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Intel only ?

http://www.macplus.net/magplus/depeche-18511-10-6-au-revoir-le-powerpc-

ZFS on Server!

OH YEH THAT"S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Probably not... though officially... Apple has and will go on with parallel developpment, i guess.

No New Features! Revolutionary. Soon all new OS versions will have No New Features!

And Windows 7 has announced.... finger painting on your touch screen! Oh, yeah, that's what computer users have been clamoring for. Microsoft - once feared but hardly respected - now increasingly irrelevant.

I wonder if Blu-ray playback support is part of the new media features.

Actually, this marks the perfect way to transition away from PowerPC, by hooking onto processor architectures unique to Intel's chips. As a Powermac G5 owner, I'm a little saddened, but I can't really expect much from the OS, given its "core" duty.

Intel only would make sense.

Much easier to revamp the core of OSX to one system then 2. It's kind of like when they eventually dropped OS9 support in their hardware.

It actually doesn't make sense to hold OSX down by supporting the power PC.

If the increases in speed and stability are what they claim they will be then Snow Leopard will turn out to be a major turning point for OSX. It sounds like it will be the start of a major leap in power when combined with future hardware and software.

Jun 11, 08 - 08:03 am Comment from: JAYGEE

The performance part sounds good. I had so Force quit Safari three times before it would work, this morning.

Leopard still works well in general, but there are a few bugs that never seemed to be fixed.

I still love my Mac though

Jun 11, 08 - 08:05 am Comment from: qka

Soon all new OS versions will have No New Features!

That has been Microsoft's mantra for years.

Jun 11, 08 - 08:07 am Comment from: MrMcLargeHuge

This is a great move on Apple's part. Though it may turn out to be the least popular version of OS X (or at least the one that a lot of people skip over), it will pay absolutely huge dividends in the future, especially when you think about how slow and unoptimized Windows will be in comparison. Grand Central may be one of the biggest developments in years. We now have computers with 2, 4, 8+ cores, but the developers have no clue how to use them, so tasks end up getting split unevenly, placing most of the burden on one core, and giving hardly anything to the other. Grand Central alone makes Snow Leopard worth the purchase for anyone with a multi-core machine. I never thought I'd be so excited about an OS with no new features, but the potential that Snow Leopard will open up is astounding.

Jun 11, 08 - 08:10 am Comment from: MrMcLargeHuge

And here's hoping Apple decides to make it a cheaper upgrade. Ironically, they will probably do more work on Snow Leopard than on any other version (except the original, of course), but consumers won't be able to see what they've done, so they won't be willing to pay the standard $129 to upgrade.

This sounds like a well thought out update to Leopard. There are times that the backbone needs to be improved even if many users won't see anything new on the screen. Sounds good to me!

Jun 11, 08 - 08:24 am Comment from: loganson

Wait a minute. I want more discussion of the iPhone.

Jun 11, 08 - 08:27 am Comment from: loganson

Will applications have to be rewritten to take advantage of these Non-features™?

That means MS and Adobe apps will be completely unaffected.

People won't skip Snow Leopard if there are serious performance gains.

"That has been Microsoft's mantra for years."

So after Apple adopting the industry's processor strategy, have also adopted Microsoft's development strategy.

Congratulations.

Jun 11, 08 - 08:52 am Comment from: Ray

I am glad that Apple has the guts to make one version of their OS a clean up and unification of all their technologies. Our machines will be even faster.

If M$ had done that with Vista they would not be in such bad shape.
I said it once I will say it again...If M$ had interviewed IT managers asking them what the successor to XP needed..I am sure the Aero interface would of been low on the list...I am sure that finger painting is low on the list on what is needed to fix Vista. M$ is screwing their biggest fans in a professional sense. That can't last too much longer.

just my $0.02

"I am glad that Apple has the guts to make one version of their OS a clean up and unification of all their technologies."

And so the cult members have created a new reality. No New Features is GOOD.

No explanation of how the Mac OS X kernel came to be so screwed up that it needs a year of remedial work though. The Cult members will quietly forget this and not feel a need to explain why it was a state of the art high performance OS Yesterday and Today is in such bad shape.

@Apple is a cult
"remedial work" - how does developing new technologies imply that the underlying kernel needs remedial work ?
If you don't like Macs, why bother coming to this site ?

"No explanation of how the Mac OS X kernel came to be so screwed up ..."

I see no mention of Mach there. You don't know what you're talking about.

Jun 11, 08 - 09:24 am Comment from: MaLvado

Apple is a Cult,

You assume it's screwed up.

