Apple Expected to Demo Leopard Successor Next Week

4roddas writes "Reports circulated Wednesday that Apple may demo the next iteration of Mac OS X next week or even release code to developers in preparation for an early-2009 launch. According to an account on Mac enthusiast site TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), Apple may provide early copies of Mac OS X 10.6 at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which opens Monday and runs through next Friday in San Francisco. Mac OS X 10.6 will run on Intel-based hardware only, said TUAW, and so will mark the ditching of support for the older PowerPC processor-equipped Macs. Apple announced it would shift to Intel processors three years ago, and unveiled the first systems in January 2006; most analysts have said that move is largely behind the reason for Apple's renewed success selling personal computers. It has never disclosed how long it would support the PowerPC with OS upgrades, however. Ars Technica also weighed in Wednesday on Mac OS X 10.6; its sources pegged with OS with the code name 'Snow Leopard.'"

Comments

Hmm

[somersault]

Apple are still only on X? They've got a long way to go before they catch up with X11!

Re:Hmm

[ShieldW0lf]

Apparently, they may be going to Y. They may even go to Z. And, according to a non-authoritative source, they may even bypass Y and Z and go to AA.

In other news, it may rain tomorrow. Or, it may not. And I may be having sex with your sister. But then, maybe I'm not.

That's it... I'm going into journalism. This is just way too easy!

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Have fun with the clap!

Only kidding. My sisters are actually men though. Seriously. Even the married one.

Re:Hmm

[harry666t]

"""Apparently, they may be going to Y. They may even go to Z. And, according to a non-authoritative source, they may even bypass Y and Z and go to AA."""

Well, then that'll be a long way until they catch up with XP (:

Re:Hmm

[dizzy tunez]

They may even go to the W to the M to the C to the A!

Re:Hmm

[Genom]

Apparently, they may be going to Y. They may even go to Z. And, according to a non-authoritative source, they may even bypass Y and Z and go to AA.

Let me know when they go to plaid. =)

Re:Hmm

[dintech]

I think you mean Y instead of W.

Re:Hmm

[Lars T.]

"""Apparently, they may be going to Y. They may even go to Z. And, according to a non-authoritative source, they may even bypass Y and Z and go to AA."""

Well, then that'll be a long way until they catch up with XP (: Let alone VISTA.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

24 * 11 * 3 * 4 is a lot more than 42. xkcd's writer would be disgusted with you for confusing multiplicative notation (xkcd) with additive notation (x + k + c + d)

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

yeah I'm sure he would o_0 pfft. He's already said it has no meaning, I just think it's cool that they add up to it. He'd probably be more disgusted with you being a jerk tbh.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Having attended college with Mr. Munroe I can say that he probably would be more amused than disgusted.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Meh fair enough then. Just because they are next to each other doesn't mean that you can't take the sum total of the individual letters while you're having a shower and discover that they add up to 42. I suspected it for some weird reason, then tried and it worked, and I at least thought it was pretty cool, but some people just want to be jerks. Or maybe I was taking the original AC too seriously.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Actually now that I read my sig it does sound stupid, maybe I should say 'adds up to', but I was trying to make it more like the Ultimate Question

Re:Hmm

[KDR_11k]

Great, I'll wait for VI.

Re:Hmm

[KDR_11k]

Meh, the same works for ZIG.

As in, TAKE OFF EVERY 'ZIG'!!

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

That's pretty cool, though I remembered specifically reading a page before where the guy mentioned a few different theories as to what people thought xkcd meant, and I don't remember seeing the 42 thing there, but maybe it was.. I just randomly thought of it in the shower, which seems to be the place where I do my best thinking :p

Re:Hmm

[stewbacca]

No, the next version would be XI, not X11...gawsh!

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

oooh, Apple is going to Y instead of XI.

How apple of them.

Re:Hmm

[rmav]

Apparently, they may be going to Y. They may even go to Z. And, according to a non-authoritative source, they may even bypass Y and Z and go to AA. Microsoft is going to beat them with the next version of Windows, called Windows (Stable) AAA Quality. Roberto

Re:Hmm

[ubrgeek]

Nah. This one goes to 12.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "X" stands for UNIX, not 10. So after 10.9 it will roll over to 11.0.

OS X 11.0

Re:Hmm

[edalytical]

The X indeed stands for 10 the predecessor being OS 9. That being said there's nothing stopping the marketing department from calling a version OS X 11.0 or even OS X 10.11, it makes no real difference anyway.

Re:Hmm

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Ahhh....the X11 holy grail, but what about XP? Some day they'll catch up to it....someday.

Re:Hmm

[HTH NE1]

There's no rule that says 10.9 cannot be followed by 10.10.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the "10" stands for 10. Duh.

Apple may or may not do something next week

[Reality Master 201]

Come on, how bout some actual news for nerds and stuff that matters?

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[youthoftoday]

Any company that not only gets Unix[like] onto the desktop of NORMAL people, but also makes it look cool matters.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[mrbluze]

Come on, how bout some actual news for nerds and stuff that matters? You must be new here (except your ID is too low!)

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Reality Master 201]

Yeah, and it's a replacement ID for an older one which was user 10,000

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[larry bagina]

OS X 10.5 (intel) is certified Unix.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Anonymous Coward]

Any company that not only gets Unix[like] onto the desktop of NORMAL people, but also makes it look cool matters. I didn't know pretentious teenagers were "normal people."

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[MightyYar]

A new release of the largest commercial Unix OS isn't geek news? I mean, it's not Linux but at least it's not Windows...

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[telbij]

I didn't know pretentious teenagers were "normal people."

I know you were trying to be funny, but think about that for a sec...

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[somersault]

More that there may or may not be a release of a commercial Unix OS isn't news.

In other news, NASA may or may not decide to demo a Death Star next week.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Reality Master 201]

Except that it's not a new release. It's speculation about the possible announcement of a new version of the OS.

I'll go read mac rumor sites when I want to see that kind of stuff.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Saint Gerbil]

I thought they already announced that it was going to be called "snow leopard" ?

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[BrunoUsesBBEdit]

I was a windows and IE loving Web Developer when I first saw a Beta of OS X. I finally gave into my employers insistence that I use a Mac cause I liked the idea of improving my Unix skills which were barely adequate for deploying code releases. Within 2 years I had strong Unix/Linux skills and had quadrupled my salary. I have continued to expand my knowledge and reap the benefits of it. Does that make me pretentious?

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[pohl]

Not yet. That, too, is just a part of the pre-WWDC rumor-mill frenzy.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Gewalt]

I didn't know pretentious teenagers were "normal people." Feeling a bit ironical today, are we?

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[dishpig]

I was a windows and IE loving Web Developer OMG, a unicorn!

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[MightyYar]

Yeah, but I'd venture that half this site is speculation. How many stories on Slashdot fit the "[random blogger, industry expert, etc] says that [windows vista, ubuntu, bsd, etc] is [about to die, about to thrive, going to have to change dramatically to survive]"? I mean, today there is even a Duke Nukem Forever article!

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, OSX's unix features are mainly used by developers. Anyone who thinks "normal people" like Eliene Fliess is firing up vi and shell scripts need to get out of their basement once in a while.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[JohnConnor]

Oh, *snow* leopard. I though it was slow leopard. My bad.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[Enderandrew]

And yet BSD apparently is not. Certified Unix just means you have the cash to pay for certification.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[kithrup]

Not just pay for it, but actually pass the tests. Which are pretty intensive, from what I gather -- there's a pretty good chance the BSDs wouldn't pass. But mainly because they aren't compatible with every single header file, command line utility, and API since V7 and on :).

One can certainly debate that particular point, but I've not looked at the conformance test suite, so all I can do is speculate based on comments I've heard from others.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[FesterDaFelcher]

Does that make me pretentious? No, but it definitely doesn't make you a teenager.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[FesterDaFelcher]

Does that make me pretentious? No, but it also doesn't make you a teenager.

Re:Apple may or may not do something next week

[rootooftheworld]

BSD 4.4 personality - Mach kernel - I like FreeBSD beter

Not a surprise

[TheRaven64]

A few Apple people on the clang list have filed bug reports saying it doesn't build 'on 10.6' recently, so they're obviously running it internally. After the fiasco that 10.5 has been, I'd imagine that they'd want to move on as fast as possible - maybe 10.6 will be what 10.5 should have been.

Ditching PowerPC is an interesting choice though - it basically means that third-party developers won't be able to use any of the new features in 10.6 without abandoning a big chunk of their potential market.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say that I think 10.5 is a fiasco. Granted, I bought my Macbook with 10.5.1 and upgraded to 10.5.2 a week later, but I have never had any real issues with it.

But was 10.5.0 really that bad?

Re:Not a surprise

[chunk08]

After the fiasco that 10.5 has been, I'd imagine that they'd want to move on as fast as possible - maybe 10.6 will be what 10.5 should have been.

Sounds like Vista...

Re:Not a surprise

[0100010001010011]

Explain this "Fiasco". Every feature they said would be there has worked for me.

This isn't XP vs Vista, sounds more like "Waiter my soup was at 121F when I specifically asked for it at 120.4F. (49.4444444C and 49.1666667C to our international readers)

Re:Not a surprise

[jrothwell97]

It was - it was almost as buggy as one of the betas, or perhaps 10.0.

I highly doubt it'll be called 'Snow Leopard' - Apple has registered the trademarks 'Cougar' and 'Lynx'. I have doubts about Lynx, because there is already LynxOS, and Lynx deodorant.

I also highly doubt they'll be abandoning PowerPC entirely yet. We'll probably see G4 support being dropped, but I highly doubt Apple would make such a rushed transition.

Re:Not a surprise

[Doctor_Jest]

Ditching PowerPC is an interesting choice though - it basically means that third-party developers won't be able to use any of the new features in 10.6 without abandoning a big chunk of their potential market. Which is precisely why the PPC ditch for 10.6 is unlikely and simply a rumor to fuel hits to websites. Like the abandoning of 32-bit altogether.... Apple's not in the habit of abandoning platforms sold less than 3 years ago. Why would they all of a sudden start now? I don't doubt there's going to be a new OS on the horizon (for perhaps 2009 or so), but the "facts" associated with this 10.6 rumor are way beyond the usual... And Apple's predictable when it comes to keeping as much of their market in tow as they possibly can...

Re:Not a surprise

[telbij]

Okay some people were affected by a handful of real nasties, but I bought it the day it came out, was working 18 hours a day at the time on a product release on both a G4 and and Intel machine, and only noticed very minor issues.

To compare it to 10.0 is hyperbole.

Re:Not a surprise

[tcc3]

For an OS thats constantly beating up the competition for being buggy and failure prone Leopard is not stable enough. My Macbook pro was rock solid with Tiger, but not Leopard. It crashes, it doesn't shut down, it doesn't wake up, etc.

Some of the features and improvements are cool, but not worth the bugs. I almost want to go back to Tiger.

Re:Not a surprise

[timster]

It's the same "fiasco" that the Tiger release was, according to people on the Internet. For every major Mac OS release, some people have problems, some of them quite serious, and these dominate Mac discussion forums for months. Nobody ever collects any statistics from the general user population that would allow us to determine whether one release was better or worse than another, and the general user population is not well-represented in Mac discussion forums.

On a side note, I have personally found it very interesting to watch the way people on Mac forums approach problems versus Windows or Linux users. Often there is an implicit assumption that any problem encountered is an OS bug (sometimes even if nobody else can be found who is experiencing the same problem) and you see demands that it be fixed in the next release. Possibly this is because a high proportion of the problems experienced by Mac users are indeed OS bugs.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

But Steve Jobs can do no wrong. Are you silly?

Re:Not a surprise

[kestasjk]

Oh! Nice counter-attack

Re:Not a surprise

[mikael_j]

People seem to have quite varied experiences with Leopard, for me it has been much better than Tiger in the sense that with Tiger my iMac 24" managed to completely crash a couple of times under heavy load when using some not always stable apps but with Leopard the closest I've come to anything like that has been Finder crashing a couple of times.

In fact, the only real problem I've had with Leopard was with the incompatibility with Tiger FileVault images, I only had one user account (which was using FileVault) and after installing Leopard and then rebooting it was unable to mount the disk image which forced me to do some trickery in the console to convert it to a sparse disk image so I could rescue my files before doing an Archive and install installation.

/Mikael

Re:Not a surprise

[KGIII]

There was already an iPhone too and that didn't stop 'em...

Re:Not a surprise

[chaim79]

10.5 was a 'fiasco'? where did that come from? I never had problems with 10.5, bought soon after it came out and installed on a fairly new MBPro. I've installed all the updates as soon as they came out, no problems encountered. Others have had issues with UI changes (stacks, transparent menu bar, the new dock, icon changes, etc) but that would not merit the label "fiasco".

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody ever collects any statistics from the general user population that would allow us to determine whether one release was better or worse than another, and the general user population is not well-represented in Mac discussion forums.

On a side note, I have personally found it very interesting to watch the way people on Mac forums approach problems versus Windows or Linux users. Often there is an implicit assumption that any problem encountered is an OS bug (sometimes even if nobody else can be found who is experiencing the same problem) and you see demands that it be fixed in the next release. Absolutely I agree, but that is mainly because of the user-base and mind set of your average Mac User. All the forums are 'apple should fix this now!' and they expect that just because its on the forum it will get seen and that apple can read minds (logs? what are logs?). Sheesh..you get this all the time on the Logic Forums. It's tedious.

Apple Forums generally are rant-portals when new releases come out. I have given up on many forums because of this. They become more than useless.

Re:Not a surprise

[porcupine8]

I dunno, when my sister tried to update from 10.5.0 to 10.5.2, her computer refused to restart. She had to take it to a Genius Bar (and this is an emac, no easy task) where they restored it to 10.5.0. She still hasn't been brave enough to try 10.5.3. This was not an uncommon problem.

Plus, Apple made some absolutely ridiculous design errors - most of which, thankfully, were fixed with 10.5.2 (if you could get it to install).

I definitely wouldn't say "fiasco," you're right, that's outright hyperbole, but it seems like it's been a rougher upgrade than any other recent one. The soup was definitely lukewarm, but it's not like there was spit in it, or it was the wrong soup.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a fiasco based on Apple software standards rather than the company rumored to use "If it compiles, ship it!" quality standards.
Ilgaz

Re:Not a surprise

[noidentity]

Ditching PowerPC is an interesting choice though - it basically means that third-party developers won't be able to use any of the new features in 10.6 without abandoning a big chunk of their potential market.

Huh? It's no different than any other new version of the OS; as long as the application doesn't require the new features, it will work on older versions of the OS. So, build a Universal Binary and check before you use any new features from 10.6, then you'll work in 10.5 on Intel and PowerPC Macs, or 10.6 and later on Intel Macs.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it didn't take several years to move from 10.5 to 10.6

Re:Not a surprise

[Suzuran]

One word: X11

Leopard's X11 was not even functional when it was released, and Apple is only now making it usable. It still doesn't work with Spaces or Expose.

Re:Not a surprise

[foo fighter]

A few Apple people on the clang list have filed bug reports saying it doesn't build 'on 10.6' recently, so they're obviously running it internally.

What else would they be running internally after 10.5 was released? As differently as Apple thinks, I'm pretty sure the number 6 still follows 5 in their minds.

That they're running 10.6 internally tells us nothing about when we'll be able to buy and run it out here in the real world.

Re:Not a surprise

[Lumpy]

Personally I hope they do Ditch PowerPC. It will instantly drop the prices of all the PPC hardware in the used markets.

That will make me very happy as that means I can start building my FCP render farm far cheaper as PowerMAC towers with dual G5's will drop in price like stones.

Please Apple, tell the PPC people to pound sand. I need cheaper hardware!

Re:Not a surprise

[Firehed]

10.5 is a fiasco? The people that have problems are going to complain the loudest, but 10.5 has given me identical stability as compared to Tiger at a system level, and improvements in a number of areas that were always problematic in Tiger (network shares, while still not as good as they've been handled in Windows since at least '98, have seem BIG improvements) have kept me quite happy.

That's not to say it doesn't have its flaws, but on the whole I greatly prefer it to Tiger, which itself I greatly prefer to any version of Windows. It had some issues at release but got much more solid at 10.5.2 (I haven't really noticed anything different in 10.5.3).

Re:Not a surprise

[FiloEleven]

I had a few issues with Leopard when I first purchased my MacBook Pro, the most annoying of which was the failure to wake up at least half the time when I opened the laptop. This seems to have been fully resolved with the last system update.

Re:Not a surprise

[morgan_greywolf]

On a side note, I have personally found it very interesting to watch the way people on Mac forums approach problems versus Windows or Linux users. Often there is an implicit assumption that any problem encountered is an OS bug (sometimes even if nobody else can be found who is experiencing the same problem) and you see demands that it be fixed in the next release. Possibly this is because a high proportion of the problems experienced by Mac users are indeed OS bugs.

That's not a problem specific to Mac users. My stepson was using some *nix application to re-encode (DRM free) WMA to MP3 the other day.

When it crashed he proclaimed "Linux sucks! It won't convert WMA files to MP3!"

To which I replied "No, it won't. Linux is an OS kernel. It doesn't convert audio files. You must mean the application you were using to re-encode the files sucks. The nice thing about Ubuntu is that if one application or method doesn't work, there's probably a hundred other ways you could accomplish the same thing with some other tools or combination of tools. Try lame."

Re:Not a surprise

[Firehed]

Yes, this tends to be the case. However, it seems to be that these complains ARE read by Apple who proceeds to fix them (or at least try) in the next release.

Keep in mind that the same thing tends to be true of Windows releases; they're just much less frequent. However, MS really just seems to do security patches and blame third parties for any software bugs. I have no idea what is true and what's really at fault, but you can't blame Mac users for expecting the computer they paid a premium for to work better when they paid the premium to have it work better. I paid the extra to have things work better and overall they do, but when there's an issue I expect it to be resolved in a reasonable time-frame. Generally it is, and that's why they'll keep getting my money.

Re:Not a surprise

[pdusen]

Since my experience with Vista has had none of the issues that the Slashdot parade continues to bitch about, I think I'm willing to give 10.5 the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Not a surprise

[bhtooefr]

And I'll note that, except for the fact that Spotlight likes to eat 100% CPU for ages (so I disabled it,) and that sometimes some keymapping settings don't stick, Leopard runs fine on my iBook G4 (12", 1.2GHz.) The OS itself has never crashed for me.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

(and this is an emac, no easy task)

I bet it would be much simpler in vi...

Re:Not a surprise

[truthsearch]

Your one experience out of millions proves that Vista doesn't have many issues? Really? No offense but your individual experience is statistically insignificant.

Re:Not a surprise

[KDR_11k]

I think they'll go with Maus, the logical followup after Panther, Tiger and Leopard.

Re:Not a surprise

[repetty]

> I have doubts about Lynx, because there is already LynxOS

That's not anything that would stop Apple. They encountered a bigger legal challenge when they released OS 9.

> I also highly doubt they'll be abandoning PowerPC entirely yet.

I suspect that they may very well remove PowerPC support, however, as always, they'll keep PowerPC-based versions of OS X up to date, just as they always had OS X 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 running in the labs on Intel-based hardware. They like to keep their options open.

