Apple today previewed Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which builds on the incredible success of OS X Leopard and is the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system. Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime(R) X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.
“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”
Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named “Grand Central,” making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. Furthering OS X’s lead in 64-bit technology, Snow Leopard raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM.
Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone(TM), Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari(R) with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.*
For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal(R) and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organizations of any size.
*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. Benchmark based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test on an iMac(R) 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, with 2GB of RAM.
Source: Apple Inc.
Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeed is what its all about
This will lay the groundwork for full multitouch using the multi core macs that will be standard with 4 GB of RAM in a few years. Then OS X 10.7 will come out before Windows 7 and it will be years ahead of windows 7. They are so far ahead, they can do what MSFT should have done when they had a big and growing OS lead. Apple won’t let it get as bloated as Windows has become…
Finally, I’ll be able to drop the useless Entourage. I have been dying to be able to do that for years.
Why they haven’t had exchange support before, I can’t understand. This is BIG!
I like this strategy! I feel like 10.5 has plenty of features, I doubt I use 25% of its available feature set. It’s time to go under the hood and optimize performance. Utilizing the GPU for general purpose computing and fully exploiting multiple cores will be a lot of work, but will pay off in the end for Apple and it customers.
If Apple can get OS X performance on par with Linux, it would probably be the end of Linux. (Windows is already toast!)
“goal of Snow Leopard will be to enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation.”
Microsoft calls that a “Service Pack”. Presumably Snow Job Leopard will be free?
#1. they didn’t SAY they were dropping the PPC
#2. in about a year … June, not January
OK, the former lends a (likely) false sense of security for my G5. The latter gives me another six months to save up for an Intel-based replacement. It sounds like Jobs & Co. are taking a well-deserved breather to get a lot of things “fixed”. A chance they might have had to pass by, had Vista not sucked quite so amazingly.
@ OS X Snow Job:
Take your “I got done in the ass by buying Vista” anger and go home.
You don’t even own an Intel Mac, so piss off – PLEASE?
So about the time OS X is kicking butt on 64 bit processors, Windows 7 will still be stuck with separate 32 and 64 bit versions.
And enough with the “Service Pack” crap. Microsoft Service Packs are bug fixes. Snow Leopard is the next version of OS X.
P.S. You don’t have to upgrade.
So will it be snappier?
ZFS, maybe?
It doesn’t sound like they’re “dropping” PPC support, the technology being implemented passes them by (sigh). How else can they move forward, and do otherwise?
Hmm….I take it the usual OSX pricing model will be waived. £30 would have me opening my wallet, otherwise I think Leopard will do.
So, license the technology for Exchange, infiltrate the corporate world, crush Windows in the process.
“Snow Leopard is the next version of OS X.”
Which apparently does nothing more than fix some bugs and tune some existing code.
And Microsoft service packs add about the same amount of functionality as a full OS X release, so this isn’t even a service pack. it’s more like some small patches on the OS, fixing everything that should have not been broken in the original Snow Job Leopard.
prrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
“So, license the technology for Exchange, infiltrate the corporate world, crush Windows in the process.”
So accept that Exchange is the dominant corporate mail system worldwide, add native support for it, sell a few more Macs, Go from 2.0% to 2.5% worldwide market share
@DizzyD
It’s more like this: “prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
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We all have to admit that Apple hardware and software quality has been slipping lately. Obviously the entire organization is stretched to its limits. Hopefully the Snow Leopard push will also be expanded to hardware and DFM principles.
For those of us who are Mac users on Windoze networks, the prospect of integrated Exchange support is great news.
@ Snow Leopard,
NO, we don’t ALL have to admit such stupid statements.
Which, BTW, aren’t true.
Again, go back to your Vista turd and tryu to polish it.
Hmmm…I’d watch out for 10.6 Server, because that is going to the thing that is going to come up on MSFT’s radar late in the game.
Here’s why?
16TB of address space is a pipe-dream at today’s RAM densities.
Even if you were to quadruple the amount of RAM that you can currently stick in an Xserve, you’d need 128 servers to take that much RAM.
