10.6 Snow Leopard

[emmab2006]

Apple has posted pages for Mac OS X Snow Leopard for both server and client and describe a bit of what users can expect from the next OS X release. Apple promises that 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." Some early screenshots from the Developer seed of Snow Leopard do indeed show significantly smaller application file sizes over current Leopard installations. Other features listed on Apple's site were largely touched on in the press release.

The New York Times, however, reveals that Snow Leopard's big focus is taking advantage of the recent trend towards multi-core and parallel computer processes. Steve Jobs provided some information on Apple's direction:

"We've added over a thousand features to Mac OS X in the last five years," he said Monday in an interview after his presentation. "We’re going to hit the pause button on new features."
....
“The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things,” he said. “I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it.”
According to Jobs, Apple has made a parallel-programming breakthrough. Specifically, Apple claims their new "Grand Central" technology is "way beyond what Nvidia or anyone else has." There had been talk from Nvidia's CEO that Apple may adopt their CUDA technology, but it appears that Apple's implementation may be more advanced. CUDA allows programmers to offload processing to the computer's graphics processors, which can be very powerful.

Apple's focus on parallel computing comes at a natural time with Intel upcoming plans for Nehalem processors which will scale up to 8-core processors. Apple has announced that Snow Leopard will be delivered in "about a year".

Source : Macrumors

Following News that 10.6 Was Seeded to Developers at WWD08 ,

[XDude]

I knew this is coming

[ejg930]

Personally, I can't wait. I'm already running Leopard, and I love the new features in that. Hopefully Snow Leopard will make it faster (Leopard is kinda slow on my computer), and the technologies in it will support even more new features in 10.7. Also, I'm hoping for a free (or cheap) upgrade for current Leopard users, because there will be no new features.

[ddrmaxromance]

Personally, I can't wait. I'm already running Leopard, and I love the new features in that. Hopefully Snow Leopard will make it faster (Leopard is kinda slow on my computer), and the technologies in it will support even more new features in 10.7. Also, I'm hoping for a free (or cheap) upgrade for current Leopard users, because there will be no new features.

I think this should happen, much like how Mac OS X 10.0 was buggy and slow and 10.1 was free for all 10.0 users. Quite honestly, it would be nice to either allow 10.5 users to have Snow Leopard for free, or for a discount, rather than having to dish out the $100 for another copy of Mac OS X.

[dean corso]

i agree on that.
it would be fair

[jptech7]

Does anyone know if it will be available for PCs?
I have heard rumors about that..
I also saw that it doesn't support PowerPC
It should be interesting to see what Grand Central with multi core CPUs can do.

-JP Tech

[Rixel]

I really can't see why Apple shouldn't release 10.6 for their ppc models.
If there isn't going to be that much new then why change the system requirements or atleast keep the G5s. I never really liked leopard for various reasons and I kept tiger on all my systems except the g5.

G5s however have their problems too mine went the other day and it was too much to replace the logicboard so we got a new mac but before it blew completely it had a lot of problems which never had occured in all the time we'd had it. For the most part they only started after the installation of leopard.

Not that there is any proof but in comparison it has more problems, i hope they are corrected in 10.6 but in the end it matters little if the system is only released for intels

[XX55XX]

Snow Leopard is Leopard. Honestly, it wouldn't be too much of a loss if Apple made Snow Leopard Intel-only. You PPC guys still have Leopard, and features-wise, Snow Leopard, again, is simply Leopard.

Some people are still running Panther on their old G3's. I know a friend who still is. He still loves his old Mac, even though he has never experienced Tiger or Leopard.

[Rixel]

Snow Leopard is Leopard. Honestly, it wouldn't be too much of a loss if Apple made Snow Leopard Intel-only. You PPC guys still have Leopard, and features-wise, Snow Leopard, again, is simply Leopard.

Its really not the features that make the difference with Snow Leopard Its the fact that Leopard isn't as stable as it should be at least not in my opinion and some of the problems may originate too deeply for a simple fix.

Apple has even stated that Snow Leopard is not based around new features its more of a bug fix. It really doesn't make sense to release a os with problems to 3 gens of comps but only fix the last. Even then compared to ppc hardware there are few bugs in the intel version.