--Richard

Re:Not a surprise

[timster]

It seems much more likely to me that these problems get fixed when people call Apple support (especially since you get a free support period with the OS upgrade) and the support tech opens a ticket that makes its way up the chain. Seems more productive than having some employee read a forum post that says "WFT APPLE MY WIRLESS DOESNTT WORK" and forwarding that to a Divination Engineer to determine what the problem is.

Re:Not a surprise

[pdusen]

So are the experiences of the couple thousand people on the internet who actually *have* had problems, and then the millions of people after them who actually have no experience at all, but like to bleat out the same phrases bleated into them.

Ahem... and anyway, I didn't say anything about my experience proving anything. But based on the fact that the internet is abuzz with Vista problems that I have found to be mostly fabricated or exaggerated, I am willing to bet most problems reported with 10.5 are also fabricated and exaggerated.

Re:Not a surprise

[Bert64]

It has a lot to do with user perceptions...
Mac users won't tollerate bugs, and will kick up a fuss until they get fixed...
Windows users have simply come to accept bugginess as being normal, and so just sit and take it without causing a fuss.

Re:Not a surprise

[zeet]

Perhaps it crashed because transcoding lossy formats is a stupid thing to do?

Just saying.

Re:Not a surprise

[initdeep]

You're not the only one with no problems with Vista.

I've got it running on 30 machines with no problems at all.

personally have it running on 4 without problems either.

then again, I actually learned about Vista and didnt just blindly accept what "the sheeple" did.

personally, I have yet to find any person i know that haas had an issue with Vista, that wasn't related to a third party.

Annoyances? Yes.
Problems? No.

Re:Not a surprise

[stewbacca]

My anecdote:

X.5.0 caused the web cam to stop working. The fix, amazingly enough, was to unplug the computer and plug it back it. Other than that, it has been pretty typical Apple affair...little/no fuss and a bunch of features I'll never use.

Re:Not a surprise

[MrPerfekt]

It would be a pretty big mistake in my mind to drop support for PowerPC. There's still a huge installed base of PPC Macs out there and only 3 years later a computer not being able to install the 'latest and greatest' operating system sounds a bit like Microsoft forcing an upgrade.

In addition, it also keeps fat binaries out there in the spotlight. I'm betting that this won't be the last architecture switch for the Mac so it's probably a good idea to encourage people to keep making software that is 'universal' if for no other reason than to not let them forget how to do it.

Re:Not a surprise

[stewbacca]

Actually, I think the expectations of Mac users stems from years and years of expectations being successfully met. The more mainstream the OS becomes, the more people it will have to appeal to, and the less stable it will become. Old time Mac users like myself aren't used to version updates causing weirdness and constant (almost weekly) system updates. It kind of breaks my world-view of how Apple became my computer of choice in the first place.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Leopard, is nowhere near the release that Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger were. The added features are not so hot, and it is seriously lacking in stability. I'm running it on my G5 at work, and have no desire to upgrade on my Mac Pro at home.

I would be surprised to see Apple ditch PowerPC support so soon though.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't remember the 7.5 update debacle!

Re:Not a surprise

[MsGeek]

Interesting that the 10.5.3 update was the least "eventful" update in recent memory. It seems the whiners have been largely shut up by this update. 10.5.2 was pretty solid too. Most of the time it takes a few point updates for a vintage of Mac OS X to be truly "drinkable." It was like that with Classic too.

Re:Not a surprise

[nine-times]

On a side note, I have personally found it very interesting to watch the way people on Mac forums approach problems versus Windows or Linux users. Often there is an implicit assumption that any problem encountered is an OS bug (sometimes even if nobody else can be found who is experiencing the same problem) and you see demands that it be fixed in the next release. Possibly this is because a high proportion of the problems experienced by Mac users are indeed OS bugs.

Possibly, I guess, but probably not. An awful lot of the code that makes up OSX is the same code in FreeBSD/NetBSD and Linux. Where it differs-- well, I've never heard anyone claim that the Mach kernel is particularly buggy. All you have left is Aqua and the APIs, which are the parts that everyone seems to want to be open sourced and/or sold for their platform of choice.

So from all that (and personal experience with a Windows/Linux/OSX) I wouldn't be inclined to think the problem is that OSX has more OS bugs than other platforms. But I guess we could take your hypothesis another way-- that programs written for OSX are more bug-free than other platforms. That doesn't seem too terribly unlikely, but my personal guess would be that it's actually a combination of a few things:

1. Back in the pre-OSX days, MacOS was extremely fickle. For example, some applications wouldn't run will if you enabled virtual memory, while other applications wouldn't run without virtual memory enabled; also, users had to delete their preference files on a regular basis in order to keep programs running properly. Mac users from that time period are prone to expect that there are lots of strange techniques necessary to keep their systems running, and so they go off looking for OS tweaks for any problem they encounter.
2. Many OSX users are prone to complain about any problem, even minor problems. For example, I've seen people go to great lengths to buff a scratch out of the bottom of their Macbook cases, months after purchase. A tiny little scratch. So you get a bunch of those people together, many of whom don't know very much about computers, and they'll complain to the manufacturer about any little problem they encounter.
3. Apple users might be using a lot of Apple applications, too. They might be using Final Cut, iWork, iLife, iChat, Safari, Mail, etc. Plus the hardware is Apple's. So if I have Apple hardware, and Apple OS, and I'm using Apple applications, then there's a pretty good chance that I'm going to complain to Apple when I have problems.

Re:Not a surprise

[Admiral Ag]

Please let them call it "Cougar". Let's have Demi Moore advertise it in a husky voice. Oh the jokes...

Re:Not a surprise

[Castletech]

Define fiasco. I work in a shop that sells and services Mac and PC. As far as problems from 10.x to 10.5 have been extremely minimal. I've seen a few problems with some 3rd party programs and the Airport. Nothing even close to something I would call a fiasco. Windows on the other hand... is getting out of hand with how much it does not really work. Almost all of the new PCs sold came back to be upgraded back to XP. Not a single customer asked to be downgraded to from 10.5. Snow Leopard is a stupid name though I wish they change it.

Re:Not a surprise

[The End Of Days]

Yeah, right. Mac users not only tolerate bugs, they scream viciously at anyone who even suggests they're present. The belief seems to be that bugs couldn't possibly exist and everything Apple does is perfection itself. Anything that goes wrong must be the user's fault, somehow.

Such things amuse me.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened during the other 6 hours a day?

Re:Not a surprise

[onecheapgeek]

Vista was a 'fiasco'? where did that come from? I never had problems with Vista, bought soon after it came out and installed on a fairly new Dell. I've installed all the updates as soon as they came out, no problems encountered. Others have had issues with UI changes (Aero, UAC, Ribbon-like UI) but that would not merit the label "fiasco".

See where your logic fails?

Re:Not a surprise

[Lodragandraoidh]

I've got a brand new iMac running Leopard without issue (my wife's machine). I'm considering buying Leopard to load on my Intel-based Macbook Pro, and my daughter's Macbook (both running Tiger now) - to gain some of the excellent features (like the time machine, and stacks etc).

Are the problems seen specifically related to PowerPCs?

Re:Not a surprise

[Snowgen]

On a side note, I have personally found it very interesting to watch the way people on Mac forums approach problems versus Windows or Linux users. Often there is an implicit assumption that any problem encountered is an OS bug (sometimes even if nobody else can be found who is experiencing the same problem) and you see demands that it be fixed in the next release. Possibly this is because a high proportion of the problems experienced by Mac users are indeed OS bugs.

When something goes wrong with a Windows machine, I understand that the problem might be in Windows itself. Or it might be in the hardware drivers supplied by ATI or nVidia or something. Or it might be and actual hardware issue.

On my Mac, none of this matters. It was sold to be as a unit--I didn't get to pick my video card, Apple picked it for me. Same thing with my web cam, sound card, keyboard, mouse, etc. So if I have a problem--especially a problem with a new OS version--it is an Apple problem and Apple's responsibility to fix.

We often talk about Apple's benefit to controlling the supplier change. This is the flip side of that coin.

Re:Not a surprise

[pamar]

would you mind providing pointers? I am mostly on Mac at home and use XP at the office, but a friend of mine just got a new laptop with Vista and she is experiencing a lot of annoyances. Anything I could read to be able to help her to set it up correctly?

(We are talking a 2-core Acer with 4Gb of RAM, so not exactly low-end... and she gets freeze-ups when she can't launch new applications, and audio and video stuttering with MP3s and Youtube. Best cure is a reboot...)

TIA

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Leopard and Vista both work well, so have fun with your xedit and Gimp, maybe with the obligatory cumtowel.

(damn linuxists)

Re:Not a surprise

[chaim79]

UI changes (Aero, UAC, Ribbon-like UI) Wait... are you saying UAC is a UI change??? Do you know anything about computers?

Re:Not a surprise

[onecheapgeek]

To me, it was a UI change. But I've always run as a limited user. It's as valid as "I had no problems with the upgrade so it is OK for everyone."

Re:Not a surprise

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, well, try telling him that. Anyway, if it were totally stupid and pointless, people wouldn't do things like post instructions for doing so with lame.

Re:Not a surprise

[alxtoth]

Well, Apple makes no longer PPC hardware, and it will support Leopard 10.5 (and Tiger with security updates, 10.4 ) for some time. And they said that Leopard is the last PPC version. So, what's so unexpected ?

Re:Not a surprise

[chaim79]

Two points:

UAC was a change to the security model for the operating system and had nothing to do with UI other then the cancel/allow message boxes.

My statement was not "I had no problems with the upgrade so it's OK for everyone", it was "I had no problems with the upgrade, and most of the comments I've heard are complaints with the UI, so this should not be considered a 'fiasco'".

You're striking out in T-ball here...

Re:Not a surprise

[youngdev]

I can comment on the "fiasco". I bought my mac a couple months ago because I heard about boot camp. Now I have gentoo running on my mac book pro but the wireless card doesn't work!!!! I mean WTF. How do you release a tool to make dual booting easy but then you use hardware that does not have drivers for every imaginable OS? I mean what gives!!!! Btw everything else works (including isight) and I love my mac. Now if I only knew how to use OSx...

Re:Not a surprise

[onecheapgeek]

So you missed the three iterations of broken smb share mapping, including moving files resulting in lost data? You missed the endless reboots? You missed the filevault issues after upgrade?

Those are all a wee bit more major that UI issues, and a wee bit less major than "my Celeron system with base onboard graphics won't run Aero..."

UAC made standard what I did from the start. I had to runas to do ANYTHING at the system level. I couldn't even change screensaver as my daily user. Armed with that statement...yes. UAC was a UI change TO ME . And since the original and mine both dealt with one person's experience, it is exactly the same.

You want to talk about striking out in t-ball...

Re:Not a surprise

[dishpig]

Not a single customer asked to be downgraded to from 10.5. Good thing. It's not possible to downgrade Apple hardware to a Mac OS version prior to the one it shipped with.

Re:Not a surprise

[Castletech]

Of course, I was talking about the people who upgraded who had Tiger or earlier.

Re:Not a surprise

[zeet]

I didn't say it was pointless. You might have audio that's in a format you can't use where you want to use it.

It's still stupid, though.

Re:Not a surprise

[initdeep]

firat guess is either proprietary installed apps that sont need to be there, or crappy av progrmas like norton or macafee.

personally, i run either AG or avast free editions.

i also do not install any bloatware onto the computer.

You can also go in and change the way UAc works (SP1 does a lot of this anyway)

o personally also turn off the "secure desktop" becuase i find that some computers have an issue with this.

you can do this quite easily from inside the following:
Administrative tools -> Local Security policy.

you can also change how UAC reacts for different users.

finally, i usually set most of my page files smaller as I would rather use more memory and dont feel an 8gb page file is needed.

if she doesnt use it, kill hibernation.

if she wants to make everything faster, use the laptop and make sure euperfetch is enabled, then it will learn and keep common app dll's loaded.

if she isnt so worried about battery life, go kill the intel chip power management which cuts clock speed all the time.

also change the power settings for when it is plugged in to not shut things off so fast or try and save so much power.

the biggest thing i found was that most people simply want to bitch about it and not use it cause of what they have heard.

personally, i like it, but then again, i like fedora 9 too.

Re:Not a surprise

[Phroggy]

Apple has registered Cougar with the USPTO as trademark #78271630.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

i tried to think of a more obtuse way you could have written your reply, but i failed.

apple have stated they will ditch ppc, apple ALREADY has ditched 32-bit. they just put in place a system that allows 32-bit code to run seamlesly in a 64-bit OS, and, indeed, a way for a 64-bit OS to run on 32-bit hardware. apple ALWAYS does this sort of thing, ie, going from 68k to ppc, classic to osx, ppc to intel.

or do you know some place where you can buy a 32-bit version of 10.5?

it seems very likely to me they will ditch ppc. they have not sold a ppc mac for years, and they are slow compared to todays hardware. running 10.5 is not a great experience on any but the best ppc systems...

and maintaining the ENTIRE code base, seamlesly and with identical function on two architectures is expensive and pointless for legacy hardware that has mostly disappeared from the corporate world anyway.

now, onto the most important reason why you are quite obviously not very familiar with computers or how they work... you WILL be able to run your UNIVERSAL applications on your ppc mac with 10.5 AND run it on you intel only 10.6 machine if the application developer chooses to bother supporting legacy systems, which most WILL for at least the first year or so after the new OS is released.

just because 10.6 is intel only, why would that possibly break the universal application you have been using every day on your ppc 10.5 machine and your intel 10.5 machine?

if you reach around the back of your skull, you might find a small power button in the "off" position, you should try powering it on sometimes.

Re:Not a surprise

[ChunderDownunder]

I've been wondering about buying a 'vacation notebook', smaller than my 15 inch beast, for an overseas sabbatical.

A maxed-out 12 inch iBook G4 would suffice.

Pros:

• roughly the same price and performance as an EEE pc or Aspire One
• an adult-size keyboard
• last I checked the Aspire didn't have bluetooth. :(
• well-known hardware for servicing
• Linux should hopefully have open source drivers for most of the hardware (radeon 9550/airport extreme) by now.

Cons:

• No warranty

Re:Not a surprise

[Thumper_SVX]

But... but... the Maus would only have one button!!!

Re:Not a surprise

[glitch23]

I started using 10.5.x once I received my new Macbook back in October of last year I believe it was (maybe November, I forget now). The only issue I've had with it is the keyboard would intermittently stop working and that surfaced around the January time frame and I believe 10.5.3 or 10.5.4 fixed it. It would only stop working if I wasn't using it. It was a weird problem. Now I don't use any 3rd party apps on the Macbook besides TBird, Firefox and Yahoo Messenger but it's worked great for me so far. I don't know why people are bashing it so much.

Re:Not a surprise

[kklein]

I used to do tech support for Apple (a million years ago now), and your #2 is right on the money. Those people call, furious, about every little thing. It really helped me learn how to deal with angry, irrational people, though, and how to break bad news to people without them going ballistic (no, warranty does not entitle you to replacing the plastic case of your laptop for free because it's getting scuffed from use).

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

In comparison, Linux users are afraid to speak out about problems they encounter in fear that someone will tell them to fix it themselves or RTFM.

Windows users assume any problems encountered were self-induced, or are actually 'features'.

Re:Not a surprise

[Dr.D.IS.GREAT]

Welcome to the computer market place, "feature X is only in version X of software that works with X only. your old computer does have X, there for you cannot run software that X can run or have the features of an X computer... sorry your going to have to shell out an additional $2000 to use that $199 new upgrade of photoshop....

Pirates!

Dr. D

Re:Not a surprise

[toddestan]

If Apple continues with only supporting the previous version of OSX with updates, that means that support for 10.4 will be ending soon with the release of 10.6, and support for 10.5 will end when 10.7 comes out, which will probably be about 2 years from now. At that point, the newest of the PPC machines will be about 4 years old, though those same machines will also be the high end PowerMacs and XServes so I would still expect complaining.

Re:Not a surprise

[pamar]

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately she lives quite far from me so I have to focus on trying a few things on the next time we meet, and when problem arises I am usually not available to check out myself.

I'll dig deeper on the things you mentioned and I'll try to see what it works.

Thanks!

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

B.S.: Where and when did they ever say Leopard was the last PPC release?

Re:Not a surprise

[Doctor_Jest]

The track record that in all the history of Apple, this would be the shortest support lifespan (past the post-production date) of any line of computers?

Just go back to the 68x00 series v. PPC and see what I mean.

Re:Not a surprise

[Doctor_Jest]

Explain to me how Apple's ditched 32 bit? a 64-bit CAPABLE OS isn't a 64-bit ONLY OS, or all those Core Duos they sold would still be running Tiger... Now they are all Core 2 Duo and greater, but that has been very _recent_ and the radar is still current with vast quantities of Core Duo chips.

Last sale date for the PPC Power Mac was not that long ago. Buy a calendar. They've supported an Intel version of this OS since 10.0, and integrating universal binaries into the system is how they accomplish the transition.

Simply put, it's like the fat binaries of the Motorola era... See how long Apple supported that and you'll see why you aren't making much sense. After how many iterations of the PPC chips did Apple ditch 32-bit PPC? Oh yeah, they never did.. (they went intel, but the point's made...)

Speak from what you know, not from what you think you know and life will go more smoothly.

Of course, I'm not really running Leopard on my Core Duo....

Think before you type... you won't look like such an idiot.

Re:Not a surprise

[telbij]

The added features are not so hot

I beg to differ. First, Time Machine, a backup system that normal people can actually use is nothing short of a triumph. Spaces was sort of "meh" but it still found it's way into my regular workflow (much more than Exposé FWIW). Beyond that every single corner of the OS seemed to have picked up quite a bit of polish, quickview, dock stacks, preview app (huge improvements here), terminal, unix upgrades, and many other small details I noticed.

it is seriously lacking in stability

Only if you're affected by the issues. I might as well say that Leopard is flawless because I haven't experienced any issues.

Dude... After Leopard?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The drummer only has one arm!

Re:Dude... After Leopard?

[hostyle]

Wrong leopard dude. You must be def.

Re:Dude... After Leopard?

[CptNerd]

He was probably mis-Led...

Re:Dude... After Leopard?

[Megane]

At least he isn't Def.

Linux

[Lord Lode]

Does it run on Linux?

Re:Linux

[larry bagina]

Not yet, but it will. The Cocoa/Linux Integration Framework (CLIF) is a project (currently in alpha) based on GNUStep, but with a goal of source *and* binary compatability with OS X/Cocoa. There's a lot of work and some kernel modules may be needed, but we're optimistic at the current progress.

Re:Linux

[morgan_greywolf]

Link?

Slow down, Apple...

[PhotoGuy]

Either get Leopard solid, stable, and most importantly, *fast* before you move onto the next OS (unless Snow Leopard addresses a lot of these issues).

Typically with an OSX release, the early point versions go through some growing pains, and it's not until the mid point releases that things get rock solid and fast. When I first tried leopard (10.5.0), it broke a number of things; it offered enough extra that I put up with what it broke, but I wouldn't recommend it to others especially for mission critical business stuff. It seems to be getting better with each point release that rolls in, and 10.5.3 just came in the other day (and things actually seem a bit peppier), but I get the impression it has a little way to go yet.

