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Snow Leopard Build 10A286 Seeded to Developers
- Thread starter MacsRgr8
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Great news.
Given Apple's quality slide over the past couple of years, I am very excited about the strategy with Snow Leopard. Let's get a solid base, tighter, faster code, and stomp out the bugs that have been around for years.
I hope Apple is doing the same quality push on the hardware front. But given the number of issues I see with my company's new systems, I am not optimistic. I just hope that Apple leadership sees that quality is the weak link in the chain.
Anyway, to end on a positive note, Snow Leopard is looking great. I can't wait until the final release.
Given Apple's quality slide over the past couple of years, I am very excited about the strategy with Snow Leopard. Let's get a solid base, tighter, faster code, and stomp out the bugs that have been around for years.
I hope Apple is doing the same quality push on the hardware front. But given the number of issues I see with my company's new systems, I am not optimistic. I just hope that Apple leadership sees that quality is the weak link in the chain.
Anyway, to end on a positive note, Snow Leopard is looking great. I can't wait until the final release.
I know this is most probably fake, but I found this not long ago:
where can i find this sexy icon set?
Sorry, the current builds do not support any PPC processors (at least not via the installer). That's not to say that it won't be added back in later.
Snow Leopard Exchange Integration
I'm looking forward to the Marble interface! If Safari 4 and iTunes are any indication, it could look great!
One feature less talked about around here for Snow Leopard is the known support for MAPI, the protocol used to talk to Exchange. Apple first licensed this so they could support Exchange servers on the iPhone, and it was revealed that Snow Leopard would also have that support.
Does anybody know how that support is implemented? What I'm wishing for is each OS X user account can have an Exchange login so the mail, calendars and contacts are just synced with Exchange and we still use the same apps, eg Mail.app, iCal and Contacts. That would be awfully nice. If you've ever had to use Entourage on a Mac, you'd be wishing for the same thing too!
(note: I don't know if there's Exchange hate here since it's a Microsoft product but I bring it up because it's near ubiquitous in professional environments)
I'm looking forward to the Marble interface! If Safari 4 and iTunes are any indication, it could look great!
One feature less talked about around here for Snow Leopard is the known support for MAPI, the protocol used to talk to Exchange. Apple first licensed this so they could support Exchange servers on the iPhone, and it was revealed that Snow Leopard would also have that support.
Does anybody know how that support is implemented? What I'm wishing for is each OS X user account can have an Exchange login so the mail, calendars and contacts are just synced with Exchange and we still use the same apps, eg Mail.app, iCal and Contacts. That would be awfully nice. If you've ever had to use Entourage on a Mac, you'd be wishing for the same thing too!
(note: I don't know if there's Exchange hate here since it's a Microsoft product but I bring it up because it's near ubiquitous in professional environments)
While not well stated the MAN has a point.
All of the above is entirely true. However the original poster has a point even if not well stated. In a nut shell the all of Apples consumer level machines are less than optimal for running SL. That due to the the number of cores implemented. SL can't leverage hardware threads that are not there.
So we have a siituation where Apple's mass market machines are short on cores and where it currently looks like Apple is waiting for an i7 derived processor to move to quad cores. If that is in fact the case the PERFORMANCE difference between an i7 based Mac and the older dual cores could be vast. It is a case of how well everything comes together but the jump from two threads to eight should significantly impact many apps as will other improvements in i7.
While I dnt see i7 as being mandatory any time soon, from Apples standpoint, I do see people being at a huge disadvantage in the near future with out more than two cores available. While not advertised that way I can see many apps needing i7 for all practical purposes. Apple could change this opinion by releasing quad cores in the higher end iMacs but frankly it is already to late. If they wait another 6 months for an update to the iMac there will be all sorts of i7 derived hardware on the market and the updated iMacs would look even poorer than they do now. Apple could try to market quad core Penryn derived processors in the iMac or something similar but I'm not to sure their customer base is that gullible.
What is obvious is that the new iMacs won't see a huge advantage when SL is installed on them. They might be able to leverage a bit of GPU acceleration, on apps that are written for that but a broad spectrum of apps will see very little. It is just really sad that Apple can't seem to get hardware out the door that can leverage future OS upgrades.
Dave
All of the above is entirely true. However the original poster has a point even if not well stated. In a nut shell the all of Apples consumer level machines are less than optimal for running SL. That due to the the number of cores implemented. SL can't leverage hardware threads that are not there.
So we have a siituation where Apple's mass market machines are short on cores and where it currently looks like Apple is waiting for an i7 derived processor to move to quad cores. If that is in fact the case the PERFORMANCE difference between an i7 based Mac and the older dual cores could be vast. It is a case of how well everything comes together but the jump from two threads to eight should significantly impact many apps as will other improvements in i7.
