OS X Snow Leopard Details

[w1z4rd]

JD-1027 writes in to kick off a discussion of OS X Snow Leopard. Apple's stated goal: "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." The technologies: Grand Central to get better use of multiple processors and multicore chips, OpenCL to tap the power of the GPU, 64 bit so we can finally have our 16 TB of RAM, QuickTime X for optimized modern codec performance, and built in Exchange support in iCal, Address Book, and Apple Mail that most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments. We've previously discussed ZFS in the server version of Snow Leopard."

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/13/1627242

Some of the comments are interesting:

JD-1027 writes in to kick off a discussion of OS X Snow Leopard

Translation: "Let's see if we can distract Mac owners from the fact that the recent Apple developer conference produced no new upgrades, no new hardware, no Jobs-ian announcements on OSX, just iPhonery."

Taking a break from adding new features

Translation: "We're an iPhone company now"

Snow Leopard -- scheduled to ship in about a year

Translation: "We've put off any serious work on OS X for eleven months"

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.

Translation: "We're hoping to bugfix some of the the low-level tweaks promised for Leopard and finally get them out the door... if we're not too busy with the iPhone."

[original Leopard features] most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments

Translation: "We really might be able to fix those bugs..."

We've previously discussed ZFS

Translation: "Yet another feature, like resolution independent graphics, that didn't make it into Leopard, because we were way too busy with the iPhone. But we might have it for you in a year. Read-only, of course. And not turned on by default. For developers only. And only in beta, of course. Use this feature at your own risk."

and

It's easier to be funny when you have a clue.

I've got five Macs. My daily driver is an 8GB, 8-core Intel Mac Pro [flickr.com]. My carry along a is loaded dual-core Macbook pro. Both are typically running linux, windows, and OSX all at once. I write graphics software for a living. Powerful graphics software, written at the metal level. I'm all for multicore/multiprocessor at the OS level; the easier, the better, and likewise, multi-machine for even bigger jobs. However, this does not change the fact that Apple is mostly doing iPhone work, and that not adding obvious consumer-level goodies to OS X will cost them dearly -- which they don't care about, because -- wait for it -- they're all about the iPhone now. I meant the post to be funny, all right, but only because it's true.

The very idea that low level improvements and bugfixes precludes feature addition at the GUI/high level is absurd, and if anyone at Apple had half a brain focused on the Mac, they'd never have said anything like that, or even implied it.

OS "features" can be as simple as adding a nice set of programs to the stable. Things like a decent personal finance manager. Wouldn't affect system stability one whit, but it'd increase the value of the Mac to the first time buyer by quite a bit. How about a nice, basic paint program? Or a set of kids coloring books / tools? A basic expert system? Lots of middle to high end users could use one, and heck, they're not that difficult to write. I wrote one in python that, minus the knowledge base, isn't even 10k and you'd be blinking amazed at how much it knows about rocks and minerals, and how well it can generalize and leap to conclusions. How about including a language teacher? How about a finder with a decent feature set? Something like... Pathfinder - buy it, maybe tweak it, and ship it. That would be @#$%^&*$ awesome. Heck, I'd probably pee right down my leg if they simply shipped a working, color version of midnight commander (a findery thing for shellfolk.)

See where I'm going here? Put an expert programmer in a corner, say "make a COOL one of these apps" and leave them be. In a year, if you don't have something really cool, the programmer should be shot. Total investment, one programmer's salary. Put ten programmers to ten tasks, watch em decently, and in a year, you'd have ten new selling points that had ZERO to do with OS stability, etc. Or just reach out the the Mac community and buy a few things, again, there are tons of them out there and I can assure you that many of them could be had for what amounts to peanuts. And also as we know, Apple's got more than peanuts in its pocket, and dropping a few million on programmers and/or acquisitions isn't a problem if they simply want to. So when they say "no features for you", what they're telling you is, "we're not going to exert ourselves on your behalf." They're not saying why... but just wake up and smell the iPhone marketing, man.

Do Apple users feel like Mac OS is being side lined for the Iphone?

 

[Cybermoo]

They should have announced MAC OSX SERVER - SNOW LEOPARD.

 

[Ou grote]

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/13/1627242

Some of the comments are interesting:

and

Do Apple users feel like Mac OS is being side lined for the Iphone?

Is quite interesting,

Translation: "Let's see if we can distract Mac owners from the fact that the recent Apple developer conference produced no new upgrades, no new hardware, no Jobs-ian announcements on OSX, just iPhonery."

Er, the morning was iPhone, the afternoon was behind closed doors, so stoopid statement.

Who is this twit anyway?
He complains that the new OS won't have many new features, then he goes on to list a shirtload of new features.

 

[HavocXphere]

They've got a good approach with this idea of not adding features but rather improving the existing stuff.

Wish M$ would take a hint and do the same.

 

[bwana]

Do Apple users feel like Mac OS is being side lined for the Iphone?

Not in the slightest - In fact I'm more than surprised 10.6 is being mentioned this early.

 

[Ou grote]

I'm sure there are 1 or 2 Vista users who would like MS to have a similar strategy.

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

I'm sure there are 1 or 2 Vista users who would like MS to have a similar strategy.

Except we already have 64bit, good use of multi-core processors for apps, modern codecs and Exchange.

But it is true, I'm just trolling. I would prefer this type of small upgrade over some new features which every now and again.

 

[bam-bam]

Microsoft is doing the same exact thing Apple is doing with their operating systems, new names but no major change to the OS. Microsoft is calling their new OS "Windows 7" & paying more attention to the core OS rather than the GUI or user experience.

Why would apple release a newer OS when Leopard has just came out recently ? The same thing goes for microsoft, some would argue maybe coz vista didnt break its cherry yet but the same reason apple is doing it is the same reason microsoft is doing it, improving the core system.

Watch bill gates introducing windows 7 & watch steve jobs introducing snow leopard.

I would imagine.... something is cooking in the oven for the computer world.

 

[icyrus]

OS X has generally had much shorter release cycles than windows.