I think Leopard's early problems has hurt Apple a bit, and I'd hate to see a 10.6.0 come out too soon, with a lot of the same issues as Leopard's first release. I want a fast and stable OSX! (Even at its worst, Leopard was head and shoulders above XP in terms of speed and stability and usability, of course; but when I first jumped ship to Mac when Tiger was mature, things were even better stability-wise.)

While the Windows release cycle is painfully slow and buggy, I worry that Apple's is almost a little too fast with this announcement (although the wait for Leopard seemed to take forever.)

Now who knows, maybe Snow Leopard isn't too revolutionary; maybe in losing some of the backwards compatibility hassles of PPC to move Leopard forward it will improve its speed and stability. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[mrbluze]

Either get Leopard solid, stable, and most importantly, *fast* before you move onto the next OS (unless Snow Leopard addresses a lot of these issues).

Just FYI they actually miss-spelt it, it should read Slow Leapard

.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[mrbluze]

Just FYI they actually miss-spelt it, it should read Slow Leapard Just FMI I miss-spelt that too.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Rogue Pat]

Either get Leopard solid, stable, and most importantly, *fast* before you move onto the next OS (unless Snow Leopard addresses a lot of these issues).

RTF arstechnica A : "it will not contain major OS changes. Instead, the release is heavily focused on performance and nailing down speed and stability."

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[DAldredge]

For which they will charge 129.00

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[MrMr]

Yes that should be
'Slow Leper' the Xth century OS.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

Either get Leopard solid, stable, and most importantly, *fast* before you move onto the next OS (unless Snow Leopard addresses a lot of these issues). Why? Just because you want them to?

yeah right...you don't work in software do you? If we all waited for solid, stable and fast...no one would ever release any product.

Also, it's about perception...new new new new new

people like new

they don't like old (even if it is stable and solid) and by people I mean joe public not the /. herd.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[nine-times]

Either get Leopard solid, stable, and most importantly, *fast* before you move onto the next OS (unless Snow Leopard addresses a lot of these issues).

Actually, according to all rumors about "Snow Leopard", those are exactly the issues that it's supposed to address. That's the entire rumor about Snow Leopard, that it's going to be a quick release that won't add much in the way of features, but it will be cleaning out legacy code, squashing bugs, and making the whole thing run fast. Some people have also noted that the last time Apple did this (10.1) the upgrade was free.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's convenient, but that's why they are rumors. So far, rumors from the fan sites of what the OS will do (fixes only) are the same as the complaints about Leopard from the fan sights (except for the Intel-Only, Carbon-Only bit only a few on the fan sites were predicting for Leopard).

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Panaflex]

I don't think Apple is going to abandon the Leopard stability release cycle... but they want to avoid another Leopard by getting developers to work on the next version.

If I've got the code and can develop for 10.6 while supporting 10.5 - my deployment is going to be a lot easier when 10.6 comes out.

It's a lot like consoles in a way - you need your "platformers" ready to drive sales - but you can't expect them without significant development time before release.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[stewbacca]

Not to mention....it's only $100 people!!! Cheap bastards.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[nine-times]

On a side note, if their product line needs "fixing", I don't think it's in the OS department. It's in the fact that they don't offer a mid-grade monitorless tower computer. Everything else can stand to be improved (everything can always be improved), but the absence of a mid-grade tower hurts them in some major markets.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[OzRoy]

I complained about the same thing. But mainly because they didn't have a decent mid-range machine that could play games.

That changed with the latest iMac update. The more expensive model is now a pretty good mid-range machine with a reasonable video card.

Do you really need a tower machine?

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[kuwan]

Actually, according to all rumors about "Snow Leopard", those are exactly the issues that it's supposed to address. That's the entire rumor about Snow Leopard, that it's going to be a quick release that won't add much in the way of features, but it will be cleaning out legacy code, squashing bugs, and making the whole thing run fast. Some people have also noted that the last time Apple did this (10.1) the upgrade was free.

And this is exactly why the rumors are very likely false at least in regards to no major new features. If there aren't any new features then Apple will have nothing to demo at WWDC. And if Steve Jobs is anything it's a showman - he's not going to get up and demo 10.6 if there aren't any new features to show off. If the rumors are true Jobs just might show off the new iPhone and make no mention of 10.6.

Here's what I think regarding the rumors:

• No new big features, just a performance and stability release - very likely false.
• Will drop support for Carbon - extremely likely false (more likely that there will be more Cocoa wrappers for Carbon).
• Will be released in January 2009 - likely false (too soon especially with the release of the iPhone 2.0 & SDK).
• Will drop PPC support - probably false (though I think this is the most likely of all the rumors).

I don't think we'll see much announced about 10.6 at WWDC. I think it's mostly going to be a big iPhone show. Of course I've been wrong too many times about Apple rumors, if anything it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[kuwan]

Do you really need a tower machine? No, but I'd rather not pay for a new monitor every time I buy a new computer. I've got a very nice monitor already and I don't want to pay a premium for an iMac and its built-in monitor. Give me something powerful (4 Core) with a replaceable video card, no built-in monitor and up to 8 GB of RAM and I'd be happy - i.e. something between a Mac Mini and a Mac Pro.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may clean out legacy code, but it won't be the next 10.5 bug fix.

I just downloaded 10.5.4 from the developer web site.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[nine-times]

Yeah, I'm not sure what this WWDC is going to be about. There's going to be the iPhone 2 (and firmware upgrade), which will be huge. There are rumors of another device, halfway between an iPhone and a laptop. There are rumors of an OS upgrade. There are rumors of their Pro laptop line getting a redesign. Some other things to boot. If all that happens, it seems like a little too much for one event.

So that's why I think it may actually be true that Snow Leopard, if real, won't have many new features. They might just say, "Hey, we're coming up with an update, all Cocoa, faster, bla bla bla." and leave it at that. Incidentally, I predict that there may be a "all-Cocoa" move coming, but not in the form of dropping support for 3rd party Carbon apps. It may be instead that the "all-Cocoa" rumors are about Apple turning all of it's apps over to Cocoa and warning other developers, "We're making the move, and you should too. Only a couple more years before we stop supporting Carbon".

Anwyay, it may also be that (assuming "Snow Leopard" is for real) there won't be any new major OS features (FileVault, Time Machine, etc), but there will be new application features. If the iPhone is getting better Exchange support, I would expect that Mail, iCal, and Address Book will also be getting improved Exchange support. Also it may be that their server-side analogues (mail, calendar, and directory services) will be getting more features to be on-par with Exchange. I'd love to see OSX Server support push-email, better webmail, and get everything a little bit better integrated so that they can compete with Exchange.

There are also a lot of loose ends that Apple could try to tie up without offering something that stands out as a "new feature". For example, if they finally offered ZFS support, most users wouldn't see it as a "feature"-- they just wouldn't know it was there. But if Apple made enough changes/upgrades of that sort, they'd have to increment the version number so people would know that things might not be compatible. But for most users, it they wouldn't be "features" exactly, but more like "under the hood improvements".

I actually think there are lots of ways this could go. I can imagine Jobs saying, "look, we want to clean things up and offer some new technologies, but since these things won't be 'features' to most users, we're going to make a semi-new version. It'll be called almost the same thing ('Snow Leopard' instead of 'Leopard'), and it'll be a free upgrade to anyone using Leopard, but we'll call it a full new version." Or something along those lines-- I'm not claiming this is what will happen, but only that it wouldn't completely shock me.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[bill_mcgonigle]

I just downloaded 10.5.4 from the developer web site.

Our lawyers have your IP address and will commence with a raid forthwith.

Re:Slow down, Apple...

[Dr.D.IS.GREAT]

Well...

"It just works"

Dr. D

MacOS for PC's

[Lord Lode]

They release MacOS X only for Macs. Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's? Is it because they'd like people to buy Mac hardware along with the OS? But maybe there would be more Mac OS's sold if they also made a version for regular PC's? Or maybe they do it because there are less possible compatibility problems if they only make it for their own Mac hardware, because PC's are too customizable?

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically the answer to all of the questions you posed is - Yes.

Mac sells computers. They want the OS to be a selling point for their hardware, not the other way round. They've also always had significant limits on what's ok to put in a Mac, in order to prevent issues with OS and driver compatibility, in addition to making sure cheap junk doesn't easily get put in the machine.

They don't care as much about OS market share as they care about how many computers they sell.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[larry bagina]

BeOS tried that. NeXT tried that. IBM (OS/2) tried that. It doesn't work.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[kannibal_klown]

They release MacOS X only for Macs. Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's? Is it because they'd like people to buy Mac hardware along with the OS? But maybe there would be more Mac OS's sold if they also made a version for regular PC's? Or maybe they do it because there are less possible compatibility problems if they only make it for their own Mac hardware, because PC's are too customizable? This question is nothing new, people are constantly asking it and just about any story on Slashot about OS X has multiple threads about it.

I don't think we've ever gotten an actual answer from Apple, the the usual answers from Apple fans are:

• They make money of their hardware solutions, the OS is just the cheese to get the consumers in the door. Remove the cheese and a decent percentage will go elsewhere for their hardware (at a cheaper price).
  
• Stability - Apple's moniker is "it just works," whether you agree with that is another discussion. By limiting the combinations of hardware + drivers they can make a decently stable solution. If they open it up to everything then they will lose their "stability" reputation for the short term until drivers are developed.
  

Some say it's only a matter of time before they release it for PCs, others say it will never happen. Personally I wouldn't be surprised either way.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"They release MacOS X only for Macs. Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's?"

1) It avoids treading on Microsoft's toes. Mac versions of MS Office help to sell lot of Apple machines, so pissing the Redmond Gorilla off by competing with them in the commodity OS market wouldn't be a particularly good idea.

2) Apple tried it in the past, and ended up losing far more from lost sales revenue to clone makers than they were earning by licensing the OS. This was therefore one of the first things Jobs killed off when he took over at Apple, so it's unlikely he'd want to risk the same thing happening again.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[mini me]

It's pretty safe to assume that the commodity PC version of OS X would sell in the same price range as Windows: $400-$500. When you factor in that cost, it's cheaper to just buy a Mac in the first place.

There is no advantage for Apple to support the regular PC. And unless you are a part of the extremely tiny group of people who like to tinker with your hardware, there is no real advantages of running OS X on PC hardware either.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have to understand that before Compaq, every computer company operated the way Apple does: they sold you both hardware and software. When Compaq reversed IBM's bios and developed the first clone, they did so knowing that MS had held onto the rights to DOS. IBM wanted to get something out fast to compete with Apple, they had gone to Gates for their OS, and Gates was smart enough to see that software could be sold as a separate commodity from hardware.

So Apple sees themselves as a vertical product company - they sell you both the hardware and the software - the whole experience. It's a different model from the Microsoft model, and while Apple's market share isn't nearly as big as Microsoft's, the product they're producing (the hardware) is a big-ticket item with a big-ticket margin (sure, once you have an OS, the replication costs are nothing: but MS still needs to sell enough copies to pay off the development expenses, and right now, thanks to Vista, that's not happening as it should). Apple is perfectly happy where they are, thank you, selling "the Mercedes" and letting MS have the Ford segment of the OS market.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[linhares]

add Vista to your list

Re:MacOS for PC's

[ivano]

Well at least one person on Slashdot gets it. There is more than one business model in the world - not everything has to be done like Microsoft, nor like Linux. Apple does it their way, for good or bad, it makes a shit load of money for their shareholders.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[nine-times]

Yes.

No really, the answer to all your questions are "yes". You seem to understand the situation so I'm not sure why you're asking.

Q:Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's?
A:Yes, there are a couple reasons, at least. You give two of them later on.

Q:Is it because they'd like people to buy Mac hardware along with the OS?
A:Yes. Apple makes most of its money selling hardware. That's the business they're in. OSX and iLife are largely built to be enticements to buy their hardware, just as the iTMS was created to encourage people to buy iPods.

Q:But maybe there would be more Mac OS's sold if they also made a version for regular PC's?
A:Yes, there would most surely be more sales of OSX. The question is, would the increased profits from OSX be enough to make up for the lost hardware sales? The answer is "probably not".

Q:Or maybe they do it because there are less possible compatibility problems if they only make it for their own Mac hardware, because PC's are too customizable?
A:Yes, that's another problem with supporting generic PCs-- you're going to have to support every little piece of crappy hardware anyone wants to buy. Worse yet, you're going to have to deal with the fact that a lot of that hardware comes with poorly-written drivers that will crash your system. The fact is that a *lot* of instability that people see on Windows is driver-related. By being both the OS developer and the systems integrator, Apple gets a level of stability that would otherwise be much more difficult to reach.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. OS X is used to differentiate their hardware from other hardware.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm posting AC because I've already moderated here.)

Bear in mind though, that OS X doesn't have the same anti-piracy protection that Vista has. You can basically install OS X on as many computers as you want using just one CD. If they were to start selling OS X to PCs, in order not to lose tons of revenue Apple would have to either instate much stronger anti-piracy measures or win over the corporate market (which would be very difficult).

If not, they will lose revenue from people who buy macs mainly for the software and who will be likely to just rip the OS.

I could be wrong, but I don't see Mac OS X going to PC in the near future.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[blackest_k]

There is one option that didn't exist before, virtualisation.

Develop drivers for a VM like Virtualbox and you automatically support a wide range of diverse hardware, without the development costs of running native, the Mac experience within a VM machine would be consistent.

However It wouldn't be as good as a real mac and the natuaral upgrade path would be to a real Mac. The problem with the clones was superior performance at a better price. Of course people would buy a clone over the apple product when it was faster and cheaper than apple were offering.

The VM route doesn't compete against Apple hardware, real Apple hardware will result in a better eXperience than the VM resulting in improved Apple hardware sales.

It would be so easy to sell
Taste the Apple eXperience, one bite will have you wanting more.

The VM experience would be a tool for apple to sell more mac's a completely different proposition to selling clones.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Joe The Dragon]

If not apple should have a desktop mid-tower not a over priced and under powered mini or a over the top for most users mac pro.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[porcupine8]

You must be new here.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[repetty]

"They release MacOS X only for Macs. Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's?"

The real reason is that Apple is a hardware company.

Everybody say this out loud over and over until you die:

APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY.

Yes, they produce some great software but they make their money (which is the thing that really matters) on hardware.

--Richard

Re:MacOS for PC's

[UnknowingFool]

3) By releasing it only on their hardware, they can avoid some of the huge headaches of compatibility. One reason why Windows is so buggy is that there are millions of combinations of hardware. "X-brand sound card is incompatible with Y-brand video card for some reason. Why didn't Bill Gates test that out and fix it?" By keeping their hardware combinations small, they can be assured of some measure of reliability. If you look at their line, they go as far to keep the number of models small too.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is whether what Apple is doing is legal. There are at least two court cases that have sided with the ability of individuals to take a closed operating system and run it legally on the hardware of their choosing. At least one of those cases also claimed that the company selling the OS had to provide basic support.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"There is one option that didn't exist before, virtualisation."

There's also another one: Linux-style LiveCD systems that run directly without the need (or in the case of Apple, the ability) to install them on a hard disk.

"It would be so easy to sell
Taste the Apple eXperience, one bite will have you wanting more."

I reckon the LiveCD would be a really good option. You could download and burn an ISO, or pick up a ready-made disk from an Apple dealer.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY."

If this is the case, then why do they sell music and video, and write and sell a variety of their own software packages (Final Cut, Logic, iWork, iLife, Aperture, etc.)?

Re:MacOS for PC's

[stewbacca]

Last time they tried licensing MacOS to other hardware companies, Apple nearly ran themselves out of business. Plus, my Motorola Starmax was a big P.O.S. Opening OSX to any hardware platform is like BMW putting their engines in any car chassis.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[stewbacca]

If not apple should have a desktop mid-tower ... I love this line of thinking. As if the current lineup of Macs is indicative of the previous 24 years of Macs.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[BrentH]

The music and video to psuh their ipods, and the software to 'have what Microsoft got'. The really high end software like Final Cut and Logic are of course to make money on, but I suppose they push their MacPro's too (they do sell $30000 machines after all, to this crowd).

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"By releasing it only on their hardware, they can avoid some of the huge headaches of compatibility. One reason why Windows is so buggy is that there are millions of combinations of hardware"

This is an oft-repeated meme, but the fact of the matter is that most of the hardware support on Windows is actually provided by manufactures who supply drivers rather than MS. This is why there are so many moans from owners of peripherals whenever Windows has a new driver model, and their stuff stops working because its manufacturer won't spend money on writing new drivers for stuff they don't make anymore.

"By keeping their hardware combinations small, they can be assured of some measure of reliability"

Linux manages to be reliable without keeping its hardware selection small, so it's far more probable that Microsoft's reliability problems have been caused by crappy code and badly designed driver loading mechanisms that let a buggy one bring an entire system down than the fact they support lots of different hardware. And it's not even as if Apple aren't already supporting a bewildering variety of OS X host systems:

- it runs on three distinctly different CPUs (PPC, Intel, Arm).

- Many, many combinations of support chips have been used over the years.

- A variety of graphics cards from all three major manufacturers have been used (ATI, Intel, nVidia).

- There've been several different types of hard disk controller and CD / DVD interface.

- Several types of Firewire and USB hardware has been used.

- etc., etc.

So Apple already have a pretty comprehensive driver collection, and OS X is perfectly amenable to third party drivers that companies like Mark Of The Unicorn write for their specialist hardware, so it's just as flexible as Windows in this regard.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'd note you're missing a major reason. Currently Apple competes in the computer system market against Dell and Sony and HP, largely on the strength of OS X, a desktop OS. Selling OS X for generic hardware would put them in the desktop OS market directly, a market monopolized by MS. No businessman in their right mind wants to be competing against a monopoly in the market they have monopolized. It costs significantly more than a normal market with higher risk and less return. Quite likely, Apple would fail in that market, regardless of the relative quality of OS X and Windows.

It would be economic suicide to unbundle OS X and Apple computers until the market is at least somewhat competitive, maybe 70% dominated by Windows. That's still quite a ways off, so Apple is focused on slowly chipping away at Windows market share and hoping they can get there some day.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[DesScorp]

BeOS tried that. NeXT tried that. IBM (OS/2) tried that. It doesn't work. They didn't work because they were small companies, and Microsoft crushed them when they tried to negotiate OEM deals with companies like Dell and HP by threatening to penalize those OEM's. Apple isn't a small company. They have big income outside of the PC market now, and they wouldn't be intimidated or defeated . And the last time they let cloners run their OS, Mac usage picked up dramatically.

You can argue whether it makes financial sense for Apple to license their OS to OEMs, but you can't really argue that it wouldn't work when it already has. And Michael Dell has openly stated that he'd love to offer OS X on Dell machines.

Apple's hardware has always been a strength... well designed and attractive. But their stuff is looking less and less attractive (or even distinctive), and more like ugly European kitchen hardware. I've gotten to the point where I'd welcome running OS X on third party hardware.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[IntlHarvester]

Not necessarily, because (non-hacked) OS X is keyed to the TPM or whatever it's called now. So Apple could charge an per-machine license fee for "OS X capable" PCs, while regular PCs would still require hacks.