However, could it be that Apple is going to use functionality that will exist in Intel’s processors from Nehalem onwards to allow companies and institutions to bind Xserve’s together over multiple 10GbE interfaces in such a way that each server’s RAM becomes part of a greater whole?
Now, 44-bit addressing starts to sense: corporates and scientific types could start creating applications (either commercial database apps or out-and-out, left-field research stuff) that can leverage an entire data centre of Xserves with no more effort than creating the same app for one Macintosh Pro.
Using that kind of technology, a data analysis that might have taken a week or more might now take a few hours. Which makes knowledge out of raw data in a way that creates a genuine possibility of a competitive differential advantage.
I don’t know how difficult this stuff is to implement in a Windows world, but I do know that when you start playing with more than 16GB of RAM in WIndows Server 2008, they start figuring out how they’re going to liberate you from your wallet and I’m pretty sure the same thing applies when you start using the cleverer versions of SQL Server.
So… It’ll be Snappier ?
In short, all it basically adds is better memory and processor management.
Feature said: “And Microsoft service packs add about the same amount of functionality as a full OS X release, so this isn’t even a service pack.”
Horsesh*t. Windows Service Packs are like a bunch of free OS X third-number upgrades all bundled together. Name me one new feature introduced in a service pack. And under-the-hood features don’t count, if you can even name those.
I swear, with the ignorance they show, Microsoft defenders deserve Windows.
——RM
hmmm. So After Snow Leopard, the only big cat left, I think is the Clouded Leopard. I wonder if that has any significance, given .mac’s move toward “cloud” computing. . .
Snappier ?
Maybe not tomorrow, nor the next day, so to speak
But one day, once that kitty grows up
It’ll be able to snap our heads off
So wear a helmet
And fasten your seat belt
Remember that TV ad few years ago of the guy getting blown out of his house through a tree in his yard ?
Sumthin’ like that
Snappy, Damn Snappy
BC
@ Scott in Japan – So… It’ll be Snappier ?
I don’t know about SNow Leopard, but Steve Jobs used the word Zippier today. Maybe Snow Leopard will be Zippier?
LOL. The new kool-aid is NO FOCUS ON FEATURES!! Yeh, that’s the best. Nothing is the best. No features are the new FEATURES! It’s so web tooo ohhhh!!!
Where do I pay?
“Where do I pay?”
As with all other Apple products, you pay through the ass for what you get.
As a software developer (note: not a super developer just a code monkey) a new release with nothing but ‘under the hood enhancements’ is a developers wet dream.
The marketing and sales people always think that new shit will sell and if they don’t have new shit they can’t sell.
Sometimes you should give the code monkeys time to do they want. And what they want is to make their shit hum ‘like a ten penny finishing nail, hit with a greasy ball peen hammer’
So to all the naysayers, buzz off.
This article has less substance than an Obama speech.
Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime
Ok, great. Every modern OS does this. Someone please tell my why Snow Leopard is important and why I really need it.
Built-in Exchange support isn’t “the” feature (unless of course Apple’s planning a corporate desktop raid…) Why a full version upgrade for Exchange?
Promises of a “new foundation for future innovation” isn’t the bomb either. Why sell me what’s, in effect, an API?
Most of you kiddies don’t remember Mac OS’s prior to 7.0 were all free updates. Bring your floppy disks to any Apple dealer and they would give you a copy.
OS 8.5 to 8.6 was also a free update and fixed a bunch of stability problems on my old Performa 6400.
10.0 to 10.1 was free to many, or a very small shipping charge.
If all they are doing is stability and speed improvements, Snow Leopard either ought to be free or at least greatly reduced.
As a software developer (note: not a super developer just a code monkey) a new release with nothing but ‘under the hood enhancements’ is a developers wet dream.
… and PR nightmare.
Remember QuickDraw GX?