Analogy-
All cars off the dealer lots are screwed up because they aren't as fast and efficient compared to performance tweaking them for maximum power and efficiency.

Plus new coding abilities are learned/created since the OS was created in the late 90s.

"I see no mention of Mach there. You don't know what you're talking about."

Probably they realized it was time to ditch the current slow microkernel based science project that is Mac OS X for a clean, fast, modern kernel architecture.

Perhaps during this year they're porting everything to Linux.

"Plus new coding abilities are learned/created since the OS was created in the late 90s."

Actually the core OS was created in the late 70's. Or the mid 60's if you consider it's original heritage.

"You assume it's screwed up."

It's pretty well known that it's screwed up. a De-Maching of the kernel is long overdue. Microsoft, for the record has already gone through this pain when it got Windows running efficiently on 64 core systems.

@ Mach Must Go and Mac OS X is Screwed Up

You do realize you're preaching an old, old myth here, don't you?

Please read this (written in 2006) to get up to speed on things.

Jun 11, 08 - 10:07 am Comment from: Spark

I agree that Grand Central, if pulled off well, will be huge. I used to upgrade to the biggest, baddest Mac hardware upgrades as soon as they were released because the applications and OS always showed considerable speed gains. These days I just can't justify buying the new multi-processor hardware because it changes performance so little. Application developers just don't take advantage of them. Grand Central is definitely something I'll want to watch.

@ Mac OS X is screwed up


Thanks Buddy, for turning this into a typical flame-tard forum again....

"Please read this (written in 2006) to get up to speed on things."

If You believe Daniel "Idiot" Eran about anything, you're more gullible than one might presume. Mach 2.5 still extracts a performance overhead.

Can I sell you an operating system upgrade with No New Features? I bet I can.

"Thanks Buddy, for turning this into a typical flame-tard forum again...."

How else would you describe any MDN forum discussion?

"All cars off the dealer lots are screwed up because they aren't as fast and efficient compared to performance tweaking them for maximum power and efficiency."

Analogy:

The Apple engine is badly designed. This was not as obvious on Yesterdays PPC dirt roads because everybody expected slowness compared to Intel. It is on the new Intel Superhighways. Now things can be compared Apples with Apples it's obvious a better engine is needed. They are working on a better design.

@ Gabriel

"@ Mach Must Go and Mac OS X is Screwed Up

You do realize you're preaching an old, old myth here, don't you?"

I'd guess we now have three different posting names for the original idiot posting under the name "Apple is a Cult".

For sure the kernel is not a microkernel, and the ignoramus is just digging himself in deeper. But, again, there's nothing in the list about the kernel. That's not what Snow Leopard is about.

"again, there's nothing in the list about the kernel. "

Duh, except improving the parallelism of the kernel (Grand Central) Providing direct access to GPU resources through GPU kernel drivers, and adding a kernel driver for ZFS, modifying the kernel to support 16TB of memory, Nope nothing to do with the Kernel there...

Do you even know what an OS kernel is? Clearly not. I think you'll be a good candidate for an OS upgrade with No New Features.

Jun 11, 08 - 10:49 am Comment from: HolyMackerel

Is QuickTime X the Flash replacement? Graphics tools suitable for every device?

Nice plan, but no new features my ass! They're inevitable, as well as major ugrades to the pro apps, iWork / iLife / Aperture to exploit the cleaned-up system.

I already use Grand Central. Oh, you mean this is another Grand Central?

A newly optimized system would be great. Faster even on older machines. That's one thing I really like about Apple, my older machines just get faster; at least until they are no longer supported.

Optimizing the system also makes a lot of sense if there WERE to introduce a tablet-type device.

OS X is staying Universal. Apple bought P.A. Semi to create their own system-on-a-chip, and P.A. specialty is the Power architecture. To me, this means that OS X won't be going Intel-only.

Jun 11, 08 - 11:39 am Comment from: DLMeyer

I've been watching OSX getting BOTH a) new features AND b) snappier speeds since the original 10.0 was distributed as a Public Beta Test. OK, there have been required upgrades in CPU and memory along the way, but the added features always ran faster on existing machines.
Unlike what Windows users could expect.
Vista was supposed to be an answer to Tiger. It could barely compete! And it cost a lot in terms of resource upgrades. Leopard added more features and included resource requirement updates that seemed forced, not really "needed". So, now we have a situation where the competition is so far behind that Apple can sit back a bit. Rather than "not compete", they are making minor changes - not quite to the level of "features", but quite significant even so. Mail gets an update, not as obvious to most as the Templates in Leopard's Mail but hugely important to the Enterprise. "No New Features"?
Apple can pause, take a breath, tweak some things that coulda-shoulda been done in versions past. Because Microsoft provided the breathing room. Because things were working well enough to get the job done, but ...
My Dual G5 has a year and change before my techno-lust kicks in high gear. I'll find someone who will use it after I've upgraded, it will not go to a scrap heap.
Will this be a "by-passed" version? More so than most. How many iMac owners need Terabytes of RAM? Or Enterprise e-mail? Or GPU processing? Or, really, better balance in their core use? But ... the Enterprise, man, the Enterprise! They may not be jonesing for an iMac with those features, but servers? MacBook Xs? MacPros?