(Not that it would happen, just thinking it through.)

Re:MacOS for PC's

[UnknowingFool]

This is an oft-repeated meme, but the fact of the matter is that most of the hardware support on Windows is actually provided by manufactures who supply drivers rather than MS.

I wasn't blaming Windows but rather describing the crux of the situation. The reliability of 3rd party drivers is always an issue for any OS. With OS X, the list of 3rd party hardware is much smaller. To pinpoint an issue that X-brand sound card has with Y-brand video card, an engineer has to have that hardware/driver combination. With Apple controlling the hardware, the variation is minimized because they have built that variation. It's not that Apple does not have a variety of hardware drivers already, it's that they can fully test out the variations before market and diagnose problems after it's been sold.

For example, Apple doesn't have to support all nVidia, ATI, and Intel video cards, just the ones that are in their machines. The variations in video cards in a single manufacturer is daunting. The nVidia GeForce FX (FX4xx and FX5xxx) series supported color menus in their TV encoding. That little feature is great if you're using that card for a homebrew PVR. Other applications, not as much. For the GeForce 6 and higher series, nVidia removed the feature. nVidia did not release that fact; it was found by Linux developers working on MythTV.

MS can never test all possible combinations. At best, the OEMs can test their own hardware but may not in combination with other hardware.

Linux has reliability but that is more due to the community than the manufacturers. If a manufacturer doesn't want to cooperate with Linux developers, there's only so much that the devs can do in reverse engineering. So far they do a good job but you will run into hardware that isn't compatible because the manufacturer has not/will not release open source drivers. The quality of the open source linux drivers tend to be higher as there is some auditing. The quality of closed source drivers are unknown. Even a big company like nVidia releases some crappy drivers.

Which brings me back to the point. Although 3rd parties might release crappy software, Apple will get blamed like Windows gets blamed today. Now MS shares some responsibility in how they've maintained their APIs but Apple doesn't want that image.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[nine-times]

Well the bigger problem there is not just that they'd fail-- but that Microsoft would pull MS Office from Mac in retaliation. iWork is good, but doesn't offer the same level of transparent interoperability within a Windows/Office dominated world.

And yes, I know MS Office for Mac isn't completely transparent, but it opens/saves Office formats more faithfully than iWork or OpenOffice.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Junta]

They didn't work because they were small companies Ok, I can see that argument for Be and NeXT, but IBM? I mean really, calling IBM a small company is ludicrous.

It has never worked, and I don't think it has a stronger chance of succeeding now. The clones happened, and during that period the Mac market I don't think grew significantly, just fragmented.

Windows has for a long time not done anything interesting in the OS, but at the same time the market has demonstrated indifference to that fact. They care about the third party apps and toss money at MS because they just don't care.

I don't like this reality, particularly when Linux and OSX both provide a richer 'base' experience, but that's what it is. In the 200 dollar and cheaper markets, the economics may cause MS's stranglehold to weaken, but so long as they generally get subsidized by crapware writers that can't be bothered to port to Linux, OEMs will continue to subject people to it and people will just take it, because it is easier than change.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

BMW is considering selling engines to GM, so there goes another idiot's car analogy.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are they simply making profits from OSX? Remember (you said it yourself), APPL is mainly driven by hardware sales.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[bill_mcgonigle]

Well the bigger problem there is not just that they'd fail-- but that Microsoft would pull MS Office from Mac in retaliation.

They've already pulled VBA, making it useless for a large class of people. NeoOffice does as much as MS Office does, depending on your feature needs.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[pohl]

IBM is a different case. With OS/2, they had a difficult time building a healthy base of 3rd party applications written specifically to OS/2's unique APIs, and the corresponding developer mindshare that comes with it. Many who ran OS/2 ran Windows applications on it. Apple already has a vibrant development community, and it's only going to grow as developers use Cocoa Touch. (Every such developer gets direct experience with XCode, Objective-C, and a foundational intersection of the APIs in MacOS X. I do not buy your argument that Apple's position today is anything like IBM's position with OS/2.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[pohl]

I'd like to add another aspect in which the IBM of the day was very different from the Apple of today: IBM was an enormous, lumbering bureaucracy and never could manage to put all of its wood behind one arrow. The Apple of today would never make a mere token effort to push its operating system, whilst simultaneously selling Windows boxen hand over fist, undermining the former.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

And the last time they let cloners run their OS, Mac usage picked up dramatically. No it didn't - I call bullshit on that one. It's fairly well documented that the Mac cloners merely stole the market away from Apple, rather than "growing the pie." What good is letting the clones run amok when it's killing your original business?

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"I wasn't blaming Windows but rather describing the crux of the situation"

I was blaming Windows, because I lay its reliability problems squarely at the feet of those who designed a driver model that allows (or allowed: it's much less of a problem with Vista) an errant driver to bring an entire system down.

"The reliability of 3rd party drivers is always an issue for any OS"

Agreed. However, the way a particular OS handles errors produced by faulty drivers is entirely dependant on the way the OS itself is designed.

"To pinpoint an issue that X-brand sound card has with Y-brand video card, an engineer has to have that hardware/driver combination"

Indeed, but IMO this sort of problem shouldn't result in the entire OS hanging.

"It's not that Apple does not have a variety of hardware drivers already, it's that they can fully test out the variations before market and diagnose problems after it's been sold."

They can't always do that. PowerMacs and MacPro systems for example can be expanded by plugging cards in (many prior Apple systems also had this capability), and there've been entire internal CPU and memory subsystem upgrades sold by by third parties in the past. And as is the case with MS, the onus has always been on the third party to supply drivers for their hardware that work with various versions of Mac OS, and not all of those drivers have been satisfactory in terms of quality or reliability.

"With Apple controlling the hardware, the variation is minimized because they have built that variation."

Except in the case of PowerMacs and MacPro systems, and in the past, systems with internal CPU etc. upgrades.

"For example, Apple doesn't have to support all nVidia, ATI, and Intel video cards, just the ones that are in their machines."

While third parties support their own cards for PoweMac and MacPro systems, as is the case with Windows.

"The variations in video cards in a single manufacturer is daunting."

But the responsibility for supporting each of them on Windows lies with the card manufacturer, not MS.

"MS can never test all possible combinations. At best, the OEMs can test their own hardware but may not in combination with other hardware."

The same is true for Apple. There's less choice of expansion hardware for PowerMac / MacPro systems, but that's a function of relative market share (as indeed are the higher prices for Mac-compatible expansion cards). However, there's enough choice for it to be impossible for Apple to test every combination of expansions out there, so it's extremely common to see posts on both Apple and third party manufacturer fora from customers saying that such-and-such doesn't work properly with a new OS revision or computer.

"Linux has reliability but that is more due to the community than the manufacturers."

Linux has a wide range of hardware support because of efforts from the community, but its reliability comes from the way it's designed to interact with drivers.

"If a manufacturer doesn't want to cooperate with Linux developers, there's only so much that the devs can do in reverse engineering."

Yes, but even partially working or badly written drivers for Linux usually result in restriction or failures in the specific piece of hardware, not Linux itself (unless of course it's something critical such as a hard-disk controller or a key motherboard support component). If a graphics card or other component crashes X, then X has crashed, not the underlying OS, and the same goes for most of the hardware on a computer running Linux.

"The quality of the open source linux drivers tend to be higher as there is some auditing."

There are still a fairly large number of bad ones for hardware that's not very common, because there aren't many people who have both the hardware and the knowledge that's necessary to debug and alter somebody else's driver source code.

"The quality of closed source drivers are unknown. Even a big company like nVidia releases

Re:MacOS for PC's

[blackest_k]

I quite like your idea, of a live CD, since it would be distributing a limited version of OSX so that people could try OSX on a particular system with little to no cost.

However it probably would not be difficult for Apple to be able to sell an unlock code to allow OSX to be installed from the same Cd/dvd image.

problem is while it is all possible, probably would make money for old rope for apple, it would take some persuasion to convince Mr Jobs it would be a good move.

Apple sells on exclusivity, and this would devalue that to an extent on the other hand most mac enthusiasts would see this as an inferior mac clone and social pressure to upgrade to a real mac would be there.

I don't think apple have the ambition to increase market share this aggressively, shareholders might.

Re:MacOS for PC's

[Weedlekin]

"However it probably would not be difficult for Apple to be able to sell an unlock code to allow OSX to be installed from the same Cd/dvd image."

I don't think Apple are currently interested in selling OS X to people who haven't bought Macs.

"while it is all possible, probably would make money for old rope for apple, it would take some persuasion to convince Mr Jobs it would be a good move."

Especially after what happened the last time Apple tried it.

"Apple sells on exclusivity, and this would devalue that to an extent on the other hand most mac enthusiasts would see this as an inferior mac clone and social pressure to upgrade to a real mac would be there."

The problem isn't Mac enthusiasts, but the much larger number of new customers they've gained over the last couple of years. How many of them would have bought Macs if they could've run the OS on a much cheaper generic machine? It's difficult to know for sure, but it's going to something that Apple's marketing people are certain to have thought about.

"I don't think apple have the ambition to increase market share this aggressively, shareholders might."

It's doubtful that Apple's shareholders would even consider trying to force Jobs to do something he's against, because the company would have been bankrupt years ago without him. Only utter fools would risk losing the goose that's laid so many golden eggs to take on MS, who've left the software world littered with the corpses of companies who tried to compete with them on the desktop, and although many shareholders are indeed utter fools, I doubt that many of them are _that_ stupid.

Running OSX on any PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this shift mean that I go out and buy the software and run it on my HP?

Re:Running OSX on any PC

[spud603]

not easily

Why abandon the PPC platform completely?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, not that its great, but doesn't that mean that the developers will stop supporting the PPC platform with their software and more and more people would have to switch to x86 in the nearest future? Thus meaning that they would have to buy a really new computer to get all the latest software available for the Mac and I think that this would be a big issue for the guys with older macs.

Re:Why abandon the PPC platform completely?

[morgan_greywolf]

I mean, not that its great, but doesn't that mean that the developers will stop supporting the PPC platform with their software and more and more people would have to switch to x86 in the nearest future? Thus meaning that they would have to buy a really new computer to get all the latest software available for the Mac and I think that this would be a big issue for the guys with older macs.

If people buy more new Macs, who gets all the money?

No, I'm New Here

[New Here]

No, I'm New Here

Re:No, I'm New Here

[dintech]

Wow, -1 Funny. You've invented anti-funny which I think that can trigger outbursts of straight-faced ness. That's quite an achievement.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[pdusen]

I thought it was funny. Unfortunately, I'm not the one with mod points.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[je ne sais quoi]

It is funny, but he or she has been doing that for years and years and years. In fact, that's all he or she does with this account.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[AioKits]

Does a stream of anti-funny fall up or down?

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Gilmoure]

If it's funny for milk to come out your nose (generally in a downward direction) it seems like it could be possible that anti-funny would fall upwards, and towards the direction of noses.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Bananenrepublik]

Wow, -1 Funny. You've invented anti-funny which I think that can trigger outbursts of straight-faced ness. That's quite an achievement. Is anti-funny what keeps whooshing under my feet?

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Anonymous Coward]

he or she

You must be new here.

Effectively Kill CPU Upgrade Market

[Black-Man]

I still run 10.4.x on a Mac Pro because of issues I read about - and Apple still is issuing security patches and the like for 10.4.x, so I take it w/ a grain of salt they would stop supporting PowerPC at this point. I have a G4 I would like to upgrade the CPU - but who in their right mind would order a CPU card upgrade w/ the rumor floating around that PowerPC is about to get shut out? I pay a premium for Apple hardware, but I justify it by the ability to get 5 years out of their pro machines - the last 2 on CPU upgrade or Video card upgrade.

I would definitely reconsider my position if they went thru with this.

Re:Effectively Kill CPU Upgrade Market

[grm_wnr]

the ability to get 5 years out of their pro machines The G4 stopped production almost exactly 4 years ago. And it may be a year until 10.6 actually comes out. Plus, it's not like a new OS release suddenly makes your G4 stop working just because you can't install it.

In any case, your rule is working. If you want to reconsider your position, go ahead, but you'll have to justify it to yourself a little more congruently.

Re:Effectively Kill CPU Upgrade Market

[Anonymous Coward]

who in their right mind would order a (PowerPC) CPU card upgrade I think you can leave it at that

Re:Effectively Kill CPU Upgrade Market

[Thumper_SVX]

Uhm... the G5 was the last PowerPC... what... two years ago?

Sorry... I don't even own a G5 but I would still call foul if Apple dropped PPC support. There's still a lot of people who run G5's (and G4's, but that's another matter). I'd say that we're still at least three years from the dropping of PPC support. But then again, I'm not Apple. I don't even play Apple on TV :)

Re:Effectively Kill CPU Upgrade Market

[ncryptd]

Tiger will get patches for a _long_ time to come, heck 10.3 (2003) was still being pushed security patches in 2007. Your G4 is, at a minimum, a four year old machine. It's not unreasonable for them to want to phase out support for those chips. PowerPC Mac are supported by Leopard, meaning that you'll have a fully supported OS for your G4 for another couple years. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

Oh, I personally wouldn't let some of the stories you read online scare you away from Leopard. 10.5.3's fixed a lot of bugs, and the performance increases alone are reason enough to upgrade.

New Name is just an Excuse to Charge you Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they plan on charging all of their apple users yet another giant fee again for the bug fixes? How come Apple manages to get away with charging everybody multiple times (what are we at now... 5? 6?) for essentially the same OS while if Microsoft had done the same thing the anti-monopoly police would have been banging down their door?

Re:New Name is just an Excuse to Charge you Again

[grm_wnr]

If you bought at versions of OS X ever, you're at $650 in the wost case (probably lower; you likely at least bought a new Mac in the meantime, which s one license less, and OS X only really came into its own with 10.2, so many people didn't buy it before).

In comparison, for Windows' top of the line editions of in the same time period (XP and Vista), you paid about $500. Note that OEM and system builder version of OS X don't exist for obvious reasons, so you can't compare those. And nobody ever said Macs were cheap. But it's certainly not outrageous.

Re:New Name is just an Excuse to Charge you Again

[stewbacca]

There have not been 5? 6? versions of OSX that required purchasing. I don't remember exactly but I think I paid for 10.0 to 10.1 ($20 because I was a beta tester), then once in the 10.1 to 10.4 range, now again with 10.5. Whoopty-friggin'-do!

iPhone info

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't related to MacOS, but is as good a place as any to report it....

From a third-hand source, take with a grain of salt:

iPhone 2.0 goes on sale next week. Initial roll-out in NYC and LAX, not sure why it is staged.

iPhone 1.0 sales were suspended by Apple, to avoid the debacle when they lowered the price shortly after release (and subsequently gave rebates to people who had just bought one).

Apple still has plenty of iPhone 1.0's. After iPhone 2.0 is released, iPhone 1.0's will be offered at deep discounts.

As reported earlier, AT&T employees have been prohibited from taking vacation for a month, starting 2008-06-15.

Re:iPhone info

[ubrgeek]

I thought the expectation was that the new iPhone would be announced then. Would a major announcement like the new OS being demoed mean the new iPhone would get lost in the shuffle if it, too, were announced at the same time?

I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need another paid release so soon. I don't care to spend $100 a year for my OS. If Microsoft tried that stunt people would be eating them for lunch

Re:I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't buy it. No one if forcing you.

Apple have done this 3 or 4 times since version 9. Don't see them being eaten for lunch.

Were Apple actually in the corporate market like MS are, then perhaps they wouldn't do this. But they aren't and as long as people keep buying, they will keep selling.

And anyway...what is the difference between Windows 2000, XP and now Vista?

Isn't that three paid releases in 8 years? So how is this different...Panther, Tiger, Leopard.

Whiner

Re:I'm too cheap

[kestasjk]

Mod parent up, Apple shouldn't be immune to criticism

Re:I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you don't buy Windows licenses when new versions are released. The "most" comparable Vista is $700. And it falls flat compared to OS X.

Re:I'm too cheap

[Lars T.]

Mod parent up, Apple shouldn't be immune to criticism Of the "have you stopped beating your wife" kind?

Re:I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

We're common-law, so she's not really my wife.

Re:I'm too cheap

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Mod parent up, Apple shouldn't be immune to criticism

I think most people aren't modding them up, because what they have to say isn't very interesting. Why is it that people think if Apple releases a new version they are forced to pay for it? Lots of people aren't that interested in being cutting edge so they just skip versions they don't particularly want or skip every other one.

Re:I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft did used to do exactly that. Only instead of $100 USD every year, it was more like $300 every three years.

Re:I'm too cheap

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Isn't that three paid releases in 8 years? So how is this different...Panther, Tiger, Leopard.

Panther, Tiger and Leopard were three paid releases in 4 years. 4 is not the same as 8. Apple has had 6 paid releases in 6 years (Cheetah 2001, Puma 2001, Jaguar 2002, Panther 2003, Tiger 2005, Leopard 2007).

6 paid releases in 6 years is more expensive than 3 paid releases in 8 years.

Re:I'm too cheap

[The End Of Days]

If the release provides stability updates (implying the last paid release is unstable) then it's kinda shitty to charge for them.

Of course, this is all rumors, so getting indignant about it now is stupid. And very, very Slashdot.

Re:I'm too cheap

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If the release provides stability updates (implying the last paid release is unstable) then it's kinda shitty to charge for them.

Actually, even the rumor did not say "stability updates" just "stability and security improvements." I seriously doubt they are talking about bug fixes. More likely (assuming this rumor has any real foundation) they are talking about extending MAC to help contain unstable applications and better keep them from monopolizing resources. Another interesting thing about this rumor is it could quite easily be based on something true, but which was distorted by those that heard it. We're talking about a presentation at a developer conference. It would be easy for someone with inside knowledge to say, "yeah nothing really new, no new core frameworks ala CoreAnimation, mostly security and stability stuff" and have that interpreted by someone as the next version of OS X will not have any new features, instead of the next version not having new features developers need to worry about. For that matter, the original rumor also didn't mention if Apple will be charging for this release, that's just an assumption. Remember the 10.1 release was free because it included a huge number of stability fixes. Heck, for all we know Apple is in the process of migrating to a subscription payment service.

I agree it would be annoying if Apple released a new version that was just bug fixes and charged for it... but I also think that is highly unlikely.

Re:I'm too cheap

[prockcore]

Then don't buy it. No one if forcing you.

Application developers are. Far too many mac developers abandon all but the latest OSX version too quickly.

The following require Leopard: Delicious Library, TextMate, TubeTV, even the iPhone SDK.

Just like when Tiger came out, Panther users were quickly abandoned.

Re:I'm too cheap

[DECS]

Puma was a free release.

2001-2007 is seven years.

Windows costs twice as much at retail (and few buy either at full retail). Many people get new releases with new computer purchases. No computer is worth upgrading for 7 years.

But the biggest problem with your numerology is that Mac OS X has been worth it to the 20 million people who are going out of their way to fund its development. Windows hasn't sold enthusiastically since 1995; its all just OEM bundled licensing that shows up by default on new PCs, a market that is now leveling off and is going to see very little new growth.