The way apple cycle works is take things out gradually not drop everything. Its really not the point of having a new OS, i have a couple computers I could upgrade but there is no reason too, they all work fine.

[mrpijey]

Well, if anyone wants to tinker with the dev releases I got them on my FTP, both server and client.

And Snow Leopard will get rid of the PPC support. Not only will this speed up the system a lot, but it will also help Apple to get rid of old dead meat and focus on the now rather than keep supporting old hardware (and being limited by the same). Apple has to start focusing on the future, and supporting hardware that hasn't been manufactured for years now is a bad business in the long run.

And really, I have tried Tiger on a G3 and even on a G4. It's not fast... Leopard and it's snowy brother won't be any faster on such old hardware... Dumping the PPC support will make the apps smaller (thus load faster and without wasting CPU cycles on loading the right parts) and also help keep them more stable by only managing one platform and now two. Apple supported both platforms for two entire OSX generations. That's enough.

[Vista Ultimate R2]

And Snow Leopard will get rid of the PPC support.

We don't know that yet, the developer release is only for Intel but it has been noted that Mac developers will all have fast Intel systems now so they may only release the later builds for both platforms (unless you work for Apple and know different? ) Remember too that the oldest G5s are only two years old now and they are still very powerful systems that cost a massive amount of money not that long ago, so there would be a lot of angry customers if their top of the line systems were dropped after only two years.

And really, I have tried Tiger on a G3 and even on a G4. It's not fast... Leopard and it's snowy brother won't be any faster on such old hardware...

I actually find Tiger on my Beige G3 (with a G4 CPU) to be pretty fast (though not as fast as on my *cough* Mac Pro of course... ), especially considering the machine is so old - as long as you have a decent amount of memory and a fast hard drive you cam get good performance out of the older Macs. Snowy might even be faster than Leo on something like a Dual or Quad G5 if Grand Central really does optimise it for multi-core systems (and if more of the OS is made 64-bit eg if they take out any remaining Carbon bits), just like Tiger is faster on a G4 than Panther because it is more optimised (especially for AltiVec).

[XX55XX]

True. But how many people still have old PowerMac G5's? I think that Apple can afford to alienate that group in order to advance their technology for everyone else who has an Intel Mac. Given the popularity of Mac OS X in general, Apple will always have new customers. And of course, the PowerMac G5 people will always have Leopard.

[Vista Ultimate R2]

But how many people still have old PowerMac G5's?.

Everyone who ever had one I reckon, you wouldn't have thrown out a G5 already so there must be as many out there as there were originally! My G4-upgraded G3 is my newest "real" Mac, and my dad still has his G3 clamshell iBook (also on Tiger), so not everyone's on Intels (well I am actually, but not an "Apple-labelled" one... )

[mrpijey]

All true, and it is impressive how long Apple has supported two completely different platforms. But I think Apple can afford to skip out on PowerPC. Tiger is still good enough to keep using for a few more years, and Apple can dump PPC and work on optimized versions of future OSX versions.

You have to also consider the COST to keep developing for an old platform. If the cost of keeping PPC alive is greater than the sales for those platforms... well, then it's smarter to dump it and put the effort and money into Intel. People will still buy new Mac:s, and if people get forced to upgrade then even better for Apple. More hardware sold and another OSX copy along with it. Customers will be happy because they get a new fresh machine with an OS that is optimized, and Apple will be happy for cutting costs and saving a buck. And all they had to do was killing off a platform that stopped selling over 3 years ago. And even then the last platform had lived for 6 years (PowerPC 970, aka G5).

How many of you are running Windows XP/Vista on a 6 year old PC today? Sure you can run it on a Pentium II, but it not enjoyable.

And I sure would prefer PPC to be cut from OSX. Apps will be smaller, smaller memory footprint, faster loading and less to worry about when developing for the OS.