I agree with the PR nightmare. Hey, I’m all for code optimization, but a lot of you folks would hammer Microsoft mercilessly if they claimed their next release delivered…..nothing.
just make it snappy
already
As a solid Mac supporter, turning my back on Windows 2 years ago, I would have to agree with some of the Microsoft people on this board. SnowLeopard seems like an update, not a new operating system. Why should we have to pay for this? I personally don’t have Leopard after hearing about a lot of the bugs and look forward to Snow leopard, but really, those who bought Leopard should be getting some kind of discount for this. It’s a little unfair.
Rickw.
Wonder how many apps it’ll break and how long it’ll take to get them humming again. Start coding, gals.
@rickw
“SnowLeopard seems like an update … Why should we have to pay for this? “
You DON’T have to pay for SnowLeopard.
If you don’t want it, don’t get it.
Finally Steve has managed to sell the faithful NOTHING and they’re defending it.
Snow Job Leopard indeed.
“You DON’T have to pay for SnowLeopard.”
But Snow Job Leopard is just a set of patches. Everyone else gives those away for free.
Here’s my interpretation of this fairly coy press release:
What this is saying is that Apple is doing some major kernel and API renovation for Snow Leopard: modernizing stuff and adding better support for the way hardware is going (think lots of CPU cores, GPU as as secondary processor, potentially other co-processors like the Cell in the PS3 has, not to mention large and very high-resolution displays) and the way software is going (huge data sets for stuff like HD video, 8+ megapixel cameras, enormous music libraries, medical imaging and genomics, and so on).
You can complain all you want about how this should have been in Leopard to begin with, or that it’s not significant, but I would guess that this work is actually fairly important and will include or lay the foundations for:
– Resolution-independent UI. Think readable devices like Amazon Kindle but with a good, Apple UI.
– New file system (ZFS perhaps?). Note that MS has been trying to put a new FS in Windows for about a decade and hasn’t succeeded yet. This would be a good time to leave NTFS in the dust once and for all.
– Deprecation of Carbon to focus on Cocoa as THE one true API. There are legacy things, especially QuickTime, that have never been first class citizens in Cocoa and the existence of parallel APIs complicates the development process. Of course there will be the inevitable gnashing of teeth from the lumbering ISV gorillas like Adobe and Microsoft MacBU.
– Possible next-generation enhancements to Cocoa to address “long in the tooth” issues that John Siracusa has talked about: http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2005/9/27/1372
– Redesign of QuickTime to fix all those security holes that we all keep whining about and create a next-gen media platform. Like NTFS, Windows Media is faltering and this would be a good time to drive a stake through its heart.
I think Snow Leopard is smart.
1. Apple can’t go too long between updates. People have become addicted to updates.
2. Apple needs to deliver a killer operating system. Performance and optimizations will be crucial to its long-term success in an increasingly competitive marketplace and mobile devices.
C’mon folks… it’s all about Multi-Touch. Quite surprised at all the Mac faithful here. Anyone thought yet that within 5 years, there won’t be a physical keyboard & mouse? Steve is, at least, 5 steps ahead of the game. Everyone else is playing catch-up. And, quite frankly, not cuttin’ it. Look at the “iPhone killers”. Buttons everywhere. Sure, you can launch an app with touch screen, but once its launched, you’re pressing buttons. And lots of them. Like Steve said… “not so easy to use.” I think Snow Leopard will actually set us up for the next 10 to 15 years. You don’t see it now, but in the very near future our current machines will look like the 25th (20th?) Anniversary Mac. Maybe I’m way off base, but at least I think I see the roadmap.
You’re feeding trolls, people. Rotten, slime covered nazi trolls, with no taste, intelligence, style, talent, or brains.
“But Snow Job Leopard is just a set of patches. Everyone else gives those away for free.”
Only someone too dumb to get a driver’s license and too ugly to have any friends would spend time on a Mac site typing such things. Such a person likely takes pleasure in shooting neighborhood pets and is an avid viewer of child prøn. They undoubtedly suffer from an array of crippling sexual dysfunctions that prevent then from having an meaningful friendships or, needless to say, sex with anything other than drugged livestock.
