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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.'"
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!
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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)
Have fun with the clap!
Only kidding. My sisters are actually men though. Seriously. Even the married one.
which is totally what she said
Any company that not only gets Unix[like] onto the desktop of NORMAL people, but also makes it look cool matters.
-1 not first post
No, I'm New Here
OS X 10.5 (intel) is certified Unix.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I know you were trying to be funny, but think about that for a sec...
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.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
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.
"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
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.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
And instead, you can worry about drivers never being available for your cards, peripherals, etc.
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?
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
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
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
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.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And the next release will be named "Black Panther", which will have a race condition bug.
My blog
I think they'll go with Maus, the logical followup after Panther, Tiger and Leopard.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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?
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:
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.).