While I dnt see i7 as being mandatory any time soon, from Apples standpoint, I do see people being at a huge disadvantage in the near future with out more than two cores available. While not advertised that way I can see many apps needing i7 for all practical purposes. Apple could change this opinion by releasing quad cores in the higher end iMacs but frankly it is already to late. If they wait another 6 months for an update to the iMac there will be all sorts of i7 derived hardware on the market and the updated iMacs would look even poorer than they do now. Apple could try to market quad core Penryn derived processors in the iMac or something similar but I'm not to sure their customer base is that gullible.
What is obvious is that the new iMacs won't see a huge advantage when SL is installed on them. They might be able to leverage a bit of GPU acceleration, on apps that are written for that but a broad spectrum of apps will see very little. It is just really sad that Apple can't seem to get hardware out the door that can leverage future OS upgrades.
Dave
Maxing out GPU hardware to take advantage of Open CL
Hi
With the advent of the new imacs there are for the first time a multitude of graphic card options in that machine, viz:
9400M
GT120
GT130
4870
From the claimed performance charts there is a dramatic difference from bottom to top of this range.
So looking forward to SL, when choosing how to configure a new purchase, would it not make sense to max out the selected GPU? That way you get the best frame rate performance for apps that use it, but also with SL, you are effectively buying a big chunk of ancillary CPU power for apps that do not use demanding video.
Comments? Also if any devs can comment on any observed benefit of GPU power in builds so far, or whether the above hardware will be compatible/thoroughly used in SL, that would be of great interest.
Cheers
Hi
With the advent of the new imacs there are for the first time a multitude of graphic card options in that machine, viz:
9400M
GT120
GT130
4870
From the claimed performance charts there is a dramatic difference from bottom to top of this range.
So looking forward to SL, when choosing how to configure a new purchase, would it not make sense to max out the selected GPU? That way you get the best frame rate performance for apps that use it, but also with SL, you are effectively buying a big chunk of ancillary CPU power for apps that do not use demanding video.
Comments? Also if any devs can comment on any observed benefit of GPU power in builds so far, or whether the above hardware will be compatible/thoroughly used in SL, that would be of great interest.
Cheers
Does mail still download all the messages separately (and store them as separate files)?
Ah, okay. Out of curiosity, how does one separate reads and writes for mail on Apples mail server?
This isn't how I interperted the post.
Don't take that to mean that SL won't work on the current dual cores. That is not what I'm saying. Rather what I'm saying is that the current dual cores simply do not have enough threads available to allow SL to truely leverage the hardware. This means that well threaded apps will have a huge advantage on i7 derived processors.
That is debateable. You are talking about a software release that is likely 5 years off in the future. You may be able to run it on dual core hardware but it will be difficult to say that it is the target platform for the hardware. You need to realize that by the time 10.9 comes out we will have at least 64 hardware threads per chip. So yeah a dual threaded chip might run the OS but expect massive performance differences.
This doesn't include hardware threads in the GPU either. Most of Apples consumer line now has at least 16 threads available in the GPU, at the rate things are progressing there we may see thousands of threads in a GPU by 10.9.
More importantly is that apps will evolve in a non backward compatible manner. As more hardware performance become available it will be used to deliver apps that simply won't run worth a damn on older hardware. If there is one thing that I can agree with is that many apps will evolve very quickly in a way that would prevent them from running on todays iMacs. Personally I doubt this will be significant in one year but very possible that two years down the road software will start to move away from anysort of dual core compatibility. Certainly this will be the so called pro apps and other advanced software but it will happen.
Dave
This isn't how I interperted the post. Rather a year after SL is released you will for all practical purposes need an i7 derived processor to run many apps and to leverage SL. Unless Apple gets some quad cores on the market other than the Mac Pros this will very much be the case.
Don't take that to mean that SL won't work on the current dual cores. That is not what I'm saying. Rather what I'm saying is that the current dual cores simply do not have enough threads available to allow SL to truely leverage the hardware. This means that well threaded apps will have a huge advantage on i7 derived processors.
That is debateable. You are talking about a software release that is likely 5 years off in the future. You may be able to run it on dual core hardware but it will be difficult to say that it is the target platform for the hardware. You need to realize that by the time 10.9 comes out we will have at least 64 hardware threads per chip. So yeah a dual threaded chip might run the OS but expect massive performance differences.
This doesn't include hardware threads in the GPU either. Most of Apples consumer line now has at least 16 threads available in the GPU, at the rate things are progressing there we may see thousands of threads in a GPU by 10.9.