Worst of all, these people are no doubt trapped in dead end jobs at places like Microsoft, Dell, and Nokia. Such unfortunate drecks are forced to create fake identities and troll message boards of rival companies in a futile effort to discredit those that produce quality products and those that enjoy those products. Such a pathology can only lead to self destruction, or (in some extreme cases) murder.
So in closing, I’d like to remind all of you that the world is fraught with danger clad in many guises and screen names. Anonymity affords even the lowest of cave-dwelling troglodyte a vehicle to spread his shrill and desperate misinformation to an audience of hundreds, thousands, even millions of otherwise savvy readers. Some will be taken in by this obtuse and pusillanimous
maneuvering, but those with true grit and wily reflexes will not be baited or cowed by such contemptible swine. Let them tempt you not into a war you can’t win! Use weapons that they have no answer for – intelligence, wisdom, and wit.
They will crumble like shale before you.
If Snow Leopard is faster and has good Exchange integration, I’ll pay for it.
I spend at 8 – 9 hours each working day on a Mac, and several more in the weekend. I think Leopard is great. I use iChat video and screen sharing to look after my aging parents’ Mac, and make constant use of iTunes. But I’ve never used Spaces, I’ve never found a must-have widget (I’ve disabled Dashboard), and although I back up religiously, I’ve never found the need for Time Machine.
I can’ t speak for others, but right now, I can’t think of any new “features” I want.
@ChrissyOne –
Nice fire n’ brimstone sermon, very funny, well written and oh soooo TRUE.
As for the trolls here, they are scared, very, very scared of the inevitable … besides them being unintelligent plonkers who are trapped in the past stuck in the slowlane.
I meant “… at least 8 – 9 hours …”
And nice rant, ChrissyOne.
Wow, you people are making some awfully big assumptions!
Apple said nothing about which Macs would be supported or not. No one in this forum has any idea what the system requirements will be.
This is not a “stability and speed upgrade.” Did you all miss Exchange support? New Quicktime foundation? OpenCL support? 16 TeraFlop memory support?
This version of OS X is not designed to impress people with new features (except for maybe Exchange support, which is necessitated by the iPhone adoption of Exchange). It is designed to create a powerful, fast platform for the next generation of computing, including Multi-Touch desktops and other interfaces.
Claiming this upgrade should be free without knowing more details about Snow Leopard is asinine. Claiming Snow Leopard is just a series of patches is ignorant. Stop getting your panties in a wad and wait until Apple tells you more about what’s in Snow Leopard.
As Chris said, “P.S. You don’t have to upgrade.”
ZFS! Please! Now!
@ChrissyOne
“Only someone too dumb to get a driver’s license and too ugly to have any friends would spend time on a Mac site typing such things.”
Well, they’re frightened, aren’t they?
The writing’s on the wall for the boys and girls at Redmond.
Oops, I’ve just realized I’ve written a cliche, so I’ll make it a genuine quotation:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
27: TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
28: PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
The simple fact is that Microsoft never produced anything of any real quality and never cared about quality. It’s complacent, and its profits are based on monopolies and “good enough will do”.
Windows CE is a feeble joke. Windows on the desktop is a bloated mess. They now tell customers they’re lucky enough to have a “choice” between versions. That means you get to “choose” the insecure and outdated one or the even more bloated and slow one with the baked-in DRM. No thanks.
Leopard has a little of its own legacy baggage, including that awful HFS+ filesystem, which NeXTSTEP never used and which is necessary for the legacy Mac OS stuff that had to be forced into OS X so that Office and Photoshop could be ported. But it’s basically a world-class system and is promised to get leaner and better with Snow Leopard. Nobody else has got anything like the Cocoa frameworks:
From Win32 to Cocoa
This is the third part of a four-part series describing how one developer became disillusioned with the Windows platform and was reinvigorated by the bright lights of Mac OS X.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-III.ars
MS is selling sub-standard trash. Apple has a world-class operating system that’ll scale on everything from a iPod Touch to an XServe. The iPhone looks set to become the leading smartphone worldwide, not just in quality of conception and execution but also in sales.
