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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.'"
Apple are still only on X? They've got a long way to go before they catch up with X11!
which is totally what she said
Come on, how bout some actual news for nerds and stuff that matters?
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Wrong leopard dude. You must be def.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
No, I'm New Here
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.
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.
BeOS tried that. NeXT tried that. IBM (OS/2) tried that. It doesn't work.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don't think we've ever gotten an actual answer from Apple, the the usual answers from Apple fans are:
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.
"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.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
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
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.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
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.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What cat is this one going to be, Ocelot? Domestic Shorthair? Mau?
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
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.
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."
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!
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
I presume Apple maintain support for 10.5.x for some time yet?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
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.
No? The earlier versions of the software continue to run, they don't magically stop working when 10.6 is out.
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!
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
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.
It may (rumors, remember) leave PowerPCs unsupported. But that is an inevtiability, anyway.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
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.
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
And instead, you can worry about drivers never being available for your cards, peripherals, etc.
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.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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
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.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
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.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
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!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
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!
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
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.'
And the next release will be named "Black Panther", which will have a race condition bug.
My blog
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.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
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
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).
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.).
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.
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!
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
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.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
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
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.