What’s in the Next Mac OS X: Snow Leopard?
Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed
The current shipping version of Mac OS X is dubbed Leopard. At the recent Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Steve Jobs announced the next version, which is named Snow Leopard. Doesn’t sound like much difference on the surface, does it?
It’s going to be an upgrade, certainly. They’re telling us there won’t be so many “in your face” new features, as there were with Leopard. Apple is claiming the new version will ship within a year. They’re saying it’s going to be an incremental upgrade. This is going to be full of tweaks as far as performance, security and stability go. Snow Leopard will purportedly be able to support Terabytes upon Terabytes of memory. They plan to make it fully compatible with 64-bit. It will also be optimized for multi-core systems.
In a roundabout way, Apple is telling us that the new operating system will make your current hardware run faster and better. Well, it will if your system is 64-bit capable, and on the Intel platform. It will be interesting to see the speed differences. I think Snow Leopard is going to be all about speed and performance overall. According to Apple themselves:
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.
They are planning to push something called “OpenCL”. To quote them again:
Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.
I think what they’re saying is that you’re going to have the ability, with optimized software, to take better advantage of your hardware. Your GPU will potentially be turned into basically another CPU. They’re going to redirect the GPU, and make it do more for you. That’s fantastic!
Another thing worth mentioning for those of you, like me, who are using Microsoft Exchange Server, Snow Leopard will provide out-of-the-box support. This will be built into Mail, Address Book and iCal.
Snow Leopard is all about taking what you have, and making it one heck of a lot better. I’d take boosted performance and speed over a bunch of new features any day.
Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:
18 Comments
Kat’s Kontemplations
June 12th, 2008
at 7:00am
Chris PirilloWhat?s in the Next Mac OS X: Snow Leopard?Father?s Day Gift Ideas How to Make an iPhone Web Site and Icon Have you Ever Owned any Apple Products? What are Popular Home Repair Scams?
wikili
August 14th, 2008
at 7:03am
What do you Think of the iPhone 3G? How to Update Software on the iPhone What is 3G? Who uses Internet Explorer, Anyway? 10 More Awesome Free Mac OS X Apps iPhone 2.0 Reviews iMac Coupons Is the iPhone 3G Worth Buying?What’s in the Next Mac OS X: Snow Leopard?a What’s Your Favorite iMac Tip? 9:06
teymur madjderey
June 12th, 2008
at 4:30am
I am looking forward to both of em for sure.
but maybe windows sevenis more interesting as snowleopard, just because its going to be something completely different (hopefully :-)) and SL “just” some tweaks, which I am very much looking forward to using. I mean I like both camps anyway so the more good stuff each puts out the better and the more info they give us the happier I am :-D
TonyB
June 12th, 2008
at 8:19am
Wow, a concept Microsoft should try. Take your OS and just make it better.
Gerald
June 12th, 2008
at 9:17am
I disagree.
I think EVERY new version of OS X is made for one reason and one reason alone: To make the hardware they are “currently” selling more attractive to buyers than the hardware they were selling “last year”. It’s about selling new boxes.
If last year’s customers want to upgrade, that’s OK… but it’s nowhere near being a motivating factor.
Proof: Macs “last” between five and eight years, on average*, yet anyone with hardware older than four years rarely gets invited to the party.
* (Some lemons die soon, some tanks last a decade or more. Both get web pages written about them.)
clasqm
June 12th, 2008
at 10:14am
They are taking flak all over the net for this – people demanding that SL be a free or low-cost upgrade, after all “it’s just a service pack”. But it takes cojones for a software company to do the right thing. Good one, apple.
cananito
June 12th, 2008
at 10:34am
Oh boy oh boy, I got one question tough, is it going to be like an automatic update, or is it going to be like all the rest, that you gotta go buy it?
In case someone reads this comment and knows the answer, email me to cananito@gmail.com
Thanqz
Sean Mulvihill
June 12th, 2008
at 11:04am
I’m more interested in Snow Leopard, Windows Vista is pretty new and they’re already planning the release for windows 7…. ughh I hope it’s not Vista all over again, but on the other hand it might be amazing. We’ll see n the future, but since I’m a Leopard user I’ll be leaning towards Snow Leopard, but I also have multiple Windows machines.