Of course the Microsloth trolls are frightened of Apple. They’re damn terrified by it. And meanwhile, at the low end, on ultra-mobile PCs, OEMs are becoming interested in using Linux distros, since XP runs poorly on these devices, Vista doesn’t run at all, and the OEMs, anyway, don’t want to pay Microsoft exorbitant licensing fees on low-cost equipment with slim profit margins.
All Redmond’s got left is bile and lies.
Snow Leopard will be a landmark release of OS X.
The technologies that Apple have announced will take OS X soooo far ahead of M$ they might as well give up and go home.
OpenCL, QTX and Grand Central are so big it will be a new benchmark in performance for media production applications. Apple will be able to deliver unprecedented performance on the desktop in a developer friendly way.
These aren’t patched these are features that will shake M$ to its foundations. It will also scare the shit out of Autodesk as FCStudio will be able to deliver Flame beating performance at desktop prices.
Eat this Ballmer…
First of all, C1: don’t sit on the fence, say what you really think.
Secondly: a series of patches??
Tell me, No Upgrade For You, what does your village do for an idiot when you go on vacation? Or when they put you in that circus wagon and roll you around the Mid-West with all the other members of the freak-show (like The Boy Who Dances Like A Monkey)?.
It sounds to me like Snow Leopard is the foundation for the new era of extreme multi-core processing: you need to remember that we are only three generations away from an Intel architecture that will – in its server form – have 32 cores (Sandy Bridge née Gesher).
Now, in the just-good-enough world of mediocrity that is Microsoft, they’d probably just fob you off with Windows Server 2010 (or whatever it’ll be called) and spend their time trying to build more sub-standard technologies to lock you in to their world of Imagination Not Included computing, rather than try and develop an optimised OS.
Let’s face it, it took them seven years to develop Vista and now the CEO is wandering around telling people that – if they want – they can up/down/sidegrade (delete according to your personal prejudice) to XP and that’s a great thing.
But – in the Think Different world – you get a break from the hamster-wheel of feature development and instead a major focus on making the operating system ready for computers that have several dozen cores, access to many terabytes of RAM whilst managing petabyte and exabyte volumes of data on 4TB+ disks.
In addition, you get the ability on suitably equipped desktops and laptops to off-load certain routines to your GPU card/chipset from within the OS as well.
Tell me, what’s worse? Paying $129 for 10.6 which makes over 20 million multi-core Macs (15.7 million already in circulation) snappier and provides the foundation for the future. Or purchasing a new $499 WInDell POS Imagination Not Included box and then having to install an operating system that was developed in the last century over the top of Vista???
Also, I’ll lay dollars to doughnuts that OS X Server 10.6 will let you use more than 16GB of memory out of the box, just as it currently does with 10.5. Microsoft feel that if you want to use that much memory, you should pay an uplift over the standard license for WIndows Server? And yet the Windows dittoheads in the corporate world just nod and hand over the money like the sheep they are.
If QT X is so much more efficient will this mean machine being able to play higher def video than before? Will it mean say that Apple TV could be upgraded to play 1080p?
Personally unless the improvements are really drastic I probably won’t feel the need to upgrade at the typical price, something slightly lower would be fine though. Although, that said, it could depend on how well my machine lasts and how close I feel to a hardware upgrade at the time.
“They will crumble like shale before you.”
That was a good laugh. Are you really as socially retarded as your writing suggests?
“OpenCL, QTX and Grand Central are so big it will be a new benchmark in performance for media production applications.”
Except these features have existed in Windows for years. I guess you never get to hear about technology until Steve copies it.
I just want to be able to afford all 16 TB of RAM for my iMac…
It happens like clockwork. There is an Apple event, and the day after the bitching and whining starts. Jobs could announce the end of poverty and a cure for cancer, and people would still complain.
To all the trolls who are jumping to conclusions, how about we get some more information about Snow Leopard before bashing it? It may not have any new features, but this is how things evolve. Things improve by not standing still. This is a lesson Microsoft has never learned, and look where they are today. Dealing with the mess that is Vista.
Listening to Microsoft trolls is like listening to a rape victim defend her attacker.
