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Jan 07, 09 - 11:31 am Comment from: twilightmoon

I suspect Snow Leopard will have a special event where they release new hardware that runs with it. Sometime between now and June perhaps.

The Windows issue is less a factor than the fact that Snow Leopard isn't quite ready yet, is my guess. I haven't seen any evidence that MS has had a major impact on what Apple has released or when in the past 10+ years since Jobs came back, with the exception of stuff like Safari when they saw MS wasn't going to continue to develop its browser on the platform.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:39 am Comment from: yellowhandman

It always bothers me when a journalist/blogger/writer can't even spell properly. It shows a fundamental lack of professionalism, that calls into question the writer's credibility. It's TOUT, not TAUT.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:41 am Comment from: NormM

Snow Leopard is supposed to be out in early 2009 and Windows 7 not before late 2009, so the whole premise here is dumb. And from what I've heard, Windows 7 is Vista SP3, not the second coming.

Windows 7 is about to explode all over the media? Ha ha ha ha ha, that's a good one!

It seems that the name Snow Leopard has stuck now, but I kinda wish it had a more profound name. Doesn't really matter, though, IF it kicks butt. The grapevine will spread if it rocks...I think Steve will release it when it has NO major issues...there will always be minor ones.
Sure, the PowerPC users will still cry foul, but life has to move on. Home on iPhone/iPod touch would be grrrreeeaat! How about one year free of Mobile Me with a combined Leopard and iPhone/iPod purchase, since it is under the hood rich instead of new feature rich. Lose to win later.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:45 am Comment from: Crabs

Oh, thanks yelowhandman, I could not figure out what he actually meant, I was sitting there thinking, taut? what? what could he mean by taut. Hasn't this guy ever heard of proofreading?

It's pretty hard to push the 'NO FEATURES' thing. I mean. How many ways can they say it. No features.

With Apple, you almost want the Keynote to hurry up, they only have 1.5 hrs to talk, and they timed it JUST perfectly, down to the second it seemed.

While I totally get the thinking, there is a bit of a deadline, Windows 7 will be out in Summer, looking more Maclike than ever, with a cheesy Expose fake and a weird Dock-like thing..(which actually REMOVES functionality from the start menu when you put stuff in the Taskbar, its really funny, like a OS X dock migration)

When are we gonna talk about this thing, which is supposed to be released in a couple months?
No hype?

Wait until after Windows 7 is out? Thats wayyyy too long.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:45 am Comment from: Jubei

LOL... Windows 7. Rehashed Vista, really more like an SP updated and repackaged.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:48 am Comment from: ericdano

Last night? Really? I'm pretty sure it was MORNING when the Keynote happened.......

Another fine example of "reporting"

Jan 07, 09 - 11:52 am Comment from: mr_matalino

When Microsoft messing something up?

And Apple is more like the "red headed step child" to the media...

Jan 07, 09 - 11:54 am Comment from: Macintosher

Yes, "Crabs", I was also wondering! It's not professionally written enough to satisfy me. I believe that "twilightmoon" has a better idea on this front.

Jan 07, 09 - 11:56 am Comment from: Randian

"Journalists" is to "professionalism" as "Windows" is to "reliability."

Jan 07, 09 - 12:06 pm Comment from: MacintoshSoftwareList.com

Windows 7 is a joke, and IT people know it. MS already said it is based on Vista.

Jan 07, 09 - 12:10 pm Comment from: justme2

Snow Leopard is a decent enough name -- it's related to Leopard but with no new features it doesn't need its own distinct cat name.

As for no news, could be it's not ready for prime time, like the new Mac mini or Mac Pros; Jobs is likely keeping those announcements for himself after he gains a few more ounces.

Urgent: Get Windows 7 and a Blackberry as soon as you can! LOL
I agree with another poster that Snow Leopard will be released with another hardware change and that it will be smaller release party as Snow Leopard's benefits will not be as flashy to the average consumer or iLife user. I for one, am very excited for Snow Leopard and I really appreciate Apple's work to tie in the graphics processor for use in general application logic and to advance 64 bit to be the rule, not the exception.