WWDC 2008: Predictions & What to Expect: Mac OS X 10.6
WWDC 2008: Future UI Designs in Mac OS X 10.6
WWDC 2008: Moscone West Spy Shots!

Re:I'm too cheap

[HuguesT]

Textmate doesn't. The web page says version 1.5.7 requires 10.4.2

Textmate is overrated anyway :-)

Re:I'm too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

People would be "eating them for lunch"? If Microsoft charged money for OS upgrades, people would be doing something in return that would harm Microsoft?

As in when Microsoft charged corporations for 'Software Assurance', but failed to deliver any upgrades at all? Boy howdy, remember how businesses really took Microsoft to task for charging for nothing (in advance)?

Maybe they learned their lesson though. I don't think they are charging to upgrade from Vista to XP.

Same week as we see a multi-touch Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

we see 10.6 being touted. It makes sense - why not advertise long in advance, if it stops your competitors grabbing a large chunk of the publics imagination.

Also, don't even think about forecasting a release date, 10.5 was supposed to ship long before Vista. When 10.6 comes, it will probably be timely.

How many cat names do they have?

[Anonymous Coward]

When they run out of cat names, will they make OS XI ?

Re:How many cat names do they have?

[stoofa]

The next version of the OS will be 'tiddles' followed by 'Fluffy' and then 'Mrs. Furry Paws.'

After that, they'll be moving over to partner pet names so expect Jobs to be announcing the great performance and features of 'Sprookums,' 'Melonpie' and 'Shnickety-huggle-buns.'

Re:How many cat names do they have?

[cleatsupkeep]

I was going to say Mr. Bigglesworth needs to be in there before partner pet names.

Re:How many cat names do they have?

[stoofa]

I heard that rumour, but I assumed 'Mr. Bigglesworth' was the deliberate leak that Steve put out to find out who's leaking all the NDA stuff.

Damn, that's both of us sacked now.

Maybe they'll take us on at Google so we can work on their new range of kitchen products like the Google Egg (Beta).

10.5.0

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I didn't have any real problems with 10.5.0. I got my copy on release day, backed up my data, wiped the partition on my MacBook, and installed from scratch instead of upgrading from Tiger. Ask the ones who had problems if they upgraded or did a fresh install.

Re:10.5.0

[aftk2]

Agreed. I wasn't paying attention when I installed Leopard at first, and it was installed as an upgrade, and I had a buggy, machine-freezing mess. Graphics glitches, everything. I imagine it also had to do with the fact that the update didn't disable Parallels (which was, judging by their track record, probably wholly incompatible with Leopard upon launch.)

Removed that, reinstalled as "Archive and Install," and the experience has been much better. And since 10.5.3 the appearance of the beachball has been much, much less frequent. Oh, and this is completely off topic: to anyone wondering whether to ditch Parallels in favor of VMWare Fusion. Yes. Go for it. Especially if you're using it with Boot Camp. Like night and day.

Re:10.5.0

[MsGeek]

I installed Leopard when I upgraded my hard drive...up until then I had 10.4.11 on my MacBook.

Re:10.5.0

[Thumper_SVX]

Ironically, I may be one of the exceptions to the rule.

I bought a first gen Macbook Pro 15"; 2Ghz Core Duo. It came with the originally shipping Tiger. I didn't have major problems, but I did have plenty of issues with Tiger including rather flaky Bluetooth support and really unreliable tethering to my phone.

I bought Leopard after about two weeks, mostly because toward the end Tiger had become reasonably stable and I was cool with it. It was only after I'd seen Leopard running faster on a friend's identical machine than it had been running Tiger that I went ahead and bit the bullet.

I did an upgrade. No wipe and install, not even an archive and install. You know what? My machine has been more reliable, faster and generally better since I put Leopard on there. Even when I recently upgraded to a 320Gb drive, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to move it over, cruft and all. So far, I have seen the kernel panic crash once since I bought Leopard... I saw it at least every other month in Tiger. It may be because they fixed a lot of bugs in the suspend code (since I just close my laptop lid and almost never reboot unless I want to play games in my Vista partition).

Still, I'll probably take the path of least resistance with 10.6 whenever it does hit... whether next year or three years from now: An archive and install for me, I think. I know I may be the exception that proves the rule, but generally I've been very happy with Leopard.

Re:10.5.0

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I'm glad your upgrade went so smoothly. For my part, it's always been my habit to backup my personal data, wipe, install, and copy over my files from the backup. I did it with Slackware (and would backup /etc as well as /home) and now I do it with OS X.

Re:10.5.0

[IronChef]

Just sharing anecdotes:

10.5 has been the first Mac OS I have had any problems with.

My old G4 laptop was upgraded from 10.0 through 10.4.something. No wipes... always upgrades. It always performed perfectly. I am sure there were bugs, but I didn't encounter or notice them in my usage.

Then I upgraded to a new Intel Macbook Pro that shipped with 10.5.

Out of the box it had serious bugs in networking. It could not connect to Apple's own software update utility, and it had problems getting data from some sources through the browsers, too. Specifically, I could not download stuff from Apple... like software update DMGs.

This wasn't a network config issue, it was one of the numerous weird-ass networking bugs that plague 10.5. (If I fired up Parallels or booted into Windows, the problematic connections worked fine.)

Retrieving a troublesome file from Apple, in Mac OS X, worked fine with a command line utility like curl... but the download would always fail in the browser after about 500k had come down the pipe. Which browser? Any browser. The OS was failing to hand off the data to the app properly, somehow. And only data from some sources--Apple and also MSFT's download site were afflicted. wtf? I guess their packets taste funny.

A friend of mine works at a big iron storage company, and they get inside Apple info to better support their own customers who use Mac clients. The story he tells me is 10.5 has some new exciting network architecture that was basically pushed out before it was ready, and it is way buggy. His company officially does not support 10.5 clients connecting to their network storage product due to bugs in NFS and deeper parts of the network stack.

But in the end 10.5 is still good for me. I can work around the weird ass bug by downloading stuff from Apple/MSFT through another OS.

What cat is this one?

[killeena]

What cat is this one going to be, Ocelot? Domestic Shorthair? Mau?

Re:What cat is this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moar Fail!

Re:What cat is this one?

[7Prime]

"Ocelot" would be a great name (and attract some Metal Gear fans too), but wouldn't it be more appropriate for a stripped-down, portable device?

Re:What cat is this one?

[Thrakamazog]

LOL Cat?

BOO, Apple!

[Progman3K]

So this leaves a great number of PowerPC hardware owners with a bunch of very nice bookends?

Run Linux, you will probably never have to worry about the next version being unavailable for your preferred hardware platform!

Re:BOO, Apple!

[teg]

No? The earlier versions of the software continue to run, they don't magically stop working when 10.6 is out.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[oahazmatt]

So this leaves a great number of PowerPC hardware owners with a bunch of very nice bookends? Yes, because, as we all know, when 10.6 is released, everything else just suddenly stops working. Completely.

It may (rumors, remember) leave PowerPCs unsupported. But that is an inevtiability, anyway.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[ivano]

Only if you believe a few stupid things all at once. Really, it's all speculation, all we need to do is WAIT A FEW DAYS to find out, but instead the Mac haters just love to show how stupid the Mac buyers are. OK so let me run Linux and where..do..I...put Photoshop?

Re:BOO, Apple!

[realinvalidname]

Run Linux, you will probably never have to worry about the next version being unavailable for your preferred hardware platform!

And instead, you can worry about drivers never being available for your cards, peripherals, etc.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Progman3K]

>>No? The earlier versions of the software continue to run, they don't magically stop working when 10.6 is out.

But if a new version of their favourite software comes out that requires the newer version of the operating system...

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Progman3K]

>> [...] worry about drivers never being available for your cards, peripherals, etc.

Linux can run on more hardware than any other operating system.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[MrHanky]

On the other hand, new software created for 10.6 might not work for older computers, just like software developed for 10.4 often didn't work for 10.3.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[porcupine8]

... Yes, because my computer is going to just stop working when they release 10.6 and I can't install it.

Hell, I'm still running 10.3 on my home computer and 10.4 on my work laptop. Somehow a lack of 10.5 has not hurt me at all, I doubt a lack of 10.6 will have any more of an effect.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Anonymous Coward]

~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS2

I haven't done any heavy lifting with it yet, but it seems fine all around.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Dog-Cow]

Yes, you are correct. When 10.6 (or the first version to drop PPC) is released, the Apple Mafia will come by your place and destroy your current Mac. It was in the EULA, so you have to let them do it!

Re:BOO, Apple!

[slide-rule]

No he has a fair point, unless you only meant getting a console to work. I bailed out on Linux-at-home when I got tired of getting drivers/kernel modules/etc working for: full-hardware modems (let alone soft-modems), soundcards (creative-brand at that), network cards (various iterations of major brands over years), usb sockets, printers (at least doing more than 80x25 b&w), video cards (don't get ppl started), cd burners/combo drives, and on and on.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Chode2235]

they can continue to use their current version of their favorite program.

If they think the new features are worth it to them, they can buy a new computer.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[larry bagina]

However, you will need to worry about gcc dropping support for your cpu/architecture.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the MOMENT that 10.6 comes out, all PPC machines will stop working, unless you install Linux.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Pope]

Right, so stick with the old version like I do. I run Photoshop 7 on a MacBook Pro under Rosetta's emulation, and nothing I've seen in the years since it was rebranded to CS/CS2/CS3 has convinced me that I need to upgrade.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[Progman3K]

I admit the onus on getting it working is then more on you, the user.
Yet at the same time, you come to understand the hardware issues in a more and more straightforward way since with Linux (and GNU) you have the possibility of helping yourself.

The whole point of my argument is that any time a manufacturer decides that it wants to sell another useless and resource-depleting bunch of boxes, YOU have an option.

Those machines can continue to run the most recent kernels, keeping them up to date with security fixes and applications as they become available.

Old boxes that get support dropped will get pwned.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[poopdeville]

Yet at the same time, you come to understand the hardware issues in a more and more straightforward way since with Linux (and GNU) you have the possibility of helping yourself.

I fail to see the value in "understanding the hardware issues". I want to watch Battlestar, not pretend like I'm at work.

Re:BOO, Apple!

[jayratch]

Really now, is this anything new?

In the PC world, people have had to buy new machines or drastically upgrade for every major OS release. Machines that ran XP don't tend to run Vista nicely. I know better than to try running vista on my 4 year old powerbook. Yet I'm running Leopard on my four year old iMac... score 1 for Mac, 0 for PC.

However, it used to be like that even on Mac, to some extent. My PPC Performa 6360 (or some dog model like that) can't run more than 8.5. My 68000 Classic can't go above 7.0 IIRC. And my Mac SE is limited to 6. And aren't G2 machines limited to 9, G3 machines to 10.4, and G4 machines limited in advanced features? Its only a matter of time before your hardware no longer runs the latest software. That's the way of this industry.

It's way too early to ditch PPC

[argent]

Leopard supports five year old desktops and laptops. If they release this on schedule they will be abandoning some people with three year old hardware at that point.

Re:It's way too early to ditch PPC

[realinvalidname]

If they release this on schedule they will be abandoning some people with three year old hardware at that point.

But not very many. Net Applications reported that Intel Mac use surpassed PPC back in November. Tack on a year and there's just not that many PPCs still out there. It'd be aggressive, even for Apple, but the benefits of not supporting two CPU architectures are obvious, and they're probably not above using system updates to sell new hardware

Notice also that some of Apple's recent software is already Intel-only, like the AVCHD support in Final Cut, or their Java 1.6 (which is not only Intel-only, it's 64-bit Intel-only).

Re:It's way too early to ditch PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

So half of Mac users were still using PPC back in November and you don't think that is a large amount?

Re:It's way too early to ditch PPC

[argent]

But not very many. Net Applications reported that Intel Mac use surpassed PPC back in November.

So? How many people were still using OS 9 when they dumped the G4 tower. They had to bring Classic-booting Macs back *twice* because of the outcry from education. I'm still convinced that Apple could have introduced Intel Macs at any time and they waited until they could dump Classic booting... the third time was the charm... before they dumped Classic with the Intel introduction.

Apple has always considered the educational market a critical one because it's a gateway market.

Now, where do you suppose many of the PPC Macs out there are?

Re:It's way too early to ditch PPC

[7Prime]

Okay, slow down...

How many are going to be using a PPC next november... maybe 1/3rd. How many of them are going to be clamoring to update to a new OS? Maybe 1/3rd of that.

Also, think about how many apps, NOW, require Leopard? I can't think of any. How long until apps start requiring the latest OS update... a year? A Year and a Half?

So basically, what we're saying is that the very first apps that will be PPC prohibitive (because of OS requirements) could be out in Nov of 2009. By then, how many PPC users will be left? Not many.

Lots of PPC in EDU...

[jpellino]

I'd be not too happy explaining to my boss how in order to be current you have to buy all that Lexan all over again at $1K per unit. I'd be really miserable having to explain why we'd have to re-buy racks full of iron at $2-$3K each.

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[drinkypoo]

I'd be not too happy explaining to my boss how in order to be current you have to buy all that Lexan all over again at $1K per unit.

This is however a wonderful time to explain how he can save absolutely thousands by simply switching to Linux. Start with the PPCs as they're something of a captive audience, and then once you have that working, do the x86 stuff which will almost certainly be easier. As a result, your next hardware purchases can be significantly cheaper...

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[MrMickS]

Ah, replace with Linux. That's the solution to everything. Though if it was why hasn't everyone done it already? Ah, that would be because its not as simple as that in the real world.

The existing PPC kit will run no problem on 10.5 for a couple more years. This will probably be the timescale for 10.7, at which point patches for 10.5 would stop being produced. That gives the 5 year life time. I don't understand that problem.

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[ColdWetDog]

I'd be not too happy explaining to my boss how in order to be current you have to buy all that Lexan all over again at $1K per unit. I'd be really miserable having to explain why we'd have to re-buy racks full of iron at $2-$3K each.

No, you can explain to your boss how you don't have to touch your paid-for, stable and presumably useful machines for a couple of years except for the odd security patch and hardware glitch.

Next: justifying your own existence!

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[drinkypoo]

Ah, replace with Linux. That's the solution to everything. Though if it was why hasn't everyone done it already? Ah, that would be because its not as simple as that in the real world.

Repeating this tired mantra doesn't make it any more true.

The simple, real world truth is that if you don't need one of the small handful of common Windows applications that won't run on Linux even via Wine, or have some utter dependence on iLife, Linux will probably do everything you want to do. I realize that sometimes there are bizarre platform requirements in education, and well-intentioned but ignorant and misguided individuals in charge of requirements often actually specify an operating system instead of cross-platform support, but these problems are not insurmountable in most cases and making the right decision now leads to your indepdendence in the future.

Or, you know, you can keep whining about how it's too hard to do the sensible thing.

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[stewbacca]

You should have leased it all in the first place, like most Education Technologists (cough, like me, cough) would tell you.

Re:Lots of PPC in EDU...

[jpellino]

Except for a private institution the total cost of the lease and $1 buyout has been within a few bucks of an outright purchase.

A dying breed:

[BForrester]

I question the foresight of naming the new release after an endangered, almost extinct species.

I'll wait for OS X 10.7, codename "dodo" or 10.8, "brontasaurus."

Re:A dying breed:

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that tigers are endangered too, right?

Re:A dying breed:

[BForrester]

I guess that moving from "Tiger" est. world pop 2500 to "Snow Leopard" est. world pop 5000 is an improvement.

I'm not a Mac hater by any means, but there are lots of "cool" animal species that don't have the marketing stigma of dying out.

Re:A dying breed:

[A_Non_Moose]

I'll wait for OS X 10.7, codename "dodo" or 10.8, "brontasaurus." Actually, I keep waiting to see OS X Tigger, Simba, or Jagular when they start running out of names.

When they end the X line the last should be Mufasa!

Oooh, I just got a shiver. Mooo-FASA!!

Re:A dying breed:

[Eli Gottlieb]

Bracheosaurus. They're called the bracheosaurus. "Brontosaurus" was the name given to a fossil found later than the initial bracheosaurus findings that someone thought was a separate species, but in the end was not.

PA Semi?

[605dave]

OK, maybe Apple is coming out with a preview of a 10.6 next week, but I can't imagine them dropping PowerPC support. Why? They just bought a company that specializes in PPC chips for several hundred million dollars. So why in the world would they put the OS X ecosystem on a course to only support Intel? I doubt this is the plan. 1. Buy PowerPC design company. 2. Stop making your software compatible with PPC 3. Profit!

Re:PA Semi?

[parcel]

So why in the world would they put the OS X ecosystem on a course to only support Intel? According to Jobs, PA Semi is for embedded devices... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi

Steve Jobs has said that the acquisition is meant to add the talent of P.A. Semi's engineers to Apple's workforce, and help them build custom chips for the iPod and iPhone.[6] Citation references WSJ interview of Jobs.

Re:PA Semi?

[wild_berry]

I doubt that's the plan either. I heard PA Semi was stopping development of its PPC series: "Apple, however, is said by PA Semi to be uninterested in continuing development of those chips" from http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/04/23/apples_pa_semi_buyout_motivated_by_assets_not_products.html. BTW, OSX worked on x86 for as long as five years a before the MacIntel announcement ("every version of OS X had in fact been compiled for Intel processors as well as PowerPC -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intel_transition). It can be made to work on a number of different platforms if Apple is interested.

Re:PA Semi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't buy PA for the products, but rather, for the talent.

Re:PA Semi?

[hcbecker]

Not only that, but I would think that since they went through a lot of effort to make the OS as well as build chains cross-platform, they have no reason to dump an architecture before it is absolutely necessary.

Re:PA Semi?

[ohcrapitssteve]

Not exactly.

It does seem more likely that the PPC company purchased won't be making chips that OS X proper will be running on. Don't expect to see a new line of Macbooks running on these PPC chips or anything. These will most likely find their way into hand held devices for which Mac OS X might find itself cross-compiled for.

Re:PA Semi?

[nathana]

Just because they stop releasing commercial versions of the software that runs on PowerPC doesn't mean that they have to stop making builds of it that do internally. They pretty much fessed up when the Intel version was announced that they had been building for Intel for years.

It might be in their interest to discontinue the PPC version as far as commercial sales and especially SUPPORT is concerned (having to support only one version and a more limited set of hardware is easier/cheaper), but to continue maintaining the PPC branch/port internally in order to keep OS X code inherently portable, on the off-chance that they find themselves in the position of needing to transition to yet another different underlying hardware architecture again sometime in the future.

Re:PA Semi?

[Thumper_SVX]

According to Jobs, PA Semi is for embedded devices... Also, according to Steve Jobs and a number of other people, actually... the iPhone and iPod Touch are running OSX. Right now Apple is maintaining three code-bases for OSX; PPC, x86 and ARM. Doesn't it make sense that if they're planning PA Semi chips for future iterations of embedded devices, they might want to drop the ARM architecture and switch to a PPC arch... particularly since they now have a stake in that market?

I think it's unlikely they'll drop PPC support any time soon... not least of which is the fact that Apple was still shipping PPC based Mac Minis just over 2 years ago, and PPC-based G5's less than two years ago (August 2006 they were discontinued). Not sure when the iMac G5's were discontinued... but it was almost certainly around the same time-frame.