“But – in the Think Different world – you get a break from the hamster-wheel of feature development and instead a major focus on making the operating system ready for computers that have several dozen cores, access to many terabytes of RAM whilst managing petabyte and exabyte volumes of data on 4TB+ disks.”
Or you can buy Windows which has done this for years.
Terabytes of Ram: First supported on Windows in 2001
Terabytes of Disk: Windows has supported 256TB per volume since 2003.
Dozens of cores: Windows supported 8 cores a decade ago. 64 cores in 2003.
CUDA (OpenCL equivalent) in Feb 2007.
It must be frustraiting knowing you’re going to wait years, or in some cases decades for Mac OS X to catch up with Windows.
Actually for some fanboys it’s just blissful ignorance. You don’t even know these technologies already exist until Steve “Invents” them for you and you just fall for the Snow Job that they’re new.
I struggle to see why you think fixing the kernel to do what it should have always done is progress and a major update.
Wait, weren’t you all bashing Microsoft for Windows 7 when they said they were not going to add many features, and instead focus on stability, security, and speed?
“To all the trolls who are jumping to conclusions, how about we get some more information about Snow Leopard before bashing it? It may not have any new features, but this is how things evolve”
Ha Ha Ha. That’s how things evolve? No new features. That sounds more like the way things stagnate.
And you’re all angry at the “Trolls” for pointing out that you’ve been had and are getting nothing more than a set of patches and features that have existed in Windows and Linux for years in your next release a year from now?
But keep slurping that Kool Aid and pretending that an OS with nothing new is going to be revolutionary.
Keep convincing yourself that “No New Features” is a good thing.
Ha Ha Ha.
“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN”
Sure, Apple is not a cult. Just when is God going to destroy the Great Satan Microsoft and lead His Chosen People to the Promised Market Domination?
Thank you apple for your self reflection. Unlike other software companies that get more bloated with features that are not marketed very well, you choose to look at your own code to see how to get more out with a smaller size.
Very Immense Sucky Traumatic Application
The level of moronic posts in this thread – mine excluded
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> – is probably an all-time MDN record.
OpenCL – if that can make your existing hardware ‘zippier’ when, for example, converting movies, then it will be a huge deal.
GrandCentral – making it possible to truly network your available machines into a giant computational server – that’s cool.
As for ‘no new features’ – want to bet ?
@ @ChrissyOne
No, but I play one on TV.
“As for ‘no new features’ – want to bet ?”
Slurp, Slup, This Kool Aid tastes good. No New Features, that’s Revolutionary. Soon everybody will be producing software upgrades with No New Features.
@C1….what is wrong about having sex with drugged livestock?
Its easier to get some tail that way….lol
Ha Ha Ha. That’s how things evolve? No new features. That sounds more like the way things stagnate.
I know, it’s hilarious, isn’t it? Mac users might have to wait 3 years (or 2 version) for new features. It’s insane to have to wait that long for new features! On windows, you only have to wait…
Oh… wait…
And you’re all angry at the “Trolls” for pointing out that you’ve been had and are getting nothing more than a set of patches and features that have existed in Windows and Linux for years in your next release a year from now?
Who’s angry? Don’t you even understand simple Projection? It’s when a person (or in your case, a child) looks for and exaggerates all their own faults in those around them in order to bring everyone else down to a level that the subject can them feel superior to. This makes it easy to cherry pick reality, choosing to ignore missing information that may balance an argument.
I mean, duh.
But keep slurping that Kool Aid and pretending that an OS with nothing new is going to be revolutionary.
And of course, what troll post would be complete without that good old, solid standby, “Kool Aid”. Nothing like a religious mass suicide reference to add validity to your computer technology argument. Bravo! What skill!!! What deft wit!!!
Keep convincing yourself that “No New Features” is a good thing.
Keep typing. You might get near something funny or smart some day.
ha ha ha, indeed.
-c
@ Buster
Oh hell, I forgot that Canadians read this… sorry! Nothing wrong with that!!!
;P
Its an IQ test. Once you have a customer base to whom you can sell an upgrade with no new features, you know you can sell them absolutely anything.
