, and each of these contains about 20 translations... that means 1000 .strings files, only 50 of which you actually need).

 

[forumdude]

is that a brand of laptop or pc? hhmmm sorry if am intereupting just curious

 

[flopticalcube]

I think those numbers might be a tad low. I may give Monolingual a try or Xslimmer but I'm not touching the PPC code because I think that'll cause instability. We'll see but those who have removed PPC code (even at their own peril) have reported larger space savings.

I tried Xslimmer on a few apps and the results were mixed. Some gave a decent savings (20-30%) but most did very little. The real thing you need to slim down is the OS but that would be FAR too dangerous, IMO. Not really sure the savings would be big, however.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I tried Xslimmer on a few apps and the results were mixed. Some gave a decent savings (20-30%) but most did very little. The real thing you need to slim down is the OS but that would be FAR too dangerous, IMO. Not really sure the savings would be big, however.

Yeah I think I'll play it conservative and just delete my uneeded printer files and language files. Apple's Snow Leopard page says they've "dramatically" reduced the size of Snow Leopard and it's easy to see that they could accomplish this by simply making Printer drivers and languages user selectable at install. I'd rather have the OS prompt me for my printer brand and then install the drivers same for languages.

 

[Peace]

Yeah I think I'll play it conservative and just delete my uneeded printer files and language files. Apple's Snow Leopard page says they've "dramatically" reduced the size of Snow Leopard and it's easy to see that they could accomplish this by simply making Printer drivers and languages user selectable at install. I'd rather have the OS prompt me for my printer brand and then install the drivers same for languages.

Printer drivers and languages are already selectable on install in 10.5.

 

[flopticalcube]

Yeah I think I'll play it conservative and just delete my uneeded printer files and language files. Apple's Snow Leopard page says they've "dramatically" reduced the size of Snow Leopard and it's easy to see that they could accomplish this by simply making Printer drivers and languages user selectable at install. I'd rather have the OS prompt me for my printer brand and then install the drivers same for languages.

My feeling on that is that thy have either included a PPC/Intel code stripper in the install, have separate install paths or are dropping PPC.

 

[smartalic34]

Something funny I just noticed. Apple is claiming that the 16TB is 500 times what is available today. Yet they claim for Leopard 10.5 right now...

"64-bit addressing of up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory and 4 terabytes of physical memory"

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/64bit.html

That would be a 4x increase in ram, not 500x. So is 10.5 not delivering what they say it does? Or are they just trying to give us the things in Leopard again and hope nobody notices they aren't new?

They are comparing to the Mac Pro, which can address 32GB of RAM maximum. 16TB is 500x more than 32GB, if you're inclined to do the division