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OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' Seeded to WWDC Developers
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I'm not "pushing for it" but I believe it. Last week I wouldn't have thought 10.6 would drop PPC support, but now I do. Why the change?
Well, simply because of the nature of this update (more under-the-hood stuff) it's looking VERY likely to me that Apple will CONTINUE to sell and support 10.5 alongside 10.6.
That's right, I'm betting that 'Leopard' and 'Snow Leopard' will both be on the shelf, side-by-side, all through 2009/2010. Normal Leopard will continue to see updates that whole time too.
If it's done that way (which I made up, but feel is likely) then yes, I do think 10.6 dropping PPC support is very likely. (And actually not a big deal.)
The G5 was the only 64 bit PPC Chip for the Mac.
G4, G3 and everything before it was 32 bit.
Only some are smaller than my file sizes but that's accounted to the wonderful Xslimmer. (Yes, I know it has already been said.)
I probably won't pay $129 for this upgrade... it seems too high a price for no new, noticeable features. ≥$60, maybe.
PPC fans rejoice, it looks as if the 10.6 System will still be Universal. Perhaps in the end, the 10.6 disc will contain universal code, but the OS Installer will only install binaries for a specific platform (detected at startup). It would be cool if Apple could do this, as Microsoft's solution for 64bit-ness has been a completely separate build on a different disc.
The problem with a 64bit OS, however, is that only 64bit kernel drivers will work. Thus, hardware support will be extremely limited, just as it is on Windows NT6 64bit. Since everyone is going 64bit nuts, I guess I need more RAM for my MBP--you need at least 4GB to run a 64bit kernel, so 2GB just ain't cutting it anymore.
The problem with a 64bit OS, however, is that only 64bit kernel drivers will work. Thus, hardware support will be extremely limited, just as it is on Windows NT6 64bit. Since everyone is going 64bit nuts, I guess I need more RAM for my MBP--you need at least 4GB to run a 64bit kernel, so 2GB just ain't cutting it anymore.
Hey guys, check this out:
What do you suppose "Remote Install OS X" is? Or is this something having to do with being a build?
It's to install OSX remotely for say the macbook air, but this is also on all laptops I have noticed as my macbook pro has it too.. It's nothing new as anyone with leopard now already has this.
Mixed Feelings
I'm very excited that Apple is saying look we need to clean house. I've had that opinion for a really long time now - with the OS and most of their other applications. Not just for speed but for bugs and such.
I'm disappointed that Apple is spinning this as a new OS - I think it should have been there in the first place.
It isn't there in the first place so fixing it is great! I'd feel comfortable paying $20 for something that really should have already been there. I consider this more of a 10.5 take 2 instead of a 10.6.
Hopefully the amount of attention to improving pays off and hopefully they do the same thing with their other apps.
I'm very excited that Apple is saying look we need to clean house. I've had that opinion for a really long time now - with the OS and most of their other applications. Not just for speed but for bugs and such.
I'm disappointed that Apple is spinning this as a new OS - I think it should have been there in the first place.
It isn't there in the first place so fixing it is great! I'd feel comfortable paying $20 for something that really should have already been there. I consider this more of a 10.5 take 2 instead of a 10.6.
Hopefully the amount of attention to improving pays off and hopefully they do the same thing with their other apps.
Universal binaries affect the application *file* size; it has nothing to do with the size of the program in memory. Do you really think that PPC code is loaded into memory when you execute a UB application on an Intel machine? How stupid would that be?
Ignis. BFWOOSH. >:3
Just kidding. This isn't replacing Aqua at all, it's merely updating it, just like every other release of OS X has done. Now, what I'd really like to see them do (once they've got all the "resolution independence" stuff squared away, since they still don't so far) is add support for UI theming and release a tool (I'm thinking something along the lines of an Apple take on SkinStudio, the tool for WindowBlinds skins) for people to make their own. Of course, I think they'd code-name their next release "Mac OS X Jackalope" before they'd let any 13-year-old kid in his mom's basement turn every window on his Mac into a retina-searing maelstrom of neon colours and unreadable fonts, so I think we'll still have to wait for ShapeShifter or some equivalent hack to be updated for the new drawing system.
Yeah, but there's two types of stability/performance/security updates: small changes & bug fixes, and complete re-writes.
The general 10.5.x updates are going to be mostly bug fixes, which will increase stability, performance, and security.
From what I see, 10.6 is going to be a major rewrite of the entire operating system. This is a huge project, and definitely warrants a paid upgrade. It's like putting a whole new engine in a car, where 10.5.x would just be getting an oil change.
Also, you know Apple is going to end up having some new features: they're just not focusing on them yet, because they have to get the Core OS done first.
Let's take a guess. We all know that Apple is doing some work in stick touch into Mac OS X. It's only logical that they are doing so from their developments with the iPhone. However, Apple being the secretive company that they are, would not even want to HINT at touch technology until it's ready. Why? Because it also requires hardware that's not currently available yet. And a year is a long time to promise something that may not come to fruition. So we'll see what happens.