Vincent
June 12th, 2008
at 3:13pm
snow leapored should be cool its going to be awsome.
TheDub
June 12th, 2008
at 7:58pm
“Your GPU will potentially be turned into basically another CPU. They’re going to redirect the GPU, and make it do more for you. That’s fantastic!”
This feature in itself sounds amazing on the surface. I am quite skeptical however that this is a Apple Innovation. As Operating Systems such as Linux and Windows Vista both have lightened CPU loads by having the user interface completely handled by the GPU. While this is not using the GPU as a CPU it does seem like the idea could have been inspired from it.
If this can be done efficiently it will only be a matter of time before Windows and Linux. “Copy” if I can use that word, the same thing.
Windows 7 vs OS X Snow Leopard. I wonder what that shall be like….
Aron Clark
June 13th, 2008
at 12:19am
I think Apple are doing the right thing here. I mean, of course its about selling more stuff in the end, they are a profitable company after all! But I think they are genuinely doing this because its what the Mac owners, Apple geeks and just general consumers have asked for.
However, I would also like to know if it is going to be an update or whether we will have to purchase it. I personally think that the latter is most likely, because Apple don’t usually advertise software updates this way. Even so, I think that Snow Leopard will become the first operating system that I have actually walked into a shop and paid money for, without getting a new system with it pre-installed or ‘borrowing’ some old XP discs from my school.. ;)
I am quite happy with my 2.2Ghz white MacBook from last year, and of course I would like an upgrade to one of the newer Apple machines. But it is doing my fine. I love my MacBook and would never switch back to Windows as my main machine, however when I first got it, I was a bit disappointed that 20GB of my Hard Drive was already taken up, before I’d even transferred any files onto it! I later got rid of all the un-needed language packages and came close to getting rid of the GarageBand loops, etc, but I probably will use it at some time and don’t really want to get rid of too many Apple pre-installed apps.
Conclusion: well I think it is almost certain that I will purchase Snow Leopard when its released. And if its a free update? Even better! First though, I will upgrade my RAM and hard drive.. :P
teymur madjderey
June 13th, 2008
at 5:49am
why is my omment not online? :-/ me was bad? :-(
chris ham
June 13th, 2008
at 11:40am
ok not that much new features will be added but I’d will increase secureit? Doesn’t it already have a really secure foundation? Apple is really overdoing this, they are just trying to just massively rush and just throw useless products to us
Joelg88
June 13th, 2008
at 12:26pm
OS X 10.6 sounds like its gonna be great already. Just with the words of improving performance it already sounds great. Its great that it will be optimized to take advantage of of multi core processors in a much better way. Also the OpenCL thing sounds great. If your not gaming or watching a HD movie or doing some other GPU intensive thing your graphics card is basically just relaxing doing nothing. But now with OpenCL it will help the CPU. That sounds great. But theres only one bad thing about all of this. I DON’T OWN A Mac lol. But i hope that will change in the near future so that I can experience Snow Leopard.
Grady Joslin
June 13th, 2008
at 6:18pm
I am looking forward to see what they are offering in Snow Leopard. But I am curious what the price will be if any. If its just an improvement upgrade and not many features as they say, I don’t see how paying $130 this time around will be worth it. Even though the thought of having Exchange support would be sweet. It gives IT one less excuse why not to use a mac giving their co-workers one more alternative than just “Windows”.
If its not feature packed like they said, hopefully the price will be a lot less. None the less I look forward to see what Apple has in-store for this os. I love what I’ve seen so far… can’t wait for the future. – DasFamiliar
Brandon Truesdell
June 13th, 2008
at 10:28pm
I think Mac is running out of things I mean like leopeod now snow, I mean Mac needs to come up with more things. I love Mac.
Elda Couts
September 19th, 2009
at 8:59am
Hallo, ich kann nicht verstehen, wie Sie Ihre Website in meinem RSS-add
Brian
October 3rd, 2009
at 6:00am
Did this column stop existing in June of 2008?
I followed a link on Google looking for the following ……
shockwave replacement for Macintosh with Snow Leopard
and you furnished the following which is no information at all,
“You came here looking for shockwave replacement for MAcintosh with Snow Leopard. If you like what you found, subscribe to my RSS Feed, YouTube Channel, and follow me on Twitter! I guarantee you’ll also be interested in these related posts:”