Snow Leopard API's Finalized, A Step Closer to Release?

[electronboy]

Let's hope the API is locked down. The whole point of Snow Leopard--as Apple has stated--is to improve reliability & performance and from what I hear another important goal was to reduce the size of the OS which should allow for a smaller footprint.

I'm most excited about the long rumored Finder rewrite in Cocoa and hope that Apple delivers something truly innovative and exciting. Been a while since we have had a jaw dropping experience at WWDC. Maybe a new Finder or GUI could get us close.

 

[Val-kyrie]

Can someone explain what is so new about Snow Leopard?

It seems to me that there won't be any significant new features in this OS.
So how is Apple going to convince the user that they must get this new release?

Sure, there are a lot of under the hood changes- but to the avg computer user, they won't know or care. Things like interface, visual effects, features, are what sells the OS to the normal user.

So what is Apple up to? My guess that 10.6 is all about getting a small footprint "complete" MacOS (unlike iPhone OS X) onto a small piece of hardware- maybe a netbook/touchscreen device.

Here is what Apple says about Snow Leopard:
"Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos."

Why do we care about footprint/disc space in this era of cheap hard-drives? As of today, a fully functional OS 10.5 takes only about 5 Gb (without iLife). Maybe they want to get the whole OS on a chip, and not take up too much flash memory on their new device with the OS, allowing you more space for "music and photos".....





Why

My Guess - SSDs. The smaller the OS footprint, the more space you have for programs, documents, music, photos, movies, etc. Considering the cost of SSDs is still fairly high for its capacity, a smaller OS footprint would allow the use of faster and smaller SSDs. Thoughts?

 

[MikhailT]

My Guess - SSDs. The smaller the OS footprint, the more space you have for programs, documents, music, photos, movies, etc. Considering the cost of SSDs is still fairly high for its capacity, a smaller OS footprint would allow the use of faster and smaller SSDs. Thoughts?

Over time, it does not matter. It'll continue to get bigger and cheaper.

Last year 80GB Intel SSD was selling for 800$, now same one is selling for 300$. 120GB Vertex is around 350$.

Granted, you can get 30GB Vertex for 150$ or less now.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Over time, it does not matter. It'll continue to get bigger and cheaper.

Last year 80GB Intel SSD was selling for 800$, now same one is selling for 300$. 120GB Vertex is around 350$.

Granted, you can get 30GB Vertex for 150$ or less now.

Yeah. Give it a year and SSDs will be a an affordable (and even faster by then) option.

 

[Catfish_Man]

I'm most excited about the long rumored Finder rewrite in Cocoa and hope that Apple delivers something truly innovative and exciting. Been a while since we have had a jaw dropping experience at WWDC. Maybe a new Finder or GUI could get us close.

"Jaw dropping" and "no new user-facing features" don't really go together do they.

That said, I don't want jaw dropping. I get my entertainment elsewhere, I want my OS to work well.

 

[JitteryJimmy]

Why or Why? Let me tell you why.

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos."

Why do we care about footprint/disc space in this era of cheap hard-drives?

It isn't about "footprint" on disk. It's "footprint" in RAM. OS X has been growing as machines have become bigger and more powerful. A lot of cruft has built up over the past 8 years, and with the transition away from PPC to Intel. And now, the next generation of machines are actually smaller and less powerful.

So! Time to retool OS X for the new reality. Have a machine with only 128 MB of RAM and no virtualization? Snow Leopard is designed for it! ( Oh, BTW, those are the specs for the iPhone and Touch.)

From the developer's point of view, a common platform is a huge benefit. A lean but mean OS X that works on Apple TV, a netbook, an iPhone... well that's HUGE. If OS X can be speedy on a little tiny machine, just think how fast it'd be on a quad-core notebook with 8 GB of RAM!

Plus, I'll be able to unload the much-hated Entourage, since Mail is gaining Exchange support

 

[Chupa Chupa]

The API lockdown IS for WWDC. Seminars on 10.6 app developing would be useless if the API was a moving target.

But I don't think this means we'll be getting a 10.6 announcement date @ WWDC, just a time frame -- early Fall. I think the official on-sale announcement will come at the Fall hardware special event.

As far as Apple product goes - June/July are all about the iPhone. Aug is all about back-to-school and clearing out "old" iPod models. Sept is about new iPods and Oct will be about new hardware + 10.6

 

[vpndev]

API freeze

Cool it dudes. API freeze is what this is -- it just means that the programming interfaces aren't going to change from here on. There will (probably) be fixes to the code, but the interfaces are frozen.

This has been Apple's characteristic for alpha vs. beta for, well... quite a while. Since late 80's so that makes about twenty years.

Alpha code is subject to API change, beta is frozen API (except in emergency -- possible but rare). API-freeze doesn't mean that code is nearly ready-to-roll. It could in fact still have major bugs.

So calm down, this is all quite normal.

 

[MikhailT]

"Jaw dropping" and "no new user-facing features" don't really go together do they.

That said, I don't want jaw dropping. I get my entertainment elsewhere, I want my OS to work well.

They can go together.

Imagine iMovie encoding a 10GB HD Video into AIC or ProRes that takes 12 hours in Leopard and and now imagine SL taking one hour. That's jaw dropping in my opinion and it isn't a new user-facing feature. It is OpenCL/Grand Central. Apple could easily use the GPU to encode it faster and Grand Central to use multiple cores IIRC, iLife still only use one core.