Apple needs to 'tout" Snow Leopard and "taunt" Windows 7.

Jan 07, 09 - 12:17 pm Comment from: Not Bill

While I agree that it would be better timing, from a publicity angle, to talk about Snow Leopard later. Apple tends to show products when they are ready to be released. I suspect we will see more of OS 10.6 when its development reaches completion.

Jan 07, 09 - 12:36 pm Comment from: MCCFR

@ericdano…

Following on from Reality Check's comment, the article is written by someone based in The Netherlands where it was so "last night".

As 10.6 will not have any new feautures, what would there be to show at all at the moment?

"As 10.6 will not have any new feautures, what would there be to show at all at the moment?"

I personally would have liked to see some benchmarks or some visible indication of the performance gains we can expect with OpenCL and Grand Central in particular. I suppose Apple does not like showing things like this in keynotes anymore though... I remember they used to benchmark those latest G4 chips all the time back in the day. Sort of wish they were more like that again... I'd rather see that kind of stuff than a 30 minute iPhoto demo.

--mAc

as they say no "new features" they mean stuff like time machine, spaces, junk like that. Snow leopard is going to take advantage of a graphics processor and use it in a more dynamic way rather just hardware taking some load off the main processor and cool graphics they are going to really enhance what that processor can do and build better programs with all the star trek like features. watch holograms will make the comeback watch i tell you.

Jan 07, 09 - 12:56 pm Comment from: ABQ Peter

i think, since the keynote happened on this planet, it is correct to use the time of day where it occurred, not the time where a distant observer might be. i don't think that qualifies as parochial. but when something happens elsewhere (in the solar system) then using a u.s. time zone does qualify as a bit parochial. for example, i was in germany when apollo 11 landed on the moon; it was july 21st for me even though the history books say july 20th because that was the day in florida (and houston) when the landing occurred.

Well, it's better than the Zune squirting all over them...

Jan 07, 09 - 01:00 pm Comment from: cwa107

Apple apologist nonsense. There's no reason they couldn't have at least commented on development timeline.

Jan 07, 09 - 01:17 pm Comment from: Cubert

Snow Leopard will not be released in Q1 as implied by that Apple employee's slide presentation. They have to release a more polished beta (ie. release candidate) and let the developers have a few months with it. I'm predicting a WWDC release.

Jan 07, 09 - 01:20 pm Comment from: Cubert

"Windows 7 is a joke, and IT people know it. MS already said it is based on Vista."

That is true - Shitsa SP1 to be exact - with some lipstick smeared on top.

twilightmoon wrote:
"I suspect Snow Leopard will have a special event where they release new hardware that runs with it. Sometime between now and June perhaps."

Interesting. From my experience, whenever Apple generally releases a new iteration of the OS, it 'allows' people to pay for it first, unhinged to any shiny new hardware. Apple finally releases new/updated hardware at the end of summer with the latest OS now freely loaded. Curiously, it's a profit making decision that have paid off handsomely the last few times.

But what with no PPC support, you could be right this time. I'll be curious to find out. I like studying the Apple strategies, it's like a free business/marketing course.

The article is just wrong in repeating the "meme" (god I hate that stupid word), that Snow Leopard will have no new features.

To the average person Leopard had about five new features, but Apple touted it as having over a thousand. Snow Leopard will be the same and it will have a huge list of new features, whether they are visible to the average person or not.

Also the entire premise of the article is wrong. There is a fantastic case to be made for Snow Leopard over Windows 6.1 (called "7"), based on performance.

What I expect is that Apple will market Snow Leopard by pointing out how it runs twice as fast as Windows 7, is fully 64 bit, is actually real UNIX, etc. etc. Personally, I'd like to see an ad where Snow Leopard is running multiple copies of Windows 7 virtually and not skipping a beat. We might also see some talking heads ads featuring serious business people and scientists using Macs and so forth.