Jun 11, 08 - 12:13 pm Comment from: Ampar

I wouldn't be surprised if PowerPC G4 support is dropped.

Jun 11, 08 - 12:24 pm Comment from: AlanAudio

How do they pronounce QuickTime X ?

Is it QuickTime ex or QuickTime 10 ?

Jun 11, 08 - 12:54 pm Comment from: MaLvado

I suppose faster, more stable, and stronger are not features to some people...

Jun 11, 08 - 12:57 pm Comment from: Micro Me

@DLMeyer. I use an iMac at home and at my Windoze workplace. The advent of built-in Exchange support alone will be enough for me to pony up for Snow Leopard.

To satisfy the American desire for the wow factor, the Moscow Ballet used to add extra leaps in their choreography whenever they performed in the US.

Maybe, Apple should do the same and add a few features to Snow Leopard satisfy the same crowd.

Jun 11, 08 - 01:19 pm Comment from: Ampar

"Maybe, Apple should do the same and add a few features to Snow Leopard satisfy the same crowd."

So, with aplomb too (to stay on point), you heard our plea, ay?

For starters Apple could add iPhone-like Multi-Touch features to Snow Leopard that enhance the MacBook's touchpad.

I am amazed that people would think that what type of kernel an OS uses would sway a consumers decision on which OS to use. I have four systems in my house. One of them is running Linux. I rarely ever use it. Why? Because it is BORING, and I really don't feel like breaking out my "1337 h4x0r" skills every time I use it. I do enough of that crap at work. Do you think that I care what type of kernel it uses while I am watching a movie or playing a game? NO! I just want the system to be enjoyable and easy to use. This is why Linux does not have even 1% of the consumer market.

Does anybody know if the Snow Leopard segment of Monday's presentation was recorded?

Thanks

Apple has gotten people used to paying more for less.

No new features + $129 price tag = BRILLIANT*

*(according to the sheep)

Apple will have to included compelling new features in SL if they hope to sell it at the usual price of $129.
Every time, they've got me to upgrade with several must-have goodies that I couldn't imagine living without.
Would a snappier system and ZFS be enough to persuade Missy MacBook to upgrade? Probably not.

I'm sure Apple has less geeky new features in the pipeline even though they're not mentioning any yet.
If not, the upgrade will/should be free or at a more reasonable price.

Also, the inclusion of an updated iLife in the OS upgrade would go a long way to drive adoption.

Jun 11, 08 - 02:20 pm Comment from: openvista

@@Gabriel and @@Simian,

The debate about the benefits and drawbacks of the kernel design of Mac OS X predate and extend beyond just that one OS. For reference as to whether OS X has a microkernel architecture I offer this post and the accompanying thread for educational purposes: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=437182&cid=22248620

As to whether Snow Leopard has "no new features"... Linux devotees need to get their story straight. It would seem the biggest complaint coming from the Linux camp would be that OS X is locked down with a bunch of preconfigured features and eye candy that supposedly computer saavy people don't need or want. And now that the next version of the OS seems to concentrate on becoming more efficient (which Linux fans contend is a core design principle of the OS) then the line becomes that Mac sheep are willing to pay for anything, as if speed and efficiency have no value whatsoever. Or, alternately, the argument presupposes the engineers in 1999 and 2000 who wrote OS X (adapting it from older NeXT and BSD source code) should have known what hardware architectures and software design best practices would be in place in 2008 and now it should just be a free upgrade. It is not "bug fixing" to modify and tweak the kernel and core userland apps within an OS.

In addition, ask any serious software developer if he or she would prefer to develop software chocked full of [potentially unused] features or take an existing project they've worked on (and were rushed to ship) and perfect it. I think you know what side most developers will come down on. And who are Linux enthusiasts if not primarily developers??

That said, I believe Snow Leopard should be sold for $60 or less, given the fact that Leopard sold for just over twice the price and had much more in the way tangible (combined with less tangible) revisions. And value depends on people's perception. And most people aren't developers who understand the finer points of code streamlining.

However, If you think all software should be free, there's Linux.