Customer: Hi, I’m wanting to look at Macs
Apple Store Employee: Great, now first let me ask you would you buy a software upgrade with no new features?
Customer: I guess so, if it comes in a box with an Apple logo on it.
Apple Store Employee: Sounds like you should become a member of our “Special” Mac buyers club.
Customer: Does that mean I’m special?
Apple Store Employee: It sure does, we even have a Olympics just for you.
“Who’s angry? Don’t you even understand simple Projection?”
Actually it’s standard cult member behavior when the members get disappointed. It’s a very well documented effect.
But keep it up. No New Features and you’re still defending it. How funny, how true to the pattern.
@ @ChrissyOne
Please provide links to this documentation.
I await your intelligent and informed reply.
I for one will get Snow Leopard when it comes out.
I work as a Software Engineer and dabble in Mac development. I have worked on code, hacked it into working, released it (to stay within time/budget), then have wished for the opportunity to go back and make the code Right instead of Hacked… it’s something every developer experiences.
I am seeing this as Apple taking a moment from it’s headlong rush into the future of computing, to clean up the software that is it’s foundation, to get rid of the hacks, to make things right, to optimize, enhance, etc. This is something I would have loved to do many times on projects I’ve worked on. I envy those Mac developers who are getting this opportunity.
“I await your intelligent and informed reply.”
I severely doubt it, Cult members only process and integrate information which fits with their flawed world view. To account for the other facts they concoct fantastic explanations that are obviously ridiculous to anyone outside the cult. It’s another very common trait. But keep going, it’s still funny.
“I am seeing this as Apple taking a moment from it’s headlong rush into the future of computing, to clean up the software that is it’s foundation, to get rid of the hacks, to make things right, to optimize, enhance, etc.”
But Apple software, at least according to this board is extremely elegant, does not contain any such hacks and is already blazingly fast. The work you suggest is happening would seem redundant.
I am seeing this as Apple’s OS X teams taking a break on Mac OS X for a while and throwing those people behind delivering more features on the iPhone and iPods. After all those are the products where Apple might have a future.
A year from now, Steve will preview Mac OS X Snow Job Leopard, which you will realize was the cover for Apple finally throwing in the towel on their own PC OS and migrating to Vista. As they did with switch to Intel industry standard architecture, Fanboys will applaud his genius, stating that Vista got all it’s ideas from Mac OS anyway and is finally ready for prime time.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
This event is one of the most famous examples. If you don’t see the direct parallel to behavior of board posters when told there would be No New Features, then follow a few more links from the article to understand how cult members deal with information that doesn’t agree with the view of the world that they have created.
Apple’s going business! Apple’s going business! I could sing for days!
Just was reading that Snow Leopard server has read / write support for ZFS (in addition to several other ‘non-features’.
Buying this release of OSX becomes a no-brainer with ZFS.
“Buying this release of OSX becomes a no-brainer with ZFS.”
That’s right, because most people will notice a change in file system. The Cult begins seizing on minor things to create “No Brainer” “Features” to begin the process of re-writing it’s world view after it’s leader delivered his news.
Done Before…
Yes, Microsoft had multi-TB RAM and a lot of that other stuff years ago FOR ITANIUM PROCESSORS.
Just remind me: how many installations of IA-64 Itanium-based servers are there? Let’s be frank, it’s never been the most successful of platforms.
Ah, but now you have a lot of support for these things in Windows Server 2008 so long as you buy either the Enterprise edition (gets you a maximum of 8 processor sockets and 2TB of RAM). Or maybe the Datacenter edition (64 processor sockets and 2TB of RAM).
So where can I get these boxes so I can test this functionality?
HP?
Well, I can get a machine that will let me stick 64GB of RAM and 4 x dual-core Xeons in a single box which is kind of Enterprise Edition. In the UK, that’s a £2600 ticket item, which is a bit steep if you ask me.
But what we’re really talking about is the Datacenter edition.
Which costs you around £2600…FOR EACH PROCESSOR SOCKET
Which means a fully specced X64 server – assuming I could find one – is over £165,000 just in base server operating system licences and before I buy the hardware. Did I mention I can’t find a single server where I can use this product?