Jan 07, 09 - 02:51 pm Comment from: Shadowself

Apple will ship systems that have 8 or more cores and that have high end graphics cards (probably professional grade cards, not high end gamer card -- but you never know).

Then within weeks -- or at most month or two later -- Apple will announce Snow Leopard.

At the Snow Leopard announcement Apple will demonstrate how Snow Leopard's Grand Central and OpenCL utilize the recently announce hardware to allow much, much faster computing for a limited set of applications than equivalent applications are on any other platform. Apple will bring on stage companies that "recompiled their entire application for Snow Leopard" in a day or at most 100 man hours. Apple will get people to state how easy it was to get 25%, 50% or more performance improvements using standard Snow Leopard Grand Central and OpenCL APIs.

Apple will also try to extrapolate the demonstrated performance gains to a wide range of applications.

Other new "features" will be after thoughts.

Jan 07, 09 - 03:20 pm Comment from: MacRaven

I can see it now:

Windows 7 explodes all over the media like a bad porn movie.

Redmond start your copiers... oh damn now we have to layoff 15,000 operators...

The media and pundits are missing an important point. For years, I bet a lot of people at Apple have suffered meeting a rigid deadline for the MacWorld Keynote. It meant racing to have hardware and software ready to show on a fixed date.

By pulling out of MacWorld, Apple can now be more flexible in making announcements when it fits the company's strategy, be able to make multiple announcements throughout the year, and introduce software and hardware WHEN IT'S DAMNED WELL READY, and not sooner.

I wondered for years if early January was the best time of year for major announcements. Given that this follows the Christmas shopping season, I often wondered if holding off until January missed some potential selling opportunities. Now, for the first time, Apple can time product releases better for the major time of year for consumer purchases.

So what seems like a bad thing to the short-sighted media, analysts and pundits may turn out to be a very good thing after all. Of course, they neither saw nor spun it that way.

As for the MacWorld show organizers, my condolences. I had my first date with my future wife at a MacWorld, so I'll always be a bit sentimental. But trade shows haven't been the same since 9/11, and in the age of the Internet, some shows aren't quite as necessary as they once were. If your business does trade shows like my company does, you know that they can be hideously expensive, especially so for a company like Apple.

Finally, Apple holds trade shows every day in over 300 locations worldwide. It's called the Apple Store, kids.

The article above had some good points. And later this year, as Snow Leopard gets closer to launch, I am sure we will see a lot of information coming our way. So instead of whining about why we didn't see a demo, I'm looking forward to a future special event or a splashy intro at the World Wide Developer's Conference. And a point above well stated by another poster is that to show off what Snow Leopard can do, we can expect to see some amazing new hardware sooner than later.

As Tony Bennett sang yesterday, the Best is Still to Come.

Jan 07, 09 - 04:00 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

twilightmoon wrote:
"I suspect Snow Leopard will have a special event where they release new hardware that runs with it. Sometime between now and June perhaps."

The current laptops have TWO GPUs.
==============================================

People need to relax. Apple will promote SL when it is released. Not before. I have not noticed Apple talking up a product before they release it. DUH.

Now I know why Microsoft was using Seinfeld in their ads.

Windows 7 is the OS about NOTHING!

Jan 07, 09 - 04:50 pm Comment from: Road Warrior

Hey Reality Check

"Quick reminder to you that only 5% of the world's population is from the US. The Keynote was indeed "last night" for a sizable portion of humanity,"

There are also a number of humans that experience the same time zone as the US but amazingly enough are not from the US. So for a sizable portion of humanity the keynote was indeed during the day.

Windows 7 is going to explode all over the place. Crap is going to cover every square inch of the room. A real explosion of crap.

The fact that after every Macworld, Apple's stock price drops is reason all by itself to stop going. You can thank the boys on Wallstreet for this.