NEWS
According to rumours, the release of Mac OS X 10.6, Apple's operating system also known as Snow Leopard, might arrive a bit early. Though Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would hit stores in September, tech blogs became overly excited when it was rumoured it might be ready to debut on or about 28 August.
Here's what to expect from Snow Leopard, and why it might matter to you.
What's the difference between Snow Leopard and Leopard?
First thing to know: this is not a complete overhaul of Mac OS X. Rather, it's a series of small to medium-sized improvements, what Apple calls "refinements". Much of the new shine to OS X 10.6 comes from changes that are under the surface, possibly not obvious to the unobservant. But Apple does say that the improvements make the overall OS much faster, including a 45 per cent faster installation than the previous version of the operating system, OS X 10.5, or Leopard. Apple is also promising faster boot times, quicker shut down, a speedier process when joining wireless networks, and faster backups to Time Machine. And it's not just quicker, Apple says, it's lighter: Upon install it frees up 6GB of space.
Specific applications have been tinkered with as well, with a lot of attention focused on QuickTime, Expose, and a shiny new Safari 4 browser, which was released in June.
QuickTime gets a mysterious new version number, and is now called QuickTime X. It's a bit slicker, and the new interface appears similar to the iPhone's media player. The real change is that many features that were previously in the Pro version of QuickTime are now in the free version. You will be able to edit video inside QuickTime using a video timeline ribbon that appears along the bottom of the screen. And there will be fewer steps involved in video uploading.
You don't have to worry about file formats - QuickTime will do any necessary conversion and upload directly to video-hosting sites or MobileMe, Apple's subscription service that syncs personal files on any of its devices. Apple promises it will take just one click to record audio or video (on a Mac's built-in mic or camera) with the new QuickTime. It will also support HTTP streaming of a wider variety of file formats (like h.264 and AAC). It's a feature that many competing media players have long offered, and it automatically adjusts the playback bit rate according to what the connection can handle. It also means you can stream video or audio through more firewalls.
Expose, an operating system UI feature for organising open application windows, or just the windows from a particular application currently running, gets tweaked a bit too. In Snow Leopard, Expose is integrated with app icons in the dock, which cuts out the need to first switch to the specific application you want before activating Expose to see its open windows. It also means you don't have to use a keyboard, or use a trackpad gesture to call it up. Clicking and holding an app's icon will bring all windows open that are associated with that program to the front.
What's the one killer feature worth upgrading for?
Many people will probably consider support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 the most important new feature of Snow Leopard. Improved Exchange support will be integrated into Mail, iCal, and Address Book in Snow Leopard, which means email, calendar appointments, to-do lists, and contacts from Outlook will be viewable on your personal calendar, mail, and address books. It also allows things like dragging and dropping contacts into iCal to schedule meetings, and your Mac will be able to discover time conflicts between personal and work calendars and change the meeting time and location.
Microsoft is improving its Exchange support for the Mac too. Last week Microsoft said that Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage, the current email and calendar program in the Mac Office suite. Although it will still differ from the Windows version of Outlook, it will add support for more Exchange features, such as public folders and rights management features.
How much will it cost?
Apple surprised people by putting the price to upgrade to Snow Leopard at a very attractive $29 for a single licence, and $49 for a five-user family pack. But there's a catch: you have to already have Leopard installed to pay those prices. If you're upgrading from a previous version of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), you'll have to pay $169, which includes an upgrade to 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard). For a 5-user family pack licence, it'll cost $229. And Snow Leopard is only compatible with Macs containing Intel chips. On the OS front, Leopard is the end of the line for PowerPC Mac owners.
Is it worth upgrading right away?
Some people are fans of waiting until the first update, the 0.1 release, which tends to correct any of the immediate issues that inevitably pop up when a new operating system is released to the public. Some who attempted to upgrade to the first version of Leopard ran into trouble after the software was installed, and when they attempted to restart their machines a blue screen would appear instead. But it appeared to hinge on a specific piece of third-party software many had installed that was out of date. The majority had a smooth transition to Leopard.
Overall, this looks a worthwhile upgrade if the speed claims turn out to be true. Another way of looking at is that for the price of the QuickTime to QuickTime Pro upgrade, you get most of the QuickTime Pro features plus a newly tweaked core OS. We think it's a good deal for Apple OS X 10.5 users.
When will it be available?
So far, Apple has said only "September". Recent rumours have indicated it might be ready slightly earlier than that. No matter what, it's going to be available before Windows 7 is set to roll out on 22 October.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. John
Seems like there is not a lot in this upgrade. Leoperd was a minor upgrade seems like this is an even more minor upgrade. If Apple did not play around with the OS every 18 months it would be used more in enterprises. These minor upgrades are a money making exercise for Apple and a pain in the butt for most users.
2. Jerome
Just a note.
The 169 USD price includes Snow Leopard and iLife'09, which makes it a very good value for anyone with Tiger (and consistently not iLife '09, which requires Leopard).
I do not think the 29USD Snow Leopard version will be actually restricted to Leopard owners.
The 29/169 price is just a nicer way of presenting the upgrade path to Snow Leopard.
And it seems to work : I have not seen an argument against the pricing or its practicality on the web yet.
3. anonymous
This is a truly awful article. Full of sweeping misstatements and damning with faint praise. One example to call out:
"The first thing to know is that this is not a complete overhaul of Mac OS X. Rather, it is a series of small to medium-sized improvements: what Apple calls "refinements"."
Well you see, there you go, 10.6 is actually a complete overhaul of the OS. Completely rewritten from the ground up to allow for full 64-bit operation while still letting you run 32-bit apps might sound "like a series of small to medium-sized improvements" but is actually a seriously significant change.
I think what this author was aiming at was that the changes were not cosmetic probably to allow herself to trumpet how wonderful "let's fix Vista again", Windows 7 will be when launched.
4. Louis Wheeler
Snow Leopard is much smaller than Leopard 10.5, for many reasons. Apple is removing the PowerPC code and extra languages, but this only removes about a third of the change. Much of the rest of the bulk is from Apple converting the OS to Cocoa API's which require much less space. Apple is going through the code line by line, so this means that there will be fewer vulnerabilities.
Sneaked pictures of Snow Leopard's Beta reveal that the OS sand boxes all OS's, applications and even plugins in their own virtual space to avoid corrupted or malicious software from harming the user. These improvements in security are reason enough to buy the upgrade. But, Apple is adding a 64 bit kernel which runs 64 bit applications much faster on Intel Core 2 processors.
New technologies are revealed in SL which will take Apple developers a year or more to adjust to: Grand Central Dispatch allows a better use of multiple cores and threads, OpenCl allows developers to utilize the cores in the GPU and Quicktime X is much smaller and faster.
There are many other improvements under the hood which we will not know about until Snow Leopard ships.
Apple is cleaning up its fundamentals; it is adding a new engine and drive train to a familiar vehicle. The Mac always handled well, but this upgrade adds power and speed.
Apple likes to surprise us when it can add new capabilities, so it is being modest. This upgrade is more than a bug fix. It is the foundation on which Apple will build for the next ten years.