That being said, we've had a previous example of an OS X "tune-up" release in 10.1. Whether it will be free or not, we don't really know. However, I am sorely disappointed in people spouting "$129 for a SERVICE PACK!?!?!?!" when Apple has made no announcements to price, nor do people understand the amount of effort it takes to rewrite major parts of the OS without ending up in multi-year delays and in perpetual calamity (see Windows Vista).
So take a chill pill and wait!
That being said, we've had a previous example of an OS X "tune-up" release in 10.1. Whether it will be free or not, we don't really know. However, I am sorely disappointed in people spouting "$129 for a SERVICE PACK!?!?!?!" when Apple has made no announcements to price, nor do people understand the amount of effort it takes to rewrite major parts of the OS without ending up in multi-year delays and in perpetual calamity (see Windows Vista).
So take a chill pill and wait!
Show me an application/OS that takes advantage of SSE4.1. Actually, I don't know of any compiler using it, not even by Intel. Right now the compilers are 1-2 years behind the processor's full capabilities. The advantage of that is that your "old" hardware runs faster with newer software.
Leopard does 64-bit and 32-bit applications side-by-side quite seemlessly.
Why do you think they'll drop that approach? They've got a much better solution than Windows TODAY. What reason would they have to go backwards next year?
1. Install VLC Player and Perian. VLC plays about anything, although badly dempending on the material. Perian is a free plugin for Quicktime that enables Quicktime to play virtually anything. If you have MKV-Files with soft-subtitles, Quicktime plays them back wonderfully, unlike VLC-Player.
2. DivX/xVid sucks compared to a well done H2.64 or x2.64 encoded video. The bad thing about H2.64 and the open source counterpart is that it takes way longer to encode and way more CPU power to decode. And there are more parameters to fine tune the encoder.
Try encoding a movie using Quicktime Pro, MPEG4 format, 1500 kbit/s video, automatic keyframes, dual pass, low profile on 480x320 pixels (keep aspect ratio using: crop). Looks stunning on iPhones. I usually do 768 kbit/s for my iPhone stuff, that works fine for everything.
So I think what Apple wants to say is that they're optimizing performance for H2.64. The current iMac still has problems on BluRay-Movies (skipped frames, long buffering times) and Flash-Video-Playback. VLC is much better performance-wise but you loose on quality.
Looks like you've never removed localizations from an app package before...try it. You can get those sizes right now in any Mac OS version. Remove all but your preferred language.
Yep, and my original Core Duo iMac is 32-bit whereas the Core 2 machines (64-bit) were released a bit more than a month later
Could Apple have achieved the smaller file sizes using come type of advanced compression? With multicore and GPU acceleration, there is probably enough power to uncompress everything in real time.
But that would be the wrong type of 'optimization'. Using more cpu power to always be decompressing just to save hd space? As has been said, disk space can be save by dropping alternate language support and non-matching binary code. Why would you want your processor to be taken up doing realtime decompression all the time? Seems like that would even have an impact on battery life.
Apple wants to optimize the code so it has less fluff and runs better - not make it just arbitrarily 'smaller'. It will be smaller because of refinement, not compression.
There are cool developer features yes... and "speed improvements" and a trimmed footprint. I am all for that just sounds like 10.5.8 rather then. Something to drop $130 for.
The Mac faithful will drop the dough, the rest might as well wait if there aren't any nifty needful features -- though some of the Apple iLife/iWork/Audio & Video Apple will likely require this update.
You want iLife or iWork '09 it'll likely be OS 10.6 -- if you don't no need to update.
Wait for 10.7 the release with all the new features dependent on the GPU and multi-CPU OS changes.
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Still don't know if developers will code for a minimum OS X 10.6 install until 10.7 arrives, though there will likely be a lot of them with a 10.4.10 or 10.5 requirement unless they are pro apps.
Sorry but most people don't seem to get that to implement the changes mentioned for 10.6 apple might have to work even more than they did for 10.5 features. Features are usually easier to code than to optimize an entire OS for multicore and GPU. And tbh I'm really happy they took this route. I'd gladly pay 129$ for this since I already use an 8 core Mac Pro and know how poorly the OS uses my hardware.
You guys just don't get it!
This has NOTHING to do with size! I love how the press has climbed all over the "slimmer" comment. The issue is development and testing! Not only the OS but the tools, frameworks, etc. Apple has to debug and test now for two different platforms. It's all about QA and support.
Now to be fair they also have to do this to keep rosetta working but they can reduce the testing to a single configuration. Anyway Apple is obviously either second guessing the PPC thing or they don't want to deal with the firestorm right now but the plan the record is not to support PPC as a boot option.
This has NOTHING to do with size! I love how the press has climbed all over the "slimmer" comment. The issue is development and testing! Not only the OS but the tools, frameworks, etc. Apple has to debug and test now for two different platforms. It's all about QA and support.
Now to be fair they also have to do this to keep rosetta working but they can reduce the testing to a single configuration. Anyway Apple is obviously either second guessing the PPC thing or they don't want to deal with the firestorm right now but the plan the record is not to support PPC as a boot option.
I can hear millions ... or at least thousands ... of PPC owners screaming out right now that G5's are 64-bit, too, thankyouverymuch.