More importantly is that apps will evolve in a non backward compatible manner. As more hardware performance become available it will be used to deliver apps that simply won't run worth a damn on older hardware. If there is one thing that I can agree with is that many apps will evolve very quickly in a way that would prevent them from running on todays iMacs. Personally I doubt this will be significant in one year but very possible that two years down the road software will start to move away from anysort of dual core compatibility. Certainly this will be the so called pro apps and other advanced software but it will happen.
Dave
Max out the GPU if you have to buy an iMac now.
Interesting times ahead.
Dave
Yes a nice line up. Personally if I had to buy an iMac today I'd max out the GPU. If I didn't have to buy I'd wait for a quad core machine to come out.
I really hate it when I see the above as it indicates that people don't understand SL and OpenCL. The number one consideration is that your apps need to be wrtten to take advantage of the GPU. The exception being if they link to library code that uses the GPU. For many apps the GPU could be a big chunk of nothing. It is not the same thing as having another hardware thread in your CPU complex.
It certainly would be! The thing is we don't know how much Apple intends to accelerate the various parts of OS/X with the GPU beyound what is already done. We will certainly benefit from GPU acceleration more than we have but I don't see it as a replacement for more CPU cores or threads. Unfortunately there is a lot of confusion here with respect to GPU accceleration. When an app can leverage it, it will be fantastic. Just realize that some programs never will bother to implement the code required.
Interesting times ahead.
Dave
Core i7 and Core2 are the same x86 system. The architecture change, but the software that run on it is the same. It's not like going from PPC to Intel processors. Only the performance will differ. Apple will not have to create a new version of Mac OS X for the Nehalem processors, just a way to manage the data so that each cores can be used, which will be compatible with Core2!.
I agree. In many ways, software hasn't kept up with the hardware. Very little of all available software actually takes advantage of multi-core computers. I see a couple areas that can see improvements:
-Programming languages/compilers. Some languages/compilers just don't make good use of multi-cores. Whether the language itself can't, or maybe it can do multi-cores, but is too much of a hassle.
-OS, firmware & other low-level stuff. The OS & firmware may not be very good at splitting up threads
-The app itself. If the app doesn't even try to split up its load, having multiple cores won't make much of a difference.
Hopefully, OpenCL & Grand Central will help.
That was my very general understanding too.
Besides, I don't really care whether the chicken or egg comes first, one will eventually beget the other anyway.
Some people are talking as if SL will run poorly unless you have a newfangled Mac that doesn't exist yet. SL will be an improvement over Leopard on just about any machine that can run it. Newer machines may derive an even larger benefit, but that doesn't equate to saying the SL will run poorly on a 2008 MBP, etc.
Why would it be stupid? First of all, how many quad G5s are there out there? Is it really enough to justify the extra development and test costs for Apple? Secondly, would there really be any performance benefit? x86 CPUs get a big benefit with 64-bit because of the extra registers available in the x64 architecture; PPC already had plenty of registers to begin with and might actually incur a performance penalty due to 64-bit addressing.
Any word on ZFS? From what I've read, it's been absent in all the developer builds? I wonder how that new Finder would interact with ZFS - I know there needed to be substantial integration between the Finder and ZFS before it could be deployed, the move to Cocoa should have helped...
Quote: It is not the same thing as having another hardware thread in your CPU complex.
I thought the point of Open CL was just that, for the OS to use GPU capacity transparently in a way that has not been done before, without relying on the app developers to remember to call on that power. Can you elaborate?
I thought the point of Open CL was just that, for the OS to use GPU capacity transparently in a way that has not been done before, without relying on the app developers to remember to call on that power. Can you elaborate?
What comes next?
Anybody knows what comes after Snow Leopard? We're soon through with all the big cats; is that going to be a problem? Or maybe we'll see a bunch of birds for the next OS? Is Apple running out of ideas as Steve slowly steps out for good? More important, it seems there will only be bug fixes from now on, and no more desktop revolutions to expect. Is the future as sad as it looks like?
Anybody knows what comes after Snow Leopard? We're soon through with all the big cats; is that going to be a problem? Or maybe we'll see a bunch of birds for the next OS? Is Apple running out of ideas as Steve slowly steps out for good? More important, it seems there will only be bug fixes from now on, and no more desktop revolutions to expect. Is the future as sad as it looks like?
ZFS will probably be in 10.7. In a perfect world, Microsoft would ship Windows 7 with ZFS as the default file system and Apple would use ZFS and no more problems with sharing portable drives without having to use the limiting FAT32 filesystem. It would be nice if ZFS has no issues and easy to including with any operating system. Because it wasn't included with Leopard makes me feel like it has issues.