Given Apple's recent moved in the embedded space with PA Semi, and their interest in going the embedded route with their systems (which is why we'll never see a mid-range Mac desktop machine) it seems unlikely they're going to drop PPC support. If they're going to go embedded PPC with OSX, then why stop developing now just to re-start later?

The x86 architecture is just a sop to the fact that the PPC architecture really fell behind in development when it came to the demands of desktop users. Users demanded the speed and horsepower that x86 gave them... so Apple relented and produced an x86 product. We'll still see x86 in the Apple computers for a long time (I think), but on the smaller end of the scale it seems odd to me that a company with a stake in a PPC embedded processor developer wouldn't be interested in leveraging that relationship in their embedded devices.

The reasons not to use x86 in an embedded device are legion, by the way.

Why would you have to re-buy?

[ctid]

I presume Apple maintain support for 10.5.x for some time yet?

Re:Why would you have to re-buy?

[Lumpy]

Because if apple releases a new OS you HAVE TO UPGRADE!

OMG! you would be the joke at all the apple parties.. "Dan in IT, he's still running 10.4 can you believe it?"

"Oh I know no wonder he's not married, come on 10.4? what is he thinking!"

Buy new hardware and upgrade, it's how not to make a Apple etiquette mistake.

NOTE: I use and Love apple hardware, I just make fun on the nuts that think they have to have the new shiney.

Re:Why would you have to re-buy?

[plasmacutter]

Apple may maintain support for it, but my experience as a mac user since early 2k3 is that projects without a nationally recognized corporate logo----in other words, the third party and oss projects which offer the compatibility necessary to retain power users---- move very quickly away from support for old iterations of osX.

This makes me very uneasy, especially in the area of media players. Code gets frozen, denying you access to/compatibility with newer revisions of formats like matroska.

If they drop ppc support, i'm one power user who will feel slapped in the face. While leopard is not as zippy as tiger was, my twin 2.7 g5 has retained suitable responsiveness through X.5, and only fails at rendering 1080p h.264 streams, something I won't be needing for at least another couple years.

I'm becoming jaded though and believe they are capable of doing this. After all, i've been noticing marked declines in hardware quality since i bought this g5 rig. The macbook I bought recently is collecting dust, for instance, because the display is absolute (explative deleted) more suitable for the reject bins in the QA department at M$ or e-machines than for machines bearing a top of the market brand name.

It seems though that apple may be moving away from their "consumer friendly but professional grade equipment and operating system" niche into the "watch american idol on your iphone, and btw we slapped together a computer that makes an excellent accessory" niche.

If more signs point in that direction, I'm not sure what I will do, because nobody is stepping up to take apple's place in that market.

If their os retains or improves upon its current quality while their hardware quality slips, I suppose i'll go beige box + osx86.

If both slip... I guess i'm out of luck. Kde has noticeably rough edges for me, and gnome doesn't integrate true document-based navigation.

Re:Why would you have to re-buy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if apple releases a new OS you HAVE TO UPGRADE!

OMG! you would be the joke at all the apple parties.. "Dan in IT, he's still running 10.4 can you believe it?"

"Oh I know no wonder he's not married, come on 10.4? what is he thinking!"

Buy new hardware and upgrade, it's how not to make a Apple etiquette mistake.

NOTE: I use and Love apple hardware, I just make fun on the nuts that think they have to have the new shiney. Hahahahaha, exactly. It will be funny to see all the Mac hipsters scramble to keep up with their fellow sheep.

Re:Why would you have to re-buy?

[jpellino]

You do if you want the current functionality. I could live with a layer of 10.6 and 10.5 and 10.4 - and in some pockets I do still to 10.3... But our main labs have to be par and current - so kids can walk from machine to machine and get the same work done. And not just browsing - iLife and iWork are the workhorses. We're about to use iWeb and iCal for enterprise things. it is an issue to say to parents "yeah, that really cool stuff you just saw at the apple store and ads? We'll be able to do that in two more years."

OS Code Names

[usermilk]

Why do people insist on referring to their Mac OS with a code name instead of a number? I have no clue what version of the Mac OS Tiger was versus Puma but I can easily figure out if 10.4 is newer than 10.2.

Re:OS Code Names

[MrMickS]

Why do people insist on referring to their Mac OS with a code name instead of a number? I have no clue what version of the Mac OS Tiger was versus Puma but I can easily figure out if 10.4 is newer than 10.2. Perhaps its because that's what Apple refers to the releases as. Its a marketing distinction as much as anything but 'OS X Leopard' sounds more impressive than 'OS X 10.5'.

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, why don't people call XP SP2 Windows 5.1? Vista Windows 6? Why do many (most?) articles refer to Ubuntu releases by name rather than version number?

Just like Ubuntu goes alphabetically, everyone knows that a Tiger can kick a Puma's ass, and that a Leopard will rip a Tigers neck open as it attacks from a tree.

Re:OS Code Names

[barzok]

Saying "Oh Ess Ten Ten Point Five" is very awkward.

Re:OS Code Names

[moosesocks]

Mainly for marketing purposes.

Virtually every modern OS does this. Even Debian.

Re:OS Code Names

[mgblst]

I think it should be obvious

Puma Leopard Snow Leopard Tiger Bear Lion Shark Killer Whale Man

Re:OS Code Names

[arkhan_jg]

Same reason than people refer to going from gutsy to hardy when upgrading ubuntu - many people find the code names easier to remember than the version number. See DNS for a more extreme example.

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I prevert to say "Mak oh ess ten point five" or "Oh ess ecks ten point five"

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the OP's point is that in OS X's case it's not immediately obvious how to compare versions, whereas in Ubuntu the naming scheme is obvious to anyone familiar with the Latin alphabet.

Re:OS Code Names

[An ominous Cow art]

> Puma Leopard Snow Leopard Tiger Bear Lion Shark Killer Whale Man

I can't wait to run an OS named "Killer"!

Re:OS Code Names

[UnknowingFool]

Because some people like names instead of numbers. At least the mapping is consistent and simple enough. Leopard (10.5) > Tiger (10.4) > Panther (10.3) > Jaguar (10.2) > Puma (10.1) > Cheetah (10.0). Redhat and Ubuntu have similar structures. Try following the Windows naming: Windows 7 > Vista > XP > ME > 98 > 95. Although some people might not consider ME a release at all.

Re:OS Code Names

[johnny cashed]

At least the mapping is consistent and simple enough. Leopard (10.5) > Tiger (10.4) > Panther (10.3) > Jaguar (10.2) > Puma (10.1) > Cheetah (10.0).

What? How is it consistent? That they are all big cats? This is one of my pet peeves as well. I have no idea what version it is when someone refers to tiger or panther (or the others). I have to lookup the version from the codename. Someone else said that Ubuntu uses code names that progress alphabetically. If so, I wouldn't foresee that bothering me like an arbitrary (at least to me, I'm no cat expert) sort order like Apple seems to use. If there is reason behind the sort order, please clue me in.

Re:OS Code Names

[usermilk]

That's part of my problem with this whole cat naming system. It isn't consistent at all. There is no way to know what operating system someone is referring to unless you know.

Numbers increase numerically. Cat names do not.

Re:OS Code Names

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What? How is it consistent? That they are all big cats?

What you don't see how assigning numerical values to the letters of each cat applying and the secret formula creates a predictable numerical sequence? And you call yourself a nerd.

Okay, all joking aside, 10.3 is not a very memorable brand. Average people have trouble remembering if they are using 10.3 or 10.4. Adding a cat name makes it more marketable (Apple sells more) and gives people the name of a cat, which they're more likely to remember (has more mental connections). It's probably not the best thought out scheme, but it's here and for nerds in the computer industry, not too hard to remember.

Ubuntu does use alphabetically sequential names (Gutsy Gibbon>Hardy Heron>Intrepid Ibex) although while more sensible to an engineer, I'm not sure they are as marketable to the general public as Apple's cat names.

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to Mac, and you will very quickly learn whats what. If you don't want to switch to Mac, then why should we care.

Re:OS Code Names

[hawk]

And quite appropriately, Debian names them after characters from a 1995 movie :)

hawk

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

We're always talking about the current release and the next one. You only have two names to remember at anytime. I bet you haven't seen much Jaguar service pack lately...

Re:OS Code Names

[cleatsupkeep]

> Puma Leopard Snow Leopard Tiger Bear Lion Shark Killer Whale Man

I can't wait to run an OS named "Killer"! I'm looking forward to Whale Man.

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people insist on referring to their Ubuntu OS with a code name instead of a number? I have no clue what version of the Ubuntu Hardy Heron was versus Gutsy Gibson but I can easily figure out if 8.04 is newer than 7.10

Or if you prefer:

Why do people insist on referring to their Windows OS with a product name instead of a number? I have no clue what version of Vista was versus Windows XP, but I can easily figure out if Windows NT 6.0 is newer than Windows NT 5.1.

This isn't something specific to Mac - it's done industry wide. Mainly the reason is that the developers only use code-names, since they usually want to keep it secret, so code names then obscure which product it ends up being. Beta testers similary refer to the code-name. So it ends up being that the initial online discussion is mainly using the code-name.

Additionally, with Apple, I suspect its more of a marketing thing. Mac OS Tiger sounds a lot better and way less boring than Mac OS 10.4. Model numbers are great internally - they suck as a marketing ploy.

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people insist on referring to their Mac OS with a code name instead of a number?

I have no clue what version of the Mac OS Tiger was versus Puma but I can easily figure out if 10.4 is newer than 10.2. That's like asking someone, "Why do you call it Windows Vista instead of Windows NT 6.0?"

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same reason people talk about "Vista" and "XP" etc.

Re:OS Code Names

[TheQuantumShift]

Except their code name for the real release has always been "Testing"...

Re:OS Code Names

[NemoinSpace]

Easy to see why. 1. They used to (System 1 - MacOS9) 2. OS X Still sounds cool if you must refer to it by numbers, even roman numbers. 3. 11 was already taken, We already took Darwin from them. Are you trying to piss those guys off? 4. Counting in base 12 never really caught on 5. Kind of leaves you wondering what Fedora will do next. Redhat decided to get out of the business when the numbers got this high :)

Re:OS Code Names

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I would _NEVER_ say OS Ten, as the faggots in the commercials call it just that.

It's called OH-ESS-ECKS, as you say, unless ofcourse the utterer is a wannabe BlueJean Pederast, which isn't excactly the best thing to be.

Why bookends?

[ctid]

Surely 10.5.x and 10.4.x will continue working anyway when 10.6.0 comes out? Presumably that may mean a hit on resale prices for G3, G4 and G5 Macs but the machines will still work!

Re:Why bookends?

[DesScorp]

Surely 10.5.x and 10.4.x will continue working anyway when 10.6.0 comes out? Presumably that may mean a hit on resale prices for G3, G4 and G5 Macs but the machines will still work! The problem is that a lot of support for things like software updates runs a very short span. A lot of software for OS X doesn't support Panther anymore.

10.5 issues - since you asked...

[zerofoo]

Here are just some of the issues I've had to deal with since the 10.5 release:

1. Open Directory replica failures.
2. Tiger clients either do not bind to 10.5 open directory or do not inherit preferences correctly.
3. Software Update Server did not work until 10.5.2
4. "Blue Screen of Death" issue on some workstations.
5. Renaming files on Samba shares would cause a kernel panic on some workstations.
6. iChat server still does not work in a mixed Active Directory/Open Directory environment
7. Finder Move data loss problem.

These are the only ones at the front of my memory right now - I'm sure there are other issues. Granted these issues are a mix of Server and Workstation problems, but the lack of stability remains. My users do not care whether the bug manifests itself on a server or a workstation. If it breaks somewhere it is a BUG.

-ted

Re:10.5 issues - since you asked...

[TheRaven64]

My favourite Leopard issue was the one where upgrading from Tiger with a File Vault enabled left you with an inaccessible home directory after the first reboot (although, fortunately, Tiger could still mount the disk image, even if Leopard couldn't. Sadly I only noticed this the second time it happened.) This is the kind of thing that should have been picked up by Apple's in-house testers very early on, and implies that they never tested the Tiger to Leopard upgrade on any machine with File Vault installed.

OSX

[Dr.D.IS.GREAT]

Well, it is my feeling that 10.6 may bring forth some UI changes as well as under the hood improvements. also this WWDC may make mention of todays clones as well as the boys from OSX86. I think apple should really take advantage of this community because they are starting to make up a good amount of OS X 10.5.x sales as well as encouraging people to buy macs. In addition, I believe this may be the year of Mac OS on PC, this could be big, maybe 10.6 will support booting MBR and BIOS in addition to EFI and GPT. Who knows, something is always going on at apple and they do respect the hackerly community; for jobs and woz were hackers themselves at one point.

Dr. D

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

yes I'm certain that people who make hackintoshes went to the apple store first to make sure they had a boxed copy of OS X. They wanted to make sure they complied with half of the license!

Re:OSX

[Dr.D.IS.GREAT]

Listen here dude,

EULA = NON-ENFORCEABLE AGREEMENT by US LAW

if you really think that your getting a higher quality product from apple, why dont you get into scientology, u can pay for better religion there!

So, my hackintosh is fully legal. I use a vanilla kernal, pc efi 8, and darwin boot loader, and i made my own install disc from my legal backup. so FU Coward!

Dr. D

Hopefully this means no more fat binaries

[Junks Jerzey]

On a standard install of OS X on Intel hardware, all of the applications AND all of the command line tools are fat binaries. You can strip the PowerPC code out of the tools if you wish, but then when download an OS update, you get the fat versions again. How much network bandwidth and hard drive space is wasted because of that?

Re:Hopefully this means no more fat binaries

[Anonymous Coward]

Not very much. Executable code tends to be a tiny fraction of what's included in a fat binary. Resources (you know, data) tends to take up the vast majority of any application's footprint.

Re:Hopefully this means no more fat binaries

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

How much network bandwidth and hard drive space is wasted because of that?

How much network space was saved when I upgraded from a PPC system to an Intel system and all my applications were just copied over a firewire cable instead of being re-downloaded from scratch? Personally, hard drive space is not my biggest resource constraint. It is really, really cheap. I'd give up a gig on every one of my systems in order to keep the ability to IM working applications to people, even if they're on a different platform. Ditto for being able to burn an application onto a CD or DVD or write it to a network drive and be able to run that application on any system without having to install it or download a different version.

Personally, I hope there is a move towards larger FAT binaries. I wish Solaris and some major Linux distros would adopt the same application format (.app bundles) so I could have one, functional application and download that would work on more systems. It makes a whole lot of sense for desktop systems and regular laptops, but I doubt it will happen because Linux is still primarily a server OS and changes that benefit it in its desktop capacity at the expense of use as a server... well they just don't really happen much.

Release Date and other inferred info

[macbuzz01]

Clearly with a name like "Snow Leopard" it will:
- be released in the winter.
- be targeting the Central Asia market
- given taxonomic debate surrounding the "Snow Leopard", there will be much debate whether this iteration is more closely aligned to the leopard family or the tiger family

Re:Release Date and other inferred info

[morgan_greywolf]

And the next release will be named "Black Panther", which will have a race condition bug.

Ditching PowerPC, I don't think so

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,

I doubt they stop supporting PowerPC. This would make no sense, it is probably 90% of the actual running Mac OS X hardware. Also Motorolla 68k Support was available TILL MAC OS X 10.3!!!! They stopped supporting Classic Mode when they switched from PowerPC to Intel, after all the Classic mode would have needed to be either emulated 2x or ported from PowerPC to Intel.

OTOH if they indeed stop supporting PowerPC it is not a desaster as OS X 10.4 (yes .4, not .5) will be supported likely 5 more years, and new features (like upgraded Safari etc.) keep creaping into the older versions.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Ditching PowerPC, I don't think so

[oberondarksoul]

68k support in Mac OS X? Unless you mean in Classic - in which case 68k applications could run in 10.4 - there was no 68k support in Mac OS X. Mac OS 8.1 was the last to boot on a 68040. Even if they drop support for PowerPC, they will most likely not drop support for running PPC apps in Rosetta.

Re:Ditching PowerPC, I don't think so

[stewbacca]

I doubt they stop supporting PowerPC. This would make no sense, it is probably 90% of the actual running Mac OS X hardware. Not according to a post further up. He/she claims that Intel Macs now outnumber PowerPC Macs. I'm not sure who is right, but I'm not apt to believe your 90% figure either.

Disappointed if Intel only

[fermion]

Apple has consistently supported hardware and technogology for about 7 after release. Since it is reletively easy to stay with a release prior to current, this means that a computer can be used for 8-10 years, which is another reason why the Mac is worth the money.

This support is pretty consistent. Look at previous OS releases. Mac OS 9, released 1999, was not fully depreciated until Mac OS 10.4,in 2005. For computers, the cube, the TiPB, and the G4 Powermac, all released in 1999-2000, did not lose support until late last year.

So what does this mean in terms of expectations. The last editions of the powerbook, for example, was introduced around around 2003 and sold until 2006. Given the history of supporting 7 years old hardware, and Jobs statement that he would support 5 year old hardware, we should not see a Intel only Mac OS X until at least 2010. Given that OS X is now pretty stable, except for very new features like Time Mac machine, which does not need a new release, and Jobs statement that the release cycle wil be slower, we should not expect 10.6 until late 2009 or early 2010.

If OS 10.6 is release later this year, and does not support PPC, it will be another indication that Apple is moving away from the long term support of customers and falling into the trap of the average consumer electronics company, I have no problem with certain apps not runing on the PPC, like the newest iMovie and iPhone SDK, and expect that even if 10.6 support PPC, it won't be a full support(although they never had to do partial support in the previous transitions), but a drop of PPC prior to 2010 will be extremely damaging to their reputation of reliability.

Re:Disappointed if Intel only

[DannyO152]

I wonder if the solution is that Leopard will continue to be updated through 10.5.10/11. The PPC Macs are a mixed bag of 32 and 64 bit processors and trying to keep one box for Mac regardless of processor has to be a big headache. This would effectively mean 10.5 is Leopard PPC and 10.6 is Leopard Intel. This really, really makes sense in that there are times when Apple has been overambitious and to correct, they tweak the product line. This addresses the issue without explicitly saying they goofed. Single SKU OS was so cool, as far as I'm concerned, and they tried it and it didn't work. (I think one public bit of evidence is the Carbon 64/Photoshop fiasco.)

By the time 10.7 rolls around (2011 at best), you'll be at that 7 year mark and the customer will be ready to get in on the Intel Mac fun. This is not an original thought: I'm riffing on something I read at DaringFireball a couple of days ago.

I think you are right in that there will be major grumblings from people like me if the G4s and G5s are abandoned while Leopard is consolidated over the life of 10.6. It seems like a bad idea, just from the standpoint of money left on the table for PPC users who'd like better Leopard stability too. We shall see if Apple does cross that Rubicon.