[Vista Ultimate R2]

How many of you are running Windows XP/Vista on a 6 year old PC today? Sure you can run it on a Pentium II, but it not enjoyable

Vista needs a minimum of a PIII; it won't boot on PII as it relies on instruction sets that it doesn't have. That's the thing I find about Macs though, that a 9 year old Mac is still really enjoyable to use with Tiger (and would be with Leo too as it should boot on a G4 but drivers for PCI Macs seem to be missing from it so it crashes halfway and the hacker community doesn't seem to have come up with any goods this time as OSx86 is where it's all happening nowadays ) and the latest Mac apps, whereas a 1999 PC would be slow with XP let alone Vista.


It was only 2 years since they stopped selling the Power Mac G5, so you have to remember that while they're not selling any PPC systems any more, it may cost them if G5 owners who spent a very large amount of money only a couple of years ago may not replace their G5 with an Apple machine when they need a new one if they are bitter about their expensive machine being dropped after just 2 years. Mac OS 8.5 came out 2 years after the last 68k Mac was discontinued too, but the "pro" machines had moved to PPC 4 years earlier; the last 68ks were laptops so maybe not so much of an issue with dropping them after a couple of years as people often don't upgrade laptops anyway and don't expect them to remain cutting-edge for so long.


Also, I've read that taking out PPC code would only strip about 10% of apps' size as it's not actually half PPC half Intel - the dramatic size reductions in Snowy are said to actually be due to other things as explained here - it is said that Apple for some reason didn't take out the designable.nib files from the Golden Master of Leo when they should have done.

[Rixel]

I have a really slow G4 350Mhz model and it runs tiger pretty fast. It would never run leo but if it could i think of it this way since their are universal binarys it would run faster if there were no intel parts of the software in the ppc version. you can say it both ways.

And ppc isn't that old most apples are expected to last a good 4-5 yrs and still be supported at least for desktops. if its only been two years and they are completely getting rid of ppc a lot of people won't be happy. Many g5s were upgraded to leopard and not giving the minor update to fix them makes little sense.
They work it so each system phases out the systems before the bottom level of support this should be the last system with g5 support after that i can see apple dropping it.
Which number is greater the number of people who bought a g5 or the number that bought an intel. There are problems in the g5 version of leo so i doubt that is what all g5s want to have forever

[Vista Ultimate R2]

I have a really slow G4 350Mhz model and it runs tiger pretty fast. It would never run leo but if it could i think of it this way since their are universal binarys it would run faster if there were no intel parts of the software in the ppc version. you can say it both ways.

If your G4 is a "Sawtooth" it will run Leo if you trick or hack the installer to cirumvent the check for an 867 MHz CPU - it won't if it's a "Yikes!" though as they are PCI graphics and Apple shipped Leo without drivers for PCI machines as I said - any AGP one is fine though, Leo will also run on a slot-loading iMac G3 or a "Pismo" PowerBook G3 that have been upgraded to a G4 CPU (it was compiled without G3 support so sadly will never boot on a G3 processor), but not on tray-loading G4-upgraded iMac G3s or older G3 PowerBooks.

[Rixel]

I don't think i will put leopard on it and at this point it doesn't qualify for any model as i switched the logic board and a few parts out zip to jaz etc

[Vista Ultimate R2]

What logic board is in it then? It will be detected as whatever model the board comes from, and if it's got an AGP slot then Leo will run if you wanted to try it

[mrpijey]

I guess it's all a matter of preferences. I've run Tiger on both an old G3 (300Mhz methinks (the slotin iMac)) and also on a faster top of the line G4 and I don't find it usable for anything except booting and clicking around. After a week or so the system slows down and you can feel the loading times. Leopard is even worse on that... OSX has a very simplistic UI but it has its limits, and a slow system bus, slow RAM and slow CPU won't make it any enjoyable. And minimum requirements isn't the same as "run with decent and enjoyable speed"... it just means that "yes, your oldish hardware can run it, but don't expect it to be usable".