 

[iMaggot]

I really hope they do a good job with SL

 

[MrCrowbar]

They can go together.

Imagine iMovie encoding a 10GB HD Video into AIC or ProRes that takes 12 hours in Leopard and and now imagine SL taking one hour. That's jaw dropping in my opinion and it isn't a new user-facing feature. It is OpenCL/Grand Central. Apple could easily use the GPU to encode it faster and Grand Central to use multiple cores IIRC, iLife still only use one core.

Bad example... iMovie supporting ProRes, yea right.
Also, for some reason, encoding video with the CPU takes way longer than with a GPU or dedicated chip, but looks better, too. Might have something to do with double precision floats, I dunno.

I'm all for using the GPU and the other CPU cores better, but don't expect quantum leaps using 3 year old hardware. I bet the 9400M was chosen in part to work well with it so it should give you a nice boost.

 

[celtikmind]

"Jaw dropping" and "no new user-facing features" don't really go together do they.

That said, I don't want jaw dropping. I get my entertainment elsewhere, I want my OS to work well.

Amen to that. 10.5.6 is a mess, to have 10.6 working is a priority for me. i.e. SMB sharing is crap and not usable with big files. So what good is super fast video encoding if it has to take a week to transfer the file to SMB server... I know there are other ways but I have them in a network for a reason.

I just hope they release it before Windows 7 dances all over it. People that would switch (and switched) isn't going to buy a mac just because they release Snow Leopard a month or too later. If so, then it's going to be how Windows 7 repaired Vista's mistakes.

Of course, that is impossible and could never happen to Apple, right?

I feel another "Apple high-and-mighty" era coming on.

 

[DELLsFan]

... The API's are the hooks that developers use to take advantage of the various features of Mac OS X.

Good news. Can't wait to get MY hooks into Snow Leopard. I wonder which will release first? Windows 7 or Snow Leopard?

 

[zw-gator]

I think Apple will have to offer people who purchase a Mac from June on a free copy of SL to avoid a back to school sales disaster. I’m in the market for a new macbook, but I won’t buy unless I can get a free copy of SL.

 

[Winni]

At the end of the day, Microsoft is still led by their marketing and accounting departments. Apple is led by its engineering department.

Something tells me that you are very, very wrong. If anything, then Apple is led by its (graphics) design and marketing department. They do a lot of engineering to power the design, but design definitely comes first.

 

[t0mat0]

Bad example... iMovie supporting ProRes, yea right.
Also, for some reason, encoding video with the CPU takes way longer than with a GPU or dedicated chip, but looks better, too. Might have something to do with double precision floats, I dunno.

I'm all for using the GPU and the other CPU cores better, but don't expect quantum leaps using 3 year old hardware. I bet the 9400M was chosen in part to work well with it so it should give you a nice boost.

9400M and 9600M can't do double precision, but ATI Radeon HD 4870 can, and i'd imagine the new graphics cards going forward for the Mac Pro will.
afaik iGT209 won't be double precision. We don't quite know Nvidia's roadmap for updating the 9600M GT really - so we shall see!

 

[andy721]

With no year of release? Or mid year as in June or November in Apple terms?

9400M and 9600M can't do double precision, but ATI Radeon HD 4870 can, and i'd imagine the new graphics cards going forward for the Mac Pro will.
afaik iGT209 won't be double precision. We don't quite know Nvidia's roadmap for updating the 9600M GT really - so we shall see!

um who cares?! Get the new nvidia 260 in june only 350 or less.

 

[MikhailT]

Bad example... iMovie supporting ProRes, yea right.
Also, for some reason, encoding video with the CPU takes way longer than with a GPU or dedicated chip, but looks better, too. Might have something to do with double precision floats, I dunno.

I'm all for using the GPU and the other CPU cores better, but don't expect quantum leaps using 3 year old hardware. I bet the 9400M was chosen in part to work well with it so it should give you a nice boost.

That wasn't even the point. The point was that you can have a jaw-dropping experience without having a new user feature.

As for ProRes, I meant to type iMovie/Final Cut encoding into AIC/ProRes...

Who cares about old hardware. There aren't any 3 year old Mac that would have a supporting GPU, so nobody is expecting anything much with either 2-3 years old hardware. But imagine the new macs with SL, all coming with GPU that can do double precision.

SL isn't about the past, its about the future.

 

[MikhailT]

um who cares?! Get the new nvidia 260 in june only 350 or less.

We care because not all new nVidia cards will show up in Macs in time, the laptops often takes several more months to get it and Mac pro needs a special line of Mac only graphic cards.

 

[Master Chief]

Then how do a few people have the update while the majority seem to be wondering, "what did I do wrong"?

Some of us are on the other side of the moon, and thus you had to wait one more day

 

[AidenShaw]

... and Mac pro needs a special line of Mac only graphic cards.

Why? Just so Apple can charge more, or is there a real reason that Apple can't use the same card that all of the other x86 operating systems use?

 

[MikhailT]

Why? Just so Apple can charge more, or is there a real reason that Apple can't use the same card that all of the other x86 operating systems use?

As far as I am aware, it's the way the onboard ROM on GPU works with the EFI in Macs, they are not compatabile with each other. That's why you need to flash the bios on the PC graphic cards to get it to boot under Mac OSX. Also, specific graphic cards do not have graphic drivers in OSX. Apple only releases drivers for the graphic cards they build their computers with.