My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[gjh]

Data points are rumors are....
- Drop the Mac branding, eg "OS X Leopard"
- Drop or minimise Carbon favor of Cocoa
- PC version of Leopard, or 10.6
- Apple Software Update can push/strongly advise major new apple software features to Windows users

In my mind, these add up to the old YELLOW BOX - i.e., the ability to run Mac (Cocoa) Apps on Windows. Yellow box is a compatibility layer. This feature was advertised initially with Rhapsody, but wisely withdrawn. We are now in a very different place. There are many desirable Mac Apps, and OS X is a desirable place for developers. Businesses begin to want Mac Apps and maybe eventually the full MacOS but need a transition path.

There is now every reason to release the Yellow Box and no reason not to.
- It provides the transition path
- It provides for stealth killer apps to seep onto Windows users' radar
- It will no longer dilute Mac Sales - because Microsoft's lustre and safety have gone

You'll all see that I'm right :)

Re:My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[plasmacutter]

the only transition that path will provide is the transition of ms/windows market share into what used to be apple/macos market share.

the stability, reliability, and intuitive feel of mac apps can not be feasibly maintained on an operating system for broader hardware ranges, and as such subject to greater instability. This of course doesn't touch on the fact the particular case you cite is the product of a third party not fully versed in the nuances of the programs involved, nor does it touch on intentional instabilities of Microsoft's latest os.

What this means is apple programs ported or hacked into windows would adopt the look and feel of windows applications, and would, if done through a third party abstraction layer, be less stable than native windows apps.

I know which company joe sixpack will avoid. To him a computer is a computer, just like all sports cars are the same to those who are not motor heads. One company's software worked on his computer, the other didn't. (and yes I managed to cram in a car analogy!... do we have a name for that forum law yet?)

Re:My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[nine-times]

It's possible-- and interesting-- but if I were running Apple, I'd be more interested in getting Windows applications running on OSX than getting OSX applications running on Windows. With WINE hitting 1.0, the prospect isn't unthinkable. (CrossOver Office for OSX works pretty well, when it works).

Re:My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[zoward]

This doesn't make sense to me. Apple makes their money selling hardware. If you could run all desirable Mac apps under a cheap Windows box that costs that much less than its Apple equivalent, why would you buy a Mac?

Re:My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[Anonymous Coward]

you are totally wrong.

if there were, indeed, any of these "killer Apps" that you refer to windows users wanting once they become aware of it through it being able to work on their windows system, then they'd just use it in windows and never bother leaving the comfort zone of corporate IT windows support.

sure, it breaks all the time, loses data, is slow, etc. they don't care. they pick up the phone and it gets fixed while they are off playing golf.

furthermore, the company that made that "Killer App" could suddenly see a very large amount of windows users buying it, decide to make a native version, to increase it's speed and stability, then realise they just made a thousand times more money and dump support on the mac platform and concentrate on windows only.

thanks a lot, you just cost us our "Killer App" with your bright idea, and made the mac a little more niche and closer to becoming the next Amiga (RIP).

Re:My prediction on the record here.... YellowBox

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already plenty of ways of running Windows apps on the Macintosh.

The whole point is to give developers an exit strategy off of Windows, while avoiding the resistance that would occur within enterprise IT departments with a full scale migration from Windows to Mac.

typo

[commodoresloat]

and 10.5.3 just came in the other day (and things actually seem a bit snappier) Fixed that for you.

It did work M$ just said to the OEM install OS/2 o

[Joe The Dragon]

It did work M$ just said to the OEM install OS/2 or BeOS and you windows OEM costs will go up.

If they want to become further joke in enterprise

[Ilgaz]

If they want to abandon 3 years old machines including very pricey Quad G5, Dual G5 or high end powerbooks, fine. A Max memory (saw various ones) Quad G5 costed $7000 when it was shipped. Lets not forget Fiber/SCSI/RAID stuff.

If they want 10.6 to be PowerPC only and think PowerPC users will throw out millions of dollars working equipment, it is wrong. If Apple thinks I will throw all PPC equipment to move to 10.6 especially after 10.5.0 scandal release for PPC, I will surprise them.

BTW, pro machines never get virus infected or spyware infected since people having pro equipment also buys a $70/year Kaspersky AV to protect their work. It is not like people can't use windows and they abandoned PC because they got spyware, people chose PPC/OS X configuration while Apple was "Apple Computer Inc.", not "Apple the iPhone maker who codes OS X in spare time".

It makes me further mad since PPC/Linux has beat PPC/OS X several times, even on Leopard age. It is not like they can't find enough time to actually USE CPU features (Altivec etc.) and busy to code Intel stuff... G4/G5 users, especially ones using OS X has never seen their CPU's true potential at all.

Which would suck for me, since I'm nearly 100% PPC

[ducomputergeek]

I bought the last generation of PPC macs when the Intels came out for 2 reasons:

1) None of my major applications were going to be out in Universial for at least 12 - 18 months (Final Cut Pro, Adobe et. al.)

2) I had no idea how this transition was going to go. It was either going to be smooth as could be or an unmitagated disaster. So I played it safe.

I bought an intel iMac for my Dad about a year and a half ago for christmas. It was absolutely amazing how well things went, but I did spend close $7k all said and done on my Quad-Core G5. It's still a powerful machine, with 8GB of Ram, for video editing and compositing using Shake as well as the limited 3D work I do in Lightwave.

That being said, I'm still on OSX 10.4 as well. My laptop is the last 12.1" powerbook G4 and I still love this machine for traveling as it fits on any airplane tray table. (I just shoved out another $80 for a new battery).

Now I have plans to get a MacBook Pro by the end of the year, but still i plan to keep this little machine for traveling as well I have no plans to upgrade my PowerMac to a Mac Pro for another couple years.

Yet another reason to continue to ignore Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

So, three years old is now old enough to be "not supported". Great.

I have no idea how many things do I own and use which are more than three years old. Probably virtually everything I own is older than that.

If I had to buy everything else new every three years then landfill would fill up faster and I'd not be able to keep up with the cost of replacing stuff at such a rate.

Re:Yet another reason to continue to ignore Apple

[stewbacca]

I have plenty of things that are older than three years old. I don't, however, expect them to be supported in any way/shape/form. Why should a computer be any different?

G4 owners are better off with 10.4 anyway

[beetle496]

Ditching PowerPC is an interesting choice though - it basically means that third-party developers won't be able to use any of the new features in 10.6 without abandoning a big chunk of their potential market.

This is sad development if true, but I think many PowerPC home users stayed with 10.4. Giving up Classic was too high a cost for the modest improvements of 10.5.

Re:G4 owners are better off with 10.4 anyway

[dadragon]

I was already off Classic, and had been for a long time. The thing I didn't want to get rid of was Virtual PC.

Re:G4 owners are better off with 10.4 anyway

[HTH NE1]

I think many PowerPC home users stayed with 10.4. Some, specifically the G3 users, had to stay at 10.4. Also, many G4s are too slow to meet minimum requirements. Both my stock G4 Cube and my Blue & White G3 upgraded to G4 are too slow for Leopard. My TiBook and Mac Pro 4-core though run 10.5. (The PowerMac 7500 has the G3's old processor, but would still run Mac OS 9 if I were to power it up.)

I remember when Apple said that everything from the Blue & White G3 onward (and certain PowerBook G3s) were always going to be able to run Mac OS X. I expected Apple to move to 11 (or XI) before dropping G3 support. As they were able to drop G3 support without much outcry, they'll be able to drop G4 and G5 machines with similar ease.

Re:G4 owners are better off with 10.4 anyway

[DECS]

The Blue and White G3s came out years BEFORE Mac OS X. Apple said they would run Mac OS X, not run every version ever released ten years into the future.

"I remember when Apple said that everything from the Blue & White G3 onward (and certain PowerBook G3s) were always going to be able to run Mac OS X."

"I remember when Apple said that everything from the Blue & White G3 onward (and certain PowerBook G3s) were - going to be able to run Mac OS X."

There, fixed that for you.

You have a bad install

[BrunoUsesBBEdit]

Backup your data and do a clean install. This sounds like what happens to people that have made (even minor) changes to the Unix side of things and then tried to upgrade [first dot] versions. I'm a total hacker so I know better than to allow the upgrades to try and figure out what all I've done.

Another thing I would suggest is to never plug/unplug anything (other than power) with the lid shut. That behavior had a convert friend of mine complaining, "this thing crashes 80% of the time when I try to wake it or shut it down." Once I told him to stop that, he said it hasn't crashed once.

I will say that the Intel portables are no where near as stable as the PPC portables. I could swap peripherals anytime. I could shut the lid, remove the battery, replace it, and open it back up and keep working. I would have windows users in airports and on planes absolutely freak out at the sight of that. The PowerBooks were awsome!

Re:You have a bad install

[BlackSnake112]

sleep != hibernate The machine is in sleep mode, or very low power. Hibernate mode is everything is written to disk. So yes, you can remove the battery in any laptop in hibernate mode. No matter the OS. I have an old laptop with a dead screen. It is a really small desktop now. The battery died, so I took it out. I am not replacing it. I can still just close the lid (or press the power button). Unplug it (the charger stays warm makes me nervous). Come back later, plug it back in and pick up right where I left off. This is not new. Just most people want instant on, not 5-20 seconds on.

Re:You have a bad install

[bhtooefr]

Interestingly, while I can barely get a Windows machine to come back from sleep (or sometimes go INTO sleep,) I have zero problems with hibernate, even with massive hardware changes.

(Once, I even upgraded RAM, which should make Windows freak out, when the memory map's changed from when it was hibernated, but it just kept on trucking. Reboot, and it saw all the new RAM. Downgrading obviously wouldn't work as well. ;))

Re:You have a bad install

[daybot]

sleep != hibernate The machine is in sleep mode, or very low power. Hibernate mode is everything is written to disk. So yes, you can remove the battery in any laptop in hibernate mode. No matter the OS. This is not new. Just most people want instant on, not 5-20 seconds on. Actually Macs have a feature called Safe Sleep - a kind of hybrid suspend/hibernate - enabled by default. This dumps the RAM to disk on sleep. When you wake the system up, if the power wasn't interrupted during sleep then you get instant on, otherwise it comes back from the RAM dump, just like hibernate.

Re:You have a bad install

[Smurf]

sleep != hibernate
The machine is in sleep mode, or very low power. Hibernate mode is everything is written to disk. So yes, you can remove the battery in any laptop in hibernate mode. No matter the OS. I don't understand your point... did you intend to reply to BrunoUsesBBEdit?

Because what he meant is, precisely, that on PowerBooks you can simply close the lid, (which sends the laptop to sleep, NOT to hibernate), swap batteries, open the lid and far less than 5 seconds later return to what they were doing.

You can't do that with Intel MacBooks/Pros. You have to make them hibernate (or to Safe Sleep as the other poster said) in order to swap batteries without shutting down. That sucks (a little).

Re:You have a bad install

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, on the older laptops, there was an internal rechargeable battery that would maintain RAM contents etc for a few minutes during a primary battery swap. (This was before the OS had Safe Sleep.)

It's too soon to drop PPC and way to soon 32 bit..

[Joe The Dragon]

It's too soon to drop PPC and way to soon to drop 32 bit x86 macs as well.

May then can keep G5 ppc.

There are still a lot of PPC uses out there some of them can't do want want to pay $2200 to replace there PPC towers that costed $1200 to $2100+.

Schools are a other place that uses alot of PPC as well and they also have g4 and g5 severs as well.

If apple does this then they will need to have a $700 - $2100 single cpu x86 mid-tower. The $600 to $800 mini is way to weak for it's cost and the imacs have poor build in screen and only has 1gb of ram + 128 video card in the $1200 system wtf?

Also may big apps are still 32 bit like CS3 and CS4 + M$ office.

There is lot of talk about this on appleinsider.com

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87548

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/04/apples_mac_os_x_10_6_code_named_snow_leopard_report.html

Fiasco it was

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't a fiasco... then how come Apple had to abandon BOTH their "switch" campaign, as well as the "it just works"?

All those years building up all that anti-MS FUD... and it comes crashing down in less than a week. It's not as easy making propaganda stick as people think- ask a Republican.

And in further news

[plopez]

MS will be unveiling their OS X killer coming 'real soon now' to compete feature to feature with Apple's new os version.

Calling Bullshit on this One

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has a fairly small stable of core OS developers, many of whom were put on the secret iPhone project for several months while Leopard languished. Once the iPhone was done, they were shifted back to Leopard. With Leopard (late and limping) out the door, many of them were again sucked back into the cone of silence, while the rest scrambled to bring Leopard up from beta quality to release quality (10.5.3). Since then, there simply has not been time to build enough of 10.6 for a developer preview.

Steve Jobs will announce something new at WWDC, but it's not going to be 10.6. You can bank on it.

Re:Calling Bullshit on this One

[crunchy_one]

I've heard the same from folks that work there, so it may be true. Then again, Apple has layer upon layer of secretness in place, so it's hard for anyone but Steve to know. We do so love to speculate...

May be more true than you think.

[plasmacutter]

It may be more true than you think.

The hardware quality of apple's recent lines, particularly their video/display quality, has been appalling. I spent 1.5k on a macbook, and the display installed was of such obviously poor quality it's color was nearly inverted from the contrast at the top and so washed out at the bottom as to be nearly white. Its fidelity was so poor apple's own color calibration tools reached the edge of the scale approximately half way to the correct equilibrium in all tests. I have never seen a worse monitor in my life, this includes my great aunt's vintage dinosaur of a color tv TV, bought when tv shows were still advertized "now, in color!". The most shocking and heartbreaking aspect of this mess was that, presented with this, the geniuses said it was "within standards". I had to come within inches of making a scene in the store before they agreed to replace it, and when it came back, the replacement display was actually worse.

in other words, people who buy apple for quality may be a dying breed.

the final paragraph in this post reflect my sentiments well.

I became interested in mac because I'm a perfectionist. I wanted maximum compatibility, the most powerful user interface, and the best multimedia fidelity for both videos and photo editing.

If they are moving away from this niche, I'd sure as hell like to know who will be stepping in to offer equivalent hardware quality.

Re:May be more true than you think.

[noewun]

in other words, people who buy apple for quality may be a dying breed.

Careful: linking to a Slashdot post to prove a point in a Slashdot point can create an area of infinite anecdotal density and lead to the formation of a Stupidularity!

Re:May be more true than you think.

[plasmacutter]

indeed, let's not forget the fourth commandment as handed down by /. almighty: thou shalt not blaspheme against the fruit of knowledge under pain of karmic retribution : P

Re:May be more true than you think.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanted the "best multimedia fidelity" then why did you get the low-line offering? Surely the tower with studio display, or at a minimum the PowerBook/ PowerMac is what you should get.

How about 64-bit Only

[Nom du Keyboard]

Mac OS X 10.6 will run on Intel-based hardware only,

How about that they do it right finally and have it only run on 64-bit Intel (or AMD) hardware?

Re:How about 64-bit Only

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because there are lots of 32-bit Intel Macs out there, and there is no reason to stop supporting them?

Re:How about 64-bit Only

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop drinking the 64-bit kool aid. For most people, there is no benefit in running a 64-bit OS.

If you're going to ask for a feature, ask for something that will actually be of benefit to someone.

Also, dropping 32-bit support would kill off Core Duo machines. They were still those 10 months ago.

Re:How about 64-bit Only

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Uh... because the first Intel iMac and MacBook Pro are 32-bit only?

Re:How about 64-bit Only

[Nom du Keyboard]

Uh... because the first Intel iMac and MacBook Pro are 32-bit only?

And so we're going to be tied to 32-bits for years to come because Apple was too stupid to wait for the 64-bit processors to become available only a few months later? Why not just burn those early adopters the way Apple traditionally had burned other EA's? There aren't that many anyway, and that's a stupid excuse to hold everyone else back for years to come.

Re:How about 64-bit Only

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

I'm sorry, how is screwing recent customers by not supporting a 2 year old machine, and screwing current customers (because 64-bit wastes cache space in the general case) a good idea?

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"most people" were happy with 640k, too...

[nobodyman]

About 4 years ago 1gig of RAM was an acceptable configuration for "most people". Now it is increasingly common for people to bump up against the 4gig limit. I'm not saying that most people need more than 4gigs, but times change and i can see it being a standard fairly soon.

That's one reason for going 64-bit. I doubt many applications will benefit from 64-bit instructions (in fact some applications see a performance hit), but they will benefit from the 64-bit address space.

Re:"most people" were happy with 640k, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm saying that the vast majority of Mac users have = 4GB RAM and could care less if their OS or their apps are 32- or 64-bit.

You're saying that, for some people, 64-bit support is beneficial. That's fine. You already have that in 10.5 (and it was partially there in 10.4).

Supporting both of these things isn't a problem, as long as it doesn't make the test matrix too large for Apple to handle. Sun has been doing it with Solaris for a decade now (and yet 98% of the apps are still 32-bit).

I still maintain that "How about that they do it right finally and have it only run on 64-bit" is a stupid statement.

Re:"most people" were happy with 640k, too...

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Wait increasingl common for people to bump up against the 4GB boundary? Really?

How many people have 4GB ram these days? Not that many.
I mean, I work daily as a mac developer and most of our dev machines even are 2GB ram. There's one guy who has 7GB in his Mac Pro, but that's an outlier.

And, most importantly, 32-bit apps get 4GB per process right now. I repeat, it's 4GB per process, not for the whole machine. How many apps do you run daily use up 4GB on their own?

This shouldn't be surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

It fits their release schedule. If the schedule was fixed before the delay of 10.5 it's actually one of the longer release cycles of a new OS version for Apple (if it's released in January 2009 as rumored). Leopard was first discussed at WWDC a couple of months after Tiger was released. It'd be more surprising if they waited until next year to show it. That would make it their longest release cycle by far.

This is more likely...

[amper]

I highly doubt that Apple is going to push through a "quick" update and call it v10.6. Much more likely is that Apple does indeed plan on going Intel-only for v10.6, and is planning on making sure developers know it far enough in advance. I expect v10.6 will be released no sooner than mid 2009, and likely not until early 2010. This would put v10.6 on about a two-year release cycle, which is consistent with Apple's increasingly long development cycles (though it actually took 2.5 years for v10.4 - v10.5), and would give, in what seems to be a normal sort of move for Apple, their developers at least an entire year to wrap their minds around the concept of ditching PPC entirely.

Bear in mind that v10.5 requires at least an 867 MHz G4 to install. By the time v10.6 rolls out, the minimum requirements will probably be in the area of a 2.0 GHz G5, which will leave comparatively few PPC machines extant that can even run the beast, so Apple may think, "Why bother?". That would mean no PPC laptops, as no G5 laptops were ever released, leaving only iMacs, Power Macs, and XServes able to run it. After all, my own Dual 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac is already over three years old, and will be four-and-a-half by next summer. There's no reason to expect that Apple will support these machines indefinitely. A still more likely explanation is that only faster G5's (as described above) will run v10.6 PPC, and PPC support will be removed in v10.7, as this will avoid pissing off the punters too much. Not that Apple is any stranger to pissing off their customers, but they seem to know we'll eventually forgive them if they deliver the goods with the new candy.