Yes, it should be fast on a G5, especially the more expensive high end ones... but considering the small percentage of people actually owning a mac, and the small percentage of those actually owning a 2000+ dollar G5 I don't think Apple would think the cost of maintaining compatibility with that platform is a cost-effective solution. Yes, the G5 is only 2 years old, but the G5 system itself is much older. And anyone that could afford a G5 back then can surely afford a new Mac today, even a low end modern Intel mac is faster than the G5. You may not get the huge bulky bigtower and groovy PCI-X slots, but you'll get to run the newest OSX with a decent performance. And all those really high end users (video studios etc) would upgrade to a modern Mac Pro anyway, just to be able to utilize the much more powerful dual quads and PCI-express etc.

The PPC part may only be 10%, but it's still 10%. Files will still be smaller, they will load faster, and Apple will be able to fully focus on the x86 platform, making it faster, less buggy and also cut costs and increase profits.

Sure, this is all just my own opinions and thoughts, but high end Mac:s are like people owning a Ferrari. They can afford it, and they can afford to replace it if they want to. You don't get a dualcore G5 of dualquad Mac Pro just to surf the net. And if you once paid for a G3 or G4 you can surely after so many years afford a Mac Mini or iMac today. I would not want to keep Microsoft from developing Windows only because some people should be able to run it on their PII:s... Of course it can't go the other way around either (i.e requiring the very latest to run Windows), but that's not happening today. Apple could have as easily just stopped releasing new versions of OSX and say "that's it, we'll patch this to infinity, but you will be able to run MacOS X on your current machine forever". Apple wants to sell new versions, and they want to sell new hardware. They also don't want to fall back in development. And they have to draw the line at some point. They removed m68k support at one point. Now they are removing (hopefully) PPC support. One day they will remove 32bit support. People will still buy new Mac:s.

[Vista Ultimate R2]

Do you by any chance have a Mac Pro or something similar and are therefore used to extremely fast Macs? (just wondering how you could find performance on a high-end G4 to be slow, those machines are amazing - even my old Beigey runs Tiger well to me with a G4-500 and 512 MB memory, even though according to Apple it shouldn't go above 10.2.8!) I'd just hate to see the old PPC Macs die though They were and still are such awesome machines, the old Beige G3s that are very much the old Apple (rainbow logo, old ports, beige case etc) yet still able to run Tiger, the revolutionary designs of the later G3s like the original iMac and iBook that still look so cool today despite being a decade old, the power of the AltiVec G4s compared to the Pentiums of the day, all those gorgeous G4s and G5s, 64-bit multi-CPU G5s...

[mrpijey]

Yes, I got a Mac Pro, and it can't hold a candle compared to my current C2D Macbook Pro... But then again, I do more stuff on it than surf and check my email... Try to run a big project using Matlab, Final Cut Studio or Reason and you'll see it's not that enjoyable compared to a modern box. And those tools are the reason I switched from the Mac Pro to the C2D, because CPU-wise they were much faster. And shoving in some extra RAM and bigger harddrive into the laptop helped a lot. But as I said, people didn't pay (back when G5 was teh [censored]) 2000-3000 dollars to surf the net. So their setup will probably still work well without them needing to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Or they can afford to upgrade.

But I am not saying that the G5 etc is old or crap. Or even the G3 or G4. Heck, I still love my old MacII... I am just saying that Apple has to draw the line somewhere if they want to keep up with development, and stopping to support an over 2 year old system is a good way. Not only because it's old, but also because it will greatly increase speed on current (and last Core Duo gen) machines. No one will buy a G3-G5 today, not even a Core Duo Mac... so why should Apple pour money and resources into supporting it? If people want to upgrade the OS to Snow Leopard and newer they have to upgrade their hardware, otherwise they can stay with Leopard and Tiger until it breaks down or get far too old. Mac:s are already soon into the third Intel generation (first being Core Duo (Yonah), second Core 2 Duo (Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale), and third being 45nm Wolfdale's and Penryn. And I didn't even mention the current and future quadcores...

If you want to get a new Mac today for cheaps you got a decent speed Mac Mini or iMac, both using fast Core2Duo:s. If you are into heavy duty stuff you can get the Quadcored Mac Pro:s. Apple has no reason to support the newest OS on old hardware when you can get a new Intel machine for a lot less money than you got your G3 or G4 when they were new. And which do you rather sit and work with, an old CRT-based G3 box (or if you got a Cube or any mac with external screen) or a new Intel box? That is if you really were forced to run Snow Leopard only because some software you use requires it? I think you would run off and get that new Macbook or iMac just for the enjoyment of being able to use the OS as intended, instead of it limping by and struggling to even run the UI. But only if you need to. If not then you can still use Tiger on your G3 if needed.

