Forums | MacLife

Just wondering if anyone predicted "snow leopard" in one of the "name the next osx" threads.

Shoulda been lolcats, damn you Jobs!

uncreativename wrote:

are we going to have to pay for this upgrade?

No one knows yet.

My guess is either no or it'll be cheaper than the usual 129 USD.  I can't see it really being free though.

Mr. T wrote:

I think 10.1 was like $20 (to upgrade).  That's only because 10.0 shouldn't have existed.

That $20 was for shipping. If you showed up in a store like I did, it was a free upgrade.

Their focus doesn't seem terribly "retarded" to me.

Metacell wrote:

Yeah, performance improvements?  Those are the real upgrades I'm always hoping for.

Tony Smith thinks there may be a price for those.

Apple is promising a version of Mac OS X that "dramatically" reduces the amount of storage space the operating system requires. Undoubtedly, some of that will come from the re-engineered core technologies, but it's hard to conclude that Snow Leopard's release will come not as a "universal" binary capable of running on both Intel and PowerPC processors, but as a single-platform product.

Universality has been handy in ensuring users can run the same installed code on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs without resorting to emulation. But just as Leopard lacks the ability to run Mac OS 9 apps - a feature present in previous Mac OS X releases - there will come a time when Apple drops Rosetta, its PowerPC emulation mechanism.

Early rumours concerning Snow Leopard suggested PowerPC support was to be dropped, though that was subsequently denied by Apple insiders.

How can these two claims be reconciled? Only by Apple shipping native-only versions of Snow Leopard. Owners of Intel-based Macs will finally be free of all that redundant PowerPC code in the system software, freeing up space for, as Apple puts it, "their music and photos".

...

Apple won't be ditching support for universal binaries, or PowerPC Macs, because there, for now, too many of them out there. But if Snow Leopard's Grand Central technology does as promised and improves the OS' ability to work with multi-core CPUs, Intel-based Macs are going to shoot even further ahead of old G5 and G4 models.

Apple's Snow Leopard to cut the bloat from Mac OS X

OH GOD!!!!!!!!!! THE HORROR *runs to hide*

God the original OSX sucked my computer was brick for like a month until they finally started to release patches and new software.

Mr. T wrote:

I think 10.1 was like $20 (to upgrade).  That's only because 10.0 shouldn't have existed.

I'm kind of excited about snow leopard. I like the idea of a bit of house keeping on the os.

PPC won't become unusable because of an intel-only focus, you just won't be able to upgrade beyond 10.5.x, so...yeah. I've upgraded my hardware. I'm ready to move forward.

Developers can still write PPC (universal) apps. I wouldn't be too worried. Especially if Snow Leopard doesn't add a whole new slew of features. If it's basically just a cleaner 10.5, that sort of ensures parity for another couple years regardless of an OS update. No? (I haven't really been following the news)

I can't say I am surprised but I rather think Apple is going after business users in a rather sideways way.
A BIG problem many business types have with Apple is that they have no reliable development roadmap and they drop compatibility so casually. The best example of that would be the way Apple broke Photoshop CS2 with 10.5 even after they made so much noise about stabilizing the API's after 10.4.
The new business oriented features are nice but I dont know that it will help Apple break into te enterprise when the improvements are accompanied by another big fat reminder of how Apple can't be trusted.
It's one thing to jerk consumers around by breaking everything in sight with every new point release but business takes a whole different angle on that sort of thing.
Not a lot of IT departments are going to be all that interested in joining Apples forced march into the future and beyond.
Apple's development philosophy is fundamentally contrary to the meeting enterprise requirements and I really don't see how Apple expects to make any inroads in that area without changing their ways at least a bit.

I really hope they don't rule out all PPC macs. The G5's should still be included, imo. They are 64 bit right? But if it is intel only I will just run Leopard still until I buy a new intel mac.(which will be a while, this G5 still handles everything I have thrown at it great. except iMovie 08.)

Pariah wrote:

I can't say I am surprised but I rather think Apple is going after business users in a rather sideways way.
A BIG problem many business types have with Apple is that they have no reliable development roadmap and they drop compatibility so casually. The best example of that would be the way Apple broke Photoshop CS2 with 10.5 even after they made so much noise about stabilizing the API's after 10.4.
The new business oriented features are nice but I dont know that it will help Apple break into te enterprise when the improvements are accompanied by another big fat reminder of how Apple can't be trusted.
It's one thing to jerk consumers around by breaking everything in sight with every new point release but business takes a whole different angle on that sort of thing.
Not a lot of IT departments are going to be all that interested in joining Apples forced march into the future and beyond.
Apple's development philosophy is fundamentally contrary to the meeting enterprise requirements and I really don't see how Apple expects to make any inroads in that area without changing their ways at least a bit.

I agree.  Backwards compatibility is a huge deal in the enterprise arena.  Just look at all the flack Microsoft has taken for compatibility problems over the years, and then look at Apple's compatibility record -- it's atrocious by comparison.  If Apple were in Microsoft's shoes, they'd be toast.  As a consumer, I can kinda deal with it, but when you need to worry about keeping hundreds of clients happy, Apple is generally a poor decision -- especially when custom software enters the equation.

Last edited by Mr. T (2008-06-12 5:08 pm)

You know, I kinda like Apple where it is. The constant OS upgrades slipping a little compatibility also have the advantage of fixing issues and adding new features. For a college student or regular user or family computer, this kind of deal really isn't that bad. And with Macs now being able to run Windows apps, I don't even really care what the enterprises run, 'cause I'll probably be able to run it too.

Yeah, I can pretty much say I'm happy. And I'm running Tiger on a PowerBook G4.

Looking forward to upgrading to Snow Leopard when the time comes.