The biggest clue is that the banners rolling out at the Moscone Center all read "OS X Leopard", rather than "Mac OS X Leopard". While this may indicate Apple finally moving on from the old Macintosh OS code, it is also possible that it means nothing more than that Apple is rebranding "OS X" in conjunction with the release of the 3G iPhone (or 2G, if you prefer iPod terms instead of cell network terms), something which has been intimated with every discussion of the iPhone's current OS as "running OS X", rather than running "Mac OS X". It may also have something to do with these "electric computers" that are streaming into the country at an astounding rate (which are likely the new iPhones, but who knows? Apple is very, very sneaky.).

Re:This is more likely...

[anaesthetica]

Apple is rebranding "OS X" in conjunction with the release of the 3G iPhone (or 2G, if you prefer iPod terms instead of cell network terms), something which has been intimated with every discussion of the iPhone's current OS as "running OS X", rather than running "Mac OS X". It may also have something to do with these "electric computers" that are streaming into the country at an astounding rate (which are likely the new iPhones, but who knows? Apple is very, very sneaky.).

This is pretty close to what I think the reason behind a "performance and security"-only release of OS X is about. People here seems to be complaining about the implications for their desktops--people who still have perfectly serviceable G4s and G5s would be mightily upset if the next latest and greatest is not available for them.

However, a great deal of Apple's revenue and business is now tied up in iPhones and iPod Touch, both of which run OS X. Doubtless, Apple is facing up to the extremely different operating requirements that these devices place on their operating system. They've already switched processor architecture from PPC to Intel specifically due to Intel's roadmap for low energy processors. They acquired another chip engineering company that specialized in low energy chips just so that they could get ahold of their expertise.

Now they're focusing on a revision of their OS that 1) focuses on performance and security, and 2) contains no major new features -- or so the rumors say. These two aspects point to a focus on making the OS better suited for Apple's non-desktop devices. Mobile is huge for them: laptops are one area where they have a very respectable marketshare, plus iPhones and iPod touch have even greater demands for performance in low energy conditions.

Just like the 10.1 release that was free, introduced no major features, and focused on performance and stability, 10.6 looks to repeat the same strategy (although it probably won't be free, it also probably won't cost the full $129 price). Even if it is Intel-only, PPC users will not be missing out on any new features, just a nebulous feeling of things being 'snappier' on Intel machines. It's likely that Apple would extend support for 10.5 beyond the normal time-period, just to make sure the PPC folks don't feel too abandoned.

Of course, that's exactly what's going on: PPC is being abandoned and Carbon is one step closer to being excised from the OS. Everything's getting wrapped in Cocoa and the transition to Intel is being pushed a little harder--developers and buyers are being signaled by this release to start making the shift decisive, if they haven't already. Jobs has made similar pushes in the past, for example declaring Classic dead by placing it in a coffin onstage.

People complaining about their PPC desktop are missing the point: this release is driven by Apple's mobile market. Laptops, iPhone, and iPod touch demand a release that is optimized, high performance, low energy, and smaller footprint.

Ditching Carbon: what's the upside?

[nobodyman]

Drop or minimise Carbon favor of Cocoa

I'm pretty ignorant of OSX from a development perspective. What's the upside in dropping the carbon API? I imagine it frees up Apple's development resources by focusing solely on cocoa, but are there advantages for a third-party developer? For an end-user?

Re:Ditching Carbon: what's the upside?

[bar-agent]

I was going to say there are no upsides for anyone but Apple, but that is not quite true.

By moving to Cocoa, apps get more of the built-in "correct" behaviors that really tie a system together, and can take advantage of new technologies as Apple develops them (for example, if Apple updates Core Data to work with a database-based filesystem or something).

Plus, no one can seriously believe that Apple will maintain Carbon forever.

Fat Joe

[Anonymous Coward]

"Snow Leopard, Pure Cocoa" sounds like a Fat Joe line

Obligatory Lloyd Bentsen

[starglider29a]

Snow Leopard! That will cause marketing confusion and technical support nightmares.

"I served with Leopard: I knew Leopard; Leopard was a friend of mine. That's Snow Leopard."

re: 10.6 and "new features"

[King_TJ]

From what I gathered over on Ars Technica, OS X 10.6 is *not* supposed to really do much as far as "new features" go.

Rather, it sounds like it's aimed as a performance-boosting alternative to 10.5 for people using Intel-based Macs, who can take advantage of it.

Users of PPC Macs will (theoretically) be able to continue using 10.5 Leopard and not really see any visual or functional differences between it and 10.6.

If true, this seems like very smart marketing on Apple's part. This way, they can help nudge people to upgrade to newer Intel-based Macs, while not prematurely making PPC owners feel like they're losing out on anything. (By the time a 10.7 release comes along, anyone *still* on PPC architecture will have had enough time using it so they won't feel too "ripped off", having to upgrade to run OS X with the latest new features again.)

Not Talking to you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they aren't talking to you. You just proved that by stating that you don't know the code names.

Re:If they want to become further joke in enterpri

[King_TJ]

I don't get complaints like yours. Seriously, if Apple is doing you *such* a disservice by not providing 100% full support for your 3+ year old Mac purchases, why are you with them in the first place? What alternatives do you have in mind that will do so much "better" for you?

Apple is like any other industry leader. They keep moving FORWARD with new things, which means obsoleting the old. (Take, for just one example, Canon and their "Digital Rebel" line of cameras. Pro photographers everywhere use and rely on these products, yet you can spend thousands on a high-end Rebel, only to find it's out of production and considered "obsolete" in the industry within just 2 or 3 years.)

So what? Your options are simply; A. Keep using what you've invested in, since it should still do today exactly what it was doing for you yesterday, or B. Sell off your equipment for fair market value, and spend the difference to upgrade to the latest and greatest thing.

I think it's been pretty clear ALL ALONG that Apple is primarily focused on markets other than enterprise business sales. They have certain "niches" they go pretty deep into, like video editing and production, music editing and production, or desktop publishing -- but by and large, they're interested in making the best PERSONAL COMPUTER experience. Even as far back as the Mac + and SE days, they were far more worried about the educational market than enterprise business sales.

Besides, if you're in a line of work that can cost-justify maxxing a Mac Pro's memory out, hard disk space out, adding a costly hardware RAID controller to it, etc. etc. -- you really SHOULD be doing some kind of work with it that has a big payback?? If you can't justify your return on investment with a full 3 years of use of that Mac Pro configuration, maybe you simply over-bought?

Leoptard

[Anonymous Coward]

It really doesn't surprise me at all that, once again, Apple is releasing a point-release service pack... but charging people over $150 for it.

I guess after all the money they wasted on "Switch" and "It Just Works" has to be recovered somehow, especially since people stopped switching after the Leoptard disaster wrecked all the FUD they built up about Vista.

Even die-hard Mac people I know decided to "switch" to Vista, since Leoptard was so buggy and they were unable to "ugrade" to Tiger without a full reinstall.

to be more accurate

[paulthomas]

Apple sells computers. Macs to be specific. Apple also sells phones, wireless base stations, etc.

I have trouble with the name

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not call is "Thundercat"

At least if they're going to be going Intel only (leaving the sexy factor in) they should at least call it "Cheetara"

Great

[bogie]

Maybe 10.6 will actually make Bluetooh work on Macbooks. 10.5 has been like 10.1 for a lot of users.

Black turtleneck? Check. Scuzzy jeans? Check! GO!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I am happy to announce the next version of OSX! We call it "Puddy Tat!"

This Internet Thing

[bill_mcgonigle]

But if you run them on the Internet you're likely to get 0wned.

Security, Security, Security

[bill_mcgonigle]

Hell, I'm still running 10.3 on my home computer

How do you feel about running with unpatched critical security vulnerabilities?

Apple uses Classic

[bill_mcgonigle]

before they dumped Classic with the Intel introduction.

The new Leopard Security Guide was produced on FrameMaker, which only runs on PPC, Tiger machines.

Apple is going to have to implement a DTP package before dumping PPC security updates. :)

Re:Apple uses Classic

[argent]

I think you're mixing up Classic and Carbon or Rosetta, yesno?

Re:Apple uses Classic

[bill_mcgonigle]

Framemaker only runs in Classic.

They should have done a Carbon port, then maybe it would run on Rosetta.

Re:Apple uses Classic

[argent]

Framemaker only runs in Classic.

o_O ;;;

Oh Wow...

I mean, just...

There are no words...

USB Mass Storage Corruption

[bill_mcgonigle]

The biggest one for me is that at least 10.5.0 and 10.5.1 were corrupting data on USB drives at the device driver level. One of the guys working on ZFS for OSX noticed this (neither member of Apple's QA team did).

Time Machine vs. FileVault

[bill_mcgonigle]

That's because everybody is drunk on Time Machine, and it still doesn't really work with FileVault.

OS Codename

[phoenixwade]

"Snow Leopard"?????

Some idiot thinks it'll be called Snow leopard?

First - that'll be confusing since there already is a leopard, second, there are still a number of charismatic feline megafauna that are much better known - Lion, Cheetah, Puma, Cougar, (Yes, I know the las two are the same beastie as a Panther, but it's just a code name...)

Re:OS Codename

[XnavxeMiyyep]

Cheetah and Puma were already used for OS X 10.0 and 10.1, although I agree that Snow Leopard would be a silly name.

Re:OS Codename

[Hitokage_Nishino]

"Some idiot thinks it'll be called Snow leopard?"

Every idiot knows that when you have an expansion pack you add snow.

Re:OS Codename

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Expansion pack?? Doesn't this make it like 10.5.4 instead of 10.6?

Re:OS Codename

[phoenixwade]

"Snow Leopard"?????

Some idiot thinks it'll be called Snow leopard? And now we know that some idiot was right, and I was not.

Had a heck of a time getting MacOS on my //gs

[nexus9k]

So why in the world would they put the OS X ecosystem on a course to only support Intel? Oh wait, they didn't have a ProDOS to MacOS upgrade, even after stocking up on 65C816 chips. Who needs Dark Castle when Conan runs just fine anyway?

We won't know 'til we comb the desert

[blueZ3]

and I don't think we're taking things too literally.

Quite so

[toby]

It's obvious OS X on PCs won't happen, and even fairly obvious why.

The white box PC hardware market is full of junk. If Apple tried to support it, they'd end up in the same Hell Microsoft is in. True, all Microsoft products are shit, but they get blamed for driver issues as well, which is probably fair since they bundle and "certify" them in some sense.

Not only is Apple hardware higher quality ("it just works... and keeps working") - the drivers are integrated (like Sun). PC people don't seem to get that point. They live in a different world, I guess, with much lower expectations and a much drearier experience.

Those who want OS X, quit whining and buy a Mac, and go ahead and enjoy computing again. There's ebay to get rid of your PC.

FrameMaker is Classic?

[argent]

Um, now I think about that some more, that's just stark raving nuts.

What the **** happened to the version that ran on NextStep/Openstep? That should pretty much be just a recompile to run on Cocoa.

No, I don't want to hear that Adobe lost the code or anything stupid like that. That's just inconceivable.

Re:FrameMaker is Classic?

[bill_mcgonigle]

No, I don't want to hear that Adobe lost the code or anything stupid like that. That's just inconceivable.

Apparently Adobe doesn't think there's room for InDesign and FrameMaker, or so I've heard.

It might be cheaper for Apple to buy the FrameMaker code from Adobe than to maintain PPC!

Re:FrameMaker is Classic?

[argent]

It might be cheaper for Apple to buy the FrameMaker code from Adobe than to maintain PPC!

Given Apple's relationship with Adobe, they might have to buy Adobe to manage that.

Re:FrameMaker is Classic?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Given Apple's relationship with Adobe, they might have to buy Adobe to manage that.

Cringely makes a plausible case for that. From a certain point of view, continuing use of FrameMaker could be validation. (i.e. why they're not working on getting off of it by now)

Re:FrameMaker is Classic?

[Thumper_SVX]

No, I don't want to hear that Adobe lost the code or anything stupid like that. That's just inconceivable. I do not think that word means what you think it means...

Have you dealt with Adobe much? I mean, dealt with their coders?

My quote stands... ;)

Re:FrameMaker is Classic?

[argent]

Hmmm. When it looks like I'm agreeing with Cringely on something, I gotta take a step back and see where I went wrong. :)

duh

[toby]

my twin 2.7 g5 has retained suitable responsiveness through X.5

Not surprising; OS X users should be accustomed that every major release has been faster than the previous, on the same hardware. Apple is doing something right.

Haha @ you fools who bought Vista...

Once again, listen to the butt-sore old mac users

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm new to mac by about 18 months now. I've had hardware problems with my Macbook of which a percentage of owners do. It's just the norm when it comes to hardware.

When it comes to software, people need to get something straight. Mac being the hardware that they are, push the software that makes it looks fun and flashy.

You've got people running PPC computers bitching about Apple dropping PPC support on a system that is outdated by 3 years.

I understand that you spent a pretty penny for that G4 workstation tower, but guess what, Apple knows your loyalty and they are expecting you to upgrade your hardware IF by chance..... you want to use the software.

You can't always have your cake and eat it too.

Also, I don't see Mac switching from Intel chips anytime soon so even if you upgraded to a new Mac Pro, I doubt you wouldn't be able to run the latest Mac OS X or XI whenever that comes out.

Bottom line, if you want to stand the party line of Apple, then be a good little follower and upgrade your hardware when 10.6 comes out.

Now shoo!

Why all the fuss about dropping PowerPC?

[SaxIndustries]

Am I the only one that recalls Steve Jobs announcing they'd support PowerPC for two more years after the launch of Intel Macs?

I've been reading tons of comments about how "Apple can't possibly abandon PowerPC."

Seems to me like it's right on schedule.

I'm at work, so I can't currently watch it, so I'll leave it up to somebody else to watch it and tell me I'm wrong -

http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/wwdc2005/m_wwdc_2005_all_ref.mov

Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha! maybe that's why Gentoo isn't overly popular... 2008.0_beta2 just isn't that sexy.

Re:Gentoo?

[toddestan]

Aha! maybe that's why Gentoo isn't overly popular... 2008.0_beta2 just isn't that sexy.

I heard they are compiling a list of names right now.

Snow Leopard?

[hikaricloud]

How is this operating system going to be "snowy"?
They must really be running out of names.

I vote for 10.6 to stick with the feline thing. Mac OS X 10.6...LOLCAT.

I'm in ur developrs, stealin' ur originality.

Does Virtual PC run under 10.5?

[beetle496]

I have a G4 for my young kids running OS 10.4. I was hoping to use parental controls from 10.5, but giving up Classic is a non-starter. There is still quite a bit of software on the store shelves that is not Carbonized, it really sucks. For all the software they have, I still like Launcher better than the Dock.

I remember when dot mac was an OS X feature!

[beetle496]

remember when Apple said that everything from the Blue & White G3 onward were always going to be able to run Mac OS X.

I never understood that to mean forever, just OS X 10.0. (But who would have guessed the numbering scheme back then?) What actually surprised, and disappointed, me with 10.5 was the MHz rating as the deciding factor between supported or not, it just feels arbitrary. I was surprised, and delighted, when 10.4 supported G3 Macs with native firewire. IMHO, Apple should have optimized 10.5 until they could support all G4's. Then 10.6 could require G5 or Intel, and 10.7 would require Intel.

Re:If they want to become further joke in enterpri

[Ilgaz]

You buy hardware because the current one doesn't fit to your standards. Not because your hardware vendor forces you by abandoning OS upgrades for you.

Apple wasn't like that before, they were known to support their machines to the limit. That is before they dropped "computer" from their name.

Their biggest fault is making people like me understand and respect to Microsoft to a certain limit. Just checked the Vista Business specs you know...

Nice

[sentientbrendan]

>it will not contain major OS changes. Instead,
>the release is heavily focused on performance
>and nailing down speed and stability.

Sounds similar to the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1.

Maybe Microsoft could take some cues from this and update vista to address performance... yet saying that I instantly know it's the sort of thing they would never do.

Re:BOO, Apple! (PPC support won't end w/10.6)

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is forgetting something about the way Apple supports OS releases, and jumping up and down screaming about the end of support for PPC.

Even if OSX 10.6 is Intel only, Apple will not end PPC support. Why? Because Apple's mode of operation throughout the OSX era has been to support the last two official releases with security and bug fixes. Even today, after Leopard (or 10.5 if you must) has been out for 8 months, Apple continues to release software updates and security updates for 10.5 and 10.4 (Tiger). In fact, my wife is still running Tiger, and I just ran Safari, Security, and iTunes updates today on her machine.

So, relax. When you do finally update your hardware you will be happy they cleaned house with an Intel only release, stripping all that legacy crap code out of there.

What do you think one of the main performance and security hits on Windows is? Support of legacy code (going back like two decades it seems). If they did a purge like this, or just built a brand new OS from the ground up (or leveraging a leaner base than what they have today), Windows would be much easier to manage, and probably be a much slicker, more modern and hot performing OS. Imagine if you let all those Windows developers loose with a blank slate? Just imagine.

10.6

[suck_burners_rice]

Carbon is NOT being removed, but Cocoa interfaces to all heretofore "Carbon-only" code are being added.

Spotlight is being modified to remember the index of all external disks and network disks that a computer or any of its network peers see, so that when a Spotlight search is performed for something your computer has "seen" on an external drive at one time, the search results can tell you that the file exists on that disk, even if that disk is not attached at the time of the search.

Time Machine is improved in that a backup volume can be migrated to a new disk, and you can now specify any number of Time Machine disks and/or network shares for a single computer, and it will backup onto any or all of them each time it "sees" them.

Spaces is being improved such that on a multi-monitor system, you can merge any of the monitors together to display one large space, display any space on any monitor, or even display the same space on multiple monitors, for presentations and such (or any combination thereof). The last possibility replaces display mirroring in the display preferences.

Spaces is further improved such that each space can be a face of a cube, and switching between spaces occurs with a visual rotation of the cube. This dictates that six spaces can appear on a cube, so you can have multiple cubes and switching between spaces that exist across cubes will show a three-dimensional pan from one cube to the other.

It is the product of 5.3 and 2.

Please, not yet.

[owndao]

Having bought one of the last G5 machines and only having experienced Tiger and Leopard I would be greatly upset with the dropping of support for PowerPC machines at this time. Perhaps if the upgrade were a major change in the OS (pure 64 bit, multi-processor optimized or a next generation of the NeXT Step OS base or a new kernel like Linux perhaps). But at his time it is basically a compiler switch setting for Universal code generation and only low level code should require attention. Also the numbers that I have seen put PowerPC users at between 25-33% of the Mac Community.

From my experience with the Cocoa frameworks so far they are too restrictive in what they allow to be created and still stick with the Model, View, Controller software architecture. Take a look at the applications put forward by Apple. Why do applications hang around after you close all of their windows? It's because the current document framework doesn't offer that as a simple option. There are many such restrictions. The lack of a real DB interface framework comes to mind immediately.

Anyway, if I'm going to be abandoned now I'd at least, like to be left with a code base for development that is solid and well thought out. The NS libraries were a nice starting point for the 10. series but it is really a good time to rethink them especially in light of non-desktop/laptop needs.

Steve, please do not cut me off in my learning curve stages. I really don't have the money to fund an unnecessary change in platform at this time. Linux with a bit of work will be able to compete head-to-head with OS X in a year or two. I'm tired (yes, a grey-beard), please don't make me have to be one of the contributors to that contest.