[XDude]

Leopard and Tiger is quite decent even right now and will still be great after a couple of years. XP is 7 years old and its still the best OS for the Windows market currently.

There is no need to upgrade a G4/5 to Snow Leopard. It isn't necessary nor one should really spend that much money on an "older" set of hardware.

No complants about the Core 2's. They are simplay the best CPU for the market today able to handle mass amount of data for a decent cost and energy usage. That's why Apple liked the Core 2.

The PPC processors are slower and outdated. They have different instructions too. Maintaining two different architectures isn't the best choice to develop a decent OS. Focusing on a platform gives them less problem, but Mac OS X is maintain very well. Codes could be easily ported from one platfrom to another. Another thumbs up for macs.

Windows on the other hand isn't cool having both x86 and x64. They have to fix bugs twice and spend time researching on two different architectures and worst, you can't port x64 code directly to x86. Apple makes a great use of x64 instruction while using x86 too, Windows just keeps them seperate.

I hope MS abandons the x86 architecture soon. A P4 / Athlon XP isn't the best CPU running Vista / Windows 7. Today. something like a G3 is usable, but not a P3.

[Rixel]

The point is that if you have one of those older G5s and it still runs fine and you can do everything you need to on it whats the point of getting a new intel mac. Its fixing something that isn't broken.
Maybe others have had different experiences with the intels but i find that the G5 at 2Ghz is faster than A core 2 duo at 2.4.
I don't see the point of upgrading the G4s to leo there really is no reason the farthest they should go is tiger but leo and snow are not supposed to be very different why bother not at least making the newer systems running a little more secure.
Apple still hasn't stated that Snow Leopard will run exclusively intel if that is a case they will say something but as of now its just something you can only assume.

My G4 has a GigabitEthernet model motherboard but its currently out because i need to buy a new psu because this board requires a little more power. Also gonna switch out the cpu.
The way i see it is someday this will happen all over again when apple abandons the intel line and maybe moves to something else its to far away to tell.That or if they ever get to os XI ( or run out of big cats whichever comes first) they will probably end support for all Core models as intel will have a new line. Everything by that point though i bet will be pretty compact, cpus keep getting smaller

[mrpijey]

Well, I guess it's all about how you use your system and what your tolerance is. If PPC was all that Apple ever wanted to do they would not have moved to Intel. The current Intel line of machines are faster than the PowerPC line of machines, it's simple evolution, just as a G3 is faster than a m68k CPU. And if people can live with running Tiger or Leopard on a pre-Intel then that's fine. They just shouldn't expect Apple to churn out the coming 15 OS:es with support for them. Eventually they will have to switch if they want to keep up with evolution. It would have been awesome if I could run Vista on my old trusty 486DX2-50 (with passive cooling). It would have made a small machine, very silent and stable. But at some point MS had to move beyond that, even if they didn't force me to abandon it. But running Windows 95 isn't as useful today as back then.

Regardless of what we think Apple should do, they will cut the PPC cord eventually. If not with Snow Leopard it will be in the next [insert cat name here]. You can do only so much with older hardware before it becomes too limiting to be any useful, or Apple will have to start implementing limits into the OS. "You can install the OS on a G3, but you can't play video, you can't play music with more than two channels, you can't use hardware-accelerated video, you can't use..........." etc. And how fun would that be? Apple would have wasted tons of resources and a bin of gold adapting the OS for a user group that doesn't exist. That's why Apple has to step up the minimum requirements every now and then to make the OS enjoyable, or you'll have a bunch of raging pre-Intel owners whining how bad the new OSX is, and that creates badwill.

But again, it's amazing how well Apple has made OSX run on two different platforms for so long. But Apple can't do magic tricks, they can't support it forever.

Now I am actually going to bootup my old G3, going to test some OSX DP:s. .