Or maybe you’d like me to go and join the 185,000 or Itanium systems and purchase an HP Integrity server.
Let’s try and clear up some of your comments…
I’m willing to concede that Windows says it can support large volumes. Can you just clarify for me how Microsoft – after well over thirteen years – has not done anything to improve its file services for Macintosh.
If I turn on SFM on a WIndows server for a volume that has more than 32,000 items (hardly a high number), I run the risk of a full-blown crash.
This problem has existed for over a decade and the only way around it is to buy a third-party product. So what I’m asking is as follows…
If the problem can be resolved by a third-party ISV (GroupLogic), how come Microsoft hasn’t re-engineered the service? Are they lazy? Incompetent?
Or does MSFT just believe that SFM is there as a sop to a niche market?
And if that’s how they behave to niche markets, why should I trust them to implement sophisticated high-end technology that has only seen about 185,000 systems sold in the period 2001-7?
In fact, if the vast majority of the 185,000 Itanium servers sold in that period were from HP’s Integrity range (according to Intel), maybe you could tell me how many of those servers were installed under Windows Server 2003 or its predecessor.
“maybe you could tell me how many of those servers were installed under Windows Server 2003 or its predecessor.”
Sure if you can tell me how many Mac users are running more than 8 cores and have disks bigger than a few dozen terabytes, or more than 32GB of memory.
Answer: As you know, absolutely none, and no hardware even rumoured that could exceed those limits.
At least with Windows you can, for a price, do those things, and the day Microsoft want to make it mainstream they just have to drop the price, not actually develop anything.
The point seems to be that you agree that Microsoft already does everything Apple proposes to do next year, and has been doing so for some time.
Also Unisys will sell you a 64 core Xeon box with 512GB of memory to run Windows Datacenter on.
It’s not cheap, but do you think the 64 way Mac with 512GB memory that you anticipate next year will be either?
“Well, I can get a machine that will let me stick 64GB of RAM and 4 x dual-core Xeons in a single box which is kind of Enterprise Edition”
Perhaps the UK is behind the rest of the world. In the US they will sell you a 32 core AMD box which supports up to 256GB of memory.
I don’t think the naysayers here realize how much work is gonna have to go into this release. For anyone with some amount of programming experience, we know that Apple has a daunting task ahead of them. I’d wager that they’ll put more work into Snow Leopard than any prior release (except the original OS X of course). But because we consumers won’t be able to see any of that work, we’ll bitch and moan about no new features, price, and all other sorts of things. If Apple has truly figured out how to easily allow developers to utilize multiple cores, then this is the most important version of OS X to date. If Grand Central does what it’s purported to do, Microsoft can give up on trying to catch OS X. Also, this is the perfect way for Apple to complete the transition to Intel. I’m more excited about this release than I was for Tiger or Leopard. If it does what Jobs has promised, it will truly be revolutionary and lay the groundwork for all future versions.
Even if it DID come with no new features, AND cost $129 merely for under-the-hood improvements, think about this: people pay hundreds of dollars for RAM upgrades, new GPUs, etc, which have no new features, but only make the computer … faster. If Snow Leopard actually makes your computer all-around, say, 50% faster, it will be (for those who need speed and would otherwise have bought new RAM or whatever) one of the best deals I can think of.
But come on! They had one minor session by Bertrand Serlet, for developers only, about a distant software release. At a DEVELOPERS’ conference. They’re going to focus on what the developers want to hear: not the next version of Safari or iChat or the user interface, but the Exchange support and under-the-hood performance improvements. This is APPLE- we really should not be surprised if features are revealed over time. They never said there would be “no new features”: they said they would be FOCUSING, this time, on performance. That’s it.
And, seeing as they chose the name “Snow Leopard” (and not a new animal like Cougar or Lion), I’m guessing it will be free or highly discounted for those already Leopard users. But either way, we can’t assume it’ll suck (or that it’ll be good, I might add) before we know hardly anything about it. So please stop.